Appropriation Bill 2016

Estimates Committees

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (10:53): I bring up the report of Estimates Committee A and move:

That the report be received.

Motion carried.

Ms BEDFORD: I bring up the minutes of proceedings of Estimates Committee A and move:

That the minutes of proceedings be incorporated in the Votes and Proceedings.

Motion carried.

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (10:54): I bring up the report of Estimates Committee B and move:

That the report be received.

Motion carried.

Mr ODENWALDER: I bring up the minutes of proceedings of Estimates Committee B and move:

That the minutes of proceedings be incorporated in the Votes and Proceedings.

Motion carried.

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay—Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (10:55): I move:

That the proposed expenditures referred to Estimates Committees A and B be agreed to.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (10:55): I advise the house that I am not the lead speaker in regard to the estimates reply. I will say in my lead-in comments that I did appreciate the work of both chairs of these committees, the members for Florey and Little Para, who sometimes had to put up with interjections and frustration, but I think they did the job good service considering what was going on. I guess the disappointing thing—

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: It is not all praise, I am sorry—with estimates is the need for some ministers to give long opening statements and then to have what are commonly known as Dorothy Dixers or government questions, if you talk to government members, and it takes up valuable investigation time. I commend the ministers who just took pretty well all opposition questions; I commend them for having the guts to do that.

I want to start in regard to forestry and PIRSA estimates. This was an issue where the Minister for Agriculture thought he needed to give a 20-minute opening statement in the agriculture sector and a 10-minute opening statement in forestry, which only had a 30-minute time frame, and it does create angst. I note that during the discussion and in the opening statement the minister talked about South Australia's fruit fly free status. However, the government has failed to support my motion to establish Mypolonga as a fruit fly exclusion zone.

I think it is very important to either have Mypolonga as its own exclusion zone, which may be the better way procedurally and bureaucratically, or attach it to the Riverland. I know the amount of fruit grown south of Bowhill is certainly a lot less than is grown in the Riverland, but I think it is vital to make sure we protect our vital producers and our markets. The government should have another look at what they can do in the area south of Bowhill towards Murray Bridge.

What I am disappointed about in the agriculture estimates and in the budget is the $1 million annual funding taken away from the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics. I asked the minister whether he met with Mr David Mitchell, who is the chief executive officer of the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics, and he advised me he had not, yet he decided that he would cut that $1 million annually. This is at a time when agriculture is really showing its force as a function of the state and a very vital function of the economy.

I believe agriculture has always been the economic base, yet here we have the Centre for Plant Functional Genomics and breeding being denied money to do their valuable work and I think that may come back to bite us. The minister made the point in estimates that we are doing work that helps the whole of Australia. So what? We used to do work in Libya and Middle Eastern countries, going over there with our government advisers and John Shearer equipment showing them how to farm. We were showing the world, but it seems we cannot be world leaders any more, let alone national leaders.

It is noted that $100 million is coming out of the budget of Primary Industries this year and $81 million of that, I believe, is the South Australian River Murray Sustainability Program Funding, and the rest comes out of other regional grants. It is disappointing that this money is not being replaced by other moneys that could be sought by the state government from the commonwealth for other projects that are vitally needed throughout this state to promote agriculture. Agriculture generates over $20 billion annually into our state's coffers, and so it needs more support.

Certainly, the Clipsal 500 grandstand has raised some interest. I think what has happened is disgraceful. It appears that the government realised there were some issues with some of the contracting, and many companies have been left out of pocket by Victorian company Elite falling over and people not being paid. I have seen some interesting comments about this on some online media commentary feedback, and people saying, 'This will get it out to Tailem Bend.' Yes, there is hope to have a second Clipsal at Tailem Bend by late next year, but I would still like to see two events, one in Adelaide and one at Tailem Bend into the future.

This is a huge problem for the government. Apart from giving a long-term contract to a company that has almost immediately fallen over, we find many people well out of pocket by hundreds of thousands of dollars, which they will take years to recoup. You have to question what the government is going to do for these people. Clipsal is a great event and these stands are absolutely vital to the running of that event, yet we do not seem to have any idea about in which direction we are going.

In regard to New Zealand fur seals, I want to reflect on what minister Hunter said on 10 February 2016 when he was asked a question about the diet of seals and the effect that this has on the ecology, because they consume over 400 tonne a day. There are 100,000 fur seals living along the coast of South Australia and also in the Coorong and Lakes. The minister indicated from his answer that:

The best available evidence shows that the increase in seal numbers in the Coorong and Lower Lakes area has not resulted in any broadscale negative ecological impacts to the area…most of the fur seals' diet in the ocean is made up of redbait and lantern fish, which are small bait fish that have no commercial fishery in South Australia.

In estimates when minister Bignell was asked whether this 400 tonne figure of fish being taken by New Zealand fur seals had been taken into account through the recreational fishing management plan, Professor Mehdi Doroudi provided a somewhat interesting answer which stated:

There is no specific study right now that has taken into account how many fish are taken by seals. As a general point, when SARDI does its stock assessment work and scientific work it is based on the availability and abundance of a species.

Minister Hunter was questioned about the impact seals are having on Ngarrindjeri totems and other native birdlife. I asked a question on the appropriate budget line which talks about animal welfare in Budget Paper 4, Volume 2, page 156, Sub-program 1.3:

I understand that sub-program 1.3 has been established to ensure the humane treatment of animals. Can the minister advise how this program is acknowledging and ensuring the humane treatment of the Ngarrindjeri's totems and other native bird life in the Coorong and Lakes, who are being pointlessly killed by the New Zealand fur seals?

The minister responded:

I just need to correct the questioner. The New Zealand fur seals he refers to are now called long-nosed fur seals—

It obviously was not convenient to call them New Zealand fur seals—

The New Zealand fur seals are long-nosed fur seals. They have been here for about 100,000 years, I am advised by our scientists. The Australian fur seals, on the other hand, seem to be an itinerant group of South African fur seals who have come in over the last 10,000 years. So, the long-nosed fur seals, or New Zealand fur seals, are the original seals, I am advised, going back that far.

Then I asked:

And what are you doing about the pointless death of Ngarrindjeri totems and other native bird life along the Coorong and Lakes by these fur seals? That was the question.

The next part of the response was:

My advice is that the agency has set up cameras and had volunteers monitor the pelican rookeries, for example, down in the Coorong. They have gone over 70 hours of filming time, checked it, and have seen absolutely no evidence of attacks on pelicans by long-nosed fur seals or any seals at all. So, we have gone to great lengths to monitor these colonies and to see if there are any interactions which need to be moderated, and my advice is there have been none that have been recorded on over 70 hours of monitoring from the CCTV recordings, or indeed seen by any of our staff, that I have been made aware of.

Then I asked:

So, aside from the colonies and right across the length of the barrages, the Coorong and the Lakes, DEWNR staff would have to be the only people who have not sighted any dead musk ducks, fairy terns or pelicans—not one.

The minister's response was:

My advice is this: yes, you may see corpses of animals around the place. They are not infrequent in nature, things do die, but there has been no evidence that we have been able to ascertain that they have been caused by anything other than feral animals—cats, dogs, foxes, for example. SARDI, apparently, has checked seal scats and has found absolutely no evidence in those seal scats of any seabirds or sea creatures in their diet other than the fish that form a normal part of their diet. While you speculate, anecdotally, on seeing a corpse lying around, there is no evidence that I have available to me that the seals have been eating ducks or pelicans, and the scats checked through SARDI have confirmed that.

The minister continues:

Here you are speculating, on your great scientific background, about seals rampaging through these places killing all sorts of animals, and you are not even thinking that other species, like foxes, cats or feral dogs, could be taking any of these species and eating them and leaving corpses. You just have this one view that the seals are the things that are killing them, with no evidence whatsoever, Adrian. You have no evidence whatsoever, no scientific evidence at all, and you are maintaining this line of inquiry without even thinking that maybe something else is actually doing this. Maybe something else, like a fox; maybe something else, like a feral cat. Where is your scientific information about that? Whereas I can tell you that SARDI has told me that they have checked the scats of seals and there is no evidence of pelicans or ducks as part of their diet in those scats.

I responded:

Just like they do not find any evidence of little penguins which have been destroyed. Your department, from you down, has the Sergeant Schultz approach with regard to what impact these seals are having—

Then there was some comment about the points I was making, and I responded:

I don't care. If he can make a point, I am going to make a point. I have communities that see these effects—

Then I continued, stating:

This is the department that uses the Sergeant Schultz approach—

And if anyone does not know who Sergeant Schultz was, he was in Hogan's Heroes, a great program set in a World War II prison camp, and he knew nothing and saw nothing—

yet these communities and the Ngarrindjeri, whom I know the minister meets with, say these same things. Let him talk to the Ngarrindjeri and let him see when he gets round this approach whether they [DEWNR] just want to have their heads in the sand.

With regard to minister Bignell, I asked a similar question about the Ngarrindjeri totems and other bird life and his reply was:

We do not have responsibility to the pelicans…We just have the fish. We do not do the pelicans.

I want to comment about a comment from a senior member of DEWNR's staff in one of the dot points sent out to DEWNR people and members of the working group. This is still the classic DEWNR response. It stated:

There is no evidence that seals are altering the ecological character of the Coorong and Lower Lakes. The suggestion that seals are a clear and present danger to the birds and fish populations have not been backed up by what we are seeing. Sustainable management of the fishery and long-term business survival of any business that harvests natural resources is dependent on adapting business practices to environmental conditions. That is the focus of the current research—new crackers and new fishing gear.

I want to read a letter from Garry Hera-Singh. He is the Chair of the Southern Fisherman's Association, Lakes and Coorong Fishery. I quote:

Dear All

I support Tracy's [Tracy Hill] comments 100 per cent.

The difficulty with most people on the government payroll is understanding and appreciating NZ fur seal impacts in the lower lakes and Coorong region that the traditional owners said explicitly were never in the region in numbers like present. There is no evidence in their middens or dreamtime stories that go back 6,000 years. We (the fishing industry) see the devastation of NZ fur seal impacts DAILY. Whether the impacts are on native fauna or impacting on our fishing business, it is in OUR FACES EVERYDAY.

There is and has been a disturbing trend by DEWNR to continually 'down play' the impacts of [New Zealand] fur seals in the Coorong and Lakes over the last 12-18 months. Clearly this issue does not sit well in the current 'city centric' politics of the day!

The fishery (and community) is losing millions of dollars per annum because of the explosion in [New Zealand fur seal] numbers.

I would like to enlighten the author to some background information to their 'general info' dot points raised earlier.

This is reflecting on dot points from DEWNR. He continues:

Contrary to your belief that there has NOT been a subsidy or waiver of LICENCE FEES for the lakes and Coorong fishers, there has been a specific NET FEE relief but not licence fee relief! Eg. I am given almost an $8,000 per annum net fee relief but I still have to find $14,000 for licence fees in the 2016/17 [financial year]…you may argue a small price to pay for the privilege to supply consumers with a fresh and high quality seafood product that keeps a few locals in a job!

Secondly, there is an inference that the fishery has not done too badly with $460,000 subsidy. In the same period I estimate very conservatively the fishery has lost $8 million in the last two years.

Briefly, lost value adding opportunities ie. filleted, smoked, cryovak and MAP seafood packs and an array of marinated products, loss of niche markets, and a loss of market share to increasing imports. Yep, this so called 'smart country' just keeps exporting rural/regional jobs. Further evidence of down playing the [New Zealand fur seal] impacts in the [Lakes and Coorong] fishery is suggested by the windfall industry received from the Fisheries Research & Development Corporation (FRDC) of $260,000 to look at seal deterrence and other fishing methods. Let's get this issue clear, $50K from DEWNR, $50K from PIRSA and $150K from FRDC = $250K.

Just for your information, the Lakes and Coorong fishers have paid an annual levy into the FRDC research fund for more than 30 years. Last year the levy was just over $15K.

Enough said about our contribution from 36 fishers and their families.

It appears that the various seal counts are perceived to be an accurate reflection of what is actually within the Lakes and Coorong.

I will repeat what one 'seal expert' (and employed by govt.) said to me on a number of occasions, he said, 'generally what you count is only about 20 per cent what is in the region.' The more I see, the more I think this is so true!

Next time you see a number, just think there was 80 per cent that was NOT counted.

Yours Truly

Garry Hera-Singh,

Chair,

Southern Fisherman's Association

Lakes and Coorong Fishery

That shows the level of angst, and they would have relayed these concerns to DEWNR. When you have a minister that says that not one native bird has been attacked by a New Zealand fur seal or a long-nosed fur seal, whatever he wants to call them, I think that is a disgraceful comment to make because it is absolutely not true. Something needs to be done. Communities at Goolwa and Meningie are being severely affected by these seals, and the government needs to stick with the facts and not keep creating a fantasy.

In the closing time I have, other things I am concerned about include foster carers and the fact that it is something like 130 children who have to be housed in motel rooms. I am not surprised because some of the things that have come to me from foster carers and previous foster carers about allegations about their treatment—and a lot of the time these turn out to be false allegations. The treatment that foster carers get from staff is absolutely disgraceful. I know some people who have served for decades in this role, and they wish now they had never stepped down that path.

Families SA is falling apart as a department. With FOI requests, we just keep getting excuses about why we do not get them. We cannot get them out of the DECD side of things. I note they are still running two streams. It is an absolute disgrace and it has to be fixed so that we can get some foster carers, if that is at all possible.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (11:15): This year's estimates were slightly more bearable because we did not have to put up with staged questions from the government, and that was a bonus. The downside was that from some ministers, particularly the more inexperienced or out-of-their-depth ministers, we had long opening statements. Occasionally, we saw the backbenchers come in as human shields to try to deflect and divert away from the questions during our time for questions.

One budget line that is often used by members of the opposition to question the ministers is the net cost of services; that is an omnibus-type budget line. Certainly, in the ageing portfolio, it is the only reference to that whole portfolio, that whole Office for the Ageing. If you do a word search, it is one word in the financial summary, and then for the title of the Department for Health and Ageing there is no particular budget line about that.

I asked the minister about that and she said, 'Go and ask the Treasurer.' Well, I ask the Treasurer: next year can we have a budget line showing the budget and the FTEs for the Office for the Ageing? If you are going to have half an hour set aside for that very important area, let's have some specific spend so that we are not having to waste time in the committee asking questions about the FTEs and the budget line.

As it turns out, for the information of the house, the budget line for the Office for the Ageing is $3.78 million and there are 18 FTEs in that particular department. As we know with South Australia's ageing population, there is a need to make sure that we are well and truly looking after the ageing South Australians so that they are getting a fair deal. The Office for the Ageing does a lot of good work, and I congratulate the people in that office on the work they do.

The opportunity to use estimates is vital. People have been disparaging about estimates for many years now in the time I have been in here, and this is the 14^th estimates session I have been through in this place. I have seen ministers come and go, and that is not because of the length of time that this state has been subjected to a hard Labor government. It is because there is a paucity of talent. People have been making mistakes and have not been performing, so the chairs have been rotated, the deck chairs on the Titanic have been moved over and over again.

The current Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation is the fifth one I have served with—and I say 'with' because it is one of those areas where we try to be bipartisan. The current minister is one of the better performers. He did his apprenticeship under the late Hon. Terry Roberts who I think was one of the best ministers I have worked with in that area.

The Minister for Emergency Services is the fifth minister I have worked under. He might have been a union heavyweight, but I was quite amazed at what a lightweight, what a featherweight, he was in here. He was out of his depth, he was not able to give the answers that I would expect from somebody in that very important position, and I was really amazed.

I think the members for Lee and Port Adelaide should thank me for exposing him as not being the new Right hope. I do not think this guy will ever be the Premier of this state. I know that there are Labor insiders who tell me he has been put in the upper house to test him out, and he has been given portfolios which are testing and there are always lots of issues with them. I do not believe that this guy has the mettle, the ticker, the backbone or the gonads to do the job.

The examples I will use are the MFS WorkCover and pay rises. This minister has come from being a union heavyweight to a ministerial lightweight. He came in here, and I asked him about backing up the MFS employees on the fact that they consider being locked into a 1.5 per cent pay rise to be unfair, particularly when the UFU secretary, Greg Northcott, was quoted in the media saying that, because the government's wages, taxes and levies are going up so dramatically, for them to be locked into a 1.5 per cent wage increase was very unfair, and they were being treated as second-class citizens who are second-class to employees.

I have to agree with Greg Northcott. I agree with him wholeheartedly, particularly when you see the police getting a different deal with WorkCover and wages, and the ambos getting different deals. What would minister Malinauskas say to the shoppies out there if he had one workplace and two or three workplace agreements? I know we have it in here with our superannuation and some other things. For one workplace, we have that, which I think is unfair and should have been sorted out. I think it is very unfair on the new members, and attracting quality in here is going to be difficult. Who did minister Malinauskas replace? That's right, Bernie—Big Bernie. We remember Bernie, don't we? He was a shoppies aficionado as well.

Anyway, how would minister Malinauskas treat that proposition from Woolies or Coles that, 'We are going to have one workplace but three or four workplace agreements in there, and you are superior, and you are the B team'? That is what he is insinuating about the MFS, that they are the B team. Let him go and tell Greg Northcott, Max Adlam and the others down at the UFU that he is not going to stand up in here and lobby on their behalf, because that is what he told me and that is what he told the committee.

He said that he is going to leave that for the Minister for Industrial Relations. Not good enough, minister. You are the minister who has that responsibility. Part of your responsibility is to make sure that those emergency services under your jurisdiction run as efficiently as possible and that the workers whom you are representing as their minister, in the same way as you did when you were in the union, are getting a fair deal.

It is not a fair deal. I will be more than happy, and this is what the UFU or the MFS firefighters want, to march down from Wakefield Street to the steps of Parliament House to demonstrate how unfair this deal is. I will be happy to walk arm in arm with them because it is unfair to have one workplace and three or four workplace agreements. We know the ambos, the firefighters and the police are the people who stick their necks out. It is the same workplace out there. They are putting their lives at risk. I know my father would come home from the job bandaged, burnt and beaten up because of the work he was doing in the Metropolitan Fire Service. I know what it was like. It was very stressful.

You cannot undervalue their effort, and I will be making sure that every MFS firefighter knows what this minister said in this place. The fact is he did not stand up for them, he is not going to go in and lobby for them on their behalf, and he is not going to give them the same rights, privileges and workplace payments that the police and ambos are getting. He is not going to do that so, to me, that is not the sort of person who is going to come in here, stamp his mark and say to the government, 'This is what we should be doing. This is right, this is fair, and I have the potential to be a leader.'

He does not have that. I did not see one glimpse of that in our estimates committee. At the end of it, he then came out with these little, bitsy, gratuitous comments about what I was saying in tweets and on Facebook. If he has any evidence that I have been in any way derogatory or disparaging about CFS or SES volunteers, put it up there, minister, because it is not true. It is just not true. Do not come in here and cast disparaging comments like that and think you are going to get away with it because you will not.

Anybody in this place knows my background. They know my background in the MFS and CFS, and the passion and pride that I have in all of our emergency service workers. I will be talking about the SES a bit more in a minute because we owe those men and women in the SES big time, particularly for the work they have been doing during the last storms and floods, along with the CFS, SES, SAPOL and the Ambulance Service—they are all in there—but, certainly, the SES have been at the forefront.

I will leave minister Malinauskas to his own devices. He can make replies in the other place if he wants to. All I know is that minister Close and minister Mullighan have no fear. Those two are the new leaders. I hope I am not giving them the kiss of death. They are the two I see with intelligence and credibility on that side over there. I do not see any others—I am not being offensive—at the moment. Let's move on to some of the more specific areas in the estimates committees.

I have always had a very good relationship with minister Bettison. I am not so sure she is terribly happy with me at the moment, though. I was doing my job as a shadow minister and inquiring into not the first, not the second, not the third, not the fourth, not the fifth, not the sixth, not the seventh, but the eighth audit into the concession system. It was started under the current Premier, minister Weatherill, as he was then, for communities and families. The Concession and Seniors Information Service (CASIS) started at $600,000 and blew out to $7 million after going through minister Piccolo, and the current minister, minister Bettison, was handed this poo sandwich as it was just starting to really smell.

She had the courage in some ways to pull the pin on this, but the problem was that South Australian taxpayers were out of pocket by $7 million—$7 million. That was CASIS. The Concessions and Rebate Tracking System (CART)—don't you love all these acronyms?—was supposed to make sure that CASIS (the Concession and Seniors Information Service) was going to work. CASIS was going to replace CART. Now we have COLIN, the Cost of Living Concession Information, a new software that has come in. The only problem we have with COLIN is that COLIN is growing. He is not a little boy anymore, he is growing into a delinquent teenager. COLIN started out at $2.2 million, and now we see that COLIN has had an extra $1.4 million added on—a growth spurt, a real growth spurt.

What we are seeing now is CASIS mark 2. We have to make sure that we keep an eye on this because I do not want South Australians to be subject to another CASIS mark 2. The need to make sure that the people who need concessions and deserve concessions in South Australia are getting those concessions is vital, not to have, as it was in the Auditor-General's Report, 4,350 dead people being paid concessions. Sure, the minister said in her responses to the estimates committee that some of these were able to be qualified, in that these were payments being made back to DCSI. Some of them were where the primary cardholder was not deceased but the concession holder had died, so there were some excuses there. Ninety-eight payments were made within the 13-week grace period, but that still left 852 payments being made to dead people.

To compound that, though, we also then had a number of other examples put out by the Auditor-General of where DCSI had no record whatsoever of the client. How can you pay money to somebody if you do not know who they are? Where did that money go? I did not get an answer in estimates. I think that was a bit over $1.5 million. I think it might even be a bit more than that, that was going to who knows what, to who knows where.

In disabilities, the unmet need was interesting. We have put a lot of money into disabilities with the NDIS coming in. It is a very exciting time, but what did we see? The unmet need really has not reduced at all, so we have a lot more work to do in that area. Disabilities is another area where I am more than happy to work in a bipartisan way and to give the federal government a touch-up if we need to on behalf of South Australians. I stood on the stage at Novita with the Premier and said that if you cannot be bipartisan about disabilities, what can you be bipartisan about? It is an area where I will certainly be more than happy to work with minister Vlahos.

I was interested to hear, though, that there are a lot of people—we do not know how many—who should be in the disabilities care sector, out of hospitals, who are in our public hospital taking up beds. After 25 days, they are charged for those beds. They charge a rent for those beds. It comes out of their disability support pension. That was information given by one of the health department bureaucrats. It is in the Hansard.

What percentage of their DSP is paid? I think it is 85 per cent of their DSP is charged in bed rent. I understand that mental health patients at James Nash are also charged a bed rent, 85 per cent of their pensions. The minister was not able to verify that. She was going to come back to the house. Lots of questions were taken on notice. The other thing I did notice this year was that lots of questions were taken on notice. To me, these are examples of ministers who are not across the board, not on top of their portfolios as well as they should be.

Another quick thing that I will mention in mental health is that there were some questions about restraint practices of juveniles. The minister was not able to answer that. Dr Groves, the Chief Psychiatrist, said that there should be reports coming back to the government on that, but he did not know how many young people had been subject to restrictive practices. I notice in the 30-page guidelines on restraint and seclusion in the Department for Health's files, mandatory requirement 14: 'All incidents of restraint or seclusion of mental health consumers are recorded on an auditable database and reported to the Chief Psychiatrist.' So I am surprised that we did not have a figure on the numbers of young people being restrained.

Aboriginal affairs and reconciliation is another area where I try to be bipartisan. It is an area where we see extraordinary amounts of money being spent in South Australia on our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. The amount of $1.9 billion is spent. It works out at a bit over $60,000 per man, woman and child. We do not see as much progress as we would like. It is a very difficult area, but when it comes to the Close the Gap reports, that says it all, particularly if you add in the areas that Close the Gap does not cover, and that is involvement in the justice system and the corrections system. Those are huge areas to respond to.

I will spend the last few minutes I have on emergency services. I thank the MFS, CFS and SES volunteers and paid staff for all they do. They have a huge responsibility. People do not care whether it is a red truck or a white truck, or a person wearing an orange, yellow or other coloured uniform: they just want help when they need it. What I am so frustrated about are the responses to major incidents, and in some cases just other straightforward incidents, by the emergency services, particularly the SES and CFS.

I want to know when a priority 1, which is normally lights and sirens, is a priority 1 and when a priority 2 is not a priority 2. As an example, the other day a tree was down near Macclesfield. The CFS responded priority 1, but the SES responded priority 2 to the same job. What I am seeing so many times is the SES responding as a priority 2 to a tree down across an 80 km/h road. In my opinion and from my experience of having been out to a number of these incidents with the CFS, it should be a priority 1 job.

There is a potential for a car crash or an incident. They are being given priority 2, which then allows them to stack up 27 jobs. There is delay after delay in some of these attendances at jobs. The other day, Strathalbyn SES went past Strathalbyn CFS, Macclesfield CFS, Meadows CFS and Kangarilla CFS to cut up a little tree, a six-inch or 150-millimetre diameter tree, on Cut Hill Road at Kangarilla. It is a dangerous road, so it should have been dealt with straightaway as a priority 1.

I know that road well because we lived there. My veterinary practice was there. It is an 80 km/h road down a very steep hill. Kangarilla CFS is a matter of two minutes away, but the Strathalbyn SES, those overworked and undervalued SES volunteers—undervalued by this government, certainly not by the opposition and the South Australian public—were forced to get out of their beds, leave their families, leave their workplaces and attend to this job. It is completely unnecessary, and to be quite blunt, I do not think the SES management gets it. They seem to be in a state of denial over the fact that this is not about them, this is not about their jobs, this is not about protecting their patch and stacking up the numbers so they can have The Advertiser say the SES attended 2,000 jobs.

Credit where credit is due, but let's give these SES volunteers, these hardworking volunteers, some appreciation. Let them stay with their families, let them stay at work, let them stay in their beds when they do not have to get out of bed. There are so many examples. If the SES senior management, including the chief officer, do not do something about it, I will be saying a lot more and having public meetings because you cannot keep treating not only volunteers but also the people of South Australia like this.

They want the service when they want it. They do not want to have to wait an hour with a TV crew waiting for the first emergency services to wake up, and I can give a number of examples of that. I have spoken to the people. It is a ridiculous situation. I will not tolerate it, I do not expect volunteers to tolerate it and I certainly do not expect the public of South Australia to tolerate it.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (11:35): I had the pleasure of attending Tuesday's estimates, which I will return to shortly. I have been following with interest the Hansard and the public statements and media over what has occurred during estimates at the time when I was not there and my colleagues on both sides were in attendance. It starts to sound like a bad recording, but again I say that I really seriously question why we inflict on the Public Service and various others the tedium and angst involved in estimates for very few answers, quite frankly.

I can see no point in tying up everybody—the Parliament House staff and everybody who is involved—for the senseless purpose of sitting in the house when in some cases you just get ridiculous performances from ministers, some of whom appear to have absolutely no idea about their brief and just do not want to answer. It was interesting—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do you need some protection, member for Finniss?

Mr PENGILLY: I need protection, ma'am, yes.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member for Finniss is seeking the protection of the Chair, which he is entitled to.

Mr PENGILLY: Thank you, ma'am, I am sure I could have battled on. I guess this is this disappointing part. My preference would be to have estimates similar to those in the federal parliament, where it is open slather for everybody and they all have to provide evidence instead of—

An honourable member: Hear, hear!

Mr PENGILLY: 'Hear, hear,' I hear from the other side. I think it is much more worthwhile for the democratic process, whether you are in government or opposition. We all need to have the correct answers. We need to know what is going on, but there seems to be this attitude within our estimates, and in the 10 years that I have been going to estimates it has not improved at all—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Only 10? It has seemed longer.

Mr PENGILLY: Well, I might make it longer, ma'am. It will be at least 12, let me say that. There has been no mood to change. I realise that this year in most estimates hearings government members did not ask Dorothy Dixers, but in the ones I went to I was exposed to tedious ministerial statements from the member for Waite. I decided to just let it go, but it was disappointing. There are some matters in this state to which people really need answers. There are some terrible things going on out there for some residents of this state.

One of the interesting issues I would like to give a little bit of time to is energy, and I have had some conversations on this over the last two or three weeks. There has been much concern in my electorate over the price of electricity, the failure of the system and the fact that our power prices here have been through the roof. We are really wearing the impact of what was put in place by former premier Rann and his apparatchik with the wind towers.

We are being left in a serious predicament. We have had the closure of the cheapest power base load station in the state in Port Augusta, with the subsequent loss of jobs. We have Port Pirie and Whyalla both struggling for power—whether it be Nyrstar or Arrium—back here a week or two ago. With what is going on with the nuclear debate and the nuclear royal commission, I am seriously wondering, madam Deputy Speaker, whether indeed the Premier and the government are actually trying to put a good argument for nuclear power to be put in place in South Australia. Is that the end result? I ask that question because we are struggling now that the other interconnector is going.

I am a nuclear power advocate. I will leave you in no doubt about that. I realise that it could be decades away in Australia. It is expensive. Imagine a nuclear power plant in South Australia, with the enormous amounts of electricity it could produce—and I never heard any of this from the minister for energy, I might add. But with the power it could produce it could be hooked into the desalination plant, which is sitting dormant, and power that. You could actually supply the metropolitan and other areas with water from that desalination plant, not take any water out of the River Murray, and actually have that water going to irrigation and food production.

I do not think we are thinking outside the square enough here. I am going to be interested in the future and to see what happens. I hope I live long enough to see a nuclear power plant in South Australia. On top of that, dependent on the size of the plant, we could actually be sending power interstate, not relying on interstate to supply our power when we do not have enough. We are now in this position in South Australia where we are down to basic needs on power: Torrens Island, Pelican Point, and gas, etc., but we have lost that wonderful facility at Port Augusta. That will not be coming back.

Renewable energy is fine. I do not have a problem with renewable energy, but when the wind stops blowing, you do not have wind power; when the sun is not shining, you do not have solar power. We have solar hot water for example. I am fine with that. I do think, as a parliament, we should be discussing these options and where we are going. The nuclear royal commission is one thing. You never set up a nuclear royal commission, or any other royal commission for that matter, unless you know what answer you want out of it. Moving on from that, just a little bit of discussion about where Health is going in South Australia—it is chaotic, there is no question about that.

It is clear that the minister is well outside his capacity of understanding just what goes on out there. Regrettably, I think the current minister—he is a very decent bloke, I know that—is completely snowed under, or snowed over, by the bureaucrats in Health and he cannot see the wood for the trees. The cases that are arising on an almost daily occurrence with what has gone on with various individuals or what is going on with units or what is happening at the new RAH, are terrible. It cannot go on. It is saturating the media. It is an absolute debacle for the government. You can nod your heads and disagree or agree—not that any of you are nodding. The fact of the matter is that out there in voter land the health sector is seen as being in crisis in South Australia and we are getting no answers.

The minister can come in here and puff and blow and jump up and down and go red in the face and abuse the opposition if he wishes, but the reality is that there are things going on out there that should not be happening, and our health system in South Australia has deteriorated. Despite the best efforts of those professionals who are involved, and the hard work they do, and the long hours they put in, it is going backwards. It is simply not good enough.

I give you the example of the two health units that I have in my own electorate at Victor Harbor and on Kangaroo Island, where local doctors, to all intents and purposes, are not all that welcome in the hospitals these days. They do a bit of locum work from time to time in both places. The great design to put registrar doctors, government-paid doctors, into the South Coast District Hospital has been something of a failure, to say the least. I do not know where this is going to end up, I really do not.

We had the case of one gentleman who had one testicle removed because of misadventure in the health system. Strangely and bizarrely as it seems, I had another instance in my own electorate of exactly the same thing happening. I will not name anyone or say where it occurred, for the sake of the individual, but it happened just recently. One has been brought to the attention of the media and the public, but I do have another one, almost the same. I will be discussing that issue with the family.

I am not sure when the government, the Minister for Education and Children's Services, the Premier or whoever will stop blaming the federal government for everything. I am not quite sure when that is going to happen—it is getting a bit boring and a bit repetitive and is wearing thin out in the wider voter land. Whether or not you like it, the Coalition government has been returned federally—and I will not make any comment on the rather strange outcome of that election—but the fact of the matter is that you have to stop whinging about things that happened years ago and get on with it.

You have to stop wanting the federal government to pay for everything in South Australia. The reason you have no money in government is because you spent too damn much—you have wasted it. You do not seem to understand this: you have to have people making money, and the economy needs to be buoyant, instead of our having the highest unemployment in Australia. You have to stop criticising, bitching and whinging about the federal government and get on with doing the job you have been elected to do.

There seems to be a complete lack of leadership within the current state government. My view is that there are some internal fights going on, which have been well hidden, I might add, but there is no question that it is in a mess internally, and that is coming to the fore and eventually will unload one way or another. I image there are plenty of members on the government side who would be keen to see the back of the current Premier, but who will they put in there?

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: Well, I know you are a lover of the current Premier. The member for Morphett made some points a while ago in his speech about where things are going and future leadership of the government—that is not our worry. The Labor Party can mess around and have their fights and get on with it, but from our perspective I think the state is crying out for leadership. We are just not getting it.

The Treasurer seems to be completely out of his depth, the health minister is failing dismally, and the Minister for Tourism has allowed this debacle to take place at Victoria Park, with people not getting paid. People cannot afford their power bills, they cannot afford their water bills, they have been hit with increases in the emergency services levy, and the NRM levies have gone up. What is this mob doing? Sitting back and just watching it! Once again, I do not know what takes place in their party room meetings—I would not have a clue—but if I were a member over there I would be getting stuck into them pretty rapidly.

I attended the other day the hearing with the member for Waite in his various capacities. The member for Waite seemed to think that the best thing to do was tell the opposition how to go about its business. I seem to remember that when he was leader he got himself into a certain amount of bother with some dodgy documents, and I well remember the day. I do not think it behoves him, and the Speaker of the house pulls up ministers from time to time or takes points of order on the government, the ministers or whoever, to tell the opposition how to go about their business. I think it is futile.

I am a great defender of the defence industry, our armed forces and everything that goes with it. I am very proud that the submarine contract has been won by South Australia. I do not give any credit whatsoever to the minister. This matter has been rolling around and we do not know the machinations which take place within the federal government and cabinet. You can bet your bottom dollar that they will not be telling the member for Waite anything about it. He is persona non grata over there and he needs to get over that and move on.

The federal member for Sturt made it quite clear on the radio the other day that he will deal with the Premier and the Treasurer, as is appropriate, but he simply does not trust the member for Waite. I am not sure that anybody actually trusts the member for Waite, whether from within the government, the opposition or anywhere else. I was quite amused when some wag said to me the other day that he was seen handing out how-to-vote cards for Rebekha Sharkie on election day. I said, 'Oh, yes, what did you think of that?' and they said, 'Well, quite frankly, if he had not been there she would have won by more.' I found that to be quite a good analogy. He will go about and do what he does. He has an ego the size of this building and he has to live with that.

I sat there quietly during the day and I listened. Clearly, his bureaucrats and staff had put together some quite good answers to some of the questions on the defence industry. I look forward to a project coming to the Public Works Committee in relation to Techport. I am a great supporter of Techport. It is no good going on, whinging, wanting the feds to do that as well, and wanting the money. We are the state of South Australia. We need to get on with doing what we do, not wait for the feds to fund everything. That is not what it is about. We have pretty much always done our own thing in the past, and we get the GST revenue.

In closing, I again express my disappointment in the estimates process, including the work involved, the time involved and the astronomical expense, when a lot of the time it is just a complete waste of time. I am hoping that one of my colleagues will be ready to get to their feet.

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (11:52): I ride to the rescue of the member for Finniss. I am a lover of the estimates process. Last year, I was fortunate enough—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: A bit like Eurovision.

Mr KNOLL: I am actually not a fan of Eurovision; it is my parents that are fans of Eurovision. The sins of the parents should not be visited upon the son.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: But there are similarities.

Mr KNOLL: Having said that, I think Eurovision is a great contest that helps non-Europeans to understand the geopolitical issues that go on in Europe. It is very interesting. I am a fan of estimates, and last year I was fortunate enough, for the Liberal side, to be the MP who sat on most of the estimates committees. This year, together with my colleague the member for Davenport we are estimates junkies. If the member for Flinders had not requested to be on one of the committees, the member for Davenport and I would have been equal in getting to all the estimates committees between the two of us.

I was wandering outside yesterday and I could tell that some people were getting a bit frustrated with the fifth day of estimates—some people in this room, potentially. One of the reporters outside, who had been here all week and was also getting frustrated, asked, 'Mate, are you coping through estimates?' I said, 'Well, I don't know where you have been, but estimates is like my Woodstock: you roll around in the mud for a few days on end, but I think getting out there to listen to the music is a fantastic thing.' This year, estimates did not disappoint. The beautiful thing about estimates instead of Woodstock is the fact that it comes around every year.

Can I say, from that perspective, that I have had a great lot of fun. The reason that I find it so interesting is that if you care about leading a government into the future, and if you care about having a strong position within a government in the future, then understanding what it is the government actually does is quite an important thing. As much as we do not get as many answers as we would like—and I will get to that in a minute—there are still some very interesting things to learn.

What I propose to do today is just go through each of the estimates and understand some of the things that we have learned and also some of the styles with which different ministers have approached the estimates process. There are varying degrees, and potentially I might stumble upon saying something nice about one or two of the ministers and for that I apologise to my colleagues in advance. First off, on Thursday morning we had the Premier in, who was confident enough in his position that he did not need to have Dixers from the government side but did indeed make an opening statement talking about some vague notions of representative democracy. Something I find quite interesting is that he does not want to countenance ensuring that a majority of people who vote for a political party in an election can form government. That is not necessarily democracy, except that we have compulsory voting and everyone has to vote.

Moving to these citizens' juries seems like a reasonable way to go about things, and on the face of it I can see some merit in that. What I find quite interesting is that he places faith in these citizens' juries and then ignores them. If I look specifically at the case of the citizens' jury into the South-East drainage system, there was almost universal understanding of what needed to happen as an outcome of that citizens' jury. The government proceeded to ignore it and go exactly in the opposite direction. However, I do not want to let the rhetoric get in the way of the truth.

The Premier did contort himself, in my view, trying to weave this intricate balance on jobs, trying to defend this budget as a jobs budget, whilst at the same time suggesting that standing still was going to be a win, in which case: where are the jobs? It was really quite an interesting contortion he was going through and, if he were not busy being Premier of this state, potentially he should join our gymnastics team at the Rio Olympics, such was his ability to contort.

We move on then to the Treasurer later that morning, a man confident enough in his position not to have Dixers, except for one or two I recall, and certainly not much in the way of an opening statement. He was a man who was ready to take on that which came before him. The Treasurer has a style, and the style is to bluff and bluster and puff out his chest. That is fine, that is his prerogative, but as soon as he is challenged with a question that gets a bit difficult and potentially beyond his understanding he resorts to personal attacks. Instead of answering the question, he goes directly at the person asking the question, and in seeking to do so I think he was trying to raise the ire of the Chair of that committee in order to intervene to hopefully not only break up the proceedings but also to potentially limit the ability of the opposition to ask questions in the act of doing it.

Again, I think the member for West Torrens could join the Premier in our Olympic team in Rio when he was trying to suggest that the Public Service would not have to take a real wage cut, whilst at the same time telling them that people in the private sector have had to take a real wage cut so therefore they should expect the same. That hypocrisy, when it is compared question after question in the same estimates committee, I think is quite interesting. The figure I do not think he could get away from was that in 2019-20, the outlying year of the forward estimates, the government is predicting a 0.7 per cent drop in real wages. He attempted to explain it away with, 'Yes, that's because there are cuts in Public Service numbers and because of a whole heap of other factors.'

But the truth is that in the 2019-20 year the government, according to their own estimates, is looking to cut the number of jobs, and the point is that you cannot have it both ways. To suggest that it is in relation to a differential in job numbers does not work out when, out of the 80,000-odd public servants, you have only a 150-person move, which is a miniscule percentage of movement, whilst at the same time showing in the same budget for the same year a 0.7 per cent real wage reduction. I think the government is going to have great difficulty selling this to the Public Service.

Another thing we note from a subsequent estimates committee is that it is SASMOA (the salaried doctors), it is the firefighters and it is admin staff within the Public Service Association who are going to be the next three cabs off the rank in terms of negotiating their EBAs. I think they are going to be wishing that they had started negotiations that touch earlier so that they would be exempt from this 1.5 per cent cap. Having said that, the government has made it very clear that they are going to preference quantity over quality, that instead of potentially trying to get a more productive Public Service they are going to keep as many jobs there and just pay everybody who is there smaller increases.

We then move on to the Attorney-General in the afternoon, and that was quite exciting. Again, it is not a topic that anybody else is going to care about in industrial relations, but it is one, in my view, where he was actually trying to get to the heart of the answer. It was quite an open, free-ranging discussion, and I do genuinely think that he tackled this in the right spirit. You can tell that because he allowed his staff sitting with him to answer, as opposed to trying to filter all the answers that came through.

The interesting thing out of the Attorney-General's questioning was, number one, that we can expect an increase to the unfunded liability this year. The government trumpeted last year this over a billion dollar reduction in the unfunded liability for the return-to-work scheme. It was a causal effect of the good work that the government, together with the opposition, had done in amending the return-to-work scheme. But, unfortunately, we are going to see some serious back-tracking of at least $250 million from that.

That potentially puts at risk the supposed $180 million worth of savings the business community has received as a result of these changes. It is interesting that, one year after the scheme was introduced, this much-lauded figure, which I know the member for Waite and others on the front bench laud as their great gift to the business community in South Australia, is potentially going to be wound back. So, we await September with interest.

It is also interesting that the Attorney, when asked about whether or not Mr Aaron Cartledge of the CFMEU might be relieved of some of his government positions, given the fact that he has been convicted multiple times of offences on construction sites across South Australia. He said, 'I am waiting on the legal advice.' Given that this was first brought to the attention of the minister early last year, in April, when Mr Cartledge was convicted of offences on a building site on Flinders Street, one wonders how long it takes to get this legal advice, but we wait in hope.

We then move on to the transport minister, and he rates in my top three of being the most frustrating. Again, there were no Dixers and no opening statement—

Mr Odenwalder: Who was that?

Mr KNOLL: The transport minister—but he is one who is happy to welcome the questions and then happily does not go anywhere near any answers. I think the minister has learnt at the feet of the Attorney-General in that, in the words of the Chair of the Legislative Council estimates committee (Estimates Committee B), the answers needed to be contextualised.

The opposition is not stupid. We have done our homework and we understand quite a lot about the way government operates, but what we are seeking to do is get very specific information—figures, most of the time, or dates—to help us with our understanding of where government is at, in this instance, on certain projects. The ability of the minister to sit there and take five to 10 minutes to work every which way around a question without actually getting to the heart of the question is certainly a skill, and I do not deny him that skill. I think the minister thinks he is quite smart in doing it, except that it is not the opposition he is thwarting: it is the people of South Australia. It is not our money.

I pay tax and, through my GST, that flows back through to state taxation. I have bought and sold a couple of houses in my time, and the government has had the benefit of my stamp duty, but apart from that it is the people of South Australia who really want these answers. We need to understand ourselves being here as conduits: the ministers on behalf of the government and the opposition on behalf of the people of South Australia. It is the South Australian people who are missing out on these answers, rather than a minister thinking he is really smart in thwarting the opposition in trying to extract information.

Number one on my frustration list this year, if the transport minister comes in third, is the Hon. Ian Hunter in the other place. He is singularly frustrating in his lack of understanding of his portfolio, his lack of willingness to even go anywhere near answers and his wont to limit his exposure to estimates in every way possible. He had long opening statements. He took a consistent series of government questions and failed to go through to the specifics of questions he was asked.

The best example I have seen for a long time of something that governments of all persuasions need to understand is the increase in the solid waste levy. It is $64 million over the forward estimates, but it will be $20 million in the out years and it looks like it will be $20 million a year on an ongoing basis. One of the things the minister lauds is that it is going to create 350 new jobs. That sounds really good except that, when you divide $20 million by 350, that is a huge cost for those 350 jobs.

They did modelling to understand how many jobs would be created and that is fine, but that money did not just appear out of thin air. That money will come from the construction industry, which is a large user of landfill. It will come from every householder who has a spring-clean and takes things down to the dump. That money will directly come out of the pockets of businesses and households in South Australia.

The question I was asking—and we tried to ask this question of the Treasurer and minister Hunter—is: has any modelling been done to understand how many jobs are going to be lost as a result of this change, to balance out this 350? 'No, of course, we didn't go anywhere near there.' That, I think, goes to the heart of the lack of understanding the Labor government has about how an economy works, especially in South Australia.

When we take this money, it is not as if it was just sitting in somebody's bank account doing nothing. It is not like it is money that is magicked out of thin air that we could just pluck off the money tree. This comes from other areas. This money would have otherwise been spent. In the case of the construction industry, it would have been spent on growing or tendering for new projects or paying employees, and instead it now has to go to the government.

In the case of households, it would quite potentially be spent on groceries or paying utility bills or hospitality, but it would have been spent on consumption here in South Australia. The government likes to talk about the upside but has refused to countenance the downside. The reality is that, whenever the government takes money and tries to create jobs by taxing South Australians more, they do not understand that they are going to lose jobs on the other side of the equation.

We move on to the Minister for Agriculture, who comes in at number two on my list this year. Almost more than minister Hunter, he used the tools of estimates to thwart estimates. He had 15-minute opening statements for agriculture and almost the same for tourism. Luckily, forests was a lot shorter, but it became very apparent that he did not want to answer the questions as they stood. He did not feel comfortable with the questions as they stood, so he used government questions and opening statements, but he also used a huge amount of licence to contextualise—as the member for Little Para has been saying all week—his answers, without actually getting to the nub of the question. Again, the people of South Australia are all the poorer for it. I find that frustrating and disappointing.

To round it out, the last two yesterday were minister Maher and the Minister for Local Government. They provided two of the funniest moments from estimates week. Our deputy leader, who was asking a series of questions about BioSA and then gently asked, 'Minister, are you the minister responsible for BioSA?' At this point, Mr Maher had to turn around to his advisers and actually ask the question because he did not know himself. There were furious nods from all the public servants sitting at the table saying, 'Yes, minister, this one is in your bag.' It was a hilarious moment and I think speaks to minister Maher's ability to be across his brief.

Another thing I will say about minister Maher, and something the Minister for Local Government also put forward on the table, is around mobile blackspot funding. The government alternately tries to say, 'It's a federal government responsibility, but this time we are going to put money into it.' Okay, you have contradicted yourself there. When the evidence says that Tasmania only contributed $11,000 per tower versus $147,000 through to $190,000 for Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales, and where the average is about $150,000 co-contribution per tower, minister Maher sat there and said, 'We want more favourable terms than Tasmania'.

I think what he was trying to do was to use the facts selectively in his favour to: (1) once again be able to blame the federal government when we do not get as many towers as we need; and (2) hide away from the fact that this government has not put enough money into this contestable fund so that South Australian mobile blackspots across regional South Australia can be dealt with. In my last minute I would like to go to the last estimates session yesterday afternoon with the Minister for Local Government and Regional Development.

Mr Pengilly: Did he know he was that?

Mr KNOLL: The Minister for Local Government could not think for himself at one point. In fact, every single question, even regarding the minister's own opinion on things, had to be read out in statement as opposed to him being able to exercise his brain mass to come up with an independent answer. He provided the greatest highlight of the estimates where, on questioning from the member for Goyder, who said, 'Minister, have you had a briefing on potential boundary changes?', the minister had to turn and ask his adviser whether or not he had been briefed on the topic.

I am thinking, 'Does this man not understand where he is from time to time?' What is more frustrating is the fact that he is a minister of the Crown, one of the few people who are there to run our state, and he does not know where he is from day to day.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (12:12): Deputy Speaker, I firstly acknowledge your role in the estimates proceedings that we have recently undertaken and thank you for your contribution, together with the member for Little Para, whom I was able to have as chair in a number of meetings during the estimates being convened and who did a stellar job. I also thank those ministers who presented to estimates and the number of advisers and departmental staff who were down here to explain to us a number of aspects of the 2016 budget.

The government has announced through the Treasurer about an $18 billion budget. Slightly less than that is actually expended because, of course, net-wise there is some revenue generated by some of the agencies, so the actual appropriated funds are slightly less. However, as we know, the Treasurer had to raid the Motor Accident Commission and now sell off its insurance arm to be able to prop up this year's budget.

I do note that at present the State Administration Centre is also being sold, the land services division is under review and the TAFE sites are being transferred to Renewal SA. We are yet to see what is going to happen with those, depending on what the TAFE agency determines is surplus to requirements. Of course, we also have other entities under consideration for what aspects may be sold, so the government is continuing its fire sale. I mention that because we now have the infamous EPAS coupled with two other things, namely, the squirrelling away and accumulation of money in funds which they manage and which the Treasurer has control of, such as the Victims of Crime Fund.

By the 2019-20 financial year, the Victims of Crime Fund will have a net base of some $370 million together with the massive blowouts in their infrastructure, two of which have been highlighted and are now indelibly printed on the mind of South Australians, namely, the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, which has just plunged from disaster to disaster economically—and this is apart from the tragic loss of life of two of the workmen—and the now infamous EPAS, a system of patient records that has now blown out another $200 million above its budgeted amount.

It is almost incomprehensible to the average person in my electorate when they raise issues of the monetary spend of the government, or lack there of. It is hard for them to comprehend, firstly, why a proposal which they think is meritorious, or an initiative in the electorate which they think is hugely wanting, cannot be financed because of the massive amount of waste due to the government's ineptitude in managing major infrastructure. It is just criminal to them that the government could be so wasteful, so incompetent, so irresponsible with our finances that the opportunity to have the prospect of their projects being financed just disappears from the horizon.

It is important for us, when we pick through the budget via the estimates process, to be able to identify where there is a need and where we need to help the government understand and redress the deficiencies of their budgets in the allocation of resources. They are going to continue to struggle to provide for high need areas if they do not get their own house in order in managing what they have got, if they stop hiding away money in funds which are clearly designed to be held there until the year prior to the election so that they can have a big spend on initiatives they will announce.

This year, the Attorney-General's estimates just confirmed for me in a very short time that we will have no new superior court, that there will be no new judges and that there will be no new structural reform, as had been considered by the Attorney the previous year. He was going to squirrel away money into the Victims of Crime Fund, with no relief to those who are victims of crime by being able to have any more generous access to it. That was obviously a myriad of small initiatives the government has announced—more reports, more reviews.

Sadly, there was nothing of substance—not even something as simple as being able to offer a person who appears in SACAT, our new administrative tribunal, on a review of a guardianship to have legal representation on those occasions. I think that is disgusting, and I am very sad that it has not happened. The reason it has not happened is that the government expects that over the next few years the Legal Services Commission will have to cut its budget. It is getting $4 million less over the next four years, rather than our having any extra initiative to ensure that we have legal representation for civil matters in the guardianship world, many of whom obviously will severely struggle to represent themselves. I am very disappointed about that.

In terms of urban development, the Minister for Transport is now the Minister for Urban Development—he has taken over. He continued form from his previous attendance at estimates in transport and infrastructure: he did not appear to know a lot and took an enormous amount on notice. Again, it just puzzles me that we have these hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and personnel and executives sitting around—including Mr Deegan, who I think is one of our highest paid public servants in the state—right next to the minister, yet they do not appear to apply even a movement of the head to inquire as to the answer.

They preferred to take it on notice, and hopefully they will provide some response down the track. We will see what happens with the minister this year in that area. I note of course that even by the end of estimates the list of questions which I had resubmitted to the Attorney about a month before estimates, which he had not answered from the 2015 estimates committee, still have not been answered. So this is the contempt that some of the ministers have for the committee. They do not want to answer. If it is embarrassing, they take it on notice and we never see a response back and that is very concerning.

Can I move to youth justice, an area for which I have been asked to take shadow responsibility. This is an area which is a relatively small part of the entire Communities and Social Inclusion budget so minister Bettison is responsible for this, but it does run the facilities of our youth detention centres. The Northern Territory inquiry, announced consequential to the public release nationally of television footage of children in youth detention in the Northern Territory, is enough to send an electric rod through your spine, but the reality is, it has been confirmed this week that, yes, there are handcuffs used in our detention facilities; there are leg wraps, which are leg restraints, used in our facilities; and there are what are known as spit restraints, namely a hood like a piece of material which is placed over the youth.

As has been explained, these are rarely used, although we were advised these hoods were used in South Australian detention centres 31 times in the 2014-15 year. We do not know what last year's is yet; I will be asking the minister that. It does concern me and I think it is important now that the minister confirms, comes into the parliament, and she has until 6 o'clock tonight to come in and say to the people of South Australia, 'I will undertake to this parliament, to the people of South Australia that until the Northern Territory royal commission has concluded and given its findings on appropriate material and restraints suitable for use, including the use of tear gas on youths and in what circumstances they should be used, that I will not allow, permit or authorise the use of hoods or tear gas in South Australian detention centres.'

I think it is incumbent on her to do that. I know that the Commissioner for Human Rights has asked for there to be an expansion of the terms of reference of the Northern Territory inquiry and for that to include an invitation to other states to identify if they are also struggling with this. It is not to say that these are easy issues, it is not to say that our personnel who are employed in our youth detention facilities are not at some risk at the behaviour of some of the youths in these facilities, especially if they in withdrawal from drugs and the like or, of course, if they are aggressive and have not had rehabilitation to deal with that while they are in the custody of the Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion. I think she needs to do that and I think she needs to reassure South Australians about that.

Minister Bettison was also appearing in estimates on the question of women, and the biggest disappointment I have in this area is that although we have a select committee in respect of domestic violence and family violence in this state that has been tabled in this parliament since April, not one dollar of this budget was allocated specifically to deal with domestic violence. There was a small amount allowed to do a report on homeless women, $150,000 from memory, but not a dollar to deal with the issue of enforcement of intervention orders and reform in that area, Clare's Law reform, which of course has been on the table for a year now to be considered, or application of further resourcing, etc.

At best, we have a promise to extend some of the MAPS, which is a coordination program between the relevant agencies that deal with response teams and part of the call-in centres. We have had these reports a number of times and the government has said, 'We will now publish a new issues paper and call for submissions until September,' and goodness knows when we might have some action. I remind the Attorney-General and minister Bettison that a woman is dying in Australia at least every three or four days from domestic violence, and that is not to mention the thousands of women and children, particularly, who are the most in number of victims, who are injured or left homeless or left in an impecunious state, which, of course, is not acceptable.

When minister Bettison came in and said that she was part of a government that was proud of the work it was doing in respect of domestic violence, I nearly threw up. I felt sick. It is just not acceptable to pretend that something is being done when we just get another report and then another report. The rest of us get another coronial inquiry to read relating to the death of someone that should have been avoided. I just despair because it is really a head in the sand approach if you do not accept that there is a problem and that we do need to do more about it.

In respect of the Department of State Development, minister Maher presented. The shadow minister for state development and a number of other members of our team who deal with mining, higher education, arts, Aboriginal affairs, science and innovation—to name a few of the subsections within state development—very competently inquired on a number of matters. I did attend some of these. For example, I inquired of the Treasurer what advantage he saw for the state in selling the Lands Titles Office, or any services operated by it. Predictably, his answer was obtuse.

He seemed to take some joy in saying that it was going to create a whole lot more money for him to spend. The current estimate is that South Australia would pick up about $300 million for selling off those services, while of course the Lands Titles Office staff and other supporters of the public sector union are rallying in Hindmarsh Square against this because there is no provision of protection. In fact, we have a budget bill to debate next that says that the Registrar-General of the Lands Titles Office and the two senior directors are to be protected as public servants but that everyone else's role goes.

They are amending the act to ensure that only the top dogs are protected, not the rest of them. The government says that under the Public Service Act they are entitled to opportunities to be reallocated. The truth is that a number of their positions will be sold off. They may take the opportunity to apply to whatever private agency buys that sector in due course, but the government's dismissal of these people, as though they are toys to be thrown away, is alarming.

I make the point that when an individual rings me and says, 'I've read this on our pinboard at work. You've put out a press release, Ms Chapman, about this issue of the Lands Titles Office being sold. These are my concerns. Why is the government doing this?' I reply, 'It's very clear: because they want the money, they are desperate for the money, and your job is secondary in their priorities.' It is very disturbing to me that they will come in here and masquerade some pretence of care for the workforce they employ, yet they are prepared to discard them so readily.

Finally, can I mention mental health. Minister Vlahos presented to the committee. This is a difficult area but, again, all I ask her to do is to focus on the fact that we will never get adequate mental health services for the people of South Australia. I think she made a valiant effort to try to present to us that there are X number of mental health beds. She exercised some care in identifying priorities about where they should be, etc., for acute care. The truth is that we are very much undersupplied here. The Public Advocate tells us that every year and the people who work in the mental health industry tell us that every year.

We are strangled by inadequate services for our mental health. Frankly, if you live in the country you may as well give up if you want mental health services. When the government says that it is going to flog off 40 per cent of the Glenside site to Cedar Woods for a housing development and quarantine a little bit for the relocation of Ward 17 from the Repatriation General Hospital—which is grossly inadequate for what we need—it is a shame.

The worst of it is when the government allows a situation for the Treasurer to come in here and proudly announce that he is going to fund 70 new prison beds, yet not make provision for the 20 to 30 people who are in our prison system every day who should not be there, people who have undertaken certain conduct that has got the attention of the authorities but who are not fit to plead. They are not capable of being convicted, but their behaviour is such that they need to be detained for mental health purposes.

When the government cannot fit them into a mental health facility or a forensic facility—which was specifically built out there in the 1980s at James Nash House—then the Minister for Mental Health signs under section 269V of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act to authorise them to go to a prison—and we see this every day. Some families out there are waiting for adequate facilities where their son or daughter, husband or wife, partner or niece or nephew is on a waiting list trying to get into this service.

What is the government's answer: 'We'll build more prison beds.' How about reopening some facilities, allowing some extra facilities at Glenside, quarantining some of the Repatriation General Hospital, which should not be sold, or at least keep part of it for mental health services for our returned servicemen and women, and make sure that we have this service available. To just say, 'We're doing the best we can,' when the Treasurer and the Minister for Health are squandering money like drunken sailors is just obscene.

We will never get respite for women, people in mental health or children who are, of course, looking for protection—now with Ms Nyland's report tomorrow. We are never going to get protection for these most in need while the government squanders that money. Until the people of South Australia rise up and say, 'We're not prepared for our taxes to be paid in this way and squandered in this way,' this government will continue to have a licence to have it. Tragically, fixed elections mean that we are going to have at least another budget by this government before the 2018 election, but come 2018 we want a clean sweep.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (12:31): I rise today to speak to the reports of the estimates committees and to thank in particular the shadow ministers, along with their staff, for all the work they have done, from our side at least, in the preparation for this. It is an opportunity, of course, whereby the opposition has a chance to interrogate the government on individual budget lines and I, for one, enjoy it. Deputy Speaker, may I also say, 'Well chaired.' I know a lot of the committees that I sat on you were chairing and you certainly had a long week, as did many others, but it is not easy chairing those committees, particularly as there is a little bit of angst at times.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: They do get a bit grumpy, don't they?

Mr TRELOAR: They can be, indeed. However, as I said, I, for one, enjoy estimates. I think it is an opportunity that should be taken advantage of. Obviously, it could be tweaked a little bit in the way it is managed and structured, but it is a very important part of the democratic process here in South Australia. It is interesting to see the various ministers and the way they respond to the committees, the way they prepare for the committees and the way they are prepared either to answer questions or to take them on notice and the proportion of both.

I sat on committees this week particularly, as I was not required last week, but I enjoyed the opportunity to be involved with agriculture, food and fisheries, tourism, employment, manufacturing and innovation, disabilities, mental health and substance abuse, so I would like to talk briefly about those committees. The first one that I was involved with earlier this week was the water and River Murray which involved DEWNR and, of course, minister Hunter from the other place.

I was particularly keen to get involved with that committee because it is such a big issue for this state. Fortunately, the flows into the Murray look like being reasonable this year. I understand that the irrigators along the Murray have recently had their allocations raised from 30-odd per cent to 59 per cent, and it is now 80-something per cent. I will correct those figures because I do not have them off the top of my head, but irrigators look like being well set for this coming summer.

However, you can never guarantee these things and you can never guarantee water flows in the Murray-Darling system because of, as we all know, the environment, the climate and the landscape we live in. I have spoken on many occasions in this place about the water supply on Eyre Peninsula and I took the opportunity to ask minister Hunter particularly about the upgrades that are budgeted for the Tod Reservoir. It was enlightening, I must say, to hear his answer; it is recorded in Hansard. I, for one, am pleased that there is money being spent on the Tod Reservoir. The minister stated:

Recent work has confirmed that the dam does not comply with the ANCOLD safety guidelines and that an upgrade or decommissioning will be required to make it compliant.

The first thing I would like to talk about is the ANCOLD safety guidelines. I understand that we are a signatory to that agreement, and what we have agreed to as a state, and other states have done it as well, is that we ensure that our dam wall structures are able to withstand a one in 600,000-year event. You can imagine the incredulity of my constituents when they were informed that this was a requirement that we had actually signed up to—one in 600,000 years. That is more than one in half a million years flood event—quite an extraordinary assessment, I think.

SA Water's most recent portfolio risk assessment was undertaken in 2014. It indicates that the Tod River dam, the dam wall, is among SA Water's highest risk dams, and that does not surprise me. A nearby landowner has been suggesting to me for some years that the dam wall leaks from place to place, so there is no doubt that money needs to be spent. Accordingly, the upgrade will begin in the financial year 2016-17. The Tod Reservoir has been offline since 2002 due to high salinity and other water quality issues.

SA Water has confirmed the treatment requirements and the lack of reliable catchment run-off. I would actually dispute that. In most winters, I suspect there is enough flow within the catchment to put water into that reservoir. Particularly in the last six or eight years, we have had good winter rains. Just ask the wheat farmers on Eyre Peninsula. They have had good seasons and that translates to good flows. The minister suggested that the Tod River Reservoir is not in fact there to be a backup for water supply, and that was always really the hope for many people, that it would be held in reserve for water security should our southern basins require supplementing.

He went on to say that what the government needs to attend to is the safety improvements to maintain the integrity of the dam wall and retain its availability for future opportunities should they arise. I am of the understanding that a mining company has been negotiating with SA Water about the possibility of providing water. Let's see how that plays out. Certainly, most of these mining companies still have a little way to go before they are operational, and in the current climate it is difficult to raise capital.

There were four options considered by SA Water with regard to the Tod: a full safety upgrade of the dam wall and spillway, a phased upgrade, and a full or partial decommissioning of the dam. A phased upgrade has been selected as the preferred option, and the design work is essentially complete. A total of $1.592 million has been spent on the project to date—$1.5 million—and the overall project budget will be about $14 million. The dam upgrade work is scheduled to be completed in June 2018, so it is still a couple of years away. Within that work there will be minor expenditure for revegetation in the following years. I have said before and I will say it again, there are major concerns about SA Water's plans for this reservoir. It is an iconic dam and there is no doubt that people on Eyre Peninsula have a sense of ownership with regard to this particular piece of infrastructure.

Another question I asked and something that constituents come to me often with is the quality of the water and the reticulated supply on Eyre Peninsula. Just recently, a landowner from the northern part of Eyre Peninsula sent me some photos. Of course, you can send photos over an iPhone these days and it is relatively easy and quick to do. What he was demonstrating to me was the blockages that were occurring within his on-farm system as calcium solidifies and deposits, particularly around the joins, troughs, taps and the like, and how that actually restricts the water flow. It is a real problem.

A lot of these farmers are spending many hours simply patrolling the water lines for leaks or blockages and, should a blockage be discovered, many more hours trying to find where that is and then unblock it. It is time consuming, it is tedious and it is costly. Of course, particularly over the summer, when livestock are involved, the absolute requirement is that water be on hand for stock to drink. Often, this water has been in the pipeline which runs above ground for many hundreds of kilometres and my understanding is, as the water travels further and warms up over time, it is more likely to deposit its calcium, so that is where the troubles come. We had an explanation to that question from the new chief executive of SA Water, Mr Cheroux, and what he said in answer was that:

We [SA Water] have a number of initiatives ongoing in terms of water quality. As you know, water is the most regulated product in the world.

I am not sure whether it is a product or a commodity, but it is certainly valuable. Even if it is not regulated, it is valuable. Mr Cheroux went on to say:

It is regulated to the level of each physical or chemical component, so we are making sure that, first, we comply with the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines.

That is somewhat problematic because I am sure the reticulated supply on Eyre Peninsula currently complies with Australian Drinking Water Guidelines, but I am not sure many people actually drink it. I might add that, because of the high calcium content, my understanding is that those houses on Eyre Peninsula that use the reticulated supply into the home have very short life spans for things such as hot water services and kettles.

Hot water services in Port Lincoln, I understand, have a lifespan of about 18 months. So, every 18 months, because of this water quality issue, they are replacing hot water services and, of course, you can imagine the kettle. Most people have retained their rainwater tanks, at least in the home, and are drinking rainwater, which we used to do and has far less taste to it and far fewer quality problems than the drinking water. Mr Cheroux goes on to say that SA Water are also:

…trying to improve the aesthetic quality of the water, so we are working on a number of issues.

It can be simply working on the way we manage the filters at the different water treatment plants and how we manage the cleaning of the filters…We change the chemicals. We flush pipelines. We clean the tanks. That is all the day-to-day operations of what we are doing. In addition to that, we have a number of research and development projects ongoing. Algae is one of them because algae will create a lot of disinfection subproducts and will have an impact on the taste of the water.

Finally, he gets back to the question at hand with regard to hard water and calcium carbonate:

The quality in terms of calcium carbonate and all the products that will make the water hard is something also that we are working on.

I am pleased to hear:

There are a number of projects, but it is very much our day-to-day activity to make sure that this is not only compliant with Australian Drinking Water Guidelines but also has good aesthetic qualities.

I am pleased to hear that SA Water are continuing their works in addressing this hard water and calcium carbonate. I for one will be writing to the new chief executive in the very near future highlighting, exactly as I have done today, what I believe to be ongoing water quality issues on the Eyre Peninsula. In all of that, of course, there was part of my question which referred to ongoing water security on Eyre Peninsula, and that was not addressed at all by the minister.

I sat in on the committee that addressed agriculture, food and fisheries. Of course, this is a great interest of mine having spent 30 years as a wheat farmer before I came into this place. I still live on the farm and take an active interest in the farm and the farmlands not only of Eyre Peninsula but right across this state. It remains such an important sector of the state's economy, particularly from an export point of view. It is one of the few industries we have in this state where we actually bring new money into the state's economy.

We grow our product, it is generally exported or sold into the Eastern States, and it is new money. It is not money going round and round. It is not people selling lattes to each other. This is actually generating export income, vital to the state's economy. Yet, we have seen massive cuts to primary industries, in the order of $100 million—devastating. There has been a $100 million funding cut to the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics and the mishandling of drought loans to South Australian farmers, as well as no funding for a forestry innovation hub for Mount Gambier.

This industry, this sector, that is so critical to our economy is not being supported by this government. In fact, it is cutting funds to such important things as the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics. One of the really important sectors in Australian agriculture has been the breeding programs that have delivered varieties and species that are suited to the Australian landscape, that are often drought tolerant, and they are bred.

In fact, through the latter half of the 20^th century such places as the Waite Institute and Roseworthy Agricultural College were renowned around the world for their wheat breeding programs, and we exported a lot of that technology to other parts of the world. The farmers, the fishermen, the graziers, the pastoralists, the vignerons, the orchardists, the foresters are all beavering away and making a not insignificant contribution to the state's economy and certainly, I believe at least, need more than acknowledgement; they actually need support with breeding programs and primary industries support.

I sat in on tourism, and of course in my part of the world tourism also is a growth industry. I have often said that it does not matter what we do on North Terrace, it does not matter what they do in Canberra, the most important thing for Eyre Peninsula is whether it rains or not and where the fish are, but there is a third tier to our economy now, and a growing tier, and that is that of tourism. My personal opinion is that we need to be advertising at a local level Eyre Peninsula, the beautiful beaches we have, the opportunities we have to get away, the fantastic coastline, the Gawler Ranges. All those things that we are so proud of, we need to be advertising them into the Eastern States, into Melbourne, into Sydney, into Brisbane.

Half of Australia's population lives on the eastern seaboard, and I think that is a market that is worth tapping into. It is all very well to have international visitors coming in, and it is lovely to see international visitors to Eyre Peninsula, but I think there is a whole market of some millions of people who if they knew about Eyre Peninsula and what we had to offer could relatively inexpensively and quite quickly come and visit us. I think that is an opportunity that we need to take up.

Viewers of Today Tonight, just last evening, would have seen the debacle surrounding the government's extremely poor handling of a Clipsal 500 contract which has left many businesses out of pocket. Somebody has to take responsibility for these things. Small businesses out there are doing it hard enough without government contracts going awry. It is about governments doing due diligence, because I understand the contract is let and there are subcontractors involved, but the subcontractors more often than not are small businesses, mum and dad businesses, which are doing their best to make ends meet, doing their best to make the South Australian economy work, doing their best to make the Clipsal 500 work, and unfortunately due diligence was not done and that was highlighted, or at least was brought out, during the estimates committee yesterday.

My understanding is that the Small Business Commissioner is looking into this whole sorry saga, and I would like to commend the work of the Hon. David Ridgway, Leader of the Opposition in the other place. He has actually been relentless in his pursuit on behalf of those small businesses. It is not the first time it has happened. Back to SA Water again, I have some small businesses on Eyre Peninsula which have been left out of pocket after subcontracting to a larger business that had won a contract from SA Water.

It is really important. You cannot just write these people off. The government needs to take some responsibility, do some due diligence in the research and the way they let their contracts, because it is quite unsatisfactory to leave people high and dry. Often the smallest people, those small businesses, are the ones that are left high and dry. Everybody else manages to pick up the pieces, but they are more exposed than anyone.

I sat in on the employment committee. The Minister for Employment, in the first instance at least with regard to employment, was disappointing in his ability to answer questions about job programs across government and under his portfolio. It was a bit unclear to me just what his portfolio was, even though he is the Minister for Employment. He was very quick to indicate under questioning that it was the responsibility of another minister or another department, so I am not actually sure what the Minister for Employment does.

Ultimately, the whole of government is responsible, I understand that, but we have a 7 per cent unemployment rate in this state. It is the nation's highest. These unemployment woes here in South Australia are well documented. We have youth unemployment running at about 14 per cent. Treasury's own forecasts predict 0.75 per cent growth in employment in 2016-17, and that is less than half of the 1.8 per cent predicted nationally. We are a small state, we have just 7 per cent of Australia's population now, which is a bit sad in a way. A 'genteel decline', I think the Premier described it as at one point.

To be quite frank, this government is going to run out of people to blame. The latest one I heard, and it has just been in the last few weeks, is that we have gone right back to the Playford era as being responsible for our woes. We are transitioning out of the economy established by the Playford era. For goodness sake, it was 50 years ago—50 years ago and we are still looking for somebody else to blame. Ultimately, somebody in this government has to take responsibility for the dire predicament that we find ourselves in.

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (12:51): I am very pleased to have the opportunity to comment upon the estimates process we have been through over the last week, and I will do so for the next eight minutes. I was obviously pleased to participate in those committees on the portfolios I represent as the shadow minister. Education and higher education were on Friday, the multicultural affairs portfolio and science and information economy were yesterday, and the arts portfolio was on Monday. I will comment only briefly on each of them just to put a few things on the record.

I do commend the casual reader of Hansard to look at the Hansard of these committees. Some of it makes good reading. I have reviewed some of the Hansard myself over the last couple of days to refresh my mind and to clarify what some ministers have said, because when ministers are in the thrust of answering a question sometimes you are preparing for what the next question will be and may miss a word or two, and you do not like to misrepresent anybody. I have refreshed my memory. I do encourage people to have a look.

There was some interesting material found, some useful information for the people of South Australia in contemplating public policy decisions in these areas. I will just touch briefly on a few of the things that struck me. On Friday, speaking with the Minister for Education in the estimates process, we spent some time talking about the structure of the department. The Department for Education and Child Development, the creation of the current Premier when he came to office in bringing together the child protection arms and the education arms of government, has, as has been found by royal commissioner Nyland, been a disaster.

It has been a catastrophe for child protection in South Australia and it has failed the effective education of our children as well. The government has now agreed to split it, and given that the very first line in the education pages of the budget identified that the split was to take place following the recommendations of the royal commissioner, the government was going to back down on their firmly held views, up until a couple of months ago, that the departments had to be together. They were going to take up the Liberal policy of splitting the two departments at the urging of the royal commissioner, who came on the heels of just about every stakeholder in this area over the last four years who had been urging the same.

I spent some time asking the minister why, given that this was going to happen, the budget papers did not reflect this, why it had not actually happened yet. There were few answers, but despite the fact that on the day the Premier accepted the royal commissioner's findings he answered that it would happen quickly, despite the fact that the royal commissioner urged that it happen quickly so that budgetary provision could be made for child protection, the minister identified that they had in fact decided to wait until after the royal commission came down with its findings before splitting that department.

We asked some further questions about the departmental restructure. In particular, I noted that in August last year the minister—along with her chief executive, the Premier and the Deputy Premier—had identified that the education department was going to be restructured and that the bureaucracy in Flinders Street was going to be slimmed down and resources were going to be returned to the front line, to schools. In particular, 300 staff were identified in that report, in the press release from the education department's CEO, in public statements in The Advertiser, by the Premier, the Deputy Premier and Minister for Education.

Three hundred staff were going to be moved out of head office to work on the front line to work more closely with schools. What we learnt on Friday is that, despite it taking nearly a year for the record to be corrected, the minister decided that this was the time to correct the 'confused' (I think was the word she used) reporting. The intention had never been for 300 staff to be moved from the education department into schools, that the teaching and learning unit that these 300 officers of the education department comprised would instead be moved out of Flinders Street but still maintained as a central unit. They just would not be in the central building anymore.

The minister identified that there were three reasons why this would be useful, and I do not disagree with any of them per se. Firstly, if the teaching and learning unit is for those officers to support people in developing best practice in teaching and learning, then having them in Flinders Street created an issue with parking and people did not necessarily like coming into Flinders Street. Secondly, there were not necessarily the right number of conference rooms in the Flinders Street building available to hold their sessions. Thirdly, there was a perception problem: teachers and staff at schools saw Flinders Street as 'the other'—I am paraphrasing here—and 'we want to put it in a position where the teaching and learning unit can actually attend at schools and be based off site somewhere else'.

Having announced this in the middle of last year, having had it reported that there were going to be teachers returning to classrooms, which was reported positively, I might add, the minister was certainly happy to take the front pages and the accolades of commentators who were supporting this move last year, although she now identifies that they were mistaken. The minister, of course, has had nearly a year to do this but she has not actually achieved the central thrust, which was to move this teaching and learning unit, kept intact with its 300 staff, out of Flinders Street. It beggars belief that this government can act in the way that it accuses others and minor parties of acting on a regular basis: seeking a headline and then letting a story go; not actually doing the work, not actually doing the hard bit.

Announcing something that people want to happen is the easy bit. Making it happen is what we expect of a government and that is why we pay them the ministerial salaries. That is why you get to sit on that side of the chamber: to actually put into action the things that you say you are going to do, especially on something where you had the bipartisan support of the parliament. It is astonishing to me that they announced this, clearly without having had a plan to do it. So the staff remain in the department and Flinders Street remains 'the other', as might have been described by the minister in different words, and so forth. We discussed the infrastructure projects, we discussed some issues relating to SACE. I thank the ministers for their efforts—those who took the time to answer opposition questions.

When ministers and their officers are preparing for estimates, if they see figures in the budget jumping around dramatically from one year to the next, there is a reasonable chance that there are going to be questions about this. If the performance indicators, activity indicators and targets are missed by a long shot, we are probably going to ask questions. So maybe, in your preparation for estimates next year, do some preparation on those obvious things so that we do not have to have the rigmarole of taking questions on notice and coming back, maybe in late September, if we are lucky, with the answers. I hope those answers to questions taken on notice will come back in short order.

I thank the officers for all the work they do in supporting their ministers in this important process, which I think can be quite useful as long as it is treated respectfully by those ministers taking those questions. I look forward to seeing the appropriations passed and public servants paid in the year ahead.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. A. Piccolo.

Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00.