HOUSING

Mr MARSHALL (Norwood—Leader of the Opposition) (14:25): A supplementary, Mr Speaker: for clarity, can the Premier inform the house how many hours per week he would actually envisage this coordinator-general to be dedicating to this most important task that he has identified for him?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (14:25): I can't quite follow the chain of reasoning for the Leader of the Opposition. Does he support the coordinator-general's role? Does he oppose the coordinator-general's role? He will be discharging this function in the same manner that he discharged a much larger function—I think about 700 schools in the building program associated with that across Australia, $1 billion of investment. I think there were seven complaints over 700 jobs and I think about four of those were about whether rainwater tanks should have been part of the BER and whether they were in the criteria or not. So, an extraordinarily successful process for such a speedy build.

Mr Hook will apply his considerable talents to be able to ensure that these approvals are undertaken in an orderly fashion. He will, of course, engage whatever assistance he needs as chief executive of the agency. He has the capacity to apply those resources that would be necessary for him to discharge his functions, but he will be making the judgements, just as all senior public servants use other public servants beneath them through the allocation of duties to assist them in their roles. I am sure Mr Hook will have the wherewithal and intelligence to make judgements about how he is supported in his role. It is a smaller function than the one he has discharged, excellently, on a previous occasion, and he is going to have the capacity to achieve this, I think, in a way that will bring benefits for South Australia.