Parliamentary Debates (HANSARD)
THIRTY-NINTH PARLIAMENT FIRST SESSION 2013
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
Legislative Council
Wednesday, 22 May 2013 ______
The Legislative Council met at 11.00 am. The Commissioner, Mr Malcolm Peacock, entered the chamber to administer to members the Oath of Allegiance to Her Majesty, or the affirmation required by law, and was conducted to the chair. The Commissioner welcomed members and their guests, outlined proceedings and called upon the Deputy Clerk to announce the return of writs. MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL Swearing-in The Deputy Clerk announced the return of writs for the election of members at the general election held on 9 March 2013, showing that the following had been duly elected — North Metropolitan Region Peter Collier Ken Travers Michael Mischin Ljiljanna Ravlich Liz Behjat Peter Katsambanis South West Region Robyn McSweeney Sally Talbot Barry House Adele Farina Nigel Hallett Colin Holt South Metropolitan Region Simon O’Brien Sue Ellery Nick Goiran Kate Doust Phil Edman Lynn MacLaren East Metropolitan Region Helen Morton Alanna Clohesy Donna Faragher Samantha Rowe Alyssa Hayden Amber-Jade Sanderson Agricultural Region Jim Chown Martin Aldridge Darren West Brian Ellis Paul Brown Rick Mazza Mining and Pastoral Region Ken Baston Jacqui Boydell Stephen Dawson Mark Lewis Robin Chapple Dave Grills Members took and subscribed the Oath of Allegiance, or made and subscribed the affirmation required by law, and signed the Roll.
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ELECTION OF PRESIDENT The Clerk reported that the office of President was vacant and called for nominations. HON PETER COLLIER (North Metropolitan — Leader of the House) [11.32 am]: without notice — I move — That Hon Barry House do take the chair in the Council as President. HON SUE ELLERY (South Metropolitan — Leader of the Opposition) [11.32 am]: I second the motion. HON BARRY HOUSE (South West) [11.32 am]: Mr Clerk, I submit to the will of the house. [There being no other nomination, Hon Barry House was declared elected as President, and was conducted to the chair by the mover and seconder of the motion.] [Applause.] THE PRESIDENT (Hon Barry House): Members, I first thank you very much for extending your confidence in me to re-elect me as President for the next four years. It is a great honour and privilege to perform this role for the Legislative Council. Having learnt the ropes, I guess, in the last four years, I look forward enormously to the next four years of this Legislative Council and the role it will play in the thirty-ninth Parliament of Western Australia. I want to briefly summarise four things that I will set as goals for this four-year period. Firstly, to maintain the orderly and effective conduct of business in the Legislative Council so that we play our important role in the parliamentary democracy of Western Australia. Secondly, to ensure fair and equitable treatment and opportunities for all members. Thirdly, to improve and build on the professional development opportunities for members and staff so that we function effectively as a house of review and so that individual members operate as parliamentarians representing the community and this institution in a positive and constructive way. Fourthly, to work with the Speaker as joint administrators of the Parliament, akin to the relationship that ministers have with their departments, to convince the government and the community to improve the symbolic, educational and physical links between Parliament, the City of Perth and the Western Australian people. Thank you for electing me as your President for another four years. I look forward to the challenges and opportunities that await us all. Thank you very much. [Applause.] PRESENTATION OF PRESIDENT HON PETER COLLIER (North Metropolitan — Leader of the House) [11.35 am]: without notice — I move — That His Excellency the Governor will be pleased to receive the President at the suspension of the sitting day at Government House together with such members as desire to accompany him. Question put and passed. Sitting suspended from 11.36 am to 2.00 pm THE PRESIDENT (Hon Barry House) resumed the chair at 2.00 pm, and read prayers. GOVERNOR’S LETTER THE PRESIDENT (Hon Barry House): Members, I have a letter from the Governor, which states — Hon Barry House MLC President of the Legislative Council Parliament House PERTH WA 6000 Mr President It is with much pleasure that I learn that you have been elected by the Members of the Legislative Council to the high and honourable office of President of the House. I congratulate you upon your election and have every confidence you will fill the office in a worthy and dignified manner. I recognise and I shall respect the Legislative Council’s undoubted rights and privileges. Yours sincerely Malcolm McCusker GOVERNOR
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PRESIDENT’S COMMISSION THE PRESIDENT (Hon Barry House): I inform members that I visited the Governor at Government House, together with several other members and staff, to present myself to him and obtain his commission for the role. Once again, thank you very much, members, for the faith that you have shown in me. I hope I can meet all of your expectations. CHAIR OF COMMITTEES Election THE PRESIDENT (Hon Barry House): Honourable members, the office of Chair of Committees is vacant. I now call for nominations for the vacancy. HON SUE ELLERY (South Metropolitan — Leader of the Opposition) [2.03 pm] — without notice: I move — That Hon Adele Farina be elected Chair of Committees. The PRESIDENT: Is there a seconder? HON PETER COLLIER (North Metropolitan — Leader of the House) [2.03 pm]: I second the motion. The PRESIDENT: Is Hon Adele Farina willing to accept the nomination? HON ADELE FARINA (South West) [2.03 pm]: Yes, I submit myself to the will of the house. The PRESIDENT: Are there any further nominations? There being no further nominations, I have great pleasure in declaring Hon Adele Farina elected as Chair of Committees. [Applause.] The PRESIDENT: Congratulations. MINE SITE REMEDIATION — AUDITOR GENERAL’S REPORT Petition HON ROBIN CHAPPLE (Mining and Pastoral) [2.04 pm]: I present a petition containing two signatures, couched in the following terms — To the President and Members of the Legislative Council of the Parliament of Western Australia in Parliament assembled. The Auditor General’s report entitled ‘Ensuring Compliance with Conditions on Mining’ and tabled in September 2011 indicated that the State Government (in particular the Department Mines & Petroleum) had grossly inadequate systems for monitoring the environmental outcomes of mining and for ensuring compliance with approval conditions Little is therefore known about the condition of the mined lands in this State and consequently of the exposure of the environment and the taxpayer to legacy issues associated with abandoned and inadequately remediated mine sites. We the undersigned residents of Western Australia respectfully request that the Legislative Council of Western Australia conducts an open inquiry into the accruing mining legacy in this State giving particular consideration to 1. The level of transparency with respect to the environmental outcomes of mining on public lands; 2. The adequacy of the environmental standards being set for mine rehabilitation and remediation; 3. The environmental outcomes of mine closures to date; 4. The adequacy of the regulatory framework for protecting the public interest with respect to the environmental legacy of mining including the bond system; and 5. Current community perceptions and expectations with respect to mine closure outcomes. And your petitioners as in duty bound, will ever pray. [See paper 274.] The PRESIDENT: Are there any statements by ministers and parliamentary secretaries? Members, I will extend that invitation to the new Chair of Committees, if the new Chair of Committees wants to make a short statement following her election. It was remiss of me not to formally welcome to the first formal sitting all the new members of the Legislative Council for the thirty-ninth Parliament. Members: Hear, hear!
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LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL COMMITTEES — MEMBERSHIP Motion On motion without notice by Hon Peter Collier (Leader of the House), resolved — (1) That the following members be appointed Deputy Chairs of Committees: Hon Brian Ellis, Hon Liz Behjat, Hon Simon O’Brien, Hon Alanna Clohesy and Hon Stephen Dawson. (2) That the following members be appointed as members to the Standing Committee on Environment and Public Affairs: Hon Simon O’Brien, Hon Stephen Dawson, Hon Brian Ellis, Hon Paul Brown, Hon Samantha Rowe; and the chair to be Hon Simon O’Brien and the deputy chair Hon Stephen Dawson. (3) That the following members be appointed as members to the Standing Committee on Legislation: Hon Robyn McSweeney, Hon Sally Talbot, Hon Donna Faragher, Hon Dave Grills, Hon Lynn MacLaren; and the chair to be Hon Robyn McSweeney and the deputy chair Hon Sally Talbot. (4) That the following members be appointed as members to the Standing Committee on Public Administration: Hon Liz Behjat, Hon Darren West, Hon Nigel Hallett, Hon Jacqui Boydell, Hon Amber-Jade Sanderson; and the chair to be Hon Liz Behjat and the deputy chair Hon Darren West. (5) That the following members be appointed as members to the Standing Committee on Estimates and Financial Operations: Hon Ken Travers, Hon Peter Katsambanis, Hon Martin Aldridge, Hon Alanna Clohesy, Hon Rick Mazza; and the chair to be Hon Ken Travers and the deputy chair Hon Peter Katsambanis. (6) That the following members be appointed as members to the Standing Committee on Uniform Legislation and Statutes Review: Hon Kate Doust, Hon Brian Ellis, Hon Mark Lewis, Hon Amber-Jade Sanderson; and the chair to be Hon Kate Doust and the deputy chair Hon Brian Ellis. (7) That the following members be appointed as members to the Standing Committee on Procedure and Privileges: Hon Nick Goiran, Hon Colin Holt, Hon Kate Doust; and, for the advice of the house, the President and Chair of Committees are members pursuant to “Schedule 1: Committees” 7.2 of the standing orders. (8) That the following members be appointed to the Parliamentary Services Committee: Hon Alyssa Hayden, Hon Jim Chown, Hon Liz Behjat, Hon Stephen Dawson and Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. (9) That Hon Phil Edman and Hon Kate Doust be appointed as members to the Parliamentary Superannuation Board. MINERALS RESOURCE RENT TAX Motion Resumed from 15 May on the following motion moved by Hon Nick Goiran — That the Legislative Council — (a) congratulates the Barnett government for its strong and determined representations against the minerals resource rent tax imposed by the Gillard Labor government on iron ore and coal producers in Western Australia and other states; and (b) calls on the Gillard Labor government to immediately scrap this complex and inefficient tax. HON KATE DOUST (South Metropolitan — Deputy Leader of the Opposition) [2.10 pm]: It seems only a short while since we began debating this motion, even though it was in the last Parliament of this chamber. I firstly take this opportunity to welcome all the new members who were sworn into this chamber today, and I look forward to participating with them over the next four years. Unfortunately, the new members will not be able to participate as loudly as they would like during the next 20 minutes, I am sure, because we have not heard their first speeches. But I look forward to that. Last week Hon Nick Goiran moved a motion attacking the federal government’s minerals resource rent tax. He was encouraging those of us on this side of the chamber to call on the Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, to scrap the tax. I think that is the gist of what he wanted. He went through his 10 reasons for why the tax should be scrapped. I encourage the new members opposite to read it. I might go through and discuss some of the points he made. Upon reflection, after reading Hon Nick Goiran’s comments in Hansard I felt that he had made a
[COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] 897 couple of interesting points. But, unfortunately, I did not find myself agreeing with the rest of it. For those members who are new to this place, the MRRT was introduced by the federal government and passed, and it is now in place. The explanatory memorandum for the MRRT bills defines a taxable resource as follows — (a) iron ore; (b) coal; (c) anything produced from a process that results in iron ore being consumed or destroyed without extraction; and (d) coal seam gas extracted as a necessary incident of mining coal. Those are the key areas this tax covers. We know that when the federal government passed the legislation to introduce this tax it had some very clear ideas about the amount of revenue it wanted to raise. I think that is part of the issue Hon Nick Goiran was talking about. He said that it has obviously not made much money, it disadvantages our state and it is a complex and an unfair tax. I will come back and talk about those things. The federal government introduced this tax because it wanted long-term reform to look to secure Australia’s future. It wanted to raise a significant amount of money from the resources sector so that it could be spread across the whole of the country so that every Australian would receive the benefit of the mining and resources boom happening in various parts of our country. One would think that would be a good idea. Of course, during peak times, we want to capture the best of it and pay it back into the community and say that for that period when we were in a great financial place, we had the return. As we go back through Australia’s history and the various periods of prosperity, particularly those linked to the mining sector, we need only look around the country so see the changes that have occurred because governments were smart and decided to tuck a bit away for a rainy day and create opportunities for people in this country. I suppose we see a bit of it happening here with Premier Barnett’s visions for stadiums and projects such as Elizabeth Quay—that is what Hon Ken Travers prefers to call it, while I think “Betty’s Jetty” is a bit more appropriate. Sometimes during boom periods governments put this investment back into monuments. I had an opportunity many years ago to visit the Victorian Parliament, which is a great example. One of our new members used to reside in that Parliament, so I am sure that at some point he will be able to talk to us about the rococo cupids that reside in the walls of the Victorian Parliament’s library and the gilt features on the walls, and the other extravagances of that period. Hon Ken Travers: But they don’t have a portrait of Norman! Hon KATE DOUST: I will come to that at a later stage of tonight’s sitting, I think. In this period of boom the Victorians said, “Let’s put something back in.” They built a beautiful building for the benefit of all the members of their state. But I am not saying that is what we should do. The federal government said, “Let’s capture this money; let’s get this income from these mining companies and put it to good use and consider how we can support people into the future; let’s kick the bucket and put some money back into superannuation for all workers.” I do not think anyone could argue against every worker in Australia having a good retirement nest egg. We want to make sure that every worker can live comfortably when they retire. That was part of the government’s reasoning behind wanting a tax like this in place—to ensure that money could flow back in and be invested in the people of this country. The federal government wanted to make sure it could fund tax breaks for small business and invest more money in infrastructure. We have certainly been the beneficiary of that. I understand that on the boundary of my own electorate—Hon Ken Travers will be full bottle on this— something like $686.4 million has been invested in the Gateway project. As we look around the country, we see that the federal government has developed similar projects in partnership with the respective state governments. These projects can only come about in the future if money is in the bank. That money needs to come from somewhere, so part of the thinking behind establishing this tax was about how we fund these projects. If we talk to people in our electorates they will tell us that they want better roads, better hospitals and new schools. They would love a really good train system in Western Australia, but, unfortunately, we did not win the last election so we will not get one. There are lots of things we need to look to the future for, but they all cost dollars and the money has to come from somewhere. These are some of the key areas the federal government wanted to focus on. I do not think anyone can argue against the need to have these things. I do not think anyone can argue against all Australians receiving the benefit of the resources sector that operates in our country. Certainly, one thing I agree with Hon Nick Goiran on, and I think a couple of the other speakers last week agreed—it is the one thing Hon Mark McGowan, the leader of the state Labor Party, said with great clarity on the MRRT—is that support for the MRRT is conditional on the basis Western Australia gets its fair share. I think that is something we can all agree on, as I think Hon Nick Goiran himself said in his early comments. The same applies to a range of other taxing arrangements. Regardless of whether it is a Liberal or Labor government, we are always calling for our fair share of the goods and services tax, so there are lots of issues. But I have not seen that motion yet.
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This tax was put in place for a range of quite significant reasons. It is about looking to the future and how we pay for things we need in the future. I am certainly not critical of the government for wanting to do that. As I said last week, I certainly will not be agreeing with Hon Nick Goiran’s call to ask the Prime Minister to scrap the tax. What is interesting is that not long after the minerals resource rent tax came in, the state government sought to increase its royalties from the resources sector. In fact, Premier Barnett announced that Western Australia would benefit from changes to state agreements and that the royalties that go to state government coffers would change significantly. I understand that between 2008 and 2013, there has been an increase in the benefits reaped by the state government from the mining sector via state royalties from $1.4 billion to $4.5 billion. We have not had a debate about that and how that could negatively impact mining companies. Government backbenchers cannot be critical of only the federal government; they need to look at their own patch as well. If the state government has jacked up royalties so high that it is causing difficulties for the mining companies, it cannot attack the feds for the tax that, in some cases, comes in over and above that. Rather, it needs to look at how they work hand in hand. That is a significant issue that is being ignored. Let us be real—we are less than four months from the federal election in September. I daresay that a number of motions—the same can be said about this motion—that will be put on the notice paper over the next couple of months will be put there by members of the government, particularly those on the backbench, because they want to generate debate that will peel the state Labor Party away from the federal Labor Party. I can tell members that that will not happen—it certainly will not happen on this occasion. Quite frankly, we have no control over the decisions made about these taxes because we are in state Parliament, not federal Parliament. On matters over which we have some control, I would hope that members on the government backbench have the courage to take up Hon Norman Moore’s call last night to act with some independence in the chamber. Perhaps they could talk about the problems that the government is facing or the broken promises that we and the community are having to deal with that arose from the election. Perhaps they could talk about the financial mismanagement of this state government, which now cannot afford to pay its bills. Indeed, the government is now looking to all its ministers, some of whom are in this chamber, to cut back on expenditure and programs, which is to the detriment of this state. Rather than being purely political and trying to distract us from our day-to-day business of dealing with what is vitally important to Western Australians and the services on which they rely on a day-to-day basis, the government should let us have a proper debate about issues that are closer to home. It is those issues about which I hope we can engage with members opposite in the next couple of months. I am not saying that debate on these issues is irrelevant or unimportant; rather, at this particular point in the electoral cycle, it is disappointing that the first cab off the rank is this attack on the federal government. I will refer to Hon Nick Goiran’s corrected Hansard on this debate. Some of his key points were about the complexities of taxes. I am not an accountant, but I daresay that for a range of taxes in place—Hon Nick Goiran referred to the volume of the documents that mining companies have to deal with and the level of compliance—I imagine that the same type of compliance would apply regardless of the type of tax that people have to deal with, be it pay-as-you-go tax or the goods and services tax. I imagine that superannuation tax would take quite a bit of compliance given that the tax rules for superannuation seem to change on an annual basis. Arguing that a certain tax document is too long or its detail too technical does not justify the scrapping of a tax. Another argument Hon Nick Goiran put was about the deal being done in secret with the three key large miners. I am sure, given the nature of those three mining companies, that if they had not been prepared to negotiate with the government and sign off on the legislation to introduce the tax, they would not have done so. There must have been a degree of compliance and agreement from the companies involved. I will refer to the corrected Hansard during my last couple of minutes to consider Hon Nick Goiran’s 12 reasons for scrapping the tax. He said that the tax should be scrapped because it discriminates against Western Australia. This comes back to the point that we should get our fair share. It does not discriminate against us entirely because we are getting some benefit from the tax. The federal government has not raised the amount that it said it would initially, but, let us face it, some of the commodity prices have changed significantly since the tax was introduced and the $126 million that is being raised would not be raised if the tax had not been place. That is $126 million into the government’s coffers that would not be there if the tax did not exist. Our job is to ensure that we get our fair share and to determine exactly what our fair share is. Hon Nick Goiran went through a range of reasons. I understand why he has done this—it is about generating a political debate to try to cause division over and uncertainty about our view and the relationship between state and federal Labor. It will not happen. On this occasion Hon Nick Goiran will not receive the bipartisan support for which he had hoped. As I have said before, our position is this: we offer conditional support as long as Western Australia gets its fair share of the MRRT. It is obviously a matter to which the state government’s federal colleagues have given serious thought given that they have publicly expressed support for the petroleum rent resources tax. The federal opposition is not budging on that. I predict that at some point it will change its position on the MRRT. The state government’s federal Liberal colleagues have made this a vicious political exercise at the federal level. It has been about generating publicity and negativity about this tax. In my cynical view it has been about generating financial support for the Liberal Party. I have already referred to the $7.3 million that flowed into Liberal Party coffers in
[COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] 899 the lead-up to the 2010 election, which has been used very smartly to ensure that it stayed on the government benches. The opposition will not agree to this motion, which is a political and divisive exercise. Government members must encourage the Premier to talk to the federal government about how to achieve a better return for the state. The basic principles behind the establishment of this tax—to reform superannuation, assist small business and provide for the future infrastructure of this state—are, indeed, sound principles. HON ROBIN CHAPPLE (Mining and Pastoral) [2.28 pm]: In rising to speak on this motion, I point out that, interestingly, I agree with many parts of the motion moved by Hon Nick Goiran; however, I will draw on what is actually needed to be done to fix the problems he has identified. I agree with Hon Nick Goiran’s second reason for suggesting that the tax be scrapped—this is from Hansard—that it was negotiated in secret by the Prime Minister and it caused an error. Unfortunately, those meetings with BHP Billiton, Glencore Xstrata and Rio Tinto meant that the three major mining corporations in this context ended up not really participating in the payment of those taxes. The total revenue of BHP, Rio Tinto, Woodside Petroleum Ltd, Newcrest Mining Ltd and Xstrata for the previous financial year is about $167 billion and the total federal government budget is about $330 billion. So, in effect, these five companies made enough money to fund half of the Australian national budget. Unfortunately, as we have recently discovered, most of those funds go offshore. They do not come to Western Australia or to Australia in general. Part of the problem is that Australia is now starting to import international debt via the major mining corporations, artificially lowering their profit margins in this country. Both sides of Parliament at the federal level are concerned about this and are trying to do something about it. The companies are not only not paying their fair share, but also not doing enough to ensure that the trickle-down effect flows onto the community. Gone are the days under Sir Charles Court’s leadership when mining companies invested in towns and infrastructure. In the 1970s, when I worked in the Pilbara in the mining industry, the towns, community services, and swimming pools—everything—were developed and supported by the mining industry. Gone are those days and we now have fly in, fly out workforces, which do not bring any economy of scale into regional areas. Royalties for regions money is being used to prop up the very things that the mining industry, under its conditions in the state agreement acts of the 1970s, were supposed to provide; in fact, we are paying more to support the development of those industries. I need to make something very clear: quite often the former Leader of the House would say that I was opposed to mining. I am a miner. I worked for Lang Hancock and Peter Wright. I worked for BHP and Hawker Siddeley in establishing most of the power stations in the north west. But I am concerned that the mining industry needs to pay its fair share, because we are dealing with a non-sustainable commodity. I turn to the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies 2002 report, which states — It is this point, the interface between the industry and the community, where mistakes will be made, and indeed are being made right now. Perhaps one of the biggest is by the mining industry in trying to convince its critics that mining is sustainable. Everyone involved with the mining industry want to believe this to be true, and if enough miners and their lobbyists say it often enough, they might even start to believe it themselves. Sadly, mining is not sustainable, and deep down every miner, like every grade three child, knows it isn’t. It is not sustainable. The report continues — Mining is an extractive industry, it’s as simple as that. Dig it up and its gone for good. To pretend otherwise, and to argue that other uses can be found for the minesite after the ore has been worked out is fatuous. Yes, other people might come along and use the mining town, or the open pit as a lake, but the business of mining is over, and the miners have moved on to the next orebody. We have to realise that Australia, and indeed Western Australia, holds somewhere in the region of 40 per cent of the globe’s mineral resources. We are significant, incredibly significant. But if we just allow this material to go offshore without the companies paying their fair share, future generations will indeed be highly critical of what the current state and federal governments have done to ensure that there is a diverse economy in the future. I now refer to royalties, something I have had a fair bit to do with. It is quite often trotted out that royalties are a state right—which they are—and are better than a tax. However, after having worked in large and small mining companies, I have found that royalties inhibit the development of small miners because they tax the ore and not the profit. So when a small mine wants to develop its resource, and unless it gets a concession from the government—that is usually only a minor concession—it immediately pays a royalty. If a profit tax is paid, or in this case a super-profit tax, new miners can come onto the ground and start without any fiscal impediment at all. It has been long argued—the Henry report dealt with this—that the taxation of profit rather than royalty is a better way to go. Western Australia has been wedded to royalties for a long time and they are certainly bringing in money to the coffers. The problem with royalties—the former Leader of the House acknowledged this—is that
900 [COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] it comes as net identifiable revenue to the state. It is then discounted in our GST allocation at around a rate of 70 per cent. So, in simple terms, if Western Australia earns $10 million in royalties, it gets to keep about $3 million and the federal government, through GST equalisation, gets the other $7 million. This all occurs through vertical equalisation, and we need to understand that whilst royalties help us they also help the other states because that money is equalised through the fiscal budget. I support a tax, but I also support a tax that means Australian coffers can be built up so that alternative technologies and industries can be established for the day when mining no longer exists. People often say that mining will always exist, but one has only to refer to the industry’s own reports, which refer to iron ore being available for between the next 78 and 200 years. Those two figures are often trotted out. Three major goldmines coming on board are Boddington, the Super Pit and Tropicana Joint Venture, but most of the other goldminers are now in decline or actually closed. KCGM was putting out the scuttlebutt in the Kalgoorlie region recently that it was going to close in 25 years. People would have believed that if it had not been for my research, which looked into its drill logs and identified that in fact it has another 45 years to go. I made that public and it eventually admitted as much. It was scaremongering. KCGM, Barrick–Newmont, Boddington and, indeed, Tropicana will keep going for a long time. However, in the scheme of things, gold will probably be one of the minerals that run out first. This has been identified in the studies at Monash University in Melbourne recently in a number of papers that deal with those matters. So mining is finite. What we need to do is take a deep breath and understand that we, in this place and in the federal arena, have a responsibility to future generations. That responsibility is to develop infrastructure, a society and jobs into the future. To knock the minerals resource rent tax principally because it has failed in a number of issues, that it should be scrapped, I would disagree with. It has failed in a number of issues because of the ineptitude of the federal government. What we need to do is to restructure what is there, as the Henry tax review has said, and many other people—and I will talk to some of the submissions made to the federal inquiry shortly. There is another myth that is quite often thrown around in this debate—I am pleased to say that I did not hear it from Hon Nick Goiran—which is, if we tax the mining industry, they will pack up and go away. Well, they will not. I have worked for the mining industry; I have consulted to them—and, just to recount something I did in Esperance. Many years ago, I think it was Portman Mining Ltd who at that stage were going to develop a port in Esperance, and it basically told the community, “Well, we’re going to have an iron ore shipping facility in Esperance.” It was sort of a lump it or leave it approach. The community, the local chamber of commerce, the business sector, and the shire all said no. They said, “If you’re going to develop a port in this town, you’re going to develop it as a dust-free port. We’re not going to be another Karratha or another Hedland.” Portman turned around to the community and said, “Fine, we’re going away. We’re going to go to Kwinana. They don’t mind.” So the community said, “Well, if that’s what you want to do, we’ll accept that. Off you go.” Two days later—not a week, not two weeks—Portman committed to invest an extra $16 million in that port to make it the world’s first iron ore dust–free port. I recall Paul Omodei, the minister, actually put in place a regulation that there would be no dust. Portman was quite happy. It did not affect its bottom line on the stock market or anything else, because all mining companies will do for a long time is give you bluff and bluster that they will take their bat and ball and go away. As I have already said, the mining industry likes Australia. It has good stable governance; it is far better than anywhere else to mine. The only other place that has anything like the minerals that we have here is the Carajas mine in Brazil. The issue is because we have 40 per cent of the world’s resources here in terms of iron ore and coal; they are not going to go away. But it is really interesting to note that if they do go away, what happens? Somebody else jumps into the hole very quickly. I am reminded about some activity that took place in this house—I have to try to think of the year—in 1971. It is an issue that I became quite familiar with from working for Lang Hancock and Peter Wright just after that period. Many people will not know that for many years Lang Hancock and Peter Wright owned the Pilbara. Basically they had every tenement sewn up. Jimblebar, as we now know it, was called McCamey’s Monster and there were many other deposits—namely, West Angelas, Rhodes Ridge and Marandoo just to name a number of other mines. What Lang was on about was actually quite interesting. He was very parochial; he did not want international mining corporations in this country taking our profit offshore. He had some quirky ideas. I recall that he wanted to use an atomic explosion on what was then McCamey’s Monster, which is now called Jimblebar; but he did actually want the profits to remain in Australia. It is because of that and the pressure put on by, at that stage— and I will try to come up with the companies—ARMCORP, Rio Tinto and the then Mt Newman Mining companies at that time who, basically from an international perspective, all said to the government of the day, “We want a slice of your cake.” What the government did, in six days of Parliament, was—this is where I say that if a mineral tenement is taken away, somebody else will jump in quick smart—enact legislation that passed through both houses of Parliament and got royal assent to confiscate just about 90 per cent of Lang Hancock’s tenements from him and hand them
[COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] 901 over to major multinational corporations. It is telling when we see the government wanting to do things it can do and the mining industries cannot do anything about it. I think we have reached the stage from our involvement with the mining industry where it has become one of a fawning nature; that somehow we feel that they run the country and the state and we dare not upset them. Nothing is further from the truth. In the establishment of the minerals resource rent tax I started looking at what was happening in terms of profit margins. I know it is sort of a common thing to do these days, but I want to hold up a few charts to show the profit margins. The first one I really want to look at is the total employment by the industry sector. We know there is a flow-on in employment from mining, certainly into the industrial sector, but the mining industry employs in Australia about 1.8 per cent of the population; we are right down the bottom end. Above mining are the following industries: arts and recreation; IT and media; education and training; rental hiring and real estate services; agriculture, forestry and fishing—which I point out is about five per cent of the population—wholesale trade; transport, postal and warehousing; health care and social assistance—that is up at around nine per cent of employment. Therefore, until we actually get to the retail trade, which is up at about 12 per cent, we can see that it is not about being a particularly big employer, but about massive profits. Then when we look at the profit margins by industry—and this is also telling, I want to touch on this—we see that the retail trade, which we noticed was the highest employer, has the least profit at about 3.9 per cent. The total industries of which we can ascribe a significant percentage to the mining industry are around about 11.2, and the mining industry runs a profit margin of just under 40 per cent at 37.1. Again, it is the smallest employer, the largest profit. We then need to look at the proportion of businesses that made a profit. This really becomes quite diverse and is interesting to understand. For example, health care and social assistance made a massive 83.8 per cent profit, whereas mining was down at the other end running at 51 per cent. I want to talk about why it occurred and also try to put it in some context. When it comes to the profit margins that I have just talked about in respect of chart 3, only 51.2 per cent of all mining firms were actually profitable in 2008–09, which is the year we have to work on, and is actually the lowest of all industry classifications, even though the industry-wide aggregate profit margin for mining was the highest of any industry classification in Australia, coming in at a whopping 37.1 per cent. Even though the aggregate profit margin for large mining firms is even larger, at 46 to almost 50 per cent, when we balance all of the mining sector we get an anomaly in that the proportion of businesses that actually made a profit was only 51 per cent. None of the miners who do not make a profit are going to pay any tax, because that is the benefit: it actually helps junior miners get up and running; that is the very thing that a junior miner wants—to get on the ground without any costs. The resource super profit tax, as originally envisaged by the Henry review, would affect only the big end of town. What went wrong was the deals that were made with Xstrata, BHP and Rio Tinto, which basically gave exemptions to the three biggest miners. I turn now to what a number of different people have said during the recent review of the minerals resource rent tax in the federal Parliament. As Hon Nick Goiran rightly pointed out, there were a number of dissenting views about what should actually be happening, perhaps none more important than those the honourable member made mention of—the comments made by Professor Quiggin and Dr Denniss. Unfortunately, the honourable member did not read out in full what has been said about the tax, and I am referring to the dissenting report by the Australian Greens, which makes reference to comments made by Professor Quiggin and Dr Denniss. When we have a high dollar, people do not come to Australia, and therefore Australians miss out and the tourism sector suffers. The agricultural industry, the manufacturing industry—all these industries are experiencing substantial pain as a result of the mining industry’s gain. What happens when the mining industry experiences a boom is the exchange rate goes up, and that crowds out other industries. This is what happens, so I think it is odd that an industry that employs such a small percentage of the workforce would make such exaggerated claims about the rest of Australia riding on its back. There is no doubt that imported cars are much cheaper thanks to the mining industry; I am sure that many Australians are happy about that. Similarly, there is no doubt that people employed in making cars in Australia are quite anxious about that. The idea that what is good for mining is good for Australia, and what is bad for mining is bad for Australia, is simply nonsensical. Dr Denniss drew on the work of the Australia Institute, which showed that while mining exports increased by around five per cent of gross domestic product since the beginning of the mining boom, non-mining exports have declined by five per cent of GDP, so there is a direct correlation over that period. The Minerals Council of Australia claimed in a submission to the inquiry that any move to further increase the tax burden on the iron ore and coal sectors would undercut the very foundation of modern Australian prosperity. In response to that, Professor Quiggin told the committee on 3 April 2013 that he thought it was a nonsensical claim, and that it was clear that, on the contrary, while the mining sector had generated very substantial returns to investors in the mining industry and some significant benefits—although not gigantic ones—to employees, the foundations of Australia’s prosperity were, as they had always been, in the productivity of Australian workers generally; of whom people associated with the mining sector were only a very small proportion. Balancing these factors, Professor Quiggin concluded that the mining boom had already reached and passed its peak, and that most Australians had seen little or no benefit from the results.
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We need to actually fix the tax rather than scrap it. We need to go back to what was originally proposed—the application of a 40 per cent rate, as applied to the petroleum resource rent tax; the extension of the MRRT to all minerals; and rebating only those royalties in place as of July 2011. That is where the federal government made a real hash of the process—I was going to use another word then. By allowing royalties to be offset through the MRRT, as Hon Kate Doust has already mentioned, as soon as the MRRT came into play, we had a number of regulations coming through this place—one would only pick up on this if one monitors regulations—and a lot of minerals were going up from 2.5 per cent, while other minerals were going from a five per cent to a 7.5 per cent royalty. What we had was this government suddenly realising that it could have a discounting effect on the MRRT. The only other thing that we need to do is allow depreciation on only the book value of the amounts actually spent on mining infrastructure, because what we now see is debt being brought into this country from the international marketplace within those major miners. Whilst I acknowledge that Hon Nick Goiran made a number of very, very salient points about what was going on, he should have been saying, “Let’s fix it”, not, “Let’s scrap it”. What we are trying to scrap at the moment is not really, as Hon Nick Goiran has already said, generating a lot of income, although it was noted in the recent inquiry that it is anticipated that, again using Treasury estimates, it will pick up in a couple of years and get back to that $2 billion mark that was being talked about. Without reforming the MRRT, the federal government is in danger of wasting the mining boom and allowing the mining industry to ride roughshod over the rest of the economy. My issue in this place has always been: I am not here for me; I am not here for the here-and-now; I am here for the future of Australia and Western Australia. My concern is if we do not think long and hard about where we are going into the future, we will relegate our expanding population and our children and their children to a country devoid of any industry, because we are losing it, and devoid of any plan to develop industry beyond the mining boom. I have worked in the mining industry; I worked at BHP rail. We had three workshops there: the railcar shop, the normal maintenance shop and what we called the top shop, where immediate repairs were done. The main loco overhaul shop used to have 60 workers in it; that was amalgamated many years ago to a joint between the top shop and the major overhaul shop, and my understanding is that we are now down to about 20 employees, all of whom are on contract and fly in, fly out. When we extract that and go even further, and we start talking about driverless trains being operated by a young lad in an office down here in Perth through a computerised system, that takes another huge sector of employment out of the region. We know that Rio is looking at driverless trucks and expanding that fleet; it has done the experiments and it is working. Therefore, actual employment in the mining industry will continue to decline as more automation comes into place, and yet the profit margin continues to go up. It is imperative, in my view and in the view of the Australian Greens, that we capture some of the profit, which mainly goes offshore, of the minerals resource which is finite and of which we have 40 per cent—the largest percentage anywhere in the world. It is also imperative that we capture some of those funds and put them in future funds and into developing new industries and new economies for the long haul. I know that this government has done similar things with its future fund, insuring against the future. We need to ensure that we are not — Hon Ken Travers: Their future fund is all borrowed money. Hon ROBIN CHAPPLE: I know it is all borrowed money. Hon Ken Travers: It’s not insuring against the future. In fact, I think at the current interest rates it is probably losing them money. Hon ROBIN CHAPPLE: I hope that Hon Ken Travers will talk about that shortly. Hon Ken Travers: I hope that when we get the state budget we are told whether they are making money out of the future fund. The PRESIDENT: Order! Members, I do not want you to give any bad ideas to some of our new members that you can interject continuously. Hon ROBIN CHAPPLE: I am really concerned about where we will be in the future as a nation and as a state. In my view it is imperative that we look beyond the next four-year fiscal cycle, and I concur with what Hon Ken Travers has alluded to; that is, we, as well as the federal government, are in deep fiscal doo-doo, and we need to know where the state will be in the future. HON NICK GOIRAN (South Metropolitan) [3.02 pm] — in reply: What an extraordinary debate we have had about this matter. It was interesting that this afternoon the lead and sole speaker from the ALP, Hon Kate Doust, decided to — Several members interjected. The PRESIDENT: Order! Let the one member on his feet have the floor.
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Hon NICK GOIRAN: It is remarkable that all I have said so far is that there was a sole speaker from the opposition and that somehow created hysterics on the other side. I was about to say that it is very interesting that this sole speaker from the ALP this afternoon decided she would commence part 2 of her speech—Mr President will recall that there was part 1 last week—by indicating that she would give some advice to the new members who had the opportunity and the privilege to be sworn in earlier today. I just indicate to those same members, for advice, that in this place on Wednesday, for two hours, generally between 2.00 pm and 4.00 pm we have the opportunity to debate these motions. The debates can go for a maximum of four hours—two hours on any particular week. The norm when it comes to these particular motions is that someone will move a motion and a person from the other side will have the opportunity to respond. When there is an interest from more than one speaker, the Chair will generally allow each side to have a turn. Of course, new members who were just sworn in were not in this place last week, so it is my duty to inform them about what happened last week. Last week we had a remarkable situation in which the learned members opposite — Several members interjected. The PRESIDENT: Order! I make the point that if a new member had got to their feet to make a contribution in that debate, it would have been counted as their inaugural speech and I do not believe that a new member would want to make an inaugural speech on one particular topic. Hon NICK GOIRAN: I wholeheartedly concur, Mr President. My comments this afternoon are for the benefit of new members to understand what took place last week, because naturally, unless they had the benefit of reading Hansard or witnessing the proceedings, they will not be aware of them. Last week there was absolute silence on the other side. Interestingly, for the benefit of the new members, what will happen is that the question is put by the Chair — Several members interjected. The PRESIDENT: Order, members! We heard other speakers in relative silence and I want that trend to continue. Hon NICK GOIRAN: What normally happens is that when nobody stands up, the question will be put by the Chair — Point of Order Hon KATE DOUST: I question the relevance. The member is supposed to be replying to the comments of the detail of the motion. He is simply having a debate about who should have spoken when, where or how, and I do not believe that is relevant to what he should be doing in his reply. The PRESIDENT: The substance of the motion is the minerals resource rent tax. I was listening to the member and trying to deduce how he would get back to the actual motion. I am sure he will manage to convince us how he will explain that. Debate Resumed Hon NICK GOIRAN: Is it not remarkable that the members opposite want to plead the right to silence? They do not actually want to contribute to this debate. Instead, they want to object to the possibility that we might say that their silence on this motion stands for their position on it. It is outrageous that the honourable member who was the lead and sole speaker from the opposition on this motion suggested and hypothesised in her comments last week, by crystal ball gazing, that it was likely that Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey would change their views on this tax; that was the proposition put last week. Worse than that, as much as the honourable member thought she had a very clear crystal ball and could already predetermine — Hon Kate Doust interjected. The PRESIDENT: Order! Hon Kate Doust, you have made your contribution, I believe. Hon NICK GOIRAN: The honourable member thought she might be able to predetermine the outcome of the election on 14 September this year, which was very interesting in and of itself; nevertheless, there was this remarkable question put to me about whether I would have had the courage to put the same motion on the notice paper were there a federal Liberal government. What is incredible about that question by the member opposite is that I would like to think that after four years in this place she would know full well that I would have had absolutely no problem in doing that whatsoever. It is remarkable that the opposition wants to take these cheap shots across the chamber, rather than debate the substance of the motion. I outlined 12 reasons why we should scrap the tax and there has been the barest of rebuttals put forward in relation to those. The member who tried his best, I might add, ironically enough, was Hon Robin Chapple, who this afternoon made a contribution. According to my notes, he agrees that the tax was negotiated in secret. For the benefit of members who were not here last week, we were talking about the fact that the Prime Minister and the federal Treasurer decided they would negotiate this tax in secret, behind closed doors, with the three big
904 [COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] miners. That is a point that has been agreed to by Hon Robin Chapple and I acknowledge his graceful gesture in agreeing to that. Further, he went on to agree that this negotiation caused an error. In essence, Hon Robin Chapple has also said that he effectively agrees with the opinion of the lead and sole speaker from the ALP on this motion; that is, we should not scrap it, but we should fix it. That shows that obviously in the great desire to plead the right to silence there has been a general lack of listening. If members decide not to contribute to debate, that is fine; no-one forces them to stand and contribute to a motion. However, I would have thought at the very least that those members would use those things on the side of their head called ears and make sure they properly understood the 12 reasons why the federal Labor government should scrap the tax. For the benefit of members who were not in this place last week, I will outline those 12 reasons. Firstly, we said the tax discriminates against Western Australia because it is aimed at the iron ore industry. Secondly, it was negotiated in secret by the Prime Minister and that was an error. Thirdly, the three biggest miners paid minimal tax at best. I will interject on myself at this point to refer to some comments made this afternoon that asked what the problem was with the three biggest miners being a part of this—“Of course they’re going to be a part of it, otherwise they’re not going to be happy with the outcome.” The incredible thing is—again, for those members who were not listening last week—that what actually happened is that the three biggest miners negotiated in secret with the Prime Minister and the federal Treasurer to make sure they paid minimal tax. If that is to be the case, of course they are going to be part of the negotiations—I would as well! I do not think we can blame the three biggest mining companies for being part of the negotiations; the blame lies squarely with the Prime Minister and federal Treasurer. Fourthly, I suggested that the words of the mining tax supporters should speak for themselves; I encourage members to read Hansard to see what was said by a couple of those supporters. Fifthly, I said even Fortescue Metals Group will not pay for at least a decade. The sixth point was the significant cost to small miners because of the complexity of the tax. The lead and sole speaker from the ALP on this motion went to some lengths this afternoon to explain, “Well, it’s not a big deal if it is complex; it is not a big problem if you have to fill out too many forms.” What is remarkable about that is that it was then followed by some rhetoric—“Well, you’re going to have to comply anyway.” Again, if members were listening to what happened last week, they would know that FMG has said, in its evidence to the Senate committee, that it has cost it $2 million just to comply with a tax it does not even have to pay. That means that if this tax was not such a farce, it would not have had to pay the $2 million. So I would suggest to members opposite and new members that if they are going to contribute to a debate, they should make sure they understand what the motion is about and make sure they have read all the Hansard and try to rebut the points with some degree of competence. The seventh point raised last week was that the tax is failing to raise revenue; the eighth was that it is barely a step forward once we factor in the administration costs and once they are offset. From memory, we were talking last week about the fact that the federal government’s budget, released last week, suggested that $200 million had been raised by this farcical tax; about $50 million is estimated as the sum it has cost in administration, which leaves us with a net benefit from this farcical tax of $150 million. The ninth point was that Australians have been misled. Last week I went through it in detail and indicated all the things the federal Labor government told us we would get as a result of this wonderful tax. Of course, it has resulted in us receiving next to nothing; $150 million, in the scheme of a federal budget, is an absolute joke. The tenth reason was that it interferes with Western Australia’s sovereignty over the minerals it owns. Again, we had some ridiculous comments made this afternoon—with all due respect—that somehow the state government was at fault for lifting some of the royalty rates. I say to the honourable member who made those comments: understand the difference between a royalty and a tax. Clearly, that is not the case, because the minerals are owned by the people of Western Australia. They are not owned by the people of Australia; they are owned by the people of Western Australia. It is the duty of this state government to implement a form of rent, if members like, for the use of those minerals, and that is called a royalty, which is quite different from a tax. Something that was, again, remarkable was that someone in their contribution this afternoon—I think it was Hon Robin Chapple—decided to suggest, according to my notes, that “the mining industry needs to pay its fair share”. I do not understand that; what is meant by “the mining industry needs to pay its fair share”? These miners are companies; that means they pay a 30 per cent tax rate, just like every other company. Why is it not fair— because they are miners? If someone happens to invest and start a company in any other industry than mining, they have to pay 30 per cent tax, but if it is mining, well that is not fair—people actually want them to pay more. There is absolutely no logic in that. It is just incredible that someone could propose that in this house. I ask Hon Robin Chapple to go back and have a good hard look at Hansard to see what he graced us with this afternoon. In moving to the conclusion of this debate I recall that the eleventh of the twelve reasons mentioned last week was that the minerals resource rent tax may be unconstitutional. As we know, there is a case before the High Court specifically on this point. No doubt the Attorney General—who, unfortunately, is not in this place at the moment because he is away on urgent parliamentary business—will be watching that with interest, because as you will be aware, Mr President, Western Australia participated in those proceedings; if I recall correctly, so did
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Queensland. We will be watching with interest to see what the High Court says about the constitutionality of that particular tax. The last reason raised last week is that regardless of all that—let us imagine for a moment that the High Court, in its wisdom, decides that it is actually constitutional for the federal government to have done what it has—at the end of the day this tax is manifestly bad for Western Australia. That seems to be a point that has been lost on members opposite, who have decided to plead the right to silence on this motion, with the exception of the one lead sole speaker for the ALP on this particular motion, who, as I say, did her very best to get the crystal ball out and try to predict what will happen on 14 September. I might say that I enjoyed her enthusiasm, because, like her, I hope that Mr Abbott is elected as the next Prime Minister of this country, because what I can say about that particular honourable gentleman is that he would not do the farcical things that have occurred with this tax. I am confident in saying that he, with his Treasurer, would not have tried to negotiate in secret with the three mining companies. That whole situation was grossly unsatisfactory, and leaves us in the position we are today. We can have absolutely no confidence in this particular federal government because of its multiple failures, so why should we then expect to have any confidence that it will be able to fix the mess it started. We cannot—no reasonable person can—and I strongly disagree with those who have suggested it ought to just be fixed rather than scrapped. As we conclude this debate, I certainly encourage all members to give strong consideration to supporting the motion. I am disappointed that members opposite have indicated, through their sole speaker on this motion, that they will not be. As I indicated, I have a history in this place of moving motions I seek bipartisan support on. I would have thought that members opposite, who represent the people of this state, would have put that ahead of any potential division with their counterparts in Canberra. But the lead and sole speaker from the other side this afternoon said that there will be no division, and she made that very clear. So, it is more important to members opposite that there be no division between them and their federal counterparts than that they stand up for the people of Western Australia, which is an absolute disgrace. I cannot believe that members opposite would allow that to happen. I am very surprised that Hon Ken Travers, who is a very knowledgeable member on economics and tax matters —I am pleased to see he will be chairing the estimates committee—was unable to contribute to this motion. It is unfortunate that he has not been able to do that, because I am sure he would have made a very good contribution, being the knowledgeable gentleman he is. Nevertheless, that did not happen, and it was left up to one member on the other side to be the sole speaker, the lone speaker for them on this motion. As I say, that is a disgrace, because at the end of the day they have pled the right to silence rather than stick up for the people of Western Australia. Division Question put and a division taken with the following result — Ayes (21)
Hon Martin Aldridge Hon Peter Collier Hon Col Holt Hon Helen Morton Hon Ken Baston Hon Brian Ellis Hon Peter Katsambanis Hon Simon O’Brien Hon Liz Behjat Hon Donna Faragher Hon Mark Lewis Hon Phil Edman (Teller) Hon Jacqui Boydell Hon Nick Goiran Hon Rick Mazza Hon Paul Brown Hon Dave Grills Hon Robyn McSweeney Hon Jim Chown Hon Alyssa Hayden Hon Michael Mischin Noes (13)
Hon Robin Chapple Hon Sue Ellery Hon Amber-Jade Sanderson Hon Samantha Rowe (Teller) Hon Alanna Clohesy Hon Adele Farina Hon Sally Talbot Hon Stephen Dawson Hon Lynn MacLaren Hon Ken Travers Hon Kate Doust Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich Hon Darren West Question thus passed. FOETAL ALCOHOL SPECTRUM DISORDER Motion HON SALLY TALBOT (South West) [3.22 pm]: I move — That the Council condemns the government for its failure to provide adequate resources for child protection workers and carers to deal with the prevalence of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder amongst children in the care of the director general of the Department for Child Protection and Family Support and for withdrawing legal support for children who are abused or injured while in care. It was a little disappointing to see the very first motion that the government moved in this place fall flat on its face. Hon Nick Goiran obviously feels quite passionately about these matters, but was not able to get the support of his colleagues. Indeed, I can tell him that I got the call into the chamber this time last week because when he sat down after his introductory comments, none of his colleagues jumped to their feet, so we thought that we
906 [COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] might get to this motion about a week ago. But I can assure government members opposite that when we move — Several members interjected. The PRESIDENT: Order! The honourable member has hardly started her argument in support of her motion without a dozen interjections. Hon SALLY TALBOT: Thank you very much, Mr President, because this is a very serious and very important motion. The point I was just making, if the government could contain its enthusiasm here, was that when members on this side of the house move a motion, we will use every minute available to us in this place to put our arguments forward. I can assure government members on that matter. Hon Simon O’Brien interjected. The PRESIDENT: Order! Hon Simon O’Brien, that is about five interjections by my count. That is five too many. Hon SALLY TALBOT: I can assure government members that we will be using every minute of the time available to us. Indeed, we could take three or four times the amount of time available to each and every one of the motions we move in this place, because people on my side of the house feel very, very strongly about holding the government to account on important areas of service delivery. I just want, by way of scene setting, to explain to honourable members on both sides of the house what the genesis of this motion is. Members will see that it is essentially in two parts. The first part of the motion refers to the resources available to child protection workers and carers to care for children who are affected by foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. We know because of the growing conversation in the community that this is a problem. I will not say that the problem is increasing, but awareness of the problem is certainly increasing, and that can be only a good thing. But it is a big test for the government to see how it will respond to the demands that this is placing on our child protection system. Indeed, I will just remark here in parenthesis that it is going to be very important, I think, to measure the performance of this government over the next four years now that Hon Helen Morton is wearing three very different but very closely interconnected hats, because I think probably for the first time, certainly in this state, we have a government that has combined the portfolios of mental health, child protection and disability services. I am sure that both the minister and I will have many experiences to share in terms of the overlaps, as well as the workload, that combining those three portfolios places on an individual, whether it is the minister or the shadow minister. I will also say in parenthesis that honourable members who have been paying attention to the kinds of questions I have been asking over the past five days—I think we have sat for five days so far since the election in this place—will have noticed that what I am trying to do in question time is get information from the minister and get some statements on the record about what the minister wants to do with these portfolios. I see my role very much as being to bring those questions up to the government, to listen very carefully to the answers and then to try to reflect back to the government where I think those answers are inadequate or where they are in some other sense not capturing the essence of the problem. That is the first part of my motion, which refers to the resources provided by the government to help carers and child protection workers deal with the increasing prevalence of FASD. The second part of the motion is about the government withdrawing legal support for children who are abused or injured while in care. Those members who have been following this developing story in the media over the past, I think, eight days will have seen that the civil litigation unit in the minister’s Department for Child Protection and Family Support has effectively been shut down. I notice that the original headline in The West Australian referred to the unit being halved, but I think the information that has subsequently come to light and is the subject of a follow-up article in The West indicates is that that unit is effectively going to cease to exist. These are two very, very big topics to address in such a relatively short time. I want to assure the house that if I do not have time to canvass all the aspects of each of the two issues, I will return to them in subsequent debates, but also in members’ statements, because there is a lot of ground to cover here. I want to take the opportunity to congratulate Hon Adele Farina, who is now sitting in the chair. Hon Adele Farina has, I think, become the first woman to hold the position of Chair of Committees in this place, and I want to extend my congratulations and note that this is another very important milestone for women in our community. It will send a very significant message to all the girls and young women who will come and sit in our public gallery over the next four years to see that women can do these jobs, and do them very, very well, with a high degree of competence. So congratulations to Hon Adele Farina. Members: Hear, hear! Hon SALLY TALBOT: There are two particular incidents that have happened on this minister’s watch that give rise to this motion. As I have said, the first part of the motion relates to the resources provided to child protection workers for the care of kids who are suffering from FASD.
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Honourable members may remember that my very first question in this house, on the day of the official opening of the thirty-ninth Parliament, was an attempt to get the minister to give some guidance about the actions that she would be taking after the death of a 15-year-old boy on the Dampier Peninsula. I will briefly go over what happened and the particular tragic and distressing circumstances that I was referring to in that question. I am aware of all the cultural sensitivities around this issue, so I will speak in fairly general terms. What I can tell honourable members is that there is an entire community on the Dampier Peninsula that is still in a state of shock over the events of this particular day that led to this boy’s death, and it was very much with that community in mind that I asked that question on the first day of this thirty-ninth Parliament. What happened on that day was that a child was taken on, I believe, some kind of family picnic or community event on the Dampier Peninsula. The child was a boy who was suffering from FASD. He was about 15 years old. He was also, as Hon Helen Morton has confirmed in subsequent reports to this house in answer to my questions, in the care of the director general of the then Department for Child Protection; so, to use the old language, he was a ward of the state. But he was also a client of the Disability Services Commission and had carers provided to him under the auspices of the Disability Services Commission as the provider of those services on the Dampier Peninsula. We would have thought this child would be under pretty close supervision. But, tragically, something went wrong, and the level of supervision that the child was supposed to be provided with failed badly, because during the course of the day, the child wandered off. Children do this all the time. I have always had the view that rather than try to modify the environment to cope with a child, particularly a child who needs a high level of supervision, we should not take our eyes off the child. So, in a domestic setting, rather than trying to make sure that there are no plugs that the child can shove things into, and there is no water that the child can fall into, we should follow the child around and watch the child. Sadly, in this case, something went wrong, and the child wandered off and disappeared. I guess it would have taken a little while for people to notice that the child was gone. But I am told that within a matter of minutes, or at least within the hour, the child’s absence was noticed and a full search was started, knowing that he was a child who was in all likelihood not just curled up under a tree reading a book, because he clearly was not that sort of kid. What happened then is that, as has been related to me, night fell and nobody could find the boy. So obviously there was a huge amount of distress. Those who are familiar with that country will know that the communities in that area are not discrete entities. So the alarm was spread over a very large area. It was, I understand, not until sometime the next day that one of the search parties found the boy’s body, and it was in the most distressing of circumstances, because I am told that there was clear evidence that a crocodile attack had been involved in the death of the boy. I will not go into any more details. It is a long and very horrible story, and it is really too distressing for the people involved to have it recounted in any kind of length. I know that the minister is well aware of these circumstances, because I know that the minister had built her own connections with that boy and with that community, and I do pay tribute to the amount of personal energy that the minister has put into developing those relationships on the Dampier Peninsula. I know that the minister will understand why I will not go into some of the details. But let us move past that point and look at what happened after that. Obviously the first thing that the people in this community want to know is how could such a terrible thing have happened, and what kind of support will be provided to the people on the ground who spent all those hours in a search party and then had the horrible experience of finding the boy and presumably seeing an image that will never, ever leave them. It was in the spirit of trying to get some answers for these people, who are not eating and sleeping and are in a high degree of stress, wanting to know what is going on, that I asked that question on the first day of the thirty-ninth Parliament. I was disappointed at the minister’s response. The minister was clearly emotionally affected by what had happened, and I do not criticise the substance of the answer that the minister gave. But I am critical of the fact that the minister would not answer the specific questions that I asked. My questions were not trick questions. They were just questions about what the minister is going to do, and how soon the family will have answers. The minister actually went on the record—not in the Parliament, but in the media—as saying that she thought it was an inappropriate question for me to be asking on the first day of Parliament. The logic of that escapes me. It was question time. Question time is a time for ministers to answer questions relating to their portfolios. My question clearly fell within those parameters. It was not a question that was out of order. It was not a question that was inappropriate. It was a question to which the minister could have responded by giving some specific information, particularly given the fact that, by the minister’s own admission, she was very familiar with the case. So we have two points to demonstrate my accusation that the minister has let this community down. The first is that the minister did not provide that information up-front to a community that was very severely traumatised and clearly would have been helped by knowing that there were people in Perth—very important and influential people—who understood what had happened and who were prepared to say, “All right; we will try to help you, and this is how we will do it.” The second way in which that community was hurt was that the minister said that the question should not have been asked in the first place. That is not good enough. We look forward to the
908 [COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] minister’s explanation as to why she did not respond in a more timely fashion to these questions that were clearly in order for both me and the community to be asking. The second very troubling aspect of this incident is that about two months later, on 12 May—the original incident was back in March—there was an article on page 2 of The Sunday Times titled “Boy in care walks in to jaws of a crocodile”. The minister did not actually comment for this story, but her director general did. The article gives a summary of the events that I have just gone through. It talks about the fact that the boy was a gifted musician—I think that is something that the minister had referred to after she met him—and that his stepmother, who had looked after him since he was a very small boy, had asked DCP to intervene in March 2011 because the boy had developed substance abuse problems. The director general was asked to comment, and this is what he said — … the boy had walked off “against the advice” of care workers. “The care workers were from the Dampier Peninsula area and well aware of the environment they were in,” he said. “These activities were known to the boy as he was born and raised in the region and familiar with the landscape and associated risk the area posed.” That is the comment with which I have some trouble, minister, and I hope that the minister will choose to respond to that particular comment when she gives her reply to this motion. This was a 15-year-old boy who was clearly very, very troubled and very difficult. He clearly had multiple disabilities. We see just in that one short reference that I read from that article that he was suffering from FASD syndrome. I will go into more detail about exactly what that means in a minute. He had a degree of mental impairment. He was also affected in some way by the use of drugs—he had a history of abusing drugs. This is a child about whom I think it is simply not fair to say in some kind of explanation about what happened that the boy knew where he was and knew the risks associated with the area. I can see that that comment would apply to somebody with a fair degree of sophistication about being in the country. Clearly, many people, particularly Indigenous people, could survive in places where non-Indigenous people would not last five minutes. I put it to honourable members that this boy was not one of those people, and to offer that kind of explanation for what happened—not to put too fine a point on it—that the boy would have known what he was doing when he wandered off is grossly unfair to the boy’s community, who want to know what happened. The minister cannot turn around and say that the child should have known better, when he was a child of the kind I have described. Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich: An appalling response, as per usual. Hon SALLY TALBOT: I think it is really distressing. It becomes nobody who commented on that story to have made that comment in the public arena. I have asked questions on this matter. I again put it to the minister that she may need to look a little more carefully at the answers prepared for her by her department and staff. In a case such as this, is it reasonable to say the following, as she did in this place on 14 May — Prior to the day of the child’s death, DCPFS had no issues with the level of care he was receiving from his carers and the organisation contracted to provide the care. The child left the carers, against their advice, to go to the water. His carers responded very quickly, pursuing him, but lost sight of him and raised emergency services within an hour of him going missing. The comment I have difficulty with is “Prior to the day of the child’s death, DCPFS had no issues with the level of care he was receiving from his carers and the organisation contracted to provide the care.” I should jolly well hope that the Department for Child Protection and Family Support did not have problems prior to the day of his death. But what does that mean? Nobody is suggesting that before the day of his death there was something deficient in his care. But the fact that the boy died while he was under the care of the director general of the minister’s department and being provided care by one of the minister’s other departments means that something is fundamentally wrong with what happened. In these cases the minister cannot explain the boy’s death by going back to the circumstances that existed prior to the death and say, “Well, we didn’t have any problems the day before or the day before that, or the day before that.” Something is wrong with the system. Something must be wrong with it. The minister has only one key performance indicator to bring to bear in a case like this. When a child has died, she has a major problem. I am sorry to express it in such a crude fashion but that is the reality of the situation. It is not acceptable to come into this place and say, up to the day the child died and because his carers lost him, “We didn’t have a problem with the level of care that he was being provided.” One does not have to be an expert in this area, and I do not claim to be an expert. In one sense, one of the strengths of our Westminster system is that people do the job the minister is doing and the job I am doing without being experts. The minister has a bit of a head start because she brings some professional background to these portfolios, but I do not and I do not claim to. My point is that we do not have to be experts in the way the system works to see that this case gives rise to some very serious and obvious questions about whether the state provided an adequate level of care.
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Let us go through a few of those questions because I think one of the troubling things is that in the two months since this incident, the department and the minister have been weaving a narrative around this tragic situation. The narrative is not addressing the key questions about how the care failed, when we will know the answers and what changes will be made. That was the key part of the question I asked the minister. What will change as a result of this tragedy? The minister has not told us what will change. Clearly, the system cannot stay as it is. Why is it important to get answers to these question about what will change, what went wrong, when will we know and what will change? This brings me to the substance of the motion, because the key question here is the resourcing of child protection services statewide, particularly in the Kimberley, where we know from all the indicators the effects of poverty on child rearing and child development. All the indicators point to the fact that the higher the level of poverty in a community, the more we will need to draw on resources for child protection services. We need these answers because we need to address the broader context about the resourcing of child protection services in the Kimberley. I have referred to the fact that the boy who died had been diagnosed as being subject to foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. We know there is a very high prevalence of children in the Kimberley suffering from that syndrome. I asked the minister on Thursday last week how many children in the care of the director general statewide were classified as having FASD. Her answer was 60. I knew the answer because I think the department had given it to the journalist who wrote the story in The Sunday Times. The journalist was very surprised that the number was so low. Many honourable members will know that we are looking at just under 4 000 children in care statewide, and 60 of them have been diagnosed as suffering from FASD. I am not doubting the data the minister has presented to the house, but I want to suggest that alarm bells should have rung in her head when she saw that figure. I have run that figure past a number of different agencies, child protection workers and teachers—all sorts of professionals working in this area in the Kimberley—and they are absolutely dumbfounded at that number, because it is so low. I asked for regional and metropolitan breakdowns and I think the answer was 14 in the metropolitan area and 46 outside. Statewide, 46 children outside the metropolitan area suffer from FASD. I have not been going around Labor Party branches asking how we can make life difficult for the government; I am talking about people working in the sector who say, “It can’t be true; there must be more than that.” I went looking for a way of perhaps building the substance of that argument. As I said, I want to stress to the minister that I am not accusing the minister of providing misleading data. I want to know whether she thinks there is something wrong with that figure because most people working in the sector do not believe it. I referred to the fifteenth report of the Education and Health Standing Committee, which I am sure the minister is familiar with, titled “Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: the invisible disability”, which was tabled in the other place in September 2012. We can take it that the data in that report is fairly current. One of the first things that struck me was when the principal at Fitzroy Valley District High School gave evidence to the committee. I understand Fitzroy Valley school has just over 300 students. I am not sure whether he gave evidence directly to the committee or provided a written submission; I have not got that far yet. His evidence was that he suspected 25 per cent of his students were suffering from FASD. I acknowledge that the question I asked the minister last week about children in care was very specific. I am therefore not trying to extrapolate those figures directly. However, according to the department’s records, 46 children outside the metropolitan area in care have FASD, yet the principal of the Fitzroy school is saying that a quarter of his students are suffering from FASD. The reason I want to draw attention to those two figures is the key to this problem. It must be the key to the government’s response to resourcing the workers in the field who are dealing with FASD on a daily basis, either as a child protection worker or as a carer of a child with FASD. The key to this definitional problem is that we in Western Australia do not have such a thing as a diagnostic tool for predicting levels of FASD or for diagnosing FASD. We know that this is a new and emerging field of research. We know that the literature has only started to be compiled over the last couple of decades. I do not want honourable members to think I am making unreasonable demands of the government here. I know it is a new field, but given that it is a syndrome that particularly affects people in poverty and people who struggle with their daily existence, and given that Western Australia has a high number of people who fall into that category, we would not expect Western Australia to be so very far behind the mark when it comes to — Hon Sue Ellery: We should be leading it in fact. Hon SALLY TALBOT: Thank you. Hon Sue Ellery has a vast knowledge of these matters based on her experience both as a minister and as a shadow minister in these portfolios. We should be leading because we have communities here in WA that are desperate for this kind of assistance. Yet what we find, as I did, is that a quite empowering way to get to know the topic is to start on the basis of no knowledge, do the reading at the beginning and gradually build up the knowledge. I have begun to understand already that other jurisdictions in Australia, but more particularly overseas, are 10 years ahead of us when it comes to putting in place the very basic diagnostic tools for FASD. A place such as Canada is 10 years ahead of us. It is not beyond the wit of anyone, from the minister to the minister’s staff and to the people in the department who are responsible for rolling out these programs on the ground, to bring themselves fully up-to-date with the experience of a country such as Canada. Canada is very important here because Canada’s Indigenous communities in some respects are
910 [COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] quite different from ours. Canada’s relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities are quite different in that Indigenous communities have never been disempowered in Canada to the extent that they have been in Western Australia. I see Hon Peter Collier listening intently. He will be very interested in this matter because, as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, he will be very familiar with the statistics. He will know that direct comparisons between the two jurisdictions cannot always be made because Indigenous people in Canada have had the resource wealth now for many decades, and so they have moved in quite different directions. Having said that, I have to say that many of the problems are identical, such as poverty, disadvantage and the fact that now a third generation of FASD sufferers are coming through the system. We now know that this happens when it is the community that is impoverished, rather than some kind of temporary misfortune into which a family falls in Indigenous communities, and that the poverty is entrenched in the community. Just as we have seen the terrible results of the stolen generation visited on second and third generations, we are now quite clearly seeing the effects of FASD coming through families, with grandparents, parents and now children all suffering from this spectrum of disorders. The same thing is happening in Canada. Just last week there was a full-day forum at City West on the prevention of FASD. The Minister for Child Protection’s parliamentary secretary, the member for Kingsley, was there presenting on the minister’s behalf. She actually gave a very good overview at the beginning of the session, which I think gave a lot of heart to all the key sector workers there. It was a very encouraging report. However, when we got to the part of the program of the keynote speaker, who was from Canada, and we started comparing the two jurisdictions, that was when we saw the grimness set into the proceedings as people realised just how far behind the eight ball we are. That is the reality; we are miles behind other jurisdictions. What should ignite the interest of the Barnett Liberal government, if nothing else does, is that FASD has now been universally recognised as the most common preventable intellectual disability. We can actually stop this happening. It is not like many of the other syndromes that come under the minister’s portfolios that mean there will always be a certain number of people who are disabled because of various things that are beyond people’s control. FASD is absolutely and utterly within our control. I do not know whether we could eliminate FASD if we had the right programs in place. I suppose it comes down to a matter of individual parental responsibility, and inevitably some parents will refuse to exercise their responsibility in that field. But certainly we could reduce the incidence of FASD very dramatically—down to a few isolated cases. I want to return briefly to the question of diagnostic tools of which we in Western Australia are totally lacking. I refer honourable members to a couple of key places that I referred to in the report of the Education and Health Standing Committee of the other place, “Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: the invisible disability”. On page 22 there is a quote from Dr Linda Burnside, who has done the literature review. I will leave members to look up their own references because I will run out of time. Dr Burnside said — Critically, when we do not know how many people are affected we are not able to consistently and accurately measure the extent of FASD in society. The report goes on to refer to the likelihood of significant under-reporting, which is all referenced on page 22. On page 28, the report refers to the issue of data collection. I recommend the whole report to any honourable member who is interested in this topic. I refer honourable members to finding 2 on page 30, which states — There is broad acknowledgement in many parts of the health sector that a significant improvement in data collection is needed to understand the true extent of FASD in the Australian community. In particular, there is a need to standardise data on alcohol consumption during pregnancy and to collect and collate data once a FASD diagnosis has been made. These are all areas in which the government needs to be proactive. We cannot allow this report to just sit on the shelf and moulder away. It turns out, unfortunately, that because the report was tabled only in September last year, it has disappeared off everybody’s notice paper, although there was a specific requirement for the government to respond. I point out that the Minister for Disability Services was specifically named in the report as a minister from whom a response was required. The minister does not have to provide that response now because we have a new Parliament, and so that requirement has disappeared with the old Parliament. It would be a very positive thing to do, if the minister were able to respond to the recommendations of that report that relate to all her portfolios, because I think she would agree that there is an overlap between all three, even though it was only as Minister for Disability Services that she was referred to in that report. We are not without any progress, but unfortunately I think it is very, very slow in Western Australia. It would be remiss of me to not refer to the Lililwan Project, which I believe is funded by the commonwealth government; I am not sure if there is any state government money in that project. The thing that distressed me when reading about this is that it is a great project. It is about providing culturally appropriate diagnostic tests in remote communities. The thing that upsets me when reading the summary of that project is that it is so very basic. All we were talking about with this project was trying to get the language right so that we could get information from the people who would be affected. These are very, very early days for being able to put in
[COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] 911 place some kind of comprehensive foetal alcohol spectrum disorder reduction program. All we are talking about at the moment—this is not to denigrate the project at all; this is essential work—is: why is it only just being done now? Why are we so far behind the eight ball? This project gives examples of replacing words like “alcohol” with “grog” and replacing terms like “child rearing” with “growing up”, because that is the language that people living in this part of the Fitzroy area understand. I put it to honourable members again: we are a long, long way behind. What a project like that does not look at is some of the reasons women are not accessing the services; why women are deliberately not becoming part of the data collection process, and I think that work needs a lot of focus. I have only a couple of minutes remaining to me, so I will move quickly to the second half of the motion because, as I said at the outset of my speech, this is a topic to which I will return many times over the next few months. The second thing that has happened on this minister’s watch is a reduction in the legal services provided to people who have had an adverse event while they are in care. These two things are clearly connected. The first case I outlined clearly did not apply to the child, because the child died. But we do know that dozens of children have used the resources provided by the civil litigation unit in the minister’s department over the years. I will provide a very brief outline for the benefit of honourable members who have not paid close attention to this. The Department for Child Protection and Family Support has two legal units; one of them deals with the kind of legal stuff involved around taking children into care, and of course one can imagine that those issues are many and varied. The second unit, the civil litigation unit, again has a variety of tasks attached to it, but the key ones are that it provides legal services to children who are abused or injured in care. Over the years, that unit has built up quite a spectacular reputation for itself. In other words, it has had some major successes in terms of taking the legal cases forward and preparing the briefs that have resulted in some extremely significant court settlements being made to the victims of abuse while in care. There were a couple of very famous cases, of which I am sure the minister is well aware. It turns out that some time before the 9 March election a cabinet decision was taken to reduce legal units right across government—not specifically in child protection—by 10 per cent and, as I understand it, to reduce the amount of briefing out that takes place, again by 10 per cent. Members should think about what that means. In a nutshell, it means we have fewer people to do more work. It is not rocket science: that is a 10 per cent cut to the number of lawyers and paralegals employed and a 10 per cent reduction in the amount of outsourcing of legal work being done. When the government walked in here last May and talked about the next round of efficiency dividends, of course the question from this side was: “What are you going to cut?” Those members who were here at that time—which is only about half the people on this side—will remember that on the day of the budget, the government could not tell us; on the day of the estimates hearings, about a month later, the government could not tell us; and on the day of the Legislative Assembly estimates, it still could not tell us. Then, when we brought individual people into the estimates standing committee at the end of last year, the government still could not tell us. It waited until Parliament got up at the end of November, and then it started rolling out all these cuts. I had something to say about that over that period, with my old portfolio hats on—environment et cetera. However, although the government could not tell us where the cuts would be made, we were assured all the time that they would not affect essential services; no front-line services were to be cut. I am sorry, but I think there are two arguments that should have been made here. The first is that the Department for Child Protection and Family Support should have been exempt from those cuts. We saw in the media this week that some ministers have actually had the gumption to stand up to the Premier and the Treasurer and say no. I understand that Minister Hames said no, and I understand that a couple of other ministers also found the courage to actually stand up to the Premier and the Treasurer and say, “No, we’re not making these cuts”. My question is: when is the Minister for Child Protection going to find the courage to stand up and say that? When is the Minister for Child Protection going to take responsibility for the fact that, if this unit disappears, it will be only the children who are injured or abused in care who will suffer? This is not about jobs for lawyers or about increasing the amount of litigation that takes place; this is about providing assistance for these children who have become victims in that sense. This is a very serious and significant development. As I said, there are two legal sections in the Department for Child Protection and Family Support. I suppose it would have been convenient if the minister could have persuaded us that all she was doing was moving the legal services into one section. We might have been happy with that and we might have been content to say, “Well, we’ll see how that pans out.” We might have been happy if the State Solicitor’s Office had said, “It’s okay; we’re taking some of these lawyers and they’ll be providing the services for child protection, but in a different office.” We know how governments shuffle payrolls around like that; that is fine. All we care about is that those services will still be available to children who have been abused or injured in care, but that is not the case. I have a letter signed by all the legal officers in the legal practice services unit of the Department for Child Protection and Family Support—that is, the other department, the one that is not being reduced—saying that they cannot cope with the extra workload that is going to be placed on them. They have written to the Legal Practice Board. The letter states, in part — We are writing in our capacity as State Government Legal Officers employed by the Department for Child Protection and Family Support in the Legal Practice Services unit (“LPS”).
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The Civil Litigation Unit (“CLU”) within the Department for Child Protection and Family Support has been abolished and the 4 permanent legal officers and 2 contract legal officers in that unit have been advised their positions will cease on 30 June 2013. The bulk of the functions of that unit has been assigned to LPS which has 11 legal officers whose work is currently primarily directed to litigation of Applications for Protection Orders under the Children and Community Services Act. Criminal Injuries Compensation (CIC) claims are the bulk of the work of the CLU. Currently there are 457 — I seek leave to table this letter. Leave granted. [See paper 275.] HON HELEN MORTON (East Metropolitan — Minister for Child Protection) [4.08 pm]: I offer my congratulations on your election to your role, Madam Deputy President (Hon Adele Farina). A lot of information has been provided by Hon Sally Talbot, and only a little of it is factual or in context. I only have about one minute and eight seconds left so I will not get into the depths of this today, but my opportunity will be to demonstrate that the government indeed is very aware of the issues around FASD and has been doing enormous amounts of work in that area, both in the Department for Child Protection and Family Support and also across the whole of government. It is probably a big step forward in terms of what I can see had been happening up until this government came into power. The other thing I want to deal with in the short time I have available is to indicate that the question asked of me on the day Parliament opened was during questions without notice, so there was no warning of what that question would be. Sitting directly behind Hon Sally Talbot were the coroner and the Ombudsman, both of whom are investigating this case. For those reasons, and because I was not given any warning about this question, I was able to answer it better at another time. Debate adjourned, pursuant to standing orders. ADDRESS-IN-REPLY Motion Resumed from 21 May on the following motion moved by Hon Liz Behjat — That the following address be presented to His Excellency — To His Excellency Malcolm McCusker, Companion of the Order of Australia, Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, Queen’s Counsel, Governor in and over the state of Western Australia and its dependencies in the commonwealth of Australia. May it please Your Excellency: We, the Members of the Legislative Council of the Parliament of Western Australia in Parliament assembled, beg to express our loyalty to our most gracious sovereign and thank Your Excellency for the speech you have been pleased to deliver to Parliament. HON KEN BASTON (Mining and Pastoral — Minister for Agriculture and Food) [4.11 pm]: I congratulate Madam Deputy President (Hon Adele Farina) on the role she has taken today. Being the first female member in the chair is, as Hon Sally Talbot said, history in the making. Yesterday, I rushed towards the end of my speech because I wanted to make comments about as many of the previous members who were leaving as I could. I missed some out, so I will start by referring to them. This of course is my contribution to the debate on the Address-in-Reply to His Excellency Malcolm McCusker when he gave his speech on the opening of the thirty-ninth Parliament. Of course, my speech started in the thirty-eighth Parliament and it is continuing into the thirty-ninth. I have already mentioned Hon Jon Ford, Hon Ed Dermer and Hon Helen Bullock. I would also like to pay homage to Hon Matt Benson-Lidholm, who I enjoyed travelling with to China. I believe he will retire to his viticulture and he made some remarks to me that he will make some very good wines. As Minister for Agriculture and Food I intend to see that that member has done what he said he would do. Another member I want to touch on is Hon Giz Watson, with whom I did four years on the Standing Committee on Legislation. I have to admire her for the work she put into this place and the contributions she made in legislation. I also mention Hon Philip Gardiner and the valued valedictory speech he made, which I believe many members will refer to for some time. Hon Max Trenorden, of course, was the Chair of the Standing Committee on Public Administration. I travelled with Hon Max Trenorden. The highlight of those travels was an inquiry into Western Power and its infrastructure. I have to say I learnt a lot on those travels to states like Queensland and Victoria to see how they ran their power. I believe that inquiry was extremely successful and highlighted the necessity of some of the infrastructure of the Western Power, which has now been changed. I thank those members. I know they will enjoy their retirement. It was good to catch up with a quiet glass of water last night to celebrate their retirement!
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Going back to my speech, it was mainly about the Mining and Pastoral Region, which I represent, and some of the issues and things going on in that area. I got up to Ord stage 2, which was a $355 million development of another 15 000 irrigated hectares outside of Kununurra. This project has taken nearly 40 years to get to where it will be, and I believe the potential for agriculture in that region is the future there. There is water, an assisting climate and proximity to markets. The markets I talk of are in South-East Asia and beyond. They are the key to seeing this Ord development reach its potential. To ensure that market reaches this potential we will need to invest in those roads, airports and port facilities so that exports will be able to be facilitated to South-East Asia and countries in other areas. This goes back to when I first got into opposition. It was interesting because in the Ord there was very much sugar cane and virtually no sandalwood; there were mainly crops of melons et cetera. It was interesting because South Korea owned the sugar mill, a mill that was always designed as a pilot project and never really reached fruition. That basically meant that the mill produced very low yielding sugar, but very high yielding molasses. Debate interrupted, pursuant to standing orders. [Continued on page 921.] Sitting suspended from 4.15 to 4.30 pm QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE MINISTER FOR EDUCATION — SOCIAL MEDIA SITE 84. Hon SUE ELLERY to the Minister for Education: Does the minister accept that there is an inconsistency between the lack of any disciplinary investigation as a result of his admitted inappropriate use of social media as made public last Thursday and the automatic disciplinary investigation that would occur to either a TAFE or schoolteacher found to have inappropriately used social media in exactly the same way? Hon PETER COLLIER replied: I thank the member for some notice of this question. I emphasise once again that the member has difficulty with this issue because she does not believe my account of events. Hon Sue Ellery: I am asking about the consequence. Hon PETER COLLIER: Let me finish. Several members interjected. The PRESIDENT: Order! Let us get a question asked and answered. Hon PETER COLLIER: Can I say I certainly did not do anything inappropriate. I need to clarify that I did nothing inappropriate. I made this quite clear to the Leader of the Opposition yesterday. I made a mistake. I apologised for that mistake. It was nothing more than a mistake. I made it quite clear. The member is talking about a photograph on Facebook. The first time I saw the full extent of that photograph was when a journalist showed it to me last Thursday. I assure the member that if I had seen the full extent of that photograph, I would not have — Hon Sue Ellery interjected. The PRESIDENT: Order! A couple of fundamentals—please ask a question and let the minister respond. Please, minister, address your comments through the Chair and I promise I will not interject. Hon PETER COLLIER: As I said, I made that quite clear. If a teacher makes a mistake in a similar fashion, the same thing would occur in terms of the fact — Hon Sue Ellery: That would be investigated. Hon PETER COLLIER: I beg your pardon? Hon Sue Ellery: They would be investigated. Hon PETER COLLIER: The school would deal with it and it would go through a process necessarily to determine whether it was inappropriate. It was nothing more than a mistake and I made an apology for it. INDIGENOUS FAMILY VIOLENCE LEGAL SERVICE 85. Hon SUE ELLERY to the Attorney General: I refer to the government’s election commitment to provide $600 000 a year for a dedicated family and domestic violence support service for Indigenous Australians and to have the organisation in place by May 2013. (1) Which not-for-profit organisation has been awarded the contract to provide this service? (2) Can the Attorney General confirm that the organisation is now up and running and providing this service as per the government’s election commitment; and, if not, why not?
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Hon MICHAEL MISCHIN replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of this question. (1)–(2) On 13 January 2013, the Premier and I announced funding of $600 000 a year to establish a Perth-based family violence legal service for Indigenous Western Australians. Contrary to the point made in the honourable member’s question, it was not an election commitment but rather a policy commitment made prior to the pre-election caretaker period. I am happy to inform members that significant progress has been made with this policy commitment since the announcement in January. Expressions of interest were sought from suitable organisations to deliver the service by way of advertisements in The West Australian newspaper and the Tenders WA website. The responses are currently in the advanced stages of evaluation and I hope to be in a position to announce the successful proponent within the next four weeks. This timetable is consistent with the program previously issued to proponents, which indicated that the evaluation report would be finalised by 31 May 2013. The actual services that the new service will provide include legal advice and information; court representation for victims of family violence and sexual assault; advocacy and assistance to complete and lodge legal documents; and sexual abuse counselling. PROHIBITED BEHAVIOUR ORDERS 86. Hon KATE DOUST to the Attorney General representing the Minister for Police: (1) How many prohibited behaviour orders have been issued in 2010–11, 2011–12 and 2012–13 year to date? (2) For each of the years and orders detailed in (1), please indicate the police region and district in which the offenders subject to these orders resided at the time of the commission of the offence or offences that gave rise to granting the order? Hon MICHAEL MISCHIN replied: I thank the member for some notice of this question. (1) The Prohibited Behaviour Orders Act 2010 was assented to on 23 February 2011 and became the responsibility of the Western Australia Police to implement since that date. Since that date the following number of orders have been issued: 2010–11 financial year, nil; 2011–12, two; 2012–13 to date, 20. (2) Prohibited behaviour orders are applied for on the basis of offending behaviour committed over a period. Consequently, the respondent may have lived at a number of addresses when offences relevant to the making of the order were committed. WA Police databases capture the police district responsible for ultimately nominating the person for a prohibited behaviour order. In the 2010–11 financial year, no orders were made. In 2011–12 one order was made in relation to one offender living in the Kimberley police district and one order was made in relation to an offender living in the midwest–Gascoyne police district. In 2012–13 six orders were made in relation to offenders living in the central metropolitan police district. Six orders were made in relation to offenders living in the east metropolitan police district. Three orders were made in relation to offenders living in the south metropolitan police district. The five remaining were made in relation to offenders living in each of the Peel metropolitan, south east metropolitan, north west metropolitan, goldfields and great southern police districts respectively. Prohibited behaviour orders issued and currently in force are published online along with the town or suburb the offender lived in when subject to the order. These can be accessed by the public at the website www.pbo.wa.gov.au. NATION BUILDING 2 PROGRAM 87. Hon KEN TRAVERS to the Leader of the House representing the Premier: (1) Can the Premier confirm that the following projects were included in WA’s list of projects over $100 million submitted to Infrastructure Australia in August 2012 for funding under the Nation Building 2 Program: Perth–Darwin highway from Reid Highway and Tonkin Highway intersection to Muchea; grade separations on Tonkin Highway, Collier Road, Morley Drive and Benara Road; railway line to Perth Airport; light rail to Mirrabooka; upgrade of Great Northern Highway between Muchea and Wubin; upgrade of North West Coastal Highway between Minilya and Barradale; and the upgrade of High Street from Carrington Street to Stirling Highway? (2) For each of these projects, was it included in the fully funded, fully costed plan the government promoted during the recent state election; and, if not, why not? Hon PETER COLLIER replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of this question. I do not have the response. However, if it becomes available during question time, I will provide it.
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MENTAL HEALTH — SPECIALIST INPATIENT UNITS 88. Hon SALLY TALBOT to the Minister for Mental Health: (1) How many beds are currently available in the specialist mental health inpatient units in Bunbury, Albany, Broome and Kalgoorlie? (2) What specific provisions are made by each of these specialist units for the admission of children or adolescents? (3) What facilities exist at these specialist units for children and adolescents to be separated from adults? (4) How many children and adolescents have been admitted to each of these specialist units in the past 12 months? Hon HELEN MORTON replied: I thank the member for some notice of this question. (1)–(4) The answer I have is in tabular form, so I seek leave to have it incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. [See paper 276.] The following material was incorporated —
Inpatient Albany Broome Bunbury Kalgoorlie Unit Q1. 12 13 27 7 (A seclusion room can also be converted into a bed if required) Q2. Based on individual Admission of adolescents Rarely used for child and Adherence to the assessment of patient considered on a case by adolescent admissions. Statewide Guidelines for aged between 15 – 17 case basis following risk Children & adolescents management of Under years, admission to the assessment of the patient admissions occur on the 18s in Emergency specialist unit is an option and taking into Bunbury Hospital Departments and provided: consideration ward General ward with inpatient services and do 1. Parent/guardian acuity/mix of patients. specialist Consultant not admit children to the consents to admission to Psychiatrist and Ward. Adolescents are adult unit Admission of children or Psychiatric Liaison rarely admitted to the 2. A 1:1 nurse special is adolescents may be governance available Ward and if so, they are in place for the admission considered to the adjacent throughout the admission. always under 24 hour 3. Regular review and paediatric unit in Broome security or nursing escort, assessment is undertaken hospital with inreach family member to monitor the service provision from chaperone, or both. appropriateness of the local Child and Children and adolescents admission. Adolescent Mental health are managed on the service and psychiatrist. general wards primarily, If the adult specialist unit with chaperone, nurse is not appropriate for the It is possible to support special or security escort, admission – a an appropriate boarder/ and transferred to the child/adolescent can be chaperone for the Bentley Child and admitted by a psychiatrist duration of the admission Adolescent Specialist on paediatric unit with on the mental health unit Unit as soon as possible if support provided by the if required or provide a prolonged inpatient stay Child Adolescent Mental nurse 1-1 special for short is required Health Service term safety/security of the (CAMHS)community adolescent. team during the admission Q3. There is no ability to No specific facilities exist Adolescents admitted to There are no separate provide environmental for separation of children the specialist Adult facilities. As above, separation of CAMHS and adolescents from inpatient unit require 2:1 generally not applicable patients – 1:1 nurse adults. nursing special with special and individualised CAMHS Consultant management plan If the unit is required to Psychiatrist medical developed to provide safe manage an adolescent oversight. appropriate separation or prior to transfer to a involvement in ward specialist child and activities. adolescent mental health service, it is possible for the facility to manage the adolescent in the secure unit where they would be separate from adult patients. Q4.* 6 8 7 5
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*Q4 Notes: • Includes separations from specialised mental health wards. • Data are inclusive of the dates 13 May 2012 to 14 May 2013. • Child and adolescents are defined as those aged 0 to 17 years-old. • Of the total 26 separations, 17 were aged 17 years old on admission. • Source: Discharge Extract, Hospital Morbidity Data System. • Prepared by: Mental Health Data Collection. • Extraction date: 21 May 2013.
ADELE ISLAND NATURE RESERVE 89. Hon ROBIN CHAPPLE to the minister representing the Minister for Environment: I refer to Adele Island Nature Reserve, located off the Kimberley coast. (1) Is the minister aware that this island, which was declared a nature reserve in 2001 in recognition of its status as a bird breeding sanctuary, is still awaiting government nomination for listing under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands? (2) If no to (1), why not? (3) If yes to (1), when will the minister move to nominate the island, thus achieving greater protection for the bird population of this unique island habitat? Hon HELEN MORTON replied: I thank the member for some notice of the question. The Minister for Environment has provided me with the following information — (1) The Australian government Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities is responsible for proposing site nominations to the Ramsar Secretariat for inclusion on the Ramsar list. Proposed nominations on state lands require support from the relevant state government. (2)–(3) Not applicable. BROWSE LNG PROJECT — FLOATING OPTION 90. Hon LJILJANNA RAVLICH to the Leader of the House representing the Minister for State Development: I refer to the decision by Woodside Petroleum to not proceed with the $50 million Browse onshore liquefied natural gas project. (1) After Shell made the announcement that it preferred a floating LNG platform, what advice did the minister receive from his department? (2) Will the minister table that advice? (3) If no to (2), why not? Hon PETER COLLIER replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. (1) Shell has raised a number of concerns about project costs in Australia, and there has been speculation about Shell’s views with respect to the development of the Browse gas resource. However, Shell has never formally announced a preference for floating LNG. Woodside is the operator of the Browse joint venture and so is responsible for all official announcements about the joint venture’s Browse development. (2)–(3) Not applicable. ST JOHN OF GOD HOSPITAL, BUNBURY — CORONARY CARE UNIT 91. Hon ADELE FARINA to the parliamentary secretary representing the Minister for Health: I refer to difficulties in securing specialist doctors and nurses for the new coronary care unit at Bunbury, which was officially opened on 30 January 2013 yet remains closed to the public. (1) What issues have been identified as the cause for being unable to attract specialist doctors and nurses to Bunbury to operate the new facility?
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(2) When the government approved $5 million in funding to build the facility, did the government consider problems with recruiting specialist doctors and nurses to regional WA and satisfy itself that the necessary specialist staff to operate the facility were available before approving the funding? (3) What action will the minister take to assist St John of God secure the specialist doctors and nurses needed to operate the coronary care unit and to open the facility to the public as a matter of urgency? Hon ALYSSA HAYDEN replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. The following information has been provided to me by the Minister for Health. (1) It is challenging to recruit staff when setting up a new service such as this one in the south west, as the service begins with low acuity activity and therefore a limited scope of practice for the medical staff. This means that the doctors are unable to undertake all the procedures and services that they are skilled to do and may therefore find the role initially unchallenging. Nurses have been recruited for the unit and have been offered the opportunity to maintain their skills by working in the emergency department and the high dependency and intensive care units at the WA Country Health Service’s Bunbury hospital. (2) The south west has minimal difficulty in recruiting medical specialists, albeit it often requires working closely with the specialist colleges and medical recruitment agencies. (3) St John of God Bunbury Hospital has advised WA Country Health Service–south west that it has recruited the necessary nursing staff for the unit. WA Country Health Service–south west has commenced work on enhancing the medical service agreements the specialists will work under to help attract and enable specialists to work across the South West Health Campus, which will allow staff to maintain their skills. WA Country Health Service–south west is also working with St John of God Bunbury to develop a recruitment and orientation package for medical staff who work across both aspects of the South West Health Campus. This will increase the amount of medical staff available to St John of God Bunbury. BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION 92. Hon LYNN MacLAREN to the minister representing the Minister for Environment: (1) As today is the International Day for Biological Diversity, will the minister advise what the state government is doing to highlight the significance of Western Australia’s biodiversity? (2) Will the government report on the status of threatened species in Western Australia? (3) Has the status of Carnaby’s cockatoos or numbats improved or worsened over the past five years? (4) What action is the government taking to protect threatened species? (5) Is the minister aware that the state government of Victoria is being sued by the Environment Defenders Office of Victoria over a failure to draw up plans for the survival of threatened species? Hon HELEN MORTON replied: I thank the member for some notice of the question. The following information has been provided to me by the Minister for Environment — (1) The government has a strong record in biodiversity conservation for Western Australia. In its first term, it invested $63 million under the Kimberley science and conservation strategy for a range of biodiversity conservation initiatives, including fire management, feral animal control and creation of terrestrial and marine conservation reserves, in addition to initiatives to assist the conservation of threatened species. In its term of office between 2008 and 2013, the Liberal–National government created the Walpole and Nornalup Inlets, Camden Sound, Ngari Capes and Eighty Mile Beach Marine Parks, which conserve biodiversity. In this term of government, it has made commitments to create Roebuck Bay, Horizontal Falls and North Kimberley marine parks, including an extension of the Kimberley marine park network to the Western Australian–Northern Territory border. The creation of new marine parks will almost treble the marine reserve system from approximately 1.5 million hectares at the time the government first took office in 2008 to more than five million hectares by the end of its second term. In its first term, the government released a biodiversity and cultural conservation strategy for the great western woodlands, and invested $3 million for on-ground operations. The government has announced as a priority that it will replace the Wildlife Conservation Act 1950 with a biodiversity conservation act, and will introduce a bill into Parliament during this term. The proposed biodiversity conservation act will significantly increase penalties for harming threatened species and non-threatened species, and provide a modern framework for the management and recovery of biodiversity in Western Australia.
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(2) The Department of Environment and Conservation regularly publishes the conservation status of each threatened species. There are over 600 listed threatened species, and information on the status of each one can be found at DEC’s website. Currently, 240 species are listed as threatened fauna, and 18 species listed as fauna presumed to be extinct. There are also 413 threatened flora, and 14 species presumed extinct. (3)–(4) The numbat and Carnaby’s cockatoo are specially protected under the Wildlife Conservation Act as specially protected fauna, with International Union for Conservation of Nature–equivalent status of vulnerable and endangered respectively. The status of the numbat and Carnaby’s cockatoo has not changed over the past five years. A Carnaby’s cockatoo recovery plan has recently been approved at the state level and has been released for public comment as part of the commonwealth process for a national recovery plan. Since 2008–09, the government has invested more than $9.3 million for the protection and recovery of WA’s three black cockatoo species, and in particular the recovery of Carnaby’s cockatoo. The government has also made a commitment to build a predator-proof fence within the greater dryandra woodland to create a numbat and woylie sanctuary of up to 300 hectares, and recover numbats and woylies. (5) The minister is not aware of the Victorian Environment Defenders Office action against the Victorian government. GEOFFREY WEDGWOOD — GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS 93. Hon SUE ELLERY to the Leader of the House representing the Premier: I refer to tender DPC1575 and the awarding of a contract for $190 000 to the company Luna Ventures, a director of which is Mr Geoffrey Wedgwood. (1) Is the contract a re-negotiation of any previous contract with Bright Blue Communications and Mr Geoffrey Wedgwood? (2) If no to (1), is this a new contract for the provision of new services; and, if so, what is the nature of the new services? (3) If the contract is a continuation of an existing arrangement with Mr Wedgwood, for which specific strategic projects will Mr Wedgwood be providing advice? (4) Was the contract put out to open tender; and, if not, why not? (5) What is the current total value of all ministerial office or public sector agency contracts involving Mr Geoffrey Wedgwood or companies associated with Mr Geoffrey Wedgwood? (6) What are Mr Wedgwood’s employment arrangements as far as hours of work are concerned for each current contract awarded to companies he is associated with? Hon PETER COLLIER replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of this question. As with the question asked by Hon Ken Travers, I do not have a response. I understand it may be forthcoming. If it does arrive before the end of question time, I will provide it; if not, I will provide the answer tomorrow. FOETAL HOMICIDE LAWS — DRAFTING PROGRESS 94. Hon KATE DOUST to the Attorney General: On Sunday, 26 February 2012, the then Attorney General, Christian Porter, announced that the state government would introduce foetal homicide laws in Western Australia and also increase the penalties for offences involving harm or death to an unborn child. What progress has the Attorney General made towards the introduction of this bill into the Parliament? Hon MICHAEL MISCHIN replied: I thank the honourable member for the question. Progress was made in respect of drafting of legislation towards that end, but it was not proceeded with in the dying months of the last Parliament as it would not have been possible to get it through both houses in time. However, it is my intention to introduce legislation to that effect at the earliest opportunity. PREMIER — MEETINGS WITH WESTERN AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL COMMISSION 95. Hon KEN TRAVERS to the Leader of the House representing the Premier: I expect that I will get the same answer to this question, but I will try my luck, and the minister can table the answer if he gets it later. (1) Has the Premier ever met with the West Australian Football Commission to discuss the proposed new stadium?
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[Interruption from the gallery.] Hon KEN TRAVERS: Maybe that is the government’s answer! I have to say, minister, that that is a better answer than I get from you! The PRESIDENT: Order, members! We do not want to make babies cry! Hon KEN TRAVERS: I will continue — (2) If yes to (1), on what date was the meeting? (3) Were any minutes, notes or any other record made of the meeting? (4) Has the Premier ever given any commitments or in-principle approval to the West Australian Football Commission managing the stadium? Hon PETER COLLIER replied: I apologise for that unruly injection from Katsambanis junior! I thank the honourable member for some notice of this question. As was the case with the other two questions, if I do get a response before the end of question time, I will provide it; if not, I will provide it tomorrow. MUNGADA RIDGE — NATURE RESERVE 96. Hon ROBIN CHAPPLE to the minister representing the Minister for Mines and Petroleum: I refer to the undertaking by the Minister for Environment, as stated in Environmental Protection Authority report 1321 of April 2009, that “the Government will set aside the Mungada Ridge as a Class A Nature Reserve and statutorily protect that reserve from development.” (1) Have the Gindalbie and Ansteel joint venture partners relinquished the tenements covering Mungada Ridge, as agreed with the state government and as reported in the Australian Securities Exchange announcement dated 28 April 2009? (2) If no to (1), why not; and when is this expected to occur? (3) Are the joint venture partners now seeking to have the minister’s decision on protection for Mungada Ridge reversed, following the approval of its operations at Karara, Blue Hills North and Terapod? (4) If yes to (1), does the minister intend to consider such a retrospective request, against the advice of the EPA? Hon KEN BASTON replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of this question. (1) No. (2) The normal process is that the relinquishment of tenements would occur simultaneously with the creation of a reserve. (3) The company has indicated that it may be appropriate to vary the original offset proposal. This is understood to be informed by four years of detailed environmental surveys. (4) Government is bound to consider any proposal on its merits. MENTAL HEALTH — JUSTICE REINVESTMENT 97. Hon SALLY TALBOT to the Minister for Mental Health: Given that mental health initiatives form an essential part of justice reinvestment programs worldwide, what is the minister’s response to the growing community support for this approach to crime prevention? Hon HELEN MORTON replied: I thank the shadow spokesperson on disability, mental health and child protection for her question and the opportunity to make a comment about this matter. As the member is aware, the government has made a substantial investment in mental health courts. This is a new initiative that has been undertaken in Western Australia—something that we talked about when we talked about decriminalising mental illness. This government has now made a significant investment in establishing a mental health court in both the adult court and the children’s court. As I have mentioned before, I have sat in on both of those courts and have seen them in operation, I have talked to the people who are operating them, and I have had the opportunity to see how people can actually be diverted from the justice system in a preventative way to enable more of a treatment program rather than a justice program to be put in place for them. That does
920 [COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] not take away the responsibility for these people to have a sentence passed at some point in time. But if these people who are part of the mental health court are able to stick with their treatment programs and achieve good outcomes, it mitigates against having a prison sentence or having a further involvement with the justice system. That is just one example of a reinvestment that is already occurring in that respect. The other example is that in this last election, we made a commitment to expand the drug court to be a drug and alcohol court. Once again, I have had a look at this court in operation, and I was really impressed with the amount of work that the courts can undertake to divert people from the justice system and back into more of a treatment program. Those are just a couple of examples of the reinvestment that is already taking place. I have absolutely no doubt that the new Minister for Corrective Services, Joe Francis, and I will be working together on this for a long time to come. LESCHENAULT INLET MASTER PLAN — FUNDING 98. Hon ADELE FARINA to the minister representing the Minister for Regional Development : I refer to the City of Bunbury’s Leschenault Inlet master plan and the city’s request for funding to progress the master plan. (1) Has the minister and/or government considered the city’s request for funding, and how much funding will the government commit to this important public infrastructure project? (2) If the minister and/or government has determined not to fund the project, what are the reasons for this decision? Hon KEN BASTON replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of this question. (1) I am advised that the Bunbury City Council has not yet adopted the Leschenault Inlet master plan. I am not aware of a request to fund this project. (2) Not applicable. RENTAL ACCOMMODATION — SHORTAGE 99. Hon LYNN MacLAREN to the minister representing the Minister for Housing: I refer to a report on ABC News this morning concerning the critical shortage of rental accommodation in Perth, and another report in The West Australian today. (1) Is the minister aware of today’s alarming reports on acute homelessness in Perth? (2) What swift action does the minister intend to take to alleviate the shortage of rental accommodation? Hon KEN BASTON replied: I thank the member for some notice of the question. (1) Yes. (2) In relation to homelessness, the honourable member will be aware that Western Australia is party to the current National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. Under the agreement, $135.1 million in joint state and commonwealth funding will have been committed and spent by 30 June this year. The implementation of this agreement was the subject of a performance audit by the Office of the Auditor General in October last year. The OAG report was positive in finding that the state had met its funding commitments and all programs had been delivered as agreed in the implementation plan, with most programs meeting or exceeding clients’ targets and making a positive difference to the people using them. The state government is currently considering the commonwealth government’s offer for a transitional national partnership agreement on homelessness. The agreements are expected to be finalised in the coming weeks and will see an extension of the arrangement of support services to assist people in public and private rental accommodation to maintain their tenancies. The government is also looking towards a new longer-term agreement to continually expand the good work already being done in this area. In relation to the funding obligations under this agreement, it should be noted that the government committed an additional $8.3 million over 2011–12 and 2012–13 to not-for-profit service providers to address sector sustainability issues, including salary levels. Regarding housing affordability in general, the Liberal–National government is strongly committed to tackling the state’s affordable housing challenge, including the issues faced by homeless people. In May 2011 the government launched the “Affordable Housing Strategy 2010–2020: Opening Doors to Affordable Housing”. The strategy was and remains the only whole-of-government plan for tackling affordable housing by any government in Australia. To date, the strategy has delivered more than 7 600 affordable housing opportunities. A number of key initiatives are underway that will help alleviate pressure on the private rental market in Western Australia. The government has supported the national
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rental affordability scheme with a commitment of 6 000 incentives in Western Australia. Around 1 350 of these properties have been delivered to date, with a further 4 650 properties to be delivered in 2016. Each of these properties will be rented to an eligible household at less than 80 per cent of the market rent. In the 2012–13 budget, the government committed $130 million over two years for the construction of 433 new social housing properties. In addition, the government continued to support the growth of the community housing sector. Fourteen hundred properties have been transferred to community housing growth providers since 2010 and, as a result of these transfers, growth providers will develop 448 new affordable housing dwellings for rent to low to moderate–income households by 2020. This government has committed to working in partnership with industry and the community sector to help improve housing supply more generally and to combat homelessness specifically. QUESTIONS — STANDING ORDERS Statement by President THE PRESIDENT (Hon Barry House): Members, just so that we set the right standards at the beginning of the thirty-ninth Parliament, I refer again, members and ministers and parliamentary secretaries, to standing orders 104 and 105 in relation to questions. Standing order 104 reads — (1) Questions shall (a) be concise; and (b) not seek an opinion or a legal interpretation or opinion. (2) Any question that infringes upon this Standing Order may be amended, disallowed or withdrawn as ordered by the President. Standing order 105 reads — An answer shall be concise and relevant. That is for your information and reference. ADDRESS-IN-REPLY Motion Resumed from an earlier stage of the sitting. HON KEN BASTON (Mining and Pastoral Minister for Agriculture and Food) [5.03 pm]: I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later stage of this day’s sitting. [Leave granted.] The PRESIDENT: I remind members that the next speech is an inaugural speech and should be heard in silence. HON PETER KATSAMBANIS (North Metropolitan) [5.04 pm]: Thank you, Mr President. I congratulate you on your re-election and look forward to working with you in this place over the next four years. I would like to thank all the parliamentary staff members who have been extremely helpful and understanding during the transition period since the election on 9 March. I congratulate the Leader of the House on his recent appointment and I also congratulate all ministers and parliamentary secretaries. I wish them well in their endeavours. At the outset, I declare my faith in God and my loyalty to Australia and to our flag and my commitment to faithfully serve the people of the great state of Western Australia. I was not lucky enough to have been born in Western Australia. However, I am one of the 80 000 people who make the choice to move here every year seeking the tremendous employment and lifestyle opportunities that this great state has to offer. As a member of the WA Parliament, I will always strive to maintain and enhance these tremendous opportunities for Western Australian families so that this state can continue to be the economic powerhouse of Australia and a first-class place for all of us to live in. There are many things for which I need to thank my wife, Karalee. She has been my best friend, my support, my inspiration and my bedrock over the past seven years through good times and bad. She is a wonderful mother to our three young children, a great step-mum to my two older children and the best wife anyone could wish for. But today I want to particularly thank her for encouraging us as a family to move to Perth just over three years ago. Karalee’s family links to WA prompted us to consider the move and it is a decision that we are certainly so very pleased we made. We arrived at a wonderfully dynamic and vibrant place. Of course it would be that way, because WA has a wealth of primary resources and a skilled, entrepreneurial population. But a major reason for the state’s
922 [COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] excitement and growth was, and remains to be, the strong, stable and focused Liberal government so capably led by Premier Colin Barnett. At the state election just over two months ago, the public of WA overwhelmingly endorsed the direction and the policies of this government. It was a sweeping victory and in the North Metropolitan Region 57 per cent of all voters chose to place their faith in the Liberal Party for another term of government. It was this unprecedented level of support that led to my own election as the fourth Liberal member for the region—a unique achievement and the crowning glory of this electoral triumph. I congratulate the Premier on this amazing victory and I am proud to be serving as a member of his team in this new Liberal-led government. In the next four years I, along with every member of the Liberal Party, will work to provide a continuation of the strong, stable and predictable government that the people voted for and through our efforts we hope to maintain their trust and support again at the next election. The North Metropolitan Region that I have the honour of representing is an exciting place to live, work and raise a family. It is diverse and it is large, covering an area of 938 square kilometres and containing 350 000 voters. A place so large cannot be homogenous and each of the 14 lower house electoral districts have their own unique flavours, characteristics, needs and desires. However, the region does have many things in common. It is, of course, as I said before, a wonderful place to live and work. It is blessed with great parks, recreational facilities and our magical ocean and beaches. It is also a place where very many of those people who move here from other states and other countries choose to make their new home. As one of those people who chose to live here, I have a strong interest in preserving and enhancing the things that make our area such an attractive place to live, like our pristine coastal environment, our high quality schools and our safe local communities. But many challenges remain. Some of those challenges come in the pockets of disadvantage that remain in some areas of the electorate. As members in this place will come to know, I do not believe you can address this disadvantage with more handouts and a further expansion of the welfare state. I believe the real solution lies in a strong and meaningful education, local community engagement with strong role models and, at the end of the process, the best “welfare” anyone can ever receive, which is the skills and confidence to obtain and maintain meaningful employment. Another big challenge across the North Metropolitan Region is the growing pains that come with the massive growth in housing and population across the area. This growth has been seen in both the more intensive infill and high-density housing that has spread across areas closer to the city as well as in more outer areas such as Butler, Alkimos and Wanneroo. The need for new infrastructure to meet this growth is well known. We continually need new schools, new and expanded hospitals and new and wider roads, as well as more public transport. All of these massive infrastructure projects require large injections of capital funding. Our state is doing its very best. I was speaking recently to the education minister of another state who was left gobsmacked that WA could afford to build four new primary schools each and every year as well as rebuild more secondary schools whilst continuing with record new infrastructure investment in areas such as health and transport. His state had not built a new school for years and had no money to build one in the future even though it also had growth pressures. We are therefore doing well comparatively, largely because of the good management of our state’s finances by the Premier, the Treasurer and the entire Liberal-led government. However, we could be doing better if we could only access what is rightfully ours. This brings me to the elephant in the room when it comes to meeting the infrastructure needs of my growing electorate and an entire rapidly growing state. Western Australia is part of the Australian Federation but sometimes we would hardly recognise that. In WA we have come to say that the people in the eastern states just do not get us; they do not understand us—and that is true for the most part. However, for a select group of people who have a profound influence over the future of WA, that is not the case at all. The bureaucrats in Canberra and the federal politicians, apart from WA’s own federal representatives, suffer from a much bigger problem than a lack of genuine understanding of the needs and concerns of Western Australians. I have worked in Canberra and I have seen it firsthand. The mandarins in our nation’s capital simply do not care about WA. It is not ignorance alone that guides their decisions, but also a callous indifference to the consequences of their ill- advised actions and the consequences they will have on the people of Western Australia. That is why we have borne the brunt of an iniquitous mining tax that has such a disproportionate impact on WA. That is why nobody over east does anything to reverse the plainly criminal impact of the Commonwealth Grants Commission formula for the distribution of GST revenue. Make no mistake, the inequality in GST distribution between the states that sees WA receive less than half of what it would get on a per capita basis threatens the very fabric of our Federation, because it destroys the compact of equality between the states on which the Commonwealth of Australia was founded back in 1901. Even the misguided Keynesian professors in my old economics lectures at university could tell us that less than half of GST revenue is not equality between the states and it is not fair on the people of WA. The only real solution is to remove the grants commission from the GST distribution process. A new process should be
[COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] 923 developed that establishes a set per capita element. Figures discussed recently, such as 75 per cent or 80 per cent, would be a far better outcome than the share we get today. The balance of funds after the per capita element is distributed should not be distributed in an arcane and opaque manner as they are today. Instead they should be distributed in an agreed, competitive and target-based manner in a similar way to the national competition policy reform payments of the 1990s and the early 2000s. In this manner, the states would strive for further competition and productivity reforms that would improve competitiveness and drive future growth in every state. That would, in turn, reduce their reliance on WA’s money. And in case some of the mendicant states complain about missing out on their existing payments, it is high time they realised that there is no such thing as a free lunch. If they eschew growth and want to turn their state into some sort of historic theme park of the pre-industrial age, they should learn to live off mung beans and live in mud brick huts rather than expect their champagne socialist lifestyle to be subsidised by the toil of others. As the late great Margaret Thatcher once said — Pennies don’t fall from heaven, they have to be earned here on earth. As more than a century of creeping centralism has continually displaced the competitive federalism that the founding fathers of Federation originally envisaged, many other areas have emerged in which the federal attitude of callous indifference to the plight of WA restricts our opportunities for growth and development. The overlay of federal red and green tape on existing state regulations, especially on large-scale projects, pushes out time frames and costs, often rendering projects financially unviable to the detriment of our state and our people. Despite noises from the Council of Australian Governments about fixing this bureaucratic mess, the proof will be in the pudding as to whether we can actually reduce the costs and delays through a new more competitive and coordinated process. Past experience makes me extremely sceptical that any meaningful reform will be achieved in this important area—but as an optimist, I remain hopeful. Skilled migration is another area in which WA is hampered by the callous indifference of Canberra. Whilst we have been crying out for skilled and semi-skilled employees to enable us to complete major projects on time and to fill labour market gaps in our growing state economy, the federal government recently chose to engage in a retributive and dangerous debate demonising skilled migrants—the very people we need to help grow our state and the very people we have been attracting in their droves to WA over the past decade. Based on my long-term experience on migration tribunals and in practising migration law, the solution seems obvious to me. Once the federal government has set the basic parameters on temporary entry, WA should be able to look after its own skilled migration needs. This would include nominating our own unique state-based set of skilled occupations in high demand and having total control in filling the relevant positions at a local level, based of course on those broad federal parameters. In that way, we could be far more responsive not only to spikes in demand, but also to reductions in demand for skilled labour. That way we will not be bringing hairdressers into our state when we need engineers or, dare I say, we will not be importing more lawyers if we need more nurses! It is patently obvious that GST is just the tip of the iceberg and that federal–state relations across many areas are approaching crisis point. Unless WA gains more say over its own destiny, at some stage down the track we may need to reconsider whether the Federation is relevant to us any longer, as someone else told us in this place yesterday. I hope it does not come to that to shake away the callous indifference of the Canberra bureaucrats. Colleagues, I fundamentally believe in the power of the individual, and I believe that the greatest common good comes when individuals work together voluntarily to achieve shared goals and ambitions. That is why I believe in a small government that fosters a strong, civil society rather than an all-encompassing big government that strangles incentive and initiative. Ronald Reagan once said — The government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. Higher taxes, more red tape and further subsidies will not improve our society. They will simply entrench dependency, stifle incentive, extend the welfare state, make big government an even bigger nanny than it is today and reduce the power of individuals to control their own destiny. In looking at all proposals to tax, regulate or subsidise that come before us in this place, I will ask the important questions such as why we need to do it, and what better alternatives there are to any big government measures that are proposed. I believe that governments should live within their means and should endeavour at all times to balance their budgets, because to be profligate simply saddles a future generation with greater debt and hinders their own ability to prosper. I understand the distinction between using debt for capital projects and debt-funded recurrent expenditure. Just as it makes good sense for households to borrow to buy a capital asset such as a home, but not good sense to keep borrowing to buy food, it also sometimes makes sense for governments to debt-fund capital projects; but at all times, care must be taken to ensure that debt repayment can be met sustainably into the future without driving the budget into deficit. As much as it may come as a shock to some people, perhaps it is also time for all governments to start considering alternative ways to pay for some forms of infrastructure rather than saddling further debt onto future generations.
924 [COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013]
For some time I have been concerned that governments of all persuasions have been too focused on balancing the books rather than actually trying to reduce the size of government. I firmly belong to the school of thought that believes one can cut taxes and cut the overall size of government whilst maintaining both a balanced budget and the provision of a high level of essential services. To reduce the size of government, we need to cut unnecessary government expenditure in areas other than essential services such as police, health and education, and even in these areas, we can continue to do things smarter and obtain better value for the funds we invest. A great place to start is the massive bureaucracies at every single level of government that add very little value to people’s lives and simply shuffle paper from one desk to the next. That is why I am heartened by the aim of the Liberal government to reform local government. In the days of the horse and buggy it may have made some sense to have a town council every few kilometres; but today, in some areas of our city, one can easily walk between several town council offices in less than an hour. At each office there is a highly paid chief executive, many senior executives and a plethora of sustainability managers, planning officers and other such impressively titled paper shufflers. Eliminate some of these positions and we can start to reduce the cost of local government without reducing services. I stress that when making changes to local government, my own experience in another place makes it clear to me that a one-size-fits-all approach does not work. The specific needs of regional and remote communities in particular should be considered on a case-by-case basis, but that should not be an excuse for inaction in some inner-city locations, including within my own region. By reducing bureaucracy and getting government to focus on the fundamentals, we can strive to reduce the burden of taxation on the WA public. We have some silly taxes here in WA, and some plainly annoying ones. We also have taxes such as those on insurance, property sales and vehicle transfers, which add extra costs to transactions when people are already stretched trying to purchase the item that is being taxed. But there is one state tax that goes beyond being a mild irritant or an annoyance. That tax is payroll tax, which attacks entrepreneurship, penalises businesses for being successful and destroys employment opportunities for the public of WA. The government has already taken some steps to reduce payroll tax; these steps are significant because they demonstrate that, unlike our political opponents, this government recognises the penal and destructive nature of this tax. I would love to see us all work together to reduce payroll tax much further and, in an ideal world, eliminate it altogether. It may take years or it may even take a whole generation, but the benefits to continued growth and employment in this state would be vast. If we could do it quicker than other states, it would also provide us with a strong competitive advantage to attract new, labour-intensive businesses that would broaden and diversify our economy. Perhaps that is why some other states fight so hard to deny us our fair share of GST, which would help us cut payroll tax faster and deeper. As a lawyer, I have a strong commitment to the rule of law and to the premises that our legal system is based on, including the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair trial, and the onus of proof resting with the prosecution in criminal matters. There are rare occasions on which there may be some good public policy grounds to reverse the onus of proof, but I would like to see such occasions remain rare and I would want to examine each and every one of those occasions on their merit before agreeing to reverse such a fundamental principle of our justice system. However, I do believe that there is a strong community perception that our criminal justice system has tilted too far in favour of wrongdoers, and that it neither reflects the views of the law- abiding majority in our community nor provides the law-abiding majority with the protection from criminality that it expects and deserves. It is said that perception is nine-tenths of reality, and when such a perception becomes entrenched in society—that the criminal justice system provides some form of revolving door for wrongdoers—it can lead to a breakdown in faith and trust in the entire system. Although rehabilitation is a laudable aim of the criminal justice system, it should remain only one of the aims of that system, with deterrence and punishment for wrongdoing also being paramount elements in both maintaining trust in the system and ensuring the system properly protects innocent victims and law-abiding citizens. To rebuild trust, to achieve the right balance between wrongdoers and victims, and to send a strong message of support to the police on the ground, who do such a difficult job so well, we need to reassess which crimes should have mandatory minimum jail sentences imposed upon findings or admissions of guilt. In particular, we need to consider the application of such penalties to serious indictable offences such as murder, manslaughter, rape, other serious sexual offences including all sexual offences against minors, and serious assaults. Our community expects and deserves a criminal justice system that appropriately punishes people who commit such terrible crimes. I have a great passion for education because it is one of the most important factors in empowering individuals and allowing them to maximise their potential in life. I highly commend the government on its independent public schools initiative, which is bringing back control of local schools to local communities and ensuring that the values and needs of those communities are reflected in the education provided to their children. I am excited about the changes to the Western Australian Certificate of Education, which I worked on in my previous role. These major initiatives will give every senior secondary student in WA the opportunity to obtain either a university entry score or a certificate II in training, and also provide them with an Australia-first minimum standard in literacy and numeracy. This will equip every student with the skills needed for their adult life, and set them on the path of lifelong learning and maximisation of their individual potential. But there is still more to be
[COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] 925 done; in particular, we need to focus on providing more parental choice and control in areas such as selection of schools for their children. For too long, parents have been shut out of such choices, but as the IPS success has shown, parents are craving more choice and are demanding the ability to make the decisions they believe best benefit their children. We also need to keep building on the strong work this government has done to build the profile and quality of our state schools. As a product of a state school education, I believe we need to strive to make our state schools the best, not second best. I welcome the opportunity to come to this place and help build an even better state to provide even greater opportunities for future generations of Western Australians. I could not have done it without the support of my family and my great extended family in the Liberal Party. I have already expressed my gratitude to my wife but once again, thanks for everything, my angel. My parents were first generation migrants who worked hard and provided a strong example to me and my sister that you could succeed in Australia on merit as long as you applied yourself. Their work ethic, their strong moral compass, their thrift, their commitment to our orthodox Christian faith and a pride in our Hellenic heritage are things they have bestowed upon me that I will treasure for life. Like my parents did for me, I hope to continue to provide a positive example and role model for my own children, Ross, Nicolette, Andrew, Angelica and Zoe. The Liberal Party has been a true second family to me. I have grown up in the party, becoming actively involved in the Liberal students, the Young Liberals and the senior party. On coming to Western Australia, the wonderful members of the Liberal Party provided an immediate support network for Karalee and me. We hope we can repay you all with our commitment and our hard work over time. It is indeed a rare honour to represent the Liberal Party in two different state Parliaments and I pledge to live up to the faith you have shown in me by bestowing this honour upon me. And talking about serving in two different places, I really cannot resist throwing in this line, which some people suggested I start my speech with: “As I was saying when I was so rudely interrupted 10 years ago”. I just could not resist that, because it proves that politics can be a long and unpredictable journey and in my case I have been extremely lucky to have had some amazing people who have always believed in me and backed me through thick and thin. To my great friend and mentor Michael Kroger, a very big thank you for your friendship and your advice and for simply being there whenever I have called upon you. To Peter Costello, your intelligence and sense of purpose has demonstrated to me what can be achieved in politics and the positive legacy you can leave when you set your mind to it. To my uncle and great friend Lefteris Papanicolaou, a former member of the Greek Parliament, you have demonstrated that even in the most difficult of political circumstances, an unshakable commitment to core values and beliefs can help you rise above the pettiness of everyday politics. To Senator Mathias Cormann, thank you for taking a chance on another humble immigrant to Western Australia. The support and friendship from both you and Hayley is deeply appreciated by both Karalee and me. I wish you every success as a minister in the forthcoming federal Liberal government, and I hope you remember what I said about those Canberra mandarins! To the leader of the government in this place, Hon Peter Collier, I get to call you “boss” again! My time in your ministerial office was one of the best jobs I have ever had and we kicked some great goals to make education better for WA students. I look forward to working with you in this place and I wish you every success in continuing to improve education in this state. I do not say this lightly, but with your grasp of the portfolio and your commitment to better outcomes, I expect history to record you as the best education minister this state has ever had—or possibly equal best with someone else who is currently serving as our great Premier! To our wonderful personal friends here in WA, Rob Stanley and Ellie Steinhardt; Rosanna Capolingua and Paul Boyatsis; Marnie Brown and Jon Clancy; Lee and Brad Madigan; Mike and Nicola Henkel—thank you from both of us for all the love, friendship and support you have given us. You have helped make our transition to a new and sometimes intimidating place much easier. Thanks also to my mother-in-law, Diane Tilvern, for all of your great moral support to us both. To the team from Melbourne who flew over especially to support and assist me on election day, Bernie Finn, Georgia Letten, James Duncan, Chris Jermyn and Hamish Jones—you guys are true Liberal Party warriors and your assistance is not only appreciated but also will never be forgotten, and neither will our motto on election day, “Solid Freedom”. Thank you also to many other great Liberal friends here in Perth: Ben Morton and his team at Menzies House who did such a wonderful job in running a successful election campaign; federal Young Liberal president Tom White and WA Young Liberal president Whittney Jago; and to Simon Morgan, Brent Fleeton, Slade Brockman, Scott and Donna Faragher, Andrea Mitchell, Senator Michaelia Cash and all the other wonderful Liberals who have been of such great personal assistance to me. I am sure I have forgotten some names but rest assured I have not forgotten the help that everyone has given me over this journey. Mr President, I thank all honourable members for the indulgence in allowing me to speak today. I look forward to working cooperatively as part of the Barnett Liberal government to fight for WA’s fair share of GST revenue, to address the perceived imbalance between wrongdoers and law-abiding citizens in our criminal justice system, to continue to improve standards and choice in education and to help maintain and improve the high living standards and quality of life for all Western Australians. [Applause.]
926 [COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013]
HON SAMANTHA ROWE (East Metropolitan) [5.36 pm]: Mr President, I stand before you humbled to be part of this great institution, the Parliament of Western Australia, and to be delivering my maiden speech tonight to the Legislative Council. It is both an honour and a privilege to be elected to the thirty-ninth Parliament as a Labor member for the East Metropolitan Region. The East Metropolitan Region is an exciting area to represent. It is a diverse region that covers electorates from Mount Lawley to Armadale and the hills of Kalamunda to Midland. It takes in Perth Airport, Ascot Racecourse and the tourist attraction of the Swan Valley. I would like to acknowledge and congratulate my Labor colleagues in the East Metropolitan Region, Hon Alanna Clohesy and Hon Amber-Jade Sanderson, whom I look forward to working closely with over the next four years. And may I congratulate all new members in this place tonight. The process and procedures of Parliament can seem daunting at first, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, Mr President, the Clerks, the staff at Parliament and the government Whip for making the new members feel welcome and ensuring our transition is as smooth as possible. I appreciate the professionalism that has been extended to me, and as the Whip for the opposition, I look forward to having a strong working relationship with all of you in the chamber. Like every parliamentarian before me, I did not reach this position on my own. This opportunity afforded to me is the result of the hard work of many. The East Metropolitan Region is made up of 14 lower house seats and I would like to acknowledge the hard work of all our Labor candidates in the East Metropolitan Region including Tony Buti in Armadale, Dave Kelly in Bassendean, Cassie Rowe in Belmont, Barry Urban in Darling Range, Andrew Waddell in Forrestfield, Chris Tallentire in Gosnells, Mick Wainwright in Kalamunda, Lisa Baker in Maylands, Michelle Roberts in Midland, Janine Freeman in Mirrabooka, Reece Whitby in Morley, Bob Kucera in Mount Lawley, Ian Radisich in Swan Hills and Rita Saffioti in West Swan. I personally worked on the Belmont campaign committee for the past 12 months. I was glad to be part of a strong committee made up of Stephen Price, the campaign director, and Brendan McShanag, the campaign manager. We were supported by many: Peter O’Keeffe, Patrick Gardner, Barry Rowe, Lauren Cayoun, Sue Pethick, Merrilyn Ercegovich, Matt Dixon, Alana Herbert, Tim Hammond, Megan Anwyl and Eric Ripper. This was supplemented also by the work of the party office, under the direction of the state secretary, Simon Mead, and the assistant state secretary, Lenda Oshalem. As has been previously stated in this house, the Liberal-National Party alliance received between 57 and 58 per cent of the two-party preferred vote; the highest vote for any political party since 1917. It was clear that the tide was going out for Labor. In spite of these circumstances, we were able to hold the primary vote for Labor in Belmont; however, on a two-party preferred basis, a collapse in the vote of the minor parties led to a close Liberal victory in Belmont. The 2013 election result was a clear mandate and a strong victory for the Barnett government, and it is now incumbent on the government to deliver on its promises. I am also confident that WA Labor has the capacity to rebuild from this electoral defeat and provide a strong alternative at the next election. It is worth noting that even though Western Australia has public funding for elections, the parties are not starting from an even playing field. The Liberal Party had an enormous financial advantage in the 2013 election that WA Labor was unable to compete with. I believe this issue should be above party politics, and reform is fundamental to protect the integrity of the democratic process. My family has been a constant source of inspiration and encouragement to me, and have helped shape the person I am today. They are my mum and dad; my sister, Cassie Rowe; my brother-in-law, Patrick Gardner; and my beautiful baby niece, Bobby Rowe-Gardner. I thank you all for being you. My dad, Hon Barry Rowe, was a minister in Victoria, and my mum, Helen Rowe, was recently awarded life membership of the WA Labor Party. I am grateful to have grown up in a household where issues of social justice were debated around the kitchen table. To my partner, my husband Tom Hodgkins, I want to thank you for your unwavering love, support and belief in me. Tom has an optimistic outlook on life and always believes in doing the right thing—a quality I greatly admire. I would like to thank my godparents, Ron Curwood and Rob Grimmer, close family friends, Colin Clarke and Carol Jordan, and my mother-in-law and father-in-law, Julie and David Hodgkins, who all travelled from interstate to assist in the campaign for my election to Parliament. A number of family, friends and business associates helped extensively during the campaign; unfortunately, I cannot list them all, but they know who they are and I thank them. However, I would like to acknowledge the Belmont branch of the Labor Party, and the network of supporters who worked tirelessly. I would like to acknowledge and thank a number of people tonight who assisted in my journey to Parliament. Joe Bullock, secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association of WA, and Stephen Price, secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union. They were strong advocates and mentors through the preselection process, and I extend my heartfelt gratitude to both of them. Since entering Parliament I have received support and guidance from Hon Kate Doust, Hon Michelle Roberts, Hon Sue Ellery, and for my current role as Whip, Hon Ed Dermer.
[COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] 927
I am a proud member of the WA branch of the Transport Workers’ Union. Unfortunately, Rick Burton, secretary of the union, is unable to be here tonight. Affiliated trade unions are the backbone of the Australian Labor Party. I have great respect for the role of trade unions in society. Unions work as a collective to fight for the rights of many of the lowest paid workers in society. The Labor Party is proud of the work unions do to ensure that the rights of workers are protected now and in the future. It is worth remembering that the introduction of the eight- hour working day and public holidays, as well as the provision of sick leave, annual leave, leave loading and universal superannuation are all enjoyed due to the hard work of the Australian trade union movement. There are few more noble professions than the dedication of a career to the betterment of others. I look forward to being an advocate for the protection of workplace rights in my role as a member of the Legislative Council. My introduction to the WA branch of the Labor Party started six years ago when I moved to Perth, and the former state secretary, Bill Johnston, employed me as the executive officer for the Labor Business Roundtable. This opportunity meant I was able to establish relationships with the WA business community and industry associations. I am proud of my time at the Labor Business Roundtable, as I was able to promote a strong dialogue between Labor members of Parliament and the WA business community. I consider it a privilege to have worked for the Labor Party—an organisation I truly believe in. During my four years with the Labor Party, I was fortunate to work with many inspired and like-minded people, all striving to realise our shared values. From the Labor Business Roundtable I joined the American Chamber of Commerce, where I was employed for the last 19 months as the business development manager, under the leadership of the general manager, Penelope Williamson. The American Chamber of Commerce is Australia’s largest chamber of commerce; it works to promote trade, commerce and investment between Australia and the United States, and in the Asia–Pacific region. It was another great opportunity to work closely with hundreds of the leading businesses in WA. It has been an absolute honour to work alongside women of such calibre in my role at AmCham, and I would like to thank my former colleagues for their support and friendship. I joined the Labor Party at the age of 17. Growing up in the Hawke-Keating era meant I was heavily influenced by their policies and the way they shaped our nation. Not only did they open up the Australian economy, but also they embraced trade with the Asia-Pacific region. They introduced native title legislation, and compulsory superannuation to help working people have a more dignified retirement. In the present context, I am immensely proud that the first female Australian Prime Minister, Hon Julia Gillard, is a Labor Prime Minister. The federal Labor government is responsible for revolutionary policies, including the national broadband network, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, paid parental leave and the historic investment into the education system, to name a few. At a state level, WA Labor has delivered a range of political and social reforms. These include upgrades to the state’s industrial and labour laws, and Labor was at the forefront of a spirit of reconciliation to the resolution of native title. WA Labor stopped the logging of the state’s old-growth forests, creating a record number of new national parks; restructured the state’s electricity and racing industries; and started construction of the Perth– Mandurah railway and the associated city rail tunnel. Our history is testament to the fact that the Labor Party has delivered significant and positive changes to the nation and the state of WA. I would now like to talk about other issues that are close to me. The first is equality for women. Although I appreciate we have come a long way in equality for women over the years, I believe we still have a long way to go in achieving full participation for women in every facet of society, be it at an economic, social or public level. There is still a pay gap of 26 per cent in WA between what women working full-time earn, in comparison with men. This is the highest gender pay gap in the country. Financial independence and empowerment should not be a luxury bestowed only on men. Equality for women in the form of equal pay for the same work, more flexible work environments to genuinely encourage workplace participation for women, particularly mothers, is of paramount importance; the role of a government is to foster and facilitate such changes in our society. Everyone in this great state of ours should be afforded the opportunity for employment. Education empowers individuals and provides greater choices for employment. That is why the Gallop Labor government changed the legislation to require all 16 and 17-year-olds to be in education or training, thus allowing them the opportunity to gain qualifications to find meaningful employment. It is the state government’s responsibility to ensure that our children are provided the very best start in life regardless of their postcode. That means adequately investing in our public school system. If children fall through the cracks of the education system, we, as legislators, are failing them. We owe it to the next generation to make sure that we do the utmost so that every child has a fair and equitable start in life. With my business background, I recognise that it is critically important to have a strong economy and to ensure that everyone is provided the opportunity to gain employment. The extraordinary level of growth from the past decade in WA delivers the responsibility to policymakers to ensure that the state retains this economic value into the future.
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The mining industry is vital to the prosperity of WA. However, I believe that more could be achieved in relation to local content to ensure that the benefits of the mining industry are shared by local small businesses, apprentices and manufacturing businesses. I believe WA is the engine room of the Australian economy. The success of the mining and resource industries makes our economy the envy of the nation. There are a number of important industries in the East Metropolitan Region, including the mining services industry, the transport industry and the racing industry. I particularly want to acknowledge the importance of the racing industry, which is the second-largest industry by employment in WA. The WA racing industry contributes nearly $600 million in value to the WA economy and it is crucial that this industry receives strong support. It is imperative that the state government and policymakers do everything possible to ensure that the economy is diversified and our younger generations are appropriately skilled and ready for the challenges this region will face over the coming century. A government’s role should be to support, manage and foster a strong and diversified economy. A strong economy provides jobs for working people. Regardless of our religious views, it is hard to disagree with Pope Francis’s view on poverty. Recently, the Pope referred to “a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy, which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal”. Whilst we have a strong economy here in WA, there is an alarming disparity between those who are benefiting from our economy and those who have been left behind. All too often this issue is swept under the carpet. I would like to see policies that look to address poverty for Western Australians—single parents, pensioners and young people alike. It is estimated that more than one in every eight Australians are living below the poverty line. In a resource-rich state such as WA it is simply not good enough that many in our community are unable to afford to pay for heating, cooling, medication or even regular meals. During the course of the election campaign I heard many distressing stories of poverty. I will quote one example of a pensioner who said he stayed in bed during winter just to keep warm because he could not afford to put the heater on. Others told of borrowing money from their neighbours to pay their electricity bills. The concept of broadening equality within our community is not political; it transgresses the established belief system of our society. What did someone who is poor do to deserve that situation? Almost universally, nothing, of course, and as a trade-off, we must do something to address this. It is an injustice that is not chosen and not aspired to. No-one grew up wanting to be poor and without the basic necessities of life. Why do I want to be a member of Parliament? The answer is simple: I believe in social justice. I want to assist those in society who are most in need. I want to promote a more equitable community here in WA. What better way to achieve this than by influencing and shaping public policy and creating a voice for those who do not have one. Mr President, I want to conclude with a quote I heard at a forum recently from someone very close to me who said that politicians should be bold in their pursuit of their convictions. I agree. We must not be afraid to do what we know is right and to be courageous in our decision-making processes. I have been entrusted to represent the people of the East Metropolitan Region and I intend to do so with empathy, integrity and determination. I intend to make every day count. Thank you, Mr President. [Applause.] The PRESIDENT: Congratulations. Members, the question is that the motion be agreed to. I would give the call back to Hon Ken Baston, but given the circumstances of him being interrupted many times and the fact that we are only a couple of minutes out, I will instead leave the chair until the ringing of the bells. Sitting suspended from 5.57 to 7.30 pm The PRESIDENT: Members, we are dealing with order of the day No. 1, Address-in-Reply, and I give the call to the Leader of the House. HON PETER COLLIER (North Metropolitan — Leader of the House) [7.30 pm]: I move — That the debate be adjourned until a later stage of the sitting. By way of explanation, I have a couple of bills to read in. Question put and passed. Debate thus adjourned. [Continued on page 931.]
NATURAL GAS (CANNING BASIN JOINT VENTURE) AGREEMENT BILL 2013 Receipt and First Reading Bill received from the Assembly; and, on motion by Hon Peter Collier (Leader of the House), read a first time.
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Second Reading HON PETER COLLIER (North Metropolitan — Leader of the House) [7.31 pm]: I move — That the bill be now read a second time. The purpose of this bill is to ratify and authorise the implementation of an agreement, scheduled to the bill, between the state and Buru Energy Limited, Diamond Resources (Fitzroy) Pty Ltd and Diamond Resources (Canning) Pty Ltd—collectively the joint venturers under the agreement—and Mitsubishi Corporation to promote the natural gas exploration and development of the area of certain petroleum exploration permits in the Canning Basin region of Western Australia. The state is interested in the potential of the onshore Canning Basin to meet future domestic gas requirements and make a significant long-term contribution to Western Australia’s economy and economic growth. The agreement concerns the establishment by the joint venturers of a domgas project, subject to them proving up sufficient natural gas from the agreement’s title areas, initially comprising five key petroleum permits, and the joint venturers being satisfied such a project is technically and economically viable. The agreement also envisages that the joint venturers may undertake a further liquefied natural gas pipeline project to deliver natural gas to an LNG production facility within an LNG precinct. In order to encourage accelerated expenditure by the joint venturers, some provisions of the Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Resources Act 1967 will be modified by the agreement, including to allow the five key permits to be renewed twice—within a limited suspension period—without the normal 50 per cent relinquishment obligation. The limited suspension of relinquishment obligations recognises that proving the technical and economic feasibility of gas production will require years of expenditure and technical development. The agreement in return obliges the joint venturers to continue to explore and evaluate the title areas to prove up sufficient natural gas for the establishment and sustained operation of a domgas project. The agreement recognises the current uncertainty as to the extent of natural gas reserves within the title areas and its ability to be produced economically. Accordingly, the state has agreed that the agreement can be determined upon notice from the joint venturers during the first quarter of 2016, under clause 35 of schedule 1, for one or more of the following reasons: the joint venturers have been unable to prove up sufficient reserves of natural gas within the title areas; or their preparatory work leads them to conclude that the production of natural gas for a domgas project is not technically or economically viable. The agreement does not include oil discoveries and their commercialisation. The focus of the agreement is on exploring and proving up natural gas resources. Petroleum titles: The agreement allows for further petroleum exploration permits or petroleum drilling reservations held solely by one or more of the joint venturers within the Canning Basin to also be included in the agreement after 31 March 2016 subject to the state agreement minister’s approval and satisfaction that the title is prospective for natural gas and such approval would facilitate the objects of the agreement. The domgas project: In summary, the domgas project will involve the production of domgas in a treatment plant from natural gas obtained from within the title areas, and other areas with the consent of the state agreement minister, and the construction and operation of a pipeline commencing from a treatment plant within the title areas and extending to and connecting to the domestic gas pipeline network in the north west of Western Australia. The agreement provides in clause 10 for the joint venturers and the state agreement minister to agree on a corridor within which the joint venturers may construct their domgas pipeline. The agreement provides in clause 34 for the joint venturers, after the domgas project operation date and with the state agreement minister’s consent, to sell or otherwise dispose of such pipeline out of the agreement. LNG project: The liquefied natural gas project will in summary involve the construction and operation of a pipeline commencing from within the title areas and extending to and connecting to an LNG production facility within an LNG precinct, or to a third party pipeline to the LNG production facility for the production of LNG for export. The relevant LNG precinct will be agreed between the joint venturers and the state agreement minister. The LNG pipeline must be a separate pipeline to the domgas pipeline. The joint venturers may not submit proposals for the LNG pipeline project until after all their proposals for the domgas project have been submitted. Furthermore, their proposals for the LNG pipeline project may not be approved until all proposals for the domgas project have been approved. In relation to the LNG pipeline project, the agreement may be determined by agreement to allow that project to continue outside the agreement. I would also mention the following important provisions of the agreement.
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Community and social benefits: The joint venturers acknowledge in clause 6 of the agreement the need for community and social benefits to flow from the agreement. The joint venturers must prepare plans that describe their strategies for achieving such benefits in connection with the projects. Local industry participation benefits: The joint venturers acknowledge in clause 7 of the agreement the need for local industry participation benefits to flow from the agreement. The joint venturers must prepare plans to maximise local industry uses and procurement. Domgas commitment: Under clause 8 of the agreement the parties acknowledge their common aspiration that, subject to the joint venturers proving up sufficient reserves of natural gas within the title areas, they will progressively and continuously make available for sale into the Western Australian domestic gas market a certain quantity of domgas, produced as part of the domgas project from natural gas obtained from within the title areas, over a certain period as set out in that clause. Clause 8 of the agreement sets out the joint venturers’ obligations with respect to the marketing and making available of domgas for sale, including petrochemical feed stocks. In the event that liquefied natural gas for export is being produced, or is to be produced, from natural gas obtained from within the title areas, the joint venturers shall be obliged to market domgas consistent with the state’s domestic gas reservation policy that applies at the time. Access obligations in respect of project pipelines: Clause 8 of the agreement requires the joint venturers to comply with and observe the laws in force in Western Australia governing access by other parties to the project pipelines. Commercialisation of natural gas from the title areas: Clause 19 imposes restrictions on the joint venturers’ ability to sell, dispose or otherwise commercialise or permit the commercialisation of natural gas obtained from within the title areas other than by means of infrastructure and activities comprising the domgas project or the LNG project. Local content obligations: The agreement imposes standard state agreement local content obligations upon the joint venturers in respect of both the domgas project and the LNG project. Term of the agreement: The agreement provides for an initial term of 25 years with the ability for the state agreement minister to extend it for a further period of up to 25 years. By entering into this agreement, the government is encouraging accelerated large-scale investment in the exploration and evaluation of natural gas resources in the highly prospective Canning Basin region, with a view to the establishment and sustained operation of a domgas project and, if the joint venturers so wish, of an LNG pipeline project. The state desires to facilitate such developments for the purposes of promoting industrial development in Western Australia generally and energy security in particular. Pursuant to standing order 126(1), I advise that this bill is not a uniform legislation bill. It does not ratify or give effect to an intergovernmental or multilateral agreement by which the government of the state is a party; nor does this bill, by reason of its subject matter, introduce a uniform scheme or uniform laws throughout the commonwealth. I commend the bill to the house and I table the explanatory memorandum. [See paper 278.] Debate adjourned, pursuant to standing orders. SUPPLY BILL 2013 Receipt and First Reading Bill received from the Assembly; and, on motion by Hon Helen Morton (Minister for Mental Health), read a first time. Second Reading HON HELEN MORTON (East Metropolitan — Minister for Mental Health) [7.35 pm]: I move — That the bill be now read a second time. This bill seeks supply and appropriation from the consolidated account for recurrent and capital purposes during the 2013–14 financial year of $7.942 billion out of the consolidated account pending the passage of the consolidated account appropriation bills for the year ending 30 June 2014. Supply is an integral element of the Westminster system of government and successive state governments and Parliaments in Western Australia have accepted and understood that the intent of supply is to give authority for expenditure from the commencement of a new financial year pending the passage of the consolidated account appropriation bills.
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Each year through the budget process, authority is granted to agencies to spend public funds through the passing of annual appropriation bills. The funding is supplied to agencies for services provided in the coming financial year. Usually with a May budget, the appropriation bills are passed by 30 June, and supply is therefore provided to agencies for the coming financial year. With an August budget, this is not the case, and a supply bill is required. While the Financial Management Act 2006 provides two months’ automatic supply if supply is not granted before the end of the financial year, it is anticipated that the 2013–14 budget will not complete its passage through Parliament until the end of September 2013. As such, a stand-alone supply bill authorising supply for this period is required. An August budget will allow time for ministers to critically look at the spending of each of our departments. By considering all existing policies, each minister can then prioritise with the aim of delivering programs more effectively and implementing new election commitments. This bill appropriates the consolidated account in aggregate pending the subsequent detailed appropriations. These moneys may be issued and applied to the works, services and purposes for which the consolidated account was appropriated by Parliament for the financial year ending 30 June 2013; or, in respect of which payments of an extraordinary or unforeseen nature were charged against the consolidated account in respect of the financial year ending 30 June 2013 under the Financial Management Act 2006. The bill prescribes a general monetary limit on the drawings against the consolidated account. By so doing, it overcomes the problems that otherwise could arise by prescribing monetary limits in respect of the individual appropriation that were detailed in the 2012–13 estimates of expenditure. Pursuant to standing order 126(1), I advise that this bill is not a uniform legislation bill. It does not ratify or give effect to an intergovernmental or multilateral agreement to which the government of the state is a party; nor does this bill, by reason of its subject matter, introduce a uniform scheme or uniform laws throughout the commonwealth. I commend the bill to the house and I table the explanatory memorandum. [See paper 277.] Debate adjourned, pursuant to standing orders. JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE CORRUPTION AND CRIME COMMISSION Assembly Membership Message from the Assembly received and read notifying that the member for Churchlands and the member for Warnbro had been appointed to the Joint Standing Committee on the Corruption and Crime Commission. JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE COMMISSIONER FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE Assembly Membership Message from the Assembly received and read notifying that the member for Maylands and the member for Perth had been appointed to the Joint Standing Committee on the Commissioner for Children and Young People. ADDRESS-IN-REPLY Motion Resumed from an earlier stage of the sitting. HON KEN BASTON (Mining and Pastoral — Minister for Agriculture and Food) [7.45 pm]: I certainly have some time left. At the last instance I was talking about the South Korean sugar mill that was in Kununurra. That was when we were in opposition and the owners ended up walking away from the mill. The minister responsible at the time was Hon Kim Chance and the government ended up paying some $4 million for that mill so the sugar cane harvest could be put through that year. We are looking at a very exciting era for Kununurra, but we need to make sure that these regional areas will be sustainable places where people want to live their lives and, of course, where business wants to invest. If business invests, the rest will virtually follow, and we will have successful communities that can grow and there will be a cradle-to-grave situation. I was there on Australia Day this year and there is a marvellous program in which each child born in Kununurra over a year is given a little boab tree that people can plant in their backyard. There is a plaque down by Lake Kununurra that has all the names of all the children born in that year, which is quite novel. I guess it is fine while someone is not breeding a lot of children, otherwise their place would be overtaken by boab trees! While I am talking about that northern area, the Kimberley, there are a lot of pastoral leases there, with most of the land tenure under pastoral lease. At the end of last November, not long before we rose, a statement was made in this house about the pastoral land tenure. There have been some difficulties with some of the proposals that
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Hon Wendy Duncan read out at that time—namely, the hurdles of getting over native title in some of these issues. We will persevere and continue, because it is extremely important for the development of Western Australia, not just for the Kimberley, but for other pastoral leases in the rangelands. Another important thing is diversification and the ability to diversify out of just the grazing rights with things such as growing hay and other crops with pivot irrigation to feed cattle or stock. We have to then take that forward so there is a better opportunity to meet different markets other than just the live export market to Indonesia where animals have to be 350 kilograms—if they go over that weight, they cannot be sent there—and some of those animals then, of course, go to Egypt after that. If we can have feedlot systems and the feed, and have better control and supply, it would be beneficial to that industry. The problem with the present land act is that our diversification permit is not necessarily transferable and therefore, if the capital invested is not necessarily transferable, it is not realised and it is a hindrance to those who want to invest further. That of course needs to be changed in this new legislation when we finally get to it. I heard something interesting from a minister from the Northern Territory at a Standing Council on Primary Industries meeting at which all the agriculture ministers were present. The Northern Territory has got to perpetual lease, and looking at diversification there has been extremely important. Providing 30-year leases for diversification on the pastoral leases in the Kimberley is being looked at to encourage that investment to go further. Another important event coming up in the Mining and Pastoral Region is the anniversary of the landing of Dirk Hartog and I bring it to the attention of this house. On 25 October 2016 it will be the 400th year since the first European set foot on the Western Australian coastline. That was at Cape Inscription, which is north west of Denham in Shark Bay. I chaired a committee that looked at what we needed to do to celebrate that event and the value to be gained for the region from that. Shark Bay, of course, received its World Heritage listing at the end of the 1980s I think. It probably has not received any great advantage out of this listing, but it does give it the opportunity to become a major tourism destination. I believe this celebration can put Shark Bay on the map. We need to invite the Dutch and British royalty, as well as the Indonesians, bearing in mind that their ships were sailing to the west coast of Australia and then turned north and headed up to Java to trade in spices. Of course, it was when the likes of Dirk Hartog ran off course that they found themselves on our shores. Shark Bay is an interesting little town. It received World Heritage listing for its stromatolites but it also has unique dwellings made from pressed shell blocks. For those members who have not been to Shark Bay, it is worth going to see. Many of the station homesteads were made out of pressed shell as well. Basically, blocks were cut out of pressed shell with a bowsaw; they were turned into bricks, some lime was put on them and they were used for building at such places as the Carbla, Yaringa and Hamelin Pool pastoral stations. Of course, Denham has quite a few buildings that have been built in this way; and, in fact, one of my favourite restaurants is made out of shell grit brick. In talking about the north once again, one of the people I want to acknowledge, but who passed away recently, is Ernie Bridge, who was the first Aboriginal to be elected as a member of Parliament anywhere in Australia, and also the first Aboriginal to hold a ministry in any Australian government. He was a very fierce advocate for the Kimberley and famous for his plan to pipe water down to Perth. I got to know Ernie in probably only the last three or four years while travelling backwards and forwards to my electorate in Broome, when he was often on the plane with me. I was very privileged to have numerous discussions with Ernie on development in the Kimberley and where he saw it should go in the future. I never got the opportunity to fly around and look at some of the areas that he talked of, where dams could be built et cetera, and the value that he could see from that in the future. I wanted to comment on one other thing, which is the motion moved by Hon Simon O’Brien. Unfortunately, time ran out; as it was one of Hon Simon O’Brien’s very good motions, everyone wanted to talk to it. It was a very good motion about keeping people out of the prisons. Having been on the Standing Committee on Public Administration in the previous Parliament, I had the opportunity to visit quite a few jails—Roebourne and Broome Regional Prisons, the new prison at Derby and Bandyup Women’s Prison. Hon Alyssa Hayden: As a visitor, I hope! Hon KEN BASTON: Yes; in fact, I visited the new Derby prison on three occasions; it is fantastic. I want to touch on that topic, because it costs a lot of money to house prisoners. Certainly we need correctional institutions, but we need also to look at how we can turn some of those prisoners around. The prison population in jails such as Roebourne and Broome comprises 98 per cent Aboriginal people, and something like 50 per cent are there because they did not have a driver’s licence. I was very pleased that in its previous budget, the government allocated some $6 million to teach driving skills, so that these people can come out of prison with a driver’s licence and have some hope of getting employment. But this new prison—it is the only one in Australia in this sense—has an oval in the middle, so that the prisoners can have their own football team, and the prison is split up into cluster home–type things. There are seven prisoners to a house, and they do their own cooking and washing et cetera. Of course, many of these people have never learnt to run a house properly, so they are taught housekeeping. There are 120-odd places for male prisoners and 30 for females, and there are two separate areas
[COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] 933 with separate shops et cetera. They can also undertake TAFE training in subjects such as welding and motor mechanics. I think it is a fantastic advancement, and I will watch it closely to see how it sits there in the Kimberley. It is on about 60 acres of land—it is a large area—and I think the $120 million that the government spent on it was well and truly worth it. I think there will actually be other football teams coming in to play, and I see Roebourne Regional Prison is now following that line. The other thing I wanted to mention was the police and community youth centres—somebody has touched on those; I really support them. I have been in and seen what Broome PCYC is like and what it provides for the kids. It runs a course there, in conjunction with the education department, sponsored by Woodside; I sincerely hope that continues, even though the James Price Point LNG plant has been put to one side. Unfortunately, an offence actually had to be committed before it could attract federal government funding to do that type of course. Of course, Gerard Neesham’s football coaching or clinics are very, very popular; the institute of training is also a major player. One thing I did forget is that the PCYC organises inter-town boxing; it is becoming very, very popular. There are fights at Roebourne, Broome and up to Kununurra, and members of the public are encouraged to go along. I wish all new members all the best for their time in this house—welcome! I know they will enjoy it and I hope they have a productive and responsible four years, and that after that time they will feel as though they have achieved something for the state of Western Australia. I will now finish my speech four minutes early; it may have been a couple of days long — Hon Col Holt: Adjourn it! Hon KEN BASTON: I am not going to adjourn it again. Thank you very much, Mr President. The PRESIDENT: The question is that the motion be agreed to; Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich to resume her contribution to the Address-in-Reply. HON LJILJANNA RAVLICH (North Metropolitan) [7.58 pm]: I welcome the opportunity to do so. In terms of the Governor’s speech, I have already canvassed a number of areas, but I want to move on to the area of economic development, which is a real weakness of the current government. I am just amazed at the mess this government has got itself into. Certainly, it is spending at a rate that has not been seen before in this state, and the revenue side, unfortunately, is nowhere near what was anticipated by the government. The Treasurer and the Premier, no doubt, find themselves in a spot of bother as things currently stand. I just want to quickly go through some of the debt levels. I want to put on the public record that when Labor left office, it had debt very much under control. In September 2008, the debt level was somewhere around the $3 billion mark. The Economic and Fiscal Outlook: Budget Paper No. 3 shows total public debt in 2012–13 as $18.59 billion. That will continue to trend upwards over the forward estimates. By 2013–14, total public debt will increase to $22.17 billion and in 2014–15 that will increase to $23.15 billion. Quite clearly, these are phenomenal rates of state debt. There is no doubt that a very hefty interest bill accompanies that debt. That is money that is paid to debt servicing at the expense of being put into those areas of need such as health, education and law and order. There is not much to show for this level of debt, which has been basically built up by this government. We have not seen any reductions in waiting lists for people in hospitals wanting access to treatment in the public health system. In fact, we are seeing those waiting lists grow. Electorate offices are inundated with calls from people looking for assistance for access to public housing. Time and again they are turned away and we have the unfortunate duty of telling those people that the best we can do is put them on a waiting list and chances are they may be considered in two or three years, such is the extraordinary length of the waiting list for public housing. The prisons are in a terrible state from overcrowding. I have provided figures that show the prison population has grown by close to 1 000 extra prisoners in the system, with no additional prison facilities to accommodate them. Hon Simon O’Brien: That is blatantly false. Hon LJILJANNA RAVLICH: It is not blatantly false, Hon Simon O’Brien. Hon Simon O’Brien: We spent over $600 million on new prisons. Get off the grass! Hon LJILJANNA RAVLICH: If the member does not like it, he can get up and have a say. If the member wants to prove me wrong, get up and prove me wrong. The member will get his turn. Further, we can see the police resources coming under increased pressure. We know from the Stokes report into mental health services across the state that mental health is a mess. We also know that our transport system is a mess. One has only to be on a freeway, a main arterial road or even a suburban road to see the number of rat runs that are increasingly developing because the main arterial roads in and out of the city and also into major areas are pretty much blocked all the time.
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A lot of money is being spent but the situation seems to be getting worse rather than better. Obviously, the debt problem that has been created by the Treasurer and the Premier needs to be addressed. The way it will be addressed is through a number of corrective measures. Some of those corrective measures, or the ones in large part that will be administered as medicine, will be achieved by making cuts to public services. There will be a major requirement for cuts to a range of services right across the board in the form of a general government efficiency dividend. Just out of interest, in 2012–13 that dividend will net this government $244 million, which will then almost double in 2013–14 to $394 million, which will have to be harvested from savings across government agencies. By 2014–15, the amount that will need to be harvested increases to $553 million and in 2015–16, $709 million must be found across already stretched public services. In total, that is $1.89 billion that will be taken from the forward estimates right across key government service agencies such as health, education and law and order. Some other corrective measures will be put in place such as the deferral of royalties for regions spending and government trading enterprise efficiency dividends. The major government trading enterprises such as power and water are already being used as cash cows for the government and no doubt they will continue to be. This is a very, very bad sign for households because most households are already stretched to find the money to pay their electricity and water bills, and more will be harvested. Those people on the other side who say that what I am saying is ridiculous ought to familiarise themselves with page 10 of the 2012–13 Economic and Fiscal Outlook: Budget Paper No 3. We do not have to be rocket scientists to understand it. If members want to know what is going on in this state and across government agencies in service delivery, they should familiarise themselves with it, understand it and know how it works. Then they might have an understanding rather than just bleating the government’s lines. Government members should have an understanding of what exactly is going on and then they might be able to speak with some authority. The point that I am making is that whilst the current situation is bad, no doubt gloomy clouds are forming and it will get much, much worse. That should be of concern to all of us. It is a bit hard to work out what is going on because we hear that more resource projects are being either approved or under consideration now than ever before in the history of the state. One would think that if that were the case, there would be a great feeling of optimism out there and the government would have the revenue it needs and would not be running up such levels of debt. One has to ask oneself: What is so wrong? What is happening? A very, very interesting magazine called Prospect magazine is brought out by the Department of Mines and Petroleum, for which Hon Norman Moore was the previous minister. I went back to look at what was happening in the resource sector in March 2008 to compare it with what is currently happening in resource project approvals or considerations. There has been a significant increase in the resource projects that are underway, approved or under consideration. Prospect magazine from March 2008, under “Significant resource projects underway or planned in Western Australia” reads — Western Australia continues to lead the way as Australia’s No.1 resources investment destination, with more than $100 billion worth of projects either underway or planned over the next few years. These projects will create more than 38,000 construction jobs and more than 9,000 permanent jobs. That was a very busy time. I can remember it because it was a boom time. One could not get into the front foyer of Parliament House because of the number of developers in the foyer wanting to do business and wanting to show things to the government of the day. One could not get a meeting room in this place because of the number of people wanting to meet ministers. Fast forward to March 2013, it is stated in the same Prospect magazine under the heading “Significant resource projects in Western Australia” — Western Australia continues to lead the way as Australia’s premier resources investment destination. There are more than A$175 billion worth of projects either committed or under consideration for the State during the next few years. These will create more than 50,000 construction jobs and more than 15,000 permanent jobs. If that was the case, members would think there would be amazing optimism out there; there would be increased revenue flowing to the state; the level of confidence within our economy would be great; and the demand for goods and services would be heightened or increased. But that is not the case. That is certainly not what I see. We have a government that complains about not having the revenue to do what it wants. The government is borrowing money to undertake its projects. We see a government that is raking up a level of debt that is unprecedented in the history of the state, yet we have a situation, demonstrated by what I have just read out from the government’s own departmental magazine, that indicates that this place should be humming like never before. Because of the mess this government has got itself into, everybody will be paying the price. Government agencies will be paying the price. They will be cutting back services, and staff will be cut right across the board. There is no doubt about that. Consumers, Western Australian taxpayers and householders will all be slugged. Quite simply, we find ourselves in a terrible situation. It is one that has been brought about by an irresponsible government and an irresponsible Premier who is just out of control. I want to quickly take members back to a report that was spoken about in 2008; that is, the Economic Audit Committee’s report titled “Putting the Public First”. It was billed as a major reform for this government.
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Remember, we went to the election in September 2008. As soon as the government was elected into office, the first thing the new Treasurer said, in November 2008, was that the financial statements showed that a new government inherited a budget in trouble. That is when our level of debt was $3 billion, and that was a government in trouble! As a result of that, by November the Treasurer announced that a public service performance review was underway to find out how costs could be cut because of this $3 billion worth of debt. In November, he was still talking about the need to tighten our belts. By December 2008, the Treasurer, Troy Buswell, said that the new government would address the emerging budget deficit and debt. One of the key ways in which he would do that was to put in place an Economic Audit Committee inquiry. He first of all put forward an economic audit discussion paper. That was released on 30 July 2009. Subsequent to that he put in place a full audit committee, which was to be chaired by Dr Shergold, I think it was. That Economic Audit Committee discussion paper was basically the blueprint about how the government would deal with a whole range of reforms that were going to put it on the front foot, reduce the level of debt, ensure that everything was operating efficiently, and so forth. In fact, that audit committee comprised Dr Peter Shergold, former secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet; John Langoulant, chief executive of Australian Capital Equity; and a number of other key people. Really, the point that I am going to make is that at the time, which was November 2008—Wednesday, 19 November specifically—when Troy Buswell announced the public service performance review in the form of the template, if you like, for the establishment of the Economic Audit Committee, which subsequently led to the Economic Audit Committee report that was subtitled “Putting the Public First: Partnering with the Community and Business to Deliver Outcomes”, he basically said that on that day he had set in motion the most significant examination of the operational and financial performance of the Western Australian public sector since the landmark McCarrey report commissioned by a previous incoming Liberal government under Richard Court in 1993. That was in 2008. That report was done, it was made public, and to all intents and purposes the government was committed to the implementation of this major reform program. I have to say that after the great big hoo-ha about how great this report was, how it would reform the public sector as we know it and how it was going to produce all these efficiencies, the fact is that anyone who has followed the development of the work of the Treasurer or, indeed, the evolution of this “Putting the Public First” report would know that it has been the biggest fizzer in history. I think that the public has a right to know what is going on here or what has gone wrong here. A number of very key recommendations were made in this report, and a number of recommendations should have been of very great concern to many people right across the public sector and outside the public sector. I will not go into the area of the funding of non-government organisations because we have done that often in this place, but I want to quickly touch on a number of recommendations. One of the recommendations made in that report, “Putting the Public First: Partnering with the Community and Business to Deliver Outcomes”—the final report was in October 2009—was recommendation 8, which referred to strengthening the evidence base for decision-making through a number of things, including, at paragraph (c), requiring that major agencies undertake a value-for-money audit at least once every five years. We know that this has been happening to some extent, because the other day I asked a question of the minister representing the Treasurer about that specific recommendation. I asked in part — (1) To date which agencies have had a value-for-money audit? (2) Who undertook those audits and at what cost? The Treasurer advised that the Departments of Education, Health, Commerce, Environment and Conservation, Housing, Planning, Transport and Western Australia Police have had a value-for-money audit undertaken by PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and Ernst and Young at a cost of $2.291 million. These audits have been done. The police say that its audit showed that WA Police were already operating pretty close to the bone. The audits were to find out where the fat is in the system of these agencies, what they could be doing better and how they could become more efficient. When Dr Karl O’Callaghan came before the Standing Committee on Estimates and Financial Operations on Thursday, 11 October 2012 and was asked whether an efficiency audit had been undertaken of WA Police, he responded — The very nature of the term “efficiency dividends” means that you need to become more efficient. One of the things I can point you to if you want some better advice about that is last year’s PricewaterhouseCoopers value-for-money audit of the Western Australia Police. One of the things that it raised in that audit is that there is not a lot of wastage or fat to make significant savings; in other words, the agency was running reasonably leanly and efficiently at the time. You can make as many changes to the budget profile as you like, as long as you accept that that has an impact somewhere on some level of service delivery. I know from questions I have asked that, like all agencies, WA Police has been asked to make further savings. The fact is that if anyone here believes for a moment that these savings will not impact on front-line services, they are away with the fairies. That is really concerning. It is just an example of what is going on across the public sector. It is one very minor example of how bad things are. Those audits across the seven agencies are just
936 [COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] the start. I am sure audits are due to be done on other agencies, because all major agencies were due to have a value-for-money audit done within the first five years of this government. This is the fifth year, so they should all have been done. The other issue I want to point out, which is the big bogeyman here, is recommendation 23 of the Economic Audit Committee report, which states — Agencies be required to routinely review their activities with a view to evaluating their sustainability for exposure to competition from the private and community sectors. Its deadline was for it to take effect immediately. Obviously, this work has been happening deep in the bowels of organisations. In other words, agencies have had to be looking at activities they perform that they believe could be better performed by the private sector so they can get them ready for sale. This is the whole idea. The other day Treasurer Buswell was quoted in the paper as saying that he would not really be selling off the ports; he was just going to sell parts of what they do. I am putting it on the public record that Treasurer Buswell needs to tell us exactly what he has planned for the ports in this state. We want to know what he will sell and whom he intends to sell it to, rather than speaking with forked tongue. One minute he says the government will privatise parts of the functions of the ports across the state because they need to be made more efficient, and in the next breath he says, “Well, I don’t mean privatisation.” If he is going to sell them off, what does he think that is? There is a hell of a lot of dishonesty going on at the moment. Western Australians need to be told the truth about the government’s agenda. I believe the government’s agenda is contained in this report of the Economic Audit Committee, “Putting the Public First: Partnering with the Community and Business to Deliver Outcomes”. If that is the government’s agenda, it should go through all these recommendations and give us an update. The government has been working on this for one term. It has been burrowing around wherever it burrows around and wherever it squirrels about, and we want to know what is going on. I will give members another one. Recommendation 30 of this report states — Review Government Trading Enterprises … to ensure that the governance and ownership of each business is appropriate for delivering Government’s policy objectives. The review should address the following issues: a) Does government need to be an active participant in the markets (due to market failure) or is it simply replicating something the private sector can do (with appropriate regulation)? That says to me, “Have a look at what you’re doing. If it’s anything like what is being done in the private sector, you ought to ask yourself: would the private sector be better off doing this or should we continue to do it under a government banner?” I mean, gee whiz! Once again, that is nothing more than code for privatisation. The recommendation goes on — b) Can the GTE operate independently of Government? What policy outcomes is Government seeking from the GTE (for example, fully commercial provider of specific outputs, a source of revenue, industry and/or social policy)? Clearly, anyone who has had a look at this document would be very concerned. Given that this was billed as the major economic reform program of this government, given that this report cost an enormous amount of money because of the high calibre of people involved in putting it together, and given that this report has basically slipped under the radar, it is beholden on this government, this Treasurer and this Premier to explain to the people of Western Australia exactly what is going on in this government’s agenda. Which parts of this report will be implemented; what is the time frame for the implementation; and what are the likely outcomes for the citizens of the state? It is no longer acceptable for the Premier and the Treasurer not to be transparent in their plans for the economic future of the state and for the people of the state. HON NICK GOIRAN (South Metropolitan) [8.28 pm]: I rise to support the motion moved by my most excellent colleague Hon Liz Behjat in reply to the speech of His Excellency the Governor on 11 April this year. I have taken particular note of the remarks made in that speech about the responsibility of this Parliament. His Excellency said, and I quote from Hansard, the following — … as in all human institutions, there is potential for error. It is the responsibility of this Parliament to preserve our democracy, to respect the integrity of the legislative, judicial and executive branches of Government and to work for the well-being of the citizens of this state to whom members are responsible. And it is essential, for a properly functioning democratic system, that there be vigorous, informed debate in this place, that the executive arm of government be held accountable and its actions scrutinised; and that the judiciary remain totally independent. In respect of those comments by the Governor on 11 April this year, I want to make a few remarks of my own. I note in particular the remark that it is the responsibility of this Parliament to respect the integrity of the legislative branch of government. The question that needs to be asked is: how is this to be achieved? In my
[COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] 937 opinion, this can be achieved only if members of this place have a paradigm that includes the following five things: firstly, a respect for history; secondly, a respect for those who have served before us; thirdly, a genuine acknowledgement of the privilege of serving the electors of this state; fourthly, a respect for the right of each of us to express a view—preferably one that is informed—and, if required, vigorously; and, lastly, respect that the collective view of 36 hardworking members of the Legislative Council will represent a better outcome than the outputs produced by unelected public servants, albeit hardworking ones. It is my view that, in order to achieve the objective outlined by His Excellency, this important paradigm requires all five of those limbs to work in harmony; in other words, we cannot chop off one of the arms. I begin my remarks this evening by congratulating my colleagues in the Liberal–National alliance on once again winning and forming government following the 9 March election. The people of Western Australia have clearly shown that they have confidence in the stability and strength of the government led by Premier Barnett. I would especially like to congratulate those within cabinet who have been charged with a role of such import, responsibility and accountability, and I encourage them in their task of leading the people of Western Australia. Madam Deputy President, you will appreciate that I believe we all have a role to play, and I trust that in light of my introductory remarks, it will be understood that I see my role to be the same as it was during my first term. My commitment to that role remains unchanged and, if anything, I hope that the beneficial experience gained in my first term enables me to fulfil that role to an even greater extent and degree than in my first four years. The Governor outlined in his speech last month a number of the aspects of the government’s proposed agenda. By way of introduction, he said — The Government has advised me of its legislative and policy agenda for this parliamentary term. It intends to continue to focus on the economic and social development of the State, whilst ensuring proper support and care for those in our community in need of assistance. My summary of what the Governor has said is that it seems that the proposed agenda of the government is that we have economic and social development but in a compassionate context. This is quite a lofty goal for a government to achieve. I think it is incumbent on each of us to ask the question: where does one begin when one wants to seek such a lofty goal? In the limited time that I have this evening, I propose in my humble opinion that we begin at home. What I mean by that will become apparent shortly, but by way of brief digression and introduction to those further remarks, I want to recount a recent journey that I took to Sydney last weekend, 17 and 18 May, when I had the honour of attending the World Congress of Families. In my view, the declaration that was made at the conclusion of that congress on Saturday best outlines how we might be able to achieve the stated goal of this government in this term. I quote from the declaration that was provided at that congress—and, Madam Deputy President, bear with me, because there is some length to it. It reads as follows — We, the delegates of the World Congress of Families VII, assembled in Sydney Australia, this 18 May 2013 affirm that the sustained prosperity and happiness of nations rests on the foundation of strong natural families. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed by every nation on the earth, states that “men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family … The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.” (Article 16.1, 16.3) In agreement with earlier World Congresses and with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we hold that the natural family is the basic unit on which human societies are built and is the best environment for the moral, social and emotional development of children. The natural family is the most efficient way of nurturing and educating children, of looking after the health and welfare of its members, of creating a vital domestic economy, of building cohesive communities, and of extending a compassionate hand to individuals and households, whatever their situation. We affirm that the productive economy is sustained by strong families, which reliably shape the virtues needed for healthy economic exchange. Social and economic research overwhelmingly demonstrates that children born into stable loving homes have the best prospects for growing into healthy, intelligent, creative and morally grounded adults. On average, they become the most productive and engaged citizens and are the least likely to become dependent on the welfare state. Accordingly, we declare that a family-centred economy requires the follow basic framework: • The economy should serve the family rather than the family being a servant of the economic system and the state. • A strong domestic, household economy is a true measure of a healthy society, and the basis of a robust economy.
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• Economic policies should enable families to hold productive property and to be independent of the welfare state. • Employers and governments need to respect the needs of natural families in their wage and labour policies. • Market policies should support and encourage entrepreneurial innovation, ensure low barriers of entry into small business, and guard against excessive concentration of economic power and financial instability. • Family-owned businesses should be encouraged as part of a market economy. Gross Domestic Product must be defined to include the economic value of unpaid work done in the home and the community by families, so that society can recognise the contribution of this form of labour. Governments must pursue policies of affordable housing, particularly for young first home buyers. From these principles, we also affirm; • Marriage as being the union of one man and one woman, voluntarily entered into for life; • The protection of human life from conception to natural death; • The right of children to be raised by their biological parents, wherever possible; • That the root causes of hunger, poverty and environmental decay are the breakdown of the natural family and political and economic failures, not human “overpopulation”; st • That the real demographics dangers of the 21 century are ageing and declining populations: the world needs more, not fewer, children; • That the great opportunities for family friendly commerce, communication and education on the internet must be made safe from the destructive impacts of pornography and other harmful content at the national and international levels; • The concept of the family wage: wages, salary levels and taxation policy should reinforce natural family bonds; and • That the natural family is the surest guide for the economic and healthy development of all peoples, including the indigenous communities of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. The document concludes as follows — This Congress appeals to policy makers, community leaders, the media and people everywhere to recognize that overwhelming research based evidence demonstrates the importance of marriage and families to our society. Following my attendance at this congress, the question I posed to myself was: what practical measure might we take to achieve this lofty goal that is, in a sense, the goal of empowering marriages and families? It is interesting; not a day goes by when I do not read a story in the print media about young men and young women making some very poor decisions—poor judgement and risk-taking behaviour that often results in disastrous consequences: young men and young women drinking themselves to oblivion, drinking recklessly, driving recklessly and smashing bus shelters for no apparent reason. When this happens and I read about it, I think to myself not: What a wonderful world! but rather: What are we missing here? Madam Deputy President, you will realise that I am, to some extent, a pragmatist, and I know that there is no magic solution to these societal, First World problems. I am not as idealistic as to think that one solution is going to solve everything, but we have to acknowledge that there is a pattern emerging. During my first term in Parliament, I have been to a number of most excellent organisations, one of which is Pregnancy Problem House. I saw some excellent work being done there to help young mothers with an unplanned pregnancy, often alone and in the context of a society that has little sympathy for their plight. I have spoken to people who work with disengaged youth and I have heard some fairly heart-sickening stories of the ill- treatment and abuse of which some of these poor kids have been on the receiving end. The pattern that is emerging is one of an absence of real men. By “real men”, what I mean is men who are a source of safety and protection; I mean men who have integrity and who are willing to accept responsibility. I mean men who are going to step up and engage with their children, teach their sons boundaries of respect, and affirm their daughters. It is for this reason that I am convinced that we should introduce a minister for men’s interests into the governance model of Western Australia. It is important to note from the outset that this proposal of tailoring attention to the needs of men by no means whatsoever trivialises the issues impacting women. Despite the vast improvements in women’s rights and
[COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] 939 opportunities, there are still issues to be addressed, and we heard about some of them earlier this afternoon. These issues need to be addressed for women’s wellbeing, including a focus on the unacceptably high incidence of violence against women, especially domestic violence and sexual assault. But in my view, by respectfully addressing each gender’s unique needs, the result will be healthier individuals throughout all of society. This will include the improving of overall mental, physical and social health for males and will not come at the expense of women; rather, a positive impact will be felt in the wider community. As I alluded to in my maiden speech four years ago, we live in an interdependent society. Healthier men will also result in healthier outcomes for women and children too. Australia has recognised and celebrated International Men’s Health Week since 2003. With the rising popularity of Movember as the forerunner of a growing awareness of myriad health issues facing Australian men, this underscores the need for the government to be proactive in this matter. Interestingly, in 2007 the federal government made a commitment to develop the first national male health policy. It identified the need for males — to learn more about their own health, to adopt healthy routines, to have regular health checks to prevent chronic disease, and to seek medical help when needed. In my view, this provides a framework for improving male health across Australia. Very interestingly, for those interested in this topic, there is currently no minister for men’s interests or the equivalent in any jurisdiction of Australia, nor one in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada or the United States of America. Notably, from the research I did, I found that in the UK in 2004 there were calls for a minister for men’s interests to be appointed to address issues such as men’s health, fathers’ rights, higher suicide rates and lower education levels. There has been some interest in this topic in Australia over the past couple of years. I guess in a very modest way, we could say that some momentum is building. I dare say that we have a long way to go. More than 1 300 people attended the 26 public forums on national male health policy across the nation conducted by the Department of Health and Ageing in 2009, and 90 public submissions were received. In my view, politically, a minister for men’s interests makes sense. That is if we are willing to scratch below the surface. It will demonstrate a progressive government keen to foster healthy men and healthy relationships, a proactive grassroots approach that will assist in crime prevention, reducing health service costs, decreasing antisocial behaviour, sustaining stable homes and all the subsequent benefits that these will foster in our communities. Economically, in Western Australia, we have been buffered to some extent from the harms of the global financial crisis. The mining boom, however, has not come without a price to the mining workers. Those members from the Mining and Pastoral Region, including Hon Ken Baston and others, will know that as a result of the mining boom, to some extent there have been feelings of disconnection, exacerbated isolation, drug and alcohol abuse and addiction to pornography and prostitution. These things have been recorded in fly in, fly out worker or FIFO studies, and of course we all know those types of stories anecdotally. These have caused issues for individual men and their families and have also caused some issues on site. Western Australian farmers also play a vital role. They have contributed immensely to the success of our state. In my view, the families that sustain farming need proper care and support. One of the treasured stereotypes of the Australian male is of being self-reliant and having an ever-present irreverent sense of humour. The “she’ll be right” and “no worries, mate” mentality is really at odds with the demographic of today. In many ways, this entrenched stereotype may contribute to the problems that are emerging. The sense of shame amongst those who feel that they are not the men they should be could be part of the reason that men do not access the services that are in place. What better way to honour the men who have worked hard to keep our nation afloat than to provide a ministry that gets alongside men, not in a way that says they are victims and not in a way that feeds dependency or immaturity, but in a way that is well thought out, encourages healthy masculinity and builds on the strength of Western Australian men. Despite the best efforts of mothers, boys need the influence of a trusted male in their life. Research on the socialisation of boys has shown that where there is no prominent male role model in any young boy’s life, they will learn what it means to be a male from one of three other sources: the media, their peers or by reacting in an opposite manner to the feminine influences around them. By this I mean that if boys are surrounded by female influences, their perception of masculinity can be interpreted as whatever is not female. Rather than seeing sensitivity, gentleness, visual displays of emotion and responsibility as masculine characteristics, boys socialised in this way will see masculinity as the need to be aggressive, tough and uncommunicative. In some of the research I have done in this area, I have identified three innate and basic psychological needs of men. They are relatedness, autonomy and competence. Just to unpack that briefly, relatedness is the need for men to feel they belong and are connected to a group or a tribe; autonomy is the need for self-determination; and competence is the need to feel competent at something that lets them feel a sense of pride in themselves. If these needs are not met through constructive means, they will be sought through
940 [COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] destructive ones. If these needs are met, men will display vitality and mental health, and if they are not met, men are more likely to display aggression, irresponsible and antisocial behaviour, and to delve into substance abuse. Most will not change their lives without some sort of exterior event or structure to push them on to the path. It is for this reason that many cultures have what is known as a rite of passage. Interestingly, the Sambia tribe in Papua New Guinea, the Mardudjara Aborigines and the Satere–Mawe tribe in the Amazon are just a couple of examples of tribes whose rite-of-passage rituals launch men beyond boyhood into manhood. Arne Rubinstein is a general practitioner specialising in adolescent health and the chief executive of Pathways to Manhood. He was quoted in an article entitled “Bringing Up Boys” published in, of all things, The Australian Women’s Weekly of September 2004. He said the following — “All indigenous communities had a rite of passage for birth, death, marriage and puberty,” … “But the one they … put the most emphasis on was the rite of passage for a boy becoming a man. That’s because they recognised the health of their community depended on having community-oriented healthy men rather than big boys not knowing how to be men.” In his book Dying to Be Men, Dr Will Courtenay identifies 50 behaviours that men are more likely to engage in and that result in men being at greater risk of injury, disease and premature death. The statistics in WA are nothing short of alarming. One need only cast a cursory glance over the publication from the Western Australian Department of Health entitled “The Epidemiology of Injury in Western Australia: Current status and future challenges” to see that the physical health of males in Western Australia is an area requiring action. Some of the notable inequities in male health are as follows: lower life expectancy, injury deaths, the leading cause of death being from lifestyle diseases, and the failure to access preventative health services. Since the creation of the National Male Health Policy, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has produced a document known as the “The health of Australia’s males: a focus on five population groups”, which provides a snapshot of the health status of males in this nation. The creation of that policy aims to address this particular widespread inequity. As noted by the policy, the good health of males is not purely the absence of disease but a complete, physical, mental, social and often spiritual wellbeing. For this reason, attempts at improvements in male health will be far more effective when acting in tandem with other initiatives. A minister for men’s interests would be the best figure to coordinate efforts on this policy in this state for Western Australian males of all ages and all walks of life. Just as having the Minister for Women’s Interests recognises the variety and uniqueness among women, it is important to take into account the varied life situations and issues that impact a range of males. I will go a little bit more into the statistics. I am a big fan of Steve Biddulph, and I will refer to my notes from his book Manhood, which is accessible on the internet, which read — The statistics are all dominated by men. And hurt men tend to hurt others. Physical violence against spouses, sexual abuse of children, divorce, moral bankruptcy in business and politic … all point to something badly wrong with large numbers of men. In the stats that I referred to, males consistently have a higher incidence of suicide than females, with approximately 80 per cent of all suicides being men, and particularly concerning in this regard is the prevalence of suicide among young males. In 2009, suicide accounted for 22.1 per cent of all deaths among males aged 15 to 24. Interestingly, from the research, men tend to be both the perpetrators and the victims of violence. That is obviously a generalisation, but that tends to be the case. Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that the number of male deaths from assault was more than double the number of female deaths from the same cause in 2009; the number was 149 compared with 61. Young males aged 18 to 24 are most at risk, with 12 per cent reporting being physically assaulted by a man within the last year; 77 per cent reporting that the assailant was a stranger; and 79 per cent of male victims reporting their attacker was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and 34 per cent stated that they themselves were also under the influence. The most common location was licensed premises. Males make up 92 per cent of Australian prisoners. In 2010, WA prisons housed 16 per cent of the country’s prison population, and between 2009 and 2010, WA’s growing prisoner population contributed to 92 per cent of the national increase in prisoner numbers. More than half the number of all male prisoners had previously been imprisoned and male prisoners were consistently more likely to have had prior imprisonment than had females. I would like to quote Lee Hodge, who is the manager of programs at the Ashley Youth Detention Centre in Launceston, Tasmania. Again, this relates to the book Manhood, which is accessible from the internet. He states — A recurrent story is the lack of nurturing males in their lives, although usually not spoken of in this way. Frequently young men will glory in the tales of survival at the hands of violent stepfathers, mates or police, and outdo each other in their attempts to score valued points in the detention game. Rarely are the stories of caring, gentle men in their lives shared, and if they are they are done so in private. No rage with these stories, only a sense of loss for something missed. This state has the worst Indigenous male health, employment and life expectancy outcomes. A comprehensive review of Indigenous male health conducted in 2010 by Thomson, Midford, Debust and MacRae found the
[COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] 941 following three things: firstly, Indigenous males are overrepresented in prisons, and particularly so in Western Australia; secondly, 16 per cent of Indigenous males without any post-school qualifications were unemployed in 2006, compared with six per cent of non-Indigenous males; and, thirdly, Indigenous males are disproportionately represented among the homeless. In my view, there are myriad ways in which healthy males contribute to a positive community. One of the most far-reaching roles that men can hold is that of a father. Healthy males increase the chances of intact families, with the roll-on effect of preventing poverty, as single mothers with dependent children are often large components of the lower end of the socioeconomic gradient, placing a further strain on housing. Healthy, happy men are more likely to have healthy, happy professional, social and personal relationships. When men are interwoven into a community as fathers, sons, brothers, uncles, friends and role models, it can create positive changes in men that translate to positive changes in the whole community. Conversely, the absence of fathers has also been shown to have a link with the increased likelihood of youthful delinquency and crime, increased likelihood of teenage drug abuse, more health problems—both physical and mental—and poorer education achievements, with an increased likelihood of dropping out. But it is not all doom and gloom. There are a lot of great programs out there and a lot of good things happening. We only have to see the burgeoning popularity of men’s sheds to know that men in our community are getting alongside each other. I take this opportunity to thank Warwick Marsh from the Fatherhood Foundation. Warwick is based in New South Wales, and I have met him on a number of occasions. I would describe him as a tireless and passionate campaigner for fathers and good fathering. Locally, I thank Dean Dyer from the Men’s Advisory Network. I have been researching this area over the past couple of years and have had the opportunity to interact with Dean; he is a real pioneer in this area. He is at the coalface and he is the one talking to men. If members ever have the opportunity, I recommend they have a chat with Warwick. Although he is in New South Wales, he is the kind of guy who would be very happy to talk to people on the phone, as would Dean more locally. If members do that, then they should expect to hear some gut-wrenching stories because that is part of what the whole issue is about, but they can also tell some amazing stories of men who, with a bit of side-by-side mentoring, were able to make some really positive changes to their lives and the lives of those around them. I will touch on something in Madam Deputy President’s neck of the woods; this one is in Busselton, so not too far away. Busselton MATES Men’s Support Group has been recognised by the Injury Control Council of WA for reducing domestic violence in the area. In the last year I went to a briefing given by this organisation, and this program has a restorative rather than a punitive approach. The program focuses on removing the male from the house and giving him an opportunity to cool off, as opposed to removing the women and/or the children from the family home. While away from the site of conflict, the male is given counselling and taught strategies to help prevent and deal with future conflict, and it has been a remarkable success. A minister for men’s interests would facilitate a healthy masculinity and its affirmation of manhood and womanhood—healthy men and healthy women standing side by side, complementing one another rather than fostering a culture of sexism and reverse sexism. In my view, every person’s life is a story and each life tells a different story. Western Australia is founded upon a rich heritage of personal stories. Many of those stories have themes of compassion, heroism, adventure and fun. I had the opportunity to hear some stories of incredible fortitude and bravery last Anzac Day. However, many stories of abuse, destruction and hurt also exist. Just think of those things I mentioned earlier in my remarks this evening. Sadly, these things cause harm to not only the men themselves, but also women, children and other men. In my view, each person possesses the capacity to make choices affecting their story. They can be educated, encouraged and empowered to change their story through means of self-exploration, mentoring and modelling. A minister for men’s interests could truly change the stories of the future by promoting proactive measures that validate healthy masculinity, promote healthy male psychology and teach skills including communication, reconciliation, humility, service, community development, family empowerment and forgiveness. In conclusion, I recognise that at first instance the idea of a minister for men’s interests may not be appealing to everybody, but I hope that when they consider the context of my remarks this evening, they will understand that it is not a case of being in competition but of working towards the same goals. HON KATE DOUST (South Metropolitan — Deputy Leader of the Opposition) [9.07 pm]: I rise to comment on the Address-in-Reply in response to the speech by His Excellency the Governor, Malcolm McCusker, which was delivered on 11 April. We are indeed fortunate to have a Governor in this state of the calibre of Malcolm McCusker. He is a man that we all admire for not only his great legal expertise and philanthropy throughout the state—I am not sure whether we have ever had such a generous individual in that position—but also his strong sense of social justice. He is a man who certainly has left a mark in our community by standing up for those who may not have a voice and seeking to right wrongs. He is a man to be greatly admired. When his term eventually expires, he certainly will have left a very solid and positive mark on the state. It is always a great pleasure to have the opportunity to listen to him speak, be it in a formal arrangement as we
942 [COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] had on that particular occasion, or on occasion when we are fortunate to share functions with him. I have read his speech and tonight and possibly tomorrow, I will reference some of the matters that he canvassed broadly that were of interest to me. First of all, I am very pleased to have been given the opportunity to be elected for a fourth term to represent the constituents of South Metropolitan Region. It is indeed a privilege to work on behalf of the constituents in that region, which is a large area. Sometimes when we have been here for a while, we forget about how significant and how important it is to be in this place to speak on behalf of people who may not necessarily have that opportunity and to raise matters on their behalf. That is something that we need to remind ourselves of. I was very pleased tonight to listen to Hon Samantha Rowe. Her comments about why she wanted to be here as a member of Parliament were a very well-timed reminder to reinforce to all of us the importance and the value of the work that we need to do in this chamber. To new members, we do not always take a combative approach. It may get a bit loud and robust from time to time in here but, at the end of the day, I agree with Hon Norman Moore when he commented that we all want to achieve the same outcome for people; sometimes it is just the way we go about it. From the work that I have done in committees, I know that it is a rare occasion, on which a committee puts out a minority report. Most committees usually reach common ground, if you like, on the types of outcomes they want to see from inquiries. I want to touch on that briefly. Today we saw the election of all our parliamentary committees for this chamber, be they joint parliamentary committees or single-chamber committees. For new members, it will be a very interesting experience once they settle down into the business of those committees, be it dealing with petitions in the Standing Committee on Environment and Public Affairs or something else. It is a brave new world and I hope that members enjoy the variety and diversity of the work that is involved in the environment and public affairs committee and other committees. They are all great opportunities to learn about what is happening in our state. It is important to use those committees to listen to voices in our communities, to take on board their concerns about matters and, hopefully, in most situations, provide a vehicle for solutions for their concerns. I was very pleased to hear that the Standing Committee on Legislation has been touched upon in a couple of speeches and I think even Hon Norman Moore referenced it in his speech last night. There may have been a vague tinge of regret on his part that perhaps in the last term there were not many opportunities for that committee to meet. If we were to go back through Hansard, we would see that only three reports arose from that committee during the last term, one of which, of course, was from the stop-and-search inquiry, which pretty much stopped the work of that committee, unfortunately. It was an excellent report, but it did not seem to go any further. Here we are on the threshold of a new term of four years. We have a group of members on that committee. I am not too sure who the chair of — Hon Liz Behjat: Hon Robyn McSweeney. Hon KATE DOUST: It is Hon Robyn McSweeney. I think Hon Adele Farina is quite possibly the only other member here who was also on the initial committee; I do not think Hon Robyn McSweeney was on the legislation committee in the first term. When I was first elected, there were initially seven members on that committee; it was later reduced to five. When we were in government, we accepted the need to conduct inquiries on a regular basis into legislation that came to this place. We met on an extremely regular basis. We met during non-sitting times and after sitting times. We had Hon Peter Foss, Hon Bill Stretch and Hon George Cash come on from time to time and the other Liberal member from East Metropolitan Region, the opera singer — Hon Sue Ellery: Derrick? Hon KATE DOUST: Yes, Hon Derrick Tomlinson was also on that committee from time to time. I say “opera singer” because I know he sometimes used to belt out a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan in the chamber. That committee dealt with some very interesting pieces of legislation. They could be short, sharp inquiries. We also had uniform legislation as part of that committee’s work at the time. There was a lot of work out of that. Hon Giz Watson was also on that committee. We got things such as the Corruption and Crime Commission legislation, the State Administrative Tribunal legislation and the one vote, one value electoral reform legislation. We had a whole raft of uniform bills to do with child protection and the transportation of children. I remember the first batch of bills we dealt with were the four corporations bills. Let me say that as a brand-new member to this chamber without a law degree that was a real eye-opener, but a great learning curve. The members on that committee worked fairly well together, on the whole. Sometimes an inquiry would last 12 months and we would come back into this place. I know it was very frustrating for the government, but the committee could be asked, “When will the committee’s report be completed? When will it be tabled? We need to get on with the legislation.” That committee was really thorough and was able to bring back into this chamber time after time full and detailed inquiries, quite often with a raft of recommendations to amend the bills, which, in more cases than not, were agreed to by all members of the committee regardless of party. It was always an interesting exercise when those reports were tabled and we had to work our way through. Even though we took
[COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] 943 those bills outside this chamber, and even though it may have taken a longer period, it gave committee members—it certainly gave the interested stakeholders—a much fuller opportunity to have their say on the bills and to provide the committee with a response on how it could be done better. When we brought the bills back here, even after some discussion behind the Chair, quite often we could work through the bills in the chamber with the report in a much more timely fashion than we might have done had we not had that opportunity for a full and proper inquiry. It is a shame that the Leader of the House is not here because I know that it will fall to him on a regular basis to make that decision. Picking up on the comments made by Hon Norman Moore last night, it is important to remind ourselves that we are a house of review. We are not the Legislative Assembly. This is not some sort of bolshie theatre where we get through things quickly and do not pay attention to the detail. We know that when bills come up to us, that is our job. Our job is to pay attention to the detail. It is our job to question: Are we doing the right thing? Is this going to work? Is it what the community needs? We have a better capacity to refer bills off to a committee that specialises in this work and bring them back into the chamber after the work has been done, and to then go through that report and have it in front of us and look at the recommendations when we deal with bills. More often than not the bills we dealt with in that first and possibly second term, between 2001 and 2008, were able to be amended and they came out of this place as much better legislation than when they arrived, because of the work done by that very important committee. It is an absolute tragedy that during the last term the legislation committee did not have the capacity to operate and did not have the opportunity to have bills referred to it more frequently. In the last term we found that we would get bogged down here going through parts of those processes. When the government brought in contentious bills, we might have taken three or four weeks to work through them. Some members will recall bills such as hoon bills, graffiti bills or the prohibited behaviour orders bill, to name but a few. From memory some of those bills were raised as potential referrals to that committee but were rejected by the Liberal government, unfortunately. I am still of the view that if they had been referred, which would have enabled a full and open inquiry to be made, with the capacity for public comment, we may have been able to deal with those bills much more expeditiously when they returned to this chamber. I know that the Leader of the House wants to do a very good job in his time as leader, and I think he places some value on the importance of this place as a house of review. I hope that in future when there is an opportunity to refer a bill to the Standing Committee on Legislation, rather than getting an automatic rejection, the house gives it proper consideration and gives the members of that committee the chance to do their job and bring back to us the bill as it was, if it is good enough; or, if it is not, provides us with the opportunity to make changes and bring it up to the standard that this place would like it to be at. I encourage Hon Peter Collier in his capacity as Leader of the House to perhaps take on board the comments made last night by Hon Norman Moore. I think it would be a much healthier way of dealing with legislation outside the chamber and, in some cases, a swifter away, because there were a number of occasions in the last term when we probably spent more time in this place arguing about matters that could have been dealt with in another way, and on some occasions arguing about the nuts and bolts of an amendment in this place, when we could have had a committee doing that work for us and receiving the professional advice. I know that I have stood outside this chamber with the member on a number of occasions with advisers, when both he and I and also Hon Giz Watson disagreed with the advice coming from the advisers; we were all on the same side—on a couple of issues. If we are establishing a committee, let us use it. Let it do its job. Let us refer matters to it. We do it for uniform legislation. We enable bills on the odd occasion to go to the Standing Committee on Environment and Public Affairs. We enable a whole raft of other inquiries to happen, but we do not let legislation be sent to the Standing Committee on Legislation. I would have thought that it was a no-brainer that we use those people and that committee as the best vehicle possible to ensure that we are able to conduct our business as a house of review. I just wanted to make those few comments on that issue because I listened very carefully to that very detailed farewell speech of Hon Norman Moore. I thought that he made some very salient points. As I said, I wish he had turned the clock back because we might have saved a lot of time and angst in the last term with some of the bills that we dealt with. With that said, I look forward to the work with other members on committees over the next four years. I have always enjoyed committee work. It is a great challenge and it is certainly a great learning opportunity. I hope that members take it on board with that as well. As to the election campaign that we have gone through, you guys won and we lost. It is pretty simple. I think enough has been said about that. I cannot remember who referred to it earlier. Those opposite outspent us. The amount of money that was blown on that campaign was just incredible. There was no way we could compete with that. But out of adversity comes opportunity. I think those of us on this side will learn from our loss; we will learn how to do things better; we will learn how to campaign in a different way in the future. Sometimes we need to take a step backwards before we can take a leap forward and, for us, that is how we should treat this. I am not one to moan and wail about having lost those things. The political game is about swings and roundabouts. Whilst members opposite might be enjoying the Treasury benches for a little bit longer, it may not always be the case. I encourage them therefore to enjoy all the opportunities afforded to them as members on the Treasury
944 [COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] benches. I encourage members opposite also to make the most of those opportunities to fight for everything they can for their constituents. Unfortunately, they probably have an easier road than we on this side will. It was a very interesting campaign. I want to put on the record a couple of situations I came across that I found unusual. In 30 years of working on political campaigns, be they trade union or party campaigns—I am feeling a bit old now that I can say 30 years — Hon Sue Ellery: That’s because you feel it! Hon KATE DOUST: I know that; thank you very much for that. Hon Sue Ellery is two weeks older than me. As most members know, my husband, Bill Johnston, is the member for Cannington. I must say that Bill is a very hardworking member for his constituents in Cannington. I know that because of the amount of time he spends away from his family working in the electorate at nights and on weekends in his office when he is not here in Parliament. He has always enjoyed campaigning, but this campaign was a very interesting one in his seat. A lot of it he kept from me until the end. Fortunately, his staff let loose. The way the Liberal Party conducted the campaign in that seat was very disappointing for me, personally. I found the behaviour from the opposing party was something I had not seen before. I will explain to members why. Bill’s mobile phone was used to sell concert tickets on eBay and Gumtree, so his mobile phone was ringing all the time at night in our home. His car was advertised on Gumtree, eBay and in the Quokka. This happened only after the close of nominations and when his phone was made available. His phone was linked to an online sex chat forum. We worked out how it had all happened and a complaint was lodged with the state security. The people who were doing it were not breaking the law but what offended me in the last week was when the people involved in that campaign sent me a tweet implying that my husband, the candidate, was using that sex chat line. That tweet was deleted but because I responded to it I still have a copy of it. I found that really offensive. I think everyone in this place enjoys campaigning. On the whole, people are professional in the way they conduct themselves in the campaign. We all know that at the end of the day, one person will win and one or others will not. But we give it our best shot and use whatever campaign tactics we have to, be they how we advertise, doorknock or letterbox drop or how ever else we get the message out. I have no issue with that, but I was terribly disappointed with the types of tactics employed in that particular campaign. Bill kept it to himself because he did not want us to know about it. But it was very distressing for our children when they picked up the phone or heard about what was going on. The Liberal candidate tried to talk to me about it but I was at the point at which I was not interested because I do not think that type of approach to campaigning is appropriate, no matter where we line up on the political spectrum. Even if it were someone on our side, I would let them know that. Unfortunately, both my daughters let the candidate from the side of members opposite know what they thought of the things that had happened to their father. Hon Michael Mischin: Are you blaming the candidate? Hon KATE DOUST: The candidate knew about it, and discussed it with my daughter and told her what else they had planned to do to Bill during the campaign. The candidate condoned the behaviour. All I am saying is that from my experience I thought it was appalling behaviour. I think it is probably behaviour that no-one opposite has had to deal with. I certainly hope it is behaviour that I do not have to deal with again in a campaign. Anyway, that is over and done with. We will learn from these things and I think we can look at how we can be better organised. We ran some very good candidates. In the south metropolitan area and the Southern River electorate, we had Susy Thomas, who worked extremely hard. Susy made just under 7 000 phone calls to constituents in that area. She certainly put the effort in. We had Hannah Beazley, a fabulous young woman running for us in the seat of Riverton. I certainly hope that down the track Hannah is able to give it another go. In Jandakot, we had Klara Andric, a very vibrant and very intelligent young woman. We had a range of other people, and it is a real shame that we do not have Anne Wood here with us in this chamber. Sadly for us, we missed a lot of opportunities but we had some fantastic candidates. We had Simone McGurk in Fremantle, and we are very proud of Simone for bringing that seat back to the Labor Party. I think we ran a good campaign. We certainly attracted attention with some of the proposals we put up. Certainly Metronet caught people’s attention. Unfortunately, on the day that was not the way it was going to work out and, as we know, in politics, once the roll is on with a swing, it takes everyone with it, and that is pretty much what happened with us. So, there we are. We have another four years and I look forward to the challenges of campaigning in my electorate over the next four years and taking up issues for my constituents. Coming back to the speech given by the Governor, I was pleased to note that one of the changes the Premier has decided on is to take on the science portfolio. I thought that was great, as the science portfolio has always called for a senior minister, and we had three different responsible ministers in the last government. I know that members have listened to my view on a number of occasions in this chamber that the science, innovation and technology portfolio in this state had gone backwards in the vast bulk of areas.
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Hon Sue Ellery: It wasn’t just your view; it was a fact. Hon KATE DOUST: It was a fact; thank you very much, Hon Sue Ellery. I thought it was great that the Premier would take all this on board. I thought he would have a vision for science in this state and would see the value in it. I thought that he would not just talk about science in schools, but also see it as a vibrant, fully sustainable industry that should run alongside the mining and resources sector that he is so very passionate about. I thought here we go—he is going to do all these great things. Then I read an online newsletter called ScienceNetwork WA, which I get on a weekly basis. It referred to an interview with the Premier, and I picked up in that interview that the Premier will take on the big, visionary stuff. When he goes off travelling, he will talk to people about science and he might establish a science council, but he will not deal with innovation and technology. I think he talked about that being placed in the state development portfolio or in the commerce portfolio. He is certainly not going to touch the Technology and Industry Advisory Council. The Premier needs to come out and clarify fairly soon what he is really going to do, because we need to know which parts he is going to manage and which parts the Minister for Commerce will perhaps be responsible for. I was therefore quite disappointed. We also had the Premier’s commitment to Scitech made during the election campaign, which I understand is to allocate $15 million and a site at Burswood. I know that this has always been the preferred site for Scitech and that the people at Scitech have been looking for a place for quite some time. With what we have heard over the last few weeks, as the government has realised that it has some financial difficulties and has talked about cutbacks and ministers tightening up on expenditure, I am concerned that Scitech will not necessarily have a place in the future. I will not spend much more time on that issue, but I might pose a series of questions to the relevant ministers. I think it is very important that we continue to have a place such as Scitech in this state. It is not just a place where kids and young adults can go and have a great time and a bit of a play around on a weekend; it is a very important place for the education of science to children throughout the state. Scitech has a very strong role in outreach services to children in remote and rural areas. It does a fabulous job of helping those children to connect with science and to develop an appetite for a career pathway in science as they move through school. It also has strong potential for collaboration with a range of industries to assist them with work. I travelled to Hong Kong in April on a trip that I organised through the Hong Kong trade office. It did a fabulous job of arranging the appointments that I needed. At that point, I still had the shadow portfolio of science. I was fortunate to go to a couple of places in which the Hong Kong government had invested significantly in the science portfolio. It is a very interesting story. The first place I went to was called Cyberport, which is a digital technology park. It was set up from about 1999 after the Asian financial crisis, when the Hong Kong government realised that it needed to look to the future, it needed a vision, and it needed to invest in the cutting edge of science. It identified that people would use the internet for every aspect of their lives, so it entered into a public– private partnership with a company. The whole site is owned by the Hong Kong government. It offers a range of facilities. A couple of hundred companies operate out of the site, which I think is about 24 hectares in size and is half an hour from the Hong Kong CBD. Large international companies are based there. The facility offers incubator services, it has research facilities, and it even has a hotel. It holds forums. I was lucky enough to go to a digital technology forum while I was there. It was fascinating to hear about the type of work and research that is being done and to see the interaction between the predominantly young people—they all looked as though they were under 25—who were doing incredible work developing apps for phones, computers and television shows throughout China. Sadly, no Australian companies were represented at this forum. I had the opportunity to be shown how Cyberport works and the philosophy behind it. From 1999 until now, it has had this incredible presence. People are on a waiting list to go into this place. It is not like the type of technology park that we are used to; it is on a much grander scale. It has full government backing and support, because the government understands the importance of identifying change and where people need to go in future employment. That has been done very successfully with Cyberport. Although the Premier has taken on the science portfolio and says that he understands its importance, he needs to understand that to get the outcomes and benefits, he has to be really bold, plan for the future and invest in science. He has to put real dollars into it, not just throw in $5 000 or $10 000 here or there in small grants. He has to invest substantial amounts of money to develop these types of facilities and to attract business and future work opportunities to our state. The other place that I was fortunate enough to go out to, on the Friday of my visit—it was a bit of an adventure getting there—was Hong Kong Science Park, which is out in the New Territories. This is a project that was established in the late 1990s, when the Hong Kong government looked to the future and invested about $HK10 million to develop the initial stage of this park, on 22 hectares of land. They are now in the process of completing the stage 3 green buildings, which are fantastic buildings to go into. Four-hundred companies are based there, ranging from companies at the incubator stage, to multinational companies such as Philips, to a couple of large Silicon Valley companies. The park focuses on five key areas of research, not digital technology necessarily, but medical research, agriculture and a range of other areas. They have decided that these are the
946 [COUNCIL — Wednesday, 22 May 2013] areas that they will focus on and these are the companies that they want to attract. They have built relationships with the universities. They share the cost of equipment in the universities and on site, and that helps the universities and their students. I would encourage any member here who has an interest in the potential that science and innovation has for our state to visit places like Hong Kong Science Park. I understand that replicas of this type of facility are now springing up all over China, because the Chinese government understands that these types of facilities assist people at the tertiary level, help develop companies and help attract other businesses to come in. We have not reached that level in this state. When we look at the development of these places in other parts of the world, particularly in Asia, it is clear that we are being left behind, because the investment is not being applied in this state. That is an absolute tragedy, because we will lose people in this space, and we will lose the capacity to develop these skills and knowledge. I would say to the Premier that if he is really dinkum about grabbing the science portfolio and making the most of the opportunities, he needs to have that grand vision. Quite frankly, if the Premier wants to leave a permanent memorial to his period as Premier, he should develop a vibrant and sustainable science and technology industry in our state so that we can secure futures for our young people, attract businesses to our state, and export the outcomes of that science and research work. The Premier should be smart about it and bite the bullet and really invest. He should do what the Hong Kong government has done. If that means that the Premier will need to enter into partnerships to achieve that, then that is what he should do, because 20 or 30 years down the track, we will reap the benefit. Places like Hong Kong are looking to the future. They have identified the things that they need to do in order to change, and they have invested in that change, and now they are able to grow and expand. Hong Kong Science Park is an incredible set-up. It fosters interaction between students and universities, and industry. It provides the opportunity for people to set up their own small businesses and to tap into the resources of the park. It assists people to learn how to market their products. It also assists people to learn how to market themselves and build up their self-confidence, because quite often the people who work in this space have great ideas, but they need support to implement them. When I say that, I think about Barry Marshall, because I know that you, Mr President, are a strong admirer of Barry Marshall. He certainly is a person who not only has great ideas and has delivered the outcomes, but has confidence and knows how to market his product. We need to be able to get more people like Barry Marshall and Fiona Wood—we would like to replicate them, if you like, in this state. But until the government acknowledges the real value and importance of developing a vibrant science and technology hub in Western Australia, something akin to what has been developed in those other places that I have mentioned, we will not be able to do that. Debate adjourned, pursuant to standing orders. WITHERS URBAN RENEWAL STRATEGY Statement HON ADELE FARINA (South West) [9.44 pm]: I would like to raise concerns I have in relation to the response I received to a question without notice yesterday regarding the Withers urban renewal strategy; the answer was provided by the Minister for Agriculture and Food, but my issue is not with him, because I understand he was simply providing the response that was provided to him by the Minister for Regional Development. My issue is really with the response that was provided. I asked when the Withers urban renewal strategy would be finalised, and whether the comments provided during the public comment period would actually be considered and incorporated into the final strategy. The minister’s response was that the final Withers urban renewal strategy was released on 20 December 2012. I have gone back to check my records, because that certainly was not my recollection, and the cover of the report that was released on 20 December 2012 clearly refers to the report as a draft, not a final, strategy. In addition, the South West Development Commission released a media statement on the same date, and I will quote from it now. It states, in part — Following the close of the public comment period on Friday, February 8 and the consideration of people’s comments, the report will be finalised and used to guide future development of the neighbourhood. Again, that is clear evidence that the report that was released on 20 December was, in fact, a draft report and not a final report. In addition, the South West Development Commission—being as thorough as it always is—also issued another pamphlet dated January 2013. It states, in part — After considering people’s comments, the report will be finalised by the consultants. It will then need to be endorsed by Bunbury council and the South West Development Commission board.
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Clearly, the intention on 20 December 2012, when that report was released, was that it would be a draft. Members of the community were encouraged to make submissions so that their comments on the draft report could be considered when finalising the draft report into a final strategy. I do not remember the exact number, but hundreds of residents of Withers took the time to read what really was a very complex report and make submissions, on the understanding that their submissions were actually going to count and were going to be of some value in the finalisation of the strategy. Now they have been told that the strategy that was released on 20 December 2012 is actually the final strategy and that all their effort in writing submissions for consideration have amounted to nought—that they are not going to be considered and that there will be no amendment of that report in light of the comments that have been received. I have to tell members that I have today been getting phone calls from the residents of Withers, expressing their outrage at being misled by the government that this report was a draft report and that their submissions would actually count and be considered in finalising the draft report. I want to put it on the record that I think it is wrong for a government to mislead a community in that way. The Withers Action Group has been working very hard for a number of years to see some changes made to urban issues in Withers, and it finally got to a point at which a consultant had been employed and a draft report prepared. There were issues of contention in that draft report, and the community took its role seriously in terms of going through every aspect of the report and making detailed submissions, only to find that they are not going to count for anything and that all their effort was just wasted. I think that is a pretty disgraceful thing to do to any community, and I want to put it on the record that they are very upset about it, and that the Minister for Regional Development might want to consider making an apology to the people of Withers; alternatively, if the report was a draft report—as is clear from the cover of the report— he needs to apologise to this house for misleading it. House adjourned at 9.49 pm ______