Grievance Debate

South Australian Museum

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:11): Generations of South Australians love and cherish our South Australian Museum and 10,561 of them have today seen their signatures honoured in this parliament with the presentation of the petition calling on the government to save the Museum. Those 10,561 signatures were collected from all corners of this state, from small shops in country towns to shopping centres in major suburban centres in Adelaide. More than 1,000 signatures were collected from people visiting the Museum and about 1,000 signatures collected on the steps of this parliament during the day that the rally was held to save science at the South Australian Museum.

I want to pay tribute to all those people around South Australia who have contributed to that petition, particularly those who have put in substantial efforts to collect those signatures by talking about this important issue in their communities, by sharing the news about the government's plans for the Museum and what it would do to damage the scientific reputation of the Museum, the galleries of the Museum, if it went ahead.

Those people come from all walks of life: I am talking about philanthropists and I am talking about scientists. There are various societies of particular scientific research interests that have put in an enormous amount of work. I would like to thank my fellow members of parliament, particularly but not limited to those in the Liberal benches, who went out into their communities collecting signatures as well.

This statement by more than 10,500 South Australians should send a clear message to the government that it is time to once and for all draw a line in the sand, rule out the restructure, rule out the reimagining and restore the budget that has been taken from the Museum.

Most recently, the last budget cuts of substance to the Museum were in the Malinauskas Labor government's first budget. That 2022 budget cut hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Museum's annual budget. It was the straw that broke the camel's back in many ways because there had been a series of cuts over previous governments that could no longer be withstood and the board put in place this tremendously inappropriate restructure proposal that would have cut 27 senior researchers from the Museum and replaced with 23 more junior positions.

These 27 researchers have collectively nearly 500 years' experience and they are experts in their fields, whether it is the marine mammals, such as those that Catherine Kemper, who is here with us in the gallery, researched for the Museum for nearly four decades; whether it is the reptiles; whether it is the Ediacara fossils; or whether it is the extraordinary anthropological work that is done by the South Australian Museum. Their expertise and their experience is irreplaceable and their understanding of the collections at the Museum, some of which are world-leading collections, is also irreplaceable.

The South Australian Museum has the world's leading collection of opals. The South Australian Museum has the world's leading collection of Aboriginal cultural artefacts. The South Australian Museum has some of the world's oldest, if not the world's oldest, fossil remains. It is an extraordinary collection and it needs to be valued in the way that this side of the house does, that the 10,500 South Australians who have signed the petition do and which the Labor Party clearly has had no interest in.

I have heard people in the Labor Party celebrate the proposed restructure, and certainly there was evidence given to this house when I started asking these questions at the beginning of this year that they were very proud of the work that was being done. That was the ministerial response earlier in the year.

Subsequently, when there was a public backlash to the public announcement of the restructure, I heard the Premier say that it wasn't really their proposals; it was the board and the management's—throwing to Kim Cheater, the chair of the board, and David Gaimster, the director of the Museum, as if it was just their idea. They may well have led the work on this idea, but make no mistake: the Labor Party has supported this proposal and the Labor government has supported this proposal.

It was a proposal that was briefed to the minister last year and, indeed, signed off by the minister in December. It was a proposal that sought the support of the Premier through the Premier's department to have resources towards that change management, and those resources were provided from the Premier's own department. They cannot just walk away from it.

I am somewhat encouraged by the completely different tone the Premier took today, where he recognised that a lot of those concerns were real concerns. What we need now is a clear statement from the Premier that that budget is going to be restored. The budget was cruelly cut in 2017 by Tom Koutsantonis, the cuts were modestly increased by Rob Lucas in 2019, and it was further damaged in the 2022 budget. The budget needs to be restored, the restructure needs to be absolutely cancelled, and the reimagining taken off the drawing board. We need support for this Museum. Those 10,500 South Australians deserve no less.