Welcome to the August edition of Wentworth News
After a six week recess Parliament has resumed. My recess was a particularly busy one, both in Wentworth on local matters and with meetings of several of the parliamentary standing committees of which I am a member.
We have been busy completing a study on the costs and financial feasibility of tax reform in Australia. The conclusions are very interesting: fundamental reform is certainly affordable, but is it politically feasible? We are holding a forum on 1 September to discuss the study and wider tax reform. More details below.
The biggest Sydney news has probably been the retirement of Bob Carr as Premier shortly after he announced a desalination plant to widespread criticism. More on that below too.
Counter terrorism, however, remains the top focus following the homicide bombings in London. The Howard Government has responded quickly to ensure that measures are put in place to prevent a similar attack occurring in Australia.
Two of my Standing Committees’ inquiries are now close to concluding with their reports: the Environment Committee with a report on Sustainable Cities and the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee with a report on the new shared parenting amendments to the Family Law Act. The Health Committee continues an inquiry into the financing of health care and the Economics Committee is inquiring into superannuation for the under 40s, and only last Friday met with the Governor of the Reserve Bank.
Other items in this newsletter include:
Counter Terrorism Measures
The Prime Minister has convened a special meeting of the Council of Australian Governments with the Premiers and the Chief Ministers of the States and Territories to consider counter-terrorism issues.
Amongst the issues which are listed on the agenda are: counter terrorism legal frameworks; surface transport security; identity security; more effective prevention of any advocacy of terrorism, including through the engagement of community and religious leaders and also enhancing community understanding of an engagement in the national counter-terrorism arrangements.
The National Counter Terrorism Committee which in addition to Federal agencies includes all State and Territory security agencies is working on the proposals to be presented to COAG especially with respect to land transport and aviation security (which is being reviewed by UK expert Sir John Wheeler) and, in light of the London experience, the use of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV). The Attorney General is reviewing legislation with a view to strengthening our ability to deal with terrorism and those who incite it. He is also reviewing the law on identity security.
Tax Reform – Lets Get on With It
Australia’s income tax system is overdue for thorough reform, or at least so many critics contend. The tax base has been eroded by tax concessions increasing complexity and compliance costs and marginal rates are too high.
Our study on the financial consequences of tax reform demonstrates that there are no financial reasons for putting fundamental tax reform in the too hard basket. No electorate pays more income tax than Wentworth.
On Thursday 1 September at 7.00 pm in the Bondi Room at Easts Leagues Club, Bondi Junction, the Wentworth Liberals Federal Electorate Conference (FEC) will be holding a discussion on tax reform. I will present a summary of the very interesting results of our study.
In addition Professor Chris Evans from the University of New South Wales Tax Centre, ATax, and Professor Peter Saunders from the Centre for Independent Studies will speak. Both are experts on tax reform and have written and spoken extensively on the subject in recent times. It should be an interesting discussion and hopefully the beginning of a new push for fundamental tax reform.
NSW Labor’s Proposed Desalination Plant
Shortly before his retirement, NSW Premier Bob Carr announced that his Government was planning to build a desalination plant located on a 25 hectare site at Kurnell designed to produce 500 million litres of fresh water per day or about 180 billion litres per annum.
The cost based on the report by the Government’s own consultants is staggering: $1.75 billion. The water will cost at least $1.53 per kilolitre. The energy requirement is so large, it would be cheaper to build a gas fired power station next to the plant rather than buy power from the grid. But space and environmental considerations preclude that option at Kurnell, so more energy from our coal fired power stations will be required.
Desalination plants operate by pushing salt water through a series of membranes so that, by reverse osmosis, the salt is screened out and only the fresh water remains. Because salt water is so much more salty than waste water, more than twice as much energy is required to purify the water: more pumps, more pressure and more membranes.
Bob Carr once described desalinated water as "bottled electricity" and he was right. The energy cost is enormous.
At present a considerable amount of energy is used to operate the ocean outfalls for our sewage; a recycling plant would replace those outfalls and substitute its own energy requirements for those of the outfalls. The desalination plant on the other hand is simply additive: we will still be burning coal to run the outfalls and have to burn a lot more coal to run the desalination plant.
A desalination plant will not only be wasteful of energy, expensive and environmentally reckless, it is also likely to be the biggest white elephant ever built by an Australian Government.
At present we appear to be in a sustained dry spell where rainfall and run off is significantly below long term averages: hence our declining dam levels.
However, there have been sustained dry periods before and our weather is, to say the least, unpredictable. If we build a desalination plant and rainfall improves, how will we carry the cost?
A 180 billion litre plant of the kind contemplated by Carr will need $270 million of revenue per annum (calculated on the estimated water price of $1.50 per kilolitre).
Typically, plants of this kind need a take or pay contract: Sydney Water will either have to take the water and pay for it, or pay a lesser percentage (often around 60%) of the contract cost for the water they do not take to compensate the plant’s owners or investors for their capital and maintenance costs.
This would mean that if there is plenty of rain, the plant will cost Sydney Water 60% of $270 million or $162 million. If there were three years of good rain, the Kurnell plant could cost Sydney Water nearly half a billion dollars for no water! It sounds crazy, but its better to pay 60 cents in the dollar for water you don’t receive than 100 cents in the dollar for water you don’t need.
Mr Iemma of course is praying that it rains with particular fervour. If the dams fill up in the next twelve months he won’t have to commit to this massive project. But if the drought continues, the Government’s stated intention is to go ahead with Kurnell.
If, on the other hand, we were to build a large scale recycling project, we would be achieving an important environmental objective: cleaning up our ocean. We could enhance the environmental flows in our rivers and replenish ground water. If our dams were full we would at least have clean oceans. In other words; recycling is worth doing whether the dams are full or empty.
Most troubling of all is the secrecy in which the State Government has reached its decision. There has been no public inquiry or information made available by the Government to allow a public debate. Water is the single biggest sustainability issue facing our City; yet in a shameless denial of democracy the former Premier reached his decision without any informed public debate. As the now resigned Planning Minister Craig Knowles said when the plant was announced, Sydney’s water was an issue which was “too important to debate.”
The environment is not the only victim of this reckless decision.
Hearing with Governor of the Reserve Bank
The hearing with the Governor was very interesting and the transcript is here. I pressed him for an explanation as to why Sydney’s economy was performing so poorly relative to the rest of Australia. Predictably he was not prepared to make any judgments on the NSW Government, but he was scathing about Sydney property prices. Their decline is the result, he said, of having been far too high for far too long and the decline in our economy is due, so he contends, to the city being too expensive to buy a home in.
At the same time he said the high prices are prompting Sydneysiders to sell up and move to other cities and towns. I don't have to be as tactful as the Governor and have no hesitation in agreeing with Saul Eslake, senior economist for the ANZ Bank, when he said the slump in NSW was due to the economic mismanagement of the State Labor Government.
$7,000 to Commemorate VP Day in Wentworth
Bondi Junction-Waverley RSL Sub-branch and Rose Bay RSL Sub-branch, have received funding from the Howard Government to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Victory in the Pacific (VP) Day and the end of World War II.
This funding, $5,000 for Bondi Junction-Waverley RSL Sub-branch and $2,000 for Rose Bay RSL Sub-branch, has been made available under the Federal Government’s Saluting Their Service 2005 Programme.
This significant event in our wartime history was commemorated by Bondi Junction-Waverley RSL Sub-branch at a service and function on Sunday 14 August and by Rose Bay RSL Sub-branch at a service and function on Monday 15 August.
Lucy and I joined Bondi Junction-Waverley RSL President Bill Harrigan and many other members and veterans at the Waverley Park cenotaph and then for a lunch at the RSL. See photos here.
Bondi Junction-Waverley RSL Sub-branch and Rose Bay RSL Sub-branch should be congratulated on their initiative and I am pleased that Federal Government funding has been made available to assist.
The Federal Government in partnership with Bondi Junction-Waverley RSL Sub-branch and Rose Bay RSL Sub-branch has ensured that our community remembers and honours the men and women who defended our nation at its time of greatest danger.
$5,764,290 for Local Councils in Wentworth
Randwick, Waverley and Woollahra Councils will receive Howard Government funding of $5,764,290 in 2005–06 for local roads and the provision of other local government services.
Randwick Council will receive $2,764,206
Waverley Council will receive $1,821,760 and
Woollahra Council will receive $1,178,324
These Local Government Financial Assistance Grants help councils to provide the high quality services that local communities need and expect of their local council.
These grants are untied so Randwick, Waverley and Woollahra Councils can allocate the funds according to local priorities.
Wentworth Students Prize Ceremony
On 14 July I presented Australian Students Prize (ASP) for Excellence certificates, signed by the Federal Minister for Education, to eight Wentworth students in national recognition of their outstanding academic achievement in 2004. The ceremony took place in my electorate office. See a photo and news story here.
The students were:
1. Sarah Lux Moriah College
2. Sadhana Abayasekara Sydney Girls High School
3. Nicole Fitzsimons Kincoppal- Rose Bay School
4. Ivan Guo Sydney Boys High School
5. Tessa Kennedy St Catherine’s School
6. Andrew Luboski Sydney Grammar School
7. Daniel Nadasi Cranbrook School
8. David Perkis Sydney Grammar School
The Australian Students Prize is a Howard Government initiative designed to give national recognition to academic excellence and achievement in secondary education. As well as the certificate, it comprises a payment of $2000 to each student.
Congratulations are due to parents and students. The students’ achievements are publicly acknowledged, as they should be. But without the encouragement and support of their parents, they may not have been able to achieve their academic success.
Thanking Wentworth’s Volunteers
Later this month, I will be holding a presentation ceremony in my electorate office to acknowledge the selfless work of four volunteers from Wentworth who served in India, Indonesia, the Cook Islands and the Philippines.
I will be awarding Certificates of Appreciation, signed by the Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, in national recognition of their valued contribution toward assisting developing countries to reduce poverty and achieve sustainable development.
National Tree Day in Wentworth
On 31 July Lucy and I took part in National Tree Day planting trees at Rodney Reserve in Dover Heights. National Tree Day is Australia's biggest community tree-planting event. See a photo here.
This year’s National Tree Day saw more than 320,000 volunteers join together to plant one and a half million native trees and shrubs at 3,700 sites Australia wide. These are impressive results considering the widespread drought and water restrictions that are currently affecting so much of the country.
Miroma’s Annual Appeal
I encourage you to support the Miroma Annual Appeal. Miroma is a local charity, established in 1966, providing services to people with intellectual and other disabilities living in the Eastern Suburbs. Their mission is to support each of their clients to achieve their potential through opportunities for learning, self-expression and social and economic participation.
One of their most challenging projects is to raise money for the replacement of their small bus that provides transport for clients to their services.
Donating to the Miroma Annual Appeal will enhance the quality of life of some of the most marginalised and disadvantaged people in our local community. For more information on the Appeal, please contact Miroma’s Chief Executive Officer, Georgina Michaelis, on 9337-5167 or email gmichaelis@miroma.org
Yours sincerely,
Malcolm Turnbull MP
Member for
Wentworth