Lucas, Hon. R.I.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (15:03): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier advise the house whether Rob Lucas will remain as Treasurer until the next election?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (15:03): I'm not in the habit of speculating regarding what will happen in the cabinet. In the fullness of time, we will make it clear exactly and precisely what we will be doing. I'm sure those opposite would like to start this game.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The leader will not impute improper motives to the Premier.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: I make this point—that the member for Lee is one of those more astute people on the opposition benches—

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Lee!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: He realises that they have run out of questions. So what he does is he starts, 'What's your position on this?' and, 'What's your position?' That way, he gets his stats up. He got 10 questions asking one question. I'm not going to start this about the cabinet and who is in the cabinet, how long they are going to be in cabinet and work through the list. This is a decision that we will make.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, Minister for Primary Industries!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: Can I just say that obviously Mr Lucas is doing an outstanding job as the Treasurer of South Australia. It's a tough set of circumstances at the moment, with the slowing Australian national economy. I think we saw our GST writedown between the Mid-Year Budget Review and May this year, when we were preparing this year's budget, of $2.1 billion—a massive writedown, which we have accommodated. We have accommodated it, while still making sure that we contain within our budget the largest capital investment in the history of this state: $11.9 billion going into important—

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Point of order: the question was about Robert Lucas's tenure as Treasurer.

The SPEAKER: Yes.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Point of order.

The SPEAKER: And the point of order on the point of order?

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: When the question is about somebody's performance, surely a description of that person's performance is relevant.

The SPEAKER: I have the point of order. I respectfully ask the Premier to come back to the substance of the question.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: As I have said, these are matters that will be considered in the fullness of time. I think the big question, though—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: The big question, really, for the South Australian parliament to consider, which is much before the next election, is: is the Leader of the Opposition going to keep his job, because he is not doing a very good job? Most of the front bench don't even get questions. He is saying it's all about him. He occasionally lets his mate the member for Lee ask a few questions, but that's about it, so it's a pretty hopeless opposition at the moment. People are basically on the phone—

The SPEAKER: Premier, this is debate.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —and, let me tell you—

The SPEAKER: This is now debate, Premier.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —usually about now there would be a point of order. But they all love it—they all love it—and he can't call a point of order on himself because it will look like he's shutting it down.

The SPEAKER: Premier!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: Who's coming to his rescue? Not one of them. They are sitting on their hands, checking their phones or writing an email. They don't want to—

The SPEAKER: Premier! The Premier will be seated. The member for Newland would like a question.