Appropriation Bill 2019

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:38): I now continue my remarks, I think with 11 minutes to go. Just to reframe the way in which I have been looking at both the environment and water and education portfolios in the budget, my view on both of them is that they have been treated poorly by this government, as you would not be surprised to hear.

On the one hand, they have avoided paying attention to the serious issues that exist within both those portfolios, which ought to be above partisan politics. Secondly, they desire to please Canberra, with a Coalition government. Thirdly, they are cutting very important services right at the heart of the departments. When I sought leave to continue my remarks earlier, I had been listing the areas in the education department from which $50 million will have to be found for the cut that has been imposed by this budget, a new cut of $50 million over the forward estimates.

I think I had got to support for principals in managing poor performance for teachers, which is something the HR department does well and which it has been supported to do so additionally under the previous government. We gave them additional funds to help support that. I think I raised the question of some of those specialist allied health and specialist teachers who are attached to the education department and who provide additional services, such as speech therapists, behaviour coaches and attendance officers, to students in need. I am concerned that this $50 million cut is likely to go close to them as well.

Then there is the Incident Management Division, which I understand has already been cut in the last financial year, in the one we are just about to finish, where the department is managing serious issues that occur within schools centrally, and that that has now been cut. There are also new programs that are established, programs such as the music strategy and the languages strategy. I do not know whether the entrepreneurial strategy has been run out of it, but I would expect that it has. That area has already been targeted and presumably will be targeted more.

All these areas are deemed to be head office and are therefore vulnerable. I know that there has been some rhetoric about saying, 'Well, schools won't be affected.' It is impossible to cut $50 million out of the education department and not have a shift of effort or an absence of support for schools. Schools will feel this, and schools will let their local members know what they are experiencing when they start to lose more and more of these services. I will be very interested to hear what the plans are for the immediate $12 million, the one coming in the next financial year, and overall for the $48 million.

What we have is an education department that is being set the task of moving 12 year olds within a financial agreement with the commonwealth, which has ripped off public schools and set that in stone through federal legislation, and now is burdened with finding a very, very deep cut across what is a comparatively small department because the vast majority of education, of course, is sitting out in the schools. I think I heard earlier in one of the contributions from the government side of this chamber, 'Oh, there's more money going into education,' some of which is referring to the very substantial capital spend, the vast majority of which was dedicated by the previous government.

I appreciate that the government changes hands and that people get to cut ribbons for projects they did not actually initiate or think about. However, the lack of graciousness in acknowledging, and claiming expenditure that had been allocated previously—and in fact in this case, even more egregiously, had been allocated for projects that are now being cancelled in order to fund the unfunded move of year 7s into many of the high school—is galling. When people look at our chamber and look at politicians in general and talk about their behaviour, that is the kind of behaviour they notice.

When they go to schools and see STEM facilities being opened that were initiated under the previous government, no acknowledgment of that is made by the Liberal backbencher, and the Liberal member of the Legislative Council who is often sent out to get their name on the plaque does not even acknowledge that this was a project initiated, paid for and substantially completed under the previous government. We do not expect them not to cut the ribbons. I just think a little bit of graciousness, of acknowledgment, of behaving in a way that acknowledges that the Labor government made an enormous contribution to education ought to be acknowledged.

Then, of course, we turn to the environment portfolio. I am not going to suggest, the way the minister suggested in question time, that no-one on that side cares about the environment, no-one on that side cares about water, because it is certainly not true on that side and it is certainly not true on this side. We all care. The question is: what are we doing about it? I feel sorry for the environment minister. He has received a royal commission report that he still has not responded to, presumably because the Attorney-General's office is holding up the process.

I am not sure what the record is for the longest time between receiving a royal commission and providing a response, but this must be pushing the limits of that record. Last time, he was dealt the blow of cutting out climate change altogether in the department and of cutting a staff of 115 over a period of four years. I understand that 117 TVSPs were offered between August and March and, of those, 64 were accepted, and possibly more have been accepted now.

In the election, he was in the position of going out and saying that he wanted more rangers, but he was not given any money for that in the last budget or in this one, and he therefore had to cut other areas in order to fund that. We have seen the change of names and the change of titles that have been offered to people like construction and maintenance workers to allow them to be called rangers, and I understand that rangers have been given TVSPs. Rangers have been told that they can have money to stop working as rangers. I do not understand what is happening in the department.

The Hon. D.J. Speirs interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Duluk): Order! The Minister for Environment will restrain himself or he can leave the chamber. Deputy leader.

Dr CLOSE: Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker. The only new project of any substance that we are seeing in this budget that had already been announced is the sand management along Adelaide's beaches. I understand that our sand has a northward push, a natural drift that would, without any intervention, see almost no sand on some of our southern metropolitan beaches.

However, I am concerned on behalf of the residents of my electorate—the residents of Semaphore South, Semaphore and Largs in particular—who have seen quite serious dune erosion in the last few years. We have been told that there will be funding to take more sand away from Semaphore Beach, including through a pumping process that will take it directly away. Yet, what I hear from residents—and I am myself a resident, and I walk the dogs along that part of the beach—is that they are watching our dunes erode.

I have written to the minister and asked to have someone come and talk to our people. We understand that there has to be proper sand management across all Adelaide beaches, but surely we should not be further damaging the northern suburban beaches in order to relocate sand and protect beaches further south. I have not had a response, but it does not surprise me. The Minister for Environment and the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure take quite a while to get back. I am sure they have lots of letters, but they do take quite a while to respond.

I am hopeful that he will be able to send someone, perhaps from the Coast Protection Board, to talk to my residents about what they are seeing crumble before their eyes. The quality of the experience of walking along the beach in Semaphore has already been compromised. The risk is that we start to lose those magnificent dunes that have been built up and protected and are now being maintained by volunteers. We will see those eroded because the focus has shifted down to the southern beaches.

In the last bit of time I have left, I raise my concerns about the increased cost in the solid waste levy. That has been taken up very substantially by the Local Government Association, which is very concerned that the problems they have raised with the minister have not been acted on and have not been reported. Their concern is not only the additional burden of cost for residents but also that no attention has been paid to the increased risk of illegal dumping.

I am interested to know, and to explore during estimates, the dividend from SA Water; that is, the way in which the money is flowing in (if you will forgive the pun) to government coffers because of the price that people pay to their councils to have their waste managed and to SA Water to have water and sewerage managed. I am concerned to see the degree to which that money has been taken in order to replace general money that ought to have been provided to the three environment department areas.

I think that the two portfolios I started with are the most crucial for the future, and I am concerned that we have people running them who are interested in pet projects that are good to announce and great to cut ribbons on but are not going to make a substantial and lasting difference to the future of this state. I think they are wrongheaded in the way they are spending their money, and I will be asking many questions about that in estimates.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (15:49): It is a great opportunity this afternoon to spend a moment reflecting on the 2019-20 Marshall Liberal government's state budget, as handed down on Tuesday this week by Treasurer Lucas. It was interesting to hear from the deputy leader, as she provided conclusions on a government from her point of view. There are two important portfolios that she shadows: education and environment. She alluded to the fact that, particularly with environment, there was a real opportunity to leave a legacy because of its importance.

I can tell you that the best way to leave a legacy is not to slash and burn the environment department's budget, as occurred when the deputy leader sat as a cabinet minister in the Labor government between 2014 and 2018. That is how to not leave a legacy. What the environment department went through over the last couple of terms of Labor government was horrendous. The level of cuts that were inflicted on the environment department's budget were chaotic and catastrophic. There was an at least 30 per cent reduction in overall budget, and that was felt at the front line: in national parks, wildlife and rangers.

For the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to make any statements around the number of rangers in this state is the height of hypocrisy. It is the height of hypocrisy because there were around 300 rangers when the Labor Party came to government in 2002 and when they left office in March 2018 there were 93 rangers. To make comment about a few rangers who have been given voluntary separation packages as part of the renewal of the workforce, which is obviously an operational matter for the chief executive, while having stood by and, as far as I am aware, not raised any concerns, certainly not publicly, while the ranger workforce in this state was obliterated, I think is just shameful and quite unbelievable.

I will not reflect any more on the comments of the deputy leader. I think I will have plenty of opportunity in estimates to refute nonsensical and ludicrous claims. However, I do want to reflect at the macro level about the Marshall Liberal government's 2019-20 state budget and also focus on the portfolios that I have responsibility for covering the areas of environment and water.

The Marshall Liberal government's latest budget is a working budget. It is a budget that has been handed down in challenging times with a substantial reduction in revenue from the GST and other falling revenue streams as well. This government is trying to build on South Australia's strengths, and we aim to substantially renew our infrastructure and give our state the opportunity to grow, even in the face of those challenges.

We have ambitious aims for economic growth in this state. We want to see 3 per cent growth, year on year. We believe we should really push for that. It is absolutely critical that we do that and that we back it up with population growth and get this state moving in a dynamic, productive way.

The budget is framed around a very significant investment in infrastructure. We have seen an incredible investment in regional roads and that will make such a difference to areas of our state that have been long forgotten when it comes to infrastructure investment. The billions of dollars that will go into roads over the forward estimates, both in metropolitan Adelaide and regional South Australia, will not only bust congestion challenges across the capital city but also make our regional roads safer and enable people to get home quicker and in a much safer way.

We know that is important in regional South Australia. We also know that the quality of roads in regional South Australia is important for productivity as well and for economic development. Investment in regional South Australia will help our farms, our food producers and our tourism industry as well, and will enable people to get to their destinations across our state, particularly in the regional parts of our state, in an effective, efficient and safe way.

In metropolitan Adelaide, we have had a number of very significant road announcements, and those have often been in partnership with the re-elected federal Morrison government. That was a great result on 18 May—I think it is great for Australia. We now have a real opportunity, in South Australia in particular, to take advantage of cooperative federalism when working with our federal colleagues to deliver for this state.

We have seen in the state budget, and through the federal election process, plenty of examples of high-quality investment in areas that will create real productivity gains in our regions in metropolitan Adelaide, no more so than in the south-western suburbs that I have the privilege of representing, with the announcement that the Hove crossing at Brighton Road will be grade separated. That is something that the local community has been crying out for for many years.

Just a couple of kilometres away we have the Oaklands crossing. It was great to see all tiers of government come together to see funding put in place to get that project up and running. That project is almost complete now. The congestion nightmare at the point where the Seaford line crossed Diagonal and Morphett roads has been eliminated. That is a very difficult intersection, and the amalgamation of roads and the train line has now been eliminated. The work now moves just a couple of kilometres further to the west to the Hove crossing.

This is a project that I have been working on with my colleague the member for Gibson and Minister for Police and Emergency Services for a substantial length of time. When I first was running for election for the former seat of Brighton in 2013, I launched the Fix Brighton Road campaign. The member for Gibson, who at the time was the member for Mitchell, launched the Fix Oaklands crossing campaign.

We always acknowledged publicly that Oaklands was the more problematic intersection in terms of ranking because of the chaos it caused in the Marion area with the shopping centre nearby, the GP Plus nearby and the state Leisure and Aquatic Centre just around the corner. We said that Oaklands had to be done first, but then the effort would switch to the Hove crossing. We switched that effort. We got alongside Nicolle Flint, the federal member for Boothby, and we have been able to get together $170 million to see that crossing grade separated. That is a real win for the south western suburbs.

I know that many of my constituents in Hallett Cove, Sheidow Park, Trott Park come down the hill, along with residents from Seacliff Park, Seaview Downs, Kingston Park, Marino, Seacliff and through into the member for Gibson's electorate with the suburbs of South Brighton, Brighton and Hove and the adjacent suburbs of Dover Gardens and Warradale. They all pass through that intersection, which has some 40,000 movements a day.

During peak hour, the boom gates are down for around 25 per cent of the peak-hour period, causing very significant delays. It is exacerbated during school holidays because nearby we have Brighton Primary School, St Theresa's Primary School, Mary Mount College, Sacred Heart and Brighton Secondary School, all on that strip of Brighton Road. Getting this crossing is something my community has been very keen on for a long time. It has been great to work alongside not only the member for Gibson but also the federal member for Boothby to get that money in place. It will be really good to see that project get up and running in 2020 through to 2023.

The opposition leader has made it very clear that he is incredibly concerned about the level of South Australia's debt and, equally, he is railing against the government's budget repair strategies, so I am worried about what will happen with some of these projects that fall outside the current forward estimates. We know that these projects will be up and running, but they will take some years to get going. The opposition leader really has to outline where he will cut some of these state building projects that have the opportunity to transform our productivity and make our city a more livable, accessible place to call home.

I am concerned about what the opposition will do with regard to some of these longer term projects because they have been railing against the budget repair measures at the same time as railing against our increased borrowings. Something has to give there. They do need to put on the table what they would cut or what approach they would take to deliver these projects—if they would deliver them at all.

I now want to reflect on the portfolios I have responsibility for under environment and water. This has been a budget that has been really good for the Department for Environment and Water and the associated portfolios. No matter what the deputy leader says—and I know she carries the burdens of the left around with her, and that is a great burden to carry—it must really pain the deputy leader to know that the Liberal government is rebuilding the environment department's budget and has seen an uptake in the amount of investment coming in and new investment trending upward for really the first time in many years.

I have seen the graphs, and it is great to see that new investment, not just in national parks and wildlife but also in waste management, and also very significant new investment in coastal protection. I stand here all the time, and my colleagues the member for King, the member for Newland and the member for Colton would hear me talk about our precious coastline; 5,067 kilometres of coastline in this state. Some of it is under particular pressure in the face of increasing population and in the face of man-made intervention, in the face of a change in climate, increasing storm events and rising sea levels.

We do need to invest in our coastline, we need to give it resilience, and we can do so in this budget in three ways. We have a $4 million regional Coast Protection Fund, which is a quadrupling of the funding available under the previous government for regional coast protection projects to about $1.3 million per annum for regional coast protection projects. I know that colleagues such as the member for Narrunga, the member for Finniss and the member for MacKillop will value those projects because I have been out to their communities and they have taken me to areas where the beaches are under threat and are washing away. There is a real opportunity for us to get in front of those problems, partner with regional councils and ensure they have the funding to tackle some of these coast protection challenges.

Another huge component of our coast protection strategy is the saving of West Beach and Henley Beach South, the vulnerable spots in our metropolitan coastline. The member for Colton is here this afternoon; he has been lobbying me for several years on this matter. He experiences it day in and day out. West Beach is literally falling into the sea in his electorate, and we know that is spreading. There are also problems at Glenelg North, but we are particularly seeing challenges emerge at Henley Beach South and Henley Beach.

If we do not find a solution to coast protection in metropolitan Adelaide, we will have a really significant challenge on our hands. We will lose infrastructure, whether it is surf clubs or sailing clubs, whether it is parks or roads, even houses. That is the future we will have unless we take hold of this, rise to the challenges of a changing climate, put our money where our mouth is and actually deliver real infrastructure and environmental outcomes to improve the situation.

So we are spending $48.4 million in securing West Beach and the adjacent beaches as well, putting in a very significant injection of new sand and then completing that pipeline, the missing part of the jigsaw, that was planned by the previous government but not funded. It stunned me that the deputy leader has now come out and called into question whether this project should go ahead or not, criticising it this afternoon, when not only was it planned but unfunded under the previous Labor government.

We know through numerous scientific reports that the reticulation of sand and reversing that natural littoral drift from south to north is the only way to be able to rebuild our beaches. We are not prioritising the southern beaches. Being someone from the south, I certainly would not count West Beach as a southern beach. We are not prioritising one set of beaches over the other. What we are looking at is the success in my electorate that was achieved, albeit under the previous government, in rebuilding Kingston Park, Seacliff and South Brighton. They got the science, they funded it and it has worked there.

We need to replicate that. We need to put in that injection of sand, rebuild and remanufacture those sand dunes and then get native vegetation through dune care programs into that new dune to hold it together. That is how we will save West Beach and this government is rising to the challenge. It is not cheap but it is necessary, otherwise we will have very long-term consequences that will cost this government in this state far more. So we are rising to the challenge. We are looking after our whole metropolitan coastline and we are certainly not leaving behind the northern beaches either because they are equally as important to retain as healthy vibrant beaches so that all the cells within our beaches are working together.

I also want to spend as short period of time reflecting on our investment in national parks and wildlife. When I walked through the environment department's door on 22 March 2018, national parks had fallen right to the bottom of the list of priorities in that department—overtaken by gesture, symbols, slogans, planning and strategies, but not a lot of doing on the ground. Investing in our national parks is something that I really want to see happen under a Marshall Liberal government.

We made a big announcement around creating Glenthorne National Park in the southern suburbs in the lead-up to the election. We funded that in the last budget. We are applying another $2.5 million to Glenthorne this time around in this budget, but we are also investing considerably more money in national parks and wildlife—again, for the first time in many budgets that we are seeing this sort of investment. Our national parks, 21 per cent of the state, give us another front-line defence against climate change. They create a place for biodiversity. They are protected. They are safe places.

We need to invest in them to uphold the condition of their habitats and also invest in their amenity as well so that they are places that people want to go to interact with and enjoy so that they fall in love with nature and want to protect our environment. So we have a $3.3 million fund, which we will invest in asset maintenance, trying to clear some of the very significant asset maintenance backlog within our national parks, and then we are investing $6 million in the creation of the Great Southern Ocean Walk, which will reactivate and invest in the amenity along the Heysen Trail between Cape Jervis and Victor Harbor.

It is a great project. It is a project that has bubbled out of the community, not driven by government. It has come out of the community. The District Council of Yankalilla, local businesses, local environmental groups, the Friends of the Heysen Trail, they have all been involved. They have said that you could create a multiday walk within the broader Heysen Trail walk. You could lift the amenity of campsites, toilets and signage and get conservation outcomes there as well, work with friends groups and get the private sector involved around the provision of accommodation.

It is not that far from Adelaide, just a bit over an hour's drive. The opportunity for the Great Southern Ocean Walk from Cape Jervis to Victor Harbor is phenomenal. It is an absolutely stunning part of our state where we have Waitpinga Beach, Newland Head, Deep Creek Conservation Park, Tapanappa Beach, Blowhole Beach. This is an incredible part of the state. I think it needs to be shared, but it needs to be done in a sensitive way.

The budget we have before us is a budget that makes a very significant investment in our natural environment. There is much that we can do in this area. Will we ever have enough money to look after our environment? As the minister responsible, I would say probably not; I would like a lot more, but we are working hard to rebuild the budget after years and years of cuts. We are trending up. We are getting some good outcomes, and I think the future is positive. In the face of global environmental challenges, we can have a really good news story in South Australia.

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay) (16:09): I rise today in my capacity as shadow minister for tourism, trade and investment, a portfolio I am very proud to represent. This is a very economic and jobs-focused contributor to the state. It is a portfolio that delivers billions of dollars in economic benefit to the state and employs tens of thousands of people. To illustrate in very rough terms the impact of this portfolio, the combined economic contribution of both merchandise exports and the value of tourism in SA is $18.8 billion.

This $18.8 billion is more than a number. It represents the tens of thousands of jobs that are dependent on these sectors. These are jobs that lead into career pathways. They are good jobs that tap into the potential of the global market for South Australia. However, at a time when we are struggling to increase our national share of exports and tourism, the government is sending a clear signal that these areas are not its priority.

If we look at the Department for Trade, Tourism and Investment, the government plans to cut the department's budget by 20 per cent in one year alone. In the lead-up to the election, the Liberal Party was completely clear that we should measure South Australia's export performance as a proportion of national share. I believe the term was 'an export-led recovery of the South Australian economy'. This was a key part of their election commitments. In reality, it was like unleashing a bull in a china shop.

The government have made drastic changes to the structure of various departments and agencies. They tore up existing regional trade strategies and sacked expert trade advisers. They abolished industry advisory boards and investment attraction and health industries, and all this happened in the space of less than one year. After these changes, the Premier and the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment decided that it was probably best to have a think about what they have done and to conduct a review, so they hired one of their conservative mates across the pond and asked if he could come to South Australia for a few days and report on what he thought. A few months later, a report is handed down, and guess what? It recommended even more machinery of government changes. The cycle goes on and on.

Meanwhile, the minister is going on international trade missions without giving enough notice to South Australian businesses that he is going. It explains why the minister is taking almost 90 per cent fewer businesses with him on trade missions compared with the Labor government. While the minister is on these trade missions, trade missions that do not have a plan underpinning them anymore, he cuts a ribbon on new trade offices but cannot tell us what tangible outcomes he has achieved.

Meanwhile, senior leadership in his own trade department are leaving in droves. The department's budget is getting slashed left, right and centre, and it is cutting full-time staff in the process. In February this year, the Joyce review recommended that the government not pursue their suite of stand-alone trade offices across the world and, instead, embed people in Austrade offices. There is complete uncertainty and a lack of vision leading the department, and the government should be held accountable for this chaos.

Our share of national exports has hit a 30-year low. It is a worrying trend that has been picked up in more than a year of the Marshall Liberal government. The reckless behaviour of this government towards trade and investment in this state is shameful. Yes, the government is opening trade offices, but at what cost? Is it worth the cost of completely dismantling public sector infrastructure that has brought significant economic benefit to the state? Is it worth the cost of losing world-class senior trade and investment officials who have chosen to serve our state? Is it worth losing Brand SA and its successful initiatives for boosting sales and support for local businesses? If you are not strong as a business in South Australia, how can you contemplate selling interstate or overseas? It is important for us to back our businesses here.

As I make this speech, I am reminded of how many businesses in South Australia are putting their capital on the line to sell our products and services to the world. Many of these businesses started as, and perhaps still are, small to medium enterprises. They are looking to the state government for assistance in opening up new markets overseas. But this is a government that does not want to partner with local industry. The minister thinks he can do a better job of managing the state brand than the private sector. I find that very hard to believe.

What we need is a serious plan to boost our exports and the resources to back it up, not the state of chaos that we have now. There are more cuts when it comes to tourism. The government has announced $12 million of cuts earmarked for the South Australian Tourism Commission. The government needs to understand that tourism equals jobs. It is estimated that tourism directly employs more than 36,000 people. Visitor expenditure to South Australia is around $6.8 billion. There is a 2020 goal, a shared goal between industry and government, for this number to reach $8 billion by 2020, which is why it is completely surprising that the government is cutting funding to our events and tourism marketing.

We have already seen the effects of what happened when the Marshall Liberal government cut $11 million from tourism in the last budget. The economic contribution of tourism went down by $100 million, from $6.9 billion to $6.8 billion. Members in this chamber do not need to take my word for it; all they need to do is ask any tourism operator about how important the funding is. The industry has been calling for increased funding to tourism marketing and sector development. South Australia should be taking the lead to try to capture more of this market. But with these budget cuts, the government is asking the industry to reach the targets with one hand tied behind their back.

We have seen recent declines in both domestic daytrip and international visitor numbers. South Australia needs more tourists coming here and spending more money, which in turn will create more jobs. It is not too long ago that I was in this chamber talking about how important the industry is to the regions. The drop in daytrip visitors is hurting the local economies of regional South Australia.

When Labor was in government, the proportion of visitor spend in our regions reached 44 per cent. Under this government, it is now around 42 per cent, and under the draft 2030 Tourism Plan, the target is 40 per cent—and the government has been absolutely silent about why it has not announced any new funding for our regional tourism organisations. The staff who work in these organisations do great work promoting our state and work together with local tourism operators. To cut their funding is shameful.

I see no future commitments to the cooperative marketing fund, which expires this financial year on 30 June 2019, or any future funding beyond 2019-20, or funding for staff for our regional tourism organisations. Based on my estimates, that represents at least $700,000 per annum in lost funding to our regional tourism organisations. These are locally based organisations that are on the ground actively selling our regions to the country and the world.

I know that the member for Giles and the member for Mawson are concerned about this. It has serious implications for Kangaroo Island, Flinders Ranges, the outback and Eyre Peninsula. The members for MacKillop and Mount Gambier would know that daytrip expenditure on the Limestone Coast is down by $30 million. Daytrip expenditure is also down in the Barossa by $21 million and by $4 million in the River Murray, Lakes and Coorong region. In total, that is $70 million less in the pockets of our regional tourism operators.

So my question to the government is: why cut funding now? There is no new money for the SATC in this budget. The marketing money that was announced earlier by the minister was simply a rehash of marketing activity that already existed. The total marketing budget has been cut, but most telling is that international marketing expenditure has been cut by 7 per cent. It is with great disappointment that I inform the house that the latest Tourism Research Australia data shows that South Australia's international visitor expenditure is down by 7 per cent. That represents $80 million less coming to our tourism operators.

This government has been duplicitous. They have completely hidden the fact that marketing is getting a cut in this budget, and it seems like any event that is not part of Mad March faces cuts. We only have to look at what happened to the Adelaide Fashion Festival and the Adelaide Motorsport Festival. It is just more cuts. I want to make this clear to those in the government: in its first year, the Marshall Liberal government's $11 million budget cut led to $100 million less spent by visitors in South Australia.

Tourism is a supergrowth industry. The opportunity to grow the industry is there for the taking; we just need a government that does not actively try to stymie the industry. Good governments are based on successful programs. At a time when the Marshall Liberal government is racking up a record debt of more than $21 billion and when interest payments will be more than $1 billion per year or nearly $3 million a day, trade, tourism and investment can play a key role in stimulating the economy.

They will help generate a very healthy return of investment to the state. This is important, a key role in our economy. It just has to be supported. These cuts are short-sighted. They are not in the best interests of the South Australian taxpayer. The South Australian people want growth. They want jobs. They want jobs throughout all of South Australia. Tourism is the answer; exports are the answer. This budget simply does not cut it. Once again, the tourism industry has been let down.

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (16:24): Mr Acting Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum have been formed:

Ms COOK: I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill. The budget put forward by the government is, as described in the ABC, an 'overalls and hi-vis' budget. It has nothing in it for vulnerable people in our community. It hits the hip pocket of the average South Australian household.

These decisions on increased taxes and fees will flow down the chain to renters and to those who are vulnerable in our community. It will flow down to retail consumers. It will hurt those who hurt the most. The budget is short-sighted. It will inflict more pain than anything. I fear that we are about to go into some kind of two-speed economy. There will be road and large infrastructure movement, this spend will continue, but retail will suffer, as will our housing industry, which continues to be under pressure.

As the opposition shadow for human services, I have a responsibility to every person in our state to hold the government to account in protecting and providing for the most vulnerable in our community. This task is one I fully commit to and is a challenge I enjoy. The government purports to have injected money to provide a stimulus package which will provide much-needed housing in our community, yet the $42.5 million package is not new money: it is simply making the South Australian Housing Authority use its scarce cash reserves and receipts from the sale of further properties and spend just $21.1 million on the maintenance of properties and $21.4 million on building just 90 homes and, according to the government's own budget papers, not all of them will be affordable homes. It is outrageous.

As data from the Don Dunstan Foundation and Project Zero showed only in the last few weeks, there are 227 known homeless persons in the Adelaide CBD alone. These people are already in desperate need of housing, and that is not even starting to think about the thousands of others in crisis across our state. Indeed, a report earlier this year commissioned by the Local Government Association suggested that South Australia needs at least 14,000 more affordable homes.

The government has also set aside $2 million to provide one-off $10,000 interest-free loans to bridge the gap to deposits. HomeStart, the government's own lending arm for housing in the state, provides low 3 per cent deposit loans. I do not really want to fully unpack this at the moment. I want to wait and see who comes to me, who we hear from.

How many families earning under that $60,000 threshold will be able to afford what is likely to be at least a $300,000 mortgage as well as pay back their $10,000 loan for what is probably a modest home? I am sure that there will not be too many in our electorate. We already see mortgage stress in our communities. Without proper support, families will be under enormous pressure trying to repay these loans as well as their mortgage. How many people will even consider accessing this poorly considered offering remains to be seen.

The South Australian Housing Authority, in addition to being forced to use their cash reserves and sales receipts, is also experiencing a funding cut, the same as all departments. I cannot find in the papers, because of the change of treatment, how many or if any staff are being cut from the Housing Authority. What I can find is a $4.3 million efficiency—that is Liberal government code for cuts—and that is just this year. Thereafter, it is $7.6 million indexed. The Liberals purport to be build, house and save, but what they are really doing is cut, cut, cut.

In this budget, we see a savage cut to the subsidisation of monitored personal alarms, personal alert systems that are used by many of our most vulnerable South Australians, the older South Australians in our community who live alone. Monitored personal alarms ensure that they can maintain at least some degree of independence and have help at the push of a button. From July—that is, within two weeks—any older person who needs help to access a personal alert will need to do so through My Aged Care. We sadly know how unresponsive that process can be.

This service is incredibly difficult to navigate. If they do not have a level 1 package already, they will need to apply for one, as the cost of their system is then covered through that package, rather than through the state government's budget. People who are on packages 2, 3 or 4 will no longer qualify. This will affect people in every electorate in this state, and they need to let the Minister for Human Services know that older South Australians will not stand back and let this happen. It is a savage cut.

In addition to this cut, from October the monitoring fees go up by $50 per annum. This is only a dollar, you might say. Well, it is double what they are going to get extra for their concessions payments. My late parents used this service. As a family member, I know that it enabled us to have some peace of mind that our parents could live with some dignity and have help at hand. This system saves lives; we know that it does. The reduction in funding and the increased charges for this will likely see less people using the service. I hope it will not result in people dying because of this. This will stop people getting timely help after a fall, and it may even push people over the edge and make them unable to stay at home.

These changes, while they hurt older South Australians, will also do great harm to many businesses that help to provide personal alarms. They have less than two weeks' notice of the change in the system. It is pretty disgraceful. This is not a government that is helping South Australians.

Mr BROWN: Point of order, sir: I call your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

Ms COOK: While going through the budget papers, Mr Acting Speaker, I noticed that major security upgrades to the Adelaide Youth Training Centre had been highlighted. As you know, I am sure, youth justice is something particularly close to my heart, so I keep a very close eye on the goings-on. These upgrades were forecast last year, but they still have not been completed. I thought the word 'major' in the budget line may have indicated the urgent need for them, but instead I wonder if they have just been delayed until they can be reannounced somewhere in the future. We are seeing this as a bit of a trend. In a high-debt budget, a reannouncement could be something interesting.

The Department of Human Services does, and always has done, a great job supporting vulnerable people in South Australia. It has been under a lot of pressure with cuts to jobs, but in this next budget it sees the government axing a further 322 members from the workforce. That is a 10 per cent cut to a department that relies on a lot of intellectual property and history in order to get their great work done. Forgetting that staff transitions to the NDIS and other areas do occur, there are 70 FTEs alone in the section of the department supporting communities.

How does this government think that an already stressed department is going to undertake its role supporting the not-for-profit sector, vulnerable communities, our young people, volunteers and more? The very slow transition to the NDIS has meant that this budget sees additional funding of $6.7 million to support the finalisation of service reform and disability functions as a result of the state's full transition, we hope, to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. I welcome this. However, there is no identified funding for the National Disability Strategy and anyone who is not eligible for the NDIS. What will happen with this and where will those people be supported?

I would usually applaud a government increasing the amount given for concessions to support the high cost of energy, but an increase of 50¢ cents per day is really not enough. In fact, I think it might be 50¢ a week. I will have to double-check that.

Mr Pederick: You are not misleading the house?

Ms COOK: I think I was being far too kind to you. You are far too tight for that.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Duluk): You have been kind to me, member for Hurtle Vale.

Ms COOK: Yes, you are far too tight, Mr Acting Speaker, I know. I believe that it may be $26 per annum, which is about 50¢ a week. We cannot forget that many of these concession holders are also very fragile when it comes to the impact of the rising cost of living elsewhere, such as in retail, supermarkets and transport. Incomes have stagnated. Lower income workers are ostensibly getting less pay compared to the rate of inflation.

Pensioners and Newstart recipients have not kept up with inflation. In very real terms, these incomes are going backwards. Many of the people on concessions live in public housing or in high-cost rental. All those costs are going up, and particularly last year there was the unfair and disproportionate increase to rents in Housing Trust tenancies. For these people, 26 bucks a year is going to mean nothing to them, sadly.

I worked in hospitals for around three decades. The Olsen government, under the current Treasurer, introduced paid parking in hospitals, so paid car parking has a long history. This government went to the 2018 election with the promise of providing more affordable car parking fees that would help ease the financial and emotional strain of people attending hospitals as patients, carers or visitors.

Well, Mr Acting Speaker, the Treasurer has dudded you and has since reneged on his promise, telling vulnerable patients, carers and their visitors—which I can tell you provide a wealth of support to people who are in hospital—that higher public hospital parking fees have been necessary to help cover the $517 million GST deficit, a GST drop that their Liberal friends in Canberra have decided to make vulnerable South Australians pay for. Shame!

Do not get me started on my former colleagues, allied health workers, nurses, doctors and ancillary workers, who work tirelessly in public hospitals day and night and are required to drive to work because public transport is not available in the middle of the night when their shifts finish. Even worse, their bus routes have been cut in the last 12 months. Many of these workers will have to pay an additional $725 per annum for car parking, and some of them are on very low wages. We should be valuing all people who support those who are in our hospitals who are unwell and those who are doing the great work to help them.

Mr BOYER: Mr Acting Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Duluk): Member for Hurtle Vale, apologies from the member for Playford for disrupting the house.

Mr Pederick: It's such a scintillating speech, sir.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Duluk): Order, member for Hammond! The member for Hurtle Vale has the call.

Ms COOK: On Wednesday this week, we heard from the Chief Justice that the burden of having stripped vital justice support services will fall on judges and courts. One such service that has been axed in recent weeks is the Welfare Rights Centre's Housing Legal Clinic, which services about 500 vulnerable people a year who are in housing crisis. This service will shut its doors in a week because this government has cut its funding. This service has provided support to keep people in their homes—people facing eviction as well as other complex housing matters, which many vulnerable residents of South Australia simply do not have the funds to pay for privately.

Additionally, there are cuts to the Women's Domestic Violence Court Assistance Service. This court assistance service has been cut by three-quarters of a million or $750,000. There is also reduced grant funding for the Victim Support Service by $3.6 million over the forward estimates. Where will they go? I doubt the Attorney-General is going to be providing her own legal services to support these vulnerable South Australians. These decisions will disproportionately affect people on low incomes and those on no incomes at all—pensioners.

We know the number of South Australian households surviving on low incomes that are struggling to pay their rent has almost doubled from 22 per cent to 40 per cent, so the chances are that each one of us in this place will know somebody in that situation. Every person in this place will have people in their electorate who will suffer because of this, someone who will need assistance from a service like the Housing Legal Clinic. Who will now provide that service?

I will be looking at this and many other services like it, services that have already been contacting my office this week about the lack of funding, the lack of support, and the lack of an ear to their problems. This is a budget by a man who should have retired many years ago, in my opinion. He was bitter when he lost the 2002 election and he has dug in since then. If nothing—

Ms LUETHEN: Point of order: that sounded like a personal reflection on another person.

An honourable member: He's not in this house.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Duluk): Order! The member for Hurtle Vale will please take her seat. On a point of order, when a member rises other members must be seated. Member for King, your point of order?

Ms LUETHEN: That it was a personal reflection on another member, but I am not sure if that applies in this house.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Duluk): Thank you, member for King. That it is not parliamentary to reflect on a member of the house applies only to this chamber, but I remind the member for Hurtle Vale to undertake all her discussions, as she always does, with decorum and manner.

Ms COOK: Thank you, sir. Can I have 30 seconds back, sir? It was a bogus point of order.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Duluk): Member for Hurtle Vale, your clock is ticking.

Ms COOK: Thank you, sir. I repeat: this is a budget by a man who should have retired long ago, in my opinion. He was bitter when he lost the 2002 election and he has stayed here to haunt us. If anything, he is resilient, he is tough and he enjoys his sugar; however, this gentleman is at the end of his career, on the way out. As the Leader of the Opposition mentioned earlier, he leaves this legacy for the current Premier and for future generations.

If we are to move forward with this new, almost ideologically neoliberal Liberal budget, we need to create jobs that are viable in the long term. Roads are good for now, good for the short term, but building more houses not only relieves pressure on an already stagnating market but also provides a skill base for workers who can continue to use those skills, a diverse range of skills, into the future, building more houses, creating more apprenticeships, creating more small businesses.

It will be our younger people, our future generations, who will be saddled with this Liberal debt for years to come. Without a legacy of small businesses and diverse opportunities debt will just keep increasing, debt that they cannot even forecast—or at least reveal to us. How much will the north-south corridor cost to finish? Probably around $5 billion. How much will the new Women's and Children's Hospital cost? What will our debt be in the next five years; equal to our budget?

I am saddened by this budget. I am saddened for my former health colleagues, vulnerable people, young people who have to bear the brunt of the Liberal Marshall budget. This budget is unfair. It brings results that are unfair, and we have to put the responsibility square on the shoulders of the Premier: broken election promises, more taxes, higher fees and charges, higher debt for future generations, job losses in the public sector, cuts to housing, false stimulus packages.

In a community where there is low wages growth, where people are struggling to keep their heads above water, a $350 million extra slug of charges is simply irresponsible. The budget is irresponsible. It is a legacy of someone retiring, handing the baton on to the Premier, who will then hand this on to a future Labor government. Shame!

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (16:49): I rise to make a very brief contribution to the Appropriation Bill. I will not be reflecting on anybody's honour in the way the member for Hurtle Vale did. I would not want to push the Treasurer over the edge. He is fragile.

Members interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Duluk): Order!

Mr ODENWALDER: That's the line I was looking for, member for Stuart. I will go into the particulars of this year's budget and what it does in a few moments' time, but it is more concerning at first blush from the point of view of my portfolio areas of police, emergency services, corrections and road safety for what it does not do in the context of last year's budget. It was tempting to view last year's budget as something of an anomaly in the course of a Liberal government, the product of an ideological Treasurer who has waited 16 years to rip into the public sector to get rid of what he sees as wasteful public spending, i.e., spending on public transport, public housing and those types of things.

So it is the product of an ideologically driven and impatient Treasurer and a new cabinet and inexperienced ministry who would be easily guided by this one man. It is easy to see that budget as an anomaly, but nine months later, that does not turn out to be the case at all. It is clear that it was not an anomaly and that the Treasurer, with the blessing of the Premier, is entirely in control of this cabinet, entirely in control of the budget process and simply gets what he wants.

As has been pointed out by other speakers, particularly the leader, the member for Croydon, we have seen a complete 180 turn in terms of the ideology of the Treasurer and his approach to debt and absolute silence from the neoliberals, particularly on the backbench. There is certainly silence in the house, not so much in the corridors, but that will probably be teased out in the estimates committee process, I would hope.

As I said at the beginning, this year's budget is more notable in my portfolio areas for the things it does not do. It does not redress and reverse the cruel cuts of the previous budget which some people in certain sectors were expecting, frankly. Certainly people in the local government area and in community groups were expecting a reversal of the strange and, in the scheme of things, small cuts to community safety grants, funding for CCTV, safety lighting in the suburbs and the city and those types of things. They expected to see those small cuts reversed, a reinstatement or even a rebadging of those types of grants. As far as I can read from the budget papers, at least we have seen nothing of that sort.

It is going to be up to the Adelaide city council, for example, to find its own resources to maintain and expand its CCTV network. It has the in-kind support of SAPOL, of course, but it has been responsible with state government money in the past for the maintenance and replacement of both the hardware and the software, importantly, that controls the CCTV set up in the city. That is just one example. In fact, I spoke to the Adelaide city council last year. They were concerned about CCTV. They were concerned about safety lighting and the community safety grants.

What they were most concerned about, and what they were very unhappy about, was the cut to the managed taxi rank program, which was funded through the Attorney-General's Department and money was given to the Taxi Council in order to staff six taxi ranks around the CBD on a Friday and Saturday night between the hours of 12 and five. These were places, I am told—I do not go out at night, but I am told—that people, young people, particularly women, know because they go out regularly and they know that they are safe havens, safe places to go when they are out in the city enjoying themselves. The state government put an end to that. In fact, the funding officially ran out on New Year's Eve of all times. Bizarrely, it ran out at midnight on New Year's Eve. The Adelaide city council had to rush to prop it up for another six weeks and now the program is in limbo.

Of course, we did not see the cut restored, which I was expecting actually. I thought it unthinkable that they would not reinstate the funding to Crime Stoppers. We all know the history of Crime Stoppers. Some months before the last election, there were many discussions with the then government and Crime Stoppers, and I believe with the then opposition, about ongoing funding since their major sponsor had pulled out some years before. They had eaten into their existing fund base and they needed—as all other states have now provided—some level of state government funding to continue their promotional operations in particular.

Oddly enough—and this shows again that the police minister has no control over this budget and that it is entirely the Treasurer's budget; it is entirely ideologically driven—there was no money for the reinstatement of funding for Crime Stoppers. Crime Stoppers themselves make no secret of the fact that they are upset about it. I quote from their media release of 18 June:

Crime Stoppers SA says a decision to not allocate any budget to support the independent crime reporting and prevention program in South Australia will not dampen its resolve to keep advocating for state government funding.

The decision comes less than 48 hours after the release of the latest wastewater test results by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission that shows Adelaide as having the highest concentration of methamphetamine in the nation.

The chair is quoted as saying:

…We have been in ongoing discussion with the Minister for Police and his advisors to try and address the fact that South Australia is the only state to not receive any state government support.

We had been advised that a budget bid had been put forward to Treasury, so it is naturally disappointing to see nothing allocated once again. What this does is strengthen our resolve to keep engaging the business community to help fund our operations, as we have done for more than 20 years,…

However, she goes on to say:

We will need to curb or delay a number of earmarked crime-solving and prevention activities in response—including plans to better engage with non-English-speaking communities and tackle country crime…

As I said, certainly in my portfolio areas this budget has been more notable for what it does not do than what it does, but let's look at some of the things that it does do that we know of. Perhaps I will start with a bouquet: it provides some funding for the emergency services. I will give it that. It provides some funding of a relatively modest nature over four years for the MFS and the CFS in particular for equipment—helmets and those types of things—which they do need. No-one begrudges them that funding.

There is also $1.9 million over two years to address the PFAS issue (I will not attempt to pronounce the scientific name for PFAS; we will call it PFAS), which is a chemical used in firefighting which has reached the news, particularly over the last year or so. It is believed to be a very dangerous chemical. Like asbestos, there are ongoing studies into exactly how dangerous it is, but it is generally accepted to be dangerous. It is generally accepted that it is not going to be used anymore in firefighting activities, certainly in this state, as of last year.

As has been widely reported, serious levels of PFAS were found particularly in the Largs North Fire Station. To their credit, the MFS acted very quickly and instituted a series of testing for officers. It soon became very clear that there was a cluster around the Largs North Fire Station. In fairness, the MFS did exactly the right thing: they temporarily closed it, under some pressure from the union, I understand. However, I understand they temporarily closed the station and rehoused most or all of that brigade at the Fort Largs Police Academy.

Apart from an initial delay in action or any sort of addressing of the issue by the minister, we have seen this strange process where, first of all, a report was commissioned from Melbourne fire brigade's respected and well-known expert, Mick Tisbury AFSM. He is a commander in the Melbourne fire brigade, but he is also something of an expert in PFAS contamination in fire stations around the world. He provided the MFS with a report in February, which stated that PFAS, despite the decontamination efforts of the MFS, was still likely to be dangerously high in that location.

The central recommendation of the report he handed to the MFS was to 'strongly consider permanently decommissioning the Largs North Fire Station'. Those are his exact words from the report he handed to the MFS in February. In April, the MFS put out the PFAS newsletter to its members and its workforce. It does this on a periodic basis to advise people of the progress of the rehabilitation and remediation of the site, etc., and the results of blood tests and so on, and the services they provide, to be fair, to the firefighters and their families.

But there is no mention in this April newsletter of the Tisbury report, which strongly recommended decommissioning the fire station. In the words of Tisbury himself, that report was dropped like a hot potato. A second engineering report was commissioned; I have not seen that report, but apparently it recommends that remediation would result in the fire station being ready to be rehoused. The union has some concerns about this. I have some concerns about this, simply on the strength of the rejection of the Tisbury report.

I will try to tease this out further in estimates, of course, but I wonder what the minister himself has done to get to the bottom of why this report was not acted upon, whether he had in fact seen the report and what further information he required of Tisbury and of the MFS management about this report. That is an ongoing issue for the MFS. As I said, across the emergency services sector some money has been allocated in terms of equipment provision, and I think that is probably altogether a good thing.

In the police portfolio, we saw quite a generous pre-announcement of something which is hardly formed at all, which is the user-pays scheme for police attendance at major events.

Mr BROWN: Mr Acting Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

Mr ODENWALDER: I want to thank the member for Playford for allowing me time to refresh myself. I believe that I was talking about the proposed user-pays scheme, or the police rent tax, which was pre-announced, but then clearly there was very little in the way of detail provided to either the house or the general public.

The reason for the lack of detail is that all that appears to have happened—and this was teased out again at the Budget and Finance Committee—is that the police commissioner has been given a significant revenue target to meet over the next four years. It turns out that at some level it has been proposed that there is $1 million in savings to be had with the implementation of a user-pays scheme. Under questioning, the commissioner revealed that there is simply no pre-planning for this at all.

There are some models interstate to look at. I am sure that the police commissioner has a preferred model, but there are still so many questions about what this would look like. The police commissioner said that there could be a situation in which the police, doing their due diligence in providing a management plan, as they do at every major event, could recommend a certain number of police officers to attend and then impose a cost on the organisers for the provision of those police officers.

It is still not clear if that would be the case. The police commissioner certainly seemed to indicate that it was a possibility. It was also revealed that this is in the context of no consultation at all with any major event providers. There was no consultation with bodies like Adelaide Oval, the SMA or anyone who would normally be called on to facilitate or provide a major event in the city or the state, so there is a whole lot of confusion around how that would actually work.

There are other questions around this. For example, having hired police officers of various ranks to patrol their premises, would a major event organiser or their management have the power to somehow direct police officers in a way that clearly no-one can, except the police commissioner or his proxies? There are serious operational questions to answer about how a model like this would work. There simply has been no detail. All we know is that there is a $1 million a year savings target for this measure and we wait with bated breath to see how it would work.

There has also been an announcement of an APY lands staffing model. Again, there is very little detail. We know that it will save $1 million per year over three years. It is called the 'APY lands staffing model'. What it appears to be is the training of more Aboriginal community constables, which in itself is a very good thing in the APY lands, but it also seems to suggest—and it is by no means clear how this would work—that uniformed, permanent sworn police officers and detectives would not be permanently stationed on the lands but that tactical response teams would be brought in on a fly-in fly-out arrangement.

Media reports seem to suggest that there would be a continuing police presence in the APY lands but not a permanent police presence. If there is a fly-in fly-out model, police officers are not permanently stationed there, building relationships with people, which is what policing is about. Policing is not a paramilitary activity: policing is a process of building relationships with people and keeping the community safe through building trust. I fear that may be lost in this APY lands staffing model. I trust the commissioner implicitly in putting these things into operation, but I wonder if the minister is across the detail and asking the right questions as these things are put into practice.

With the time left available to me, I will go over some of the other measures in the budget. Of particular concern to me is the complete cessation of the New Foundations program. The member for Kaurna would be aware of this program, and the member for Croydon is certainly aware of it and was a great supporter of it in the last years of the previous government. It would have been a very good program of rehabilitation and prerelease preparation, providing service wraparound, providing access to housing, etc., for prisoners leaving prison.

Of course, the underlying motive for this is to stop reoffending. The government has paid lip service to the idea of reducing reoffending and yesterday somehow claimed that, under their 14 months of government, recidivism is in such rapid decline that they can start closing prerelease beds and so on. The most recent Productivity Commission figures do not bear that out at all. In any way the Productivity Commission measures recidivism, across South Australia it has remained reasonably static and, in fact, is slightly up, so I am not sure where the minister is getting his figures. I have given him a signal that I will be asking those questions.

Mr BROWN: Mr Acting Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

Mr ODENWALDER: As I was saying, the cessation—

Mr Pederick interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Duluk): Order!

Mr ODENWALDER: —of the New Foundations program is of particular concern.

Members interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Duluk): Order! The member for Elizabeth has the call.

Mr ODENWALDER: Thank you, sir. Extra time?

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Duluk): No.

Mr ODENWALDER: In last year's budget, we saw a partial rejection of the New Foundations program. It was downgraded to a trial of something else. This year, we learn that that trial has been abandoned in the interests of saving $1 million per year over the next four years. I know that the minister has paid public lip service to the idea of reducing reoffending—the same commitment as the previous government had. I will be really interested to see all the evidence laid out of the vast reduction, the rapid reduction, of recidivism over the last 14 months, but I will be interrogating that further during estimates.

Time has obviously got away from me, but I do just want to touch quickly on the road safety portfolio—clearly, the minister's favourite. There is still plenty of confusion, despite the fact that, thankfully, the funding that previously went to the Motor Accident Commission for road safety, promotion and research seems to have been included in this year's budget and in ongoing budgets, if we believe the Treasurer.

There is still plenty of confusion about how that will work. Again, the police commissioner was in the Budget and Finance Committee on Monday, but no light was shed on how that will work, and, in particular, which minister—the Minister for Transport, the Minister for Police or road safety—has jurisdiction over which area, what role the police commissioner will play or whether the new tsar of road safety will have the power to direct the police commissioner in some way. I am sure that he will have something to say about it, and I look forward to interrogating all these issues and more in the estimates committee.

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (17:13): I rise to discuss the Appropriation Bill, which of course is a piece of legislation for this year's state budget, a budget that is disappointing, a budget that is completely bereft of any vision for the state, a budget that sets record levels of debt for our state and in particular, in my area of shadow responsibility, a budget that is bad for the healthcare system.

Sadly, we have seen healthcare in this state deteriorating over the short term of the Marshall government so far, and that is set to continue under this plan set out by the government in their budget. You only have to look at one of the first pages of its health portfolio statements to see what their vision is for health over the next 12 months in South Australia, and that is a reduction in the number of staff working for SA Health of 1,140 staff—1,140 full-time equivalent staff they are expecting to go over the next 12 months.

That is going to be a significant blow to our hospital system. That is going to be a significant blow to patients who rely on healthcare services in our public system in this state. This year, we have seen a record start to the flu season, and we have seen a particularly bungled response from the government at the start of the flu season, when we had hospitals running out of vaccines and GPs being denied access to vaccines for their patients. Now we are seeing what impacts are hitting our hospitals at the moment. It is particularly severe.

We are seeing extreme ramping happening at our hospitals and we are seeing extreme overcrowding of the emergency departments across Adelaide, and that is only going to get worse by removing 1,100 staff. When we are talking about the healthcare system, we have to bear in mind that two-thirds of the money that we spend on health goes to pay for the staff: the nurses, the doctors, the allied health professionals and the paramedics on whom people rely to look after them in their times of need. You cannot cut money from the health budget without it ultimately impacting upon front-line care and front-line staff. That is what we see in this budget.

Despite the Premier's denials today, we only have to look at the expenditure statements in Budget Paper 3, which show that the expenditure projections for the next three years are that there will be no growth in health expenditure in this state whatsoever. This is despite the fact that we are going to have more people needing services, just from the fact of population growth alone, let alone the fact that our population of older South Australians will need more services and let alone the fact that there is an increasing cost of providing those services in terms of technology and other needs. We are also seeing increased demand through the flu and increasing rates of chronic disease.

Of course, there is going to be more demand for health services over the coming years, but the government is proposing that we spend not one dollar more on health in South Australia for the next three years. How can they do that? Apparently, they can do that by removing 1,140 staff in one year alone. We are going to see the impacts of that in our emergency departments, we are going to see the impacts of that in terms of elective surgery and people waiting for procedures and we are going to see the impacts of that in terms of care for people in the community.

I think it is going to be quite diabolical. I think that people will start to see some very significant impacts because of that, particularly those people who rely on health services. The government has been talking about the need for restraining expenditure on health and has been saying that they can manage the health budget to the last dollar and make sure that nothing is ever overspent, but, lo and behold, the budget papers revealed that there was an extra $258 million overspent in health over the past year, compared to their budget.

Today, the Premier said, 'We have an overspend of $95 million,' but that is only the overspend since the Mid-Year Budget Review came out at the end of last year. The overspend since the last budget is $258 million, so all these calls from the government, that they are somehow masters of making sure that health expenditure is under control, have turned out to be complete rubbish. Not only have they brought in corporate liquidators KordaMentha to run our hospital system but they have appointed them to run the Royal Adelaide Hospital, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital and all the other areas inside the CALHN network, such as Glenside and Hampstead. They have appointed these guys to run this and have paid them very handsomely for that.

So far, these interstate corporate liquidators have received $23 million from the taxpayer, and that could well rise to over $40 million, or potentially even up to $50 million spent on this project over the next two years. What have we got out of it? So far, we have massive overspending over the past year that they have been in control of our hospital system. It does not appear that very much has been delivered from that. It appears that it has been an abject failure.

This is a contract that was entered into originally with KordaMentha but did not go through a tender process. We found that out through estimates last year, and it is something that we have referred to the Auditor-General to investigate because they just picked KordaMentha without going through any process to do that. We have seen that the process by which they decided not to do a tender is very questionable, and the results have been abysmal. Let's remember as well that KordaMentha are not employing anybody from South Australia on this project.

There is $23 million so far, potentially rising to over $40 million and potentially up to $50 million over the next couple of years, and we are sending all that money interstate. The only money that is being spent in South Australia is for hotels that we are paying for so these staff can fly in and fly out of South Australia, as though these are mining workers in the Pilbara. Apparently, there are no accountants or other staff who could help manage the books in South Australia; all of them need to come from interstate. The lawyers are coming from interstate, the accountants are coming from interstate and the corporate liquidators are coming from interstate.

Despite all this taxpayer money going there, it has been an abject failure so far, and I fear that it is going to continue to be an abject failure because clearly they have no experience in health care. Clearly, this is the first time they have ever done such a project running a hospital. Let's remember as well that over the next two years their project plan says that they are meant to cut $420 million out of those two hospitals. Cutting $40 million out of the RAH and The QEH will be a detrimental blow to health care in this state.

They project in their report that it is going to involve potentially thousands of operations. They project in their report that potentially 170 overnight beds will be lost out of those two hospitals. That is a massive number of wards shutting down and closing up shop every night, sealing the door so no patients can go in, all so that they can pull out this $420 million, which they have so far failed to do. We see this government not only hitting people now in this budget, in terms of a reduction of services and a reduction of staff, but also trying to charge those patients more to get there in the first place. We have seen this unprecedented hit in terms of car parking fees across the board.

Every Adelaide metropolitan hospital bar one, I think, is seeing a massive increase in hospital car parking fees of 20 per cent. It is a 20 per cent increase. Patients, carers and people who need to access those hospitals for appointments or to visit their loved ones are going to be hit extra. They are not getting anything extra for that. This is just going into Treasury coffers to help the bottom line. Adding insult to injury, the government is pulling out the two hours free that is available and has been available for many years at The QEH.

People in the western suburbs, obviously some of our most socially needed areas in our state, will see the removal of that two hours free, so they will pay significantly more to visit people. I was at The QEH talking to people about this recently. I spoke to one gentleman who said that his wife has been in the hospital for the past month. She has a particularly awful condition. He visits her twice a day and is able to visit twice a day using the two hours free and is not paying anything at the moment. That obviously will skyrocket the costs for him to visit his wife under that scenario, and there are many other people that this is going to hit across the board.

But it gets worse because the government have hit the staff who work in these hospitals even more. Not only are they cutting—sacking—1,140 staff from the hospitals, but those who get to keep their jobs will have the delight of paying $725 extra just for the pleasure of turning up to work. These are people who are going there to save people's lives in our hospital system. Many of them are not very well paid at all and we are slugging them an extra $725 to go to work. I am sure the government would say that maybe they should catch public transport.

There are two issues with that. First, the government is cutting public transport, particularly after-hours buses across Adelaide and, secondly, these people work shift work. These people work particularly unsociable hours, so how can you say to a nurse who works at, say, the Lyell McEwin, who leaves work at 11 o'clock at night, 'You have to catch a bus home,' when there are no buses that run in that area after that time? How are they supposed to get home, other than by paying over $1,000 for a car park pass to park at the hospital to have the ability to go to work?

If you are an enrolled nurse on $56,000 a year, that is 1.3 per cent of your pay gone in this absolute travesty of a budget—it is basically just taken as a pay cut—let alone cleaners, other staff, administrative assistants and others, who are also low-paid workers in our hospital system. All these people are going to be hit by this hospital car park tax. I think that they have a very good claim to the government to say that maybe they should be compensated more in their next enterprise bargaining to make up for the fact that they are now paying more to even get to work, to provide the care and provide services that they do in the hospital system.

Over the past two years, we have seen ramping in our hospitals worse than ever before. In the last week, the Ambulance Employees Association put out a graph that shows just exactly that, that ambulance ramping in our hospitals is now more than double what it was only two years ago. It has never been this bad in South Australia's history, and this is a budget that has not one single plan to address that. Not one single effort is being allocated to ramping, hospital beds or overcrowding in our emergency departments. There is nothing there whatsoever. Of the things that the minister has been talking about that he wants to try to do and that he thinks will have some effect, none is in here.

Either the minister is going to have to cut something else to do these projects or the minister was unsuccessful in getting them funded in the budget. I am thinking here of the supposed home hospital program that the minister has been talking about. There is not one dollar in the budget for that. The minister has been talking about priority care centres. There is not one dollar in the budget for that. There is not one dollar in the budget for extra resources for emergency departments, not one dollar in the budget for our ambulances.

Our ambulances are completely overrun at the moment. They are spending so much time ramped at hospitals that they are not out on the road responding to calls. We have seen the effect of that. This budget paper makes it clear where it says that we are seeing a huge reduction in the response times that ambulances are providing to members of the public. That is the reality that is set out in the government's own budget papers, but there is not one extra dollar to help those ambulances, not one extra dollar for extra paramedics to address that. We know that the government is sitting on a report saying that there needs to be extra investment in that, but there is nothing here in this budget to address that. But there is an additional feature in this budget to claw money from the patients in the ambulances.

We are jumping into the hip pockets of people who call out an ambulance. Either those people who are paying for ambulance cover or those people who are calling an ambulance without ambulance cover are going to pay 5 per cent more, which is three times the rate of inflation. That means that if you call an ambulance you will now pay at least $1,025 for the privilege of being taken to an emergency department—because it is a privilege under this government. That is over $50 more once you factor in the per kilometre charge, which is also rising by 5 per cent as well, and that is be another way that patients are being hit under this budget.

So we are hitting you when you park your car to get to hospital, we are hitting you if you catch an ambulance to get there and then we are hitting you with fewer services inside the hospital. Either way, South Australian patients are being hit under this budget and it is particularly cruel. We are seeing a number of the cuts, a number of closures that were proposed in the last budget continue in this budget, most notably the potential privatisation of SA Pathology and, before it is privatised, the very significant cuts that are about to befall SA Pathology.

Many people, including me, were expecting some relief from those savings targets for SA Pathology, but they are nowhere to be found in the budget. The government have not relieved any of those targets, and it appears to me and others as though this is just being set up for privatisation in about 10 months or so when the government said that they will be making their final decision on that. It will be sold off.

South Australians will not have a public pathology provider in what the AMA has described as a weird experiment that has never been done anywhere else in the country. That is going to be disastrous for health care in this state, for the teaching of health practitioners in this state, for medical research into conditions where we want to be a leader of that in this state and also for dealing with outbreaks, as we are seeing at the moment with flu, in this state.

One thing the government has been keen to triumphantly talk about is the money in the budget for the Women's and Children's Hospital. Many people were expecting to see their full plan, their full budget for the Women's and Children's, but they have been sorely disappointed in this budget. In a bizarre way, the government has said that there is going to be some money, but they have not actually detailed anywhere in the budget papers where this funding is; there is no allocation year by year of any funding. The government are saying, 'Well, we still haven't worked out how much this hospital is actually going to cost.'

I do not believe that there is any other health project in Australia that has ever been embarked upon without an idea, a projection and an estimate of what the total cost will be at the end of the project. I know the government has a report from the task force they set up. They handpicked this task force and they said it was very important, and they said it was important to work out the total capital cost of the project. We know so because they put it in their election policy. We know so because they had on their website until recently that that is what the task force was advising the government to do.

Lo and behold, the government have a report from the task force, but they will not say what the cost is. In fact, they will not even say whether the task force recommended what the cost was. Apparently, the Premier has seen enough cost estimates that he is comfortable and not scared by the figures, but South Australians do not get the right to know what those figures are and what the cost of this project is going to be.

It is utterly bizarre, and it is something we are going to continue to pursue, particularly when we have had answers before from ministers, in this house and in the other place, saying that they would release a report and that the figure of the cost would be known this half of this year—which only has 10 days left to go. I think South Australians who care about the financial probity of these projects will want to know what that figure is. It is all very peculiar why there is such secrecy surrounding that.

Unfortunately, in the last few weeks we have also seen some very devastating news come out for non-government mental health providers in this state. They have been told at the last minute, in the last month, I think only five weeks before their funding will be cut, that their funding will be cut by 25 per cent, that $6.8 million will be pulled out of mental health services in this state. This will impact our hospitals and it will impact our community sector.

It will have a devastating impact on those people who are suffering from mental health conditions who need these supports, these non-government supports that have been doing a great job, many of which are oversubscribed and many of which have waiting lists, many of which do not have people who are transferring to the NDIS at all. All this has been told to the government, but the government has refused to move. The government has refused to address that. Sadly, I think we will see some very significant impacts of people losing access to these important services and the terrible results that will come from that.

The government is in complete denial mode about this. The minister has written an outrageous letter to MPs attacking advocates of mental health in this state for daring to raise concerns about the cuts to these programs. They are being cut. There are going to be 25 per cent fewer of these programs from 1 July than there were on 30 June. That cannot be disputed, and we will see the impact of that—and I fear it will be very bad. This is a budget without vision that is going to impact on people and patients across the board and our health system very severely

Time expired.

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (17:33): I also rise to speak in relation to the budget handed down by the Treasurer two days ago, a budget bereft of any vision or plan for the future, a budget devoid of any expression of how those opposite will prioritise the people of South Australia and their hopes for the future, a budget characterised by two things: huge, unprecedented state debt that will create a burden for future generations of South Australians to bear and an utter disregard for South Australians already struggling with the cost of living.

All budgets speak to what governments value and prioritise, and this budget clearly says to South Australians that this government does not value them or understand what their day-to-day lives and their budgeting look like. Some state budgets are about giving people a hand up, about making things a bit fairer for people, about giving people a hand and some support when they are having a go, when they are going about their day-to-day lives and when things are really difficult. This one, sadly, is about none of those things. It is all about the Treasurer putting his hand into the pocket of hardworking South Australians with no explanation whatsoever about why and for what purpose he will use the cash that he is raking in from them.

This morning, the leader spoke about the Pollard family and what this budget means for them. I have had the pleasure of speaking with that family, too. It is really clear that, like many other families, they will find it even harder to make ends meet as a direct result of this careless, mean budget. We on this side of the house value people and their experience. We empathise when things are difficult and we think deeply about how fees, charges, parking costs and rate rises will impact people's lives. We listen to people.

Just the other day, a woman who is a cleaner at the Flinders Medical Centre came to visit my office. She was utterly distraught about the increase in parking fees that she will now incur as a result of simply parking at work. She really did not know how she would afford them. It is one of the bus routes in my community to Flinders Medical Centre that has been cut that she would have had to use, meaning that at the time that she goes to and from work public transport is no longer an option. This budget has made life harder for her as it has for many South Australians.

The outrageous fees and charges hikes that this Liberal government has introduced go way beyond inflation rates. Higher costs for fewer services is not what we heard from those opposite before the election but it is certainly clear now that that is what they value. Every single time a South Australian drives their car, catches public transport, has to go to hospital for treatment, or is sadly rushed there in an emergency, every time they go for a day out to Cleland or for a night out, those opposite will make it harder for them and, in some instances, will make it impossible.

Even when you put out your bin, you will pay more. This is alarming for so many people and alarming in the context of the fact that this budget also delivers a debt to South Australians that the Treasurer has said will never be paid in his lifetime; however, South Australians will continue to pay for generations to come. The decision made to exponentially increase debt in this budget will have long-term consequences for every single person in South Australia.

Who and what you prioritise in your budget speaks volumes about who and what you value. South Australians, sadly, now know that they have a government that does not value them, does not understand struggles with the cost of living and does not care. Sadly, this has all happened while their federal counterparts have seen off any chance of a restoration of penalty rates and any commitment to equal pay. This has all happened whilst wage inequality and job insecurity grow. South Australians should be treated fairly and so much better than this by those opposite.

I turn now to speak on a few things in my portfolio areas about what is in and, unfortunately, what is not in this budget in that regard. As I said before in this place, sport is an incredibly powerful tool for including all people, for giving them a sense of belonging, community and family. In every corner of our state, South Australians are kept active and healthy through their connection with local sporting clubs, through their active participation in sport and recreation.

Through that connection, their mental, physical and emotional health and wellbeing is improved and they are often less likely to develop a number of debilitating conditions. That is why it is crucial that we fund sport and recreation well, that we recognise the benefits it brings to the health and wellbeing of South Australians. Sport and recreation deserves serious investment. It needs to be acknowledged for the central role that it plays in our community's wellbeing, for the way that it strengthens the very fabric of South Australian community life.

Unfortunately, this government has done the complete opposite to this. They have created a funding crisis in sport and recreation that will significantly decrease our chances of realising these benefits of creating the vibrant, healthy, connected communities we strive for. For this, those opposite should hang their heads in shame.

This government has cut more than $3.4 million from the Office for Recreation, Sport and Racing. They have cut $300,000 per year from the research and planning grant program accessed by multiple sporting organisations and they have reduced funding by a further $1.2 million overall. This government has cut $26 million overall from sport and recreation since our last year of government.

While we, the former Labor government, spent $20 million in our last year of government on the female facilities program and on the synthetic surfaces program, this government has spent just $1 million this financial year on the exclusive and totally inadequate grassroots football, netball and cricket family-friendly facilities program, which completely relies on a 50 per cent contribution from clubs and councils. They have refused to listen to South Australians across our state and restore the $24 million female facilities program and the $10 million synthetic surfaces program.

Other than the already announced $10 million upgrade for tennis at Memorial Drive and the injection of funds into the racing industry, they have done literally nothing. There is absolutely nothing new for sport and recreation in this budget. They have created a crisis for every sporting organisation, peak body and club across our state that is crying out for funding. To use the minister's language, they have put us at the bottom of the table in terms of funding for sport and recreation compared with other states.

The government have demonstrated a total lack of understanding about what it takes to achieve gender equality in sport. They simply do not understand the principle that when one group starts from an unequal place you need to specifically invest in that group and the facilities they need to secure an equitable outcome for that group. By not restoring the dedicated female facilities program, they have ensured that girls and women all over our state who play sport of any code will continue to have to change behind towels, in bars and in kitchens, behind trees and in their cars.

No matter how this minister attempts to dress up his program, the budget clearly shows that it is worth less: it is restricted to just three codes, it does not provide for dedicated female facilities and, in its reliance on council and club funding, it completely shuts out hundreds of clubs across our state.

They have proven that they simply do not care about the difference that hardworking volunteers and clubs across our state make to the lives of many, about the children and their families who find connection and engagement through sport and recreation or about the remarkable staff at the Office for Recreation, Sport and Racing who undertake such fine work with and for sporting organisations and the people who engage with them.

This government also clearly does not understand what is required to address the terrible scourge of domestic violence. When speaking about the last budget from those opposite, I highlighted that there was absolutely no funding, not one dollar, for domestic violence prevention in that budget. I am an eternal optimist and I fervently hoped that maybe they would hear this, that maybe they would listen to the thousands of women who deal with domestic violence or to the hundreds of community advocates and support organisations and allocate money for this prevention priority.

However, there is nothing—absolutely nothing, not one dollar—dedicated to prevention, to breaking the cycle, to addressing the gender inequality that lies as the root cause of the prevalence of violence against women. There is not one dollar. Appallingly, they have also cut $780,000 from the Women's Domestic Violence Court Assistance Service. Not only have they not funded domestic violence prevention, meaning that it is more likely to continue, but they have also savagely cut a key service that people who have experienced domestic violence rely on at one of the most difficult and scary moments of their life.

If you have gone through domestic violence, if you have a loved one who has gone through domestic violence, if you have had anything to do with anyone who has experienced domestic violence, you know that by the time you get to any sort of court setting you are likely to have gone to hell and back and you need all the help that you can get. I, and every single South Australian who understands the tragic, terrible scourge that is domestic violence, will remember these two things from this government: no funding for prevention and a savage cut to a service for those who have gone through the most horrendous of times.

We will remember it every time they step forward to say that they are doing what they can. They are hollow, hollow words when you consider these two things in this budget and of course when you also consider the savage cut to the Victim Support Service and the Equal Opportunity Commission, other avenues for help for South Australians who most need support, care, compassion, advice and assistance from these organisations.

As I have said before on numerous occasions in this place, and as I will keep saying, I keep hoping for something better for South Australian women from this government. But when you have such terribly low representation of women in this government, with only four women out of 25 in this house, I need to stop being surprised that nothing better comes. There is so much to speak about in terms of the horrors that this budget will bring to South Australian people for generations to come. I know that I will run out of time to highlight them all, but I cannot conclude my words without mentioning the savage $6.8 million cut to mental health services by this cruel, out-of-touch government.

I had the deep honour of being the minister for disabilities in our Labor government, of representing workers in the sector for years and of working very closely with community organisations and with people with mental illness. I had the honour of supporting, empowering and walking alongside people with mental illness in the very difficult journeys that they traverse. I have also supported my mum and my sister to negotiate her own NDIS plan and I have done the same for many local community members in Reynell.

Through all those experiences, I have come know the NDIS well and how it is funded. Every single time we on this side of the house speak about the savage $6.8 million in cuts to mental health, those opposite seem to get very wound up, and very, very defensive. But I will not stop speaking about this because this cut that they are making is not fully explained by the excuse of a transition to the NDIS.

People with a mental illness and people experiencing mental health issues rely on us. They need us. They are amongst the most vulnerable members of our community and they need to be heard. They need more funding, not less, to ensure that they can live their best possible lives free of stigma and in a way where they get the treatment they need when they need it, where they have a support worker alongside them engaging them, where their selfless loved ones can get a break from caring, and where they can still access a support group or a program when they need to.

This cut puts all those things at risk. It takes away the supports that we have had in place provided by remarkable and compassionate community sector workers and supporting people. They are the workers who often stand between people with mental illness being able to fully and actively participate in community life and being at risk and isolated. This cut is shameful. It is small-minded and small-hearted and it negatively impacts the people who most need us, people who are not necessarily ever going to transition the NDIS, people who already wait a very long time for much-needed services.

This budget utterly fails South Australians. It is lacking in value, it is lacking in vision and, most of all, it is lacking in kindness and thought for South Australians and what makes a difference in their lives.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Pederick.

At 17:50 the house adjourned until Tuesday 2 July 2019 at 11:00.