Parliamentary Committees (Public Works Committee) Amendment Bill

Introduction and First Reading

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (10:55): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991. Read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (10:55): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Trust in our profession and in politicians generally has never been lower. Our profession has been damaged by a variety of factors of which a lack of accountability is one. The people think that their government has something to hide, and the unknown engenders responses potentially worse than the reality. What I am trying to suggest here is that telling the truth is a great defence against slander and innuendo. On this side of the house we believe in transparency. It is something embedded in our '2036' document, and will be a key pillar of how we will govern after we win in 2018.

This idea of transparency is something that has been lost in our current government. This government is lax when it comes to proactive disclosure, and indeed comes to the perverse situation where they create more work for themselves hiding information, rather than actually releasing it to the public; indeed, taking down information put up on proactive disclosure after 12 months of it having been up there, for no good reason—and with greater work and effort—other than the fact that they have something to hide.

This is a government that is secretive when it comes to question time. I note, with a little bit of a wry smile, that it is 'question time' as opposed to 'answer time'. In recent days, I think we have seen 28 questions on issues related to child protection, and so far almost nothing in the way of answers. We have a government that is secretive, that reduces the amount of time available for estimates, and when the time made available for estimates is not reduced, we have the absurd situation of government questions which, in one committee I was sitting on, soaked up about 75 to 80 per cent of the time of that committee.

This is what happens when you have a government that is in power for too long, a government that believes itself born to rule. When you have members opposite who have seen nothing else and know nothing else other than government benches, there is a hubris—

Mr Duluk interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, Member for Davenport!

Mr KNOLL: —an arrogance, that somehow they know better than the people. They begin to forget that they are accountable and develop an attitude that needs to be questioned. Where they fail to be transparent in themselves it is incumbent upon the parliament to hold them accountable for that, which is why I am introducing today this amendment to the Parliamentary Committees Act. It is a very simple change that seeks to make sure that public-private partnerships get referred to the Public Works Committee.

This might seem like quite a straightforward and simple amendment, but the truth is that we have in South Australia the largest piece of infrastructure ever undertaken by a government in this state not being subject to parliamentary scrutiny. We have a project, in the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, that was supposed to start out at $1.7 billion, which is now somewhere north of $2.3 billion and which is almost guaranteed to blow out further than that $2.3 billion, yet there is no parliamentary committee oversight.

This is something that I think was difficult to envisage when the Parliamentary Committees Act was first established in 1991 because the concept of a public-private partnership was not as advanced as it is today. It is galling, and I think all South Australians would find it disgusting, that projects to the value of $4 million can go before parliamentary scrutiny, but one that is now at $2.3 billion does not.

It is quite a simple and straightforward change. The fundamental principle of transparency is what is at stake here, and it would be difficult for the government to find any other rationale besides the fact that they want to continue to hide information from the South Australian people as a reason not to support this bill.

In researching this topic, I came across some excerpts from a speech that was made in this place on 5 May 2011. The speech said this:

I want to talk for a moment about public-private partnerships. This is the disguise Labor is using to break its pledge to the people of South Australia. On this side of the house we do not object in principle to public-private partnerships, but this government did not honestly tell the people of South Australia the details of their rail yards hospital deal before the election…The public sector comparator must be immediately released. The government must present an alternative plan to build the hospital based on a government borrow and build as a standard public work so that we can see which deal is better for the taxpayers. The Premier and the Treasurer must justify why it is necessary that our constituents pay the consortia 15 per cent interest, or more, when we can borrow on their behalf at around five per cent—one-third of the cost.

This is Labor madness. There is no mandate for it. It is a privatisation, plain and simple. The deal must not be signed as planned until the business case against the government borrow and build has been made. This should be done both in the parliament and through the Public Works Committee.

This speech was made by the member for Waite, making it plainly clear that he supports this piece of legislation. I bring this speech to the house's attention because I am imploring the member for Waite to hold true to the ideals which he says he once held and which he was happy to put on the record in Hansard, to hold true to those principles and to vote to try to put this piece of legislation through this place.

We will wait and see what the member for Waite does when this does come to a vote. We will see whether or not this is an opportunity for him to do what he says that he does, and that is stand up for what he believes in, and whether he is truly an independent member of this chamber or whether, like many other things in this place that he has sought to do, and that is to sell out everything that he has previously believed in, for the sake of his own advancement and for the sake of his own retirement fund, and against the wishes of the people of his own electorate.

This will not be the last thing that the Liberal Party has to say on the matter of transparency. It is something that we are seeing erode very much with a government that has been in place for far too long, and those on this side of the house will do the will and the work of the people in trying to restore the balance and to restore transparency to the public debate, not only because it is the right thing to do, but because we need to do things on both sides of this chamber that improve the standard and the opinion of people when it comes to our profession. I think that this goes in a very small way towards that, and I look forward to having the support of members on all sides of this chamber to help further that cause.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Picton.