Grievance Debate

Federal Budget

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (15:09): Last night, the federal Labor government handed down its third budget. It was a budget that I think everyone in this house wanted to see good things for South Australia embedded in it. But the telling thing about this budget was that there was very little for the state of South Australia. It was a disappointing budget for our state. There were aspects of the budget, of course, that we welcome and we are grateful for, particularly around cost-of-living relief in the energy space to small businesses and individual households. I will have more to say about that in a moment. But it was the overall lack of investment in this state, the overall lack of initiatives that were supported and funded within that budget for South Australia. This is a disappointing budget for our state.

The Premier makes much about his special relationship with the Albanese Labor government and likes to stride across the national stage, drawing attention to our state and himself, but what he has not been able to do is draw funds to our state. As I said, this budget is lacking true, meaningful, tangible projects and investment in South Australia. We are a large state. We have a dispersed population with far-flung regional communities. As a consequence, we need far more in terms of our per capita share of roads and infrastructure funding. We have had a big emphasis on regional roads on this side of the house with our Report Your Road SA website asking South Australians to report problems and maintenance issues with regional roads. It would have been great to see far more federal funding allocated to our regional roads yesterday.

We had a small reinstatement of funds for projects around the South Eastern Freeway, but those funds had been cut as part of the federal government's 90-day review a few months ago. Seeing the reinstatement of the funding did not really mean much in the overall scheme of things. Yes, we are grateful to see it back, but it was simply a reinstatement of something that they had already cut. That is not a win for South Australia and it is not a win for South Australian roads. Talking of South Australian roads, the Truro bypass, the Hahndorf bypass, the ability to get freight around metropolitan Adelaide and not see as many trucks come down the South Eastern Freeway—where we saw a terrible accident at the bottom of the freeway just this morning—that is where we needed funding to be allocated, that is the sort of focus we wanted: state-building roads and infrastructure funded through this budget.

The last budget handed down by the Morrison government had substantially more in the way of funding right through the budget into the forward estimates for roads projects, including the north-south corridor, which this budget is completely silent on. We are continually told that the biggest single infrastructure project in South Australia's history will get funding from the federal government. We are told not to worry about it. Those opposite tell us not to worry about that but we have to worry about it when it is not translated into the black and white of the budget papers. There was no funding for the north-south corridor at all.

I think it is important to focus for a moment on the energy rebates, a critical cost-of-living initiative which we have seen funding provided for. We were advocating for this, we welcome this, and it will make a difference to small businesses and households. However, we do wonder how the state government is going to contribute to that bucket of money. Are they going to match what the federal government has done? I do have some concerns about the way that this will be administered. I do not think that the franchise should be every Australian. I do not think it is appropriate that Gina Rinehart gets a $300 rebate on her energy bill, or Twiggy Forrest, for that matter, or people for their holiday homes. I think it should have been broadened. We welcome the $300, but perhaps there should have been a level of means testing there as well.

Last night's federal budget also highlighted in the budget papers worrying brain drain for South Australia, predicting some 15,000 people will leave this state over the coming four years. That is a great concern for the Liberal Party and a great concern for our state's economic sustainability going into the future. The federal budget leaves a lot to be desired. It could have done a lot more for our state and we can only conclude that the advocacy for our state from the Labor government is not where we need it to be.