Bills

Supply Bill 2018

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

Ms WORTLEY (Torrens) (15:35): I rise to make remarks on the Supply Bill, which we will be supporting. The bill before us seeks to appropriate $6.6 billion. The purpose of the bill is to supply the government with sufficient funds to carry on the business of government in the lead-up to the budget to be delivered in September. How these dollars will be spent and where they will end up will be in the hands of the government, of those sitting opposite. We have no information and no detail, just an A4 sheet of paper.

I can stand here and proudly say that in government we delivered the biggest ever investment in public transport, upgraded every major hospital and developed a state-of-the-art health and biomedical precinct, with the iconic SAHMRI and world-class new Royal Adelaide Hospital at its centre. We delivered record investment in infrastructure for the revitalisation of our CBD, with the redevelopment of Adelaide Oval, the new Adelaide Botanic High School, the Riverbank Precinct, the footbridge over the Torrens, which on home game days sees thousands of Port Power supporters cross it, the Adelaide Convention Centre, Festival Plaza, laneways and small bars.

We delivered major infrastructure projects, including the Southern Expressway, the Goodwood junction rail project, the train extensions, the Seaford railway electrification and extension, the Northern Expressway project and the extension of the O-Bahn into the Adelaide CBD, with improved travel times and reliability for thousands of public transport users reducing traffic congestion and delays for motorists on the inner-ring route. I add that I have heard nothing but praise from commuters about the upgrade of the O-Bahn infrastructure.

In government, we invested in local sporting clubs and facilities, including $24 million for women's sporting change facilities. We increased the Regional Development Fund to $15 million a year and invested $341 million in the regions for road maintenance and safety measures, doubled the number of nurses and doctors, put more police on the beat than ever before and, since 2002, more than doubled the investment in public schools. There are some opposite who may not know that it was the Labor government that brought Modbury Hospital back into public hands, investing millions of dollars in it after it was put into private hands by the Liberals when they were last in government.

The member for West Torrens last night made some significant points, and I hope those opposite have taken them on board. We are being asked in this place to support the new government Supply Bill without any detail. Since the March election, residents in my electorate have been speaking to me about how they feel, about the uncertainty they have about things that affect them: the recently announced delay in the rollout of the NDIS, the uncertainty about the Building Better Schools program, the uncertainty about ongoing funding for community organisations, questions over the delivery of the Fund My Neighbourhood projects and environmental issues, including the talk about South Australia losing its GM status. It is fair to say there is a feeling of trepidation by many in the community about many of the things that this government has either announced or is alluding to.

The Labor government made an election commitment to deliver road safety zones around our schools. Klemzig Primary School, in my electorate of Torrens, was one of those schools in the state that was to benefit. This was a commitment based on need and the safety of students, highlighted by the fact that the school is a centre for hearing impaired, a CHI school. With new housing development in the area, there is increased traffic around the school and along with the school community, I am concerned about the safety of the children, particularly those who are hard of hearing. I hope that soon one of the important topics I get to speak to the new education minister about is matching Labor's funding.

In addition, I have spoken in this place of the great importance to the local community of the timely opening of Avenues College, the amalgamation of two schools, Windsor Gardens Secondary College and Gilles Plains Primary School. The importance of this amalgamation and the timely opening of the school for 2019 cannot be stressed enough. It is imperative that the new government meet the former Labor government's commitment of $15 million for the infrastructure upgrade of Avenues College so that the amalgamation process and the opening of the school can be completed by the beginning of the school year. This needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency to give certainty to Avenues College's growing school community. The timing is important for the two campuses to come together on the McKay Avenue campus, and I understand for this to occur the additional funding is crucial.

Labor committed to another state school with a growing school community in Torrens, that is, Hillcrest Primary School. That commitment was to deliver a multipurpose school hall. With record enrolments for the 2019 school year, the school is now considering having to remove the upstairs boys' toilets and turning the area into classroom space. Students at the school do not have their own hall and have an agreement with the neighbouring Hillcrest Community Centre, through the Port Adelaide Enfield council, to use their hall for indoor sports, drama and for school assemblies, but there is limited access.

The school hall that Labor committed to was intended to serve a number of purposes: from indoor sports, drama and assemblies through to out-of-hours school care and also freeing up the existing library and art space. With significant growth in numbers and being near capacity, the school has requested zoning, but the reality is that only additional infrastructure in a school hall that results in freeing up this additional classroom space will resolve the issue.

Another commitment by the Labor government was to Vale Park Primary School. Prior to the election, the school had been in the electorate of Dunstan, the Premier's electorate. I only became aware of the issue regarding this school in the lead-up to the election following the electoral boundary redistribution, with the suburb of Vale Park coming into my electorate. On discovering this position, I went to the minister and spoke to her about the issues confronting the school.

The Labor government then committed to providing two transportable buildings to improve the accommodation options for the school's 519 students. The growing number of students has created the need for extra classroom space. They have already converted half the library to a classroom and have lost the computer suite to accommodate extra space. It is imperative that the government match this commitment and that those buildings are delivered as soon as practicable.

Continuing with my electorate of Torrens, while there are a number of infrastructure needs I have raised today, there was significant investment by the former Labor government in infrastructure relevant and within Torrens, including the multimillion-dollar Modbury Hospital and Lyell McEwin Hospital upgrades; the installation of the koala crossing on Fosters Road, near Cedar College; the partnership with Port Adelaide Enfield council with the Lights Community and Sports hub and multi-use sports centre; the synthetic soccer pitch and lighting upgrade at Adelaide City and North Eastern Metro Stars football clubs; the 24/7 Oakden ambulance station; the new STEM facilities for Hampstead Primary School, Hillcrest Primary School and Wandana Primary School; and ongoing funding for North East Community House and Wandana Community Centre. It also includes major roadworks; the installation of a pedestrian refuge in North East Road, near the Gaza Football Club; the jointly funded upgrade to the entrance of Dernancourt Shopping Centre on Lower North-East Road; and the infrastructure build for the 250 new car parks and upgrade of the Klemzig O-Bahn interchange.

The Supply Bill, which we are being asked to support today without any detail of the $6.6 billion, has raised some issues. I have raised some issues of urgency that need to be addressed in my electorate of Torrens. I feel it is not unrealistic that a small fraction of the $6.6 billion be allocated to these important projects. I have been listening to speeches by the government on the other side. They have been saying that projects in their areas are being funded, so I think it is a reasonable request. I will always stand up for my electorate, as I have said in this place before. These are important projects and there is a real need for them. The former government saw a need for them and they made those commitments. I will be going to the relevant ministers—I have already written to some of them—with regard to this and to request meetings.

The former Labor government also committed to additional car parks at the Paradise O-Bahn interchange, as did the Liberal opposition. Labor's commitment included increasing the number of car parks by 350 spaces at the Paradise park-and-ride and also upgrading the intersection at Darley Road. I know that nearby residents and commuters are looking forward to the completion of all the additional car parks at Tea Tree Plaza, at the Klemzig O-Bahn interchange and also at Paradise. I know that my residents in Klemzig are particularly keen for these works to progress because their streets are congested at times—before or throughout the working day—with the cars of people who are parking there. The former Labor government's commitment to increase the number of these car parks will see that congestion on the roads removed.

Another Labor commitment was to the upgrade of Fosters Road, which is a road that runs between Grand Junction Road and North East Road in the suburbs of Oakden, Northgate, Lightsview, Hillcrest and Greenacres. With the major Lightsview development and older houses in some of the other areas being demolished and new houses being placed on those blocks—sometimes two or three houses being placed on them—it means that we have a lot more traffic in the area, so Fosters Road has become very busy.

It is an issue about which I have consulted widely with the community, including holding a very well-attended public meeting, following which the department delivered a draft management plan. When the residents responded to that draft management plan, a further plan was delivered and resulted in a number of changes. Labor committed a $7.3 million costed solution for Fosters Road. In comparison, the Liberal commitment was $1.3 million for some lights at the North East Road and Fosters Road junction.

The Labor government commitment included road resurfacing; upgrade to signage and line marking; upgrade to pedestrian facilities, including new pedestrian refuges; improved lighting at the intersection; and, importantly, the installation of a new signalised intersection at the North East Road-Fosters Road junction, including fully controlled right-hand turns from Fosters Road.

As part of the road management plan, the resurfacing of Fosters Road between North East Road and Redward Avenue is scheduled to begin in the next couple of months. I was out there on Monday of this week. I want to say that, when I was there on Monday, I went out there because I had concerns raised by the Hillcrest School community and also by other residents, that the department had removed a crossing on Fosters Road. It was a pedestrian crossing that had been used by Hillcrest Primary School and other residents from a nearby retirement village to cross the very busy Fosters Road.

While one of the options that was considered was the removal of that particular crossing as part of the draft management plan, it was not agreed on, it was not appropriately consulted on and many residents did not even know that it was going to be removed. The school was told that this was something that was going to be happening and then, out of the blue, it was removed. What happened following that was that I wrote to the minister because I was really concerned that no pedestrian refuge was put in place at this crossing by the school where kids cross. There was no replacement for it.

One would have thought that the department would be working through these things and know that you do not remove a crossing before you have something else in place for those kids to cross the road. I am really concerned that I was not notified with any time frame, and I understand now that there was a communication breakdown somewhere. It is really important that, when they are making these decisions, these departments actually do properly consult with the community.

On Monday, when I went out there to have a look at it, I found that the beginnings of a pedestrian refuge were being laid but that it is not in the best place. The school community is unhappy about where it is. It is on a corner and traffic will be coming from all different directions. I am not sure how it has ended up there, but it is a concern. I really urge those ministers sitting opposite to acknowledge that the local members do actually have good knowledge of their community, and keeping them informed about what is going on, especially about issues of safety, is really important, as is keeping local residents, community groups and schools informed. I am really concerned that did not happen; hopefully, it will happen in the future.

Throughout this week, over the last few days, we have been listening to speakers on the Supply Bill. We have had a number of very valuable contributions from members on this side, and one of those was the comprehensive contribution made by the member for Lee. I think it went over one night and then extended on into the following day, and he made some really significant points. For the benefit of those who missed it, I will finish today with his words. He said:

I am pleased to say that the groundwork has been laid out in what the former Labor government have left this new government. They inherit a budget surplus…the foundation is there for this government to step off further into the future and continue to do well.

I hope that they are listening to that.

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (15:53): I rise also to speak on the Supply Bill. I was so proud to be part of the previous Labor government and proud of all that we achieved for our state and for every South Australian. Under the leadership of the member for Cheltenham, we transformed the state's economy during what could have been some of our most challenging times, and we did so in a way that ensured that South Australians were not left behind.

The member for Cheltenham is innovative, focused and confident. Through his leadership and statespersonship, together with our team, with industry and with our community he made South Australia a leader in renewable energy. He attracted businesses to move here to create jobs and he fought for our shipbuilding industry. It is clear that those opposite lack this vision for our state and lack the ability to stand up and fight for our state. I fear for our state's economy and our community because of it. Already, rather alarmingly, they have taken the surplus we handed them and declared that the budget will be in deficit.

During the election campaign, Steven Marshall, the now Premier, signalled that a government he leads would cut Public Service jobs. During my time as a minister, I was so impressed by and grateful to the incredibly hardworking staff in the Public Service, and I know that, without them, no government could effectively function. The Premier must outline now where these cuts will be made and why. Will it be to police, staff in our schools or hardworking hospital personnel? Thousands of people who have dedicated themselves to our state and to the wellbeing of people in our community do not deserve this uncertainty.

We have also seen the Liberal Marshall government fudge the figures to make themselves look good, but to leave our state worse off. We were told to expect enormous spends in the federal budget by those opposite, who claimed their mates in Canberra would deliver big with an additional $1.8 billion promised for road and rail projects in South Australia, but the federal budget papers show just $162 million was allocated and that the sum total of zero dollars of the expected $1.2 billion for the next section of South Road was allocated.

The budget did not contain any detail about when South Australia will receive funding for each project, raising concerns about whether the money will be delivered at all. Concerns from this side of the house were shared. In a written statement, the SA Chamber of Mines and Energy, the SA Freight Council, the RAA and the Civil Contractors Federation of South Australia joined forces to attack a lack of detail over funding commitments.

The federal budget also included Malcolm Turnbull's confirmation of his plan to increase Australia's pension age to 70 and cuts to schools, TAFE and hospitals, all the while handing $17 billion to the big banks, banks that he repeatedly refused to have subject to a royal commission and a royal commission that, when it finally happened, repeatedly showed how Australian people had been inappropriately treated by those big banks.

This is all on top of the federal Liberal government's decision to support the doing away with penalty rates, leaving around 700,000 Australians worse off. Workers who look after us, keep us safe, serve us food and drink and provide service in shops on weekends and on public holidays and who, in doing so, spend time away from their families, deserve every single cent of their penalty rates, penalty rates that they rely on to put food on their tables and to pay their rent or mortgages. The retention of penalty rates is just one of many reasons why I wholeheartedly support the Change The Rules campaign being run by Australian Unions.

Workers not only deserve but need more secure jobs, decent jobs and better pay. We need to address the growing gap between wage increases and cost-of-living increases. Currently, the largest corporations call all the shots with many not paying tax and with working Australians paying the price. According to Australian Unions, 40 per cent of Australians are now in insecure work. This, combined with low to no wage growth, makes things incredibly difficult for people trying to make ends meet.

I am blessed to have so many conversations on people's doorsteps and in their homes in my electorate of Reynell. There is a deep and growing frustration with this inequity and it is something that I will stand up with them against because, overall, the federal Liberal budget has failed the fairness test. It has failed millions of Australians and it has failed in the extreme and it has failed the women of Australia. Amongst many issues with the federal budget, I was disappointed to see that their ridiculous tampon tax remained, to the ongoing disappointment of women around the country.

For the people of South Australia, and particularly those in my community, I dearly hope that those opposite do not follow the lead of their mates in Canberra. The decisions those opposite make will have a real impact on members of our South Australian community, particularly on young people, on women and on those who are more vulnerable, a fact that should be in the front of the minds of those opposite every time they consider and make a budgetary decision.

Sadly, we are hearing more and more reports about growing homelessness, with Launch Housing's Australian Homelessness Monitor 2018 recently finding that, from 2011 to 2016, rough sleeping has increased by 20 per cent, homelessness in Australia has increased by 14 per cent, people living in overcrowded accommodation has increased by 23 per cent and the demand for homelessness services nationwide has increased by 22 per cent. We know that there are more and more South Australians deeply frustrated with the speed of their transition to the NDIS and of review processes, that many people with serious mental illness are currently working through whether or not they can access the NDIS and that more and more families are finding it difficult to make ends meet.

In this house, I know that we are all deeply concerned about how we can ensure that every South Australian child is safe, healthy, active, learning and nurtured. We must work together towards this in partnership with the many groups and organisations who are compassionately focused on the wellbeing of our youngest children and particularly those who are in care. Having witnessed the work they do towards this shared goal, I was deeply disturbed yesterday to hear of the plight of the Grandparents for Grandchildren group and the uncertain future they face.

Again, I urge those opposite in the lead-up to the delivery of their budget to think carefully about how the South Australians who most need funding decisions to be decisions that are compassionate and focused on the wellbeing of our most vulnerable community members will be impacted by their budget. We are measured as a state by how we treat our most vulnerable community members, and the government's budget will certainly be judged through this lens.

As is the case in every corner of South Australia, in our southern community, sport and recreation facilities are crucially important to the fabric of community life, providing a place for people to be active, to belong and to connect with one another. Together with the member for Kaurna, I fought for and secured $14 million towards a new multipurpose recreation centre that will become a hub for sport to be located next to the South Adelaide Football Club. This hub will create more facility and more ability in the south for people to connect around healthy activity, particularly our young people. That is why it will be so important for us to ensure that this project, fully funded by our previous government, is not in any way delayed by the new government or, worse, cut altogether.

Labor committed, if re-elected, to provide $3.2 million towards the Morton Road sport and community hub in Christie Downs. In partnership with the City of Onkaparinga and the Roger Rasheed Sports Foundation, we intended to create a vibrant sporting and community hub complete with skate park, facilities, equipment and mentors available to our young people so that they are engaged through sport in positive ways. Transforming this reserve and engaging young people in Christie Downs was a priority for Labor, and I hope that it will be a priority for this government. I hope that this Liberal government chooses to make a difference to the lives of young people and families in the south.

It was a pleasure to hear the member for Black speak today about the importance of open spaces and particularly about accessible tracks along our magnificent coastlines. As I have said in this place before, I also hope that in this budget funds are allocated for the completion of the Witton Bluff base track, an important completion for our local community and visitors to our beautiful Mid Coast. Thousands of community members signed a petition for its completion—community members who will continue to stand up until the gap in this track is completed.

Labor proudly invested in sport, recreation and racing when in government, and the previous minister was a big driver of that. We know how important it is for people to come together with a shared passion or interest which unites them and which occasionally divides them just a little in the spirit of friendly sporting competition. Labor assisted so many clubs with upgrades, equipment and programs through the Active Club and other grants programs and through our upgrading of playing surfaces. On that note, I am thrilled that finally the soil has been turned and work begun on an artificial pitch at the home of the mighty Panthers and Pink Panthers, the South Adelaide soccer club in O'Sullivans Beach. We had record investment in sporting grants and infrastructure, with $146 million in additional funding.

Our Labor government also proudly invested $24.5 million into the female facilities program, which enabled clubs to build or modify female change room facilities. Ensuring girls and women have a place to change and get together as a team pre-game sends a very clear message that they are welcome to equally and actively participate in the life of their club and of their sport. The female participation grants were another way in which we were able to support clubs to become more inclusive by providing money to help them establish new female teams, competitions and programs.

The momentum around the upgrading of sporting facilities must continue to be supported. Our communities thrive when their sports clubs are empowered and well funded so that they can include and engage people in their community so that they can grow and be those excellent community hubs that they are. As a parliament, we must commit to helping them in any way we can, and I hope that this budget backs them in.

Our multicultural communities were also supported to flourish under the Labor government. We provided millions and millions of dollars, rightly, in grants so that communities could be supported to develop culturally diverse community projects, activities and festivals and to help address social issues. These grants helped to create strong, safe, caring communities, and they strengthened the fabric of our state. I hope those opposite will continue supporting those communities.

As I have previously spoken about, Labor also provided a boost to racing in South Australia with its investment of $6 million over two years in racing prize money. This was unprecedented. I have spoken with various people in the racing industry who have articulated what this means for attracting world-class riders, horses and trainers to our state. We also supported our state's rec fishers. We invested $3.25 million over the past three years to boost recreational fishing and tourism opportunities and allocated $9.3 million in the last budget, rightly, to upgrade five jetties across South Australia, including the Port Noarlunga jetty in my electorate. Again, I trust that these commitments will continue.

During the election, Steven Marshall and the Liberal Party made a number of commitments in the domestic violence space. I will work relentlessly to hold them to these promises and to deliver them effectively and in a timely manner, and I will be asking them to do more. There are many organisations that do incredible work and protect the lives of those in need, and I hope that they are funded for this work. I, along with many others here, have long been an advocate for survivors and, sadly, victims of domestic violence in our community, and I have worked with domestic violence services in a number of ways for many years.

We all wish that this work did not have to continue, but we are all aware of the terrible statistics around domestic violence, and we all know that this work must continue until we see an end to domestic violence. It is work I will fervently continue as shadow minister for the status of women. As everyone in this house knows, domestic violence can take many forms, including emotional, psychological, physical, financial and verbal. A big component in the cause of any kind of abuse is a lack of awareness and education about what constitutes a respectful relationship. Unfortunately, there is something our society teaches some of our young men and women that leads them to believe that it is okay to control with violence a person whom they are with, or have been in a relationship with.

My main concern with the Marshall Liberal government's domestic violence policy is that there is little about prevention and education. The word 'education' does not feature, not even once. This is a very worrying gap in their policy, in my view. Of course, it is crucial to provide services to support, empower and protect people currently experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, domestic violence. However, to eradicate domestic violence we must focus our attention on prevention, and a major part of prevention is, of course, education.

Education about gender inequality, respectful relationships and appropriate behaviour must be funded if we are to ever eradicate domestic violence. We must fund a comprehensive plan for prevention. I look forward to seeing what is in the budget in this regard and continuing to work collaboratively with all in this house to progress all the strategies that must be undertaken to finally end this terrible scourge in our community.

Bill read a second time.

Supply Grievances

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General) (16:09): I move:

That the house note grievances.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: It is with pleasure that I speak in a grievance to this debate and remind members of the importance of the passage of the Supply Bill. Obviously, the funds are necessary to provide the continued services of the public sector, including contractual services. As a member of the new Marshall government, we are committed to act responsibly and to earn the respect of the people of South Australia.

In opposition, we watched in disgust the conduct of the previous Labor government in their delivery of commercial projects for our state, which were laced with dodgy deals that lacked transparency, broke the rules, wasted taxpayers' money and risked investment in our state. I name the Gillman land deal and the plaza development deal, both of which resulted in scathing reports from the Auditor-General in this state and, in the former, a very comprehensive smashing from Mr Lander in his report.

Now we have the Land Services deal. The member for West Torrens has been a key player in all these events, along with his sidekicks, the members for Enfield and Cheltenham. They all feature as the Three Stooges of financial mismanagement in this state. Yesterday, the Treasurer (Hon. Rob Lucas) announced that the $1.6 billion contract to sell the Lands Titles Office services and other valuation and mapping services had a secret side deal. Yes, members, an $80 million payment was made to secure an option for future state registry sales or commercialisation by a government, which was disclosed but deliberately kept secret until after the election when the contract was able to be viewed and this despicable secret was exposed.

When the member for Torrens was asked to explain publicly, he is reported to have said yesterday—and I will read the direct quotes:

The consortium asked that we keep it confidential. We took advice and we agreed with them…

Mr Lucas knows full well he doesn't have to go through with the deal. He can pocket the $80 million and just add seven years to the contract of the Lands Titles Office.

That is the standard of the member for Torrens' conduct. He knows full well the money has already been received and spent—

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order: it is West Torrens.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: The member for West Torrens. I will get used to it because you will never have another position in this government, that is for sure.

Mr Koutsantonis: I don't want to be in your government.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: Of this state. He knew that the money had already been received and he spent it. He just adds 'just add seven years to the contract'. On the raw data, $1.6 billion divided by 40 years is $40 million a year; that is worth then another $280 million. How dare he sell another seven years' penalty for $80 million, blow the money and then say, 'Just don't go ahead with it. Just give them another seven years to their 40-year deal.'

As to the Land Services commercialisation, when announced as an opportunity to invest, the government issued a Land Services commercialisation information flyer in October 2016. There is not one mention of the proposed sell-off of other registries. On 10 August 2017, when he came into the parliament to make a ministerial statement, he described it as 'the private sector taking over the processing of transactions for the next 40 years', full stop. He does not mention the option of a possible another seven years. There is an absolute misrepresentation by omission in relation to that material.

He identified the features of the contract and, near the end of this ministerial statement, talked about 'Land Services SA receiving exclusive rights to commercialise related data, subject to government approval'. Presumably, that is the envelope in which we are supposed to understand that there is some other opportunity. How the motor vehicle registry, marriage registration in this state or anything else is related data to lands titles is absolutely beyond me, and I think it is gross misrepresentation. This is what he said in parliament on 10 August when asked questions about the contract, which he obviously refused to disclose at that point. When asked:

Does the government have any further plans for privatisation of South Australian government services or assets?

Answer:

No, we absolutely rule out the privatisation of SA Water and its associated assets, something the opposition have yet to do—

That was his answer then. He did not mention, 'Well, we have signed up with an option.' There was no mention of that whatsoever. Then, when asked questions by the Premier, he again was asked to explain his position as to the terms of the contract. On another occasion, this time later, on 27 September, in response to a question I asked as to why the $1.6 billion contract for the sale of Land Services was not made available, he said:

All the aspects in terms of the cost structure will be public.

He then went on to talk about the lands titles aspects. Later, he said in respect of the consortium:

…have said that they want some of their financing and some of the agreements under the contract kept private, or their competitors may get line of sight into the way they bid while they are bidding for other lands titles.

But any aspect that interacts with South Australians or the public has been made public—of course, we insisted on that.

He then went on to accuse me, as usual, for trying to suggest that there is some kind of quarrel in relation to the non-disclosure of this information. Well, now we know the truth. Now we know the absolute truth. The former treasurer, now the member for West Torrens—who, if I have anything to do with it, will never have any other political office in government in this state—treats the property and purse of the people of South Australia with such disrespect, with such a disgusting approach to his mismanagement of money.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: He stands—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Point of order, member for West Torrens.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Standing order 127: personal reflection on members. The member is taking her entire grievance by making personal reflections on me and my character. It is not part of the supply debate at all.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Attorney, I will ask you to keep it to the supply grievance.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: I am happy to do that. Within the envelope of the billions of dollars we are approving in the Supply Bill, we are demanding a circumstance where our government will be of a higher standard than we have seen in this state for 16 years—for 16 years.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: A disgusting waste of money. Of course we are having to allocate more money in relation to the Supply Bill. Of course we are obviously having to look carefully at the management of the finances of this state because of the wanton disregard of not only the process but any respect for the people of South Australia, of their property and of their money, which has been squandered under the former government. They have deceitfully kept this secret from the people of South Australia until after the state election. Well, never again. Never again should the people of South Australia have such incompetence as these Three Stooges of finance have imposed on the people of South Australia. Never again.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members on my left! Member for West Torrens.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (16:18): Sir, the minister is finished, I understand.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I understand you are the lead speaker. You have the call.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Yes, I am. I will take my 30 minutes. Thank you for the opportunity to reply. I think that the offensive remarks of the Deputy Premier are quite shocking and unbecoming of a person who holds such a position. She comes into this place and uses a grievance debate for an appropriation of $6.6 billion to talk about financial management and, within that $6.6 billion, she cannot tell us how any of the money is going to be spent—without a budget.

She is appropriating $6.6 billion, attacks us about financial management but will not tell us how much of that $6.6 billion is to be spent on health, on education, on road and rail infrastructure or on our schools. We do not know any of it, but what we have found out today is that part of that $6.6 billion will be spent on a contract that has not gone out to tender but has gone to an organisation that has what the opposition has learned are some very nefarious links to some members who have nefarious links to members of the underworld.

These members have such dubious credentials that the Victorian government has been forced to conduct an independent inquiry into a gentleman who proposed the membership of an organisation, who is the chair of an organisation, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. I hope I have that right so that I do not defame any other organisation. The government expects us to take a lecture on due process and probity when today the Premier in this house could not even tell us what this organisation is, despite it being on his 100-day plan.

So excuse me if I do not take a lecture from the Attorney-General in a government that is handling a contract in its 100-day plan but does not even know who it is going to. I will not be lectured by the Deputy Premier on probity. Talk about hypocrisy! If I were the Deputy Premier right now, I would be doing some serious investigations into what has occurred.

What minister Lensink said today in the other place I thought was shocking. She had no idea that the organisation was being awarded a government contract without tender, without process, without procurement guidelines being followed. It is an election commitment. I am advised that the minister said that she had met with this organisation, and I will just double-check that from the Hansard to make sure I have that correct so that I do not misrepresent what she said. She was completely unaware of these accusations, which goes to the point of probity.

Perhaps if there were a process where there was a tender conducted to do this mapping here in South Australia, as the government has committed to do, these allegations would have surfaced and a probity officer, or the Procurement Board, or perhaps the Treasury might have said, 'Slow down. There's a problem here. The chair of this organisation has links that might not be in keeping with the decorum and credibility of the South Australian government.'

But, instead, the Attorney-General comes in here to attack me about getting an exceptional deal for the Lands Titles Office while at the same time she is asking this house to pass a procurement of $6.6 billion, with no spending allocated to that money, simply an IOU: 'Trust us. We'll tell you in September.' So do not lecture us, Mr Deputy Speaker—I know you have not, but the members opposite have. Do not let members come in here and lecture us about probity.

As I was saying yesterday in my remarks during the debate on supply, I have always thought that when governments want to borrow money on behalf of the taxpayer—and make no mistake, these notes will be issued at five, 10, 15 years, maybe even 20 years—a lot of this debt will not be paid back while some members are still in this parliament, yet we are here borrowing that money in those people's names. As I said yesterday, no member who spoke on that bill, unless the cabinet meeting has occurred to deliberate on the budget, can tell this house how that money is being spent. No matter how much the Deputy Premier looks down pretending to read her notes—

The Hon. V.A. Chapman interjecting:

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Here we go. That is an interesting interjection because it makes a point. Perhaps you should read the debate of the then leader of the opposition who criticised the government for introducing a supply bill without a budget. Shake your head all you like, Deputy Premier. See the hypocrisy? So here we are again. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

I have no problem with the new government coming in and saying, 'We are going to change things. We are going to do things differently. We've got a mandate of 38 per cent of the population of South Australia and we can do no wrong.' Fair enough. The government is entitled to do that with their 38 per cent of the vote. Congratulations. We only got 32, so we do not have much to brag about either, and we are the opposition. But when the government pretend that there is some overwhelming landslide mandate that swept them into office and brought them here on 38 per cent of the vote and then they start lecturing us about financial mismanagement—well, let me tell you about financial mismanagement and a story called Catch Tim.

Shall we talk about Catch Tim? Who was President of the Liberal Party when donations were being funnelled through an organisation called Catch Tim? It was our current Attorney-General. But the Liberal Party, and given the lecture we have just received on who is fit to hold high office, has made the first law officer of this state the former president who was embroiled in a controversy over money laundering—

The Hon. V.A. Chapman: I beg your pardon? Now that is offensive, and you know it.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Okay then, I will withdraw that.

The Hon. V.A. Chapman: I should damn well think so.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: —who was involved in trying to disguise where donations were coming from, from organisations, trying to disguise the nature and origin of where those donations were coming from. I have to say, for the first law officer of the state to be involved in those types of donations and to then lecture me about my financial management, I think is a bit rich.

Perhaps if someone else had come in they would have come in with clean hands. Perhaps if one of the newer members had said something, I would have let it pass, but not with the member for Bragg and her history as a fundraiser for the Liberal Party, not with her history of all the things that she did to raise money for the Liberal Party. I will not be lectured by the first law officer of the state who has that reputation.

Back to the financial mismanagement or secrecy of this government and the attempt to cover up the fact that they are giving a contract to an organisation they know nothing about, the Premier told the parliament that he was personally overseeing the implementation of his 100-day plan. The opposition deliberately asked that question because we wanted to be sure that the Premier was focused on what his ministers were doing. It is very important, as head of the cabinet and head of the government, that he is personally involved in the implementation of the policies he promised the people of South Australia.

I have to say that I think South Australians, by and large, always give a lot of latitude to new governments; they give a lot of latitude, as they should. New governments are learning, new governments often make errors and those errors are often forgiven, as they should be, because you are new. The opposition deliberately went through a process of asking the government whether the Premier was personally monitoring the implementation of these policies. Why? Because the Premier promised the people of South Australia he would implement a productivity commission and Infrastructure SA and that within 30 days we would know the membership of those organisations.

No-one is expecting those organisations to be up and running. We understand that you cannot do that in 30 days. But the government, before the election, promised the people of South Australia that they would do this within 30 days. The Premier then came in and said, 'Look, we can't do it in 30 days.' He made a ministerial statement saying, 'I'm going to need more time.' There is no press release from the opposition, to my memory, complaining about this. We asked the question. We understood that it could not be done within 30 days. Fair enough. They need a bit longer.

But what I will not forgive is that we have a minister in one house and the Premier in another saying that they do not know what is going on, with full knowledge of what is occurring. If the Premier released and is personally monitoring his 100-day plan and he is personally overseeing it, what do members think about the Premier saying in question time today that he knows nothing or knows very little about this organisation that has been awarded a contract by the government without process? But he does know he has not met with them, and he does know, he has told the house, that Matthew Guy, the leader of the opposition in Victoria, has not introduced him to the chair of this organisation. It is all on the record as never having occurred, yet the Liberal Party saw fit to put this in the 100-day plan.

I note that the Deputy Premier, in her remarks, did not address that. Instead, what she attempted to do was throw mud—throw mud to distract and to divert. The truth is that the government has won the election and people want them to govern, and our job is to hold you to account. That is our job. That is the role of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition and we will conduct it fearlessly. Does anyone really believe that it is inappropriate to ask a question of the Premier about whether or not he knows who this contract is with and why it has not gone out to tender? Yet, surprise, surprise, the Deputy Premier walks in, uses a 10-minute grieve to throw mud. What does that tell you? It tells you that they are worried about something, it tells you that they are trying to distract and it tells you they are trying to cover up.

Well, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition will not be thrown off the scent. We want answers. We want to know why this company has been given this contract. Why were they given an assurance before the election that within 100 days they would be given this contract without tender? If they were given that assurance, why did the Leader of the Opposition not meet with them before the election, given that he was making a commitment to do it within 100 days? These are very, very simple and obvious questions for any opposition to ask.

Let's imagine that we had been successful in the election and that the opposition had lost. I suspect that what would have occurred is that the Deputy Premier might have been leader of the opposition, perhaps, and she probably would have been a very good choice. Imagine that we had let a contract to someone who had been a former Labor Party politician—without tender, without contract—and that that Labor Party politician was under investigation by another government for links to organised crime. What would the Deputy Premier be saying now as leader of the opposition? There would be screams of ICAC now. There would be screams of OPI, select committees, inquiries and relentless questions going through the head of the government. What is coming over the next few weeks with his contract?

What do you do when you are on the back foot? You attack. How do you attack? You come out and you make personal attacks. My father always used to say to me that it is no good looking backwards, that nothing good comes of it. However, I understand the government want to make a few points, and they will go through a few contracts and try to find a few points to score on. I think the Lands Titles Office was a good deal. I think $80 million for an option to do nothing or extend the contract for seven years, when the now Treasurer will be over I think 100 years old, is not an insignificant benefit for the state, which we can spend now in hospitals, schools and roads.

The government are not compelled to do anything. They do not have to, if they do not want to, sell the motor registry, but I think what is occurring is that the government do want to sell the motor registry. They do want to privatise it, but what they are attempting to do is blame us. So, we shall see. On radio today, when I was with the Treasurer, the Hon. Rob Lucas, he was asked by Mr Leon Byner if he would rule out privatising the motor registry. The Treasurer refused to answer. He said he cannot say. Well, let's be very clear about this: there is no obligation to privatise this organisation at all—none. You can pocket the $80 million, add seven years to the contract—

The Hon. V.A. Chapman: You spent it.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: The Deputy Premier says, 'You spent it.' I will not rise on a matter of privilege on this because, in the Mid-Year Budget Review, the budget papers clearly show an additional $855 million from the sale of the LTO that is swishing around the coffers for members opposite to spend.

For members who might not be aware because the Treasurer might not have told them, this is the strategy for what they are doing with this appropriation. Budgets are done through financial years. What the Treasury would be attempting to do is to make the surpluses for the spending the opposition has committed to—and most of the spending that the opposition has committed to is operational.

There is operational spending, there is net lending and there is net debt. They are three columns, as it were, of the budget papers, which you will be shown. There are the operating numbers, which everyone gets very excited about: are we in surplus or are we in deficit? There is a net lending number, which is what the rating agencies really look at. What they are really interested in is whether net lending is positive or negative. Then there are the projected debt levels over the forward estimates. The government and the Treasury will propose what those numbers are over the following four years.

The government and the Treasurer are attempting to do as much procurement and spending this financial year as possible. Why? Firstly, it is political because they want to make sure they can plunge the state into deficit and try to blame me and, secondly, because all the spending commitments the Liberal Party have made are operational. From memory, the only debt spending or net lending impact that the opposition have made is to dig up an intersection outside, here on North Terrace, and put in a right-hand turn. All the other spending the members opposite are making is operational: tax cuts, land tax cuts payroll tax cuts, ESL tax cuts.

Mr Pederick interjecting:

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Yes, I am not talking about the merits or otherwise of them; I am just telling you how they are considered for budget purposes. They are operational spending. The Treasurer needs to find as much operating money as he possibly can; hence, as much spending as possible this year. He wants to bring money forward so revenues that are coming in next financial year bump up the surpluses and make him look like an great financial operator, because the one tragedy of the 44-year history of the Hon. Rob Lucas is not having had a single surplus in his life. He even had the distinction that the member for Lee raised, and that is that, when he sold ETSA after promising not to, he increased debt. Now, that takes skill, a special skill. He actually borrowed a billion dollars more after paying down debt. There you go! Because, again, he cannot control spending.

What I suspect we are going to see is that members are going to be forced to go out and sell it as their decision, despite having no role in the decision-making of what is going to be the budget. They will be forced to go out, talk about and defend public sector cuts, redundancies, reprofiling of infrastructure spending and reprofiling of other spending that will impact communities.

We have had a taste of it, a very small taste of it, with the organisation Grandparents for Grandchildren—$120,000 out of a budget of nearly $18 billion. Remember this: the Treasurer and the Attorney-General cannot find $120,000 of the $6.6 billion they are procuring. Just remember that. There will be lots of these little things that occur, and in my experience as Treasurer and as a member of parliament in this place for 20 years, it is never the big things that hurt you, it is the little ones. It is the small things. It is the $50,000 grant to a local community that has been cut that no-one notices, that Treasury does not tell you it is doing.

You will be out there defending it, despite having made no decision to cut or implement that policy, other than clapping at the Treasurer as he delivers his budget in your party room. There will be a very nice slide presentation, I imagine. You will be given a few hours' warning of it, then it will be released into the public and you will have no say, and you will be expected to go out and sell it.

While this is all going on the cabinet is furiously thinking about, 'Well, how is it now that we are able to implement all this operating spending'—which the Liberal Party has traditionally always said it is always opposed to—'and pay down debt and deliver surpluses while offering tax cuts?'

A very famous conservative, a man called George Herbert Walker Bush, was President of the United States from 1989 to 1993. He was also Ronald Reagan's vice president. He said that this type of economics was 'voodoo economics', where somehow you can slash revenues, increase spending, pay down debt and grow surpluses, because, through the power of the personality of the Premier and his cabinet, he will grow the economy, revenues will start flowing from lower tax rates because more people will be employed and members can then spend money on their electorates on the little wish lists that they have. All of this, of course, will not occur.

When the government cuts revenue, you cut revenue. You get less. Any uptick in revenue that might come from tax cuts, trust me, is way out there—four, five, six, seven years from now. I also warn the government on its payroll tax cuts. We are supporting them. We think they are a good idea, but I have a concern that I think many members of this house and the other house have, as do Business SA and other organisational groups.

Australia is a very equitable country, and we have also always had progressive tax scales, other than one very famous example, the goods and services tax, but that has exemptions. By and large, progressive tax scales are very efficient because they are able to avoid perverse outcomes. What do I mean by that? The one thing you do not want to do with your tax laws is to disincentivise activity. You do not want your activity to change because of things you have done. You only want activity to be influenced by the decisions of boards and businesses on the basis of what is best for their business.

The government should, as much as it possibly can, be neutral in its decision-making. That is a good foundation. I agree with that, which is why we abolished transactional taxes through stamp duty. We do not want people thinking about paying stamp duty in business—go out and transact. Pay the efficient taxes, like payroll tax and land tax, which do not distort the economy and do not really affect decision-making. But what the government has done is that it says that it wants to raise the payroll tax-free threshold for payroll tax to $1.5 million.

It sounds great on the outside, but there is one problem. They are not doing it for everyone. What does that mean? That means that, if your payroll is above $1.5 million, your payroll tax-free threshold will still be $600,000. Is everyone following me here? So because your payroll tax-free threshold is $600,000 and the scale goes up to $1.5 million, once you get to $1.5 million and you are not over it, you pay no payroll tax.

If your business has a payroll of $1.55 million, you are paying payroll tax from $600,000 to $1.55 million. So what has the government just said to you to do? Has it told you to go out and grow? What has the government just told you as a big, massive signboard? What has it said for you to do? Shrink. If you shrink and sack employees, you can avoid nearly $50,000 a year in tax. That is why we have progressive tax scales and that is why we do not have these carve-outs.

But I do not think the government thought of that. That is why the Treasurer is now talking about adjustments, scaling and all sorts of alternatives, because what the Treasury is advising them is what they advised me, which is that, actually, it could do a lot of harm and could cost jobs. While it would be great for everyone below $1.5 million, what is the incentive to grow? Not very much, so the government is going to deal with it on some sort of progression.

But think about the cohort of businesses that are between $1.5 million and $1.7 million. Plus the government have not factored in wages growth. People's wages go up and so your payroll goes up. You might not have hired anyone new, but, just through what is called bracket creep, even though, all of a sudden, you have saved all of this money from not paying payroll tax, you pay a 1.25 or 2.5 per cent increase and your payroll goes above that threshold. So what do you do? You get rid of someone and go back down underneath the payroll tax-free threshold. That is why Business SA is arguing to the government that they need to increase the payroll tax-free threshold for everybody, which means BHP, Woolworths, Coles and multinationals, which will not cost $45 million a year: it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

These are things that I am sure the Treasurer has explained in detail to the opposition backbenchers in his deliberations in caucus about the causation and effects of his planned tax cuts. They are going to set a fire underneath South Australian businesses. They are going to make them go out and employ hundreds of thousands of people. That is why that type of reform can be dangerous.

We support these tax cuts. We are going to back you. You are a new government. You have a mandate to do what you claim. Alright, off you go; let's see what happens. What I do not understand though, which I am very concerned about, is that unemployment rose today. I have to say that, yes, it is good that there is a record number of South Australians in work—that is great—as there were the month before and the month before that and consecutively, I think, for 18 months.

What concerns me though is that, as unemployment went up, we are told that these tax cuts are the panacea for all the problems that we have in terms of growth. So the question then is: what are you waiting for? Why are you waiting until 1 January? Are you happy to see the unemployment rate go up? Of course members opposite are not. They do not want to see unemployment go up. They are just like us. All of us have different political views, but none of us want to hurt the economy or South Australia. We all want the best for it.

So what is the intellectual argument from the government to South Australians as to why these tax cuts are the solution to all of our ills, but you just have to wait? Why? Why do we have to wait? Why is it that we cannot have them now and create jobs? If the Liberal theory on economics is right, if you cut taxes, revenue will grow and more people will be employed, then what are you waiting for? It is because the Treasurer has been told by the Treasury that, when you cut revenue, you cut revenue—that is it. That is the outcome.

Dr Close: It's gone.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: It is gone and there could be a displacement effect from what the government is going to do. While I am talking about displacement effects, I want to talk about the government's idea of offering a $200 million gift to a monopoly provider, without tender, called ElectraNet to build an interconnector between South Australia and New South Wales.

The question is: why not put that out to tender? One of the great things I admired about Jeff Kennett and Alan Stockdale is that when they privatised their electricity assets they did something different from Rob Lucas and John Olsen. They brought in contestability. So when we hear about gold plating of grids, what that means is that a monopoly has grown its grid and is able to charge us for the cost of financing out, the tax liability for that, the maintenance of that, a rate of return; and they get paid.

What Stockdale did in Victoria was say, 'Yes, you can build new transmission lines, but if you build a new transmission line it's contestable to third parties; that is, one of your competitors can bid to build it cheaper than you and charge a lower tariff than you for that power running through those lines. Since the privatisation in Victoria and South Australia, do you know how many new kilometres of transmission line has been built in Victoria? None. Can we say the same here in South Australia? No, we cannot, because Rob Lucas gifted a monopoly: this wonderful gift of incontestability. And why did he do that? To inflate the sale price of the transmission assets. And he got, I think, $2 ½ billion for it.

Importantly, I do not believe that the interconnector into New South Wales will have only positive effects. I think it could have some negative effects. These are what they are. It is called displacement. We saw for a long time the most efficient gas-fired turbine in the country, Pelican Point, mothballed. Why? Because we saw coal-fired power stations in Victoria doing all they could to destroy the Port Augusta power station and mothball Pelican, and they did. When Port Augusta removed itself from the market, you saw Pelican Point immediately start ramping up and turn both units on. They even spent, I think, about $40 million redoing their turbines.

If you build an interconnector into New South Wales, power will not flow from South Australia to New South Wales all the time. It will be the other way round, and then you will be completely reliant on the New South Wales grid for your power. The government's policy is an extension cord. That is not good energy policy. Good energy policy is generation of electrons in your own jurisdiction that you control. To use the words of John Howard, we will control the electrons we produce and the manner in which they are produced. That is the best policy for energy: more electrons here in South Australia.

Since our energy plan has been put in place we have been exporting electrons from South Australia to Victoria. If you build another interconnector without dealing with the displacement effect, you could see Pelican Point close. You could see Torrens Island have units mothballed because they will not be able to compete. We might all think, 'That means cheaper prices.' Maybe for a while—until we are completely reliant on them. Once we are completely reliant on them, they will set the price. Trust me, when your CEO is headquartered in New South Wales, setting the price in South Australia is very, very easy.

So I would say to the government and its backbenchers: be cautious of the sorts of stunts we just saw now because there is always more behind it. But I know that as Liberals you think for yourselves. You are all individuals. You will go about researching the budget yourselves and make your own decisions, and you will all, of course, exercise your God-given liberties to be individuals and exercise your own rights, unlike us, the Labor Party, who will work for the collective good.

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (16:48): Thank you for that stirring speech in favour of solidarity.

Mr Pederick: Onward, comrades.

Dr CLOSE: Onward, comrades, indeed, member for Hammond. I am glad you are joining us!

I would like to address my speech to one of the areas on which I think the government and the opposition are in accord, if I can use that word advisedly, that is, the relationship with France. There are two strategic international relationships that the previous government identified and invested in—with China and France—and I am pleased to see that both of those appear to be taken similarly seriously by the present government. I not only wish the Premier well in his trip to China and hope that he brings back some useful agreements and work with Chinese companies and organisations but also of course particularly wish my team very well in the game for which he is making the trip.

I would like to talk more about the French relationship because it is one that in some ways is in its infancy and in other ways is based on a very deep history between our nations—between our state, our country and some of the provinces in France. Of course, we could have had the Canadian experience. We could have been the French state amidst a sea of English-speaking provinces, had Baudin landed, claimed and started establishing a colony here. That was not to be, but we commemorate in Encounter Bay the very old experience of encountering a different culture in a place far away from home.

What we have built on since then—the historical relationship with France—has been particularly marked through the experience of war, particularly the First World War and the Second World War. The First World War was when so many South Australian men lost their lives on the battlefields of northern France and Belgium. The way in which the French continue to commemorate and honour that relationship, born of that time, is inspiring to me. If anyone has a chance to look on YouTube at the speech given by the French prime minister recently on ANZAC Day, you will see the depth of emotion that still exists and the depth of feeling between our two countries as a result of that incredible sacrifice by our forebears.

The relationship has more recently become one with far more pleasure involved—a relationship on the basis of tourism, cultural exchange, trade and a sharing of a love of food and art. It is also a sporting relationship, and for some time has been a relationship based on industry and education institutions. That has all come into sharp focus with the submarine contract. I must say, one of the greatest achievements of the former premier Jay Weatherill, the member for Cheltenham—the fights that he had with Canberra on behalf of this state—was to secure the political demand from across the country, but particularly from this state, that the federal Liberal government build the submarines here and not allow them to be built overseas, despite the appalling comments that were made by federal members of the Liberal Party and the National Party about this state and our capacity to build.

Nonetheless, the political requirements were such that they had to bow down, and they awarded it to South Australia and, in this instance, to France, to the French company that was DCNS and is now Naval Group. It is an opportunity to be at the very beginning of a very long-term contract in a very long-term industry—an industry that starts with our making something that has been designed overseas and finishes with our capacity to design and build our own. We have a sovereign capacity to be able not only to make our own submarines but to design them. That is a truly important industry that is just starting to gear up in South Australia.

Because the company that is behind this is a French company, we have suddenly turned our heads again towards France and want to embrace that relationship. A bit over a year ago, I went to France as the then minister for education and had a series of meetings that I wish to share with this chamber now. I believe that the new Minister for Education in the new government will want to pick up on that relationship and has expressed not only his gratitude for the work that has been done but also his commitment to furthering and improving on that relationship.

I went over there to have a conversation with the organisation that runs bilingual French national schools overseas. I wanted to know what we had to do to make sure that the bilingual offerings we were going to have in our schools would be recognised by France. The number of students now studying at Highgate Primary in the French bilingual program is, I believe, at 100. If there were more room, there would be more demand for more students to be in that program.

It is not just people who are French nationals who happen to be living in Australia; it is also people who are not French themselves and not of a French background who recognise what a child can get out of a bilingual education and have decided that French is the language they wish to do that in. That was an important meeting and discussion and an ongoing relationship about getting the certification ultimately from France to say that the way you are teaching French and incorporating French curriculum, particularly at the high school level, into the Australian curriculum, will be recognised and valued by French people coming here.

I went up to Cherbourg to go and see a submarine being built—a nuclear submarine in that case, although the nuclear bit was missing when I went around it. The thing that DCNS, the mayor of Cherbourg and all the high-level officials I was meeting with at that time were most preoccupied by how they could best welcome the 50 Australian families who have now relocated to Cherbourg in the early stages of people from Australia going to France to start to learn how to design these submarines, to be involved in that very early stage. What they wanted to know most from me was how they could make those people welcome. I think that is a mark of the warmth of the friendship that they are displaying towards us.

I also met with a number of universities in Brittany. I sat for a day in a room at a university in Brittany, meeting with university after university on how they wanted to work with ours. We are starting to see that pay off. Already in Paris when I was there, Flinders University signed an agreement with four of the grande écoles, which is the level of university that we do not have. We do not distinguish between universities. They have these very high level, very sophisticated universities. Four of them partnered to join with Flinders University on research associated with submarines.

Today, again, at Adelaide University, at another signing ceremony, one of the engineering universities was talking about not only shared research but shared students with Adelaide University, students coming here from France and our students being able to spend time in France. France is now offering teaching and research degrees in English in order to make it easier for those of us from English speaking backgrounds to go to France and study. The possibilities that we now see between our university sectors in France and in Australia, in Brittany, Normandy and South Australia, are going to be enormously important to our economy in the future.

The meetings I had in France not only were a pleasure because people were so accommodating and desirous of strengthening our relationship but they also gave me an opportunity to use the French that I had learnt many years ago, to resurrect my French. I went to the Alliance Française here in Adelaide before I went over so that I could try to refresh my French before I arrived, so that I carried with honour the name of South Australia to Paris and beyond.

What I would like to say, as I am free to talk on almost anything in this grievance, is: please encourage any child you know to learn a language. It is very easy when we are English speakers to assume that that is sufficient, that to be able to speak English is all you will ever need to conduct business and even to travel across the world. It is not the case. Not only does speaking another language help you develop your brain and help you develop your own language in understanding the construction of grammar but it helps you to have a relationship with countries where they look at you differently because you have bothered to try to speak their language.

In one week in Adelaide last year, I spoke all three languages that I have attempted to learn over my life. I spoke French with the French ambassador. I spoke Italian with the mayor of Reggio Emilia, who came over here and speaks almost no English, and at an ALP fundraiser I had a German of reasonable note in this state who was giving me a bit of a hard time as the member for Port Adelaide, so I unleashed some German on him that I had learnt in high school, and he was much nicer to me after that. Can I urge members not only to support our education system in offering languages but to individually support our young people to take on that challenge.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: To follow the multilingual deputy leader, the member for Ramsay.

Ms BETTISON (Ramsay) (16:58): Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I rise today to talk about the excellent work being undertaken by the Salisbury Business Association in my electorate of Ramsay. It is a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting the businesses in the Salisbury City Centre. It is funded by a small stipend via council rates and the Salisbury Business Association, through its own elected board of volunteers. Its chief executive works tirelessly year-round to improve economic and social activity in the Salisbury City Centre.

In collaboration with association members, local service organisations, schools and sporting clubs, it successfully organises a number of events locally in Salisbury. These include the annual Christmas parade, the annual Salisbury Business Awards, the Salisbury Motorcycle Showcase, the Aussie Era Salisbury Car Show and, this year, the inaugural Superhero Saturday event and the Salisbury Food and Cultural Festival. The larger events are well publicised locally and attract 2,500 to 8,000 people. This is a significant achievement for our area.

All these fantastic events are organised to shine a spotlight on the Salisbury city centre, to create an energetic community vibe and to make it a family-friendly space for our community to meet and, of course, shop. The association works collaboratively with a range of local organisations and the City of Salisbury, and it provides lots of useful information for local businesses via a fortnightly e-newsletter and regular board reports.

Just some of their recent activities include: working on a new John Street PA system; working with council on streetscape works, including new paving, street furniture, rubbish recycling and smokers' butt bins to improve the amenity of the area; the creation of the 'Moving Salisbury Forward' policy document on behalf of local businesses to outline priorities for government; support and contribution of ideas towards the new Salisbury Hub; and support and grants to improve lighting and CCTV in the area.

My electorate office of Ramsay is not just hashtag #5108andproud—our dear postcode—but is proud to be a supporter of the work of the Salisbury Business Association. It contributes by being involved as a member of the board and by participating in a non-partisan way in local events. A highlight for my son Hugo has been to be an elf in the Salisbury Christmas parade for many years. He is looking forward to again donning the costume this year. Last year's Christmas parade broke several records, with more than 86 different groups and 1,800 people participating. I think we might even have beaten the Christie Downs Christmas—

Mr Picton: Christies Beach.

Ms BETTISON: The Christies Beach Christmas parade. I have some fun facts about the parade to share. There were 45 parade vehicles, 50 bicycles and two horse-drawn vehicles; three horses plus camels, goats, ponies and sheep; a beautiful Nativity scene; Christmas carollers; six event sponsors and, more importantly, to show the diversity and the care of this event, more than 50 event volunteers from the Rotary Club of Salisbury, Global Care, Salisbury City Rotaract Club and the Salisbury Business Association. Twenty market stalls were held on the day with lots of free children's activities and live entertainment.

Apart from being an incredible amount of work to organise and coordinate, there are tangible economic and social benefits derived from this fantastic work. One thing we see is a full occupancy rate of the retail spaces in our John Street mall, one of the few traditional high streets left in South Australia. There is a strong retail occupancy at Parabanks Shopping Centre. Car parks are at capacity from Wednesday to Saturday, with traders reporting increased patronage. There is a significant positive relationship between traders and the police in reporting and managing criminal and antisocial behaviours, resulting in a safer and more community-friendly shopping precinct.

A new resident to the area recently told me that she loved the community spirit of the Salisbury area. She shared that it was fantastic that there always seemed to be something happening in the Salisbury city centre. That is because there is always something happening that is affordable, family friendly and fun. For a long time, I have had my own personal tagline for Salisbury: 'Come to Salisbury and see the world.' This is no exaggeration. When we hosted a small business round table with then assistant treasurer, Chris Picton, in John Street, many of the speakers travelling from outside the area for the event were impressed with the diversity of food and goods available in John Street.

There was Coffee Amigo, for a taste of El Salvador and nationally award-winning coffee; Qadir's Afghan supermarket and butchery; Abdul in the African Supermarket, facing Wiltshire Street; the Pacific Big Butcher, with its European feel; Nepalese condiments and jewels; the Bhutanese supermarket, Namaste; we enjoy the spices of India, at Tandoori Temptations and the Best Indian Supermarket. Recently, a new addition is the Chin supermarket, on Park Terrace; and of course there is the significant influence of Vietnam, with iPho noodles; the bakery; and of course our fabulous Japanese restaurant, Mobara.

These businesses receive fantastic support and encouragement from the Salisbury Business Association, in particular from the Executive Officer, Mr David Waylen. David has become an integral part of our Salisbury community. Early in the morning, you will see David grabbing a coffee at one of the many cafes. During the day he is out and about talking with traders, organising meetings and always on the lookout for information that will benefit members of the association, and the area in general.

David attends council meetings and subcommittee meetings and reports back to his members. He writes the action items for the agenda and writes the minutes, produces newsletters and manages the Facebook page. He genuinely works tirelessly for the association, its members but, more importantly, our community. Let me take this opportunity to acknowledge David and all the board members and volunteers who assist this excellent work being carried out by the Salisbury Business Association.

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (17:06): I rise to speak to this grievance debate. I thank the member for Ramsay for her discussion, which reminded me of the excellent meeting that we had in her electorate with local businesses in her area when I was the assistant minister to the Treasurer. We discussed how we, the then government, could help them in terms of addressing a lot of the barriers they were facing as small businesses in the northern suburbs.

It highlights one of the really important things that I was undertaking in that role. I call upon the government to match their rhetoric with action in this regard, which is to actually work one on one with those businesses, to go out and listen to those businesses across the whole state, to talk about what are those barriers and how we as a parliament and they as a government can take action to address them. That is what I did in that role. It is not glamorous work. It is quite difficult, complex and time consuming to go through and try to address what can be a number of anomalies in the law, or in different regulations that might be affecting people.

We brought a number of deals to this parliament to remove that red tape. We had a number of Simplify Days to remove red tape affecting businesses, and I hope that is continued. There was certainly a lot of rhetoric from those opposite that they would be doing this. I hope that they actually take the time to invest in resources to make that happen. One important thing connected to that as well and was certainly present at that meeting, as well as another meeting with the member for Light in his electorate, was a representative of the Office of the Industry Advocate.

This is a very important role for our government in South Australia, to have somebody who represents businesses in South Australia to make sure they are getting a fair go in contracting for both big and small government works, and to make sure that we are getting the biggest economic benefit that we can out of the work that we are investing in infrastructure, but also in service contracts across the state. I am very glad that we legislated for that position because I am not quite sure whether that would still be in existence now if it was not legislated and protected by law.

Unfortunately, we never had support for that legislation from those opposite, but we did manage to get it through the parliament. I hope that we do not see a diminishing of the position or importance of the Industry Advocate under this government, and, most importantly, the policy that sits behind the Industry Advocate in terms of what the industry participation plan is for South Australia. I hope that for each of those contracts there are criteria and, importantly, percentages sitting behind that waiting to see what the economic benefit for South Australia will be both in terms of jobs and capital output. I hope we do not see diminishing of that. That is something that we will be watching very closely on this side because we know that this has very wide support across the business community in South Australia, and we would not want to see that diminished.

There are a few things I would like to mention in this grievance debate. I ran out of time to mention a couple of things in my Address in Reply speech, so it is great to have this extra opportunity to do so. In particular, I was going through thankyous, but I ran out of time for what I was going to do last, but not least, that is, to thank the most important people, my family, for their hard work and support during my campaign and during my term in parliament so far—in particular, my wife, Connie, and my daughter, Anna, whom I was not able to thank in my maiden speech because she did not exist at that point in time.

I am sure that everybody who is a parent will agree that becoming a parent is a life-changing moment. I am very glad to be in state parliament where, even if we have a late-night sitting, we are able to get home to bed at night and wake up in the morning and see our children. You do not have that if you are flying to Canberra and away most of the time travelling around the country. I am doing my best to try to be the best dad that I can be with this busy job, but I rely hugely on my wife's support, as I am sure other people in this parliament rely on their partner. So I thank her for her support, as I do my parents, siblings and in-laws as well, who gave me huge support during the election campaign.

I would also like to thank the Labor Party campaign headquarters in South Australia. I think that they did an excellent job in what was a difficult campaign. It is pretty remarkable to be in government for 16 years, and I have been contemplating how long a period of time that is, and I have to say that it must have been a very long time for those people who were in opposition for 16 years. I think that we did an excellent job in demonstrating that we were still a party of ideas and a party that was still passionate about progressing South Australia.

As well as to the former premier, a huge amount of thanks goes to our campaign team, led by Reggie Martin, our state secretary, of course assisted ably by Aemon Bourke, one of our lead campaign organisers, who marshalled a very professional campaign and who was able to communicate expertly with the people of South Australia. We see some of the results in terms of the success in seats like Mawson in our ability to get out on the ground and connect with people. We will certainly continue to do that, particularly in those seats where we lost narrowly this time, but hopefully we will be successful next time.

I spoke in my Address in Reply speech as well about the privilege I had to serve in the portfolios I did as a minister and the thanks I give to all those emergency service workers and police, who serve day in, day out, keeping our state safe. When it comes to the police, we absolutely need to keep our police safe. They have a very dangerous job. Day in, day out they are responding to very dangerous situations across our state. They are putting themselves and their lives at risk in each one of those situations. When they turn up to a call-out, they are never quite sure what to expect. It is incumbent upon us, as a parliament and a government, to ensure that they have the best possible resources available to defend themselves and to protect themselves in those situations.

One of the things that I was very proud of during my time as police minister was to get a commitment, not just a commitment but a decision, made by the cabinet at that time that we were going to procure stab-proof and ballistic-proof vests for all our police officers on active duties in South Australia, as well as ensuring that all our patrolling police had access to a taser—not to have a trial, not to dip our toe in the water, but to ensure that all police, when they go out on the job, have access to a ballistic-proof vest and have access to a taser.

This was a commitment that was agreed to by the cabinet. The police had the spending authority and they were in the process of procuring these items. This is similar to what New South Wales has done in terms of the ballistic-proof vests that they are rolling out across the state. To be honest, I am very disappointed about what we heard in question time today, when the Minister for Police outlined that he is only going to commit to a trial of these vests—eventually; we are not quite sure when. So he is cutting what was previously agreed by the government as a full rollout of these vests across the state.

We have no information as to whether police will be able to get these tasers. In fact, he said to the TV news last night that he would look at it if people put it on the agenda. Well, it is on the agenda. The police have been calling for this, the Police Association has been calling for this. Our officers need this protection. Currently, there is one taser per patrol. We need to ensure that all patrolling members have access to a taser and, potentially, these life-protecting vests as well.

I call upon the government to make sure they take action and keep to the commitment that we made in government, the decision that we made as a cabinet, to invest in this. It is a commitment that both the police force and the Police Association were very supportive and appreciative of. There is no need to have a trial. A trial would create a delay. It would be a waste of time and money. It would put officers' lives at risk because many police officers in the state will not have access to this equipment when they need it because we may be going through the farce of a trial when we could instead be investing in our police officers and getting these vests across the state right now. I hope this government change their mind and make sure they reverse this cut and invest in our police.

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (17:16): I welcome the opportunity to make a short contribution to this grievance debate. I was going to talk about the police, but perhaps now I will regale you again, Deputy Speaker, with more examinations of roundabouts in the northern suburbs, or perhaps repeat my praise of the member for King, who has taken up the fight to make Skyline Drive safer. I was saying before, member for King, that it was one of my first focuses early on. I am pleased you are continuing that work. We changed some speed limits along Black Top Road to make it safer, but obviously you are continuing that.

I want to talk a little bit about the police portfolio. I want to put on the record my thanks to the member for Kaurna and the leader (member for Croydon) for helping me settle into that role. Both were very good ministers, both very focused on essentially giving the police what they needed to do their job rather than, for want of a better word, directing or instructing the police on how to do their job. They simply listened to people like the police commissioner, and the previous police commissioner, both obviously very experienced police officers. They had a very good management team around them, all experienced police officers.

There has been the member for Kaurna and the member for Croydon, and a whole suite of previous ministers—we were trying to count the number of police ministers over the last 16 years; the member for Wright springs to mind, of course, and the former member for Elder, I think, was the first, and then there was a whole suite of very good police ministers, all of whom understood their roles and responsibility under the Police Act and all of whom contributed to what we have now, which is one of the most respected and well-resourced, if not the most well-resourced, police force in Australia.

I was very proud to be a serving member of South Australia Police. I am very proud to now be a member of the party which until recently were in government and played such a strong role in making the police stronger and better able to do their job. This is something about which we all should be immensely proud. These things do not happen by accident, as I alluded to. The members for Playford and Kaurna have already outlined some of the achievements. These things do not happen by accident. They come from having a government which is true to its values and believes in a strongly resourced and independent police force.

On this side, we have respect for the office of the police commissioner, respect for the police and respect for that office. As I said, that is why we have a police force that is the most trusted and among the well-resourced in the country. It has been stated many times that by the end of this financial year we will have 4,713 sworn police officers in this state. Again, this does not happen by accident. These things come from a government that believes in having a well-resourced and independent police force. I was proud to serve as a police officer in this state and I am also proud to now be the shadow minister for police and able to hold the government to account in these areas.

I do have a couple of areas of concern and the first, of course, is about resourcing. After years of steady investment and increasing police numbers against attrition, the previous government announced in September 2016—I believe the member for Kaurna was the minister at the time, or perhaps the member for Croydon—an acceleration of our Recruit 313 program requiring, as I said, the reaching of 4,713 by the middle of this year. I do fear that this number will not last, that once Treasury and the Treasurer get their hands on a budget they will be tempted to let police attrition take place and that we will see this going in the wrong direction. I very much hope I am wrong about that.

Other than resourcing, the other area I am concerned about is this seeming lack of understanding of the role of the commissioner and the role of the minister under the Police Act. I say this for the benefit of, perhaps, the backbenchers who are watching the minister and the Premier in question time answering questions around their election commitments, around their responsibilities under the act and their authority to make certain decisions that they promised the people of South Australia, who rightly expect them to keep their promises.

This is not just question time posturing by the opposition to be laughed away with glib answers—indeed, often the same answer to different questions. This goes to the heart of our system of government, the heart of the Westminster system. There are those on the other side who claim to have a great deal of interest in personal freedoms, and this goes to the heart of our freedoms—having an independent police force directed by an independent police commissioner. The Police Act is structured in a very specific and deliberate way to give the police minister independence from the executive except under very extraordinary circumstances, and it has been stated in this place how rare those circumstances are and how controversial they are when they do take place.

Section 6 of the act outlines the commissioner's responsibility, and his or her responsibility is to control and manage the police:

Subject to this act and any written directions of the minister, the commissioner is responsible for the control and management of SA Police.

Section 7 outlines a specific direction that the minister has no influence over remuneration, over appointments, over transfers, over discipline of members of the police. Section 8, which is probably the most pertinent, is about directions to the commissioner:

8—Directions to commissioner to be gazetted and laid before parliament

The minister must cause a copy of any direction given to the commissioner to be—

(a) published in the Gazette within eight days of the date of the direction; and

(b) laid before each house of parliament within six sitting days of the date of the direction if parliament is then in session, or, if not, within six sitting days after the commencement of the next session of parliament.

We have seen some extraordinary scenes in the parliament and the media where the police minister and, on occasion, the Premier seemed confused about their powers and authorities under this act; and not just confusion but an inability to defend their decisions, an inability to work through them and explain how they arrived at seemingly contradictory positions where they claim to be able to direct the commissioner to perform certain functions or change certain policies in relation to resourcing, particularly of police stations, and of course the deployment of STAR Group officers to break up teenage parties (which was pretty roundly and quickly cut off by someone in about 12 hours).

We have seen confusion, we have seen a seeming inability to understand the act, and now an inability to reconcile the election promises they made to the people of South Australia, which the people of South Australia are fully entitled to expect them to keep, as well as their responsibilities under the act and the explicit wishes of the police and the police commissioner. Those things are in conflict in several areas now, and it is up to the minister and the Premier to sort these things out quickly, come clean with the house about how they are going to manage this going forward and how they are going to manage to keep their election promises and keep their responsibilities under the act.

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (17:25): I am going to continue the remarks I was making in my speech to the Supply Bill, as I had run out of time, but I am going to return to some of those remarks. I started to touch upon electricity supply in remote communities, but before I touch on that, I found question time interesting today. I am one of those relatively old-fashioned people who believe that credit should be given where credit is due.

Over the term of this government I am sure you are going to do some things we are totally going to disagree with, but you will also do some things that I am sure will get my tick of approval. There are already one or two things you intend to do that I think are quite good. I am not going to say what they are at this stage but they are not bad. If you deliver on it, I will be there saying, 'Good on you. That is a good policy and it deserves a slap on the back.'

We should all, on this side and on your side, give credit where it is due, and that is why I was a little disappointed with the Minister for Energy and Mining today in his response to a Dorothy Dixer on the energy system in South Australia. I will preface my remarks with the comment that I have a fair amount of respect for the Minister for Energy and Mining. Given that he has the electorate that neighbours my electorate, my perception before coming into this place was that he is a very good local member—an effective and good grassroots local member.

He is moderate and he is pragmatic, so he has a lot of things going for him, so I was a little bit disappointed when he did not give credit where credit was due. In response to the Dorothy Dixer about the energy mix in South Australia, he almost badged it as an initiative of the current government that has been here for just a few weeks.

Mr Pederick: Great work, isn't it?

Mr HUGHES: Yes, very great work, very quick work indeed. He mentioned a few projects and, unfortunately for the minister, I know quite a bit about these projects and I know the history of these projects. He mentioned the Goat Hill project, which is between Whyalla and Port Augusta, a lot closer to Port Augusta than it is to Whyalla. Goat Hill is a pumped hydro project. I recall that the proponents for Goat Hill came to see me about a year and a half ago to talk about this project at Goat Hill. I was quite impressed because I had already been exposed to a number of pumped hydro projects, and this was a group of companies that had some experience in delivering pumped hydro overseas.

So, they went through the technical aspects, and it seemed like a fairly simple project in comparison to some of the other pumped hydro projects that had been talked about in Upper Spencer Gulf. It was during the term of the last government that they put in their application for planning approval for this project, which has now been badged as a Liberal Party project. I do not think there will be any problem with the planning approval; in fact, they might have already got financial closure for that particular project. It was a bit strange to say that this is an example of what this Liberal government is doing when it is something that came out of a very positive approach to renewables that we have in this state.

He went on to mention the Bungala project, a big solar project just outside Port Augusta, and badge that as another example of the Liberal Party getting in there and getting these projects up and running. This had gone way past the development approval stage. It was actually physically under construction during the period of the Labor government. Indeed, the first stage of that project either has been, or is about to be, connected to the grid.

That is going to be a good project for Port Augusta, and certainly during construction generated a lot of jobs. These projects, like the solar PV project, which is the Bungala project, once they are up and running, do not generate a lot of jobs, but the good thing about them, because the marginal cost of operating is so low, is that over time it is going to reduce the wholesale cost of electricity in South Australia. He mentioned another project, and that was the concentrating solar thermal project north of Port Augusta, the SolarReserve project, which I have to say, if it gets constructed, will be in my electorate.

I will acknowledge that, as the local member, he was very supportive of that project. I am someone who is very keen to see that project go ahead, given that I had involvement with concentrating solar thermal dating all the way back to 1998 because Whyalla did come close to having the first of the major concentrating solar thermal projects in South Australia and, in fact, Australia. As far back as the Howard government, when Malcolm Turnbull was still a supporter of renewables, they provided $8 million to us towards a small pilot project.

We went on, under a Labor government, to secure the lion share of the renewable energy demonstration program money, so we had $60 million of federal money on the table for a $230 million project using Australian-initiated technology with the private sector consortia, including the Australian National University. These things are often complicated. It is often difficult bringing emerging technologies to the market and it did end in tears, but none of the $60 million that the federal government had put on the table was lost.

I had a lot of involvement in that particular project, so I was very happy to see us, as a state government, enter into a power purchase agreement with SolarReserve to help underpin the potential financial viability of that project. The minister indicated that he, in this house, set up a select committee to have a look at this project, and good on him for doing that, but there were a number of other people involved way before then. Beyond Zero Emissions must be an organisation that drives a lot of Liberals around the bend because it is committed nationally to a 100 per cent renewable energy target, and has laid out how we might move in that direction and how we might transition into that particular space.

Of course, credit also needs to go to Repower Port Augusta. The minister was a strong backer of Repower Port Augusta, so it is really interesting to see that these projects are in some way claimed by this Liberal government that has been here for a mere few weeks. I am just waiting for the Liberals to claim credit for all the other renewable energy projects that have been developed in this state as well. I think it is important that, when we are ascribing credit, credit should go to where it belongs. Obviously, the private sector proponents of a whole range of these projects should get credit, but the former state government, in establishing a framework to actively facilitate renewables in this state, should also get credit when we are talking about these projects that are being delivered.

There is over $7 billion of investment in renewables in South Australia and a large share of that investment has happened in regional South Australia. It has generated jobs during project development, it generates ongoing jobs and the energy mix that it is going to create will, over time, drive down wholesale electricity costs in South Australia. Once again, I have run out of time. Thank you.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (17:35): I would like to raise a couple of points in this grievance debate. I would like to highlight some things that were not covered in the original Governor's speech in terms of outlining the plan—if you can call it that—by the Liberal Party for this term of government. One area that I found was missing from the document, except for a passing half a sentence, was to deal with issues around inequality in our community and the impact of inequality in our community. Not only that, but it was also hard to find the word 'community' mentioned anywhere. A number of speakers mentioned the word, but I am not sure they know what it actually means because it is not reflected in their policies.

In terms of inequality, I am talking about how we can close the gap between the poorest people in our community and the wealthiest. It is no secret: even the most conservative commentators in the area of economics these days talk about the impact of globalisation. Yes, it has increased wealth, but that improvement in wealth across the world has not been shared proportionally across communities.

Particularly in the Western world, the impact of inequality ended up with Trump being elected as President of America; inequality in Europe and particularly in the UK has led to the increase in influence of extreme right-wing parties—and I hope none of us this in place would endorse their policies. We see those sorts of reactions by people who feel most vulnerable, people who feel like they have been left behind by society and they now are voting for extreme parties, which is a worry in terms of our democracy.

Another element missing from the Governor's speech was any reference to a whole range of issues that I think are really core to what governments are about. The government should intervene not only in the economy as required but also in society more generally to make sure they provide an appropriate framework to create a fair and just society. As I have heard a number of times over the last few weeks in maiden speeches, we are human beings who are at our best when we look after each other rather than ourselves. A lot of the policies I have heard so far from the other side are not about helping those who are least fortunate in our community.

Another thing not mentioned in the Governor's speech, which I thought needed to be addressed, was anything to do with home affordability. In other words, what are we going to do to make sure that people can afford a home of their own and particularly for young people to be able to afford a home of their own? A lot of young people are just not able to raise the sort of finance they need to buy a home. For those who are lucky enough to go to university and graduate, they often have a huge HECS debt to pay off, which makes it very hard for them to get into the homebuyers' market.

Home affordability manifests itself in a whole range of ways in the community. It generally delays people coupling up and having children. There is a whole range of other changes in society as a result of home affordability. However, putting aside that important issue, there is also the issue of homeless people in our society. Often people who are homeless are stereotyped, certainly by some councillors in the City of Adelaide. What some councillors have said about some homeless people in the city is quite disgraceful. These people lack compassion for people who are homeless—there but for the grace of God go I.

People always say that people are homeless because they want to be homeless or they are basically lazy, etc. That is just nonsense. When you look at the case studies and you meet people who are homeless, you realise that we are all one or two steps away from being homeless ourselves. In my previous role, when I was minister for social inclusion, I met people who had been successful business people who had ended up on the street. They go through a whole range of steps: the business goes bad, the marriage goes bad, and literally they are on the street with alcohol and other things.

There is a whole range of factors that lead people to be homeless, such as young people escaping violence at home or people with mental health issues. For people in positions of influence to then literally try to benefit from people's homelessness was just disgraceful. Those councillors should be ashamed of themselves. There was nothing in the document about homelessness. I could not find it. I am happy to stand corrected and am happy to correct that if there is anything in there about homelessness and how we can deal with that social issue.

The other issue that was dear to my heart—and this is perhaps less a state matter these days than federal—is supporting the NDIS to make sure we have a scheme that is truly supportive of people living with disability. Under the current Liberal federal government, disability has become a bit of a political football. That government has used it to wedge the most vulnerable in our society. I recall very clearly that, in not the last budget but the budget before, they basically said, 'We're going to have to trade off the NDIS to improve payments for people with Newstart and other payments.' It is disgraceful that a government would say that and would wedge people who are the poorest in our community against those people who live with a disability. The federal government certainly does not deserve to be re-elected at the next election, and I do not think it will be.

Another thing about inequality and its impact on community is a growing sense of isolation in our communities. I think this is one of those sleeper issues. It goes right across a whole range of ages and groups. Particularly older people suffer from isolation. As a whole range of government programs are cut back and withdrawn, people are isolated in their homes. We are fortunate to still have community organisations like Meals on Wheels, which often are the only social contact some older people have with the outside world, the world outside their homes. Those volunteers deliver not only meals but importantly that people contact. So inequality has an impact on community and also increases isolation.

The other group of people is obviously people in poor health. I am pleased to say that people who have kidney issues or cancers now have greater access to services in our town under both federal and state government programs. We introduced chemotherapy services and also dialysis services in Gawler so that people who have those sorts of health issues to deal with are not disrupted more than they have to be, because it can be quite a strain on families. Certainly the Gawler Health Service provides a whole range of services to people with those health issues.

There can be no greater contribution to inequality than keeping wages down for working-class people. It is interesting that, once you mention executive salaries and how they have grown over the last 10 to 15 years, you are accused of entering into class warfare. They shut the debate down. The Liberals love to shut the debate about inequality down as soon as you talk about people at the top end of the market whose pay has gone through the roof. Yet even conservative commentators are now talking about how the lack of wage growth for working-class people is having a negative impact on our economy as well.

When you have people like John Howard saying that the number of people receiving Newstart should be increased, you know this federal government has got it wrong. When people like John Howard are saying, 'Yes, Newstart payments should be increased to make sure that people have a reasonable quality of life,' again that is reflecting inequality in our society. So what did this Liberal government do in South Australia, and what do federal Liberal governments do? They gave the big banks tax handouts—$65 billion going to corporates. Most of those do not pay tax here; they pay tax overseas, and they are going to get an additional benefit. The Liberal Party opposed our big bank tax—I was going to say the big, bad banks; well, they are actually big and bad these days, and the royal commission has proven that—and they saw that as a victory.

Mr Pederick: Pull your money out.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: Well, the member for Hammond clearly supports—

Mr Pederick: I said pull your money out of the bank if you don't like them.

Time expired.

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (17:45): I am delighted to rise this evening to speak in this grievance debate as the member for Reynell and from the perspective of shadow minister for multicultural affairs. Cultural diversity is one of our state's greatest assets, and I am so grateful to the many people who have chosen to call Australia home and brought richness, vitality and strength to the fabric of South Australian life.

Our state is better and stronger for the people who have made that choice to make a life here for themselves and their families. In that regard, it was absolutely wonderful to listen to a legislative councillor, Irene Pnevmatikos, speak today about the journey of her family here to South Australia. They were beautiful words that she gave and it was really inspiring to hear her talk about her family's journey and also to hear her talk about the way that education has been a key for her in her journey to this place.

I wanted to speak this evening about a few of the communities I have had the great pleasure of getting to know better in recent times. I have had many opportunities to get to know the growing Ahmadiyya Muslim community in the south over recent times, particularly as they have searched for premises in our southern community. On 3 March, I was absolutely thrilled to help them celebrate the finding of those premises at the opening of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community's first ever mosque in our southern community.

The mosque is situated on Hillier Road in Morphett Vale in my electorate, in a building that previously housed the Uniting Church, which for decades brought that faith community together. It was wonderful to see members of the Uniting Church community at the opening, wishing them well and articulating their hope that as two churches they can continue to work together in support of others and with a unity of purpose around the advancement of peace and togetherness.

The opening of this mosque means that the growing number of Ahmadiyya Muslim community members in the south will thankfully no longer have to travel 30 kilometres to their next nearest mosque at Beverley. It means that this community finally has a mosque where they can pray and have gatherings close to homes and, most importantly, from where they can undertake the significant work they do to support the efforts of others in our broader southern community.

'Love for all, hatred for none' is the ethos of this Ahmadiyya Muslim community, and it is this ethos that they bring to life in many different ways and in the service of others. I thank them for their values and their commitment to peace and thoughtful discussion, for their advocacy on human rights, both locally and across the globe, and for the genuine way they do all that they do with love and a genuine desire to advance the interests of others.

Their mosque in Morphett Vale has been named Masjid Noor, which means 'the mosque of light', and light to our community they certainly bring. I have had the opportunity to also attend their women's bazaars, their peace symposiums and to witness their very important work for the Cancer Council and for Clean Up Australia Day, amongst a variety of other causes. Just two weeks ago today, I had the opportunity to present Sadiqqa Khalid from the Ahmadiyya community with an award to recognise her selfless voluntary work for our community. Sadiqqa has led a team of other women to cook for gatherings of up to 200 people, whilst at the same time dealing with some pressing caring and family responsibilities.

Last week the 2^nd Australian Bhutanese Conference was held here at the Festival Theatre, and what a conference it was. The enthusiasm and energy of attendees was palpable, and I felt very lucky to be able to join them. This month the Bhutanese community is celebrating 10 years since the first group of people arrived in Australia, when the Rudd Labor government agreed to take refugees from Bhutan. Over the last decade the Bhutanese community has settled in every state across the country and become a wonderful part of our broader Australian community. I was very pleased at the event to read a letter to the community from former Prime Minister Rudd wishing the community very well.

While the Bhutanese community were celebrating last week, they were also taking the opportunity of all being in the one place to share their experiences, examine challenges and to plan for their future. Thank you very much to everyone who made me feel very welcome at the event, and particular thanks go to Kamal Dahal and Sushil Niroula from the Bhutanese Australian Association of South Australia and your team for organising this fantastic event. I wish your community all the best and look forward to meeting with you again and to supporting the vision and the plan that you developed together.

On Saturday, I was very pleased to have the honour of attending and representing our Leader of the Opposition at the Pakistani Australian Connections of SA (PACSA) welcome dinner. I thank Nasir Hussain, President of the Pakistani Australian Connections of SA and his team for their very, very warm welcome and for putting together such a wonderful event. PACSA holds a dinner every six months to welcome new members of the local Pakistani community and to connect new members of our community with various supports and services that are available. I can only imagine how daunting and overwhelming such a big move would be for people making such a journey, and I hope that events like these dinners help to reassure them that they are absolutely never alone.

Thank you to PACSA for all that you do for the Pakistani community in South Australia. Your volunteers selflessly and positively assist people through the transition to living in Australia with so much practical support, from airport pick-ups, accommodation and shopping for food, to helping to set up mobile phones and bank accounts, the list goes on. What is even more special about your organisation is that you continue to support people after the initial transition. You help people newly arriving every day through your deep commitment to creating an inclusive and welcoming environment that supports and empowers your fellow community members to achieve their goals.

At the dinner, I emphasised rightly that there are many in the South Australian community willing to assist these new arrivals in whatever way we can and that I and others in this house and the other place are a great resource and I encourage them to contact their state or federal members of parliament for any assistance they need. I want everyone to have access to everything they need to equally and actively participate in every aspect of community life here in South Australia, and I am very happy and willing to help people to do so.

South Australia is such a beautiful place to live, and I hope that those who were at the dinner grow to love this place is much as we all do. We have such a long coastline of magnificent beaches, rolling hills, an ever-growing restaurant and bar scene, many exciting festivals and, most importantly in my mind, we have a strong sense of community. We are a community here in South Australia, where we reach out to one another when times are tough, where we walk alongside each other and where we celebrate the successes of one another. It was an absolute privilege to be there to welcome and to celebrate these new members of our community.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.A.W. Gardner.

At 17:54 the house adjourned until Tuesday 29 May 2018 at 11:00.