Question Time

Members, Accommodation Allowances

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:12): My question is to the Premier of South Australia. Why won't the Premier show leadership and dismiss the ministers who have taken thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money for their own benefit incorrectly?

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Point of order, sir: standing order 97 says things about the way you should ask a question, and the Leader of the Opposition has not complied with that mechanism at all in the construction of that blatantly political question.

The SPEAKER: Yes, okay. Here's what I'm going to do here. Because he is the leader I offer him great latitude. The question—

An honourable member interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Sometimes; sometimes others also need it. What I'm going to do is I am going to allow the question on the basis that it is the Leader of the Opposition and it is the first question. However, it was somewhat accusatory in nature. It arguably contains argument, so what I am going to do is I am going to allow the Premier to provide an answer to refute that accusatory tone, and I am going to be unimpressed if there are points of order about debate. The Premier has the call. I would like to hear the answer.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:13): Thank you very much, sir, and I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. This government is shining a light on country MP allowances.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I have allowed the question.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: We are providing a greater level of scrutiny on this allowance—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Premier, please be seated. I have allowed the question. I am going to call a few members to order for that cacophony of noise. The members for Kaurna, Lee and Cheltenham are called to order. The Premier has the call.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: Thank you very much, sir. Since this issue has been raised with the government, we have moved swiftly to change the arrangements—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —with which the allowance records are provided to the people of South Australia. Under the previous government that was in for 16 years, I didn't see any reform in this area whatsoever.

Ms Hildyard interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Reynell!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: In fact, sir, you would be more than aware that, with regard to this allowance, the former government presided over a situation where this was reported to the people of South Australia once per year just with a total dollar amount per member. By contrast, sir, as you would be more than aware—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —both this house and the Legislative Council will be providing monthly advice to the people of South Australia on what claims are made, by whom and for what dates. I think this is providing a much greater—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Like Christmas!

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —level of scrutiny. It was interesting this morning; I was listening to the radio—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for West Torrens!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —and I was listening to the Leader of the Opposition speak and he was talking about the standards that he is going to be applying to his front bench.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Cheltenham!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: This must make many people in his team very uncomfortable at the moment because he talked about the inappropriate spending of taxpayer dollars and set a threshold. We hope that nothing will come to light with regard to, for example, long boozy lunches, the consumption of alcohol at the taxpayers' expense. The Leader of the Opposition has made it clear that this will not be tolerated; in fact, he went further to say on the radio this morning—and I hope I am quoting correctly—that he would sack people if anything came to light. There must be some people who are looking decidedly worried at the moment.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Morphett!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: At the moment, they are just gesticulating, but later they will be praying that nothing comes to light because the Leader of the Opposition has set his standard of performance. I note that this was not a standard that was observed when they were in government. They weren't careful with the expenditure of taxpayer dollars.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Playford!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: By contrast, since coming to government we have significantly reduced the number of ministerial advisers, reduced the number of government cars, reduced the amount—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Lee!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —of government advertising, put a ban on booze and entertainment.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: 'What? What?' the member for West Torrens says, 'Why are you looking at me?' I don't know! But we may be looking at you very soon, sir—not you, sir, but the member for West Torrens. The reality is the country members' accommodation allowance is an area which needs far greater scrutiny going forward and that is exactly and precisely what we have done. Not only—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —an improvement to the best standard that exists in the country, but we have gone beyond that: monthly reporting by a member with the dates, available for every single member of the public to scrutinise—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —to ask questions about. That's the standard that we have put in place.

The SPEAKER: The member for Kaurna is warned for a second and final time for those most muscular interjections—

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan: Muscular?

The SPEAKER: —yes—during the Premier's answer.