Mr CLAYTON BARR (Cessnock) (17:00): I move:
That this House:
(1)Supports the New South Wales Government’s reforms to build better public services for New South Wales, which has seen teacher vacancies reduce by 40 per cent, nurse retention rates increase to pre-COVID levels, the recruitment of an additional 250 rural and regional paramedics, and police officer recruitment up 65 per cent compared with the former Liberal-Nationals Government.
(2)Supports the New South Wales Government’s reforms to increase housing supply including through investing $5.1 billion to deliver social and affordable housing, the largest investment in housing in the State’s history.
(3)Supports the removal of the wages cap, which resulted in 10,000 merged and cancelled classes in schools every day, saw 12.6 per cent of our nursing workforce, 7,678 nurses, leaving our health system in 2022, and police officer turnover more than double, from 513 vacancies in 2017-18 to 1,286 in 2021-22.
(4)Opposes the privatisation of essential government services including roads, energy and hospitals.
Before I am interrupted by interjections from members opposite, I urge Opposition members to heed some of the statistics that will be discussed in this debate and underscore the importance of the motion. The issue is building a better New South Wales. In 2025, do we have a better New South Wales than we had in 2023? Surely all members will agree that reducing teacher vacancy rates by 40 per cent is a good thing. Some members had teacher vacancy rates in excess of 70 per cent in their electorates, which means that the teachers who might have been at the local school on any given day, particularly when young families took their child to school on the child’s first day, might or might not have been the teachers at that local school by the end of that year and the year after. How can parents possibly build connection for their children through education at the local school if the parents are not able to predict the teaching staff who will be at that school day to day, and year to year?
Members of this House all agree that retention of nurses is important. In a single year when 12 per cent of nurses left the profession, from a total of roughly 50,000 nurses, we lost 7,000 nurses, we would all agree that problem needs to be addressed. Members may prefer to consider the impact of that by considering an investment of $50,000 which, during a single year, is reduced to approximately $43,000. Surely members would ask themselves: What is wrong here? What do I need to do to fix the problem? One of the fundamental problems that existed during the term of the previous Liberal-Nationals Government was that day after day, week after week and year after year they said, “There is no problem to be fixed.” Labor members fundamentally disagreed with that, and we still do. There are still problems to be fixed in this State. The Government is working towards fixing those problems and is making good progress. I am very happy about that. I am also happy to speak about the progress this Government has made, but the Government is not finished.
The Government openly states that we still have some problems, but we have recruited and trained an additional 250 rural and regional paramedics out of the 500 paramedics who have moved to the regions. I live in a regional area. I value being able to call a paramedic and have them turn up to help people in need. Geographically, great distances need to be traversed in the regions to get to the patient’s house and then get the patient to a medical facility. We all understand that the distances to medical facilities are much larger in the State’s regions than in larger cities, so I wonder why this recruitment work was not done earlier. However, it is being done now. The regions have 500 paramedics on the way and already we have 250 rural and regional paramedics. Police officer recruitment has increased by 65 per cent. Surely all members agree that is a good thing. Law and order discussions occupy much of the time of this House. For police officer recruitment numbers to have increased by 65 per cent it must be a good thing. Under the previous Government, there were increasing rates of police officers removing themselves from the service, which was not a good thing. The current Labor Government has turned that around and is very pleased to have done that. There is still more to do, but we are also making progress in that space.
The Government is increasing the supply of housing. Today we debated a bill to change planning laws and instruments. The Opposition intends to oppose the changes in that bill. With planning, if we keep doing what we have been doing, we will keep getting the same results. We need to adopt different planning methods, which is what the Government is proposing. Labor got rid of the wages cap, which drove wages for public servants to the very lowest standard in the country. Recruitment is a market force. If the workforce in the public service is to be retained and new recruits are to be attracted, governments must pay them a wage that will keep them in the public service. The New South Wales Government got rid of the wages cap that had been suppressing public service wages for over 12 years. Public service workers literally were going backwards financially in real terms. The New South Wales Government opposes privatisation and is about to embark on an inquiry into the complete failure of the Northern Beaches Hospital. I commend the motion to the House.
Mr CLAYTON BARR (Cessnock) (17:37): In reply: I thank all the members who contributed to this debate. The member for Sydney made a really important point about the number of Independents that are in the House now and the fact that this is a minority government. The work that happens in this place is in many ways all the better for the indulgence of and the cooperation with the Independents. I arrived here at a time when the O’Farrell landside meant that those opposite literally had three-quarters of the seats in this entire establishment, and yet, despite that, they could not find a purpose for being here. Fortunately, we got rid of that bloke O’Farrell and finally Mike Baird arrived, and at least he had something he wanted to do.
I also acknowledge the other speakers. The member for Auburn drew our attention back to the role of privatisation and the very real impact it has on everyday workers. People need to travel on toll roads that used to be in public hands just to get to and from work. It is an incredibly expensive pursuit for them each day and each year, and it is a result of privatisation. The member for Camden, who had an esteemed teaching career, knows very personally the importance of having permanent teachers in the workplace, so that our children can build connections and know who is going to turn up each day and so that we do not have collapsed classes. I also thank the member for Davidson for joining the pile-on about the size of the debt that the previous Government left us. He knows the budget. He knows that the debt left by members opposite is costing the people of New South Wales $500,000 in interest for this debate alone! I acknowledge his willingness to talk about that ugly scar on the finances of the State.
The member for Manly lamented that the former Government failed to fund certain things on an ongoing basis. Members of the former Government went to the election pretending that there was money in the bank to pay for some of that stuff, but they did not actually have the money. I thank the member for Manly for bringing that to the attention of the House. I thank the member for Vaucluse, who also piled on the former Liberal-Nationals Government. She was disappointed that it had not properly funded health, education and the many other services she mentioned. I state for the record that I am proud of the work of the current Labor Government to reduce teacher vacancies and to increase the numbers of nurses and police. I say to those opposite that if they want to campaign on the basis that they hate the extra nurses, teachers and police, I will volunteer to come doorknocking with them.