Ministerial Travel

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (14:21): Supplementary: as the assistant minister said his application was fully compliant, will he confirm if he notified the Premier, as required by the guideline, that his personal assistant, Ms Gemma Paech, would be travelling business class with him and that that arrangement was approved by the Premier?

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (14:21): The Premier, in fact, asked me to travel to China to represent him at the conference. All the arrangements for the travel were organised by the Premier's office, and the Premier's office approved the travel for both me and my staff member in accordance with the guidelines. It is quite unusual for this sort of thing to be raised in the house, but I am very happy to answer it. Unfortunately, there was an article that had a number of misleading and wrong statements in it, including quoting that the hotel stay was $7,000. In fact, it was RMB.Y7,000 in Chinese currency.

An honourable member: Chinese whispers.

Mr PICTON: That's right. You actually need to do the calculation to get that to about one-seventh of the value. It also included a few comments by the former treasurer and shadow treasurer in the other place, Rob Lucas, criticising staff travelling in business class in accordance with the guidelines, which say that it can be approved in appropriate circumstances. I was very interested to read that because I presume that, if the Liberal Party were to be re-elected in the future, they would have no staff ever travelling in business class. They would all be in economy class in the future, if that's standard.

The Hon. J.W. Weatherill interjecting:

Mr PICTON: That's right. Of course, there are a number of examples when you go back to the previous time the Liberal government was in office, including some Concorde visits and also sending hats on seats and things like that. I think that if the Liberal Party really wants to—

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Chaffey is warned.

Mr PICTON: —open up this discussion about travel—

The Hon. J.M. Rankine interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Wright is called to order.

Mr PICTON: —in very appropriate circumstances where the approval has been granted as per the guidelines, then they should be very careful about the precedent that they are setting. For this trip, the Premier needed to be represented at a conference where South Australia is playing an international role. The Premier is the co-chair of the States and Regions Alliance for the Climate Group. This was an event co-hosted by the Governor of California, Mr Jerry Brown, who was there, as well as a number of governors from provinces in China, talking about world-leading action on climate change.

I was happy to represent the Premier there, speak on a panel at that conference and outline for them a number of the steps we are taking, including the world's largest battery, which was very well received by delegates from around the world. I met with a number of key international people at the conference, including the International Energy Agency. This was a very appropriate trip. It was only three nights, a very quick trip to the conference and back, and the guidelines, which say that it can be approved by the Premier's office when appropriate, were fully complied with.