Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week a group of men received bravery awards from the Governor of New South Wales Professor Bashir, for their courageous actions during the Nymboida mine explosion of 1976. The Governor's group bravery citation was awarded to Ian Carter, Neil McLennan, Trevor McLennan, Frank Smidt and the late John Tapp. The award was for risking their lives to rescue fellow miners during the disaster.

On 12 January 1976, there was an explosion almost 400 metres into the mine, and the miners scrambled to safety, a number of them suffering burns and other injuries. When one minor did not come out, the manager of the union-owned mine, John Tapp, knew the rescue team was hours away and decided to go back into the burning mine himself. The McLennan brothers, Ian Carter and Frank Smidt went with him. They found the young man dead inside the tunnel, and his body was brought out.

An award-winning document, Last Stand at Nymboida, has been made about the Nymboida mine workers revolt and the 1976 explosion. The producer of the documentary, Paddy Gorman, told me it was the documentary that prompted the bravery award nomination for these men so many years after the event. The documentary is described in a recent review in the Weekend Australian:

THIS is a terrifically well-made documentary about a 1975 landmark industrial case, in which a band of local men, who had laboured in the darkest and most dangerous tunnels of Australia's most primitive coalmine, staged a daring worker rebellion.

Nymboida is just a dot on the map, a little to the west of Grafton, in northern NSW. Things begin there with a contemporary reunion of the men who forged such a close bond almost 40 years ago. This allows for well-edited interviews to camera before we move back in time to see archival footage and splendid old photographs of a rebellion that ultimately was to have an impact on mining practices worldwide.

Nymboida is in my seat of Page, and that is why I wanted to talk about those brave men, the bravery awards that they got last week and about the industrial action the workers took in 1975.

I want to talk about another issue that arose in my electorate. An email from my constituent says:

Hi Janelle,

At 9-05 this morning I rang Country Energy Bill enquiries to complain about a 20% increase in the kW price on my current bill. The woman I spoke to stated that it was because of the Governments "Carbon Tax". She made this statement about four times and each time I refuted her claim until she finally confessed that part of the 20% was for infrastructure but would not say what percentage was what. This same lady then informed me that it was a govt charge put on by Ipart. I have now discovered that Ipart only recommends The maximum amount that an increase may be.

I send this Email to make you aware of what is going on with this Company.

Regards, Jim Kean E/Ballina

I then rang Jim and asked him if he wanted me to go ahead and make the representations and sort it out and get it corrected, because it was clear that he was getting absolutely incorrect information when he rang. I took it up through the minister's office and it went to Origin Energy and they came back to me that call centre operations are currently run by Essential Energy, the part of Country Energy that remained New South Wales government owned. They understand that any representations made along the lines described would not be consistent with correct script on carbon. They have informed us that actions have been taken to ensure that call centre operators remain familiar with correct scripting on carbon.

I thought that that was a rather lame response. Hence I am making it a matter of public record. I thought that they would have at least contacted me and the person who contacted me—they had that information—and follow it through, and detail precisely the action they have taken. This is not the first time I have had this happen. I took it up with another company. They admitted that it was totally incorrect. They corrected it and told me all the things that they did.

I would also like to congratulate Bradley Darke, Coraki resident from my seat of Page. He is in the Big Brother house. He survived yet another eviction. In the Northern Star it says:

The 18-year-old self-described geek with a stutter graduated from Trinity Catholic College, Lismore last year.

He works the checkout at his family's supermarket at Coraki during his gap year.

One of the persons who got evicted, the Melbourne model Ryan says he's never met anyone like Bradley in his life. He is just a funny guy. (Time expired)