Grievance Debate

State Liberal Party

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (15:24): This is a perfect entree to the theme of my contribution. I think South Australians woke this morning to the stunning news that any sense of normalcy or stability within their government was now completely lost. It became clear very quickly during the course of the last 48 hours, if not over the course of the weekend, that the cultural dysfunction within the South Australian branch of the Liberal Party had now risen out of the membership and the party apparatus right up through the highest levels of government in our state.

The problem with this dysfunction is that we have seen it all before. This is a cultural ineptitude that deprives the South Australian branch of the Liberal Party of the ability to govern. It prohibits them from being able to do justice to the high office that they now hold, occupying the treasury bench of our state. Of course, all of this is unfolding at the very time that South Australians are looking for stability in their government.

South Australians at this moment, as we transition towards living with COVID, need to have confidence that the people who are making decisions on their behalf are doing so only with their interests at heart and wholly and solely with the entirety of all focus that the cabinet can deliver towards the issues and deliberations at hand.

At some point or another into the future, the government are going to have to transition away from the current arrangements around COVID to not just living with COVID but also having to reassume the responsibility that they were elected to put into effect. That transition is going to be complicated. At the moment, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Premier is totally distracted by the collapse of the government around him.

During the course of the last seven days, we have seen the Premier dramatically elevate the hopes and aspirations of thousands of South Australian families looking forward to being able to spend time with their loved ones during Christmas. I think all of us, with a degree of relief, read the front page of the Adelaide Advertiser referring to the Premier's Christmas gift.

But we were all equally alarmed as the news started to unfold during the course of the beginning of this week when the Premier's own Chief Executive of the Department for Health made it clear that the Premier's musings around opening up before Christmas were not necessarily going to be realised in practice the way that was initially described. Then of course we had to have the State Coordinator, the police commissioner, Grant Stevens, attempt to provide another layer of clarity over and above the confusion that already existed.

This is all happening at the same time as the Liberal Party is imploding. The idea that the Premier is wholly and solely focused, rather than the government, beggars belief. We know that it is simply not true. If the Premier is not paying attention to providing stability of government at this time, what is he paying attention to? Of course, we know the answer to that question because we had the Premier himself illustrate quite clearly what was occupying his mind on the weekend: it was a Barossa wine festival, attending dinners at $390 a head, popping into a dance party called Transcendence.

Surely, on the weekend when your government is collapsing, the Premier would rather afford himself of the time to speak to members of his own party room, to speak to members of the crossbench, speak to anybody he can who might be able to provide a degree of stability that would otherwise have staved off the complete chaos that has been on show in this parliament over the course of the last 36 hours, because this chaos we have not seen in this place for 20 years.

Not once during the course of 16 years of government under the Labor government, which of course included two terms of minority government, did we see anything quite like the display that this government put on show yesterday. This is a party that is culturally incapable of governing. How on earth any South Australian could go to the next election and look with confidence to a plan for the future from this Premier, who has presided over nothing but chaos in terms of the parliamentary proceedings, how anyone could make that judgement is beyond us.

That then leads us to the question of the alternative, and what we have on this side of house is a united team. We have a fresh team committed to making sure that we deliver for the very people who put trust in us. We will offer an alternate vision. We will offer a plan to make sure that we capitalise—

The SPEAKER: The leader's time has expired.

Mr MALINAUSKAS: —on this extraordinary opportunity that exists, and we will do it in a united way acknowledging—

The SPEAKER: Leader!

Mr MALINAUSKAS: —that the leader is only as good as their team, and we must work together.

The SPEAKER: Order, leader!

Time expired.