Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is no secret that I am a great admirer of, and have a great deal of respect for, the people of Norfolk Island. By playing to some extent the role of devil’s advocate, I also take the view that a lot of the problems that have occurred on Norfolk Island with regard to governance have not all been the fault of the Norfolk Islanders and I think that we in Australia take a heavy share of that responsibility. I think that consultation could have been closer and perhaps we could have been more amenable to their views at earlier stages than now to have to come on with a bill of this magnitude and purpose.

It certainly is an area with a great and rich culture, a culture that by its association, I suppose in the first instance, with Captain Bligh and the mutiny on the Bounty is interwoven with Australian history—though the development of Pitcairn Island, where the mutineers went to live, had nothing to do with Australia at that time. The island was granted to the Pitcairners by Queen Victoria in the 1850s when Pitcairn Island became overcrowded, and a new and vibrant culture based on their earlier culture and their Tahitian culture developed on Norfolk Island.

As the shadow minister pointed out, they are people with their own language which they like to use at times. They have a way of doing things. They have cultural objectives and expectations and they guard those jealously. Some of those come to the edge of decision making and at times they will not always mesh exactly with Commonwealth expectations. You really have to ask yourself in those instances whether you want to approach this with a stick in one hand and a carrot in the other, or whether you will put both away and talk to these people as equals. My personal view is that Australia has over the years been too harsh in some matters, and I will outline that a little bit further in my address.

The Territories Law Reform Bill 2010 before us has many good features about it. No-one is denying that. No-one should ever deny, as the member for Macquarie just pointed out, that throughout all the Australian jurisdictions over the last 20 or 30 years there have needed to be shake-ups. This is not unique to Norfolk Island; this is something that has occurred in all the states where various levels of maladministration, or indeed corruption, have taken place—though I am not suggesting corruption on Norfolk Island. I think that we have all recognised the need for more accountability.

Also, there has been greater social development throughout the Commonwealth and, might I say, the Commonwealth of Nations, the OECD and the UN have adopted matters of respect. For example, we have looked to things like freedom of information, rights for women and all those sorts of things, and they have become enshrined in legislation throughout those groups of countries, and no less so in Australia.

I am not comfortable with schedule 2 concerning matters being subject to veto. If an island has self-government, I think you need to recognise that and give some genuine control over matters, for example, gun laws. If the Commonwealth feels so strongly about gun laws, well, why wouldn’t it ask the Norfolk Island people to remove that issue into a separate bill that parallels the Commonwealth law rather than using the blunt instrument of a veto?

It is said that we want to get uniform laws on pornography. I do not think that you would have any trouble on Norfolk Island getting uniform laws on pornography. I think that probably if you were to ask for this to be implemented in legislation, the Norfolk Islanders would be perhaps less accommodating than some Australians are to some of the filth we see in the newsagencies and sex shops of Australia. To suggest in schedule 2 that by omission the Norfolk Islanders are potentially more prone to that, I think, is a bit insulting. So my first criticism would be that schedule 2 should not be subject to veto and there should be a willingness on both sides to consult and where things are necessary to meld with Commonwealth initiatives, let us have complementary legislation rather than the blunt instrument of veto.

The removal from the Assembly is another matter that seems to occupy the minds of the current administration—and I might add at this point that with the election of the new government of Norfolk Island, I congratulate David Buffett. He is a longstanding member. I think he was the first Chief Minister, as I recall, in the early days when limited self-government was granted. I think he has an intention to have a closer relationship with Australia, but one based on respect, not on just being told all the time.

I think the Governor-General should have the right, as she does in the ACT, to dismiss the government. I agree that elections should be beyond reproach. I think the three years with a limit of four years is a sensible measure and that a vote of no confidence in the Chief Minister should be subject of an automatic action should it occur.

However, when it gets down to financial arrangements, one in particular—the Commonwealth financial officer—is referred to in the bill but the exact functions of that officer are not clearly outlined. If the purpose of that is to give the administration of Norfolk Island a greater gravitas in the compiling of its accounts and budgets, and you have to recognise that when you only have 2,000 or so people on the island there is not going to be a lot of scope for getting various forensic accountants and the like—that is, for plucking them out of the community—that is perhaps not a bad measure. That should be subject, however, to a definition of the role of this person and this person being a consultative and integral part of the administration rather than, if you like, a watchdog for the Commonwealth government. Were it the latter role, that would not be in the best spirit of cooperation.

Certainly Norfolk Island should provide budgets and reports. But what I do not agree with is that, without reference to the Norfolk Island minister, the head of a department can be required to report to the Commonwealth minister. Surely that is not in the best spirit of federal government or of the Westminster system. The channel should always be the appropriate Norfolk Island minister. I can understand the pain this might cause the Norfolk Islanders and the administration in particular. It could be seen in doing this that the assembly is being circumvented in making its officers report first and foremost to Commonwealth instrumentalities rather than to their own elected and appointed ministers and then through them to the Commonwealth ministers. I think that needs to be clarified.

As you are aware, the Norfolk Islanders have accepted the concept of the ombudsman. I think that is wise and commendable. That also goes for the role of the Auditor-General on the island. When it comes to things like the Freedom of Information Act and privacy principles, I think you should allow the Norfolk Islanders to adapt what they need for a community of 2,000. Would you go out to a place like Gunnedah in western New South Wales or Roma in western Queensland and say, ‘We’re going to apply all the principles of the Privacy Act and the Freedom of Information Act as they are applied by the Commonwealth’? I think you have to give the Norfolk Island assembly the ability to texture those particular laws to the requirements of 2,000 people. Sure, on the mainland we have 22 million people. That is a totally different thing and you can understand why there should be some rigidity in the Commonwealth law. But, when you are applying it to 2,000 people, you do not want to make it so onerous and so heavy with paperwork that the people of the island lose faith or interest in the system.

Another matter I have some concern with is the appointment of deputies. We have an Administrator who virtually exercises under the Governor-General the powers of the state governor. Those powers are perhaps somewhat less, but essentially they are the powers of the governor. We have an official secretary on the island. I can understand why that official secretary should be the Deputy Administrator. But this bill allows for many more deputy administrators, and I think again that will start to water down the control of the island by the islanders. If you have Commonwealth appointed deputies it becomes a little bit like Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers. You know: when everybody is somebody, nobody is anybody. You might have a system of succession where you could have the Administrator, the secretary as the first Deputy Administrator and perhaps another person. But to go beyond that I think could be quite ridiculous. Again, we are talking about 2,000 people. We need to treat them with respect, not with a lot of bureaucracy, paperwork and patronising control by the Commonwealth.

The Norfolk Island act of 1979 allowed the Governor-General through the Administrator to introduce into the assembly laws for peace, order and good government. I have no worry about that; that is for times of emergency. But this bill goes further, to allow nominated Commonwealth ministers to do that. Why would you want Commonwealth ministers introducing legislation into the Norfolk Island assembly? Sure, in an emergency situation the Governor-General’s authority through the Administrator can be exercised for peace, order and good government. But I would have thought that would have been sufficient. It should not be necessary that every Commonwealth minister that has a responsibility to Norfolk Island has the right to introduce bills into the assembly. Once you do that, again you are starting to water down the concept of self-government.

I said I would speak briefly on another matter. Yes, we are the Commonwealth; yes, this is the parliament and we are responsible to a large extent for all Commonwealth matters that have come under the 1901 act and constitutional amendments to that act by way of referendum and international treaties that this country enters into through the United Nations. That sovereignty is not questioned in any way. It is exercised differently in the states because the 1901 Constitution defines certain powers for those states. Subsequent bills for the Northern Territory and the ACT, perhaps not allowing for the same degree of flexibility, have allowed many of those laws. I think we should treat Norfolk Island, to the extent that we can, as the third territory of the Commonwealth. In doing that, there are not just rules and regulations but the Commonwealth authority, which we have seen exercised in bucketloads over recent months, of pouring Commonwealth moneys into all sorts of enterprises that were once the prerogative and responsibility of the states, not least of which is health. We have seen it also in roads. But when it comes to being applied to Norfolk Island we get this self-righteous standing on our digs and saying, ‘Oh no, it can’t be done on Norfolk, they don’t pay tax.’ Sure, they do not pay income tax. That is probably why they survive as well as they do. They do have a form of goods and services tax and one might argue that perhaps a levy could be imposed on that for entry into Medicare. I certainly would support that, although I am not sure all the islanders would.

Having said all that, the Norfolk Island Hospital, for example, while it is well run in the sense of the personnel who are involved in it and the loyalty it receives from its community, by construction standards would not be tolerated in a town in western Queensland or western New South Wales. The outer structure is not much removed from the fibro and chamferboard huts of the Second World War. As long as I have been on the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories—and that must be getting on for 15 years now—we have never seriously attempted to do something about the Norfolk Island Hospital on the spurious ground that somehow because they do not pay tax they are not entitled to good health. We do not apply that principle anywhere else in the Commonwealth and we should not apply it on Norfolk Island.

Every once in a while the airstrip has to be upgraded—hot mixers being brought from Sydney or Auckland. Contractors bring barges and all the material over. I remember on one occasion one of the contractors offered for $1 million to do a lot of the roads on the island while he was still there, which made eminent sense. It is the sort of thing we would do if there was a major wash-out in floodtime somewhere on one of the highways in western Queensland, the Northern Territory or western New South Wales. We would go in and fix it. I think on occasions like this, when you have those sorts of facilities that are not normally available on the island, such as road construction abilities, we should be in there giving a hand. It is not just all thought on the part of the Norfolk Islanders and this great need for a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork. It is a matter of respect, and that respect should be reflected in the time we give to the detail, the schedules and the subordinate legislation. (Time expired)

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