Economic and Finance Committee: Emergency Services Levy 2014-15

Adjourned debate on motion of Mr Odenwalder:

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

which Mr Williams has moved to amend by deleting the word 'noted' and replacing with:

referred back to the Economic and Finance Committee for further consideration in light of the 2014-15 state budget.

(Continued from 12 November 2014.)

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (11:17): In my initial three-minute contribution, I talked about the impact of the emergency services levy on communities and property owners who have contacted me. There has been support for the amendment moved by the member for MacKillop to ensure that there is further scrutiny by the Economic and Finance Committee of the emergency services levy now that full details are available.

I do want to take up some time, though, to put into Hansard some evidence about the impact on one of my shadow portfolios, being local government, and emergency services levy increases. I will read out some names and figures, but I will only talk about the increases and the percentages, not the dollars of what it was and what it is, to make it a bit simpler. For example:

Adelaide City Council has gone up by $101,421 or 32 per cent;

Alexandrina Council, $15,000 or 136 per cent;

Barossa Council, $5,890 or 53 per cent;

Barunga West council, $1,331 or 36 per cent;

Berri Barmera Council, $3,616.80 or 58 per cent;

Campbelltown council, $15,904.25 or 74 per cent;

Ceduna council, $2,577.10 or 80 per cent;

Charles Sturt council, up by $87,065.15 or 198 per cent;

Clare & Gilbert Valleys Council, $4,319 or 55 per cent;

Cleve district council, $1,192.70 or 60 per cent;

Copper Coast council, in my own electorate, $14,391.25 or 79 per cent;

District Council of Coober Pedy, $610.15 or 50 per cent;

The Coorong District Council, $1,255.80 or 26 per cent;

District Council of Elliston, $1,284 or 49 per cent;

The Flinders Ranges Council, $777 or 37 per cent;

District Council of Franklin Harbour, $5,650.35 or 70 per cent;

the Town of Gawler, $6,656 or 60 per cent;

the Regional Council of Goyder, $1,720 or 39 per cent;

the District Council of Grant, $3,851 or 69 per cent;

the City of Holdfast Bay council, $48,518.70 or 115 per cent;

Kangaroo Island Council, $3,489.40 or 72 per cent;

the District Council of Karoonda East Murray, $483.56 or 29 per cent;

the Light Regional Council, $2,868 or 54 per cent;

the District Council of Lower Eyre Peninsula, $3,204 or 68 per cent;

the District Council of Mallala in Goyder, $1,232.15 or 52 per cent;

this is a rather large one, the City of Marion council, up by $43,000 or 269 per cent—an amazing 269 per cent in the Marion council alone;

Mid Murray Council, $8,491 or 74 per cent;

City of Mitcham council, $31,872.25 or 144 per cent. It is interesting that the member for Waite, I believe, has Mitcham has part of his electorate. I would be interested to see what his response is to his councils.

Mr Pengilly: What about the Port Adelaide council?

Mr GRIFFITHS: I will get to Port Adelaide, don't worry.

City of Mt Gambier council, $16,955 or 110 per cent;

The Rural City of Murray Bridge council in the member for Hammond's electorate, $11,191 or 162 per cent;

The Naracoorte Lucindale Council, $4,859 or 70 per cent;

The Northern Areas Council, $1,590.65 or 30 per cent;

City of Onkaparinga council—our largest council in South Australia with 180,000 people—has gone up by $56,694.95 or 149 per cent;

District Council of Orroroo Carrieton—the smallest in the state with only 932 residents—$413 or 23 per cent;

for the City of Playford council, $26,026 or 193 per cent;

the City of Port Adelaide Enfield council—the member for Finniss wanted to know—$89,351.15—

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr GRIFFITHS: —or 155 per cent.

Mr Pengilly: Can't afford tourism.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, member for Finniss!

Mr GRIFFITHS: That is the challenge, in many ways, the Port Adelaide Enfield council has. Good luck to them in working out their issues.

Port Augusta City Council, $7,338 or 63 per cent;

City of Pt Lincoln council, $9,861.55 or 90 per cent;

Port Pirie Regional Council, $5,827 or 67 per cent;

City of Prospect council—David O'Loughlin, former unsuccessful candidate for the—

Mr Pengilly: Labor land.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr GRIFFITHS: —Adelaide electorate—that has gone up by $9,778 or 229 per cent.

Municipal Council of Roxby Downs, $2,711.05 or 87 per cent;

City of Salisbury council, $37,424 or 237 per cent;

Southern Mallee District Council, $862 or 32 per cent;

District Council of Streaky Bay, $1,964 or 64 per cent;

Tatiara District Council, $2,601.05 or 65 per cent;

City of Tea Tree Gully, $30,784 or 170 per cent;

District Council of Tumby Bay, $2,478.85 or 78 per cent;

City of Unley council, $29,000 or 179 per cent;

City of Victor Harbor, $6,889.80 or 67 per cent;

Wakefield Regional Council, $2,793.02 or 36 per cent;

Corporation of the Town of Walkerville, $12,274 or 99 per cent;

Wattle Range Council, $6,269.95 or 69 per cent;

City of West Torrens, $31,637.15 or 92 per cent;

The Corporation of the City of Whyalla—the member for Giles will be interested in this one—$16,828.75 or 157 per cent—

Mr Hughes interjecting:

Mr GRIFFITHS: 157 per cent, member for Giles.

Wudinna District Council, $1,062.75 or 75 per cent;

District Council of Yankalilla, $2,014 or 57 per cent; and

District Council of Yorke Peninsula, $10,211.85 or 45 per cent.

I have only got 57 responses out of the 68 councils. The Local Government Association and mayors have been quite public on this in recent days. It is a real reason why the Economic and Finance Committee needs to relook at the emergency services levy increase, so that it can actually provide a full report to the parliament, and I look forward to the success of this amendment.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Hammond. Member for Hammond, I am just informed by the table that you have already spoken on this, so you can't speak again.

Mr PEDERICK: Have I, seriously?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Unfortunately, those are the rules, so I will have to ask you—

Mr PEDERICK: That is a real shame, because I was about to launch into it.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I know.

Mr PEDERICK: That is a real shame.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Never mind. Sit down and we will see who would like to take your notes from you and read with gusto. Member for Flinders.

Mr Pederick: I got shafted.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, you didn't get shafted: you were being greedy and were caught out.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (11:25): I rise today to speak in support of the amendment by the member for MacKillop to the Economic and Finance Committee's 85^th report entitled Emergency Services Levy 2014-15. Mr Williams, the member for MacKillop, moved to amend the motion by deleting the word 'noted' and replacing it with the words 'referred back to the Economic and Finance Committee for further consideration in light of the 2014-15 state budget'.

I am supporting this amendment. I think it is vital that we understand the role of committees in this place, that they are in fact committees of the parliament and not of the government. They have an important role to play and, even though a lot of our standing committees are dominated by the government of the day, they are not committees of the government. They are in fact committees of the parliament and it is important that they consider their very important role in that light.

The emergency services levy has been an extraordinary act of ill will by the government which, in fact, has imposed a land tax on all of the households, the property owners, the farmers right around this state. We have heard the member for Goyder read into Hansard the increases that our local governments have had—57 of them who have all seen increases often in the range of some hundreds of per cents, so it is very important that this report does go back to the committee. I note that one of the conclusions in the report is that:

The Committee notes the prescribed rates of the fixed property and mobile property levies and in the absence of the remission information, the Committee is unable to comment on any change in the effective rate.

I think this is really quite a damning conclusion. I will read that again just so that everybody in this chamber knows exactly what the conclusion of the finance committee was:

The Committee notes the prescribed rates of the fixed property and mobile property levies and—

importantly—

in the absence of the remission information, the Committee is unable to comment on any change in the effective rate.

For this reason, we urge the house to send this report back for further consideration of what really has become a very important part of the budgetary measures of the state government and highlights, in fact, the ineptitude of this state government in handling this state's finances. It needs very much more consideration.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (11:28): I am thrilled to rise to support the amendment provided by the member for MacKillop because I too support the committee process in this parliament. I remind the parliament of the importance of having a committee to examine, in this case, economic and finance matters for the benefit of ensuring that the parliament is kept abreast of what is going on and the mischief in presenting this report, and not dealing with the bombshell that came with the state budget this year in giving us the backdoor land tax on every piece of property and our motor vehicles. We have not even started on motor vehicles yet. What a joke!

To have kept that a secret prior to the election, announced it during the state budget and then try to push through a report here in June without having come through and actually identified what the new paradigms is. The new paradigm is nothing to do with the Premier's great vision for South Australia: the new paradigm is all about how he can greedily grab money out of the pockets of every South Australian who has the audacity to own a piece of property or a vehicle in this state. That is the shameful position the government has taken in failing to present an update.

We have just received the annual report from the Public Works Committee, which provides quarterly reports on their projects—and I think it is shamefully inadequate for departments to provide quarterly reports—but this is the purpose of these of committees, to keep an eye on the government's spend. The member for MacKillop's amendment is not only appropriate, it is necessary to keep the government to account in respect of its expenditure. In this case, the money grab from South Australians, as has been said, is shameful, but has also been completely removed. Upon having another brief perusal of this matter, I note the report states:

The committee notes the prescribed rates of the fixed property and mobile property levies and, in the absence of the remission information, the Committee is unable to comment on any change in the effective rate. The Committee notes the details of any remissions will be provided in the 19 June 2014 Budget.

As a committee, they are on alert of the fact that it is to come, and it needs to be considered because they cannot even deal with the remission information. We are in the dark; the public is in the dark, and the government has all the knowledge on this. It has an obligation to report to this committee, and as the member for MacKillop has pointed out in his amendment, this is necessary to occur so we know what is the truth of what the position is.

Secrecy will not resolve this problem. The public is angry—as is evident on every radio station, in every newspaper publication and in every television story—in respect of this obscene tax grab, and we want this remedied. We want the detail provided, and we want the committee to convene and have that evidence presented to them—fully and frankly.

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (11:32): I thank all the members for their contributions, particularly the member for MacKillop, but I oppose his amendment. The member looks surprised. This is not a debate about the merits, or otherwise, of the emergency services levy. This debate has been going on since budget day with varying levels of passion and intelligence.

This was a motion which simply called on this house to note the report of the Economic and Finance Committee. The member for Flinders, in his contribution, pointed out that committees need to take their work seriously, and the member for Bragg reiterated that. It is worth going over the process which led to this report in the five minutes available to me.

Section 10(5) of the act requires that the minister must refer to the committee a written statement setting out the determinations that the minister proposes to make in respect of the ESL for that year. Determinations will be made in respect of: the amount that needs to be raised in the opinion of the minister; the amounts to be expended on emergency services and other purposes specified; and, as far as practicable, the extent to which the various parts of the state will benefit from the application of that amount.

Ms Chapman: The first one was missing.

Mr ODENWALDER: I am not going to respond to interjections. I seek your protection.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: You should not; you absolutely should not.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! He is behaving.

Mr ODENWALDER: The minister complied with his statutory obligations, so he provided us with a briefing paper containing determinations which formed the basis of a recommendation to the Governor in respect of declaring the emergency services levy. So, the Treasurer and the department complied with their obligations. The committee complied with its obligations which was simply to receive the report, hear it and report to parliament.

We had a public hearing on 12 June in which the matters raised in respect of the remissions not being included in the report were publicly available prior to that hearing. These remissions were not raised by any member of the opposition at either the hearing or at any subsequent meetings of the Economic and Finance Committee, and they were not raised until after the budget, so they had ample time. I do not know why they want to refer it back to the committee. The committee cannot change the decision anyway, even if it wanted to, so it is completely pointless.

Mr Williams: The committee can inform the house.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Williams: That is its job.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr ODENWALDER: The member for MacKillop is trying to tell me what the Economic and Finance Committee's job is.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for MacKillop will be called to order if he is not careful.

Members interjecting:

Mr ODENWALDER: I am reading from the act. We have complied with the act. Member for MacKillop, the Economic and Finance Committee complied with the act as did the Treasurer.

Mr Griffiths: The report notes the information was available.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr ODENWALDER: It is becoming very difficult for me not to respond to interjections.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well you must not respond.

Mr ODENWALDER: Once again, varying levels of passion and intelligence.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The book is out and I will have no hesitation.

Mr ODENWALDER: I will close by opposing—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I do not want noise in the chamber. I want to be able to hear what people are saying. I would ask you on the other side, on my left, to please respect the dignity of the house. Finishing off, member for Little Para.

Mr ODENWALDER: Sure, I will close. I oppose this amendment for any number of reasons but primarily because the committee does not have the power to change what has already happened anyway, regardless of what any of us think about it. So it would just be another hearing where members may or may not raise the subject of remissions. They had the chance before and they did not raise it. I oppose the amendment and I propose that the motion be moved in its original form.

The house divided on the amendment:

Ayes 19

Noes 23

Majority 4

Amendment thus negatived; motion carried.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Could members either leave the chamber or take their seats. There is too much noise—looking at you.

An honourable member: The member for Elder?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, Schubert.

An honourable member interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!