Federal Liberal Government

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (17:02): My question is to the Premier. Will the Premier update the house on his recent meeting with the Prime Minister and on how the government is working collaboratively with the federal government to restore relationships that best serve the people of South Australia?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (17:02): I thank the member for Finniss for his question and congratulate him on his wonderful success in the most recent election. This is a very important question because what existed in South Australia for the last 16 years was a very poor blame game. This was taken to a new level when the Coalition was elected approximately six years ago and the member for Cheltenham, the former premier of South Australia, was elevated to the position of Premier here in South Australia. What we saw for that six-year period was a constant blame game, never taking responsibility, never accepting responsibility, the awesome responsibility, the wonderful responsibility given to a government to get this state moving in the right direction.

We will not make that mistake. Immediately upon forming a government, we did everything we could to start to repair the broken relationship that existed between the parliament here in South Australia and the government in Canberra. You will note, sir, that I have already met with the Prime Minister twice since the election, doing the work I can to repair the relationship. I am also very grateful for the work that the new Minister for Planning, Transport and Infrastructure has done to repair the relationship between the commonwealth and South Australia.

I note and congratulate the minister on the announcement he made with federal minister Paul Fletcher in South Australia earlier this week—a great result, given how far behind the eight ball we were in South Australia at creating that continuous pipeline of new work here in this state. I just make the point that this was a very important project and the minister had to do a lot of very quick work on it.

We want to see the north-south corridor free-flowing. A commitment has been made to do this by 2023-24, but this is a very difficult deliverable now because of the lack of work that the previous government had done in preparing the business case. One of the things that we have already committed to doing is to establish Infrastructure SA to develop that long-range pipeline of productive infrastructure planning for South Australia.

It's not just in the area of transport that we have been building relationships. Many of the ministers now have either travelled to Canberra, or federal ministers have come from Canberra to South Australia to work collaboratively with the people of South Australia. We want better outcomes for the people of South Australia, not excuses, fighting with somebody else, blaming somebody else for the lack of progress—

Mr Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for West Torrens is warned.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —on the targets that were set by the previous government. We are going to be working collaboratively. As I said, every minister on this side I think will be doing everything they can to re-establish quality working relationships aimed at delivering the best outcomes for the people of our state.