Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

One of the great tests in public life, I think the most important, is not to get trapped by other people’s trappings and not to have a price. I have to say that I do not have a price and I do not like crooks. I notice that the terms for this matter of public importance are:

The need for the Federal Government to intervene, by way of wasteful spending to compensate for the policy failures of the New South Wales Labor Government.

I notice that the Labor Party have not actually mentioned New South Wales because it is a constitutional flaw that you cannot get rid of a government that has completely failed and lost its intellectual base. I have to say that there are probably six or eight people in New South Wales parliament, in government, who should be in jail.

Let me give you an instance of the waste by the Commonwealth that is occurring. I have spoken to the government about some of these issues. There is a school in Sydney that is getting a seven core library, costing the Commonwealth $727,000. It is on a flat site. This building was already in the program under the state scheme and was costed out in February under the state building program for $285,000. The state was going to do it for $285,000. Switch the responsibility to the Commonwealth and the cost is $727,000!

Some of that money could have gone, for instance, to Westmead Cancer Care Centre, where I spent three hours last week. The Westmead Cancer Care Centre does some wonderful work right from the laboratory to the patient. I talked to some of the patients who were having their last chance treatment and are facing a pretty grim circumstance. We do not have money for Westmead but we have money to treble the price for a school building somewhere simply because we have transferred it to the Commonwealth. Westmead Hospital does some wonderful work and I plead for people to understand that they have a wonderful resource out there. It is the best in the southern hemisphere and it badly needs resources.

By the way, the key researchers out there are almost on weekly contracts because the hospital cannot guarantee them beyond a few months’ work because they do not have the budget. These are key researchers who look after people’s lives. They have now identified the melanoma gene, and that work is going to save a lot of people. The biggest killer of men between 25 and 45 is melanoma. So that is the waste.

I did notice in the Australian that Paul Kelly said in November 2008 that the decay of New South Wales was reflected in the open antagonism towards the government by Paul Keating and people like John Robertson and the fact that the government in New South Wales has been handed back to the New South Wales trade union movement.

There is a cost in not having a price. Last Thursday I got a death threat. I rang the AFP. They did not have enough people to put anyone on the case. I have had a $1 million bribe offer. I do not know how many people in this room have had a $1 million bribe offer, but I have. This was from people who are wanting to develop things in Sydney. I said to the guy, ‘Hang on a minute. I actually do this for nothing.’ But unfortunately in New South Wales there are a lot of people who say, ‘Yeah, let’s go and have a cup of coffee and get down to business.’ What is going on in New South Wales is a dear and expensive way to learn a lesson. I know a lot of the people involved and I know that some of those people expect a return on their money. It is pretty sad that a lot of people do have a price.

I take you to something that is more ‘touch and feel’, and that is the fact that in New South Wales historically in a few weeks time—and I cannot think of another time when this has happened—they are going to put a bank across the Lachlan River below Condobolin and cut the river off. Where is the Green movement? Bob, where is your mob? They are about to cut the Lachlan River off. We have just restocked it with fish—30 inches they are; my man caught a couple the other day. Without any consultation with the community, without even knowing how many people are going to be affected, they have taken a decision to put a block in the Lachlan River. Everyone downstream from Condobolin has been told, ‘Make your own arrangements.’

Not only is the department in New South Wales at fault but I would have thought that the landowners themselves are at fault. I would have thought the management committee of the river is at fault. I asked them: how many people are going to be affected? They did not know. I asked them: how many stock are going to be affected? They did not know. These properties rely on the river for stock and domestic water and, as Senator Fisher would say, for ‘critical human needs water’, but we have taken a decision to block it.

We have the Cadia mine—a big enterprise—looking to further develop the mine. They want to take more water out of the subcatchment of the Lachlan River. I have the plan here and I will table it. It is a project application and statement of objection to the project by the Belubula Landholders Association. This mine wants to take more water from the system. There is no understanding of the connection between groundwater and the river. The Upper Lachlan landowners, Mr Moxey and his mob, actually control the committee that controls the management of the river. They are not restricted in how much groundwater they can take out of the ground in the Upper Lachlan aquifer—whereas the blokes down at Hillston have been controlled, and they should have been controlled because what they were taking was excessive. But the excessive extraction from the aquifer at the top of the river is not controlled. The only reason they are allowed to do it is that the New South Wales government has not got around to doing the management plan for that aquifer. As we know, there is a lot of connectivity between groundwater and rivers. Up to 40 per cent of the river water is actually groundwater flowing into the river. But, no, in New South Wales it does not matter.

Historically I cannot remember a time when the government took a decision to put a block in the river and let everyone downstream, including the fish and livestock, make their own arrangements. I cannot think of a better example of an incompetent godforsaken government. It is an absolute and utter disgrace. It is a constitutional flaw. The mob over here do not care. There is not one person in this government in this parliament who lives and/or makes their living in the bush. They do not care and they do not know.

It is time that Australia’s farmers marched on this place and had a meeting out the front. Go to Tasmania and talk to the dairy farmers. You would be familiar with this, Mr Acting Deputy President Barnett. The dairy farmers have just been told they will get 26c a litre for milk.