TRAVEL REPORT

ON THE

INTERSTATE PARLIAMENTARY

BOWLS TOURNAMENT

AND STUDY TOUR

HOBART, TASMANIA

10TH – 17TH JANUARY, 2004

ISOBEL REDMOND

MEMBER FOR HEYSEN

March, 2004

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CONTENTS:

1. Bowls Tournament 2. Briefing on Affordable Housing in Tasmania 3. Briefing on the Health Workforce in Tasmania and the Introduction of Health

Connect Electronic Data 4. Briefing on Policing in Tasmania 5. Visit to Tarhune Air Walk

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1. BOWLS TOURNAMENT

From 10th – 17th January, 2004 I was in Tasmania as part of the South Australian Parliamentary Bowls Team. Participants comprised two teams: Ivan Venning (skip) Joe Scalzi, Vini Ciciarello, Robyn Geraghty Peter Lewis (skip) Isobel Redmond, John Meier (with a “ring in” Tasmanian former MP, now restaurant proprietor, Gabriel Horras). Ably assisted by David Pegram as Team Manager. The Tournament is held annually and was in Adelaide in 2003 – resulting in a somewhat more experienced Bowls Team and South Australia winning the title for the first time in 28 years. Accordingly, the team was seeking to defend its title and retain the trophy. The calling of the Queensland election resulted in there being no team from that State. A separate tournament is held simultaneously for retired MP’s. Play took place at the Derwent City Bowls Club, North Hobart, with our team being tested against the team from a different State each day. With Peter Lewis and Ivan Venning being the only experienced bowlers (although I have bowled one season with Uraidla Saturday Pennants) our team was probably the least experienced overall. As a result, we came out “wooden spooners” at the end of the tournament. But the real value of the event was to give our South Australian politicians the opportunity to socialise and network across party political lines with a wide range of MP’s including a number of very senior, now retired politicians.

The team (from left) – Peter Lewis, Ivan Venning, John Meier, Vini Ciciarello, David Pegram, Isobel Redmond, Joe Scalzi and Robyn Geraghty.

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2. BRIEFING ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN TASMANIA:

Affordable housing is generally defined as housing available to people (whether by rental or purchase) such that not more than 30% of their income is directed to housing costs. The Departmental Officers advised that the average cost of houses in Tasmania has risen by 45% over the past 12 months. Of the 180,000 households in Tasmania they assess that 75,000 (or 42%) are low income households and 20,000 (or 26% of the low income households) are in housing stress – i.e. paying more than 30% of their income for housing. Furthermore, it is anticipated that, whilst the overall number of households in Tasmania is not growing rapidly, there will nevertheless be an increase of low income households to 24,400 by 2020. Tasmania currently has the highest proportion of people who: - are unemployed; - are reliant on income support; - have a disability or receive a disability pension as well as a high proportion of elderly people who live alone. They anticipate that by 2020 the number of frail elderly will have quadrupled. In addition, there is an increasing number of young people (aged 16 – 24) seeking public housing. In response to anticipated housing needs the Tasmanian Government has developed the “Affordable Housing Strategy” to increase both the supply and the range of options – including the types of structures and the types of occupation whether by private rental, purchase, community housing, rental assistance etc. The Department has identified various categories of people who need assistance (eg young people, lone parents with children, lone elderly), the preferred tenure of each group and the type of housing which would best meet their needs. A “whole of industry approach” is required to produce these desired outcomes. It requires a robust building industry, incentives for private sector investors, flexible planning and increased management capacity. Attached as Schedule “A” is a summary of the four objectives, the strategies being employed to achieve these objectives and an indication of the level of completion of these objectives.

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Schedule A:

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3. HEALTH WORKFORCE:

Like all other States, Tasmania faces a critical shortage of health professionals (the fourth largest employing industry in Australia). In nursing there is a predicted shortfall of over 4,000 by 2006 as well as a shortage of both GP and specialist services within the medical profession. There is also a pronounced maldistribution whereby health workers are in even more pronounced short supply in rural and regional areas. Added to the general shortage, Tasmania has an ageing population (with a corresponding increase in medical/health needs) and a shrinking labour pool. Further, the recognition of the need for work/life balance has resulted in some health professionals no longer making themselves available for the extended hours of work they once did. The Tasmanian government has recognised the need to provide more undergraduate places and to engage more in the health/education/training interface. In addition, the need for retention, re-entry and recruitment, professional and personal development, career paths and employment flexibility have been identified as issues which must be addressed. As part of the strategy to address these issues as well as other issues of increasing pressure on medical services, the Tasmanian government is working towards the introduction of Healthconnect – an electronic health records system. This electronic data base will contain details of a person’s care (visits, treatment. drugs prescribed, test results) in a summary way which will provide rapid access to the healthcare history of a patient. It is alleged to be subject to security, privacy and consent restraints. Clearly, there are strong valid arguments for the implementation of such a system. It would, for instance, enable treating doctors in an emergency situation to be accurately and quickly informed as to a patient’s history, allergies, medications etc even when the patient was alone and unconscious or otherwise unable to communicate. It would also prevent people from obtaining addictive prescription medicines by attending at a series of doctors’ surgeries and obtaining prescriptions from each without the others knowing. However, it must also be said that I have very serious concerns about the proposal. Quite apart from the privacy and civil liberties aspects, it seems to me that there is a very real threat likely to come from the insurance industry. Once your complete history is held on this system it will be open to the insurance industry to deny you insurance unless you agree to make your record available to the insurer - whether the information therein is relevant or not.

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In other words, in spite of any guarantee the proposers of the system may build into it, the insurance companies will by-pass the security/consent provisions simply by holding you out to ransom – either agree to releasing your information or we won’t insure you. At this stage the proposal is still in Phase 1 Trial stages: - a public hospital and 200 private providers are participating; - 20% of consumers have been trained to access their own health

connect records; - GP’s have provided over 5,000 event summaries (one might ask about

the accuracy of the information likely to be reported when GP’s realise their patients will be able to read what they have written);

- hospital clinicians have contributed over 500 summaries. However, in spite of a generally good acceptance rate, the cost and final feasibility are still not known. Nor is the ultimate level of community/consumer acceptance of the potential interference with their privacy yet determined.

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4. BRIEFING ON POLICING IN TASMANIA:

I became ill during the Bowls carnival and was unable to attend this Briefing as a consequence. However, I have read the written materials provided and make the following observations: The Tasmanian Police Department introduced a formal reporting process (i.e. to report on its success in combating crime etc) in 1999 and commenced Benchmarking against Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) in 2000. They have 131 KPI’s and 43 Benchmarks across a range of policing areas: - crime performance - traffic performance - general command - Human Resources - Financial Management - Marine enforcement and produce monthly corporate performance reports. One of the programmes introduced has been the State Crime Challenge 2000 – 2003, which aimed to reduce crime by 50%. In the period June 2000 – June 2003 the number of crimes reported overall reduced from 60,000 to 48,000 – with some categories achieving almost 50% reduction eg home burglaries down from 5,093 to 3,404 and business burglary down from 2,553 to 1,403. Other areas such as Stolen Motor Vehicles also decreased significantly but Public Place Assaults increased marginally (1,151 to 1,249) and total crimes against the person increased from 3,264 to 4,443. The only good news in response to this increase is that the clear up rate on person crimes has gone from 67.6% to 89.5%. In fact clear up rates have increased markedly across all crime categories.

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5. VISIT TO TARHUNE AIRWALK, AVON RIVER:

On the day after the Tournament concluded, the entire contingent of visiting politicians was taken on a very informative forest tour, the particular highlight of which was the Tarhune Airwalk. This is a relatively new tourist attraction set in the treetops of the stringy bark forests above the Huon River about 1-1/2 hours from Hobart. On the way there we stopped at the charming tourist town of Geeveston where we had an address about how the town had managed to revitalise itself from a dying township to a place in which all members of the community are encouraged to participate. The Forest Heritage Centre had a range of hand made timber art and furniture pieces as well as the usual array of local food products and postcards. Most importantly, however, the main gallery provided a history of forestry in Tasmania with a display of the woodcutting and woodworking machinery of bygone eras.

Looking towards the front entrance of the Forest & Heritage Centre. The airwalk and visitor centre at the Tarhune Forest Reserve provides the opportunity to “walk in the treetops” for 597 m at an average of 20m above the forest floor. The last 24m is cantilevered so it sways at a height of 48m above the river.

The cantilevered section of the airwalk provides a spectacular and exhilarating experience.

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It is located near the junction of the Huon and Picton Rivers, the junction of which can be best observed from the platform at the end of the cantilevered section. The area, as the name suggests, had native Huon pines which were first logged in the 1800’s. They are extremely slow growing and only small trees (nevertheless more than 100 years old) were able to be pointed out still in the vicinity. The more impressive trees, stringy barks are about 60m tall and some 200 years old. The guided forest tour on which we were escorted prior to the airwalk showed a number of native species such as myrtle, sassafras, native pepper (the leaves of which are really hot to eat) blackwood and more, all indigenous to the area. The water of the river, though very clean, appears brown or “tea coloured” – not surprising since it is stained with tannin leached from the buttongrass plains.

The airwalk provides a great view of the junction of the Huon and Picton Rivers.