Address in Reply

ADDRESS IN REPLY

Adjourned debate on motion for adoption (resumed on motion).

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (15:55): I have 16 valuable minutes left, I understand, to make further contribution to the debate about the Governor's speech, which was given yesterday. I was just going through some of the seven themes raised by the government as the way forward for the state. I had just touched on the issue of vibrant cities and shop trading hours. The next one, of course, in the Governor's speech was 'safe and active neighbourhoods'.

If you want an example of a motherhood statement, can anyone from the government tell me which government ever has not wanted to provide safe neighbourhoods? Which government ever has never wanted to provide safe neighbourhoods? It is crystal clear that it is a fundamental role of government, regardless of persuasion, to provide safe neighbourhoods for their citizens.

I guess that is just another example of what I was mentioning earlier about this Premier's rhetoric. It is little different to the previous premier's rhetoric in that they make these motherhood statements. Of course, if you stand up at a public meeting and say, 'My government's about safer neighbourhoods', you are going to get a head nod. Every government is about safer neighbourhoods.

The government also mentioned active neighbourhoods. The house might recall that I have always had a bit of an interest in recreation and sport. I did smile when I heard the words 'active neighbourhoods', because, Madam Speaker, the first thing this government did when it came to power was to cut $12 million out of the recreation and sport budget, in fact, from community sport grants—$12 million. They slashed it. Not a priority of the government.

They talk about active communities. When it comes to putting their hand in their pocket they are not too good about it; $12 million was cut. When the legislation was debated in the first term of government, when the then treasurer Foley backed down on his written commitment that he had given the Hotels Association about not increasing poker machines, when the opposition moved for another $2½ million to go into the Active Club Program, the government in this house voted against it. When we moved the amendments in the upper house the government eventually had to back down and support it. They were dragged kicking and screaming to provide the extra money in regards to recreation and sport on that instance.

Then we fast forward. This government, having gone to the election saying that their priorities will not be stadiums, all of a sudden have promised to spend $600 million, in round figures, on the new Adelaide Oval for the elite end of sport. When the opposition moved that a million dollars go to community sport by way of rent onto that facility, guess who opposed it? They really objected to it. It was outrageous that we would dare to stick up for community sport. So, let us be clear: the party that has a long history of supporting community sport and recreation is this side of the house.

Even on the recreation site of the agenda, the government have essentially defunded the recreation unit within the Office for Recreation and Sport. So, the idea of cycling and walking trails and those sorts of things out of that agency has been gutted by this particular agency.

We then get onto another area in the speech where they talk about clean food and the protection of the Barossa Valley and the Willunga Basin. Well, guess what, Madam Speaker? Not a lot new there. Before I was in politics, the minister for planning, as she then was, the Hon. Susan Lenehan, the 'mouth from the south', as she was colloquially known—

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: That was how she was known. There are press articles everywhere calling her that. She came up with the bright idea of banning all development, freezing all development in the Adelaide Hills right through to the Fleurieu Peninsula. I had a great time calling public meetings all over the Adelaide Hills running the case against her, and so did the Hon. Robert Brokenshire from another place. We formed the Hills Landowners Association and ran the campaign against Susan Lenehan because her proposal was simply unworkable. It was the Hon. Di Laidlaw who introduced an urban growth boundary to focus development within a certain zone and actually protect the agricultural areas and other zones. The member for MacKillop mentioned the issue of the government's attack on the agricultural areas of Mount Barker through its planning process. There is no doubt that the government approach to the clean food and the planning issue needs to be scrutinised.

The other issue I make a point about is that, of course, it was the previous government under premier Brown and premier Olsen that introduced the Premier's Food Council and the Food Plan and put a focus on food production and food export in South Australia. They redid the Aquaculture Act to do just that. There is nothing new about a Premier coming in and talking about the need for clean, green food or, indeed, food exports.

I can still remember John Olsen as premier saying in question time after question time that our food was within a few hours flight of the Chinese market, and since then, as the minister for mining and manufacturing well knows, Chinese urbanisation has occurred and 50 per cent of the Chinese community now lives not in the rural areas of China but in the cities of China, and that opens up a huge opportunity for this state. that is why the previous government made the decisions that it did because it was obvious to all that ultimately that was where China was heading.

I smiled when the Governor read out what the government had written about planning when he said that planning was important for housing to be close to public transport, near essential services, and that living in homes that are both energy efficient and waterwise can deliver savings to households every day. I come back to the bit about being close to public transport and near essential services, and I put on the end of that 'Buckland Park'. If you are serious about your planning, you would have to ask the question how Buckland Park fits into being close to public transport and near essential services. I know that the Mount Barker community are still raising questions with respect to the issue of infrastructure for their region.

The other issue that was not mentioned in the Governor's speech was the AAA credit rating. The AAA credit rating has gone on the 'Jay watch'. Ever since the Hon. Jay Weatherill has come to the position of premier he has given up on maintaining the AAA credit rating. As I say, it is now on Jay watch, and the reason for that is that the government has locked itself into extraordinarily high expenditures in the Public Service and on projects. As a result, its financial liabilities, the issues that the ratings agencies look at, are going to come under severe pressure.

The debt, as I mentioned, is going from $8 billion to over $11 billion after it sells the forests and the Lotteries Commission while our state liabilities are heading north of $20 billion. The leader mentioned areas of waste, and you would have to look at what this government has done and some of its priorities in regards to spending: the $10 million paid out over the cancellation of projects like the PPP project; the $6 million paid out over the cancellation of a development in regard to Newport Quays; and then the $5 million to Marathon Resources when the minister's own statement to the house says that there was no legal obligation.

If there was no legal obligation, on what basis is the taxpayer forking out $5 million? Marathon had threatened to take us—that is, the government—to court. If there was no legal obligation, then the advice would have been, surely, 'Don't pay anything.' It just seems to me that the government needs to explain a very simple question: if there was no legal liability, as put forward by the minister in his statement to the house, why has the taxpayer paid out money?

It all comes down to priorities. The Keith hospital needs $370,000. The government cannot find that but it can find $5 million for a company for which there was no legal obligation to pay it—none whatsoever. Mount Barker needs infrastructure. The government cannot find money for that, but it can pay $5 million to a company for which there was no legal obligation. Go to any of the regional communities: Mount Gambier, Port Pirie, they all have priorities, but this government cannot find the money. It comes down to priorities and what was set out in the Governor's speech did not address those issues. It was full of platitudes and broad statements, with no real detail at all.

I notice that one of the seven themes was affordable housing. The Premier's line is that one of the highest costs to households is the cost of housing itself. There is an element of truth in that, but what the Premier does not go on to say is what the government is going to do for those people who already have households, of which there are 700,000 or 800,000 in South Australia. Higher electricity prices, higher water prices, higher taxes and charges; they have gone through the roof under this government. This government is the highest taxing government in Australia. That is not the opposition's words; three or four independent reports have all stated that.

The reality is that those people who already own a house and those people already renting a house all have to pay those high government charges. While I understand that producing affordable housing for future home owners and renters is important, there are 700,000 or 800,000 households out there that this government did not address in its speech. It said that it might be able to have some targeted concessions. That means for those who are eligible, not the majority of South Australian households but the minority of South Australian households.

So, the government did not tackle the big issues relating to the state. What it did was put out some motherhood themes: we want safe communities. Who in South Australia does not? We want active communities. Who in South Australia does not want active communities? These are platitudes. It is simply so that the Premier can stand up and get a head nod at the appropriate function when he says, 'We want safer communities,' as if some other party does not want safe communities. You have to ask yourself: after 10 years of a Labor government why has it suddenly become a priority to produce safer or more active communities? It admits a failing over the past 10 years.

Over the past few weeks, and in question time in the past couple of days, the Treasurer and the Premier have suggested, on occasion, that the opposition is trying to talk down the economy. Let me clarify this for the house. What the opposition is doing is what oppositions are required to do under the Westminster system. It is called holding the government to account. All we have done is made public the reports that are produced into the South Australian economy. These are not opposition reports, they are independent reports.

These independent reports are telling us that the South Australian economy went backwards in the September quarter, that the South Australian economy was the worst in the nation in the September quarter, that South Australian business investment was the worst in the nation in the September quarter, that South Australian exports were the worst in the nation, that South Australian business confidence is the worst in the nation, that South Australia suffered the fifth quarter of decline in new residential developments, and that South Australia was the only state to record a fall in private capital expenditure in the September quarter. These are not reports produced by the opposition. These are independent reports by world renowned banks and economic commentators that cast an independent eye on the government's performance.

The question the government did not address in its Governor's speech is: why? Why is South Australia's economy performing so badly? Why is it that the economy went backwards? Why is it that we have the worst business investment in the nation? Why is it that our export performance was so bad? The government did not address those issues, but it did put out some motherhood statements that made people feel good. I go back to the very first point of my contribution: if people think that anything has changed under this Premier, my view is that they are wrong. The platitudes, the motherhood statements and the rhetoric of this Premier are no different to the previous premier, they are just said in a quieter tone.

Mr PISONI (Unley) (16:09): I, too, would like to speak in reply to the Governor's speech yesterday. I would like to predominantly focus my comments on my portfolio areas, that is, education and employment training and further education. Before I start, I think we need to look at the decade we have experienced here in South Australia under Labor. By the end of this reply debate, you could understand why Premier Weatherill is saying that this will be the most important decade: because he wants to forget about the last one. He wants to forget about Labor's record. He wants to try to rewrite history.

It is interesting that a lot of the speech delivered by the Governor yesterday on behalf of the government was about changing things. It has taken 10 years for this government to concede that it has been doing things incorrectly over a very long period of time.

As the Leader of the Opposition said earlier, those decisions—those changes—are all driven by research and the Hawker Britton model, of course, that this government so closely relies on for its policy debate and its media. From next week—the next time we sit in the parliament—we will even have the new member for Ramsey, who has been on the Hawker Britton payroll, joining us. So, you can see just how close that relationship with the marketing and publicity arm of the Labor Party is with this Weatherill government. Nothing has changed since Mike Rann left. The government is the same; it is just a different person leading that government.

It is interesting to look at the way the government itself has performed in that time, despite the 10-week apprenticeship that Mr Rann was good enough to give the now Premier Weatherill in that mentoring period. Maybe he learnt too much. Maybe the items they discussed at their mentoring programs were predominantly spin. Associating yourself with things that are working, things that are good, famous people, is all in the Hawker Britton manual. It is there. If it is good news, the Premier will announce it; if it is bad news, it will be announced by a minister or a public servant. That is when you really know that the government is in trouble: when a public servant confronts the radio stations in the morning when something has gone wrong. It is happening more and more in Patrick Conlon's portfolio of transport.

I see that the new Minister for Transport Services has been very quick to learn that as well, going by the statements often in the paper by somebody who says that they are delivering a statement on behalf of the minister.

Let us get back to education. I found it absolutely extraordinary that, in the array of motherhood statements made on behalf of the government yesterday, there was no mention of education beyond early childhood development. I can understand why the government does not want to talk about education. It does not want to talk about NAPLAN scores, it does not want to talk about the new SACE, because that is something it can actually do something about immediately.

Obviously, the minister, in focusing on early childhood development, cannot be judged on her performance in the two years between now and the election because it is a very long-term project. I agree with that. However, she has refused to acknowledge that there is a need to deal with a whole generation of children who are in our schools at the very minute.

Let us go to the NAPLAN scores from this year, from 2011. If we look at the 20 categories from year 3 to year 9 in reading, writing, spelling, grammar and numeracy, we see that every year since the introduction of the NAPLAN scores, we have seen worse results in South Australia than the previous year. But this year, the results were stunningly bad, stunningly embarrassing for Mr Weatherill, who was the education minister at the time. South Australian students went backwards in 14 out of 20 categories.

When NAPLAN schools were first introduced in 2008, South Australia was bouncing amongst the top. They were in the middle top range of scores in South Australia. You always had Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT ahead of us, but now we are in the bottom group. We are in the bottom cohort and what is concerning about that is that we are actually seeing significant improvements in states that have traditionally had difficulty with their NAPLAN scores and their national testing; that is, Western Australia and Queensland.

Both of those states have seen dramatic improvements. As a matter of fact, in Western Australia, it is ironic that, where we went backwards in 14 out of 20 categories, they actually went forward in 14 out of 20 categories; but here in South Australia we went backwards in 14 out of 20 categories. Some of these figures are absolutely shocking. If we look at year 3, a critical year, in year 3 writing, last year we had a score of 410.8, this year a score of 399.3—nearly a 3 per cent drop-off in the score in South Australia in 2011 compared to 2010. What is even more shocking is that we are nearly 16 points away from the national average score of 415.

As a matter of fact, in every single category, in South Australia, we were below the national average—every single category. It is a disgrace and an embarrassment for this government, who have squandered billions of dollars in education since they have come to office.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Billions?

Mr PISONI: Billions of dollars.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Not thousands of millions?

Mr PISONI: Billions of dollars. The budget is $2.2 billion every year and they have been there for 10 years. Work it out, member for Croydon.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: They've squandered the lot?

Mr PISONI: Work it out, member for Croydon. Work it out. It is an extraordinary amount of money that we have seen mismanaged by this government. Of course, you challenge this government on the way that they are delivering their education policy and the way that they are delivering education here in South Australia and the first thing they will talk to you about is how much money they are spending. They will not tell you about their results or their outcomes because they are embarrassed about that. They are happy to talk about inputs but they will not talk about outcomes or outputs from those inputs.

If there is one thing that I want to do if I ever get the privilege to serve as the education minister, it is to immediately address those thousands and thousands of children here in South Australia who are missing out on a fair go in our public education system. Do not just take my word for it. The member for Davenport raised the point earlier that we do not make these figures up. Sixteen thousand students have shifted from the public sector to the private sector in the last 10 years—16,000 students. An extraordinary number of parents have voted with their feet, taken their children out of government schools and put them into non-government schools.

Just on the NAPLAN scores, I seek leave to insert a table of purely statistical data into Hansard.

Leave granted.

Mr PISONI: Of course, we need to look at other records of this government in education. It is extraordinary that, when the Labor Party was in opposition to a minority government, they did have some wins in the parliament at that time. One of those was a democratic system of school closures and school amalgamations—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Yes. That is after you closed Croydon primary.

Mr PISONI: —and just closed 42. Forty-two schools have closed since Labor has been in power, member for Croydon. Of course, last year, we saw that Jay Weatherill, as the education minister, in his very first budget ripped—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: You mean the Premier?

Mr PISONI: Who is now the Premier—that is right. The member for Croydon says he is now the Premier. That is right; he is now the Premier. Now, we see he ripped $100 million out of school budgets in his very first budget as education minister. One of those was $8.2 million over two years in amalgamations of 68 schools, I think it was at that time. We know how quickly school communities saw how unjust it was that they were not consulted about that process. Do not forget that this is money in the budget, in the bank. The government is expecting this money to come through. Due to the diligence of the member for Unley and parents, and—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: The diligence of yourself.

Mr PISONI: Yes, of course, because the member for Croydon will never praise me. The member for Croydon will never do it. It is disorderly to interject, even though they might be favourable terms, on the member for Unley while he is speaking. It is disorderly to do so. I am speaking in my capacity of having the call and being on my feet.

School communities contacted me about how concerned they were about these forced amalgamations. Within about four months of that budget announcement, minister Weatherill, the then education minister, backflipped on the forced amalgamations for high schools and primary schools, but that did not stop him continuing with the forced amalgamations of junior primary schools and primary schools.

Do not forget that many of these primary schools and junior primary schools had been through the voluntary process earlier and had rejected it; but this minister had written their savings into the budget. What is even more extraordinary is that, when we received some FOI documents, we saw that fees of $375,000 were paid to ministerial representatives on the panels that reviewed the decisions made by the governing councils—$375,000 paid out to ministerial appointees, ministerial representatives, on these review panels.

The handwritten note on the memo that signed off this expenditure says, 'Don't worry about the extra cost because we are actually going to save more money than the $8.2 million that cabinet has approved.' More money. We did squeeze out of minister Portolesi's office the fact that it is $6 million a year that they are taking out of schools—not the $4.1 million that was initially announced by this government, but $6 million a year.

It is interesting that some of these reviews were in well before Christmas and a number of the schools that were going through the forced closure are in Largs Bay. Although it is not technically in the seat of Port Adelaide, it is a bit like Unley High School, which is in the member for Waite's seat, but I have a lot of constituents who send their children to Unley High School, as well as to Glenunga High School, which is in my electorate.

I know the member for Bragg has constituents who have children there, as does the member for Adelaide, because people living in Adelaide do not want to send their kids to the solution that this government came up with for them, the super school at Gepps Cross. There are a number of constituents of the member for Adelaide who send their children to Glenunga High School, but I digress.

The savings that were made by these forced amalgamations were greater than the government expected. They had the results of the review panel. We know that in Largs Bay the review panel said, 'No, we don't want to amalgamate.' We also know that there were three other schools in the seat of Ramsay that went through the forced amalgamation process, but no decision before the by-elections. What a great job the right wing of the Labor Party did in the seat of Ramsay. How embarrassed are you by the delivery that the left wing gave you in Port Adelaide?

I can imagine the debates that are going on in the factional rooms of the Labor Party at the moment about just how those two by-elections were conducted. It is interesting that, when we saw visions on television of Port Adelaide, you could see all the figures of the left: the Hon. Mr Hunter in the other place, Senator Penny Wong, Jay Weatherill and the member for Mawson, of course. They are all there in the seat of Port Adelaide. I wonder how many how-to-vote cards the member for Mawson handed out in the seat of Ramsay. How many how-to-vote cards did you hand out in the seat of Ramsay; and were they Labor how-to-vote cards or were they Family First? Come on, tell us!

I think it is very interesting that in 2006, Port Adelaide had a 25 per cent margin—more than 75 per cent of people in the Port Adelaide electorate voted for the Labor Party. Now we are down to a marginal seat of 3 per cent. The seat of Florey is safer than the seat of Port Adelaide at the moment.

Ms Bedford: In my hands, it is very safe.

Mr PISONI: It sounds to me like the member for Florey is sending out some warnings to the factions in the Labor Party: 'Get rid of the member for Florey, and you'll lose the seat of Florey.' That is what she is saying. There is some tension. You can see that the tensions are starting on that side of the house—the repercussions of the very poor by-election results of the Labor Party. But, again, I digress.

I would like to use this opportunity to point out the success of the pilot program of 47 independently-managed schools in New South Wales and, of course, the success of the independent public schools in Western Australia that have seen dramatic increases in academic outcomes, whether they be NAPLAN scores or whether they be the engagement of boys. In particular, something that should be heartening to the government here in South Australia is that, in New South Wales, 47 schools under a Labor government were given full autonomy so that the principals could run their schools.

I would like to direct members to the independent review of the school-based management pilot that was released in October 2011 on behalf of the department of education in New South Wales that is very praising of the outcomes that we saw in New South Wales. For example, we saw that the review found that school-based management was successfully implemented in the pilot schools and the principals of these schools were innovative and creative in finding staffing solutions to better meet the needs of their schools.

In other words, it is all about the children and it is all about our children's education. They were overwhelmingly positive about the benefits of school-based management with their schools and had evidence of positive outcomes. I think it is important, when we are having the debate about the way schools are managed, that we tie it back to evidence.

Of course, despite the 26-page report coming out overwhelmingly in favour of local school management, the education union in New South Wales said that they will fight tooth and nail any further expansion of the independent schools or the self-governing schools trial in New South Wales. They are not interested in the education outcomes that were delivered by this pilot in New South Wales. They are only interested in the interests of the union—not in education and not in children's outcomes.

For a decade, this government has been more focused on placating the Australian Education Union than it has been on dealing with education outcomes and that is evident with the NAPLAN scores here in South Australia. It is evident with the number of parents who have chosen to send their children to non-government schools and the member for Napier, for example, living in Springfield because it is close to his children's schools. I can remember him defending that stance on 891 radio when he was first elected: choosing the non-government sector for his schools. We believe in school choice. On this side of the house, we believe in school choice and we congratulate school choice.

I would like to also talk about TAFE, being a tradesman myself. The trades system and the TAFE system were very good to me. It gave me an opportunity I would not otherwise have had. The Productivity Commission's report that was released just a few weeks ago has some damning statistics for South Australia in the way that the government has invested in training. Do not forget, this is a government that said, 'Don't worry about our dwindling traditional industries, don't worry about our dwindling manufacturing, we are moving to a new era. We are training people to deal with defence industries, training people for mining, training people for the education sector and the education boom that is happening here in South Australia.'

However, let us look at the Productivity Commission's review of South Australia's record compared to other states. If we look at the total amount of money that was spent in the year 2000, in 2010 dollars, you will see that it was $318.6 million. In 2010, 10 years later, it was only $329.5 million, a 3.4 per cent increase. Let us look at what some of our competitor states have done. In Victoria, we saw an increase of $29.2 million in total money spent on vocational education and training. We saw an 18.8 per cent increase in Queensland. There was a 28 per cent increase in Western Australia. Tasmania had a 20.9 per cent increase. In South Australia it was a 3.4 per cent increase.

How does that relate to a per capita expenditure over the same time? Back in the year 2000, again in 2010 figures, we see that there was $322.10 spent per student in South Australia. Ten years later, after 10 years of Labor, that figure is $301, a minus 6.5 per cent difference. In other words, we are spending 6.5 per cent less per student on VET training now than we were when this government came to office. This government told us it is preparing South Australians for the new economy, yet we have seen that they have had other priorities, and speakers before me have outlined those other incorrect priorities.

Let us look at what Victoria has done in the same time. It had a 10 per cent increase per student, from $293.10 in 2000 to $322.39 in 2010. We have seen an increase in Tasmania of 12 per cent. We have seen an increase in Western Australia of 4.6 per cent. However, here in South Australia there was a decrease in the amount of money spent for each VET student of 6.5 per cent. I seek leave to insert my purely statistical table into Hansard.

Leave granted.

Mr PISONI: I would like to finish my speech with some comments in response to the government's claim in its opening speech that:

...the Government will call on all Members to maintain the proper standards during this session. And beyond this, we will enact a Code of Conduct for all Members, to ensure that their public lives are beyond reproach.

I think we need to look at the government's record on this and who it is that the government engages for its advice. It is interesting that the education minister mentioned yet another Thinker in Residence in answer to a Dorothy Dixer earlier in question time, but we do not hear much about John McTernan these days as a Thinker in Residence here in South Australia.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Yes, we hear about him all the time.

Mr PISONI: I talk about John McTernan. Yes, of course, I talk about John McTernan, because we do need to understand that this man was hired with South Australian taxpayers' money. The Victorian Labor government hired him in the early 2000s in the department of environment, and the Victorian government cannot find any reference of any work that he did in that time—no reference at all to any work he did in that time when he was on the Victorian government payroll. I would be interested to see the results of the report that Mr McTernan gives us on public management, and the way that we should run our public service here in South Australia.

I want to remind members about the cash-for-honours scandal under the Blair government in the United Kingdom—of which there is no doubt in British media reports—the BBC has very kindly left a chronology of the events on its website for people to see. On 5 June 2007:

Two of Tony Blair's closest aides are re-bailed by police as part of the cash-for-honours inquiry.

In March that same year:

Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith, at the request of police, obtains an injunction against the BBC to stop it broadcasting an item about the cash-for-honours investigation.

A bit sensitive, I think. On 24 January the following year:

Downing Street's director of political operations, John McTernan was questioned during the previous week for a second time, it emerges that John McTernan seconded to the Scottish Labour Party to run its campaign for May's Holyrood elections, was re-interviewed under caution.

It is interesting that more of this tale is told in detail by The Daily Mail in the UK. If we read that, it goes on to say:

...speculation was mounting that police will be able to charge at least three people over the cash-for-honours scandal.

We should remember, and remind the house, of course, that this man is running the communications arm in the Prime Minster's office in Australia right at this very moment. Right at this very moment.

It follows claims that admissions by one of Mr Blair's closest aides—political secretary John McTernan—have helped police discover 'smoking gun' evidence that peerages were traded for donations to the Labour Party.

Well, there you go. This man is in the Prime Minister's office here in Australia.

His testimony is said to have led to the recent arrests of two of the PM's inner circle, his chief fundraiser Lord Levy and his head of Government relations Ruth Turner, on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. Substantial new evidence, including McTernan's diaries, has now been disclosed to the Crown Prosecution Service.

The new developments came after a 'mole' —now revealed to be Mr McTernan—told police of secretly deleted emails and memos that proved at least two people had been lying to police.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr PISONI: No, he is covering his backside. And now, here he is, and you can just imagine how he is going to be putting himself in front of the firing gun if somebody tries to attack Julia Gillard. I mean he is obviously a loyal member of the Labour Party—why is he not working for the Labour Party in the UK anymore? Because he has found some fools down here.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr PISONI: He has found some fools down here. He was working for them in opposition long before they were in government, member for Croydon.

It was the McTernan breakthrough that led to Miss Turner and then Lord Levy being arrested in the past two weeks.

He also revealed details of meetings concerning Labour donors who had been offered peerages.

Miss Turner and Lord Levy had previously denied the existence of this sensational evidence. But Mr McTernan said the emails were between him and Miss Turner.

Detectives have also examined the diaries of McTernan and other Downing Street aides which prove secret meetings took place.

Secret meetings. Mr McTernan was involved in secret meetings.

After denials that the emails existed, police examined the Downing Street server and found they had been secretly deleted.

The Daily Mail can reveal that Mr McTernan is believed to have secretly gathered evidence to protect himself from a cash-for-honours prosecution.

There he is. A man for himself in the Prime Minister's office here in Australia. And, of course, the foolish Mike Rann hired him with taxpayers' money here in South Australia as a Thinker in Residence, to tell us how we should run our Public Service. Well, God help us if we take up that recommendation.

The Daily Mail can reveal that Mr McTernan is believed to have secretly gathered evidence to protect himself from a cash-for-honours prosecution. He is said to be so worried about being blamed for the allegations that peerages were traded for donations that he is frantically copying as many confidential documents as possible. The idea is to 'prove' to police that he could not have been involved in any of the key discussions which led to the honours being awarded.

Time expired.

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (16:40): I rise today to support the speech given by His Excellency at the opening of parliament and to congratulate him on his reappointment as Governor for a further two years. It was wonderful to see him this morning at the Muriel Matters celebration here at Parliament House and to congratulate him in person. He has done a fine job as Governor of South Australia, and I wish him all the best for the future. His wife, Liz, also does a remarkable job with so many different community groups throughout South Australia.

We were lucky enough to have them both down in McLaren Vale for a couple of days in January for the harvest festival. They are a very popular couple and are held in high regard not just in McLaren Vale but also right through the state, I am sure.

I was very pleased to hear that one of the first things the Governor mentioned yesterday in his speech was that the government had identified seven primary areas of focus for action. The very first one of those was for a clean, green food industry. As I represent McLaren Vale and the surrounding area, I know we have been promoting and producing clean, green food for many years.

There is a great community down there interested in promoting our region and the products that come from that region as being clean and green. I think that is where the people of South Australia, indeed, most of the people in the world, want us to go. They are scared by the sort of things that we have seen come out of China in the past few years. They want to be able to trace that food back to its origins and be aware of what sort of additives have been put into that food.

I am proud to be here as a member of the government, a government which in 2008—and I was glad to play a part in that, as well—continues the moratorium on the growing of GM crops in South Australia. We went to the last election with a pledge to continue that moratorium. I would like to see that moratorium not only go further but be given permanent status in South Australia.

We look at rest of the states of Australia and one by one, apart from Tasmania, of course, the mainland states all now allow the growing of some GM crops. Western Australia has allowed the commercial production of GM canola since January 2010. The Northern Territory has never restricted the commercial cultivation of GM crops. Victoria has allowed commercial production of GM canola since 2008. New South Wales has allowed commercial production of GM canola since March 2008, and Queensland has never restricted commercial cultivation of GM crops.

Last year I was in Canada, and we were speaking to some of the grain companies there, and they mentioned how hard it was to get their grains, particularly canola, into Japan and Europe because of the restrictions. Japan has a ban on the importation of GM crops, and the UK and Europe are certainly heading that way. They are very tight, and I think they are heading the way of a total ban.

Even if people do not get the health benefits and the environmental benefits of saying no to the introduction of growing GM crops, we should be looking at the economic benefits, that we can stand alone as a state and say that we do not grow GM crops here and that we do live up to what the Governor was talking about in his speech yesterday about being clean and green.

Lots of promises have been made over the years by Monsanto and those other poison peddlers. They are out there saying that we can grow crops in drought, we can kill all these pests, we can kill all these weeds. We have seen each of those claims disproved over the years. We have also seen throughout the United States and other parts of the world the advent of superbugs and super pests that have become tolerant to the sprays that have been sprayed over GM crops.

At the end of the day, it is what these companies are all about. They are about producing chemicals, and the seeds are a by-product—a very dangerous by-product—because they are genetically modified and they cannot be reproduced. So, a farmer puts them in one year, and the following year he has to go and buy seeds again from the company that sells the poison and sold him the seeds. If we allow this to continue we are going to see the ownership of all our seeds limited to four or five multinational companies—multinational companies that do not have a high regard for community safety.

For the record, I will talk about Monsanto's record. This list has been prepared by Dr P.M. Bhargava:

1969: [Monsanto] Produces Agent Orange, which was used as a defoliant by the U.S. Government during the Vietnam War...

1976: Monsanto produces Cycle-Safe, the world's first plastic soft-drink bottle. The bottle, suspected of posing a cancer risk, is banned the following year...

1986: Monsanto found guilty of negligently exposing a worker to benzene at its Chocolate Bayou Plant in Texas...

1986: Monsanto spends $50,000 against California's anti-toxics initiative...

1987: Monsanto is one of the companies named in an $180 million settlement for Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange.

1988: A federal jury finds Monsanto...subsidiary, G.D. Searle & Co., negligent in testing and marketing of its Copper 7...birth control device...The verdict followed the unsealing of internal documents regarding safety concerns about the IUD, which was used by nearly 10 million women between 1974 and 1986.

1990: EPA chemists allege fraud in Monsanto's 1979 dioxin study which found their exposure to the chemical doesn't increase cancer risks.

1990: Monsanto spends more than $405,000 to defeat California's pesticide regulation Proposition 128, known as the 'Big Green' initiative.

1991: Monsanto is fined $1.2 million for trying to conceal discharge of contaminated waste water into the Mystic River in Connecticut.

1995: Monsanto is sued after allegedly supplying radioactive material for a controversial study which involved feeding radioactive iron to 829 pregnant women.

1995: Monsanto ordered to pay $41.1 million to a waste management company in Texas due to concerns over hazardous waste dumping.

1995: The Safe Shoppers Bible says that Monsanto's Ortho Weed-B-Gon Lawn Weed Killer contains a known carcinogen...

2005: According to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, Monsanto bribed at least 140 Indonesian officials or their families to get Bt cotton approved without an environmental impact assessment (EIA). In 2005, Monsanto paid $1.5 million in fines to the US Justice Department for these bribes.

2005: Six Government scientists including Dr. Margaret Haydon told the Canadian Senate Committee of Monsanto's 'offer' of a bribe of between $1-2 million to the scientists from Health Canada if they approved the company's GM bovine growth hormone (rbGH) (banned in many countries outside the US), without further study, and how notes and files critical of scientific data provided by Monsanto were stolen from a locked filing cabinet in her office. One FDA scientist arbitrarily increased the allowable levels of antibiotics in milk 100-fold in order to facilitate the approval of rbGH. She had just arrived at the FDA from Monsanto.

2005: The US Patent and Trademark Office rejected four key Monsanto patents related to GM crops that the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) challenged because the agricultural giant is using them to harass, intimidate, sue - and in some cases bankrupt - American farmers. Monsanto devotes more than $10 million per year to such anti-farmer activities, over alleged improper use of its patented seeds.

2005: The Alabama Court Judgement in February 2002 best describes the sort of business that Monsanto is in. In 1966, court documents in a case concerning Anniston residents in the US showed that Monsanto managers discovered that fish dunked in a local creek turned belly-up within 10 seconds, spurting blood and shedding skin as dropped into boiling water. In 1969, they found fish in another creek with 7,500 times the legal PCB level...

I could go on and on about Monsanto's record. I know that there are people in this state who promote the fact that we should have GM crops grown in this state. I think that they should look at the record of Monsanto, and there is plenty out there. As recently as yesterday there was a story about Monsanto being found guilty of breaches in France. It has just finally relented to pressure in the UK and pulled out of the UK.

The people in the UK are smart enough to know that they had already let the problem in and now they are trying to get rid of it. We have not let the problem in, but we need to be very, very strong to say no to Monsanto and any of these other companies that want to come in here and peddle their poisons and the genetically modified seeds and crops that go with it.

At the end of November, beginning of December of last year, I was fortunate enough to attend a workshop in India that was organised by Satish Kumar, who is a visiting fellow at the Schumacher College in the UK. He is a former monk and long-term peace and environmental activist. He has been quietly setting the global agenda for change for more than 50 years. He was just nine when he left his family home to join the wandering Jains and 18 when he decided he could achieve more back in the world, campaigning for land reform in India and working to turn Gandhi's vision of a renewed India and a peaceful world into a reality.

Inspired in his early twenties by the example of the British peace activist Bertrand Russell, Satish embarked on an 8,000 mile peace pilgrimage. Carrying no money and depending on the kindness and hospitality of strangers, he walked from India to America, via Moscow, London and Paris, to deliver a humble packet of peace tea to the then leaders of the world's four nuclear powers.

Satish delivered a wonderful message to us over the eight or nine days of the workshop. There were about 30 people there from around the world. We also heard from the recently retired prime minister in exile of Tibet, Professor Samdhong Rinpoche, who retired last year after doing the maximum two five-year terms. These gentlemen spoke in a very quiet way about: what are we doing with our environment? What are we doing by trying to bring chemicals and technology into what nature provided us in the first place? We are actually ruining the environment and we are putting the health of all of the world's citizens at risk.

India is a great case in point of the tragic circumstances that can come out of the introduction of GM crops. Tens of thousands of farmers have committed suicide because of the introduction of GM cotton. While we were there we heard media reports of more farmers committing suicide. They generally do it at rallies. They will go along to a company demonstration (Monsanto or the likes of Monsanto) and actually drink the poison and die that way: an horrific death. They have been sent bankrupt and broke and their families have lost everything because they were promised that they could introduce Bt cotton into their farms many years ago and that it would wipe out the grubs and bugs and other pests that had been their enemy for so many years. If it sounds too good to be true, as we know, often it is too good to be true. The effects have been dire. As I said, tens of thousands of Indian farmers have committed suicide.

One woman, who has done an amazing job, set up the Navdanya farms after the Bhopal gas disaster in the 1980s. She decided to rally against these chemical companies. Her name is Dr Vandana Shiva and she set up the Navdanya farms. It was one of her farms that we stayed on. She also spoke. She is Monsanto's No. 1 enemy in the world, I think, because she is constantly speaking out and alerting the country and the world to the dangers posed by GM crops. It was terrific to sit and listen to her message about how, wherever we are in the world—and we had people there from many countries in Europe, the US, Canada, parts of Asia, and there was one other Australian there apart from myself—we all need to go out into our communities and educate people about getting back to basics in life.

I am born and bred on a farm and it is really easy for a farmer to have the local stock agent (or someone) come around and say, 'Look, this latest product that's out, this will save you doing this, this will save you doing that.' We all know that it is hard work being a farmer. It is seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and some parts of the season, obviously, are busier than others. So, if someone has something to offer then it is very tempting to take it up. I would urge everyone in our community to do some research on Monsanto, do some research on Bayer, do some research on the perils of the poisons that these companies peddle, and be out there advocating for our environment, for our economy and for the health of our current population, but also for future populations.

I think a good place to start would be a publication that came out coordinated by Dr Shiva and produced late last year, called The GMO Emperor Has No Clothes. If you Google that, you will find the document. It is quite a big document. There is a chapter on the Pacific and Australia, and there is also anecdotal evidence from all parts of the world. It is a one-stop shop where you can see the dangers of GMO crops.

I have sent a copy of that publication to the Premier, to the agriculture minister and to the editor of The Advertiser, as well as to Peter Vaughan, the head of Business SA, because late last year Peter Vaughan came out and said that it was time for South Australia to lift the ban. The editorial of The Advertiser that day also said that we should get out of the way and allow GM crops to be grown here. That is quite an easy decision to come to when you believe that GM crops can solve famines around the world and that GM crops can be grown in places where we have not been able to grow crops in South Australia in the past 175 years.

However, these claims are not right, and we need to delve behind these claims to actually look at what is right for the people of South Australia. So, I wrote to The Advertiser and provided a copy in the hope that we could actually change the public perception at the media level, as well as the level at which Peter Vaughan operates.

As a local member of parliament and one who represents some agricultural land, no constituent has ever come to me and said, 'Can we get more GM food? Can you lift the GM ban so that we can have more GM crops or have GM crops grown in South Australia?' Time and time again, when the people of South Australia—and Australia for that matter—respond to surveys, they show quite clearly that they are against GM food. So, I am hopeful that one day that moratorium will become a total ban and that we will not even have research done on GM crops in South Australia.

I have heard people in here argue that we should lift the ban on having GM crops transported through our state. I think it is quite wise that we do not allow that. In about August last year in Western Australia, there was a truck rollover and genetically modified canola spilt from the truck. Farmers around that area who were ardent critics of genetically modified canola were very worried about the risk that this would pose. Farmers over there were saying that the moratorium should be reinstated. The moratorium had been lifted in January 2010 and, by August 2011, there was a case of GM canola escaping into areas where farmers had prided themselves on not having any GM crops.

There is no real recourse in some states for the contamination of people's crops. It is their livelihood. People who had taken the decision to remain GM free, to remain organic, had all their plans and their livelihood upset by someone else's actions, and there was no protection from their government.

I am very glad that for a long time now the Australian wine industry has said that it will not endorse any genetically modified growing of vines or any other intrusion into the winemaking process. I think that is another great marketing tool for us as we sell our fantastic wines from all our regions right around the world.

McLaren Vale is one of those great places to live and work, and it is an enormous privilege to represent the area in here because so many great ideas come from the people of McLaren Vale. It actually makes it easier when ideas are formulated at a local level and all I have to do is come in here and argue and convince my colleagues—and perhaps people on the other side—to get behind it. You know that, when you have your community behind you, you are arguing a good case and you have a lot of power behind you.

One such example of that was the agricultural and tourism preserve, which we are proposing to bring back into the house this year and to have enshrined in legislation. That is an idea that was floated very early on in my time as the member for Mawson, back in 2006-07. I must pay tribute to Dudley Brown, a past chairman of the McLaren Vale Grape, Wine and Tourism Association. Dudley is an American by birth and a proud McLaren Vale person now, but he kept telling me about the Napa Valley and how, in 1968, they sought to preserve the Napa Valley as a winegrowing and agricultural district. He was saying that we could do exactly the same thing in McLaren Vale.

I did some research. I went over to Napa, came back and drafted a private member's bill that I was only too happy to see turn into a government bill. I think we did it a lot more easily because we had the Barossa on board as well. I think it would have been very easy for people in government or anywhere to say, 'If we lose McLaren Vale, we have still got the Barossa,' or 'If we lose Barossa, we have still got McLaren Vale.'

I am very grateful to Margaret Lehmann. I was up at the Peter Lehmann winery one day and Margaret grabbed me and said, 'We really like what you are doing down in McLaren Vale. We want to get a piece of the preserve as well.' I said, 'Let me take it back to my people in McLaren Vale.' They were only too happy to be involved. We formed a little committee. We had four people from McLaren Vale and four people from Barossa. We met with the then planning minister, Paul Holloway, the former agriculture minister, Michael O'Brien, and many other ministers over the ensuing months and years to come up with something that, hopefully, will be through this parliament early this year and will stand until both houses of this place decide to change it.

It is a little bit like Colonel Light's vision when, 175 years ago, he protected the Parklands. Hopefully, people will look back at the members in this place and say, 'Thank goodness that, in 2012, the people had the foresight to save it.' There is plenty of great land in metropolitan Adelaide that has been lost to housing and strip malls and everything else because no-one had the foresight to protect it. It all fits into the clean, green food bowl image. We are already coming along and have made great strides and, of course, there is more to do.

Mr Marshall interjecting:

Mr BIGNELL: I hear the member for Norwood say, 'What about Mount Barker?' The member for MacKillop asked about Mount Barker as well. I am responsible for McLaren Vale and, as I said, the community came to me as a local member and then Barossa came to me. I would have thought Mount Barker should have gone to their local member. They have a couple of local members up there.

The thing is we came up with a solution. We came up with a solution and, like anything in life, if you go to your boss with a problem, it is a problem for the boss. If you go to the boss with a problem and a solution, then it just makes it a whole lot easier because the boss can then go, 'Well, that is alright.' There is actually some kudos along the way for taking that sort of approach. People who just whinge and whine all the time do not actually achieve—

Mr Marshall: Those are electors you are talking about.

Mr BIGNELL: I am talking about people who interject like you, member for Norwood. The people who just want to whinge and whine and not come up with a solution they are never going to solve anything.

The member for MacKillop also had a go at the McLaren Vale hospital for getting funding. Again, as local member, I went into bat for the people of McLaren Vale and the McLaren Vale hospital to get that funding. He compares it to Keith. I have been to Keith. I went doorknocking there last year. They had not seen Mitch out doorknocking there ever.

An honourable member: They hadn't?

Mr BIGNELL: No, never. I saw Mrs Davison, Mrs Oldfield and many other wonderful people in Keith when I went doorknocking. It was just a matter of getting around and explaining that there is $200,000 that the Keith hospital was spending on aged-care facilities that was actually meant to be provided by the feds. If Keith did not ask the federal government for it, then that money would have been spent on aged care in Queensland, Tasmania or New South Wales, or wherever it was. It was a matter of saying, 'Look, we have got only so much money in the state health budget. We do not need to be giving over money into aged care that they could perhaps be getting from somewhere else.' We also pointed out some ways that they could get some other money that they were perhaps not getting at that time.

The same thing happened at Ardrossan and at Moonta. I have had a couple of meetings with the chair of the board of the Keith hospital and one meeting with the full board down in Keith. They are great people, great local residents, who are doing a terrific job. They had some real issues with change, and change often causes upset for people. They have now come on board and are working with the government and I wish them the very, very best.

We have great community hospitals around the state and Keith is just one. Loxton is another brilliant hospital that I visited last year, where the community raised an enormous amount of money for their hospital. People actually like to have an input into their community hospital. When governments do everything for a community, the community sometimes loses. There is something to be said for rallying around a great provider of community service in the community.

McLaren Vale does it. All the proceeds from the harvest festival that was on in January went to the McLaren Vale and Districts War Hospital. People come along to the festival, they pay their money, and any money that comes out of their pocket and there is profit made goes to the hospital. I think they raised about $20,000 or $25,000. As I said before, I was up in Loxton last year, and they have some of the best facilities of any hospital I have ever been in. Their birthing suites are amazing. You can fit your whole family in there after you have given birth to your child. I do not know how they get people to leave!

I met the Presiding Member of the Loxton District Hospital, Sally Goode. She was kind enough to sign my copy of The Loxton Hospital: our community's legacy and it proudly sits on my bookshelf in the office. To the member for MacKillop, that is the reason McLaren Vale was funded, so I do not think you should come in and have a go at McLaren Vale getting money and Keith missing out because it is not comparing apples with apples. Once again, I say here in this house that I support His Excellency's speech.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite) (17:06): I rise to commend the Governor's address to the house and to focus my observations of that address on the question of health. I am delighted that the Minister for Health is here to listen dutifully to my contribution and I look forward to constructive engagement on issues of substance and policy over the next two years, which I feel confident he will take seriously.

I was disappointed that the Governor's address did not give much attention to health. There were a lot of other issues raised, but health did not jump out as one of the key seven issues that were identified in the government's new agenda. As the government seeks to remake itself as some sort of born-again new Labor Party, I would caution that government not to forget how important an issue health is for South Australians, city and country.

I just want to go over developments in the eight weeks or so that I have been a shadow minister that have caused me some concern. One of the first things that I took action on when I took this portfolio was the issue of Keith hospital. I am not going to dwell on the issue of Keith hospital—I have just visited there—but I would ask the government to remain engaged with Keith hospital stakeholders and to do all they can to help them over the year or two ahead until, hopefully, with a change of government, some new emphasis and focus can be given to that hospital.

I do want to draw attention to other important issues that have arisen in health, particularly mismanagement of health accounts and comments made by the Auditor-General about that mismanagement. Financial mismanagement generally within the health portfolio is attracting increasing attention, linked to IT systems failure and the government's inability to successfully change management systems from one to the other.

I also want to talk about emergency department failure, where we are getting poor results, and about elective surgery waiting times, where we seem to be going backwards; not to mention country health failures and conflicts that appear to be emerging between governments and staff within the health system; and of course, last but not least, issues to do with the Royal Adelaide Hospital, the so-called rail yards hospital, which is a troubled and vexed project, about which I am sure this house is going to see much debate in the coming years.

Let me go to the issue of financial mismanagement within this department. There is no doubt that the minister and the Treasurer are under the pump a little on this. In 2009, the 'minister for mismanagement', as I have appropriately tagged him, decided to scrap the state's various computer systems for managing their finances, supply chain management and asset management, including in-house systems like Masterpiece, Homer, Hartley, Qantel, IBA and SAMIS, Spreadsheets, HIMS and others, replacing them with a system called Oracle.

It has been a disastrous project from start to finish. The Auditor-General has expressed concerns in his report that state cabinet was misinformed, presumably by the minister, in relevant cabinet submissions that the cost would be around $21 million while the State Procurement Board apparently knew it would be more to the tune of $37 million. There was also concern about the failure to produce a business case for the proposal before it was considered by cabinet. There appears to have been no cost-benefit assessment.

In March 2011 the health department CEO Tony Sherbon bailed out to be replaced by David Swan. By August 2011, parliament was told of serious financial management issues and an $88 million budget blowout. In October 2011, the Auditor-General stunned parliament by revealing that he could not include the Department of Health in his annual report because the agency had failed to complete its reports.

I just say to the house that it is bad enough when a minister finds his reports qualified by the Auditor-General. That is usually an embarrassment that needs to be taken to cabinet and explained in the government party room but not even to have your accounts in on time so that they can be reported on by the Auditor-General at all is nothing short of a disgrace.

If this were to occur in a public company responsible to its shareholders in accordance with regulations and rules set out by ASIC and commonwealth government legislation, not only would that share price be hammered but the CEO of that company would be arraigned before the appropriate regulatory authorities to show cause, let alone what might happen to them at the annual general meeting. There would be fines imposed. There would be financial consequences on the company. It would be catastrophic.

Yet, this government under the new Premier, seems to think that it is quite okay for this huge department—$5 billion, 30 per cent of government expenditure, nearly 30,000 employees—to simply fail to put in their financial accounts for audit on time. I just find that an absolutely remarkable admission of failure from a failed government.

The mess is so bad that the minister has had to call in private accounting firm PKF to try and sort out this self-created disaster at a reported cost of $750,000 or more. Bills have been double paid, at one point up to $7.1 million worth. We hear today in parliament that they are working through that. Up to $60 million worth of accounts had not been reconciled. We are still waiting to have accurate information provided to the parliament on unreconciled accounts. Suppliers have struggled to refund the money. The minister basically appears not to be across his brief, or if he is across his brief, he is failing to sound the alarm at the very serious mismanagement issues that have arisen under his watch.

Now, at a reported cost of $430,000, bureaucrat Mr Steve Archer has been tasked to head up a new unit to sort out the mess, a matter confirmed in the Mid-Year Budget Review. In the 2010 Auditor-General's Report, there were 170 employees being paid more than $100,000, up from 125 in the previous year. How many will we see in 2012? Why do we now need a new administrative empire within the existing empire? Minister Hill's answer to this bureaucratic nightmare appears to have been to create yet another layer of bureaucracy under Mr Archer. What has CEO Mr David Swan been doing, for heaven's sake? What has the minister been doing? What have the chief financial officers been doing? Why is it necessary to bring in this new team to sort out what executive function should have been sorting out for the last few years? On 10 November 2011, Treasurer Snelling told parliament:

With regard to the Auditor-General's Report, I am not advised that there are any particular issues in Health about which I need to be particularly concerned.

The Treasurer says on 10 November that 'there are no issues in Health about which I should be particularly concerned'. What about them not having put in their financial statements on time? What about the Auditor-General having to tell the parliament and the public that he cannot report on the department, and the Treasurer says, 'Oh, there are no problems that I should be particularly concerned about.' This is the sort of thinking that gave us the State Bank mess. This is Labor in charge—it is chaos, it is confusion.

People are not putting in their financial reports on time, the Auditor cannot report on the biggest department in government and the Treasurer says, 'There's nothing going on about which I need to be particularly concerned.' I am sorry, but that does not give me and it does not give the public of this state—the taxpayers, whom we have here to serve—much confidence that this government is in charge. Either Treasurer Snelling is not across his brief or he is unable to stand up to his more senior minister, the honourable minister for health.

The governance arrangements between Treasury and Health clearly require immediate review. In the words of the new Premier, ministers need to start to taking responsibility. In the interests of transparency, the opposition is demanding to know the full costs and salary levels of Mr Archer and his team, and complete and frank revelation of all of the financial mismanagement detail so far experienced by the department.

I was particularly disappointed to read in The Australian on 15 December the minister's arrogant dismissal of these criticisms by the Auditor-General when, in a thinly-veiled swipe, as it was described by The Australian, he described the chief financial watchdog of this state, the Auditor-General, as 'not God' when he rejected a series of concerns about mismanagement of funding raised by the Auditor-General. This is what the minister said, 'The Auditor-General has an opinion. He is not God, he is a person.' Does the minister take the Auditor-General seriously? Again, there is a tactic here of shooting the messenger or arrogant dismissal of individuals who raise concerns, rather than a serious addressing of the issues that have been raised, and I will come back to that in a moment.

On the tail of these revelations about IT disasters within the health department and financial mismanagement, on 14 December we have the minister proudly announce another new IT investment called EPAS, an electronic patient information management system. There is $408 million to be spent introducing this new system across the health system. We are going to manage all patient information now electronically.

My point is very simple: the shoddy introduction of the Oracle system under the minister has led to private contractors being double billed and millions of dollars of accounts being unreconciled. The Oracle system is out of control. Accounts have not been put in. There is no audit. That is how successful this minister and this government are at introducing IT systems. Now he wants to introduce a $408 million system to manage some of the most confidential and clinically important information in the health system. If you cannot get the Oracle system right, for heaven's sake, do not attempt this new venture. We will have doctors in courts sued for malpractice because of false information being provided by an IT system which, if it is half the failure of the Oracle system, will leave the health system in absolute chaos. I have no confidence that this government can satisfactorily introduce EPAS and I urge the government to get the first IT system sorted out before they start to introduce the second.

I happened to write to the Minister for Public Sector Management about the health minister's failure to submit his accounts on time, and I asked the minister whether he felt that the Minister for Health and the department may have breached Public Sector Act, section 12, which dictates that departments must provide an annual report to the minister—an annual report. I do not think we have that either. Marvellous department this one. An annual report—wouldn't that be great?

The law says you have to provide it within three months after the end of the financial year and that those annual reports should be tabled in parliament within 12 sitting days. Do you know what the answer back from minister O'Brien was? 'I've discussed this matter with the Minister for Health and I think the appropriate course of action is for you to speak to the Minister for Health.' What do you reckon the advice he received was? The advice he received from his officers would have been, 'Minister, the Minister for Health is in more trouble than the early settlers. I suggest you have nothing to do with this and you just refer it all back to the Minister for Health.'

The law is there for a reason. The government must be a model citizen. The Minister for Health and the government have failed to comply with the requirements of the act in blatant defiance of the requirements of the act, and what does the Premier do about it? Not a thing. What does the Treasurer have to say about it? 'Well, there is nothing going on in Health about which I should be particularly concerned.' This is an absolute rabble—flouting the law—and I will come back to that again in a moment.

Of course, we had the example in Queensland of health bureaucrats ripping off millions of dollars from the health system in a very famous and highly publicised case, and going off and buying luxury apartments, boats, and flash sports cars with the money. What guarantee do we have, in the context of this absolute mess, that the same thing is not going on right here in Adelaide within this $5 billion portfolio? The financial systems being used in this department are in such chaos, who knows what is going on. Who is driving around in a Lamborghini at the moment while double-paying some company they own for their $1 million account. I mean, it is an absolute joke, and it is a recipe for fraud and disaster.

The problems do not end there. This IT system was introduced to address a range of other functions within Health we are yet to hear about. It was to look at a whole range of other functions: broad financial management, general ledger, trust accounting, job project costing, cash and treasury management, fixed asset register, receipting, purchase card and expense management, supply chain and warehouse management, hospital and asset management, governance, minor building and capital works, asset evaluation and property management, business intelligence and budgeting. Just go to the government's website and download the tender document. If there are problems paying your accounts, if there are problems reconciling your bank statements, what other problems are there in these other areas for which this IT system is designed?

Of course, the Mid-Year Budget Review confirmed a lot of this. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to problems within Health. He has introduced a $600 per year tax on health workers so that they can park in the car park at their hospital site—just a $600 tax. The Mid-Year Budget Review talked of $7.6 million being spent for the purchase, installation and operation of these new car park taxation machines. We all know that you are going to sell the car parks off. They are so short of money. We are going to have nurses walking in the middle of the night from adjacent streets because they have had to park offsite so as to avoid these car parking costs—not listening to the union, not listening to workers, just out there raking in the money.

Then, of course, we have got all the secrecy down at the rail yards hospital. We had the spectacular front page in The Advertiser on 22 December about unknown costs linked to groundwater underneath the building. Clearly, the costs of remediating the site are going to go far beyond what was budgeted.

There are now serious discussions going on between the EPA, the consortia, the independent auditor and the government about laying asphalt and a plastic membrane underneath the entire building and having to construct breathing vents to eradicate the site of noxious and poisonous gases. We have got serious concerns raised publicly, not by the opposition, but by the media and by the EPA about risks to health workers particularly working in the basement because the site is so contaminated.

Again, what is the minister's response to these issues being raised? It is to abuse me, to abuse The Advertiser, to abuse whoever has raised the issues rather than to address the issues. I say to the minister: do not attack the messenger, address the issues. There are serious remediation problems down there, and that is why we are demanding that this hospital project be brought before the Public Works Committee.

Now, that gets me back to a little thing that the government plays scant regard to—the law. What does the committee's act say? That any project over $4 million—and I am delighted to see the chair of the committee here to join me in the chamber for this observation—must come to the committee, any project built on crown land must come to the committee, any project which is ultimately to be paid for by the government or by a government instrumentality must come to the committee. Clearly, the hospital project falls within that ambit, but the Treasurer, the minister and the government are hiding behind a secret crown law opinion that they say provides that they do not need to bring it to the parliament through the Public Works Committee. I say that is rubbish. I say that if there was any integrity within the government or within that crown law opinion, they would table it.

This morning I moved accordingly in the Public Works Committee. Government members rejected my motion. If you have the courage of your convictions show the parliament and show the media your crown law opinion. As the former premier Mike Rann once famously observed, all crown law is is the government's lawyers, and legal opinions are a dime a dozen. Yet, I moved that we get an independent legal opinion on behalf of the Public Works Committee, and it was rejected.

You have not heard the end of this yet. You are required by law to bring this project to the Public Works Committee, and if you do not there will be consequences. It must come before the committee for scrutiny. It is wrong of the government to secretly push ahead with what could be a $12 billion project over its full life in total costs to the taxpayer, the biggest infrastructure project we have ever undertaken, without it being subjected to the sort of scrutiny that any other project up to $4 million is required to adhere to. It is a disgrace.

Let me talk for a moment about the results we are getting in health, because I have talked a little bit about the financial mismanagement of health. Believe it or not, we are spending more on health per capita than any other state, and what are we getting in return? Some of the worst results per capita of any other state. I heard the minister claim yesterday (I think it was, and I will check carefully his statements) that we were doing remarkably well in emergency departments. Well, let me refer to some facts in that regard.

Emergency department figures obtained by the opposition through parliament and confirmed in data provided by the commonwealth show that a staggering number of patients attending emergency departments have failed to be seen within the acceptable time frames. Twenty three per cent of cases classed as emergency cases, needing to be seen within 10 minutes, have failed to receive potentially life-saving care on time. The worst result was the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where 29 per cent of emergency category arrivals are not treated on time. At Flinders Medical Centre it was 26 per cent. Even the next category down, 'Urgent', have to be seen within 30 minutes, and 37 per cent of people are not being seen on time. The minister thinks that this is good. At Lyell McEwin Hospital 48 per cent of urgent cases not being seen on time. If these are results that the minister wants to crow about, I think that he is leaving South Australians behind in his wake.

It now takes 41.5 hours—virtually two days—to be seen for that life-saving operation once you are in emergency. You are waiting for two days for the surgery that must follow, and they are figures provided by COAG's Expert Panel on surgery and emergency access. They say that you should be seen within 24 hours. Here it is taking twice as long—unacceptable.

Then one moves to the question of elective surgery where patients are waiting in pain. Again, the figures this year are not as good, or not as effective, or not as bountiful as last year. When the Royal Adelaide Hospital treats urgent elective surgery cases, they must be seen within 30 days, and that hospital has seen the number not being treated on time increase from 8 per cent in 2009-10 to 14 per cent in 2010-11. Semi-urgent cases to be seen within 90 days not being treated on time increased at the RAH from 10 per cent to 16 per cent. These are very significant deteriorations in the number of people to be seen on time.

According to federal statistics used by the minister himself in media releases, days waiting for surgery increased over the last 12 months from 36 days to 38 days, and at 38 days fell short of the national standard by two days. All this is completely unacceptable. What the government and what the minister need to do is to start taking some responsibility. We have had Productivity Commission reports in January that further expose failures within our health system.

As I mentioned, while the minister is trying to claim credit for spending more dollars on health per head, he overlooks that taxpayers are not getting the sort of value for money that they deserve. Again, 22 per cent of emergency cases not seen on time; 34 per cent of urgent cases left waiting. Again, a poor performance in regard to suicide, where the rate here is 12.1 per 100,000, amongst the highest in the country; and we are not performing as well as we should on Aboriginal health.

There are very, very serious issues within our health system, and there are very, very serious issues at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. There are also very serious issues in country health. The former director of nursing at the Renmark Paringa District Hospital has come out publicly (and I note that the member for Chaffey is with me) to talk about problems within country hospitals, including fire safety, water contamination, understaffing, problems with safety linked to that understaffing, alleged victimisation and bullying, and a breakdown of communication between the government and local communities.

Just last Monday we had nurses rallying on the steps of the Mount Gambier Hospital complaining about understaffing and alleged safety concerns linked to that understaffing. There are concerns across the country health network. Some very good work is being done in the country by hardworking doctors and nurses, as there is in the city, but these people need our support. Again, the minister's response to the concerns raised by Ms Tania Martin in Renmark has been to accuse her of having been sacked for misconduct without having provided any proof of that, or that having been verified by any act of the court, and to abuse the messenger rather than to address the substance of the issues which need to be worked through one by one and which need to be resolved publicly and openly.

Can I get back to the issue of emergency departments and remind the house of findings recently made available by the commonwealth showing that only 59.4 per cent of patients in our emergency departments are being treated within the four-hour benchmark agreed to between the states and the commonwealth. The federal government's review of emergency access targets by an expert panel under the national partnership agreement has exposed the fact that we are the worst performing state in the country on the four-hour rule.

In WA nearly 72 per cent are treated or seen within the four hours. Here, at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, only 26 per cent are being seen within the four hours. So, I hardly think that emergency department performance and elective surgery performance is something the government can feel proud of. We are spending a lot of money. There are clear signs of financial mismanagement. We are not getting the results, according to commonwealth statistics, that we should be getting, and, frankly, we need to do better.

In recent years, the style in health seems to have been very much: gently, gently, everything is under control, no need to be alarmed. I would wind up my remarks by saying: health is the No. 1 issue of concern in our community. Without your health you have nothing. Getting back to the Governor's address, which sets out the government's agenda, health hardly gets a mention (I think it is two lines in there). I think that demonstrates the priority the government intends to give to health over the coming two years. This is a lot of the taxpayers' money, as I mentioned: $5 billion, 30 per cent of revenues. It is not enough to say, 'We are spending more than any other state.' We must get the results.

We must also get results on the hospital, which is going to act as a millstone (a $12 billion millstone) around the neck of this government for years to come. This is an important area of government and it needs and deserves better attention from this government.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (17:37): It is a privilege to speak on the Address in Reply. It is a privilege to be in this parliament to represent the people of South Australia. I would like to first of all acknowledge the service provided by His Excellency Kevin Scarce and Mrs Scarce. I think he has been an excellent Governor and I was pleased to see that his term has been extended. I would also acknowledge Her Majesty The Queen. I know that in time we will become a republic, I would hope sooner rather than later, but I think that anyone who is fair minded would have to say that the Queen has been an excellent monarch over a very long period of time.

One would think that we are living in some very unfortunate place, but in South Australia we are some of the most fortunate people on earth. It is not due to luck. I do not accept the 'lucky country' thesis. We are enjoying a standard of living and a quality of life because of the sacrifice of people who gave their lives in war and because of the pioneers (recent and not so recent) who have helped develop this land. We are very fortunate people, despite some issues from time to time, and I think we should continue to acknowledge that we live in a very fortunate part of the world and enjoy benefits that most other people in the world do not enjoy.

I acknowledge that some people are feeling cost pressures. I had a letter today from a lady who is a pensioner. She said, 'Try living on $16,000 a year.' That would be a challenge, particularly with rising costs, electricity, water and so on, but I think over time that issue should be addressed—it is a federal issue. I think we need to increase the amounts that are paid to people on pensions, not forgetting those who are self-funded retirees, many of whom are also finding it difficult.

I would like to touch on a range of issues. The first one relates to roads in my area. I am pleased that Happy Valley Drive has had overhead lighting installed. It is currently covering only half the length of the road, and I urge the Minister for Road Safety to continue with that project.

I had a letter today from a female nurse who looks forward to the time when the whole of that road has overhead lighting. As she pointed out, coming down that road at night after working night shift is quite scary because it is so dark. We have had at least one fatality on that road, a pedestrian who was hit by a car. I am sure that it will happen, and I urge the minister to proceed as quickly as possible to complete that welcome project.

Whilst talking about roads—and it has been a hobbyhorse of mine for a while—I think we need to see better signage. I have had some examples recently where people have been booked for parking in a cycleway. I do not condone that but, in fairness to those people, the cycleway signs—for example, Main Road, Blackwood—on the eastern side, tell you when the cycleway operates and, on the western side, they do not. If you go further down to Shepherds Hill Road, you will find that the cycleways have a limited application which is spelt out; for example, during school hours, it will give the exact time.

Regarding the signage on Main Road—and this applies throughout the metropolitan area—if there is no specified time, the law is that they operate at all times. However, we have a confusing situation where some of them have a sign indicating 'at all times', and many of them, as I said, on the other side of the road, do not indicate anything at all. That is a problem throughout the state. If people break the law then they wear it, but I think we have a problem with signage which is inappropriate and inadequate.

I noticed this morning when coming in that you enter an area where a sign says 'work zone'. You need to look for where that work zone ends, because signs have not been put up to indicate the end of the work zone. I have asked parliamentary counsel to more clearly define the part of the Road Traffic Act relating to work zones because I think it is confusing. I have asked for legal opinion and I have been told that, if there are no workers present—there has to be one or more workers present—the normal speed limit applies, not the one that is designated for the work zone. So, I think that needs to be clarified.

Whilst I am on the issue of awareness and knowledge about signs and so on, I think it would be good for the road safety minister to make sure that motorists in South Australia are regularly informed of changes to the Australian road rules and any changes to the Road Traffic Act.

Some people blatantly disregard the law, but many do not. There have been many cases recently where people have been fined $460 for having a tow ball that has been installed by a commercial organisation but the police deem it to be blocking the numberplate. In my view, some fines that are issued are a bit bizarre. For example, one of the people who got a fine for having a tow ball sticking up had been pinged not that long ago for going through a red light camera, so the camera could obviously pick up the numberplate.

I think people need to be reminded of the road rules, and that needs to be reinforced. I think more effort needs to go in, whether it is by updating brochures or some going out with the registration papers. I think the government needs to put a lot more effort into making sure that people know the road rules. Some are minor. For example, people do not realise that tooting your horn when you leave a party or when you leave after visiting relatives is an offence under the current law. A lot of people do not know that. That is a relatively minor one.

In terms of other issues, I am going to keep pushing for a greater focus on health measures such as preventative health and wellbeing as it relates to not just children. I will not transgress by talking about motions before the house, but I believe that there needs to be more emphasis on health checks for children in the school environment. The argument that they can go to their local doctor is true for some people, but it is not necessarily true for all children.

That health check should apply not simply to the physical but to the mental aspects as well. We know that, especially in the early years of high school, many students exhibit problems that relate to mental health issues. A lot of the behavioural problems, not only at high school level but at primary school level, have a connection with health issues, particularly mental health.

The emphasis—and I hope the new Minister for Education will focus strongly on this—needs to be on early intervention and that means having available in the school system the professional people who can provide the counselling, the help and so on. I will not go into the details because one of the matters has not been concluded before the court, but too often we are seeing young people committing horrendous crimes. When you look at their situation, some of it relates to the family, obviously, in terms of family breakdown, but some of it relates to issues which you could describe as connected to mental health or psychological issues.

Excluding children from school does not solve much at all. All it does is take the immediate problem from the school and puts it out in the community. I notice—and once again I will not go into too much detail—that, in one of the recent cases involving murder, the particular child had been excluded from school, and now we see the consequence of that.

In regard to education, I think people often say that schools are not de facto parents. The reality is they are. If you have a society where a lot of the traditional socialising agents have broken down and are no as longer important and effective—for example, churches—and if the family itself is dysfunctional to some degree then it does fall upon the school and the education system to try to address some of those shortcomings.

People might say it is not fair to put that on teachers. No, but the education system needs to be properly resourced so that they can fill the role that would have traditionally be filled by parents who were functioning properly and, to some extent, by the churches and institutions such as Sunday school and so on.

People can talk about the bikies or whatever they like. The fundamental problem in our society is that we have—and it is not unique to us—a breakdown in core values. They are things like respect for oneself, respect for others and respect for property. I do not believe there should be any apology from our education system and elsewhere for hammering those values and inculcating those values in young people because, if you do not have those values, then later on in life you are going to exhibit behaviour which is not only antisocial but is likely to be criminal. So, I am advocating, I guess, a fairly interventionist-type role for the education system and the wider community.

I think parents need to be not only made accountable for their behaviour but made responsible for the behaviour of their children—not in a financial penalty sense, but I think the system allows parents who are not doing the right thing to opt out and take the easy way out. What we see is that everyone else gets blamed. We find people blaming the police, the courts, Families SA—blame anyone except yourself. That is and has become a disease in our community where people do not want to accept responsibility for their actions, they do not want to accept any accountability and we see the consequence of children who are not properly cared for, who are not looked after properly and who then often go on to create problems later in life.

I think we have to end what I call the blame game of people blaming others, blaming institutions, blaming grandparents, blaming anyone but themselves, and get back to accepting responsibility for their own actions. The responsibility comes down to us and to the media, and to the total community, through schools and other government agencies, to move away from this trend towards non-accountability and non-responsibility.

I mentioned that we live in a great state. There are some things, obviously, that need improvement. In the health area, I think overall we have a pretty good health system. It will only be as good as the professionals in it, and the care and quality of care will vary from time to time, from institution to institution.

Overall, particularly for serious things like heart attack and so on, I think our health system works pretty well. Unlike America, I think it does cater for people who are not so well off. I do not want to see a system where people who are on a low income cannot get treatment for cancers and other diseases. As I said at the start, people are often critical about our society, but I think one of the good things—and it is not perfect—is that virtually, hopefully, everyone in our society can access proper health care.

On that, I was pleased to see the government, I guess with the support of the commonwealth, improving breast cancer screening infrastructure for women. Women tell me that some of the older equipment is a bit painful. If we can encourage more women to have a mammogram, particularly in the target age range, that will be good. I think as a community we have made considerable progress in terms of dealing with some of the diseases that men find themselves with, such as prostate cancer.

I think we need to have greater awareness and capability in terms of dealing with melanoma and other diseases, the incidence of some of which can be significantly reduced by people giving up smoking—heart disease, lung disease and so on. We are now seeing people, both men and women, living to a fairly old age, and that is because the quality of medical care is so good in this state. Once again, it shows that in South Australia we are fortunate in having such good health care.

There are a couple of issues close to my heart. It is not specifically because of my interaction with the police over a speeding matter, but what that did was highlight to me some serious deficiencies in the system. What I am committed to now is to try to ensure that we have a traffic enforcement system which is open, transparent and fair. I was pleased to read recently that, after, I guess, a bit of stirring on my part, the police have instituted some changes.

One of them is to issue a directive that police officers are no longer allowed to sign their own paperwork as if they were a more senior officer. They were actually never allowed to do it, but in my case that officer—Gregory Luke Thompson—signed it as if he were a more senior officer. The police have issued a directive that that is not to occur anymore.

They have also modified the expiation form, which I think is good, with some more checks and balances in it, but there is still a way to go because I think within the police force the senior officers need to explain why for many years we have had this system where traffic officers have been able to put in paperwork and no-one has ever checked it. There has never been any auditing of it. It has gone into a big black hole and I suspect many thousands of South Australians have been unfairly penalised by a system which to some extent still exists and which I would describe as rubbery and unacceptable. I am trying, in terms of traffic enforcement, to get proper standards and I will not speak too much of that because I will have legislation coming in, but there should be proper standards relating to the equipment used by police.

One of our colleagues in here—and I will not name him—told me that, coming back from the South-East a few days ago, he was pulled over. The police officer said, 'You were doing 125'—I think it was—'in a 110 zone.' He said, 'No, I wasn't. I had my GPS on and my speed control.' I think the police officer was using radar in the car, and the police officer said, 'There must have been bounce back,' so he let him on his way.

You should not have a situation where there is so much flexibility and variability. Either the person was breaking the law or they were not, and if the equipment is not good enough to give an accurate, honest result, then it should not be used. That is my view and that is what I have argued in relation to lasers. If you cannot guarantee that they are accurate, you should not be using them. I welcome the recent trialling by police of lasers with cameras in them because at least that way the police will have some objective basis on which to decide whether or not someone is breaking the law.

Regarding the whole issue of speed limits, I have never argued that you should not enforce speed limits. If you did not have some enforcement, you would have people doing all sorts of things, but, as I say, the enforcement has to be fair. It has to be reasonable. A lass who works for me got a ticket not that long ago for doing 53 in a 50 zone. That is ridiculous, because with modern cars the speedometer could be out anyway by a margin, and if someone is apprehended by a laser, what the police have not told people is that the manufacturer specifies that, even if it is calibrated perfectly, there will be an error margin of plus or minus two kilometres per hour. Members might say, 'Well, so what?' I have had a case recently of a guy who was one kilometre over the limit. If he gets the tolerance allowed—which the manufacturer says is in the machine—he will not lose his licence and he will not lose his job, so it is important.

In terms of other issues, I think the government needs to change the process for selecting magistrates. What has opened my eyes is that to be a magistrate you need a law degree and about six years' experience. I think that is totally inadequate. Magistrates receive good money. I am not saying they should not, but they are on about $330,000 a year. You should have people adjudicating in this state—and it should be not only in the selection but in training programs—who are properly qualified and have relevant experience and training in the areas in which they are going to adjudicate. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.