Legislative Assembly 1571 10 October 1991 NOTE: There could be differences between this document and the official printed Hansard, Vols. 319 and 320 THURSDAY, 10 OCTOBER 1991 Mr SPEAKER (Hon. J. Fouras, Ashgrove) read prayers and took the chair at 10 a.m. PETITION The Acting Clerk announced the receipt of the following petition— Child-care Legislation From Mr Beattie (51 signatories) praying that the Parliament will support the Child Care Bill 1991 and promote the development of associated regulations. Petition received. PAPERS The following paper was laid on the table, and ordered to be printed— Report of the Department of Tourism, Sport and Racing for the year ended 30 June 1991. The following papers were laid on the table— Report of the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation for the year ended 30 June 1991 Thirteenth Report of the Salaries and Allowances Tribunal constituted pursuant to section 20 of the Judges’ Salaries and Pensions Act 1967-1989. MINISTERIAL STATEMENT Public Service Appointments Hon. W. K. GOSS (Logan—Premier, Minister for Economic and Trade Development and Minister for the Arts) (10.03 a.m.), by leave: Today, I am pleased to provide to the House and to the people of Queensland detailed information on appointments to the senior ranks of the public service in Queensland. I will table this information, which utterly destroys the repeated allegations by the National and Liberal Parties of cronyism on the part of the Government in its appointment of senior public servants. For nearly two years, these allegations have been pushed and promoted at every opportunity by the Leader of the National Party, by the Leader of the Liberal Party and, most notably, by those who covet their positions, namely, the member for Surfers Paradise and the member for Merthyr. Mr Borbidge interjected. Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Surfers Paradise will cease interjecting. Mr W. K. GOSS: The general thrust of their allegations is threefold: that political patronage is rampant among appointments to senior public service positions; that appointments to those positions have been dominated by so-called southern imports—— Opposition members: The Mexicans. Mr W. K. GOSS: Yes, they are generally referred to as Mexicans. If I could digress for a moment, I note that Mr Cooper has promised that, after the next election, he Legislative Assembly 1572 10 October 1991 will clean out all the Mexicans. I presume that that includes the member for Surfers Paradise and, of course, Mr Stoneman. The third allegation is that the appointments have been overloaded with academics. The information that I will table today demonstrates conclusively the falsity of these claims. The information covers appointments to the Senior Executive Service, which comprises the upper ranks of the public service. The SES came into existence in July this year. To date, 274 of the 334 positions within the SES have been filled. All of the appointments have been made on the basis of rigorous merit-based selection standards and procedures, which previous National Party and National/Liberal Party Governments either never applied or conveniently discarded. The information that I table today shows 199 appointees to the SES drawn directly from the Queensland public sector. The vast majority in the SES—228, or 83 per cent—are Queenslanders. Ninety-one per cent of the SES appointees have tertiary qualifications. Seventy-one per cent have Queensland qualifications. Of the 274, there are five academics in the SES, four of whom are from Queensland. Allegations of political patronage and cronyism can be sustained only where it can be demonstrated that a person has been appointed to a position on the basis of his political affiliations; where a person is not selected on the basis of merit, but on the basis of political preference. It would be ludicrous to suggest that none of the 274 appointees to the SES has any political affiliation or preference—be it to the Labor Party, National Party, Liberal Party or any other party. In fairness to the SES, I table this information and say that, unless it can be shown that a person is not competent or qualified for the job to which he has been appointed, and that fair selection procedures have not been adhered to, then allegations of cronyism are nothing more than the bayings of the slur and smear merchants. I challenge the leaders of the National and Liberal Parties to demonstrate how any one of the 274 appointees to the SES does not have the relevant qualifications or experience for the position; in other words, does not have merit. The Government has nothing to hide in its appointment of senior public servants. As I mentioned earlier, we are pleased to have the full list of appointees and their qualifications open to scrutiny by anyone. I present to the House this detailed information. As a matter of courtesy, I will forward a copy of it to the Electoral and Administrative Review Commission, which I understand is looking at what might be described as a smorgasbord of smear from the member for Surfers Paradise. When it comes to Government appointments outside the public service—boards, authorities, corporations, commissions and other statutory bodies—again, the overriding principle is the same. Here, too, there will inevitably be some appointments of people with political affiliations both to the party in Government and to the parties in opposition. But, once again, appointment will be on the basis of qualifications, experience and merit. MINISTERIAL STATEMENT Radioactive Waste Store, Esk State Forest Hon. K. V. McELLIGOTT (Thuringowa—Minister for Health) (10.08 a.m.), by leave: Last Friday, I released the draft environmental impact statement—the EIS—relating to the proposal to locate a low- grade radioactive waste store within the Esk State forest at a site 12 kilometres from the township of Esk. The draft EIS concluded— “The construction of the proposed radioactive waste storage facility and the procedures proposed to be adopted for this handling and storage of materials, will not present an unacceptable risk to public health and safety, nor will it result in any significant adverse environmental impacts.” Legislative Assembly 1573 10 October 1991 Since the release of the draft EIS, a number of people have embarked on a campaign to spread fear amongst residents of the Esk Shire and, indeed, the residents of Brisbane, particularly in relation to the safety of Brisbane's water supply. Prominent among them is the Leader of the National Party, Mr Cooper. As I pointed out yesterday, Mr Cooper has changed his tune somewhat since the days when, as Premier, his Government informed the community that there was absolutely no risk of leaks even if the material went under water. We are witnessing a ruthless campaign of fear being orchestrated by the Opposition Leader to scare the families and children of the Esk region. Mr Cooper stands condemned for his hypocrisy, because he knows that what he has been saying is untrue. Such a campaign has the potential to cause harm to the economy of the shire and to cause unnecessary anxiety to the people. Amongst the sea of politically inspired hysteria, we needed a statesman who was prepared to come out with the facts without political bias. Such a person is the editor of the Gatton, Lockyer and Brisbane Valley Star who, in an editorial yesterday, Wednesday, 9 October, had this to say under the heading “China Syndrome”— “Professor Thomas of the Queensland University of Technology summed up the tremendous dilemma facing the people of Esk with the proposed radioactive storage waste facility when, speaking on ABC television on Monday night, he said the risk factor was virtually nil. He also said the proposed site and building at Redbank would have been perfectly safe. That's about it. We have heard such outlandish cries in the past few months that the district has now been branded because of a problem that is merely a figment of the imagination. And it would appear that these unsubstantiated emotional outcries have only just begun. We had Esk Shire Chairman, Cr Jean Bray—in an effort to draw more attention—claiming that Brisbane's water supply was at risk. It shows how little she knows about the matter that is to be stored there. The matter doesn't dissolve in water and is not affected by it in any way. The storage site in Brisbane went under in the 1974 floods. There was also the claim that an accident while waste material was being transported across the dam wall could cause havoc. Why? It would merely sit on the bottom until it was located by monitoring equipment. Transports cross the dam wall daily carrying fuels and chemicals. The threat from one of these if it were to crash over the dam wall would be countless times greater. If the Esk Shire Council had been offered the munitions factory would councillors have knocked it back? What about trucks loaded with explosives leaving the factory—would they not have provided a far greater risk? And to make it even more unbelievable, some of the councillors who are against the facility were in favour of an abattoir and 5000-head feedlot at Coominya. What would be the relative risk factors there? The leader of the Opposition, Russell Cooper, who hopes to be the next Member for the region under the new electoral boundaries, was out there yesterday giving his support.” Mr Speaker, I desire that the next part of the quote be heard in absolute silence— Legislative Assembly 1574 10 October 1991 “Two of his party, the Member for Lockyer, Tony FitzGerald, and the Member for Somerset, Bill Gunn, in discussion with the editor of this newspaper—the first at the Gatton Show dinner, the second at the launching of Bill Blake's book—agreed the facility provided no risk whatsoever.