Parliamentary Committees

Economic and Finance Committee: Emergency Services Levy 2014-15

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (11:01): I move:

That the 85^th report of the committee, entitled Emergency Services Levy 2014-15, be noted.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (11:02): I am happy to speak on the Economic and Finance Committee report into the emergency services levy. The emergency services levy is something I have had some interest in for 16 or so years, and I guess the real issue this time is the way the government has shabbily treated the committee in relation to the remissions issue and the way that they have changed the reporting to the committee in relation to the remissions issue.

For those new members of the house who are not familiar with it, the emergency services levy was introduced around 1997-98 when the fire service levy was taken off all insurance—

Mr Odenwalder interjecting:

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: I was the minister for it, and I am glad I introduced it. The reality is that there was a fire service levy on insurance. Only those people who paid insurance paid the fire service levy, and when we did an examination of it we found that about a third were properly insured, about a third were underinsured and about a third had no insurance at all.

You had the bizarre situation where an insured pensioner would pay the fire service levy and a company that insured overseas would pay nothing, and so you would have the insured pensioner subsidising the fire service for those companies. To even the load, the emergency services levy was brought in and not only covered the fire services such as CFS and MFS but also covered the other emergency service agencies—Surf Life Saving, Royal Life Saving, the State Emergency Service and some emergency services of the police—so it was a broader issue.

What has always been the case is that, in setting up the emergency services levy, the levy was sent to the parliament's Economic and Finance Committee so that it could be put under some scrutiny. That is the process here now: the Economic and Finance Committee then reports to the parliament about the emergency services levy and how it is going to be spent. What changed this year, and for the first time in about 16 or 17 years, is that the government decided not to tell the Economic and Finance Committee if the budget proper (that is, the government's budget) was going to make a contribution to the remissions.

Essentially what used to happen was that the levy used to collect around $140 million or $150 million a year. That was the amount required by the levy. The government thought that was too high a figure to collect from the taxpayer, so they would make a contribution of about half. Around $70 million out of the budget proper would go into the emergency services levy and that would mean there needed to be about $70 million to $75 million actually collected from the taxpayers out there. The levy is charged on property and it is charged on vehicles.

In the report to the Economic and Finance Committee there has always been a line that says the government's budget is going to pay a certain dollar figure of remissions and so it was crystal clear to the committee how much the taxpayer was going to contribute and how much the government was going to contribute. Roll forward to Treasurer Koutsantonis and what do we find? We find a sleight of hand in reporting to the committee.

The SPEAKER: That would be the Treasurer or the member for West Torrens.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: I apologise. Didn't I say Treasurer Koutsantonis? I meant to if I didn't.

The SPEAKER: It is best to keep our first and surnames out of it.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: The Treasurer. Roll forward to this new Treasurer and what we find is a change of practice. What comes before the Economic and Finance Committee is not the whole story. There is a deception given to the Economic and Finance Committee which is quite simple. All it says is the remissions will be subject to reporting in the budget proper, and the budget proper was brought down a couple of weeks after the Economic and Finance Committee got to examine the report.

We did not pursue this issue during the Economic and Finance Committee for one very simple reason. The government had already made its decision. Nothing we asked at the Economic and Finance Committee was going to change it. It was clear to me that they were going to, in all likelihood, reduce the remissions—not abolish them altogether, but certainly reduce the remissions—otherwise why change the procedure?

What is surprising is that the government has gone down the path of hiding from the committee this issue of the remissions. Why change the procedure after 16 or 17 years? Of course, we now know why they have done it. They have cancelled all the remissions and what that means is that the average taxpayer out there is going to be paying essentially double in approximate numbers. Most householders, most businesses and most vehicle owners are going to be hit with approximately double the cost of the levy.

There was no mandate for this at the election. This government did not go out and say they were going to get rid of the remissions of the emergency services levy. In fact, if you read their rhetoric during the election, it was quite the opposite. This was the government that was going to actually maintain the concessions for a whole range of taxpayers out there and a whole range of services. But what they have done here, of course, is essentially misled the public. They have given the indication that these things were secure, that the levy would roll along in the normal procedure. What we find now, of course, is that they have not done that. They have hidden the change to remissions in the documents they have sent the Economic and Finance Committee and then announced it in the budget proper.

Had we gone down the path of asking a whole range of questions at the Economic and Finance Committee, we all know what the answer would have been. The answer would have been, 'You'll have to wait for the budget.' We know that would have been the answer. I know that the Chair of the committee is nodding over there in agreement, which I appreciate. The reality is that we have asked a series of budget questions in this chamber during question time and every single answer has been, 'Just wait for the budget; just wait for the budget.'

I know there has been some media reporting on this particular issue. The reality is that there was nothing that the opposition could have asked or changed at the Economic and Finance Committee that would have changed anything to do with this particular issue, because the government have the numbers on the Economic and Finance Committee and can vote it through any way they wish. What is sad—

Mr Odenwalder: So why turn up?

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: What is sad—sorry?

Mr Odenwalder: Why turn up at all?

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: Why turn up at all? I am obligated to turn up. Yes, that's right. The reality is—

The SPEAKER: The member for Little Para is called to order.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: The reality and what is sad is that under this Treasurer we now know that there has been this sleight of hand to the committee. A treatment of disdain to the committee by this government has gone on, not just under this treasurer but under a number of treasurers. There is another committee, a subcommittee of the Economic and Finance Committee, called the Industries Development Committee, which is meant to look at a whole range of industry assistance—like the Holden package and the Mitsubishi package, etc.—over the years. From memory, I do not think that has met since 2004. It was set up in the 1940s by the Playford government to be bipartisan in its approach about industry assistance and economic development in the state, but this government has been keen on making sure that committee does not meet, so that the Economic and Finance Committee does not get access to the information.

Roll forward to this Treasurer, and what does he do? For the first time in 16 or 17 years he changed the procedure just so that the Economic and Finance Committee did not have access to the information. I think it is sad that the lack of transparency on the government's behalf, on this particular issue, has resulted in what it has resulted in. The truth is that the public out there is going to pay for the Labor Party's mismanagement.

As I understand it from an answer yesterday, what they have essentially said is this: that the $70 million they were going to spend in remissions to the emergency services levy they are now going to spend on health. That is what they are saying, of course, but they are cutting a billion dollars out of health already; they have already announced $1 billion cuts out of health. There was an article in the paper the other day that there was $80 million a year in efficiencies in health.

So, rather than actually deal with the management of the health system, what they are going to do now is charge people an extra tax, through the abolition of the remissions, simply to pay for their inefficiency in the health system. Essentially, they are using the emergency services levy as a way of funding to correct a budget problem not that they have in emergency services, but a budget problem they have actually got in health—and they have had the problem well before the Abbott government was elected.

This was a government that went out and said in the Mid-Year Budget Review that they were going to cut $1,000 million dollars out of health over the next four years, a $250 million cut from education over the next four years, and a $150 million cut to police over, I think, a three-year period. This was a government that had said they were in trouble and was going to cut their budget.

What we are finding now is that the reason they have cut the remissions out of the emergency services levy is not that there is a problem with emergency services but that there is actually a problem on the other side of the budget, the health side of the budget, and to try to prop up their inefficiency in the health system everyone who owns a house, everyone who owns a car, everyone who owns piece of property is going to be paying twice the emergency services levy than they did last year. It is just a pity that the government was so dishonest that they did not tell the public before the election that that was what they were going to do.

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (11:12): I also rise to speak on the 85^th report of the Economic and Finance Committee which, of course, references the emergency services levy policy of this government. What a disappointing policy this is for the people of South Australia. As the member for Davenport has just made very clear, there was no discussion on the removal, the abolition, of the remissions prior to the election. No-one went to the ballot box thinking that the government would have such a massive increase—