Forestry Sale

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (15:00): Given the Premier's answer to the question suggesting that the state could not manage the risk—and he particularly cited the case of the recent fires in the forests in the northern part of the state—can the Premier explain to the house what has changed over the last 30 years, given that the state managed that particular risk post the 1983 bushfires, which did in fact destroy substantial portions of the forests in the South-East, but the state post that time was able to manage the replanting and increase the forest estate and go on to develop or keep going a very viable industry in the South-East?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (15:01): This probably does reflect one of the difficulties that the Liberal Party of South Australia suffers: that they are stuck in past decades and they are unable to adjust their perspective about what is needed now for the future of our state in the light of current, contemporary circumstances. The truth is we do need to unlock balance sheet room from time to time to meet new challenges for our state. We have to meet the challenges associated with a community that wants to keep the level of resources which it puts forward for its various public services at the minimum possible level. We also need to have prudent levels of borrowings to make sure that we are able to maintain credibility in international financial circles.

To balance all those things and also our ambition to grow the state through increased investment in public infrastructure, we have to always re-evaluate our balance sheet to consider whether something is appropriate to be on that balance sheet today, as opposed to whether it may have been appropriate to be there in decades past.

So, this is the regular process of evaluation of our state government finances. I know those opposite think that nothing should ever happen for the first time, but we are a progressive government that believes you should continue to challenge yourself, to continue to imagine new futures for South Australia, and to continue to ask ourselves the question of what the future should look like.