Parliamentary Debates
(HANSARD)
THIRTY-NINTH PARLIAMENT
FIRST SESSION
2016
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
Thursday, 25 February 2016
Legislative Assembly
Thursday, 25 February 2016
THE SPEAKER (Mr M.W. Sutherland) took the chair at 9.00 am, and read prayers.
PAPERS TABLED
Papers were tabled and ordered to lie upon the table of the house.
PERTH JAPAN FESTIVAL
Statement by Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Interests
DR M.D. NAHAN (Riverton — Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Interests) [9.02 am]: I am
pleased to inform the house that the third annual Japan Festival is coming to Forrest Place on Saturday. The
festival was extremely popular in its previous two years, attracting approximately 10 000 people in its first year
and growing to around 15 000 last year. The festival is an opportunity to experience and enjoy food,
entertainment, pop culture, crafts and cultural experiences from Japan.
The 2016 Perth Japan Festival is also one of the celebrations of the thirty-fifth anniversary of
Western Australia’s sister-state relationship with Hyogo Prefecture in Japan. This significant sister-state
relationship is the longest in Western Australian history and has generated economic, cultural and social
exchanges that strengthen the ties between our two regions. It has often been cited as a model sister-state
relationship and has seen an exchange of students, teachers, government officials, artists, marathon runners and
even a gift of koalas for some reason.
The Hyogo Prefectural Government Cultural Centre in City Beach was opened to celebrate the tenth anniversary
of the relationship. The aim of the annual Japan Festival, which is organised by the Japan Festival Association in
Perth, is to strengthen the friendly relationship between Western Australia and Japan and to reinforce the sense
of community among the Japanese people who reside here.
I am pleased to say that the Western Australian government, through the Office of Multicultural Interests, has
sponsored the festival once again. I have been advised that this year’s festival is likely to attract an increase in
crowd numbers and is offering some rare cultural experiences, including two entertainers from Japan. Maiko is
an apprentice geisha who will dance and sing traditional Japanese songs while Kurodabushi will perform
traditional dances and songs that celebrate a famous samurai who brought peace to Japan without using swords.
Many other fascinating aspects of Japanese culture will be on display, including martial arts, anime characters
cosplay, summer Kimono and games for children.
One of the advantages of Western Australia’s diverse community is that everyone has an opportunity to
experience and enjoy a wide range of cultures through public events such as the Japan Festival. The
Western Australian Japanese community is an integral part of our cultural identity, and this state has benefited
considerably from the skills, business acumen, hard work and rich culture of the Japanese community.
I commend the Japan Festival to everyone in the house and congratulate everyone from the Japan Festival
Association in Perth who has been involved in the organisation of this exciting event. I encourage members to
take their families to Forrest Place in the Perth central business district between 11.00 am and 6.00 pm this
Saturday to enjoy the many presentations on display and take part in the fun and festivities. I will certainly be
attending.
COCKBURN AND KWINANA CONNECTING COMMUNITY FOR KIDS INITIATIVE
Statement by Minister for Community Services
MR A.J. SIMPSON (Darling Range — Minister for Community Services [9.05 am]: I would like to inform
Parliament about an exciting partnership between the state government and the private sector in the health and
wellbeing of young children. In December last year, I announced the Cockburn and Kwinana Connecting
Community for Kids initiative, which is a partnership between the state government, Woodside and the
Western Australian Council of Social Service. The initiative is resourced by a $2 million investment from the
Woodside development fund, which supports projects that bring about meaningful change in communities. The
Connecting Community for Kids initiative aims to improve the level of social, emotional, communication and
language development of children in Cockburn and Kwinana, as measured by the Australian Early Development
Census. It is a significant example of state government agencies, community sector organisations and local
governments working with private industry to deliver a substantial project.
In addition, the initiative will enable the state government to identify gaps and duplication of effort to ensure the
delivery of services and programs that are connected, integrated and responsive to children’s needs. The state
government recognises the importance of a child’s early years to their future development. We want to do all we
can to ensure that Western Australian children have the best possible start in life.
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Cockburn and Kwinana are both local government areas that have a higher than average proportion of young
children and high population growth. I am confident that this project will be of great importance to these
communities. By targeting investment in the future of Cockburn and Kwinana’s young children, the state
government is investing in their futures. I look forward to continuing to update the house on the implementation
and progress of this important community initiative.
TRAFFIC SIGNAL OPERATIONS
Statement by Minister for Transport
MR D.C. NALDER (Alfred Cove — Minister for Transport) [9.07 am]: I am pleased to inform the house that
Western Australia is now the first state to have all traffic signals operating with light-emitting diode displays, or
LED displays, on all its traffic control signals. This achievement is the culmination of a six-year program. The
more efficient and cost-effective LED displays deliver substantial savings with an estimated 75 per cent
reduction in power consumption. Main Roads currently manages just under 1 000 sets of traffic signals across
the state from Karratha in the north to Albany and Busselton in the south and Kalgoorlie to the east. The new
LED signals provide a brighter signal for motorists, which improves safety, reduces energy use and saves public
money on operating costs.
Main Roads Western Australia is leading the nation with the implementation of a number of innovative and
sustainable initiatives being applied at traffic signal–operated intersections throughout the state. Other key
initiatives to improve our traffic signal operations, which have already been successfully introduced under the
Main Roads traffic congestion management program, include pedestrian countdown timers now installed at
17 key crossings; a flashing yellow caution lights for turning traffic trial at five locations; a right-turn filtering
trial at six sites on Canning Highway, with early results looking encouraging; and improved traffic signal timings
at 93 intersections along nine key traffic routes across the Perth metropolitan area. These initiatives are part of
a planned strategic approach to deliver immediate benefits and improved safety at key congestion hotspots across
the state. This is really just the start; we are moving into new territory with our traffic signals and identifying
ways to improve our operations. This year we are expanding our traffic signal timing improvement project to
include 201 traffic signals over 20 routes.
This state Liberal–National government is delivering benefits to the people of Western Australia through
innovation and the traffic signal–LED initiative is just one of these, with very positive benefits. I commend
Main Roads for leading the nation in this important area.
BUILDING MINISTERS’ FORUM
Statement by Parliamentary Secretary
MR P.T. MILES (Wanneroo — Parliamentary Secretary) [9.09 am]: On 19 February 2016, I represented the
Minister for Commerce at the Building Ministers’ Forum. I advise the house that the forum progressed a number
of significant reforms that will benefit the Australian building industry and the wider Australian community. The
forum agreed to work cooperatively to implement a range of measures to address safety issues associated with
high-risk building products. This work, which will be undertaken by the Australian Building Codes Board, arose
in response to the Lacrosse apartments fire and is informed by the findings of the Victorian Building Authority’s
external wall cladding audit in Melbourne. In particular, it was agreed in principle that the ABCB will support
measures to address the risks specifically associated with cladding used in high-rise buildings. The forum also
requested that the Australian Building Codes Board further develop proposed additional actions to address the
wider issue of noncompliant use of building products. Senior officials were assigned the task of undertaking
further work with the ABCB to review the National Construction Code related to high-risk building products.
A report on these matters will be provided at the next forum.
The forum also agreed to the strategies set out in a report from senior officials from all jurisdictions, aimed at
addressing the risks associated with nonconforming building products. This includes improving
intergovernmental cooperation and enhancing industry and consumer awareness of nonconforming building
products. The forum accepted an offer from the commonwealth Department of Immigration and
Border Protection, with assistance from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, to establish
relevant information sharing arrangements between the commonwealth, states and territories to be reported on
within two months.
In-principle support was also given for improvements to the regulatory framework to enhance the powers of
building regulators to respond to instances of nonconforming building products, develop education strategies to
better inform consumers and building industry participants, and encourage greater responsibility for the safe use
of building products. The forum will continue to act and work collaboratively to ensure that building
practitioners have the means available to comply with the National Construction Code and that Australians can
continue to have confidence in the safety of buildings. I am pleased to say that the next forum, likely to be held
in the second half of this year, will be held in Western Australia.
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HORIZON POWER —ELECTRICITY COSTS — KIMBERLEY
Grievance
MS J. FARRER (Kimberley) [9.11 am]: My grievance this morning is to the Minister for Energy. A huge
number of people in the Kimberley have had extreme power bill increases this year. Some people have had a rise
of 400 per cent either in their last billing period or compared with their bill from the same time last year.
Residents across the region are shocked and outraged, and have stated that they simply will not pay the bills until
the minister conducts a public review of smart meters and billing practices of Horizon Power.
Families are struggling in my electorate. Many feel stranded in a sense of hopelessness and cannot afford to pay
for their basic living expenses. One father wrote on a local discussion page as follows —
… our low bill at Christmas. We hated our $1400 catch up bill late February. Little does Horizon Power
know the economic repercussions to the Broome community and business/individual/family spending
especially coming up to the end of the wet season. Incompetent billing is no excuse. They should be
held accountable for a lot of Kimberley peoples hardship in the following months playing catch up.
In the past month, Horizon Power has been inundated with furious customers, such as the father I just mentioned,
calling and demanding explanations of how it can be possible to receive bills of over $2 000 when their previous
bill was only $500, and requesting re-reads of their meters. Apparently, Horizon Power staff have explained to
customers who call that the meter readers who knew they were soon to become unemployed due to the
installation of new smart meters decided that instead of doing the readings, walking from house to house, they
would sit at home and punch in the readings from there, so they were effectively making up the meter readings.
If a contractor undercharges for a job, surely they cannot go back later and ask for more. Something has gone
wrong at the provider’s end—a government-owned provider. This government must be held accountable and
compensate the consumers. The vast majority of residents in the Kimberley do not even have the option of
converting to solar power because this government refuses to invest in cleaner, smarter and more affordable
power solutions in regional Western Australia. Last week I addressed the Premier’s statement and spoke on
resources that need to be explored so that options are made available. I mentioned that wind, water, tidal, solar
and hydro power could be a lot more effective.
This government needs to get serious about supporting families—all families right across the Kimberley. The
government must act now and alleviate the extreme and unfair costs of living in the regions. It must reduce the
cost of electricity and implement all that is required for solar power availability. Surely this is commonsense,
especially for the Kimberley region where we have a lot of sunshine. The government needs to change the
current regulations prohibiting my electorate from maximising the availability and use of solar power. Minister,
please take note.
The large increase in the cost of power, especially for the lowest paid people in the community, is absolutely
unfair and is causing unnecessary hardship and huge amounts of stress for many single parents I know
personally. These families budget every cent of their income based on previous bill amounts. To then receive an
unexpected $2 000 power bill right after Christmas, and with six weeks of school holidays, has brought parents
to tears. I can tell members that I have seen some of these people cry, and I truly feel for them.
We need an energy game changer. We need to support solar power, energy efficiency and energy storage. This
government must create cleaner, smarter and more affordable power for WA. I urge the Minister for Energy to
immediately conduct a public review of the efficiency of smart meters and energy pricing. Please take note of the
request of the Kimberley people. Thank you.
DR M.D. NAHAN (Riverton — Minister for Energy) [9.16 am]: I thank the member for Kimberley for her
grievance; I am aware of the issue. Firstly, we have uniform tariffs for residential and small business consumers
around Western Australia; that is, they all pay the same, irrespective of the cost of providing that. Of course, in
the Kimberley the cost is much higher than it is here in Perth. On top of that, we subsidise all electricity
consumption, even in Perth. We have the most heavily subsidised electricity in the nation. On average, outside
the metropolitan area, in Horizon Power’s network, we subsidise residential houses to the tune of
$3 000 per annum. That subsidy will be much higher in the Kimberley. We have uniform tariffs based on
Synergy’s tariffs here, and Synergy’s tariffs are subsidised. We also have a very extensive and successful
promotion scheme for renewable energy. It has been widely taken up in areas such as Broome and Carnarvon
and around Horizon’s area. Indeed, the take-up has been so successful in Broome that we are reaching capacity
limitations, so to overcome those capacity limitations, we are now experimenting with battery technology that
allows storage of solar-generated electrons during the day to use at night to overcome the capacity limits. No
government of Western Australia has done more than we have to promote solar energy around
Western Australia, particularly in the regions, and that is the reason that solar energy is being taken up and has
been taken up so rapidly in this state. The facts tell the story.
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The issue at hand is that during November and December there was a whole range of incorrect readings of
meters—almost 1 275 customers in the Kimberley. As the member said, Horizon found out about that and put
out a press release stating that it was human error. As the member for Kimberley put it, it appears it was not just
human error. We are rolling out smart meters, which is again another example of our reform in energy.
Smart meters have all sorts of benefits, particularly in regional Western Australia. Firstly, some of the meters are
now very old, clunky and prone to inaccurate readings. Secondly, they are very expensive to read because we
have to send people out to the far flung communities of the Kimberley and rural Western Australia, and often
they are not read on a regular basis, or are read improperly or inaccurately. Because those smart meters are
monitored by the web, we can find out when they are at fault, what the fault is, whether there are some issues
with the community, whether or not, for instance, some communities have left electricity on or whether their
electricity use has shot up. It provides instantaneous, remote feedback to Horizon Power on the uses and
characteristics of energy. We are spending $34 million on rolling out smart meters to every consumer in
Horizon Power’s network. It is not paying for that. The government, through royalties for regions, has
committed to fully fund the investment. The community is very pleased with that for a variety of reasons that
I mentioned.
I go back to the facts at hand. During November and December, we shifted to remote smart meters and
Horizon Power contracted out the meter reading, and those contracts will end. At least one, maybe more, of the
meter readers made errors and significantly understated the readings in November and December. I think the
member for Kimberley probably has it wrong. There are indications that they did not read the meters because in
the time between readings it would have been impossible to go from house to house. Nonetheless, that is the fact.
Horizon Power found out about it and before the next bill was sent out, it indicated to every customer whose
meter had been under-read that this had taken place. They were told that the contact was Horizon Power.
Anybody who got back to Horizon Power was given an immediate extension to pay their bills and
Horizon Power entered into discussion to extend the payment over a period. Horizon Power acted in the correct
way. It then started making up for the electrons consumed but not billed in pay period one and future bill
periods; it was willing to stretch it out over time. The simple facts are this. First, there was human error—maybe
more than that. Second, all the electrons billed were consumed. Horizon Power is not billing consumers for more
electricity than was consumed. It has entered into discussions to stretch the bill over time, and $34 million has
been invested around Horizon Power to avoid this in the future by investing in smart meters. I know that an
ex-Labor and now Green politician, Luc Maher, is running a campaign to establish a forum encouraging people
not to pay their bills. In other words, he is telling the community to not pay their bills even though they are
consuming the electricity. That is for him to decide. The matter was also given a number of television spots and
the assumption was made that one person’s bill had gone up by 400 per cent. This customer failed to mention on
TV that he had had a second meter on his property since 2011 that he has never been charged for, so his bill went
up because we started charging for the electricity that he had been consuming for five years, which is only fair.
Horizon Power has asked ABC TV for a retraction on that issue.
We have reformed the system. For people with significantly subsidised electricity, we have stretched out the
payment period. We are doing the right thing. No state government has invested in solar energy like this
government has invested.
MIDLAND PUBLIC HOSPITAL — PUBLIC TRANSPORT
Grievance
MR F.A. ALBAN (Swan Hills) [9.23 am]: I raise a grievance on public transport access for my electorate of
Swan Hills for the St John of God Midland Public Hospital, which opened last year. Positively, since the
Liberal–National government was elected in 2008, we have seen Transperth bus services to the area of
Ellenbrook—I am speaking broadly and including the nearby suburbs of The Vines and Aveley—increase by
approximately 180 per cent. We have seen newer buses more frequently along more routes. I should note that
these buses include a connecting service to Bassendean train station on the Midland line of the Transperth rail
network. However, these services are often hampered by congestion on Lord Street. In November 2015, this
government opened the St John of God Midland Public Hospital—an investment of more than $360 million in
the east metropolitan region’s health services that delivers significant services to those residents living in and
near Ellenbrook. I understand that the buses now run between the Midland train station and the new hospital
every 15 minutes, leaving the problem of how to efficiently move people from Ellenbrook to the Midland train
network. The advent of this investment has accentuated the deficiencies facing a vast proportion of our growing
north eastern population. For the new hospital to be of maximum benefit to this population, road and rail access
is critical. Again, I acknowledge that we have seen significant investment in our state’s road infrastructure
throughout the region that directly benefits in both time and safety those in and around the hub of Ellenbrook.
Gnangara Road’s upgrades are progressing and the intersection of Lord Street and Reid Highway has been
upgraded and completed.
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Since being elected in 2008, I have seen investment of over $35 million from the state government towards both
local government roads—Gnangara Road and the Reid Highway–Lord Street intersection—through a range of
upgrades, but the hub of Ellenbrook still lacks essential services and connectivity to those services needs to
improve. Although a large amount of services can be provided mostly over the phone and online, one sector
often requires face-to-face consultations far more than any other sector—the healthcare sector. For many people,
seniors in particular, public transport is their key and often only option. Ellenbrook and its nearby suburbs
continue to grow. We have seen investment made in developments such as the new primary school at
Annie’s Landing and new residential developments in Ellenbrook, Aveley and The Vines. A new secondary
school in North Ellenbrook is also underway. Last year the state government, commonwealth government and
Curtin University announced the establishment of a medical school for Midland to be located near the new
hospital. It is the first tertiary education campus for Perth’s eastern suburbs. This again supports our request. In
short, any initiative improving the public transport link to the existing rail network and Midland will benefit
more people from its inception and justify such investment for these communities. The area of Ellenbrook will
benefit from improved access and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future with stage 2 of NorthLink WA
further improving the area’s access to the greater metropolitan area at total cost of $1.12 billion.
The minister and I both attended the 2016 WA Transport and Roads Forum at El Caballo Resort. We heard about
Labor’s plans for its election in March 2017. Conspicuous by its absence was the Perth–Darwin highway
NorthLink project. This project is not included in Labor’s future plans. Should this be the case, it would
constitute the ultimate betrayal for the electorates of Swan Hills and West Swan who rely on this very Liberal
project to secure an economic hub to Ellenbrook regions’ growing population and improved access to the CBD.
This risk would again support our request, as Lord Street is currently Ellenbrook’s main route to the city.
The wider Ellenbrook community would appreciate the re-consideration of a bus rapid transit system to
Bassendean to provide a more efficient transfer to our rail system, and, with the City of Swan’s support, the
dualling of Lord Street from Gnangara Road to Reid Highway in the long term, further reducing traffic
congestion through this important arterial road. This will enable the community to take full advantage of all the
good work undertaken by this government in both the areas of road infrastructure and healthcare at the new
Midland Public Hospital. This would also be some security against the possibility of a Labor re-election in
March with the promise of a magical mystery train line replacing the NorthLink, Perth–Darwin highway project.
MR D.C. NALDER (Alfred Cove — Minister for Transport) [9.29 am]: I thank the member for Swan Hills
for raising these issues and I acknowledge his efforts in working towards better transport outcomes for his
community. The member would be are aware that public transport patronage forecasts for the Swan urban
growth corridor through to Ellenbrook do not demonstrate sufficient demand to justify the provision of a train
line, heavy or light, in the near future. The government has been very clear that the most efficient form of public
transport for this corridor will remain buses for at least the next decade, and so we are determined to ensure that
the customer experience they receive from using buses is optimal. As the member has briefly mentioned,
enormous investment has been made in public transport in Ellenbrook and its surrounding suburbs. In 2010 this
government introduced new bus services providing a 10-minute peak frequency between Ellenbrook and
Bassendean train station linking residents from Ellenbrook and other suburbs in the Swan urban growth corridor
to Midland and Perth. I am sure they would also appreciate the large investment this government has made in
renewing the bus fleet. The number of new, clean, fresh buses that everybody is seeing across the metropolitan
area is something this government has been committee to, to ensure the best possible ride for passengers.
Off-peak services operate every 15 minutes. This is the same peak and off-peak frequency as train services on
the Midland, Fremantle and Armadale–Thornlie lines. At the same time the local feeder bus network was
enhanced significantly. Over subsequent years this network of services has been adjusted to service growing
areas, such as the introduction of a new route to Aveley. As recently as August last year, services were extended
to Malvern Springs estate and Annie’s Landing estate in response to the increase in development. As has been
demonstrated in the past, when new residential estates emerge, the public transport network will expand over
time to service them. Clearly, both the public transport service coverage and frequency needs of residents
through this corridor are being met; however, it is acknowledged that roads such as Lord Street are experiencing
heavy traffic loads. This is typical of any corridor that experiences rapid urban development. The state
government is investing heavily in transport infrastructure, which will improve access for the Ellenbrook area.
A contract was recently awarded for a $281 million project to replace signalised intersections on
Tonkin Highway at Collier Road, Morley Drive and Benara Road. A separate contract will be awarded later this
year to construct the Reid Highway to the Ellenbrook section of NorthLink WA. That is a $836 million project
that will extend to Muchea by 2019. I repeat for the member for Swan Hills: this will essentially create a freeway
service for the people of Ellenbrook that will connect all the way through to Kwinana Freeway and further south.
This is the first time the people living in that area will be afforded such an efficient road service.
Notwithstanding this significant investment, my department continues to investigate various options for the
people of Swan Hills and Ellenbrook, which includes Lord Street and improved bus travel times to Bassendean
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train station. From Bassendean station there is already a frequent train service to Midland station. As the member
mentioned, a direct bus service was introduced to operate between the Midland train station and the hospital.
I acknowledge the concerns the member for Swan Hills has raised on behalf of his community. The government
will continue to investigate these opportunities and I appreciate his support of the public transport and road
improvements being delivered in his electorate.
ECO SHARK BARRIER — QUINNS BEACH
Grievance
MR J.R. QUIGLEY (Butler) [9.32 am]: I raise with the Premier of Western Australia my grievance concerning
a prospective Eco Shark Barrier installation at Quinns Beach. I do this at the request of the Butler community
and, specifically, at the request of the Mayor of Wanneroo, Tracey Roberts. In May 2015 the City of Wanneroo
undertook a feasibility study into whether it could install an Eco Shark Barrier at Quinns Beach and embarked on
community consultation. That took place last year when the city consulted with the Department of Transport, the
Department of Lands and the WA Planning Commission. The City of Wanneroo conducted a thorough
investigation of this and found that there was very strong community demand for such a facility up there. When
the community was surveyed, 72 per cent said they would use the beach more; 73 per cent said they would use
Quinns Beach over any other beach; and 82 per cent said they would be more likely to swim. I note that the
government has offered to install an Eco Shark Barrier at Middleton Beach in Albany and at Sorrento Beach.
I will just say something about Sorrento Beach: I do not want to advocate that that barrier be ripped away, but as
the Mayor of Wanneroo, Tracey Roberts, points out to me, it is her understanding that the City of Joondalup has
asked for more money. There has been toing and froing over the Eco Shark Barrier at Sorrento Beach and no
financial agreement has been reached with the government; whereas the City of Wanneroo is shovel-ready—or
should I say “snorkel-ready”—to proceed with this project. A lot of the attraction for it there is that it is a very
long way from Sorrento Beach. As the member for Ocean Reef knows, the distance—just to give the chamber an
idea—between Quinns Beach and Sorrento is 20.5 kilometres. To put that into perspective, the distance between
Cottesloe and Sorrento is 21.5 kilometres. Quinns Beach is as far from Sorrento as Sorrento is from Cottesloe.
This area is right up the coast. As the Minister for Environment and member for Ocean Reef knows, because he
lives out that way, there has been a very large influx of migrants to the population there. A lot of English and
Sudanese are moving into the area—people with somewhat limited swimming and ocean experience. Many of
them are diffident about entering the water because of a fear of sharks. Also, we do not have any swimming
pools on that northern coastal strip, unlike in the western suburbs where I note that most of the schools have
50-metre pools. The Claremont Aquatic Centre, in the middle of them all, has a 50-metre pool. There is also
Bold Park and Challenge Stadium. There are no pools in the electorate of Butler, apart from a pool at the arena
that is hopelessly overused. Some schools see it as problematic to take their classes of infants to learn to swim in
the ocean. The added advantage we have learned from the Cockburn experience is that the shark barrier provides
not only a shark mitigation tool, but also a fence around an area of the ocean where kiddies in inflatables cannot
go out past in that area.
The City of Wanneroo has costed this proposal and made a resolution. After starting its investigation in
May 2015, it resolved unanimously on 2 February 2016 to proceed with installing an Eco Shark Barrier. It
resolved to write to the Premier requesting a $300 000 state government contribution to this. I have gone through
this in my reply to the Premier’s Statement. The state infrastructure in that north coast area is meagre. I realise
this is a challenge for the state government. It is a huge challenge for the City of Wanneroo also, because it does
not have a state road. All the roads are local distributor roads, and the council carries the expense of that. The
City of Wanneroo did not get any contribution from the state government for the reparation of Quinns Beach
when it was eroded; the council had to pay $3 million. As a result of the council’s unanimous resolution to
proceed with installing an Eco Shark Barrier, having passed a motion in the council on 2 February, it then put it
on its 20-year infrastructure list. Mayor Tracey Roberts, directed by the unanimous resolution of the
City of Wanneroo, wrote to the Premier seeking $300 000 for the installation of the Eco Shark Barrier. It would
be installed before the election. As I said, the council is snorkel-ready; the equipment is available. The council is
ready to get this down as soon as the Premier can indicate that the government will contribute that money.
Although the council asked for $300 000, I notice from media releases that the government said it would provide
$250 000 to the City of Joondalup to do this at Sorrento Beach, and that has not yet been taken up by Joondalup—
it is toing and froing. Can I just say something about Sorrento Beach? A shark enclosure was installed at Sorrento
Beach for $250 000 but it is a three-minute walk on the cycleway into Hillarys Boat Harbour where there is
a heavily used beach where there are no sharks because it is inside the harbour. I say on behalf of the people of
Butler and the Mayor of the City of Wanneroo that the request for $300 000, even if it is rounded down to what
has been offered to Joondalup, is very reasonable given the dearth of facilities there. The surf club does not even
have an elevated tower to use as a lookout for sharks, but there are hundreds of people there. This is a sincere
request, Premier.
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MR C.J. BARNETT (Cottesloe — Premier) [9.40 am]: Before I address the proposal for Quinns Beach, I want
to make some comments about shark mitigation programs. The fact is that over the last 100 years, there have
been 21 fatal shark attacks in Western Australia—so, 21 in 100 years. Nine of those attacks have occurred in the
last 10 years—indeed, at one stage we had seven fatal attacks in a period of just three years—hence, the
government undertook a series of measures. I admit that some of those measures were very controversial.
However, I felt a responsibility as Premier to respond to what was an extremely dangerous situation, and that
risk remains.
One of the most expensive, but probably the most effective, measures that was undertaken by the government
was the introduction of daily summer aerial beach patrols. Those patrols are now being undertaken through the
use of helicopters, which are obviously a lot more flexible, but also a lot more expensive. Those patrols extend
from Mandurah to Yanchep, and that obviously covers the Quinns Beach area. Those patrols have been effective
in spotting sharks and alerting beachgoers and the like. We have also provided equipment and support for surf
clubs. That includes jetskis, observation decks, the use of apps to provide updated information, and some
scientific research in tagging and monitoring sharks to try to understand more about shark behaviour. There was
also, of course, the shark catching program. That program did not prove effective against great whites and tended
to catch only tiger sharks. However, we still have a policy and provisions that if a shark presents an imminent
danger, it can be destroyed, and that has been done on one occasion.
Out of this process has come the idea of beach enclosures. There is quite a misunderstanding around Australia
about beach enclosures. People talk about the shark nets that are employed in New South Wales and Queensland.
I think most people, certainly in this place, now know that shark nets are not—as most people, including myself,
originally thought—barriers to prevent sharks from coming into the beach. They are a bit like a large tennis court
net, and they are placed at the bottom of the ocean. They are not continuous. They are designed to catch and kill
sharks. They are not a barrier. They are a net for snagging sharks. They kill literally hundreds of sharks, turtles
and dolphins, and all sorts of other species, all along the New South Wales and Queensland coastline. We are not
doing that in Western Australia, and we will not do that.
The nets that have been installed in Western Australia are barriers. The first shark net was put in place at
Dunsborough Beach, which has very calm and protected water, and it has proved to be very effective. The net
goes out to sea for about 100 metres and is about 300 metres long. So, it is not a tightly enclosed area. People
can go there and have a decent swim and feel quite secure that they are not going to have a shark anywhere them.
As a result of that success, another shark net was put in place recently at the Busselton foreshore. Busselton is
a very popular, growing town, and that shark net has also been successful. In last year’s budget, we committed to
fund a shark net at Middleton Beach in Albany. That is, again, a fairly protected beach, but one at which there
has been a shark attack, and sharks are sighted reasonably frequently in that area.
As the member for Butler said, a shark net has also been installed at Sorrento Beach. We were very conscious
that there were no protective nets at northern suburbs beaches. It is difficult, because one of the prime
determinants is the degree of wave motion. If the conditions are fairly rough, shark nets are not suitable because
they will be torn up and be displaced and the like. Therefore, we are looking always for calm locations, and they
are more limited in the north of Perth than they are in the south of Perth, in which there are a number of locations
at which shark nets could be used. I acknowledge that the City of Cockburn took the initiative and has put in its
own shark net. Good luck to it; well done.
With respect to the shark net proposed for Sorrento Beach, the water is deeper in that area and the wave action is
larger than it is for the nets employed at Dunsborough and Busselton. Therefore, probably a stronger net will be
required, and it will be more expensive. It is also believed that because of the location of that beach virtually by
itself on that whole northern suburbs coastline, a shark net enclosure is likely to draw a large number of people.
The City of Joondalup has come back with that and we are discussing with it whether we will provide some
additional funding to make it a bigger enclosure and to compensate for the deeper water and rougher conditions.
Those discussions are going on and the government may well contribute more but I would expect the
City of Joondalup to also contribute significantly to that.
Quinns Beach was not one of the beaches that was examined by the hydrobiology report. We will, therefore, rely
on information provided by the City of Wanneroo. As the member for Butler has said, the Mayor of the
City of Wanneroo, Tracey Roberts, wrote to me on 2 December requesting that the funding be transferred from
Sorrento to Quinns. We will not be doing that. That will not happen. We will continue to work with the
City of Joondalup on the Sorrento project, even though it is likely to be more expensive.
We have implicitly adopted a policy that in every budget, we will fund an extra one to two shark nets, depending
on their cost and location, and their suitability.
Mr D.J. Kelly: Is it in the forward estimates?
Mr C.J. BARNETT: No. We do not have forward estimates before we present the budget for the coming year.
It is a sequence.
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Mr D.J. Kelly interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Bassendean!
Mr C.J. BARNETT: Mr Speaker, this is the sort of idiocy we get in this place—just dysfunctional members of
Parliament.
Mr D.J. Kelly interjected.
Mr C.J. BARNETT: A grievance was asked in good faith. If the member does not want me to answer it, I will
sit down.
Every year, we intend to fund one to two shark nets, depending on their cost, to try to get a spread. The
limitations are location and high wave action. The City of Wanneroo has now put in a proposal for Quinns. We
will consider that, along with other proposed locations, at the time of the coming budget.
The member for Wanneroo, Paul Miles, also wrote to me, on 26 November, with a similar request that the funds
be transferred. As I have said, we will not be doing that. We will stick in good faith with the Sorrento project.
However, we will consider Quinns. From what I know of the site, the wave action is a little high, but probably
manageable, and if the City of Wanneroo is willing to also contribute to that, there is probably a pretty good
chance that it will happen.
I agree with the member for Butler and the member for Wanneroo that there is a lack of locations and a lack of
safe swimming areas on the northern beaches. They are fairly exposed. They have reef structures that provide
some protection, but there are also some rips in those areas that are quite dangerous.
I would like to see this proceed, and it will be considered as part of the next budget. The council of the
City of Wanneroo has put up a good proposal. There are plenty of other locations around Perth that will come
into consideration for a shark net. However, the northern suburbs do present a strong case for some enclosures.
OCEAN REEF MARINA REDEVELOPMENT
Grievance
MR J. NORBERGER (Joondalup) [9.47 am]: My grievance this morning is to the Minister for Planning.
I thank the minister for taking my grievance this morning. The minister is no doubt aware that the Ocean Reef
marina redevelopment has been of great interest to the residents who live in proximity to the existing marina.
Many members of my community have expressed strong support for this project and the desire for meaningful
progress to be made to see it come to fruition. Such feedback has only intensified since the recent electoral
boundary redistribution placed the suburbs of Mullaloo and Ocean Reef into the seat of Joondalup. It is a delight
that I now have the opportunity to also represent suburbs with which I share a close affinity, having grown up in
Ocean Reef and attended schools in both Mullaloo and Ocean Reef. Indeed, I can even remember discussions
taking place about the marina redevelopment when I was a child. In total, the project has been discussed in
various forms for over 30 years now.
Quite significant progress has been made since 2007, with the City of Joondalup actively advancing the project
by the development of concept plans through which to garner public feedback and support. I would like to thank
the City of Joondalup for the ongoing efforts it is making in advancing this important project.
I appreciate the fact that the minister is well versed with the proposed redevelopment and the aims that the
City of Joondalup, the state government and the community are hoping to achieve. One must simply look at the
success of Hillarys Boat Harbour to appreciate the positive impact on tourism, local business and local amenities
that a well thought through and community-focused development can achieve for my local community.
The proposed concept plan envisages a fantastic development, which would provide boat pens, boat storage,
family leisure and recreational amenities, commercial and retail opportunities, short-stay accommodation, and
residential dwellings, and, importantly, provisions for the Ocean Reef Sea Sports Club and Whitfords Volunteer
Sea Rescue Group. I think it is worth remarking that when the City of Joondalup went out to the community for
comment in 2009, the response rate was, quite frankly, staggering. In total, 11 728 completed surveys were
received, with 93.9 per cent of respondents in favour of the redevelopment and 95.6 per cent supporting the
concept plan as presented. It is therefore not surprising that since coming to Parliament in 2013, the advancement
of the Ocean Reef marina redevelopment has been a recurring theme raised by members of my community.
With the inclusion of Mullaloo and Ocean Reef in the electorate of Joondalup, such advocacy has only increased.
I understand that the City of Joondalup currently has the responsibility to complete a business case and obtain
further environmental approvals before the required metropolitan region scheme boundary amendment can be
fully considered by the Western Australian Planning Commission.
It is my understanding that work is continuing in this regard and that a series of further public consultations are
likely to get underway shortly. I am excited to see such steady progress being made. Ultimately, though, there
will come a time, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, when the further involvement of the state government
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
881
will be required. The development of the Ocean Reef marina will be a significant project that will be beyond the
capability of the City of Joondalup to achieve on its own. The memorandum of understanding between the
City of Joondalup and the state government acknowledged the need for both parties to work collaboratively to
achieve the end result. It is my desire today to not only re-emphasise the importance of this project to my
community and the support it enjoys from it, but also seek an update from the minister on the near future of this
project and opportunities for future support. I would like to think that once a business case is assessed as viable
and the required planning and environmental approvals are in place, a lead agency such as LandCorp could help
to drive this project forward. Again, I thank the minister for his time this morning and I look forward to his
feedback on this project.
MR J.H.D. DAY (Kalamunda — Minister for Planning) [9.50 am]: I acknowledge the interest of the member
for Joondalup in this proposed project and the desire of the local community for a marina and associated
facilities to be established at Ocean Reef. I also acknowledge the member for Ocean Reef, the Minister for
Environment, who has expressed his strong interest in this issue over the last several years. The reason for the
interest of the member for Joondalup is, as he explained, the change in electoral boundaries.
The City of Joondalup has promoted the concept of a marina development at the Ocean Reef Boat Harbour for
a number of years and various concept designs have been considered by the city. I understand that a proposal,
which is referred to as concept 7, was the subject of a financial feasibility analysis by the city in 2010, and that
resulted in the city concluding, as I understand is stated on its website, that the proposal would generate
a significant deficit over the course of the development and that this was considered to be an unacceptable risk.
The city subsequently resolved to modify the concept, with a view to reducing the overall costs. The resultant
proposal, known as concept 7.1, although occupying a similar footprint, required less capital investment and
proposed a lower density and intensity of development. This concept has been further refined and is known as
concept 7.2, and I understand it is the basis for the City of Joondalup preparing a business case.
A memorandum of understanding to facilitate the approvals process was signed by the city and the state
government in February 2012, with the Department of Planning identified as the lead agency for the approvals
process. On 22 April 2014, the Western Australian Planning Commission, at the City of Joondalup’s request,
initiated a metropolitan region scheme amendment seeking to rationalise various zones and reserves to facilitate
the redevelopment of the Ocean Reef marina. The proposed development site occupies a footprint of
approximately 91.5 hectares, comprising a 57.88-hectare land component and a 33.61-hectare marine
component, and includes the existing Ocean Reef Boat Harbour. The proposed MRS amendment would facilitate
the expansion and redevelopment of the existing boat harbour to accommodate approximately 750 boat pens,
various water-related uses, short-term accommodation, commercial uses and freehold land. The Environmental
Protection Authority has advised that the land component of the MRS amendment does not require formal
environmental assessment, as a negotiated planning solution is being progressed for Bush Forever site 325.
However, the marina component of the MRS amendment is to be formally assessed and has been set at the level
of a public environmental review. I am advised that the City of Joondalup is developing the public
environmental review documentation and it will be submitted to the EPA shortly. The next step will be
advertising the PER and this will occur along with the advertising of the MRS amendment, which I expect will
occur in the next few months. The city has undertaken conceptual structure planning to support the MRS
amendment and has undertaken a range of consultations with various state government agencies.
The MOU between the City of Joondalup and the state government has expired and the city is seeking agreement
to renew the MOU, as well as seeking that the government manage and potentially fund the project. On
2 October 2015, the City of Joondalup wrote to me, as Minister for Planning, requesting that the state
government assume the role of proponent for the Ocean Reef marina project. I advised that in the absence of
information about a business case, land assembly and ongoing management, it was difficult for the state
government to make an informed decision on its future involvement in the project. On 3 February 2016, the
City of Joondalup provided documentation outlining the financial feasibility studies that it has undertaken for the
project. These documents are currently being reviewed by the relevant state government departments.
I note the member’s desire for the involvement of LandCorp in the Ocean Reef marina project. This would need
to be a decision of the government of course and, in particular, the Minister for Lands. I imagine that it would
most likely be a cabinet decision. The government would need to fully understand the costs, risk, benefits and
time frames for the project and identify a funding source prior to committing to the project. I understand that
LandCorp is currently working with the city to review the plans and studies—in fact, I requested the
involvement of LandCorp in that respect—and that process is being undertaken with the intention of providing
the government with a clear understanding of the issues that I have just mentioned.
I encourage the City of Joondalup to continue working with the various relevant state government agencies to
progress the MRS amendment and to complete the necessary reports so that we can be fully informed about
making a decision about the possible future development of the Ocean Reef marina.
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JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE CORRUPTION AND CRIME COMMISSION
Twenty-sixth Report — “Public Hearing with the Police Commissioner on the CCC’s report on an incident at
the East Perth Watch House” — Tabling
MR P.B. WATSON (Albany) [9.56 am]: I present for tabling the twenty-sixth report of the Joint Standing
Committee on the Corruption and Crime Commission titled “Public Hearing with the Police Commissioner on
the CCC’s report on an incident at the East Perth Watch House”.
[See paper 3889.]
Mr P.B. WATSON: This report by the joint standing committee follows the Corruption and Crime
Commission’s report on the investigation of an incident at the East Perth watch house on 7 April 2013. The
report was tabled in Parliament on 20 August 2015, some 30 months after the incident was first reported to the
commission. The CCC’s report was in response to a complaint made by Ms Joanne Martin, who had been
arrested in Northbridge for disorderly behaviour and taken by WA Police officers for processing to the
East Perth watch house. The subsequent inquiry into the actions of 12 WAPOL staff stationed at the watch house
who had some involvement in the incident resulted in the commission making the following opinions: serious
misconduct within the meaning of section 4(c) of the Corruption, Crime and Misconduct Act against two
WAPOL staff; reviewable police action within paragraph (b) of the definition of “reviewable police action” at
section 3 of the CCC act against two WAPOL staff; and serious misconduct, misconduct within the meaning of
section 4(d)(iii) and (vi) of the CCC act, and reviewable police action against one police auxiliary and custody
officer.
In addition to these opinions, the commission made six recommendations to WAPOL about the future operation
of its watch houses. These recommendations were related to areas of supervision and training, policy and
procedures, consistency of supervision and joint training, record keeping and decision-making, electronic record
keeping, and avoiding officers seeing naked detainees of the opposite sex.
Although WAPOL accepted the report’s recommendations, the Commissioner of Police, Dr Karl O’Callaghan,
said that the officers who remained at WAPOL since the incident would not face criminal or disciplinary action
because of the amount of time that had passed since the alleged assault. Additionally, it was his view that
Ms Martin escalated the use of force that was required in that incident and, as such, that the process used by the
police was lawful.
This report by the Joint Standing Committee on the Corruption and Crime Commission committee provides
a timeline of the Corruption and Crime Commission’s 30-month investigation into the incident. The committee
sought comment from CCC commissioner, Hon John McKechnie, QC, about the reasons that may have
contributed to the delay. Commissioner McKechnie advised that there were two substantial delays in the
commission’s process of investigating and reporting this matter due to competing, urgent matters
between April and July 2014, and August 2014 and August 2015. He said that delays were attributed to, and
I quote from the report —
… in part due to the tardiness in the appointment of a substantive Commissioner from
April 2014-April 2015 and the need for two Acting Commissioners to work on a rostered basis for that
period whilst continuing to manage law private practices outside the Commission.
The difficulties faced by the two acting commissioners in undertaking their private full-time legal practices while
also acting on a rotating basis as commissioner every two weeks followed the resignation of then commissioner,
Mr Robert Macknay, QC, in April 2014. The committee’s fifteenth report, “Ensuring the Timely Appointment of
a New Corruption and Crime Commissioner”, in August 2014 highlighted the implications of this arrangement
and made full recommendations to address the situation. Regrettably, however, only one of these
recommendations was accepted and acted on.
In this current report, the committee reiterates two of the same recommendations to amend the Corruption,
Crime and Misconduct Act 2003 to ensure the Corruption and Crime Commission is not in the future left
similarly exposed to lengthy periods without a substantive commissioner.
I would like to thank my fellow committee members for their collaboration on this report: the committee
Chairman, the member for South Metropolitan, Hon Nick Goiran, MLC; the member for Forrestfield,
Mr Nathan Morton, MLA; and the member for South West Region, Hon Adele Farina. We were ably supported
by the commission’s secretary, Dr David Worth, and Ms Jovita Hogan.
PILBARA PORT ASSETS (DISPOSAL) BILL 2015
Third Reading
MR J.H.D. DAY (Kalamunda — Leader of the House) [10.02 am]: On behalf of the Treasurer, I move —
That the bill be now read a third time.
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883
MR W.J. JOHNSTON (Cannington) [10.03 am]: The Pilbara Port Assets (Disposal) Bill 2015 was
significantly changed during parliamentary consideration in detail, and that is obviously a good thing. The
Parliament is always at its best when the government is prepared to listen to alternative points of view and take
those views for their underlying value. The Labor Party still opposes the bill, but we think it has been improved
due to the changes. One of the changes—I will talk about them in a moment—is to the content of the bill and one
change is to the government’s approach to the disposal of the asset.
Let us talk about the change to the bill itself first. Originally, the bill in the form presented by the government
would have allowed the disposal of the Pilbara Port Authority’s every single asset in the port of Port Hedland.
That included not just Utah Point bulk handling facility, but also the facilities of Fortescue Metals Group,
Roy Hill and those used by BHP Billiton Ltd, and the rights to stevedoring, towage and piloting. All these things
could have been sold in Port Hedland had the bill proceeded in the way it was presented by the government. Not
only that, the port of Ashburton could have been sold because it is part of Onslow where the Wheatstone project
is proceeding. That port will be transferred to the Pilbara Port Authority on completion of the
Wheatstone project. That could have been sold under this legislation. All the Dampier port operations and
facilities at Barrow Island related to the Gorgon project could have been sold. It would have been a very, very
wide authority for this government or any future government because it would have been able to sell all those
things without any reference to the Parliament. The government was saying in public that it was interested in
selling only the Utah Point bulk handling facility, without seeking from Parliament authority to sell all those
other things as well. The amendments moved by the government will narrow the bill to just the Utah Point bulk
handling facility, which is contained in schedule 1.
In reading the draft Hansard from last night, I notice the very pretty little diagram included in it, with the red ink
showing the location defined as the Utah Point bulk handling facility. We have gone now from everything being
for sale to only the two stockyards and the wharf. Interestingly, even the car park and the facilities related to the
Utah Point bulk handling facility, which are part of Utah Point to be sold, are not included in the map. Of course,
the legislation contains a provision for the minister to allow the sale of pieces of land or other infrastructure that
is necessarily incidental to the Utah Point bulk handling facility to be included in the asset sale, and that is
obviously to be expected. The government has overcome the difficulty it was getting into with the rights of BHP
in the port because—this is a matter that my good friend the shadow minister for Asian engagement, the member
for Willagee, talked about—the tunnel owned by BHP under the harbour and BHP’s conveyor that goes from
one side to the other of Utah Point because, of course, BHP has berths on both sides of berth 4, which is the
Utah Point berth.
I imagine that the facilities for getting the product from the two stockyards to the berth and the right to use those
facilities will be included in the sale, but not the land that sits underneath them. It is one of these extraordinary
situations in which there are overlapping rights. Last year, I was approached by one of the representatives of
Roy Hill, who pointed out the extra costs Roy Hill had to pay. It had a whole range of extra costs. Some of them
were related to the rights of other developers in the Pilbara. Its railway had to go a longer distance to get around
land that FMG had a right to access. In the port, Roy Hill had to build much larger infrastructure to allow BHP to
expand its infrastructure in the future, so we can see that these things are very complex. This is a complex issue
and this is the way the government is trying to solve it.
Why does the Labor Party oppose the sale of Utah Point? Probably many people in the Labor Party oppose it on
the basis of ideology in the same way the Western Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry always
supports privatisation and does not have to have a reason; it just supports privatisation as a process. Of course,
there are people on the other side who also oppose privatisation as a process.
Just as there is no evidence to support the Chamber of Commerce’s view, some people would argue that there is
no support for the ideological position held by the other side. However, in the middle, people ask what practical
issues are involved. I want to remind the chamber of what happened with the sale of the Perth Market Authority.
The Perth Market Authority was sold for less than the asset’s value in the government of Western Australia’s
books. So we made a privatisation at a loss. In his second reading reply, the Treasurer made the point that the
reason for that was a specific issue about the obligations of the purchaser because it had to continue to operate
the Perth Market Authority as a market. The land was therefore not as valuable as if the government had sold it
for its highest value purpose. That is entirely true. Look at what happened to the egg marketing authority when
the Labor Party was in government. We did not even sell it; we gave it to the egg industry cooperative. Of course
we could do that, but that was not how the government sold the idea of the Perth Market Authority privatisation.
Its justification was that it was a way to get the best value for the asset from the government. That did not occur.
There could have been good reasons to sell the asset directly to the industry, and we could have a debate about
that. I think that if the government wanted to sell the Perth Market Authority, selling it to the users was probably
the best idea. On the other hand, it is not so clear with Utah Point because the users of the port are part of
a commercial operation. This port could have been built using a public–private partnership in which the private
sector paid for the whole thing and transferred it back to the government at some future date. The taxpayers
884
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
would then not have been terribly worried. The reason that did not work was that the junior players did not have
a large enough balance sheet.
Dr M.D. Nahan: You could have done it intermediary.
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON: Yes, we would have had to have an intermediary. Somebody would have had to take the
risk and I will come to that in a minute because I want to get on to the question of risk and the balance sheet.
This is the problem for Anketell; who takes the risk? At Utah Point, the only people who were prepared to take
the risk of the juniors’ balance sheet were the taxpayers. Without the taxpayers’ involvement, it almost certainly
would never have happened. As I always say, some 23-year-old sitting in New York at UBS, Citibank or
somewhere is making the decision about whether a project goes ahead because he is the guy who signs the
cheque. If we are using private sector investment, it really means that we are borrowing money from somebody
else to do the project. Perhaps it is some Communist Party official sitting in Beijing who is making the decision
on behalf of Chinese state-owned enterprise, but one way or another, it is a technical decision about the risks that
are involved.
The junior mining players do not have the balance sheet to cover the risk so somebody else has to do it. We took
it. What was the reason for that? Without that risk being taken, the junior miners would never have got berth
space, so they would never have been able to export. It was a state development issue. If members go back and
look at the media releases about the implementation of this project, they will see it was all about the state
development opportunities; it was not about return to the taxpayer. If the government cannot get $305 million for
the gross value of the asset, it will be selling the asset for less than the value it is currently on. That means that
the state government will be taking a loss from the privatisation of the port and some government agency will
have to cover the losses if it is sold for less than $305 million. If it is sold for more than $305 million, the private
sector will think that it can get a higher return from those junior players than the government is currently
charging. That is a wealth transfer from the employees and shareholders of the junior players to the purchaser of
the port.
When I was state secretary, I used to like merchant bankers; they were nice people to talk to. When
Transurban Group, the monopoly owner of the Melbourne toll roads, was listed, I think it had a 40 per cent
premium for the listing—in the industry that is called a stag profit—and a merchant banker pointed out to me
that that was actually value that belonged to the taxpayer that was transferred to the asset’s new owners. Had the
government sold the asset at its full value, there would have been no stag profit on the day of listing because the
value paid to the taxpayer would have equalled the value for the listing. The fact that there was a gap meant there
was a transfer of wealth from the taxpayer to the purchaser of the asset. We are in exactly the same position here.
If the asset owners pay a higher price, it will be because they think they can get higher value out of the supply
chain than is currently happening under government ownership. That will only occur if they can extract value
from the users of the port who are the junior miners. The only way that can happen is by reducing the junior
miners’ income; there is no other value. The private sector might say that it can get new users to the port, for
example, with export of cattle. There is already a Pilbara Ports Authority project looking at the export of cattle.
Indeed, the right to other uses of the port could be sold without selling the right to the existing use of the port. If
one of the existing users of the port had a big enough balance sheet—none of them has a big enough balance
sheet—and it bought the rights to use the port in this privatisation process, it would be saying that it thinks it
could get money back from the taxpayers because it would be thinking it could charge a lower rate for the use of
the port. That means that it thinks that taxpayers are getting more value out of its chain than they could if it
operated the facility. None of the existing users has that balance sheet so none of them will do that.
The other alternative is that the bidder might be somebody else in the supply chain. Let us take Anketell as an
example. As I understand it, Aurizon—what used to be called Queensland Rail—is a potential bidder for the
right to develop the Anketell port with its Chinese partners. One reason for that would be to give it an advantage
in selling rail access, because it is also a rail access provider. It may well be that somebody else in the supply
chain wants to buy the port but, again, that is about maximising its share of that logistics chain. If it thinks it can
sell its land access business better and if it can integrate the port infrastructure, it will obviously do that. Again,
there is no free money; it has to come from somebody else. Normally, we would say that getting higher volumes
through a port would be worthwhile because that means better utilisation of the port and that is true, but in the
current environment, there is almost no chance of getting higher volumes because there is currently no junior
player with a proposal it can bank at the current iron ore price. That means there is almost no chance of it
happening. That is not a good thing; it is just a statement of the facts. Nobody in Western Australia is in any
doubt of the effect of the low iron ore price on our economy. One problem is that there are now no iron ore
expansions or new mines that we are talking about coming to market. Of course, if the government had sold
Utah Point three years ago, it would probably have got a billion dollars for it.
Dr M.D. Nahan: I have heard that bandied around from your side, but given that it was earning a rate of return
at 3.66 per cent because volumes were low at that time —
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885
Mr B.S. Wyatt interjected.
Dr M.D. Nahan: Maybe, but again contracts with Atlas had no need to actually be put through.
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON: That is right.
Dr M.D. Nahan: I never heard anybody with evidence to say that it would be anywhere near that value some
three years ago.
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON: I have had plenty of people in the industry say that to me. I do not have a pricing model
or a statistical background to make the examination and I do not know whether the billion-dollar price tag is true
or not, but clearly if the government had sold at the top of the market, it would have got a better price. The
Treasurer can ask the people of Port Hedland and Karratha about house prices: did they get a better price for
their house three years ago or now?
Mr P.C. Tinley: They got better rents!
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON: They got better rents than they do now—if they were the asset owner; I am not saying it
was the purchaser. The figure of 3.66 per cent is interesting, and it is the first time I have heard the government
specify that.
Dr M.D. Nahan: I read it out earlier.
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON: I was not here for the whole of the third reading debate—I apologise. We are currently
borrowing potentially $39 billion at four per cent.
Dr M.D. Nahan: The marginal borrowing rate is three per cent.
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON: There we go; it is even lower than 3.66 per cent. There are a whole lot of arguments
here about value. If there is more value available in this asset, then the taxpayer has the same right to obtain that
value as a future purchaser of the asset. That is exactly what the junior players are saying to the government, and
the government knows it. The junior players are asking whether the government is doing this to get the
maximum cash out of the asset or for state development. Utah Point bulk handling facility was created to support
state development. If it is sold under the current proposal, it will in future not be used for that purpose, which is
why I want to swing over to the question of the regulatory regime. I appreciate, as I said, that the first issue that
had to be resolved relates to the government’s change to what it was selling, and the opposition welcomes the
government narrowing that. The second issue related to the regulatory framework. Again, the opposition is very
pleased the government has changed its position on this.
At the time of our briefings—I make the point that I was not able to stay for the whole briefing, but for the bit
I was there and on the advice from Hon Ken Travers and the shadow Treasurer, the member for Victoria Park,
this was not contradicted when I was not there—the original proposal was that the first time anybody outside the
bidding process would see the regulatory regime was after the agreement had been made to sell the asset. What
would happen was that the regulatory regime and the sales document would be tabled at the same time. That
would have meant that nobody, apart from the proposed purchasers, would have a say about what the regulatory
framework was going to be. Indeed, even worse than that, the bidders would have been able to see the draft
regulatory framework as part of the bidding process and then could have said, “If you change these terms of the
regulation, that will increase the value of the asset to us and therefore we will give you more money.” Apart
from the people involved in the bidding, and the government and its advisers, nobody else would ever have
known there was an adjustment to the regulatory framework that increased the value of the asset. Again, I make
it clear that there is no free money. That would have meant transferring the wealth of the users of the port to the
purchasers of the port. That is a discussion we can have, but that is what would have occurred. The opposition
very much welcomes the government’s decision to table the draft regulations for the port access arrangements at
the same time as it is given to the bidders. That is a great decision and we are very pleased about that. We are
pleased as well that last night the Treasurer tabled the document called “Key features of the proposed Utah Point
Bulk Handling Facility regime” because that has obviously increased the amount of information. There is no free
money. This is the key to the value of the port and it is a conflict between the users and the owners, because the
tighter the regulations, the better it is for the users and therefore the lower the price for the asset; and the looser
the regulations, the higher the value of the asset and therefore the lower the wealth of the users. There is no free
money in this.
I want to draw attention to a couple of clauses in the draft framework. Under “General obligations”, so that
a port owner will be able to provide different terms from a port user, paragraph 2(a) states —
if the different terms reflect the cost or risk of providing access to the user or potential user which is
higher than the cost or risk of providing access to other applicants or users; or
If BHP Billiton is the counterparty, the government can be pretty confident that its bill will be paid, because it is
an enormous organisation. Of course, if the counterparty is a speculative mining project, then it cannot be sure
that in 20 years’ time it will still be paying its bills, because we do not know how the project will go. Although
this is a protection, I draw to members’ attention that there will still be differential pricing based on that risk
issue, so that when they get into litigation, if they were to —
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[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
Dr M.D. Nahan interjected.
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON: Slightly—that would be one of the major parts of the argument. Paragraph 4 states —
If the parties cannot agree terms there is the ability for a party to enter into binding arbitration to
determine the terms of access other than price.
What we find all around the country with these access arrangements is that the parties could end up in litigation
about the litigation. The parties enter binding arbitration, and let us say there is an interim decision about the way
the arbitration is going to proceed, the unsuccessful party, which is usually the infrastructure owner, litigates the
decision in the civil courts. Even though they accepted the binding arbitration, they then litigate every single step
of the binding arbitration. It can take years and years to get out of court. I do not know how we could prevent
that, because historically that is what has happened all around the country. Indeed, I think one of the first
decisions of this minister—I do not think it was Hon Peter Collier—was to give a direction to Western Power not
to litigate the Economic Regulation Authority’s decision about the AA3 status.
Dr M.D. Nahan: That was actually Hon Peter Collier; it was early on.
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON: I knew it was in 2012–13. That is the sort of thing that happens—everybody litigates
this stuff. I do not know how to prevent it; I am just making the point.
Dr M.D. Nahan: Nor do we necessarily want to prevent it, and that is why we have the courts and other issues.
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON: Yes; we will get into a discussion of the Bell litigation very soon, I am sure. Then there
is this question about junior miners and major miners. I appreciate that the Treasurer does not use the term
“minor miners” and uses “junior miners”, but he does use the term “major miners”. Also, the issue in
paragraph 6 of the framework is about a miner, explorer or producer seeking access to the terminal and whether
it is a bona fide application. I understand there might have been some litigation to go to the government with
Mineralogy about whether its state agreement was a bona fide application. These are really complex matters.
Dr M.D. Nahan: The real issue in these areas is that there is a risk of capacity hoarding.
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON: Yes, absolutely. It is very hard to judge these things. I am sure it is the same for the
Treasurer when they come to him saying, “I have this project, it is all okay. All I need is $100 million of bank
money.” It is hard to know whether they are serious or not.
Dr M.D. Nahan: It is getting easier to answer that now.
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON: Yes, it is. The 23-year-olds in New York are making the decisions for us!
Mr B.S. Wyatt: It is much quicker.
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON: Yes.
It is stated at paragraph 7 —
… within a 6 month period, which may be extended, or there are no junior miners seeking access then
the terminal operator may apply to the ERA for approval to negotiate with a non junior miner.
I assume that a non-junior miner means a major miner!
Mr B.S. Wyatt: One could only assume.
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON: Yes, one could only assume. Hopefully, the terminology will be the same in each
paragraph of the regulations, unlike this draft which has different words in different paragraphs.
Dr M.D. Nahan: I imagine we will get into some arguments about the reputational risk of being called a junior
miner!
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON: The words used are “BHPB, Rio Tinto, FMG, Roy Hill”—being major miners—or
anybody else the minister says. Unless the minister says they are major, they are miner!
Mr B.S. Wyatt: You can define anything.
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON: This is an opportunity for argument. The port operators will want as many people as
possible using the port. They will have an incentive to provide access, so that is a pretty fair thing. Whether that
incentive is any greater for a private owner compared with a government authority is questionable.
It is stated at paragraph 8 —
Terminal operator must publish a capacity management policy and has rights to resume capacity where
a user is not using capacity …
As the Treasurer said, he does not want to have the capacity tied up by people who are not in operation. These
are all complex issues. There is a saying that without a rail line and a port, it is just dirt. We want to convert as
much dirt as we can to exports because that maximises the value of our assets. In the ground, it is our assets—
“our” being the people of Western Australia in the broader sense. An efficiently operating port is absolutely
critical.
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
887
The problem the Labor Party has is twofold: firstly, it does not think the sale of the port will deliver that;
secondly, it is not convinced that the government’s plan to sell the asset will produce more than $305 million,
which is the value of the asset in the books. If it does not produce $305 million, the problem is that the state’s
balance sheet will go backwards. Rather than having more money to spend, we will have less money.
MR B.S. WYATT (Victoria Park) [10.33 am]: I rise to make a few comments at the third reading stage of the
Pilbara Port Assets (Disposal) Bill 2015. The member for Cannington perfectly outlined the opposition’s
position on this legislation, but I will make some brief comments by way of summary. The Labor Party is
opposing the Pilbara Port Assets (Disposal) Bill 2015. The member for Cannington finished on a point that
I would like to start with. As we all know, ports are crucial infrastructure for a state like Western Australia.
Western Australia is an exporting state. It is particularly reliant on bulk commodities, primarily iron ore. The
member for Cannington went through a brief history of Utah Point. From memory, it commenced operation in
about September 2010 after the state government put in $225 million and its users also put in some money. As
a result, the state’s books carried $305 million.
Dr M.D. Nahan: It was repaid by the operations.
Mr B.S. WYATT: Yes.
Dr M.D. Nahan: It was a $305 million investment.
Mr B.S. WYATT: Yes, as we discussed last night during some quite interesting debate during consideration in
detail. Consideration in detail is always fine when the minister is actually interested in the discussion and the
opposition gets useful information about what is quite a complex thing to do. Selling a port is not an easy thing
to do. The bill itself is really boilerplate legislation. This bill is unique to Utah Point but it is generally
boilerplate legislation. As the Treasurer outlined, we will probably see it again when the Fremantle port sale
legislation is introduced. We also saw some of that in the past in respect of the Perth Market Authority bill and in
some electricity legislation. Even the bit that is unique to Utah Point has been effectively lifted from some
New South Wales legislation in respect of—I assume it is Port Melbourne, is it?
Dr M.D. Nahan: I do not know about Port Melbourne. In New South Wales I think we had —
Mr B.S. WYATT: It was one of the ports in New South Wales.
Dr M.D. Nahan: I understand it is also in some of their electricity sales.
Mr B.S. WYATT: The sale of ports is not unique to Western Australia. State governments are pursuing this all
over the nation at the moment, as well as governments all over the world. It is not unique at all. During my
contribution to the second reading debate, I went through some of the comments made by the chairman of the
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Rod Sims. I note those comments are more relevant to
Fremantle port, which will come before Parliament at some point this year, according to the government’s public
commentary, than Utah Point. That is why the opposition was so keen to see the pricing and access regime
starting point before the bidding process began. In my second reading contribution, I made three main points
about why the opposition will not support this bill. The Treasurer dealt with two of the three—the first one being
the timing. The Treasurer cannot deal with that; it is coming on now, and the iron ore price is where it is. The
second point was that during the briefing it was made very clear to the opposition that we would only see, and
the public would only see, the access and pricing regime once the contracts had been executed and tabled in
Parliament. That was a problem for the opposition. From an exchange between me, the member for Cannington
and the advisers, I understand that meant the access and pricing regime could have been part of negotiation with
the bidders. We end up potentially in the situation that Mr Sims was worried about—the government of the day
is keen to maximise its price by effectively bidding down the access and pricing regime to the detriment of the
broader economy. Mr Sims pointed out that that effectively imposes a tax on future taxpayers because it is not
maximising the efficiency of the economy by whatever conditions are being imposed, or whatever rights are
being granted to the purchaser, through the access and pricing regime. I am very pleased, and it is actually very
important not just for people in this place but also outside observers of port sales, that we know what the starting
point on the access and pricing regime will be.
Last night, the Treasurer tabled a two-page document titled “Key features of the proposed Utah Point Bulk
Handling Facility regime”, which outlines the principles. In due course we will have the draft regime. My
understanding is that will be tabled once the official bidding process starts. I will briefly go through the
document. The Treasurer went through a lot of this in his response to the second reading. I will not read it all
out; it is on the record. I want to make a couple of points. The member for Cannington has already outlined the
general obligations. I want to go into the access and pricing arrangements. Before I go through this, the starting
point for both access and pricing is effectively the current contract. There are contracts in place that dictate price
and access. From memory, those contracts expire from 2020. From my exchange with the Treasurer last night,
the regime will be in place as soon as there is capacity.
Dr M.D. Nahan: The real risk is in what we do if some of the current contractees fall off.
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Mr B.S. WYATT: Which may mean capacity is in play.
Dr M.D. Nahan: Yes, that is right.
Mr B.S. WYATT: The regime will have to be resolved by the contract. The Economic Regulation Authority
will then get around to setting up the official regime. Just quickly: the access regime is that the terminal operator
must establish, on its website, information about how access is sought. There is a binding arbitration process if
the terms cannot be agreed. This is important, regardless of how “junior” is defined: the terminal operator may
only initially negotiate with junior miners for capacity at the terminal. I made the point during the second reading
debate that it is effectively defined by “who is not a ‘junior’”. The Treasurer made the point that BHP Billiton,
Rio Tinto, Fortescue Metals Group, Roy Hill and any other entity specified by the minister are not juniors. It is
definition by what is not. There is a first-come, first-served basis when there is more than one junior, subject to
bona fides of course. Then there is a six-month period during which agreement must be reached effectively; if
not, an application can be made to the Economic Regulation Authority to make that decision and grant approval
accordingly. There is a use-it-or-lose-it principle, as I outlined in my second reading contribution, and then
a series of disclosures, if you like, of annual reports that the ERA will undertake. I went through some of the
principles of pricing during my second reading contribution, but effectively there is a price monitoring regime
and, as has been pointed out, current port prices—that is, before any discount is applied—will be the initial
baseline. I think that has been put in there to emphasise that the current discounts in place that expire on 30 June
this year are being taken into consideration for the baseline pricing arrangements that will then take over that.
I am very pleased that there has been good disclosure by the government in this regard. I am pleased that we will
have that starting point.
The third point that outlined my objections to the Pilbara Port Assets (Disposal) Bill was the definition, which
the government sought to correct, of “Utah Point”. The legislation as it was originally drafted before we dealt
with the amendments last night did not define Utah Point. What it effectively did was give the Pilbara Ports
Authority the authority to sell anything owned by the Pilbara Ports Authority without coming back to the
Parliament. As the member for Cockburn pointed out, the Pilbara Ports Authority is a growing beast and we did
not think that it was appropriate to give the authority carte blanche to sell assets that are so important to
Western Australia’s economic growth and prosperity without parliamentary scrutiny. The legislation now defines
Utah Point not only in the definition at clause 3, but also by way of attaching it to a map in schedule 1 of the
legislation. That is a good outcome. I think any member would agree that 10 years from now when none of us
are here, we want Parliament debating these issues as opposed to it simply going ahead on its own motion.
Another point I want to reflect on is the 50-year lease period which is, of course, really just an aspiration of
government at this point. The authority in the legislation is a 99-year lease, not a 50-year lease, which would
allow the circumstances of, say, a 50-year lease plus a 49-year extension period if that is indeed what the
government chooses to do. The Treasurer said 50 years is in the government’s soundings of the market and that
it seems to be what people are looking at for a lease period for this asset, but if they want 51 years or 52 years,
the government will not object to that. Indeed, it may go down the path of a 50-year plus a significant renewal
period if the price is right. The bidders can indeed bid out the lease period from 50 years up to 99 years. I want to
make it clear that even though 50 years is what the government is saying, the legislation provides for
significantly more than that.
The final point that the Treasurer cannot deal with is the timing of the sale. I fleshed this out during my
second reading contribution and the member for Cannington fleshed it out a minute ago in his third reading
contribution. The time to sell an asset that is reliant on iron ore for its revenue source is not now—and that is
fundamentally why the Labor Party will be opposing this legislation. People know that I have a fairly open view
about government-owned assets. I am more relaxed about government intervention or non-intervention than
many other members of Parliament. But I am not relaxed about government not getting an adequate return on an
asset it chooses to sell, and that is what we on this side of the chamber are worried about with Utah Point.
Ultimately, we will see. The Treasurer made the point last night that $145 million worth of debt is attached to the
asset, which will have to be settled upon sale. We will be closely watching the sale price. There was an exchange
between the member for Cannington and the Treasurer about a billion-dollar figure. I am in a similar position as
the member for Cannington. I have read the figure in the media —
Dr M.D. Nahan: I’ve heard we’re going to get $6 billion.
Mr B.S. WYATT: If you get $6 billion, I will be very impressed.
Dr M.D. Nahan: So will I!
Mr B.S. WYATT: I find it very, very hard to mount a cogent argument as to why $6 billion is not a fair return
for Utah Point. But I do not know; there are people smarter than me apparently who will work out how much
Utah Point is worth.
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
889
I listened with interest to what the member for Cannington said about risk and wealth transfer. Ultimately, there
is a reason that the users of the port are not comfortable with selling the port because they see its potential.
I noted the comments of David Flanagan in the media about the impact on his company if the government sells it
for $1 billion and wants a five per cent rate of return.
Dr M.D. Nahan: But member, if people think it was worth $1 billion three years ago, wouldn’t that have
impacted him some time back if we had sold it for money?
Mr B.S. WYATT: Presumably.
We will oppose this, it will pass through Parliament; we will oppose it in the upper house, it will pass through
Parliament. How the relationship between the new owner and those clients work out will be a matter for the
access and pricing regime going forward. It will be interesting to see who the users of the port are two years
from now—very, very interesting.
Dr M.D. Nahan: Hopefully, the same ones.
Mr B.S. WYATT: Hopefully, it is.
Mr P.C. Tinley interjected.
Mr B.S. WYATT: That is right. The member for Willagee made the most appropriate interjection when he said
that ultimately the stock exchange will dictate things along the way. We will see.
Dr M.D. Nahan: And the commodity gods.
Mr B.S. WYATT: Yes, and I dare say the stock price of these companies and the commodity price have a very
close correlation. When we look at the debate about Utah Point in 2007 and what it was designed to achieve and
has achieved, I think we would all agree that it has achieved that state development outcome. I think
Alannah MacTiernan was the state development minister; it may have been Alan Carpenter. Either way, the state
development minister had carriage of it during the Labor government even though it is the Treasurer who is
selling it which, I assume, is due to the general privatisation process. It was a state development initiative that
certainly worked. It gave the juniors access to an exporting facility that they otherwise could not get access to.
The member for Cannington outlined the fact that they did not have the balance to do it themselves without the
intermediary that would have been required. Indeed, in this case the government was the intermediary; we
borrowed, we built it and it has had a good outcome for state development in Western Australia because we have
had iron ore exported that otherwise would not have been exported to allow us to exploit our resource base in
Western Australia. It has been a good state development outcome, and I hope it continues successfully on that
path post-sale.
The final point that I want to make is to revisit the process. The boilerplate effectively will pass in this
legislation. The final details of the sale will be tabled in the Parliament in the contracts with the seller. The
Treasurer has made the point that Treasury has had about a dozen interviews or phone calls—they are not
expressions of interest as such but at least a dozen inquiries—about the sale.
Dr M.D. Nahan: They have been significant inquiries.
Mr B.S. WYATT: Yes, significant inquiries about the sale. How many proceed to the bidding process we will
find out, I dare say, in the post-bidding process and we will learn whether there are significant numbers of
bidders to create a competitive tension to maximise the value for the state. Ultimately, the member for
Cannington has gone through the Perth Market Authority issue. I am very keen to see what the return is in light
of the current debt and the carrying value of Utah Point on the books. I am very pleased that despite our
opposition and continued opposition, the government will indeed table both at the beginning and at the end the
pricing and access regime so that we can see whether there has been any bidding off on the access and pricing
regime to the detriment of the economy of WA. We will be very concerned if that indeed takes place.
With those remarks, I just want to conclude how I started my debate on this and that is with the
Marapikurrinya Yintha, the body of water that is the Port Hedland port, a very significant site to Aboriginal
people. I make the point that the Pilbara Ports Authority has gone to great lengths to ensure that it has a good
relationship with traditional owners, despite the best efforts of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs to inveigle
itself into that relationship and create tensions due to its, as we now know, illegal misinterpretation of section 5
of the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972, as found by the Supreme Court. It is a very significant site for the
Kariyarra people up there, and something that should always be recognised when we debate legislation such as
this that has an impact on what has been a significant Aboriginal heritage site over aeons.
MR P.C. TINLEY (Willagee) [10.51 am]: I have been on the periphery of this debate and a part-time attender,
so the length and detail of my remarks will reflect that. I have no intention of delaying the house any longer than
is absolutely necessary to bring to the record my particular concerns about the Pilbara Port Assets (Disposal)
Bill 2015 and pick up on one of the points that the member for Victoria Park made during his contribution to the
third reading debate. What we are passing, which this side of the house certainly opposes for the one good reason
890
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
that the member for Victoria Park outlined, is a bill—a shell—that allows the passage of the sale. It is an
enabling piece of legislation rather than a decisive piece of legislation for the disposal of the asset. The reason
I raise that is that although a significant amount of detail was brought into the house by the Treasurer, relative to
other detail we have had in the past, there are still some significant issues. The member for Cannington and the
member for Victoria Park highlighted these issues about how the sale will proceed and, more importantly, how
the operation of the asset will continue into the future to ensure that it supports the original intention of the
establishment of the Utah Point bulk handling facility; that is, to support the junior miners or the non-major
miners. We will see, as we all go spinning in circles, what that definition is. There has been enough said about
that.
The principal area I want to focus on is some of that detail. I have a personal bias towards the premise or
proposition that governments, particularly the government of Western Australia of persuasions of all sides
through the post–Second World War history of the state, have been notoriously bad at privatisation or contract
management—call it what you want. The insertion of a profit motive in the delivery of public good, in my
experience and investigation, has been one that has been poor or patchy at best. There have been a few
exceptions in which it has worked particularly well through the goodwill of the proponents and the government,
but in some cases it has worked poorly. One of those cases is, of course, the grain freight rail network, which
was sold to a private equity bank. It was squeezed, separated and then milked so that below rail and above rail
were separated into two different assets and spun off for the single purpose of leveraging value out of the assets.
The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr I.M. Britza): Member, you need to keep on the third reading. I am trying to
hear where your argument is going, but I am just letting you know that.
Mr P.C. TINLEY: The point is that it is in relation to privatisation—call it what you want; the sale of an asset—
and has particular relevance because it provides a historical example of where it can go wrong. I think it is
directly related to this bill, but I will take your advice. The sale of an asset such as the grain freight rail network
has direct relevance to the propriety of the sale of this particular fixed asset in order to achieve the best possible
public good.
Dr M.D. Nahan: Mr Acting Speaker, I would like to hear his views on this issue.
The ACTING SPEAKER: Okay.
Mr P.C. TINLEY: Those assets were separated and they were sold and put in the hands of, as the member for
Cannington said, a very junior inexperienced person from a long distance away, to actually make some of those
things. That is not a criticism of Brookfield Multiplex.
Dr M.D. Nahan: It is just Brookfield.
Mr P.C. TINLEY: Thank you. Brookfield has specifically done what it needs to do in order to deliver value to
its shareholders. We should not be surprised by that, it is a known known; it is very constant. The same thing
will happen with the disposal of this asset as we are now inserting a profit motive for the purposes of achieving
a good to an industry sector that has been, as we have seen recently with the commodity prices, significantly
hammered.
I would also like to make the point that when we talk about pricing for this particular sale, there are cost imposts
and a whole lot of attention paid by every operator to their cost base. It is an obvious part of the commodity
cycle. People are shedding jobs all over the place. They are pulling back great bodies of work and we are getting
them repriced at significant discounts in order to achieve them. That is all fine; that is just the market doing what
the market does. People who are supporters of a market-based economy would absolutely understand that. The
cost of shipping is being looked at everywhere and our relative competitors to the global shipping market are
declining because of a whole bunch of technologies that are coming in and the scale that has been driven,
particularly in the commodity of iron ore. I refer directly to things like the valemax carriers, which are
270 000-tonne carriers that can now bring Brazilian iron ore to southern China at a cost differential of less than
$5 to what we can ship it there for; the cost differential used to be $21, which made it prohibitive. These are
some of the features that will feed into the pricing regime that has been outlined in this bill.
The member for Cannington, in his rather detailed contribution to the second reading debate, alerted us to
something that is worth ensuring we circle back on it. A potential buyer of this asset would be particularly
concerned about the entire regulatory regime and things that could actually reach out and bite them, or certainly
inhibit their profit. Section 26(1) of the Port Authorities Act 1999 outlines that port property can be taken back
by the Crown. It states —
For the purposes of this Act, the Governor may by order withdraw any vested real or personal property,
or any property referred to in section 25(2)(a), —
A previous section —
from a port authority and vest or revest that property in the Crown.
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
891
If the Treasurer referred to this in his second reading reply, I apologise because I was not here for that; I was at
the Balai Bahasa. Therefore, if the Treasurer could make a reference to that provision, I think that would be
helpful. The way I understand it, the Port Authorities Act 1999 in relation to this legislation is the superior act
and therefore would have, in my estimation, a material effect on the risk profile of the purchase of this asset. We
are selling a lease; we are not selling a freehold. This goes back to property ownership. If the lease area that is
being sold is the asset and the land that presents part of that lease or the sale of it still belongs to the Crown
through the port authority, section 26 of the Port Authorities Act 1999 would be a very relevant section that any
potential purchaser would want to consider. In due reference, that was not my work; our shadow spokesperson
for ports has a forensic eye for these things and we are blessed in this house to have somebody of that calibre in
here to reach back and look at that sort of stuff and inform the sale process that is being considered.
The other point I would like to make relates to the access pricing regime. The Treasurer should be congratulated
for attempting to bring to this passage of legislation a level of detail that we have yet to see from this
government. In fact, the Treasurer stands out as a beacon of transparency for the government. It is a very low
light at the moment, though! I accept that this is an initial thing and that the government will bring more fulsome
arrangements to the house in due course. The Treasurer refers in paragraph 12 to the initial pricing regime,
particularly in subparagraph (b) which specifies the standard against which the regulator intends to monitor
pricing levels. That is an essential piece of detail because that framework, that standard, will be essential for any
future junior miner who might want to get across the port to understand certainty around pricing in relation to
how it might proceed with its proposal.
This legislation, like any other legislation, will have unintended consequences; there is no question about that. It
might happen in five years or it might happen in 10 or 20 years. The unintended consequences, to the best ability
of this Parliament, should be at least either seen or be allowed for in the flexibility of the legislation. So far at
this initial point there appears to be enough flexibility in this legislation, but the pricing regime and, more
importantly, how the regulator will go about its business of setting the pricing regime and then dealing with the
proponent is fundamentally important. I refer again to the responsibility of the ERA for price regulation for the
third tier grain freight rail. It is in the unfortunate situation in which the guidance is a floor price and ceiling
price, and the two prices are so vast as to make it unworkable for anyone to come to a negotiated settlement. As
described by the ERA, the ceiling price is full asset replacement, which is diabolically difficult. I do not suspect
that that will be the case in this legislation because the Treasurer and others in the government have personal
experience with the operation of the ERA when they have seen this go through on those matters and the
government will be forewarned about accepting a model or pricing regime. Something like that would be
diabolical.
The regulator would also have to contemplate a change of use. This is something the minister responsible for this
legislation works to. The pricing regime so far does not refer to a change in use. It refers to miners and junior
miners, but there is no reference to a circumstance in the future in which there is an Anketell and an excess
capacity, and the owner is looking for an alternative revenue stream and whether it can recast the berth to do
other things. The members for Cannington and Victoria Park talked about potential live export or some other
commodity. The pricing regime only contemplates the idea of iron ore being used at this berth. I think—I will be
happily corrected—that the entire bill we are debating is really centred around bulk handling; it is a bulk
handling facility.
Dr M.D. Nahan: That is the title.
Mr P.C. TINLEY: That is the actual title. The purpose of Utah Point is bulk handling. That is fine, but as I said,
we need to contemplate the situation in the future—probably none of us will be in this place then—in which the
owners of the asset are looking for an alternative revenue stream that is not a bulk operation. It is a ship berth;
a ship can pull up and things can be loaded on and off. From my reading of the bill, the pricing regime does not
explicitly contemplate anything other than bulk goods. I think that is a flaw; there is a problem there. Either by
regulation it should be allowed to be adjusted to accommodate an alternative commodity going across the port.
We have not seen the regulations, but when we do it might be something we can look for there, or it might be
something the government wants to consider as this bill moves from this house to the next.
The opposition raised in detail the other infrastructure coming across the leased site. The BHP conveyer belt is
referred to in detail. It is important as we get further into the sale of this asset that the detail around how that will
be handled in the lease area is clear, as it is fundamentally important. I thank the Treasurer for the amendment to
put more clarity around the matter. Enough has been said about that; that this will not be the wholesale freedom
to sell every and any asset held by the Pilbara Port Authority, but specifically to Utah Point. We are furnished
with schedule 1, which is the area involved. A whole lot of detail is missing from this that would hopefully be
wrapped up; as the member for Cannington said, things such as car parks and buildings and other infrastructure
that might be needed. Coming back to the point in relation to the BHP conveyer belt that runs over and uses the
land, how will that be treated? I am sure there should have been representations by BHP in this whole process at
some point about their easement. Is it going to be exclusively an easement, and all that has legally contained
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[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
within it, or will there be some other special purpose or definition for the purposes of dealing with it? This also
comes back to the process of dispute resolution. What if BHP needs access to that at times that are not
convenient for the port user? What if BHP wants to do capital works on that, that are not convenient to the user?
What if it wants to expand it, put a second return on it? If it wants to make a capital improvement on its asset,
where is the dispute resolution mechanism and the authority to make that work and not dilute profit for the
operator?
I would like to finish on a point about value in return. We have been told that the carry value of this is about
$300 million. In 2010 when it was finally completed there was a general view that it would not have been built if
it was not public money that was put into it. That has been evidenced in the nature of the legislation to ensure
that it continues as a facility for the minor or junior operators, or new operators. The particular concern about
that is that return for money needs to be expressly understood. Are we selling this asset genuinely to write down
debt, or are we selling this asset because it is not the place for government to operate and we need to transfer that
to a more agile, privately-run, profit-motivated participant for the purposes of continuing on the good? If it is
carrying a debt of $145 million already that needs to be run down, it would be interesting in the pricing regime to
understand how the potential buyers might look at it. It is a price multiple, because typical large infrastructure
like this could look at it as 11-times multiple to determine the value. However, the reality is that there are a lot of
things around this that will dilute this, not the least of which is risk and return.
It comes back to the single point, on which I will finish: this asset is being sold at the wrong time. If this asset
was sold in 2012 or 2013 there would be no question in anybody’s mind that we would have got a higher price
for it. On that basis alone, we are going to watch very closely the return that the government will get from the
sale of this asset. It will write off the $145 million debt in the process and hopefully make some contribution to
the debt carried by the state generally, if the purpose of the sale is to ensure that the taxpayers of
Western Australia get a fair value.
DR M.D. NAHAN (Riverton — Treasurer) [11.09 am] — in reply: I thank members opposite for their
contributions to the debate on the Pilbara Port Assets (Disposal) Bill 2015. I will try to address some of the
issues raised by members opposite, but not at length because I have gone through most of these issues. The
proposal to sell the Utah Point bulk handling facility at the port of Port Hedland was first announced in the
2014 budget. It was clearly identified as a sale exclusively of the Utah bulk handling facility. It is a multi-user
port that was built by the state and came into operation in, I believe, 2010–11. That was the starting point. Our
focus was always going to be on that bulk handling facility. Almost 18 months later, we are going through this
process.
We have in this state template legislation that has been used for almost 20 years in the process of the disposal of
assets or, indeed, the major restructuring of assets. It was used in the disaggregation of Western Power. Although
assets were not sold in that process, it was a major restructure of a large government-owned entity. Usually, it
has been applied to all of business. This was not all of business from the start; it was the Utah bulk handling
facility, which is a small part of the port of Port Hedland’s business.
I will go into a little bit about the port of Port Hedland. It is by far the largest, by value and volume, bulk port in
the world. It is all about iron ore, but some other things go in and out of there; there have been some
considerations for cattle and fuel and maybe something else, such as general cargo. It has 19 wharves, of which
15 are privately owned. Most of them were privately built at the start. Our history of iron ore shows that, unlike
in Queensland, the proponent built the port and rail access, not the state. It goes back to the development of the
iron ore industry in Western Australia. There were some major players there. During the period of building this
facility, we had some new majors spring up, with Roy Hill more recently and Fortescue Metals Group, which
started production in May 2008, if my memory serves me correctly. We built this multi-user facility during
a period of rather large growth in our largest industry—soon to be our second largest. That is the context of it.
Members opposite asked whether this facility would have been built without government involvement. I think
they are right; no, it would not have. The reason for that is that it is a multi-user facility and none of the junior
miners, which were very junior at the time of the construction, had the balance sheets. We also had to put it in
the context of agreement acts with the majors, particularly BHP Billiton, which has facilities on both sides of it,
underneath it and over it. That was hard. Those agreements are between BHP and the state, so only the state
could build this facility. Without this facility, I do not think we would have got the iron ore miners to spring up
and flourish; indeed, they are still flourishing. Last year, 19 million tonnes were moved through the facility, even
though each of the miners had some troubles because of the collapse in iron ore prices. It is heavily used to this
date.
The member for Cannington is right; it was a major and successful step in the economic development of
a section of the iron ore mining industry, but there is a challenge going forward. The question is: do we still need
to own it? It has been built, it is in good nick and it is heavily used. It is servicing the junior miners, which have
contracts for quite a long period. There are some issues about how long they will be there, but that is for the
market to determine. My view is that we do not need to own it. There is an issue of risk, which I will deal with.
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
893
We do not need to own this asset anymore. We needed it built and we needed to bed it down. Only we could
have done it. We invested in the vicinity of $305 million, although not all of that was from the state; part of that
came from the proponents, but we have paid it back. It is not huge but it is part of the stock of debt that we own.
It is used well. We looked at asset sales. Do we need to own this? No. Do we want to sell the whole port?
Absolutely not, but that is what the template legislation does. As I have indicated during the debate, we looked
quite widely. We asked our advisers from the Office of Strategic Projects how we would define this issue and
what else it would include. We have not gone out to the markets very extensively; we did this through our own
powers. We always wanted to confine it to the multi-user bulk handling port at Utah Point designed for the
juniors, recognising, however, that the juniors might not be the major users in the future, so we had to prepare
for that.
Another issue that members opposite raised quite validly—I raised it myself and I am in the process of
addressing it—was how access and pricing would be controlled. It is a major issue that has been inadequately
addressed in other asset sales, particularly the sale of ports on the eastern seaboard. We have worked on that
constantly, looked at what other states have done, talked with the Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission, looked around the world and watched the shenanigans going on at the port of Melbourne right
now. We are dealing with the junior miners that are under some kind of stress in the market now, because they
deserve to know what is going on.
We have worked at defining the asset quite narrowly. There is another dimension to this that the parliamentary
draftsmen struggled with. As the member for Willagee said, there are two conveyor belts going over this asset
that are BHP’s and underneath there is another tunnel that ships ore that is BHP’s. In defining something on
a map, it has to be done in two dimensions, but we have to deal in three dimensions. To be honest, the
parliamentary draftsmen really struggled with that. We had debates for some time about how to do it, but I think
they have come up with a practical solution that satisfies the needs of defining this asset to Utah. Looking down
from space, BHP’s conveyor belt intersects with another conveyor belt bulk handling facility. That handling
facility cannot be included, because we do not want to include BHP’s, so we had to do that through another
mechanism that allows us to define associated assets. Including that facility may include the car park, although
the car park is used by a large number of people, including fishermen, who park their boats and trailers there. We
have got around the definitional problems, and that was not easy. It has not been an issue in other asset sales
because we dealt with the whole business.
Members opposite quite rightly argued that we were going to put this access and pricing regime in the
regulations. It needs to be there because if an issue comes up that needs to be resolved, there needs to be
a process in place, but if it was all embedded in the regulations, it would take forever to get through this house.
Therefore, it needed to be in the regulations. However, we need to have visibility of it. We have outlined the
principles of the regulations. We will have draft regulations, which will be provided to the serious bidders at the
data room. The draft regulations will be provided to Parliament at the same time as they are provided to the data
room. As I have indicated, the regulations will be finalised in this house and will be embedded in the contract, so
that is a double-check. Members in this house and others will be able to compare the draft with the final
regulations. The member for Cannington said that the regulations impact on the value of property. Of course.
Market processes might allow that but that is true and, therefore, we see whether there is any alteration to the
draft regulation. We can be held accountable for them whether they are positive or negative. I agreed to table the
contract with the successful bidder in full, without redaction. That is what we should do generally with these
types of arrangements.
I would like to emphasise a couple of issues that were missed. The important part of this pricing regime is that
the Economic Regulation Authority will be the regulator. It has strong powers to force arbitration, without which
it has been a problem, and set the boundaries for price. The pricing regime is the starting point today, recognised
in existing contracts. It might go on for five, six, seven or maybe 10 years, but new players might come in with
new contracts, so if capacity becomes available, we have to prepare for this pricing regime to come on.
Importantly, the ERA can look at the pricing regime and if it believes it is not suitable, it can advise the minister,
and the minister will have full power to change the pricing regime. That is one of the problems we have with rail
access. As the member for Willagee said, the starting point for arbitration debate is so wide that it cannot be
narrowed and that is one reason there has not been an arbitrated settlement. The minister has the power to change
the pricing regime. That is important. We will take that principle into the negotiations with the sale assets so the
buyers know it up-front.
The Labor Party is opposing the bill for, it said, three reasons. The member for Victoria Park gave the reasons as
the timing regime and definition. We have dealt with two of those. Let us talk about the timing. If we had sold
this earlier, yes, the price would have been high. We first announced it in, I think, August 2014, when the price
was quite high.
Mr B.S. Wyatt: Yes, in the budget.
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[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
Dr M.D. NAHAN: Yes, in the budget. It was quite high at that time—much higher than it is now. I was not the
Treasurer, and when I took on the role it plummeted.
Mr B.S. Wyatt: Is there a link?
Dr M.D. NAHAN: I do not know. I feel as though there is sometimes.
Mr W.J. Johnston: The price has fallen every day you have been the minister!
Dr M.D. NAHAN: No; it went up this week, but we digress.
We might have got a higher price for it but the owner would have tried to get a rate of return on that higher price
and charge the junior miners, so we need to offset that. It took quite a few years to bed down the throughput, to
get the miners up and ready and investing. It took three or four years to get to full capacity. If we sold it under
capacity and the buyers paid a large amount of money for it, that facility might not be as effective as it is now,
but those are hypotheticals.
We will go to the market. We disclosed how much was paid for the asset, what the residual debt is and what the
rate of return is. We will go to the market and see what price we get. Will it be as high as it was three years ago?
I do not know. The evidence I have seen has been mainly throughput and people have a great deal of confidence
that iron ore will be a major throughput at Port Hedland into the future. I do not think there is any doubt about
that. I do not know whether any bulk material will go through this port, but given its size, the richness and low
cost of iron ore, I think it will be an iron ore port for a very long time. It will be the overwhelmingly dominant
resource there, just as coal is at Newcastle. It is being sold primarily as a bulk handling iron ore port. I am sure
all the bidders will have iron ore overwhelmingly on their mind. The iron ore market might fall apart but that is,
of course, the risk they take.
Mr W.J. Johnston: It is our risk too.
Dr M.D. NAHAN: Yes. If something like that happens, I do not think the minor miners will be around.
Mr W.J. Johnston: With respect, minister, the point of course is that if it is also about state development, it is in
the interests of Western Australia. The Premier makes the point a hundred times a day that the juniors survive.
Whether selling the facility is the best way to ensure the juniors survive is the question rather than what the value
is.
Dr M.D. NAHAN: Someone will buy that facility; we will sell it to them and we will get a mark-up on the
amount we paid for it. There is risk to the junior miners. As the member for Cannington said, they are different
beasts from BHP—I have seen BHP’s results recently!—and those guys make changes to things very quickly.
What are the benefits of this being in private versus public hands? There are a number of benefits. One is that it
needed to be public just as the Perth Market Authority did. It needed to be built by the state and bedded down as
an operating facility. We accept that. Do we need to own it now, and what are the pros and cons? The pros are
that we can take the asset value and use it somewhere else. I firmly believe that we needed to do that and that the
value of the asset capital is best used elsewhere. Second, will we have issues around access and pricing? We
have those now with the port of Port Hedland. Those risk issues are the same and they are complicated. As the
member for Cannington outlined in detail, they are real. Do we have an access and pricing regime that will deal
with those fairly, openly and transparently and that will not allow a purchaser to exploit the monopoly position?
I think we will have those. I might add that sometimes some of the users, the port of Port Hedland, and
particularly the port of Geraldton, have been accusing us of doing exactly that. Sometimes governments tend to
err on the side of profit as opposed to export facilitation. Sometimes it is better for government to sit back and
determine the regulatory regime rather than own and run the asset. Those are legitimate debates. The Labor Party
as a whole—let us say it is a broad camp—has many views on privatisation, as the member for Cannington said.
Indeed, the Minister for Planning and Infrastructure proposed a private port at Oakajee, whereas the Premier
argued strongly —
Mr B.S. Wyatt: The former minister.
Dr M.D. NAHAN: Yes. I never thought that would fly. I am not against this sort of stuff. Some sections of the
Labor Party have no ideological objections to privatisation. I refer to the Victorian Treasurer, Tim Pallas—
I think he comes from the left of the party.
Mr B.S. Wyatt interjected.
Dr M.D. NAHAN: He is strongly in favour of asset sales and privatisation.
Mr W.J. Johnston interjected.
Dr M.D. NAHAN: Yes, whatever. I know he is a union man. Others blindly go ahead, but in this case the policy
stance of members opposite is that they are not totally against privatisation or private ownership of a port.
BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals Group have those facilities and, of course, Oakajee was a big
greenfield project involving some risky markets, to say the least, and a multiple of providers.
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
895
The real issue is: do we have an access and pricing regime that will be fairly determined, that stops the owners
from exercising monopoly power and allows fair access with priority to minor miners and, if they fall off, other
ones coming on? I think we are evolving one very effectively. In this case, it is better that we build it, bed it
down, sell it and regulate it. The pricing regime we are developing is a major step and is completely transparent.
As occurred with PMA, we are selling this asset, embedded in regulations, in the expectation that it will continue
to be a multi-user facility for the minor miners as long as they are around. We could have got the asset value and
the books of the Perth Market Authority’s business by dispersing the market and selling it as industrial land for
the highest value. That was never the intended purpose. We always intended to sell it as an operating business,
and right from the start I highlighted that the Perth Market Authority’s sale was not as much about the price of
the asset—although it was important; there are always multiple objectives—as having a future for the
Perth Market Authority that we could get business from and own. That would put more capital into the PMA
than the state has historically, or is currently willing or able to, put into it. That is what has happened.
Again, I want to emphasise an important difference that has not been adequately picked up here: the powers of
the regulator and powers of the minister are quite strong in this regulatory regime. We also have the powers to
fix that if it does not work and if the regulator identifies fundamental flaws. That is unique to this regulation.
The member for Willagee indicated a couple of things. There was a long debate and he is right; the
Port Authorities Act allows the state to take land or assets away from the port. That is necessary. For instance,
a port may have surplus land that was provided to it that it no longer needs so it can give it to, let us say,
LandCorp or someone else. That provision exists without compensation. That is not surprising; the state owns
the Pilbara Ports Authority. There are clauses in this legislation that protect that provision through this sale. We
dealt with that yesterday. I do not understand the whole legal process involved in it; I read it out. We recognised
and dealt with that aspect that the member for Willagee raised. I think it was section 26 of the Port Authorities
Act. We have retained those issues in the legislation.
We will see what the price comes to. Members opposite said that they would monitor it very closely; I can assure
them that I will too. We expect the transaction to take place in the third quarter of this calendar year. As
I indicated, I asked and was told by Mr Mann, who is running the project, that about 12 groups expressed
significant interest. I was told that there is still significant interest because bidders consider having a multi-user
port in the port of Port Hedland as a good asset and they will be looking to the long-term. I was watching TV
yesterday when Fortescue Metals Group declared a profit. Nev Power said that his operating costs are down to
$15 per tonne. That does not include debt repayment, but it is a precipitous drop in his cost of operations—huge.
Mr P.C. Tinley: It was at the debt they’re carrying.
Dr M.D. NAHAN: I have looked at the data and his operating costs are so low that, at today’s prices, he is
making a profit. Two years ago, he would not have been. Miners have really dropped their costs. They have gone
down their cost chains and really driven them down. I was told by a senior Fortescue executive that it has
improved its productivity by over 37 per cent in the last 18 months. That is phenomenal. I recently went up to
China and, over the last 12 months, Western Australia’s market share to Chinese ore has gone from 55 per cent
to 65 per cent. We are gaining market share there.
Mr W.J. Johnston: The seaborne supply?
Dr M.D. NAHAN: Seaborne, yes. We are also seeing reductions in Chinese domestic ore prices; the private
stuff went out of the market almost right away. Driven by Beijing, we are now seeing reductions in Chinese
domestic production, particularly from companies owned by provinces. We are finally seeing that as the data
comes through. The Beijing government has also decided to strictly enforce a reduction of 100 million tonnes of
steel production, for a variety of reasons.
Even though we are not making the super enormous profits we did before, I see the future of our iron ore
industry in the facility of this port as being extremely positive.
Mr W.J. Johnston: Put the prices up then.
Dr M.D. NAHAN: The prices of what—iron ore?
Mr W.J. Johnston: For stevedoring.
Dr M.D. NAHAN: That is for other people to negotiate; I am involved in the sale process.
I thank everybody. I think it was a very good debate on an important and very complex issue. It goes to an issue
that has a recurring theme: when does the state need to continue to own the asset or not? When it sells the asset,
can it adequately change its role from an owner and operator to a regulator? When it owns an asset, it owns,
operates and regulates it, and that can lead to confusion. I also want to emphasise that the port of Port Hedland’s
myriad functions that are expanding are continuing to operate. We are not changing that at all. I commend the
bill to the house.
896
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
Division
Question put and a division taken, the Acting Speaker (Mr P. Abetz) casting his vote with the ayes, with the
following result —
Ayes (32)
Mr P. Abetz
Mr F.A. Alban
Mr C.J. Barnett
Mr I.C. Blayney
Mr I.M. Britza
Mr G.M. Castrilli
Mr V.A. Catania
Mr M.J. Cowper
Ms M.J. Davies
Mr J.H.D. Day
Mr J.M. Francis
Mr B.J. Grylls
Dr K.D. Hames
Mrs L.M. Harvey
Mr C.D. Hatton
Mr A.P. Jacob
Dr G.G. Jacobs
Mr S.K. L’Estrange
Mr R.S. Love
Mr J.E. McGrath
Ms L. Mettam
Mr P.T. Miles
Ms A.R. Mitchell
Mr N.W. Morton
Dr M.D. Nahan
Mr D.C. Nalder
Mr J. Norberger
Mr D.T. Redman
Mr A.J. Simpson
Mr M.H. Taylor
Mr T.K. Waldron
Mr A. Krsticevic (Teller)
Noes (18)
Ms L.L. Baker
Dr A.D. Buti
Mr R.H. Cook
Ms J. Farrer
Mr W.J. Johnston
Mr D.J. Kelly
Mr F.M. Logan
Mr M. McGowan
Ms S.F. McGurk
Mr M.P. Murray
Mr P. Papalia
Ms M.M. Quirk
Mrs M.H. Roberts
Ms R. Saffioti
Mr P.C. Tinley
Mr P.B. Watson
Mr B.S. Wyatt
Mr D.A. Templeman (Teller)
Pairs
Ms E. Evangel
Ms W.M. Duncan
Mr R.F. Johnson
Ms J.M. Freeman
Mr C.J. Tallentire
Mr J.R. Quigley
Question thus passed.
Bill read a third time and transmitted to the Council.
ANZAC DAY AMENDMENT BILL 2015
ANZAC DAY AMENDMENT BILL (NO. 2) 2015
Cognate Debate — Motion
On motion by Mr J.M. Francis (Minister for Veterans), resolved —
That leave be granted for the Anzac Day Amendment Bill 2015 and Anzac Day Amendment Bill
(No. 2) 2015 to be dealt with cognately, and for the Anzac Day Amendment Bill 2015 to be declared
the principal bill.
Second Reading — Cognate Debate
Resumed from 11 November 2015.
MR P.B. WATSON (Albany) [11.42 am]: It gives me great pleasure to speak about the Anzac Amendment Bill
2015 and the Anzac Amendment Bill (No. 2). I am the principal speaker for the opposition.
The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr P. Abetz): It means you get more time.
Mr P.B. WATSON: I do not know if I can speak for that length of time!
As I said, it gives me great pleasure to speak on the bills, especially on the history of the Anzacs in my electorate
of Albany. I congratulate everyone involved in the Anzac commemorations that were held over what was a short
period of time. I also want to congratulate some people who probably did not get recognition for their part in the
lead-up to the Anzac commemorations, particularly the main one that we had two years ago. A group down there
was called the Albany Centenary of Anzac Alliance. One of its instigators was “Digger” Cleak. Digger was
a long-time member of the Albany RSL. He is in Perth now and I think he is on the executive of the RSL. Digger
planted the seed for this group to get together. It included Laurie Fraser, Geoff Hands Jr, Peter Aspinall, and
I think Milton Evans, who was Mayor of Albany at the time. I know that Geoff Hands is an ex-Army officer. He
went overseas and spoke to people to organise people to come to Australia for the commemoration. These people
never got the recognition that they deserved. The Premier brought in a government task force, which is fair
enough, but I do not think that these people who did so much work, a large amount of which was voluntary, ever
got recognition for their work. Even on the day of the centenary, these people were not recognised. It was very
disappointing, considering the amount of work that they did. They did not do it for personal gain. They were
former members of the armed services, except for the mayor, and they wanted to make it a tremendous event.
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
897
The fact that it was taken away from them, probably halfway through the planning, was really disappointing.
After that, we had a tremendous commemorative service and there were tremendous opportunities for Albany.
The Albany National Anzac Centre has been opened, and is probably one of the best of its kind in the world. For
those people who have not been down to the Albany National Anzac Centre, visitors can go into the centre and
pick up a card for a soldier—German, Australian, New Zealand or British. Visitors put the card in scanners
located throughout the centre and as they walk through they are given the history of the gentleman. My card was
that of a German soldier, and as I walked through the scans showed what he had done before he joined the army
and his war service. This German soldier started off in the lower ranks and finished as a general or something
very high. I was able to scan his war records—where he served, what he did and what happened with his
company. The last scan showed me what he did after the war.
The ACTING SPEAKER: Members, there is a bit too much conversation taking place in the chamber. Can we
just take our conversations outside or hush our voices a little more. Thanks.
Mr P.B. WATSON: He was a welder or boilermaker when he joined the army and afterwards he became
a world-renowned writer in Germany. This display shows the human side of the war, and action in different
theatres of the war, and we can see memorabilia. It is not only Australian and New Zealand soldiers, but
German, British and even French soldiers. Over 100 000 people have been through that centre. I congratulate the
state government, the commonwealth government and everyone who contributed to it, because it will be there
for a long time.
I refer also to the Albany Anzac Peace Park. On Anzac Day I think Albany has one of the few memorial services
that is attended by all our schoolchildren; they all come to the 11 o’clock service. Albany’s Great Southern
Grammar has over 600 children and every one of those children marches. Every school has a representative and
they march all the way down York Street. This is the sort of thing that we have to do to keep the
Anzac commemoration going for future generation. At the end of the march, the old diggers stand there in
a guard of honour and all the children march through. It is a tremendous service. We have the dawn service,
obviously at six o’clock. People have to get up there at half past three if they want a spot. People come from all
over the world for the Albany dawn service. At the end of the service, everyone looks out over the ocean and
they can see flares being lit from one side of the harbour to the other; there is not a dry eye in the house. I have
been going there ever since my dad passed on. He did not go to the Anzac Day service because there were too
many bad memories for him. I said that I would go to every Anzac Day commemoration after that to remember
not only him but all the mates that he lost and all the horrible things they went through. Albany is very lucky to
have the dawn service. People have to be lucky to get up there and get a place. The first dawn service ever was
held in Albany down on the rocks. Even though people in the eastern states try to say that they held the first, we
know that the first was held in Albany.
Western Australia has been very lucky to have Graham Edwards as president of the RSL. What a remarkable
man he is. It was great to see him as a finalist in the Australian of the Year awards. This is a man who has given
so much to the RSL and to his country, not only as a serviceman when he had that horrible injury, but also as
a member of Parliament. He is such a tough man. It is just great to see someone like Graham Edwards
remembered in our community.
I now get on to the two bills—the Anzac Day Amendment Bill 2015 and the Anzac Day Amendment Bill (No. 2)
2015. We see that responsibility for the Anzac Day Act was transferred from the Treasurer to the Minister for
Veterans and that this was approved by the Executive Council on 30 September 2015. The first bill was enacted
in 1960, 55 years ago, so we have got to have changes. The Minister for Veterans is now looking after it, and
I do not think that the opposition has a problem with that. The bill proposes that the contribution to the
Anzac Day Trust will apply to events held on Anzac Day with a minimum attendance of 5 000 people. I wonder
whether imposing that minimum means that less money will go to the trust. The only sporting event I can think
of in Western Australia held on Anzac Day is an Australian Football League game. If that minimum number of
5 000 people is based on the ticket price, will the trust get the same amount of money as it did before when it
was based on 60 per cent?
Mr J.M. Francis: The principle behind it is that two definitions will be in the regulations, and one is effectively
what a sporting event is. We want to exclude people who are doing small things that are not for profit. We want
to only encapsulate professional sporting events that people have to pay to get into—things such as the
participants are professional sportspeople. We are predominantly looking at that. The member will notice in the
contributions this year that Greyhounds WA made a significant contribution.
Mr P.B. WATSON: It would not have 5 000 people at an event.
Mr J.M. Francis: I am not sure.
The ACTING SPEAKER: Members, there are too many conversations.
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[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
Mr J.M. Francis: One of the things about putting an arbitrary limitation on it is that, as the population grows in
the future, 5 000 people might be a lot at the moment but it may not be a lot in five to 10 years’ time. It is about
finding that balance. We want to exclude professional sporting events before 1.00 pm on Anzac Day and also
only encapsulate the bigger events that make serious money.
Mr P.B. WATSON: From the money that went out last year, it was supposed to be 60 per cent of funds. I see
that the Australian Football League, via the Fremantle Dockers, paid $15 000. That would not have been
60 per cent of what was made on the day.
Mr J.M. Francis: There are two issues: firstly, whether it is the Fremantle Dockers or the AFL making the
money, they have made a contribution of $15 000 after they were asked and reminded of their obligations under
the act. Going back to what the member said about this being dated back to 1960, when our forefathers and
representatives—a lot of members from this house would have served in World War II and there were a lot more
in the community—I do not know whether back in 1960 they would have had the —
Ms S.F. McGurk: Won’t he get a chance to speak?
Mr J.M. Francis: He asked me by way of interjection.
Mr P.B. WATSON: I asked the question.
Mr J.M. Francis: I do not know whether they would have had the foresight to see the rise of the AFL. But
60 per cent for something that would probably turn over millions of dollars —
Mr P.B. WATSON: I will ask about this during consideration in detail. It is something that concerns me.
There is now provision to allow the minister to approve an alternative contribution to the trust. It must be
submitted within 30 days. That means within 30 days of Anzac Day they have to advise the minister. I cannot
see an issue with Anzac Day falling on a Sunday. Previously, if Anzac Day fell on a Sunday, they did not have to
pay, but now they will. That is a good thing. I will be interested to find out where the trustees will come from.
I can understand trustees from ex-service organisations that might receive funds. Where will the minister draw
these people from? I can see that service organisations that have a leg in by being on the original board could
provide problems. I will also follow that up during consideration in detail.
The purpose of the trust fund is not just to improve homes for ex-servicemen and their families; it is widened to
include any proposal that benefits veterans and their families. It is only military veterans. I notice that a lot of the
money went to the ex-service organisations. Do those funds only go towards fixing houses and things like that?
Why does it say that the funds will no longer go towards improving homes for ex-servicemen and their families?
Anyway, I will follow that up.
The penalties for contraventions of the legislation have increased from $400 to $5 000, which is good. I am
looking at some of the listed funds. There are quite a few different organisations. Does the trust have the final
decision on where this money goes, or does the minister? It is the minister. Has that only come in since the
minister took over the trust?
Mr J.M. Francis: Correct.
Mr P.B. WATSON: I will be interested to know what the trust will do now if the minister is making decisions
about the money.
Mr J.M. Francis: It is a simple answer: the trust will make recommendations, but I, or whoever the minister is,
will have the right to veto. It will be the exception rather than the norm.
Mr P.B. WATSON: I am concerned about the fact the act has gone from Treasury to the Minister for Veterans
and now the minister can hand out cheques that he could not do before. Maybe this is just a political thing. I have
been in talks with groups involved in this and they are worried that the most high profile things, with the minister
handing out cheques, have a better chance of getting done than some of the smaller ones because the minister
will not get the bang for his buck. It is fair enough whether he does it or not. This is some of the feedback I have
received from RSL people. I would be interested to hear, in the minister’s reply, how much consultation there
has been with the RSL—not only the main RSL, but also RSLs all over the state. As the minister knows, RSLs
are in every regional town. How much consultation was there with war widows? Looking through all these
groups here, a number of people are involved. I would like to know whether they had an opportunity to have any
input into the bill before it was introduced.
I refer to the tickets. The minister is now saying that organisations will contribute a percentage of the ticket
price. That only applies to events that attract over 5 000 people, does it not?
Mr J.M. Francis: Correct.
Mr P.B. WATSON: So anything under 5 000, organisations do not have to pay anything to the trust?
Mr J.M. Francis: Correct.
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
899
Mr P.B. WATSON: Say 40 000 people attend a Fremantle Dockers game. Looking at last year, the government
received $26 000 from sporting and racing contributions. I suppose if it gets five per cent of the ticket price from
40 000 people, it might get more. I assume the minister is looking at that. I am looking at the last lot. There is the
Burracoppin Football Club, $486; Warnbro Bowling Club, $300; Kwinana Golf Club, $1 181; and
Greyhounds WA, $9 496. I do not think the government will get that again because Greyhounds WA would not
get 5 000 people to a greyhound meeting. There is $10 000 the government might not get, but it might pick it up
on the other one. If the minister takes the ticket price off the big ones, maybe the smaller ones could contribute
something.
Mr J.M. Francis: The simple answer is they will not be obliged but we would encourage people to still
contribute to it. That effectively happens now with the smaller ones anyway. They are doing it because they are
good community citizens and they are good sporting clubs that have made a contribution.
Mr P.B. WATSON: Okay. This will apply to regional areas as long as it is after one o’clock?
Mr J.M. Francis: Correct—on Anzac Day.
Mr P.B. WATSON: We tried to have race meetings in Albany on Anzac Day. A lot of regional centres have
sporting events on Anzac Day. We all know that Collingwood play Essendon on Anzac Day, and I am looking
forward to that game this year more than any other game.
Mr J.M. Francis: So am I, member for Albany. We both are!
Mr P.B. WATSON: I noticed the annual government grant is $300 000. Will that be changed? The government
gives $300 000 and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet gives $35 000. Does that money go towards the
overall running of the RSL?
Mr J.M. Francis: Does the member have the list of disbursements for this year?
Mr P.B. WATSON: Yes.
Mr J.M. Francis: The member will see where it has gone this time. Historically, it was predominantly only
divided between Legacy and the RSL. They still are, equally, the main recipients of the proceeds from the fund.
They will be required to spend that money on the limited functions of supporting veterans and their families.
Not only does the pie get a little bigger, but it is being divvied up so that other organisations can get help as well.
Mr P.B. WATSON: I note that the minister’s second reading speech reads —
The requirement for organisations to make a contribution to the trust amounts to the imposition of
taxation. Section 46(7) of the Constitution Acts Amendment Act 1899 …
Is that the reason there are two bills?
Mr J.M. Francis: Correct.
Mr P.B. WATSON: The opposition will be supporting the Anzac Day bills. I know that other opposition
members want to talk about the legislation. I support the bills.
MR M. McGOWAN (Rockingham — Leader of the Opposition) [12.01 pm]: I think the member for Albany
has set out the opposition’s position on the Anzac Day Amendment Bill 2015 and the Anzac Day Amendment
Bill (No. 2) 2015 fairly well. No doubt it is a change that government has considered in doing so. In this context,
I want to talk about what the proceeds of the bill might be used for, some of the issues that could be addressed
and the things we might do in this country in what is a very significant anniversary.
This year, 2016, is the 100th anniversary of one of the most tragic years in the history of this country. I once read
a story about the 10 worst things that have happened in Australian history. I think the top three—I agree with
this—are first, the dispossession and terrible treatment of the Indigenous people of this country upon the arrival
of European settlers; second, the destruction of much of our natural wildlife and the country’s environment; and,
third, what happened to this country in the First World War—the loss of life, the shocking casualty rate and the
shocking tragedies that involved Australian soldiers, sailors and, indeed, airmen. The First World War
dramatically impacted a country with such a small population. Of all the years of the First World War, the worst
in terms of casualties was 1916. Indeed, 1916 represented a shocking deflowering and destruction of many of our
young men in the battles in France, particularly at a place called Pozières. Pozières has receded from public
consciousness in Australia. It is not somewhere that people have heard of nor is it somewhere that they know
about. It is not a town or a battle that is commonly understood. Most Australians who go to France—I will talk
about my visits shortly—go to a place called Villers-Bretonneux, which is on the outskirts of the city of Amiens.
It is home to the major Australian memorial and it is where a new museum is being constructed. These days it is
a place of pilgrimage for many Australians. It is, in my view, not as significant as the community or the
1916 battle called Pozières. I will explain the context of this.
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[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
I received a letter from a gentleman called Mr Barry Gracey, who is the president of the Pozières Remembrance
Association. The reason that this letter is significant is that not only is it a very important issue, but also
Mr Gracey is based in the town of Coffs Harbour, which is where I went to high school. He got my attention. He
made the point that 100 years on from the Battle of Pozières, little attention has been given to it in Australia.
Once upon a time, perhaps up until the 1960s or 1970s, a large number of men who served there together were
still alive so it was prominent in the public consciousness because when they or their families got together, they
would talk about past experiences—where they served, who they served with and the like. Pozières was
prominent in the consciousness. After the First World War, a small town in Queensland was named Pozières in
honour of what took place there. Since then it has been overtaken, as I said, by Villers-Bretonneux and the
Anzac legend at Gallipoli, which, of course, has the most prominent role. Other battles and events from other
wars have greater prominence and significance. I want to make the point to the house and to the people of
Western Australia that there was no greater area where Australians died or sacrificed than Pozières. Nowhere
else in the history of Australian arms did more men die or were casualties than at Pozières, and it was over an
extremely short period. Nearly as many men died or were wounded at Pozières in a couple of weeks as there
were in the entire Gallipoli campaign of eight months. I put that into perspective. That is how significant it was;
that is how tragic it was for this country. Just so people understand, over the course of the battle, a two-week
period, there were 23 000 Australian casualties, of whom 7 000 men or thereabouts died. For that our troops
succeeded in annexing about a square kilometre of land. That was 23 000 casualties of which 7 000 were killed
for a square kilometre of land. I will go into what people have said about it shortly, but Charles Bean said it “was
more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than any other spot on earth”. I think that is true, yet no-one knows
about it. No-one has heard of it. These days you could say its name and there would probably be one out of every
1 000 Australians who would know what you were talking about. I have a few proposals on this that I will go
into later. Mr Gracey wrote to me and suggested that a proper memorial built needs to be built at Pozières. I have
another suggestion. I think the anniversary of the battle, which is 23 July, should be called Pozières Day. We
have Long Tan Day, Anzac Day and Remembrance Day. We commemorate a whole range of things and I think
we should call 23 July Pozières Day. It was the worst battle with the worst loss of life and some of the greatest
feats of bravery in the history of this country, yet no-one knows about it. Perhaps on the 100th anniversary we
should do something to make sure that people know something about it.
I will explain the area itself. I have been there four times. I have been to Europe four times and each time I have
been to the battlefields of the Somme and on a couple occasions the battlefields of Belgium. To get to Pozières,
I drove north of Paris for about two hours until I reached a small community called Albert, which was a base for
the British Army in the First World War. It is the place with the famous cathedral with the slanted virgin on top.
I drove from Albert in a north easterly direction and as I did so, I started to see cemetery after cemetery. They
are British war cemeteries. As I entered Pozières, there was a massive cemetery on the left-hand side of the road.
I entered what was a small village, fairly unmemorable in some ways. It is a small village in the north of France
that has been rebuilt since the First World War. On the far side of town, there is a little memorial called the
Windmill. The greatest number of Australian soldier deaths occurred in proximity of the Windmill. It is a small
raised area with concrete blocks around it, which were blown up as part of the bombardments and the like. There
is an Australian memorial at that site. As I drove in, on the near side of town there was an old German
blockhouse, which is rather unusual. It is quite high. It was called Gibraltar by British and Australian soldiers. It
sits there still and is an archaeological site with digs and the like. If you go there today and look at the old photos
of this blockhouse, you will see that the area was pockmarked with thousands of shell holes and there were
Australian soldiers carrying sandbags past it in the exact spot that you are standing. The blockhouse was fought
over strenuously by Australian soldiers who took it, I think on the first day of the battle, and defeated the
German forces there. Remember, the German forces were probably the toughest army the world had ever seen up
until that point, perhaps the toughest army ever, and our Australian soldiers took the blockhouse. Right near
there is the memorial to the 1st Australian Division, which looks like the memorial at Kings Park. Near that is
a raised platform that people can climb, which is about two storeys high, to look out over the battlefield, which is
the Somme. I will get to that in a moment as well. Looking out to the north is the Thiepval Memorial. The
Thiepval Memorial is the British major memorial from the First World War; it has 73 000 names of British
soldiers who served over a certain period and whose bodies were never found. That is about three kilometres
north of Pozières. People can see cemeteries all around, filled with young commonwealth soldiers. There are
a few German cemeteries in the area as well. Immediately to the south is the huge crater called La Boisselle,
otherwise known as Lochnagar crater, which was exploded on the first day of the Somme.
The first day of the Somme was 1 July 1916. That is the infamous story of all the British soldiers getting killed
on the first day when they marched into the German machine guns. That is the bit of history that a lot of people
know. A book was written about it by a guy called Martin Middlebrook, which I read last year—it is an amazing
story. The Battle of the Somme did not end there; it went on for about four or five months with continual pushes
by the British forces and continual counterattacks by the German forces in the trenches at the Somme. The
Somme holds special memory, particularly in Britain. If members visit any of these battlefields, they will always
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
901
see busloads of British tourists. Every town in Britain has a memorial because so many British soldiers died at
the Somme. In Australia, in my view, we always think of Gallipoli—it was an amazing campaign—or these
days, increasingly, Villers-Bretonneux. Pozières does not exactly get a mention. When you visit the battlefield
and stand on the raised platform, you see all this. It is really quite a remarkable place to tour around, in my view.
That is why I have been there four times and had a look at all these different parts of it, because that is where, for
many of us, our great-grandfathers risked their lives and the like. It is an important resonance.
The Australian forces were part of the Battle of the Somme. We played our role, commencing on 23 July. About
five days prior to that, the Australians attacked at a place called Fromelles, which was a diversionary attack; also
a tragedy and not successful. Then we went and played our part at Pozières on 23 July. I have a book here by
a great author, Les Carlyon. He is the former editor of a major Australian newspaper and has written a bunch of
historical books about these things. He wrote about the start of it and about Thiepval, which is where the big
British memorial is, and that is the place that the British tried to take on the first day on the Somme and still
could not take it 23 days later. It is stated on page 144 of The Great War by Les Carlyon —
Thiepval, on the same ridge as Pozières, couldn’t be taken from the front. Thiepval was on the frontline;
Pozières lay on the strong second line. The idea now was to use the British incursions below Thiepval
to take Pozières and, from there, work back along the ridge in a hook-shaped offensive, past the strong
point of Mouquet Farm, towards Thiepval, threatening it from the rear as well as the front. It was all
rather untidy. Thiepval poked into the British lines; the British were now trying to thrust a salient of
their own into the German salient. But Pozières, we should remember, was merely one battle of many
going on here in late July.
Only one battle of many going on there in late July—I think that is probably why it has been forgotten, because
it was part of the overarching Battle of the Somme, in which hundreds and hundreds of thousands of
commonwealth and German soldiers were killed or injured, and our bit was Pozières. It was small in that overall
context, but for a country of four million people, as we then were, to have 23 000 casualties, including nearly
7 000 killed, in the course of a couple of weeks was monumental. I think that it has been forgotten because it was
part of a major offensive that we were but a small part of, but it was monumental in Australian terms.
On 23 July, we attacked and it was a night attack.
Mr J.M. Francis interjected.
Mr M. McGOWAN: I think it was later in the battle, actually. I will look that up.
I quote Les Carlyon again on page 151, because it interestingly tells a little bit of the relationship between
Australians and the British. I think maybe this is overstated at times, but I think it tells a little bit of the
relationship. It reads —
On the afternoon of the Australians’ first day in Pozières two colonels met on Dead Man’s Road, which
led back to Sausage Valley. The colonels had their maps out. They were trying to organise a second
attack on a concrete blockhouse known as ‘Gibraltar’ on the western edge of the village. They talked —
As one wrote —
… ‘amid dozens of corpses and moaning wounded, mainly German’, and surrounded by blackened tree
stumps that rose like stalagmites.
A messenger suddenly panted up with an envelope marked ‘Urgent and secret’. Orders had changed
several times that day: this could be important. The message was from Gough’s headquarters.
‘A number of cases have lately occurred of men failing to salute the army commander when passing in
his car, in spite of the fact that the car carries his flag upon the bonnet. This practice must cease.’
Australian men went into battle on 23 July led by General Walker, whose chief of staff was
General Thomas Blamey of Second World War fame. Prior to going into battle, the British high command tried
to get us into battle earlier, but fortunately General Walker, who was a British officer, had resisted that because
he said we were not ready. We went into battle on 23 July and we attacked on the south western edge of the
village of Pozières with a view of getting around and enveloping the German forces at Thiepval, which was three
kilometres north. It was tough going. We advanced; we took the Gibraltar blockhouse and a bunch of other
German lines that had various names. The battles were at a place called the Windmill, the blockhouse and
throughout the village of Pozières. Pozières was destroyed and there was fighting amongst the rubble and the
like as we advanced from line to line. The Germans counterattacked regularly; as I said, they were a very
formidable army with disciplined troops—highly organised and well equipped. They bombarded our forces with
some of the most extreme bombardments of the First World War, including from the fortress at Thiepval, which
was in effect behind our lines.
[Member’s time extended.]
902
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
Mr M. McGOWAN: From at least three sides our soldiers were shelled by German forces. We attacked, we
attacked and we attacked. The 1st, 2nd and 4th Divisions—bear in mind, we had five divisions on the
Western Front in the First World War—were all engaged in this battle. It was heavy going. Many of our young
men were killed, Victoria Crosses were awarded and there was much bravery. It was after Gallipoli. As horrible
as the experience of Gallipoli was, this was immeasurably worse. After Gallipoli, it was a shock to our soldiers
how tough it was in France. They acquitted themselves well and it is a source of great pride. Amazingly, it is
regarded as a success in some of the histories I have read. It was shocking, it was hard, but we took ground and
we held it, and we caused our enemies, the German army, a great deal of trouble during this particular
component of the Battle of the Somme.
I will read out what Les Carlyon said about the end of Pozières. The book states that the Australians left for
Ypres, which is in Belgium. That was for the battles of 1917, the following year, which were also horrendous;
the Australians fought there. It is stated on page 244 of The Great War —
THE AUSTRALIANS LEFT for Ypres and a rest. They had taken 23,000 casualties here in less than
seven weeks.
Most of them were taken in the first couple —
They had done so in an area not much larger than 600 acres, which meant around ten Australians had
died for each acre. When the casualties from Fromelles were added in, the four Australian divisions had
lost 28,000 men, the same as for the eight months at Gallipoli. The British divisions had suffered on
a similar scale, but Australia’s was a volunteer army.
Where were the replacements to come from? Conscription? Pozières, a dowdy farming village that
didn’t show on many pre-war maps, had brought sadness to thousands of Australian homes. Now it was
about to bring bitterness to Australian politics.
At the end of Pozières, of course, there had been a decline in the recruitment in Australia of men for the Army,
because it was a volunteer army, and it precipitated the efforts by some of our federal and state MPs to introduce
conscription in this country. That in turn precipitated an extraordinary division—what we now term
a “meltdown”—in Australian political life in which the Australian Labor Party divided and the Australian Labor
Prime Minister swapped sides and became a National Prime Minister. The conscription referenda were defeated
on two occasions. It was an extraordinary set of events in political life. By our standards these days, our debate
and our issues are pretty minor in comparison to what was going on then. It precipitated that as well.
I want to read also from another book, a lovely book, written by Joan Beaumont called Broken Nation:
Australians in the Great War. I want to read to members what she had to say on page 217. She quotes
Charles Bean, a famous Australian historian, who was the historian of the First World War. I will read the quote
from Charles Bean up-front —
At Bullecourt, Messines, Ypres and elsewhere Australian infantry afterwards suffered intense
bombardment, but never anything comparable in duration or effect with this … The Windmill site …
with the old mound still there—marks a ridge more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than any
other place on earth.
That is the famous statement on the windmill at Pozières. I will now read out what Joan Beaumont had to say in
her book —
Today the Windmill is a quietly evocative place. A path leads to a plaque that paraphrases Bean’s
tribute to the Australians’ sacrifice. Australian and French flags flutter overhead and the landscape
beyond reveals, even now, the pulverised soil and concrete detritus of battle. In the distance can be seen
the massive Thiepval monument to the 73,000 missing of the Somme and the seemingly innocuous
ridge to Mouquet Farm that cost so many Australian lives in August and September 1916. The
Windmill has none of the drama of the heights of Gallipoli, and in recent years it seems to have lost
ground as a site of national memory to Villers–Bretonneux, which since 2008 has been the site of an
official Dawn Service on Anzac Day.
I suppose she makes the point in that that it is an amazing place—an amazing place of Australian endeavour and
sacrifice. None of the men who were involved are still alive. Indeed, their children, if they are alive, are probably
quite elderly these days. Their descendants are their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren or great-greatgrandchildren. The men are not here to tell us about what happened. The site at the windmill, as Joan Beaumont
points out, is a quietly evocative place. It has lost its resonance in Australian society to Villers–Bretonneux, to
Anzac and to some of the other memorials and places. My plea to the community, and perhaps to the Parliament
and to the country, is that in light of all of that sacrifice and in light of the fact that it was the worst battle in
Australian history—it was actually regarded as a success at the time—and in regard to the fact that the
Australian soldiers proved themselves in the toughest environment, in the toughest battle that Australian forces
ever participated in, it is probably appropriate that we acknowledge it more fully.
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
903
Mr Gracey, in his letter, suggests that there should be another memorial or something of that nature at Pozières
that is overarching. As I said, the current memorial is to the 1st Australian Division, yet three divisions served
there. There should be an overarching memorial to all the Australians who served there, and perhaps a bit more
interpretation of what went on. I agree with Mr Gracey on that. It would be affordable, cheap and easy for the
Australian government to do it; it would not be expensive at all because it would add to the existing memorials.
More than that, 23 July is the day it all commenced. It was the day the most tragic and hardest and most
shocking battle that Australian forces ever participated in began. Therefore, why do we not name the day after
that and call it Pozières Day? It would not cost anything; it would not hurt anyone. The men involved are gone
and I am pretty sure their descendants would appreciate the recognition. The fact that 23 July is five or six
months hence, on the 100th anniversary it would be the right occasion on which to do it.
That is my plea to Parliament on these Anzac bills. I appreciate that perhaps I have strayed somewhat from the
intent of the bills, and I appreciate that the house has allowed me to do so. The 100th anniversary is a very
important occasion and it is one that we should acknowledge. My plea to the Australian government and to
Western Australian government is to acknowledge it appropriately by renaming the day and participating and
committing to another memorial at Pozières.
MR S.K. L’ESTRANGE (Churchlands) [12.27 pm]: I rise to speak also on the Anzac Day Amendment Bill
2015 and the Anzac Day Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2015. It has been very informative listening to two members
opposite give different perspectives on these important bills. I, too, would like to give a perspective, first, in the
context of the history of our great state of Western Australia and its contribution to some devastating conflict
over the past 100 years, and also to reflect on the intentions and efforts of the Minister for Veterans and what
these bills are for.
As we all know, Anzac Day has become an increasingly important day for Australians. Schoolchildren of all
ages are educated on the history of Anzac Day and about the units that fought and, more importantly, they start
to research individuals—soldiers, nurses and others—who went away to World War I. Anzac Day now draws
hundreds of thousands of people around the country to various memorials. Last year, for example, something
like 100 000 attended the Perth dawn service and the march during the day, and many communities throughout
Western Australia have large numbers attend their services to remember the sacrifice of those who served this
country with distinction overseas and, of course, those who came home injured or wounded.
For me, there is a unit in Western Australia that I have a particular affection for—the 16th Battalion. The
16th Battalion was mainly Western Australian—it had some South Australian soldiers in it in the first Australian
Imperial Force—and it was part of the 4th Brigade, which was commanded by the great general, Monash. Of
course, General Monash’s image is on the $100 bill. He was probably the most successful commanding field
general of World War I. The 16th Battalion in World War I fought in so many campaigns that it probably had
more killed or wounded than was the case with any other infantry unit of that conflict, in famous battles such as
Gallipoli, Pozières and Bullecourt, to name just a few. Three Victoria Cross winners also came out of that
battalion.
I also want to touch on the 2nd/16th Battalion, which I also have an affection for, because that was very much
a Western Australian battalion, with soldiers from the south west and out towards Kalgoorlie who fought in
World War II. The most famous battle that the 2nd/16th Battalion soldiers fought in was of course the
Kokoda Track battle. I have got to know two gentlemen over the years, who are still with us. Bill Grayden, who
is about 95 years of age now and still going strong, is an amazing character. Bill was not only a very brave
soldier at Kokoda and leader as a lieutenant, but also a member of Parliament. From 1947 to 1949, he was the
member for Middle Swan; from 1949 to 1954, he was the federal member for Swan; and from 1956 to 1993, he
was the member for South Perth. He had quite a distinguished career as a politician at both the state and federal
levels over a long period. He introduced me to another fellow named Keith Norrish who was a soldier in the
2nd/16th Battalion. Keith Norrish’s story is fascinating and it cuts to the chase of what I believe the Anzac spirit is
all about. Although we have this amazing history from World War I, from where Anzac evolved, it is the spirit
that lives through the people of Australia and was epitomised in many different battles over the century. I want to
focus on Keith Norrish because he was a 2nd/16th soldier. I want to read an article from The Avon Valley Advocate
of Thursday, 25 February 2016, headed “Northam Kokoda legend”. It states —
LAST Saturday the 2/16th Battalion Association annual luncheon brought together soldiers who fought
during World War II.
These included well-known Northam identity Keith Norrish.
Mr Norrish initially came to Northam for training with the 2/16th in June 1940 after enlisting in
Cranbrook.
He left Fremantle for the Middle East on January 21, 1941, to take on the Vichy French in the western
desert.
904
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
Mr Norrish was wounded at Damour River and then returned with the 2/16th to Australia in
March, 1942.
Along with the rest of the 2/16th he went to Queensland for training in jungle warfare before departing
to Papua New Guinea in August 1942 to advance along the Kokoda Track.
Mr Norrish and his company came under intense fire from Japanese forces in the battle of Efogi on
September 8.
He received multiple bullet wounds to his chest including one round that entered his shirt pocket above
his heart.
A friend, Richard Pelham-Thorman, had given Mr Norrish a steel mirror so that he could shave just
20 minutes before the attack, which Mr Norrish put in his pocket and which miraculously saved his life.
Mr Pelham-Thorman was killed in the engagement.
“Jim Moir was just 50 metres from me and we both got clobbered,” Mr Norrish said.
Despite a perforated lung, Mr Norrish undertook a five-and-a-half day trek down the Kokoda track to
Koitaki near Port Moresby for treatment.
Each stop and at night he would prop himself in the fork of a tree so that fluid in his chest did not build
up.
He showed amazing strength and determination for someone who was just 21 years old.
Mr Norrish returned to Australia where he recuperated.
He was commissioned and as Lieutenant Norrish was transferred to 2/2nd Battalion.
Once again he returned to Papua New Guinea in the Aitape–Wewak campaign in December 1944.
After the war Mr Norrish returned to the family farm in Cranbrook, before farming in Katanning in
1946.
In 1958 Mr Norrish came to Northam as sales consultant for Badgers Motors and after a bout of
German measles he was sent to Faversham House, York, for convalescence where he met wife-to-be
Peggy Bushell.
Quickly becoming part of the Northam scene, Mr Norrish went onto be the rural district representative
for City Mutual Life Insurance.
He was an active member of the Northam Gun Club and the Northam Pistol Club and is held in high
esteem in the area to this day.
He now resides in Bentley.
What a fascinating story about an ordinary Australian who signed up as a young bloke to represent his country,
and did it with distinction. What incredible courage he showed to come through the Kokoda campaign. I knew
that story about Keith Norrish because he and Bill Grayden had me to lunch at Parliament House many years
ago. They knew I had an interest in politics and I was a serving soldier. I remember Bill and Keith telling me the
story of the battle during which he was wounded and also of just how close the fighting was; the Japanese enemy
was within arm’s reach, shooting from within one to two metres. That is the close proximity of these
engagements. They were incredibly brave men.
I now transgress away from that aspect of history and move more into the current context. The current context,
of course, is that this nation has been heavily involved in war since about 1999. We obviously had the
Korean campaign and the Vietnamese campaign before 1999, but we have had a fair bit going on since then, first
of all in East Timor, then in Iraq and then in Afghanistan. We have also had soldiers serving in stabilisation and
peacekeeping roles in the Solomon Islands and East Timor, and soldiers continue to serve in the Middle East and
in parts of Africa. Our tempo of Australian military involvement in conflicts around the world has been high. On
the one hand, we have this great remembrance of our history that dates back a hundred years, while, on the other
hand, we have the current context of soldiers and families doing it incredibly tough. A number of soldiers did not
come home, a number of soldiers came home with obvious wounds and a number of soldiers came home without
obvious wounds but with what we now term post-traumatic stress disorder. The community has a collective
responsibility for looking after the needy with regard to those who served. It is with this in mind that we need to
reflect on the intent of the minister with this bill.
We know Anzac Day is symbolic of all sacrifices of Australians in war throughout the last 100 years. On
a lighter note, we also know that Western Australians love and are passionate about their sport. Although the
majority of Western Australians who follow the Australian Football League will support either the Dockers or
the Eagles—they will be split—on the whole most Western Australians —
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
905
Mr P.B. Watson: Collingwood!
Mr S.K. L’ESTRANGE: I said “most”, member.
Mr P.B. Watson: Can we have a vote? There are three Collingwood supporters here.
Mr S.K. L’ESTRANGE: I know there are. Let us just move on with my speech. We do not need to bring the
speech down a notch by talking about members who support Collingwood!
We know that the majority of Western Australians support the Dockers or the Eagles, and that is great. That can
be challenging in some households, but we know that exists. On the whole, they are a very patriotic group of
Western Australians. They are patriotic both to their football code and to the spirit of Anzac and the history of
what Anzac represents. When those two great things are brought together, there are big crowds. I am focusing on
the AFL because it is one event that draws big crowds; I am talking about an event that can draw 40 000 people
as opposed to those people who love to play golf or go bowling. It is about these people coming together. I think
this bill could be termed a feel-good bill. It is a bill for all Western Australians to feel that they are contributing
while also supporting both something that they love and are passionate about with their football and a very good
cause to help those needy servicepeople and their families. It is a bit like a church collection plate. If we think of
the AFL and a stadium filled with people, it is almost a symbol of handing the plate around out of respect for
Anzac Day and taking a collection from the people who attend these events. People would love to know that they
are contributing to a good cause. I think if most Western Australians stand in the stadium at an event that is their
great football game, which is advertised and marketed as a celebration of remembrance for Anzac Day, they
would love to know that a contribution from their ticket sales will go to a good cause.
In his second reading speech, the minister outlined the details of how this will work. On some of my own quick
calculations I note that if 40 000 people turned up to a match—what would a ticket price be, minister?
Mr J.M. Francis: An average ticket price might be $25 or $30.
Mr S.K. L’ESTRANGE: We are dealing with a lot of money; 40 000 times $20 or $40 is a lot of money.
Mr P.B. Watson: They get only five per cent.
Mr S.K. L’ESTRANGE: The existing legislation provides for 60 per cent.
Mr P.B. Watson: They don’t pay it.
Mr S.K. L’ESTRANGE: That is right, and 60 percent is probably unrealistic due to the costs the
Australian Football League has to pay for the stadium and for running the event et cetera. It is entirely
reasonable that five per cent of ticket sales is an appropriate levy for this very significant historical
remembrance. I think the people of Western Australia would be very proud of that. I think they would be happy
to know that a portion of their ticket price will go to a good cause. I am sure the AFL, too, would be very proud
to be seen to be contributing.
In concluding, I see it in the spirit of Anzac, which is about looking after our mates. That is really what the spirit
of Anzac is about; it is about looking after our mates, showing great courage and helping each other in really
adverse situations. That flows through our Australian history and Australian culture in conflict. For a lot of
Australians, the closest place to understand that mateship and put others before self is on the sporting field.
I congratulate the Minister for Veterans on his initiative in trying to correct what might be an anomaly, because,
as I said before, I think most of the sporting codes would support this. I think they would understand its intent,
and the followers of their code would also very much support it. I commend the bill to the house.
MR P.C. TINLEY (Willagee) [12.42 pm]: I have great pleasure and sense of responsibility, or an obligation
I suppose, along with the member for Churchlands, as an ex-serviceman, to make a contribution to this
Anzac Day Amendment Bill 2015 and the Anzac Day Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2015. The opposition is happy to
support the bills because, as odd as it might sound and as galling as it is for me to congratulate the minister on
not particularly these bills, this is the end-game of seeing a wrong, and correcting it. The Anzac Day Act has
been on the statute book since 1960 and has lapsed. It would be very interesting—I suppose it is a perverse
interest—to find out when it first lapsed and when the contribution of 60 per cent of ticket sale proceeds of
games and race meetings on Anzac Day paid to this trust stopped. I am very glad the government is taking
seriously—it always has; there is no reflection on past effort either—the potential welfare benefit of what would
often be passed off as a national matter for the federal government; that is, the welfare of veterans. The welfare
of veterans is the responsibility of the entire society of all levels, formal and informal. This will give due
representation to it.
Anzac Day has a long tradition. The member for Albany noted that the first Anzac commemoration was
conducted in his town.
Mr P.B. Watson: City.
906
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
Mr P.C. TINLEY: At the time it was a village, member. I was speaking historically, not in contemporary terms.
In fact, the commemoration happened not long after the Anzac landings. On 30 April 1915, bearing in mind
communications at the time, at the first news of the landings, a half-day holiday was declared on that day. The
authorities were quick to it. I suspect—my research can tell me—that might have been the government
recognising what the citizens were doing anyway, which was leaving work because of their concern over the
scale of what happened on Anzac Day. A memorial to those killed in the Dardanelles was first built in
South Australia. It was unveiled by the South Australian Governor on 7 September 1915 and they called it
Wattle Day. On the year of the event, they were straight into it. It very much touched the psyche of Australians,
and the gravity of what happened at what later became known as Anzac Cove was not lost on the general
population. I used South Australia as an example because it is the first recorded example of a memorial to the
Anzacs or what later became known as Anzac Day. It was not until 1916, the year after, that 25 April was
formally listed as the official Anzac Day. In fact, General John Monash, as has already been indicated by
previous speakers, was material to that date being gazetted. Such was the reach of this grand field general that he
took an interest in all matters, himself a Gallipoli veteran. A brigade commander on the day, he could have an
influence through both Bean and Murdoch to prevail upon the government to ensure gazetting occurred
according to the wishes of those who were part of the landing. In 1916, the commemorations occurred right
across the front and General Monash required the troops to observe it at a unit level from that day in 1916. He
was subsequently in France, making his way to be the corps commander of all Australian and allied—
United Kingdom and United States—forces. He was the first general to command US troops in combat in
a foreign war and, when the American troops arrived, it was their first entry into the First World War. Even in
London, over 2 000 Australian and New Zealand troops marched through the streets to the city. At the time, they
were called the Knights of Gallipoli. That was, in 1916, again, at the same time it was gazetted.
As the Leader of the Opposition quite rightly said, subsequent to Gallipoli, the events in France put them in
context in terms of loss and effort. Nonetheless, it sits heavy in our psyche and our identity as a nation. In the
First World War we lost 60 000 Australians and 18 000 Kiwis. Unfortunately, we often forget the NZ part, and at
every commemoration I attend, I make sure I acknowledge that the New Zealand forces were involved. Their
feats, support and participation in every battle is legendary.
Mr P.B. Watson: At the Albany service, they fly the New Zealand flag and sing the New Zealand national
anthem.
Mr P.C. TINLEY: That is right; thank you, member for Albany. That is happening increasingly and a whole
range of inclusions are occurring, and that is great. The contemporary Anzac Day commemoration is now quite
inclusive. The Cockburn city Returned and Services League sub-branch, of which the minister is still
a member—I will check the books to make sure he keeps paying up!—holds an Indigenous spirit dance. I was
gobsmacked when I first attended that commemoration. The hardened men of the RSL had reached out to the
Indigenous Australians to find a connection for them as well, so there is a permanent commemoration of
Indigenous veterans, which is very, very important as an inclusive part of it. I remember on Anzac Day in 1979
when I was a member of the 16th Battalion, marching down St Georges Terrace.
Debate interrupted, pursuant to standing orders.
[Continued on page 919.]
JOHN “ROSS” FENWICK
Statement by Member for Albany
MR P.B. WATSON (Albany) [12.51 pm]: On Monday, 18 January, along with the shadow Minister for
Emergency Services, Margaret Quirk, I attended the funeral of John “Ross” Fenwick in Albany. Having served
as a volunteer firefighter with the Kalgan volunteer bush fire brigade for three decades, Ross was a giant among
volunteers in Albany. Ross was the chief fire control officer for the City of Albany from 2008 until 2014 and
was president of the Association of Volunteer Bush Fire Brigades of WA from 2014. At the time of his passing,
Ross was the chief fire control officer of the Kalgan volunteer bush fire brigade.
Ross suffered a stroke while fighting the bushfire at Two Peoples Bay on Monday, 4 January, and sadly passed
away a week later with his loving family by his side. Hundreds and hundreds of people turned up for
Ross’s funeral and there was standing room only at the Troode Street Church where Ross had been an active
member and volunteer for many years. A guard of honour consisting of well over a hundred volunteer
firefighters from the Kalgan and King River bush fire brigades was yet another testament to the very high esteem
that Ross was held in by the many bush fire fighters whom he had mentored over the years.
Ross had a long career with the Department of Agriculture in Albany and elsewhere working in animal breed
enhancement, and he was heavily involved in the formation of the Australian Dohne Breeders Association.
Along with his bushfire and animal breeding work, Ross was also a volunteer with the Albany Prostate Cancer
Support Group and other community groups. I extend my sincere condolences to Ross’s wife, Kathy, and his
extended family on the loss of a truly great man.
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
907
LORIKEET CENTRE
Statement by Member for Churchlands
MR S.K. L’ESTRANGE (Churchlands) [12.52 pm]: I would like to take this opportunity to commend the
Lorikeet Centre in West Leederville for the tremendous work it does on a daily basis for people living with
mental illness. The Lorikeet Centre is part of the Mental Illness Fellowship of Western Australia and it provides
a range of rehabilitation services to people with a mental illness. The services they offer include help gaining
work skills, recreation, education, social support and advocacy. The centre has approximately 600 members and
serves between 30 and 40 lunches every day. The centre offers members a place to meet with others, be part of
a community and join in organised activities.
Last year, I had the pleasure of meeting members of the centre who provided an insight into why this place is
important to them. They told me that the centre makes them feel safe and comfortable. They also told me that it
felt like a family and that they knew they could find reassurance, acceptance and confidence there. People with
a mental illness often experience stigma in their everyday lives. The Lorikeet Centre supports recovery and
social inclusion. I want to congratulate the Lorikeet Centre for its inspirational work helping people with
a mental illness.
EDDIE STORM — ORDER OF AUSTRALIA MEDAL
Statement by Member for Mandurah
MR D.A. TEMPLEMAN (Mandurah) [12.54 pm]: I rise to acknowledge local Mandurah citizen,
Mr Eddie Storm, who was awarded an Australian honour on Australia Day this year. I have known Eddie for
many years and I believe he epitomises the sort of person who deserves to be recognised through our Australian
honours system. Eddie Storm’s Medal of the Order of Australia recognises his outstanding contribution to the
entertainment industry in Australia. Eddie began his career in the entertainment industry in England in 1952 as
a young band member with the Ted Coleman Orchestra and commenced performing in Australia in 1967. Eddie
was selected for two tours of Vietnam in 1969 and 1970 to entertain Australian troops fighting in the Vietnam
War. His memory of these tours are particularly special to him in his long career, and he remembers with great
fondness the special bond he created with our diggers and the other entertainers who toured Vietnam with him at
that time. Eddie Storm later established himself in Western Australia and was a very popular act throughout
Perth. He then worked as a solo performer in Melbourne where he became one of Melbourne’s top entertainment
names, winning “Australia’s New Faces” award in 1971.
Over the last few years, Eddie Storm has been living in Mandurah and he is much loved by seniors’ groups
across the state for his wonderfully entertaining shows. I call him Mandurah’s most prolific performer; he
engages and endears himself to his audiences and loves performing. Eddie Storm is a remarkable Australian—a
gentleman—and I am so proud to call him a friend. Eddie Storm, OAM, thoroughly deserves his Australian
honour.
TELETHON TYPE 1 DIABETES FAMILY CENTRE
Statement by Member for Balcatta
MR C.D. HATTON (Balcatta) [12.55 pm]: I would like to inform the house of a wonderful facility in the
suburb of Stirling that provides support for children, and families of children, with type 1 diabetes. The
Telethon Type 1 Diabetes Family Centre is an innovative facility that was completed in July last year and it is
the first of its kind in Australia. I was at the official opening of the centre and it was evident that its construction
was a result of the input of the Western Australian state government, Lotterywest, the City of Stirling, various
businesses and companies such as BGC, and compassionate individuals.
Congratulations and acknowledgement must be given to Rebecca Johnson, chief executive officer of the centre,
for her commitment and dedication. Rebecca’s motivation and enthusiasm is inspiring.
The Telethon Type 1 Diabetes Family Centre supports children and families to face the challenge of
type 1 diabetes with confidence. It is proudly supported by Telethon and Lotterywest. The centre is situated next
to Osborne Park Hospital on a site provided by the Western Australian government. It is a friendly communitybased care facility that provides integrated clinical and psychological care and houses support activities in
education and information.
On 5 February 2015, I attended a sponsors’ function at the centre—a very well-attended event that proudly
demonstrated the compassionate commitment of many people.
Life is complex for a family with type 1 diabetes, which is genetic and incurable, and is generally diagnosed in
children and leaves the person dependent on injected insulin for life. It is not associated with being overweight or
eating too much sugar. Only opened in July 2015, the centre has already helped countless families learn to cope
with the challenges of physical and emotional wellness. The centre is a unique and great facility.
908
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
NATIONAL RED BALLOON DAY
Statement by Member for Girrawheen
MS M.M. QUIRK (Girrawheen) [12.56 pm]: This Sunday is National Red Balloon Day, honouring and
thanking firefighters. This event started in Geelong in 2014, gaining momentum nationally through Facebook.
People are encouraged to fly a ‘Thank You Fireys©’ balloon from letterboxes, fences or business windows on
that day, signifying how much we appreciate the dedication, hard work and tireless efforts of fireys in protecting
our lives, our homes and our communities throughout the year.
We acknowledge firefighters, both career and volunteer, who leave their family, home or community to help
protect ours.
Sausage sizzles are being held in Pinjarra on Saturday and in Albany on Sunday. These are both communities
touched by major incidents in recent years. The sale of the ‘Thank You Fireys©’ merchandise assists in raising
funds for local government bush fire brigades. In future, I hope the national organisers reconsider 28 February.
Although that is officially the last day of summer, people in WA are still at the business end of the fire season
with temperatures predicted this weekend in the high 30s. This means the guests of honour will be on call and
not able to relax and fully enjoy the accolades and community appreciation they so richly deserve.
Finally, I concur with the member for Albany’s tribute to Ross Fenwick, president of the Association of
Volunteer Bush Fire Brigades. His untimely death was a consequence of efforts at a fire at Two Peoples Bays.
Ross certainly had a life well lived in service to the community.
VOLUNTEER FUEL CARD SCHEME
Statement by Member for Swan Hills
MR F.A. ALBAN (Swan Hills) [12.58 pm]: In December 2015, applications opened for the
Emergency Services Volunteer Fuel Card scheme. Several visits from our Minister for Emergency Services and
his predecessor have resulted in this scheme covering all Swan Hills emergency services brigades, groups and
units. Being on the rural fringe, we are often excluded from schemes due to the geographic boundaries that exist
within the same postcode.
I am pleased to see that these cards, which will provide the volunteer brigades in my electorate with
a $2 000 fuel card every year for the next four years, are now being delivered. We are constantly reminded of
just how much work volunteers such as firefighters put into this electorate. I understand that Swan Hills has
a particularly high fire risk compared to most other electorates and history has shown that to be accurate.
Although some volunteers may take the stance, “I’m a volunteer and I don’t want any payment”, no doubt there
are volunteers who are between jobs or on a fixed income, so this scheme will benefit them when they have used
their own vehicle in service to their local volunteer brigade. Most importantly, it will benefit those communities
across the state that rely on such volunteers, their skillsets, training and commitment, throughout the long hot
summer we are currently in. The intent of these funds is to cover the costs that some volunteers may incur whilst
using their own vehicles in the course of their official duties and to reduce the personal impost that volunteers
bear in their commitment to the state.
Sitting suspended from 1.00 to 2.00 pm
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
EMPLOYMENT STATISTICS
82.
Mr M. McGOWAN to the Treasurer:
Just prior to asking my question, which is a serious question, I acknowledge the member for Cockburn on a very
significant birthday that he is celebrating today.
Mr J.H.D. Day: Where is he?
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER: Right.
Mr M. McGOWAN: My question without notice is to the Treasurer.
I refer to the Treasurer’s comments on Tuesday about the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics jobs data, when
he stated that the government’s jobs’ performance is good.
(1)
Was the Treasurer aware of South32’s decision to cut 390 jobs in Western Australia before he made his
glowing statement to Parliament?
(2)
Why did the Treasurer claim that the government’s performance was good when those ABS job figures
show that underlying the unemployment rate is a transfer of workers from full-time to part-time
employment?
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
909
Dr M.D. NAHAN replied:
(1)–(2) I thank the member for the question. What I stated, of course, was that, unlike him, I do not jump on
each response.
Mr M. McGowan: No, you said that this is a good outcome.
Dr M.D. NAHAN: Just let me get through the response. Every month when the figures go up the Leader of the
Opposition jumps up in front of the cameras and says, “Woe is me”, and then he is quiet when the
unemployment rate goes down.
Mr M. McGowan: You’ve just lost 400 jobs.
The SPEAKER: That is enough.
Dr M.D. NAHAN: Relative to what we forecast, and I emphasise that there are significant headwinds that this
government and this economy are facing. The Leader of the Opposition might not want to recognise it, but we
do, and we are doing quite a bit about it. There are significant headwinds. We were always going to shift from
construction to production and then we got hit by the worst commodity shock that this state and, indeed, the
world has seen in modern times. It is impacting on some of the commodity producers. BHP announced a loss of
$7 billion; Rio announced a loss; there was a 99 per cent drop in Woodside’s profit; and South32 is scaling down
its workforce. These are real headwinds. You cannot face these headwinds if all you do is sit on the sidelines and
whine and whinge like you do. No policies, no ideas—nothing.
Mr B.S. Wyatt interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Victoria Park!
Dr M.D. NAHAN: What I did point out was that jobs are being created. People are coming out of the mining
sector and the engineering sector and they are finding work.
Mr M. McGowan interjected.
The SPEAKER: Leader of the Opposition!
Dr M.D. NAHAN: Unemployment is rising, but at 5.9 per cent last month it was the second-lowest figure in the
country, despite the headwinds we are facing. On a national average annual basis, our unemployment rate is still
the second lowest in the country to New South Wales. Given the headwinds that we face, that is a good result.
The Leader of the Opposition might whine and whinge about it, and it is difficult out there, but the economy is
creating jobs despite the difficulties it is facing.
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER: Members!
Dr M.D. NAHAN: The reason it is finding those jobs is that the economy is much broader and much more
capable of adjusting than you people on the other side whine and whinge about.
Point of Order
Mrs M.H. ROBERTS: The question was actually about whether the minister was aware of the job cuts before
he made his statement, and we are still waiting for that answer.
The SPEAKER: Thank you. Have you finished your answer, Treasurer?
Dr M.D. Nahan: Yes.
EMPLOYMENT STATISTICS
83.
Mr M. McGOWAN to the Treasurer:
I have a supplementary question. Hasn’t the Treasurer’s government wasted the boom, blown the budget and
failed to diversify the Western Australian economy?
Dr M.D. NAHAN replied:
Absolutely not! The boom went to Western Australia because of the things that we helped do. It would have
missed out.
Several members interjected.
Dr M.D. NAHAN: It would have gone somewhere else if we did not have a government that was committed to
development, was facilitating development, got teachers in front of the classrooms, got capital infrastructure
done and revamped the city. If we did what you would have done, it would have passed us by. It also drew in an
extra 30 per cent of the population and that substantially increased the wealth of Western Australia and led to the
growth of the nation.
910
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
Mr B.S. Wyatt interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Victoria Park.
Dr M.D. NAHAN: That is our contribution to the recent growth of Western Australia, which has been
phenomenal and has been the largest accumulation of wealth in modern Australian history, and all you do is
whinge! We have facilitated it.
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER: Members!
Dr M.D. NAHAN: We do not take total credit for it, but I tell you what: if we had not put in the infrastructure,
put the public sector back on a good footing and had policies that encouraged development, unlike yours which
forced them off to the Northern Territory, we would not be as wealthy as we are now.
DEFENCE WHITE PAPER
84.
Mr F.A. ALBAN to the Premier:
Before I ask my question, on behalf of the member for Forrestfield, I acknowledge the student leaders and staff
from Maida Vale Primary School in the member for Forrestfield’s electorate.
I note the release of the federal government’s “2016 Defence White Paper” today. Can the Premier please inform
the house of some of the benefits for Western Australia, including for RAAF Base Pearce, which is in my
electorate?
Mr C.J. BARNETT replied:
I thank the member for the question. I think all Australians should feel pleased with the “2016 Defence White
Paper” released today. It provides not only a substantial boost to our military as such but also very strong
measures to ensure the long-term security of Australia and its defence capability. At a more local level, there are
substantial benefits for Western Australia coming out of this. Over the first 10 years, it is expected that
something like $2.4 billion of defence spending will take place in this state, and in the following 10 years
a further $1.9 billion. With respect to the member’s electorate and RAAF Base Pearce, initially not that much
money is to be spent—$30 million in the first 10-year cycle. In the second cycle, a further $500 million is to be
spent at Pearce, particularly to give it a capability to deal with strike air fighters. But there is a lot more than that
around the state that has been anticipated.
I will summarise very quickly. The size of the submarine fleet, as people know, will go from six to 12 and is to
be based at HMAS Stirling. HMAS Stirling is to have an upgrade in the first 10 years of something like
$700 million. There will be an additional nine antisubmarine frigates, five of which will be based at
HMAS Stirling. Campbell Barracks in my electorate will get a $200 million upgrade and Irwin Barracks in the
electorate of the member for Nedlands will receive a $175 million upgrade. In the north of the state there will be
substantial spending—$190 million at RAAF Base Curtin and around a further $190 million at Exmouth, or
Learmonth. It is very substantial expenditure, which I think will be very good for the construction industry here,
both for military jobs and for civilian employment.
Mr P. Papalia interjected.
Mr C.J. BARNETT: I would have thought that you, as an ex-military person, would have welcomed the
commitment to our military and the commitment to the security of our state and our country. I would have
thought you would have done. This is good news for Western Australia. We are sharing very well in the benefits
that will flow from the Defence white paper. I think all Western Australians will strongly support that.
MINING — EMPLOYMENT — SOUTH WEST
85.
Mr M.P. MURRAY to the Premier:
Before I ask my question, I, too, would like to welcome the parents and friends of John Septimus Roe Anglican
Community School, on behalf of the member for Bassendean.
I refer the Premier to the 390 jobs being lost at Worsley and Boddington, on top of the pressure on jobs right
across the mining sector. What training opportunities and other assistance will be provided to those south west
workers who will be losing their jobs?
Mr C.J. BARNETT replied:
Any job losses are distressing for not only individuals and families, but also the overall economy. We have seen
something like a 40 per cent drop in the alumina price in the last six months—a very sharp decline—and when
that happens, we are going to see reductions in the workforce, both permanent and contractor employees.
Fortunately, I think that there is some better news in other parts of the resources industry. The iron ore price,
although it is still very fragile, has recovered quite significantly in the last few weeks and is now I think—still,
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
911
I hope—above $50. If it can stay above $50 for a while, that will restore confidence in that area. We are also
seeing a lot of activity in the gold industry, and the gold industry is actually employing people. One of the
strengths of our mining industry is that it has diversified within itself. Obviously, job losses are important.
I think they represent 15 per cent of the Worsley workforce. That is a large number of people but it is not that
large in the context of the whole workforce.
Mr M.P. Murray: It is for the south west.
Mr C.J. BARNETT: Yes, it certainly is. I acknowledge that. We are seeing a lot of displacement taking place in
the resources industry, but, again, the industry is fundamentally strong across our state. It is incredibly strong. It
is a $100 billion-a-year industry, it is export oriented or export dominated, and I think every other state in
Australia would love to have our resources industry.
Mr M. McGowan: Answer the question.
Mr C.J. BARNETT: I have answered the question, Tintin!
Point of Order
Mrs M.H. ROBERTS: I make the point that the member for Collie asked one question and it was: what training
opportunities and other assistance will be provided to those people losing their jobs?
Dr M.D. Nahan interjected.
The SPEAKER: Listen in silence, please.
Mrs M.H. ROBERTS: Obviously, the Premier is allowed to have some latitude to talk about the general
situation, but we are hoping that we will get an answer to the single question that the member for Collie asked.
The Premier has not told us what training opportunities or other assistance will be available to those
390 workers.
The SPEAKER: Is there a supplementary question?
Questions without Notice Resumed
MINING — EMPLOYMENT — SOUTH WEST
86.
Mr M.P. MURRAY to the Premier:
I certainly agree with the member for Midland, but I now ask a supplementary question. What did the Premier
personally do to try to retain any of those jobs at Worsley?
Mr C.J. BARNETT replied:
Decisions on employment within individual projects are up to the company. I would hope that most of them —
Ms M.M. Quirk interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Girrawheen!
Mr C.J. BARNETT: I would hope that many of those workers will be able to relocate either to other mining —
Mr M.P. Murray: Where?
Mr C.J. BARNETT: To other mining projects.
Ms M.M. Quirk interjected.
Mr C.J. BARNETT: Some of them may leave the industry —
The SPEAKER: Member for Girrawheen, I call you to order for first time.
Mr C.J. BARNETT: Some of them may use their trade skills and go back into the construction industry or
wherever else.
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER: Members!
Mr C.J. BARNETT: I think everyone in Western Australia knows there are job losses taking place in the
mining industry. We have probably seen the worst of it because the industry is stabilising, but we will still get
losses in individual projects. We will still get, as we have had recently, several new goldmining projects going
ahead. We will always get a lot of transitional and frictional unemployment in that industry.
Mrs M.H. Roberts: They’re on their own.
Mr C.J. BARNETT: On their own! Remember the former Labor government’s record in mining? It lost the
Inpex project. It could not get Gorgon underway. It could not get Karara underway because it could not make
a decision. It lost project after project because it could not make a decision.
912
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER: Members!
Mrs M.H. Roberts: They’re on their own.
Mr C.J. BARNETT: No-one in this state is on their own. We have probably seen the worst of the job losses in
the mining industry. This government gets projects underway and we have the confidence of the mining and
petroleum industries, something the former Labor government did not have and something that the Labor Party
does not have now. It does not support uranium. It does not support fracking. It does not support some of the
growth sectors. It has failed repeatedly in getting major projects underway—and, if the member for Gosnells
ever becomes the environment minister, watch the flight of capital out of this state.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT — PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY
87.
Mrs G.J. GODFREY to the Minister for Local Government:
Can the minister advise the house about the type of information that ratepayers will be able to assess through the
new “my council” website, another initiative he has planned to improve local government performance and
accountability?
Mr A.J. SIMPSON replied:
I thank the honourable member for Belmont for her question and her interest as a former mayor.
Before I answer that question can I acknowledge, from the member for Dawesville’s electorate, the Halls Head
Primary School students who are in the gallery today, and their principal, Mr Beckingham.
As the member for Belmont pointed out, transparency and accountability around local government has to be
brought to a head. Tabled in Parliament today was the government response to the Public Accounts Committee
report, “Improving Local Government Accountability”, which was its review of local government accountability
and, more importantly, how local governments manage their books.
This government has been strong on local government to make sure that we can build the capacity of local
government to deliver good services to ratepayers. When we came into government in 2008, less than
20 per cent of local governments had any type of reporting planning process in place—that is, how local
governments identify assets and how they replace and maintain those assets. Now that there has been a change in
the legislation and new rules have been brought in, 83 per cent of all local governments now have an integrated
planning and reporting project which involves them in consulting with their communities on their assets and how
they go about rebuilding, and also, more importantly, replacing them.
Of course, the government has been very supportive of the $1.5 million allocated for elected member training.
Also, the government is reviewing the rules of conduct. In this house last year, we reviewed the online register of
gifts and travel, again, to get that transparency in local government. Of course, one of the recommendations of
the PAC report was that the Auditor General would take over the audits of local government, which is very
important. The Auditor General audits 200 government agencies. Local governments should be the same, and
through legislation later this year we will be able to transfer that accountability over.
All in all, to sum it up, as the member for Belmont pointed out, later this year we will launch the “my council”
website. We will be able to put up on that website the accounts and that will give more accountability and
transparency across those rates. We have spoken about putting downward pressure on rates, but one of the key
issues is that ratepayers can see where council income comes from, be it from rates, fees and charges or grants,
and where councils spend that money—on roads, rubbish and the community. That will be on the webpage for
everyone to see. More importantly, we will be able to —
Mr D.J. Kelly interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Bassendean, I call you to order for the first time.
Mr A.J. SIMPSON: More importantly, ratepayers will be able to see where their money is being spent and
compare their council’s spending with neighbouring local government spending. It is important to put in this
transparency for ratepayers so that they have a better understanding of where local government rates are being
spent.
It is interesting to hear from the opposition because I remember reading in The West Australian in December
2014 or January 2015 that the Labor Party would be releasing a discussion paper in 2015. Leader of the
Opposition, I am still waiting for that discussion paper on local government. We have still not received that, but
this government is getting on with the job and making sure that ratepayers are provided transparency and
accountability.
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
913
ESPERANCE HOSPITAL — STAFF COMPLAINTS
88.
Mr R.H. COOK to the Minister for Health:
I refer to the minister’s claims last week that he would respond to doctors’ concerns who contacted him directly,
rather than as the doctors at Fiona Stanley Hospital did, who contacted The Sunday Times about their concerns
about bullying and intimidation.
(1)
Can the minister confirm that in June 2014 he was hand-delivered a later from three doctors at
Esperance Hospital detailing their concerns about the breakdown of the relationship between staff and
management at the hospital?
(2)
Can the minister confirm that he did not respond to that letter?
(3)
Why did the minister, in the media, dismiss their concerns as not substantiated when separate
correspondence from the WA Country Health Service accepted that there was a problem at the hospital?
Dr K.D. HAMES replied:
(1)–(3) The particular doctor concerned—the one that the member might have read —
Mr R.H. Cook: It was three doctors.
Dr K.D. HAMES: So said, but coming from Dr Jacobs’ practice, I do not know what other doctors were
involved, it was put together by a particular doctor, Dr Howarth, who raised concerns largely around
circumstances in which there was a dispute within the hospital—largely a dispute between him and one of the
nurses. Two issues happened in the hospital. One was that there was a patient who was dying, and there was
criticism at the time because some of the staff had fish and chips in the theatre at the time that the family were
brought in, and that family complained. That led to another series of complaints and discussions and that led to
some of the complaints against the regional nurse.
Mrs M.H. Roberts: The question was about you explaining whether you read it.
Dr K.D. HAMES: This is complex. There is not a simple answer because it is a complex situation in Esperance
and there are different personalities at play who are involved in this, not just one.
There was a lot of criticism about Geraldine Ennis, who is our regional manager there. I think she is one of the
best regional managers I have ever seen. She is an amazing woman and she does a fantastic job. A lot of the
criticism was directed at her. I have to say she got pretty angry at that situation as it occurred.
There was another situation with a patient and their treatment by the emergency doctor. This doctor was the one
looking after them. The regional nurse, who I think might have been the same regional nurse involved in other
issues with either Ms Carey or Dr Howarth, had problems in that the regional nurse was concerned about the
behaviour of two nurses and their ability to manage that patient with Dr Howarth and what they were being
asked to do. She asked for a copy of the notes so that she could go through them. Dr Howarth was extremely
angry that the nurse was, in effect, questioning his judgement. Her response was that she was not; she was
questioning the behaviour of the nurses themselves. Anyway, this led to a dispute. The doctor withdrew some of
his services from the hospital and was extremely critical of the management of the hospital, the senior
management of the hospital and the district management. When we went down there, which I think was for
a regional cabinet meeting, we had meetings with people who came in. That doctor came in with two other
doctors. He had a brochure of stuff that he wanted me to go and investigate largely around the issues of the
regional nurse manager, Mrs Ennis. The other doctors wanted to talk about other issues, particularly the building
and the location of the general practitioner clinic next to the hospital. I received that document from Dr Howarth,
but made it quite clear at that meeting that I was not interested in discussing issues related to his dispute with the
manager because, remember, I do not employ anyone within the health service. They are all employed by the
director general. I said that those issues are not what I was there for and they are not what I was concerned about.
I said that I wanted to discuss the other issues around the building. The other doctors with him took over and that
is what we talked about in a very amicable and constructive way. After we got over that first issue, I found that
meeting very productive. However, regarding the issues that Dr Howarth raised about the regional manager, I do
not accept the views that I read in the report he put forward. I find her to be a superb manager in regional health.
She has won awards for the quality of management of regional health in the state and I back her 100 per cent.
ESPERANCE HOSPITAL — STAFF COMPLAINTS
89.
Mr R.H. COOK to the Minister for Health:
The question was very simple. Last week, the minister said that he would respond to the individual concerns of
doctors who wrote to him. On this occasion he did not. Was the minister telling the truth to Parliament when he
made those claims?
914
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
Dr K.D. HAMES replied:
I do not understand. The member is trying to tie it in with something that happened in 2014. We had that with
this bullying issue that we talked about with Fiona Stanley Hospital. He is grasping at straws so much that he is
trying to tie in a 2014 incident with doctors who made a complaint. What I said about the doctors at
Fiona Stanley Hospital was that they should come and talk to me personally and discuss it. A whole bunch of
them had seen me before that. Senior clinicians had raised those same concerns and sat around the table with me
and discussed them. I have about 10 emails with copies of all that correspondence on all those incidents. I was
fairly sure I saw some correspondence to Dr Howarth in there. It may have been —
Mr R.H. Cook: Was it from you?
Dr K.D. HAMES: No, it was from the regional health service that I discussed with —
Mr R.H. Cook interjected.
Dr K.D. HAMES: What happens when someone comes to me and gives me a sheet of paper at a meeting, I take
it to the regional health person and tell them that I have a complaint and can they look into it. I get to see the
letters that are sent back. I have discussions with the staff about what was written.
Mr R.H. Cook interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Kwinana!
Dr K.D. HAMES: That is a totally adequate response, and, to be honest, I think the behaviour and management
of our staff in managing this situation was very good given the circumstances involved.
SOUTH WEST EMERGENCY HELICOPTER SERVICE
90.
Mr G.M. CASTRILLI to the Minister for Emergency Services:
It was a pleasure to join the minister and the Premier in late January as they launched the new South West
Emergency Helicopter Service at the Bunbury Airport. Can the minister remind the house how this vital resource
will benefit communities in the region?
Mr J.M. FRANCIS replied:
I thank the member for Bunbury for what he has done to continue to encourage the government’s project on the
second RAC rescue helicopter. I also acknowledge a few other people from both sides. Firstly, the Minister for
Regional Development, who has supported this project through royalties for regions, and the Premier came
down, and the member for Vasse and Hon Adele Farina turned up on the day to show their support for this. Of
all the things we do in public life and we can achieve as members of Parliament, whether in government or not,
what matters more than anything else are the things that save lives. The reality is that we have had one rescue
helicopter now for some time sponsored wonderfully by the RAC. Mr Pat Walker was also at the launch
throwing in his support for the second chopper. The first rescue helicopter, the Bell 412, has a range of about
500 kilometres, a radius of about 250 kilometres, in flight distance to go out and back. It has conducted about
400 rescue missions a year—as a rule of thumb, that is just over one a day. But we all know that when it comes
to saving lives, timeliness of critical care is more important than anything else. Getting a paramedic into regional
Western Australia and getting a patient to expert care in our hospital system is so very important. Every single
second counts. We committed at the last election to getting a second helicopter into the air. In June last year,
I told the house that we would endeavour to do everything to get that second helicopter in the air by the start of
February. That time has come and it has been in the air and flown about 14 missions already. Members can only
imagine that if we have one helicopter in the air covering the 250-odd kilometre radius around Perth, how much
better it will be to have two helicopters that can now cover 95 per cent of the state’s population from here all the
way down to Albany, and to have them exactly the same helicopters kitted out with all the latest and greatest
navigation, infrared and rescue equipment. Our paramedics are all cross-trained so that they can jump between
airframes in the air at the same time. I understand that even on last Sunday, both of the RAC rescue helicopters
were in the air at the same time covering two different incidents and saving lives. We can only imagine what
would have happened if they were not both in the air at the same time; it may well have been a far more
catastrophic result for one family last weekend.
We are very proud of our achievements. The one thing that I ask members from any electorate across the state to
keep in mind, even the member for Kimberley, is that if people from their electorate travel down to the south
west, this is one of the services that will be made available to them. We hope that no-one will ever have to use it,
but unfortunately they do. It is a wonderful achievement. Again, I thank the Minister for Regional Development
and all the staff from the Department of Fire and Emergency Services and the Department of Health who have
made this happen. This achievement is above politics because saving people’s lives is so important and we are
very proud of it.
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
915
PLUSLIFE — BONE AND TISSUE BANK SERVICES
91.
Mr R.H. COOK to the Minister for Health:
Before I ask my question, I acknowledge members of the PlusLife board and Harry, a bone cancer survivor and
recipient of PlusLife’s bone bank and donor services, in the gallery today.
I refer to a funding request of $10 million for PlusLife, the organisation providing bone and tissue bank services
in Western Australia, to construct and commission new facilities.
(1)
Is the minister aware that PlusLife is currently spending $450 000 of its own money on detailed
planning for a new facility on land provided by the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority?
Mr J.H.D. Day: That is, the state government.
Mr R.H. COOK: Yes—the state government.
(2)
Will the minister provide the requested $10 million of funding to build and construct its new facilities
on the Midland site?
(3)
Will any funding commitment be made before the budget to the allow construction and commissioning
by the December 2017 deadline as is needed to save the ongoing service of the organisation?
Dr K.D. HAMES replied:
(1)–(3) I thank the member for Kwinana for the question. I will be interested to know how much money
PlusLife has been spending on campaigning to get the money, when its people have been given
reassurances already by me, by the Premier, and by the government, that we are supportive of their
request and that it is being considered actively in the budget—yet, here they are, going out and running
full-page ads in the media. Talk about overkill in terms of a publicity campaign.
Mrs M.H. Roberts interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Midland!
Dr K.D. HAMES: The reality is that PlusLife is an essential service, and they have acknowledged, in the
documentation they put out, that I have told them that they are an essential service. They know that I am
supportive of the funding because they acknowledge that, and they know the Premier is supportive of the
funding because they acknowledge that; yet, here they are, going out to just about every member in this state,
including state and federal members, lobbying them to get support for this particular project, and running fullpage advertisements in the paper. Whoever is running this campaign should have a serious think about what they
are doing.
PlusLife is an essential service. In other states, PlusLife is largely funded by state governments. We are the only
state in which that has not been required. PlusLife has been at Hollywood Private Hospital until now, and
Hollywood Hospital’s Ramsay Health Care has given them a time period by which it would like them to leave,
and those times are very tight. To get all that work done —
Mrs M.H. Roberts: The end of this year.
Dr K.D. HAMES: Next year I think the member will find is the time.
Mrs M.H. Roberts: The end of this year.
Dr K.D. HAMES: I do not think so. I will check that. Next year, is it—2017? I think the member said that in her
question, didn’t she?
The SPEAKER: Through the Chair, please.
Mr R.H. Cook: It is a two-year period.
Dr K.D. HAMES: See. The member for Midland is wrong! Just admit you are wrong! Work it out between you!
The SPEAKER: Thank you!
Mr R.H. Cook interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Kwinana! Through the Chair, please. Minister, do you have anything more to say?
Dr K.D. HAMES: Yes, I do, Mr Speaker. I was just checking something.
They have work to do. A building is being provided.
Mr P. Papalia interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Warnbro!
916
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
Dr K.D. HAMES: Work has to be done to upgrade it to the standard that they need, and they need
a commitment before they can do that.
Mrs M.H. Roberts interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Midland!
Dr K.D. HAMES: What is the critical issue? It is the time within which they have to leave Hollywood and
Ramsay. What do members opposite think is the best thing that the government should have done? We have
talked to Ramsay, and we have got agreement from it that it will be flexible about the time within which PlusLife
has to go. Hence, the problem is solved. PlusLife will not have to go out on that day. It will have more time. The
budget is in three months. The people at PlusLife should sit there and wait patiently before they annoy us all to
death in the meantime.
PLUSLIFE — BONE AND TISSUE BANK SERVICES
92.
Mr R.H. COOK to the Minister for Health:
I ask a supplementary question. It is not the issue around the freezer space, minister, it is about the continuity of
the service and the 22 jobs that require the minister to make that commitment prior to the budget process.
Therefore, I ask again: will the minister commit to meet with PlusLife immediately and ensure that this essential
service receives this modest grant over the three-year period in order to continue the operation of this service in
Western Australia?
Dr K.D. HAMES replied:
It just is not true that there is any threat to the employment and continued activity of that operation by waiting
the three months until the budget. It is not true that there is that threat. PlusLife does not need to meet with me
because they have my full support in writing already. They already have the verbal support of the Premier’s
office. It is already sitting before the Treasurer and it will be considered within the budget. We are not going to
make decisions outside the budget. This is a critical budget, a large budget, and there are a lot of organisations
seeking funds, and I think they are in a pretty good damn position with the support they have had from our
government.
Mrs M.H. Roberts interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Midland, I call you to order for the first time.
ELECTRICITY MARKET REVIEW — ENERNOC CLAIMS
93.
Mr J. NORBERGER to the Minister for Energy:
I read some interesting claims over the weekend by a representative of United States’ multinational EnerNOC
about the review into the current payment arrangement for demand side management in the Western Australian
electricity market. Can the minister please advise the house on this matter?
Dr M.D. NAHAN replied:
I thank the member for Joondalup for the question. I know that people in little cars from EnerNOC have been out
visiting the member’s electorate. We had a discussion in this house last week, I think, on demand side
management. First, demand side management itself has some real utility. Unfortunately, Mr Wilson, who
represents EnerNOC out there, might be well presented and have these flashy cars and whatnot, but it is all
rubbish. Every major claim he makes is a lie. I want to go through the major claims.
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Bassendean! I do not even want to hear a comment. I just want to say just be very
measured in your comments in here. That is all I want to say to you.
Dr M.D. NAHAN: They made the claims; I heard them. They have said that demand side management will save
$105 million. It will save some money if it is called on, but, right now, and over the last few years, and over the
future, it is not going to be called on. How do we save money if we are paying $66 million for this service and it
is not used? How do we save money if it is not called on? Mr Wilson says it saves carbon pollution. How do we
save carbon emissions if it is not called on—and it will not be called on into the foreseeable future? How does it
do it? It does not. He says that the system’s regulator supports this fact. It does not. Read the Australian Energy
Market Operator’s website. It says that DSM has a role—I agree—but its pricing should relate to its saving of
energy, and not be paid in advance. So, I am afraid that what Mr Wilson is doing is going out there and
misrepresenting issues. The reason why he is doing that is clear. He represents EnerNOC, which is the largest
aggregator of DSM in the state. It is getting in the vicinity of $37 million, much of which it keeps, and it is trying
to defend the huge flow of the profits to its pockets. It is doing this by systematically using those proceeds to
mislead and distort the views to the public of Western Australia. I will quote one of Mr Wilson’s comments —
Voters’ aren’t volatile. They want things to remain the same. That’s why they respond to scare
campaigns …
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
917
That is what he is doing. Well, we will not. We know that DSM has a role. We have to price it properly, but we
will not respond to scare campaigns like this. We will continue to make reforms and reduce the costs of
electricity to consumers, and reduce the subsidy, and get rid of useless material like that. I know people on the
opposite side are sitting here in glee, but standing up to groups like EnerNOC is leadership—and that is what we
are doing.
UTAH POINT — PORT CHARGES — JUNIOR MINERS
94.
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON to the Premier; Minister for State Development:
I refer to the Premier’s decision of 15 May 2015 to provide $2.50 per tonne relief on port charges to junior
miners using Utah Point.
(1)
Will this $2.50 per tonne relief be continued beyond 30 June 2016?
(2)
If it will not be continued, has the Department of State Development modelled the impact on the junior
miners of withdrawing this relief, which equates to about five per cent of the current price of iron ore?
Mr C.J. BARNETT replied:
(1)–(2) The state has a history of providing relief when important companies get themselves into stressful
situations, and with the very rapid fall in iron ore prices, a lot of the junior companies were struggling to
continue, and therefore struggling to maintain their operations and their workforce. So, that relief was
provided. It is kept under continuous review. Generally, when relief is provided, if it takes the form of
royalties, that is recoverable in future years when price recovers. It is never an easy situation to deal
with. That small amount of relief was provided, and it has helped some of those juniors to get through.
Hopefully if the price of iron ore stays at $US50-plus, they will be able to continue to operate.
UTAH POINT — PORT CHARGES — JUNIOR MINERS
95.
Mr W.J. JOHNSTON to the Premier; Minister for State Development:
I ask a supplementary question. Is the Premier confirming that the $2.50 relief will not continue past 30 June,
and is that going to put 1 000 jobs and $250 million of government revenue at risk?
Mr C.J. BARNETT replied:
If the member had listened, he would know that I said those arrangements are subject to continuing review. We
monitor it. We monitor the performance of the company financially, and we monitor the price of the material
they produce.
PERTH STADIUM — DROP-IN WICKET
96.
Mr T.K. WALDRON to the Minister for Sport and Recreation:
Before I ask my question, I would like to acknowledge the member for Midland, because she has a birthday only
once every four years, and I understand that is next Monday, 29 February. So, happy birthday, and I wish I was
still a teenager!
Minister, I understand that the Perth Stadium project team is currently testing a drop-in wicket for Perth Stadium,
and that is taking place at Gloucester Park. Could the minister please expand on this for the house?
Ms M.J. DAVIES replied:
I thank the member for Wagin for the question. I knew he would be very interested in the testing we are doing
down at Gloucester Park. On Tuesday morning I went to Gloucester Park with Christina Matthews and members
of the project team for the new stadium.
Mr D.J. Kelly interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Bassendean.
Ms M.J. DAVIES: I also met with some of the Western Warriors who are currently putting the drop-in wicket
through its paces.
Mr D.J. Kelly interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Bassendean, I call you to order for the second time.
Ms M.J. DAVIES: I just hear a bit of a constant drip over there, but that is all right; I will carry on. Everyone
else is interested in the drop-in wicket.
We started last year —
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER: Thank you.
918
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
Ms M.J. DAVIES: We started last year. The wicket has been constructed with the same soil profile and turf that
are used at the WACA ground. I know that everyone will be watching very keenly to see that we get this surface
right at the new stadium, particularly cricket lovers, given the importance that the wicket at the WACA has in
international cricket.
Ms R. Saffioti interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for West Swan, I call you to order for the first time. We are just wasting time for
nothing.
Mr W.J. Johnston interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Cannington, I call you to order for the first time.
Ms M.J. DAVIES: I am not reading anything, member.
Ms M.M. Quirk interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Girrawheen, I call you to order for the second time.
Ms M.J. DAVIES: To make sure that we get the wicket correct, because we are looking to attract major matches
to the new stadium —
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for West Swan, I call you to order for the second time; member for Pilbara for the
first time; and member for Kwinana, for the first time. Minister, through the Chair.
Ms M.J. DAVIES: They are putting the wicket through test match conditions, so they will be looking at the —
Ms M.M. Quirk interjected.
Ms M.J. DAVIES: I do not even know why the member thinks it is funny.
Ms M.M. Quirk interjected.
Ms M.J. DAVIES: Well, go away!
Several members interjected.
Ms M.J. DAVIES: Well, go away!
The SPEAKER: Minister! Member for Girrawheen, this is deteriorating very quickly for no good reason.
Ms M.J. DAVIES: Thank you Mr Speaker.
An opposition member: What’s the soil profile?
Ms M.J. DAVIES: It is the same as that at the WACA. They are using the same soil profile and turf as that at
the WACA. I have already said that. Were opposition members not listening?
Several members interjected.
Ms M.J. DAVIES: They are doing five days of testing the wicket. They will then do an assessment to make sure
that it stands up. They will give it a rest. They will then put another team out there and replicate one-day
matches. Westadium will have responsibility for the construction and management —
Mr W.J. Johnston interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Cannington, I call you to order for the second time. Minister, quickly.
Ms M.J. DAVIES: Westadium will have responsibility for the construction and management of four drop-in
wickets at the new stadium, and it is incredibly important that we get this —
Dr A.D. Buti interjected.
The SPEAKER: Member for Armadale, I cannot believe that this is happening. I call you to order for the first
time.
Ms M.J. DAVIES: Mr Speaker —
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER: Members!
Ms M.J. DAVIES: It is the opposition’s time that is being wasted. Everyone on this side is very happy to listen
to me talk about the drop-in wicket. One-day match conditions will be replicated after there has been a resting
period. It is a great collaboration between the WACA, the stadium team, Cricket Australia and Westadium to
make sure we get this wicket right. I am sure that many cricket fans will be watching closely as we do this.
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
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Point of Order
Mr J.H.D. DAY: For three or four minutes now, most of the time the minister has been trying to answer, there
has been this cacophony from the other side. I am finding it difficult to hear and I think members at least on this
side would like to hear the minister’s answer.
The SPEAKER: Thank you. Quickly, minister.
Ms M.J. Davies: I am finished.
The SPEAKER: That concludes question time.
EDUCATION AND HEALTH STANDING COMMITTEE
Inquiry into the Department of Education’s Independent Public Schools Initiative— Terms of Reference —
Statement by Speaker
THE SPEAKER (Mr M.W. Sutherland): I have received a letter dated 24 February 2016 from the
Chairman of the Education and Health Standing Committee advising that the committee has resolved to conduct
an inquiry with the following terms of reference —
That the Education and Health Standing Committee inquire into and report on the Department of
Education’s independent public schools initiative.
(1)
(2)
In particular the committee will examine —
(a)
The implementation of the initiative, including support provided to schools
transitioning to become independent public schools and the use of delivery and
performance agreements.
(b)
The ongoing role of the Department of Education, and other agencies, supporting
independent public schools.
(c)
How independent public schools are monitored through informal and formal review
processes and the transparency of reviews for the school community.
(d)
The impact on the engagement and performance of students, in particular those with
additional needs.
(e)
The outcomes of formal and informal reviews of independent public schools.
(f)
The process and extent to which the Department of Education incorporates review
outcomes into its management of the independent public schools initiative and
ensures that independent public schools act on review outcomes.
(g)
The impact of independent public schools on staffing arrangements.
The committee will report by 16 August 2016.
ANZAC DAY AMENDMENT BILL 2015
ANZAC DAY AMENDMENT BILL (NO. 2) 2015
Second Reading — Cognate Debate
Resumed from an earlier stage of the sitting.
MR P.C. TINLEY (Willagee) [2.47 pm]: I will continue the remarks I was making on the Anzac Day
Amendment Bill 2015 and the Anzac Day Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2015 before the luncheon suspension and
question time. I was saying that the advent of the commemoration of Anzac Day in Western Australia, as in the
rest of Australia, went through quite a lull after the Vietnam War. From probably 1975 onwards, it was
considered that it had a relationship with all that was bad about the Vietnam War, not least of which the national
service that was implemented. The citizens of Western Australia, like others right across the country, did not
commemorate Anzac Day in the numbers that they do now; in fact, in 1979 I was a member of the 16th Battalion
Royal Western Australian Regiment as an Army reservist, and I recall marching up St Georges Terrace. It was
a very lonely march. There was barely anybody on the footpaths, where people gathered on those days, but today
they are 10 people deep. As the Minister for Veterans, or it might have been the member for Churchlands, said,
there is now in the order of 100 000 people at the dawn service, let alone those who turn out for the march.
Anzac Day is very much back on the agenda and in the front of mind of the public of Australia and
Western Australia.
Corresponding with that and the Anzac tradition, sport, particularly Australian Rules football, has formed a very
large part of the commemoration of Anzac Day. During the First World War and in subsequent wars, soldiers
would commemorate Anzac Day by playing some sort of sport. In Afghanistan and Iraq, sport is always part of
the Anzac Day commemorations following the normal service in the morning. There is always some form of
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sport, be it cricket, footy or probably both, played in the dust in the afternoon to make sure there is a fulsome
celebration and commemoration, if you like, of all that is good about Anzac Day and the sacrifice made by those
in previous wars. Of course, the modern-day tradition of Anzac Day matches started with the sport played by the
soldiers all those years ago and evolved into what we now see as the Anzac Day game. The modern-day tradition
began in, I believe, 1995 when Collingwood and Essendon played each other at the Melbourne Cricket Ground,
and there are no prizes for guessing what the common result was from that, year in, year out, for the
Essendon Football Club. In 2013, St Kilda and Sydney played an Anzac Day game in Wellington, New Zealand,
which was the first Australian Football League game ever played outside Australia for actual competition points;
it was not a demonstration game. Sport has long been a part of Anzac Day activities. Rugby League is played in
Sydney. The first Anzac Day Cup match between the Sydney Roosters and the St George Illawarra Dragons was
played in 2002, but the first Anzac Day Rugby League game was played in 1927. The match was not played
during the Second World War. Now that the Rugby League franchise involves New Zealand, the
New Zealand Warriors from Auckland take part in Anzac Day matches that have significant importance in the
sporting calendar for New Zealand and Australia.
The commemoration of Anzac Day has waxed and waned over the years, but it is now on a tremendous high.
The purpose of the original Anzac Day Bill 1960 was to formalise something that had been happening in an ad
hoc way—in some ways an illegal way. It was also a response to an internal vote of the Returned and Services
League of Australia in which its members were polled about a variation to the way Anzac Day was
commemorated. Traditionally, the entire day had been a commemoration day and pubs would not open, but the
movement was for the commemoration to commence at dawn and conclude at 1.00 pm so that pubs could open,
footy games could be played and race meetings could be held. Sir David Brand brought the bill into the house
quite late at night, at about 7.45 pm according to Hansard, and noted —
… members are no doubt familiar with the result of the poll that was conducted by the R.S.L. Of the
league’s 15,521 financial members, 6,587 voted. The voting resulted in 4,855 members favouring
commemoration until 1 p.m. …
That bill was a response to the wishes of the veterans, expressed through Legacy and the RSL. One could be less
than generous and say there were vested interests, particularly on behalf of holders of liquor licences who were
seeking to make a profit out of Anzac Day. That is something we should always be wary of. The government of
the day made sure, by the imposition of the 60 per cent impost on net proceeds, that the money raised would be
paid into a fund. Even in those days, that was a pretty hefty weighting to impose on going to a footy match. I am
sure the West Australian Football League was a very well-attended competition in the 1960s and 1970s; the
footy games, along with the races, were probably the most attended events in those days, so a significant amount
of money would have been collected. I did not have time to research—I probably would not know where to
begin to research—how much money was collected at that time but I imagine it would have been significant.
That original act has now lapsed, and I congratulate the current minister on picking up where the Premier of the
day in the 1960s left off. Referring to the RSL poll, Premier Brand said —
In the limited time available since the holding of the poll, the Government has not been able to give this
matter all the consideration it desired. Accordingly, I have given an undertaking to the House to
introduce amending legislation following the experience that will be gained in the coming year.
It is a little bit later than expected, but here we are! We are in this place to amend the bill to make its impact
more contemporary. This side of the house is conscious that the Anzac Day Amendment Bill 2015 needs to get
out of this place before 4.00 pm to be laid on the table in the other place. I had particular concerns about the
detail of this bill, and I thank the minister for the briefing note on previous disbursements of the trust. Those
disbursements show a fair spread of last year’s trust money, because it is a fairly well-known fact that the RSL
and Legacy were pretty much the principal beneficiaries. I have nothing against those very erstwhile
organisations—I am a member of one of them—but it is really important that we support veterans. That was the
purpose of the original bill, and that has continued in the amendment bill. The purpose of the original bill was for
the benefit of the veterans. In this day and age, as the member for Churchlands identified, a significant number
of veterans present with mental health disorders, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder, and that needs to be
attended to via the provision of a range of services. I will not go into how the unique circumstances of veterans
require a slightly different approach to find a remedy, but the work of organisations such as Walking Wounded
and Soldier On that exert a significant amount of energy to make a difference are worthy contenders of support
from trusts such as this.
I remind the house that since 1999, 49 soldiers, airmen or sailors have been killed in action, but 239 ex-services
personnel across the country have died by their own hand; I do not know the Western Australian statistics. From
research and a large body of evidence, we know the number of deaths will continue to rise almost exponentially
as those people separate from the services, because things such as PTSD might not present for as long as
10 years-plus after separation from the services. Initiatives such as this are fundamentally important because they
provide flexibility, through the board and minister’s support, to support organisations that arise for only a short
period or for a specific purpose to assist a specific need. With that, I commend the bill to the house.
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
921
MR P. PAPALIA (Warnbro) [2.57 pm]: I rise to make a contribution to the Anzac Day Amendment Bill 2015
and support the bill.
At the outset, I will reflect briefly on the contribution of the Leader of the Opposition on the lack of recognition
of the Battle of Pozières, and its place in Australian military history and Australian history generally. I endorse
the suggestion of the Leader of the Opposition that the federal government should contribute to an appropriate
memorial in that location. It is extraordinary that it has not been properly commemorated and is not in the
forefront of Australians’ minds, particularly now that we are 100 years on from that event. That aside, I will
address most of my contribution to the content of the bill.
I commend the minister for his actions in bringing this amendment bill to this place. I also appreciate the briefing
note and background information he provided. I make the observation that it is clear that I do not think that the
Australian Football League, which has made a considerable amount of money out of having events on
Anzac Day, has contributed anywhere near appropriately to Western Australian ex-service personnel via this
trust. I am glad the minister has sought to address that situation. Clearly, if all the AFL contributed last year—
this is not necessarily a negative reflection on the Fremantle Dockers—from that huge event was $15 000, that is
completely inadequate. I acknowledge the contention the AFL would make that there are costs associated with
conducting the event and that contributions are made to the AFL, but all that aside I cannot believe that the AFL
would think that was an appropriate amount of money to contribute, having been given the opportunity to
conduct such an event on Anzac Day. It is just extraordinary. I am glad the minister is rectifying it. It looks good.
I note the intention to monitor what happens to see whether the formula that has been arrived at works to ensure
that we get a boost in the amount of money contributed. I look forward to seeing how that goes. As much as we
can anticipate, it looks as though it will work. Also, being more specific about the nature of events that attract
this obligation is good. Five thousand in attendance with a professional sporting organisation excludes all the
smaller organisations and sporting associations that might have events on the day, and it would not be
appropriate that we impose on them.
I also commend the other organisations and associations around the state that have voluntarily made
contributions to this trust in recent times, despite the relatively small capacity to do so. I note that other people
have mentioned the Warnbro Bowling Club. It is extraordinary that a little club—it is not actually that little; it is
a reasonably sized club—such as the Warnbro Bowling Club can contribute $300 to this trust while an enormous
organisation that is the AFL contributes only $15 000. The other groups listed in the minister’s briefing note
include Burracoppin Football Club, Kwinana Golf Club, and Greyhounds WA, which made a commendable
contribution of $9 496. Kwinana Golf Club contributed more than $1 100, which is a significant contribution,
and Kalamunda Eastern Suns Basketball Club contributed $110. All those small organisations demonstrate
a greater responsibility to the concept and aspirations of the Anzac Day Trust than do the much bigger
organisations, which have not really been making a fair contribution.
I also join the member for Willagee in commending the expansion of the list of organisations that can be
recipients of funding. In recent times I have often and increasingly said when I am giving my address at the
Port Kennedy dawn service on Anzac Day to the crowd of some thousands that grows every year, that we should
place our focus as much as possible, notwithstanding what I said about Pozières, into the living veterans, as
opposed to commemorating people who have gone. As much as it is sad and a tragedy, there are no Anzacs left;
they have all gone. The sons and daughters of the Anzacs are leaving us rapidly, but, as the member for Willagee
indicated, we have tens of thousands of living veterans today who need our assistance.
In looking at the list, I endorse and welcome the increase in the number of organisations that will receive
funding, but I encourage the minister, if at all possible, to focus in the coming year on those that deliver real
services and have a demonstrated capacity to deliver services in as professional a manner as possible. Like me,
the minister has received numerous approaches from all manner of well-meaning people who are intending to
provide services to ex-service personnel suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Nevertheless, many of
them do not really have the capacity, and I fear that a lot of them may be exposing themselves to any amount of
potential litigation or accusations of failure just through their naivety. This is not a criticism of their motivation.
They are all well motivated, but I have met people who are damaged themselves trying to establish organisations
to replicate services already being provided by much more capable organisations. I know that the minister has
encountered and experienced this as well. In our position, we get approaches from many people who recognise
the need but may be exposing themselves unnecessarily to a lot of angst and, perhaps, negative consequences
that they have not foreseen. It may also result in a dilution of the ability to provide the service. I love all these
organisations, but the more there are, the more diluted is the ability of government and bureaucracies to manage
and deal with them, and the less likely they are to be able to deliver a valuable service.
Mr J.E. McGrath: Are you saying that the Department of Veterans’ Affairs does not have the resources to look
after all these vets who are suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of serving in the armed forces? I have
a friend in the eastern states who fought in Vietnam, and he gets a lot of services from the Department of
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Veterans’ Affairs. He has regular medical checks and assistance, and he goes to psychologists, and it is all
funded. Are you saying that the commonwealth government does not put enough funds into supporting these
veterans who have served our country?
Mr P. PAPALIA: I would not frame it in that way. The DVA has at times in the past certainly been underresourced and incapable of providing some services. It may not have had the focus that it has now. It is much
more focused on the provision of services. The reality is that the extent of the challenge is so great that no matter
how well-meaning the DVA is, and even no matter how many resources it is allocated, it may not be able to
deliver some services that can be provided only by a lot of these other organisations. For instance, I am
absolutely certain that some of the unit organisations or associations have a much greater capability to reach into
the community of ex-service personnel, and encounter them on a more regular basis and at an earlier time than
perhaps DVA ever will because it is a bureaucracy. They should not be duplicating what the DVA does, but they
can fill a gap between the bureaucracy and government activity, and the people on the ground who may not want
or be able to call for assistance, or may not even recognise that they need it. Those organisations and associations
have a role to play. Their role is not a government role; these unit organisations and associations are
communities of people. It is just another community, but it comprises people who in many respects have the
ability to engage and communicate with those people who need the assistance far better than any bureaucrats.
I would not advocate that these organisations try to do what the DVA does, because there is no way they could
ever match its funding or capacity. There are many people out there who do not make it to the DVA, do not
know how to navigate their way through the DVA processes or may need assistance with that, and a lot of these
associations can provide help with that. Some of these organisations provide services on a not-for-profit
contracted basis to the DVA. They accrue the capacity to counsel, and provide things like respite services, which
the DVA then does not have to provide, but it can get these organisations to provide it. These organisations do it
on a not-for-profit basis. Those are the ones that I think we should focus on.
As we are in the four years of the 100th anniversary of the First World War, a lot of organisations are seeking
funding for commemorative purposes. Increasingly, we should try to focus on service delivery. I will not
continue much further. As I said, the opposition supports the Anzac Day Amendment Bill 2015 and the
Anzac Day Amendment Bill (No. 2) Bill 2015, and I support the Minister for Veterans’ initiative. It is great to
see that the Anzac Day Trust is coming under the authority of a dedicated minister and it is also really good to
see that the trustees of the trust will be from outside the organisations that might be recipients of funding, which
is not to make any insinuation or inference that people have not acted appropriately in the past. That is just good
management and governance.
I will add one final observation. It is wonderful to see the WA branch of The Partners of Veterans Association of
Australia Inc receive funding because, as the minister knows and as many members in this place have learnt in
recent times, that is a small group of very dedicated partners of veterans who have moved into actually making
a difference. It is one of the groups that I commend, because its members did not want to just sit around looking
at each other; they wanted to actually assist younger veterans. These are people who are the partners of,
predominantly, Vietnam veterans, and even beyond that. They have lived their lives now and they are not really
going to benefit too much from this initiative, but they have dedicated themselves to trying to help younger
partners of veterans, younger veterans, and their families, and they are worthy of commendation. It is wonderful
to see that they have a decent chunk of funding there. They may not have to do so many lamington sales! That is
reflective of the types of organisations we are talking about. Everyone has heard of Soldier On, and many other
organisations are also very capable. I cannot see the RAN Clearance Divers Association there or, for that matter,
the Navy Clearance Diver Trust, but I will be talking to the trustees of that trust and suggesting they approach
the minister for the next round!
Mr J.M. Francis: I’ll make sure they’re on the mailing list!
Mr P. PAPALIA: Yes. The Navy Clearance Diver Trust is a new trust and I am proud to say I was associated
with its establishment.
This is good to see, minister. Congratulations and well done, and I look forward to seeing the success of this
amending legislation.
MR T.K. WALDRON (Wagin) [3.12 pm]: I rise to make a brief contribution and start by saying that I support
these bills. I think they are really good and fair bills with flexibility in them, and I think the minister has done
a good job with them. The main thing for me is that they actually clarify this situation. A lot of people previously
did not quite know what applied, how it applied and when it applied, and I think this clarifies things for
everyone. Events, including sporting events, on Anzac Day are a really good thing, but we needed this
clarification, and I think the minister has struck a pretty good balance. The 5 000 threshold attendance figure is
a fair level. We are capturing the professional and the bigger, more elite sports and other events, and it is
important is that they contribute to our veterans’ groups, because we all know the importance of what our
veterans have done over our history in Australia. It is a proud history in that area.
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
923
At the same time, of course, it does not affect the smaller sporting groups, which is a good thing, because a lot of
those smaller sporting groups make donations and contributions in other ways, and I will talk about that briefly
in a moment. I also mention being able to apply flexibility in a different system, and it will be interesting to see
what comes up, but having that flexibility in there is a smart move.
I want to talk a little bit about the contribution of sport. I take the point made by the member for Warnbro when
he suggested that bigger sporting bodies like the Australian Football League should be paying more. Although
I acknowledge that, I also think we should remember that sport has really been a huge part of Anzac Day,
particularly the resurgence of Anzac Day, and getting our young people involved. The AFL has played a huge
role in that. Something about Australians is that we have respected our diggers and all our servicemen and
women over the years, and there is nothing more amazing than to have nearly 100 000 people at a venue observe
the one minute’s silence, with not one person making a sound, although every now and then one little crazy yells
out at the end. That complete silence is a great example Australia-wide. It is not just the AFL; many other
sporting codes and organisations also do that sort of thing. We must acknowledge that the AFL, WAFL and
other sporting bodies have elected to play a pretty key role there. I congratulate the Dockers’ Len Hall Tribute
Game, which has become a really significant fixture. People go to the Len Hall game to be part of the celebration
of Anzac Day. When Len Hall was still alive, that obviously added to it. He has now passed on, but that tradition
continues. We should be careful about having a swipe and saying, “Well, they’ve got lots of money, they should
be paying more.” We have to remember that the AFL has done a heck of a lot.
During my time in sport, particularly when I was managing the WA Country Football League, I recognised that
something that goes unnoticed about the contribution of sport is that there are hundreds of sporting clubs across
Western Australia that donate, locally, to RSLs and that support functions and events in remembrance of our
service men and women. It might often be only a few hundred dollars; some I have quoted before, but I really
thank them because whether we like it or not—I am sure we all like it!—sport has a huge influence on our
society. It can have a bad influence in some things, but generally it has a fantastic influence on our mental and
physical health, our social wellbeing, our fun and enjoyment and on the Australian way. It has also provided
great support to Anzac Day. Minister, well done. This needed to be clarified, and I think the minister has struck
a pretty good balance, and I congratulate him on that. I know Australians will continue to support Anzac Day
and sporting events held on that day.
I will finish by saying that a person challenged me and said, “Well, you shouldn’t even be playing sport on
Anzac Day.” I honestly think that our past service men and women fought for this country and its freedom, and
I am sure that they would want to see people out engaging in not just sporting events but also picnics in the park
and all those sorts of things, and remembering them on that day. They would like to know that they fought and
gave up their lives or part of their lives to make sure we are able to do that and that people can go out and enjoy
themselves. I think we do that well and I think the respect we show has grown. Well done, minister.
MR J.E. McGRATH (South Perth — Parliamentary Secretary) [3.17 pm]: I was very interested to hear the
former Minister for Sport and Recreation’s contribution there. I am sure that the member for Wagin, as a former
footballer and cricketer, would probably like to see sport played every day of the year! He would have no
objection to that!
As a sportswriter in a former life, I just want to say I support everything the minister has done with this
legislation. It modernises what happened a long time ago. I remember talking about this to a former chairman of
the Western Australian Turf Club. At the time the Anzac Day Trust was first formed and the legislation went
through Parliament, Diggers’ Cup Day was a big day at Ascot Racecourse and Belmont Park. This former
chairman of the club said to me that on the Monday morning someone from the Anzac Day Trust would get in
his old car and drive out to the racecourse and they would go through the books of the day and count the
numbers of people who had gone through the gates and the betting receipts and all that sort of thing so they
could work out what the actual contribution was that went to the Anzac Day Trust. That was a long time ago and
times have changed.
Like the member for Wagin, I also want to make a point about football’s contribution. I would hate to see the
public take the view that football has just cashed in on Anzac Day. I do not think that is the case. The
Fremantle Football Club would get just as many people to any game, and I go back to the first Len Hall game. It
started in Victoria with the famous Anzac Day match between Essendon and Collingwood at the MCG, and the
Fremantle Football Club said, “We should get involved and we should recognise the people who have served our
country in the various forces.” Fremantle recognised an old digger called Len Hall; the Dockers could have just
put on a game and called it the Anzac Day Game, and still would have made the same amount of money, but the
club put a lot of effort into making sure that it was a proper tribute to those men and women who have served our
country in the past. Anyone who has been to a Len Hall game will know that it is a fantastic experience. It is of
course not as big as the traditional game at the MCG in Melbourne, where they get 80 000 or 90 000 people, but
I agree with the member for Wagin: it is a fairly spine-tingling experience to have that one minute’s silence
before the game in recognition of people who have served our country and in many cases have lost their lives
fighting for our country.
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Minister, well done; you have the support of both sides of the house on this one. I will also be interested to see
where the funds go. This minister is a very responsible person who has a background in the forces. It is very
important that the funds from this day are distributed in the most worthwhile manner to support the veterans of
the Australian forces.
MS M.M. QUIRK (Girrawheen) [3.20 pm]: We all should be indebted to the Leader of the Opposition for
reminding us that although the big Gallipoli commemorations were held last year, this year we will remember
a number of significant battles on the Somme. In particular, we will be commemorating the 100th anniversary of
the battle at Fromelles on 19 July, and, on 23 July, the battle at Pozières. My grandfather actually fought and was
wounded at Pozières, so I certainly concur with much of what the Leader of the Opposition said. I hope that this
year more students of Australia’s war history will become familiar with the battles in the Somme and particularly
those at Pozières. I have said in the past that I believe the Australian government has not invested sufficiently in
commemorating the battle there. I unfortunately have not been there, but hope to go there relatively soon. As the
Leader of the Opposition has described, unlike other centres in northern France and Belgium, there is not a major
commemorative centre or memorial there and it has been left to private individuals to raise funds to
commemorate that event. I think that is a problem. When we talk about the Somme, I always like to remember
a story that has a local touch and relates to soldiers who fought at Fromelles. Many members know that many of
the diggers who fought in that battle were completely lost for many years. Their graves were nothing more than
anonymous holes in the churned mud of northern France. Thankfully, however, thanks to modern archaeological
technology, the mass grave of 250 British and Australian soldiers was recently discovered. Amongst the objects
found during that archaeological dig was a railway ticket from Fremantle to Perth. It was a return ticket and, of
course, the return part was unused. We do not know the name of the soldier to whom it belonged, but we do
know how precious it was to him because he kept it in the safest, driest place he could think of—the waterproof
section of his gas mask. We remember, with that simple discovery of a return railway ticket, that that soldier was
like all others: he wanted to return home at the end of the conflict.
Anzac commemorations are about commemorating those soldiers who did not make it home or who might not
have made it home, but, as the member for Warnbro coherently expressed, we also need to remember the living.
Certainly, the administration of this fund is about remembering the living. Graham Edwards, the WA president
of the RSL, was interviewed by The Sunday Times in 2014. As we know, he was injured in Vietnam. In that
article he called upon the community to recognise the service of those who have served in modern wars such as
Iraq and Afghanistan. He believes that those returned veterans need to feel appreciated for risking their lives in
the name of peace —
… because the reverse of that is to do what we did to Vietnam veterans, and ostracise them and ignore
them, and create an environment where they had to put a lid on any emotions they felt as a result of
their war service.
“Those emotions can only be contained for so long and will spill over.
The words of the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia are cogent in this context: we must honour the dead
but fight like hell for the living. The fund gives us the opportunity to do just that through funding various
endeavours to assist veterans who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The member for South Perth
asked the member for Warnbro how big an issue this is. I heard a report on the ABC a few days ago about the
number of homeless veterans who are suffering from PTSD. I am afraid I could not find that particular report;
however, I did find one from 5 November 2014 headed “Australian diggers at risk of homelessness, expert
warns; some veterans and families ‘sleeping in cars’”. The reporter was Ashley Hall. Her report on ABC news
stated —
A veteran of the war in Afghanistan has warned that returning Australian diggers are suffering
from epidemic rates of homelessness, with some being forced to sleep in cars.
For the past five months, Geoff Evans has been working as RSL LifeCare’s younger veterans adviser
providing accommodation and services to returning servicemen and women.
During that time he has placed 21 returned soldiers at an accommodation site at Narrabeen on Sydney’s
Northern Beaches, but he has warned the need is much greater.
“I think the scale of the problem out there is really quite drastic” …
“In 2008, when the last report into veterans who were potentially homeless was published, there was
over 3,000 veterans living on the street on any given night,” he said.
“So since then if you look at the tempo of operations of the ADF you could reasonably expect that to be
much higher. We’ve put 40,000 or 50,000 troops through Iraq, Afghanistan and other conflict zones.”
…
“I really think I’m sitting on the tip of the iceberg,” …
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
925
“We’re not just talking about veterans, we’re talking about families of veterans, so we’ve got women
and children sleeping in cars.”
…
“There’s a lot of parallels we can draw here with the Vietnam generation because everyone in Australia
knows what happened to Vietnam veterans,” …
“If you look at mental health, suicide and alcoholism—including in their families—well we’re seeing
that play out again in my generation.”
Mr Evans went on to call for early intervention —
He said the Department of Veterans’ Affairs offered a world class repatriation service but when it
comes to addressing homelessness, it lets soldiers down.
“We were already doing the housing first,” …
“It was just a matter of expanding the program to start trying to bring in a more comprehensive
rehabilitation focus.
“If you fall over completely the system will put you back together again. But we wait until that person
falls over completely and then it’s a long build for them again if they’re ever going to get back on their
feet.
“We need to be intervening earlier and we need to have a particular focus on homelessness.”
I have not researched in great detail the criteria for allocating funds from the trust. Although it is 100 years since
veterans fought on the Somme, there is certainly an ongoing need to continue to support our veterans because of
our recent activities, particularly in the Middle East. Obviously the funds from this trust fund are important.
As we have heard, this bill has bipartisan support. I do not want to sound like a wowser or a whinger, but I make
the point that it is ironic that changes are being made to Homeswest tenancy arrangements such that those
veterans who are on total and permanent disability pensions or a special veterans benefit that are not even
assessable by the tax department now face those benefits being counted as income for the purposes of assessing
the amount of Homeswest rental that is payable. Those individuals have complex needs, and I have referred to an
article that sets out some of those issues. We are wrapping ourselves in the flag with this legislation, but we need
to be mindful that at the same time we are kicking veterans in the teeth by taxing their total and permanent
disability pensions which previously had been immune from calculation for Homeswest rent and not accessible
as taxable income. I remind members that we can all enjoy this warm inner glow, but when the rubber hits the
road we may well be driving more veterans to homelessness.
MR C.J. TALLENTIRE (Gosnells) [3.30 pm]: I rise to support the Anzac Day Amendment Bill 2015 and the
Anzac Day Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2015. I begin by saying how significant it is for members of the
Gosnells Returned and Services League of Australia and the many veterans around the state to be discussing and
commemorating past events on the battlefield, and that this legislation recognises that. This legislation will
amend the funding formula so that money is better channelled to support returned service people and so that the
funding arrangements are equitable and well-managed and that various worthy organisations benefit.
Before reflecting on that further, I want to mention the significance of Anzac Day in my electorate and how, for
many in the community, it is an opportunity to come together to reflect on an important piece of our history—the
tragedy and futility of war. It is an opportunity for us to bond and reflect collectively with the utmost dignity and
respect. What we are looking at here is talking about what occurs later on in the day, after that solemn
occasion—that is, after an event at a suburban war memorial—when we perhaps proceed to various sporting
grounds. I know currently there is great enthusiasm about going to major football matches on Anzac Day. I put
forward a word of caution here. I am not as convinced as a lot of people that the mass enthusiasm for attending
a major sporting event, where we pay large amounts of money to watch elite professional athletes, is
a phenomenon that will continue. I think there is an emerging trend for people to participate and not spectate,
and I think that is a good thing. I wonder whether we will need to revisit this in the future because the funding
arrangements and formula may change; however, that could be done sometime down the track when there will
be other factors at play and the trend of people watching events online or via TV occurs as well.
I note that other members have talked about their support for the commemoration of the Battle of the Somme,
particularly at Pozières, where I think some 5 000 Australian lives were lost. I know that that is a worthy thing to
contribute to. I recall reading in a letter I received from the people who were asking for donations the suggestion
that they had not been overwhelmed by financial contributions from parliamentarians around the nation, but I am
sure that there will be a surge of funds from members in this place going forward, and so they might be
pleasantly surprised.
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[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
When it comes to how to commemorate these battles, there is a way to do it. I have visited the site where the
Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918—that point in time on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the
eleventh month in 1918. People are able to see the railway carriage that was used for the signing of the Armistice
at a place called Compiègne in the Picardy region of France. The Australian flag is there, which is interesting
given that there are other battle sites—it might be the case at Pozières and is certainly the case for Second World
War sites—where we cannot see the Australian flag or any acknowledgment of the Australian contribution.
I know there is a flag that flies at Pozières, but I think the call is for something more significant than the flying of
a flag as a commemoration. However, there is great symbolism in that railway wagon and the photos of the
various generals who put their signatures to the paper that led to the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of
Versailles. Then there were the issues around the humiliation of Germany at the time. I also believe that in
1940 Hitler insisted that the same railway carriage be wheeled out at the signing of the so-called Armistice for
France. It is sometimes almost too difficult to comprehend the symbolism of these things, and the obsession of
people about that particular railway carriage escapes me. Nevertheless, it is important to commemorate these
points in time and momentous occasions, so I applaud those members who will be chipping in to support the
campaign to ensure that the events at Pozières are properly commemorated.
I note that with the passage of these bills a more generous funding arrangement will be set up and that funding
will go to good works and programs for people suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and will be dedicated to
meeting the needs of living returned service people who in some cases are struggling from what they have lived
through. It is very important indeed that funding be available to help those people in their time of need and to
recognise that even many years after a particular traumatic event.
I support the legislation and I hope that the formula we have arrived at will endure, but I note that there may
come a time when the funding formula may need to be revisited.
MR J.M. FRANCIS (Jandakot — Minister for Veterans) [3.38 pm] — in reply: Can I start by thanking
members on both sides for their support of the Anzac Day Amendment Bill 2015 and the Anzac Day
Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2015. I assure members that a lot of angst, consideration and consultation has gone into
arriving at where we are today. It was exceptionally important to come up with something that to a large degree
will be futureproofed. I am also aware of the time and that ideally we would like this legislation to pass this
house as soon as possible so it can get to the other place and be implemented, hopefully, for this Anzac Day.
I am exceptionally aware that the clock is ticking.
I want to start by commenting on what happened on 24 November 1960, 10 years before I was born and
eight years before my father served in Vietnam, who left on the same ship, HMAS Hobart, on a second
deployment with “Digger” Cleak. It is a very small world and, believe it or not, I have known Digger, once the
president of the Albany Returned and Services League of Australia Sub-Branch before he came to Cockburn, for
a long time. My father and Digger knew each other as far back as 1968. I am talking about eight years before
1968, and the generation of Parliamentarians in 1960 had their views about what they thought Anzac Day should
be, how it should be commemorated and what should and should not be allowed. In getting where we are today
I hope that we have kept alive—although they also had some differences of opinion—their original intent, but
also acknowledged that even back in 1960, no matter how wise they may have been, there were some things that
they could not foresee, which is why we are back here today. I know that the member for Willagee mentioned
one of the contributions made back on 24 November 1960, so I thought I would just quickly go through some of
them, rather than me trying to interpret the words from 1960. Mr Hawke, the member for Northam said —
There has been a growing opinion, year after year, in favour of Anzac Day being observed on at least
a semi-sacred basis in the morning; and, for the rest of the day, to be treated as a normal holiday
afternoon.
One of the more amazing contributions came from Mr Mann, the member for Avon Valley, who said —
I would like to say a few words on this measure as one veteran who in the early part of the
first World War landed with the Tenth Light Horse on Gallipoli.
Mr Mann obviously came back from Gallipoli and became a member of this place for the seat of Avon Valley.
He said —
I am afraid it will not be long before the significance of Anzac Day will be completely forgotten.
With all due respect to Mr Mann, a 10th Light Horseman, hopefully, we are still doing our bit now to ensure that
that legacy is continued. I would like to think that Mr Mann would be happy that we have somehow proven him
wrong. Mr Lewis, the member for Moore, said —
As one who has had something to do in the past with the organising of local sports, I can state that there
is not very much profit to be gained from local sports. They entail quite a lot of voluntary work on the
part of many people, and the net result is often most disappointing financially.
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
927
I would suggest that Mr Lewis never foresaw, like nobody else did back in 1960, the rise of the massive financial
organisation and business that became the Australian Football League. The other speech worth noting just
quickly was made by Mr May, the member for Collie, who said —
As I said before, we cannot expect the rising generation to appreciate the true significance of
Anzac Day.
He went on to say —
This Bill has come before the House because of the changed thinking of people today. Their views are
different from those which existed when Anzac Day was first inaugurated … but I still say this: We
should not try to make Anzac Day one of finance for certain bodies at the expense of the men and
women who died as a result of their service overseas during the first War. We should respect them … It
is the day which made Australia a nation. There is no question about that. It is a day which has been
responsible for Australia being recognised as a nation by the world.
I would thoroughly recommend to any member that whenever we amend any legislation and they have an
interest in it, to go back and look at the original debates. Sometimes they go as far back as this one to 1960. It is
a fascinating insight into the minds of men and women who were members of this house at that time.
I will fast forward to a couple of years ago. I and a number of other people started to look at what was happening
around Anzac Day. When I was elected in 2008, I did not even know that the Anzac Day Act existed. I did not
know that the Anzac Day Trust existed. We did a little bit of research and found out that the government, as the
government of members opposite did before 2008, put a significant contribution into this fund, but essentially it
was done by Treasury and there was probably not a minister necessarily who took too much interest in it. I am
not having a go; I think that is just the way it has been for generations almost. Rather than mince my words,
I might just quote myself. I drafted an op-ed for The West Australian in 2014 about this. This is not about me,
but it is just easier for me to read this out. I wrote —
As we approach the climax of the football season, I have had cause to reflect on the relationship
between the Australian Football League and Anzac Day.
The Anzac Day AFL matches are now recognised as a meaningful part of the day, though occasionally
football coaches and TV presenters foolishly conflate war with sport.
Sport is a game, war is not. Our favourite footballers are not warriors showing the “Anzac spirit”, it is
not “do-or-die” football.
And as stressful as a game of footy can be, there are no improvised explosive devices on the field and
everyone gets to go home again.
Fortunately, the AFL approaches the day in a dignified and respectful way. However, it does raise the
question of using Anzac Day to make a profit.
In 1960, the WA Parliament passed the Anzac Day Act and the Hansard record makes interesting
reading.
As I have alluded to. It continues —
Many of the MPs were returned servicemen with a deep and intimate connection to Anzac Day.
Parliament recognised the way Anzac Day was commemorated was changing, therefore, after
lunchtime, the rest of the day should be open for other “holiday activities”, including public sporting
events.
The Act established the Anzac Day Trust and stipulated that for any sporting event played on
Anzac Day after 1pm, 60 per cent of the net proceeds would be paid to the trust, which in turn would be
allocated to ex-service charities.
The principle was clear. By all means hold sporting events, but a significant portion of the proceeds will
go to the ex-service community.
It would be about 37 years before the AFL played a match on Anzac Day in WA. Since 2008, the AFL
has contributed $15,000 to the trust for each AFL game played on Anzac Day and recently the trust
received $15,000 for the game at Subiaco this year.
We should be grateful to the AFL for its contribution. But, the method for calculating this contribution
is unclear and we don’t know if the trust is getting its fair share.
Let us be clear about Anzac Day matches. The AFL, however respectful, uses the legacy of Anzac Day
to both promote the game and invest it with something special, and in turn makes a profit.
As we begin the Centenary of Anzac, —
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[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
Obviously, we are a few years into it now —
many Australians will naturally direct their thoughts to the service of their great-grandfathers and
grandfathers.
But, we should not forget that among us are the veterans of more recent conflicts: Somalia, Rwanda,
East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan.
There are obviously members in this house who are veterans of those conflicts —
They are the custodians and heirs of the Anzac tradition.
I recently read about former soldier Matt Tonkin who was found dead in parents’ home in Subiaco.
He served in Afghanistan where he witnessed an explosive device tear the legs off a fellow soldier and
the next day he found his mate’s boot with a severed foot still in it.
Barely a week later, Mr Tonkin’s close friend Pte Robert Poate was killed in an insider attack.
Mr Tonkin left the army after his deployment and returned to Perth. Diagnosed with post traumatic
stress disorder and in pain from an injury in Afghanistan, he was having issues dealing with the
Commonwealth Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
He was taking too many painkillers for his back and then one day he didn’t wake up.
There are others like Matt Tonkin in WA. The community, through the trust, can give them and their
families some additional help through charities such as the RSL or SoldierOn—someone to help
navigate the process with DVA and someone to say they aren’t alone.
We need to look closely at how the Anzac Day Trust is funded. It may be that 60 per cent of the net
proceeds is too onerous a burden for some sporting organisations, even the AFL.
But, the trust must secure a fair share for our veterans.
I will now move on two years. In the last two years, I have to say, it has been an absolute privilege to be the first
state Minister for Veterans in what is predominantly a commonwealth domain. There are things we can do and
the member for Willagee pointed out that it is the responsibility of not only the commonwealth but also everyone
in the community to do our bit, including the state government. Even if it is in a small way like just giving
Soldier On $20 000 to help it deal with its mates who have post-traumatic stress disorder. If it saves just one life
from suicide, what we are doing here right now is worth every single second of time in this Parliament and every
single bit of the hate I got when I pencilled that op-ed two years ago. We have come up with something that
I hope is futureproofed, fair and balanced. I acknowledge the good intent and the will of the AFL, just as
I acknowledge all the other smaller contributors to this fund, such as that from the Warnbro Bowling Club,
Greyhounds WA—the dogs put in nearly $10 000 when the AFL put in $15 000—and the little organisations
that did not even have to lift a penny, such as the Kwinana Golf Club, but still contribute to the trust. I have
written to thank all of them this year. It is probably the first time they have got anything from anyone thanking
them for their contribution. Those organisations can rest assured that the contribution their members are making
through that trust will now go to making a real difference to the lives of some of our ex-service veterans who are
obviously struggling for whatever reason through either mental health issues or physically from something that
resulted from the conditions of their service.
I want to touch quickly on a couple of little things, member for Albany, and then hopefully I will be able to
answer any questions while I am on my feet. One of our aims in bringing forward this bill is to have the
flexibility to negotiate. Under this bill, if Anzac Day falls on a Sunday, it will not be exempt but will be counted.
This year, I think Anzac Day falls on a Monday. That means that the match will take place on the Sunday, and,
technically, the match would be exempt. Now that we will have the ability to negotiate, if the Australian Football
League were to make a contribution this year, I would consider that very warmly when it comes to making an
arrangement for the following year. I suspect that the Dockers and the AFL will be good corporate citizens.
Mr P.B. Watson: With the Monday being the Anzac Day holiday, would they not be better off having the game
on the Monday?
Mr J.M. FRANCIS: I have not seen the schedule. I am not sure whether the match is scheduled for the Monday
or the Sunday. I am talking about if Anzac Day falls on a Monday, a Tuesday or a Wednesday, for example. As
I have said, it has only been since 2008 that this has even existed. I expect that regardless of whether they hold
the match on the weekend, or whenever Anzac Day falls, if it is an Anzac Day weekend round, rather than say
they do not need to contribute, they will want to do the right thing anyway. The formula is currently 60 per cent.
We have asked the Auditor General in the past to look at this and see who makes money out of the game. All
I know is that 40 000-odd people turn up to a football game. That is probably $1 million in ticket sales, onsite
advertising, broadcast rights and catering, and all the things that go along with it. This is not a not-for-profit
event. Someone somewhere is making some serious money out of it.
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
929
Mr P.B. Watson interjected.
Mr J.M. FRANCIS: That is right, and I do not want to penalise the Dockers. It is about finding a balance. It is
also about future-proofing it. It is five per cent of the prescribed general admission price—I think that is the
terminology. The reason it is prescribed is that we do not want to have a situation in which an organisation has
10 000 tickets, and a general admission ticket costs $10 and a premium admission ticket costs $90, and it puts
out only 100 general admission tickets. If someone tried to play silly buggers in that way—I am not suggesting
anyone would—the minister of the day can say, “No; that is not on. I will prescribe what I think is the equivalent
general admission price.” Look at what happens in an AFL game. There are corporate boxes, VIP suites, and
some very expensive tickets, and there are cheaper general admission tickets. We will look at different formulas.
The point is that this bill will give us the flexibility to negotiate if that happens.
I come now to the directors of the Anzac Day Trust. As the member for Warnbro has said, no-one is suggesting
that any member of the trust has done anything improper at all. There are some very distinguished people on the
trust. A very good friend of mine, Brigadier Duncan Warren, is one of the members of the trust. Once this bill is
enacted, the current members of the trust will be replaced. We have not given this matter absolute consideration
yet, so I cannot suggest any names to the member, but it would need to be a person who is not associated with an
ex-service organisation.
Mr P.B. Watson: What areas will you looking at to get these people?
Mr J.M. FRANCIS: A former Governor or a benefactor of the ex-service community who is not a member of
an ex-service organisation. It will not be in any way politicised. In fact, I will probably even consult with the
member for Albany, as I consulted on the drafting of this bill with not only the member for Albany but also the
members for Willagee and Warnbro. I am sure we will find eminent Western Australians who have an interest in
this and will be able to put the right checks and balances in place.
I want to go back to what the Leader of the Opposition said. I genuinely like listening to his commentary and
speeches on military history. Yes, we should commemorate Pozières and all those other events in this centenary
year, and as a government we will do a few other things outside of this bill to do that. However, that was
100 years ago. I am not trying to be disrespectful in any way. I am exceptionally respectful. I come from a long
line of generations in my family who have served in the Australian Defence Force—every single one of us.
However, I care about the living, and this is about the living. I appreciate that there is a great need to educate
people about what happened 100 years ago on the Western Front. However, I care about the living. Even while
a member of Parliament, I have spent time at sea as an officer on patrol boats. I do not know anyone who has
served in the Royal Australian Navy on patrol boats off the north west coast of Australia in the last 10 years who
has not been impacted and affected in some way by what they have seen on border protection operations. That is
not to mention people who have come back from Afghanistan or Iraq, or have been involved in humanitarian
operations in countries to the north of Australia. There are many members of the current generation who have
mental health issues and physical issues. Although memorials are important and history is important, we have an
obligation first and foremost, as the member for Warnbro has said, to look after those who are still with us. That
is exactly what we are doing with this bill. The member for Albany will notice that all the organisations that have
been recipients of money from the fund this year represent people who are still with us. That was absolutely
intentional.
There was a great deal of consultation to get to this point. We wrote to every single ex-service organisation we
could find and asked for their input. We have tried to get some kind of compromise that, hopefully, everyone can
accept as a way forward and a balanced equation, and to put all the checks in place to ensure that this fund is not
politicised. We wrote to every single applicant for a grant and said here are the guidelines and this is what the
grant needs to be used for. The time for making applications then closed, and the applications were assessed.
Until this legislation passes, I am the prescribed minister on behalf of the Treasurer. There was one application
that I knocked back—I am happy to discuss it with the member—because there was an issue. That was just a bit
of a check from the executive point of government to ensure that the money is spent correctly. Did the member
have any other questions?
Mr P.B. Watson: No; I am happy with that.
Mr J.M. FRANCIS: Can I once again say thank you very much to the opposition for their support for this bill.
This is a bill that transcends party politics. Hopefully, this is futureproofed, and when the new stadium is built
with an extra 20 000 seats we will not need to come back here to amend the act. Thank you, member for Albany;
thank you, opposition members; and thank you, government members. I commend the bills to the house.
Question put and passed.
Bill (Anzac Day Amendment Bill 2015) read a second time.
Leave granted to proceed forthwith to third reading.
930
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
Third Reading
Bill read a third time, on motion by Mr J.M. Francis (Minister for Veterans) and transmitted to the Council.
ANZAC DAY AMENDMENT BILL (NO. 2) 2015
Resumed from an earlier stage of the sitting.
Question put and passed.
Bill read a second time.
Leave granted to proceed forthwith to third reading.
Third Reading
Bill read a third time, on motion by Mr J.M. Francis (Minister for Veterans) and transmitted to the Council.
AQUATIC RESOURCES MANAGEMENT BILL 2015
AQUATIC RESOURCES LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL 2015
Second Reading — Cognate Debate
Resumed from 23 February.
MR M.H. TAYLOR (Bateman) [3.59 pm]: It is a pleasure to talk on the Aquatic Resources Management Bill
2015 and the Aquatic Resources Legislation Amendment Bill 2015. I have a keen interest in fisheries and
aquaculture, which this bill services. I was quite lucky growing up, because all my mum’s sisters married
farmers, and her best friend was married to a crayfisherman in Dongara. So I spent all my school holidays either
on a farm or deep sea fishing out of Dongara. I think that is where I got my passion for fishing and aquaculture
later in life. I ended up following my brothers into commercial fishing when I left school. My first trawler job
was on a scampi trawler at Rowley Shoals out from Port Hedland. Since then I have worked on tuna longliners,
fish trawlers, sardine purse seiners, prawn trawlers and a whole range of commercial fishing boats. I had enough
time to get my skipper’s ticket, but I knew it was not an industry I wanted to spend my career in. In
Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, I was picking prawns out of a conveyor belt of fish and thinking that there had to be
a better way, given that global demand for seafood was increasing and that the stocks were decreasing, and the
answer is to learn how to produce seafood in conjunction with sustainable catches. So, I went and studied
aquaculture, initially down at Fremantle TAFE, which ran a fantastic certificate course, and I really enjoyed that.
Then I started a degree in aquaculture at Curtin University and thoroughly enjoyed that degree, even though it
was in its very early stages and we had no textbooks and there were a limited number of people from industry to
educate us on aquaculture. Consequently, at the end of that degree, there were not any industry-based jobs and
so, as most people did, I extended my study and chose an industry subject in abalone. I chose a topic to research
in abalone for the year 2000. The topic I chose involved using a macro algae called ulva to remove nutrients
from aquaculture effluent, and by doing that it would increase its protein content and it could be brought up to
46 per cent. I then wanted to feed that back to abalone to see whether the effluent water from an abalone farm
could be cleaned and in doing so enrich the algae that could be substituted as a food, which would hopefully
increase the growth rate of the abalone, depending on the nitrogen content of the algae. I was awarded first class
honours for that in 2000.
I had that background and my passion for aquaculture in mind, and I mentioned in my inaugural speech that one
of my keen interests is to develop a large-scale food-based aquaculture industry in Western Australia.
Historically, we have had a strong pearling industry, which has dropped off in recent times, although our pearls
are still the best in the world, in particular South Sea pearls out of Broome. But my interest lies in producing fish
for human consumption. It is quite interesting to understand the need for aquaculture. I have some statistics
about the gross value product for the aquaculture three-year average from 1996 to 1998. Western Australia’s
gross product value was $535 million from 1996 to 1998, and we lead all the states—in fact, making twice as
much as the next state, which was Queensland. Jumping forward to 2010 and 2012, we had dropped to third,
with Tasmania and South Australia having overtaken us in gross value product. For total fisheries production,
again from 1996 to 1998, Western Australia had the highest value production, with 43 000 tonnes, followed by
Queensland. From 2010 to 2012, we had dropped to fourth in terms of tonnage, which was down to
22 000 tonnes, whereas South Australia again beat us with 65 000 tonnes. I should mention that during this
period, both South Australia and Tasmania had introduced aquaculture legislation and so a lot of their production
and gross value product is a result of that legislation that enabled their aquaculture industry to grow. As a result,
fisheries production over a 15-year period had increased in South Australia by 235 per cent and in Tasmania by
79 per cent, with Western Australia’s reducing by 47 per cent. South Australia’s aquaculture-only production
had increased by 350 per cent and Tasmania’s by 283 per cent, and Western Australia’s had only a negligible
increase.
Worldwide fish consumption has increased on average from 10 kilograms per person per annum in the 1960s to
around 19 kilograms today, and half of that is from aquaculture. There is a clear global market for aquaculture
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
931
production because of a strong market demand and strong job opportunities, and we see this growth at the
national level, with aquaculture comprising around 43 per cent of Australia’s total fisheries production and
valued at about $1 billion a year. In 2012–13 the value of production for Western Australian commercial
fisheries was $427 million, with aquaculture contributing about $96 million or 22 per cent. Importantly from my
perspective, the value of edible aquaculture has approximately doubled since 2007, with the most recent reports
from 2011–12 and 2012–13 indicating that the value from edible aquaculture products has increased by one-third
to almost $17 million. However, in my opinion this is incredibly minor compared with the potential that
Western Australia offers for aquaculture production. Aquaculture also provides a wide range of jobs both
directly and indirectly. It provides jobs throughout the seafood supply chain, usually year-round jobs in regional
or coastal communities, which is important to Western Australia. Marine aquaculture operations support
infrastructure and activities such as ports, marinas and processing plants, but the economic impact of the industry
extends upstream to supply industries such as feed manufacturers, equipment manufacturers, veterinarian
services and downstream industries such as processors, wholesalers, retailers, transportation and food services.
As the Premier mentioned, WA has more than 35 per cent of Australia’s coastline, but we produce less than two
per cent of Australia’s farmed seafood. Our pristine diverse coastline is ideal for a broad range of food species
and we should look to maximise the benefit of this advantage. The growth of these food sectors would have
major regional local impacts through providing sustainable opportunities for employment, as well as regional
economic diversification. The WA government recognises this importance and the importance of this industry,
and late last year in August, the Premier announced a statement of commitment to Western Australia’s
aquaculture industry. We are working closely with industry on some key areas identified in the statement of
commitment. They are providing certainty of access to aquatic resources, developing investment-ready
aquaculture zones, continuing to reduce regulation, providing strong fish health capabilities and support services
in science, and facilitating investment. This Liberal–National government is supporting industry and investment
in aquaculture by setting up specialised aquaculture development zones. These zones are in selected water bodies
suitable to support specific aquaculture sectors and have strategic environmental improvement and management
policies in place. This allows operators to start farming without lengthy delays and the risk of not knowing
whether there will be approval. In August 2014, the first aquaculture development zone was authorised in the
Kimberley aquaculture development zone area of Cone Bay. It is a 2 000-hectare zone with the potential to
produce 20 000 tonnes of fish a year, which is valued in the order of around $150 million. The
Western Australian government has committed to a second aquaculture zone in the midwest around the Abrolhos
Islands and is also exploring further opportunities in southern WA and the Gascoyne and Pilbara regions. I look
forward to the Aquatic Resource Management Bill passing Parliament this year, which will further support the
growth of aquaculture in WA by creating more sustainable jobs and a streamlined regulatory scheme for
investment in this area. I will continue to promote aquaculture, as it is an important industry to continue the
growth and economic security of Western Australia, broaden our economy and build on the competitive
advantages that we have, including proximity to the Asian markets.
In saying that, there are a few producers I would like to mention in particular that I think are forming the
foundation for our Western Australian aquaculture industry. Just last week, Ocean Grown Abalone put out the
following announcement on its website —
Today marks the end of the reef construction program for the OGA Flinders Bay Project. The final
ABITAT was pored today at the Augusta Reef Production yard …
Nearly 2 years, 1700 m3 of concrete to produce 5000 ABITATS. If placed side by side the reef would
be 12km long.
On time — on budget.
I congratulated OGA and wrote —
Well done Brad Adams … Great effort and a brilliant example of premier aquaculture in WA.
The response from Brad Adams of Ocean Grown Abalone was —
OGA is fortunate that this State Government promotes, supports and enables new aquaculture ventures
to get going and dream big. Thanks for your support.
I note that this abalone farm acquires small abalone from a hatchery and puts them on structures in the ocean.
Flinders Bay is well known for having a good-quality natural food source that is broken-up seaweed. Abalone
raise their shell to capture and eat it; there are no artificial food or feed costs input in that very successful
business venture. It has good growth, and it is looking at new sites in South Australia as well as Esperance.
I also acknowledge 888 Abalone Hatchery run by the Kestel family—Peter and Craig Kestel in particular—from
Bremer Bay. It produces excellent abalone in Bremer Bay from a hatchery. It is also looking at grow-out
facilities, but it is an investor in and supplier of abalone to Ocean Grown Abalone in Augusta.
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I also acknowledge Marine Produce Australia—producers of barramundi at Cone Bay. That business has been
going for a long time and has spent a lot of money, but last year I believe it made its first profit. It produces
fantastic-quality, ocean-grown barramundi. In my opinion, it is probably the best aquaculture barramundi, and
we are lucky enough to fairly regularly have it in the dining room at Parliament House. That is another great
example of aquaculture in Western Australia. The companies have been allowed to grow and develop closer to
their potential with fewer constraints because of the aquaculture development zone created by this government.
The final industry participant that I would like to mention is Erica Starling from Indian Ocean Fresh Australia.
Erica is a pioneer of the industry. She was involved in the fishing industry and is venturing into aquaculture. She
is based in Geraldton and is currently involved, with the help of state government funds through royalties for
regions, in a trial of yellowtail kingfish just out of Geraldton. She has plans to develop a large-scale finfish farm
at the Abrolhos Islands. It is very difficult for Erica, but she has a great vision. Investors are interested in her
venture, and Erica is on the cusp of great things. I think yellowtail kingfish will be a real staple in the white flesh
temperate fish that the world is really craving. It has large-scale potential, given its versatility, for a large
proportion of the Japanese sashimi market. It is very good as a sashimi fish, as well as baked and fried. It is very
versatile, has had great growth rates and food conversation ratios, and is economic to produce.
I will provide an overview of the Aquatic Resources Management Bill 2015. The bill will replace the
Fish Resources Management Act 1994 and the Pearling Act 1990 as the primary legislation for the management
of Western Australia’s fisheries and aquatic biological resources. The focus of the bill is to ensure the
ecologically sustainable development of Western Australia’s living aquatic biological resources and ecosystems
by protecting these resources from over-exploitation and the threats posed by diseases and harmful imported
organisms, while encouraging the development of industries and uses associated with the resource.
The “Western Australian Government Fisheries Policy Statement March 2012” provides an overview of the
government’s management philosophy and future direction for the management of the state’s aquatic biological
resources. This bill is a fundamental element in implementing this new direction. It incorporates an up-to-date
and innovative conceptual framework for integrated resource management based on the principles of
ecologically sustainable development, and will provide a legal framework for improved governance in eight key
policy areas—ensuring ecological sustainability; risk-based assessment and transparent, outcome-focused
resource use planning; integration of resource protection and use across all sectors; security of resource access
and allocation of proportional harvest entitlements for the fishing sectors; management of aquaculture activities;
protection from the negative impacts of aquatic disease and harmful organisms—biosecurity; devolution and
delegation of decision-making and deregulation; and cooperative management arrangements with the
non-government sector.
Since the commencement of the Fish Resources Management Act and the Pearling Act, there have been
significant changes in pressures on our aquatic environment and fisheries. These pressures include population
growth, coastal development, competition for priority uses, rapidly advancing fish-finding technologies, and
fishing and communications technologies. Fish are more vulnerable because of the changing ocean temperatures
and climatic conditions.
[Member’s time extended.]
Mr M.H. TAYLOR: There has also been an increase in international shipping that transports live organisms and
heightens the severe risk posed to our ecological communities through the introduction of harmful organisms and
diseases. There has also been an increasing recognition of the need to manage the conservation and use of
aquatic biological resources in a more integrated fashion. The agreed policy principles are described in the
“National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development”.
The bill complements and supports other state policy initiatives by establishing a clearer statutory planning
framework for all harvest sectors, and provides greater scope for integrating sustainable non-harvest activities
based on aquatic resources. The bill establishes an integrated cross-sectional planning and management
framework for those resources, which sets clear sustainability goals, and provides access for all sectors. The
planning framework also provides consideration of ecosystem issues and customary fishing when sustainable
levels and other resource parameters are set. The bill creates an explicit decision-making process based on
assessment of levels of risk to the ecological sustainability of biological resources, with broadly scoped head
powers to enable a clear statutory planning process that will drive specific resource use plans for each sector.
Importantly, the bill creates an administrative environment that will enable greater devolution of responsibility
and allow the separation of the strategic government role in decision-making from the operational decisionmaking needed to ensure that plans stay on track to meet their approved objectives. The bill provides for the
continuity of existing management arrangements and fishing access rights for the state’s commercial fishing and
pearling industries until each is separately migrated to the new legislative framework.
I will finish with some more detailed explanations of how key elements of the bill will be applied. The bill
provides the department with a contemporary and innovative legal administrative framework to ensure the long-
[ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 25 February 2016]
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term sustainability of Western Australia’s aquatic resources, after taking into account the total impacts of fishing
and environmental effects on aquatic ecosystems. Resource sustainability under the bill will be achieved through
risk-based aquatic resource management strategies that will be developed in consultation with industry. These
strategies will provide greater transparency for the policy and administration that is already undertaken for these
natural resources. They will need to be approved by the minister, and they will specify, amongst other things,
methods for setting the total allowable catch for the resource and the proportion available for use by the
commercial and recreational fishing sectors. These proportions will be fixed for the duration of each of those
strategies. The total allowable catch will be set after making provision for an amount of the resource that will be
required to be left unfished to ensure its ecological sustainability, and the amount of the resource set aside for
customary fishing and public-good requirements such as fisheries research. It is expected that the amount of
a resource that will be set aside for customary purposes will reflect the estimated historical customary use of the
resource. These strategies will give rise to aquatic resource use plans that will specify the rules by which an
aquatic resource may be harvested by each sector. Like existing fisheries management plans, an aquatic resource
use plan may be disallowed by the Parliament. The legislation will facilitate resource sharing between the
commercial and recreational sectors by enabling the minister to make temporary resource reallocations.
The bill provides strengthened biosecurity to deal with aquatic disease outbreaks and introduced aquatic pests.
A further important feature will enable the making of co-management arrangements with the non-government
sector. The bill will repeal the Fish Resources Management Act 1994 and the Pearling Act 1990. With respect to
pearling, the bill enables the making of an aquatic resource management strategy for the management of the wild
stock pearl oyster resource and provides that hatchery production of pearl oysters and pearl cultivation will be
managed under the aquaculture provisions of the bill. The bill maintains the existing relationship between the
fisheries and environment portfolios for establishment of marine reserves under the Conservation and Land
Management Act 1984. Responsibility for the management of marine mammal, reptile and bird populations will
continue under the Wildlife Conservation Act 1950.
An important part of the balance that the bill strikes between conservation and resource use is the inclusion of
a structured approach to the provision of secure rights to benefit from the use of aquatic resources for all sectors
within the context of sustainability. The framework for these rights has drawn on international experience with
rights-based systems, such as the model used in New Zealand’s quota management system, and systems in use in
Canada, Norway, Iceland, the United Kingdom and the United States. International and Australian experience
has clearly shown that more secure rights will facilitate greater investment in, and stewardship of, the state’s
aquatic resources.
In addition, the bill promotes a culture of high professional standards in the commercial sector, with provision
for a system of sureties that will apply to operators with a history of noncompliance with fisheries legislation.
Importantly, the bill ensures that existing management arrangements and resource access rights for the state’s
commercial fishing, pearling and aquaculture industries will be carried forward undiminished. I am confident
that the bill, and the framework it will establish, will serve our state well as we meet the challenges of the next
20 years. It will also make a significant contribution to Western Australia’s reputation as a world leader in
aquatic resource management.
Debate adjourned, on motion by Mr J.H.D. Day (Leader of the House).
ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE
Special
On motion without notice by Mr J.H.D. Day (Leader of the House), resolved —
That the house at its rising adjourn until Tuesday, 15 March 2016, at 2.00 pm.
House adjourned at 4.23 pm
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