Speechestag:www.renehiddingmp.com,2011:/speeches//62011-06-24T01:43:19ZMovable Type 3.35Budget Reply Speech - June 2011tag:www.renehiddingmp.com,2011:/speeches//6.2552011-06-24T01:42:11Z2011-06-24T01:43:19ZMr HIDDING (Lyons) - Madam Deputy Speaker, I think I am the last in the House before the Premier and Treasurer comes back to respond to the second reading debate. I rise not to restate the entire case because it...Renewww.renehiddingmp.com
Mr HIDDING (Lyons) - Madam Deputy Speaker, I think I am the last in the House before the Premier and Treasurer comes back to respond to the second reading debate. I rise not to restate the entire case because it has been very well done by this side of the House, including the last speaker who has laid out the various alternative priorities to the Tasmanian people. I congratulate Will Hodgman and his team, his entire office, and Peter Gutwein, his shadow treasurer, for a sensational job. This was not a pretty exercise at all. It was a gut-wrenching exercise when you saw the numbers rolling out in this State Budget, and we have laid out a case against the Budget that is the shameful proof of years of Labor mismanagement.
What it comes down to is year after year of poor executive management of the State's administration. It is as simple as this. If the Premier had said to his ministers, 'Do not overspend your budgets or you're in trouble and I'll replace you,' and if his ministers had said to their heads of agencies, 'Do not overspend your budgets or I'll replace you,' and if the heads of agencies had said to their program managers and all the managers in their departments, 'Do not overspend your budgets or I'll replace you,' on down the line, if everybody was accountable in the whole process we would not be in the mess that we are in now - no question.
You can talk about the global financial crisis all you like, you can talk about the post-stimulus environment we are in all you like, but the fact is we knew about all that. The Lehman Brothers banking scandal broke years ago. We knew about the post-stimulus problems that would occur in this State and they should have been planned for, but the only planning that was done was to continue to blow out budgets, and not by a little bit, but massive amounts, hundreds of millions of dollars every year. It is an extraordinary outcome. In a budget of $4 billion-odd you would over a period of years blow out by something in the order of $900 million through sheer mismanagement and lack of accountability, of people not demanding from people elsewhere in control that they actually commit to a budget.
So we have the shameful scenario that the Budget of the State of Tasmania, a developed State of a developed nation - we are not a country that has only been in existence for about 10 years that is battling with the concepts of public policy and financial administration - despite all the expertise and history that we have in this State of responsible government the Budget has become an advisory document rather than a tool that is a promise by the Government to stay within the parameters of the Budget. If the income gets less then you find savings along the way. You do not stand up here 12 months later and say, 'Whoops, we just blew $500 million of your money and we're not absolutely sure where we've blown it. We've just blown it.'
We have had this year after year, and Tasmanians who operate even the smallest household get this stuff. They have to, whether it is a young Tasmanian whose only asset is a car, they know about infrastructure investment, asset protection, insurance, management and budgeting, how much petrol they put in their car and whether they can use it and where they can go. They know about this stuff.
Mr Green - They know a load of rubbish when they hear it.
Mr HIDDING - Every Tasmanian family knows that when you protect your asset and you spend money on infrastructure that you have a little bit of growth in there, you go upwards, but no, here we are in this state. The money we are spending on infrastructure is less than the depreciation of our assets, so we are going backwards in the value of our assets because you are not spending money on that, and so on almost every criterion of a normal household budget overlaid on the administration of the State of Tasmania, fail with a capital 'F' is next to the public administration in this State.
Tasmanians get this. They might not have got it two or three years ago but they get it now, because what they see is the effect of all this. They are being told that we need to close 20 schools and they are being assessed for educational reasons. They are not being assessed for that at all. They are being assessed to save money, to somehow now fit within a framework because the Premier has said finally that she is going to adopt some principles of some financial rectitude. We are actually going to save some money somewhere, and so where has she looked? Twenty schools. Tasmanians know what this Budget is all about, and they ask us this: surely in your system you have accountability? Of course at the end of the day we do not. The accountability comes at the ballot box, and we have four-year terms, so Tasmanians are asking how long this is going to go on for. We tell them, 'As long as the Tasmanian Greens want to leave them there, as long as the Tasmanian Greens continue to enjoy what they are doing, and leave this Labor-Greens experiment to fizzle along in absolute paralysis'. Nothing in the Budget speech -
Ms O'Connor - We are committed to stability in government. Who are you to assume you speak for all Tasmanian people? Your supporters are begging for an election, because you dudded them last time by not having the guts to go into government.
Mr HIDDING - This is the problem we have. If we come in here and speak for Tasmanians, how dare we speak for those Tasmanians? What about -
Ms O'Connor - You think you speak for all Tasmanians.
Mr HIDDING - Yes, that is right. What do we hear from the Government in the speech by the Premier and Treasurer, and every other speaker on that side of the House including the Tasmanian Greens? What was a big feature of this? No vision. 'Vision' is a dirty word this year. We are not allowed to have any of that; we are looking backwards and patching holes now. No vision, none whatsoever. There was an opportunity to do so and from our point of view wrong priorities.
Ms O'Connor - But you supported every element of the Budget, Mr Hidding. You clearly did, apart from those bits you set aside in Mr Hodgman's contribution yesterday.
Mr HIDDING - We believe that we put an alternative vision for priorities.
On the accountability issue, that day will come and for many Tasmanians it cannot come soon enough, but that is a process that we live with in this State.
Mr Green - You didn't have enough guts to take it on yourselves.
Ms O'Connor - No, they didn't. They were too frightened of the Greens.
Mr HIDDING - This is the great defence from your side of the House.
Ms O'Connor - Rene, you would have picked up the phone.
Mr HIDDING - Guess what, the Deputy Premier wishes in many ways you had not had the guts as well because you find yourself over there in a circumstance every day. You do not have a bag of lollies over there; you have a bag of lemons. You are there biting into these lemons, pulling faces every day because it is a very bitter pill indeed for you sitting over there watching and presiding as a minister. You should resign as the minister responsible for forestry because you should be too embarrassed to stand by and watch your Government participate in setting up a roundtable process, knowing very well that the industry had to bring everything to the table and the other lot brought nothing, not a thing other than the votes of your Tasmanian Greens' colleagues. That is all they brought to the table. You set it up, you were behind the scenes, you had your hand up the backs of the individuals and then you pulled aside and said, 'It's nothing to do with us', as you watch the timber industry that you have stood behind all these years fizzle away to a circumstance now where poor people are demonstrating on the lawns of Parliament House in tears.
Ms O'Connor - Where is your vision for the timber industry?
Mr HIDDING - A 13-point plan.
Ms O'Connor - Yes, a 13-point plan, which is a complete denial of the market reality.
Mr HIDDING - There is a plan out there. You hate it but it is a 13-point plan.
Ms O'Connor - The industry hates it too, by the way. You don't have the support of the industry.
Mr HIDDING - That is our plan. Yours is a one-step plan - kill the industry.
Ms O'Connor - You know that's a load of rubbish. We support the Statement of Principles process, and that is about supporting the industry transition.
Mr HIDDING - Everything you say in this House, all your body language and the soothing words over there, change nothing. The Tasmanian Greens want to kill the forest industry in this State and they have gone a long way to achieving it by having their hands up the backs of the minister responsible for forestry.
We are in a situation where we have 20 schools that have been told to close - a spurious process. We spoke this morning about an Education minister who has documents that say 'assess the economic issues relating to this school closure'; the economic issue is that the Education department saves money. No assessment of what it might do to the Fingal Valley, Kempton, Westbury and those areas. It will rip the heart out of the community and people will move out. Tasmanians are first and foremost about their families and the wellbeing of their children and to hear from the parliamentary secretary for education today when he said that kids do not walk to school these days. Is that not lovely in the primary schools in Tasmania, that they should be placed in a position where kids go to school by bus? Every other State in Australia has primary schools where the kids are, four-year-old kids on buses for an hour to get to their kinder and prep classes. That is the policy of the Tasmanian Greens and it is complete nonsense. We will not put up with it and for that reason we have adopted the policy where there will be no school closures if there was a Hodgman Liberal majority government right now. But there is not, so we will keep working with those school communities in a gut-wrenching process where we have to stand before them and try to help them through this, fill out their forms knowing exactly what has been said in the House. It is not about education outcomes, is not about anything except saving money to pay back for the years of shocking overspending, spending like drunken sailors and now we have this unaccountable situation where nobody is prepared to put their hand up and say, 'We have not managed the budgets very well'. No language like that at all, it is all someone else's fault. These schools do not accept it, the communities do not and neither should they. I am very proud of the performance that our team has put up in this State Budget this year. Clearly the speech by the alternative premier of Tasmania and the alternative budget has been widely accepted as a document with vision, with purpose and addresses in a fair way the shocking situation in which we find ourselves. We will commit, as a team, to the Tasmanian people and continue to represent them strongly in this House and the most difficult job of all is holding this unaccountable lot to be accountable nonetheless.
Mr Green - Worst performance I've ever heard you put in, because you just don't believe - you don't even believe it yourself.
Mr HIDDING - Killing off the forestry industry, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Speech on Euthanasia Legislationtag:www.renehiddingmp.com,2009:/speeches//6.1682009-11-03T23:05:11Z2009-11-12T23:12:07ZMr HIDDING (Lyons) - I acknowledge the depth of feeling with which the previous speaker has delivered his contribution. I am not sure if the Speaker should have not checked with the coroner as to whether he should have put...Renewww.renehiddingmp.com
Mr HIDDING (Lyons) - I acknowledge the depth of feeling with which the previous speaker has delivered his contribution. I am not sure if the Speaker should have not checked with the coroner as to whether he should have put much of that material on the Hansard, but that is a matter for him.
The proposition before us today is to consider whether Tasmanian law should be amended to set aside any charge of murder, or versions of it, that could be made against Tasmanian medical practitioners where they have either provided the means or carried out the early termination of the life of a patient - or, as detractors of the euthanasia proposition would put it more baldly, to kill someone. We will not get too many bigger questions than that before us as members of parliament during our careers.
Let us understand clearly what euthanasia is. It is a legal environment which would allow a citizen to take or to assist to take another life. This can take many forms but in the legislation before us the version of euthanasia is known as physician-assisted suicide as a form of voluntary euthanasia. That appears to be the intent of this legislation, even though it could be argued that the life-taking exercise could be carried out by others.
Euthanasia as physician-assisted suicide always requires a deliberate perpetrator other than the sick individual. This legislation is all about protection for that perpetrator against the charges of murder, manslaughter, wrongful death, malpractice, negligence et cetera. The proposition is in short that it is better to be dead than in pain.
We also need to understand what euthanasia is not. It is my view that euthanasia is not, contrary to the lurid claims of the previous speaker, about switching off treatment or life-sustaining devices or foregoing futile treatment or allowing such a person to die peacefully. That is proper and good medical practice and what happens now in Tasmania. Neither can that good practice be termed non-voluntary euthanasia, as the Greens have accused doctors in Tasmania of practising.
Euthanasia also is not doctors treating patients against their wishes. To do so is quite wrong and illegal. The patient's right to refuse all or any treatment is supreme in Tasmania and in Australia. It is also not the use of adequate pharmacological methods of pain relief, which may or may not contribute to a person dying. The principal intent is to manage pain and a secondary effect of that, it could be argued, is to contribute to a shortening of life. That is accepted medical practice around the world, and to give it special status in this debate simply does not have the support of the legal or the medical fraternity.
Euthanasia is also not suicide, which has the same result of course but is clearly a unilateral action where the deceased person chose to take his or her own life without provocation, suggestion or the assistance of others.
Euthanasia laws exist in a number of places around the world. The Netherlands operated for many years in a legal environment where a court finding simply acquitted doctors who carried out euthanasia. Switzerland has very broad laws which go further than physician-assisted suicide. Recently a leading health professional labelled suicide as a marvellous possibility. In Belgium, where they have brought in euthanasia laws, they have distinguished themselves as leading the world in the management of neo-natal babies with problems - you would understand what I mean - and in Washington State, as in neighbouring Oregon, laws came into being as a result of citizen- initiated referenda. I will not reflect too long on Oregon because the previous speaker has been there and clearly has more information than I have about that.
Where has euthanasia been rejected? Throughout the 1980s and 1990s there was a strong push for euthanasia laws throughout most developed countries, resulting in parliamentary inquiries by the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, the Canadian Parliament, the United States and in various parts of Australia. The reports are all good reading and essentially found the same outcome - that a professional legislator would not be able to provide laws to allow for the early death of a patient in extreme circumstances without substantially risking the interest of a huge section of the community which could be labelled weak and vulnerable. I commend these reports to the House as resources which will ensure that we do not have to reinvent the wheel.
In 1998, of course, there was an inquiry done by this House of Assembly. This is back before we reduced the numbers and we had the numbers to hold House of Assembly inquiries. I am the last surviving member in this House who sat on that inquiry. It was almost two years out of my life. It was highly instructive to me, a huge test for me as an individual, as a father and a person in our modern society. There was a lot of diligent work done by all members of the inquiry, meaning some of us went in with fixed ideas and came out the other end with substantially different ideas. There is a raft of findings from that inquiry which, I understand, this latest inquiry spent some time looking at and essentially agreeing with. They found in particular point 12 of the findings, where it said the following:
'The committee recognises that in a small percentage of cases, palliative care is ineffective in relieving all pain. However, whilst regrettable, this is not sufficient cause to legalise voluntary euthanasia.'
That, of course, gets back to the overriding principle of the large group of weak and vulnerable who are placed in substantial danger as a result of this kind of legislation.
As far as hospice care or palliative care is concerned, in 1997-98 the report called for strong improvements to palliative care. I do not want to get political about that. It is not the time for that but it could be argued there has not been enough expenditure on palliative care. Be that as it may, there has been substantial expenditure on palliative care. There are now palliative care beds at country hospitals. There was one featured in the news just a week or two ago and I will not reflect on that. There are very good, special palliative care rooms at country hospitals. That grew out of that 1997-98 inquiry that said that palliative care was the answer to the questions that the proposal of euthanasia threw up.
Since then, over that last 10 years, there has been substantial pain management technique improvement. Paradoxically it is the poppies grown in Tasmania, and one strain of poppies - thebaine - which has allowed the production of these sustained, slow-release, pain-management drugs. This means that the heavy opioids do not have to be used as much. Pain management is still a very strong science in its own right, but it became easier to do.
There are a number of entry level questions for legislators when we look at legislation like this. We always ask ourselves, when we see any bill, is this bill safe for all Tasmanians? Flowing from that, do you recognise that the duty of a state is to treat all citizens equally, as expressed in most human rights charters in existence around the world. Therefore, if you can identify some questions over safety for anyone in this legislation, the question for you is: do you believe you can make it safe? It is this question that is the magic question that all the inquiries around the world into euthanasia have not been able to positively resolve. I understand and respect the fact that the previous speaker and presenter of this legislation believes he can make it safe. Do you believe you can make it safe given that so many jurisdictions around the world do not believe they can make it safe?
Mr McKim - It is certainly safer than an unregulated environment -
Mr SPEAKER - Order.
Mr HIDDING - Yes, but -
Mr McKim - which is what we currently have.
Mr HIDDING - That is right, and if you were to accept that proposition then you could certainly go there. But, as I said earlier, the entire medical profession and the entire legal profession and, if you like, the entire ethical profession around Australia, simply does not agree with you.
Mr McKim - That is just not true.
Mr HIDDING - It is true.
Mr McKim - Not the entire legal and medical professional at all. That is just not true.
Mr HIDDING - No, you can always find a doctor or two. But you have to work with the AMA, nursing groups, nursing colleges, medical colleges and the rest of it, as you would if you were pursuing any other issue. I submit that this legislation, while trying very hard to build in safeguards, because of the autonomy it grants to individuals to override all safeguards at every point, simply cannot pass the principal safety test that should apply to all legislation, that it is safe for all Tasmanians. On that basis the bill condemns itself as unsafe and deserves to be rejected as such.
The member for Franklin, Mr McKim, talks of the will of the people and worries why it is that parliaments do not dovetail more easily into the will of the people. That is an argument that can be self-serving because there are many things that he believes in that the great majority of people in Tasmania do not believe in, and that would sink his argument in all of those cases. For all that, I accept that he and others have done polling but, as I will get to shortly, there is this whole question of autonomy. If you ask any walking, talking human being if they want control over their own body their first answer is, 'Yes, of course I do'. Regardless of what question is asked and what answer is given, it is not for us in this place to be driven only by popular demand outside. I have said this before when I was at Agfest and not long after I was elected - and there were a few others in this place who were there at the same time - after the appalling tragedy in Tasmania's history where 30-odd people were killed at Port Arthur, a number of people came up to us at our Liberal stand, and Labor had the same issue, demanding that we bring in capital punishment in Tasmania. 'We should have capital punishment.' 'We should have the death penalty in Tasmania.' Was there ever any question in this House that we would bring that in? No, there was not, but the prevailing thought for at least six months in Tasmania was that capital punishment was a very good thing but we were not driven by the view there.
As we are speaking here as individuals and not connected to any party, I want to address the matter of religion. People write to me and say, 'Could you just put aside your religious beliefs for the sake of the argument?' It is not beyond me to set aside my religious beliefs to test my religious thinking against secular thinking, which I often do. What I perceive in this debate from the people who write to me is that they are saying, 'Put aside your religion because, while we respect the right that you have to your religion, we actually prefer ours, the religion of secular humanism which says that we are autonomous, we can control our own bodies, we should decide on these matters, so just set yours aside and take ours instead'. I choose not to set aside my faith and neither will the huge numbers of Christians in Tasmania, those who still identify with the Christian faith, many of whom would agree with me. There are some Christians who do not agree with me, there is no question about that, but many of them agree with me that there are very few options in legislation such as this. We believe that God provides life and life therefore has a special sanctity and to take it or offer to take it is forbidden.
Let us look at some of the key concepts now of the argument of euthanasia. The central one is this issue of autonomy for all versus the obligated citizen. Autonomy is a seductive proposition where every human being should be able to have charge of his or her own destiny from a day-to-day point of view. The opposite is very unattractive, where the State would seek to overly control matters of physical treatment and that is clearly not attractive to anyone. All legislators, however, understand that where a person seeks to manage their own affairs to a point where they want to take their own life then it is the duty of the State to prevent that, even the planning for it. We spend millions on suicide prevention programs around Tasmania to do just that.
At this point I could quote from the Bible but I choose to quote from a secular source. I would recommend to the House the writings of Ann Manne, an Australian writer and social commentator who has written widely on feminism, motherhood, child care and family policy. She is widely published in Australia. On the question of autonomy of individuals in Australian society she has written of our current society as having two very different moral values - autonomy and obligation.
Mr SPEAKER - The member has 15 minutes, so I -
Mr HIDDING - Mr Speaker, I had indicated I was going a little longer, and we have others to speak. We will manage it all within the time frame.
She describes it like this:
'The clash between the idea of a sovereign, autonomous self, which is expressive of the individual's rights to freedom, choice and self-determination, versus an ideal of an obligated self, which emphasises interdependence, connectedness and limits to freedom where actions are constrained by the consequences for others.'
So that is where we are in this House today, and that is where people who grapple with this euthanasia issue find themselves on one or two, or with a foot on each of those moral positions, trying to figure out which stone to stand on.
Sanctity of life of course is a well-argued proposition, and so is the slippery slope, and while the previous speaker said that there is evidence that there is no possibility of a slippery slope occurring in Oregon, it certainly exists in all other jurisdictions where there is current discussion where advanced Alzheimer's may well be now seen as a disease whereby euthanasia can be indicated. That was something that five years ago was unheard of, and of course now is up for discussion. I also understand that some of those debates have taken place in Oregon, but I have not been there like the previous speaker has, so I am not going to take him on on those matters.
There are also issues about the use or misuse of the word 'dignity'. The proposition is that if somebody takes your life or assists you to take your life, that is somehow dignified. There are many Tasmanians and Australians who believe there is something inherently undignified about that indeed. There was a survey of physicians done in Oregon - I received that just this morning from someone - which was interesting. These physicians gave the reasons for people wanting to end their lives who did end their lives: loss of autonomy, 89 per cent; loss of activity or the ability to do things was 86 per cent, so obviously they ticked a few boxes; loss of dignity was a big one - so dignity is a key word in this whole debate, clearly - and loss of bodily functions, was 58 per cent, which is very high; and not wanting to be a burden on the family was 39 per cent. It is very worrying that those last two matters that should be easily managed are such key matters.
During that 1997-98 debate the telling point was when a leading bioethicist was asked by a Greens member, coincidentally - a very good member, Di Hollister - 'What would you have me say to my educated, articulate and organised friends who want to arrange for themselves assisted suicide at the end of their lives?' This bioethicist said, 'I would ask them to have a care for those less educated, less articulate, less organised and the vulnerable in society who will be put at risk as a result of us having to change the laws for those friends.'
Mr McKim - There's no evidence to back that up at all.
Mr HIDDING - When that whole concept was teased out, the world changed as far as that inquiry took place.
In summary, Mr Speaker, and for the record, I am truncating my contribution substantially as others will be around this House, and that is another unfortunate thing that has come about because a debate like this deserves substantial time.
Mr McKim - Hear, hear.
Mr HIDDING - But given the other debate and discussions -
Mr McKim - I've done the best I could.
Mr HIDDING - Yes, indeed. We tried to build in another week of sitting.
In summary, I believe the moral basis for this bill is bad. It seeks to set aside the charge of murder, the most heinous criminal act in our society. Therefore it is likely to be the most serious bill we will ever have in our political lives. Euthanasia has been discredited as unnecessary by most of the free world's parliaments. This bill has no strong demonstrated public need. It is being pushed by people who are afraid of the dying process, who I believe should take more time to understand the palliative care options and to understand how committed palliative care doctors are in alleviating pain and how angry they get when they hear of these sustained pain situations with a small number of patients. They tell me they firmly believe that it is completely unnecessary and it is bad management if that is taking place.
This latest euthanasia proposal is no different from all the others. It proposes special rules for the educated, articulate and in control individual and sets aside the inherent threats to the less educated, less articulate, and less in control persons in our community who can only be described as in a weak and vulnerable position as a result of their sickness. I call on members of the House to reject this bill.
Relationships Bill - Co-Motheringtag:www.renehiddingmp.com,2009:/speeches//6.1472009-08-18T08:33:16Z2009-08-19T08:38:04ZMr HIDDING (Lyons) - Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Tasmanian Liberals for granting a conscience vote on this matter. It was a conscience vote granted by the then leader in 2003 and so therefore it is...Renewww.renehiddingmp.com
Mr HIDDING (Lyons) - Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Tasmanian Liberals for granting a conscience vote on this matter. It was a conscience vote granted by the then leader in 2003 and so therefore it is appropriate that it be so again; indeed, our rules are basically that
if one person wants a conscience vote that is what the situation will be.
I was somewhat critical of the Labor Party's not having a conscience vote back then so I will restate my position that I think there should have been a conscience vote if anybody had required one, and I am surprised that no-one required one if that is the case. The rules of the Labor Party, as I understand them, are that if you want a conscience vote you can have one; no-one has asked for one so certainly in my electorate it will be of interest that the three Labor members for Lyons in this House stand with the Government on this legislation.
I took a firm position against the Relationships Bill in 2003 because it contained outcomes such as the proposal before us today. That was excluded from the bill back in 2003 as a result of the upper House baulking at the bill in its entirety so the conclusive presumption of
parenthood for same sex women was removed from the bill. In any event, I voted against the bill because I was still against, for a number of reasons, the conclusive presumption of parenthood even for a heterosexual couple. Looking back at my speech, I did not get to develop my argument very much. It was a fairly tragic delivery of a speech because I was being berated in a most disgraceful way by the then Attorney-General and the promoter of that bill at the time.
Mr McKim - Surely not!
Mr HIDDING - Sorry?
Mr McKim - I was being sarcastic.
Mr HIDDING - It was a conscience vote so then everybody agreed to do it in good spirit but really I could hardly get a word out. Thank heavens we have a better arrangement in the House these days, not that that is a reflection on her; she felt strongly about it at the time and I feel
strongly about things too. Back then, incidentally, there were only three members who voted against the second reading and I think there was another member who voted against it on the third reading because it contained that conclusion of presumptive parenthood, but that matter is before us today.
The bill back then created a situation where a person could be presumed to be a parent even when it was not true. A man, if in a significant relationship at the time of conception by his partner with donor sperm, can become the father even if he is not. An adoptive father can look
after a child from birth to adulthood and acts as a father to that young person for the rest of that person's life, but he cannot get on the birth certificate in spite of the fact that he spent his entire life with that child and the child spent his entire life with him and he has done a great job in bringing up the child. Even at the age of 80 he cannot say that he has been a loving father of that person all his or her life and he would like to be on that person's birth certificate as the father because of the great job he has done because it is not possible at law. Yet the
situation today is that a male partner of 29 days standing in a registered, significant relationship can give permission to his partner to undergo IVF with donated sperm and be deemed by the State of Tasmania to be the parent for the rest of that child's life. On the basic document of identity that person is the father even though he is not and my concern is that we are using serious and basic documents of identity in a way that is dishonest.
I believed at the time that that was wrong but it has gone through and it is now law and, as always, the sky has not fallen in but there was a situation created back then which, of itself, created a discrimination. I knew then that at some stage there would be another bill coming forward to address that discrimination and that is where we are today.
The matter of marriage has been raised by the previous speaker and is clearly a matter that is very dear to his heart on the basis of discrimination - that same-sex marriage is a position of the State Labor Party, that it is binding on the State PLP because it was a decision of
their State council. The institution of marriage is something that most people in my electorate see as being what the official designation of that institution says it is, and anything else is sheer sophistry. I believe that my electors want me to stand firm against the corruption of the
institution of marriage, because to pretend it is something other than what it is is simply a corruption of a long-held - in fact, a constitutionally-held - truth of what something is, and he would seek to simply change it.
Mr McKim - It's not constitutionally held that marriage is between a man and a woman, it is legislatively held.
Mr HIDDING - Section 51?
Mr McKim - Yes. Section 51 just says that marriage is a concurrent power.
Mr HIDDING - Yes, it does, and it is legislatively held that it is between a man and a woman - that is right, I am sorry. But I maintain that, for as long as those laws have been in place, people believe them to be what they have generally been, which is a union between a man and a woman.
I believe my electorate wants me to stand firm against the corruption of the meaning of the institution of marriage, just as they want me to do with the institution of parenthood. I believe the institution of parenthood in most people's minds is a clear concept. Marriage is a state
entered into by a man and a woman, as it is understood under Federal law, and if there needs to be something for same-sex partners there can be, but I believe it cannot be marriage. It can be something, but not marriage, so call it something else.
I believe there is a moral patent on the institution and the word 'marriage' that it actually belongs to a man and a woman. It is discriminatory, but that is not to say that every discrimination in the world is wrong, some are appropriate discriminations, and that is where we
will beg to differ. Therefore in talking about corruption of meanings, the institution of parenthood in its usual meaning is that genetic material of a man plus the genetic material of a woman equals a mother and a father. This bill proposes, just like the previous one did, to corrupt
the birth certificate, which is the fundamental bureaucratic unit of someone's identity. It gets corrupted by this bill by stating an absolute flat untruth. The policy here is called 'conclusive presumption of parenthood' and it requires words like that because, again, it is sophistry. It says, someone is a parent when he is not. It is proposed after this legislation that a woman becomes a parent even if she is not.
Ms Giddings - But that is what happens with men right now.
Mr HIDDING - Yes, that is what I just said. The current situation corrupts the meaning of a parent for a male partner who has taken the actions for that to occur. The bill before us proposes to allow the corruption of the meaning of parenthood and of mother as well. I think it
is a very grave error to be playing around with the fundamental documents of identity. Currently, the man in question is not the father. He may be something but he is not the dad. He could be called something else but he should not be called the father on the birth certificate.
So that is the current situation since 2003. Now it is proposed that we go to the next logical step where all this sophistry takes us. We close the loop of corruption of the institution of parenthood. We are now being asked to allow a birth certificate to provide for two women to be co-mothers because it is discriminatory to not do so. With the current situation it is still a corruption of the truth, he is not the father at all, but at least it could be argued that he could be. But in the newest proposal it is genetically impossible for a child to have two mothers. So
not only is a 29-day female partner declared to be the child's parent, when it is not true, she is declared to be the mother when she did nothing, and could not have, and when she is not the child's real mother.
This is simple stuff for me. The institutions of marriage and parenthood are the building blocks of the family and the family is the cornerstone of society. That traditionally gets derided as a simple Christian view of a white-picket-fence ideal and therefore in 2009 is an inappropriate ideal to be held. I have steadfastly refused to be treated as though my faith and my commitment to strong values-based representation in this place gives me some sort of impediment to clear thinking. So let me be clear. This final iteration of the corruption of a birth certificate can lead to a number of strange matters. It can lead to other discrimination which
apparently is not being considered here. It just simply increases the discrimination. There are adoption laws and circumstances in this State which preclude a woman from applying to be an adoptive mother of a child after a certain age. They simply say you are too old and you cannot do it. I know that to be the case because I know a number of young couples who are desperate for adoption from overseas or within Australia, though mostly from overseas these days because we have an open adoption process. You try to get on the adoption ticket when you are around 40 but you simply cannot. You are seen as too old. But this, after this legislation
goes through, brings about a situation where, let us say, a 40-year old woman chooses to have IVF from donor sperm and her - let us pick a figure, and I am being ageist - 60-year old partner of 29 days gives consent and does the right things and becomes, from the term of that child's life, a mother of that child. It is not possible in the adoption laws of this State but it is entirely possible under the Relationships Act in Tasmania. So there is a discrimination that is created immediately.
I am not holding this out as any shocking outcome necessarily because, after all, there are a lot of old men around who father children very late in life. This is not a commentary on that. What I am trying to point out, clumsily, is that the removal of the discrimination is just going to open up more and more discrimination. I suppose it is so that as legislators we continually try to work through them to remove as many as we can. There are those of us, and there are many in the community, who believe that certain discriminations are appropriate and that we should not go there.
I believe that this bill is pro-adult and anti-child. I see it as a dereliction of my duty as a legislator to provide for a system where, all things being equal, a reasonable expectation of Tasmanian children is that they could grow up with a mother and a father or, if not, that the
official documentation as to their identity at least does not tell lies. That is my position and I will vote against this bill, as I did in 2003.
I understand the motivation of the Attorney-General in bringing this forward. It is always good to keep a weather eye on discriminations and try to deal with them if we can. I believed that the conclusive presumption of parenthood for males was wrong and false, a corruption of the institution of parenthood and an unnecessary one as well, so therefore logically I must be as much against the notion of a same-sex couple being presumed to be co-mothers of a child. I believe the bill is pro-adult and anti-child. Children are a much weaker and vulnerable cohort in our society and on this occasion I choose to vote in their interests.
Abolishment of DEPHA speechtag:www.renehiddingmp.com,2009:/speeches//6.1072009-06-10T00:10:29Z2009-08-18T05:37:22ZMr HIDDING (Lyons) - Mr Speaker, the State Opposition is of a mind to support the Greens' motion. The language of the motion is appropriate. It calls into question the motivations and actions in collapsing a department in a fashion...Renewww.renehiddingmp.com
Mr HIDDING (Lyons) - Mr Speaker, the State Opposition is of a mind to support the Greens' motion. The language of the motion is appropriate. It calls into question the motivations and actions in collapsing a department in a fashion and with outcomes that we have expressed concern about.
Dr Crossley's report into Parks ought to be considered by all members of this Parliament. I will, however, place on the record that I will distance myself from some, but not all, of the remarks made by the member for Denison, Ms O'Connor, particularly those more vitriolic ones that relate to Gunns, Forestry Tasmania and trees. It does appear that she needs to get this out of her system -
Ms O'Connor - It's all part of the one story, Mr Hidding.
Mr HIDDING - before she can settle down and get to the subject matter of the motion. For all that, those views are strongly held and she is welcome to express them, but I would not want anybody reading our support for this motion believing for a minute that we give any support to the hyperbole that prefaced the principal part of the discussion.
We were completely surprised by the Government's move on this department. It was on the record by the Premier of the day that they would not know about the State's fiscal constraints until Wayne Swan tabled his Budget, but the Premier did not wait for that. Before that he decided to take the knife in some strange way, in some capricious act, something that his office has become famous for, an eleventh-floor brainstorm, cooked up by the geniuses of the Government who sat around and said, 'Let's get the big nulla-nulla out and knock this department clean out', in spite of the fact that they had a Labor mate running the place, who was a Labor-mate appointment to the head of that agency, and in spite of the fact that they had to do some fast footwork to offset the internal political pain that might come from that.
I can inform the House that the State Opposition has not and will never give up on the very nasty matter of the Scott Gadd affair and the contract, because the Tasmanian people got this immediately. They understood that this was just another example of a government that has not changed its spots a bit since the day it was elected and chose to institute throughout all levels of government a culture of fear and cronyism that, sadly, the Tasmanian people have come to expect from them. They were not that surprised about this Scott Gadd matter. People said to us wherever we went, 'We weren't surprised at that. We're horrified and disgusted, but we weren't surprised'. This was the latest example of feather-bedding and of dodgy answers to the Parliament of Tasmania, the people's House, when we asked the direct question, 'What were the circumstances that led up to this absolute scramble to give someone a five-year contract when he didn't have a job?' The people of Tasmania know what took place. We suspect that we know what took place.
Having gone through ridiculous lengths in this House - almost having to get out the waterboarding techniques of Guantanamo Bay - we have now extracted an admission from this Government that there had been discussions well before Scott Gadd signed his contract. Therefore this Government stands condemned for more of the same. Tasmanians are not accepting it and we will not accept it and we will go on with that.
Just to show that there was capricious action taken that day without any thought of what was going on - the Premier was not carrying talking points around, he did not have a set of facts in his pocket, he was too busy belting up the Leader of the Tasmanian Greens who announced something that he wanted to announce the next day. That is all that was about. He resorted to crude language he was so furious with him, but instead of setting that aside and addressing the truth about what was taking place, he went on ABC Radio and said that this would save tens of millions of dollars - 'and that's why we've got to do it'. I heard him; I was at Port Sorell at the time at a meeting. I was then asked on radio about my view, and I said, 'This is not about tens of millions of dollars, this is about wholesale sackings of people, and if it is about wholesale sackings we should know about it'. He basically agreed; he said, 'Yes, it is about wholesale sackings', but then it was not. Here is this capricious nature. They choose to do something; they announce something, then clearly something happens behind the scenes with the secretary of the department and others. Something happens in Cabinet that we cannot know about where the minister becomes aware that she no longer has a department. Here is a premier flailing around publicly claiming this is going to save tens of millions of dollars when it was going to save only $2.1 million. Tens of millions of dollars by definition is a minimum of $20 million, so from a saving of $20 million we have gone down to $2 million. That is an astonishing lapse of understanding of what he was actually up to. The Premier of this State went from $20 million to $2 million overnight. He did not know whether it was $20 million, he did not even know it was going to be $2 million, but he was out there saying it and doing it anyway. That is something that the Tasmanian people see with great horror - a government making capricious decisions on matters where it simply has no understanding of what it is up to.
It reminds me very much of the same capricious, frankly immature and childish behaviour of the Premier at the time when he made the phone call to a former police commissioner of this State and said, 'Guess what, we're going to make you commissioner again'. An act of genius. There was the Premier making a phone call to this individual, after long career in the public service as a Tasmanian born commissioner of this State, and this person gets phoned and told, 'You are the new commissioner'. He is in his office presumably measuring out where his new desk is going to go and testing whether the curtains are still all right. Then his mobile phone rings and he gets the magic phone call, 'You are the shortest serving police commissioner in the history of the world. You are no longer'. Oops. What a way for a government to operate, this eleventh floor genius that Tasmania has been subjected to.
So there we are. With no discussion at all, Environment again comes under a department that has the Resources department within it. In spite of the fact that some of my conservation movement detractors have somewhat laughingly called me 'chainsaw Hidding' in the past, though I have a long history - probably not as long as Mr Llewellyn - with the forest industry, it was the State Liberals that stood in this place and said that responsibility for the forest practices board should not be under the same minister as the minister responsible for forests. That came from us, because we were out there selling all the benefits of a sustainable forest industry, but the administrative arrangements of where things fit just did not look good, and in fact they were not. If they do not look good then they are not good; they have to look good as well as be good. You cannot open yourself up to that kind of criticism.
Mr Llewellyn - Forestry Tasmania is now independent, Rene; it wasn't originally.
Mr HIDDING - I know that, but when it was not independent and it was under the same minister as the minister responsible for forests, it was not a good look. When I said that in here you looked at me as if I was crazy. It made sense then -
Mr Llewellyn - I don't think it ever was. When was it like that?
Mr HIDDING - Trust me, because I used to put this together at the Estimates.
Mr Llewellyn - The Liberal Government you're talking about?
Mr HIDDING - No, in the Estimates arrangements the minister responsible for the forest practices board was also the minister responsible for forestry. That is what I am talking about.
Mr Llewellyn - And still is.
Mr HIDDING - And that is wrong. It should not be.
Ms O'Connor - He should not be the minister for threatened species or reserves either.
Mr HIDDING - So there is the issue. There are already three existing conditions that ought to be considered for how they appear to the rest of the world. Then you bring Environment back under the same minister -
Ms O'Byrne - It is not. We have never said that.
Mr HIDDING - Well, sorry, you are right, you bring them under the same agency with the same secretary for a department that also is the secretary for Environment - as you do for the resource industry. That to the rest of the world makes Tasmania look dodgy. I hate Tasmania looking dodgy. I am sick of Tasmania looking dodgy when we are not. If Tasmania looks dodgy because we are, basically because of the government we have, then I have got to wear that.
Mr Llewellyn - Primary industries; are you calling that a resource industry in that sense?
Mr HIDDING - Yes.
Mr Llewellyn - Because that is the only one. It is not mining or forestry or any of the other ones.
Mr HIDDING - Primary industry, for instance, is responsible for matters such as aerial spraying and -
Ms O'Connor - Land clearing.
Mr HIDDING - land clearing, all of which are intrinsically also matters for the Environment department, and they have the same secretary and in spite of the fact they have different ministers. I can understand how you are going to make it work, but do you understand what the rest of the world says when it looks at Tasmania and sees this? It just looks dodgy. If, for instance, after a long review and to save a decent amount of money you bought to us a proposition to say that in all the circumstances we think this is the best way forward for administrative arrangements for this Government now, then we would have a look at it and would probably support it, but you did not. A capricious act from the eleventh floor, overnight, is going to save tens of millions. But no, it is only going to save $2 million, so something else is going on. What certainly was not in your mind was how this looks to the rest of the world. That was the last thing on your mind.
Minister O'Byrne is about to get to her feet and defend the indefensible. She knows where she would want her department to be - nowhere near Primary Industries. We are happy to support this motion.
High Visibilty police vehicles motiontag:www.renehiddingmp.com,2009:/speeches//6.1092009-03-11T00:19:48Z2009-08-07T00:23:50ZMr HIDDING (Lyons - Motion) - Mr Speaker, I move - That the House (1) Supports the policy position of the Tasmanian Liberals that all front-line police vehicles in the Tasmanian Police Service should feature high visibility markings to increase...Renewww.renehiddingmp.com
Mr HIDDING (Lyons - Motion) - Mr Speaker, I move -
That the House
(1) Supports the policy position of the Tasmanian Liberals that all front-line police vehicles in the Tasmanian Police Service should feature high visibility markings to increase the visible police deterrent on the main roads and highways throughout the State.
(a) the widespread support for the Tasmanian Liberals' policy which is based on published, expert research from the British Home Office Scientific Development Branch and that high conspicuity markings are used by police throughout Europe, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand because the safety of police and the public is increased and it maximises the level of reassurance to the public; and
(b) the continuing flat refusal of the Minister for Police and Emergency Management, Hon. Jim Cox, to recognise the importance of high visibility markings for police and his statement to the Parliament that interstate highways are longer than Tasmanian highways and is therefore the reason why no need exists to raise the profile of the current police fleet.
Mr Speaker, in the ongoing battle between police and bad drivers in Tasmania, we believe that the drivers are clearly winning. They currently have little fear of detection and behave accordingly on Tasmanian roads. What we need in Tasmania is a muscled-up approach to highway policing that clearly serves notice that Tasmania Police, supported by the Government, are determined to win this battle.
Just over 70 per cent of the operational Tasmanian police vehicle fleet are fitted with police lights and/or markings; however current vehicle markings and vehicle colours do not sufficiently distinguish them from other special-use vehicles used by such agencies as Customs, transport inspectors, the State Emergency Services and private security firms. In fact they are indistinguishable from a whole range of motor cars on the road. Police vehicles are not easily recognisable from a reasonable distance or in poor light. This low level of visibility increases the potential for accidents and has consequences both for officers and for the travelling public. It would appear that the main colour of choice for the police fleet is either dusty dark blue or a nice shade of grey which allows them to fade completely into the background of the general driving public.
The Government regularly trumpets that, due to the efforts of Tasmania Police, Tasmania is the safest State in the nation, a result which is based upon feeling safe in the home or on foot in the neighbourhood. What is not asked of Tasmanians is if they feel safe on the roads. Just last weekend, a long weekend, I drove down on the Monday from Launceston to Hobart. I can say confidently that, other than a country copper's vehicle in Campbell Town, I saw no police car between Launceston and Hobart. I put this to the minister and the police commissioner before, and they say there are plenty of them on the roads. I am happy to accept that, but that substantiates our argument that these vehicles are so insignificant that you cannot see them. So they might just as well have no paint, no stripes and no lights on them and therefore become unmarked cars. Minister Cox has said on the record that he thinks current police vehicle markings are adequate.
When queried in parliamentary Estimates as to why other States have high-visibility patrol cars and not Tasmania, Mr Cox said, amongst other things, that they have much longer highways and greater volumes of traffic. So what then of the Netherlands, half the size of Tasmania, which has high-visibility markings on its police vehicles, or Sweden or New Zealand or most other countries in the free world or States of Australia? The minister has also said that the Tasmanian Ambulance Service has adopted a high-visibility marking scheme because, quote, 'They require high visibility to go through traffic. They want a higher presence; it is a different thing'. So what he is saying is that police do not need visibility to go through traffic, and they do not need a higher presence. These comments by the minister clearly reflect his complete misunderstanding of the reason high-visibility marking schemes are used not just by police but also by emergency services across the world.
The policy principle that underpins the high-visibility marking scheme is to improve the conspicuity - a word that is a little unusual but in this circumstance works beautifully - or ability to be seen and recognised of the vehicles in such a way as to promote greater safety on our roads and enhance the image of the Tasmanian police service. There are 356 patrol cars in the Tasmania Police fleet used for operational policing; 252 of those vehicles, or 71 per cent, are fitted with police lights and/or markings.
In 2006 the markings were updated in an attempt to increase and enhance the visibility of the vehicles. Clearly somebody at that stage thought that it in fact was important, at least to a degree. The current marking scheme utilises strips of a small blue checked pattern on a white reflective background that is placed on the side and rear of the vehicle. The word 'POLICE' in blue lettering on the white reflective background is placed on the main panels of the vehicle - that is, the rear side doors and bonnet. The vehicle markings on police vehicles and the colour of the vehicles does not sufficiently distinguish them from other road users as well as from other emergency services and private security firms. This means that police vehicles are not instantly recognisable as such because markings do not sufficiently distinguish the vehicles from others using a marking system.
The Government says its approach to road safety in respect to policing activity is the delivery of high-visibility and targeted traffic policing to improve driver behaviour. That is what the business plan says. It is what the police department documents actually say. Those words, 'high visibility', are a direct lift from police documents. One of the main strategies used by police in this respect is the use of enforcement operations that combine high visibility and targeted enforcement with covert activities that can occur anytime, anywhere. That is what we have been saying, that police cameras and operators hiding behind trees is one form of policing, but the other form of policing to balance that is the overt, instead of the covert, high-visibility policing, which their documents say that they want to do. But their minister is saying that they and he do not want them to raise the visibility of their vehicles.
Available statistics, however, provided by the Government tell a very different story and raise serious questions about the activity and deployment of traffic enforcement resources. For example, the Midland Highway - one of the busiest highways in the State - carries an estimated average between 3 000 and 6 000 vehicles per day. According to government statistics 2 867 vehicles were intercepted by police in nine high-visibility operations conducted on the Midland Highway during the first six months of 2008, yet police say they intercepted 204 000 vehicles across the State for the same period. So why is it that so few - just over 1 per cent of vehicle interceptions - are being done on one of the busiest highways on the State, a highway which also has an appalling record of fatal and serious crashes?
In addition, according to the minister, high-visibility patrols occur on almost a daily basis on various sections of the Midland Highway by country traffic and divisional personnel. In the absence of reported stats that support this claim it is difficult to judge the performance level of traffic enforcement in these patrols. This is a point made by the Ombudsman, who said that the measure of total patrol hours ought to be better reported. From anecdotal evidence there is a serious community concern about the apparent absence of police on the major highways and roads performing dedicated traffic patrols. We started this campaign for conspicuous policing last year when I said publicly before Easter that we were receiving then a high level of complaints that there was no police presence on the road and that we would appreciate feedback from Tasmanians as to how many police were on the roads over Easter. We got a torrent of feedback. People travelled around, up and down the east coast, up and down the Midland Highway, up and down the north-west coast and phoned in and said, 'I have just come back and have seen no police cars'.
We were told afterwards that there were plenty of police cars on the road. That is our point exactly - they are there but nobody sees them, so the deterrent factor is not there. It is like the Hobart Police Station saying at any given day there are 49 police officers on the beat in the CBD of Hobart but they are not wearing uniforms so you cannot see them. We just have to take their word for it. There was a brawl here and a fight there - where were the police officers? Nobody saw them so there was no deterrence factor.
There are several key indicators that demonstrate the failure of this Government in its approach to the key area of road safety and traffic enforcement. The fatality rate in Tasmania continues to be one of the worst in the nation, but these statistics are not used by the Government, who prefer to use a different counting methodology to sell their message, saying instead that police law enforcement activities are producing a reduction in serious injuries and fatalities. The high rate of traffic offences being committed, notably speeding offences, indicates current strategies to reduce this offence are not working. During the last five years the number of drivers caught speeding continues to increase. Since 2002-03, more than 20 000 extra infringement notices have been issued. Further, there has been a dramatic increase across the State in the number if disqualified drivers continuing to drive. Statewide there has been a 70 per cent increase in the previous 12 months of drivers being charged by police. These figures are concerning because they demonstrate the very real perception by drivers that the likelihood of detection is low, which then reinforces the behaviour of repeated offending. Coupled with the increased rate of speeding offences, this strongly indicates a policy failure by this Government to deliver high-visibility and targeted traffic policing that increases community perception of the likelihood of being detected.
The Tasmanian Liberals have released a plan to address the matter of Tasmanians feeling safe on our roads. To improve the State road safety outcomes - namely, crash statistics and to reduce traffic offences - a Hodgman Liberal government will immediately establish a highway patrol unit that services the main highways and roads within the State and upgrade all operational vehicles in the Tasmania Police vehicle fleet with a high-visibility marking scheme. The goal of this policy initiative will be to have a highly visible police presence on the State's main roads and highways that really is highly visible, just like every other State in Australia. It is a policy that is firmly grounded in rational science. The Premier of Tasmania wants to be a data-driven and evidence-based Premier that is connected with the Tasmanian people. We see no evidence of that in him continuing to reject a program for high-visibility policing.
Our research uses research from the ACT Ambulance Service, which informed the Tasmanian Ambulance Service's decision to upgrade their vehicle markings. We have also used work done by the United Kingdom's Home Office Police Scientific Development Branch which developed a marking scheme along proven ergonomic principles to achieve superior conspicuity performance. The laboratory and field trials conducted in the process found that the older purpose marking scheme, whilst not identical but similar to that currently in use, rendered the vehicles 'not easily recognisable as a police vehicle.' This research, Minister, should alarm you and your Tasmanian police service. The United Kingdom and New Zealand have adopted the vehicle-marking system called the 'Battenburg check', which uses alternating blocks of contrasting colours of blue and yellow because these colours are detected significantly earlier by other drivers because of the contrast with colours in nature and almost every type of urban and rural background. Fluoro colours are also shown to outperform traditional colours in all weather and reduced light conditions and are more easily detected by those who are colourblind or have an age-related deterioration of vision.
In the development of a highway patrol unit it would not be necessary to have extra high-performance vehicles because modern vehicles have the necessary performance power. I add that comment because a former police commissioner said these vehicles are too expensive because they have special engines and brakes so therefore when you sell them you take a big hit on them. We are not proposing here higher performance vehicles than the police already have. What we simply are talking about is completely different markings, which are essentially stick-on markings that come off a white vehicle afterwards leaving a pristine white vehicle for sale at the auctions to achieve full price. So there is no cost issue here at all.
Therefore, Minister, when you claim repeatedly that the vehicle-marking scheme in use by our police currently is highly visible, on what tested basis are your claims based? You need to tell this Parliament why the current grey and blue vehicles with dabs of blue and white check around them is appropriate policing, despite the studies done around the world and the fact that almost every police service in the free world does not agree with you or your police service on this matter. You stand alone on this and it is a dangerous position you are taking. The minister should need no reminding that the stated benefits of this policy reflect the core principles and strategic claims of his department's key service delivery areas. The most important outcome of adopting this type of vehicle marking system is a greater recognition of the vehicles, as police cars can be seen up to 500 metres in normal daylight. This maximises the presence of police and their ability to operate safely and effectively in preventing and detecting crime.
The benefits of this policy initiative are to provide the Tasmanian motorist a greater sense of safety while driving on the State's roads and highways due to there being a more visible and actual police presence. This presence would also operate as a much-needed deterrent to those driving behaviours likely to either break the law and/or cause crashes, particularly fatal crashes.
In respect of speed reduction, high visibility approaches are one of the key high-impact strategies recommended by the National Road Safety Action Plan 2009-10. Minister, do you not subscribe to the National Road Safety Action Plan? You must. It tells you that you need to upgrade the conspicuity, the high visibility, of your vehicles and you will not do it.
What this research tells you, Minister, is that while your speed cameras have an effect on speed reduction they have no effect whatsoever on aggressive drivers, on ridiculous overtaking manoeuvres, on people drifting across the white line because they are half asleep or dozy or dopey or simply behaving in an inattentive fashion. You get drivers driving at 80 or 90 kph with a phone up against their ear and people wondering what is going on until they pass them and see they are chatting on the telephone. Covert policing will do nothing about that but a good number of high-visibility police cars out there that you can see from 500 metres will attack that form of poor driving. In private discussions with police officers for the last 12 months now, there is no-one that I can find in road safety who disagrees with the fact that we need a higher visibility for our police vehicles.
That tells me that this is political, that this minister having been questioned about it at Estimates does not want to change his mind because it would be seen as a backdown. This Labor Government is prepared to play with the road safety toll and the crash toll in Tasmania, flying in the face of evidence from around the world that the police markings in Tasmania are insufficient and not up to a national standard, let alone an international standard, to meet the requirements of research on conspicuity. It is ridiculous that all their stated documents, talk about the performance measure of feeling safe in Tasmania but they do not question whether they feel safe on the roads, and their operational statistics and their operational statements, call for a high visibility level of policing.
Yet somehow this minister appears to be holding back the department from doing exactly what their business plan calls for them to do. We will be fascinated to hear the minister place on the record of this House why the Bartlett Labor Government wants to stand alone from the rest of the world and the rest of Australia by putting blue and grey vehicles on the road with minimum markings and to have the feedback from Tasmanian people that no-one sees police officers on the road.
How that could be sustainable as a policy position by this Government is astonishing to us and I will ensure that the Road Safety Task Force reads the contribution to this debate. I cannot imagine that the Road Safety Task Force, in spite of the fact that it is chaired by a Labor backbencher, will ignore the fact that the Government of the day is ignoring international research - not just anecdotal but hard evidence - that every police service in the free world has signed up to the science that says high conspicuity vehicles are an important part of policing. What on earth the Road Safety Task Force will say about that I do not know. They would have to have a view and they would -
Mr Morris - I think they were going to but then decided not to have a view.
Mr HIDDING - I would be astonished if that were the case. If that is where they want to place themselves, they place themselves in quite some jeopardy as a serious outfit.
The benefits of this policy initiative will be to provide for the Tasmanian motorist a greater sense of safety while driving on the State's roads and highways due to there being a more visible and actual police presence. This presence will also operate as a much-needed deterrent to those driving behaviours likely to break the law and/or cause crashes, particularly fatal crashes. In respect of speed reduction, the high-visibility approach is one of the key high-impact strategies recommended by the National Road Safety Action Plan, and I am putting that back on the record. In addition, this policy has the benefit of providing improved safety for the police officers in the vehicles, especially in the instances of providing assistance at crash sites on the highway.
This is another element that was not raised with us by the Police Association, but the research shows that it was raised by police services around the world in reviews of their conspicuity issues and it became an OH&S issue. On a dark night or at dusk, if you have to pull up a motor car or there is a bingle on the road and you have to park there, and you are in a dark blue office car with a little bit of blue braid down the side, you are in a dangerous situation. It has not escaped my attention that the Tasmanian Police Association lobbied for a number of years for high-visibility jackets. In a fanfare the police commissioner of the day announced that he had agreed and ordered the new jackets and when they arrived, guess what their colours were? They were dark blue with some yellow fluoro strips on them. What on earth would possess them to do that, when a road worker or any other worker wears a fluorescent jacket? Why would they give them a dark-blue jacket with some fluoro strips?
Mr Morris - Distinguished.
Mr HIDDING - Distinguished and dangerous I would have thought. But for whatever reason, the Police Association thought that they looked very dapper in these high-visibility dark-blue jackets with a few yellow stripes on them. That is a matter for them but it does indicate some sort of thinking in this police community that high visibility means something entirely different from what police services around the world apparently think.
The use of these vehicles is to increase the awareness amongst the public that police resources are out in the community and that would provide reassurance and a deterrent against crime. Establishing the highway patrol unit would be cost- and resource-neutral if it was drawn from the resources of the public order response team and traffic divisions. The cost of the marking schemes could be approximate to current costs - same material issues just different colours and markings would be used. The minister no doubt has seen that in Launceston and Hobart there used to be signwriters where white cars go in and come out later in the day with the most extraordinary commercial markings over the windows - buses, for instance, with their advertising all down the sides and over the windows. It is high visibility, selling a certain message. The message to be sold here is that this is a police car, it is out here to maintain law and order on the roads and to keep you safe. 'Put your telephone down and start paying attention.' That is the advertising message of these high-visibility police cars and for some reason this Government does not want to play.
Concern is growing that the State Labor Government will make cuts to front-line policing in an effort to plug holes in its ailing budget. Labor desperately needs to cut waste and to make savings but front-line police services should not be subject to these actions. Cuts to these services may mean immediate budget savings but the resulting increase in accidents on our roads would be borne by the community. Such cuts will in no way improve safety or reduce the real costs associated with road accidents and fatalities and, in any event, the Liberal policy that is embodied in this motion before the House, as being moderate in terms of politics but extremely tough and effective in low-cost good outcomes on the road toll. This is reflected in deaths, but we rarely see the huge number of traumatic medical outcomes, as well as death, that flow from these crashes on the road. I am aware of a couple of families whose lives have been changed; they are looking after a loved family member who is in just awful medical condition for the rest of their life. Thankfully in the enlightened society in which we live, with compulsory and no-fault third-party insurance and the MAIB, they are comfortable in terms of medical facilities but the strain on the families and on the persons involved is just appalling.
Anything we can do to reduce the appalling road toll ought to be of immediate interest to this minister. Why he has not grabbed this with both hands before, why he now has to stand and try to explain why lightly marked police cars are a good way to do good policing in Tasmania when no-one else in the free world thinks so, is beyond me. Why he feels that is the appropriate way to manage his portfolio of Police and his responsibility for road safety in Tasmania is beyond me, but perhaps we can learn from him what his magic solution will be if he wants to leave these vehicles in this manner.
Police - Workers compensation act from Hansardtag:www.renehiddingmp.com,2008:/speeches//6.1102008-11-12T01:24:36Z2009-08-07T00:27:01ZI am pleased to bring today a bill for an act to amend the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 to ensure that all Tasmanian police officers have more equitable access to workers compensation. Earlier this year the State Opposition...Renewww.renehiddingmp.com
I am pleased to bring today a bill for an act to amend the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 to ensure that all Tasmanian police officers have more equitable access to workers compensation. Earlier this year the State Opposition announced that it would be developing policy to address the fairer treatment of Tasmanians who are injured in the course of their employment.
In one particular area of Workers Compensation public policy it has long been argued that due to the nature of their employment, the restrictive step-down position in the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 should not apply to police officers injured in the course of their duties. A police officer pledges under the police officer oath or affirmation to preserve and prevent all offences against persons and properties in Tasmania and in carrying out this duty places his life on the line each and every day in a way unique compared to employment in other fields. As the oath of office provides and I quote:
'I' - name of the officer - 'swear that I will faithfully execute the office of police officer in Tasmania and to the best of my power without favour or affection, malice or ill-will will cause the police to be kept and preserved and prevent all offences against persons or properties in Tasmania and that, to the best of my ability, skill and knowledge, will discharge all the duties of a police officer according to the law so help me God'.
Yet, under the step-down provisions a police officer could be paid anything up to 30 per cent of their normal salary while they are injured, for instance, suffering a gunshot or knife wound while on duty. In the review of the Tasmanian workers compensation system, respected actuarial expert Alan Clayton commented on the controversial step-down arrangements. Mr Clayton states in page 60 of the report:
'The present arrangements do appear to have created particular concern in the policing environment. The uncertainty of risk in that environment together with the public benefit aspects of policing services means that difficulties and hardship resulting from the operation of the step-downs in this area are deserving of attention. It was pointed out to me that there are a range of allowances applicable to police officers that are lost in the step-down arrangements and this loss can result in significant financial hardship'.
The Police Association of Tasmania has long argued that police injured in the course of their duty should not be subjected to the step-down provisions of the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988. As the association president, Sergeant Randolph Wierenga - and he is interstate today otherwise he would be here - has said:
'Police need the confidence that they can go about their duty and not suffer unnecessary financial hardship. How can it be reasonable for a Government to expect commitment to duty by individual police officers when the commitment is not reciprocated by as simple a method as salary maintenance while injured on duty. Our members have a clear view that the current step-down is unjust and unfair in light of the nature of their work. It is time that the Government stopped avoiding this issue and provided reassurance to police officers that they deserve'.
It is unreasonable to restrict the ability of injured police officers to maintain their pre-injury salary in these circumstances. This bill therefore provides that a police officer who has taken the police officer oath or affirmation of the Tasmanian police service, which is a unique condition of employment, who is injured in the conduct of his or her duty arising out of or in the course of keeping and preserving the peace or preventing an offence against a person or property receive 100 per cent of their weekly salary during the period of incapacity. This bill will ensure that police can undertake their duties knowing that their unique employment status, requiring them even to be armed on duty, is properly reflected in State legislation. Despite talking the talk on providing a fair go for Tasmanian workers, the State Government continues to take a back-seat approach to an issue that many Tasmanians feel very strongly about. In contrast, the State Opposition has a fundamental commitment to ensuring that all Tasmanian police officers have a more equitable access to workers compensation.
I will add a little to my second reading speech by saying that we understand that this has been referred to the minister in the upper House, Ms Ritchie, who is responsible for workers compensation. Let me place on the record that I think it is somewhat of a cop-out that the Government has sent this off to the minister responsible for workplace safety standards because this is a uniquely police matter. It would not have hurt the Police minister to have taken this on and dealt with it, but he has chosen not to -
Mr Cox - No, no. I'll speak to it.
Mr HIDDING - You will speak to it, but you should have made the determination. I understand that Ms Ritchie has written to the Police Association and said this: that she is not aware of any government policies or procedures which would forbid or prohibit the Commissioner of Police from topping up the salary to take it up to 100 per cent. Well, if that is true, Minister, you should support this legislation.
Mr Michael Hodgman - Absolutely.
Mr HIDDING - There is simply no capacity in reasonable commonsense to say that if there is nothing to stop a police commissioner from topping up salaries arbitrarily without any laws or instructions or any body of power to do that - to tip money out of his budget into someone's salary to top it up because it has been reduced by another law - then that is clear evidence of a deficiency in the body of laws of this State, and this bill would fix that. I would love to know what the Auditor-General would think of a capacity for any agency head to simply top up people's step-down arrangements.
Is this just a police thing? If it is just a police thing, you are admitting that there is a special circumstance, and you should vote for the bill. If it is not - and the Minister for Infrastructure is shaking his head that it is not just a police thing - I expect we will hear in a moment that it is the Government's view that it is proper for any agency head to unilaterally top up somebody's salary step-down without any reference to any government policy or a body or head of power to do so. If that is the case, where is your legislation? Perhaps this is a window into the soul of the governance problem that this Government has.
I will leave my second reading contribution at that point and look forward to the Government explaining why they are going to vote for this legislation.