Supply Bill 2017

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 29 March 2017.)

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (16:13): I am not the lead speaker; indeed, this will be my final speech in this place on the Supply Bill.

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon: Shame!

Mr PENGILLY: Maybe. I will take the opportunity to indicate from the outset that the Liberal Party will be supporting this bill, as it always has as the Liberal opposition. We will also take the opportunity to put out a number of things about the state of South Australia under the current Labor regime and put a few things on the record. It may be somewhat rhetorical from time to time, but it is important that these things are recognised.

It is interesting to note that the amount that is needed in the Supply Bill has gone from $3.941 billion to $5.9 billion in the space of only three years. You question just what is happening. Unfortunately, this government has the capacity and the propensity to spend an enormous amount of money, more than they are bringing in. It is a tragedy of the modern era that South Australia is going down the gurgler at a rate of knots and that our best and brightest would appear in many cases to be leaving the state and going farther afield to continue their careers and to raise their families. Out of our three children, one has already gone with her husband and family and another is leaving on 21 April for Darwin. I do not like that. I would much rather—

The Hon. Z.L. Bettison interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: No, they can get plenty of work up there and they can have a lot more money. They can do pretty well up there and have a positive attitude. That is the reality of the Northern Territory. Sadly, that will probably change under the Labor government up there as well. I thought I would whack that one in.

The Hon. Z.L. Bettison interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: The minister can interject if she wants to, but she can also get up here. She will have her turn to speak. I very much doubt whether she will, but I am speaking at—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: She surely is not interjecting and you are surely not taking any notice of her.

Mr PENGILLY: I am not really, no. I am not fussed in the slightest. In the number of years that we have stood up to speak on this bill, we have always supported it, but there are a number of issues I want to raise about my electorate that are critical and that need addressing, but the government just seems to conveniently put them on the backburner fairly regularly.

Let me just put one issue that is a very, very, very hot issue on the north-western side of my electorate at the moment, that is, Main South Road and the need for duplication. It has probably been the hottest issue in the Aldinga/Sellicks Beach/Seaford area for a number of years. With the increasing number of people who are commuting and the increasing traffic that goes up and down that road, they have brought the speed limit back to 90 km/h. There is a bit of work going on around Aldinga, but the sheer volume demands that the road be duplicated.

This would be a good thing and I would laud the current government if they announced the duplication of Main South Road in the budget in a few short weeks. It would go down particularly well. It would save countless lives in the future, I would hope. It is sad to say, but unfortunately that is the reality of the situation. It would be a good thing. May I also add, while I am on the subject of roads, that we still have had no announcement or any indication from the current government of when the Cut Hill section of the Adelaide to Victor Harbor Road is likely to be upgraded.

Without doubt, that is now the worst section of the road, from about Mosquito Hill Road down to Hindmarsh Road. It is badly in need of upgrade. I noticed that the federal member for Mayo has jumped on the bandwagon on yet another state issue she could not keep her nose out of, but it is something that is badly needed. I look forward to hearing, in due course, that the funding will come forward for that road and that it will be improved substantially.

The downgrading of country hospitals and services, etc. in South Australia is criminal—criminal. You only have to look at the latest debacle at the Kalimna unit at Strathalbyn and what is happening on Yorke Peninsula. It is all being carried out because of the government's total lack of capacity to run the health system and the crazy Transforming Health, which is progressively making things worse and worse instead of better and better, particularly in rural areas.

Another issue that needs a substantial amount of funding in my electorate—and which I will wait and see what comes again—is special needs schools. People who are in the game can explain this much better than I can, but I do not know why the amount of money required to fund special needs in schools seems to be an enormous growth industry. I am staggered by the rise in autism. Why we seem to be dealing with increasing number of autism cases is beyond me.

The behaviour of many students is an issue; whether they are coming out of homes where things are just not working properly or they have mental health issues, I am not sure. A number of schools in my electorate are battling the odds of special needs. Their units are full to overflowing, and the principals and staff are struggling to cope. This current government has failed to come to grips with this, and I suggest that, in the event of a change of government, the next government will have to deal with exactly the same problem.

I want to speak briefly on a few of these issues. Another thing the government has not done in relation to the electorate of Finniss is deal with in any way, shape or form with the issue of getting across the water between Cape Jervis and Penneshaw, between the Fleurieu and Kangaroo Island, or between the mainland and Kangaroo Island; I do not care which terminology they use. I have gone on and on about this over a number of years and I will continue to do so as long as I can draw breath, in whatever capacity I happen to be in the future, but this issue has to be fixed.

We have the ludicrous situation of the Commissioner for Kangaroo Island. We voted against it in the KI commissioner bill couple of years ago. The Attorney-General in his infinite wisdom decided that we needed a commissioner for Kangaroo Island. Well, what a complete and utter waste of money that has been. The well over $1 million a year that is used there can be much better spent on other projects or it could go towards a solution to the problem of getting back and forth across the water.

With all the bureaucrats and spin doctors in the world, you cannot sell something like that role when the commissioner has absolutely no power to do anything. The person, whoever that may be, or the current one, for that matter, has no power to do anything. They are a public servant. They are completely beholden to state government policy. They cannot move. I find it an absurd waste of money. They have their own little empire and it is producing absolutely little of any substance for Kangaroo Island in any way, shape or form.

Deputy Speaker, I say to the house for the last time in a supply speech that you have to fix the issue. I do not care what else you do, but until you fix the cost of getting across the water, in tandem with the federal government of the day, you will have zilch effect on the capacity to push forward the economy of Kangaroo Island. It is just a simple fact. You do not fix it by fluffing around the edges with all this other mickey mouse activity. You fix it by fixing up the cost of getting across the water. Until that happens, you may as well sit back and watch because nothing much is going to change.

Last year, the budget was listed as a jobs budget, as was the 2015 budget. The fact that South Australia's employment rate remains the second highest in the nation shows that the budgets and government have failed. They have failed spectacularly year after year. If you go back to the good old days of Rann and Foley, when they had record revenues coming in from GST and mining royalties, they spent and spent. They did not put anything aside for a rainy day, and now we have this disastrous situation in South Australia, where we have the Treasurer announcing in his budget speeches and from time to time that we have a budget surplus from last year. It was principally due to the sale of the MAC. It was absolutely ridiculous.

Anyone who runs business knows that if you keep selling off your assets you end up with absolutely nothing in the long run. We are selling off assets to survive. I have seen it happen with farmers who have sold off bits and pieces of their farms over the years just to maintain them. They get down to their house and a few acres and they have nothing left. You cannot keep selling off everything and expect to run an economy.

As I have said before, I seriously wonder where this is all going to end up as far as South Australia goes. We are in a diabolical state. The good people of South Australia have such intense pressure on their household budgets that many of them cannot see daylight. They are distressed over it. They cannot pay their power bills, they cannot pay their water bills, they cannot pay their emergency services levy and the list goes on. Where is it going to stop? I am sure that members on the other side of the house are hearing these things and that people are coming in to their electorate offices. I am sure they are hearing it, but there is no fix to it under the current regime.

My view is that the Treasurer just does not know where to go on it. He has no idea, and the government has simply run out of puff. It will be something of a revelation if the government comes up with a budget in the near future that in any way, shape or form will fix a lot of this up because I just cannot see it happening. At the moment, 15 years have been completely wasted, without us going forward at all. I know there are others who want to speak in this place, and I know we want to get through the Supply Bill, but I repeat that there are many areas in my electorate that have received little or no funding in years. Things have not been improved.

I will return to where I started, that is, the issue of Main South Road. This morning, representatives of the Buddhist community came to see me. There is a massive structure being built at Sellicks Beach, a Buddhist temple. It is massive and will be the biggest Buddhist temple in the Southern Hemisphere; it is going to be huge. It is going to attract tens of thousands of visitors a year. They have been trying to get through to the government on an integrated plan on where they can go. The government are not giving them any answers. They have contacted Jim Hallion; he is not giving any answers.

They simply want to know where the government is with an integrated approach to what is going to happen when that facility opens in 18 months' or two years' time and where they are going to accommodate everything. There will be people going there in their thousands who want to spend money. We welcome it down the length and breadth of the Fleurieu Peninsula, from Adelaide the whole way down. They will go further afield. The current Main South Road will in no way, shape or form accommodate those tens of thousands of people and tens of thousands of vehicles as well. They want some surety of what is going to happen. They simply cannot get answers.

Here they are, investing $50 million of their own money in this facility. They have not asked for help from anybody. They have spent $1 million on just the entrance. They have spent their own money there, with no help from anybody to do that. They are not asking a lot. We have various ministers, premiers and whatnot who are very quick to come in here, puff and blow and tell us what a wonderful thing is the connection with China and trade. A lot of the Chinese community, those of Chinese background and the Asian community in South Australia are connected with Buddhism—that is their right—but the organisers of this facility are getting no answers from the government.

This morning, in addition to representatives from the Sellicks temple, the senior abbot in Australia came to see us as well. He does not speak a lot of English, I might add, but he smiled a lot. He had an interpreter and he knew exactly what was going on. I could see just from his body language the frustration he was feeling. Fortunately, there was a federal government minister in the building this morning and I was able to take that person in on a few of these matters.

If an organisation like that—one that is spending $50 million and is going to add to the economy of South Australia, bring visitation to the Fleurieu Peninsula and, indeed, bring them into South Australia to see this facility—cannot get answers from the government on the integration of the whole plan surrounding what they are putting in, there is something very wrong in the bureaucracy in South Australia and something very wrong in the leadership of the government, which is failing. They are not doing their homework on this.

I hope that some opposite may pick up on this and get some action happening. I hope that Mr Jim Hallion may get word of this and do something because it is not good enough. It is not good enough for these people to be treated in such a way. I think it is outrageous, and I go back to 2007 when I was invited down by the then local member for Kaurna, Mr John Hill, a Labor minister, and the minister for planning at the time, Paul Holloway, who was an excellent minister for planning. We went down there, and I was invited to go along because it was actually in my electorate at the time, but since then I have taken on Sellicks.

We went down there and we met with them, and we all expressed support. It was given a great run through analysis and application, and we had meetings at Sellicks Beach to appease the locals. Those poor beggars have been continuing to plod along without any help from this state government—apart from the help from Paul Holloway—to where they plan to be finished in 18 months or two years and they are still waiting on answers to where things are going.

I urge the government to pick up on that point and that, indeed, it is enough of a catalyst for Main South Road to be duplicated. I challenge the government to duplicate Main South Road in the forthcoming budget, to announce and to get on with it. I look forward to hearing other speakers in this place on this bill.

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (16:31): I rise to make my contribution on the Supply Bill 2017. I want to start by talking about some broader concepts and broader things that I think are at play here within our South Australian economy, before going on to talk a little bit more closely about some specific issues within my shadow portfolio areas and within the electorate that are going on at the moment.

Essentially, the South Australia economy is at a crossroads. It is at a juncture at which, collectively, as a government, as a parliament and as the people of South Australia, we need to make a decision on how we want to move forward with our state. It is symptomatic of the current position that we are in that we need to make this choice. I think that in South Australia we suffer from many things.

We suffer from a bad government, we suffer from a poor set of economic conditions, a poor set of economic levers that lead to poor outcomes and we also suffer from the tyranny of low expectation. The current electricity debate is a classic case in point. The unemployment rate is a case in point where it seems that, whilst there is a certain level of anger within the community, there is also a tacit acceptance that this is as good as it is going to get. I think that is where South Australia lets itself down, and it is exacerbated by a government that meets those low expectations.

The tyranny of these low expectations has consequences. It means that incompetence becomes passé. We see that in this chamber where questions are asked and answers are not given, or answers are so poorly answered that 'incompetence' is the main word that needs to be used. But that is not remarkable. In fact, I often have discussions with people of the fourth estate and with people in the community who are almost resigned to the fact that their government is incompetent. I find that frustrating as somebody who hungers for a better South Australia, and who is angered by the fact that we do not have a better South Australia, that this is something that we have come to expect.

I look at the fact that we have the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 6.6 per cent—it is the highest in seasonal terms and the second highest in trend terms—but somehow this is unremarkable because this is how it has been for a long time. I look, for instance, at our net interstate migration, which has topped over 6,000 in the last year. Again, that is something we have come to be used to and come to accept, and it is not good enough. We have had lacklustre growth in our economy for decades, and again it is just something we have come to expect.

One of the most important reforms we have made in this term of parliament, if not the most important, is to amend our Return to Work Act. It was heralded as a great driver of new business growth in our economy. It took us from having the most expensive WorkCover system in the country to having the second most expensive WorkCover system in the country. We were excited that we finally got off the bottom of something.

One of the biggest messages to come out of the nuclear waste dump debate, especially from the nuclear citizens' jury, is the fact that people may have been agnostic or even positive about the idea of a waste dump, but they did not trust their government to deliver it. One of the key messages from one of the seven people who reported back at the final stages of the citizens' jury was the fact that they could not trust their government to deliver.

I look at, for instance, the new Royal Adelaide Hospital—a $1.7 billion project that will now cost in excess of $2.3 billion. People say, 'Hang on, if the government can't even build a hospital, how are we going to expect them to build a waste dump that is going to need to be looked after for tens of thousands of years?' That was one of the key messages that came out of that debate and one of the key reasons why South Australians did not support it. More than in any other way, this tyranny of low expectations has manifested itself in the latest BankSA consumer confidence survey, which shows that confidence is at a 20-year low in South Australia. South Australians think so little of their state and think so little of their government and potentially they think that this is the norm that we should be accepting.

More needs to be done, and the electricity debate we are having at the moment is helping to drive this state of malaise that we see ourselves in. The fact that we cannot even keep the lights on in South Australia is symbolic of these low expectations and of our government meeting the extremely low expectations that we have of them. If we are to restore South Australia to its full glory, to restore it to greatness, the first thing we need to do is raise expectations. Until we do that, we are not going to want more from ourselves than we are currently getting.

I have had the good fortune to live in other states in Australia and have had limited opportunity to go and see the rest of the world, so I have seen what raised expectations look like. That is the first thing a government needs to do in order to restore so many other key things in South Australia. We are taught as children that, before we can ask others to like us, we have to first like ourselves. In order to make friends with others, in order to be warm and inviting to others, we first need to be comfortable in ourselves and see the worth that is within ourselves in order to project that externally. That is holding South Australia back.

I see articles in the paper on both sides of this debate. I see people trying to talk up South Australia to counter the tyranny of our low expectations and I see articles that, from time to time, seek to reinforce it. We need to move past this debate. We need to become comfortable in our skin. We need to celebrate our strengths. We need to acknowledge and feel comfortable in our place within Australia as South Australia and as Adelaide, not as an adjunct to Sydney and Melbourne. In doing so and in becoming comfortable with the good things we have around us, we need to raise our expectations, so that we can continue to further this great state we live in.

Raising expectations is important in and of itself, but it leads to some other very serious flow-on effects that, over time, will actually change South Australia for the better. The man who was best able to achieve this, and whose results are, I think, unimpeachable, stares down upon us every single day—Sir Thomas Playford. At the time he was leading South Australia, there was no question about the greatness of South Australia. It stood third in the population stakes in the size of our economy. It was amongst the leading economies in Australia when it came to growth, when it came to job creation, when it came to the bringing of new industries to South Australia.

We were at the forefront of the post Second World War economic recovery in Australia. At that time in our history, nobody questioned our place within this commonwealth. It has been a steady genteel decline since 1965 that leads us to the situation we have today. But what do raised expectations lead to? When we meet those expectations, when our government meets those expectations, it leads to a raising of confidence. The reason that confidence is important is because it inspires investment from a business point of view. It inspires business leaders and large businesses, smaller businesses and household businesses to invest.

When you feel confident and strong about the future potential of the state you live in, you are willing to put your money on the line to help further that. I think it is something that governments grapple with all the time, and I think that raising and meeting expectations leading to a growth in business confidence can see business investment grow in South Australia. What it will also have the effect of doing is raising consumer confidence, and when consumers feel confident, they spend money. That money is spent in hospitality, retail and a whole host of areas that help to grow our economy.

When you have raised expectations and met expectations, and you have raised confidence and that leads to raised investment levels and spending levels, what does that mean? Jobs growth. That is first and foremost the key failing of this government—its inability to put the right settings in place to ensure growth in our economy that leads to new and ever-increasing numbers of jobs. Interestingly, if we were to raise and meet expectations, raise confidence, raise investment and spending, and raise jobs growth, that would have the effect of keeping our young people here. The failure to do this is a key source of shame for South Australians. They do not leave because of the lifestyle, because our lifestyle is unenviable. They leave for job opportunities, and the only way we are going to get those job opportunities here is to ensure that our economy is booming as it should.

I know that in the Barossa Valley we have a challenge keeping our young people, but we certainly do a whole lot better than most other regional areas because in the Barossa our unemployment rate sits at about 4 per cent. As a young person, if you want a job, there is one there for you. Fair enough, most of those are concentrated in the wine industry, but it is one of the key reasons why in the Barossa we are able to keep our young people more so than other areas in regional South Australia.

The added flow-on effect of keeping more of our young people here is that they in turn consume. What happens when they consume is that they create more jobs growth themselves, and it becomes a virtuous cycle, and if it is allowed to germinate and continue it will change the face of South Australia. This has to be the most important work that this government does, that any government does. In fact, I believe that this next election is going to be a referendum on who has a better plan for restoring state pride.

Who has the better plan for allowing South Australia to come out from under the rock that it has been hiding under and, in the words of our leader, the member for Dunstan, for South Australia to shine again? I think that when South Australians look towards this next election, they need not simply succumb to the malaise, the incompetence and the tyranny of low expectations. Rather, South Australians should raise their eyes above the horizon and want more for themselves and want more from their government and look to vote for somebody who is going to deliver on that promise.

There will only be one party at the next election that will be able to make that promise, and that will be the South Australian Liberal Party, because the Labor Party has presided over some of the worst conditions in our state's history. This next election will definitely be a referendum on 16 years of mess versus the promise of a better future. One of the other ways in which I think the government and a future Liberal government can help to cement that renewed confidence in South Australia is by getting some of the fundamentals right. Whilst raised expectations and raised confidence are one thing, we need to ensure that when these decisions to spend and invest are made the settings that underpin those decisions are right.

I am talking about taxation and about the fact that on this side of the house we have committed to returning $360 million to the pockets of South Australian households, businesses and community groups. I am talking about electricity pricing where, if South Australians had confidence and the market had confidence in the future direction of our electricity market—and there is, indeed, growth in our electricity market—that would help to stabilise electricity prices in South Australia. I am talking about other utility prices and about the fact that we have the highest water prices in the country.

I am also talking about red tape reduction. We know that new business growth in this state has been stagnant for way too long, but it is only through the generation and germination of new businesses that we will see job growth come about, again people making that decision to invest. That is only going to happen when the fundamentals are there to allow it to happen; not to pick winners and not to pick losers, as is the wont of this Labor government, but to fix it so that everybody can thrive and that individual business owners making that decision can do so with the best set of circumstances in mind.

I would like to talk about debt. It is an issue this government tries to run away from on a regular basis. There is good debt and there is bad debt. Good debt is investing in infrastructure, helping to grow the productive areas of our economy. Good debt is investing in ideas like Globe Link, an idea to help improve the productive capacity of our economy by making it easier for our exporters to get fresh produce out of this state. Good debt is about investing in our road network and our transport network to make it easier for people to get around.

Bad debt is what we have seen since 2010 here in South Australia. Bad debt is when the government has to borrow money to fund recurrent spending deficits in state government spending. That is what bad debt looks like. This year the Treasurer stood up and boldly said, 'I've finally delivered a surplus.' South Australians could be forgiven for thinking that finally we have stopped investing in bad debt, but the truth is that we had to sell assets in order to make that figure look the way it did. So the bad debt train still continues here in South Australia, and that needs to change in order for us to get off the mat and start to return to the beautiful promise that is South Australia.

In my shadow portfolio area, we have seen some difficulty. We see that in Corrections the rack 'em, pack 'em and stack 'em experiment has failed. Has it made South Australia safer? That has to be the first priority of any correctional services system in South Australia. The answer is no. ABS statistics released a few months ago show that we have the highest rate of offending on record in relation to the ABS statistics as they have been collected. This is against the backdrop of the fact that we have the highest number of police per capita in the nation. We are investing more in our police system per capita than anywhere else in the country but, behind the Northern Territory, we are actually getting the worst results in the nation. That is not a good return on investment for community safety.

When it comes to our prison system, we have seen our rate of reoffending go from, as Peggy Hora put in her report of 2008, 32 per cent up to now, as the government calls it, 46 per cent. This means that when people go through our gaol system and come back into our community they are much more likely to reoffend. Not only does that make our community less safe, it also costs us more money because every prisoner sitting in prison costs about $100,000 a year.

Costs have increased. In only the last two years, the 2014-15 actual result saw us spend $254 million in the area of corrections and this year's budget has us at $313 million. That is money that could otherwise be used to do good in South Australia; instead, it is being used to pay for the failed policies this Labor government has perpetrated over the past decade. This is an area where we must do better, because we are currently failing our community.

I look at our emergency services, where emergency services bills keep going up and up and up. Again, South Australians could be forgiven for thinking that this money was going towards improving emergency services. The truth is it is not. What it is doing is displacing general government expenditure. There is no extra money for emergency services. There is only extra money for the general government sector to pay for the mismanagement and waste that exists across our government.

The other sick thing that I think this government has done is use tragedies—bushfires—as a way to increase emergency services levies off the back of the goodwill of South Australians. We have had the Pinery bushfire and the Sampson Flat bushfire in the last couple of years, both of which affected my electorate. The Sampson Flat bushfire was an expensive exercise costing somewhere in the order of $6 million or $7 million.

Understandably, the government sought to recover that amount of money as a one-off increase in the emergency services levy from South Australians. I think that every South Australian was willing to do their bit to help pay for that crisis and that tragedy, but did the government come back the next year and take that portion of the emergency services levy cost off the bill? No, they built that increase into the emergency services levy revenue collection, and we are essentially going to be paying for the Sampson Flat bushfire not once but every single year into eternity.

The Pinery fire that happened last year was a shorter and cheaper tragedy which only cost a couple of million dollars, and I will be looking forward to seeing what the government brings to us this year to see whether again they are going to attempt to take extra taxation off South Australians on the back of what is otherwise a sad tragedy.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Schubert's time has expired. The member for Hammond.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (16:51): Thank you, the Independent Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to speak to the Supply Bill 2017 and note that I think it is the 12^th time I have made a contribution to supply. If we do not pass the Supply Bill, it will not allow the continued payment of public servants and public services until the Appropriation Bill (budget bill) is passed by parliament later this year, so we obviously need to pass the Supply Bill because it finances the pay of public servants and ourselves as representatives of the state.

I want to note that the appropriation for the Supply Bill this year is $5.907 billion, but in 2016 the Supply Bill sought an amount of $3.444 billion, while in 2015 the appropriation for supply was $3.291 billion. In 2014, the appropriation was $3.941 billion, so it is to be noted that there was a drop between 2014 and 2015, a slight increase in 2016, but then a significant jump from the $3.444 billion in 2016 to this year when $5.907 billion is being sought. This is a significant jump, especially when you compare it with what has happened in the previous three years, so it will be interesting to hear, in any government contribution, how they explain this massive jump in what is required for the Supply Bill.

We have seen over time budgets being listed as jobs budgets. We have heard about the 100,000 jobs the Premier is seeking for this state. I think they may have been lucky to get in the very low 2,000s or 3,000s. As the member for Schubert identified in his contribution, South Australia's unemployment rate remains the highest in the nation and shows that the state budgets that this government has presided over have failed and failed miserably. Not only are we not giving our people jobs in this state but these people are leaving by the thousands to go either interstate or overseas to find work.

In last year's budget, I note that there was predicted jobs growth in South Australia of only 0.75 per cent, and reaffirmed in the Mid-Year Budget Review, which is less than half the national jobs growth rate of 1.8 per cent in the federal budget. In the Mid-Year Budget Review, GST revenue for this year will be $512 million more than in 2015-16 and in the 2017-18 financial year GST revenue is estimated to increase by another $410 million. So, the full GST revenue for next year will be $922 million more than was collected in 2015-16. That is nearly a billion dollars of extra revenue that this state was not expecting to get in the current financial year moving forward into 2017-18.

That brings to mind a bit of history. Since I have been in this place, there have been many times when hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of GST revenue that has not been budgeted for has come into the state government coffers, yet it has been washed away, frittered away, and what do we have to show for it? That is a very good question.

Another part of the Mid-Year Budget Review shows that total returns from the privatisation of the Motor Accident Commission is now estimated to be at about $2.5 billion. Of this amount, $1.16 billion assisted the net operating balance of the budgets in the years 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17. The MAC dividend in 2016-17 of $298 million compares with the estimated net operating surplus of $300 million.

I want to make some comments about the ongoing privatisations that have happened over time. We saw that the former treasurer and member for Port Adelaide tried to sell a building in Adelaide, but the state did not even own the land underneath, so that was quite a failure to say the least. We have seen issues over Gillman where a very dodgy deal was drawn up. It was supposed to be an oil and gas hub for this state, yet we have seen all that drift away because there was no due process taken into account to make sure that there was an open and transparent arrangement in the case of Gillman.

We do need an oil and gas hub in this state to service our Cooper Basin and I have spoken about it many times. I worked up there over 30 years ago. There may be a few kilometres of unsealed road, but between Brisbane and the Queensland border, only 24 kilometres from Innamincka, there is a bitumen road. The last time I drove it there was probably 30 or 40 kilometres that was dirt, but I think it has been bitumised since.

You have to ask the question: why does our state not take the lead? If the government wants to do something for the oil and gas industry in this state, they need to make sure that they fund the full upgrade of the Strzelecki Track. If they are serious about getting more gas supplies, increasing gas exploration and making sure those dividends come back to South Australia so that the service companies that operate the wells—not just the operators like Santos and others, but the service companies—will keep their trucks and their supplies coming up from Adelaide and not out of Brisbane so that we can have those jobs in South Australia.

We could get that just over 400 kilometres of road to the Cooper Basin bitumised so that we can get that freight up there without destroying trucks and destroying vehicles. As we have seen elsewhere across the state, people are making a business decision and saying, 'Why would I destroy my freight and my vehicles and come up from Adelaide when I could do it on a far better road out of Brisbane?' That is vital, especially when we are seeing so many problems with electricity supply in this state and we need to open up more gas in the Cooper to make that happen. I want to talk about a few local issues that need to be raised.

In regard to health, we see that it will look like about $2.3 billion being spent on the new Royal Adelaide Hospital. We heard today that there is a plan for clinicians to be trained on how they are going to do the move to the new Royal Adelaide Hospital. I will be very surprised if it comes at the forecast time of the upcoming winter because I cannot think of a worse time to try to move hospital patients from one part of North Terrace right up to the corner of West Terrace where the new Royal Adelaide Hospital is. I cannot think of a worse time not just for the risk of illness but for the likely unsettled weather we will have at the time. I would be surprised if it happened before spring, quite frankly.

We have seen tens of thousands of problems with the new Royal Adelaide Hospital having to be rectified before a deal was cut so that the government could finally have access to the building. It is going through pre-handover stages at the moment, but it will be interesting to see how it operates after all this time and all these budget blowouts. Sadly, for many decades to come we will see the cost of that deal—$1 million a day just to operate it before you put the staff in the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.

On a local issue—and I do not directly represent Strathalbyn; I represent over 100 addresses around Strathalbyn and I used to represent Strathalbyn when I first came into this place—I want to talk about what has happened with Kalimna, a nursing home for locals that has been shut down. I believe that it has been shut down by a short-sighted government that could have had a proper engineering look at the building to get it compliant.

I have some problems (and I mentioned this at the public meeting at Strathalbyn when well over 200, and probably close to 300, people were attendance in the hall) about the fact that these compliance measures came in. I talked about the CFS—and I am not talking about the local CFS, the local volunteers, but the statewide bureaucracy, and I want to note my position as a CFS volunteer at Coomandook—and their fire safety regime that was brought in to Kalimna. This was stated as a factor in why it was closing down.

What I have learnt is the simple fact that all the rooms had direct access outside and that people could be taken out very quickly in case of an emergency, such as a fire. Beyond that, I think it would have been cheaper in the long run because this is going to turn out to be a very expensive exercise over time. The government could have had a really good look at the engineering and the nursing home could have been brought up to spec. I still wonder why so many hurdles were put in place when this place has been operating for so long, keeping people in their local community.

People had to be moved out to places as far afield as Gumeracha—a long way from what they called home. I think it is just disgraceful. I know from personal experience with my father that, even though people might be a bit reluctant going into these places, once they are there for a while they call them home, so what has happened there is disgraceful.

I look at the road network around the place. It was interesting to ask some questions the other day of the transport minister in regard to some roads that were damaged in flooding and storms about seven months ago at Langhorne Creek. They had not been patched up at all and, coming into vintage only a few weeks ago, a few good Langhorne Creek residents got hold of me to go up and have a look. I said, 'Yes, this is no good.'

Thankfully, the Alexandrina council had taken some emergency measures to fill in some potholes to get those roads at least passable. From what I understand, most of them were finally dealt with once I asked the minister in this place what was going on with the emergency repairs so that the vital vintage of that excellent Langhorne Creek wine could take place safely.

Areas of the Mallee that have not been in my electorate for the last three years because of redistribution are coming back into Hammond next year at the election. When I look at the Karoonda Highway and the Mallee Highway through Lameroo and Pinnaroo, both those roads urgently need overtaking lanes, especially the Mallee Highway out through Pinnaroo which, quite frankly, has more bends in it than any other road I have seen in the world.

It is a really interesting piece of road engineering. I note and commend the trial of road trains coming out of Pinnaroo into Tailem Bend. I think that is a good move. However, it also exacerbates the issue that people will be behind a longer vehicle with not many options to overtake. I urge the government to look to at least some overtaking lanes on both the Mallee Highway and the Karoonda-Loxton road.

An issue I need to raise in regard to health in my area is the Murray Bridge Hospital emergency department, which urgently needs up to $3½ million spent on revamping it. It has been something like 30 or 40 years since any real work was done in that field. We have positive population growth, and not just in Murray Bridge. The surrounding area has a regional centre that services people from all the way down to Keith, all the way down to Pinnaroo, right up into the Hills and also down towards Meningie. It is a hub where a lot is happening.

The Gifford Hill proposal for the racing club is slowly taking shape. The Shahin Group, the Peregrine group, is building the grandstand section for the new motorsport park at Tailem Bend. If that goes to plan, there will be many events, and there will be a need for emergency care, whether for people competing in events or people going there as spectators. We certainly need some work done on the emergency department to get it up to speed for challenges that will come in the future.

In regard to other issues of education, Murray Bridge High School is vitally in need of new buildings, as growth at Murray Bridge is phenomenal. They are doing some great work—I had the minister out there to have a look at what is going on at Murray Bridge—but it certainly needs a new build program, especially if year 7 comes into that school.

As to water issues, I look at what the government has done about the River Murray. We hear long and loud at times how the Premier and his government believe that they have saved the River Murray. Well, they were not thinking about saving the River Murray or my electorate, or the member for Chaffey's electorate, or the other electorates that touch on the River Murray, when they knocked back $25 million of diversification funding that would have done so much for both the Riverland and the Lower Murray and put more confidence back into the community.

But why would the Premier and Treasurer do that? Why would they? Well, that is a very good question to ask. It is because they are conservative electorates and that is exactly where they do not go. I have always said that it is an absolute disgrace that the money was not brought into our communities for local projects—some for industry, some for tourism ventures and some for making town interests better and more appealing—so that people could see the good things that happen in not just my area but up through the Riverland as well. It galls me every time I hear, 'The government have done so much for the River Murray,' yet those very communities that are reliant on the River Murray and its surrounds just get left out in the cold.

Part of the issue of getting left out in the cold is what happens with the new NRM water levy, which is part of the levy regime that is paying a fair whack of the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resource's staff wages. Sporting clubs write to me because they have to pay a $200 water levy because they have a water licence to water their oval. That is a lot of money for a small cricket club, and I have multiple cases like that. We also have issues we need to sort out about giving people tenure in shacks.

We have seen legislation introduced in this place that has not been well organised, such as legislation on planning and child protection, and which has had to be amended multiple times. The child protection bill was rushed into this place and all of a sudden went out again because it was not organised. There was a big fanfare when it came in, but it had to be amended before we started the debate. But the biggest issue hitting this state is electricity prices, the reason that so many companies are failing or choosing to invest elsewhere. It is a disgrace.

Because of this government's ideological zeal to get into green power, I see companies facing price rises of 142 per cent in their power bills directly linked to the Hazelwood closure. They have stated that to me. This government is quite happy to take, as they are today, 600 megawatts of coal-fired power in from Victoria, but they are too one-eyed to see the simple fact that we need reliable power supplies in this state so that we can bring this state back to the prosperous place it once was.

Mr DULUK (Davenport) (17:11): I also would like to make a contribution on the Supply Bill 2017. I think we all know that it is a pretty important bit of machinery that keeps us ticking along and keeps us paying our bills and debts, which is most important. The Supply Bill is also an annual marker that gives us an opportunity to reflect on the previous 12 months, a chance to stop and consider the work of the state government and government expenditure over this period.

The first observation I would like to make is that the government's request for supply under this 2017 bill is for $5.9 billion from the Consolidated Account. In recent years, the appropriation requested under the Supply Bill has been quite a bit less: in 2014, it was $3.94 billion; in 2015, it was $3.291 billion; and in 2016 it was $3.44 billion. We have jumped to $5.9 billion under appropriation, and I would be keen to hear from those opposite as to why this increase in appropriation of $2.5 billion is on the table.

This is my third opportunity to speak on supply in this house. As I said, it is another opportunity to reflect on past achievements, or part thereof, to consider the wellbeing of South Australians and to see whether there has been an improvement for them over the past 12 months. Unfortunately, there has been very little improvement in the economic life of the average South Australian. As the member for Hammond so rightly pointed out, energy and electricity is one of the biggest issues facing our state right now.

In the last 12 months, we have seen unprecedented power blackouts, including the statewide blackout in September that has caused huge economic distress to South Australians, small businesses and individuals alike. Decreasing reliability on South Australia's energy market is pushing up the price of electricity for individuals and small, medium and large businesses alike. The price of electricity affects businesses, from mum-and-dad businesses to our huge manufacturers and energy users, such as Adelaide Brighton Cement.

If we do not improve and do something soon about the cost of electricity in South Australia, we will see more financial distress for individuals and we will see more businesses leaving the state as they just cannot compete. The state of our state has been deteriorating. South Australia's gross state product grew by only 1.9 per cent in 2015-16, compared with 2.8 per cent nationally, and only Tasmania and Western Australia recorded slower growth rates.

To the year ended September 2016, South Australia lost 6,484 people. One of the biggest issues causing so much economic hardship and structural inefficiencies in our economy is people leaving our state year on year, and especially young people leaving our state year on year. I know that this is something I bang on about so often, and I know that it is an issue we talk about on this side of the house so often, but if young people cannot stay in Adelaide they leave. It is a simple matter of fact, and this government has done very little to reverse that fortune.

Back in February 2010, Labor promised that they would create 100,000 new jobs. The reality is that only about 20,000 new jobs have been created since February 2010, and the vast majority of those increases have been in the Public Service. Very few private sector jobs have been created since 2010 when former premier Rann got up and promised 100,000 jobs.

The 2015-16 state budget was earmarked as the jobs budget, yet current trend unemployment is sitting at 6.6 per cent, the highest in the nation, and our seasonally adjusted unemployment is sitting at the second highest in the nation. For the last two years, the Treasurer has come out and banged on about the importance of his jobs budget and how it would improve the unemployment rate in South Australia. The reality is that today, two years after the 2015 state budget, we have the highest trend unemployment in the nation, and unemployment is a huge scourge.

The scourge of unemployment—the scourge of not having a job, the scourge of not having full-time work and the scourge of unemployment and the isolation that it brings, the frustration that it brings, the dislocation that it brings and the disunity and harm that it brings to families—is possibly the biggest single issue that faces an individual. So many people, especially long-term unemployed, feel that they cannot participate in society. If you cannot participate in society, you are increasingly led to isolation, and increasing isolation has so many detrimental effects on you as an individual and the community you live in. To fix the scourge of unemployment, together with energy, should be the absolute number one priority for this government.

We need to fix this issue of unemployment. We need to do more than we are doing at the moment. We need to do more, and we also need to acknowledge that this government set its goal for its jobs program and its jobs budget, but it has failed. Because of that, our economy is stagnant. As I said, young people are deserting our state. They are young and talented future leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators. They are all leaving our state, and it is unlikely that they will return. Unfortunately, there has not been a lot to celebrate in recent years on the job front.

To highlight that point, I would like to read out some of the well-known South Australian companies that have either closed or downsized since the last election in 2014. Penrice has lost close to 200 jobs in South Australia, ForestrySA has lost about 66 jobs and Pacific Services Group, about 100 job losses.

Mr Gardner: The Florey sub-branch.

Mr DULUK: The Florey sub-branch has probably lost quite a few members as well. Nyrstar has seen constant job losses in Port Pirie. Arnott's has seen the loss of about 120 jobs; Pacific Brands, a loss of over 100 jobs; Ingham's Aldinga Turkeys, about 79 jobs; ACI, 60; Caroma, about 76; Treasury Wine, close to 50; and ABC Adelaide has seen huge reductions. Holden, of course, has seen hundreds of job losses, and the closure of Holden will have a huge impact on the community in our northern suburbs.

Arrium has lost 500 jobs; Santos continues to shed jobs; BHP, of course, has seen a lot of retrenchment and job losses; Monroe's; SA Outreach, about 400 jobs; Fairfax in South Australia; Beach Energy; Unibooks, about 100 jobs; University of Adelaide; Australia Post; Alinta; Arrium; Tagara; Schweppes in Payneham, an iconic South Australian brand; and yesterday we heard that News Limited was also downsizing in South Australia.

These are some of the big employers who have shed their workforce in South Australia over time. There are some really big structural issues that we need to look at. The majority of jobs that have been lost have been well-paid jobs, so there is the whole issue of taxation revenue affecting the state and, of course, the people's ability to spend and consume in our economy, which is so important.

The latest NAB Monthly Business Survey shows a downturn in business conditions and business confidence in South Australia. We are the only state in the country to record a fall in business conditions in March this year, and we are one of only two states to record a reduction in business confidence. The CommSec State of the States report ranks South Australia seventh out of eight states in terms of economic performance. They include the territories in their measurement. Our leading banks and our leading economists all point to serious issues in the South Australian economy.

At the same time that state government expenditure has increased by almost $2.5 billion, which has been requested through appropriation, our state has been in sharp decline. The ineptitude of this Labor government is exemplified by the blatant waste of taxpayer money we see across the board. The government's PR juggernaut continues on a daily basis. The government has spent almost a million dollars to make the public more enthusiastic about the opening of the NRAH and half a million dollars to spruik its half a billion dollar energy plan. The government is wasting your money to make you feel good about an energy crisis the government has created. It is very Orwellian.

Hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars were spent last year on the Premier's eight-week spin campaign to make us feel good about the state's jobless rate. It is one of the greatest ironies that we are going to spruik South Australian economic conditions and how poor they are with a jobless campaign. In my letterbox the other day, I received an advertising flyer spruiking changes to Noarlunga Hospital—taxpayers being told about a cut to services in their own hospital.

This government is wasting about $2.6 million on public servants' car parks that are not used and about $2 million on office sites that sit empty. It goes on and on. We see about $300,000 being spent on minister Bignell's travel, which goes on and on, and we are paying for his Argentinian wine. South Australians have to pay for chief executives to commute from out of town every weekend. We constantly see government waste and spin. We see South Australia wasting money on rebranding of child protection.

We constantly see waste upon waste upon waste because this government has no solution. It does not believe in the private sector. It wants to be the only corporation in town. We are a one company town. Living in South Australia is almost like living in North Korea at the moment. The government, being the only company in town, needs to tell everyone that it is the only company in town and does everything in its power to push out private investment as it is doing in the energy market at the moment. It says, 'We want to be in charge and we will waste your taxpayer money to let you know we are in charge.'

We do not see money being invested in South Australia businesses. I would much prefer to see the millions of dollars spent on government advertising being put back into local businesses. It is certainly not being spent on our hospitals because we know we are closing hospital beds and because Transforming Health is all about saving money. We know it is not being spent on our roads—certainly not the roads in my community.

My constituents are very angry about the government's performance. They are very angry about high unemployment. My older residents are particularly angry about the need for their children and grandchildren to move interstate. They are angry about the closure of services such as the Repat in their community. More than anything, they are angry at the arrogance of this government, with their lack of consultation and the tin ear of this government. The small businesses in my electorate are angry that they do not have a reliable energy supply.

They are disgusted that child protection is an ongoing issue. On my office window I have the front pages of The Advertiser regarding child protection available for people to see—the number of people who come past my office and stop to read about the disgrace that is child protection in this state. It really irks South Australians, and I do not know if the government knows about that. As I said, they do not like to listen to the real concerns of South Australians.

On a daily basis, I hear about the detrimental effects of Transforming Health from my local residents and medical practitioners. They are dismayed at the way this government is going about that. They are pretty disappointed with road funding throughout my area. As everyone in this house knows, I constantly bang on about the roads in the Mitcham Hills, including the Blackwood roundabout. I had the opportunity yesterday to ask the Minister for Transport some questions about the Blackwood roundabout funding, and in his answer to one of my questions the minister confirmed that the Blackwood roundabout falls outside what he considers to be 'incredibly important upgrades'.

Minister, for those people in my community, and even as reported by AAMI, fixing the Blackwood roundabout is indeed an incredibly important priority. However, it is not a priority for this Labor government and it is not a priority for anyone who supports this Labor government, whether or not they purport to be a member of the government. The Blackwood roundabout is a key road for daily commuters and it is simply dismissed as not important enough by this government.

I say to my residents in Blackwood, Coromandel Valley, Craigburn Farm, Eden Hills, Bellevue Heights, Hawthorndene and beyond into Happy Valley and Aberfoyle Park: this government does not care about you. They know that you use this roundabout every day on the way to work, school and the shops, but for 15 years this government has ignored your interests. They have drawn a line through the infrastructure needs of your community, and I think that is an absolute disgrace.

Residents and passengers on the Belair train line are frustrated that the government has failed to invest in infrastructure that facilitates and encourages the use of this passenger service. Park-and-ride facilities have long been promised by this government, but with so much spin and waste they cannot find any funds to deliver on their 2014 election promise. They cannot find funds to purchase the ARTC site adjacent to the Eden Hills train station which has been used as an unofficial car park by Belair passengers for many years until its recent closure.

To build a strong, prosperous South Australia we must improve business conditions and business confidence. We must increase business profitability and induce investment into our state. We must be committed to building a pro business climate. The South Australian Liberal team is the team that can build that environment. We are committed to lowering costs and reducing the tax burden on businesses and households.

We are committed to cutting red tape and unnecessary regulation. It is red tape that is one of those evils that lurks in our economy, and it is red tape that makes businesses less competitive. It is red tape that forces mum-and-dad small business owners to stay up late on weeknights and weekends filling out paperwork, ensuring that compliance is undertaken. It means that they are not spending time with their family and it means they are not spending time reinvesting in their businesses because they are dealing with business red tape.

On this side of the house, as a future Liberal government we will be investing in projects that drive economic activity in South Australia, and Globe Link will be one of those drivers of economic activity. We know that over the last 15 years South Australia's share of national merchandise exports has shrunk from 7.3 per cent to 4.3 per cent. If we are to be a prosperous state again, if we are to be a state with low unemployment, an efficient state where our farmers and manufacturers and exporters do the very best they can, we really need to improve our share of exports. We need to have efficient transport whether it be road, rail or air. Globe Link will lead to those efficiencies.

We know that by 2030 the freight line that goes through metropolitan Adelaide in the Mitcham Hills in my community through the Adelaide Hills will be at its capacity. We know we need to do something to fix that up. By increasing infrastructure efficiencies in our export and freight networks, we will improve supply chain efficiencies and we will improve market competitiveness, and ultimately this will lead to lower costs to consumers at the retail point of the market. Efficient and effective transport networks are also fundamental to deepening markets. They bring businesses closer to new markets, creating more opportunities, and closer to existing markets, improving accessibility and competitiveness. They also promote innovation and a more active economy.

Improving exports and investing in infrastructure is actually one of the best things you can do to reduce unemployment. That is why the South Australian Liberal team is committed to Globe Link and that is why I will support it every step of the way. Globe Link will transform our economic capacity. It will provide that generational upgrade for our freight infrastructure that will last us for decades to come. As I said, it will help our farmers and our industrial, agricultural and food sectors. We need to compete, and we are in a highly competitive environment.

The reality is that our existing infrastructure is simply not up to scratch. The government's plan, in terms of road freight, includes having heavy rigid trucks and B-doubles going down Cross Road. It wants to ensure that double-stack trains 1.9 kilometres long keep going through the Mitcham Hills. This is not efficient public infrastructure. This is not infrastructure that will lead to export growth and lower unemployment. We need alternative routes when it comes to export opportunities, and the South Australian Liberal Party is committed to improving the economic conditions of this state.

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (17:31): It is a pleasure to rise to support the Supply Bill this year. As we know, every year the Supply Bill is introduced as a measure in which we enable funding for all the important things the government does until the state budget and its bills are passed by this parliament.

It is a pleasure to again talk about some of the very important things that were in the 2016-17 state budget that are now in the process of being rolled out across the state. Certainly, it was a pleasure and a career highlight of mine to work with the Treasurer on that 2016-17 state budget, in which we really delivered on the key priorities for South Australia, the first and foremost of which was jobs for South Australians. We could deliver a lot of the things in the 2016-17 state budget because we have delivered budget surpluses in this state. That is a very important thing that the parliament should be reminded of at every opportunity, that we have delivered surpluses.

The 2015-16 budget was in surplus and we are projecting surpluses throughout the forward years of estimates. That is important, first, because we were able to invest in a number of important programs for jobs and infrastructure in the last budget and, secondly, because when it comes to this coming budget, the 2017-18 budget, we will be able to invest in very important elements of our state energy plan, which has been announced. We are able to fund those things because we took the prudent decisions, the careful financial management decisions, to make sure that our state budget is in surplus.

I will just go through some of the important elements in the budget. As I said, first and foremost it is about jobs. We have introduced into South Australia what is called the Job Accelerator Grants Scheme. This is something where we have looked at the evidence interstate, and in particular the success of jobs grants in New South Wales, and adapted it to the South Australian context. Through these job grants, every small and medium-size business in South Australia is able to employ extra people and receive support from the state government to do so.

If you are a business paying payroll tax, we will give a grant of $10,000 over two years for each employee a business hires. If you are a small, very small or a start-up business that is not paying any payroll tax at the moment, we will give a grant of $4,000 over two years. The reaction to this has been very positive. All the key interest groups have been very supportive of this scheme. Of course, the proof is in the pudding, and we have seen that businesses have been relishing the chance to take up these grants and to employ extra people in South Australia.

Off the top of my head, I believe over 7,000 South Australian jobs have been applied for through this program, and it is great to see that those smaller and medium-sized businesses, which are of course the vast majority of South Australian employers, are taking up the opportunity to hire extra staff. Through this, we have now seen both a reduction in our unemployment rate but also, very importantly, I think now 18 months of consecutive jobs growth in South Australia. So, for 18 months there have been more people employed than in the month before.

We now have a record number of South Australians working, and that is a great sign for our economy. Only the other day, we saw the NAB Monthly Business Survey show that we have the second highest business confidence in the country. South Australian businesses are relishing these opportunities to hire extra staff.

That is not the only thing we have done on the jobs front though in the budget. We have of course continued our tax relief for South Australian businesses. We believe we now have the most competitive business tax rates of any state or territory in the commonwealth, and that makes South Australia a very attractive place to invest and run a business in. We have seen a number of different studies, including the KPMG survey, showing that South Australia, compared with other states, is a very attractive place to run a business in.

We have eliminated a lot of the stamp duties that applied to businesses, particularly involving non-real property assets. If we wanted to change the shareholding of a business, we would take our slice of that in stamp duty. We no longer do that in South Australia. We have reduced by a third the stamp duty on commercial property transactions. That is set to be reduced by another third from the middle of this year, and then it is poised to be reduced to zero. So, if you buy or sell a commercial property in South Australia, there is no stamp duty on that transaction anymore. That is a massive advantage for people involved in the property industry in South Australia and for people owning properties through their businesses in South Australia.

We have also invested heavily in this budget in innovation because we know that we not only need the jobs we have now in South Australia, but we need the jobs of the future. This is something that Kyam Maher has been working towards, and we are very keen that we make sure that we develop new businesses, particularly using a lot of the great capabilities we have through our university sector.

We really need to work better and harder at commercialising the technology that our researchers are coming up with to develop new products and new services that we can export around the world, so there is a very significant element of this budget that involves innovation, including making sure that we have the support for venture capital that is needed so those people who are starting up businesses or expanding their commercialisation base will want to stay in South Australia rather than go either interstate or overseas to do that work.

Another key element in this budget is our defence industries, making sure that we are prepared in South Australia to take up the opportunities that lie ahead for us as the defence state. We have seen the benefits of our successful lobbying for not only submarines but also the frigates and the offshore patrol vessels, at least initially, which will all be built in South Australia. None of that was going to happen. It took a lot of hard work, a lot of lobbying and a lot of campaigning to make sure that that was going to happen in South Australia.

As people will remember, we had a defence minister who said that the ASC could not build a canoe. We have turned that around to the point where we now have the French coming here to build 12 new submarines. That is not just going to be great for that project, but it is really going to make South Australia a key element of Australia's defence industries.

We saw the benefit of that just in the last week or so when Boeing announced that they are going to move and establish a new centre here in South Australia with 250 jobs for their defence element and their research and development. I expect that we will see many more companies doing the same thing. We are investing the money that we need to engage with France and to make sure that the facilities are right at Osborne but also to do that work with suppliers to make sure that we get as much of that work that is going to be happening in these massive projects in South Australia.

The other element connected to that is the work that we have been doing on investment in South Australia. We have our new body, Investment Attraction SA, which has been doing great work in terms of attracting new businesses to South Australia. Often, for very small amounts of money, relatively, we have been able to attract businesses to start up and move things here in South Australia and create thousands and thousands of jobs for South Australia, which is very positive. This new body has had tremendous success over the last couple of years. There is money in the budget to continue that and I am sure that we will see more and more success stories coming out of that body.

A very important point the member for Giles spoke about in the parliament earlier today was that we need to make sure that we keep our steel industry here in South Australia, and he has certainly been at the forefront of campaigning on that issue. We do have money in the budget to make sure that we work with the new buyers of Arrium to ensure that steel has a long and successful future of being produced in South Australia and, indeed, in Australia.

This is an industry that we think is of critical national importance. We want to make sure this industry has a long future in South Australia. The steel industry is obviously very important not only for Whyalla but also for the whole state and the whole country. The Treasurer has been doing a huge amount of work to make sure that we have that future for this industry in South Australia and I am confident, hopefully in partnership with the commonwealth government, that we will be able to secure that future here for a long time to come.

Another very critical element not only for jobs but also for important services in South Australia is what we are doing on infrastructure. We know that spending on infrastructure in South Australia employs some 6,000 people per year, and there are a number of reasons for that. First, we are guaranteeing our spending over the forward estimates at $1.5 billion a year in infrastructure, which is a huge amount when you look at it historically. For instance, there was a very small amount being spent on infrastructure per year when we came to government; I think it something like $200 million per year. We are now spending $1.5 billion per year on infrastructure.

Secondly, we are doing a lot of work on making sure that, as much as possible, we can get the benefit of those infrastructure projects delivered to South Australian employees and South Australian companies. I give credit for that to our Industry Advocate, Ian Nightingale, in particular. We will be bringing some legislation to the parliament later this year to cement his position. I think we have the best system of doing that anywhere in the country and we are seeing the benefits for all of our supply chain in South Australia.

Obviously, the largest project in our infrastructure delivery is South Road. There are now three major projects underway on South Road, namely, Darlington, which affects people in the southern suburbs such as myself; the Torrens to Torrens project, which we have seen reach some critical points in recent months; and the Northern Connector, which is very important for employment in the northern suburbs. I give credit to the member for Little Para for his work in the jobs task force out on the Northern Connector project, making sure that we get the full benefit of that for people seeking work in the northern suburbs.

All those elements are underway and they really form the backbone of what will be our road traffic network link through Adelaide, the north-south motorway, for the future of South Australia. That is critically important when you are talking about future industries in South Australia, not only defence but also industries, such as our food and wine industry, that need good access to the ports and good access to the Airport.

The alternative, as has been talked about by the member Davenport, is the bizarre Globe Link proposal which, as we know, is really just about shoring up some seats in the Hills to say to people that the noise from the trains is going to be less. However, it would involve an airport that nobody wants, a road that nobody wants and apparently this is all going to be funded with zero funding from South Australian taxpayers, which I find slightly remarkable. I am not sure that would get past some independent costing analysis on whether spending zero to deliver this probably tens of billions of dollars' worth of folly investments is really going to pass any independent analysis.

But we are actually investing, together with the Liberal Coalition government in Canberra, on South Road, which is universally acknowledged as infrastructure in South Australia which should be invested in Australia and which has been through all the Infrastructure Australia processes, unlike Globe Link, sadly.

Another very important thing that we are investing in in capital works in this budget is STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths), which we are rolling out across primary schools and high schools in South Australia. We know that these particular skills are going to be so important for the next generation to be able to secure the jobs of tomorrow. Look at what I was talking about in relation to the defence industries: so many of those jobs will need a significant basis in those STEM skills. We need to be working now to make sure that our young people are both (a) interested and (b) skilled in those very important skills. Having those science labs, not just in high schools but also in primary schools, we think is going to be critically important.

I remember that when we announced this policy the member for Adelaide came out quite clearly questioning whether we should be investing this money in primary schools at all and whether we needed science labs in schools. I think that just really shows the future versus the past debate we are having in the political circle on so many fronts in South Australia. We actually think that our primary school students should be exposed to science, technology, engineering and maths from a very early age. We make no apologies for that at all, and that is why we are going completely into investing very significantly in our primary schools to make sure this happens.

We are also, of course, investing in our non-government schools in South Australia. We are allowing them to access loans to upgrade their facilities, particularly with a focus on STEM and early childhood development projects, so a lot of Catholic and other non-government schools are being able to upgrade their facilities. We know that so many of our students attend those schools, and we want to make sure that they have access to good facilities as well. Those education infrastructure elements of our budget are critically important.

We are also investing in our hospitals. I know that in the southern suburbs we are just about to complete the Noarlunga Hospital $12 million upgrade, which is going to produce two extra state-of-the-art operating theatres. I was talking to a nurse from Noarlunga Hospital the other day who works in the peri-op procedures there, and she is very excited about what has now been delivered. They have said that their facilities are amazing, so I personally cannot wait to see them in a couple of weeks' time when we have the open day at Noarlunga Hospital.

I have also had the opportunity to see the work that is underway at Flinders Medical Centre. Not only are we building new rehabilitation, palliative care and mental health facilities at Flinders, but we are also building what you would have to describe as a massive car park, which will address what is constantly an issue at Flinders in terms of finding a car park. That will be an issue no longer once this brand-new enormous car park opens that will provide a lot more access to services at that hospital.

We are also doing a lot of work in the housing space. There is a very significant project underway to build 1,000 houses in 1,000 days that is being progressed through the budget and the spending in this supply bill—

Mr Duluk: On target?

Mr PICTON: It is going very well, member for Davenport, and these are jobs that are being delivered in South Australia right now. Many of them might be in your electorate, so this might be a program you would be keen to support. This is building houses for people who need them, but it is also supplying jobs for builders, electricians and plumbers across the state. It is something I am very supportive of, and I am glad to see that it is doing so well.

I am also very supportive of the work we are doing on sporting upgrades across the state. There are two really critical elements of this in the budget; one is to upgrade a number of our soccer facilities across the state. We know that soccer is growing in popularity every year, but a lot of our soccer facilities are out of date and need upgrading. They particularly need artificial pitches, which will enable more and more teams to play and use them. In my electorate, the Seaford Soccer Club is the beneficiary of a new artificial pitch as well as help with upgrading their change rooms, facilities and lighting. It will make a really big difference to that club because a lot more people will be able to play there.

Another element is to make sure that we are upgrading facilities for women's sport. Women's sport is growing, and not just traditional women's sports. A lot more women are playing AFL, rugby, soccer and hockey in places where women's change room facilities have not always been available, and they have had to change in car parks, toilets and other places. We want to make sure they have facilities that encourage women to get involved in sport. That is a very important part of the money that we are spending on grassroots sport in South Australia.

Another element is the work we are doing in public transport. I have seen the benefit of spending on public transport in my electorate on the Seaford rail extension and electrification. We can see now that there will be additional benefits for public transport with the extension of the tramline through the city, which I think is going to be really positive and as popular as all the other tramline extensions we have had so far. We would like to see some help for that from the commonwealth so that we can go even further in extending our tramlines through South Australia.

A lot of fantastic projects are underway in South Australia and they have been done in a responsible manner. The benefit of being in surplus is that we will be able to now invest in our energy program, which we have talked about at length. We are doing it in a responsible way while looking after the critical needs of South Australia and keeping South Australians in jobs.

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) (17:51): I rise today to support the Supply Bill. When I think about the economy in South Australia and the budget we put forward last year, I am reminded of our plan. The plan that our Premier puts forward is that South Australia is the place where people and businesses thrive.

While I know that we have had some economic transition, and we continue to go through that transition, we have been through times when there has been a decrease in commodity prices and closures in manufacturing, not helped at all by the high Australian dollar. We are in transition. The Labor Party is best placed to lead that transition because our Premier is a leader and a thinker. It is through his economic priorities that we continue to see through the lens of what is the future.

I have a particular interest in this area. Although Holden is not in my electorate, I can virtually touch it from the border. We know that it will close in October, and we have taken this time, with our Northern Economic Plan, to make changes. I want to touch on a few of the areas that we have in our budget, looking forward, to make those changes.

First and foremost is the Northern Connector, 43 kilometres of freeway from Gawler through to Regency Park. This will create efficiencies for people in the transport area. It comes at a critical time when we will employ people, many from Holden but more specifically from the local area. We want to upskill people, we want to use the skills that are already there to keep them modernised and contemporary. I thank the government for its focus on the northern suburbs and their needs. This is a really exciting project. It will be the first concrete road, and that will be a really interesting stimulus. We have already seen people who were previously employed by Holden be employed in that project.

Just the other day, on International Women's Day, I went along to see the great outcomes for women in construction. If I remember accurately, about 21 per cent of people employed on that project were women. They are from engineering backgrounds and they are people who have broader experience in the construction industry. That is about double the number of women traditionally employed on construction projects. It is a really exciting project, and about 480 people a year will be employed on that project, which will continue for about four years.

Another area, of course, is the disability hub. We are going through a fundamental change in Australia. What we are seeing here is that for the first time we as a nation are looking at how we truly support people who have disabilities. We know that the families who support people with disabilities have had to fight for a long time. They fight to make sure they get the best health care. They fight to get recognition about the best way to help their child, their partner or their loved one, but they also need support for themselves to have respite, for the schooling they can do and the work they can do into the future.

We have some great organisations in South Australia, but we know that this is going to change. As people have that individualised support, their packages and their advocate to support them, they will have choice in what they do. That choice will stimulate a need for people to work in the disability sector. Because of that, we have set up the disability hub in Elizabeth, run by Northern Futures, to help people who are interested in working in this area, and who are curious about how you get the qualifications, and to support them to get those qualifications and to work in the industry.

An area we talked about just yesterday was the Northern Adelaide Irrigation Scheme. I am particularly interested in this because, while we are often talking about very high-end manufacturing and that is the future for our state, we also need a diversity of jobs, jobs that need some training but perhaps less than a university degree and experience. We have an excellent opportunity to sell our premium food and wine to the world. I have just seen that our international exports have increased by 11 per cent over the last year. Compared with the national average of 6.7 per cent, that is something for us to be really proud of in South Australia.

If we have this water supplied, we will know that we have growth within that region. We have talked about Two Wells to Whyalla. This is an opportunity for us to continue to produce that premium, export quality food and to sell it. We know that we are considered one of the most livable cities in the world, and this helps us with our marketing. While it was an announcement that we look forward to the commonwealth partnering with us, we know that this is a fundamental area of growth for South Australia in the northern region.

As we look to the future, we look at the 12 submarines that we know will employ nearly 3,000 people, but we have to be ready for this employment and we have to know what those jobs are going to be. Last year, in the budget we announced $250 million to go to STEM in schools, and 139 schools are going to get upgrades impacting 75,000 students. I am really delighted about this because schools in my electorate—Parafield Gardens High School, Parafield Gardens R-7, Paralowie and Salisbury High School—will benefit in that area. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.