State Budget

Mr BOYER (Wright) (15:27): I rise to respond to this week's state budget insofar as it affects the north-eastern suburbs. We all knew that the wrecking ball was coming. I guess when you hand the keys to the government coffers back to the Treasurer who sold ETSA, you can take it as read that the cuts are going to come thick and fast. But I think I speak for all of us on this side of the chamber when I say that even we were shocked, not only by the extent of the cuts but by where they were delivered.

Not only that, but some of the cuts are so heartless that even a politician of nearly 40 years' experience like the Treasurer was incapable of spinning them. In fact, the starkest and most unsettling characterisation of just how damaging these cuts are came when Trish from Port Pirie called in to ABC radio on Wednesday morning. Trish lives in a one-bedroom Housing Trust home and already struggles to pay the paltry $60 a fortnight that she spends on groceries. Her very simple question to the Treasurer was this, 'Where do I find the extra $10 a week you are going to charge me to live in my one-bedroom Trust home?'

Now, at this point, there were a couple of ways the interview could have gone. The Treasurer could have provided Trish with a cogent argument about why he thought it was fair and reasonable to lump her with the task of padding out his surplus. He utterly failed on that count. Nobody, not even the interviewers, could make sense of the esoteric answer that he gave. He could have, at the very least, shown Trish some empathy. He could have apologised for targeting her and other Housing Trust tenants. Instead, the Treasurer, when asked if one needed to have ice in one's veins to do his job, simply answered, 'It helps.'

That one line very aptly sums up this budget, particularly for residents of the north-east, who have been forsaken already by this government and similarly by the new Liberal members of parliament for the seats of King and Newland. If anyone needed an indication of the sense betrayal felt by constituents in those seats, they need only look at social media. There is outrage and shock. People are already asking, 'How did this happen? Why were we targeted?' Those are very fair questions indeed: why did this Liberal government choose the north-east as ground zero for the wrecking ball?

It started last week with the announcement that the much-needed expansion of the park-and-ride at Tea Tree Plaza would not be going ahead. It is hard to fathom how a government can make such an announcement on a day when, like most days, the sign outside the park-and-ride showed that the car park was full. Then on budget day we got the shock news that Tea Tree Gully TAFE and Service SA at Modbury would both be closed.

The spin from those opposite this week has been that this is a government that does the things it said it would do, but the real focus should be on the things it did this week that it never told voters it was going to do. I wonder if the residents of Newland and King would have voted for this government if they had known that just six months later their local TAFE and Service SA centre would be closed. I wonder if the residents of Newland and King would have voted for this government if they knew that just six months later the expansion of the Tea Tree Plaza park-and-ride would be scrapped.

What I do know for certain is that if the residents of Newland and King had known that just six months into the term of this new Liberal government they would again move to privatise services at Modbury Hospital, the members for King and Newland would not be in this chamber. Just this week, the member for King put out a letter to the constituents of King saying:

I want all members of this community to know that I truly care about our local region and want to do everything I can to win the trust of this community to make it the best area to live in South Australia.

The betrayal is all the greater, given that I believe the member for King actually worked at both the Prospect and Modbury Service SA centres. I am sure her old work colleagues are really thrilled that she has been elected to parliament only to throw them on the bonfire.

In the member for Newland's first newsletter he said, 'I am determined to stand up for our community to ensure that the north-east is never overlooked.' Well, guess what? Here is his big chance. Now is the time to stand up, because I can tell you this: these cuts would never have happened under the watch of Jennifer Rankine or Tom Kenyon. People do not forget, and we will not forget either.