Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from Senator Johnston proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion, namely:

The harmful impact on the people and economy of Western Australia of the Rudd Labor Government’s so called policy of ‘ending the blame game’, which has resulted in a politically motivated conspiracy of silence between the Federal Labor Government and the WA State Labor Government on important public policy issues.

I call upon those senators who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Rudd government, in the short time that it has been the government, has lived by the mantra of ending the blame game with the states. In my home state of Western Australia, we have the most dysfunctional and incompetent state Labor government in our state’s history. And what do we hear from Prime Minister Rudd? Absolute silence. This is what ending the blame game has evolved into: absolute silence. The price for that silence, as one scandal after another unfolds, is that Premier Alan Carpenter sits back and allows Canberra to reach into the pockets of Western Australians and Western Australian resource projects. The $2½ billion tax grab from the North West Shelf gas project is the most partisan financial assault upon Western Australia in living memory, and Premier Carpenter has defended Canberra against the best interests of Western Australians—a position, until this point in time, never countenanced or seen before.

This tax drive-by shooting, as I style it, will increase domestic gas prices and business gas prices in Western Australia simply because—and this is the thing that most senators from the eastern states have no knowledge of, do not understand—there is not a business or project in the whole country, the whole of Australia, that could take a whacking like this without passing on this pain. Taking $2.5 billion out of one project in four years, you have to pass that on. So WA will be paying for Labor’s largesse that is almost exclusively focused on the eastern states.

All we hear about in this place is water, eastern states transport, rail in New South Wales. That is what we hear. What do we hear about Western Australia? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You should have been here yesterday. I spent 15 minutes talking about Western Australia!

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course, before the last election we knew about this in Western Australia. We knew that this is what would happen under Prime Minister Rudd: an eastern states based union oligarchy that controls Australia to the detriment of Western Australia.

In this current election campaign, who has been missing?

Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It’s the Liberal Party that has been missing in action, and the party leadership!

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have seen neither hide nor hair of the Prime Minister. But let me tell you, Mr Deputy President: he did stop in Perth on the way home from the Olympics and visited Gerard Neesham’s Clontarf Aboriginal sports academy without telling anybody. This is why, at the Labor Party launch on Sunday, Minister Penny Wong was used in Labor’s election launch as the eastern states star. Not Kevin Rudd, not Julia Gillard—not even Chris Evans, who comes from Western Australia!

Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, he was. He represented the Prime Minister. He said that yesterday!

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The point about this is this: the reason we did not see these so-called stars in Western Australia is because they know that this state government is utterly dysfunctional, scandal ridden and the subject of—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You want to talk about scandals? Well, thank you!

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

one Corruption and Crime Commission investigation—

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I would remind Senator Bishop and Senator Sterle that they are both on the speakers list, and if they could confine their remarks to their speaking times, it would assist the debate.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy President. The reason the so-called stars have not fronted in the state election is because they know this government is the subject of one Corruption and Crime Commission investigation after another.

I want to talk about my recent visit to Balgo Hills, which is a great little window of exposure on what this dysfunction is all about. This is a community 300 kilometres south of Halls Creek in the Tanami Desert. We have more than 400 Aboriginal Australians living in 30 houses. No wonder there are social problems in a community such as this—400 in 30 houses—and Labor have been in power in Western Australia for eight painful years. We have two highly professional police officers—the likes of which are very, very hard to find living in a remote community—enforcing the law with great skill and compassion, with tremendous cultural awareness. They are two truly great Australian policemen whom I pause to congratulate.

I met them; I discussed how they are battling along with very limited government support. This is a statistic that is important: they make more than 300 arrests annually between the two of them. They have to manage this community and three outlying communities—just the two of them. It takes them five hours to drive remand prisoners into custody in Halls Creek. This is a national disgrace and obviously there is the matter for these two officers, as courageous as they are, of occupational health and safety. Do you think the state government has done anything to help them? They have had a request in for two more officers for as long as they can remember and all they get is silence. This is the same sort of silence that Western Australia is given under the blame game mantra of this government. Both state and federal governments say all of the right things about Aboriginal health, education, housing and welfare, but the reality is that nothing tangible, meaningful or lasting is being done—and Balgo is a classic example. This is Labor at its worst: saying all the right high-minded things, leaving the communities and doing absolutely nothing.

I want to highlight a further scandal in this community, apart from the 400 people in 30 houses and the two police officers with over 300 annual arrests. I want to mention this: the medical officer said to me, ‘We do not even have a mortuary facility.’ For those senators unfamiliar with Aboriginal culture—and there a few of them here this afternoon—I want to mention that often when an Aboriginal person passes away they are not buried for several weeks. The average temperature in Balgo is beyond 40 degrees. Is it not too much to ask that a state government with over $2 billion in the kitty in budget surplus could provide a small mortuary facility for this community and the surrounding communities? This is a national disgrace—and they sit over there saying that they are ending the blame game! Let me start the blame game. Let me put an end to bipartisanship on this. These people must be accountable. The federal minister needs to stand up to these corrupt state governments and do something about it. It is the wealthiest state government in our history, and we have a Commonwealth government with a $22 billion surplus, and these good people of Balgo cannot even get a mortuary facility.

I want to congratulate those people of Balgo who are working so hard and doing the wonderful things that they do without any significant assistance from either federal or state governments. The Catholic Church must be congratulated for the fantastic work it does, and I want to put on record the work of Father Eugene and Brother Rick, who run the school, and the Catholic parish. Where would the people of Balgo be without the Catholic parish, without the church’s consideration, love, care and support? It would truly be an even greater tragedy than it is now. I want to commend George Lee, who is chairman of the council, and all of the people of Balgo for the work they do, particularly in the area of the art work that they do. I want to congratulate Sally Clifford and Annette Cock, who run the art gallery, and all their staff for the dedication and professionalism they apply to that community in selling and promoting the community’s art work.

It might be surprising to know that Minister Roberts from Western Australia and federal Minister Macklin visited Fitzroy Crossing in April. When we were there, which was just last week, we heard that all the concerns—the models, the proposals, the work that had been done by the people of Fitzroy to help set out what plans they had—were put to these two ministers. The result was absolute silence. There was not even the courtesy of a response or a reply from either minister. This is absolutely disgraceful. They talk the talk but they do nothing in terms of walking the walk. With due respect to Minister Macklin—because I know she would want to take some action; she is a good person—this nonsense of ‘ending the blame game’ is actually about people’s lives. She must take action and do something positive for these people. ‘Ending the blame game’ is a euphemism for doing nothing. But, worse, it is the turning of a blind eye to the scandalous incompetence of eight hard years of state Labor.

Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this discussion about ending the blame game. Let me commence by quoting a few words of the current Prime Minister as he addressed the first COAG conference this year after the election of the Rudd Labor government. He said:

The new Australian Government was elected at the end of last year. We were elected on a platform of ending the blame game between Canberra and the States and Territories. And in the six or seven months since then, in the three meetings of the Council of Australian Governments that have been held since then, we have sought through practical actions to give effect to that.

What did Mr Rudd and the rest of the Australian government inherit from 11 years of Howard government administration? In terms of constitutional arrangements and in terms of relationships between federal, state and local government, we inherited a system that can only be described as approaching dysfunctional. All we had year in, year out was blame, avoidance of responsibility and limitation of resource allocation. What were the Australian people crying out for? They were crying out for a responsible set of governments to sit down and agree on responsibilities and negotiate outcomes and go back to their respective states and allocate those responsibilities and carry out their agreed functions. They wanted their federal government and their state governments to give practical effect to the division of powers expressed in our Constitution—that is, most powers are given to the states, particular powers are given to the Commonwealth and the remainder are left to the states to allocate.

So what were they seeking? They were seeking the same thing as they sought in the 1890s: a functioning, rational, efficient system of government at a federal and state level. What has been the solution of the Rudd Labor government to give effect to that cry from the Australian people, expressed so well last November? We have brought down a policy process of cooperative federalism. The COAG processes, the regular meetings between Commonwealth and state governments, give effect to that new radical approach of cooperative federalism. It is about an exchange of views, the delineation of responsibilities, accountability and responsibility in the allocation and administration of public moneys all under the umbrella of fiscal responsibility.

What is the summary to date of those processes of the Rudd Labor government through the COAG process? COAG processes are up and running well. Up to a dozen areas of dysfunctionality have been identified by the current government and COAG committees have been established. They are chaired by cabinet ministers, and it is their responsibility to ensure that the intent of the Australian people—expressed, as I said, so well last November—to give effect to reasonable and practical change is achieved. That is what is going on now through the COAG processes under the umbrella of cooperative federalism, and it is chaired and led by responsible cabinet ministers who report back to cabinet to give effect to that much needed change.

What is the major initiative in all of the areas that have been identified as being the repository of dysfunctionality? Housing, welfare, education, public hospitals—long-term planning and strategy has been identified as the key to give effect to practical and realistic change in those areas. Large, significant amounts of Commonwealth funds have been allocated to that process.

Part and parcel of that process is not shovelling a bunch of money over to the states, as has been the practice for the past 12 years. Attached to the allocation of Commonwealth funds in a range of key areas has been an agreement with signed documents—indeed, signed up to by the respective state governments—that go under the headings of state accountability, state responsibility, state transparency and state adherence to agreed goals that will become public. All state and territory governments around this country have agreed to it. They are all attending the meetings. They are putting together packages of agreed outcomes, the dialogue has come to a conclusion and the plans for implementation, the plans for change and the plans for a new vision of cooperative federalism are well in place, being implemented and well advanced.

What is the key feature of that dialogue, of change to date and of new practices? The key feature is simply this: along with identification of problem areas that are capable of being rectified by the Commonwealth goes the allocation of funds to do that. What is the responsibility of the states? Firstly, it is to implement agreed change. But more importantly and more critically, for the first time since Federation in 1901 all of the states in the key areas of health, public hospitals, education, welfare, planning, resources and infrastructure have agreed or are in the process of agreeing to a set of agreed outcomes, benchmarked to particular tasks that are going to be made public.

So it is no chimera that is out there. It is no mirage. The states have signed up, led by the Commonwealth via particular cabinet ministers in particular areas of responsibility, and there is going to be major change, which is going to be public and will be tested by outcomes and results because there is a set of agreed benchmarks in each particular area. That is a mighty change. It is significant. It is going to revitalise our federation. It is going to be a wonderful development over the next 20 years to have spending, accountability and responsibility in the allocation of public funds.

Let’s look now at some four or five particular policy areas as to what is the change—what’s the walk, not just the talk—in the past six months of the current Rudd Labor government. Firstly, in the area of health we are investing in immediate results while building brick by brick the long-term sustenance and the long-term foundations of our own health system. We have made an immediate injection of over $1 billion to relieve some of the pressure on particular public hospitals in particular states.

The government, having allocated that $1 billion to the states to redress immediate problems, has also established something that is about the long term, something that is about the future, something that is about sustainability in this area. I refer of course to our $10 billion Health and Hospitals Fund. What an absolutely wonderful development that one government and cooperative states can go ahead for the next 10 years knowing that there are billions and billions of dollars allocated to improving and maintaining that improvement in our public hospitals!

A further $780 million has been invested in ending the blame game in dental health, something that the first Howard government in 1996 and 1997 decided to get out of. One of their first key efforts was to get out of public dental health. Twelve years later the Rudd Labor government is addressing that issue, allocating the funding and making sure those most in need in our community, generally pensioners and aged Australians, have access to a well-funded public dental health system. Furthermore, an additional $275 million—think about it: $275 million—is going to be invested in 31 GP superclinics right across this continent.

Let’s leave health, with the practical changes that have been implemented in the last eight or nine months, and turn now to another expression of cooperative federalism which ends the blame game—that is, housing. The Housing Affordability Fund provides up to $512 million over five years to address two significant supply side barriers to developing new housing. What are those two barriers? Firstly, the holding costs associated with planning and approval delays such as interest, land tax and council rates, all of which at the inception of purchase of housing fall upon consumers, who bear the front cost.

What is the second arm of change there? It is the cost of developing new infrastructure such as water, sewerage and transport. There is $512 million in the Housing Affordability Fund, and it will target specifically the lack of infrastructure, which acts as a barrier to the release or development of land. If you have not got land released and if you have not got proper planning processes in existence, you cannot have new houses and people go without.

The National Rental Affordability Scheme will see $623 million over the next four years to stimulate the construction of affordable rental dwellings. So we are helping public housing, we are helping infrastructure provision, we are reducing the costs that consumers have to bear up-front; and, for those who do not want to or choose not to purchase their own home, we have the National Rental Affordability Scheme, which will see over $600 million over the next four years to stimulate the construction of affordable rental dwellings. That is a wonderful change and a wonderful set of practical outcomes, which are a direct result of the election of the Rudd Labor government and the new way of doing things—cooperative federalism.

What are we doing in this area? We are going to increase the supply of land by releasing surplus Commonwealth land for the purposes of building new houses and new communities. So, as our states grow, as our population grows and as our youngsters marry and raise their own families, we will have the ability to provide them with housing, modern infrastructure and all the needs that young families in new communities have. Again, that is a direct response to the shortcomings of the previous Howard government and a direct result of new cooperative federalism as understood and administered by the new COAG process.

Finally, it is not just the demand side that is important. We are going to assist young Australians to start putting aside moneys from their disposable income now so that in four, five or seven years time when they choose to settle down and raise their own family they will have a significant deposit. They will then be able to go to a seller and say: ‘I’ve got the 30 grand or the 40 grand. That’s my deposit. I can afford the repayments and I want to buy that particular house.’ How are we going to do that? We are going to do that through the First Home Savers Account.

Public housing, infrastructure, renting, affordability, choice for youngsters, new housing lots in new communities—all of those issues have been addressed as part of the COAG process under the umbrella of cooperative federalism. What is that about? That is about ending the blame game.

Let us leave housing and health and turn to another critical part of policy for government, and that is education. Let us look at what is going on in the area of education. It is about ending the blame game. The Rudd government is going to work with all of the states and territories to improve the quality of education in three key areas. Today in caucus, Mr Rudd outlined the plans. Earlier this week, the Deputy Prime Minister, in a major speech, attacked the deficiencies that exist in our education system and outlined a set of proposals whereby parents, principals, teachers, boys and girls can go forward on the basis of full knowledge and full information. We will be able to provide the quality education that we all want for our children.

Firstly, what are we going to do in the area of education under the COAG process as part of the new cooperative federalism? We are going to improve the quality of teaching by recognising and rewarding top teachers and recruiting the highest performing graduates to teaching. No longer will a significant number choose to go off into architecture, law or medicine. The status of their profession is going to be upgraded and in due time lots of graduating university students are going to say: ‘That’s a profession that has a worthwhile end. That’s a profession that is respected in the Australian community. That’s a profession that I want to enter into. I’m going to devote my life to improving the outcomes for youngsters in the education system.’ We are part and parcel of leading the change here so that we have a quality education system going forward over the next 20 years for our youngsters.

What is the second thing that we are going to be doing in the area of education? We are going to be measuring school performance to make it easier for parents to understand their child’s and their school’s performance. That is a very radical change. It is a critical development. How worth while this is and how much merit is attached to it cannot be overstated. The things that parents want to know about their children’s progress are how they are going at school, how they compare to little Johnny next door, how they can do better, how they can do more work from home and how they can get a better result. (Time expired)

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ending the blame game has turned out to be nothing more and nothing less than a huge comprehensive state and federal Labor cover-up. It is nothing more and nothing less than a politically motivated conspiracy of silence where the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, says to the Labor premiers, such as Alan Carpenter, ‘I won’t blame you if you won’t blame me.’ That is exactly what we have witnessed under this new policy of supposedly ending the blame game.

The reality is that the best way to ensure good government for the people across Australia is a strong federal system. We need a system with both strong and competent state and federal governments. And right now we have got neither. We need a system with all of its important checks and balances hard at work; a system in which premiers stand up to Canberra whenever Canberra pursues public policy—particularly when it relates to areas of state responsibility—that is bad public policy. Whenever the Commonwealth pursues policy that will have a bad impact on the state of Western Australia, I would expect the Premier of Western Australia to have a view and to stand up for Western Australia. But nothing of the like has happened.

We have a fine tradition in Western Australia where in the past strong premiers have stood up to Canberra, irrespective of political persuasion. Strong premiers like Sir David Brand, Sir Charles Court and Richard Court stood up to Canberra and were guided solely by what was in the best interests of their state, irrespective of whether there was a Liberal government in power in Canberra or not. But these days, we have Alan Carpenter, who was quite happy as Premier of Western Australia to be critical of John Howard as Prime Minister and of policies pursued by the Howard government.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He was not alone. There were quite a few million of them.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Alan Carpenter was particularly unsuccessful in convincing the people of Western Australia of the merits of his arguments in the lead-up to the last federal election. As you well know, we were able to return 11 out of 15 federal members of parliament from Western Australian on behalf of the Liberal Party.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cormann, I remind you to make your comments through the chair.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, Madam Acting Deputy President. The reality is this: since the election of the Rudd government, our Premier in Western Australia has gone quiet. He has stopped standing up for Western Australia. He has started to put political opportunism and his political interests ahead of the best interests of the people of Western Australia. On the scrapping of the highly successful Regional Partnerships program and of the Investing in our Schools program—which has helped school communities across Western Australia to improve their schools—silence is what we have had from the Premier of Western Australia.

When it came to the imposition of a new $2.5 billion tax, which is going to push up the price of gas in Western Australia, Alan Carpenter condoned it explicitly. He waved Kevin Rudd through and said, ‘No worries.’ When Woodside came out and made public statements telling the people of Western Australia the absolute bleeding obvious—that they as a business would seek to pass on the additional cost imposed on them by the Commonwealth—Alan Carpenter, as Premier of Western Australia, shot the messenger instead of standing up for Western Australia.

Then we had this disastrous decision to increase the Medicare levy surcharge thresholds. In our federation, in some policy areas there is obviously an overlap between state and federal responsibilities. Clearly, health is one of those areas. If you have a bad public policy decision at one level of government, that will necessarily flow through and have an impact on the other level of government.

The impacts of the decision to increase the Medicare levy surcharge thresholds have been very clearly identified through the Senate inquiry. It will have an impact in pushing up the price of health insurance premiums. It will see at least 644,000 people leave private health insurance, according to Treasury evidence. It will see 57,000 people over the age of 65 leave private health insurance, according to Treasury evidence. It will put huge additional pressure on public hospitals in Western Australia.

Have we heard anything from the government in Western Australia standing up for WA, standing up for the patients in Western Australia that need timely access to quality hospital care? No, we have not. There was some token resistance from Jim McGinty, the Minister for Health in Western Australia, straight after the budget. As reported in the West Australian on 16 May:

... WA Health Minister Jim McGinty said the State was entitled to more Commonwealth funding for hospitals after changes to the Medicare surcharge.

Did he follow through on that? No, he did not. Did he put in a formal request to the federal government: ‘We need some additional funding to deal with the additional demand that is now going to be faced by our public hospitals?’ No, he did not. That has been evidenced by answers provided to questions on notice by the Department of Health and Ageing. Again today the minister was ducking and weaving when I asked him whether the Carpenter government had submitted a formal request for additional funding to deal with the additional pressures faced by public hospitals. He was giving me the Labor Party rhetoric that could well be campaigning rhetoric, but he was not answering my question: ‘Yes or no—did Alan Carpenter, Jim McGinty or anybody in the state government in Western Australia ask for additional funding for our public hospitals?’ No, they did not.

This is actually a really interesting case study when it comes to the conspiracy of silence and the huge cover-up that is currently taking place. I will give you a bit of a flavour of what the current situation in Western Australia is like when it comes to public hospitals. After eight years of Labor mismanagement, our public hospitals in Western Australia are very much under pressure. They are in a mess. I will read a couple of newspaper quotes to the Senate. An article in the Sunday Times on 4 May 2008 headlined ‘Hospitals stretched’ states:

A special investigation by the Sunday Times reveals that the state’s health system is bursting with a record number of people requiring hospital care.

The West Australian of 3 June 2008, in an article entitled ‘Children “waiting too long for surgery”’, states:

More than one in three children needing elective surgery at Princess Margaret Hospital have been waiting longer than medically advisable, a Health Department report reveals.

An article in the West Australian on 25 June 2008 headlined ‘Public hospitals had to turn away babies’ states:

Thirty newborns were among almost 900 public hospital patients transferred to private hospitals at taxpayers’ expense because a bed or appropriate service was unavailable, documents released under Freedom of Information laws reveal.

The Sunday Times of 29 June 2008, in an article entitled ‘300 deaths in waiting’, states:

UP TO 300 patients could die unnecessarily in WA emergency departments this year because of chronic overcrowding, the Australian Medical Association of WA has warned.

Of course, hospitals in WA then were hit by the gas crisis. Theatres had to be shut down because of a shortage of gas. Last weekend, a front-page article in the West Australian of 30 August entitled ‘Hospital ED risk “worst in nation”’ stated:

Perth’s big hospital emergency departments are the worst in Australia for overcrowding, with the latest national figures revealing they have the highest rate of patients waiting dangerously long periods of time to be admitted to a ward.

The first part of a national snapshot of tertiary hospital emergency departments by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine shows that 47 per cent of WA patients waiting for a bed faced access block, the term used to describe the proportion of patients waiting more than eight hours to be admitted to a ward bed.

The point is this: this is before the changes to the Medicare levy surcharge thresholds will come into effect. This is the situation today. The reality is this: these changes that the government has proposed and that are quietly being condoned by state Labor governments around Australia, which initially put up some token resistance but then fell into line, will put huge additional pressure on public hospitals across Australia and in particular in Western Australia, when we already have the worst possible situation.

We were promised cooperative federalism in health. What happened? What did the Rudd government actually do when they decided to introduce this particular policy measure? Did they cost, model or assess the flow-on consequences, the flow-on impact, on public hospitals, a state responsibility? No, they did not. Do you know what they called it? The bureaucrats at Senate estimates said, ‘These are second-round effects. We don’t worry about second-round effects.’ Never mind that it was going to be the patients in public hospitals in Western Australia that would end up suffering because they will have to wait longer, and they will have to wait for dangerous lengths of time moving forward.

Did the state government in Western Australia ask for access to the federal government’s modelling? No. Did the federal government, in the spirit of cooperative federalism, volunteer access to its modelling for state and territory governments so that they could at least have the best information in front of them when they were assessing the impact on their public hospitals? No, they did not.

Only one state health department across Australia actually made themselves available to answer questions at the inquiry. Do you know where the information came from on which they based their assessment of the impact on public hospitals? It came out of the West Australian. Nobody, not one single state government, has made any serious assessment of the impact of this Medicare levy surcharge threshold change on their public hospitals. Do you think that would have been the situation 12 months ago? Twelve months ago they would have commissioned their own research, they would have commissioned their own modelling, they would have ensured that they had had an informed basis on which to put a claim to the federal government for additional funding. This time around it is politically convenient just to stay silent: ‘Let’s have one big, huge cover-up.’ The people of Western Australia are going to be worse off as a result. (Time expired)

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I delight in the opportunity to speak in this matter of public importance debate because I think it is a great time to remind the Senate that Australians are actually really sick and tired of the constant carping between state and federal governments. Those opposite have put a matter before us that actually draws attention to the fact that indeed things are now taking shape in a far more constructive manner—and you are complaining about the lack of complaining, when in actual fact this is exactly what Australians wanted. This debate is a desperate attempt to get a political kick. The WA Liberal opposition cannot get any traction on these issues and that is because state and federal Labor are getting on with the job.

Back last year when COAG first met, there would have been 19 previous COAG meetings where we had leaders come away pretty unhappy with what they got. They were always largely complaining about money. What we have seen since then is a new COAG agenda, where in actual fact we have got state and federal leaders—not the bureaucrats, because previously it used to be the bureaucrats—getting together, putting job lists together, with ownership of achieving the targets set in them. So we have got an absolute transformation of state and federal policy.

We had all that carping about state and Commonwealth funding agreements, but now we are really bedding down special purpose payments and the benchmarks and outcomes attached to those payments. Labor have promised extra cash for states and territories because they have agreed to unprecedented federal involvement in their affairs, embracing a gruelling work program that is going to deliver major national reforms over the next few years.

Chief ministers and premiers have all got their sleeves rolled up and got stuck into an ambitious program of work. We have ministers chairing these working groups, with state ministers being the deputy chairs. They are really on all the key issues of the nation, including the key issues for Western Australia. Western Australia has also got its sleeves rolled up and is well into this program of COAG reform. We have various kinds of working groups. There is the heads of Treasury SPP working group, and they are getting right into the nitty-gritty of the financial frameworks that are going to deliver these new outcomes. That is core to the program—that is, the special purpose payments. To quote Kevin Rudd, they are:

… are part of the deep structure, folklore and mysticism of Commonwealth-state relations.

But, in fact, we are demystifying that and putting some real programs together to make these things transparent and accountable.

The kinds of things that we are getting on and doing include the Indigenous issues across working groups. In fact, Indigenous issues are a theme across all the working groups so that we can start to get real outcomes and cooperation on the kinds of issues that we all know are so important: health, aged care, housing, early childhood education and care, schooling, skills and workforce development and assisting people with disabilities. So Indigenous issues are now a core stream through all the different working groups.

We have climate change and water. We know how significant climate change issues are to the nation, and they are particularly important to Western Australia. Western Australia has a drying climate, and we are highly vulnerable to climate change. On that basis, Western Australia is playing a leading role in looking at plans for adaptation, because we need to put together real plans and build our capacity to adapt to climate change. We also have the energy efficiency subgroup, where we can start to get some cooperation across state and federal governments on fantastic energy efficiency measures. I am quite used to this. There are an endless number of federal energy efficiency measures and an endless number of state energy efficiency measures, but there has historically been very little coordination across these things, and now we will be able to coordinate these issues and they will be able to feed into things like the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. We will have far more coherent policy approaches to these issues.

There are significant things that we all know are important, such as early childhood development, and that is getting on with the National Quality Standards Framework and an early learning years framework. On public housing, we have been looking at a new housing agreement and also at the National Rental Affordability Scheme. State and federal governments have been working together to hold cooperative stakeholder meetings, so it is not only engagement between governments; it is actually engagement with the Australian public—the Western Australian public in this case.

We have also seen renewable energy target design options coming together from the Department of Climate Change, consulting and meeting with WA stakeholders. We have been working on adaptation plans, renewable energy and feed-in tariffs, energy efficiency, water and, indeed, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. I think nothing speaks louder than the progress that is finally being made towards the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. States were really going it alone and putting in a lot of the groundwork before we finally came together, under the leadership of Senator Penny Wong and Prime Minister Rudd, to see a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme really begin to come to fruition, which we are finally on the cusp of seeing happen. States really had to go it alone for a very long time in trying to get these issues— (Time expired)

Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I rise to speak this afternoon I would also like to congratulate the community of Balgo, as my colleague Senator Johnston has done. There was one thing that I was very impressed with in the community: the school and the community store had formed a partnership. Truancy had been rife in this little community—as you are aware, Madam Acting Deputy President Moore, because you were with us as well. The community decided that something had to be done, and the day we were there was the third day of a program in which the store remained closed until 65 per cent of the students were at school. Through this partnership the school would notify the store that it could open once this had happened. The day we were there, the program had been running for three days and the school had 85 per cent of its students. So it was working, without the governments. They were desperate: how could they get their students to school? So, without government assistance, the community had done this. It was a great little community, and I think that both the Catholic school and the store should be congratulated for this initiative. I hope that it continues.

Unfortunately, being a rural person and someone who supports the bush, I feel that both federal Labor and state Labor have walked out on the bush. Since taking office in November last year, the Labor government’s policy agenda has sent a clear message to regional and rural communities: ‘As long as Labor is in government, your needs will be neglected.’

The member for Brand, the Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia, was in Karratha at a recent conference. He described a call from the locals for extra funding for local infrastructure as whinging. I really do wonder about that. A place like Karratha has terrific need for extra housing and has many jobs but cannot fill them simply because there is no accommodation. Just where do they go when the Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia—and Karratha is in Northern Australia—makes a statement like that?

I will give you a sample of what Labor have cost regional Australia in the last eight months. They have introduced a new 33 per cent luxury car tax on all vehicles, including four-wheel drives over $57,123. Of course, most people would know that when you get out into remote Australia four-wheel drives are an essential part of being able to conduct one’s business. They have abolished the hugely successful Regional Partnerships and Growing Regions programs, of which I was very supportive, with no new money for regional projects until late 2009—just in time for the next election.

Labor have axed the Agriculture Advancing Australia program, including Advancing Agricultural Industries, FarmBiz and Farm Help. They have axed the women’s representation in decision-making program and have cut funding to rural health services, regional arts programs and rural financial counselling services. They have also cancelled the $900 million Optus and Elders joint venture, denying regional and rural Australians access to competitive high-speed broadband by the end of 2009.

Coming back to the West Kimberley region, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett, wants to add 17 million hectares to the National Heritage List, putting an end to new developments and stifling job opportunities for Indigenous people. There was no consultation with the people who earn their living in the area. An article appears in today’s the Australian, titled ‘Jobs for Aborigines: Rudd’s army of nation builders’, which states:

Kevin Rudd is poised to use a $76 billion nation-building infrastructure program to tackle indigenous disadvantage by insisting Aborigines be recruited to work on dozens of new roads, ports and railway projects across the nation.

I agree with this, but we really do have this conflict where things are going a little awry within the Office of  Regional Development in Northern Australia.

But, we do have hope. We have Liberal candidate for the Kimberley, Ruth Webb-Smith. She is working very hard. For 40 years she has been a teacher in schools and Indigenous communities. She is a pastoralist from Yakkamunga Station between Broome and Derby, and states that she wants to:

... represent the people of the Kimberley in State Parliament, to work with the local community to secure the long-term future of our region. The Carpenter Government has ignored the needs of rural and remote Western Australia. We do know how to survive doing it tough in the Kimberley, but we deserve a government that values the contribution the region and its people make to our great State.

I commend Ruth Webb-Smith for standing as a candidate and I do hope she is successful for the sake of the people of the Kimberley.

Moving to Esperance, where they have had problems with lead coming from a mining company’s ships, today’s West Australian has an article titled ‘Esperance lead report not ready before poll’. Are the Carpenter government really hiding these things? The article goes on to state:

... the Esperance lead contamination fiasco is unlikely to be released this week, sparking accusations that the Carpenter Government will avoid scrutiny over the issue before the election.

Esperance residents said frustration was building after up to eight months of delays in the critical report, commissioned by the Government to provide a broader look at the remaining lead contamination risks in the town.

Shadow health minister Kim Hames said the early election had cost the Esperance community access to the report by environmental consultants Golder Associates.

Esperance is not very far from where I come from, and I think the people of Esperance deserve better from this government and from the Carpenter government.

The Patient Assisted Travel Scheme is something that is very dear to my heart. Following the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs report on the inquiry into the operation and effectiveness of patient assisted travel schemes titled Highway to health: better access for rural, regional and remote patients, I have written to the minister twice. The report was handed down in November 2007. We still do not know if our recommendations have been accepted. The way I feel about this is that the Australian healthcare system is based on the principle that all Australians are able to have access to the same level of health care, regardless of where they live. Luckily, the Western Australian shadow health minister has come out with a very comprehensive PATS policy and has taken up the plight of regional cancer patients, me having been one of them.

Any patient who is living more than four hours drive from Perth will now—under a Liberal government, if it is elected—be able to fly to a metropolitan hospital for treatment under the Liberal Party’s reformed Patient Assisted Travel Scheme instead of the current minimum 16-hour drive under the Labor government. The only treatment cancer patients can receive is in Perth. We do not have any regional areas that can provide radiotherapy. Some hospitals can provide chemo, but most patients have to travel to Perth. It really upsets when I have colleagues who say: ‘We cannot afford to stay in Perth. We cannot be away so therefore we won’t have treatment.’ That is just not on. And—surprise, surprise—Minister for Health Jim McGinty has finally said, ‘Perhaps subsidies need to be increased, at least to keep pace with the rise in petrol and accommodation costs.’ So, guess what, we are now having another review into PATS subsidies.

Quickly going to Regional Partnerships, I have had a number of my shires in rural Western Australia desperate to try to get funding to carry out small projects within their community. They have their partners organised, but unfortunately it will not happen because there will be no funding available until 2009-10. At present we have Regional Development Australia community consultations going on. I have been to three of these meetings and—surprise, surprise—what do you have to do? You are told: ‘You tell us what you would really like.’

After the axing of a very successful program in Regional Partnerships, which worked for everyone, we now have to sit back and wait until we can get these Regional Development Australia partnerships off the ground. I understand that the area consultative committees, which will become Regional Development Australia, are going to be cut down from 54 throughout the nation to probably 30. Unfortunately, the office in Perth has been closed down. Therefore, we are going to have to rely on the eastern states bureaucrats to tell us what we need in Western Australia and what projects should and should not get up. And, guess what, the Carpenter government has said nothing. (Time expired)

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are a few things I want to sort out before I make my contribution to this debate. One does have to be sceptical and wonder whether, if there were not an election in Western Australia this week, we would have a barrage of Western Australian Liberal senators busting their backsides to get up here and propose MPIs about how bad things are in WA. But I am going to talk about how great—

Judith Troeth (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. I consider the action attributed to Liberal senators by Senator Sterle to be a distinctly unparliamentary remark and I ask you to ask him to withdraw it.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Troeth, I do not consider that to be a point of order. I take your point, but there is no point of order. I think it was in the terms of the debate. But I remind Senator Sterle of appropriate parliamentary language, and the Senate is listening to you, Senator Sterle.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. As I said, I do want to clear up a few things. Firstly, I think it was Senator Johnston talking about the condensate tax and how bad things are in Western Australia and how bad things are for Woodside. Let me just clear something up for senators opposite and for those who may be listening who are not from Western Australia. Woodside are a wonderful company; make no mistake about that. Woodside invest a lot of money in Western Australia’s North West Shelf and should be commended for the efforts that they have made in employing not only a lot of Western Australians and eastern staters but also a lot of workers from overseas. Let us make that very clear. I actually delivered to the Woodside site long before there was an LNG plant there. When there was only an ATCO hut that was acting as their office, I moved the furniture into it. So I have had a long association with Woodside. I made a lot of money from Woodside in the days of my removal business by moving Woodside people.

But let us make something very clear, despite the wailing and crying and the crocodile tears from those opposite. Woodside’s profit—and there is nothing wrong with profit, before senators on the other side go into hysterics; profit is good—this year was over $1 billion. And we in the Rudd government welcome that news; we think it is fantastic—absolutely no dramas. It just shows what a wonderful opportunity the state of Western Australia provides for investment. But as Senator Carr mentioned in answers to questions without notice yesterday, if the condensate tax had been applied this year, Woodside’s profit would unfortunately not have been over $1 billion. It would have been only $950 million. Now, that would be a reason for Western Australian senators opposite to be upset, I suppose, on behalf of Woodside: $950 million. That rolls off the tongue very easily: a $950 million profit. But, if the condensate tax had been paid, that Woodside profit would still have been—Senator Boyce, for your benefit—$340 million more than this time last year.

The Acting Deputy President:

Through the chair, Senator Sterle.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Through the chair. It would still have been a wonderful outcome.

So let us just clear up why senators on the other side want to go into a political spin and, I believe, waste a lot of the Senate’s time on pulling these nonsense MPIs: it is so they can get up and bang on about the Western Australian election coming up this week. I would like to make a contribution on the Western Australian election this week, because three Western Australian senators spent most of their contributions in this debate talking about the election. Let us look at the election. It is 3½ years since the last one. It will be decided this Saturday—and, hopefully, on Saturday night Western Australians will discover who will be governing Western Australia.

But I want to talk about health in that state. Health is a very important thing. Nothing sickens me more than when I hear senators opposite, Australian senators, trying to insult the intelligence of all Western Australians and all Australians by saying that we have a third-class health system in Western Australia. I absolutely despise that. I feel sick in the stomach, because as part of the privilege of being an Australian senator I travelled to Papua New Guinea on a bilateral visit and, along with other senators, Liberal senators as well, I had the good fortune—I would not say the misfortune—to see actual Third World health systems. If you get invited into a hospital and you are looking at a child who is dying from AIDS lying on a cloth mattress, with no pillow, not even a sheet—

Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Adams interjecting—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

those are Third World conditions. Senator Adams, if you want to contribute to this debate because you were a nurse—

The Acting Deputy President:

Through the chair, Senator Sterle.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

through you, Madam Acting Deputy President—I welcome taking that fight to you. That is what we call a Third World health system. It does tug on my heartstrings to hear that nonsense coming from those on that side.

Since we are talking about Western Australia, let us talk about ending the blame game, because it is under that guise that the MPI was presented, even though for senators opposite it is: ‘Let’s talk up the election in Western Australia at every opportunity we can’—and I welcome that opportunity. But let us talk about ending the blame game. As my colleague Senator Bishop said, Australians went to the last election fed up to the back teeth with the blame game. Australians do not give a damn what government it is; they are just sick of all tiers of government blaming everyone else. And that is all we had before the last election. So the Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, made it very clear that he would end the blame game.

While we are on the subject of health, let us talk about one of the Rudd government’s initiatives: investing in high-quality hospitals and medical care. The government has formulated the National Health and Hospitals Reform Plan, putting in no less than $3.2 billion, to ensure that Australian families have access to high-quality and affordable health care, by working with the states and territories, not against them. So we can start talking about good things happening in health.

Let us come back to what is happening in WA, because I do not want to waste too much of my time. We will talk about the election and the moribund party that is the Liberal Party. Let us talk about leadership in Western Australia, shall we? Shall we talk about 2005 when Mr Colin Barnett was the leader of the Liberals? Mr Barnett had a spectacular crash and burn, as you all remember. He had a dream of building a canal from the Ord down to Western Australia. My mates in the Labor Party called it the ‘cane toad national highway’. Things were going along well. Mr Barnett was hanging his leadership and the election win on the canal. But you see Kununurra or the Ord are a long way away—about 3,400 kilometres by road and, as the crow flies, it is probably a couple of thousand—and he had this massive blow-out in the costings. We call it the cane toad highway; they call it ‘Colin’s far canal’, because it was a long way from Perth. It was a spectacular crash.

They have gone through three or four leaders in that time and if we want to talk about spectacular crashes let us look at the last leader of the Liberal Party of Western Australia, Mr Buswell, shall we? If any truck driver had performed like Mr Buswell in the workplace and they had come to seek my support and guidance on what they had done with bra snapping and sniffing chairs, I would have told them, ‘Not only are you sacked, take this advice: pack up your lunch bag and get the hell out of here before the husband gets here and lands one on your sniffer.’ It was absolutely disgraceful, but that is Liberal Party in Western Australia.

Judith Troeth (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order, Madam Acting Deputy President. Again I will draw your attention to what I consider to be extremely unparliamentary language.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is on the borderline. I do not consider it is actually unparliamentary in terms of process but I will remind Senator Sterle of language. In my opinion I do not consider it a point of order. I think that the process was in debate and the issues referred to are on the public record.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. It does bewilder me. I do not know what is wrong with reporting what has been in the media for the last six months. (Time expired)