Grievance Debate

Parliamentary Sitting Program

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (15:08): Today, I want to talk about just how important is the management of the business of parliament and what a shocking job the government have made of it in this first year of their attempt to govern this state.

If you cast your mind back to the election, we were promised that within the first seven days of a Marshall Liberal government we would have an agenda for the sitting dates for the year. Four weeks later, we still had nothing. It took the Labor opposition to highlight this to the media for the digit to be removed and for a sitting schedule to finally be provided to the parliament and to the people of South Australia.

That would be one thing. What was worse was that the dates were changed. They were not changed once, they were not changed twice, they were not even changed three times: four times they changed the sitting schedule. When it came to the budget, they could not even decide when they wanted the estimates hearing to be. They were originally scheduled to start on the Wednesday, the second day of the traditional sitting week, but the penny dropped that that might not be so good for the government to try to manipulate the media cycle, so they moved the first sittings of the estimates committees to a Friday. Unfortunately, they also organised them in such a way that members of parliament had clashes and could not be in two places at once. It is incompetent—absolutely incompetent.

We have also seen the government run out of legislation—run out of business—four times this year. This week was the most egregious example you could imagine. Not only did they not have legislation but private members' bills were deferred, particularly those introduced by members of the opposition. They made the problem even worse. They did not have any of their own bills to deal with, yet they would not allow the opposition or crossbench to deal with any of theirs. You have to wonder who is in charge of this government.

Traditionally, the government has always controlled the management of parliamentary business because the government is meant to have the numbers in the house. But as we saw last week, they cannot even manage that. They cannot even control the numbers of the house. They cannot even make sure that members of their own political party, who are meant to be voting with the government, know which side they are meant to be sitting on—not once, not twice, but three times. It has been a shambles.

We then come to that all-important hour of question time. It is the responsibility of the parliament to hold the executive to account with regard to what they are doing in the state; instead, they choose not to answer questions but to gobble up question time with Dorothy Dixers. I am sure we are all richer for the soliloquy by the Minister for Regional Development about how much he enjoys Pikes Wines and Pikes Beer and about the guy who was poached from Mona.

This government sets a pretty low standard in being accountable to South Australia. Not only will they not answer questions during question time but they will not answer questions outside question time either. The Premier is the most guilty of not answering questions placed on notice. Of course, we know why: one of the questions that remains unanswered is about which lobbyists he has met with since 17 March. That might be a curiosity for some, but it is important because some of the deals that have been announced by this government are reprehensible.

I look forward to the opportunity to prosecute the issue of the Stadium Management Authority's $42 million taxpayer-funded loan. But it is not just that; it is the $2 million given to Mitsubishi. I understand that Mitsubishi approached the former government asking for the same handout in 2016 and were knocked back. The Treasurer says that it is not important to provide industry development grants, yet he sets aside $100 million for these grants in his own budget

The difference between the former Labor government's future jobs fund is that it required a business case—not so under the current Liberal government. They cannot manage the state's finances, they cannot manage industry support, and they cannot manage the business of the house. It is a disgrace!

The SPEAKER: The member's time has expired.