Privatisation

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:30): Will South Australian motorists have lower or higher third-party insurance premiums under privatisation?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, Minister for Small Business) (14:30): Obviously the government will do all it can to keep third-party premiums as low as possible, and that has always been our intention. Any politician can get up and tell you, 'I can bring down the cost on any function, whether it be water, electricity, third-party,' but the real question is: will they be lower than otherwise they would have been? And that is the real question.

I have to say, it's always cheap and easy for an opposition to say, 'Can you guarantee X,' when the honest public debate is: how much in the normal course of events will premiums go up naturally under government ownership and how much will they go up under the efficiency of a private market operator who is driven by profit? So the question that the opposition should be asking is: can the government guarantee that premiums will not increase by as much, or more than they would have, if it remained under government control? But the opposition aren't interested in those types of facts. All they are interested in is drafting pamphlets for the next election.