Mr DEAN (Windermere) - Mr President, I want to comment fairly briefly on some of the comments made by the Auditor-General on local government and I will simply keep to that point. Much discussion and criticism occurs on council borrowings throughout the year, and particularly at a time when elections are looming we have candidates criticising the borrowings in order to put themselves in a better position and, I guess, to cast some aspersions on sitting members. But it is interesting when one looks at Launceston - and most of you would read the Examiner fairly regularly - to see that there are criticisms made of the Launceston City Council frequently on what is considered to be excessive borrowings. The Auditor-General in this report identifies the Launceston City Council borrowings at $10.135 million, which I am very much aware of. When one compares that with the borrowings of other councils in this State, and particularly of those councils that are on an even or a similar level to that of Launceston, they would rate very well. And if you look here, as the Auditor-General has, Hobart has borrowings of $11.629 million; Glenorchy has $25.724 million; Clarence has $26.94 million; and Devonport which, when one compares it with these other areas, is relatively small by number is at about $12.5 million. So when one looks at all of those figures I would suggest that the Launceston City Council is very well placed in relation to those borrowings.

When one looks at this report, the comments that the Auditor-General makes in relation to the Tattersall's Aquatic Centre in Hobart, which has made an increase in revenue of some $300 000 for the year 2003-04, are heartening for the Launceston City Council. With the decision recently made in the north of the State, some of those people up there would be saying, 'Let's hope we can emulate the Hobart situation with that aquatic centre up there'.

Mr Parkinson - It is a very popular spot. It is very well run.

Mr DEAN - Obviously it is, and I did have a comment here that the operators of that facility should be commended because, as I understand it, it was not always run as well as that. In other words, revenue was not as good as they wanted it to be, but now it is running very well, and I think there have been a number of changes made there.

Mr Parkinson - Good management.

Mr DEAN - Yes, and that is what aquatic centres are about, and I guess that is what Launceston is doing as well. It is trying to make it a family centre, and that is what Hobart is all about and that is wonderful. But, yes, I do commend the operators of the centre in Hobart.

Mr Parkinson - Good water, too.

Mr DEAN - Is it? It is wonderful to know there is good water there. Maybe I should make more use of it while I am down here.

The other thing that the Auditor-General refers to very briefly is the debt collection of councils. Very clearly, debt collection is a problem for city councils and particularly those city councils that depend heavily on parking meter payments for revenue. I am not aware of the amount of outstanding revenue but I do know that it is quite high - quite high certainly in Hobart and I know the outstanding revenue in the Launceston City Council is quite high as well. As the auditor identifies in here, councils realise that the cost of recovering much of that money far outweighs what they are going to get back if and when they get that money back. A lot of councils simply write those debts off.

Mr Parkinson - You're talking about unpaid fines here, are you?

Mr DEAN - This is unpaid fines that emanate from the parking meters, where they fail to pay and overpark their time and so on.

Councils have said that they really cannot wait for those amendments to be brought in, in relation to the Justices Act dealing with fine recovery. I urge the Government to move ahead with that as quickly as they possibly can because when those amendments are determined and the matter finally comes through this Chamber, I think one can see greater recovery of fines occurring right across the State and right across the whole spectrum, not only court fines but council fines and all of those other fines. I think there will be greater recovery and councils cannot wait for that to occur. I would urge the Government to bring that matter on as quickly as they can. I have been fairly active in that area. I have written to the Government also urging them to expedite it, to get it up and running. There are a number of models one can look at. The model currently operating in South Australia I see as a great model where fine recovery has increased dramatically since they made a number of amendments to their area of the Justices Act, or the act that covers fine recovery.

Mr Parkinson - What do they do?

Mr DEAN - They have a number of things in place. They have set up a committee of people where, if a fine is not paid, a person can go to that group of people who can make a determination on how the fine is recovered. There are ways in which they can take possession of vehicles and property in relation to it and there is also licence suspension until fines are paid. There is a whole raft of things that now can be done there that they could not do previously. I know that this State is certainly looking at some of those - that is the feedback I have been given so far - ways of ensuring that recovery of fines does occur and that people are not able to run up these fines and get away with it. The unfortunate thing about it is that we have serial offenders in this regard who know that if they do not pay a fine, at the end of the day a council or court will get sick of pursuing it because of the cost it will incur to have the follow-ups done. They pass that on to others and there is evidence to show that that is in fact occurring. So the sooner this happens, the better.