Mr SNOWDON (5:11 PM) —by leave—Although I am not a member of the Public Works Committee, I would like to take the opportunity to endorse the recommendations of the committee, insofar as I have heard them. From what I have heard, the committee members have done a very good and commendable job in attuning themselves very quickly to some major and significant issues to do with infrastructure development on Christmas Island.

I have been travelling to and from Christmas Island as its federal member for all but a short period of two years since 1987, and I have seen a great many changes take place on that island and to its community. One thing is obvious to those who fly in there often: an upgrade of that airport has been required for some time. Whilst we have been able to secure this upgrade as a result of the potential—and the current—development of a space launch facility by the Asia Pacific Space Centre on Christmas Island due to their requirement that heavy lift aircraft are able to use the airport, it should be noted that the airport has been a major limiting factor for some time. The spin-off, as the chair rightly said in her remarks, for the community of getting the airstrip extended and improved will be that passenger aircraft of a significant size that could otherwise not visit the island will now be able to do so.

That is very important, because traditionally the island—as both the chair and the deputy chair pointed out—has been almost solely reliant over the last decade on the work of Christmas Island Phosphates for private employment and for the spin-offs from that into small businesses in the community. Apart from that, the only other moneys being spent on the island come out of the Commonwealth purse. The significant contributors to the island's economy have been the Commonwealth and Christmas Island Phosphates. We need to contemplate what that has meant. One of the reasons this runway work is so very important is that it will enable the marketing of the island as a tourist destination far more readily than has been possible previously. Therefore, the airport is a very important spin-off of investment by the Asia Pacific Space Centre people.

The other matter I would like to refer to briefly is the comments by the chair on the issue of a social impact study. I, too, believe this is very important as a social impact study and have raised the matter in this chamber previously. It seems to me there is a real chance that, whilst many small businesses on the island are benefiting to a substantial degree from current government investments arising out of these improvements to the island—the airport, the link road and the port facility—they are also experiencing growth as a result of the investment into the reception facility and will receive substantial benefits from the space facility.

There is no doubt that the small business community on Christmas Island is doing very well out of these processes, and it does provide an alternative employment option for a range of people in the community. What I am concerned about is making sure that people are not disadvantaged. There is a real threat here of people being overlooked because they perhaps do not have the skills that are required to work in those particular areas. I hope that, in looking at this work, both the government and the private sector players involved in these developments—including but not exclusively in terms of the airport—have some regard for the need to train up available local labour to take the jobs and not import all the labour from the mainland or elsewhere.

There is also a significant impact on the cost of living on the island, because housing has been in crisis for some time as a result of the dramatic growth in population. That clearly raises costs for the island community—that is, the existing community as well as potential newcomers to the community. These are issues which need to be properly understood, and I do not believe they are properly understood at this point. A whole range of attendant matters arise in terms of infrastructure development, which were alluded to by the chair. They include educational services and health services, both of which have had substantial investment over the last decade but, with the potential for the population to more than double in a very short space of time, it seems to me that there needs to be a lot more work done in that area.

Finally, the other point that I would like to make, which, from what I can gather, was not referred to by the chair or the deputy chair—and I am not sure whether it is covered by the report, because I have only just picked it up—is about the question of governance. What we are seeing here are massive changes to the old economy, largely taken as a result of Commonwealth initiatives and, in large part, with little reference to the island community. In a sense, things have been going higgledy-piggledy and out of control in terms of the ability of the island community to get hold of what is going on around them. I think that places enormous pressures on the community's own decision making capacity, particularly regarding how the shire council works and the areas which they might logically believe that they would have some control over.

I ask that, in the context of this social impact study, the issue of governance be examined as well to make sure that the island community is able to say that they are in control of what happens on the island—as far as that is possible, bearing in mind that the Commonwealth has already made significant decisions—and that we work towards giving them far more power in their everyday lives. Currently, as you would be aware, Mr Deputy Speaker—and I know the chair would be aware of this—Minister Tuckey is effectively minister for everything and can make decisions about almost every matter. Every law that applies on the island can be changed by him by mere regulation. The laws that apply to the island in terms of state type functions are Western Australian laws which are done by agreement with the Western Australian government and can be amended from time to time as required by the minister. That is only one example, but it is clear that decisions are being made external to the community without their proper input and without proper consultation or, I submit, without the need to negotiate with them. I would ask that the chair, when she is contemplating this issue of the social impact study—if she has any influence—ensure that governance becomes an issue which is dealt with within the context of that study. Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for this opportunity. It is my pleasure to support the comments that have been made by the chair and the deputy chair and, I am sure, the subsequent report.