State Budget

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (15:16): I would like to use the grievance debate today to talk about what we have seen in this place over the last month or so, namely the state budget being handed down by the current government and also the estimates process that followed. I need to say at the outset that it was the most highly politicised budget speech I have heard since I have been in this place. Once upon a time the budget speech was used to let people, the house and the public know where the money was coming from and where the money was going.

Of course, the Treasurer’s speech this time had none of that. It seemed quite intent on laying blame for our current fiscal position and it included many other political statements. The point is that our budget is in a lot of bother. I do not think anyone could deny that. We have seen budget surpluses forecast year after year. In fact, over the last seven years, this government has forecast budget surpluses and, except for one occasion, it has only managed to achieve deficits.

So in six out of the last seven years this state has recorded deficits in the budget. Of course, when deficits occur, debt climbs, and what we are seeing is budget forecasts blow out leaving state debt levels well above and beyond what we saw even during the State Bank years. The current forecasts are that the debt will blow out to in excess of $14 billion in the years 2015-16. It is an untenable position. It is a position in which this state finds itself after years and years of spending more than our income.

It is quite simple. I have said in this place before that businesses talk about profit and loss and governments everywhere talk about surplus and deficit. They are, in effect, the same thing and the result is the same. When businesses make a loss, their debt climbs and ultimately they get to a position where they are no longer viable. With governments, if they run deficits, their debt climbs and they find themselves in a position which is untenable and difficult to come back from.

As for the estimates committees, I am one of the members here who do actually value that opportunity. It is a lot of work, and many of the previous members have said over this last week how much work is involved in estimates, not just from the ministers themselves but also obviously the public servants and their preparation, and there is also a lot of preparation on this side, make no mistake.

A lot of work is done by shadow ministers and their staff and other members in developing questions where we really look to hold the government to account. It is not always that we get answers, but at least we make an attempt to find out on behalf of the people of South Australia what the government's intentions are. We work our way through the budget. People have a right to know what the government is spending money on, where it is expecting to make cuts, where it is likely to make cuts or where its expenses are going.

As I said, it is not always that we get an answer. Some ministers take the estimates committee process very responsibly and do their very best to answer all the questions. Others we saw, of course, take up a lot of time with opening statements and taking questions on notice, despite the fact that they had many well-qualified and highly-paid departmental staff there with them. So, we will continue to pore over estimates and we will continue to analyse the answers (or not) given to us by the various ministers, and many of our questions that we were not able to get to we will put to ministers in the coming weeks.

What is highlighted, of course, in all of this is that we are in a difficult financial position in this state. We have unemployment which is now the highest in Australia; it is 7.4 per cent, I understand, and climbing. We are now exceeding Tasmania in many of the economic indicators, so we are no longer second last—we are no longer the lowest in mainland Australia with many of these financial indicators—we are actually well and truly last, coming in below Tasmania, with no real plan that I can see or that anybody on this side can see to actually get out of it.

We have a government which is intent on taxing its way to prosperity, and the effect that has is the reverse to its intention, because of course businesses need to be profitable to stay in business and to employ people. How dare they be so audacious as to employ people, because of course if businesses do then payroll tax kicks in and they struggle to retain that profitability. So, unfortunately, if businesses do in this state take the lead and by chance do well and are viable then they are taxed to within an inch of their lives. We have seen that as part of this budget process: the introduction of the car park tax or car park levy. A levy I understand is something that, by definition, is raised for a particular purpose, for a definitive purpose.

Time expired.