Grievance Debate

State Liberal Government

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (16:07): Deputy Speaker, today's question time is yet another example of why you never have to look very far to find an example of how this government has sold out the people of South Australia. It is something that we have got used to over the last 3½ years. It was not long after this parliament first met after the last election that the revelations were revealed that the minister for environment and conservation had a finding against his conduct by a royal commission that he had sold out the interests of South Australia.

If selling out South Australia's interests on the River Murray was not bad enough, it was quickly followed by what persists today and that is the Premier's refusal to stand up for South Australian workers and ensure that we secure the full cycle maintenance of the Collins class submarines—something which has been under threat, without resistance from this Premier, for the better part of three years.

Even when it has come to funding in the federal budget, this government talks a big game but delivers something far less. It talks about how much money we are getting from the federal government on infrastructure funding. We do not have to look too far in the federal budget papers to see that South Australia is receiving virtually nothing out of $12 billion of national rail funding. Even when it comes to the education of our children, this government has sold out the families of South Australia, signing up to a weak watered-down Gonski funding deal which sees each South Australian public school receive hundreds of thousands of dollars less than what had previously been agreed between the former federal government and the state Labor government here in South Australia.

What does a few hundred thousand dollars mean to a local school? That is multiple teachers, support workers, staff who can identify children with particular needs and so on, sold out once again by this government. What is even worse than that funding arrangement is the humiliation that the City Deal negotiated by the Premier on behalf of this state receives less money than the City Deal negotiated with Townsville.

Townsville, the third largest city in Queensland, gets more money than the capital city of South Australia. It would be like the residents of Brisbane looking on in wonder that a City Deal had been struck with the residents of Port Pirie in which it received more than Brisbane had been awarded. That is the ignominy of this funding arrangement reached by the Premier.

But, more to the point, the state's financial future has been sold out by this Premier and his Treasurer signing up to a GST deal that means South Australia will lose somewhere in the order of up to a quarter of a billion dollars a year, each year. This is not my claim; this is the modelling done on behalf of all states and territories by the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance, quoted by reputable national economist Saul Eslake about how bad this deal was. The Premier told this place, and I quote:

We made our position very clear: we would not support any single, solitary thing that diminished the GST take. That will be the same this year, next year, in 2027 and beyond.

What did he do? What did his government actually deliver? He said to the parliament back in October 2018:

I am pleased to report today and update the house that since coming to government the Treasurer, the Hon. Rob Lucas, has worked extraordinarily effectively with the Coalition and with the Treasurer of Australia—both the Hon. Scott Morrison and the Hon. Josh Frydenberg—in recent days on this deal.

The Premier said, and I quote, that this negotiation was 'a massive win for the people of South Australia'.

I tell you what losing $250 million a year means to the people of South Australia: that is, roughly speaking, 2½ thousand nurses in our public hospital system. That is what $250 million is. It is a couple of thousand teachers each and every year. It is money sorely needed by our police force stretched to the limit not only trying to manage public safety here in South Australia but dealing with a COVID pandemic. It is money we sorely need to spread elsewhere into our health system.

This state has been sold out by this Premier, and it is only now and only because of questioning from The Advertiser and Paul Starick that finally we get an admission in the dying days of his political career that Rob Lucas says this deal needs to be renegotiated. Well, he personally negotiated it, he sold this state out and the Premier congratulated him on it.