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COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
Proof Committee Hansard
HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES
JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Development of northern Australia
(Public)
WEDNESDAY, 7 MAY 2014
KUNUNURRA
BY AUTHORITY OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
[PROOF COPY]
CONDITIONS OF DISTRIBUTION
This is an uncorrected proof of evidence taken before the committee.
It is made available under the condition that it is recognised as such.
INTERNET
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internet when authorised by the committee.
To search the parliamentary database, go to:
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Wednesday, 7 May 2014
Members in attendance: Senators Eggleston, O'Neill and Mr Entsch, Ms MacTiernan, Ms O'Neil, Ms Price,
Mr Snowdon.
Terms of Reference for the Inquiry:
To inquire into and report on:
Policies for developing the parts of Australia which lie north of the Tropic of Capricorn, spanning Western Australia,
Northern Territory and Queensland, and in doing so:
examine the potential for development of the region’s mineral, energy, agricultural, tourism, defence and other industries;
provide recommendations to:
enhance trade and other investment links with the Asia-Pacific;
establish a conducive regulatory, taxation and economic environment;
address impediments to growth; and
set conditions for private investment and innovation;
identify the critical economic and social infrastructure needed to support the long term growth of the region, and ways to
support planning and investment in that infrastructure.
The Committee to also present to the Parliament its recommendation for a white paper which would detail government
action needed to be taken to implement the committee’s recommendations, setting out how the recommendations were to be
implemented, by which government entity they were to be implemented, a timetable for implementation and how and when
any government funding would be sourced.
WITNESSES
CAMP, Mr Peter, Chair, Kimberley Cattlemen's Association .......................................................................... 36
CHAFER, Mr Anthony, Chief Executive Officer, Cambridge Gulf Limited ................................................... 10
FITZGERALD, Mr John Edward, President, Central Kimberley Chamber of Commerce .......................... 29
FORSHAW, Ms Kirsty, Kimberley Cattlemen's Association ............................................................................ 36
HAMS, Mr Phillip, Chair, Tanami Action Group .............................................................................................. 29
LITTLE, Miss Bronwyn, Strategic Planning Manager, Shire of Halls Creek ................................................. 29
PETHERICK, Ms Alma, Private capacity .......................................................................................................... 19
ROBINSON, Councillor Beau, Councillor, Shire of Wyndham, East Kimberley ............................................. 1
TAKARANGI, Ms Janet, Economic Development and Remote Service Delivery, Shire of Wyndham, East
Kimberley ............................................................................................................................................................. 1
TRUST, Mr Ian, Executive Director, Wunan Foundation ................................................................................. 22
Wednesday, 7 May 2014 House of Representatives Page 1
JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
ROBINSON, Councillor Beau, Councillor, Shire of Wyndham, East Kimberley
TAKARANGI, Ms Janet, Economic Development and Remote Service Delivery, Shire of Wyndham, East
Kimberley
Committee met at 08:55
CHAIR (Mr Entsch): I apologise for our tardiness. Unfortunately, we are not used to moving around in big
cities—big vibrant cities. We had a problem with our GPS.
We are travelling around Northern Australia as part of a joint standing committee, and we are looking at ways
we can capture opportunities in relation to the North. We have 40 per cent landmass; four per cent of the
population. But we have tropical knowledge. We talk about opportunities through the tropical world. By 2050, it
is estimated, there is going to be something in the vicinity of over half of the world's population living in that
zone. So therein lies a chance for us to really do something special not just in agriculture of course—and I think
this is an area where your region has a chance to capture—but also in resources and tropical knowledge.
It has been identified that, for us to do that, we have to start looking at ways we can grow our population. We
need to be able to significantly increase our population to encourage this to happen. In doing so, we have to find
out: how do we encourage people to come here, entice them to come to our region? More importantly how do we
retain them? We do not want a fly-in fly-out Northern Australia.
That is our purpose. We have travelled extensively. We have been up the east coast from Mackay, north. We
have been up the Torres Strait. We have been down into the Pilbara. We are now doing this Kimberley area. We
went out to Gogo Station yesterday, and had a look at Fitzroy Crossing; Broome before that. We are doing the
Northern Territory in a fortnight. So we are covering fairly extensively, and we are very keen to hear if you have
any ideas and visions on: what impediments are out there from a government perspective; what is constraining
you; what we need to do to make things happen here in the area to bring more people here and to hold more
people here; what services you may or may not need in the area; and what infrastructure you think would be
necessary to encourage further investment in the region. That is the purpose of it. We are finding a lot of
commonality in a lot of the information, whether it be on the east coast of Queensland or the west coast of
Western Australia. We are finding a lot of common issues. I am sorry to do that little preamble but I think it is
important to get some sort of perspective as to where we are.
I will now introduce the committee. We have Senator Eggleston, my GPS, a Western Australian senator. We
have Melissa Price who, as I assume you know, is the member for Durack. We have Warren Snowdon. A number
of us here have very large electorates. Warren, of course, is the member for Lingiari. I am from Leichhardt, which
takes in most of the Northern Territory except for this little dot called Darwin.
Mr SNOWDON: I got all the good parts.
CHAIR: I represent an area from Cairns right up to the mainland of Papua New Guinea, which takes in all of
Cape York and Torres Strait. My deputy here is Alannah MacTiernan, who is the member for Perth and has some
understanding of infrastructure needs et cetera—
Ms MacTIERNAN: I get a really big rap.
CHAIR: Just back off and let me finish. She is a former minister in the Western Australian parliament, and
she is well known in these regions. And we have Senator Deborah O'Neill. Deb is one of those Mexicans; she
comes from South of that parallel. She is a senator from New South Wales but she has a keen interest in what we
are doing here. She is here today to have a look at some of what is happening here, and I am sure she is going to
have some very thrusting and probing questions that she will ask to satisfy her curiosity. So that is our panel. We
have some media here today covering the proceedings and, of course, the condition is they can neither film nor
take photos of private papers or laptops. There being no objections, it is agreed.
These hearings are formal proceedings of the parliament and giving false or misleading evidence is a serious
matter and may be regarded as a contempt of the parliament. The evidence given today will be recorded by
Hansard and attracts parliamentary privilege. I now call representatives from the Shire of Wyndham-East
Kimberley. Would you like to make a short opening statement and then we will open it up to committee members
for some questions.
Councillor Robinson: I would like to begin thanking you guys for the opportunity to come in front of you to
verbally express our submission. I feel our submission is at the strategic planning level, and I really hope that you
guys feel the same way. We have a list of stuff that we would like, but we need to get the planning and strategy
right. It is covered in here. Our main objective is to get Kununurra as the main hub of Wyndham-East Kimberley
so this Kununurra hub can then extend to Darwin and Cairns through Katherine. We would like to be a very
Page 2 House of Representatives Wednesday, 7 May 2014
JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
pivotal part of the spoke model. In this submission, we have addressed a few small areas that we would like.
There are little projects here there and everywhere that we would love to get done, but I think if we concentrate on
the planning and the strategic approach and get that right, the projects will happen. They will need to happen. I
would like to thank you again.
CHAIR: That is good because it gives us more of a chance to ask questions. In my preamble, I made a
comment about the fact that we need to attract and retain people in the area. In your submission, you know the
staff turnover can be about 36 per cent per annum in most sectors. That is just massive. We know the problem; it
is not isolated to this region. Do you have any ideas on how we attract people to the area and, most importantly,
how we retain them to begin to halt that 36 per cent of turnover?
Councillor Robinson: I have an idea: confidence in Kununurra, and I watch it. I am a small-business owner in
Kununurra. If confidence is up, business is up; it is a direct link. Confidence in the north—it is roller-coaster. We
fluctuate with what is happening down in the cities. We are structured by a vertical policy. We need to separate
that and we need a horizontal policy across the top. We need a northern federal minister. This is a must. He is
going to spruik and—
Mr SNOWDON: Or she.
Ms PRICE: Or she.
Councillor Robinson: A northern federal minister, he or she, will spruik the advantages of living here. I lived
in Sydney. I grew up in Sydney and I could not wait to get out. I knew there was something better. I love it here.
It is a small community but it links to Darwin. We have friends in Darwin, we have friends in Broome, we have
friends in Cairns—and we are true friends. We are part of a horizontal band that is in our history; it is how we
were formed.
Ms MacTIERNAN: I think we are all feeling that. What do you see as the economic drivers for this town and
for the area of which you are a hub? Why do you think confidence is up at the moment? What is it that is giving
confidence?
Councillor Robinson: What I have seen in Kununurra, or in the East Kimberley, is that we have four pillars
of sustainable economic areas. We have tourism, mining, agriculture and services. One always picks up the slack
of the other. A little bit of confidence in a few projects in services, a few projects in agriculture, some fresh new
people in tourism and the push to incorporate our own tourism board creates confidence. It is our biggest factor.
When people drive around and see a project here, they think: 'Okay, it's happening. Kununurra is happening. I'm
going to put another person on. I'm going to put another staff member on.' That is the key. There is no other way
to gauge it in Kununurra. Because Perth is 3,500 kilometres away, we are detached. We can only gauge it on what
we can see.
Ms PRICE: It is great to see Beau and Janet here today. I just love your passion and enthusiasm. If we had a
few more people talking like that across the north we would soon be on a winner. When I spoke to Virgin airlines
a couple of weeks ago, they told me that they were increasing flights to Kununurra from three to eight a week. I
might not have got the numbers exactly right but it is something like that. What is your view? Is that being driven
by tourism or by business needs in the town?
Ms Takarangi: The shire has taken a leadership role over the last two years in working with Tourism WA to
get a blueprint in place for Tourism 2020 in the East Kimberley. Industry, having now picked it up, are driving it
and owning it. I think we are in a very lucky position because of it. That industry group is very well networked
into Virgin airlines and other carriers. I think it is a part of the confidence that Beau mentioned. Those flights are
direct to Perth. Working with Tourism WA means that we have added advantage of getting those flows. Also, our
tourism planners identified the fact that our drive market is very important, and that is across the Top End. It
comes from the east coast across the Top End. We are working collaboratively with Katherine and Darwin for our
inflows of tourism into the East Kimberley. We have taken that wider view—not just a shire point of view but a
whole East Kimberley point of view—and there are a lot of passionate tourism operators in that group who have
really picked up the challenge and identified the fact that it is up to them to work in partnership with everybody to
drive the sector.
Going back to the point raised before, I think we are in a positive position because we have, importantly, quite
a diversified economy, as Beau said. We have strong sectors that are developing. We are not dependent on just
one sector. We are in a very strong position. A lot of that has come out of the East Kimberley Development
Package from federal and state government funding. We have a very strong asset base now for this growth
projection, which I believe, with the confidence that Beau has identified, we can advance quite quickly.
Wednesday, 7 May 2014 House of Representatives Page 3
JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Going back to your point about the attrition rate: it is a complex issue, as you would be aware, but I think it has
got two points. Firstly, we must make sure that our own population is fully engaged in our own economy,
particularly the Indigenous population. If you look at our population profile in the East Kimberley, we have got
two cohorts: a very young Indigenous population, often not fully engaged in our economy; and an older non-
Indigenous population, fully engaged in our economy, often for short-term contracting. The issue is: how do we
bridge the middle and how do we fully engage our younger population as full participants in our growing
economy? That is an issue, along with attracting and retaining investors and residents as well. I am a Kiwi and I
have been here since 2011. I was in New Zealand when I got the job, and I love it here. There are a lot of Kiwis
here, and a lot of them have lived here for quite a long time. Bringing in new people while not disenfranchising
the resident Indigenous population is a real challenge here, and a lot of people have given a lot of thought to that.
No doubt, your Ord visit tomorrow will be about Indigenous engagement and the construction of Ord stage 2. It is
a big issue for us to address here.
Ms MacTIERNAN: So you are saying you have got a big local population but they are not part of the
community?
Ms Takarangi: Yes. And they are young, too. We have got these two distinct cohorts, with a gap in the
middle.
CHAIR: Have you got any ideas on how you engage them?
Ms Takarangi: The federal government has invested in some of the new job training programs.
CHAIR: Are they working?
Ms Takarangi: They are in the early stages and I note they are under review—like remote jobs in
communities.
Councillor Robinson: They are very personally driven. If you get a good person driving them, they work. But
these people are then separated from their home. They are well trained educated, they have come to do this job,
they are here for two years, they do great work and then someone else comes in and replaces them. That is the
issue.
Mr SNOWDON: You talk about the 36 per cent turnover of staff. Do you have the figures on population
turnover?
Ms Takarangi: No.
Mr SNOWDON: We can get them from the bureau. The interesting contrast here is that there will be a static
cohort—that is the 36 or 38 per cent of the population who are Aboriginal people; they might move across the
border and come back—and then there is the remainder of the population, which is turning over fairly constantly.
I want to go to the issue of cost of living. In your submission you talk about the cost of living and the cost of
housing. We have been trying to have discussions about what might attract people to stay here—such as zone
rebates. Is that an issue you have contemplated and discussed?
Councillor Robinson: Yes. It would all work hand in hand. You have got higher living costs and higher
rentals. You do earn more in the north of Australia—the wages are quite high—but sometimes in towns you need
that low-income industry. If you could have tax incentives—zone rebates to help this zone and this demographic
of the population—that will create a foundation.
Mr SNOWDON: I want to ask a couple of questions about the border 30 kilometres away. My constituency is
on the other side of the border. A lot of my constituents come here for services. They come here to use your
services. I note in your submission you identify strongly with Darwin at the Top End. There is mention in your
submission of time—adopting Northern Territory time instead of Western Australia time. That raises really
interesting questions about how you look at harmonising arrangements across the border so that they suit the
people who live on the border and not the people who live in Perth. How would you like to address those things?
Councillor Robinson: A northern state would be nice—from Derby right through to Townsville.
Mr SNOWDON: A lot of your services come out of the Northern Territory.
Councillor Robinson: A lot do, yes.
Mr SNOWDON: For your hospital service the first point of contact is Darwin.
Councillor Robinson: It depends.
Mr SNOWDON: If it is an emergency they are going to Darwin; they are not going to Perth. I think this is a
really significant issue for all of us because the top end of Western Australia is a bloody long way from Perth. The
health services in the Kimberley have a permanent reservation of beds at the Darwin Hospital because that is
Page 4 House of Representatives Wednesday, 7 May 2014
JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
where the emergency services are. Similarly I imagine with schools there would be a proportion of kids here who
go to school in Darwin. Some might go to Melbourne. They could go anywhere, really, because of where they
live. The whole question of how you work out where you live and how you deal with the differences in Western
Australia as opposed to the Northern Territory and the Northern Territory as opposed to Queensland is a
significant one for us. If you cross a highway there are different regulations around roads. There are different
regulations about environmental issues and land management. All of these things are not common. When you are
dealing with, say, further development which may go into the Northern Territory, how do we make sure, for
example, that we get harmonisation of regulation around that sort of development so that people who are doing
business are not dealing with two sets of bureaucracies?
Ms Takarangi: I am not sure what the answer is. But, for example, I do know that our infrastructure guys
here cannot get gravel across the border from NT into WA for any roadworks. Although it might be cheaper to do
that, they cannot get it across the border because of environmental reasons. There are a lot of constraints in having
normalisation of axes across the top end.
CHAIR: Maybe you hit partially on a solution in your introduction when you talked about looking at services
east-west and west-east rather than from the south to the north. You said that in your earlier statement. You said,
'We have to start looking across from east to west.' Maybe there is a solution there, looking at standardising across
that whole zone.
Ms MacTIERNAN: There are governance barriers. It really does raise the question of whether or not,
particularly with the Kimberley, there should be a referendum process where the people of the Kimberley are
given the option of joining the Northern Territory. I think the Queensland thing would be far too difficult. But
there is the idea of the Kimberley being incorporated into the Northern Territory. I am an ex-state parliamentarian
and I do not think that would be a bad thing. I think it is something that should be considered.
Councillor Robinson: Yes, I agree.
Ms MacTIERNAN: I think we have to allow a conversation to happen around that.
Ms Takarangi: There is a division, too, within the Kimberley. You have already been to Broome. West
Kimberley relationships are very strong with the Pilbara and with Perth. Broome is being seen by the WA
planning commission in Perth as being the capital of the Kimberley, as being the hub of the Kimberley. So there
is this tension. We have got 1,000 kilometres between Broome and Kununurra, 800 kilometres between us and
Darwin. As you all know, the Kimberley is a huge area.
Ms MacTIERNAN: That is true, and the dynamics as you quite rightly say are quite different.
Ms Takarangi: The dynamics, the politics and everything. So you may find that if you do such a referendum
you may find a west-east Kimberley division in terms of the response, which would be interesting in itself. But I
know history is so strong and loyalties are so strong. What other instruments could there be where you could have
normalisation of access across the Top End without having to take on the political fight of state decision making?
CHAIR: There could be recommendations that we look at standardising across the Top End, because it seems
to me to make a lot of sense.
Councillor Robinson: Is there provision for an economic zone to be recognised in the state legislation? Is
there provision for that?
CHAIR: There has been recommendations put up about a special economic zone for the north and maybe that
is one way. What is your view on that?
Ms MacTIERNAN: You would have to know the content of it. People use that term but what does it mean?
Mr SNOWDON: If you look at the Aboriginal communities that live on the border or across the border you
will see that they are travelling to and from and using each other's services all the time. During election time I get
my people to come across to Kununurra to pick up a whole lot of voters who should be voting in the Northern
Territory because they are living here. They have come in and out because that is where they get services.
Ms Takarangi: Another point of normalisation, too, is that WA is the last jurisdiction in Australia to have
local government provide municipal services to remote Aboriginal communities. So that whole normalisation of
access and services will also need to be taken into account. We did not put that into our submission. But in
thinking strategically about a Top End—
Ms MacTIERNAN: But you are not providing that service?
Ms Takarangi: That decision has not yet been made by federal or state government for WA.
Senator EGGLESTON: There is a cost involved.
Wednesday, 7 May 2014 House of Representatives Page 5
JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Ms Takarangi: There is a huge cost involved and our council has adopted a proactive position on that. It has,
for the last few years, been doing the work around how we could use that policy change in a positive way to
enhance the quality of life in those communities. But it also, as you know, does come back to funding.
Mr SNOWDON: How far south is your boundary? Do you include Balga?
Ms Takarangi: No, Balga is in Halls Creek.
Councillor Robinson: That is the shire of Halls Creek. It is about 165,000 kilometres south of Kununurra.
Mr SNOWDON: Turkey Creek?
Councillor Robinson: No, that is the shire of Halls Creek as well. It is close; it is about 163,000 or something.
Ms MacTIERNAN: I think there are four Kimberley councils, aren't there? I know the Pilbara regional
council is very strong. Do you have an equivalent entity in the Kimberley and is it as strong?
Ms Takarangi: There is a Kimberley regional governance group, which has been constituted across the four
shires. Originally, there were two thrusts of regional work. One was the Kimberley zone, which is a way of
working for Walga, which is the local government association, and that was a way of getting the state council
agenda for Walga with the four shires working together. It was not a legal entity; it was just goodwill. Then the
department of local government and the WA state government made funding available for local government
reform and the Kimberley formed a regional collaborative group, which enabled that funding to be disbursed with
the four shires. Now neither of those are legal entities in the Kimberley and each shire has taken a rotating
responsibility to act on behalf of. At the moment, the shire of Broome has the Kimberley regional collaborative or
the regional governance group responsibility for the four shires.
Ms MacTIERNAN: You are aware of the Pilbara model and that does actually seem to be functioning pretty
well.
Ms Takarangi: Yes. The Kimberley did consider a regional council model and it was discarded.
Ms MacTIERNAN: The reason why I am particularly interested in this is that I have seen so many of the
problems people have identified over decades and some progress has been made. But I wonder whether or not
there does need to be a greater devolution of decision making at a state and federal government level. If there
were, for example, a Kimberley health service that was responsible for the delivery of health services across the
state and Kimberley education so you had devolution of effective administration, do you think that that would
enhance the results you are getting here?
Councillor Robinson: Yes, it would. It would be more of a targeted approach. It would improve services
definitely because your applications for funding, delegation of staff and all those aspects would be a lot more
educated. You would know exactly where you need the funding. The increase might come in Kununurra and then
Broome might have a fluctuation and you can be more on the pulse, I suppose.
Senator EGGLESTON: The WA health department used to have a north-west medical service. Does that still
exist? They staff the doctors and the hospitals in the north-west.
Mr SNOWDON: I think they do. They certainly have a division.
Ms Takarangi: The decisioning is very fragmented at the moment. I think there are a lot of good people
trying very hard to collaborate and work together, but I think distance, fragmentation, history and the trends in the
turnover of staff work against getting continuity of effort. I think in the health sector you need continuity of effort
to get results. When you have that constant churn in health and education it is very difficult to get traction. Maybe
if you had that. They are trying that at the moment in the Kimberley with fire management. They are running a
pilot at the moment for fire management where everything is coming together under one fire authority. The
Kimberley zone has been lobbying for that I think for probably 10 years and the pilot is in place for that. That is a
similar concept.
Ms MacTIERNAN: I saw in the Pilbara—and I am sure it is equivalent in the Kimberley—in the area of
child services 13 different state government agencies and NGOs all reporting to Perth and in many instances
people did not even know each other, even though they were all in Karratha. Sometimes there were almost
territorial patch protection things happening. For the amount of money being put in the result was not terribly
impressive.
Ms Takarangi: Strategies locally here have been developing a working in partnership group. That has
identified housing and health. That brings all the agencies together on a regular basis to share all the information.
Ms MacTIERNAN: But it has to be the decision making—
Ms Takarangi: But it is informal.
Page 6 House of Representatives Wednesday, 7 May 2014
JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Ms O'NEIL: I have a couple of questions about the Ord, the runway, education and East Kimberley
Development Package. I am interested in all those things and I might put some questions on notice. In your
submission you talked about access to secondary and tertiary education as being one of the difficulties facing your
community, and also access to health care. These parts of soft infrastructure, as they are called, seem to be
problematic everywhere. I am wondering if there are particular issues you want to put on the record for the East
Kimberley.
Councillor Robinson: It is a big issue. You get good people in town who are well established and then all of a
sudden they are gone because their 14-year-old child has a good academic level and is struggling in the local
school. I would be the same if my 14-year-old daughter or son were struggling. The education of my siblings is
paramount, top of the list. We are in the process of developing a grammar school in Kununurra. I am on the
development group and we are trying very hard to get a grammar school started in Kununurra to try to retain our
great people. We have got some really good people that leave East Kimberley. That is probably the reason why I
am on shire. I am a small business owner and I see all aspects of desertion. I get people ringing me, coming in and
seeing me—they have got great people working in really good businesses, which have struggled over the last four
or five years, and then they get some really good staff and they are here for 18 months and then they are gone.
CHAIR: Is this an impediment for the retention of people?
Councillor Robinson: It is high on the list as an impediment, yes.
Senator O'NEILL: So the funding of your local schools is pretty important. What we have been hearing in
other places is that people are happy to get to the end of primary school but, as soon as they hit secondary school,
that is when the issues start to emerge. Is that the same case here?
Councillor Robinson: Yes.
Senator O'NEILL: So there is something about the staffing of the secondary schools, or the attraction of
staff, or the retention of staff, or the retention of numbers. Do you know what those particular issues are? I know
we are going to a school tomorrow.
Councillor Robinson: I think the issue is that it is such a broad range of students. You have teachers that are
underfunded and understaffed. You might have one student in that classroom that is drawing 50 per cent of that
teacher's attention. What do they do? They cannot do anything about it. That is the sole reason why we are trying
to get a grammar school, where we have got an option, where we can retain good people in this town and have
good education facilities.
Senator O'NEILL: What about internet access in terms of kids being able to study? If you suddenly find that
you have got a really talented violinist and they want to be able to study and live here with their family in the
Kimberley and enjoy the beauty of it that you have described, are they able to do that remotely? Is that
happening? Is that possible here?
Councillor Robinson: Yes, in the public school it is.
Ms MacTIERNAN: They are connected with SIDE, I think, because I know some kids that did actually do
their TEE through SIDE here, based at the school.
Councillor Robinson: Yes. Actually, that part of it is very good at the school here.
Senator O'NEILL: So the technology is there but there is some essential part of the education sector that is
missing?
Councillor Robinson: Yes. It is almost like we need double the teachers for the students in the Kimberley.
Ms MacTIERNAN: Should we be candid and say that the problem is that a lot of the Aboriginal kids that are
coming through primary school are struggling when they get to high school? I think that is part of the issue.
Really what we have got to do is make sure that we get those Aboriginal kids so that they achieve the milestones
in primary school.
Councillor Robinson: Yes. In our model of schooling, it is a must that discipline and respect are part of your
toolbox when you go to school. It is very difficult for the teacher to have to do that. As a parent, that is my No. 1
goal with my children—to make sure that they respect, that they are not rude. The teacher is there to give them an
education, and they should have the tools in them to know when they need to zip it and listen.
Senator O'NEILL: You are talking about cultural capital that your kids have got when they go to school and
my kids had when they went to school, but one of the things I think Henry Parkes was saying was that, when we
have public education, we need to know that kids are coming without that and that we need the resources to make
it possible for them to learn that.
Wednesday, 7 May 2014 House of Representatives Page 7
JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Mr SNOWDON: It is far more detailed than that.
Senator O'NEILL: Of course.
Mr SNOWDON: One of the issues we heard about yesterday was the cutback in the education funding in
Western Australia, where support teachers were taken out of schools. If you have got special needs kids—and a
large proportion of these kids would be special needs kids—and they do not have support in the school, they will
not succeed.
Senator O'NEILL: We heard this in the school funding inquiry in Perth just a couple of weeks ago. Money
matters, and it is making a difference where it is there. It is under threat at the moment, so things could get worse.
CHAIR: Have you got further questions?
Senator O'NEILL: Yes, on the runway.
Councillor Robinson: We are extending it. We are putting it in place. We are doing some apron repairs at the
moment and then we are going to resurface it, with some provisions to extend and widen.
Senator O'NEILL: Is that part of what attracted this increase in flights from Virgin?
Councillor Robinson: It all helps, I think. We are actually committed to it. We have got a profitable airport
that has great seat numbers.
Ms PRICE: And the shire owns the airport?
Councillor Robinson: Yes.
Ms Takarangi: Yes. The shire owns and runs the airport.
Mr SNOWDON: As to the airport, one of the issues which has been under perennial discussion is getting
produce out of the Kimberley into the South-East Asian markets and air links. Is that an issue for here at the
moment, or are you anticipating that the airport extension will be able to take the sort of aircraft that might be
required to shift produce out of the Kimberley into Asia?
Councillor Robinson: To do that is our long term goal.
Senator EGGLESTON: Related to that is the port infrastructure at the port at Wyndham. What would you
like to see there? Airport infrastructure is terribly important too, if this concept of exporting food to Asia from
here is to become a reality, but the port is also important for other exports. What kind of infrastructure would you
like to see to boost and realise the economic potential of the north Kimberley? Airports, obviously, and I guess
the port at Wyndham would—
Councillor Robinson: I think the port needs a plan to move forward, and maybe even a relocation plan for a
deep-water port. I think shallow draft vessels are not economical.
Senator EGGLESTON: So would there be a location for a deep-water port? Wyndham is a shallow draft
port, isn't it?
Ms Takarangi: I am sure Tony Chafer, this afternoon, will be able to help.
Senator EGGLESTON: You would support it as a local government authority, obviously?
Councillor Robinson: I would, though I am not speaking as a whole council.
Mr SNOWDON: Who administers the port at the moment?
Councillor Robinson: It is a joint state government—
Ms Takarangi: The government owns it, but it is—
Ms MacTIERNAN: That is what the guy said the other day. It is only shipping and—
Mr SNOWDON: That is right, but Derby is run by the council. Broome is run by the port authority, and
Wyndham is a privately run port.
Ms Takarangi: It is leased to Cambridge Gulf Ltd, which Tony Chafer is the CEO of, but they are all state
owned.
Ms MacTIERNAN: But they are all going to come under the Kimberley port authority?
Ms Takarangi: Yes.
Councillor Robinson: Managed out of Broome—I am sure I have read that.
Ms MacTIERNAN: How does your produce get out now? What is the major transport for the agricultural
produce?
Councillor Robinson: Road.
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Senator EGGLESTON: To Darwin or to Perth?
Councillor Robinson: Perth.
Ms MacTIERNAN: Is it? Why is that? Is that where the market is?
Councillor Robinson: Yes. There is some produce that goes east, but the majority goes to Perth.
Mr SNOWDON: With stuff being exported, where does it go?
Ms MacTIERNAN: What is their export?
Councillor Robinson: There is a little bit, isn't there?
Ms Takarangi: They would do it by truck—for sugar. We don't do any processing here. Most of it is
commodity, which gets bulked and shipped out.
CHAIR: What is the sugar? Is it granular?
Ms Takarangi: The sugar, when it starts, will be different, in terms of the mill end, and then there are the
secondary industries, maybe around energy and different things like that. But we are not adding the value here. To
me, that is a big issue in terms of our economy, but then that is driven by energy, by exporting markets and by
resources such as labour.
CHAIR: Connectivity of infrastructure to enable access to export markets would be critical, as you are
developing.
Ms Takarangi: There has been some talk of Darwin being used as the key export hub for Asia, with
Kununurra airport being a freight base for moving produce by air. There is some work happening on that at the
moment, and there is also some work happening in Katherine with a rail-road hub. We have had some discussion:
there is a shire with that work being done by the department of industry from Northern Territory. So, there is quite
a lot on the go, but, when you go to Ord this afternoon, you will be able to find out about diversification of
produce and how they do it now.
Senator EGGLESTON: Can I just go back to the previous era when you did have a sugar mill here—which
is not so many years ago. How was that sugar exported?
Councillor Robinson: That was as molasses.
Senator EGGLESTON: You have just made some really interesting comments about using further facilities
to have a coordinated northern export system. How far have those discussions gone? Railways; using the port of
Darwin, instead of duplicating facilities here—that sounds very sensible to me, to have a regional approach.
Ms Takarangi: There is some work being done by a person in Darwin who has made contact with us and has
put forward a business case about the spoke-hub model for exporting into Asia, and I can find that and let John
know. I have shared that business plan with Tony Chafer from the port, because it also includes coastal links. That
coastal link is also happening with tourism. Next year they are looking to do close coastal tourism between
Broome and Darwin. So there is that opening up, if you like, of those horizontal linkages. I think that if you are
going to invest in the Top End you have to invest. You have biosecurity issues so you have to invest in very good,
quick-to-market logistics. I do not think at Kununurra it would be feasible for us to reproduce something of that
level when you have got Darwin sitting there or further across on the east coast, but certainly we should be a top
logistic feeder centre on a hub-spoke model. That would mean we would need cool stores, we would need
biosecurity.
Mr SNOWDON: Where is the nearest cool store from here?
Ms Takarangi: We don't have one, I don't think, do we? At the co-op we have one.
Councillor Robinson: We have small individual, but nothing bulk.
Ms Takarangi: Nothing like at the airport. It would open up new markets. For example, one of the biggest
markets into Asia is the live fish market. If we had well-developed logistics of quick-to-market exporting we
could open up live fish exports out of the Kimberley as well with barramundi and the prawn market. The live fish
market has got the biggest margin in terms of export dollar.
Senator EGGLESTON: To what extent is there an export-oriented fishing industry at the moment—a
commercial industry first and then an export-oriented industry?
Ms Takarangi: Domestic mostly. There are some domestic fishing at Lake Argyle.
Senator EGGLESTON: It is all fairly small stuff, though, isn't it?
Councillor Robinson: Freight constraints is the biggest issue.
Wednesday, 7 May 2014 House of Representatives Page 9
JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Senator EGGLESTON: There is no equivalent to the Carnarvon fishing industry anywhere on the Kimberley
coast, is there?
Councillor Robinson: No.
Ms MacTIERNAN: Recently I was at a presentation by the Australian Institute of Architects and the prize
winner for 'Let's build a new city' was a group that had designed a city around Kununurra. Were you involved in
that? Did you see that?
Ms Takarangi: No.
Councillor Robinson: No, that is the first I have heard of it.
Ms MacTIERNAN: It was quite extraordinary. They won this national competition.
Mr SNOWDON: Star Trek?
Ms MacTIERNAN: No, it was quite recent. I was at an exhibition last Friday.
Ms Takarangi: We have heard Lake Argyle being seen as a new settlement centre. We would like to see that.
Ms MacTIERNAN: Sorry, I must have left it back at the hotel. I have got these guys' cards and I will give
you their contact details. People all around Australia had made this submission and this place looked absolutely
stunning.
Councillor Robinson: And the key was water.
Ms MacTIERNAN: The key was water and a design based almost on Middle Eastern design principles. It
was fabulous.
CHAIR: We are going to have to wind up now. Again, getting back to retention and attraction, what is your
thought on zonal tax initiatives?
Councillor Robinson: We need one.
CHAIR: The current one is not adequate and you need something that actually will attract people?
Councillor Robinson: Yes.
Ms O'NEIL: Is anyone working on such a proposal?
Ms Takarangi: No, a piece of work which we have done, which we are happy to table, is that our CEO, Gary
Gaffney, commissioned some work on what East Kimberley will need to look like in terms of services if our
population is 25,000 people. That is East Kimberley at 25. I have got a copy here.
CHAIR: Okay, we will incorporate that. Thank you very, very much indeed. It has been very, very useful.
There is certainly some work there we can investigate. If you are going to be looking at developing an economic
future, particularly in commodities, to expect to send that all the way to Perth to capture opportunities in South-
East Asia does not make sense. I think this east-west and capturing in the region makes a lot of sense. Thank you,
it has been very, very useful for us.
Ms Takarangi: Thank you for the opportunity.
Councillor Robinson: Thank you.
Mr SNOWDON: Just as a post-script, what is the population currently?
Councillor Robinson: Kununurra in the East Kimberley is 7,799, but it is more than that. It can double. It will
double on the 24th when the Kimberley moon is on.
Ms PRICE: And what about ratepayers?
Councillor Robinson: I knew you would ask. Fifteen hundred would be close—1,600. Our ratepayer base is
very small.
CHAIR: If we have anything else, we will certainly put it in writing to you through the secretariat. We really
appreciate your effort.
Councillor Robinson: It is a pleasure.
Ms MacTIERNAN: What is your business?
Councillor Robinson: East Kimberley Marine. So I do marine sales, service and remote service call-outs and
I do a lot of flying to remote areas, to fishing camps and tourism camps.
Ms MacTIERNAN: And how long have you been here in Kununurra?
Councillor Robinson: Twelve years.
CHAIR: Thank you very much.
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CHAFER, Mr Anthony, Chief Executive Officer, Cambridge Gulf Limited
[09:45]
CHAIR: Welcome. These hearings are formal proceedings of the parliament and the giving of false or
misleading evidence is a serious matter and may be regarded as a contempt of the parliament. The evidence given
today is, as I said, recorded by Hansard and attracts parliamentary privilege. I invite you to make a brief opening
statement and we will follow with questions.
Mr Chafer: Cambridge Gulf Limited is a publicly unlisted company. We have the same rules and regulations
as any ASIC-listed company other than when it comes to share trades. We cannot actually be involved in
promoting the sale of our shares. Willing buyers and willing sellers have to find themselves. We are a local
company. We have been based in Kununurra since 1964. We were originally the Ord River District Co-operative.
We started to diversify into other businesses the first of which was the operation and management of the
Wyndham Port. Shortly after that, we purchased a fuel terminal. We were becoming a noncompliant cooperative
because we were making most of our revenue from nonshareholders. So, we decided to split the business into a
compliant cooperative. We formed a new cooperative and Cambridge Gulf Limited took over the more
commercial aspects of the enterprise. We are still majority local owned. About 68 per cent of our shareholders
live in Kununurra and a little over 80 per cent of our shareholders still have an association with Kununurra.
Our primary activity is the operation and management of Wyndham Port, which we have been doing since
1999. We have just had a five-year extension, taking us out to 2019. We also import and wholesale diesel fuel
through Wyndham Port, mainly to the mines. Last year we sold roughly 70 million litres of diesel, mainly into the
mining community and the farming community. We also have some strategic landholdings. We have a 27-hectare
freehold site immediately adjacent to the port, with quite a few export and import facilities on it. We also own the
sugar mill here in Kununurra. Previous business activities include a barramundi farm in Kununurra, a steel
manufacturing business in Kununurra—
CHAIR: What manufacturing?
Mr Chafer: Steel manufacturing, house frames, sheds and those sorts of things—not 'still'.
CHAIR: Into the whisky business?
Mr Chafer: No whisky business, unfortunately. And we also had an agricultural import business in the
Northern Territory and a few other smaller businesses as well.
Ms PRICE: People will probably imagine that the ownership or the operations of the port are a little unusual,
because it is run by a private organisation, which is quite different to everywhere else we have been during the
northern Australia inquiry. Most people will say to them, 'This whole inquiry is about the development of the
north.' What is Cambridge Gulf's view about the port of Wyndham's role in the development of the north? One of
the councillors said that maybe it is in the wrong spot, that it needs to be somewhere where there is a much bigger
draft. What is your view? I appreciate you are just operating it. If you could say to the state government, 'This is
what you need to do to the port of Wyndham to help the development,' what would be your recommendations?
Mr Chafer: If we talk about the location of the port, I understand there have been some studies in an area to
the north of the port as a better location for a deepwater point. If they could have their time over again, that would
be a better choice than where they have located the current port. At the moment you have an entire town of 700
people whose main industry is the port. I think any attempt to move the port will have some disastrous social
outcomes for Wyndham town. The port, where it is at the moment, has served the town very well, particularly
with live export—we have been in the live export business in that port since 1889—metal concentrates, inputs for
agriculture and fuel.
There are things we can do at that port to make it more serviceable for larger ships. In fact, we are exporting
iron ore out of the port at the moment. We do 55,000-tonne shipments of iron ore. Those boats come within one
kilometre of the wharf. They are loaded by barge. It is possible to avoid that whole barge-loading operation by
having another facility immediately to the north of the port, within a few hundred metres of the port or the wharf,
so that we can access 18 metres of water roughly 200 metres off the shore. We will be taking the tour over there
today. I will show you that spot. That kind of depth can pretty much service any size ship that you would require
in this part of the world. We do not believe it would be a particularly expensive operation.
We currently dredge the port to a depth of eight metres. We have an eight-metre tidal range. Sometimes we can
have 16 metres of water available at the current berth. I am actually off to Perth next week to have a discussion
with a dredging company looking at some more innovative ways of dredging that can be done fairly
inexpensively. We could perhaps get that dredge depth down to somewhere between 10 and 12 metres, which,
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
again, would mean that, depth-wise, we could service alongside that port any size vessel that is warranted in this
area.
There is a limitation on the berth itself. It has just been upgraded to 34,000 tonne. But there are ways of
overcoming that limitation by how we bring the vessels in. This port definitely has a future. If you could have
your time again you would have located it somewhere else, but it is where it is. The town depends on it. This port
could become a very valuable port for northern Australia.
Senator EGGLESTON: You have answered many of my questions, particularly about the need for a different
location along the gulf somewhere. It would seem, from what you have said, that you have adequate draft close by
the existing port. That obviates that need, I would think. What about the export of agricultural produce and
refrigerated meat, for example? Is there capacity for that?
Mr Chafer: Sure. I note that last answer. Previously, processed sugar and molasses were both exported
through the port. I think the largest shipment of sugar we had was 16,000 tonne, which was across the wharf. The
method previously used to export sugar will not suit what is occurring at the moment. We need to look at a
different method of getting sugar onto the ship, and that export facility I was proposing would suit that perfectly.
In terms of inputs for agriculture coming in, we have previously had a coastal shipping service that used to deliver
fertiliser from Fremantle up to the port. The inputs previously were only 3,000 to 5,000 tonne a year, but that was
serviced very well through a container arrangement. Previously we have also imported bulk product from
overseas. That is a little bit more challenging because we are not really geared to unload bulk, but we can do it.
We are actually in negotiations with a shipping agent at the moment to run a service from Singapore and Port
Klang into both Wyndham and Broome. This year the agricultural inputs for the order are coming up by road but
we are hoping that will be a one-off glitch and that next year they will be coming in from South-East Asia across
the port.
Senator EGGLESTON: That is interesting. Obviously the Chinese are said to be interested. How will they
export sugar? Are they going to use your facilities or build their own facilities? I do not want to breach
commercial in confidence—
Mr Chafer: I will answer that one. There was one part of the previous question that I forgot to answer. As to
frozen agricultural products, we have got roughly 120 reefer sites at the Wyndham port already. They have been
used since the meatworks days back in the 1980s. They would probably require a little bit of maintenance to get
them going again but we have got the capacity for storing 120 chilled containers at the port at the moment.
Ms O'NEIL: What did you call them—'reefer sites'?
Mr Chafer: Yes, a sea container, a refrigerated sea container. But you also need the vessels equipped to take
reefers to keep them short on the voyage as well. We have not had any in-depth discussions with KAI since they
were nominated as the preferred proponent for the Ord. We certainly did in the lead-up to them being nominated.
I have had some informal discussions with them since and they have said that they are not really in a position at
the moment to talk in any degree of detail about what their requirements will be going forward in terms of what
they are going to be exporting and how we can assist them. I am aware that they are looking at procuring some
land immediately north of the port, say, a kilometre north of the port—and I have just heard this on the Kununurra
rumour mill. I do not believe that that would be very practical. The further north of the port you get, the more the
marsh diverges and the more marsh you have got to cross over, and also the deep water gets further and further
out. So I think that building any infrastructure too far north of the port would be extremely challenging and
extremely expensive. I think that ultimately they will understand it themselves and will come to see our point of
view that the best location for an export facility for those guys is that site that is within a couple of hundred
metres of the existing wharf.
Senator EGGLESTON: You referred also to the state shipping service. Do you see any reasonable grounds
to resurrect the state shipping service? Would that make transport of goods to the north, and this area in particular,
cheaper and more efficient and quick?
Mr Chafer: We would love it if that service had not been discontinued, but unfortunately it was basic
economics that failed that service. We have had two big providers try to run a subsidised service and they
progressively lost customers. I think that trying to service Wyndham Port out of Fremantle is a flawed approach
anyway. We need to look towards Darwin and South-East Asia. We need to be part of the Northern Australia hub
rather than relying on bringing inputs up through Fremantle.
Ms MacTIERNAN: Just to make a comment on that, it certainly would always have to be a subsidised
service. I think that in the analysis we have got to compare what we save on our road maintenance by doing that,
and when that work was done there would have to be a clear economic case for supporting a state shipping
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
service, that the degree of wear and tear that you would actually save on the road for the couple of million dollars
a year needed to subsidise the operation, actually made up for what you saved on road maintenance.
Mr Chafer: I have heard that logic and I tend to agree with that as well. The economics issue is based around
the operator themselves not being able to grow the business. I think having a subsidised service for a period of
time works, but you eventually want to grow that business and not rely on a subsidy.
Ms MacTIERNAN: For that you need a certain frequency, because that is what has been the problem. If you
do not put enough in, you do not get the frequency to make it reliable enough for people to—
Mr Chafer: To be confident. Exactly.
Mr SNOWDON: Do you have any barge services coming out of Darwin?
Mr Chafer: We are having discussions with a company that services Northern Australia, Sea Swift. They
have got operations from northern Queensland right the way round to Gove. They are very encouraged about the
potential of providing a service, but there are a couple of thing that need to happen before that can occur. I guess I
am fifty-fifty on that. I think eventually we will see a service linking Darwin to Wyndham and also to the remote
communities such as Kalumburu. I think it makes sense.
Mr SNOWDON: That would be effectively a barge though, not a freighter.
Mr Chafer: No. I think this company has got a couple of reasonably sized vessels, like 110-metre vessels, but
most of their vessels are smaller, barge sized vessels. But we can either handle them across the port or they can
come along the barge landing adjacent to the port.
Senator EGGLESTON: I will ask a further question about the port's activities regarding the boats that are
coming in, bringing people up and down the Kimberley coast from Broome to Darwin. How has that business
developed, and do you see it expanding into the future?
Mr Chafer: It is great for the local economy, but not so good for the port. Those boats are more nuisance
value than anything. They do not return a lot in charges, except for the larger ones like the Orion and another boat
that is in—the Silver Dollar or something like that. Any boat you have got to put a pilot in you can make a dollar
out of. But if the boats just access the wharf and you are essentially taking their rubbish away and allowing the
passengers off and on, economically it does not do a lot for the port. They are more nuisance value, but we can
see the bigger benefit for the community. They have recently constructed a public boat ramp that also is proposed
to be used to make it safer for those passengers to alight, rather than dealing with our eight-metre tide variation.
This wharf floats up and down on the tide. The concept was great, but unfortunately you cannot service the boats
from this facility because you cannot access it with vehicles. So they still need to come to our jetty to unload their
rubbish and to bunker fuel and that sort of thing. But it is a growing trade, and we are seeing some more of those.
I think this new boat—and forgive me for not remembering its name—is the third of those larger-style, hundred-
passenger-plus boats that have started to access Wyndham. The issue you have got in Wyndham is that at the
moment you do not have a lot of the facilities that would support the tourist industry in Wyndham. I mean, most
of those guys get on a coach and either come to Kununurra or go out to El Questro or down the Gibb.
Senator EGGLESTON: Fair enough. That is what they do. That is what is here, and that is what they want to
see.
Mr Chafer: One of the other issues we have got is that the Orion, for instance, goes into Timor Leste, and
when that accesses our port we cannot help them dispose of their rubbish because it has not cleared customs.
Essentially they have got to keep this waste on board their vessel until they get back to Darwin, which is the only
port here that is able to deal with it. This is a crazy situation when 40 kilometres out of Kununurra we have got a
WAQIS border that can deal with putrescible waste coming across the border from Darwin. We should be able to
offer a similar service here in the East Kimberley.
Mr SNOWDON: So that is an AQIS issue?
Mr Chafer: Yes.
Mr SNOWDON: How do you see the new port structure operating once you get the amalgamation with—
Mr Chafer: The Kimberley Port Authority? Initially we saw that as generally not a bad thing by having the
ability to have some of your planning decisions around the port made locally. But the way the Kimberley Port
Authority is starting to evolve, I am becoming very, very nervous about the whole process. We could have a
Kimberley Port Authority that is essentially the Broome Port Authority morphed into the Kimberley Port
Authority with a board potentially stacked with Broome residents and decisions being made about Kimberley
ports with a Broome interest. We do compete with Broome, as well as Darwin, for live cattle and ammonium
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
nitrate, and we have also recently started exporting crude oil out of our port that would ideally be exported from
Broome if they were in a position to facilitate that trade.
Ms MacTIERNAN: So there is problem here because you are privately leased. If they were all government
entities then you could understand that there might be a different outcome. But the Kimberley Ports Authority will
be directly making money out of Broome, and they will not be directly making money out of—
Mr Chafer: Yes.
Ms MacTIERNAN: So that is going to be a challenge. I think the concept is right, but how it is going to work
where you have one government owned entity and one privately owned entity—
Mr Chafer: I think the best outcome would be to have a government operated port authority, but all the ports
here are run privately. Broome port should be a private entity as well. There is significant opportunity to save
money in Broome. They have a massive structure—26 or 27 people in their structure. We have three in our
management structure. We probably do not have the right level of management in terms of numbers and some of
our focus on certain aspects of, say, OH&S as we would like, but we need a balance, and I do not think imposing
a massive structure on Wyndham is going to provide any benefit to the region and particularly will not provide
any benefit to the Wyndham port or its customers. We are quite proud that we have been able to keep our
stevedoring rates extremely low. They are around 50 per cent of the rates charged in Broome and as I understand
it about the same as the rates charged in Darwin. I have not been able to verify that, because Darwin is a private
stevedoring operation, so they are not obliged to gazette and publish their charges as both Wyndham and Broome
do.
Mr SNOWDON: Where to you pull your live cattle from?
Mr Chafer: We are actually the closest port to the live cattle catchment of north-west Australia. But they can
come from anywhere. We recently had cattle coming across from North Queensland that—
Mr SNOWDON: Because the boat was coming through here.
Mr Chafer: Yes. They were essentially on the way to Darwin, and Darwin is extremely congested at the
moment, so they diverted the road trains down to Wyndham. And essentially that is only an extra 300 kilometres
on a journey of several thousand kilometres. It is not a big deviation.
Mr SNOWDON: If I think about the Kimberley, though, I think they said 80,000 head go across the Broome
wharf.
Mr Chafer: Yes.
Mr SNOWDON: How many head go across yours?
Mr Chafer: On our best year, which was four years ago, we had 79,000. Last year it was 15,000.
Mr SNOWDON: I am just leading to a discussion about this: if the Broome wharf meets its aspiration—that
is, it becomes the hub for the oil and gas industry—then perhaps their capacity to be able to deliver 80,000 head
across the wharf is going to minimal.
Mr Chafer: Yes. We see that happening now. We see that happening both in Broome and in Darwin. That is
the danger, I guess, of not putting an investment or putting some time into Wyndham. Essentially that could be
the only port on this north-west coast that has the capacity to export cattle. Those guys are going to become busier
and busier in oil and gas. And there is significant congestion in Darwin at the moment.
Ms PRICE: On that, back to this privately run government owned idea, who would be putting the
infrastructure in? If we are talking about expanding that part of your business, who would be doing that under the
current terms of your arrangement with the government?
Mr Chafer: That is interesting, because it is outside of the port proper, if you like, at the moment. So, it is in a
different area to our lease. There are a couple of options. One is that government could do it. We would be
interested in participating in that development ourselves. We would not do that for the mining industry, because
with the mining industry you have an exhaustible resource, but agriculture is not finite. So, we see the KAI
development as really being the trigger to get that development in there. Also, KAI themselves would be very
interested, I imagine, in a facility that they perhaps own and operate and is not subject to government wharfies'
charges and that sort of thing.
CHAIR: I understand that you are also the deputy chair of the chamber.
Mr Chafer: Yes.
CHAIR: Unfortunately they have not been able to make it. I was just wondering if you would be prepared to
take any chamber questions as well while we are here, if anybody has anything in relation to the chamber.
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Mr Chafer: Absolutely.
CHAIR: We had evidence earlier on in the shire about the difficulty in the retention of employees here—36
per cent turnover a year, they say. Wearing your chamber hat now, do you have any idea on what sort of
initiatives would be necessary to firstly attract and secondly retain people in the region?
Mr Chafer: Certainly there was some discussion about a more attractive taxation regime for this area. I think
it started off in the Northern Territory, and then we were asked for some opinions about whether or not that
should be expanded across the whole of north-western Australia, certainly to make it more affordable for people
to live. Rent here is extremely high. With employers having to subsidise rent, it can be very challenging. For
certain retailers it can make their product a fair bit more expensive. People occasionally jump in the car and make
the drive to Darwin for their retail therapy rather than spending locally. It can be challenging. And some of the
issues you just will not be able to address. We are a long, long way from anywhere. For people who have come
here for a short time, it is very difficult to get from Kununurra to your home base to see family. In the lead-up to
the wet season it can be very hot and oppressive. So there are some things that you just have to be careful about
when you select people, and make sure that they understand what they are coming to and, as an employer, make
sure that you understand that you are employing a whole family, not just a person.
There are other issues that we discuss regularly at the chamber that we believe would certainly improve the
social fabric in the town, and that is the antisocial behaviour here. The level of public intoxication is particularly
hard on families who live in town and live in those areas where they have antisocial neighbours. This is the fourth
time I have lived in Kununurra. I have moved around the north-west a fair bit in my time, and this is the only time
I have bought a house, and I have bought a house out of town, because I have tried living in the town here, and it
is way too disruptive, particularly with little kids. If you are in the wrong neighbourhood here it is a very hard
town to live in. And we talk about this regularly at the chamber. We are actively involved with the education
department and state government departments to see what can be done to address the issue with the kids on the
street and the dysfunctional families. But I guess we get more and more despondent that the problem is getting
worse rather than better.
CHAIR: So you feel that this is a disincentive for people?
Mr Chafer: It is definitely a disincentive. And it is a disincentive for tourists visiting the town, which affects
those businesses that are in the tourism industry. We lease an office in the Kununurra shopping centre at the
moment—and I am glad the president of the chamber of commerce is not here, because he is the real estate agent
we lease it from!—but we are about to move, because sitting in the office and looking out and seeing what occurs
every day, particularly through the wet season, out the front of our office, is really disheartening. And it is quite
soul destroying, because you are not seeing any improvement. It is just absolute despair when you see kids who
are not involved in the education system, when you see shameless public drunkenness. I had a guy outside the
front of my offices the other day kicking a football up and down the footpath between the offices and the cars
with a stubby in his hand. He just did not care. And we see more and more of that. I drive to work early in the
morning, and I am forever seeing people staggering up the road with open cans of alcohol in their hands, and it
seems that the police are quite powerless to do anything about it.
Ms MacTIERNAN: Is there any move towards alcohol restrictions? We have seen in Fitzroy and Halls Creek
that they have been successful initiatives of the Aboriginal community. Is that—
Mr Chafer: That is what we need. We have had them here, and they were absolutely hopeless. The alcohol
restrictions here were that you could not buy full-strength alcohol until five o'clock. After between five and eight
you could buy one carton of beer, two bottles of wine or one bottle of spirits. But you could go and visit every
bottle shop. So, if you had a drinking problem you could go and buy yourself four bottles of rum every day of the
week other than Sunday. That was no disincentive. All it really did was affect those people who were working
and had to go home and then come back into town again to buy their alcohol.
It was not addressing the drunkenness issue whatsoever. It also meant the antisocial behaviour occurred late at
night. We were having issues at three o'clock in the morning, when there were no or limited police resources. It
was an absolutely hopeless initiative. We were consulted, the chamber was consulted and several community
groups were consulted prior to those restrictions being implemented and we told the guys that it was not going to
work, and they still went ahead with it. We suffered under that for 18 months, I think, before they pulled it.
Ms MacTIERNAN: When was that?
Mr Chafer: I think it finished about 18 months ago.
Mr SNOWDON: Has there been any discussion about the development of a local alcohol management plan
with the community?
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Mr Chafer: There is a group. I cannot recall what its name is. I think it is the Liquor Accord. We do not see
them actually proposing any other types of restrictions or anything that is going to work. By far the simplest
restriction, and no-one seems to want to embrace it, is the banned drinkers thing.
Mr SNOWDON: That was a great idea.
Mr Chafer: It is fantastic. In our business we also have a joint-venture with the traditional owners up in Gove.
We deliver the fuel into Rio Tinto Alcan with the TOs. I travel to Gove regularly. Gove have a permit system and
it works. I can walk into a hotel in Gove or to the local golf club, which is a community club, and the mix is half
Indigenous, half non-Indigenous. I do not see as much interaction between the groups as I would like to see, but I
am sure that will come. What I do see there is mutual respect. There are no issues of violence, swearing or cursing
or disrespect between those communities. It just works really well.
I took an Indigenous group up there. I am also an independent director of Gelganyem Investments, one of the
local TO groups here. I have been trying to get some closer ties with Indigenous groups in different areas. I took
those guys up there to visit our partners and we went and had a few beers. They were absolutely blown away by
what they saw.
Ms PRICE: I am aware that there have been some new and innovative ideas. I know that Alan Tudge, the
Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, was up here a couple of months ago. In fact, we should have asked
the council about it because I think it is the council that had been talking to the Prime Minister's office. It is about
some card system. We should have asked that question, because I know that that is being developed. I am not sure
whether it is this Liquor Accord that is doing it. I know it is fairly well developed. I do not know the detail of it,
but I think it is worth asking the council about.
Mr Chafer: I think we complicate it with the card system. I do not think you need to have another layer of
administration. It is simple: if you get convicted of any alcohol related offence, be it drink driving or a violent
offence associated with alcohol, you are banned from drinking. If your friend decides he wants to buy you grog
because you cannot buy it—
Mr SNOWDON: He gets banned.
Mr Chafer: he gets banned. Eventually the message gets passed on. We should try it here in the Kimberley.
Eventually I think it could be used to fix most of the problems we have in Australia at the moment around
nightclub areas.
Mr SNOWDON: I would add that in the Northern Territory the most offensive thing seen by many people
who did not agree with these things was the fact that the banned drinkers register required you to show
identification when you bought takeaway alcohol. We show identification for everything in this country. Showing
your licence when you go and buy takeaway so that you can be checked against the banned drinkers register is not
a bad thing.
Mr Chafer: No, I do not think so.
Mr SNOWDON: It does not pose any implications for your civil liberties or civil rights. What it does is
protect the rights of others. I am actually offended by some of the crap that has come out of the Northern Territory
from people who, for their own self-interest, not the community's interest, have opposed the idea of the banned
drinkers register, including the Northern Territory government.
Ms MacTIERNAN: We cannot keep doing the same thing. If what is happening now is not working, we have
to be prepared to try it.
Mr SNOWDON: But it affects everyone, you see?
Ms MacTIERNAN: There are domestic violence impacts.
Mr SNOWDON: There are non-Aboriginal people who are just as drunk as Aboriginal people—
Ms MacTIERNAN: Absolutely.
Mr SNOWDON: and they are on the same register.
Mr Chafer: Exactly, yes. That takes the issue of race out of it completely. It should not be about race. It
should be about personal choices. It is like driving: if you make the wrong choice, you are taken off the road and
you do not get back on the road until you are able to drive safely.
One of the initiatives in Gove with the permit system is that, if you rock into Gove to get a permit, it is open
slather. You can go and buy whatever you want. But, as soon as you mess up, you lose your permit and you do
not get it back straightaway. You start on P-plates, if you like. You might get a permit that says you can go and
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
buy six mid-strength cans, and slowly build yourself up to an open permit again. That is well supported by the
local Indigenous community out there, by Rio Tinto and by the cops. Look, it is very, very well run.
CHAIR: Can I just ask a quick one, again on the chamber, on the cost of living: what is—this is one of my
chestnuts—the availability and affordability of insurance in this area? Is it an impact on cost of living?
Mr Chafer: Most definitely. Our business insurance is a bit complicated because of the businesses that we are
involved in, but household insurance has gone up hugely. In the last 12 months, I think my premiums have
increased by 30 per cent and there does not seem to be any rationale for it, other than public disasters everywhere
else in Australia that the rest of the insurers seem to be being asked to pay for. I don't understand why our
premiums should go up that high.
CHAIR: Is there an issue here about accessibility of insurance? In some areas that we are talking to, insurance
is often based on postcodes.
Mr Chafer: Definitely, yes. There are some insurers that won't insure in certain areas. I had a recent example:
our accountant at work. Because I live out of town, maybe it was a little bit different but I got a very favourable
quote on health insurance. I gave him the same company and they would not insure his house—his house was
probably worth $600,000 and they said: 'No, it is our policy in the town of Kununurra. We are going to insure
your house for $1½ million and you are going to pay the premiums accordingly.' I mean, that was ridiculous. So
he couldn't access the same company that I could, because I lived out of town. And my house is not worth $1½
million, I can tell you that. I did not insure it for that much.
Senator O'NEILL: Mr Chafer, just while we have you here: we have had some comments about education
and access to education. You have addressed questions from the chair about the 36 per cent retention. I would say
you have a reasonable idea about how critical that is for the workforce. I would be really interested to hear your
own experiences and those of related staff members or family who are here, with regard to education in particular,
at all levels.
Mr Chafer: Look, I have three girls; twin nine-year-olds and a seven-year-old. Both of them are in the
Kununurra District High School which I think you guys are going to visit tomorrow. I am extremely happy with
the standard of education at the level my girls are at the moment. I am a little bit disconcerted when I see, as the
kids head to high school, lots of people take their kids out of school here and send them away to school. I am a
little bit worried, and a few of us have had the discussion in town here, that that is only going to make the
situation worse. If you take those kids out of school that are potentially going to be the leaders in the community
and send them elsewhere, you are just going to compound the problem here. We are ourselves considering
moving to Darwin when our kids get to high school age rather than sending them to boarding school; it is
unaffordable: $50,000 a child per year. But I would be prepared to give the education system here a go up until a
point where I start to get a little bit worried that perhaps our kids aren't progressing as they should.
There is another issue with education here with that significant proportion of the population that is not engaged
in the education system. A fair bit of the Indigenous community isn't engaged. Through the chamber, we
encouraged the introduction of the Operation Sharp program where essentially, with kids that were found on the
street at night, they had to go and find a responsible adult to supervise the kids, and I think there was also some
issue around welfare—if the kids weren't at the school the following day, welfare payments were ceased or they
went onto managed income. That was a great notion, but taking kids that have never been involved in formal
education and just dumping them inside a school with other kids is an absolute disaster. There needs to be a
transition program to bring those kids up to a level of education that they are not going to be completely
frightened by. I liken it to taking a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Caucasian kid and dumping them in Iraq and saying:
'There is your education system. You don't speak the language, but figure it out for yourself.' You'd just feel
completely intimidated. You just wouldn't want to be there. So the program has got merit but there is an important
ingredient missing—and that is transitioning those kids that have never been involved in a formal education
program into education.
Senator O'NEILL: That is clearly a resourcing issue in terms of staff, but also money for the local
community.
Mr Chafer: We have talked to the education department here and said, 'Look, if we were able to push
government to get all of these kids that are not involved in the education system into school, how would you feel
about that?' And they have said: 'Our education system would fall over—we just could not cope. Number one, we
could not cope with the number; and number two, we could not cope with the huge'—
Senator O'NEILL: The range of needs?
Mr Chafer: Yes.
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Ms MacTIERNAN: Are these kids who live in the town?
Mr Chafer: These are kids who live in the town.
Ms MacTIERNAN: I find this an extraordinary statement—that they are saying that the government policy is
that we do not encourage them to go to school because we have not actually got—
Mr SNOWDON: No, he never said that.
Ms MacTIERNAN: I am just trying to work it out. So even for the people who are involved in the town, how
many kids would not be involved? Surely they are at least enrolled, even if they do not turn up.
Mr Chafer: I am not quite sure how the enrolment works—whether people are encouraged to enrol their kids
and not send them, just to suit the statisticians. But I know from experience that this town is roughly 50/50, and I
do not see as many Indigenous kids in school in my kids' classrooms, and I am uncomfortable with this. There are
very few.
Mr SNOWDON: It goes back to the discussion yesterday about early childhood. Unless we get to engage
these kids—engage mothers and fathers with babies to help these kids grow into young kids who have a prospect
of education—they will not go to school.
Mr Chafer: Exactly.
Ms MacTIERNAN: We will talk to the Aboriginal communities about the sorts of things we saw happening
at Fitzroy—they were very positive.
Mr Chafer: The chamber is working with a couple of groups, one of them MG, to look at, rather than trying
to focus on the kids who are not necessarily engaged, which is going to be a struggle, picking those ones that
might be 60 per cent involved, or with 60 per cent attendance, and working with those families to see what we can
do bring them up to 100 per cent. Ultimately, they are the ones who will be the role models for their peers as well,
and I think we are desperately low on role models. We have some fantastic role models in the Indigenous
community in this area, but we need more. We need the younger people out there to see that there is a better
alternative than what is facing them.
Senator O'NEILL: What about training for your workforce—access to training and the quality of training?
Mr Chafer: I believe the TAFE here works pretty well. We have the TAFE and Kimberley Group Training;
we have a couple of really decent training institutions here. Over at the port, even though they are good training
institutions, we generally take care of our training in-house—we have very specific needs, so we will bring the
trainer up. We have had quite a few functions through the chamber at those facilities, and they seem to be well
resourced and well staffed and offer quite reasonable and relevant programs. Also the small business centre does a
lot of business related training, customer service training and that sort of thing for the business community. So I
think we go fairly well.
Senator O'NEILL: Have you any partnerships with any universities doing any research in education or
health, or anything in the area, that you are aware of?
Mr Chafer: I am not aware of any.
Ms PRICE: It is probably a bit unfair, Tony—I am afraid you have got the whole gambit of questions today,
but given that you do spend a bit of time in Wyndham, do you know much about WELA—Wyndham Early
Learning?
Mr Chafer: I do. I know the lady, Jane Parker, who runs it. Her husband works with us on the port. I am not
really familiar with her entire range of programs, but I do get involved in discussions around sponsorship and
support every now and again. They seem to be a very committed group of people over there. I am not sure how
successful they are at what they do, but they seem to be very committed.
CHAIR: Thank you very much indeed Tony for your time—we will be catching up with you again later on
when we travel to Wyndham this afternoon. We can fire off any other questions at that point in time.
Mr Chafer: Just before I go, Alannah, the town you were talking about was on the banks of Lake Argyle. I
think it was a multicultural town; they were looking at the best place for a new capital city—a multicultural
capital city in Australia. And the prize was given to the team that developed a town on the banks of Lake Argyle.
It was phenomenal.
Mr SNOWDON: Historically, it was proposed that Israel might actually end up in the Kimberley.
Ms MacTIERNAN: I have just found the card for it—Ecoscope. Perhaps we will contact them. Were you
involved with them when they were developing that concept?
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Mr Chafer: No, I saw the model. I gave some commentary on it to the ABC. I read what they propose. It is
great. I think the only thing they missed was that Lake Argyle has a hell of a tide. In the wet season you can be on
the lake bank and at the end of the dry season it can be a kilometre away. The water level in Lake Argyle is a
moving feature. It can come seven or eight metres up or down. But when you are out anywhere that you can build
anything, you could be right on the water, have the water at your doorstep one day and it could be a mile away a
few months later.
CHAIR: Thank you for appearing today.
Wednesday, 7 May 2014 House of Representatives Page 19
JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
PETHERICK, Ms Alma, Private capacity
CHAIR: I welcome the representative from the Kunnunurra Ratepayers Association. Do you have any
comments to make on the capacity in which you appear?
Ms Petherick: While I am a committee member of that association, I am not here in their behalf. I am here as
a private business person more than anything. I am the managing director of Petherick Enterprises in Kununurra.
We have a retail store and we have properties.
CHAIR: These hearings are a formal proceeding of the parliament. Giving false and misleading evidence is a
serious matter and may be regarded as contempt of the parliament.
Ms Petherick: I understand that.
CHAIR: The evidence given today will be recorded by Hansard and does attract parliamentary privilege. I will
ask you to make a statement and then if members would like to ask questions I will invite them to do so.
Ms Petherick: My concern is the rents in Kununurra, which add to the cost of living. It is very hard to get
staff in Kununurra, because of the rents. We have government subsidised housing. The government is paying
anywhere between $800 and $1,000 for a house. They are then charging their staff, I believe, $200 or $300 a
week for that—my staff do not have access to that. They have access to $800,000 a week. They are not even
earning that, so how can they afford that? We have to stop, realistically, subsidised housing in this town. We have
to encourage people to buy a house and live here, and it is not going to happen when you have subsidised
housing.
The other problem we have is fly-in fly-out workers. It is just taking families out of the community. I can sit
here and name families who have moved out of the town because their husbands now have access to fly-in fly-
out. Do you have any questions on that?
CHAIR: You have raised a couple of very interesting points: affordability and the cost of housing, or access
to housing for purchase by private individuals. Is there sufficient stock of housing?
Ms Petherick: There is now. A few years ago the town was really booming and the Argyle Diamond Mine
had a lot of staff here, so quite a few of them were buying houses in the town. That lifted the price of houses. Just
an ordinary house that you would have paid $150,000 for five or 10 years ago went up to $400,000 or $600,000.
That is out of the price range of the young family that wants to live in the town. Some of them with the diamond
mine were able to afford that. When they were made redundant, a lot of them just left town. Some of them got
other jobs in town. The diamond mine had a policy that, if you lived in the town, you had better access to a job. A
lot of them were renting houses. When they got made redundant, they left. So at the moment, there is an
oversupply of housing in the town. The prices are dropping but they have not dropped a lot, because it just costs
so much to build a house here. As you can imagine, for the builders to be able to afford to get staff to build those
houses they are paying excess wages. It just becomes a snowball.
CHAIR: An average three- or four-bedroom house in Kununurra, if I wanted to go out there today and buy a
house and land, what would it cost me?
Ms Petherick: It would be $500,000 or $600,000; that would be the bottom.
CHAIR: That would be the cheapest place.
Ms Petherick: I would think so.
Senator EGGLESTON: Alma, you have been here a very long time.
Ms Petherick: I was born up here. My parents were both born in Derby. I have seen a lot of changes in the
north.
Senator EGGLESTON: I am sure you have, and you have established quite a long-term small business here.
Apart from the cost of housing and so on and subsidised rentals, what other views do you have about the
establishment of small business here and its viability in this town?
Ms Petherick: It is very hard to run a small business here. If I did not import from overseas I would not be
here. The fact is that you have airfares for everybody going in and out of the town every year. We are close to
Darwin, so a lot of people go to Darwin. There is the internet. There is the fly-in fly-out. Yes, it is very hard.
There is so much money earned in this town. Seriously, I would be pretty right if I said 10 to 20 per cent is spent
in the town. Across the board. Obviously, they buy their food here. Housing or anything else they can put their
money into out of the town is put out of the town.
CHAIR: You mentioned fly-in fly-out. Could you expand on that little bit? Are companies sourcing people
from capital cities to fly to local mines?
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Ms Petherick: The most disgraceful one, as we feel at the moment, is that the shire has an engineer who flies
in and flies out from Melbourne. I fail to see that as a great example to the community. My daughter and her
husband own Plant Hire Services. They have the contract that takes the nickel from the Savannah mine into
Windham. They pay their staff, but the mine pays all their airfares. They are employing local people and, as soon
as they find out that they can do the fly-in fly-out, that is what they are doing. One man's family now lives in
Melbourne. They all lived here in town prior to getting that job. His family lives in Melbourne and he comes here.
He has two weeks on and two weeks of. By the time he flies home, he does not have two weeks with his family in
Melbourne.
CHAIR: So the tax incentives are for the companies to locate them outside of the community. There is no
reason why people could not live here in Kununurra and—
Ms Petherick: No, I do not agree with you. I think that the incentive for it all is: 'Gee, I can now get a job and
I'm flown here and flown there, and I only have to work two weeks on and two weeks off.' That is the main thing.
CHAIR: The reason that the companies do that is that it is a tax incentive for them to be able to provide that
service, to provide that out of anywhere, not necessarily in the town or close where they have to work. We find
this right across the Pilbara. Small towns are challenged for exactly the same reason. The tax incentives should
keep the people in the closest town.
Ms Petherick: Exactly.
Ms MacTIERNAN: This is very interesting evidence: you have people living here when the opportunity is
there. The companies are doing it not because of the tax incentives; they are doing it because that is what people
want and it is facilitated by the fact that they can have it as a tax deduction. Regarding the engineer from the shire,
is that two weeks on and two weeks off as well?
Ms Petherick: So I am told.
Ms MacTIERNAN: Do you know if the shire attempted to get someone else on a more permanent basis?
Ms Petherick: No, I do not. This is just what has been brought to us. We have just reformed the ratepayers
association. It is one of the concerns that has been brought to us, that this is happening. I was appalled when I
heard it because I fail to see why they cannot get someone from, say Perth—someone who lives here. Fly-in fly-
out for the council is disgusting to me. We will not even talk about—
Ms MacTIERNAN: It certainly does send a message, as you say.
Ms Petherick: It does send a terrible message. I am not going to talk about the finance of it. It must be
astronomical because he still has to be housed when he is here. I have heard that he stays at one of the apartments
in town when he is here. Obviously, there is an incentive for the businesses, as it is for the Savannah mine or
whatever, to be able to do this. There must be a tax dodge in there. To me, something needs to be done about that
loophole.
Ms PRICE: On the ease of using overseas workers—we are talking about 457 visa workers—are there any
views on how we can improve that system which would help your business or the north more generally?
Ms Petherick: I have never delved into the 457. It is very seasonal. I tend to pick up the backpackers who are
usually here for a time or those who have work permits. I am sorry to say it, but they are far better workers than
the local people. We have a stable local staff level—yes, we do—but when we need extras we get them in. I really
have not delved into that because I do not need to, and I would not on principle.
Senator EGGLESTON: Generally, has small business in Kununurra expanded or contracted?
Ms Petherick: It has contracted. You only need to look around town at the number of empty buildings.
Senator EGGLESTON: Over what period has that happened?
Ms Petherick: I guess in the last 18 months to two years it has gone down.
Senator EGGLESTON: What is causing that? In years past, Kununurra was seen as a growing town and a
very exciting place to be and a nice place to live. What has changed?
Ms Petherick: I would love to know that. But I do know that tourism has dropped. We have not had the
number of tourists that we normally get. Last year we did not. The ones who did come through were not spending.
They were more the pensioners who were holidaying. A lot of people are saying it is because it is cheaper to go
overseas, and I think that is correct. Overseas the costs are nowhere near as much as the costs here and there is a
lot more to do over there than in Australia. Australia has a reputation as being a very expensive country.
Wednesday, 7 May 2014 House of Representatives Page 21
JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
CHAIR: Thank you very much. You have provided some very useful information in relation to affordability
and FIFO.
Ms Petherick: Thank you very much for listening.
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
TRUST, Mr Ian, Executive Director, Wunan Foundation
[10:56]
CHAIR: Welcome to the MG Corporation.
Mr Trust: I am actually from the Wunan Foundation.
CHAIR: What is MG?
Mr Trust: MG is the traditional owner group based in Kununurra.
CHAIR: You are representing Wunan?
Mr Trust: Yes.
CHAIR: I do apologise for that. These hearings are formal proceedings of the parliament and giving false or
misleading evidence is a serious matter and may be regarded as a contempt of the parliament. The evidence given
today will be recorded by Hansard and does attract parliamentary privilege. Thank you very much for being
prepared to appear here at such short notice. The committee very much appreciates that. I now invite you to make
a short statement and then we will go to questions.
Mr Trust: I will give you some context where Wunan is working. We are a social development organisation
and our interest is in three areas: education, housing and employment. The biggest issue we have here is the
number of Aboriginal people who are unemployed. I am not sure what the exact figures are but we think it is
about 70 per cent, if you include involvement with the CDEP as being unemployed. We think that the economic
development of northern Australia is directly tied to Aboriginal and social development. Without opportunities
and jobs, we are going to see an increase in social dysfunction and continuing poverty, and that will impact on the
town in terms of kids not going to school. Issues with kids not being controlled at night and so on in the towns
and the region will probably escalate if we do not start doing something in this regard. We are engaged in a
welfare reform strategy in Halls Creek. It is about getting people to take more responsibility for their children.
Along with that reform agenda need to come incentives, mainly in regard to housing and employment. You have
to give people something to do.
The other key, of course, is education. We have kids attending private schools around the country, with a focus
on kids attending private schools in Dural in Sydney. Those kids from Halls Creek have now been there for two
years and you can see the difference in them—their self-esteem and the way they present themselves compared
with kids still in Halls Creek. The problem with Halls Creek—and with Kununurra and all of these towns—is that
you have a social environment that does not encourage people to break that cycle of poverty. In fact, the social
norm amongst teenage Aboriginal youths, they tell me, is that it is not cool to succeed.
So I think we have a fairly big challenge on our hands. It is a fairly pressing one. As I said before, I think it is
directly tied to economics and employment opportunities. The challenge for all of us is how we connect these
people to opportunities. It obviously pays to make Kununurra, Broome, Wyndham and Halls Creeks the places
where those opportunities are created, but you have huge numbers of people living in remote communities where
there are no opportunities. There could be opportunities for things like fly-in fly-out.
The other thing that we think is needed to achieve change to the social dynamic is transitional housing.
Transitional housing is the sort of housing that comes packaged. You get a house that comes packaged with
certain responsibilities. Those responsibilities are that you have to send your kids to school, you have to be in
work or in some sort of education or training, you have to pay your rent and you have to be moving towards home
ownership. To the credit of the state government and the housing department, just a couple of years ago they built
40 houses here in Kununurra under that model. It has been very successful. We would be advocating to the state
that, for future housing developments, there need to be more built using that transitional housing model.
CHAIR: Of those 40 houses, what was the percentage take-up under those conditions?
Mr Trust: It was 100 per cent. In fact we have a waiting list. Those houses were built under the East
Kimberley and Ord Enhancement Scheme. There was a whole bucket of money for housing and development of
the Ord River Irrigation Scheme generally. We think the model has been very successful, so we have been
advocating to the state that they continue with it.
But that model will only work where there are opportunities attached to it, especially jobs. It has to go hand in
hand with things like the sort of welfare reform we are doing in Halls Creek. We have been suggesting that, if we
get moving in Halls Creek, we need a transitional housing model. The only problem with that model for Halls
Creek is that there is no market. If you went to Halls Creek now you would be lucky to find two houses on the
market for sale. If people are to transition out of social housing, they need somewhere to go. If you do buy a
house for $300,000 or $400,000, who do you sell it to?
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Those are the sorts of issues we need to work through. What is going to drive things is economics—
opportunities. Whether it is farming or mining or whatever, there needs to be a job there for people to go to. As
we put pressure on people to exit the welfare system, there needs to be somewhere for them to go that provides
opportunities for them. I think that is going to be the challenge for us.
CHAIR: Yesterday we were in Fitzroy Crossing and we visited a property there. They have seven small
communities within the parcel. They had one person that they were able to employ from within those
communities.
Mr SNOWDON: They had four.
Ms MacTIERNAN: Four. They had four.
CHAIR: They had four. The job opportunity was there for people who wanted to take it. They were actually
living in homes, in communities, on that property but they were struggling. They just could not increase the
number of people. It was in their interest, as well as a community interest, to be able to provide opportunities for
local residents but they struggled to do that. We were greeted there by a young lad who, in his second year over
from New Zealand, worked with them because they just could not get the local people to do it. I am just interested
in your thoughts. It will be a similar challenge, I think.
Mr Trust: That is exactly the reason we have advocated the Living Change welfare reform program for Halls
Creek. It is based on the model that they have set up in Cape York. How it works is that people are going to be
held accountable—if there are jobs going and you do not want to accept them, there will be consequences in terms
of your benefits. Like what is happening down there, these people are put on the basic card, for example. There
has got to be a bit of stick and some carrots involved in this whole model. It is exactly the same situation here.
Even though there are some jobs around, whether it is with farming, local shops or small business, the incentive to
stay on welfare is greater. You do need a system to start moving people forward.
We are recommending the Living Change welfare reform program. How that works is that the Halls Creek
people have agreed to accept five social norms: kids go to school; women, old people and children are kept safe;
you do not commit any crimes; you have to be in work; and you pay your rent. They have basically signed off on
those. In the research we have done a lot of people said that is fair enough, we will agree to that. But we do need
to come in with some incentives in terms of transitional housing and opportunities for jobs. The people who do
not meet the norms, whether they are not taking up a job or not sending their kids to school, would then be
candidates to be put on the basic card in terms of income management. I think there has got to be a bit of stick
involved.
In your example of Fitzroy Crossing—that is a problem down there—there are opportunities around but there
is no way of moving people from point A to point B in terms of getting them to move off welfare. That is what I
want to do down there. Like I said before, the transitional housing model is based on people moving into a nice
house, but you have to be sending your kids to school and you have to be in a job and slowly moving towards
buying your own home. We do have people on the waiting list. I think the pleasant surprise for us is that there are
people around who do want to move off welfare and start building a future for themselves and for their family. At
the moment the pathways for them to do it are fairly confused and there is no systematic way of doing it. If
someone does not want to get a job, they do not bother turning up for interviews and so on. I am not sure what the
system does to compel them.
Ms MacTIERNAN: With the Ord expansion stuff, I think the federal government put a fair bit of money into
that as well, particularly the social infrastructure. With the transitional housing model—I think it is a really
interesting one—who is doing the monitoring to work out whether or not all the 40 families are, in fact, sending
their kids to school?
Mr Trust: There are two aspects to it. Wunan does the monitoring of the social family supports. We get
funding from the Department of Housing to provide the wrap-around support that makes sure the kids are going to
school and people are maintaining their jobs and, if they have got issues in terms of money management, working
out a financial plan for them and so on. In terms of the tenancy management, in terms of collecting rents, repairs
and maintenance, that is done by an organisation called Community Housing Limited.
Ms MacTIERNAN: But in terms of getting the kids to school, can you tell us what percentage of kids have an
attendance rate of 90 per cent or more?
Mr Trust: The attendance rate that families sign up to is 86 per cent. I think the families in the homes there
would have an attendance rate, on average, of maybe 80 per cent. When you compare that to families coming
from social housing, there is no comparison. I think there is a core group of kids from that group that have 100 per
cent.
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Ms MacTIERNAN: That is the beginning of a change, isn't it?
Mr Trust: Exactly, yes.
Ms MacTIERNAN: We have heard anecdotal evidence that there is a very, very significant percentage of
kids in the town that are not going to school at all. Would that be correct?
Mr Trust: That is correct, yes.
Ms MacTIERNAN: So you would support this approach of linking the welfare payments to discharging the
obligation to get children to school?
Mr Trust: Very much so. Some of those families need assistance to do it. A lot of the kids who roam the
streets at night come from single-parent families and the parents themselves cannot handle these kids. It has got
beyond that point. Those families are not ready to go into transition housing because they are not meeting the
norms. The interesting thing about the transitional housing model is that people who put their name on the list are
finding that the school attendance of their kids has gone up before they have even been allocated a house to give
themselves a good chance of getting one. It does have those sorts of positive spin-offs. But in the organisation I
work for we do social support. We have three staff down there visiting those people every week. There is a
schedule for housing inspections. They have to come in to go over their finances and talk about how they are
sorting out their finances and moving towards home ownership and so on. So there is constant interaction.
Ms MacTIERNAN: And the home ownership is purchasing the transitional house?
Mr Trust: That house or any house around town. They are not committed to that house. They can buy another
property if they want.
Mr SNOWDON: One of the key social issues that we have been confronting right across northern Australia is
alcohol abuse. What is your view on how we can address the issue of alcohol abuse, other drug abuse and family
violence in Aboriginal communities in and around Kununurra?
Mr Trust: I think the alcohol issue is connected. If you look at the families that have alcohol and drug issues,
they are coming from the same core group. The families are long-term welfare dependent and the kids do not go
to school. There is a huge connection between all those factors. The state government system they have here with
the police with families putting up their hands now to put a yellow card on the front gate declaring that house to
be alcohol free is a really positive thing. Apparently there have been more and more families putting their hands
up for that.
We have to change the social culture. We have to get more and more families into jobs and sending their kids
to school. Like I said before, the social culture at the moment in Kununurra and these Kimberley towns is that
money is easy come, easy go—if you go and spend it all on grog and drugs, who cares? No-one is going to come
and tap you on the shoulder and tell you you need to go and find a job anyway. So I think the alcohol and drug
issues are the tip of a fairly big iceberg. You have to move the other social issues along with them.
They have the grog restrictions in Halls Creek and Fitzroy which have had some effect. But you cannot stop
there. That is really the start. I think the grog restriction is where you have to start. There is going to be a long,
hard battle. We do not expect any overnight miracles in bringing about social change, but there has to be a
philosophical alignment between holding families responsible and government policy that is moving people in a
certain direction in taking more responsibility and creating a future for themselves. The other important aspect of
all of this is that it has to be Aboriginal led. It has to be led by the people themselves. It cannot be seen as a
government imposed thing.
Mr SNOWDON: So fundamentally it is very important that in Halls Creek, for example, you got the
community to agree to the proposal—
Mr Trust: Exactly.
Mr SNOWDON: before it was—
Mr Trust: That is right. The other thing you have to remember is that you are never going to get 100 per cent
support. We do not have total support in Halls Creek. But even if you get 50 per cent support, I think you have to
go with it because that is how you are going to bring about change.
Mr SNOWDON: Can you explain to the committee what the Empowered Communities project involves and
how it is progressing.
Mr Trust: Empowered Communities consists of eight regions around Australia. The common connection
between all us is our connection with Jawoyn. Basically we are philosophically in line in that we all think we are
going to achieve progress through Aboriginal people standing up and taking responsibility—kids going to school,
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getting jobs—and at the same time maintaining culture. It is not about an assimilation strategy; it is about
integration and people maintaining their cultural integrity while at the same time embracing a 21st century
Australia economy—getting jobs, getting kids educated and so on. One of the things we are up against is that
there is a perception out there amongst the Aboriginal people, and this is something we have to contend with, that
the real Aboriginal people are the poor Aborigines—once you start living in a nice house and sending your kids to
school, you lose your Aboriginality. I think that is not true, and we have to start breaking that fairly divisive view
of the world and say you can have a university degree and still be a truly cultural leader.
Mr SNOWDON: But from what I understand it relies on a localism approach—it is around you and your
community establishing the boundaries for itself as opposed to having someone come and impose them on the
community.
Mr Trust: Exactly. In fact, we wanted to take it one step further than that. We are thinking about, instead of
using artificial things like organisations, having an opt-in arrangement at the family level, so an individual family
can decide what they want for their family; they are sick and tired of drunk people or whoever disrupting their
lifestyle and they want to make a choice in terms of how they want to live their life and then we provide all the
support we can to help them succeed.
Ms PRICE: I think it would be useful for us to understand how Wunan is funded. You have talked about
some public housing money from the state government, but just from a federal perspective where else are you
getting your funds from?
Mr Trust: Wunan has $16 million or $17 million of capital assets. We own part of a building in Canberra, we
own an accounting business, we own commercial property here in Kununurra—we own the Kununurra private
medical practice across the road—and we own a research company in Melbourne. The core of our funding is
generated from our own investments and property. We also tender for government contracts. We own 50 per cent
of the company that has the RJCP contract for the East Kimberley.
Ms PRICE: Can you describe that one.
Mr Trust: It is the Commonwealth government's program to get people into work. We own 50 per cent of the
company that has that contract.
Mr SNOWDON: Who has the other 50 per cent?
Mr Trust: The other 50 per cent is with the East Kimberley CDEP, which is the former CDP organisation.
Mr SNOWDON: Based where?
Mr Trust: Here in Kununurra.
Ms MacTIERNAN: Where did you get your capital base from?
Mr Trust: We started off our capital base during the ATSIC era. You could buy buildings, or assets, to get an
organisation started in terms of capital. We sold this building about a year ago, to the shire, so we had a couple of
key buildings or assets that started us and then we grew it from there. Over about five years we had a couple of
million dollars worth of business assets, but we grew that to $16 million or $17 million just by leveraging
ourselves up to being a larger-scale organisation.
Senator EGGLESTON: You have a concept called 'swimming the river'. Is that what this is—in effect, that
you join in?
Mr Trust: Yes, very much so. The Swimming the River animation is about trying to summarise the issues
facing Aboriginal people in terms of where we have come from and where we need to go. The way I see it is that
we are empowering Aboriginal people to take responsibility. You could also use that from an Aboriginal
perspective of regenerating culture, leadership, respect and so on amongst the tradition of Aboriginal cultural
hierarchy as well. It is not just about economic engagement. But I differ from some of my colleagues' views. I
think some of them think that the way forward is to recapture culture and not to be too concerned about education
and the economics. But I think you can do all of it, with culture coming along with it.
Senator EGGLESTON: Are there other groups following your example in the north-west?
Mr Trust: The Kimberley Land Council is part of the Empowered Communities group. We have
organisations around here that want to opt in. I think there is an understanding, basically, that our people do have
to be educated and we do have to get into it. You see people walking around with T-shirts that say, 'We've got to
walk in two worlds.' I think a lot of them do not understand what that actually means. The underlying thing is that
it does mean getting a job and sending your kids to school. I suspect it is growing and increasing.
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Senator O'NEILL: I have a couple of questions on education. You mentioned that you have got some
students in a special partnership with a school in Dural that are changing because of that experience. I would like
to know your hopes for them and their impact in the community and what you can see is already the case.
Mr Trust: Those kids are only 14 or 15. There might be one there in year 11 or something like that. There are
lots of kids going away to boarding schools from the Kimberleys, but I think the solution is that we have also got
to do something about the school in Halls Creek and the school here and, probably to a lesser extent, the school in
Wyndham. We have also got to do something about those schools there. The interesting thing with the partnership
we have in Dural—with those private schools there and also with the Baptist church—is that they are quite keen
to work with us and in partnership with Halls Creek District High School to actually lift the standards so that
Halls Creek District High School almost becomes an annex of those private schools. We are looking at that model
as well, as to where we could take that in the future. You can go and do something about the academic standard of
the school in Halls Creek, but you have also got to do something about the social environment that these kids go
back home to. If you are going back home to a house with 10 or 15 people in there, even though you might be
going to a top-class school, you are almost doomed to fail because of your social environment.
Senator O'NEILL: That was the next question that I wanted to ask. When you have got these families
engaging with the program and they start to send their children back to school, I am assuming there has been no
cherry-picking of the families that were already functioning and you are actually going to families that were not
engaged before and putting them in this transition model. Is that correct?
Mr Trust: That is right. People have got to vote with their feet. You cannot force anybody to change. They
have got to have some sort of motivation to want to get a job, to send their kids to school. What we are doing
through the housing is providing some incentives for them to do that.
Senator O'NEILL: When you pick these families up and you talk about wrapping the resources around them,
they would have mum, dad and a few kids?
Mr Trust: Yes.
Senator O'NEILL: We have been hearing that some young people have not been engaged at school at all.
You would have some who might be 11, nine and seven—different ages if you are going to school—along with
other kids who are five and they are going for the first time. That is one thing, but what are you noticing with
these kids at seven, nine, 11 who have been out of the school system? How are you supporting them to engage in
school, and is that working?
Mr Trust: There are two different sorts of family groups you are talking about here. The ones who have got
social issues in terms of just getting on with other kids are from families who are a fair way down the pecking
order. The families that are going into the transitional housing program are families who have got a reasonable
school attendance and have got a fairly functional sort of family in terms of having had a job before and they have
been on jobs and out of jobs and so on. But there are other family groups who come from social backgrounds
where alcohol or drugs and so on are a huge issue. With those families, I think we are going to have to develop
some sort of capacity. Those families are not ready for transitional housing, because they would not be able to
meet those norms. But we do need to work with to get them up to the point.
I think one of the things that could be a bit of an indicator that a family is showing some signs of wanting to
change is asking for the notices—the grog restriction—to be put on the front of their house. The fact that they
have made that decision, which is a fairly big decision in some cases because you are basically saying to the rest
of your extended family—your brother, sister, uncles and aunties and whatever—'Don't come here drinking' If
they have done that, that is a start to maybe start working with them. So how far do you want to go now? They
would be a prospective transitional housing family, but maybe another year or so down the track.
What we suffer from are the resources of how to work with these families; it is fairly restricted. All the money
that we generate from our businesses goes back into supporting these social programs. If there are other program
grants, that would be handy.
Senator O'NEILL: So resourcing allocation is a problem, and, primarily, you have kids that are reasonably
functioning at school in this program. You mentioned 70 per cent unemployment in the local Indigenous
community. In terms of education, what percentage of young people from the Indigenous community in this town
are attending school?
Mr Trust: I do not know. I think that there would be a cohort of kids from families who probably go very
intermittently, and they are the kids with the social problems; they do not know how to mix. The Department for
Child Protection, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and a few state government agencies had a program here
called Get up and Go and Operation Sharp where they were rounding up those sorts of kids and taking them to
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
school. Then, through a lot of misbehaviour and so on, some of them got expelled the following day because the
schools did not have the capacity to handle that.
Senator O'NEILL: So truancy and rounding the kids up and getting them to school is not an adequate
response, is it?
Mr Trust: That is probably where you start, but I think you also have to be working with the families.
Families have huge problems at home. You have too much overcrowding there. You can keep on checking those
kids at school every day, but you are coming from a situation where the families are just basically dysfunctional.
You have to start addressing that as well.
Senator O'NEILL: Teachers need to have a bit of resourcing too, because they are not used to dealing with
that either.
Ms MacTIERNAN: Your evidence has been fantastic, and it is great to see an Indigenous leader. I think we
have all been really inspired. We met with June Oscar and Emily Parker in Fitzroy yesterday. I know all of these
things are interrelated so it is always a bit hard to know which is the critical one that you have to address, but one
of the things June and Emily were saying to us yesterday was that getting the grog under control gave them the
respite to actually start pulling together all of these are the things.
Warren Snowdon was talking earlier on about the NT type of grog ban which might be a more appropriate
strategy for Kununurra. We totally agree that this sort of stuff has to come from the Aboriginal community. Have
you looked at all at what they have been doing in the Northern Territory in terms of the grog bans? Have you
thought about that being something that really should be trialled here as part of giving the community the
opportunity to get—I think the fundamental principle, is that you are banned if you—
Mr SNOWDON: Let me clarify. That did exist; it no longer exists. In Nhulunbuy it exists because it is a
community-based initiative. In Groote Eylandt it exists because it is a community-based initiative.
Ms MacTIERNAN: Have you guys thought about the sort of initiative that you see in Nhulunbuy and Gove
and whether or not that should be a way forward?
Mr Trust: I am not really familiar with the Northern Territory situation. I am aware that they have the
drinkers register and so on, which I think has been done away with now. There have been different initiatives
here, for instance, having some sort of identification system. I am not sure whether the registered system was
based on that.
Mr SNOWDON: It is similar.
Mr Trust: There is a bit of interest in that regard. I think Emily and June in Fitzroy are right that the whole
social change process starts with alcohol restrictions, especially in areas where it absolutely devastating families
without even mentioning the FASD issue and the violence that comes with it. People are saying to us in Halls
Creek, 'There are lots of responsible drinkers down here. Why can't they go and buy a beer and take it home?' and
I can sort of see that point of view. We have functional families just like those living in Perth or Sydney. We hope
to get to a point at some stage where they can go down and buy a beer and it does not devastate the family. But it
is going to be a while before we get to that point in the Kimberleys, especially these towns here.
There was an interesting thing with the grog restrictions. They were brought into Halls Creek—and it has been
going in Halls Creek for about four years now—and there was a move about two years ago by some of the alcohol
outlets down there to push for a campaign in Halls Creek to relax the restrictions similar to what they have in
Kununurra, where at midday you can buy takeaway alcohol till eight o'clock at night except for Sundays. The
Halls Creek people were saying, 'Why shouldn't we have the same restrictions they have in Kununurra?' Of
course, some people up here do not see this as being too much of a restriction at all anyway. When the Halls
Creek grog restrictions campaign was on, the brave women who campaigned for it only had five per cent support.
Ninety five per cent of people, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, did not support them. To the state
government's credit, they backed the women with only five per cent support and said, 'No, this is important.
We've got to put this in.'
The interesting thing was that, a few years ago, when there was the campaign to relax the restrictions, the
general feeling in Halls Creek was, 'There used to be no restrictions. Now they're in place. We think that they're
doing some good. Let's just leave it as it is.' I think that is a positive. With the welfare reform stuff being brought
in, with living change, I think we will get the same reaction. After people experience it and see the positive things
it is doing, people will say, 'This is the new way of doing it. Let's just keep doing it.' But somebody has to be
brave enough in the first place to make it happen.
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
CHAIR: Thank you very much indeed for coming in at such short notice. Your evidence has been very, very
useful and helps to crystallise some of the other issues that we have been discussing. There may well be some
other questions that we have of you, but we would put those in writing through the secretariat, if that is okay.
Mr Trust: That would be fine.
CHAIR: I thank you very much indeed for your time. It has been very, very useful.
Mr Trust: Thank you.
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FITZGERALD, Mr John Edward, President, Central Kimberley Chamber of Commerce
HAMS, Mr Phillip, Chair, Tanami Action Group
LITTLE, Miss Bronwyn, Strategic Planning Manager, Shire of Halls Creek
[11:32]
Evidence from Mr Hams was taken via teleconference—
CHAIR: Welcome. Would you like to add anything about the capacity in which you appear?
Miss Little: I am appearing on behalf of the chief executive and the president, who are unable to be here
today.
CHAIR: There hearings are a formal proceedings of the parliament. The giving of false or misleading
evidence is a serious matter and may be regarded as a contempt of the parliament. As I have mentioned, the
evidence given today will be recorded by Hansard and attracts parliamentary privilege. I invite each of you to
make an opening statement and then we will invite the committee members to ask some questions.
Miss Little: I have recently taken up the role of strategic policy manager at the Shire of Halls Creek. The chief
executive officer, Rodger Kerr Newell, and the shire president, Councillor Malcolm Edwards, both send their
apologies for not being able to attend, as they are both attending the Kimberley and Pilbara Forum, which they are
holding in Jakarta this week. They were both planning on attending, however, the dates of the forum had been set
for some time.
I will give you some background on the shire. The Shire of Halls Creek had a population of almost 4,000 in the
last census, with about 80 per cent of people identifying themselves as Aboriginal. We are completely landlocked,
sharing borders with three other WA shires and the Northern Territory to the east. The shire has one major town,
Halls Creek, itself, with about 1,400 people in 2011, and many remote communities across the 142,908 square
kilometres that make up the shire. The remote Aboriginal communities within our boundaries include Warmun,
Balgo, Billiluna, Mulan, Ringer Soak and Yiyili. We are located almost 3,000 kilometres north-east of Perth and
360 kilometres south of Kununurra, the nearest regional centre. I can tell you that it takes about 3½ hours to get
here.
In many ways, the issues and opportunities facing our shire reflect those of the other shires in the Kimberley—
land tenure, supporting remote communities, the high cost of infrastructure maintenance and the potential of the
mining and pastoral industries. These matters are outlined very clearly in the submissions from the other
Kimberley shires and from the WALGA Kimberley zone.
The shire, therefore, decided to concentrate our submission on one of the most significant opportunities for
development identified for the shire and the Kimberley. We along with our joint submitters, the Kimberley
Chamber of Commerce, Tanami Action Group and the Kimberley Cattlemen's Association, consider that the
investment in upgrading and bituminising the Tanami Road to national-road standard would have the most
significant positive impact on the long-term sustainability of the shire and the region, both economically and
socially. The Tanami is 1,077 kilometres in length. It joins the Great Northern Highway just south of our town,
linking the shire and the Kimberley region to Alice Springs. In total, around 735 kilometres remain unsealed. That
is on both sides of the border—both Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The portion within WA is
currently a local government road and is maintained by the shire of Halls Creek. The sealing of the Tanami is a
desired outcome identified in the strategic community plan under the economic objectives of making our town
and remote communities prosperous and viable. Upgrading the Tanami has the potential, if it is bituminised, to
serve as a major arterial route to and from not only Alice Springs but the whole of the south and south east of
Australia. It would connect the Kimberley to the centres of the south and south-east for freight, defence services,
tourism and the servicing industry. We consider that it would be a major component in activating the Kimberley's
full potential for mining, agriculture, pastoral, cattle production and tourism.
It would also, just as importantly, improve the delivery of services to the remote desert communities within our
shire, the largest being Balgo, Billiluna and Mulan, and reduce the cost of freight to those communities. During
construction, it would provide work and training to local people as well as contribute to the local economy.
Medium- to long-term, the growth in mining, pastoralism and tourism would provide jobs for local people,
especially within those communities so close to the activities.
On a national scale, the road would provide another point of access to the West Coast and the huge
opportunities of Asia Pacific markets. At its most simple level, the bituminising of the Tanami would shorten the
trip from the south and south-east by at least 1,100 kilometres from the existing routes, which mean travelling
across the Nullarbor before heading north across the west coast to Broome or travelling along the Stuart Highway
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
through Alice Springs and Katherine and then across through to Kununurra, up to Darwin and down through the
Northern Territory. Using the upgraded Tanami would equate to a saving of 17 hours of driving and around
$4,000 in running costs for heavy freight. To give the committee some idea of the potential opportunities of the
Kimberley region which would benefit the region significantly, they put together a map representing the various
sectors and industries. Mr Philip Hams, who has a property, and who is on the phone will take you through that.
The shire is very realistic about the cost of bituminising the Tanami and of maintaining it. We are currently
undertaking a feasibility study that was referred to in the submission but we have now actually taken that up and
we have let the contract ourselves. Under the feasibility study, it would need a private-public partnership to fund
the construction of the road and to develop the road as a toll road. The tolls would apply to heavy freight vehicles
only. That study will be reported on in late June or in July.
The Shire of Falls Creek, the Kimberley region and Northern Australia face many challenges to development.
The shire and our joint submitters consider the sealing of the Tanami to be one of the keys to opening up the
potential of the region by developing the road as a major arterial route for the nation which will increase the
liveability and sustainability of our towns and communities in the Kimberley.
CHAIR: Mr Hams, would you like to make an opening statement.
Mr Hams: I appreciate the opportunity to address the committee. I appreciate the opportunity that I can speak
after you visited GoGo Station yesterday to see for yourselves the agricultural potential that the area has, not only
at Kununurra where you are at the moment but also in the central region and down the southern side of Broome.
The Tanami Road, if you are talking farming or agriculture, will be one enormous asset because, as Bronwyn
pointed out, there will be a saving of approximately 1,100 kilometres not only when driving produce out but also
when bringing in consumables from the south-eastern corner of Australia. It gives that linkage that is missing at
the moment. Should you be looking for something that is manufactured in the south-eastern corner, it has either
got to come in via Darwin down through where we were now or it has to go across to Kalgoorlie or go to Perth
and then on up. I think, looking at a map of Australia, you can see the logic in that diagonal going straight across
through Alice Springs and coming out at Halls Creek. That is the logic behind it.
Not only do we have agriculture but we have massive gas potential yet to be realised and other mining yet to be
realised. Tourism is another big thing as is education and defence in the longer term. So there is a whole raft of
reasons why that road needs to be sealed aside from the need to save the cost of transportation and to speed it up. I
am very confident it can justify itself over the next five, 10 or 20 years. That is where I am coming from.
Ms MacTIERNAN: What is proposed? Could you describe the length and the cost of this project. How long
is the road?
Mr Hams: I can hear the question and was wondering if I could pass that on to Bronwyn or John, who are
present and who could handle it better.
Mr Fitzgerald: The length of Tanami Road unsealed from Great Northern Highway into the Northern
Territory is 753 kilometres. It is 1,077 kilometres to Alice Springs. At the moment, the shire has let a contract out
to do the feasibility study of that road that is unsealed and that is where we are at the moment.
Miss Little: Back in 2011, they did do an Aboriginal study which talked about the cost been $2 million per
kilometre.
CHAIR: How long is the road?
Ms MacTIERNAN: Two thousand kilometres.
Mr Fitzgerald: There are 753 unsealed kilometres to Alice Springs at the moment. The total distance is 1,077
kilometres.
Mr SNOWDON: So there is no seal on this side of the border?
Mr Fitzgerald: None whatsoever. But in that distance we have three communities out that way and potential
mining.
Mr SNOWDON: We already have mines existing on the road.
Senator EGGLESTON: So there are mines, tourism and defence?
Mr Fitzgerald: They are the big things we are looking at.
CHAIR: You said $2 million per kilometre. Earlier on they were suggesting $1 million per kilometre for
sealing.
Miss Little: It will be updated in the new feasibility study which we will send along to you.
Ms PRICE: Do you have any idea when that will be?
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Miss Little: It will be at the end of June.
Mr Fitzgerald: We will have that to you as soon as we can.
Senator EGGLESTON: Didn't the shire at Falls Creek get a consultant to do a report on this a few years ago?
Miss Little: Yes.
Senator EGGLESTON: You might be able to table that for the committee, even though the figures will be
different for the costs.
Miss Little: I do actually have a copy of that.
Mr SNOWDON: I live in Alice Springs and I have driven to Tanami a few times so I know what it is like.
We have had evidence from people in Karratha that say instead of sealing it to Halls Creek, it should be sealed up
to Telfer to give access to Pilbara. I know why you would argue, but how would you argue against this? If you
were asked to give reasons as to why you would prefer coming to Halls Creek as opposed to Telfer, what would
they be?
Mr Trust: That would be the centre. Halls Creek is at a central distance between Darwin and the Pilbara and
Port Hedland—exactly halfway. With the tourism and the mining and infrastructure that is going on in the
Kimberleys, this is future work for all those Aboriginal communities. That is why we would like it to go through
that way.
Mr SNOWDON: You would also be aware there are arguments about the Outback Way, the Plenty Highway
and the road through Yulara across to Warburton and Kalgoorlie. That has been a push by people in Western
Australia, some people in the Northern Territory and some people in Queensland. What would your argument be
to them about why you should be prioritised over that road?
Mr Fitzgerald: You got me on that one at the moment.
Mr Hams: Could I come in there, please?
Mr SNOWDON: Yes. I am just trying to—
CHAIR: Warren Snowden is asking that question.
Mr SNOWDON: I actually believe it is the Tanami Road we should be doing, by the way. Keep going.
Mr Hams: Just from where I am coming from: if we believe for a moment that Australia is going to be the
food bowl for Asia, then it makes an awful lot of sense to connect up that south-eastern corner to the Kimberley
region. And if we believe that the Kimberley region can become that food bowl, it puts the focus on that that is
needed. That is a strong point there.
In regard to the other road running from Cairns and coming out at Kalgoorlie, it does not have that same
directional drive to it. If we are aiming for Asia it is sort of going the wrong way, if you know what I mean. It just
would not have that vibrancy, I don't think, in the longer term.
CHAIR: It would be fair to say, too, that connectivity across the Tanami gives you closer access to rail
linkages. Whether you are moving east, south or north you can connect into a rail system much sooner. When you
start talking about bulk freight, there is an opportunity to use a combination of road and rail.
Mr SNOWDON: In your feasibility study, will you be doing any work on the differences in cost? For
example, to haul a tonne of product—whatever the product is—from Melbourne to Kununurra, or to Halls Creek
for this example, what would be the difference in cost in bringing it up the Tanami Road, as opposed to taking it
across to Kalgoorlie or up to Darwin?
Miss Little: They talk about $4,000 being the difference in time.
Mr SNOWDON: As a commercial enterprise, how would you do a cost-benefit analysis to explain the
difference in cost of delivering a product on this road as opposed to delivering a product on another road?
Miss Little: I believe the feasibility study will cover that. It is going to cover economics, the business case and
the engineering. It has three different disciplines, in the end.
Mr SNOWDON: Another thing we did look at on the Tanami Road is its use for Defence coming across from
the eastern seaboard, in a hurry, to the west coast. It links up exactly halfway between Darwin and Port Hedland.
That is the shortcut straight across the top.
Senator EGGLESTON: The other one that you mentioned a minute ago is this Outback Highway. It is being
developed progressively. It is supported by the shire of Laverton from Alice Springs through Laverton and down
to Kalgoorlie. It provides a diagonal north-east link from Winton in Queensland to Alice Springs and
Kalgoorlie—the great Eastern highlights. It is a totally different concept.
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Mr SNOWDON: It is a different concept, yes. May I ask another question: in terms of your thinking about
this, has the Western Australian government ever shown any interest in bituminising its side of the highway?
Miss Little: Phillip may be able to answer that because he has been in the project for much longer than my six
weeks. But I do believe that it has been put before Main Roads Western Australia at various times. There have
also been suggestions that we apply for it to be reclassified as a main road. Ultimately, the wish of the shire is for
it to be upgraded and handed back to the federal government.
Mr SNOWDON: Or to the Western Australia government?
Miss Little: Yes.
Senator EGGLESTON: What is it classified as, now?
Mr SNOWDON: A local road.
Mr Fitzgerald: Tanami Road.
Mr SNOWDON: It is a registered local road.
Ms MacTIERNAN: But Main Roads have put money into it in the past.
Yes; in the past—before it became the responsibility of the shire. Then it was done through funding.
Ms MacTIERNAN: I think there was actually an direct injection of money somewhere around 2005 or 2006
even though it was a local road. Over an above the regional roads program there was a direct injection to part of
that road.
Mr Fitzgerald: I think that was when the government was subsidising the shires on the roads, before they
brought out the grants.
Mr SNOWDON: In the Northern Territory case it is a Northern Territory road. They have been gradually
bituminising their side of it, which is why I asked why the Western Australian government had not seen the value
of bituminising this side of the highway.
Ms PRICE: We have heard that there are at least three Aboriginal communities along this road.
Mr SNOWDON: Three in Western Australia.
Ms PRICE: Yes; there are three Aboriginal communities in Western Australia, I should say. Do you know
what is on the other side?
Mr SNOWDON: Yes, there is Yuendumu, just down the road, and Lajamanu just up road.
Ms PRICE: So there are definitely more than three. I am just interested what the challenges are for those
communities currently, and what benefits upgrading this road would bring to those communities.
Mr Fitzgerald: There would be cheaper road freight, future employment and safer travelling. Indigenous
people do travel a lot. Also, there are new mines starting up on the Western Australia-South Australia border. I do
not know too much about them at the moment but they are in progress. And tourism is the main thing in the
Kimberleys.
The chamber of commerce is arguing now—this does not have much to do with what we are talking about here
today—about getting people across from Ayres Rock or Uluru. It is one of the biggest attractions in Australia, I
believe, and the Bungle Bungle Ranges is second. There are a number of people who refuse to go out there
because of the road conditions we have coming into the Kimberleys. That is what we are all about; it is the big
thing in tourism.
Miss Little: As you mentioned, the communities will also benefit from tourism. They have their arts centres,
and that would only grow if there were more tourists coming through.
The other thing for the remote communities is the delivery of government services. That would be more sure.
Before I arrived six or seven weeks ago, we could not go out to those communities. It has only been in the last
three or four weeks that we have been able to do that, because of the conditions of the road out to that part.
Mr Fitzgerald: For about a month-and-a-half I think they were flying supplies out to those communities from
Halls Creek, at 500 kilos at a time. That was a big cost to the state government.
Mr SNOWDON: Do you know how many bridges would be required?
Mr Fitzgerald: No. It would be in that study.
CHAIR: It sounds like the Peninsula Development Road!
Mr Fitzgerald: No, it is not the same.
Mr SNOWDON: This is a very important road.
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Mr Fitzgerald: It has the same sort of impact on the community.
Mr SNOWDON: You have 100 per cent agreement here. The committee will agree; no worries.
Senator EGGLESTON: I think there was some mention of a road into the central Pilbara going to—
Mr SNOWDON: That is Telfer Road. That is the one I was just talking about.
Senator EGGLESTON: Yes. Telfer Road links to Marble Bar, which links to a bituminised highway to the
Great Northern Highway.
Mr Fitzgerald: Our argument is that we are dead centre. If you are coming across the top we are half way
between Darwin and Port Hedland. If we brought that road straight through the centre, we could—
Mr SNOWDON: At the moment you have a road; this is a donkey track. The Telfer Road is a donkey track.
You have actually got a main road.
Mr Fitzgerald: We have a road.
Miss Little: It is a formed road.
Mr Fitzgerald: And the shire is spending money on it this year. We have got a crew going out there next
week, I believe. To do how many kilometres?
Miss Little: I am not sure exactly. It is a regular thing. It gets regularly upgraded and maintained once the dry
is with us.
CHAIR: I guess it is fair to say that when we say, 'What is the single most important piece of infrastructure
that could be provided to your region?', you would say unequivocally it is the sealing of the Tanami Road. Is that
a fair comment?
Miss Little: Yes.
CHAIR: There is nothing else that has that same level of priority in relation to enabling opportunities and
allowing you to participate in any developing industry in your region.
Mr Fitzgerald: That is right. I think the next thing down from that—I am guessing that the committee
yesterday went to Gogo Station?
CHAIR: Yes.
Mr Fitzgerald: There is 800 square kilometres of riverfront—which Phil will elaborate on if you like—of
potential growth of the food bowl of this country.
CHAIR: We were very impressed with that, and of course water is the enabler there. We see the difference
between capturing opportunistic falls and irrigated opportunities.
Mr Fitzgerald: I believe Phil will speak on that. I think it is 80km or 90km away down near the Margaret
River. I would like him to speak on that, if you do not mind.
Mr SNOWDON: While we are waiting for Phil, can you tell us how the aquifer is currently managed?
Mr Fitzgerald: The aquifer down there? That just runs straight out to sea at the moment.
Mr SNOWDON: No. If I want to drill a hole and pull out x megalitres of water, do I pay anyone?
Miss Little: I do not think you pay anyone. I do not know this exactly, but I think you need to get a permit
from the Department of Water, and Water Corporation WA are involved in that. But I am not sure about the
payment.
Mr Fitzgerald: I did speak to Phil the other day in Perth, and I think he did say no at this stage.
CHAIR: It has been suggested as an alternative to a dam in that area, because of issues that may be raised
with it—and we are meeting tomorrow, I think, with the Ord people—but the possibility of some type of transfer
of water from Argyle to that opportunity in Fitzroy crosses a relatively short distance. Looking at the map here it
is not that far.
Mr Fitzgerald: I have been a great advocate of that for years.
Mr SNOWDON: Alanah would know Ernie Bridge, whose vision was to take the water to Perth. If we had
done that 35 or 40 years ago this country would be in better shape today.
CHAIR: From my time up here during the Land and Water Taskforce back in 2006 or 2007—around that
time—I recall that there was very strong opposition from some elements within Kununurra.
Phil, it is Warren Entsch speaking at the moment. We are just talking about the possibility of transferring water
from Argyle to capture any opportunity in that Fitzroy Valley area, as opposed to a suggestion of a dam on the
Margaret River. I have just asked a question about a view in relation to transferring water to the Fitzroy area from
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Argyle. I know when I was up here last time on the Land and Water Taskforce there was some very strong
opposition from the locals arguing that if you capture the opportunity in the East Kimberleys you keep it in the
East Kimberleys—which I can understand absolutely—but I am just wondering if you have got any view on that.
I know there have been ideas from Perth to Argyle, but if you are keeping it well and truly within the region and it
is relatively close, what would your thoughts be on transferring water from Argyle to Fitzroy Valley?
Mr Hams: I do not think you can rule anything in or anything out. I think the advantage of the Fitzroy
Valley—and I am not talking about the flood plain as such; I am talking about the soil outside of the flood plain—
is extremely fertile soil, as you saw yesterday. I think all opportunities have to be explored. My first thinking
would be a dam at some stage on the Margaret River. The local politics of that, I venture to say, is fairly
supportive, particularly on the Margaret; but all things have to be looked at. I cannot say that I have actually
thought through that; but, once again, it would certainly need at least a desktop study to see if the idea has got
merit.
CHAIR: Fair enough.
Mr Hams: The soil is the asset. The soil, the sunshine and the access to road and all of that is the asset.
CHAIR: As we saw yesterday, Philip, that asset will not be capitalised on unless you have a regulated water
supply. You will not be able to do it with opportunistic showers; it has to be regulated.
Mr Hams: Yes. As I said earlier, for years I, along with many others, have been thinking that a dam on the
Margaret may well be the solution, but then we would certainly have to look at alternative methodologies of
delivering water.
Mr SNOWDON: Do you have any information on the hydrology, the aquifer? How big is it? What is its
recharge rate? How extensive is it?
Mr Hams: In and around where you were yesterday, it is a two-barrelled affair. My understanding is that there
is water coming in from the Canning Basin, which goes to those bores where we were yesterday. But there is also
a local recharge. There is plenty of evidence to demonstrate that there is probably two- or three-cubic metres a
year—it is all documented; it is well documented—recharge rate during a wet season in the area you were in
yesterday, at Gogo.
Mr SNOWDON: Who do we talk to about the hydrological stuff? Does the Western Australian government
have decent and detailed knowledge of that?
Mr Hams: There is the Department of Water in Kununurra. We were fortunate in being so close to that
Pallara mine site that we were able to pick up on the documentation that has a 15-year history to it from the
mining company itself. So we were in that particular location and were very fortunate to have that access.
Ms MacTIERNAN: We had some discussion amongst ourselves last night about pastoral leases and water
licences. I was not familiar with the fact that pastoral leases needed to get water licences; I am well aware that
mining leases do. If you are a pastoralist extracting from the aquifer, do you need to be licensed?
Mr Hams: No. If we are talking stock watering purposes, it is my understanding that you do not need a
licence for such. But the moment you go into irrigation, you do need a licence for that.
Ms MacTIERNAN: So all those people at Gogo and Fitzroy who have diversification permits would need a
water licence to go along with that diversification.
Mr Hams: Very much so. I was saying just a moment ago that we were fortunate that we had Gogo because
we had that mine information of all their drilling over the years and water extraction over the years. We were able
to use that as part of our argument. If we do not have that, it would be somewhat more difficult and more costly to
establish good argument that we could extract water.
Ms MacTIERNAN: Right. We really enjoyed your station yesterday. It was fabulous.
Senator O'NEILL: One of the interesting things I would like to get your comment on is the connection
between this hard infrastructure and the soft infrastructure in terms of the social benefits. You said you had three
frames you were using in the preparation of your documents. To what extent have you looked at the social
outcomes and benefits of this investment?
Mr Hams: If you are asking me the benefits to society, I think that having a good, sustainable farming
operation can train people and not only train people but in the Kimberley region the Indigenous people own
something like 33 per cent of the pastoral leases and a lot of those leases have as much potential as you saw out
there at Gogo yesterday to do things for themselves. Like everything, you have got to have a starting point, and I
think Gogo can be a pilot operation or at least lead the way and demonstrate to people that they too can do things
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
on their own leases. This is all sorts of leases but I have certainly got in mind the Indigenous owned pastoral
leases. They can follow suit in many places where they can do that.
Senator O'NEILL: One of the things we have had on the record a few times is the challenges in terms of
access to quality health and education. I guess I am interested in the interplay of those particular areas with this
proposed hard infrastructure and where it meets with the soft infrastructure.
Mr Hams: A couple of things there. This is a personal belief: if you can have ongoing employment
opportunities where people have a quality of life, and it gets back to that socioeconomic factor that you do not
hear a lot of in the Kimberley region, if you can get to the socioeconomic benefits then you will pick up on your
health and your education and all those other things that we take for granted elsewhere.
Miss Little: I think the other thing is about livability. Being a very new recruit to the area I have been
astounded at the cost of paying to get anything sent here. A personal example is that I was excited when the
concept of IKEA came because I come from New Zealand. I was asking for a $240 bookshelf to be delivered and
the cost was going to be $235 to deliver it. So the livability for people, even teachers and nurses, is affected.
Freight cost is a huge area for a lot of people, especially at that level of health care and education and to get more
teachers, to make it more attractive to those people to come and give those kids quality education. Long-term that
is one of huge benefit.
Mr Hams: I hear what you say and I think if we can get that other road access to other areas of Australia then
that will sort itself out.
CHAIR: Thank you very much indeed to the three of you for taking the time. I am sorry about the connection
there, Philip, but I think we have done very well under the circumstances. Bronwyn was very quick to make the
point that you are laid up at the moment and that made it a little bit more challenging. Thank you very much, it
has been very useful. I think we have identified a real opportunity there.
Mr Fitzgerald: I want to touch on one more thing, Aboriginal employment. It is something I'm passionate
about in the Kimberley. With more roads and farming opening up, a lot of Aboriginal people haven't got the
opportunity, but if they had the opportunity to diversify into mining, agriculture, road building, we would go a
long way with Aboriginal social economics. A lot of the younger Indigenous people with their education coming
through—I do see an increase in their education—want to get out and do things for themselves, but they are
hamstrung at the moment. They are on the dole. We have employment people—there is one behind us, Many
Rivers, who finance and help people to get into business. I would like to see a lot more of that.
CHAIR: I will just make a comment and I made reference to this earlier on. There needs to be something else
there as well, because one of the things we realised when we went to Gogo yesterday was that there are seven
communities on that property and only four of the locals have been able to get work. The opportunity is there and
the agriculture is there, and they appreciate the contribution for that. They are not menial tasks. I understand that
the manager of the second property is one of the local Aboriginal people. Even though there are opportunities,
there are challenges in engaging those people. We raised it earlier on with the gentleman from the Wunan group.
So while there are opportunities, there are also triggers to ensure that the young people engage with the
opportunities on their doorstep.
Miss Little: Last night there was a presentation from Northern Minerals, who are working in the Browns
Range. One of the questions asked of them was: how are they going to engage local people to work? One of the
huge things they have already recognised is that a lot of them do not have such a simple thing as a driver's licence
and it's one of the basic things for working in a mine. One of the opportunities they see is going all the way down
the stream to find out what is available at the moment and what they need to train up. They are doing some of that
through Wunan and other groups.
CHAIR: Thanks very much for your time. It is greatly appreciated and it has been very useful.
Mr Fitzgerald: Thank you for taking the time to listen to us.
CHAIR: Do we have one more witness? While we are waiting, I would call on members to include Exhibit 1,
which is the Shire of Wyndham; Exhibit 2 which is the Shire of Wyndham, the East Kimberley at 25K; Exhibit 3
is the Shire of Wyndham—it is the Darwin International Airport Global Centre and East Kimberley Regional
Airport Transport Hub, Kununurra; Exhibit 4 is the Shire of Halls Creek's upgrading the Tanami Road; Exhibit 5
Wunan presented to us; and Exhibit 6, which is the development of North-western Australia, presented by our
previous witness.
Proceedings suspended from 12:20 to 12:25
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
CAMP, Mr Peter, Chair, Kimberley Cattlemen's Association
FORSHAW, Ms Kirsty, Kimberley Cattlemen's Association
Evidence was taken via teleconference—
CHAIR: Welcome. I assume you have properties in the area.
Ms Forshaw: Yes, Peter is from Kalyeeda Station near Derby and I am from Nita Downs Station south of
Broome, so we are both pastoralists as well.
CHAIR: I invite one of you to make a short opening statement, and then I will open it up for the committee to
ask some questions.
Ms Forshaw: We are pastoralists, but we have just recently formed the Kimberley Cattlemen's Association. It
is basically a producer group formed to help develop the Kimberley rangeland areas, more in the pastoral side of
things. We would just like to see our pastoral industry become more productive and expand into agriculture with
things like fodder mosaic agriculture with irrigation. We are not a lobby group. We are still members of the
Pastoralists and Graziers Association. But the purpose of our group is to look at ways we can develop our industry
better in the Kimberley area, and we will probably expand it to the Pilbara. We are just taking this opportunity to
talk to you more about ways that we can see the agriculture-pastoral side of things move forward here.
CHAIR: Could you identify three things that you could ask this committee to recommend that would
maximise the opportunities that you see in your area of interest, in order of priority?
Mr Camp: Of three things that would maximise opportunities in our area, one would be land tenure. The
others are farm gate returns and market opportunities.
CHAIR: Just taking one at a time, tell me what the issues are with land tenure and what you would need to
have them resolved.
Mr Camp: The big issue we have with land tenure is the minimal security. We are on pastoral leases, and that
has a restricting effect on us as far as getting outside investment in is concerned. We have the opportunity to do
diversification permits, but those diversification permits can take anything up to three to five years to have in
place. That is pretty well it on tenure.
Ms Forshaw: Regarding the tenure, as you are probably well aware, with pastoral leases we only have the
right to graze. With us looking at developing our country, being a bit more intensive and being able to supply,
say, local abattoirs, and to get cattle to those weights in the right period of time, we have to go through the
process of converting to a general lease. Personally, we are doing that on our station, but it has taken about five
years and we are still not quite there yet. Each individual department in Western Australia is quite helpful, but
there is no overall, overarching thing to bring it all together in a one-stop shop. That puts off outside investors,
which are a lot of where we need to get our funds from. With native title, it is not the traditional owners
themselves who are so much the issue, but just going through the native title process and getting Indigenous land
use agreements, to be honest, is a nightmare.
Ms MacTIERNAN: Kirsty, could you just explain again what you were saying you want to do on your
property? Is it the diversification permit you are seeking?
Ms Forshaw: At the moment, we have a diversification permit for a small area. Because we need to invest a
fair bit of money into infrastructure, for bank security and to get third-party investment, which is what we need to
help do the development, the land tenure using a permit is not really of any use. That is why we have gone
through the general lease process. We are looking at planting irrigated fodder. We are on a good aquifer in the La
Grange area, so the water resource there is fantastic. We want to utilise that to grow fodder for cattle.
Mr SNOWDON: What are the terms of a general lease as opposed to the terms of a pastoral lease?
Ms Forshaw: It is a 20-plus-20-year option.
Mr SNOWDON: But you can do more than graze?
Ms Forshaw: Pardon?
Mr SNOWDON: What can you do under the terms of a general lease that you cannot do under the terms of a
pastoral lease?
Ms Forshaw: With a pastoral lease, you only have the right to graze cattle on the native grasses that are there.
You can get permits, but they are quite restrictive. They are short term and restricted to one particular use—it
might be a certain crop. If you want to go larger scale, the general lease applies. The general lease allows us to
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
pretty much do anything to do with agriculture or horticulture, so we are open to all sorts of grass species, crops
or horticulture and so on.
Mr SNOWDON: Did you say it is a 20-plus-20 term?
Ms Forshaw: Yes, that is right.
Mr SNOWDON: Thank you.
Senator EGGLESTON: Could I ask you a question about those restrictions. A lot of pastoralists talk about
diversification and the need to change the agreements, but what is the situation in other states? Are people on
pastoral leases able to diversify into other forms of agriculture and use the land for that, which is, I gather,
precluded under Western Australian pastoral leases?
CHAIR: Did you hear that?
Mr Camp: Yes, sort of. I know that in the Territory they are certainly opening up a lot more opportunities
with diversification. I am pretty sure that they can diversify up to 50 per cent of their property, providing that
what they are diversifying does not exceed the capacity of the pastoral lease in revenue generated. In Queensland
too they are changing a few things. I am not 100 per cent on the Queensland situation, but definitely I know that
the Territory are making pastoral leases perpetual leases. There is a hell of a lot more opportunity there for what
we would like to do here in the west.
Ms Forshaw: Because we do not have a perpetual lease. The other states that do had that come in before
native title came in, so I think that is the difference between the states.
CHAIR: I think the Territory have perpetual leases in their pasture, haven't they?
Mr SNOWDON: No, they are pastoral leases.
CHAIR: In Queensland we have a variety. There are some freeholders, but there are perpetual leases and then
there are term leases. But a review is being done on the term leases at the moment. It used to be an automatic
renewal. When you got it, it was 30 to 50 years and then automatic renewal within 10 years provided that you
fulfilled the obligations of the lease. That has since changed to a point where you could not apply for renewal
until the lease expired, which has caused all sorts of problems, so there is a review being done on that. But on the
pastoral lease side of things—and again that is being reviewed—you could do other things provided that the
primary use of the property was for pastoral activities. But that is being changed as well. That also in Queensland
has caused all sorts of problems with raising—
Ms Forshaw: I think the issues we have in WA for us to convert to perpetual and other options are that it
invokes the future acts, so we would have to go through the native title process and have Indigenous land use
agreements. While I do not want to see that as a roadblock, it is a big hurdle to overcome. I think we have a
determined tribe on our place, but, for the places that do not, I think they would have to do a separate ILUA with
each registered claimant—I am not 100 per cent sure on that, but that is from what I gather—to go on to, say, a
perpetual lease.
Ms PRICE: Kirsty and Peter, we know that we are looking at having a new pastoral lease in place here in
Western Australia. What is your expectation about that perhaps allowing you a more diverse range of activities?
Also, what is your expectation about the term of the new lease?
Mr Camp: I did not catch most of that.
Ms Forshaw: Sorry, I am just having trouble hearing. Were you asking about the change in the pastoral lease
coming up at 2015?
Ms PRICE: Yes, that is right.
CHAIR: And what was your expectation?
Ms Forshaw: I do not think there are any changes to the use of the land; I think they are just renewing the
actual lease document, as far as I can gather, to roll over the existing one that we have.
Ms PRICE: What about the term of that lease?
Ms Forshaw: It is up to a maximum of 50 years, but you are only entitled to roll over what your existing
amount is. I do not think there are any that are 50. Most of them are probably around 34 or 40 years. I asked if we
could extend ours up to the 50, but that would also apparently—
Ms MacTIERNAN: Be a future act.
Ms Forshaw: Yes, a future act process as well.
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JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
CHAIR: Clearly, tenure is a significant issue in relation to being able to raise or having the collateral to raise
funds for any additional opportunities or diversification you wanted to gather. Is that a fair comment?
Ms Forshaw: Yes, that would be a fair comment. That certainly is a factor in any investment.
Ms MacTIERNAN: Can I just clarify that? I thought Kirsty said something very interesting that I had not
thought of before. Kirsty, could you just clarify this? If you just go for a diversification permit, is part of the
problem that the diversification permit is not for the same length of the lease? Is that part of the problem? Is that
not a stable basis enough for the investments, because of the relatively short-term nature of the diversification
permit? Is that what you were saying?
Ms Forshaw: Yes. Previously you could only get up to the end of 2015 or the pastoral lease expiring. Going
forward, I am not sure what sort of time frame you can get. But they are pretty much designed as a small sideline,
I guess; whereas, if you want to invest in a larger project, that is not really a suitable one to use. I think there is
even something in there that, if you start to get a decent amount of return, it is no longer allowed to be a permit
and has to go into a general lease land tenure.
Ms PRICE: I am interested in access to market. I think Peter noted that that was one of the issues. I am
assuming you are probably shipping out of Broome. Is that correct?
Mr Camp: Yes, the majority of cattle out of Broome. We are far enough west to be able to do that. Broome is
our major export port for the West Kimberley.
Ms PRICE: Kirsty, are you out of Broome as well?
Ms Forshaw: Yes, that is right.
Ms PRICE: If there were to be a further expansion, do you see any restrictions on using the Broome port for
that?
Mr Camp: No, not restrictions; what our concern is is congestion. That is a bit of a worry with the mining and
petroleum boom that is possibly going to happen throughout the Kimberley. We are very concerned within the
industry that there could be major congestion in the port of Broome. The other thing that concerns us a lot as
cattle producers is the way access to the port in Broome is structured. You have got the main access route going to
port actually going through a residential area. In the future I can see that being a major issue with people who may
not be fully supportive of live export.
CHAIR: I want to move on to your point on farm gate returns.
Mr Camp: The cost of production is continually going through the roof and of course the return on our
products are certainly not. This year there is a bit more light in the tunnel with the price that we are receiving at
the moment, but there are no guarantees that we are going to continue to receive those prices. We would like to
think that we are going to. Our cost of production is getting to a breaking point. On properties where you would
normally carry at least two or three permits we have had to reduce our staff numbers and be very careful about
when we put staff on. We are practically totally restructuring the way we work and operate our pastoral leases due
to the rising costs of production.
CHAIR: We heard in Broome that there is an abattoir being built in the region. Do you see that as something
that can benefit the broader industry in relation to the processing of a particular type of cattle to improve your
return?
Mr Camp: The works outside of Broome will not replace live export. It will certainly kill cattle that may not
be eligible to go on to live export, but it will certainly not replace live export. It does benefit us in being able to
put those cattle into a works locally instead of trucking them 2,000 to 3,000 kilometres further south, which could,
in the future, become an animal welfare issue.
Ms Forshaw: Generally our cattle go to Indonesia. They are lightweight cattle and they feed them on there
and put the weight on in Indonesia or Vietnam—although Vietnam does take slaughter. For cattle going to local
abattoirs, it is probably a small portion of our cattle, until we start developing irrigated fodder, which is where we
are heading, to be able to put that weight gain on in a reasonable period of time. On a normal grains land it does
take a while to put the weight on. Getting those slaughter weights in the right age is where we need to develop
more intensive irrigated agriculture. We definitely see a benefit in having that local meatworks. We think it would
be fantastic, but it is certainly not going to be able to be a market for all our cattle at this stage.
CHAIR: Of course live export will, we understand, always be a very critical part of the industry in your
region. However, because there are constraints in relation to the type and weights of cattle that are able to be sent,
our understanding of the evidence we got was that initially they are looking at doing primarily minced beef. So it
gives people an opportunity to clean up their properties. It gives an opportunity to process as manufacturing beef
Wednesday, 7 May 2014 House of Representatives Page 39
JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
those cattle that do not meet the criteria for live export and to clean up the properties et cetera. They are planning
quite a significant capacity to do on that. I was just interested to see whether you thought that you guys could
avail yourselves of that opportunity.
Ms MacTIERNAN: Kirsty, I thought what you were saying was very interesting in that once you have got
that access to irrigated fodder you are going to be in a position where you can bring the cattle on locally. So it will
not just be the roughies that are being processed for minced meat, but you could see the abattoir creating the
possibility of prime meat being dealt with as well. So you are linking the access to irrigated fodder to doing the
value adding locally?
Ms Forshaw: Yes, that is right. There would definitely be great opportunities if we could value add our own
cattle in a reasonable time frame and be able to supply the local meatworks. That would be an ideal scenario. As
you well know, there is a fair bit of work to get to that, but I see that as one of the key futures in the Kimberley
pastoral industry. A lot of that is my personal perspective.
Ms MacTIERNAN: But shared by many.
Ms Forshaw: I think it is a good way ahead.
Ms MacTIERNAN: Excellent.
Mr Camp: There are other opportunities we have with the local works down the road. The works there open
up opportunities in the future to go into a niche market as far as organic. There are certainly those opportunities
there where we can put numbers through into a niche market, into that organic market.
Ms Forshaw: As an industry we would like to see government support for that abattoir, because I think at this
stage they may be only able to afford to kill their own cattle and some extras. For them to be able to expand to
take outside cattle would be a big benefit.
CHAIR: Can I say that, in the evidence that we received, they are very keen to take outside cattle. There is no
intention—there has never been an intention—to do it just for their own requirements. In fact, they have said that
it is crucial that 50 per cent of the stock that they get to go through that processing will come from outside their
own areas. So they are certainly looking at it from outside their own production.
Ms Forshaw: That is good.
CHAIR: So it is still a little bit down the track. There is still work that they have to do there, but there
certainly is not an intention just to have it as a closed shop; it is something for the whole region. In fact, they were
suggesting that they may have to look at a broader catchment to get the numbers that they are going to require of
the type of cattle that they can use. The third point that you made there was market access—am I correct?
Mr Camp: Market access—yes, it was. One of the limiting factors we have had in the past is that it is very
hard to get the cattle to certain markets, especially when we continually have the goalposts changed. Go back four
years ago. We were producing a heavier type of cattle which fitted the bill for the Indonesian slaughter weight
trade. When they imposed those weight restrictions on us in 2010, of course, the industry took a massive dive, to
use heavy cows for an example, from getting $1.25 to only about 90c. We would have to turn over cows
somewhere else and process them in Australia. The industry took a massive dive. I realistically reckon that the
weight restriction probably did as much damage as the live export ban did in 2011.
CHAIR: Okay, just a summary—
Mr SNOWDON: It has changed.
CHAIR: It has changed, hasn't it?
Ms MacTIERNAN: What has changed?
Mr SNOWDON: The weight restrictions.
Ms MacTIERNAN: That were placed by—
Mr SNOWDON: Indonesia.
CHAIR: But that has changed now, hasn't it? They have opened it up.
Mr SNOWDON: For this set of quotas.
CHAIR: For these quotas.
Mr Camp: They have been to Indonesia but no doubt there will be restrictions there. They certainly would
take heavier cattle if the price were getting too high with Indonesia. I would say they would be taking heavy cattle
for a shorter turnover period so they can keep the price of beef down to a stable level. But with the other markets,
Page 40 House of Representatives Wednesday, 7 May 2014
JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE ON NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
of course, Vietnam at the moment is a heavy market and Egypt coming back on the line is heavy. So there are
quite a few options out there for the heavier cattle at the moment.
CHAIR: You are talking about market access. I would be interested in your comments in relation to the
adequacy of road infrastructure. There has been some strong support here today for the sealing of the Tanami
Road. Would you see that as helping pastoralists in the region if that were sealed through to Alice Springs?
Mr Camp: We have certainly put the submission in, as the Kimberley Cattlemen's Association, for the
upgrading of the Tanami Road. We find that it is probably one avenue that would help reduce some of our
operating costs and certainly give us other market options in times of crisis, like when the 2011 ban was put on.
We could have had that opportunity then to put cattle into central Australia, then maybe finish up there with the
right terms and conditions and then into processing works in southern Australia.
CHAIR: There is a second proposal for another road in the region, from Telfer to Port Hedland, but I was just
wondering from your perspective which would be the highest priority.
Mr Camp: I am probably a bit biased here, I would go for the Tanami. It is going to open up a lot of
opportunities not only for the agricultural industry here in the North but for the mining industry, for the tourism
and for Defence. I really think that the opportunities there are a bit greater than the Telfer one.
CHAIR: From a pastoralist's perspective what is your view on the adequacy of social infrastructure in your
area—schools, social services, hospitals et cetera?
Ms Forshaw: Would that cover education and those sorts of things?
Mr SNOWDON: Yes.
Ms Forshaw: I had a note to bring that up at one point. I do not want to speak just for myself as I am here on
behalf of everyone, but my children are on School of the Air and there is always that threat that is often talked
about that they are possibly going to close down School of the Air and run it out of Perth. The obvious issue is
that they will miss out on having visits by teachers and camps with the local kids in their area in the Kimberley.
Also, the school misses out on some funding. While the children are in remote areas the actual school base is in
the large town of Derby.
It is getting harder for a lot of families to educate their kids if they are past the school bus run. It is then a
matter of whether they have to free up their own time to teach their kids, or employ a home tutor. In the time I
have been doing it I am starting to see that it is putting a lot of families off. So when we talk about developing
regional areas I think education is a very important thing because it encourages families and long-term residents
to the area. Otherwise we will end up with a lot more transient people. As I guess most of us know, as parents our
main concerns are where you move your family to, if your kids are going to be educated and what happens if you
get hurt. I think education is pretty important.
Mr SNOWDON: Where do they run School of the Air from for you at the moment?
Ms Forshaw: Derby.
CHAIR: Thank you very much for your evidence. It has been very useful. What you have said has confirmed
a lot of what we have already heard. Thank you for your time.
Mr Camp: Thank you for the opportunity to voice our concerns.
Committee adjourned at 13:02
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