Motions

Emergency Services Levy

Adjourned debate on motion of Mr Whetstone (resumed on motion).

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (15:54): I rise to support the motion by the member for Chaffey:

That this house—

(a) condemns the state government for removing the emergency services levy remissions and then further increasing the levy; and

(b) acknowledges the impact of the levy increase, particularly on sport and recreation clubs and organisations, which are already battling the high cost of utilities.

There is no greater impact on volunteers and sporting clubs than having increased state government levies and taxes, and we are seeing that all over this state. Even in my own electorate of Morphett, the Sea Rescue Squadron was paying ESL on their buildings, but we managed to get an exemption for them. That was a cost that they were concerned about and it had a significant impact on them. Fortunately for them, as an emergency service they were exempt under the act and we were able to put that exemption in place. We know that there are many sporting clubs out there that have been severely impacted by the massive increases in the emergency services levy.

Let's look at what happens with the emergency services levy. It would be interesting to note whether the Minister for Emergency Services has received the report on the audit, the Fire and Emergency Services Strategic Plan 2015-2025. It is an audit of the expenditure of the ESL to make sure that it is in accordance with the ESL act. To me, this shows that the government does not know where the ESL is going, does not know whether it complies with the act, and we certainly still have not seen the report. The fact that this audit was going to occur has been known for quite a while—under the former minister as well.

It is interesting to note that, in terms of the expenditure of the ESL amongst emergency services, the police get a lot more than the State Emergency Service. Why is the police budget subsidised so heavily out of the ESL? Some answers to questions were provided to the Economic and Finance Committee about what the police do with major regional operations and emergency major events. They talk about gathering information and preparing operational orders and contingency plans for public safety. That is a police job, and that should be coming out of the police budget. That should not be coming out of money that is being paid by the good people of South Australia to provide an emergency service which is separate from police.

The emergency services levy was designed to provide funding for the CFS, the MFS and the SES. We see the police pulling money out—$21 million. There are lots of things that the police are doing that in my opinion should be done by the CFS, the MFS or the SES. Some of it is for Volunteer Marine Rescue. There are certainly some concerns about the $2 million allocated to depreciation. Why is the ESL being used for depreciation in the police force? That is a real issue for me.

There are other issues. The STAR Group undertakes some search and rescue—some—but it should not be coming out of the ESL: it should be coming out of a separate police budget which is allocated from a completely different pot of money. The communications centre that the police use—that should be coming out of the police budget. Certainly, crime includes major crime investigations, forensic services, state intelligence activities related to emergency services. Well, 'related to', not 'part of'. It should not be coming out of the ESL. We need to make sure that the ESL is being spent where it was meant to be spent, and that is on emergency services: delivering fire services, rescue services and all the other services that the volunteers and paid members of our highly professional CFS, MFS and SES deliver every day.

Let's not forget the Volunteer Marine Rescue and those wonderful people along our coastlines in the surf lifesaving clubs who get some money out of ESL. I am also concerned about money that is taken out of the ESL to subsidise the health budget. The Julian Burton Burns Trust is a very good and worthwhile organisation, but should money for that be coming out of the ESL or should it be coming out of the health budget? It should be coming out of the health budget.

Is the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources being subsidised by the ESL? It is. Should that not come out of DEWNR's budget and not out of the ESL? An amount of $3.5 million was allocated to the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources. What for? Is it delivering fire services? Is it delivering emergency services? Perhaps if we could get an explanation, if the audit is to be completed, about what the ESL is being spent on and whether it is being spent in accordance with the act, it might help. We can then see what this government should be doing, and that is putting their remissions back in place and giving the sporting clubs of this state a breather and the benefit they need from the wonderful services they are delivering to all communities in South Australia.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (15:59): I am pleased to speak in support of the motion the member for Chaffey has moved in the house, and I commend him for bringing the matter to the parliament. There are some important points to make in relation to the emergency services levy and how this government over a period of time has treated the emergency services levy.

Over its relative terms, the Labor government has a long history of using mechanisms to turn government instrumentalities into cash cows, and we have seen them carry that out in relation to the pricing of water. Recently, we saw the Treasurer and the government hive off part of the Motor Accident Commission to prop up their budget to put their budget into supposed surplus, 'a book-entry surplus', as I have referred to it previously in contributions on the Appropriation Bill and matters relating to that. What they have looked to do is endeavour to turn the ESL into another cash cow for this government by removing the remissions and also hiking the emergency services levy in recent times.

A number of months ago, the Treasurer and others floated the idea of implementing a tax on the family home. From what this side of the house can ascertain in relation to that issue, it did not really get much airtime because I think what happened within the Labor caucus was that it got shut down very quickly. That is my take on it because there was very little support, if any, within the Labor caucus to implement a tax on the family home. But he got his way, the Treasurer got his way by hiking the ESL by 9 per cent, if my memory serves me correctly, in recent times—9 per cent. He got his way in the end by hiking the ESL.

We see these increases go to the very heart of the issue of cost-of-living pressures on the South Australian community because everybody who owns a property, owns a home and other assets is charged with the ESL. I remember when the ESL was first introduced by the previous Liberal government, and it was necessary. The ESL was a necessary levy to be introduced. I will give the house a bit of a history lesson. I have done this before, but I will keep doing this because it is correct.

Basically, a previous Labor government not only bankrupted the state through the State Bank debacle but they pretty much bankrupted the CFS. From memory, the CFS had a debt of $12 million. In today's terms, that is not a lot of money, but 25 or so years ago it was a lot of money. The CFS was struggling, and the local government had the responsibility for funding the CFS, and they were struggling, too, and could never get ahead of that debt. I will give you a real-life example.

CFS volunteers, who were members of the Mount Barker Brigade, told me that they had two units—two fire trucks, two units, in the Mount Barker Brigade—and that they could only ever afford the diesel fuel to run one unit at a time. If there was an incident, if there was a fire out in a paddock and they needed all the resources they could muster, there was only one truck. They could only ever afford the diesel fuel for one truck to go out and attend that incident. That is a real-life example from a volunteer I know very well within the Mount Barker community who told me that, so I regard that as actual fact.

That is one of the reasons why the ESL was first established by a previous Liberal government, but what we have seen is subsequent Labor governments rejigging it, abolishing remissions and hiking it to a point where it is becoming very difficult for many households and, as the member for Chaffey states in his motion, sporting clubs, recreational clubs and community-based organisations. As I said before, when the ESL first came out, it was relatively inexpensive. I remember getting the first notice, and I thought, 'If this goes to funding the CFS and the other emergency services to a satisfactory level of resourcing, I am happy to pay for it. I am happy to write out a cheque.'

It was quite a number of years ago but, from memory, I think it might have been $90. I thought, 'I am happy to write a cheque out for $90.' I should have my cheque butts with me so I could advise the house by how much it has actually increased, but I can tell you that it is significantly more than $90. I should have brought my chequebook with me so I could have a look at the butt, but it would obviously be more than double $90. If I get an opportunity in the next few weeks to make a contribution, I will quote how much that most recent ESL bill was.

The member for Chaffey is correct in saying that it is having a significant impact on sports and recreation clubs and organisations. A lot of the sporting grounds, parks, gardens and the like are owned by local government. I have asked some people and, according to my sources, local government does pay the ESL on their properties. So, if a sporting club or organisation leases an oval, tennis court or playing field and the council pays the ESL on that, you would think that maybe the council might pass that cost on to the sporting club or organisation. It has a direct, negative impact on the financial ability of those organisations to manage their budgets.

From where do they get the money to pay an increase in the ESL if the local council is passing it on to them? They go to the members of their club and put their membership fees up. So, these people are not only paying the ESL on their home properties and other assets; they are actually getting hit with a compounding impact by having their club fees increased. I am not sure how a sporting club would manage to absorb the increase in the ESL, if they have to pay for it, by means other than putting their members' subs or fees up.

The impacts of these increases on the ESL are broad-ranging. These increases impact on many aspects of activity within South Australia. The government really needs to have an extremely hard look at itself. They talk the talk about being concerned about this and that and reviewing this and doing that but, all the time, taxation is increasing. We have the pretty poor reputation of being one of the highest-taxed states in the country, and the ESL is part of that regime. The member for Chaffey should be commended for bringing the matter to the house, and I certainly, as I said, speak in support of it.

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (16:09): I will start my contribution by saying that I think we should all be paying credit to the very hardworking volunteers and paid staff in our emergency services for the hard work that they have done over the last couple of months in dealing with the floods and the effects of the very significant severe weather events that we have had in South Australia. Along with the members for Mawson and Reynell and the Minister for Emergency Services, I was down at Old Noarlunga just after the recent flooding events. We saw the hard work that the local CFS and SES crews were doing there.

When we deal with such events and we deal with a terrain and a climate that can be as damaging as it is in South Australia, we need to make sure that our emergency services are well funded and that our volunteers and our crews have the equipment they need to get out there and help South Australians, and that is exactly what the emergency services levy does. That is why I personally am very proud and happy to pay it, and always have been, and I know many other South Australians are happy to do that as well, because every single cent that I pay goes into the emergency services fund that can only be used for those services, such as the Country Fire Service, the SES and the Metropolitan Fire Service.

We know the ESL funds 1,000 MFS staff across Adelaide and the regions. We know that it helps provide the equipment and trucks needed for 13,000 CFS staff and CFS volunteers across the state, as well as 1,600 SES volunteers across the state. For instance, in the south of Adelaide we saw a dozen people rescued at Old Noarlunga with the swift water crew from the Noarlunga SES. That service would not have been available without the funding coming out of the emergency services levy.

As any tax does, the ESL gets a bad reputation from time to time, but this is actually a tax where you know where every single dollar that you pay goes, and it is the law. It is a law passed by this parliament that every single dollar going into that fund has to be accounted for for emergency services. When was that law introduced? Of course, under the previous Liberal government. It was ministers, including the former member for Davenport Iain Evans, who introduced it to cabinet and said in his cabinet submission:

… everyone in the community has the right to expect access to affordable services (universal access) for the protection of life, property and the environment, and everyone has a responsibility to make a reasonable contribution towards the cost of doing so.

We know that not just South Australia has the ESL now; there are similar levies in place in Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania, funding those emergency services, the equipment and the staff we need to protect ourselves. I think it is very important to note a couple of other things about the emergency services levy that are in place in South Australia.

The first point is that we have protected pensioners and low income earners who still get huge discounts on the levy and have been protected from rises in recent years. A pensioner in an average home in Adelaide pays less than one dollar a week to be covered for the case of fire and emergencies if they own their home. As well as that, people in country areas of South Australia get massive discounts on their emergency services levy to make sure that country tax dollars do not subsidise the city services, given that country fire services are cheaper because of the large number of volunteers who are in place in the country.

So there are those protections in place in the law. This is a law that was passed by the previous Liberal government and I do think it is sad that it gets such a bad rap compared with other taxes. There are Facebook groups out there with people starting campaigns to say, 'I am not going to pay my emergency services levy.'

There is a guy who has been campaigning on this for some time who has clearly admitted that he has the ability to pay his levy, but he refuses and equates it somehow to the Boston Tea Party. I do not think he is leading some sort of moral crusade; I think he is short-changing the people who might one day save his life and save his family's life, because that is where the dollars that he is withdrawing would go.

When you compare it with all the other taxes that people pay, it is actually quite small. For every $100 a South Australian would pay on the emergency services levy, a South Australian would pay approximately $10,000 in other taxes across income tax, across stamp duties, GST and a whole range of other things. It might not be as obvious because you do not have to pay a physical bill that comes in the letterbox, but there are a lot of other taxes, and those other taxes are not defined in a particular fund and you do not have certainty as to the good causes that they are going to.

In terms of the remissions this motion talks about in particular, they were not brought in immediately when the bill came in but afterwards. It was a sweetener brought in by the then Olsen government after the sale of ETSA, which of course we have been talking about this week, and it is in the number of the reasons we are dealing with significant issues in our electricity system at the moment. When they flogged it off after they lied to people at the election, they brought in a sweetener for the emergency services levy.

We would have loved to have kept that going for everybody, but we were unable to do so after there were massive cuts from the federal government in that disastrous 2014 budget from then prime minister Tony Abbott—remember him?—and then Joe Hockey—remember him? Those cuts, particularly to health services, are still there; they have not been reversed by the commonwealth government. We are still short-changed considerably compared with what was then a bipartisan agreement for health reform under the previous federal government that was signed up by Liberal and Labor states and territories.

We have had to take action to try to address that because otherwise it would have meant very significant cuts to hospital services, and we did not want to go down that path. We were not able to keep those discounts for everybody, but we have certainly kept them in terms of pensioners and low income earners, and at the moment they are only paying less than $1 a week for the ESL. Those opposite say, 'We will bring back those remissions.' Let me state this very clearly now: if there were to be a future Liberal government, you watch, those remissions would never ever come back because they have no plan to work out where the money would come from to put them in.

This is a party that has no plan for any of the funding commitments they have made. They were criticised very fairly at the last election for having no policies whatsoever, and they have clearly decided, 'Oh, we're going to announce some policies now,' although they have not said how they are going to pay for any of them. They have not said one word about how they are going to pay for any of these promises. Bringing the remissions back, how are you going to pay for that? Turning on the Port Augusta coal-fired power station, how are you going to pay for that? Buying land off the University of Adelaide to set up a new national park in the southern suburbs, how are you going to pay for that?

With all these things, there are no plans for how they would pay for them by the party that says that they are economically responsible. Clearly, we know what would happen—that is, much like Tony Abbott, if there were to be a future Liberal government, the only way they would ever be able to meet any of those commitments would be very significant cuts to essential services, and that would be very disappointing to see. I think that one of the cuts could be that they bring in remissions by cutting more out of emergency services operations, and that would be disastrous for our state, particularly for the regional areas in our state.

I think this is a tax that does not deserve the bad reputation it has had. I am willing to stand up for Iain Evans and those people who brought it in back in the 1990s because it is a good way of funding those services. Tying it to property is a reasonable request in the circumstances, and having protections there for low income earners, such as pensioners and people in the country, is fair as well. I would want to make sure that if my house or my home was in danger we had the services that are available by those emergency services to provide the coverage we need, so I oppose this motion.

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (16:19): I rise to support the motion moved by the member for Chaffey:

That this house—

(a) condemns the state government for removing the emergency services levy remissions and then further increasing the levy; and

(b) acknowledges the impact of the levy increase, particularly on sport and recreation clubs and organisations, which are already battling the high cost of utilities.

Like the member for Kaurna, I want to pay tribute to the many emergency services workers in our community who quite often are out in horrendous conditions saving properties and reducing further harm to the environment, or assets owned by persons, the state government or the commonwealth. The savings could never be measured. I want to come to the ESL and make a few points. I guess the main point is around the untruths that have been expressed about why this state government needed to take away that remission.

The Treasurer said the underlying rationale for his original move to scrap the longstanding 50 per cent ESL remission is, 'I need to make sure I've got enough money as possible in place to fund our healthcare system,' due to cuts by the federal government. I thought I would do a bit of research on this. On 24 May 2016, Matthew Abraham and David Bevan had the Treasurer on their program. Abraham said:

I just have a few lingering questions about the emergency services levy and listening to your explanations on television, on radio, and Ian's program, do you think it's just about time you just abandoned this argument that it was about emergency services.

Is the emergency services levy is a response to health cuts made by the commonwealth government? Matthew Abraham and David Bevan decided to put ABC's Fact Check over the comments made by the Treasurer. When you do that, you can see that there have been no cuts to health. Budget documents released through the Coalition's term show health spending increasing above the pace of inflation and population growth year on year in 2013-14 and 2014-15. Spending on health was projected to increase significantly above CPI and population growth in 2015-16.

In actual fact, when you look at how much extra spending is being received from the federal government, you can see that the federal investment in South Australian hospitals and schools over the next four years—this was back in 2014, when it was first introduced—increases by 34 per cent and 27 per cent, adding an additional $608 million. On top of that, we have unbudgeted GST windfalls. In fact, over the four years from 2013-14 to 2016-17, South Australia was forecast to receive $1.3 billion more in GST revenue than the forecast in federal Labor's last budget from Wayne Swan and Penny Wong.

Of course, the state Liberals oppose the Labor government's massive increase to the emergency services levy and have made a commitment for the 2018 election that we will reverse these savage hikes if elected. Labor's hikes to the ESL are a land tax on the family home, raising $90 million per year from South Australian households, basically to plug their massive budget deficit. What people forget or do not realise is that the hikes also include a 33 per cent increase to all motor vehicle registration. It is not just on the land tax; it is actually on vehicle registration as well. Of course, by reinstating these remission payments, the average household will save $167 on their ESL bill.

Basically, Labor cannot manage their own budget, so they are using any means possible to plug their own. When they say that every dollar is spent on emergency services, of course that is true, but this extra revenue means that they have taken the 50 per cent remission back into general revenue. What used to happen is the ESL funded half of the ESL budget and general revenue made up the other half. Now they have removed the general revenue part and slugged the South Australian people for that other half, which I would not mind so much if we were to go to a user pays system and if that was applied equally over all services in South Australia.

Of course, the main one would be public transport, which is subsidised to a very huge degree and benefits—you guessed it—those living in metropolitan Adelaide. In a state that is already one of the highest taxed states in the country, with some of the highest utility prices in the country, it is no wonder we also have the highest unemployment rate in the country. If these guys cannot start working this stuff out, we are going to continue on a downward spiral.

The other people I think really need to be thanked are employers who release their employees to undertake emergency services duties in our community. It is a cost on their business, which many of them have to absorb. Not every emergency service worker is an employee of the state government, and I thank those people who are working for private businesses or companies for their commitment to our great state, as well as their employers for releasing them to do the most in our region.

In closing, I want to talk about how much is actually taken out of the South-East—in fact, my electorate. The City of Mount Gambier pays $2 million per year to the emergency services levy, and the District Council of Grant pays $674,000. So, every year, my community are putting in $2.6 million for emergency services, and I can tell you that we would definitely not get that back as a dividend into those services. You put that cost on the NRM levy, on water and on the high price of electricity, and it is little wonder that people in regional areas are struggling with day-to-day bills. I commend this motion to the house, and I condemn this state government.

Mr TARZIA (Hartley) (16:28): I also move that this house condemns the state government for removing the emergency services levy remissions and then further increasing the levy, and also acknowledges the impact of the levy increase, particularly on sport and recreation clubs and organisations that are already battling the high cost of utilities. Like my learned colleague before me, I have a number of great sport and recreation clubs in my electorate, and the leaders of these clubs are absolute champions of our community.

These clubs are the backbone of our community and do such a great job in not only keeping the fabric of society maintained and on track but also making sure that our children, who are coming through these clubs, are fit and have things to do on the weekend and are engaged in our society and in our community. It is very disappointing to see these clubs hit with these ESL increases, because ultimately, as we have heard, if their fees and charges go up, they have to cover these costs somehow. Unfortunately, what we see is that the consumer—in this case, our volunteers and our members—are the people who have to make up this shortfall.

In terms of the emergency services levy, we know that it helps to fund emergency services across South Australia, and money received in payment of the ESL is paid into the Community Emergency Services Fund, or the fund for the provision of these emergency services. RevenueSA obviously administers the fixed property component of the ESL, which is a levy on all land in South Australia. We have seen the Labor Party's position since 2014, which has not been a good one, and 2014 was not that long ago.

Deputy Speaker, you may remember, and I certainly remember, the fight that we put in place and how we lobbied so hard for residents in our community, but the Labor position at one stage was to actually axe the discounts for non-concession aged care, and I remember that school bills went up as much as 400 per cent to even 500 per cent in some instances. In 2015, Labor's position was again to adopt a 9 per cent increase, with a reason or an excuse being things like the Sampson Flat bushfire.

Labor thinks it is okay that, every time we have one of these events, we can keep raising the ESL, which is not good enough. In 2016, there was yet another increase, with the excuse being that there needs to be things like an upgrade in safety equipment and further training to some community groups, and also as a cost-recovery mechanism for the Pinery fire. We know, unfortunately, that here in South Australia we are subject to some extreme weather conditions, and what this government has to do is to manage this economic pie much better, which it is not doing at the moment.

All the while, on this side of the chamber the Liberal Party tabled a huge petition (over 1,000 signatures from my area alone) and stood side by side with the community and opposed increases to the ESL and we opposed cuts to services which were ignored by this government for a long time. On this side of the chamber, we have already committed to restoring the ESL remission for South Australians, which will deliver a $90 million tax cut per year for all South Australians, and it is one way to ensure that we get economic growth—a clear difference between us and the government. We want to put money back into the pockets of South Australians so that they can invest and so that they can grow the economy, rather than choke the South Australian economy with more and more taxes.

The massive ESL hikes we have seen under this government is an utterly disgraceful act by this government, given that many South Australians, as we have seen, are actually struggling to make ends meet as it is. An increase in the ESL again shows just how out of touch the Premier especially is with South Australians. It is another hit to South Australia's cost of living, which is threatening jobs and the economy by hurting retail turnover, and we have seen yet again that South Australia has the highest rate of unemployment in all of Australia.

This tax does not just hit home owners. Obviously, it is levied on sporting clubs, community organisations as I pointed out, some churches and also independent schools. Last year's ESL rise followed two large increases, which would be rolled back if our party is in government. As I said, we have made a commitment for the 2018 election that I believe would actually lead to an average annual saving per household of about $150.

The way in which this tax has been treated is certainly one of the reasons why people are struggling in our state, why businesses are sometimes struggling in our state. I think undoubtedly that it is one of the reasons why we have the worst unemployment rate in the nation. We have seen that South Australian families and also households are being hit on a regular basis by what is unfortunately a theme of levies, taxes and charges by this government.

A state Liberal government, if and when we are elected, will return the ESL remission the Premier and Treasurer cruelly removed last year, and we will provide South Australians with much needed tax relief. I commend this motion to the house.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (16:34): I would like to thank all those members for their support of this motion. I think that what does underlie the impact of the removal of the ESL remission, the impact of the continual increases of the emergency services levy, is the detrimental impact on our communities.

It is having a detrimental impact on the volunteers who risk their lives, and I want to pay homage to all those volunteers, whether it is emergency service volunteers, sporting organisation volunteers or just general volunteers in our communities in today's society who give their time to make this state a better place. At home, they are dealing with their bills. They are paying the extra ESL and extra utilities costs. We are paying the highest power prices of anywhere, and we are paying huge water bills, and that is having an impact on our local grassroots sporting community clubs.

The majority of the time, those community clubs are run by unpaid volunteers, so they have to find ways to pay the bills. To pay the bills, they have to raise membership and raise more money through barbecues and raffles. This is just another impost. This is just another distraction from the game of having a society that should live within its means, and what it is telling us is that the government cannot live within their means. The government have mismanaged the economy to an extent that they continue to hit everyday people in the hip pocket.

I take offence at the member for Kaurna saying that this is a tax that should not be borne by everybody but, rightfully so, it should be borne by the landowners, those people who are driving our economy, the people in the regions of South Australia who are asset rich and finance poor. They are the people who are driving our economy, they are the people who are creating jobs and they are the people who are keeping the wheels in motion. That is why this South Australian Labor government continues to penalise the people who are doing the most for South Australia.

The businesses and the exporters are the wheels of this state's economy. The 176,000 SMEs here in South Australia are struggling to keep their head above water. They are struggling to make this state a great place. Those sporting clubs are the fabric of our communities and give people the out. They give people the respite. Again, they are the ones that are hurting. If we look at regional taxpayers, they are the hardest hit when it comes to the ESL increases. They are the hardest hit when it comes to the ESL remissions that have been removed.

They are the hardest hit because they are the ones, in many cases, that are growing our food and growing our exports. If we look at the statistics relating to wine, food, value-add and our clean green image, they are the ones that are being penalised and being belted from pillar to post because they are high power and water users. They are employers, so they are paying those increasing taxes, the regulation, and they have the burden of trying to make a buck in today's world. In South Australia, this government continues to belt the people who matter, who actually bring home the fruits for our economy.

Utility increases are one thing, but the NRM increases are just outrageous. I know that now I pay an NRM levy and a water levy, because there are two components to it. There is now a minimum $200 charge. It was a $36 charge last year; now it is a $200 minimum. It is bloody outrageous, and I think that this government continues to penalise the people who are generating wealth, employing people and making an important contribution.

I think the people of South Australia are sick of it, and they are just absolutely fed up to the back teeth with it. I urge all those people to vote with their feet in March 2018 and have a change of government. Let's see if the South Australian Liberals can make this state great again. The South Australian Liberals will reinstate the ESL remissions—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member might like to—

Mr WHETSTONE: Yes, I see the time.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: You need to finish your debate.

Mr WHETSTONE: I think the ESL is a burden on taxpayers.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Ayes 18

Noes 22

Majority 4