Statutes Amendment (Budget Measures) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 6 June 2024.)

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): The member for Morialta has leave. Does the member for Flinders wish to draw my attention to the state of the house?

Mr TELFER: No.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): The member for Flinders is making a contribution?

Mr TELFER (Flinders) (17:09): Yes, sir. I rise to add a few short comments on the Statutes Amendment (Budget Measures) Bill 2024. There are several different aspects of this bill which amend six different acts. Obviously, they are all different parts, and the impacts that they are having on the budget are different.

I especially want to start with looking at the changes to the First Home and Housing Construction Grants Act. It is an interesting one. Obviously there has been not just political pressure but community pressure on the government when looking at the impact that the current housing market is having on first-home owners' ability to afford properties in particular.

Since Labor came to power, the median house price in Adelaide has risen by more than 20 per cent—more than 20 per cent in less than 2½ years—from $650,000 to $785,000 according to the Valuer-General, so it is interesting to look at. According to the Real Estate Institute of South Australia, some suburbs such as Royal Park, Tea Tree Gully, etc., have risen by more than 40 per cent on the year. When we look at Adelaide as opposed to other capital cities around Australia, only Perth is experiencing more rapid housing price growth than Adelaide. This is the context in which we are looking at this Statutes Amendment (Budget Measures) Bill in particular.

Regional median house prices have risen as well, from $325,000 to $420,500, an increase of almost 30 per cent. This is in regional South Australia. In that same time, there have been challenges around wage growth in South Australia, where we have seen wage growth come in at around 7½ per cent.

There are a number of different pressure points. Several housing finance firms in particular have voiced concerns that abolishing the $650,000 cap for first-home buyer grants will see first-home buyers seek to build expensive homes rather than entry-level dwellings. There is a potential snowball effect that that could have on forcing house prices up, with larger dwellings on the market causing prices to remain high.

This is why it is really important that government needs to be making decisions when it comes to the housing market not just on the demand side—we see a lot of the headline stories that get the little media grab for a day—but getting the supply levers right within our state. This cannot be overestimated, and not just supply out in the never-never. Some of these announcements have seen pieces of land, greenfield sites, that have been opened up and make a good headline number for new houses, but the reality of when these allotments can actually come into the supply stream puts them out a long way. The housing challenges we are facing at the moment are in the short term especially, and this is why we need to get these measures right.

As I said, the different aspects of this budget measures bill are very separate issues bundled together within the same bill. I note the changes to the Mining Act in particular. I was reflecting on the comments that the Treasurer had included in his speech in Hansard—which he did not speak but had put in—and the importance of context when it comes to these changes. There are certain details within this that—and I will take guidance from the shadow mining minister—may need clarification within the committee stage.

Overall, the opposition do not oppose this bill, but there are often ramifications for aspects that are put in bills such as this that we need to unpack a little bit. The motivations for what we are trying to achieve with some of these changes are really important. This is why, as I said, with the Mining Act changes in particular I will lean on my shadow cabinet colleague to consider whether there are additional questions that need to be answered.

These are detailed changes to a number of different measures, some of which are innocuous but some of which certainly have the attention of us in opposition, as well as the flow-on effects they have on our state's economy. We are looking forward to perhaps a bit more detail as we go through the process.

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (17:15): I am in support of this bill and I am very excited about the budget going forward and what it is going to deliver for our state. Close to home, it was very exciting to hear that one of my primary schools is going to get an urgent upgrade that it needs. Bellevue Heights Primary School has some classrooms that they have not been able to use for quite a number of years due to them leaking and not being safe places for the kids to be. Recently, I visited there with the education minister and we walked through to see exactly what needed to be done. In the budget, as part of the $38.1 million to help some of our primary schools in most urgent need, was $7.6 million for new classrooms.

When talking to the kids and the teachers, they were incredibly excited about what this will deliver and allow them to be able to achieve, including looking at the number of students who go there and the subjects they can provide. I offer a quick congratulations and thank you to the Bellevue Heights team for having us there. They had the most incredible Book Week presentation in their library. It is amazing what our teachers do for our kids every day to make sure they have an incredible experience at school. These classrooms that will be built will go a long way towards helping them do that.

Also in terms of learning, part of the budget is for additional training places at TAFE. TAFE is such an important institution. We really need to do all we can to encourage people to upskill themselves all the time, whether they are coming from senior school and not wanting to go to university, or choosing a career in the trades like my son who is now a fourth-year apprentice—albeit at home with a broken foot at the moment—and has been working very hard in his TAFE course.

To be able to offer TAFE courses for free for people to upskill can only put them in a really good position going forward. It is a way to earn more money and set themselves up for the future. Someone I know who is a cleaner told me they were going to be studying nursing through some of our programs. There is also child care and all of the other different ones we are supporting to be able to become better and more set up for the future.

Supporting TAFE and supporting the opportunities for our students is something that we cannot go past. We know that for the skills of the future, we need to be filling those roles and we need to be making sure we have people who are able to work in defence, health, building and construction and early childhood education: areas where we desperately need more employees and more workers. These TAFE investments are going to support that.

Locally, again—almost, but not quite in my electorate, but it will have a huge impact on the people in my area—is the Marion Ambulance Station, part of a $24 million investment over three years. Marion has an ambulance station; we will also have the ambulance station at the Repat and we also have our Mitcham Ambulance Station. This means that my community is serviced by quite a number, and hopefully that means that when they need an ambulance they will be able to call one and it will come. I know firsthand from the last couple of years when my dad was unwell that we called the ambulance probably four or five times and they were there within five minutes, and my mum lives up the hill. We are very fortunate to have yet another investment in our ambulances nearby.

In terms of youth mental health, it has been really interesting going around to our schools and talking with young people. I have my youth advisory council, and every time we talk they always express their concern and their support for each other in terms of their mental health. As someone who obviously went to school like everybody else, it was not something that ever came up. We never really talked about it a lot when I was at school, but it is lovely to find that our kids are talking about it and are acknowledging that there are challenges.

Our investment of $5 million to support youth mental health and the expansion of the Child and Adolescent Virtual Urgent Care Service and mental health workshops is going to go a long way towards supporting our kids. It is so important that we take that time because if we can support them when they are young, we are going to set them up to be the adults of the future, and we need to make sure that we are doing that as much as possible.

Our $80.1 million road safety package, especially around our schools, is a huge investment. Obviously at peak hour our schools have cars and kids and everything going everywhere, and the more we can do to slow down the traffic and make people more aware that they are passing through schools is important. I know in my community we have a number of schools that are on main roads, and they specifically need to make sure that they are constantly looking at ways to make it safer for our kids.

We recently visited Coromandel Valley Primary School, which is on a main road. They are currently getting new signage to help warn people coming along that there is traffic and that kids are going to be crossing there. Belair Primary School also is on a main road, so I have a couple of schools that would benefit from this opportunity.

The MarionLIFE community hub is just down the road from my electorate. I remember meeting with them a year or so ago and talking about how much they wanted to expand their services and have the opportunity to support more people. Within my community, I learned that quite a few people were going down and accessing those services, so I was really excited to hear that after a lot of advocacy the MarionLIFE community hub was going to get an upgrade of $1.8 million to support the acquisition of a parcel of land in Mitchell Park to help them grow their community hub. We know cost of living is really biting and we know that people are doing it tough, so to have this extra support for them is a huge improvement.

In terms of our police, we know they do all they can to keep us safe, and we need to be investing in them and getting police back into frontline duties and finding ways for them to be not behind the desk but out on the beat. So we are investing in a digital police station with $19 million over four years, which will allow people to do those things that they go to police stations for that are not necessarily crime related or they do not need to speak to someone in person. People are going to be able to do some of that stuff online, which will free up some of our police officers to be out on the beat. We know that from time to time there are peaks and in my community we have times, especially in certain suburbs, where we have crime gangs coming through, and to be able to have more police on the beat is so incredibly important.

I know the CFS quick response vehicles are coming. The money is coming from the federal government, from our federal member Louise Miller-Frost, for the Sturt group. We have been waiting patiently for our quick response vehicles. They are the best thing to get out of the station quickly, whether it is a grass fire or a car accident. They do not need a truck driver. A couple of volunteers can hop in the quick response vehicle and get out to an incident as fast as possible. We need to make sure that we see those and support those.

As someone who is a CFS member in a fire station—it is a shed, and a lot of our fire stations are sheds, and I heard someone talk about it earlier—to make sure that we are focusing the money in the right locations, we need to know exactly what each station is doing. It may be the case that this information has been fed back previously up the line and there is a list or whatever. We need to have a close look at every single station and see exactly what they need to be able to support their volunteers and to make sure that we have the best possible equipment and the best possible stations available.

In fact, just the other week I visited the Belair CFS station where they have raised quite a bit of money themselves to do up their kitchen and their radio room, and they are continuing to fundraise. The CFS volunteers do a really amazing job at fundraising, and our community especially loves supporting them because we know how important they are. Actually, when I was at the Belair station the other day we also welcomed a new brigade, the ops brigade at Belair, who are the radio team and the ops team who stay back at the station and support the on-ground volunteers in their work. They are going to be taking radios home, they are going to be on shift and they continue to support our volunteers.

The ops support is so incredibly important. Radio is one thing, making sure that the brigades have what they need on the ground and making sure that they can get extra resources there when needed, but there are also the other volunteers who organise the food, the ration packs and the fundraising. They do so many things. Our operations brigades and our operations teams that we have in all our brigades—we all have an ops team or you might call them an auxiliary team—do an incredible job. I want to thank them all just as much as we thank our frontline firefighters.

So there are lots of things in the budget that I see are good for my local community, as well as in terms of the environment. We are looking after the Murray River. We are looking after sustaining our national parks, which is so important, with Belair being the oldest national park in the state and in my community, and I also have Sturt Gorge and Shepherds Hill Reserve.

Just on the weekend, the Friends of Belair National Park hosted all the Friends of Parks, and we know that we are supporting them through grants schemes as well. They do such a wonderful job, and I do not know how we could ever put a figure on what they give our communities in terms of help, but without them I do not think we would be anywhere near as lucky to have the beautiful parks that we have.

I am pretty excited about what the budget brings. I am pretty excited about how we can go forward and continue to roll out these initiatives, especially in terms of health but also in terms of our housing. It is so important. We have so many people looking for housing who are low-income earners, and we really need to be able to provide a lot more housing for them to be able to get into, to be able to start their families and to be able to secure a home. So we are supporting our first-home buyers of course, but also our seniors. The state budget has been a great opportunity to be able to support my local community but also the state as a whole, and I look forward to seeing these measures roll out.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley) (17:26): I will take a few moments to speak about a measure in the budget that covers the grants that were promised by the previous Labor opposition in key marginal seats and Labor seats designed obviously to buy votes in the lead-up to the election. The one in particular that has caused quite a bit of angst in my electorate is the Forestville Hockey Club. It was a process that started quite some time ago back in 2016 when the first grant was offered. It was given to the Forestville Hockey Club as a support to relocate, and a site was found at the women's war memorial gardens at Darlington. That was eventually rejected by the hockey club because it did not have a strictly north-south orientation, as I understand it, so other options were considered.

That was a process that was continued by the previous government and of course the previous government was very particular and focused about making sure that things were done properly, that grants were allocated properly, and that all the work was done prior to money being promised and money being granted. Consequently, we went to the election without any commitment other than to see what other sites were available for the Forestville Hockey Club.

Labor saw an opportunity to lock in some votes within the Forestville Hockey Club to help Jayne Stinson in the seat of Badcoe whose residents around Goodwood Oval would be very pleased to see the hockey club relocate somewhere else. We saw a promise, a commitment, made of $4 million that was supposed to fund top-of-the-range artificial turf, a fence, lighting, toilets, change room and clubrooms for the Forestville Hockey Club on the soccer pitch at the oval at Unley High School. That process went ahead after the election.

Secretly in cabinet, we know that this government has reversed the policy of allowing the Auditor-General to have access to cabinet documents so he could do his job and make sure that public money is being allocated responsibly and through proper processes, and he makes reference to that. We see the ICAC today making reference to the concerns it has about the $133 million that was promised and processed within cabinet behind hidden doors and key public servants whose job it is to ensure that the government of the day, regardless of the colour, regardless of who they are, regardless of the personalities of the government, follow proper process and that taxpayers' money is used in the proper manner.

What I have since learned specifically in regard to that $4 million grant is that the money has been spent and the job is not finished. Why is that? Because the costings were worked out on the back of an envelope and that was turned into a promise. The federal member for Boothby is also responsible for taxpayers' money being promised from the ALP for this project, but now we have a situation where temporary toilets are going to be considered to be brought in and temporary change rooms are being brought in because the club simply does not have the money.

The use of those facilities by school students is now no longer available because they are not there. The change rooms and the toilets are simply not there. It is now a site that is locked up. It was a site that was used on weekends and outside of school hours, school holidays, by the local community. We know that there is a lack of open space in inner suburbs and in my seat of Unley in particular. It is geographically the smallest at about 12.4 square kilometres and that is because of the higher density of housing and because of the smaller amount of open space. Open space is precious.

Before I was elected to the parliament, when I was the Chair of the Unley Primary School, I can remember being involved in negotiations with the department at that time, what is now the Department for Infrastructure and Transport, that manages school infrastructure. A deal was done with many of the schools in Unley that, if the council was prepared to contribute to the upkeep of the grounds, the 'no trespass' signs would be removed and the greenery space, the basketball courts and the other sporting infrastructure that was there for students' use would be available for those kids, their parents and their families after hours. Kids could kick the footy on the green grass that grew in the various school grounds within Unley.

We saw that at Unley High School as well, where residents would use those grounds, as encouraged by the department all those many years ago, for recreation. What we have now is an area that is probably close to 20 per cent of the entire open space of Unley High School locked away behind fences. Residents have sent me photographs of the testing when the lights were on. If anyone has seen that Seinfeld episode that involves the Kenny chicken shop and the problems those bright lights caused Kramer in his room when it was lit up like stalag 13, you would get some feeling as to what the people who live directly around that new development experience.

There are still unanswered questions about the completion of the Forestville Hockey Club. There are unanswered questions about when it will be complete, when the promise that the government made would be delivered. The government says, 'We promised $4 million. We didn't promise to deliver a completed project. That's up to the hockey club to do that.' We have a situation of a calculated process of pushing certain buttons in certain seats and locking in certain votes with the promise of money.

We saw the allocation of these grants and even the dollar amounts of these grants determined by a wing and a prayer. What we are seeing in the Forestville Hockey Club I am sure is not the only example of where these grants are leading to projects that have been cut back, projects that are incomplete and projects that have been delayed. We saw the cost adjustments this new government made for virtually every infrastructure project that was in the pipeline when it came to office—a 50 per cent increase in the north-south corridor, a 50 per cent increase from $10 billion to $15 billion.

We know there has been an escalation in building costs attributed to a number of things, but one of those contributing factors is the red carpet this government gave to the CFMEU when they were elected. They were partners in the election campaign; we all saw the posters the CFMEU were putting up around particularly marginal seats in Adelaide. I witnessed during that campaign people complaining about the bad taste of those posters that were being put up by the CFMEU and the Labor candidate telling them anything they wanted to hear to try to get their vote: 'Oh, I don't support that, I don't support that,' yet Labor was happy for that to continue.

I did not hear the Leader of the Opposition at that time, Peter Malinauskas, asking the CFMEU to stop. I did not hear any cries from any Labor MP that the Labor Party should not be accepting money from the CFMEU after John Setka pleaded guilty to domestic violence offences against his wife back in 2019. They still kept taking the money. Last year, after giving back the money that they took—the $130,000—they accepted affiliation fees from the CFMEU. They may not have accepted them this year, but last year they accepted them. Last year, if you read the AEC website, you will see an affiliation fee of around $1,500, which gives the CFMEU the same right as every other union to participate in the selection of ALP members of parliament and to participate in policy.

Do not forget that policy of ALP members and the unions that develop that policy is binding on the Labor Party members of parliament. We have this very powerful position that the CFMEU is in as an affiliated member of the ALP. We have seen the cost impost of the methods and the enterprise bargaining agreements, from what we have heard from media reports, that people pay for with cash in brown paper bags so that they get favourable treatment in the allocation of subcontractors who are managed by the CFMEU. How on earth does that happen in a civilised country like Australia, where it is not the customer who is involved in the choice of the subcontractor, it is not the main contractor, but it is the union?

How does the union have that power? Because they have bikies working for them. We know how they operate: standover tactics, assault charges, threats and drug dealing—we know what the bikies' business model is. We also know now that their business model includes a partnership with a major ALP union, the CFMEU. When we are talking about money and about the budget, when we are talking about promises governments make, everybody is held to account. We have mechanisms in this place, mechanisms in this state, that have kept us in the standards of comfort, the standard of living, the standards of safety, that we all enjoy and we want our children to enjoy and their children to enjoy. We have mechanisms in place, like the Ombudsman, like the Auditor-General.

This is an adversarial place for doing business. That keeps the government honest when the opposition knows what is going on. But when the government breaches convention, changes the rules, deliberately keeps secrets—we even saw media reports just a couple of weeks ago about how the Premier is now keeping secrets from his own backbench. If he is keeping secrets from his own backbench, the very people who put him in that chair over there as the Premier of South Australia, what other secrets is the Premier keeping from the people of South Australia? It is a sure sign of arrogance, of a government that has become cocky. All South Australians will continually be concerned about the secrecy of this government.

An open and free press and access to information: the FOI process under this government has been slowed down dramatically. We see they did not continue the sessional orders that were put in place by the Marshall government requiring questions on notice to be answered within 30 days. Why did they do that? It is because they are not answering those questions. They do not want to answer those questions. They do not want to be held accountable. Those sessional orders are still operational in the upper house, so many of the questions that should be asked down here are asked in the upper house because standing orders say that those questions must be answered within the 30-day period.

So we have a government that do not hand over cabinet documents—the very documents decisions are based on—to the Auditor-General, whose job is to look after taxpayers' money. They removed or did not continue the practice that was introduced by the previous Marshall government requiring questions on notice to be answered within 30 days, and now we learn that the Premier is not even sharing details with backbench members of parliament about what the government are planning to do, even when it affects those members of parliament. It really is showing very strong signs of arrogance. I shall leave the chamber with those thoughts and those comments.

S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (17:42): I rise to indicate my support for the Statutes Amendment (Budget Measures) Bill 2024, as this bill delivers for all South Australians. So many of us in this place grew up in a time when it was expected that by the time you reach adulthood you would be well on your way to achieving and buying your first home, but unfortunately that is no longer the case. But this Labor government has a plan, and we have already undertaken record land releases to make home ownership a possibility. Additionally, we are delivering the first positive investment in public housing in decades.

It shows what a united Labor government can achieve, more in 2½ years than so many governments in four. We are investing in a broad range of areas that affect the lives of South Australians and delivering legislative reform that makes our community safer, reduces costs and red tape and strengthens the rights of our citizens in a number of areas.

In last year's state budget, the government scrapped stamp duty for first-home buyers for new homes up to $650,000 and land up to $400,000. However, as announced in the 2024-25 state budget, this bill abolishes the property value thresholds completely. It reads 'if the contract for the conveyance or transfer was entered into on or after 6 June 2024—no duty will be payable'.

This bill also increases the property value cap previously placed on the First Home Owner Grant to $650,000, with this applicable for contracts entered into on or after 6 June 2024. First-home buyers will save $30 million over four years, which is $30 million they will now have the opportunity to spend at our local South Australian businesses. It means a first-home buyer who buys a newly constructed home broadly in line with Adelaide's median house price of $750,000 will receive $50,000 in relief, including the First Home Owner Grant of $15,000.

The stamp duty exemption will be available to all eligible first-home buyers who buy a new home, including a house, flat, unit, townhouse or apartment, an off-the-plan apartment, a house and land package, or vacant land to build a new home.

I am proud to be part of a state government that is making home ownership a reality for many South Australians, and for those who, due to circumstances so often beyond their control, cannot enter the market there is a fairer private rental system and more public housing for those in their greatest need.

I also have the Oaklands Green project powering along in my electorate, delivering more than 680 new homes as part of South Australia's largest social housing regeneration project in decades. It is good to see new quality homes for a mix of new owners, including first-home buyers, being built at Oaklands Green, and in many other smaller projects across Gibson.

In exciting news, these residents, just off Morphett Road, will now be able to drive down and go under the new tram underpass being built at the Morphett Road and Anzac Highway intersection. This has been a troublesome bottleneck for decades, and so many residents in Gibson are going to benefit from this infrastructure project, including those heading into the city for work and particularly when you are coming home along Anzac Highway. This is another project the Liberals failed to deliver but that they now want to take credit for. Only the Malinauskas Labor government is improving South Australian roads and public transport and building the future.

I was also pleased that the 2024-25 state budget announced the refurbishment of the Drew Court Housing Trust complex in my electorate. It is the most significant investment at this site since it was first developed in the postwar period. This has followed advocacy by myself as the local member on behalf of the tenants and also the surrounding residents. Everybody believes that people should have a decent house to live in and not one that is crumbling. It is a great location, next to the Oaklands railway station, nice parks and the Marion shops just a short drive away. I so look forward to seeing the new Drew Court when it is complete.

This bill also amends the Payroll Tax Act 2009, which sees the Malinauskas government deliver permanent tax cuts to GP practices which offer bulk billed GP services. The state government will exempt the wages earned by GPs for bulk billed services provided to patients. This provides protection for current bulk billed patients and an additional incentive for GP practices to bulk bill. I commend this bill to the house.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (17:47): I thank members for their contributions on the budget measures bill. In particular I was pleased to hear members' reflections on some of the changes in particular to the First Home and Housing Construction Grants Act. As the member just articulated, we have taken some further positive steps to improve housing affordability, including in this budget, as well as dealing with the vexed issue of providing some important relief to general practitioners who have long been liable for payroll tax and exempting a vast majority of the consultations that they undertake in South Australia by exempting payroll tax on the wages earned during bulk billing.

I will not continue in my comments, but I understand the shadow minister may have some questions at the committee stage, so I am happy to proceed to that.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Brown): Do you have any general questions?

Mr PATTERSON: No questions, just the statement that, as has been said previously, this is all part of the Appropriation Bill process and so I am happy for it to proceed.

Clause passed.

Clauses 2 to 4 passed.

Clause 5.

Mr PATTERSON: We have here changes to the way royalties are calculated. It is effectively inserting this amendment over what was previously the case. Maybe if the Treasurer is able to provide some information around what issues this amendment is seeking to resolve and how they have been resolved through this amendment in clause 5.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: While I have officials with me, they are unfortunately not from the Department for Energy and Mining. If I could make a suggestion: if the member is amenable, what we could do is listen to his questions and I will endeavour to take them on notice and bring back appropriate answers between the houses. In the event that we get our official in, then we can put them to the official.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Brown): Member for Morphett, is that okay with you?

Mr PATTERSON: Yes, that is certainly fine. I have obviously had off-and-on discussions with the Treasurer, and I appreciate that. As I said, these are just questions around trying to get a broader understanding of that. I do note also that the Treasurer provided a briefing to the Hon. Heidi Girolamo from the other house, and I want to pass on her appreciation of that. This is just an opportunity to get some information that can then be furnished between the houses, and we can potentially then use the process in the other house to maybe look at other questions further. That being the case, it was quite a broad, expansive question for this clause here and I do not intend to ask other questions around that. Once I have got that question, maybe you could follow up with a briefing.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Brown): Member for Morphett, given the nature of the minister's offer and your acceptance of it, I think, if you have other questions on this particular clause it might be best just to put them on the record now.

Mr PATTERSON: No, I do not have any.

Clause passed.

Clause 6 passed.

Clause 7.

Mr PATTERSON: In terms of this clause, it is seeking to change rentals that are payable regarding mineral tenement and to the land owner. Maybe as a first question, I understand from the briefing provided, as I said before, to the Hon. Heidi Girolamo, that this amendment is to try to bring our Mining Act in line with what other states are doing, and it will be beneficial if the Treasurer is able to provide further information around what is being sought. What are other states doing that isn't the case, and therefore that this amendment is seeking to resolve? What stakeholders were consulted in regards this, and what the feedback from them was into this amendment?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: I am happy to bring back an answer for the member's benefit in the passage of the bill between the two houses.

Mr PATTERSON: Specifically, we have changes to subsection (9b), where it talks about where there is a transfer and it's not with a familial relationship:

…on or after 1 July 2026, the net amount available for distribution under that subsection in respect of that parcel of land will be taken to be 50% of the amount remaining…

The question is: what happens with the other 50 per cent of that distribution? Is there just a general reduction or is it that that 50 per cent goes to another body, potentially the minister? If you could expand on that. Also, if in the case there is a familial relationship that exists, is it the case then that the net amount available for distribution after 1 July 2026 will remain as is, and there will be no reduction of 50 per cent?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: I am happy to bring back a detailed answer for the shadow minister between the houses.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Brown): Further contributions on this clause?

Mr PATTERSON: That being the case, no further questions in regard to that.

Clause passed.

Clause 8 passed.

Clause 9.

Mr PATTERSON: This clause is seeking to set up either a scheme or a fund in relation to electricity capacity, in particular long duration dispatchable electricity capacity, and in subsection (2)(b) it talks about imposing duties and obligations on market participants, including to provide or procure capacity. Is the Treasurer able to provide more detailed information around what is envisaged in terms of duties that are going to be imposed, or obligations on those market participants and, additionally, what stakeholder feedback has been around this subsection?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: I am advised that the Department for Energy and Mining is currently going through the detailed design of the scheme, and once the design of the scheme is settled, it will then go out for broad stakeholder consultation before the scheme parameters are finalised, so there will be the opportunity for the community and industry stakeholders to have their input before the government finalises the specifics of the scheme design.

Mr PATTERSON: Further questions to the same section here, 15B, but in particular subsection (2)(h) where it talks about imposing fees and charges, and providing for the making of financial contributions by market participants in respect to the scheme, including for the purpose of recovering the costs of the scheme. In terms of this, if you can, again, provide information around the quantum and amount of fees and charges that are proposed to be raised by this and, potentially, what stakeholder feedback there will be around that.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: As part of the detailed design of the scheme, what is also being considered as a part of that is the fee structure and how it will apply to participants within the scheme and industry participants as well. The idea is that that would form part of the consultation when the details of the scheme are put out for industry feedback and for public feedback as well.

Sitting suspended from 18:00 to 19:30

Mr PATTERSON: Obviously, because of the break for dinner, we did not want to have the public servants having to stick around for what really was only one more brief question and so we have worked with the Treasurer so that they could go home, but I do have one question here and I am happy for it to be taken on notice knowing that. It is, again, the same clause, clause 9, section 15B(2)(i) where it talks about requiring market participants, within the meaning of the National Electricity Rules, to make contributions to the fund in accordance with the scheme.

The question is: what is the expectation around the scale of the contributions that participants are going to be making? Also, is this targeted in terms of a class of market participants—for example, a thermal generator, or we might have renewable generators such as wind farms and solar farms? Are they required to make a contribution to the fund to then, in turn, go into the scheme or fund and then pay into a thermal generator?

I suppose it is trying to work out whether the scheme is around having all market participants equally contributing, or will there be a different scale or amount of contributions and some participants not having to pay and, in fact, receiving moneys in lieu to try to have participants that have no ability to have dispatchable energy pay into a fund to potentially pay to thermal generation?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: As I indicated with the earlier questions, I am more than happy to take the question on notice and make sure that we provide an answer for the member for Morphett between the houses so that there is time to consider that answer before the other place considers the bill.

The only other thing I can add is that at the beginning of that clause you will see that it sets out that the government is aiming to come up with a scheme that is aimed at trying to keep base load generators in the market and providing base load generation capacity. Of course, we have been canvassing throughout the day the benefits of that in bringing down energy costs and energy bills.

My understanding is that the specific charges, and how they will be levied and to whom they will be levied, is part of the scheme design, which is currently underway within the department, and that that will all be included in the detail that will be put out to consultation both amongst the industry but particularly publicly for feedback before the commencement of any regime. But whatever further particulars I can provide I will make sure that we get to the shadow minister as the bill is being transmitted between the houses.

Clause passed.

Clause 10.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Treasurer, are you able to advise if there is an average payroll size for GPs in South Australia and what that is? Do any GPs practice under the payroll threshold, and how many are there? Has any modelling been done on what effect changes to increase the threshold would have on payroll tax on GPs?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: In short, it is difficult for me to provide information to the house and it is difficult for RevenueSA and the Department of Treasury and Finance to provide information to me, because what we are dealing with here is a cohort of employers who have to date largely not been registered for payroll tax. I say 'largely' because we do have some GP practices and clinics that have been registered for payroll tax but we now understand they are in the small minority. So I cannot provide a conclusive or comprehensive answer or an accurate answer to the member.

It is complicated further by what we would all understand in the context of this issue to be a reasonably significant change to the composition and operation of GP clinics, perhaps over the last 20 years. We might have all been familiar in years gone by with going to our local suburban or regional GP clinic where there may be one or two or three or a very small number of practitioners looking after their local community. That has in many instances now been subsumed by much larger, corporatised medical practices that are often developed and built by commercial property developers or investors, and agreements are entered into with general practitioners for them to provide services within those newer types of facilities.

What has become clear both here in South Australia and also in other places around the country is that as these businesses and these relatively newer business practices have been entered into, many GPs were given the impression—if not directly given advice—that the way in which they could structure their employment arrangements or the provision of their services as general practitioners within that practice could be done in a way to try to minimise some of their obligations, one of which was payroll tax.

Of course, as we all understand, it has now been demonstrated in case law in New South Wales and also separately in Victoria that despite those efforts to contrive an arrangement where the GP is not 'employed' but they have separate otherwise contractual arrangements with the centre or its owner, the payroll tax obligation still arises.

On becoming aware of that, we have sought to try to come up with a regime that recognises that the difficulties of that industry—if you can call it that—or that part of medical service provision have been contrived in recent years, and embark on a campaign not only to bring them into an understanding of what their longstanding obligations have been but also try to make a number of concessions so that they could meet those obligations in the future, with some period of time to give them adequate runway into understanding those.

I am pleased to say, of the states and territories that have been tackling this in a similar way, South Australia still has the most generous arrangement for general practitioners—more generous than Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT. Queensland has tried to contrive a different model, and the advice that has been given to me by RevenueSA is that not even the Queensland Revenue Office quite understands how that model is going to effectively work for GP clinics up there. Of course, that might change, given that there is a Queensland election in the coming weeks as well.

The further thing I would ask is: what is the impact likely to be? The impact is now likely to be vastly lower than it would have been had the existing law remained in place unamended, because what this budget does is provide a new significant concession for GPs as a class of employee by saying that the wages they earn in the provision of bulk billed services will be exempt from the calculation of payroll tax.

To put it in context, the quarterly data from the federal government that we referred to when we were making that decision outlined that—I do not have the figure in front of me, but off the top of my head, approximately 74 per cent of consultations by GPs in South Australia in the November quarter last year were bulk billed, so three-quarters of all consultations. You could say that three-quarters, potentially, of wages earned by GPs across the state would not be liable for payroll tax.

On top of that, you can say that even if you consider those consultations that are not bulk billed, as a proportion of wages within that practice—and I know this does not apply cleanly across all GP practices—if we are only really talking of 25 per cent or 26 per cent of wages that are now being attributed to non-bulk billed services, you could easily imagine that in many practices that would reduce the total taxable wages bill below the payroll tax tax-free threshold. So those practices would not be liable for payroll tax, and even if they did go above the payroll tax tax-free threshold, their payroll tax bill would be vastly lower than what they were worried about being taxed in the first place when this issue first arose.

To put that issue in context—what was the fear of GPs and what were some of the figures that were being bandied around by the Australian Medical Association and, to a lesser extent, by the royal college—I was in receipt of representations around these extraordinary increases in fees that would need to be levied in order to enable a clinic to meet its payroll tax obligation which, on hearing the explanation that I have just provided to the chamber, do not stand up to scrutiny because of the way in which payroll tax is calculated and now because of the concession that we have given for bulk billed services.

I respect Dr John Williams as the President of the AMA. He is a very well regarded and, I am sure in his local community, much loved general practitioner who can speak authoritatively about many issues when it comes to providing GP services. But I respectfully disagree with his assessment about the need to increase costs for consultations.

Of course, this issue has become a convenient scapegoat for many GP practices which, on 1 July each year at the start of a new financial year, will increase their gap fees anyway in order to reflect the increased costs of doing business from one year to the next. I understand that, and I do not complain about it, but I think it further shows that any changes in behaviour or charging practices cannot, I think, be accurately ascribed to the issue that we have been discussing today.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: What information would RevenueSA require to determine whether a medical practice qualifies for the exemption of wages? What evidence do they need to present? For example, is a statement from a tax agent enough, or does RevenueSA need to get their own evidence as to whether or not they are eligible to have those wages exempted?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: I thank the member for Unley. It is a good question, because if you run or operate one of these medical practices you would well be having similar questions. There are two parts to this. One is what do you need to do to register for payroll tax, which is part of the requirement in order to qualify, firstly, for the exemption and also, secondly, for the amnesty that we provided from the regular five years of back taxes that would otherwise be charged by RevenueSA for a compliance issue.

One is that you just have to register a name, contact details, business number, that sort of thing; and it does not have to be absolutely accurate, but to register for payroll tax you also need just an estimate of taxable wages for a particular year. That is different to the return, which has to be accurate, which is filed later. For the purposes of calculating this exemption, what we would require is an estimate of taxable wages, then a number of consultations and then the disaggregation of that number of consultations between bulk billed and non-bulk billed.

I know that a GP practice would not only have 100 consultations in a year but, for argument's sake, let's say that. You might say, 'This practice has had 100 consultations and 75 per cent of those have been bulk billed and 25 per cent of those haven't.' That taxable wages amount would be effectively divided by four to represent the 25 per cent of wages that should be used or assessed to calculate payroll tax, and the payroll tax liability would be calculated thus.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: It sounds like John Hewson's birthday cake. Can I take you to new clause 17C(1), which provides, 'The regulations may declare wages, or a percentage of wages determined in a prescribed manner'. Has that prescribed manner been finalised and are you able to describe the prescribed manner to the house?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: It is a good question. I do not have the detail of that in front of me, but perhaps I can provide the same assistance to the member for Unley that I provided to the member for Morphett in making sure that I provide that answer before the bill is transmitted for consideration to the other place.

Clause passed.

Remaining clauses (11 and 12) and title passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (19:48): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.