RAISING THE BARR: The government is about to sell your private details

Having said that, I can’t remember any time when I have had to give out more details and personal information then when I took out a home loan.

It felt like there couldn’t be a single other thing that could be asked, or known, about my entire life.

And you know what, at the time, I really didn’t mind that much. It seemed like a small sacrifice for what I considered the ultimate prize – a title of home ownership. So for the past 20 years my personal information has been held by my bank and by the Land Registry of NSW.

It is difficult to know exactly who holds what, but the personal information is out there and it is attached to my Title and my mortgage. I guess that I have had a trust, or a faith, that the public servants that had access to my details really didn’t have any interest or need to use my information.

The decision by the NSW government to privatise, sell-off, outsource the Land Registry completely dismantles the privacy of my details. In the coming weeks, the government will sign over all of this, to a new private owner, who – just quietly – is based in the Cayman Islands and pays almost zero tax to our country or state.

My private details are going to be in the hands of a private company. That private company has a vested interest in going through my details, “farming” my information for any little chestnut that can help them make a dollar. Or maybe they will just sell my information to a third or fourth or fifth company so that they can make money out of me.

Now the government have said that this won’t happen. But I believe that is a load of bollocks! Think for a second about the Russian interference in the US Presidential elections. I can tell you with absolute certainty, written in legislation and contract, that the government has no capacity, no way, no means to prevent the new owner of the Land Registry from doing the information “farming”, nor does the NSW Government have any means or rights to investigate whether or not the new owner has “farmed” the information.

I guess we will just have to “trust” the new owner to do the right thing.

I welcome the apparent re-think on the future of Wollombi School by the new Minister. The local community are to be congratulated for their activism which put this issue front and centre on the Minister’s desk.

There is no doubt that Minister Stokes, as the former Planning Minister and now Education Minister, understands the difference between short-sighted gains and longer-term pain when school sites and school assets are involved.

We have made the case to the Minister that the School site has great importance to the community, not just for its history which happened in the yesterday, but also for the centrepiece of a modern community that has so many uses for the school site in still building that strong sense of community today.

My office can be contacted on 4991 1466 or cessnock@parliament.nsw.gov.au, or call into 118 Vincent Street (PO Box 242), Cessnock 2325.