Grievance Debate

ECONOMIC AND FINANCE COMMITTEE

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (15:19): I wish to reflect for a few minutes on the Economic and Finance Committee. I make particular reference to the very colourful contribution that was made by the member for West Torrens on 12 September when he presented to the house the annual report for the 2006-07 financial year. I made a brief comment immediately after that and there were some interjections from this side and I think the word 'Churchillian' was used. I managed to get it on the record because the member for West Torrens' reflections on our efforts over the past 12 months were a little different from my memory of what actually occurred.

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr GRIFFITHS: I think the way he described it actually. On being elected to parliament last year, I aspired to a role on the Economic and Finance Committee because I believed all the propaganda. I thought that the committee was all powerful.

Ms Fox interjecting:

Mr GRIFFITHS: They have. Since the member for Mawson complained about it, the quality of the morning tea has improved. It is obvious to me now that it is not. It is a committee that is controlled by the numbers, very strongly, and I will talk later about some of the motions that we have put forward. I note that the presiding member has returned to the house.

I must admit that when I nominated (within our party) to sit on the Economic and Finance Committee I thought we would be sitting nearly every week. It has come as a bit of a disappointment to me that we only sat for 18 hours in the 2006—

Mr Koutsantonis: Is that right?

Mr GRIFFITHS: Yes.

Mr Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr GRIFFITHS: I do not say that.

Mr Koutsantonis interjecting:

Mr GRIFFITHS: No. We only sat for 18 hours in that financial year. I do note the effort that goes into reading the agenda papers for that, and I acknowledge that. The member for West Torrens is questioning me on the fact that I have actually made excuses about the travel time. I have not; not at all. For me it takes about an hour and 45 minutes to get to Adelaide. I am in Adelaide a couple of times every week anyway, so I actually do not care. I put on the record that next week is the very first time, that I can recollect, that the Economic and Finance Committee has sat outside a sitting week in parliament.

Mr Koutsantonis: You agreed.

Mr GRIFFITHS: Yes. I am glad it is sitting next week.

Mr Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for West Torrens is out of his seat.

Mr GRIFFITHS: It is interesting to me that we do receive additional remuneration for taking on these roles: I think for members it is 12 per cent and for the presiding member it is 17 per cent. I am pleased that the committee has decided to sit next week because important issues need to be discussed. We are having the Auditor-General attend our meeting so that we can have some informal discussions with him.

I reflect upon the fact that at the last two meetings some quite important motions, I think, were proposed by opposition members for investigations to be undertaken but which were not supported. The first one was from the member for MacKillop, which was that the real cost of supplying water to the Upper Eyre Peninsula, including the cost to the water consumers, as a result of low water quality and expected costs of an alternative supply be investigated. That was defeated, again along party lines.

The second one was the relative advantages and disadvantages of using private-public partnerships or similar procurement devices for government infrastructure developments. We put up a strong argument for that. We felt very strongly that the level of infrastructure investment that is occurring in this state which is intended to be or has already been funded by public-private partnerships are deserving of an investigation; not only to determine cost but if it was the way for the state to go in the future when it comes to investment opportunities. The member for MacKillop provided some very good terms of reference for that. All three members of the opposition spoke in support of it but unfortunately it was defeated.

The one that we considered last week was a motion that I myself proposed, which referred to Public Service numbers in 2002, and consideration of a few issues which I want to get on the public record, namely:

(a) the level of internal controls in place from 2002 within individual departments designed to ensure that additional staff are engaged only when a direct budget allocation exists. The argument I put for that was that, since 2002, 12,000 public servants have been engaged by the state, and of those only 2,000 form part of the budget statements. We have raised questions continually on this and we thought that was an issue worthy of investigation.

(b) the number of public servants engaged within individual departments for each financial year above the allocation for that year.

(c) the degree of reporting by individual departments to responsible ministers on the number of, and remuneration level of, additional staff engaged. We wanted to see if there was a direct correlation from departments back to the ministers, so the ministers knew if they were in fact employing significantly more people than they are authorised to do in their budgets.

(d) the long-term financial implications to the state for the financial position of the state government due to the unbudgeted growth in this; given that these people cost, on average, $65,000, that is $650 million per year.

Time expired.