Mr CAUSLEY (5:06 PM) —Madam Deputy Speaker Gambaro, may I congratulate you on your elevation to the Speaker's Panel and commiserate with you that you have to listen to me this afternoon in the Main Committee. It is a great honour to stand here. This is my seventh address-in-reply. I admit that four of the addresses-in-reply were in the New South Wales chamber, but this is the third in the Australian parliament. I owe a great debt of gratitude to the people of my electorate. The electorate of Page is an extended electorate, beyond the electorate of Clarence that I used to represent; nevertheless the majority of those people have been supporting me for quite a period of time. I hope I do not let them down.

I need to briefly thank a few people for their support during the election campaign. The Hon. Ian Robinson, who was a member of this place, has been my campaign manager for all of those elections. He must have been very successful because we have managed to win them. So I would like to thank him and his wife for their great support. Also there have been some very strong supporters in the campaign office—Rod and Janet Gould of Grafton were very strong supporters and did a lot of work. Mrs Margaret Duff has worked with me now for a number of campaigns and puts in a lot of work in the campaign office. Dr Simon Kinny from Lismore gave up part of his time—I think he was going to an overseas medical conference—to work for me on the campaign. I would like to thank them very much.

Those opposite have been trying to say that the Governor-General's address showed no vision for the future. I beg to differ because I believe that the Governor-General's speech showed that the government was continuing down a course, set quite some time ago when the government first came into office, to rescue this country from a position where it was rapidly becoming a banana republic—as a former Prime Minister was wont to say. Many people speaking in this debate on this side of the House have highlighted the fact that we were in quite desperate trouble economically and some very tough decisions were taken to turn this country around. Even today the Treasurer is speaking in the House about the position of Australia economically compared to other countries around the world. I believe it is a credit to this government, a credit to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, that we have put this country on a very sound basis.

I have listened to others opposite, although I do not think they listened to a speech made by the member for Port Adelaide that I found to be very interesting. It was a very well researched speech. In fact, the member for Port Adelaide tabled in the House and put into Hansard some tables on previous elections, showing where governments had failed in the past and the economic parameters that had been part of their success or failure. I thought it was a very interesting and very well researched speech.

When we start to hear the member for Swan say, `We weren't really robbed, but we were,' we need to look at this very carefully. In the election campaign in my electorate, one of the most important things that came through to me from speaking to people on the street, particularly businesspeople and young people, was the issue of the management of the economy. I know that it is a double-edged sword and those who have investments and are retired do not get great benefits when you have low interest rate regimes. But certainly businesses, and young people who are buying homes and trying to start out in life, do see that as being a great help.

I will never forget my first days in the New South Wales parliament when we were getting these terrible interest rates—up to 23 to 25 per cent—and I used to get young couples coming in to see me, crying because they had bought a house and every month the interest rate was going up. It destroyed their marriages; it destroyed them. There is nothing worse than that. We have to say that one of the great credits that this government should accept is that the economy now is very sound; it is moving along strongly. Business and younger people in this community can now have some confidence to borrow and set out to try and reach for any dreams they might have.

Having been in parliament now for quite a period of time, I want to spend a bit of time this afternoon talking about its institutions. Let us look at the Governor-General, who in fact gave the address, and at some of the things that have been prominent in recent days with the High Court, which is another tier of government really—the judicial tier of government—and parliaments themselves. When I move around the world and look at other forms of government and other democracies, I keep on coming back and saying that we are blessed in Australia for the form of government we have. We might complain about it, we might have differences of opinion and we might think that there should be different terms or names put on positions, but at the end of the day we really are lucky with the system of government we have in this country.

We have a hybrid system of government. During the centenary, we started to see some of its forms, and I know I did quite a bit of research into history as to how Federation came about. If you were to listen to the debates at the time of Federation, you would find that they were not much different from those we have today. Those same debates are out there: the fact that the smaller states were worried about the bigger states—and they are still worried about the biggest states. The fact is that our Senate was created the way it was because the smaller states wanted to have a say in government. Nothing has changed in that way, but the system works extremely well.

I just want to have a little bit of a discussion about what, in my opinion, are some areas that we should be very careful about. There is often some criticism from the courts in particular about the fact that parliaments do not understand the separation of powers: that they do not understand the difference between the judiciary, the parliament and the executive. I think that most senior members of parliament who have been around for a while clearly understand the separation of powers, but I wonder at times whether some of our judiciary do. Really, if it is not common law—which is really the realm of the court—if it is statute law, then of course it is the right of the judiciary to adjudicate, to interpret and to enforce. That is its role. I think at times the judiciary tends to step a little bit over that line and it starts to say, `With some of our decisions, we can in fact change this law; we can put a little bit of an edge on it.' Really, that is not the role of the judiciary.

Getting around the electorate—and I know a lot of this has more to do with state laws—I find that people are disenchanted at times with some of the decisions that are given by the people in authority on the bench. Yet if you look at the law in those states, or even in this place, it is adequate. There is law there that is suitable for any crime, whether it be minor or major. It is the job of the judiciary to set the penalty, and all too often people are saying, `We think those penalties are down on the lower end and they are not fitting the crime.'

The judiciary probably do not think this, but they are responsible to the people as well. They might be appointed for life by the parliament of the day but, in fact, they are part of our tripartite government and they should be listening to the people. I think that all too often some of our judicial officers are not listening. They certainly are very learned people, but they tend to think that they know better than the people and the parliament. I would like to remind them that every three years, particularly in this parliament, the people judge me and if they do not like what I have done they kick me out. Obviously it is important that the judiciary not be removed with a parliament—that would be a very dangerous position. But because of their unique position in our society, where they are appointed for life—and only one in the history of this country has ever been removed—I think they do have a responsibility to the people. I urge them to think about that, because I believe the people require it of them.

The other area I would like to talk about is our so-called fourth estate—the media. The media in a free society have a very important part to play. I think in Australia, as a free society, it is important that they remember that their job is to be impartial and that they should report very fairly on both sides. If there is no interference in the media then they can tease out problems. They can do this through, I dare say, question time, because obviously the community, through the opposition, have the ability to ask the government questions at that time. There is a very big responsibility put on the media. At times I do not believe they meet that standard. They claim that they have a journalistic code of ethics and I have read the code of ethics—it has been changed in recent years. It is important that they abide by that code of ethics.

I, as a member of parliament, can take you through two or three scenarios where I believe the media have not done their homework. They sometimes think that I am a little bit obsessed about this but I have never spoken in the parliament about it before and I thought it was probably time that I put it on the record. I was one of the first ministers in New South Wales to be taken to ICAC, and it was not a very pleasant experience, I can tell you. I believed I had done nothing wrong and that was subsequently proven. Nevertheless, that did not stop the media from going out and writing stories without researching the subject. The Sydney Morning Herald, in particular, wrote an article that was based upon public myth—pub gossip. They subsequently, of course, were taken to court by me, which was a fairly harrowing experience and it took some three years to get a judgment. They did not bother coming to me and asking me my side of the story to check the facts. They might have still written the story and, hopefully, would have put my side of it but they did not bother to do that. I think that is an abuse of power.

We have heard about abuses of power. For example, at the present time we have seen the discussions about the Governor-General and the High Court judge. It is an interesting study to have a look at the way the media have treated both those cases. Both cases were based on allegation, and in one case they gleefully took up the allegations against the Governor-General and pursued him unmercifully. But in the other case—and I accept the fact that those allegations have now been withdrawn—there was a different position taken because, all of a sudden, it was the senator under fire, even though nothing had been proven at that time although subsequently it has been. It was a quite different position taken by the media.

I have to say that I am worried about agendas here. I think that sometimes some journalists have an agenda and, regardless of the facts, they will pursue that agenda. When I was a minister in New South Wales the ABC's 7.30 Report was presented by Quentin Dempster, who was then riding high. He thought he had brought the Queensland government down and he was going to come down to New South Wales and take the National Party apart. There was Quentin Dempster, there was Murray Hogarth, who, by the way, wrote the article in the Sydney Morning Herald and then went across to the ABC and pursued me through the ABC, and another reporter called David Margen.

This story was over a development in Lismore, which is one of the areas I represent at the present time. I owned a particular hotel that was up for development, and a story was run on the 7.30 Report based on absolutely no facts at all. Again, they did not come to me to ask for my side of the story; they just went out there and published these allegations as if they were gospel. The other day Laurie Oakes said that it was a pity parliamentarians did not check their facts. I say to Laurie Oakes that it is a pity journalists do not check their facts, because they also have a responsibility in this democracy—and it is a great democracy. They have a very big responsibility to live up to their code of ethics, which says that they must be fair and objective in their reporting.

All too often these days a habit seems to be developing with senior journalists whereby some unidentified person has given them some statements. This may well be true; there may be that person out there who is prepared to give them some statements `off the record', so-called. But I think all too often these days these stories are backed up by this unsubstantiated, unidentified evidence. Who is to say that that is not just a figment of the imagination of the journalist? No-one knows, because when the journalists are taken to task they claim that they have to protect their sources. There are real issues here, and I challenge the media to do something about that.

I have had experience in the past with the Press Council. When Rob Milne was the local editor of the Daily Examiner there was a great argument going on about the local hospital. The government had put forward some $2 million to upgrade the local Grafton hospital, but every time I put out a story this editor would not print it. He would print the arguments from the other side, but he would not print anything I put out as the local member. I had some advice from my press officer at the time to write an open letter. I did not know what an open letter was at that stage, but the press officer said, `He will have to print this because it is an open letter.' Guess what? He did not print it, but he picked pieces out of it and absolutely tore me apart on the front page of the paper. The next day he came back on the front page of the paper with an open letter to me signed by 12 prominent members of the community. Even though he would not print what I had to say, he was going to tell me what to say. Very fair reporting!

I took him to the Press Council. Do you know what the Press Council said? They said that, because the editor had signed this open letter, along with 12 other people, that was an editorial. Bunkum! I had never heard anything like it in my life. When I spoke to senior journalists around the country they all said the same thing: that that was just an outrageous abuse of the media.

The Press Council is a toothless tiger. It does not do anything. It does not keep its journalists under control. I put it to this parliament that I think it is about time we had a close look at this. I know the hue and cry: `This is interference with the press. You can't do that.' Why can't you? Why can't you set up a tribunal with the chair of it being a retired judge, a magistrate or someone like that and one nominee from the press and one nominee from the government of the day? And the statute? The statue would be the journalists' code of ethics. I challenge them to argue against that.

Journalists stand up and say, `We are very honest people. We abide by our code of ethics,' but they do not read it and they do not abide by it. I think it is high time that the media understood that they are a very important part of this democracy. Their responsibility is to be fair and honest. By all means be investigative, because that is part of the responsibility of a good media, but be honest and truthful and put both sides of the story. I have no problems with criticism. I have been around parliaments for a long time and I am big enough to take the criticism, but I say that we should also have the right to put the other side of the story. That is what a democracy is about: that all sides are given and that people can then make up their own minds.

Selective reporting is another lovely area that the media gets into. I know in politics that you pick up on these things. I have heard something of it from the opposition in this debate. As I see it, everyone seems to have forgotten two things in this business about `children overboard'. First of all, I think it was only a matter of a fortnight ago that Admiral Barrie finally gave advice to the government that he did not believe that children had been thrown overboard. Until then the head of the Defence Force was saying to the government, `Children have been thrown overboard.' I have not heard much said about that. Secondly, the other thing is— and most people I see in the street in my electorate remind me of it—whether children were thrown overboard or not, and it would appear that they were not from the evidence we have at the present time, it was not very long before they were in the water because those people scuttled the boat. It did not seem to worry them then that children were in the water. But that did not suit the story. We did not get any sensational headlines because that did not suit the story.

There are often these examples. With the experience that I have had, I suppose I could go back through many examples of selective quoting of the evidence or the information that is available. By all means, if you want to go out there and write a story, fine, but give all the information that is available and do not try to hide important parts of it so that it suits your story and so you can get such a sensational effect.

There are lots of things I would like to say—although probably I will be saying them at a later time—about where the government is going and the different policies we have. I believe that it is time I put some of these things on the public record. I have been thinking about them now for a long time: probably six or seven years. It is about time we had this debate and it is about time we thought very closely about the control of the media in this country.