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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.

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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES


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


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

House of Representatives Wednesday, 7 May 2014


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.



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



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.



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.



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.



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?


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.



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.



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?


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.



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,



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



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



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.



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?



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



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.



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?



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.



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?



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.



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.



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?



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.



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,



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.



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



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.



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.



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



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?



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.



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.



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



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



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



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



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.



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



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,



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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