Bills

Infrastructure SA Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 3 July 2018.)

Mr KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (15:37): I point out to the house that I am the opposition lead speaker.

The SPEAKER: Thank you.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: It always amazes me when governments introduce what they claim to be autonomous bodies into the parliament to do the work that, quite frankly, agencies should do. This government seem to think that they do not have the ability or capacity to be able to give us a forward plan for infrastructure. They seem to believe that they are not qualified, or that their agencies are not qualified, to give independent expert advice to the people of this state on the basis of which we should be spending their hard-earned wealth on future infrastructure plans.

I suppose it goes fundamentally to the question of trust. It is obvious to me that the government do not trust the people who serve them. They do not trust the people who work for them. They do not trust the independent advice they receive, and what we see the government attempting to do is to sideline the public sector as far as possible. They would claim that they have been given a mandate to do so. They would claim that 36 per cent of South Australians cannot be wrong and that the other 64 per cent of people can go suit themselves.

We would argue something very different. We would argue that creating another level of bureaucracy could be seen to be an abdication of your responsibilities as the executive and a massive vote of no confidence in your infrastructure agency. From my understanding, this new body will be answerable to the Premier, not to the transport and infrastructure minister, which I find again very interesting because it seems again to try to duplicate federal bodies which, like Infrastructure Australia or the Productivity Commission, have varying roles depending on who is in office.

The idea that somehow DPTI, or whatever incarnation the government settles on over the next four years for its infrastructure agency, cannot do the forward planning for five, 10, 15 or 20 years is pretty offensive to all the engineers and hardworking planners who are in those agencies. What the government is basically saying to all of them is, 'Look, we don't have confidence in what you're doing.' However, to the government's credit, they did promise to do this. They did say for a long time that if they were ever able to form government they would introduce this legislation, introduce Infrastructure South Australia.

They made commitments that, within the first 30 days of office, they would give us a list of the people who would be on the board. We still do not have that information, which is, I think, disappointing. There have been names flagged in the public debate, in the media, about who may or may not sit on this agency to give advice. I note that the former member for Mayo, Mr Briggs, is being considered as either a chair or an ordinary member. I understand that other prominent members of the Infrastructure Australia community have been recommended, as well as former members of parliament.

It would be disappointing, I think, without making any adverse criticism of the ability of Mr Briggs, to populate a body that is meant to be independent with former politicians, and the opposition will be flagging amendments to be made in the upper house—not in this house—on some measures that we think will help maintain the independence of any body created by this parliament.

I think it is fair to categorise this measure in two ways. It is a long-term commitment of the Liberal Party, but the implementation of it has been a broken promise. So give them a tick on one point that they have introduced legislation, that they are attempting to establish it, but you can also give them a cross for not meeting the time lines that they set for themselves. We did not set these time lines. We did not set these waypoints for them to meet. The government did and they have not met them.

The objects of Infrastructure SA are to promote efficient, effective and timely coordination of planning, prioritisation, delivery and operation of infrastructure as is necessary for the economic, social and environmental benefit of the state. It sounds pretty much like the mandate DPTI has, but obviously its new political masters do not believe that they are capable of them.

It is also, I am told, to promote the adoption of policies, practices and information analysis to support sound decision making in relation to infrastructure. That sounds like a criticism of the nonstop north-south corridor decision, which was, let's face it, a political decision—a political decision that started in the time of Diana Laidlaw. It was Diana Laidlaw who first made a political decision to divert thousands of semitrailers away from Portrush Road, down to Cross Road and then right onto the north-south corridor to head to our port.

There is an important distinction here. You have to ask yourself these fundamental questions when it comes to infrastructure: would the north-south corridor have come to be had it not been for political decision-making? If we had left it to the bureaucracy to decide or independent experts where infrastructure goes, how it is paid for and the most efficient use of money, I suspect the private sector would probably say that it would use as much taxpayers’ money as possible, leverage the state's balance sheet as much as it possibly could, divert as much cost as it could away from the private sector and build the shortest, fastest possible route to market to lower their costs.

Of course, for the bureaucracy and decision-makers in that equation, the uncomfortable truth is people. When you have people involved in decision-making, you get politics. The former premier rightly says that politics exists when there is disagreement. When there is universal agreement, there is no politics in the issue. It is all about whether there is disagreement. The question then becomes: what does this mean in the future for advocacy by local communities about infrastructure?

What does this mean for the power of local communities in our representative democracy to be able to lobby their member for parliament for infrastructure to get things built and done that is in their interests, as opposed to what might be seen as an economically efficient outcome? I am all for economic efficiency, given that four days ago South Australia became the only state in the federation not to charge conveyance duty on real and non-real property. That was a great step forward in economic efficiency.

Infrastructure SA is a piece of legislation that quite frankly weakens the political involvement of communities in the decision-making processes. What concerns me the most about Infrastructure SA is that the government has decided to take the powers available to the Essential Services Commission and give them to an infrastructure body—

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Yes, you have. Those powers are to be able to compel information to be given to Infrastructure SA that could be commercially sensitive to competitors.

The reason we give ESCOSA these powers is that ESCOSA's job used to be to regulate monopoly assets. When you privatise transmission lines, distribution lines or generators, it is important that the regulator who sets the price of these monopolies has access to the financials of those corporations to be able to adequately regulate them. It is highly appropriate. The Australian Energy Regulator has those powers and the ACCC has those powers.

It is appropriate that bodies that regulate monopolies in essential services have these powers. That is why ESCOSA has these powers. It has not been made clear to me why Infrastructure SA needs these powers to compel information from private companies. I assume that includes freight companies and infrastructure companies that build roads and bridges. I assume it includes anyone who wants to participate in the construction and delivery, or have participation in state-owned infrastructure. That leads me to the conclusion that the government is going to attempt to get into the books of private contractors.

If you had told me that the Liberal Party of any jurisdiction around the country wanted to give a government agency those types of coercive powers to investigate the private sector and have the private sector hand over this information, I would have said, 'I don't believe you.' But this Liberal Party is more than happy to give those powers to Infrastructure SA. I note when the Premier walked into the parliament he said, 'No, those powers aren't being given to Infrastructure SA.' I am not going to give the Premier gratuitous advice, but it seems to me from the briefing I received and the legislation I have seen that that is exactly what Infrastructure SA is proposing to do, and I do not think the opposition can support that.

Despite there being some media about us being anti business, we have a competitive environment in South Australia where businesses compete in tendering for works. They need to keep information in confidence, especially if it is commercially sensitive. The government can arbitrarily use this committee, which will comprise chief executives appointed by the Premier, the CE of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet—whoever that will be—the Under Treasurer, the chief executive of DPTI, a chair and, I understand, three other members.

The legislation gives these people, who are unelected, the ability to set out not only a framework for 20 years of infrastructure spending of taxpayers' money but also the ability to have coercive powers to call for information without regulating monopolies that are privately owned. You have to ask yourself why. What is the long-term aspiration of Infrastructure South Australia?

If I were a cynic, I would ask: is it perhaps because the government is attempting to formulate a long-term plan for toll roads, where a toll road would be a wholly owned asset of a company and the ability to set charges and fees would of course be determined by the cost and allocation of funds, or corporate overheads and the like of that company in running, maintaining and building that piece of infrastructure? If that is the case, the government should tell us in advance. If it is not the case, then why are these powers needed?

I am a bit concerned that you would set up a committee that is made up of chief executives who answer to the Premier, and I will tell you why, Mr Speaker. Every member of every board in South Australia has a legal responsibility to act in the interests of that board. There is a problem here. There is an inherent conflict. The chief executive of DPTI answers to his minister and has a contract with the Premier. The Under Treasurer answers to the Treasurer and has a contract with the Premier, as does the chief executive of the DPC.

I am not sure how a chief executive can undertake their duties and act in the interests of Infrastructure SA in an impartial, independent way, acting always in the interests of that board, and answer to an external body, which is the cabinet. We are all accountable to someone and, ultimately, for the executive it is the Crown. Ultimately, for chief executives it is the Premier, and for the Premier it is to the parliament and the Crown.

But what happens if there is a conflict and the chief executive of DPTI disagrees with the board and agrees with the Premier, and then acts in the interests of the Premier, or his agencies on the board, rather than acting in the interests of the board? The protection for public servants here is murky at best. There is nothing in the legislation to protect them from maladministration inquiries or what have you, or the inherent conflicts that will follow.

The conflicts are jumping off the page here. I just do not know how chief executives will be able to conduct themselves on this. There are examples where we have chief executives who sit on boards and act in the interests of those boards. SAFA, the Financing Authority, is one of them. We have public servants who sit on those boards, and they answer to the Treasurer but they act in the interests of the Financing Authority.

But the truth is that when you are in Treasury and you are on the Financing Authority, there is no real conflict because we all want to keep the prices of capital down. We want to make sure the state gets a good return because ultimately it will be a cost to the budget. So it is very hard for there to be conflict, but when you have an infrastructure body that sits outside of DPTI and you have the chief executive of DPTI on that board, I am not sure that that conflict can be resolved. However, I am sure there are smarter minds than mine who have contemplated this issue and who will have answers for us in the committee stage.

Another point is that I heard on the radio the other day Mr David Bevan talking about this organisation, Infrastructure SA. He put to his listeners a very important question. Sorry, it was not David Bevan, it was Mr David Washington from InDaily, my apologies. He said that these people—

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: He is watching.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Is he?

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: David Bevan.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: David Bevan? He is watching, is he?

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: He swears he is. He swears he does.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: I don't believe him. What Mr Washington said on radio was, I thought, an important matter for the parliament to note. The people on this board will make decisions and file reports that will have a lasting impact on the people of South Australia, and a majority of them would not have been elected by the people. The people would have had no say in their appointment.

You could argue that, no, the Premier has been elected by the people, by all 38 per cent of them, and that the Premier has made these appointments in Executive Council and they are legal. I do not dispute his legal authority to do so once this act passes. However, there is a moral question here about whether or not the parliament should allow people to hold such influence on such boards for such a period of time without the parliament being allowed to have a say in their appointment, or in whether or not they would at least have the power to disallow.

We make other appointments like this where the parliament has a say. The ICAC commissioner is one of them. If my memory serves me correctly, it was the opposition that moved amendments to the ICAC Act when it was being introduced by the then attorney-general, the member for Enfield, to allow either the Statutory Officers Committee or the Statutory Authorities Review Committee to make a recommendation that is disallowable by either house of parliament.

The reason the parliament went down that path—and I think it was a good reform, even though the government of the day had not thought of it—was that we were appointing someone for a seven-year term who would have extraordinary powers of investigation and the ability to call for evidence and to compel people to answer questions.

That is a lot like the power that Infrastructure SA will wield with private corporations, yet the parliament, under the passing of the legislation, will have no say. In effect, what I am flagging to the House of Assembly today is that the opposition in another place will flag amendments and work with the crossbench to see if we can give the parliament a say, at the very least, on who is appointed to these boards. There are a couple of reasons for this.

I have to say that I am not one to attack former MPs receiving roles, because they do have a certain expertise. Let's face it, you do not enter parliament without having certain expertise or the trust of your community, and you do not conduct yourself as a minister, as a senior opposition shadow minister or as any other member of this place without having a certain level of acumen and ability. I do not make the point that any former MP on any board or committee is a mistake—I disagree. I think there should be a wealth of former experience that can come back and give advice to governments as they move forward.

One of the great strengths of our Westminster system is that change is often slow, in order to give new governments a moment of pause. I have always thought that that is a very good safety valve that we have with our upper houses. You can see what happens in Queensland where you do not have that type of safety valve. You can get quite skewed results. The same goes for boards and committees.

I get the sense that this board is already on the path to hyperpoliticisation. That concerns me because there is an opportunity here for the government to be quite proactive and to do the right thing. There is an opportunity for the government to actually do what it says and mean what it says, which is that they want a long-term infrastructure plan for the state that is non-political. However, I am not sure how you achieve that by appointing people who are hyperpartisan.

I would caution the government on their thinking on this, and I would caution the government on appointing people who are hyperpartisan on these committees. Not only can they do damage to the institution but, in the long term, people will lose faith in the process. When they lose faith in the process, you get no benefit from the independent analysis that the body does.

I think there are exceptions to that. There are joint committees with people of high standing from both political parties who do exceptional work. I had a lot of time for former deputy premier Goldsworthy. I took his advice often on matters of mining because I thought he had an exceptional mind for the long game. I took advice on many occasions from other former Liberal MPs. I had occasion to offer former Liberal MPs statutory office positions because I believed that they had good ability, good independent thinking and that they would serve the state well.

But you have to pick and choose your targets quite well, and I think that this committee might be, to use a pretty poor pun, a bridge too far. There have been similar bodies established interstate like Infrastructure SA to try to inform the process. Often these bodies are established to try to convince Infrastructure Australia that ultimately the work has been done on a project and that it should be funded, but we see with Infrastructure Australia, on occasion after occasion, the ultimate political interference in the decision-making. There is one thing Infrastructure Australia does not have and Infrastructure SA will not have: the ability to decide budgets.

In the end, it is called the golden rule: who has the gold makes the rules. In bilaterals, the Treasurer and the cabinet will decide infrastructure spending. From what I am seeing in this bill, DPTI will become simply an implementation body rather than a planning body. I caution the government on this again.

In 2013, when the Abbott government came into office, they pushed forward Darlington on the north-south corridor ahead of other parts of the north-south corridor. To be fair to them, they had won an election overwhelmingly with a considerable mandate. The then minister Jamie Briggs said, 'We're doing Darlington next, but that's it.' We said, 'Fine.'

They were able to consult with us on plans, and we were able to consult with the commonwealth agency about timing and the implementation of that construction. I am sure I can hear the bureaucracy saying that will still continue under Infrastructure SA, but like any form of outsourcing—and I have seen it over time in agencies—the moment another agency or body becomes responsible for this type of infrastructure planning, what occurs is a slow degradation of the ability in other agencies to respond.

It is slow. It is not apparent immediately. It is like a frog in a pot: it does not boil immediately so the frog jumps out; it is a slow boil. What we will see over time is DPTI lose the ability to do forward planning. I cannot tell you how valuable it was to know that, when Torrens to Torrens was coming to an end, we were again able to achieve savings because of the expertise of the contractors in DPTI and the long-term planning all being centralised in one body. They were able to advise the commonwealth and the state that we could do more and amend the plans accordingly.

I am not saying you cannot do that with an Infrastructure SA in place, but it makes it harder. I often talk about this internally: none of us should die on the cross of process. Process is important. It is important for probity and it is important for transparency, but you should not lose the initiative, and bureaucracy sometimes can take away initiative. I would caution the government on taking away the initiative of an independent agency that can move quickly like DPTI can and give advice quickly to the Treasury and to the cabinet about moving on something, whether it is costs or something opportunistic.

You also have to ask yourself if a lot of the infrastructure that we spend money on improves the efficiency of the economy, if that is the sole test in a cost-benefit analysis on the efficiency of the economy. They claim there are social and environmental factors, but my instinct here is that the economic virtues will outweigh the others. You have to ask yourself: how much money would be spent by Infrastructure SA improving freight routes to the heart of Port Lincoln because of grain congestion? Or how much thought would be put into putting money in to upgrade a port in the hope that a mining project gets up?

The best example we have of that is the ship lift at Port Adelaide. There is no economic modelling that could have been done in the early 2000s that would have said that that will pay for itself—none. It was a bipartisan approach, where the Bannon government, the Brown-Olsen government, the Rann-Weatherill governments invested in infrastructure that would not pay back for decades. We have seen the fruit of that now.

You have to ask yourself: if you had an independent body set up with economic experts who talked about the efficiency of the economy, would you be investing your treasure in a project that might not pay back for 10 or 15 years? Imagine if we had said, 'If we get the frigates, if we get the air warfare destroyers, we will build the ship lift.' Would we have won those contracts? By building the ship lift and being prepared, we were able to outdo our competitors.

The same goes for infrastructure. The Northern Connector will not be at capacity when it is built. The South Road Superway will not be at capacity and has not been at capacity since it has been built. The Torrens to Torrens project is another example. All these projects have long time lines for their economic benefits. Some of them are immediate and important, but over the longer term you have to ask yourself whether these are projects that bodies like Infrastructure Australia and Infrastructure SA would prioritise over other things.

Would the Oaklands Crossing have been built if it was considered by Infrastructure SA? Would the electrification of the Gawler line have been considered if Infrastructure SA was a decision-making body? It may have. Would you seal the Strzelecki Track? Would you duplicate the Joy Baluch Bridge? Would you build a rail line from Whyalla to Port Bonython? Would you build an upgraded rail line from Whyalla to Port Lincoln? Would you build a transmission line from Port Augusta to Carrapateena? Would you build a pipeline from the Cooper Basin to Port Bonython?

When Tom Playford and the former governments decided to nationalise ETSA and build an oil and gas industry, these were political decisions to grow the state, and they were good decisions. You have to ask yourself: if the oil pipeline from Eyre Peninsula to the Cooper Basin had been considered on the basis that Infrastructure Australia considered infrastructure, would it have been built? I suspect it would not have been built.

I would caution against outsourcing your economic sovereignty to a board. I am not going to get ridiculous and say that this board will attempt to undermine South Australia economically. Of course it will not. But sometimes you need cabinets to have the ability to make a decision that is in the long-term interest of the state.

I will give credit to the Premier on one of his decisions, which is GlobeLink. I think it is a massive waste of money, but he has made a decision that he thinks we should dig up the Goodwood interchange, the Torrens Junction, all the work we have done to those freight lines, and bypass the city of Adelaide for a freight link, adding time and cost but for the social benefit of people in the Adelaide Hills. Obviously it is a political consideration.

My suspicions are that, if anyone looked at this project, they would say 'fail' because it just would not stack up on any criteria, especially a freight-only airport, given that there is no freight-only airport in the world that has a train line go in, because of the double-handling required to unload freight that is packed a certain way for a rail line and put it on a plane. The double-handling and the cost would be excessive, and it just does not stack up, but I give him credit for coming up with something different. Whether or not it stacks up, I think I will be proven right on this, and the Premier will be proven wrong.

If you have these bodies, you take away the imagination and free thinking of politicians to come up with ideas reflective of their communities. It is not always apparent to central decision-makers what is occurring in local communities.

For example, there is much talk about building an import facility for natural gas into South Australia, Victoria or New South Wales. My instincts are that a lot of that gas would be contra deals where you would have gas coming off from the North West Shelf into tankers and, rather than those tankers going to Japan, they will simply sail around the coast, land in Adelaide, Melbourne or New South Wales and unload their gas as a swap, or they will send gas down from the Cooper Basin as a swap, or whatever it might be.

When it comes to nation-building infrastructure, you need to be able to listen to locals and take a helicopter view. It is quite difficult to do both, and that is why I have concerns about these types of committees. I understand the committee will publish annual reports. I have been told that those reports will be made available to the parliament but that there is no requirement for them to be made available to the parliament.

I think the parliament has every right to see what these boards are doing in our name, and to have their reports and their work tabled in the parliament annually, so that we can see exactly what they recommended to government, and what government accepted and did not accept, so that we can compare and contrast. That is the role of the parliament.

The role of the parliament should be to give a critical analysis of what our independent boards are doing. For example, if Infrastructure SA advocated further work on the north-south corridor but the state government did not want to partner any further with the commonwealth government, we would like to know the reasons. Or, if there is some other piece of infrastructure that pops up out of nowhere, we would like to know Infrastructure SA's views on that. It is important that you have this transparency to allow greater debate.

Given the government came in on much fanfare of being open and transparent, I see no reason why they would oppose any amendment to increase the transparency and openness of bodies like this.

Mr McBride: It's a good thing.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: It would be a good thing, as the member for MacKillop says. I agree with him; it would be a very good thing. I see he is being cautioned by the whip now; he is probably in contempt of the parliament. Members of this house are free and unfettered to speak their minds!

Members interjecting:

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Free to speak their minds. When you see that type of bullyboy behaviour, it makes you nostalgic for the CFMEU. The bill allows for this body to do things on its own initiative, or at the request of the minister. However, I note that it does not allow this house or the upper house to resolve to look at something.

Most parliamentary committees—in fact, I think all parliamentary committees—can have work referred to them by the parliament. Given that we have a Public Works Committee, an Economic and Finance Committee and two houses of parliament that have a great deal of interest in infrastructure—the Penola bypass being one of them; that is one I funded when I was infrastructure minister and then treasurer, and I am very proud to have done that, and I received no thanks for it whatsoever, but—

Mr McBride: It's only half done.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: It's only half done, yes. Tony Pasin has failed everyone by not giving us any more money to get it done. Everyone is used to being let down by Tony Pasin, although he did very well on the weekend with the preselections. What a great job of dirtying up Senator Lucy Gichuhi. That was spectacular. I have to say that I have seen some stitch-up jobs in my life, but that was first class.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for West Torrens, return to the bill please.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: I will, sir. I will leave the smoking ruins of her career in our past, and we will see how Mr Alex Antic goes in the third position, whether he is elected, whether or not it was all worthwhile.

An honourable member: A good regional member.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: A good regional member. Yes, he likes Adelaide and North Adelaide.

The Hon. C.L. Wingard: He would be an outstanding regional member in your mob.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: He should run then, in West Torrens.

The Hon. C.L. Wingard interjecting:

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Again, from the Minister for Police—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for West Torrens, back to your contribution on the bill, please.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: If we did not have him, we would have to invent him, Mr Deputy Speaker, but back to this bill after my distractions by the police minister. I believe that the parliament should be able to refer matters for consideration to Infrastructure SA, and I will tell you why. There is a lot of debate in this parliament from regional members. Regional members are never going to make up a majority of this parliament; they just will not. The population does not justify it, so regional members will always be in the minority in the parliament. They might be the majority in a political party, but overwhelmingly they are in the minority.

In the upper house, the Legislative Council, the only person who lives north of Gepps Cross is the Hon. Clare Scriven, who lives in the South-East of South Australia. All the rest live in Adelaide. No Liberal member in the upper house, as I understand it, lives in regional South Australia, which I think is a first for the Legislative Council. Only one Labor member does. As a regional member, you have to ask yourself if the regions are having a real say in how infrastructure is allocated.

In Canberra, there is the unwritten rule of a quota system. The National Party has a certain number of votes in the parliament that decide how big their cabinet representation is. I have even heard of unwritten rules about how much infrastructure spending is allocated. The National Party does quite well in comparison with the Liberal Party for regions. The National Party is able to get an 80:20 funding split for infrastructure. Regional Liberals are able to get only a 50:50 funding split. Labor has been able to achieve an 80:20 funding split on the Northern Connector and Darlington.

However, this current minister, who is in breach of standing orders by talking to his advisers in the gallery—I thought I would point out that unparliamentary behaviour to you, Mr Deputy Speaker—is again an example of how regional members are being disenfranchised. The one way you could enfranchise regional members is to allow them to refer, as a member of parliament, projects from their community to Infrastructure SA for consideration. The great thing about this parliament is that there is a good, healthy streak of independence in regional members.

The Hon. S.K. Knoll: Keep talking.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Thank you. Those regional members have often had very good suggestions, and they are worthy of consideration. But in a government dominated by metropolitan members on either side, I think it would be a very useful amendment to allow the houses of parliament, or even individual members of parliament, to refer projects for consideration to Infrastructure SA. I know the government would say that that could be quite costly. You could see an overwhelming number of projects referred to Infrastructure SA for consideration. I am sure that the government would want backbenchers to be seen and not heard and not make any such public representations for fear of being let down.

However, I put this to government members: think of the benefit to a foreshore community that is looking for upgrades to infrastructure. Imagine the power of their local member of parliament being able to advocate for Infrastructure SA and the pressure that it would put on the minister then to fund that in the budget process. It would basically arm what were once muted missiles—voices that were not heard. It would basically give a voice to regions.

What the government would have you believe is that, simply through the power of their election, regions are now being heard. That may be true; we will find out in the budget. We will find out how much more the people of Eyre Peninsula will get in this budget. We will find out how much more the people in the Mid North will get, how much more the people in the South-East will get, how much more the people of Kangaroo Island will get and how much more our regional and remote communities will get from this budget.

The one thing I do know about the budget process is that discipline above all else is the most treasured commodity in the decision-making process of a budget. There will be many disappointed people. There will be some confused and some disappointed. The ones who will be disappointed will be the ones who put up projects for funding that have been rejected in the name of some other project.

I can only imagine the frustration of some regional members and backbenchers having their infrastructure wish list pushed to the side where no-one knows about it. I say, let 1,000 flowers bloom. Let's allow the will of regional members to be heard. Let's allow the upper house to refer projects for consideration. Imagine the power of regional members, in a bipartisan way, putting in a funding application for the duplication of the Joy Baluch Bridge, or the political power of regional members in a united voice—Labor, Liberal and Independents—saying let's seal the Strzelecki Track and putting that to Infrastructure SA.

Once they have put it there and they have considered it, according to the government, it is up to them whether they fund it or not. At least then we will know whether the government, whoever it is, Labor or Liberal—

The Hon. S.K. Knoll: This is the Nick Xenophon approach.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Please.

Mr Pederick: It is. Nothing is funded. We promise all and don't fund any of it.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Please. Allow those projects to be scrutinised not only on an economic basis but on the social impacts and the political impacts. I can flag to the government that the opposition will be moving amendments in another place giving them as a parliament—or the chambers, we have not resolved that yet—the ability to refer projects to Infrastructure SA for consideration. I think that would give a greater level of transparency and openness to the body, give regional members a greater voice and indeed allow backbenchers, who are forced into this cone of silence and cannot speak up publicly on behalf of their communities when they are let down in the September budget, to have an avenue to come out and speak.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The minister will have his opportunity in due course.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Let me remind the house that this is 4 July. It is a day for bringing down the executive of the Crown. It is a world-renowned day.

Mr Brown: No taxation without representation.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: No taxation without representation. It is important that regional members are heard and that they have their views.

Mr Brown: Don't tread on me.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Exactly: do not tread on me. Liberty or death. This bill has quite considerable powers. I am surprised at the powers that the minister wishes to give this bureaucracy. I always considered the minister one of the more sensible members of the Liberal Party and someone who was a true conservative, or a tory maybe. That is harsh, maybe. I would consider it harsh. He would probably go home and be very happy that I called him a tory, but I always considered the minister to be someone who valued the private sector and their ability to make commercial considerations in confidence without the bureaucracy or the heavy hand of government putting their hands in their pocket, or their hands in their boardroom, to extract information that is commercially sensitive.

As I said to the house earlier, for the benefit of the minister who was preoccupied doing important work—I do not want to criticise him for not being here—I would just point out that ESCOSA have those powers for a reason. ESCOSA have those powers because they are an independent body that regulates monopoly assets. This is not such a body. I think it is important that I make my point known to the minister. I have grave concerns about these powers being given to this body.

We will be flagging amendments in the upper house to remove those powers with Infrastructure SA, unless I am given some explanation either in another briefing or in the committee stage by the minister that allays my fears that this is nothing more than the bureaucracy or the government attempting to coerce commercially-sensitive information out of contractors and tenderers.

Companies should be able to operate in South Australia without the fear that the government is going to step into their boardrooms and find out exactly how they fund, what their borrowing costs are, what their allocations for capital are for their head office and other things, to try to work out exactly what they should be charging for an infrastructure project. I think that is unfair unless they are operating a monopoly asset, and the only monopoly asset you can think of in this area is a toll road.

The government has been very clear that it opposes toll roads. So I take the minister on his word that this is not a consideration for the development of toll roads, but I want to understand why exactly this body needs these powers. The bill also gives the power for Infrastructure South Australia to disclose this information. If it has the ability to go in and get it, it then has the ability to publish it under the protection of privilege.

The Hon. S.K. Knoll: We can have a mandate.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Well, sir, the power of the spoken word has worked. My speech has now pushed the government into a cowering position where it will amend the bill and take out these regressive powers, and I congratulate the government on listening to me. It is my first victory as an opposition member and one that I will remember—4 July, a great day for independence, again.

Mr Pederick: Yes, man the trenches.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Staff the trenches, mate. It's 'staff the trenches' on this side. I was given a briefing by the agency on Friday, and we are making our considerations on the bill this week. I do not think that the government will be disappointed in the opposition's views, although I have flagged some amendments.

I am a bit concerned about the level of consultation with the industry on this bill. Again, it is out of character for the minister. The minister is someone who comes from business, from the private sector, and importantly from a family business, a very good family business. It is important that, when the heavy hand of government interferes in the operation of businesses, there is a level of conversation.

Mr Brown: You sound like a Liberal.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: No, no—I walk upright and have funds.

Mr Pederick interjecting:

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Too soon? It is important that consultation occurs for a couple of reasons. I do not think that any of the bodies that represent freight or industry and that operate in the infrastructure space are opposed to Infrastructure SA. I do not think that they are opposed to what the government is attempting to do. They are concerned, I think, at the level of bureaucracy that is being placed over DPTI and at how the minister is having a lot of powers taken away from him by having this sit in Premier and Cabinet, which is also basically making his role nearly redundant other than as a delivery agent of infrastructure decisions decided by someone other than the infrastructure minister.

The Hon. S.K. Knoll: What you say doesn't matter anymore.

Members interjecting:

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: I love how the police minister laughs because he thinks it’s funny. He does not know why it’s funny, but he thinks he knows why it is funny. That is an impressive trick.

I find that interesting and I also find it concerning for the long-term independence of the agency. As I said in my earlier remarks, when I was treasurer I enjoyed knowing that there was an independent agency in DPTI that was able to take the argument to Treasury about infrastructure. It has been very easy for the Treasury to take money back from DPTI from projects like Torrens to Torrens that were coming in under budget and scope that money somewhere else.

The Hon. S.K. Knoll: For projects that were over budget.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Yes, and, again, when projects are over budget, I enjoyed the ability of Treasury going into those agencies and being able to argue it out and find out exactly why, what occurred and how it occurred. Adding a level of bureaucracy over the top of all this will not help. One of the things the Premier has said that I agree with is that he wants clear lines of reporting from agency to minister to cabinet. I think that is very clever and very astute. This bill dilutes that. Bodies like Infrastructure Australia and Infrastructure SA often do not give us the best impact that we think they will. As I said earlier, we would like the representatives appointed to this body to have more of a say.

Another thing I want to mention to the minister as an important reflection is that ministers often run out of time to sit back and think about long-term strategic goals. I imagine that for a government coming into office, and having been in opposition for 16 years in opposition can be fairly demoralising, a whole kitbag of plans and ideas have been left behind, especially in parts of South Australia that members opposite may think have been ignored or forgotten.

Taking the decision-making process away from the cabinet and giving it entirely to Infrastructure SA and the Treasurer—bypassing the parliament's advocate for infrastructure, that is, its minister—is very dangerous, and I will tell you why. Infrastructure is not just about roads and rail. It is also about jobs, it is also about connecting communities and it also has social impacts. I know that the bill sets out that the intentions of the board are also to look after and prioritise the social and environmental benefit of this state, but that is often hard to do when you become an agency that overwhelmingly looks at the economic efficiency of infrastructure projects.

As I said earlier, a lot of communities look at infrastructure very differently from the way politicians and cabinets do. When we build a grade separation for freight at the Goodwood Junction or the Torrens Junction, for instance, often agencies and politicians see it in terms of improving the efficiency of that freight, minimising delays on roads, and of course of queuing, and allows the nonstop movement of freight through our city to our port to be put on ships and sent away. Communities view it very differently. Communities view it as noise mitigation by often lowering freight lines or having fewer crossings, which improves amenity and property value. The same can be said for crossings and grade separation of roads. It can mean safety. It can mean all sorts of other things.

Infrastructure SA and Infrastructure Australia overwhelmingly always publish their decisions on what infrastructure to back on the basis of improvement of economic outcomes, and the social outcomes are often forgotten. That is why we have politicians. The reason we have politicians is that we do not let the bureaucracy decide where the money is spent. Cabinet decides where the money is being spent. It is important that we have that level of intervention within the decision-making process, and I am not sure that this strengthens that. I think it weakens it.

The reason I think it weakens it is that for whatever reason Infrastructure SA will not sit with the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure; it will sit with Premier and Cabinet. The concern I have with that is not so much a machinery of government issue but an accountability issue. I have never liked the idea of agencies that are responsible for delivering infrastructure being moved and subverted into other agencies where you get perverse outcomes, and those perverse outcomes can be wide and varied. Premiers often have pet projects. Treasurers have things they want to fund and not fund, as do infrastructure ministers and the rest of the cabinet and, of course, parliament.

I still have not seen a clear explanation of how this body will operate in that bilateral process. From my understanding of the briefing, this body will make recommendations on infrastructure and set out a long-term plan with varying reports at intervals over a 20-year process, and the cabinet will consider those on an annual basis—five years, the minister says. I understand that there will be interim reports every two or three years but that there is no requirement to publish those. We think they should be published and tabled in the parliament annually so that we can see what they are and see the progress of this independent body.

I hope the government agrees to these amendments we move in the other place because they will improve the efficiency of this committee and strengthen the arm of the infrastructure minister in his deliberations in cabinet. In the end, after 16 years of government, I think it is fair to say most South Australians would look back and say, 'Look, they built a lot of infrastructure.' A lot of things that had not been done were done.

Often they were political decisions: duplicating the Southern Expressway, the South Road Superway, the Torrens to Torrens, electrification of our rail lines, cooperation with the commonwealth government on a lot of those projects, Oaklands, starting the work on sealing the Strzelecki Track, duplication of the Joy Baluch Bridge, fixing last mile issues all across South Australia and improving road maintenance. You got the sense that the government was spending money on infrastructure. You got the sense that the government was actually actively involved in building new infrastructure, whether it was education, hospitals or roads.

My concern with this body is that it is not being designed to try to facilitate that in a more efficient way: it is being designed to stop that. I note in the Liberal Party's costing documents that there was only one piece of capital infrastructure spend: $37 million for a right-hand turn on North Terrace. Depending on what happens with the commonwealth government, whether they go into caretaker mode at the end of July or not—I do not know where the Prime Minister's mind is, as it will probably depend on a whole number of scenarios, but he may go to an election this year or he may not—we might not have a Liberal MYEFO; we might have a Labor MYEFO. I do not know.

I do not know what the Treasurer and the minister are planning for the state budget in terms of their capital infrastructure spend. My instincts are that the Treasurer will do everything he can to get net lending into positive terms. His whole strategy, because he has such a heavy spend on the operating balance, is that he will attempt to do as much as he can with debt and net lending to try to improve his reckless spending in the operating balance. That is why the infrastructure minister was so unsuccessful in getting any election commitments up in the costings document.

We will see in the budget how well he did. Hopefully, the Pym to Regency road is in there and we will see some money allocated across the forward estimates for the completion of that. I hope his discussions with the commonwealth government are successful and we could bring forward some of that money. I do not like his chances, but I could be wrong. I will be the first to congratulate him if I am wrong and he has brought that money—

The Hon. S.K. Knoll: I am going to hold you to that.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: Absolutely I will congratulate you. Anyone who finishes off our legacy I will be very happy to thank. My concern is that there is not going to be a big infrastructure push in the budget, that the minister has lost the argument and that one of the delaying tactics will be, 'But we are establishing Infrastructure SA.' If that is the case, I feel very sorry for the minister because it is an act of political bastardry to give him that portfolio and then offer him only $37 million in infrastructure spending.

But I am sure I am wrong because I do not believe that his colleagues would do that to him. I think they have far too much regard for him to do that to him. That would honestly be something that would give the minister a great deal of concern because he knows, internally, what that means. It means there has been a concerted effort to make sure that there is no new capital spend, that the entire aim of the budget is to get net lending into surplus and just to rely on the former government's infrastructure spend over the last four years and use Infrastructure SA as a delaying tactic.

That would be a sad outcome for the minister and probably pretty demoralising, too. But I do not think that will occur because I think the power of his persuasion is pretty impressive. I am sure he is doing exceptionally well in bilaterals. I also understand that he is on the budget expenditure review committee—I hope he is; you always want your biggest spenders on those committees, generally to keep them under control. I am sure he is there and I am sure he is putting the argument forward for infrastructure.

However, if all we get in this budget is $37 million for a right-hand turn, then that is not mission accomplished. That is pretty appalling. I think he will do better than that, and I will congratulate him when he does. I will get up in the parliament and say, 'Good job, well done. You landed a man on the moon and returned him safely to the Earth. Congratulations.' But we will wait and see. I think this bill will probably pass the parliament and we will have a body. The question is what that body does, how it conducts itself and whether it will be politicised. As I said in my opening remarks, the great tragedy of new governments is their not learning from the folly of past governments.

Politicising independent bodies like this can be quite dangerous because, as I said earlier, the public lose faith in the system. If it is simply used as a political instrument, to refer things off in order to slow down spending, it will show up. It will show up in the unemployment figures, it will show up in the budget, it will show up in the economic efficiency of the economy, and it will show up in the cost of doing business in the state because freight costs are a big part of doing business in South Australia.

One of the great things that we did, which I think is testament to our forward thinking, is that we assumed the mantle of the former Olsen-Brown government. We did dredge the Port of Adelaide, we did build the Port River Expressway, we did build the Northern Expressway, we did build the South Road Superway and we did cooperate with the commonwealth government and call for the Northern Connector. Why? To get our produce to its marketplace as quickly and efficiently as possible. The next stage of that puzzle is the north-south corridor.

Imagine the economic advantage that this state would have if you could get from Port Augusta to Port Adelaide without passing through a set of traffic lights. Imagine the advantage you would get from being able to get from the southern suburbs and the southern areas of this state to the Port of Adelaide without passing through a set of traffic lights. These are aspirations that are bipartisan, and these bipartisan aspirations need to be delivered. I hope that this body is not being established to stifle those aspirations simply to slow down spending.

In finalising my remarks, I think it is important to say that we will be a moving number of amendments in the upper house. The minister himself has flagged some amendments for the House of Assembly, I understand. I am not sure whether he will be moving them here or in another place. If they are about removing the coercive powers of the board, then I would like to consider those amendments to make sure that all those powers are removed. I certainly do not like the idea of them being published, as I think that is very dangerous for the competitive advantage we have in tendering.

One of the great things about a competitive tender market is that the outcomes are for the taxpayer. If you have these coercive powers and people are operating and building infrastructure projects in South Australia—and I think the government has realised this—and you have the ability to go in, get their commercially sensitive information and then publish it to their competitors, people will not operate here or tender for road projects. I think the government has come to its senses on that issue. I do not know how it came up, but I assume that it was a flight of fancy by a relatively new and inexperienced government. Thankfully, common sense has prevailed and that is being removed.

To cap off, I do not like the idea of there being chief executives on this board. There is an inherent conflict that they cannot act in the interests of the board and their masters because it is just too difficult. I cannot imagine the chief executive of DPTI having three masters: a contract with the Premier, answering to his minister and having to operate in the interests of Infrastructure SA. That is an impossible task for any person. They cannot do that properly and they are being set up to fail.

That is something the government should be very wary of. My advice to the government is that Infrastructure SA probably does not need to have chief executives operating as board members, but that is the government's decision. We support it, but I am very concerned about the conflicts it will raise. Again, I do not know how they will be able to remedy that. In an age of ICAC, misconduct-maladministration inquiries and corruption inquiries, it would be a minefield for these poor individuals on this board having to answer questions such as, 'Whose interests were you acting in when you were making this decision? Was it your employer, was it your minister or was it the board?'

How do you answer that? It is very difficult, and that is what I am concerned about. These are smart people. No matter who the government appoints to be a chief executive, they are going to be smart. If any of them have done any sort of work in roles as directors or board members, they will know exactly what their responsibilities are, but they will also have a contract, and they will also have a statutory responsibility to their minister. Good luck sorting that out. I am sure that the minister can answer all these questions for me in the committee stage of the bill and explain how the DPTI chief executive will serve three masters without any conflict.

Another part I again want to talk about is our fixation with infrastructure for roads, rail and bridges. There is more to infrastructure than just those works. There are ports, pipelines, transmission lines and, of course, more and more there are satellites. Before the election, we gave a grant for a mission control to be constructed here in South Australia to monitor and launch nanosatellites. These satellites do a great deal of work in logistics, allowing constant contact from produce packing right through to final shipment and final delivery, which will give our producers and manufacturers a competitive advantage over others.

There is a question regarding infrastructure on how we unlock more of our mineral wealth. South Australia is blessed with abundant resources of uranium, copper, oil and gas. It might surprise members opposite to know that South Australia is the largest onshore producer of oil in the country, more than Western Australia. A lot of that is locked up in the Otway Basin because of a poor decision by the government, but them's the breaks. Infrastructure to unlock those resources, in partnership with the private sector, could create a lot of jobs. We found Carrapateena. We found Olympic Dam. Geologically, we know—

The Hon. C.L. Wingard interjecting:

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: For the benefit of the police minister interjecting out of his place, when I say 'we', I am not talking about me: I am talking about the state. These concepts might be a bit too rich and detailed for the police minister, but never mind. We know that if we find deposits like Carrapateena and Olympic Dam within proximity to each other in a geological anomaly like the Gawler Craton, there are going to be others. If there are others, does the state, like Mr Playford and others before him and after him decided, invest our treasure in an uneconomic way to help unlock those for future generations, giving us an economic return much later than might be economically efficient?

I think the answer to that is, yes, we do and we should. There is a great example of that, which I mentioned earlier, and that is Techport in Port Adelaide. It is a great example of bipartisan building that has given us some remarkable outcomes, which we all celebrate in a bipartisan way. You have to ask yourself a very serious question: would Infrastructure SA have approved those? Would Infrastructure SA have agreed to nationalise ETSA? Would Infrastructure SA have agreed to build these pipelines that I talked about earlier? Probably the answer is no. So we need to be cautious about outsourcing our thinking.

In the end, we are all elected here to make decisions. We come to this place in order to exercise executive function and make decisions. That is why we are here. That is why the public sends us here. There is a terrible trend around the world of politicians washing their hands of decision-making and handing it to others. Those others often make decisions in secret. Decisions are often made without the interest of the public being paramount and without the interests of the taxpayer being paramount, and often they are politicised.

There should be a greater line of accountability not only from politician to chief executive to cabinet; there should be another point there that is missed, which is the public directly to the decision-makers. I cannot imagine Infrastructure SA sitting in the electorate offices taking calls from constituents concerned about a grade separation or a train line making noise, or whatever the infrastructure issue might be. They might, but I doubt it. With those remarks, I flag to the house that the opposition will be moving amendments in the upper house. I welcome the amendment tabled by the minister. Have you tabled it yet?

The Hon. S.K. Knoll: Yes.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: I will give that a good read and make sure it does what the minister says it does. I flag to the government a whole series of amendments to the bill in the other place. I hope that the minister does remain vigilant about the weakening of the agency, because one of the great treasures we have in this state is our public servants. When I was Treasurer and infrastructure minister, I used to always say that I wish the public could see our public servants in action behind closed doors because they really do work very, very hard for the people of the state and get very little credit for it.

They are often punching bags. They are often used to try to deride government waste or used as a symbol of government waste when in fact they are people who work very, very hard to try to get great outcomes for the people of the state. When you ignore their advice, you ignore their advice at your peril. I have often seen members of this place on both sides of parliament ignore the advice of their independent officials and they have come unstuck.

Let's hope that that decision-making and advice-making is still treasured and still taken seriously by the government. I hope they do not politicise this board. I hope they improve their consultation with industry between the houses about the impacts of Infrastructure SA. I hope the budget gives us a clear line of a long period of works for infrastructure and that this body and this bill is not used as some sort of symbol for a delay in infrastructure spending, pending its establishment and inauguration. That would be a cop-out, and the opposition will call it out if it is.

With those few remarks, I congratulate the minister on seeing sense with my amendment suggestions and adopting them. I commend the bill to the house.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: If the Minister for Transport speaks, he closes debate. Minister, I understand you are finalising debate on behalf of the Premier; is that correct?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (16:53): I certainly am. I do not know where to begin. In the beginning, the shadow minister for government accountability said that ISA is too political. His solution to that is to make ISA more political. I do not think I need to argue against what he said; I think he was too busy arguing against himself. In fact he really struggled to come to some sort of coherent position.

I thought that, as somebody who has been here as a minister for the last five or six years—after he got over his speeding fine issue and he got into the cabinet—maybe he understood this process a little bit better. Here is the thing: the reason we are setting Infrastructure SA up in the first place is that the former government's decision-making around infrastructure projects was too political.

The reason that you need Infrastructure SA is to depoliticise, to the greatest extent possible, infrastructure development in South Australia. It is the fundamental reason that you do this thing. We have seen it work everywhere else, and we have seen the models everywhere else. We have been lucky enough to be able to look at the best and worst of what these I-bodies look like around the country and build what we think is the best model in the country.

Mr Koutsantonis interjecting:

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: What I am trying to understand is that, as part of it, the former government and their representative were trying to suggest that cabinet needs to remain sovereign but somehow ISA is going to supplant a cabinet decision-making process. It will not.

Mr Koutsantonis: Then why are you having it?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: It is there to provide better information—

Mr Koutsantonis interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The minister is finalising debate; he will be heard in silence.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: We want this body to be honest, to be transparent, to be accountable and to provide the truth. At the end of the day, that is what we are trying to get to. What is the truth in answering the question: what are the best infrastructure projects that we should be delivering for South Australia? In seeking to do that, having another voice added to the debate is extremely important.

I will wait to see the opposition's amendments in the upper house before making a final decision, but when he tried to suggest that somehow ISA had supplanted the cabinet process, and the answer to that is to give referrals to individual parliamentarians to this ISA body, those two remarks are utterly inconsistent.

If ISA was really the final decision-maker in relation to infrastructure projects, á la Nick Xenophon's comments before the election, then why is it better that we essentially give powers over to the parliament to instruct ISA to give them the power to do that? The answer is: they should not. With all the I-bodies around the country, there is a model of those that are extremely independent, and I look at the Victorian model. Then there are those which are essentially an adjunct of a government department, which is very much the Queensland model. In the middle, therein lies the truth, and therein lies where we need to head.

The way that we do that is by providing ISA with enough independence to feel confident that they can go out there and do the job that they need to do, but we do not need them so independent that the rest of the government sector does not respect what they have to say. You need buy-in. You need buy-in from cabinet and you need buy-in from agencies. Agencies will respect ISA if they see that cabinet respects ISA, but at the end of the day, cabinet has to make the decision.

The thinking we have had in developing this bill is to provide what I would call the right amount of tension in the system so that we have ISA having enough of a voice to be able to speak truth to power when they feel that the government has the wrong priorities, but are also not so far out of the realms of reality that they are on a completely different tack from a broader government agenda. We need all parties to buy into this process, from the private sector, to agencies, to cabinet and to ISA. Everybody needs to head in the same direction.

That is why these five-year statements, as well as the 20-year, long-term vision, are all about agenda setting that provides the framework by which ISA and the agencies can develop projects. If I take a step back, the reason we are doing this is that I think the view of South Australians about how we spend money on infrastructure projects is that they are pet projects based around marginal seats in electoral cycles. That is a phrase that the Premier has used time and time again. What we want is for ISA to give people the confidence in the decision-making that is being had.

I will not disclose specifics, but a lot of the discussions I have had over the past three months confirm to me that decision-making has been more political than it ought to have been. In saying that, this new government, with the best of intentions, is delivering on the promise of more open, transparent and accountable government, and ISA is central to that. This body is not designed to stifle anything. This body is designed for us to actually view infrastructure in a more positive light than we do now.

Do you know what happens when you deliver projects that are not the best projects on the table that should be delivered? You devalue the view of spending money on infrastructure in the first place. When you spend money on bad projects, you devalue the spending on infrastructure projects overall. You make the reputation of spending on infrastructure worse overall.

The idea behind ISA is that we can prove to Treasury, to the cabinet, to the parliament and to the people of South Australia that there are projects worth investing in. If we do that, we are going to see our state become a greater place, a more productive place, a more efficient place and a more livable place. We will do that through an open, transparent and accountable process.

There has been some difficulty over the past three months in relation to the development of ISA, but we have a desire to get on and keep South Australia moving, and in fact accelerate the movement in South Australia. When we came to government, the cupboard was bare, especially in relation to federal government infrastructure funding for South Australia. The cupboard was bare. There were existing projects on the table, but the forward pipeline did not exist. It did not exist. That is why, upon being sworn in, one of the first things the Premier said was, 'Stephan, you've got to get across to Canberra and you've got to fix this.'

To do that, we had to take the existing projects that were in the pipeline, head across to Canberra and ask for some money, based on the program that was there. That is why we asked about Pym to Regency, Gawler electrification, the Joy Baluch Bridge—even though we were still at stage 1 in relation to business case development—and about the remaining sections of the north-south corridor. The federal government came on board and funded 100 per cent of the things we asked for, and we asked for everything that was in the cupboard to ask for. There was nothing else that we could have asked for. We got everything that we wanted.

Mr Koutsantonis interjecting:

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: Member for West Torrens, I was the one in the meeting. I know what I asked for and I know what we got.

Mr Koutsantonis: Show me the forward estimates.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The minister will not respond to interjections. Member for West Torrens, you have had your opportunity. You will get another chance in committee. Minister, continue.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: What we have is a situation where we were left with an empty cupboard. The cupboard was bare, and we have essentially had to scramble around for what was available to us in the short term to put on the table. I agree that there is a natural Rubicon we need to cross at some point, and that is this: when we go from funding infrastructure projects in the old model and look at the projects that are on the table currently to fill this pipeline—and we have done that to a certain degree with Pym to Regency, the Joy Baluch Bridge, Gawler electrification as well as a number of other projects that are on the table—we will be able to fill that short to medium-term pipeline as we see the three projects on the north-south corridor coming to completion later this year, next year and beyond.

Really, we are working to an 18-month window to get projects up and running to fill that pipeline. We could not have waited for ISA to be up and running to evaluate those projects before they went ahead. We have had to rely on the IA process in relation to Regency to Pym and Gawler electrification. We already have the money for the Joy Baluch Bridge, knowing that it is a project that every single industry body as well as the local community up there supports. It is extremely likely to be a very good project. We could not wait for ISA to come on board to evaluate that project; we have to get on and deliver it to fill the medium-term pipeline before ISA comes on board.

One of the fundamental reasons we took a more modest spending proposal on infrastructure projects to the election is not that we wanted to spend less money on infrastructure; it is that we wanted to give ourselves the greatest flexibility possible, upon coming to government, about the decisions we could make in relation to future infrastructure priorities. To do anything other than that would be to devalue the Infrastructure SA policy in the first place. I think it is very inconsistent to say, 'We want to develop a new way of evaluating infrastructure projects in South Australia but, by the way, here is the next four to eight years' worth of infrastructure projects that we are going to deliver.' Those two things are inconsistent.

We very much had regard to filling the short to medium-term pipeline, which kept the work going and kept people employed with regard to the jobs that are needed and their families who rely on government to do their work in this sector—a job that was made a whole lot harder because we have had to start from scratch in relation to a lot of proposals. It is why we took to the election 10 major projects that we want ISA to look at, so that people could understand the kinds of things we were looking at, but we did not want to presuppose what ISA would say.

Again, everything we did—everything from the modest infrastructure spending proposal to identifying these projects and having the ISA policy in the first place—was to tell South Australians that the way we are going to deliver infrastructure in South Australia is changing. It will change as quickly as we can get this bill through parliament and we can start to get this body up and running.

The way that we are committing to this change is by taking a more modest infrastructure proposal to the election, by only putting ideas up because we want to test those ideas. We want to show South Australia, whether that be individuals, industry associations or individual contractors, that we are going to respect the ISA process. Everything was designed around achieving that outcome, and we have. It seems to me that the only people who are trying to conspiracy theorise are those opposite. Why? Because they are struggling to find a reason to oppose this thing, but I think they are doing a pretty good job of trying to find a few spurious reasons.

There is a natural tension and we need to get this right. We believe that in the model we have put on the table we have got this right because, unless cabinet buys into the ISA process, nobody else will respect the process. Cabinet intervening in this process to essentially sign off and agree on some common goals with ISA was an extremely important factor and it is why these capital statements are so important.

What we have also done is give ISA an independent enough voice that, where they disagree with the government, they can say that. It is important that they do have the ability to have that voice so that they can go on and be that trusted voice that industry can respect. The amount of goodwill and good feeling I have had around this policy from inside government, as well as outside government, has been overwhelming. This is a consensus policy for everybody except, it seems, those opposite and I can understand why.

They are a little bit sheepish about the fact that this idea has been on the table for a long time, but they were too strong willed to steal it and bring an ISA body before the election, which is why a lot of the comments that those opposite have made really need to be ignored. If they were serious about this, with the virtue now that has suddenly popped up out of nowhere since 17 March, it could all have been fixed if they had done this in the first place, but they did not because they did not want anybody to be able to speak truth to power and to speak truth to the stupid decisions that have been made.

We are not afraid of that. We know that this body is going to cause governments problems into the future. We have seen it around the country. The reason you set up an ISA body is so that you can get an independent voice, but when that independent voice is exercised sometimes they are going to say things that the government does not want to hear, and that is exactly what they are supposed to do. The reason we do it now is that the first term of a government is the point at which a government is at its most honest.

I look at the last 16 years and, had this ISA body been put in place for a while, it could have challenged some of the increasingly odd and bizarre decisions that were being made, but, alas, that is not the case. I am sure that when we are into our 16^th year of government the policies we have put in place and the structures we have put in place now around Infrastructure SA, our productivity commission and a whole host of other things, will do well to serve to keep governments honest, and that is exactly what we are trying to achieve.

With regard to board appointments, I am not going to be lectured by a former government that put some of the people on boards they did. It really is a laundry list of mates who needed to be looked after. I do not know what sorts of deals were done in relation to, 'If you retire now, we will make sure that you get kicked onto this board, but don't worry. We're here. We'll look after you.' There is a whole host of people whose appointments have to be viewed as political, and to try to look at the qualifications that these people may or may not have had would have belied the fact that there is a difficulty there.

In relation to the board, there will be seven people on the board. That is best practice. The reason you need three chief executives on the board is that you need buy-in from the agencies. You also need the agencies to have visibility over what is going on. You need DPC and DTF at the table because they are the money and the boss, and you need DPTI at the table because they probably have some expertise because, as the former minister pointed out, the DPTI chief is likely to be quite smart about building things.

Also, you need the four independent people on the board so that you have a majority independent board providing that right tension between external independent advice and independent departmental buy-in. If the member for West Torrens had done his homework he would have seen that, across the country, many of these bodies have chief executives that sit on those boards. Again, we are looking to implement best practice.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I think we need to move on to other priorities. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.