Mr FERGUSON (Bass) – I am glad to rise in support of the matter of public importance debate that has been raised by my colleague in Denison, Ms Archer. It is a very important and it is interesting to observe the responses from both Greens and Labor members. The minister tried to give a spirited defence for his own shortcomings, letting down the force and the Tasmanian community.

It was interesting that the Greens spokesman, Mr O’Halloran, and the speaker who has just resumed her seat were offering very nicely worded platitudes on individual issues and initiatives of serving police men and women. It is all very well and good but distracts from the real issue, which is what you are doing to the force. The minister should reflect on the fact that he was elected on a platform of seeing the number of police in our state increase by 30.

It is interesting that Mr O’Halloran, who is presumably the police spokesman for the Greens, was elected on a platform of employing not an extra 30 police but 100. He comes the day before the budget is due to be handed down and says he hopes funding will be able to be maintained.

I wonder if he has attempted to get that into the budget or if he has just left it to the day before to offer that verbal platitude. What a waste of time. This is a man, along with his other four colleagues, are apologists for the Labor Party. That is what is going on here. You promised this knowing that you would not deliver it and there was no intention to deliver it. There was a naked promise of 100 extra police and we are seeing 100 less. The irony is breathtaking. It is a real tragedy of what you are doing to the police service in our state and diminishing its capacity.

In media releases and today in the minster’s speech he ironically talks about Labor having steadily built police force numbers up over its now 14 years in office. That is interesting. Is the minister now saying today that they employed too many police while he is now cutting them down, that they did not really need them, that they were not needed? Is that what he is saying?

Is the minister saying that they should not have been employed? Or is it really the case that the Labor-Greens government has been trashing this budget, over spending funding that was permitted for it to spend by the parliament over the last five and six years to the tune of about $1 billion, spending the barn. David Bartlett famously said that we needed to “get the hay out of the barn” and that is just code for overspending. Then they burnt the barn. You burnt the barn; you have ruined it. You have diminished what the Tasmanian community can expect from its government. In this context you are reducing the service down by 100.

One of the elements of policing that has been a success has been raised by one of my constituents – a college student involved in the junior constable program. While time does not permit me to go into detail he says that while the Minister for Police is cancelling the junior constable program as it will not be resuming until police recruitment reopens, which will take a few more years, he is off to Victoria. That is the minister’s legacy.

David O’Byrne may wish the caravan has moved on, but it hasn’t – and he has serious questions to answer about his failures to properly administer the NBN4Business funding.

Today, David O’Byrne was unable to deny he and his department failed to conduct any risk assessment prior to splurging money on the Government’s NBN4Business program.

In his special report into the Tasmanian Education Foundation debacle in 2009, the Auditor General recommended a risk assessment should be carried out by the government prior to finalising any funding deed with the TCCI to promote education.*

Despite this recommendation, the government has again found itself in the same boat, with funding anomalies occurring – this time over $250,000 provided to promote the NBN and to support Tasmanian businesses getting access to the global digital economy.

It is time David O’Byrne started taking his responsibilities seriously to properly administer and monitor taxpayer funds to projects within his portfolio. Using melodramatic language won’t deflect attention from his own failure to protect taxpayers’ precious funds during a 13-month period of being warned by the Opposition.

* http://www.audit.tas.gov.au/publications/reports/specialreport/pdfs/specialreport84.pdf  

Last month David O’Byrne told parliament that stage one of the government’s NBN assistance package has been “fully and successfully delivered“.*
Today we find out nothing could be further from the truth.

The TCCI has done the right thing by handing back $130,000 of taxpayer funds provided for NBN4Business as a result of it voluntarily coming forward and addressing its accounting problems. Mr O’Byrne promised last year he would monitor and carefully manage the progress of the $1m NBN industry assistance package.

Not only has David O’Byrne misled parliament over the ‘success’ of the NBN4Business program, he has also clearly failed to meet his oversight obligations to assess the performance and progress of funds provided for NBN activities.

In estimates last year the Minister made a strong commitment to monitor the use of NBN industry assistance funds indicating meetings would be held ‘at least monthly, maybe fortnightly’ with recipients.

Instead David O’Byrne has shown himself to be totally disinterested and hands off.

Based on this Minister’s dismal performance we have less confidence than ever in the Green-Labor government’s ability to maximize the benefits of the NBN for Tasmanians – let alone capture Tasmania’s now-lost first mover advantage.

*Hansard Thursday 19th April 2012

Mr FERGUSON (Bass) – On 23 March this year the Launceston School for Seniors chairman, Mr Barry Lumley, wrote a letter to the Minister for Education and Skills to take certain steps to sustain the school into the future. In that letter Mr Lumley gave the minister the good news that enrolments on their March enrolment day for the first term of 2012 had reached 461 students, which included 103 new students. With further enrolments that occur during the term, they anticipate they may well reach the figure of 500, which would be a record. In fact, at the date of the letter Mr Lumley indicated that enrolments had climbed to 483. Mr Lumley writes:

Once again the question on everybody’s lips is whether we are still under the threat of losing the use of the High Street premises and will we be forced to relocate to a less-suitable venue?

Later in the letter Mr Lumley writes:

In your letter to me of 21 December 2011 you advised that ‘the School for Seniors is now the major tenant of the High Street complex, with the organisation representing more than 50 per cent of the usage.

Surely as a key stakeholder and in view of your statement that your department is committed to ongoing communication with us, you would agree that we should be included in the review process rather than be placed in a reactionary situation when the report is completed.

Minister, we respectfully request that you authorise your departmental officers to enter into a meaningful discussion with us as they seek to complete the review.

Later in the letter, Mr Lumley points out that in February the George Town council passed a motion of support as did the Launceston City council and the West Tamar council. These councils, as local government authorities, have an interest in seeing their older Tasmanian ratepayers in their municipal areas being able to continue to access the very successful Launceston School for Seniors.

He points out that a petition that was tabled in the other place late last year saw the total number of signatures reach 1 775 people. It was the contents of that letter which I used to fashion the motion which I tabled this morning in the House. While I was reading the motion into the House, the minister interjected a number of times and one of the things he said to me was that he has been to visit Launceston School for Seniors. That is correct. I then made a quip myself, that you should answer their letter of 23 March which you have not answered. The minister quipped back.  He said, ‘I have answered that.’

I have gone back to the Launceston School for Seniors. The minister has not answered that letter of 23 March 2012. In fact, the chairman writes to me today and says that in response to the minister’s reactions this morning, on 23 March he forwarded an e-mail to Minister McKim and attached the letter and on 26 March I received an e-mail from Anne Fagan, executive officer and diary manager of the minister, which read only as an acknowledgement. On 24 April he received an undated letter signed by the head of office to Mr McKim, which again said that the minister had asked that the recent letter concerning enrolments for the first term of 2012 be acknowledged.

Mr Lumley makes it clear that no further correspondence has been received and, damningly, continues. He says:

I am extremely disappointed that the letter from Mr Perry simply referred to enrolments when, as you know from the copy that you have, that reference to enrolments was an introductory paragraph explaining our success, which was later forwarded by our request to be included in the current discussions about the buildings in Launceston rather than having decisions foisted upon us as a fait accompli. Either the minister’s staffers are deliberately ignoring the true content of the letter and our request, and are not informing him, or the minister has reached a decision that if we continue to be ignored by him, we will just go away.

He continues by saying:

I can tell you that our members are extremely angry at the moment as they clearly believe they are being ignored and treated as second-class citizens. I did send a copy of the letter of 23 March to our local members who are supposed to be representing us in parliament, asking for their comments and support. We have received acknowledgement and support from Legislative Councillors and opposition members but absolutely nothing from Michelle O’Byrne, Brian Wightman or Kim Booth. Why shouldn’t they be angry? To not even acknowledge the feelings of their constituents is pure ignorance.

We are completely frustrated at the moment by just being ignored, but it is made worse when we are told mistruths.

There is a question for the minister to answer today. The question is that posed in the original letter and I challenge the minister to get off his hands and deal with this issue. Will he ensure that his departmental officers are obliged to enter into meaningful discussion with the Launceston School for Seniors to give them security for the future, to treat them with respect and not expect them to be happy with a lease agreement that runs out in around a year from now. The continuing provisions within that lease agreement mean that if the High Street site is sold, they can simply be shuffled off to York Street premises which are utterly unsuitable for the purpose.

The Liberals stand with the Launceston School for Seniors, and their nearly 500 students, because we believe in lifelong learning. We support the innovative model that has been established, a model which is volunteer driven and draws down nothing from the Government except access to the High Street campus.

I endorse the excellent work they are doing. I sympathise with them in that they have been unable to get a satisfactory treatment from this government. I finally challenge the minister to get off his hands, not just rely on hearsay and what his staff are telling him, but support that school, show the support and give it the tenure it needs.

The motion I tabled this morning reads as follows:

Mr Speaker

I give notice that on tomorrow I shall move that this House:

1) Notes that the Launceston School for Seniors provides a valuable service allowing senior Tasmanians to continue life long learning together with social interaction and inclusion benefits.

2) Notes that at the registration day in March this year over 100 new members joined, taking the number of people who benefit from the School for Seniors to around 480.

3) Notes that the Launceston School for Seniors is self-sufficient with the only government support being the provision of the High Street campus.

4) Notes comments in the Examiner newspaper on 29 March 2012 from the school chair in relation to Mr McKim’s supposed consultation process about the site saying “I don’t know how they can say we have been consulted when we haven’t”.

5) Condemns the Minister for Education and Skills for failing to provide certainty for students by ruling out the sale of the High street campus from under their feet.

6) Calls on the Minister to get his act together, start treating these students with more respect and finally rule out selling off the Launceston School for Seniors site to plug his budget black hole.

The O’Byrne NBN affair of 2012 has all the hallmarks of the Bartlett Education Foundation debacle of 2009.

In each case $250,000 of taxpayers’ money was provided to the TCCI to be spent on specific projects, but in each case the government failed to properly manage and show due concern for the appropriate expenditure of funds.

The Liberals have been asking questions about the NBN4Business program for nearly 12 months, only to have our legitimate concerns dismissed by an arrogant David O’Byrne. Those concerns are now proven to have been justified.

Since news of the TCCI’s financial situation was made public, we’ve again sought answers from Minister O’Byrne with no response. Now we know why.

As the responsible minister, David O’Byrne has much explaining to do, including how he has permitted this apparent loss of valuable taxpayer funds to occur on his watch.

Previously:

• May 10, 2012:  O’Byrne must come clean over NBN spending and discrepancies
• April 2, 2012:  “Account Suspended” – $1 million NBN for business program
• July 7, 2011:  Innovation, Science and Technology + Infrastructure 2011-12 budget estimates
• April 13, 2011:  Money down the drain as NBN continues to stall
• December 11, 2010:  Still no business strategy for the NBN in Tasmania