Regional Employment

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (14:56): Supplementary to the Treasurer: if the Treasurer believes so much in regional South Australia, why did he knock back the $25 million of the diversification fund and why won't the government match the Liberal commitment of $20 million for the Murray Bridge racecourse development?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:57): I was in the room when the deal was done, so I can tell you what the deal was. It was a deal that was done with the previous federal Labor government. In fact, it was something that we were prepared to do in standing up for the Riverland. When we did the deal to get the 3,200 gigalitres of water down the River Murray, we wanted to make sure it did not have an adverse effect on the people of the Riverland who had done so much since 1969 to peg their take from the River Murray and who had spent their own money in large measure to actually improve their irrigation techniques.

There was very little additional water that could be wrung out of getting rid of inefficient irrigation practices. We had to find new ways of actually supporting that Riverland community, so I reached an agreement with the then minister for finance about this question. The agreement was that we got $240 million, which was essentially based on the Water Industry Alliance proposition, and then a further $50 million, which would be split into two $25 million categories.

The federal bureaucracy, as is the way of these things, decided to put strings attached to that last $25 million, which meant that we would have had to sacrifice up to about $20 million of GST, so it would be money in and then money out from the government.

Mr Pederick: Every state is subject to GST.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Well, we were special and we did a special deal for South Australia because of our unique circumstances. If those opposite think that they wanted to be treated the same as New South Wales and Victoria after the sacrifices that were made by our communities, you don't understand South Australia—and this is part of the difficulty. What we did was we took their constituency off them and brought them over, and they stood together with us and fought for a River Murray.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: I know what was going on over there. They wanted the irrigator community to split apart from us. They didn't want to stay with us and fight for that 3,200 gigalitres of water. We took your constituency and we put it alongside us because we represented their interests.

We stood up for them, and they know who stood alongside them and won this fight, and they are disappointed that you are not continuing to fight for that $25 million. I know you had a proposition in the lead-up to the last election. I know where you were in—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Well, no, this goes to your racecourse.

Ms CHAPMAN: Point of order. Mr Speaker, I don't know particularly what your view was on this, but the Premier is accusing you of all sorts of things that you have allegedly done.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: He raises the racecourse. I know where you were in the last couple of days before the election campaign.

Ms CHAPMAN: Point of order. Mr Speaker, the Premier repeatedly makes reference to your input now on the racecourse.

The SPEAKER: I uphold the point of order. The Premier will address his remarks through the Chair, and I am very interested in the racecourse.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Mr Speaker, we know where they were in that last couple of days leading up to the election. I was in Colton proposing a new police station. They were up in Hammond, in Murray Bridge, proposing a $20 million racetrack—and don't some of the marginal seat members think that was such a genius political move. Some deal was done up there—

Mr Wingard: That's the base politics you people play.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Don't talk to me about base politics. Base politics? Who was kicking the can for the donations? Let's have a look at that. We were securing an agreement for our Riverland irrigators. There wasn't one vote in it for us, not one vote in it, but we wanted to have a constituency that stood together and we presented a national front, and we did that and we had an important win and it's an historic win for South Australia.

The SPEAKER: Does the member for Goyder want to have a supplementary? Deputy leader.