Bills

Statutes Amendment and Repeal (Budget Measures) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 4 September 2018.)

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (12:01): I am not the lead speaker, as obviously this bill has already been introduced into the house. I rise to speak to the excellent budget measures that the Marshall Liberal government has put in place in regard to our first budget. I think it is a balanced budget. We are making sure that we fund our 300 or so specific election promises. Notwithstanding that, there is a little bit of pain along the way. However, the pain could have been a lot worse if it were not for the excellent financial management of our team, including the Treasurer, the Hon. Rob Lucas from another place, trying to sort out the wood from the trees.

I say 'the wood from the trees' because, when you have the previous treasurer, the member for West Torrens, stating that we are going to have a $12 million surplus that turns into a $397 million deficit in real terms, that is a sign of some of the issues that we have had to deal with coming into the first year of our first term in responsible government. I hope there are many more terms to come, because it is a far better view from this side of the chamber.

As the member for MacKillop indicated, and proven by different studies done over decades, when Liberal parties come to power at any level, whether state or federal, they have to fix up the total financial mess that previous Labor governments leave their state or country in. It is easily found. You can see the spend of Labor governments, and then there is the financial management done on the conservative side of the house to make sure that things are pulled into line.

I am sure it is a tactic by the Labor Party to make it look like money grows on trees. They spray money out to the masses like confetti and the masses get used to having money thrown at them. But the only money that governments have is money that is raised from tax. Governments do not have their own money: it is all taxpayers' money and it should be managed appropriately. It should be managed in a fair and financially astute way.

We only have to look at what happens with different builds, whether it is the public sector versus the private sector. If we look at the build of the new RAH, the $2.4 billion new Royal Adelaide Hospital under the previous Labor government, we will be paying for that over the next 30 years at $1 million a day, and that is without the staff in it. It is just outrageous. When we look at what Calvary have done with their expansion—sure, it is a smaller expansion; it is probably close to around half the beds in the new RAH—it was done for about $400 million or so.

So we have to wonder why, when there is a public dollar to be spent, it appears to just be abused. It does not just appear to be abused: it literally gets abused. The issue for us is that we always need to put the fire out, so to speak. We have to bring that solid financial management because we understand that money literally does not grow on trees. That is why we also have brought down a budget that is sensible, has an excellent financial framework and is about growing our state and growing our jobs.

Instead of just throwing money at people like confetti, we are making sure that we put the right tax framework in place so that we can give an incentive to thousands of companies, thousands of people who are small business owners who may only have one worker working for them. In my case, when I was managing and running the farm as my own business, I would employ two people at seeding time and then one at harvest. That is how it worked for me. We had a great working relationship but it was very much a small operation.

That is why we are putting in measures to support more jobs, lower costs and better services, which we are implementing for South Australians. Payroll tax is one of the issues that we are addressing, taking the exemption up to $1.5 million before a business has to start paying payroll tax and then there is a graduated index up to $1.7 million. That is excellent news for small to medium businesses now in South Australia because, instead of a few hundred thousand dollars, which was the limit before—I think it was about $600,000—it gives people some relief.

Obviously people get paid different amounts, and I am not being too judgemental about that. You could perhaps have up to 25 people working for you under the new regime. That will put real money into people so that they can run their businesses, whether they are farms, small takeaway-food operations, people running coffee shops—there seems to be a lot of money made from selling coffee these days—small delicatessens, chicken shops, or light industry. There are a lot of small, light industry businesses that employ fewer than 25 people.

I want to talk about one of the success stories that will benefit from this payroll tax relief and that is Bowhill Engineering, which is doing a lot of the bridgework on the South Road works and the overpasses. It is fantastic work. I inspected it other day with the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Mr Whetstone, the member for Chaffey. In a little town with not a very big population in my electorate on the river—a beautiful spot to work—they hire pretty well all local people. I know they have people working there who are in close proximity to Bowhill. Some come out from the Murray Bridge region and around Karoonda. I know that one young lad from Lameroo is working there and doing a trade there.

It is just fantastic to see this employment opportunity so that people can work close to home and work with a company that has done such fantastic work for many years here in South Australia. One of the projects they have done is the walking bridge near the Festival Theatre. It is not the one across the Torrens recently but the far smaller one years ago. Also, we saw in recent years the clipper ship City of Adelaide brought over from Scotland. Bowhill Engineering was one of the engineering companies, along with a swag of others, who contributed by building the framework to hold the ship stable on the barge to bring it all those thousands of kilometres to Australia.

That is a prime example alongside many, many other companies throughout the state and the regions. Another business in my electorate is Miegel brothers, who make excellent trailers and do other light engineering work in Murray Bridge. They are well renowned for the quality of the products they make. They, too, are employing many local people. That will be a real benefit. Instead of the government spraying money out, we can have the economy built on the back of these companies which may decide to put on an extra worker—or maybe a couple more. Maybe they can put five more on and boost production and contribute to the economy both on a federal basis and a state basis. Not just that, it is pouring money back into local communities.

Other things we are doing are remedying deficiencies in the owner-driver exemption within the contractor provisions to ensure that the contract is either fully exempt because it falls within the relevant exemption or is taxable because it does not fall within the relevant exemption. With our budget measures, we are certainly continuing to allow deductions to be made to the value of motor vehicle allowances for business use, monitoring the changes made in the commonwealth government's income tax legislation.

I also want to note some issues around how we have managed stamp duty under these budget measures. We have facilitated the collection of data as part of the commonwealth government's initiatives on third-party reporting and the national register of foreign ownership of land titles. I note that the Taxation Administration Act 1996 is also amended to enable the commissioner to collect and disclose real property sales information to the commonwealth government.

One measure that I am really pleased to see is expanding the current stamp duty exemption for family farm transfers to include those involving companies. Some farming businesses are quite reasonably sized—medium to large businesses, not just small to medium-sized businesses—so farmers these days have to make sure they have a succession strategy in place. Some people think that farmers set up a succession strategy to try to get around paying tax or similar things by setting up companies or a company, or they may be involved in a trust. But, no, I can tell you that, as a fifth-generation farmer, it is a real thing to get succession management right, especially when it involves farmland.

It does not matter how many acres you own, some people—and they may be related to you—think you are a millionaire. The only time money is realised from a farm, the real money, is if you sell the property. Most farmers do not want to do that unless they are retiring, or there has been a death in the family, or something else happens. That is the nub of it. It can be not just a few hundred thousand dollars in some small properties but millions of dollars of value in land, especially with the need, as has been seen over many years—and it is an old saying in farming—to get big or get out. It has happened forever. It happened when we went from basically walking behind horses through to using 70, 100 to 600 horsepower tractors, or wherever we are going to land next using drone technology, and there is a bit of drone technology being used, especially in spray operations on some properties.

It is a real issue. The management of companies is also about succession planning and looking after the land for future generations, especially when a son or daughter gets married. It is a reality that maybe up to 50 per cent of the population do not survive their first marriage, so I believe that not enough people take succession planning seriously until it is nearly too late, and sometimes it is too late to make sure those right decisions are made. With regard to stamp duty exemption for family farms to include those involving companies, I think it is a fantastic measure being put in place.

In regard to the stamp duty exemption being provided on premiums paid in relation to multi-peril crop insurance policies entered into from 1 January this year, it was a policy we took and it is a policy we are implementing. People can protect those many hundreds and thousands of dollars, and in some cases some people have spent $1 million plus putting in a crop. You only have to see a tough and dry year like this, when, if you are lucky, you get a few millimetres of rain occasionally and you are getting through, but there is wide variance in South Australia, from some fairly handy crops through to very dry dusty paddocks. It is a tough situation for anyone to be in. Yes, multi-peril crop insurance is expensive on a per acre basis if you look at the total figure over, say, 4,000 acres, but if you have to make a claim you can get back a reasonable amount.

Other measures we are getting involved in include making South Australia a more attractive place in which to invest and do business. With regard to land tax, we are increasing the tax-free threshold, from $369,000 to $450,000, and introducing a new tax bracket of $1.2 million to $5 million and a marginal tax rate of 2.9 per cent on land tax from 1 July 2020. This is expected to benefit—and this is a huge number—over 50,000 land tax ownerships, including around 8,000 that will no longer have a land tax liability at all, so that is another great feature of our budget measures bill.

We are working with environment protection looking at recovering the costs of environmental management issues such as soil and groundwater contamination and odour facilities, with underground petroleum storage systems required to hold an environmental authorisation. This is a very serious business. If you talk to anyone who is in the service station game, they know only too well about liabilities in regard to old fuel tanks that have been underground for a long time. Sometimes it is better just to walk away and find a greenfield site or you just dig up the old tanks and completely replace them which is another option.

In regard to local government, apart from rate capping, which I think is an excellent policy to make sure we get our rates spent appropriately and our money managed a lot better at the local government level, we are going to abolish the royalties on extractive minerals for councils where the minerals are sourced from council borrow pits and used to build and maintain local roads from 1 July 2019. This is one issue that the Local Government Association at a state level has written to us about, to the Treasurer, thanking us for removing this cost impost on councils.

There is a whole range of things that we are handling, including liquor licensing fees and rural property. We are closing the office of the Commissioner for Kangaroo Island and we are getting on with the real job of delivering responsible government with these fine budget measures for the state of South Australia.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (12:21): I thank the member for Hammond for his comments and completing his contribution and catching me completely unawares. It is a pleasure to speak on the budget measures bill, which of course gives the parliament the opportunity to enact a number of the measures within the budget which require legislative amendment.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Lee, sorry to interrupt, are you the lead speaker?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: I am the lead speaker, yes, but hopefully it is less onerous than what that usually entails, if I can put it that way. Of course, there are quite a few legislative amendments in this budget which are required in this bill. Most of them in this bill are consequent on the abolition of the Independent Gambling Authority, and the move of the operations and the requirements that various pieces of legislation had placed on that agency, and moving it primarily into the responsibility of the Commissioner for Liquor and Gambling.

I spoke yesterday at some length about one particular issue with regard to online gambling and sports betting, which is currently managed, or at least regulated, on the advice of the IGA for decision by the minister. That will now be one of the many functions, as I understand it from this bill, which is to be undertaken by the Commissioner for Liquor and Gambling in the future. There will be some detail and information that the opposition will seek when we go into the committee stage of this bill.

The number of legislative instruments that that decision by the government to wind up the IGA and move its operations into the purview of the Commissioner of Liquor and Gambling requires the Authorised Betting Operations Act, Casino Act, Gaming Machines Act, Independent Gambling Authority Act, Intervention Orders (Prevention of Abuse) Act, Problem Gambling Family Protection Orders Act and so on—the lotteries act, I think, as well—to be amended.

Aside from that change, there are also changes to legislation to give effect to, for example, the abolition of the role of the Commissioner for Kangaroo Island. We on this side certainly hope that this does not signal an intent by the new government to lessen the perspective or the importance that Kangaroo Island has to play at the very least in the state's economy, if not more generally within the state's community.

A significant amount of work was undertaken by the former Labor government, under the purview of the now-abolished economic development board, which sought to identify economic and social opportunities for development on Kangaroo Island. They recommended a list of measures that could be undertaken by government, of either persuasion, to pursue those outcomes. One of those measures was for the Commissioner for Kangaroo Island to act as a broker for people on Kangaroo Island, or even agencies on the island like the council, to better deal with the state government and mainland interests and businesses. As you can imagine, Deputy Speaker, there will be some interest in how that coordination role and that brokering role are to be undertaken.

This budget measures bill also gives effect to a range of new charges, fees and taxes imposed by this budget. While the member for Hammond talks about the change to the Land Tax Act, which will give effect to the proposed relief for land tax payers, there are also new charges, fees and taxes introduced. To his credit, he did mention the new licensing and charging regime that is going to be imposed on petrol stations in South Australia. Of course, that will have a disproportionate impact on one operator, but it will also have an impact on other operators, in particular the small and dwindling number of independent operators that we have in South Australia.

It is also noticeable that the EPA is proposing to recover the greater costs of regulation that it imposes on large industrial facilities. This is resonant in part of the old electorate of Lee before the boundary redistribution in Birkenhead and Peterhead—Adelaide Brighton Cement, for example. I trust that the EPA's extraction of higher fees from that organisation might mean that the EPA perhaps pays some closer attention to the impacts that that operation has on the communities on the lower half of the Lefevre Peninsula in particular. We also see that there is a new licence and fee regime to be imposed on the resource recovery sector, with several hundred resource recovery operations now to face a new tax or a new charge under that regime.

There is also an amendment to the Liquor Licensing Act to massively ramp up fees, particularly on hotels and also on other licensed premises. You do not have to wander too far through the CBD or into the suburbs to find a hotel or a licensed premises that is genuinely shocked and surprised that this increase in fees is taking place. Albeit the government is saying that these were recommended under the Anderson review of liquor licensing—that may be the case—I am sure that the industry would have appreciated a heads-up before the budget, and even better before the election, that the Liberal Party was intent on whacking thousands of dollars a year of extra costs on licensed premises through this new regime.

The local government sector is to be given a legislative amendment that will enable them to avoid paying royalties on the rubble they recover from council-owned land or borrow pits for the purpose primarily of road making. While that may be a boon to councils, it is less of a boon to the private operators and the private quarries that are effectively unable to compete with those councils fortunate enough to have those resources on land that they are able to take free of government tax. In the briefing from the Treasurer's office, I raised whether this was a breach of the now longstanding competition principles, which all Australian jurisdictions, including the South Australian government and councils, are required to adhere to, but apparently it is not. I look forward to understanding how it is not during the committee stage of the debate.

As the member for Hammond also mentioned, there is a new stamp duty exemption imposed in this budget which, I think other than in this bill, does not find its voice in any of the other 500 to 700 pages of the budget papers. That is the exemption for rural property transfers or farm transfers between family members which will for the first time involve companies. As I understand it, there has been a longstanding exemption for transfers between families—

Mr Pederick: Family members.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: —family members, sorry, not families—but not family members involving companies. I am sure that the vast majority of future transactions would involve the types of landholdings that the member for Hammond refers to—that is, between members of farming families that have been longstanding here in South Australia and that are not necessarily what the public can often perceive as wealthy farmers.

I did ask whether this was the Gina to Ginia amendment so that the Rineharts are going to have a massive free kick in whatever large swathe of our state they have managed to procure now. I am sure that the public and members of this parliament would certainly prefer to support the former category of farmers, the category of farmers that the member for Hammond was alluding to, and perhaps not so much the category of farmers that I speculated might also be entitled to this exemption. Again, I am sure we will be furnished with all the detail during the committee stage of the debate.

There are also some other changes to the Stamp Duties Act which, for want of a better term, tidy up some of the provisions consequent from the hundreds of millions of dollars a year in stamp duty relief which the former treasurer, the member for West Torrens, passed as a budget measure in one of the budgets that he handed down and which exempted commercial property transactions from stamp duty. We were the first Australian jurisdiction, and in fact I think we are still the only Australian jurisdiction, to do so. It pertains to not just real property but also plant and equipment, business goodwill, and so on, and is a huge incentive for people to come and invest in businesses here in South Australia.

My understanding is that the amendment effectively will ensure that when people are processing these land transactions with the Lands Titles Office they are not incentivised to underquote the amount they paid for those properties. In the context of stamp duty, you might think, 'Does it really matter, if they're not paying stamp duty on the purchase price?' Well, it does not matter for stamp duty, of course, because that is exempt, but it does matter for the transfer fee, which is an important source of revenue for the government. This ensures that there are requirements on purchasers, and I think also on vendors, to make sure, if necessary or if obliged to, that accurate prices are disclosed during those transactions. Also, as the member for Hammond already said, it clarifies the exemption from stamp duty on multi-peril crop insurance.

I also see that amendment is required of the Taxation Administration Act to facilitate the better transfer of information from the state government to the commonwealth government for the purposes, I am told, of their maintaining a clear perspective on the land transactions that are occurring involving foreign individuals or foreign entities so that they have a better and clearer understanding of their register of foreign ownership of land titles.

During his contribution, the member for Hammond raised the topic of Bowhill Engineering. He may remember that Bowhill Engineering were contracted by the state government transport department back in 2015 to build new steel-hulled ferries to finally replace the up to 80-year-old timber-hulled ferries that were in operation in up to three locations on the Murray. Not only did they once again deliver that project exceptionally well for taxpayers in South Australia but they also were responsible for building the steel structures at the Adelaide Showground's train station.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I am sure that as you were struggling back to your train service with arms full of show bags only in recent weeks, you would have noticed the quite extraordinary twisted structure for the overpass that Bowhill Engineering delivered at that train station. They do remarkable work. With those unusually brief comments, I conclude my contribution.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (12:36): I rise today to speak to the budget measures bill, an omnibus bill that seeks to put into effect the budget that was handed down on 4 September. For my part—and I am sure there will be many other speakers who will speak about various other areas of the bill—I want to speak briefly about the Kangaroo Island commissioner and the fact that we are seeking to wind up the KI commissioner as part of this bill.

The Kangaroo Island commissioner was brought in post the 2014 election with a mandate to try to get economic activity happening on the island and to look at what the blocks or impediments are to seeing this beautiful island move forward. On this side of the house, and as we were then in opposition, we agreed with those sentiments, but we did not believe that the Kangaroo Island commissioner was the right way to go about it—and we still do not. It was a policy that we took to the election and, like all our policies, we are going to deliver on that.

What I want to say through my contribution is that we are not going to leave the people of Kangaroo Island high and dry. In fact, we on this side of the house would say that there are a number of structural ways we can change the way we do business and take what the KI commissioner was supposed to do to help deliver that for all of South Australia.

Wendy Campana, who was appointed as the Kangaroo Island commissioner, has been doing a fantastic job. She has certainly built strong relationships on the island and has been involved with all major projects that are going on, or potentially will go on, on the island. The main thrust of her role was to crack some heads. The main thrust of her role was very much to help bring government departments together and to help people navigate the maze. Whether that happens through the planning approval process, through finding small business support, or through putting people together in the same room to get ideas off the ground and to get things to happen, that has been the role of the Kangaroo Island commissioner, as well as looking a little bit more broadly at some of the impediments.

The island has some unique challenges. It is a fantastic place. I was lucky enough to visit a couple of months ago, I must admit for the first time, and see firsthand what is and what is not going on on the island. What struck me was the natural beauty of the place. I had a conversation with the Minister for Environment and Water only a couple of weeks before going. He said, 'Stephan, you will be taken aback by how beautiful it is and how big it is.' People forget that this place is massive. It is basically the size of Adelaide and there are about 4,500 people who sit on it.

I must admit that my other impression of the island was the fact that the roads were a whole lot better than I expected them to be, especially the state government roads. I was seriously expecting some rundown pothole-ridden roads, and that is not what I saw. Once you get off the beaten track, I am sure that is what happens, but that is an issue when you have such a big expanse to deal with.

Heading across on the SeaLink ferry and through the subsequent discussions that I had, it was very clear to me that access to the island is the number one issue. If we are able to solve it and provide a better solution, then everything else will much more easily fall into place. It will still be difficult and there will still be challenges. There is still a cost disadvantage because of that stretch of water, but we can try to ameliorate it the best way that we can.

The infrastructure at both ends needs to be improved in various different ways. Certainly, heading down to Cape Jervis, you can see that how the infrastructure around there looks a sad indictment on the former government. I know there are some parts that the Yankalilla council owns, but the landing area is not a great gateway to Kangaroo Island, and we need to look at how we can improve that. The Liberal government have a couple of million dollars on the table to help do that, but a whole lot more work will have to be done in order for us to be able to realise that.

The SeaLink issue is one that we need to deal with. On the Penneshaw side of the stretch, we need to look at the infrastructure challenges that exist there, and there are a number. We are very keen to work through the process to get towards a solution for that, and that was certainly my message to the people I met with on the island.

What is really exciting me is that there are a huge number of opportunities on the island. There is the Kangaroo Island golf course that the Minister for Environment and Water is currently dealing with, and then we will go through the planning approval process in the normal way. It could be really exciting as a step change. Standing out there and looking at the cliffs to see where this golf course would go, it is a beautiful and stark landscape, and if the course can pass all the hurdles it would no doubt be a great addition to the island.

There are a number of tourism developments that are currently going on and slated to be undertaken around Kingscote and American River to add some depth and breadth to the tourism offer on the island. There is a very difficult issue going on at the moment in relation to Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers and Yumbah Aquaculture regarding a planning development process for a new wharf that for very obvious reasons I will not talk about any further, but I wanted to make sure that I saw firsthand what that looked like.

There are a huge number of opportunities on the island. It seems to me that there is a lot of potential activity over there that is either underway or could be underway to really help to drive vibrancy of the area. The challenges exist with electricity supply. Challenges certainly do exist when it comes to housing supply and all these issues the KI commissioner was looking at. But when I looked at the role of the Kangaroo Island commissioner and took in the fact that we have this fantastic resource in Wendy Campana, and put that to one side and looked at the structure of the role, what really got me was the fact that, if government were working as well and efficiently as it should be, the role of the KI commissioner would become extremely unnecessary because the commissioner does not have any power to make something happen.

The power of the position was in the ability of the person to facilitate. That is not something that you need a statutory officer to be able to do. It means that we need to do more about making our government more consumer facing and more friendly as we face businesses. There is work underway at the moment around that and I look forward to being able to put those things into place.

Certainly, with the reorientation and the machinery of government changes, I think we have made it a lot clearer for businesses about whose role does what. We have had a series of ministers who I know have all visited the island, from the member for Chaffey through to minister Ridgway in the other place. The Minister for Environment and Water and the Minister for Industry and Skills have visited, as have I. I know the Premier has been across there.

We have put a lot of time and effort into the island, but this idea that we have a role that essentially is a bandaid solution instead of fixing the structural issues that existed with the former government's business engagement process, we thought was unnecessary. Instead of putting a bandaid across the issue, we need to fix the structural deficiencies, and that is exactly what we need to do. More than that, to the extent that the KI commissioner's role was a facilitative one, we actually need to provide that for all South Australia, especially for all regional South Australia. Getting rid of the Kangaroo Island commissioner is not about our taking away something from Kangaroo Island; it is about giving that to all regional and metropolitan South Australia.

Yes, there are some issues on the island. Again, that body of water between Kangaroo Island and the mainland is an issue. It creates a structural difference between how other businesses across South Australia can operate—and last week, I was in Port Lincoln in the Deputy Speaker's electorate—and an example is the cost to get grain to market from the Far West Coast, or to get produce to Adelaide from the West Coast. There were a couple of good wineries that we visited while we were there. The wines tasted pretty good, but I do not want to give too much praise because we have to keep things in perspective.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is high praise from the member for Schubert.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: Getting that product would be just as difficult as, for instance, getting a bottle of wine from Kangaroo Island to Adelaide to get it into market. The issues are difficult but, in my view, they are not unique. If we can deal as best we can with this body of water, then I think we go some way to providing as much equity as we are able to provide. I do not want anyone to construe that my comments in the house today suggest support for the bridge. Frank Pangallo, in another place, certainly pulled that one out. Whilst I understand the problem he was trying to fix—that is, there is this stretch of water we need to traverse—I do not think a bridge would fix it.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: He says $5 billion. We have been working hard behind the scenes to make sure that we have alternative processes in place so that the people on Kangaroo Island, who have been using the KI commissioner to help them, know full well what the alternatives are and that we take the lessons Wendy Campana has shared with the government, spreading those learnings right across regional South Australia and right across all South Australia.

In seeking to bring our election commitment to the fore, as part of the budget measures bill, yes, we are looking to wind up the Kangaroo Island commissioner. I reiterate that this is not about our taking away something from Kangaroo Island; it is about our fixing the fundamental issue. It is about learning the lessons and providing them to all South Australia and it is about fixing the fundamental issues that the island has, rather than just providing a person with a facilitative mandate to be able to connect the dots.

There are other worthy reforms as part of the budget measures bill, but they do sit outside my portfolio area, so I will leave it to others to comment on those. I encourage the house to support the bill. I look forward to the opposition's support. I look forward in the future to our being able to announce a better, more facilitative structured business engagement process in South Australia.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General) (12:48): I rise to speak on the Statutes Amendment and Repeal (Budget Measures) Bill 2018 and commend the bill to the house. I would like to acknowledge the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure and his contribution in respect of the Kangaroo Island commissioner and the work she has done.

Like a number of my colleagues, I have a number of reports that were prepared in respect of Kangaroo Island over the 16 years of the former government. I had occasion to welcome the then premier, Mr Rann, to Kangaroo Island, the birth place of the state, during the 175^th anniversary of the state. He commissioned a report, called Paradise Girt by Sea. He promised that tens of millions of dollars were going to be contributed to Kangaroo Island. In the following 12 years, I think there was a walking trail built; there were some roadworks done—

An honourable member: An airport.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: —I will come to that in a moment—a contribution in respect of the enhancement of some of the parks area, which take up about 40 per cent of the island; massively increased fees to access the parks; and, of course, infrastructure improvement was developed, largely to increase the revenue for the then state government.

It is disappointing, in some ways, that when the commissioner was appointed it was another expression of interest in and commitment to Kangaroo Island, which, unfortunately, even with the efforts of Ms Campana, have not really transpired. We did get a commitment of $9 million in the last couple of years of the former government, matched by another $9 million for an airstrip extension at the Kingscote Airport—the Cygnet River Airport, actually, but often known as Kingscote Airport. That was then, under the hands of the former minister for transport and infrastructure, the responsibility for the administration and project management. They allowed it to be handed over to the local council.

It went $3 million over the funds available, and guess what? The ratepayers, largely, together with state taxpayers, are picking up the mess of that. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful redevelopment. The extension of the runway has concluded and there is a new area to facilitate some expansion. Personally, I have not thought that the biggest problem for Kangaroo Island was getting people to it. We have many more thousands a year go to Kangaroo Island, in the form of international and national tourists, than the Galapagos Islands. They have a $20 billion tourism industry, why doesn't Kangaroo Island? Largely, because they do not stay for longer than a day, but sometimes overnight. Obviously, other infrastructure opportunities may be needed.

I do welcome the comments of the minister as to the acknowledgement of what is clearly the standout issue for people who live and work on Kangaroo Island—that is, the cost of the transport and freight and the water gap issues that have been referred to in every report that I have read of in my lifetime as the most significant and what he might be able to do in negotiating with his federal colleagues in that regard. I would hope to see some positive outcome because, clearly, the current federal member either has not tried or has not been successful in that regard, in even identifying the most significant issue.

I agree that the bridge option—whilst my father had a childhood dream of robbing a bank and building a bridge from Kangaroo Island to Adelaide, he said, to his visit his grandmother in Port Adelaide—will never come into fruition. It is a total fantasy. He, like others, who from time to time raise this as an option, clearly did not appreciate the significance of the passage being the most rough around Australia. Nevertheless, it was a terrific contribution in that regard, and we look forward to Kangaroo Island getting the real benefits of investment in it in the future.

I wish to address another important aspect of reform proposed in the bill, that is, the reference to dealing with gambling regulation in South Australia, particularly the amendments to the Authorised Betting Operations Act 2000. As we know, the commercial gambling environment in Australia has changed considerably in recent years. Over a number of years now, there has been the Independent Gambling Authority's charter in this state to provide for the regulatory framework in respect of gaming. There is the poker machine legacy of the former treasurer Mr Blevins under the leadership of Mr Arnold. Neither of them was there very long, so I suppose you cannot blame them entirely for what happened in the preceding years, the State Bank collapse and the desperation of the then Labor government to find a revenue stream to rebuild—

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan: Wasn't it 1990?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: No, just before.

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan interjecting:

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: It was way back in 1982 or 1983. The establishment of poker machines brought a new, at the time, contemporary capacity for those who wished to bet at an entertainment and gambling outlet. I must say that it was not something favoured by my father, who was a member of this house. He actually opposed the introduction of poker machines. This is coming from a family who would bet on two flies crawling up a wall and had many farming arrangements with racehorses and the like.

Nevertheless, he was happy to cross the floor to support the Casino in a protected environment, in which there were no poker machines in the 1980s, but not to support poker machines. However, at the time it was and still is to some degree a significant forum in which gambling has been offered to the community. The Independent Gambling Authority was the protective basis upon which that umbrella of protection was provided.

The new government's initiative is to take into account the matters raised by a report of Mr Tim Anderson QC prepared in 2016. It was not released by the former government, but we have recently released it, with some redactions to deal with some commercially sensitive matters. Nevertheless, the recommendations clearly were that the regulatory regimes were complex and needed to have a significant streamlining. His recommendation was that there be the replacement of the authority with a board and that a large amount of the regulatory regime be transferred to the commissioner in respect of commercial gambling.

The proposed legislation will repeal the legislation that established the Independent Gambling Authority. There will be a replacement of the Independent Gambling Authority Act 1995 with the Gambling Administration Act 1995. Since the establishment of the authority, there have been quite significant changes in relation to options available for gambling outside gaming machines, Casino operations, on-table gambling and horseracing in various codes.

There has clearly been a decline, though, in the demand for traditional gaming machines in licensed gaming venues in favour of the increased use of online gambling applications that are easily accessible via the internet, smart phones and tablets. Of course, there is 24/7 availability, which produces a significant challenge in relation to future regulation. We have a situation where, coupled with regular advertising and incentive offers, the normalisation of online gambling is putting young and vulnerable people at significant risk of harm. As I have previously said, the biggest risk to problem gambling is online. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 14:00.