Grievance Debate

State Labor Government

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (15:13): School is out for summer for some Year 12s and so is the 2024 parliamentary sitting year soon. At the end of every school year, students eagerly await the results of their annual report card. While I am sure students across South Australia will be opening their report cards with glee, I am sure there is one report card this year that I think is going to be a very big disappointment, and that is the report card for this Labor government.

Let's start with the most epic failure of them all: they were going to fix the ramping crisis. This year they delivered two of the worst months of ramping in our state's history. In July and in August, ambulances and patients spent almost 11,000 hours on the ramp. When it comes to fixing ramping, this government gets an F. Not only have they not fixed ramping but they have made it worse in some respects.

Other highlights from Labor's mismanagement of our health system this year include an unprecedented 11-week Code Yellow emergency, which saw elective surgery cancelled for patients right across South Australia. Let's not forget Labor's GP payroll tax grab, making it harder for South Australians to see their GP in the middle of that ramping crisis.

We move on to another crisis and, of course, that is the cost-of-living crisis, which is impacting households right across South Australia and no number of concerts or car races is going to make up for Labor's failure to provide cost-of-living relief to struggling South Australians. When we called on the government to put a freeze on fees, to cut water bills and to scrap their GP payroll tax grab, what did they do? Absolutely nothing. When it comes to cost of living, we give this Labor government an F.

Then there are small businesses, small businesses that we know are the pillars of the economy here in South Australia and our community. We know that they are doing it tough, we know that the cost of doing business in South Australia is skyrocketing, and do you know what one of the biggest barriers for small business in this state is? It is this Labor government. The SA Business Chamber's quarterly Survey of Business Expectations, in fact, found that government regulation had become one of the biggest challenges for South Australian small business. When it comes to supporting small business, this government again gets an F.

Let's move on to the government's performance on crime, as we heard today. The Advertiser said it best this week: 'Streets of Fear'. There are streets of fear right across the city, another fail for this government that is failing to recruit but also retain police officers while the community has lives in fear. Only this week, the Liberal opposition brought a bill to vote to ban young people from purchasing knives. What did the government do? It did not support our legislation. Another F on safety from this government and this Minister for Police.

As we know, housing is one of the biggest issues facing our community and the lack of housing. When we asked the government if they had targets in place for the number of houses needed and the workforce to build them, we found out that they had none and they are not meeting those targets consequently.

Today, we saw tomato growers on the steps of parliament and in this chamber. They have been failed by this government in its management of the tomato brown rugose fruit virus. These people have lost millions of dollars, they have had to let go hundreds of workers, they are angry and we are fighting for them. What a total failure by this government and its Minister for Primary Industries and a complete lack of empathy by this government. It should come as no surprise that this city centric government has failed to support the regions and has especially failed our growers.

Once again, this quarter the Australian Energy Regulator revealed that South Australia has the highest power prices in the nation, up 35 per cent in recent times. Instead of bringing down power bills, this government is spending around $600 million—who knows where it will end up—on an experimental hydrogen plant and they have no modelling to suggest that this plant will bring down power prices.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: No, you do not need any help, mate. He is doing it himself, mate. When it comes to ensuring that South Australians have reliable and affordable power, this government gets an F quite frankly. This year, the state's top auditor rang the alarm bells about the risks and delivery of this government's major projects. We now learn that the new Women's and Children's Hospital is not going to be on time or on budget, Northern Water is another one that looks in doubt and then you have the hydrogen plant for which the government is currently using diesel power B-double trucks, it says, to truck in gas, which is also likely to blow out. For its delivery of major projects, we also give this government an F.

The opposition will continue to hold this government to account. We will continue to call on them to do more to help struggling families and small business owners, just like the tomato growers who gathered in the chamber and outside on the steps of parliament today. It is quite clear that South Australians deserve much better from their government.