John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about a forthcoming date: 26 March, the date of the state election in New South Wales. It will be of real interest to see how that election pans out on the day.

In 1995 the Carr Labor government was elected in New South Wales. Bob Carr made the promise that it would be the greenest government the state would ever see. Of course it would be—that was the influence of the Greens back in those days. Bob Carr needed the support of the Greens in the Legislative Council, the upper house. What did8 he do? He followed the ‘build national parks all over the state’ theory, which I think is so, so wrong.

As I have said before in this place: you lock up country and you leave it, the grass grows, the fuel develops, lightning strikes and it burns and is destroyed. But people think this is conservation. I think it is a disgrace. We have now got all these national parks right across New South Wales, even at Pilliga, up in the northern areas near Moree, Narrabri and Coonabarabran, which I have travelled through many times. Now we have even got them saying the red gum forest down at Deniliquin in the Murray area has been locked up in a national park. Madam Acting Deputy President, I can assure you red gum cannot stand fire. If you burn the forests in the Pilliga of box and ironbark timbers, they will suck it back, but once red gum is burned it is destroyed. You can even go down to the forest at Deniliquin and have a look at the 900 hectares that has been burnt and is now destroyed. The locals wanted to cut the timber down after the fire. They had roughly 12 months to do so before the timber would split. No, the greenies would not let them cut it down. They said, ‘Okay, can we cut it down now for firewood’—this fire was several years ago—‘and let another forest grow?’ ‘No, you can’t cut it down for firewood.’ Believe me, now that it is locked up—thanks to Frank Sartor and the New South Wales government—and because they will not allow grazing in that national park now to keep the fuel levels down, the day will come when that forest will burn. It will be destroyed. The fire will destroy the trees, the red gums, and the environment for the animals and we will be able to thank Frank Sartor and the influence of the greens for destroying that forest.

Bob Carr, when elected in 1995, said he would halve the waiting queues for elective surgery and if he did not do that within 12 months he would resign. Well, you can fudge the figures and do what you like, but I think he did get there somehow and kept his job. But what did he do to the health system? For years, in fact for decades, we had local volunteers on our hospital boards and then they formed the district hospital boards and our local people managed our hospitals. Volunteers, doctors, nurses, accountants and solicitors managed it well. But, no, Bob Carr brought in these huge areas, to the detriment of our local hospitals. We even saw the case with the Greater Western Area Health Service a couple of years ago whereby they could not pay their bills. They could not pay the local butchers who supplied meat to the hospital. I had many small businesses complain to me about how the area health services would not pay their bills on time and small businesses had to carry their credit. It was a disgrace.

Let us look at what the Carr government of New South Wales did effectively. One thing they were very effective at was driving people out of New South Wales with high taxes and high stamp duty upping the cost of living and upping the cost of doing business. We had people moving out of New South Wales, mainly to Queensland, so much so that just prior to the 2007 election—when New South Wales had 50 federal seats and Queensland had 28—we had the seat of Gwydir taken off New South Wales. We went down to 49 and Queensland went up to 29 when the seat of Flynn was formed. Come the 2010 election and it was the same thing again: people were leaving New South Wales in droves and we had another seat taken out of New South Wales, which took us down to 48, while Queensland went up to 30 when the seat of Wright was formed. That was the effect of the Labor government in New South Wales. With their policies, their costs and their red tape they drove people out of our state. The first state and the once-great state has now been brought down because of the Labor governments over that time.

Let us have a look at some of their record, which I call New South Wales Labor’s rollcall of shame. Let us take the Premiers. Morris Iemma was forced out in Labor’s ambush on 8 September. He went into the room to clean a few out but they cleaned him out. Nathan Rees didn’t need to keep looking over his shoulder as faceless men like Joe Tripodi and Eddie Obeid shafted him for their puppet, Kristina Keneally. Let us have a look at the ministers. Treasurer Michael Costa was dumped by Nathan Rees and then resigned after telling the truth. Michael Costa said that New South Wales was heading for financial pain and needed a minibudget—off he went. Aboriginal affairs minister Milton Orkopoulos was arrested on child-sex and drug charges and sentenced to 13 years and 11 months in jail—and this was one of the community leaders, being a minister in a government. Ian Macdonald, known universally as Sir Lunchalot, resigned as state development minister over travel expense claims. Reba Meagher, the health minister who presided over a failing health system, was shown the door and then pulled the pin altogether. The next health minister, John Della Bosca, resigned over a sex scandal. Mr Della Bosca snubbed the small town of Tingha near Inverell, where I live, in July 2009 when he was supposed to fly up and open their new MPS hospital—and they are still waiting for him. There are plenty of suggestions as to what he was actually doing at the time, but we will not go too far there. He also snubbed the Armidale doctors who wanted to talk about the government’s response to the Garling report.

Transport minister David Campbell was caught by the media leaving a gay club in his official car, so out he went. Paul McLeay, the Minister for Minerals and Forest Resources, admitted to using a parliamentary computer to visit gambling and adult websites, so he was soon on his bike. Juvenile justice minister Graham West went against the grain: there was no scandal about the end of his career. He had just had enough of not getting enough funding for his portfolio and left. Environment minister Frank Sartor called it quits in December last year. As I said, this is the man who will be responsible for the destruction of the red gum forests in the south of our state.

Let us have a look at the rorting. The member for Penrith, Karen Paluzzano, lied to ICAC and Premier Keneally about corrupt activities in her electoral office. That handed the seat to the Liberals. Who is on the nose? Well, former ports minister Joe Tripodi announced late last year he is going. It is not just the people of New South Wales who are saying good riddance; most of the state Labor people are saying the same. Now we have the drugs issue. The husband of education minister Verity Firth is caught buying an ecstasy tablet. Then we have the infamous party involving Matt Brown, who was the police minister, and the member for Wollongong, Noreen Hay. It must have been some sort of show better suited for somewhere like Kings Cross.

Let me quote what the Illawarra Mercury editorial said on 2 September 2010 under the headline ‘Another nail in the coffin for NSW Government’:

What is it about politicians who cannot keep their pants on?

On a day that the NSW parliament was to begin one of its increasingly rare sittings, embattled Premier Nathan Rees accepted the resignation of another senior minister caught up in a sordid sex scandal.

The allegations were made by Health Minister John Della Bosca’s former love.

This is from the paper. I am quoting public information here. It goes on:

The woman claimed she had had sex with Mr Della Bosca in his parliamentary office and the minister deliberately missed a flight so he could spend time with her—an allegation he has denied.

That is when he was supposed to be at Tingha near Inverell opening the hospital. It continues:

The latest scandal came less than 12 months after another unsavoury incident at a boozy parliamentary budget party involving Member for Kiama Matt Brown.

This is all out of the paper for those listening. It goes on:

Mr Brown, who has since become known as Captain Underpants was sacked as police minister after stripping down to his underwear and allegedly dancing lewdly against Cabinet colleague and Member for Wollongong Noreen Hay.

To his detriment Mr Brown has still not properly explained what exactly went on that night.

Now 22 members of the Labor Party in the New South Wales parliament have announced their resignations.

I want to take you, Madam Acting Deputy President, to some of the waste of this government. The Auditor-General says the Keneally government was wasting $778 million a year. I repeat: $778 million a year. That is $2 million a day. Premier Keneally poured $356 million down the drain on the abandoned CBD metro. There was a $188 million overspend on Building the Education Revolution—surprise, surprise; $150 million lost on the sale of the New South Wales lotteries; $10 million flushed down the toilet by Minister Macdonald when he paid too much for the V8 supercars event at Homebush; World Youth Day was $66 million over forecast in 2008; and $778 million could have built hospitals in Tamworth and Wagga.

I remember just prior to the last state election when the then Premier, Morris Iema, went up to Tamworth to put his arm round the Independent member and colleague Peter Draper, saying, ‘We will build you a new hospital in Tamworth.’ Where is the new hospital? It was a political stunt. Tamworth is the hub of the north-west and New England area. Tamworth is a vital hospital. Many people from outer regions are taken to Tamworth for essential medical care, but still there is no hospital. It was another broken promise.

I could go on to the power sale where former Premier Morris Iema got the boot for wanting to privatise the electricity industry for around $31 billion. Along comes supersalesman Kristina Keneally and Eric Roozendaal and they sell it for $5.3 billion. You would not want them out flogging your products door to door as you would go broke.

I want to take you back to a couple of things, Madam Acting Deputy President, as time is running out. One of the things that the New South Wales Labor government did that I thought was so shameful during their almost 16 years in government was to introduce the blue card for truck drivers. ‘What is the blue card?’ you might ask. They brought in a law that any truckie who drives more than 500 kilometres must have a blue card saying they have been trained in OH&S standards, even though we have strict OH&S standards right throughout the industry. The blue card had to be purchased off a little company in Western Australia. Why in New South Wales would you buy the blue card off a company in Western Australia? It is simple. That company in Western Australia has direct links to the Transport Workers Union and it has been made public that every blue card bought for round $60, paid to Bluecard Australia in Western Australia, would then give a kickback to the Transport Workers Union who would then give a kickback to the Labor Party come election time. This was compulsory funding for the Labor Party that the Labor Party brought in for the New South Wales government and, to the shame of those opposite here, they tried to sneak in an amendment to the Fair Work Bill when that legislation came to this parliament to have it across all jurisdictions. This is the way they act: ‘We’ll have a compulsory little law. You have to buy something and we will get a kickback to help us in our next campaign at the election so we can spread our propaganda.’

It is amazing that, with 93 lower house seats in the New South Wales parliament, six seats still do not have Labor candidates, including Tweed Heads, Goulburn and Port Macquarie. I am sorry, I should not say Port Macquarie, as they have an Independent member—they are as good as a Labor candidate. We have seen that through the activities of Mr Windsor and Mr Oakeshott. So there is no need for Labor to run there. I was amazed last Saturday as I was driving past the office of the member for Monaro, Steve Whan, to see that there was no sign of any Labor pamphlets or anything. There was just ‘Steve Whan MP.’ They are hiding from their brand. They are ashamed to say they are members of the Labor Party, fearing that people will turn against them on 26 March. They are so disgusted with the Labor Party brand in New South Wales they are now hiding from it.

During the 2007 federal election I was campaigning in Ballina with Larry Anthony. We were having a chat and I said to Larry, ‘How do you see it?’ He turned to me and said, ‘Wacka, when the tide is coming in you can do nothing about it,’ and Larry was correct. People saw through the spin of Kevin Rudd, Kevin 07. There are no Labor brands out there now in the state election. They have to hide from that. But they went out with the Kevin 07 Labor brand and they won the election. He did not last long, though, because those sitting behind over there saw the spin and the people woke up to him. What happened to Kevin 07? He was speared. We all know the history of that.

On 26 March it is not the tide coming in on the New South Wales Labor government but a tsunami, and so it should be for the way they have wasted money, destroyed business confidence, flooded the whole state in red tape and shifted people out of the state to Queensland. As a result, we have lost two federal seats from New South Wales to Queensland. I can understand some of those Labor people like Steve Whan hiding from the Labor brand and having out the front of their office ‘Vote 1 Steve Whan’ but no mention of the Australian Labor Party. They are ashamed of what they have done and the way they have run the state of New South Wales, even to the stage where just recently Premier Kristina Keneally apologised to the people of New South Wales because they put themselves and their factional blues first and forgot about the people of New South Wales. Bring on 26 March. Bring on the tsunami and throw them out.