Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the Bureau of Meteorology Report for 2007-08 to the Senate. In particular I would like to refer to the good work of the Bureau of Meteorology in Tasmania. The report relates to the year 2007-08, but it was in fact on 19 February 2004 that the Howard government boosted meteorology services at Launceston airport. It maintained existing staff and announced a new weather shop in the Launceston transit centre. That weather shop is still there. But, some four years after that date—in fact, on 19 February 2008—that weather shop and its future came under attack from the Rudd Labor government. There was a threat to close the weather bureau shop in Launceston, which was revealed on that day in Senate committee hearings in the federal parliament. That threat was offensive to the people of northern Tasmania and the people of Launceston, especially the farmers, the fishermen and other rural residents who depend on that service.

That threat of closure, which was highlighted in the Senate, was undercover, it was covert, because of efforts by the Rudd Labor government to make cutbacks at the time. It came on top of the decision to reverse the extra 150 jobs that former Prime Minister John Howard had announced for the Launceston Centrelink call centre. Those jobs were lost to Launceston as a result of the inaction of the federal Labor member for Bass, Jodie Campbell, at the time. What we need in Bass is somebody who is prepared to stand up for their local community and to make a difference, even when it may be a tough decision. The future of the weather shop certainly came into doubt.

I asked some questions in the Senate in October last year, and I have received answers to those questions. I asked questions about the current staffing levels, about the service levels of the Launceston weather shop, and whether there were any current plans or proposals to alter the services provided by the Launceston weather shop or the staff levels. The government did confirm that the Launceston weather shop:

… provides operational interpretation of the forecasts provided by the Regional Forecasting Centre in Hobart, for the Launceston and northern Tasmania area via electronic media (routine radio broadcasts); via telephone; and via face to face briefings …

The weather shop also:

… provides Public Education services to Launceston and northern Tasmania, in general, in the form of talks, lectures, and hosting visits to the LWS …

The Launceston weather shop is very important. I commend and thank Brendan McMahon, who is the sole staff member of the Launceston weather shop. We appreciate his service and what he does. The government has confirmed in writing: ‘There are no plans to move the current occupant of the position from the Launceston office.’ That is good news. We do know it is currently staffed by one person. Initially there were two; it has been cut back.

I know that Senator Macdonald likewise is concerned for the weather shops and the Bureau of Meteorology services in Queensland. He earlier today highlighted that there have been cuts in Townsville and staff cuts in Cairns, that Mount Isa services now have only one person operating and that services in Rockhampton have been cut back. So you can see that future services of the weather shop in Launceston may be in doubt. We have it on the record that there ‘are no plans’. Does that mean that there are no current plans, and that they will change their mind in the days and months ahead?

The Tasmanian Liberal Senate team will stand firm and fight for that weather shop. It was established under the Howard Liberal government. It was established because the community wanted it and supported it—and it still does. We want a member in Bass who is prepared to stand up and say no to decisions like that, when the weather shop could be axed. We will fight tooth and nail to keep that weather shop open in Launceston. It is appreciated. It is an important service. And I call on the current federal member to be prepared to stand up and say no when the axe is threatened with respect to that fantastic service. So, on behalf of the people of northern Tasmania, I say we want to keep that weather shop and we call on the government to make the commitment that those services will remain.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the Bureau of Meteorology Report for 2007-08. At question time today I raised with Minister Wong whether it could possibly be true that the Townsville weather office in North Queensland was getting staff cuts of 50 per cent for forecasters and 25 per cent for observers. I asked the minister if it was true that this would mean that this meteorological office in Townsville, in North Queensland, would now not be able to operate a 24-hour service. I asked these questions during a week when a category 5 cyclone has been running right down the coast of Queensland. It started up north of Cairns and went right down the coast and it is still there. In this week when we have had the most severe tropical cyclone you could ever get, we highlight the fact that the government is shutting down the Bureau of Meteorology offices in a part of the world which desperately needs the services of a weather bureau.

I also asked the minister if it was true that the staff of the Cairns office of the Bureau of Meteorology was being reduced by two, that the Mount Isa office was being reduced to a one-man show, that the number of staff at the Rockhampton office—which just in February the Prime Minister promised in the other place would keep going at the same rate—was being reduced as well, and that in Mackay the staff was falling from three to one. How can you run a weather office 24 hours a day with one person? I asked the minister about this. Because it was Minister Wong, naturally we did not get an answer. But we knew the answers from Senate estimates, and I wanted her to confirm or deny them. I had hoped that following this exposure at Senate estimates she and Mr Garrett would have instructed the weather bureau that they were not to reduce services in this part of Queensland, which is prone to severe weather conditions—but no.

That in itself is bad enough, and I have been doing what I can, along with a lot of other people in North Queensland, to highlight how services are being reduced in the part of Australia that is most prone to severe weather conditions—

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You’re the only voice North Queensland has in the Senate, Senator Macdonald.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Brandis; it is very generous of you to say that, but there have been a lot of other people joining with me in trying to highlight this cutback in services.

I asked the minister today what had the Queensland government done, what had Premier Bligh done, to lobby Mr Rudd over the slashing of services by this vital institution. I wanted to know what Premier Bligh and the current Queensland government had done to demand of Mr Rudd that North Queensland continue to be protected with a 24-hour a day weather service in Townsville and adequate services everywhere else in North Queensland. Mr Acting Deputy President Hutchins, do you know what the answer was? There was absolute silence, which means that Premier Bligh did not lift a finger to tell her mate Kevin Rudd—and they are mates—that those services need to be saved in North Queensland. I am absolutely disgusted that Premier Bligh could have so little interest in or concern for the safety of all of us people who live up there, all of those businesses and indeed all of those people who come to North Queensland for tourism activities. They are not going to be protected by these very, very professional—

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Brandis interjecting—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

excellent services. And, as Senator Brandis says, Senator Wong keeps telling us climate change is going to get worse—what is she doing to help us with the worsening of the climate? She is shutting down Bureau of Meteorology offices and slashing staff numbers in them so that we do not have those services.

I had hoped that Premier Bligh and the Queensland government would have joined me in this crusade to keep those services in the north, but, alas—not a word from Premier Bligh or anyone in the current Queensland government. That is disgusting. I certainly hope Premier Bligh will at this last minute take some action.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the Bureau of Meteorology Report for 2007-08. I want to endorse the comments made by the previous two speakers. It is high time this government took more seriously the excellent services that are provided by the Bureau of Meteorology, especially in a time of climate change. As the last speaker, Senator Ian Macdonald, noted, the bureau is tracking the cyclone off the coast at the moment and providing enormously important services. Just a few days ago there was the prospect of that cyclone crossing the coast, with a potential death toll and damage toll that would have exceeded anything in the last century. The cyclone has now turned in its tracks and is heading north again, into warmer waters, but the possibility of it intensifying and crossing the coast is still with us. And here we have the minister for the environment, the minister responsible for this bureau, Mr Garrett, cutting services. It is incredible that this could be happening.

By the way, the tracking of that cyclone down the coast ought to have been enough to ensure that a ship laden with chemicals was not heading into the path of that cyclone—certainly not off the coast of the third most populous city in Australia and a coast with high ecological values. Yet that has happened. Who in the federal government has gone to sleep here? Is it Mr Garrett? Is it the minister responsible for coastal transportation? Is it the minister who is responsible for disaster services? Whatever happened—and this will no doubt be the subject of close scrutiny by the press if not by the Labor governments in Brisbane and here in Canberra—the highly dangerous and, as it turned out, disastrous passage of a ship laden with ammonium nitrate, of all things, was allowed, heading north from Newcastle into an oncoming cyclone. The consequences are some 30 containers of that chemical being somewhere in the ocean and the potential mixture of that chemical with oil from the ship, due to the ship’s ejection of large amounts of oil now on the coastline of Moreton Bay and the Sunshine Coast. It is an environmental calamity. On the face of it, it was highly irresponsible that that ship could have been able to head into an ocean affected by Cyclone Hamish.

I call on the Prime Minister to institute an urgent independent inquiry into this set of circumstances, because there is negligence afoot and the consequences are grave. There simply cannot be shoulders shaken by the Rudd government or by the Bligh government in Queensland. This is a spectacular failure of provenance and of due care and due diligence by the authorities in Brisbane, if not in Canberra. I would expect that we would have a statement to the parliament by Monday from the Rudd government as to how this could have occurred, what is being done by rapid Commonwealth action to reduce the impact of this oil and chemical spill and what action the government has taken to ensure that it does not happen again.

Debate (on motion by Senator Ian Macdonald) adjourned.