Address in Reply

ADDRESS IN REPLY

Adjourned debate on motion for adoption.

(Continued from 23 September 2008. Page 121.)

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (21:10): In rising to speak to the motion, like many members, I acknowledge the superb work of our Governor, Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce, his wife, Elizabeth, and our Lieutenant-Governor, Mr Hieu Van Le, and his wife, Lan. I place on the record my great appreciation for the community work they do. All four of these well-credentialled people are often at community functions.

Most recently, Hieu Van Le and Lan attended a function for the Overseas Chinese Association when, at some point during the evening, Mr Van Le and I separately shared the platform in singing karaoke. He is prepared to get up there and participate. I think that it was partly to assist one of the Attorney-General's advisers who had been unfairly dobbed in by the Attorney to sing a song, and Mr Van Le assisted in relieving her of her embarrassment that evening. So, he is a good sport, and that is the point I would like to make.

The Governor made a number of points in his speech (which was clearly written by the Premier's office and which, I think, is no reflection on his duties as Governor, as he is obliged to utter the words that are provided in his speech), and I will refer to a number of those in my address on this motion.

First of all, there were a number of comments about water. A number of members sat in this chamber listening quite intently for some new announcement and were sadly disappointed that there was nothing that would deliver any additional water, or water security, for irrigators, for Adelaide or for the towns reliant on Murray River water. So, while the great deal was lauded to us, in fact, the much taunted deal actually sees us go backwards from the deal struck with the states by John Howard when he was in office. It is a plan over three years that will take some seven more years to implement.

I think it is fair to say—and perhaps it is reflected in the polls—that nobody believes the Premier or his water minister any more when they speak about water, because there have been so many flip-flops in relation to various policies. We were warned in 2003 that South Australia and Adelaide needed to take some additional measures in relation to water, and those warnings have been consistently ignored.

I think I have stated in my previous addresses in this chamber that I was part of a water trade mission to Israel last year, and some people involved in water utilities from other states had said that they were a bit gobsmacked at South Australia's attitude that we are 'hoping for rain'. That was a consistent policy of this government until it realised that it was probably hitting in its polling and in the focus groups, which reminds one of the ABC program, Hollowmen—that things are not acted on until they reach the focus groups.

We have had so many flip-flops on desalination. First, it was a stupid idea, then it was adopted and now it has been brought forward. I have mentioned the Murray deal. There are also references in the budget to water initiatives. A significant proportion of those funds are actually for the Wellington weir, which the spokesperson for the River Murray (the member for Hammond) has consistently opposed for very good reason: that, if we have a weir at Wellington, it will effectively result in the backstop of highly salinated water upstream from the weir. So, further upstream from the weir, all of those communities will require desalination to address that.

Other parts of the water solution need to be given good consideration, including stormwater harvesting. The government's water security minister has stated on the public record that those are the responsibilities of local government. We say that they are a core part of South Australia's water policy and that they should not be relegated to that sort of status. There are also issues in relation to wastewater—that is, water that can be treated to a high standard so that it can be reused—which is doing significant damage to the seagrasses in the gulf.

Indeed, the Adelaide Coastal Water Study—which was released earlier this year under the shade of the car race at, I think, 4pm or 5pm on a Friday afternoon—found that the greatest contributor to seagrass damage is, in fact, treated wastewater being released into the gulf. So, those areas need to be absolute priorities.

The Governor's speech also referred to the CBD building efficiency. I note that, in the budget, in 2008-09, at least $5 million will be provided to the EPA to be relocated to the SA Water building. Further details were revealed through the Capital Works Committee that nearly $300,000 would be allocated to decommissioning the EPA's existing office in Grenfell Street and that part of the $5 million-odd funds were for purchasing pot plants to turn the EPA's office into a jungle, and $1.8 million per year to lease those offices.

I have heard that building described as the Taj Mahal, and I think that that is a fairly suitable description for it. We have also had claims of the Rann ministry becoming carbon-neutral and the desalination plant being carbon-neutral. There is no justification for this claim and, indeed, I think it is fair to label that claim as a 'greenwash'. Yet, at the same time, it is this government that has cut back on the solar water rebate scheme, resisted the sensible amendments proposed by the Liberal Party and cross-benchers to extend the electricity tariff feed-in scheme and, while it likes to take credit for wind farms, these have actually been driven by the Howard government's MRET scheme.

There is also a lot of discussion about three million trees, which refers to the planting of seedlings as a photo opportunity. The question has been put: what about the trees that we already have? A good example of that is the way that ETSA loves to butcher our street trees. The member for Fisher and I recently attended a conference known as the TREENET Symposium. TREENET is an organisation that was established by a fellow by the name of David Lawry who is recognised in this year's Queen's honours, and he has written this letter which he calls 'An Inconvenient Truth'. He says that trees will not deliver on the Premier's carbon target, and I quote from that as follows:

Here is what the Premier could do to set an example to the world:

1. Tell ETSA to immediately increase their power line clearances in the metropolitan non bushfire area in line with the recent TREENET submission currently before the Technical Regulator. They would immediately avoid releasing 1.8 tonne CO2 for every tonne of branches currently removed in the tree butchering process that ETSA conduct. In an average fortnight that would achieve his 3,000 tonne target for nix. In fact, it would save money on the pruning contract and expend less energy on trucks, chainsaws and roadblocks. Also the residents of Adelaide would welcome it...

2. Review the frequent requests from the Waite Arboretum to allow watering of new trees in the research collection. Since 1928, it has been trialling trees for Adelaide that grow without irrigation and as such it is an invaluable resource for all South Australians and is already responsible for the wide use of 'water wise trees' by councils and gardeners;

3. Send someone from the government up to the Waite other than an SA Water cop to seriously discuss research proposals for maintaining Adelaide's street and park trees in a carbon neutral state during water restrictions. We can't determine the threshold limits that will inform SA Water on how to ration water without being able to use a little water for the trial, but the SA Water cop doesn't get science and has even suggested we plant our trees in pots!

I note that comments have been made about SA Water already in this chamber today that I think are germane to this discussion. The letter continues:

4. Put some money into the proposed TREENET storm water trials. We have street trees thriving under a regime where storm water is being put to good use sequestering CO2 whilst their nearby neighbours are releasing CO2 under the current restrictions. In fact if he squeezed the home garden lemon a little less hard and allowed twice weekly waterings, he could be guaranteed to be reducing the CO2 loss from Adelaide way more than he could hope from his gain from 'million tree' projects;

5. Seriously review his commitment to Urban tree research and spend a little more than the $5k annually he puts into TREENET via DTEI sponsorship.

I have also put out a press release this week in relation to Mundulla Yellows, which many members would be familiar with as an issue for some other eucalyptus species, particularly in the South-East, which is where it was first identified, I think, in 1970. It has come to our attention that this particular disease, which is not very well understood, is a problem in the metropolitan area in places such as Athelstone, the golf course at North Adelaide, the Mitcham council area, and the Yorke Peninsula, as well as other areas. The research programs that have been looking into the origins of this particular disease have not been properly funded, and to date no tree has ever recovered after contracting the disease. Obviously, it kills a number of trees as well as reducing their health, and we believe that is an area towards which, if the Premier were fair dinkum (to use the Prime Minister's language), the government would actually put some commitment.

In terms of environmental issues, there is also the matter of natural resource management. I note that the federal government has been cutting the two programs which were funded under the previous Howard government and which had been heavily relied upon to fund natural resource management programs at a state level. There is a mere $28 million for Landcare projects across Australia, compared to some $112 million over three years that the coalition committed to Landcare in the 2007 budget—an average of $37 million a year. So, I think for either of these Labor governments to pretend that they have any commitment to the environment is very shortsighted.

There is also the reference to the plastic bag ban, which I believe is a tokenistic piece of nonsense. This government says that plastic bags are a symbol of our wastefulness as a society, yet there are many other parts of the waste stream that remain unaddressed: mercury from compact fluorescent light globes; a huge amount of electronic waste via computers and television screens, which all contribute to contaminating our waterways; and car tyres.

Yet we pick on the humble plastic bag. It defies belief that anyone should not understand that they are reused, and the anecdotal advice is that many people are stockpiling plastic bags as we speak, because they get reused for all sorts of purposes. There is the often quoted bin liners, and I have previously referred to my sister's child-care centre that asks parents to bring them in for use in disposing of nappies and so forth. That is a typical example of this government claiming to be doing something for the sake of doing something when, in fact, it ignores the real issues.

There was also a reference to the Glenside redevelopment and the new forensic mental health facility. I have stated many times on the public record, and I will do so again, that the vast body of experts in this field say that what this government is planning is verging on the criminal in that it is reducing the capacity of Glenside, as a specialist mental health service, or James Nash House, as a forensic mental health facility, to cope with future demand—or even to cope with the demand we currently have.

There were references in the Governor's speech to the overseas universities of Carnegie Mellon, Cranfield and the University College of London. These are iconic references, yet we have three very well credentialled universities in South Australia that are well able to provide comparable courses. I believe some of them are irritated (some have been on the public record, but some of them have not spoken out), particularly with Carnegie Mellon. That particular institution in South Australia has been propped up by taxpayers dollars through the provision of scholarships to allow people in public sector employment to go through its particular courses. So it makes a neat headline for the Premier to be able to laud these particular institutions coming to South Australia, but at a huge and an unnecessary cost to the taxpayer.

We had a reference to the State Strategic Plan, and I will just refer to the targets which relate to my current portfolio responsibilities. We have a target of 'no species lost'. We actually had an increase in the number of species identified as threatened, that is, from 1,041 in 2000 to 1,143 in 2008. Rather than report this in what I would say was a transparent way, in relation to the proportion of threatened species over this period of 10 per cent, the government has compared the threatened species to the total number of recognised species.

When you break down the species into types it reveals some fairly alarming trends. In the domain of plants it is nearly 4 per cent; mammals, 13.6 per cent; birds, 28 per cent; and reptiles, 36 per cent. The government, rather speciously, blames loss of habitat and the threat to species on the 'cumulative impact of previous actions'.

In terms of land biodiversity, the report recommends that the biodiversity corridors are so far behind as to be unachievable by 2010 and that the target, therefore, needs to be modified. We have a reference to an ecological footprint, which is a fairly ambiguous comment. The target is to reduce South Australia's ecological footprint by 30 per cent by 2050. The report states that no new data has become available since 2006. This, to my mind, indicates that there is a lack of any measuring tool altogether.

For Zero Waste SA there is a target to reduce waste to landfill by 25 per cent by 2014. However, there is no acknowledgment that 50 per cent of the current reduction in landfill is due to local government initiatives. The system that this government has set up is to tax councils so that Zero Waste can redistribute grants to councils by some sort of inefficient means of pretending to drive behavioural change

There are also references to board and committee representation of women. The target has failed twice. The 50 per cent target was not reached in 2006, so the target was revised in the 2007 plan to 2008. In its most recent report the government admits that it is unlikely to achieve the target by the end of 2008, and the rate of growth slowed in 2007. There are a number of these sorts of pretences at doing things which is all rather tokenistic.

I will briefly turn to the issue of finances, and I note, for the record, that the former Liberal government reduced the State Bank debt from $11.6 billion in 1993 to $3.2 billion in 2001. Under Labor this debt has blown out by nearly 60 per cent and is still growing. In the meantime, revenues have increased by nearly 70 per cent.

There are a number of these iconic announcements but they are so far off as to be laughable. We have 'The Marj', Mobilong and transport. In the case of the latter, most transport projects will not even start until 2010-11. One wonders where the government's priorities are when it has a tram project going to the Entertainment Centre. It is hard to imagine how many patrons will be desperate to get to the Entertainment Centre from Glenelg, South Terrace or the city!

There is a note for our country cousins that this government has sought to gut country hospitals in order to be able to fund the Marjorie Jackson-Nelson hospital. That was one of its lovely little headlines which was very cleverly put out there. There still remains a $200 million backlog of country road funding that is just not being addressed at all.

In making those comments, I reiterate that it is no reflection upon our Governor, as he was given this piece of drivel, which he was forced to read out. As I have said, we listened intently for some morsel of inspirational new information we had not heard before, and we were sadly disappointed, which I think was the case for all South Australians. This government, despite its record revenues and record taxation revenues, is a disappointment. It has failed to deliver for the aspirations and needs of the people of South Australia.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (21:33): I rise to support the Address in Reply and, in doing so, I formally thank the Governor for the speech he presented to parliament on behalf of the government. In opening my remarks, I endorse the remarks of my colleague the Hon. Michelle Lensink in her conclusion that, as I think I indicated earlier today in Matters of Interest, the government's program as outlined in the Governor's opening speech is singularly underwhelming.

Certainly, the government's spin doctors had been out for some weeks prior to the speech opening parliament. The spin was being spun that the prorogation of the parliament would allow a line to be drawn in the sand for the government after its acknowledged difficulties in recent times and that the government was going to be able to outline a visionary, bold and imaginative program for the remaining 18 months of the parliamentary session and that the foundation for that forward thrust was to be the Governor's opening speech.

When there was a comprehensive sigh from the commentators, the media commentators in particular, when they had listened to and digested the government's program, the spin doctors then came out and said that that had never been the case, the government had decided not to put all its bold and imaginative stuff in the Governor's opening speech, and they would be progressively revealed and released over the coming 18 months leading up to the March 2010 election.

I intend to return to some general comments about the government's approach and its arrogance later on in my contribution this evening, but the principal issue I want to address this evening in the Address in Reply are some comments on education, education policy, the state of the education debate, not only in South Australia but in Australia at the moment and, in particular, in terms of education accountability and performance, if I can summarise the topic in that way.

I was fortunate earlier this year to be able to visit New York and Boston to look at aspects of education performance and measurement. In New York, I met with Mr Christopher Cerf, Deputy Chancellor for Organisational Strategy, Human Capital and External Affairs (they have wonderful titles in the United States of America), the New York City Department of Education. I also met separately with Mr Phil Vaccaro, Project Manager for Progress Reports for New York City Department of Education. Later on, I met with Mr Dirk Tillotson, Chief Operating Officer, New York Centre for Charter Schools Excellence. Then separately I had meetings with Mr Joseph Colletti, Special Representative for Educational Programs, the United Federation of Teachers. Subsequently, I met with Mr Joseph Rappo, who is the Executive Director, Office of Education, Quality and Accountability in the Massachusetts Education Department and Systems.

First, I will direct my comments principally to the work and activity of the New York City Department of Education, and in a moment I will explain why I looked in particular at that area. The first point to make when one looks at the New York school system is that, as one would envisage, it is enormously complex and complicated and an extraordinary challenge in terms of any education administration. The changes that I will talk about tonight have come under the leadership of Mayor Bloomberg, who, as members would know, was rumoured to be interested in making a run for the presidency this year but eventually decided not to. He won the mayorship of New York City and instituted comprehensive reform right across the board in terms of the administration of New York City and, in particular, the Department of Education.

One of the things he did was to employ a bloke called Klein, who, on my understanding, had either no or negligible knowledge of direct education administration. He had had a very comprehensive and successful business career in a number of companies, but he was brought in to run and manage the New York City Department of Education: an enormous challenge. He was supported strongly by Mayor Bloomberg, with significant financial support both from taxes and also from subsidies or contributions from the private sector as well.

My report (based on my trip) summarises the nature of the discussions I had with the people I have mentioned, in terms of the New York City Department of Education, as follows. I had a general discussion about a range of issues, including: literacy and numeracy testing conducted by state authorities as well as federal authorities; the measures of education performance they used included value-adding measures and not just raw school results; they close about 20 schools per year on the basis of poor education performance; new schools are sometimes established on the same site where a school has been closed; they had a new pay per performance scheme for teachers which had been introduced; the department paid bonuses to schools based on grading performance, grading schools between A and F, and schools made decisions at the local level on how the bonus was to be allocated amongst teachers (that had actually been negotiated and had the support of the United Federation of Teachers in the New York City Department of Education schools); and that teachers could be dismissed by principals in the first three years for poor performance, although the department does not believe that it occurs often enough.

Subsequently, as I said, I was fortunate enough to be able to sit down with, I guess, almost the computer boffins to work through how the test results were massaged and managed to determine value-adding of the school in terms of performance measurement, and I will return to that discussion later in my contribution. In essence, what they were talking about was trying to measure the level of value-adding that a particular school and its teachers add to the level of education achievement by its students.

Without going into all the detail of the Massachusetts education system, I think it is fair to say that they too have headed in almost a very similar direction to the New York City Department of Education schools, certainly with significant testing of students' education achievement all the way through primary and secondary school. All of the test results are publicly available, but at the time I was there the office, at that stage, was not currently grading all schools, unlike the New York City Department of Education. However, Boston's schools' performance were compared in a complicated model with a theoretical school population to try to allow some indication of relative school performance for each individual school. Unlike the New York City Department of Education, no school in Massachusetts has closed on the basis of performance.

It leads to the general discussion about league tables and educational performance. In my recommendations, which are part of my official travel report, recommendation No. 9 reads as follows:

Most states are now providing detailed information on the performance of schools to parents and the public. In some states or cities, 'league tables' of school performance are being produced. It is now time to accept more information on school performance should be provided in South Australia as even other states in Australia are providing much more information publicly. The New York City model described briefly in this report is worth considering for replication in South Australia—especially the emphasis on providing measures of 'value adding' by schools. It is now time to provide a version of 'league tables' to assist parents and departments for education to make informed decisions about comparative educational performance between schools.

I should interpose that, when I said 'most states' in the first sentence, that refers to most states in the United States rather than in Australia. I hasten to say that this is obviously a personal view that I express. My party's position in South Australia has long been, and still is, to oppose league tables, in terms of educational performance.

I think it is fair to say that my party's position at the federal level is different from the party's position at the state level; that is, for the past few years our representative ministers and shadow ministers at the federal level have supported the introduction of varying versions of league tables. However, as I said, my conclusions from my study tour and report and recommendations are a personal view at this stage, and the state party's position remains opposed to the use of league tables.

The reason why I briefly summarised the studies is that, in an extraordinary coincidence, I guess, in the past two months we have seen the significance of the New York City model of education achieve some degree of prominence in Australia, and that is because the federal Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, in August this year (12 August is the date of the transcript of an interview on ABC Radio, so I think her speech was either on that day or earlier in that week), indicated that the federal Labor government was going to insist on significant changes in the measurement and accountability of educational performance.

The minister indicated that there was national testing and that, as part of the next educational agreement with schools, there would have to be some public accountability of the performance of schools to allow the comparison of one school with another. In that interview by Madonna King on 12 August, Julia Gillard talked about the New York model. She said:

Well, the New York model, and we've got to remind ourselves there are over a million kids in schools in New York, so it might geographically be a school place but there's a lot of kids there. What they do in New York is they have a statistical way of analysing schools and then comparing like schools and they look at performance, the sort of attainment information I am talking about in like schools. That enables them to see which schools are doing better and provide particular assistance to those schools that aren't coming out with the kind of results that should be expected of a school of that nature.

Later in the interview she said, 'We don't have national comparable information about schools.' She is not only talking about government schools; she is also talking about government, Catholic and independent schools. Soon after that the Prime Minister, on 27 August (so, just two weeks later) put out a joint media release with Julia Gillard entitled 'Education revolution in our schools'. They said as follows:

In return for increased investment in the quality of schools, the Rudd government will demand greater transparency and greater accountability. It will insist on a system of individual school performance reporting as part of the new national education agreement to come into effect from 1 January 2009. These reports will allow parents to compare schools with a similar mix of students and the extent to which they are adding value. These public reports will reveal a limited number of instances where it is clear that individual schools are simply not achieving the essentials. The government is prepared to invest money and effort to lift their performance.

However, where despite best efforts, these schools are not lifting their performance, the commonwealth expects education authorities to take serious action—such as replacing the school principal, replacing senior staff, reorganising the school or even merging it with other more effective schools.

Tough action is necessary to achieve real change. And it's tough action that our reform payments will reward.

I interpose to say that the Prime Minister and the minister are saying that there will be, as part of the new national agreement with the states, a system of public accountability where public reporting will allow a comparison of individual school performance; and that, in those schools that do not perform, in the end, principals can be replaced or schools closed. And that will be an expectation by the federal government of the state government.

Some tables were circulated explaining the education revolution on 28 August in The Advertiser and, under the heading 'What would schools have to do?', the dot points are as follows:

From January 1, 2009, education funding would be tied to school performance reporting.

Schools would collect and make available to parents clear and simple information about the performance of their child, and the school.

Schools would publicly report their performance on key measures, including national test results.

I will repeat that: schools would publicly report their performance on key measures, including national test results. Of course, if there was public reporting of key measures, including national test results, that means that there is inter-school comparison in terms of those schools that have performed well in literacy, numeracy or science (whatever is being tested) and those schools that have performed badly. There is therefore the capacity, under what the education revolution is talking about, for league tables to be established.

Julia Gillard, when interviewed in The Australian, further expanded on her experience and testimony in terms of supporting the revolutionary changes instituted in the New York City school system. I quote from an article of 12 August. It states:

Education minister Julia Gillard yesterday endorsed aspects of the New York system for ranking schools based on student performance and progress.

As the teaching unions and state Labor governments railed against moves to rank schools, Ms Gillard called for a national system to compare the differences between schools and identify the most disadvantaged.

But the Acting Prime Minister stopped short of supporting the New York system for grading schools from A to F based on their performance, saying the goal was to compare similar schools to identify those in need of further assistance. 'This is not about simplistic league tables. This is about rich performance information about our schools,' she said.

Addressing the Australian Council for Education Research conference in Brisbane, Ms Gillard pointed to the New York model as one from which Australia could learn and said she was inspired after meeting New York City's schools chancellor Joel Klein.

'We can learn from Klein's methodology of comparing like schools with like schools and then measuring the differences in school results in order to spread best practice,' she said. 'Something Joel Klein is personally and passionately committed to is the identification of school need, the comparison of like schools and the identification of best practice. The answer is not league tables and it's not A to F reporting, but it's making sure we have this rich performance information available, school by school.'

In New York, school progress reports are issued each year comparing students' performance levels year on year. The reports also compare schools within a group of 40 peer schools to the same type of schools across the city.

Schools are then graded from A to D and F based on student test results, the progress of students in a year, and the school environment as determined by attendance and a survey of parents, students and teachers.

Schools rated as A or B receive financial rewards and are used to demonstrate good teaching practices. Schools graded D or F are given assistance to improve and, if no progress is made over time, the school is restructured, the principal changed or it is closed.

Last year, 50 of the 1,400 schools in the New York evaluation system were rated an F.

Unions yesterday rejected Ms Gillard's comments as divisive.

I do not know whether I am entirely comfortable, but politics seems to make strange bedfellows. Here I was in April and May of this year writing a report based on the judgments I had made in February recommending that we ought to look at the New York City Department of Education system and implement some of the changes in terms of measurement of school performance, and less than six months later a federal Labor Minister for Education, Julia Gillard (admittedly, from South Australia) is recommending the very same thing. As I said, politics does sometimes make strange bed fellows. Within the space of six months, the two of us having looked at the New York City Department of Education changes in this area were recommending that we ought to be looking at picking the eyes out of the best aspects of the changes.

Julia Gillard's assessment of what occurs in New York is not entirely accurate based on the discussions that I had. I think she would probably acknowledge that; that is, what she is recommending is a little different from the New York system, although obviously it is based on the foundation of the New York system. Certainly, as I said, in the New York system, I was advised that up to 20 schools a year are being closed and some within the space of a couple of years of first measurement and grading. That is, the administrators of that system are very strongly of the view that, if schools are performing badly in terms of educational performance and that there was no prospect of an early turnaround in terms of performance, they had moved quickly in terms of closure of schools.

The Prime Minister has acknowledged that, under his proposed system, there will be closure of schools. Minister Gillard is trying to downplay that particular aspect of the New York system. If one looks at the New York system, they make it clear that there needs to be consequences for poor education performance. If there are not any consequences, then there will be no incentive in terms of improving educational performance in their view based on their experience.

The other aspect that Julia Gillard has been trying to downplay has been the notion of grading of schools, although I think the Prime Minister has been a little more gung-ho in terms of supporting the notion of grading of schools. It is quite clear that the New York system is based on a system of grading schools and it is quite clear that schools are graded from A to C, but that some schools are graded at F, that is 'F' for fail. They have failed their students and their educational community in terms of their educational performance, and some of those schools are the ones which the department closes down. As I said, they may well close down a school on a site and then next year reopen another school on that site with a completely new principal and, in some cases, new teachers, and a completely new structure and support base, but, nevertheless, that first school had been closed. In other cases, the school is closed, the site is closed and a new school is established somewhere else.

I turn to some aspects of how the New York system operates in detail. As I said, each year a progress report is introduced for each school. It has a grade of A, B, C, D or F. The reports are helping parents, teachers, principals and others understand how well schools are doing and they compare them to other similar schools. You can visit the website to look at the progress report for every school in the New York City Department of Education for 2006-07 and also for 2005-06 and compare the relative performance. You can search the web for the particular school that you want in terms of its performance on all these key indicators.

Schools which receive As and Bs in their progress report are eligible for rewards. The Department of Education will work with the schools that receive low grades to help them to improve. Schools that receive low grades will also face consequences such as leadership changes or closure. It is an important part of their work to hold children's schools accountable for living up to the high standards we all expect them to achieve.

The school grades are based on three key elements. It is important to understand how that is constructed. The first element is what is known as the school environment, which is 15 per cent of the final score. That includes things such as attendance and the results of parent, student and teacher surveys. You can go on the website and look at the surveys they conduct each year of teachers, students and parents in each individual school. They are put together with things like attendance—and these are the sort of things minister Gillard will be referring to when she talks about a rich composite of measures in terms of performance and not just the scores. That might be retention rates and a whole variety of other things like that. That adds up to 15 per cent of the score.

The second area is student performance, which comprises 30 per cent of the final score and is measured by elementary and middle students' scores each year on the New York state tests in English, language, arts and mathematics. For high schools student performance is measured by diplomas and graduation rates. So the student performance, the 30 per cent, essentially is based on the raw scores in terms of the performance of the student.

The biggest component of the final score, which is 55 per cent, is called student progress or what I referred to earlier as value-adding. Student progress is measured by how much schools help students progress during the school year in subjects such as reading, writing, maths, science and history. Schools' progress scores also rise when they help English language learners, special education students and students who are not performing well at the start of the year to improve. That is the total: 55 per cent on value-adding or student progress; 30 per cent on raw scores, or student performance; and, 15 per cent on school environment, giving the final score of 100 per cent.

A school's result in each area is compared with the results of all schools serving the same grades throughout the city. Results are also compared to a peer group of 40 similar schools. Families can use the progress report to identify areas in which their school is performing well and also to identify areas in which other schools are performing better. I will not go through the detail, but each year a quality review is conducted by departmental officers of each school and that is made available for parents and anyone who wants to look at the results of the quality review report.

I turn to the section on grading, the A to D or F. On each of the three grading measures—school environment, student performance and student progress—schools will be graded based on three main factors: outcomes for the current year; a comparison of the school's performance during the current year to that of schools city-wide (this means a school's performance for the 2006-07 school year, as compared with the two or three-year average historical performance for schools city-wide: using a multi-year view assures that schools are graded on actual trends and not random fluctuations); and, a comparison of the school's performance with that of schools with similar student populations (this is based on student demographics and/or performance on ELA and maths test scores). The last point refers to the comparison of like schools with like schools (and I will turn to that in a moment).

There is yearly testing for elementary middle school students in New York. They take annual state exams in English language arts (ELA). Students in grades 3 to 8 take the exam each winter. In mathematics, students in grades 3 to 8 take the exam in late winter and early spring. In social studies, students in grade 5 take this exam in the fall; students in grade 8 take it in the spring. For science, students in grades 4 and 8 take this exam in the spring, and in high school, if you go to the website, the various regent tests—English, maths, science, global history and US history and government—are tested for each student in their high school system.

If you go to the website of the New York City Department of Education, you can look at the results, for example, the state maths test, for individual schools or all schools and can look at the number of students tested in each grade, the comparative results of that year with the previous year and the number of students in level 1 through to level 4 in terms of their maths performance, and can compare it with a district or city average or like school with like school average. So any parent can compare the maths, English or science performance of their child's classroom of students with comparative schools either across the city or across a small group of 40 like schools as well. Comprehensive information is available on the New York City Department of Education website for those interested in looking at the detail. I seek leave to have incorporated in Hansard a purely statistical table on one aspect of the performance measure of the New York City Department of Education.

Leave granted.

Please note: peer indices are calculated differently depending on school level. Schools are only compared to other schools in the same school level (e.g., Elementary, K-8, Middle).

(1) Elementary and K-8—peer index is a value from 0-100. We use a composite demographic statistic based on % ELL, %SpED, % Title 1 free lunch and % Black/Hispanic. Higher values indicate student populations with higher need.

(2) Middle—peer index is a value from 1.00-4.50. For middle schools, we use the average 4^th grade proficiency ratings in ELA and Math for all their students that have 4^th grade test scores. For high schools, we use the average 8^th grade proficiency ratings in ELA and Math for all their students that have 8^th grade test scores. Lower values indicate student populations with higher need.

Progress reports for high schools and transfer schools will be released later in the fall.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: This table summarises the information which is available for parents, educators and teachers for each individual school in the New York City Department of Education. It will be a bit of a challenge for Hansard to read it, but it is all neatly printed. It is significantly horizontally placed rather than vertically—which will be a challenge for Hansard—but I am sure they will cope.

It starts on the left with the code, the district, the name of the school (for example, Roberto Clemente Primary School), the name of the principal, the school support organisation, the progress report type, the school level (which is an elementary school), the first score (which is the peer index and which is 63.28), the overall grade for the school (which is D), the overall score for the year for the school (31.9), and then there are the grades for the individual subcategories to which I referred earlier.

The environment grade is C, the performance grade is C, the progress grade is C, the additional credit—I was not able to refer to that earlier—for this school is zero, the 2006-07 progress report grade is B, the 2007-08 quality review score is proficient, and the 2006-07 federal accountability status summary is 'in good standing'. In relation to one school it states 'in need of improvement' for year 2, but most of these are 'in good standing'. One of the other schools has something like 'requiring academic achievement' as an alternative summation.

All schools are graded, and one can look at the particular components of a school performance or the value adding or the environment measures. It does raise some interesting issues in terms of what the federal government is proposing. As I said, I am supporting some moves along this line, so these are the challenges ahead for education administrators. When one looks at the components of a final score, the value adding is worth 55 per cent of the total score. The performance of value adding is obviously very important in terms of the overall grade.

For example, if I look at the William McKinley Primary School, in terms of the environment grade, it got a B. Essentially, that is student attendance, and the surveys of parents, teachers and students gave it a B ranking—which is quite high. The ranking for the performance measures was a C, which means that the raw score was not too bad. So, it had a B and a C in relation to those two measurements, but when it came to the extent of value adding it failed; it got an F. Because value adding is such an important part of the final score, its total assessment was F for fail. Even though it had passed in the raw scores—that is, the actual levels of performance by the school in terms of the performance grade—nevertheless, it failed in the end because it had not value added during that particular year.

I will give another example—which is even more stark—in relation to Florence Nightingale Primary School. They have much more imaginative names than we tend to have here in South Australia. The Florence Nightingale school had an A in terms of environment, so when everyone was surveyed they all thought it was fabulous. It had an A in terms of the actual performance of students. If you look at the literacy and numeracy score, it was very high compared with all other students in the state; it got an A for that, as well. But when one looks at how much progress it had made, it got a D; that is, it had not improved as much as most other schools in that particular year.

As a result, they ended up with a C in the overall grading. I gave that as an example because one of the schools—the name of which I will not mention here, but it was highlighted to me by some of the experts in the system over there—was very similar to that in New York City. By reputation, it was one of the outstanding schools in the New York City Department of Education. A very high socioeconomic demographic student went to that school, the parents of whom were quite wealthy—they were professionals. The student performed in an outstanding fashion year on year; and, when they came to do the measurement, they performed well in the raw score (so the vast majority of the students would have been in the A category compared to everyone else in New York City), but because they could not show much improvement in terms of the value adding in that school they got a very low marking.

When the marking came out that school was classified as only a B school. The proverbial hit the fan in New York, because all the parents were paying quite a deal of money to send their children to this school. All the students were basically achieving A levels, yet the school was classified only as a B. That is one of the problems you do have. There are advantages with the notion of value adding in terms of school performance; that is, if you are fortunate enough to have all bright students come into your school and you do nothing to improve them, then you have not added much value in terms of the education. It is not necessarily good quality teaching and education outcomes—so the theory goes.

However, on the other hand, some education administrators and, certainly, teachers will say, 'We can do no better. If those students are getting almost 100 per cent [or whatever it is—an A] for all their subjects, how can you improve on them? Therefore, why should that school be marked down?' That will be a challenge for Julia Gillard, Prime Minister Rudd and others when they say, 'We are not going to look at the raw scores.' She is very dismissive of the raw scores, and I can understand that. Indeed, my recommendation is to look at notions of value adding, as well, but there are problems with value adding.

I give that example in some detail to demonstrate what the problems will be when you might have a school, as I said, which is performing at an exceptional level but which, in terms of educational improvement each year, is not able to demonstrate as much as, for example, a school where most of the students are failing one year and then the next year they are all improved to B level or B standard. They will show massive improvement in value adding and therefore will be classified as an A-grade school. They are the challenges in relation to when you get down to the detail of measuring educational performance.

That brings me to the attitude of the South Australian government. Minister Lomax-Smith and the state Labor government for 20 years have opposed basic skills testing. They now accept and support those, but, certainly, they have not supported league tables, either. When minister Lomax-Smith was asked what she thinks of the federal Labor government's moves in this area in terms of grading and comparing schools (and I do not have the exact quote here), she said something like, 'Well, we're essentially doing much of those sorts of things, anyway.' The impression was given that the state government had already headed down that path and did not see much of a difference in terms of what the federal government was suggesting.

What I say to the educational writers and commentators here is that there is a massive difference in what the federal Labor government is recommending and what the state Labor government is currently doing. Because there have been these glib responses from minister Lomax-Smith, no-one has questioned her closely or probed her on exactly what her attitude is to some of these New York models and some of the specific statements of the Prime Minister and minister Gillard, that is, comparing schools, measuring performance and being publicly accountable in terms of performance and potentially closing schools down. Those hard questions have not been put to minister Lomax-Smith in relation to the proposed changes from the federal government.

So far she has managed to get away (and so has the state government) with the glib response that, 'Essentially, we're doing much of that sort of thing already.' They are not, and it is time for an educational writer or commentator, or someone, to put those hard questions to minister Lomax-Smith and to receive some sort of detailed response from her.

I turn now to the second issue that I want to raise in my Address in Reply contribution tonight, and that is to return to the issue of the arrogance of the state Labor government, Premier Rann and his ministers. We in the parliament see every day the arrogance of the Premier and the Deputy Premier, in particular, and also the Attorney-General and minister Conlon. We see it every sitting day in terms of their attitude toward the parliament; to questions and question time; and we see it in relation to the refusal to respond in relation to questions on notice.

There are some 500 or 600 questions on notice that have not been answered on issues such as annual leave liabilities for each of the departments; long service leave liabilities; the use or abuse of frequent flyer points by ministers; whether or not departments are re-employing people who have taken retirement packages, contrary to the government guidelines; and the amount of money that the government and taxpayers are paying to people such as Bruce Carter and Monsignor Cappo. These are all issues where there is entitlement, in the public interest, to know where the taxpayers' money has been spent, and there are some questions on notice that members have raised on which the government just refuses to provide any sort of response.

I was at a function this evening, during the dinner break, speaking with two veterans, I guess, of public service administration in South Australia who have served at varying stages and in various capacities during the Dunstan era of the '70s, the Bannon era of the '80s, and later during the Liberal administration of the '90s as well. They are people with experience of 30-plus years of public service administration in South Australia. Those people were able to say that they had had personal experience where back in the era of Dunstan and Bannon, in regard to questions on notice, they were required with urgency to produce answers. I am sure the Hon. Mr Darley would have had experience of this as well, but those administrators—and one had experience in senior departments in South Australia—said their ministers required urgent and quick responses to questions on notice.

Questions without notice were part of the daily cut and thrust of politics. If a minister took something on notice, that was treated seriously, but essentially if a minister did not answer it and did not agree to take it on notice, that was part of the political game. However, once a question was placed on notice these senior administrators, with over 30 years' experience, said that previous governments took it seriously. One of them just shook his head in amazement when I said, 'Well, we've got questions sitting there from five or six years ago—500 or 600 questions that Mr Rann, Mr Foley and minister Holloway just ignore.' They work on the basis that they might get the occasional lashing from The Advertiser, which is about the only media outlet interested in pursuing the government on this issue, but once a year they are prepared to accept that on the basis that it is too embarrassing to provide many of the answers that are being sought through genuine questions on notice.

As I said, these senior public service administrators just shook their head in terms of the—they did not use the word, but I use the word—arrogance of the current government and its ministers in just snubbing their nose at the parliament and parliamentary accountability. Tonight I will not have time to go through the detail of the problems with freedom of information requests. I will leave that for another occasion, but certainly again there have been and there continue to be significant problems, both from media outlets and from members of parliament, in terms of getting details under freedom of information. The government is now (to use a colloquial expression) embedding spin doctors in government departments and agencies—highly paid PR and communications experts or journalists within government departments and agencies to help manipulate the media on behalf of the government in terms of its public spending.

I refer also to the attitude of the ministers' media advisers in terms of monstering the media whenever there is any criticism. I have lost count in the past four to five years of the number of journalists, senior and junior, including the journalists from The Messenger who are just starting, and the new chums at the electronic media outlets with The Advertiser who, the very first time they write something or produce something which is critical of the Premier or one of the ministers, immediately get a telephone call from one of the spin doctors in the minister's office, bawling them out about how outrageous it is and what a disgrace it is.

I know of a number of cases of calls to the editors or the chiefs of staff of those journalists demanding they be sacked or removed from covering politics or those particular stories, making threats and, in some cases, placing bans on providing information to journalists for press conferences, distribution of media releases or bans. The Premier and the Deputy Premier did this for almost two years on Matthew Abraham and David Bevan's program on ABC Radio because they happened to say something which offended Premier Rann and Deputy Premier Foley and, for almost two years, they just banned them.

They banned them on the basis that they were arrogant enough to think, 'We don't need you: you need us'. Well, it is starting to change. The winds of change are blowing through the nation and they are starting to blow through South Australia as well. I think that the Premier and the Deputy Premier perhaps are starting too late to realise that that is the case. So, those almost two-year bans on Bevan and Abraham on the basis of 'We don't need you: you need us' suddenly have been changed and they are all sweetness and light now in terms of providing some access to their good selves for interviews on that radio outlet.

Nevertheless, as I said, the intimidation and the bullying of journalists and sections of the media continues. Only this past weekend I can give another example where one of the senior media minders rang and abused a particular media outlet for a particular story and sought some retribution from that media outlet in terms of what they believed was an unfavourable story towards the Premier. I think the arrogance of this government and its leaders is systemic at the moment, and I now turn to what I see as the pervasive influence of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDAEA) within the Labor Party and the Rann government.

We can see the tentacles of the SDAEA everywhere in terms of the government and the party machine. Its influence is growing like a cancer throughout the Labor Party and the Rann government. It is using the Rann government's offices, departments and agencies as a de facto job network for the SDAEA, their friends and relatives. There is growing anger in the caucus from the left about the increasing arrogance and power of the right and, in particular, the SDAEA in terms of the Labor Party. That, of course, is headed by the leadership of the union (the senior spokespersons) now Senator Farrell, Attorney-General Atkinson and, possibly to a lesser degree, although he is formally the convenor, the member for West Torrens, Mr Koutsantonis, 'the welsher from the west'. He is the only MP in all my experience in parliament who has refused to pay up on a bet when he lost the bet with me. He still owes me $50, but I will put that aside. I will not be embittered by his failure to cough up.

They are the leaders, but when you look at the influence of the SDA and the register of interest of state members who list the SDA as their union, it includes Tom Koutsantonis, Michael Atkinson, Jack Snelling, Trish White, Michael O'Brien, Carmel Zollo, Tom Kenyon, Lindsay Simmons, Bernard Finnigan and Lea Stevens.

There are quite a number of federal members, including Nick Champion, Amanda Rishworth, Kate Ellis, Annette Hurley and Don Farrell, of course, who I mentioned earlier. The Hon. Mr Finnigan, I think, was assistant state secretary of the SDA. Of course, Don Farrell is a former state secretary. A number of the members held various positions within the SDA over the years.

But it does not end there. In looking at the various jobs on boards, agencies, departments and ministerial offices, one sees the influence of this particular union. There has been recent publicity about the rising superstar in the SDA, the new state secretary, Peter Malinauskas. As members would have read in the newspaper, at the ripe old age of about 27, he has just been appointed as a new board member of WorkCover with up to $50,000 a year in terms of board and committee positions associated with that.

What is not known is that the Malinauskas family has done well out of the Labor government, and not just Peter Malinauskas. Rob Malinauskas (Peter's much younger brother) is in his early 20s, and, I understand, is just a third year cadet journalist at The Advertiser and, can I say, he is a nice young man and a promising journalist. He is a younger brother of the head of the SDA, and he has just been appointed to a position in Deputy Premier Foley's office with a salary of almost $90,000 a year, having jumped as a 21 or 22 year old from a salary in the low $40,000s as a third year cadet journalist. As I said, it is a huge jump which comes a result of being the younger brother of the head of the SDA. He pops into the Deputy Premier's office and jumps in salary from just over $40,000 to $90,000.

The Hon. Carmel Zollo: You just can't help yourself. You are stirring all sorts of things.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: That is not correct.

The Hon. Carmel Zollo: Why do you do it? He applied for a job.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: And got it. It does not end there; there is more. Elizabeth Malinauskas, sister to Peter and Rob, is also employed in Attorney-General Atkinson's office as a liaison officer. We have three members of the Malinauskas family all happily employed and ensconced in various positions within the government. As I said earlier, this is basically becoming a job network for the SDA within the Rann government.

In his office, minister Foley has Daniel Romeo, who is tied up with the SDA. His wife, Sonia Menechella, is the assistant state secretary of the SDA, and Michael Brown, of course, the State Secretary of the Labor Party, was previously in (I think) both Mr Atkinson's and Mr Foley's offices at various stages, or, possibly, Mr Holloway's. An adviser to Paul Holloway, Anna Bradley, is a former organiser for the SDA, so he has done his bit. Another adviser to Michael Atkinson is Elizabeth Hollidge, who used to be the girlfriend of Peter Malinauskas. When she was his girlfriend, she got the job in minister Atkinson's office. Eamon Burke, adviser to Michael Wright (and not a bad cricketer), is a former organiser for the SDA. Michael Atkinson's wife is an employee of the SDA.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: It depends who you know. I want to refer to two people, Lee Odenwalder and Brigid Mahoney (and I think the Hon. Mr Hunter may have some knowledge of this), who defected from the ALP left to the right in recent times. They had critical votes on the ALP executive at the time of the dispute about WorkCover.

The Labor right promised Mr Odenwalder preselection in the seat for Little Para. Of course, that has caused some problems in the Labor Party because Kym Maher (known to many of us as a former staffer for Terry Roberts) moved out to Little Para 18 months ago. He bought a house and moved his family there, as he believed that the seat would be one for the left. The SDA (the Labor right) has now done a deal and promised the seat to Lee Odenwalder because it had switched from the left to the right, and Kym Maher was shafted and left out on a limb.

Peter Louca (whom the Hon. Ms Zollo would know) is now chief of staff to Michael Atkinson and was a candidate for Mayo in 1996. Shannon Sampson is an adviser to Michael Atkinson and a former industrial officer for the SDA. Stephen Campbell is chief of staff to Rory McEwen and a former organiser for the SDA.

I am indebted to my acquaintances, friends and associates from within the broader Labor movement and the caucus for much of this information, and one of them indicated to me that David Rann (the son of Michael Rann) is also a former organiser for the SDA.

The Hon. Carmel Zollo asked me what the point of this is. The point I make is in relation to the arrogance of this government which, as I argued earlier, is demonstrated now by the arrogance of the Labor right and, in particular, the SDA. They are treating the Labor Party and the Rann government as their own personal plaything. Their influence on the party and the government is cancerous in terms of its arrogance, and they are treating it as a job network for friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, wives, brothers and sisters in terms of jobs within ministerial offices, on boards, on committees, etc. and, less importantly (because it is part of the political game), in relation to preselection in various seats, but that happens in all parties in relation to preselection.

That is the point I make: the arrogance of the people at the top, such as the Attorney-General, Mr Atkinson. As members here know, he would have been gone as a minister two years ago had it not been for the Godfather, as he is known, Senator Farrell, saying, 'He doesn't go anywhere, Premier, no matter what he does and no matter how many unions go public and say that this bloke is hopeless and that he should be got rid of,' and these are Labor unionists. No matter how many of them said he needed to go, he had Senator Farrell and the SDA behind him.

That is the arrogance that is causing the problem for this government and this administration. It is not just the issue of water, and that is a problem. It is not just the issue of country hospitals, and that is a problem, too. The problem with this government is that it is arrogant right at the very top, with people like the Premier, the Deputy Premier, Attorney-General Atkinson and the people who support them in terms of the control of the caucus and the party.

As I have said, the government is now treating this administration, in terms of public service, as its personal plaything, as a job network. It is not an issue of merit; it is a question of who you know. I would suggest that, if you want a job in the Labor government at the moment, if you are close friends with someone in the SDA, and certainly if you are related to the Malinauskases or to Senator Farrell, your chances of getting one of these jobs within a minister's office or on boards and committees is going to be maximised.

This is in addition to the other issues of water, WorkCover and country hospitals and those sorts of problems. That also is part of the problem that this government has and which it does not recognise is causing it grief in the community. The journalists see it and the community is beginning to see it. There is an awakening to the growing arrogance of the government, of its leaders and, as I said, this cancerous influence of the SDA in the government and the Labor Party.

In conclusion, I referred earlier to the member for West Torrens. I have not seen a copy yet, but I understand that he had some unflattering things to say about me again today. He seems to have a little bit of an obsession with me. I am not sure—

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: A fetish.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I hope it is not a fetish, Hon. Mr Ridgway. I am not sure what I have done to deserve that obsession.

The Hon. I.K. Hunter interjecting:

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: It is a very unhealthy obsession; I agree with the Hon. Mr Hunter on that particular point. The point I would make about the member for West Torrens (Mr Koutsantonis) is that he, too, is symbolic of the arrogance of the government and how out of touch it is. I refer to stories in The Advertiser over the past 18 months regarding his inevitable promotion to the cabinet. A story by Greg Kelton on 9 March 2007, headed 'State parliament—Koutsantonis star on the rise', states, 'Fiery Labor backbencher Tom Koutsantonis is being groomed to take the next Rann government ministerial opening.' I will not read the rest of the story, given the time. Again, a wonderfully sore story on 17 June this year—'Factional deal set to elevate backbencher' by Michael Owen stated, 'Labor backbencher Tom Koutsantonis will be appointed to the Rann government ministry in a deal being secured by factional powerbrokers.' That was the deal that involved the Hon. Carmel Zollo being counselled to step aside to make way for Mr Koutsantonis.

I love this part of the story that Mr Koutsantonis placed with the 'Tiser. It states, 'Labor sources also said a decade-long animosity between Mr Koutsantonis and the Premier's office had recently been resolved, increasing his prospects.' If ever one could summarise the delusional nature of the member for West Torrens and his supporters, it would be that he believes that, by putting it in The Advertiser, this decade-long animosity—which everyone around Parliament House is aware of—would be resolved. For five years until 2002, Mr Koutsantonis would undermine the Labor leader, Mr Rann, to anyone who would listen, Labor or Liberal. He was divisive and disloyal and he was waiting for the end of 2002 to stick the knife into Mr Rann.

Even after 2002, there have been a number of occasions—admittedly, not as many—where he continued to be openly critical of the Premier to people to whom he was speaking. That was particularly the case after he had had a sherbet or two in some of the hotels and clubs around Adelaide, usually drinking with the Deputy Premier and his wing men from the Deputy Premier's office at that particular time.

The one thing I will say about the current Premier—and I am no great fan of the current Premier, as you probably gathered, Mr President—is that he has a long memory, and he does not forgive. If you are an enemy of the Premier, you are an enemy for a very long time, maybe even a lifetime. It is quite clear to think that just by getting a story into The Advertiser, with a lovely photograph of the member for West Torrens, looking resplendent in a suit, looking very ministerial, and with a headline that he was going to be elevated to the ministry, the decade-long animosity had been settled was delusional.

It is a pretty sad time for the member for West Torrens. He has been in the parliament for 11 years. He, in his own mind, believes that he is God's gift to the Labor Party and to South Australia and that he is deserving of and merits a ministerial position, and he sees people like the Hon. Gail Gago, the Hon. Carmel Zollo, even more galling, the Hon. Rory McEwen, the member for Mount Gambier, or even more galling, the member for Chaffey, the Hon. Karlene Maywald, all being placed into ministerial positions before him.

He faces the bitter prospect that, should there be a change in government in 2010—or even if there is not—by 2014, if he is still there, he may well have spent 17 years in the state parliament not having risen beyond the worthy position of a backbencher in government, and opposition, depending on the result of the 2010 election. All that could be resolved if, as I said, the Welsher from the West would only pay me my $50; I would be prepared to let bygones be bygones and forgive him his sins, or at least some of them.

In concluding, I summarise what I see as the problems of this government: that is, yes, they have had some problems with major policy issues, and I have listed those, but until they recognise that it is their arrogance and the fact that they are out of touch with the South Australian community that is causing them grief in the community at the moment, then their decline will continue.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (22:40): I rise to speak to the Address in Reply and I must first thank the Governor for the way that he has discharged his duties in the past 12 months or thereabouts since becoming Governor, and the Lieutenant-Governor too. Both of them have done a fabulous job and, in my capacity as the shadow minister who assists Martin Hamilton-Smith, who is the shadow minister for multicultural affairs, I see the Lieutenant-Governor most weekends at functions, and I think it is a great indication of our wonderful multicultural society to have somebody who came to this state as a refugee many years ago now in the position of Lieutenant-Governor, a position that he discharges extremely well, as does the Governor and, of course, the wives of the Lieutenant-Governor and the Governor. I thank them for their great service to the state.

In looking at where South Australia is today, I think we have lost our mojo in South Australia. We are not the proud state that we used to be. In relation to a loss of mojo, I look at the state and do not believe that we have the state pride and state confidence that we had in years gone by. I have actually raised this with a number of people in the past two or three weeks. I have said to them, 'I think our state's mojo has gone.' The response, from all but one, was that they thought our mojo went when the State Bank collapsed. The other one said that it was when the Truro murders were discovered. So, two significant things that happened in our state's history. If you look at—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Members opposite think it is a joke that our state's mojo has disappeared. Look at this state. We no longer get our fair share of national growth, exports or economic activity; we are below what our national share should be. When this government came to office our exports were at $9 billion, and part of the initial State Strategic Plan was to go to $25 billion. Today it is barely more than $10 billion, and that is because this government has not fostered the state's mojo.

Those opposite laugh, but it is all about the way we feel about our state. Employment growth is lower than the national average while unemployment is higher. Look at the gang of 49. We have had a gang of 49 for some four years now; every few weeks the government talks about it. The former minister for police talked about Operation Mandrake and the efforts to curb the gang of 49, yet today there are still 49 members of that gang; we have not reduced the gang by one.

I also refer to some information that came to hand in early January this year. Foxtel aired a program called Dexter, which stars a character who is a serial killer and who goes around to cities killing other serial killers. Foxtel put out a one-minute long promotional feature that showed the US star of Dexter, Michael C. Hall, as a sociopath serial killer telling a fellow traveller waiting for a plane in Adelaide that Adelaide had more serial killers per capita than any other city. The government did nothing about this; that is how little it cares about this state. It took the opposition—in fact, the member for Finniss, the shadow minister for tourism at the time, and myself—to bring this to the attention of Foxtel.

The Hon. J.M. Gazzola: That's because he lost his mojo.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Maybe he did. We brought this to the attention of Foxtel and it withdrew the advertisement. The Minister for Tourism was missing in action, and the Premier was missing in action. So, Mr Acting President, you can see that South Australia—and in particular this government—has lost its mojo. We saw the Premier call for a drug summit straight after the election in 2002—

The Hon. J.M. Gazzola: In May.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: The Hon. John Gazzola remembers it was in May. I am sure he went to the drug summit. A number of my colleagues—the former member, the Hon. Angus Redford, and the Hon. Terry Stephens—also went to the drug summit, yet when my colleague the Hon. Michelle Lensink went to a drug conference only last year and asked why this particular conference was held in Adelaide, she was told that it was because Adelaide is claimed to be the drug capital of the nation.

So you can see that Adelaide has gone off the boil, and I say that we have lost our mojo. Members opposite have laughed at it, but I am trying to highlight that it is important. We have gone off the boil, and we are not the state of envy that we were 30, 40, 50 or in fact 20 years ago. The Leader of the Government opposite lost his seat in the other place at the 1993 election because of the State Bank disaster, and all but one of the people I spoke to about whether we had lost our mojo said that we had lost it the day the State Bank collapsed.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Members opposite talk about mojo and economics. Mojo manifests itself in a whole range of forms. It is all about enthusiasm—

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA: I rise on a point of order. I do not recall the Governor referring to 'mojo' in his address, so I am trying to work out where the Leader of the Opposition is going or where he is coming from—or whether he himself has lost his mojo.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. I.K. Hunter): The point of order is that of relevance, I think. I suspect there is very little relevance to the Governor's speech, but a very wide latitude is given for the Address in Reply. The honourable leader would do well to ignore interjections from the opposite side of the chamber.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Thank you for your sound advice, Mr Acting President. I will come back to the Governor's remarks, and there are a number of his comments that I wish to refer to. This government proposes to foster economic growth, prosperity and opportunity. I will highlight where we have lost our mojo in economic growth, prosperity and opportunity.

After the Liberal governments of 1993-2000 put in place a plan to reduce state government debt, at the end of the 2002-03 budget the state debt was down to $82 million. However, Foley, Rann and Co are looking to borrow again and the state government is looking to be in debt, with the 2011-12 budget going out to $1.983 billion. The Liberal Party clearly was the best manager of our state's finances.

Our financial mojo is at risk from this government. The state government's unfunded superannuation liability was reduced to $3.4 billion by the Liberal Party and there was a plan for it be fully funded by 2034. Labor, in the best economic times this nation has ever seen, has kept to this time frame but the unfunded superannuation liability has increased to nearly $7 billion as at 30 June 2008. The total liability will keep increasing until 2014.

Treasurer Foley underestimates on revenue and overestimates on expenditure. The 2007-08 surplus was intended to be $30 million and the Mid-Year Budget Review upgraded it to $90 million, with the eventual result being at $373 million. Clearly, this is a Treasurer who does not have his finger on the pulse. In fact, I cannot believe that it is almost 1,000 per cent different from what was forecast—$30 million to $373 million. That is in excess of 10 times greater.

The rate of unemployment in South Australia is the worst in Australia. The current rate is 4.9 per cent but we are in the best of economic times. Members opposite laughed when I said that maybe we had gone off the boil and perhaps we had lost our mojo. The national average is 4.2 per cent. There are 40,000 people in this state who are now unemployed. Our youth unemployment is the worst in the nation at 29 per cent. The national average is 17 per cent.

The Hon. Bernard Finnigan has only just left his youth years and is one of the youngest members in this chamber. I am sure he has a whole range of friends who are unemployed. There are 40,000 people in this state who are unemployed. A recent report indicated that, over the next 10 years, South Australia needs 206,000 new workers to replace the baby boomers, who will be retiring, plus 133,000 people for job opportunities created by major private sector initiatives. The government's answer to this is to import 50,000 skilled workers from the Philippines.

Clearly, this government has no plan to grow our economy, to grow our population in this state and to capture the wealth. One of my greatest fears, as the shadow minister for mineral resources development (and, I suspect, in the not-too-distant future, minister for mineral resources development) is that, if this government stays in place, if we are not careful with the Roxby Downs expansion and we do not have the right policies in place, in 100 years' time we will have the biggest hole in the world but most of the wealth will have left. We heard in question time today that the minister could not actually give us an answer as to when the expansion would take place, notwithstanding the fact that he, the Premier and the government have been talking it up and up for the last six years—and particularly in the last three years since BHP have taken over control. That is one of my greatest fears.

If you look at some of the other great cities in our nation—Bendigo, Ballarat, Mount Isa, and some of the others in Western Australia—they have all done extremely well. However, in particular, I always think of those three: Ballarat, Bendigo and Mount Isa. They were some of the first places in this nation to really reap the benefits of a minerals boom, and the wealth is still there today, it is still circulating in those communities. They are extremely wealthy and prosperous communities because that wealth was captured. People moved there and stayed there—and they still have their mojo today. My fear is that, in 100 years' time, we will still have no mojo. It will have flown in and flown back out to some other part of the world.

The Hon. J.M. Gazzola interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I will ignore those interjections. I also want to address some issues in relation to water. The government believes that the biggest challenge in South Australia is water security. Well, indeed it is. We just have to look at the way in which the government was dragged screaming and kicking, and it eventually announced that it would support a desalination plant. Look at the time frame. The opposition announced that it would build a desalination plant; we thought that was a sensible way to go forward. In fact, we had some mojo; we wanted to get this state moving. At the time, minister Hill and Treasurer Foley said that we did not need one. Mr Hill said that it was too big and that we did not need one as big as that. Then they said it was too small. In the end, the government decided that we did in fact need one.

When we proposed a desalination plant, we said that there were two logical sites, that is, near the Pelican Point Power Station or the Port Stanvac Oil Refinery. We thought they were the two places that it would be logical to look at in the first instance. Even when it made the commitment to proceed with the desalination plant, the government was so arrogant, as my colleague the Hon. Rob Lucas has previously highlighted, it could not actually say, 'Yes, we agree that they are the two likely spots.'

The government then appointed a high level committee that took 12 months to come back and report to the minister that Port Stanvac was probably a good place to start. I know they are doing the modelling with brine dispersal, tidal movement, water quality, etc. to see whether that site is suitable.

Premier Rann must explain why his so-called historic COAG agreement will result in more than 1,000 irrigators ceasing to produce food in South Australia while other irrigators in other states will continue on their farms without fear of losing their livelihood. In fact, the Rann Labor government failed at COAG to get an inter-governmental agreement that delivers any real benefits to South Australia. The fact is that individual basin states will retain their rights, frustrating a national approach, with a so-called independent body being subject to political interference from state governments.

Only yesterday, legislation was introduced in the other place in relation to referral of powers to the commonwealth. What is the point in doing that if the rest of the nation does not come on board? Clearly, with Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland not yet at the table, it is just window dressing. As the Hon. Rob Lucas said earlier, the government is under pressure on a whole range of fronts and, clearly, it has lost its mojo and is now scrambling to find some. From a South Australian perspective, we are offering up something with no guarantee that we will get any reciprocal benefits from the other states.

A sense of urgency has been ignored by the other states. As a result of the COAG agreement, the basin plan is not due until 2011, and the state water plans, particularly in Victoria, will remain in place until 2019. Goodness gracious, we will have another election in 2010. It will be the government's third term before Victoria has to come to the table and offer up any water.

There has been no attempt to stop the Victorian government's plan to divert water from the basin for Melbourne's use. Clearly, Premier Rann, the National President of the Labor Party, is not operating in South Australia's best interests. He is trying to dance the line between being the National President of the Labor Party and appeasing all his friends, the other state premiers. Clearly, he cannot serve two masters. We have certainly seen with the Minister for Water Security, with the recent poll taken in the Riverland, that you cannot serve two masters in a declining water environment and get away with it.

Labor's Waterproofing Adelaide document shows that, under drought conditions and the conditions we have experienced in the Murray-Darling since 2002, Adelaide's demand will exceed our supply by 2007. I then refer to the Governor's speech, and he states, 'a commitment to infrastructure to secure South Australia's state water supply'. As I said, the Rann government keeps changing its position on desalination, proving it cannot be trusted to manage South Australia's water crisis. We do not actually know when we are going to get that desalination plant.

It was interesting to see—after the government eventually backed the opposition's plans for a desalination plant, and, incidentally, a number of opposition members flew to Western Australia to look at their plant, found out how it was put together and the whole competitive tender process, how the competitive tenderers actually ran water quality tests concurrently in Cockburn Sound knowing full well that only one of them would be the successful bidder—that that plant, from the day the government said, 'Yes, let's go ahead with it', until it delivered its first litre of water, was about two years.

Interestingly, when this desalination plant was announced the government said it looked as if it could be a five-year build from the time it actually chose the site. We, as an opposition, with very limited resources and only a handful of members, decided that we thought Port Stanvac was the best place to look, but it took a whole year, a team of experts appointed by the government and who knows what cost to come up with the same recommendation that, yes, Port Stanvac was probably the site. So, that is a year lost. Then they have to go through some preliminary work and negotiate with Mobil. Could that not have been done concurrently? No; the government had to wait and delay. And then we have gone through some water quality testing and a pilot plant.

Clearly, the Premier and the government are praying for rain. They hope that it does actually rain. We know that we need rain of biblical proportions, but I am sure that is what they are hoping for. The government said it would take five years. It wasted—

The Hon. B.V. Finnigan: I am going to go pray for rain.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: The Hon. Bernard Finnigan is going to pray for rain. About the only thing that is going to save this state is praying for rain, so get on your knees and make it happen, Bernard. Clearly, this government is praying for rain but, suddenly, in the past two days, the government is saying, 'We can actually make this project happen a lot quicker. We can make it happen by the end of 2010, or maybe 2011.'

I can tell you exactly what the strategy of this government will be come the next summer—not this one that we are about to go into, because we all expect that that will be, again, a reasonably tough summer with water restrictions, but the next summer, the one prior to the election—if it can fast track the desalination plant to come on stream by the following summer, I expect it will relax water restrictions. It will play the political ace: it will gamble on South Australia's water security and it will relax water restrictions so it can then say to the community, 'No; we have got this desalination plant on line. It will be on stream by the end of the year,' so it can have no water restrictions in the summer leading up to the election. It is clear that the government is going to manipulate the water supply for its own political benefit.

Water is of great concern in a number of other areas. The minister opposite is the Minister for Mineral Resources Development. One of the single biggest limiting factors on our minerals wealth exploitation is the lack of water. This government has done absolutely nothing to foster exploration for more water resources and to foster—

The Hon. P. Holloway interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Well, you have not done anything. The minister mutters about exploration. He talks about the PACE program that has been used to explore for minerals. If it was not for the extremely buoyant prices in metals, it would not matter how much money the government threw at it. We have seen only $30-odd million over four or five years in PACE funding, yet we have seen $300 million of exploration spending, so it is about 1 per cent. I do not know of any company that exits in this world that actually makes the decision to go drilling and exploring on the basis that it will receive a 1 per cent benefit from the government. Clearly, it is driven absolutely by commodity prices and not by the government.

One of the biggest things that frustrate our community is the waste of stormwater. We see hundreds of megalitres—in fact, up to 80 gigalitres—run out to sea each year. This government has neglected it. It is a number one priority. It is there even in years like this one—and, tragically, it looks as though we will have a dry spring, which will harm much of our agricultural industry. We have had a great winter, and crops have grown particularly well. We have had a lot of run-off in the Adelaide metropolitan area, but it will be 26° or 27° tomorrow and 29° on Friday. I read in the Weekly Times that it looks as though the Victorian Mallee is at crisis point, and I am sure there are parts of our state that will suffer.

However, notwithstanding the tough years, a huge amount of water runs off our metropolitan streets but the government has done virtually nothing. It has sat on its hands. Advice I received off the record from within the office of the Minister for Water Security was, 'We have to do more about stormwater harvesting but we can't afford to spend any more money.' So, clearly, the government has lost its priorities.

We could harvest 80-odd gigalitres of stormwater a year. Colin Pitman and the guys at Salisbury have demonstrated that they are world leaders in stormwater harvesting. The government has been asleep at the wheel—6½ years, and Colin Pitman has been doing it for much longer than that. I attended the opening of a small stormwater aquifer storage and recovery site at the Grange golf course about 18 months or two years ago, and that is the only one I know that has been opened and commissioned in the time this government has been in office.

In relation to one of my responsibilities as the shadow minister for police, it is interesting that the minister opposite (as I remarked last week, and many weeks before) has been sacked as police minister, and this week we have seen that Martin Hamilton-Smith has retained me as the shadow minister—

The Hon. T.J. Stephens interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: As the Hon. Terry Stephens interjects, to be fair, the Hon. Paul Holloway is a mining legend, and I am not quite sure—

The Hon. T.J. Stephens: A living legend.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: A living legend—in fact, I have heard that he is a legend in his own lunchtime sometimes. He was the minister and now is no longer the minister, and I am delighted to say that Martin Hamilton-Smith has very kindly kept me on as shadow minister for police. I am delighted to be rewarded for having done such great work and having the minister opposite sacked. It was interesting today that the—

The Hon. P. Holloway: Modest, too.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Yes, I am very modest. Today the police minister was out claiming that another, I think, 26 or 28 cadets were graduating from Fort Largs. Certainly, minister Holloway when he was minister for police reiterated the government's commitment to have 4,400 sworn officers on the beat by 2010. We are now almost at the beginning of October 2008, so it is 15 months until 2010. However, interestingly, the minister—and, in particular, minister Holloway—started to say about three or four months ago, 'Well, it is actually by mid 2010.'

I think that with minister Wright it will be by late 2010, and then I think they will shift the target. It will not be 4,400 by 2010: it will be something like 4,500 by 2012 or 2013. They will shift the target, as they have done every time. When this government sets a target—whether it be exports or a State Strategic Plan target—when it fails to achieve, it shifts the target.

I am intrigued. Today I made some comments on radio, which the current minister (Hon. Michael Wright) rebutted in a press release. He said, when quoting figures that the Hon. Paul Holloway had quoted, that on 30 June 2008 there were 4,144 full-time officers. At the Budget and Finance Committee a few weeks ago the Police Commissioner indicated that, in the Productivity Commission figures 12 months prior, there were 127 non-operational officers.

So, if we take off the 127 non-operational officers, we would reduce the figure. Roughly 200 police officers retire each year; that is just a normal, natural attrition. So, we will be generous. There is roughly 18 months between now and the election: with 200 a year and 18 months, 300 police officers will have retired. So, we will take that off. But, in the last 12 months, as minister Wright said, they had 326 graduates from the Fort Largs Academy, so 1.5 times 326, 18 months worth of graduates, is 489 new police officers. If you take the 4,144, less the 127 non-operational, less the 300 by natural attrition, but add the 489, it is 4,206.

The Hon. P. Holloway: Why don't you multiply by 3 and divide by 7 as well?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Well, sir, he does not want to listen to the figures. He knows that the government cannot deliver on its election commitment of 4,400 sworn officers on the beat.

The Hon. P. Holloway: So you take 127 off?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: The minister interjects. His own words were 4,400 sworn officers on the beat. He did not say 4,400 sworn officers on the beat and 127 of them doing something else and being non-operational. He said, in his own press release, 4,400 sworn officers on the beat.

The Hon. P. Holloway: Sworn officers.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: On the beat. You have said it in your own press release—on the beat. So, clearly, you cannot count the 127 non-operational officers, and they will be at least 200 officers short by 2010. We will watch as they move the target: as they realise they cannot reach the target, they will shift the goal posts. The minister, while he was police minister, was already starting to shift the target.

It is interesting to note the ABS statistics—and I have quoted them time and again—that violent crime is on the increase in South Australia. Attempted murder has increased by 70 per cent; armed robbery is up by 15 per cent; sexual assault is up by 3 per cent; and general assault has increased by 2.3 per cent. Clearly, the Rann government's mantra of being tough on law and order and tough on crime has failed. They are not going to deliver the number of police officers they committed to, and they are not going to keep our streets safe.

The Governor talked about upgrading transport and infrastructure, and investment in a roads program. The Liberal Party proposes a genuine, integrated transport plan. To this date, we have not yet seen from this government a proper transport plan. In fact, we had one—a draft plan—and I think it was under minister White initially, then minister Wright. Then, when Mr Conlon came in, I was at a function when he said, 'You're not going to get a plan. We'll draw up one if you want, but it will mean nothing. We are not going to give you one.' So they have no actual plan and long-term goal for South Australia.

It is interesting that they have been selling their $2 billion transport revolution since the budget, but the actual spending on transport infrastructure is only $1.2 billion over four years and, in fact, $648.4 million over four years will be spent on extending and electrifying the rail system. It is clearly well short of the $2 billion they are talking about. Again, this government is overstating the facts. Most of the infrastructure and projects do not begin until 2010-11 and, if they do eventually go ahead, given the Labor Party's history, they will cost far more than what has been estimated. The project slippage costs for 2008 and 2009 have been estimated at more than $120 million.

We also should not forget the country areas. Most of them have been forgotten and, as you, Mr President, being a former country boy, would know, most of the funding on our rural roads has barely been maintained. We have heard a number of figures over the time I have been in this place, but there is at least a $200 million maintenance backlog that has not been addressed, and the state black spot funding has barely been maintained, leaving our country roads worse off in real terms and probably in worse condition than ever.

In fact, we have seen a number of major transport cost blow-outs, so they clearly cannot manage the budget. The northern expressway has blown out from $300 million to $564 million and, finally, to the $1.55 billion if the northern connector is included in the cost. The Port River Expressway and rail bridge has blown out from $131 million to $175 million. The South Road-Anzac Highway underpass has blown out from $65 million to $118 million. The tram line extension has gone from $21 million to $31 million, and the Bakewell Bridge underpass has gone from $30 million to $43.5 million. Clearly, this is a government that does not have the capacity to manage our state's finances.

The Governor also said that the government would continue to work to modernise and upgrade South Australia's health infrastructure. Since the changes were introduced as part of the Health Care Act, Labor has been killing our country health care system. Notwithstanding the fact that the Hon. Bernard Finnigan and some of his colleagues interject that we do not have anyone living in the country anymore, my three children were all born in the country; the Hon. Caroline Schaefer has three children, all born in the country; the Hon. Terry Stevens has three children, all born in the country; and the Hon. John Dawkins has two children, both born in the country. We understand the importance of a country health system.

I know what it is like to have a country doctor. Tonight I was out for dinner because my eldest daughter turned 18 today. She was born in the Naracoorte hospital, a fabulous hospital with wonderful staff. My second daughter, Tara, was born in the Bordertown hospital and she was delivered by a great doctor who refused to leave town for two months prior to her birth. He gave a commitment to my wife, me and my family that, if we wanted our baby to be born at Bordertown, he would not leave town within roughly a two-month period prior to the date of her expected arrival. He did not leave town. He cancelled family functions. Basically, he made my family, my wife and our unborn baby's health and wellbeing a priority over the rest of his family.

That is the thing that this government and members of this chamber do not understand. I highlighted the importance of hospital boards when we debated the Health Care Act and the government's wanting to abolish hospital boards. I served on a hospital board and I think the Hon. Caroline Schaefer served on a country hospital board. I highlighted how important they were in binding the community together and holding the fabric of the community together. In fact, at lunchtime today in the Blue Room, I was chatting to the member for West Torrens, Tom Koutsantonis. He said that he did not understand that, in country communities, the hospital and the hospital board knitted the fabric of the community together. You have grown up in a country town and you know the importance of it, Mr President.

I was disappointed in this place when not one other party or Independent member backed the Liberals in opposing the government's abolition of hospital boards and replacing them with health advisory committees. It is a bit intriguing that the Hon. Robert Brokenshire did not introduce his bill today to amend the Health Care Act, although I am sure he will do so on the next Wednesday of sitting, and I am sure it will reintroduce local boards to the Health Care Act. It is clear that this government does not understand the importance of what it has done and the damage it has done to country health by abolishing country hospital boards. It does not understand the relationship that is formed between country doctors and their patients.

This particular doctor who was our family doctor came to Bordertown when I was 23 and he has only just left. He has now moved to Adelaide. He provided a wonderful service to our community. He was a Sri Lankan doctor, so, if you like, not a local, but he was embraced by the community. In the end, he said, 'This is my flock and it is my job to look after them'. They commit themselves to looking after their community, and you see that time and time again across our state. Clearly, this government places no value on that and gives no recognition to the importance of that in our regional communities.

The government has claimed that it is building a new hospital, the Marjorie Jackson-Nelson hospital, and it has claimed that it will cost $1.7 billion, plus the cost of cleaning up the rail yards. Interestingly, the cost of that whole project has disappeared from the budget papers. We believe and we will demonstrate prior to the next election that you can rebuild the Royal Adelaide Hospital on its existing site and deliver a quality health service for less or the same cost and preserve the City West site (as we call it), that is, the site by the rail yards for some other use that will possibly rediscover South Australia's mojo. Once you build a hospital on one of the best sites in Adelaide for our mojo, you have lost it forever. But the government has no mojo: it has lost it and does not have any wish to rediscover it.

I will make a few other comments in relation to our state planning system as the shadow minister for planning. The government has been very slow to act on the reforms. It has taken six months for the government to react to our call. In February this year, we said that the planning powers should be taken from the Adelaide city council. Yet six months later the government ridiculed it, and six months later it decided to do it. Rather than being part of a wider vision, as was our decision on the master plan for Adelaide, the government's decision was an ad hoc reaction to a single controversial decision by council.

The government has also adopted most of our planning agenda but has been light on with consultation. We have seen this right across the suburbs with the consultations on the residential code. The opposition believes that is the way to go, but we want to engage all local government fully and explore it because it is a significant change from the system we have now. However, the government consulted for only a bit over three months—it finished last Friday. The government is always rushing and is light on. It was about this time last year that the minister, in announcing the review, said that it would report by December and legislation would be introduced back in February when we came back after Christmas. We still have not seen it.

The Hon. P. Holloway: Make up your mind. Do you want us to consult?

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: You are asleep at the wheel. You said you were going to do it, complete the review and bring in legislation in February. We still have not seen it. We have only 13 sitting days left, unless the minister wants to sit the optional week, which he has been frightened to do in the past six years, so I suspect we will not have it. So, we have only 13 sitting days to pass the legislative changes, albeit relatively small changes, through this chamber and the other before the end of the calendar year so we can meet the government's time frame for implementation of the residential code by 1 March.

The Hon. P. Holloway: We will consult with local government.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: The minister says he will consult with local government, and he will do that. You have not been passionate enough about it early enough—you have just left it drift and slip. Clearly our planning system needed some reform, and it is demonstrated that the opposition broadly supports the reform agenda, and we were out there indicating that we support it.

Clearly we are interested because we do not have the skills to resource our planning system, and the minister mentioned recently that Western Australia is currently trying to get up to 180 planners and has attempted to recruit them from other states. Clearly the government needs to address the skills shortage in a far more aggressive way than it is has, and it is another indication of a situation where we are not addressing it and we have lost our mojo.

Our state's mining sector continues to perform strongly—another comment from the Governor. A major factor that will prevent a mining boom is the lack of provision of infrastructure for prospective areas. This government has not delivered any infrastructure. The Hon. Caroline Schaefer talked today about the infrastructure projects in the pipeline in other states. We beat only Tasmania. I think Queensland has $50 billion worth of infrastructure in the pipeline to support its mining sector, and we have about $1 billion. This government has over spruiked and oversold the mining industry from day one. The Rann Labor government will continue to prevent the capitalisation of our mining boom. It is relying on the success of mining giants like BHP, while prospective mines may never be realised because of Labor's ignorance about the need for infrastructure.

The minister today was not able to give any indication of when the BHP expansion at Roxby Downs/Olympic Dam will take place. He fudged the questions and could not answer them, because clearly the government has no idea. We know we will have a boom and that our state is rich in resources, albeit under a thick layer of silt or sand, a thick cover, and that is why it has not been exploited until now, but it is a long-term project. We have seen that BHP has announced that it is a particularly complex and interesting deposit at Roxby Downs, but with its sheer size they are uncertain of the time frame for its development, and I suspect that most mines will be the same. We have great wealth in this state, and it will be developed at some stage and the state will benefit, but it will not be because of anything this government has done.

It is interesting that today the minister talked about the 10 mines—soon to be 11—that we have in South Australia. The exploration licences which support those 10 mines were granted many years before this government came to office. Clearly, it is not anything that this government has done. Those exploration licences were granted by a Liberal government, and the mining companies took the financial risks; they did due diligence and went ahead with mining development. It is nothing that this government has done. Clearly, it is driven by commodity prices, not this government.

In fact, only one of the 10 mines in operation today received PACE funding from the state government. The real groundwork was not encouraged by this government at all. It is driven by commodity prices and, as I said earlier, the $30 million—and we have some $300 million worth of drilling exploration—is a 1 per cent per year tip-in. It will not encourage big companies, such as BHP—or any others in this world for that matter—to go drilling. They will see it as a little bit of a bonus on the end.

Farming communities are a real concern. There is the growing issue of the rights of landowners in relation to mineral exploration, in particular in old areas. When resources were scarce before the turn of the century, they were exploited. It proved to be uneconomic, so mining companies moved out. As a result of rising commodity prices, they have now become more economic and we find them in high value farming land and high rainfall farming land.

I have been promised a briefing and a copy of the code of practice. I have yet to see it, but I hope that the government consults with the Farmers Federation and the opposition. I can foresee some real issues involving the farming community. We want to exploit our mineral wealth, but we also want to recognise and respect the effort that many generations of farmers have put into the land which they till and which may be the subject of an open cut mine or a range of exploration activities.

It is clearly demonstrated that South Australia under this government has lost its mojo. It is clearly not the state of opportunity that it once was. I have spoken to a number of people who have said that it was the State Bank debacle that resulted in Adelaide (and South Australia) losing its mojo. As this government continues there is no real indication that we will get it back. There will be a mining boom one day. All of us will be old people before we realise that mining boom. It is a long way off—

The Hon. B.V. Finnigan interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: The Hon. Bernard Finnigan interjects about the eight years we were in government after the State Bank.

The Hon. B.V. Finnigan interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: We cleaned it up, you clown. That is what we did. It was an absolute mess. You were still in short pants when that happened. You would barely remember it. Give us a break. You have no idea about the mess in which your former government and your party left this state. It was going to take way more than eight years to fix it. After eight years we lost government, and members opposite have done nothing but drive the state further into despair. We have lost our mojo, and this government needs to be held responsible for it.

The Hon. SANDRA KANCK (23:26): In acknowledging the speech of the state Governor, I recognise that this parliament meets on the land of the Kaurna people. Also, I record my ongoing commitment to Australia becoming a republic, and I look forward to a day when our parliament is no longer opened by a representative of the British monarch.

The Governor's speech lists the legislation we can expect in this current session of parliament. It is clear we can expect more chest beating and tough-on-crime legislation, which is sure to mean that this government will only worsen its record when it comes to riding roughshod over human rights. Being tough on crime will create a building boom—that is, a prison building boom—and that will pull funds away from vital areas, such as education and health. Victoria has shown that prevention is a much more effective and far less expensive way than imprisoning people.

Not mentioned in the Governor's speech but nevertheless expected are amendments to the Development Act. I will spend this speech talking about this government's dealings with the development industry around the planning review, urban growth boundary, Victoria Park, Buckland Park and so on, because this government has adopted a 'development at any cost' attitude. The policy it now seems to have in place is a policy of vertical sprawl, which means that it is building up at the same time as building out, regardless of the wishes of the community or the advice of experts and parliamentary committees.

I will begin by focusing on the building out—the sprawl of our suburbs across farmland and native vegetation. I will give a little history first. In January 2002 (the dying days of the Liberal government), a ministerial plan amendment report (PAR) for the urban growth boundary was introduced by the Hon. Diana Laidlaw and came into immediate effect on an interim basis to prevent land speculation. A court challenge saw it declared invalid and a new PAR (addressing the technical matters that caused the court challenge) was introduced and put into effect in May 2002. A public consultation period occurred after which a third PAR with some minor alterations took effect in March 2003.

The Environment, Resources and Development Committee of this parliament, of which I was then a member, undertook an inquiry into the urban growth boundary. Its report was released in May 2003, which stated:

The committee is concerned about the extent of the urban sprawl of Adelaide and the related cost to both local and state government of providing infrastructure to support new greenfield development at the edge of the city. The committee does not support the continuation of this sprawl into the future and believes that an urban-growth boundary policy is essential to reduce the continuous development of greenfield sites in conflict with the use of prime agricultural land and horticultural land adjacent to the boundary.

That committee comprised three Labor MPs, two Liberal MPs and me, and it was a unanimous report. The plan amendment report we were examining advised:

Demand will continue for fringe land and, as the finite supply of urban land is used up over the next 15 to 20 years, Adelaide will get to a point where it will be necessary to review the boundary. This does not necessarily mean changing the location of the boundary [interesting fact, the Hon. Mr Holloway] by rezoning further land beyond its extent and other alternatives should be explored. Because of lead times to prepare an adequate supply of land and infrastructure for growth, this should occur by at least 2011.

However, four years ahead of that deadline, and despite minister Weatherill's department telling us that the PAR was giving us an adequate supply of land for the next 15 to 20 years, the state government announced a review of the boundary. This was greeted with great joy by the Housing Industry Association (HIA) in an email I received on 25 July last year, which stated:

HIA has been advocating a review of the boundary since late 2004 and was for several years the only industry association that actively carried this cause. Since early 2006 HIA has consistently approached respective ministers for planning and urban development urging an extension of the boundary and release of more land. As recently as the last two weeks, HIA has been in contact with minister Holloway and minister Conlon's senior advisers. HIA welcomes the government's announcement and is committed to working with the government to ensure that the land now included within the boundary is rapidly released to our members.

I especially note the comment about the recent communication with relevant ministers. This and other pro-development decisions since then show a government dancing to the tune of the building and development industry. Two months later, the government announced a further attack on the boundary with its announcement of the Buckland Park subdivision, in an area with no dedicated public transport routes. Then, just before Christmas last year, the government announced a further expansion of the boundary with the ultimate intention being to increase our urban sprawl another 2,000 hectares over the next decade.

The environmental consequences of urban sprawl are almost universally recognised, although I do note that there is an increasing debate about how to prevent sprawl without detracting from the amenity of a garden city and the ability for households to be more self-sufficient in growing their own fruit and vegetables.

Part of the government's rationale is the increasing population of South Australia, which the government is actively encouraging. In other words, the government is wilfully creating the problem, despite having no plans to deal with the impacts on water, environment, transport, demands on health services, and the decline in general amenity. In parallel with the farce of the shifting urban growth boundary, we had planning strategies, planning reviews and planning overhauls to lay the groundwork for increasing housing density within existing boundaries, and reducing the development powers of local government; the closest level to the community, the one that is most in touch.

In December 2003, the then minister for urban planning and development, the Hon. Jay Weatherill, announced his intention to introduce a Sustainable Development Bill to the parliament early in 2004, so the pencils were sharpened and resident groups again held meetings and prepared submissions and lobbied in 2004. In 2005, the government released a draft planning strategy for Adelaide and everyone again prepared their submissions.

The Sustainable Development Bill, which was introduced in 2005, was sidelined and only a small proportion of it was legislated. Nevertheless, with consultations on the growth boundary, the Sustainable Development Bill and the draft planning strategy, the government clearly knew from the responses how strongly the community felt about their backyards, character housing and leafy streets. Therefore it was completely unexpected that, in June 2007, the minister would announce yet another planning review.

What created great foreboding was the undertaking in a media release of the Minister for Urban Planning and development to implement the recommendations of the review before the committee could possibly have formulated them. Was the housing industry on a promise, or was it that the government knew what industry wanted and chose the personnel to ensure that the outcome was delivered? After all, the group that was set up included Michael Hickinbotham, Fiona Roche, Grant Belchamber, an ex officio Lance Worrall, Ray Garrand, Geoff Knight and Kevin Gent.

After the review reported, the minister advised that an expanded Planning and Development Steering Committee would continue to provide independent advice on the implementation of these 'important' reforms. More of the same.

I attended the Planning Industry Association's seminar entitled 'The State Planning Review Revealed', held on 23 June this year. The member for Napier, Mr Michael O'Brien, who had chaired the review team, told the seminar that the terms of reference for the review were very wide-ranging and that he had decided to take the review 'where it needed to go,' with the approval of the rest of the group. Revealing words: whose assessment was it of where it needed to go?

Mr O'Brien outlined three points as the case for change for our planning system. He said it was needed, first, because of projected strong economic growth and demand for workers. My comment about that is to ask: what does employment have to do with planning approvals? If we need people in the mining industry in the regions it does not require our planning system in metropolitan Adelaide to be altered.

The second reason he gave was population growth and demographic change, but remember, it is the government that is actively working to increase the population, so they make this a self-evident truth. The third justification was environment and social objectives. It is an inconvenient truth which slipped by the steering committee that, if you want to protect the environment and improve society, you need to take the time to properly analyse, manage and mitigate impacts, so I cannot see how fast-tracking planning decisions will improve environmental outcomes. Mr O'Brien also told us that South Australia would have a residential code, which they had already drafted, which would go out for further consultation, but it would be introduced in March next year.

John Hanlon, acting CE of Planning SA, advised that the first part of exempt development would be in place by the beginning of 2009, with legislation in the spring session of parliament and faster assessment approvals in place by March 2009. The development lobby in all its various guises fawned in response to the recommendations of the planning review. The Property Council media release with its heading 'Planning review reforms greatest in two decades' claimed that these changes were instigated at the Property Council's urging. Remember we had the urban growth boundary being broken down, and that was the housing industry saying that it was their work in lobbying government that caused this to happen, and now we have the Property Council saying it is its work that caused the government to have this planning review with these reforms.

A month ago I held a seminar in this parliament about the planning review and a lot of concerns were aired particularly around the draft residential code. The deadline for submissions for the proposed code closed 1½ weeks ago and residents groups held a protest on the steps of parliament on that day. But this government listens to the Property Council, the Housing Industry Association and Business SA, not the ordinary public. These groups have trumpeted this in their media releases.

The South Australian Division of the Planning Institute, which has given in principle support to the recommendations of the planning review, states in its submission on the code:

While we support the principle of reducing the involvement of planners in low impact/low risk development applications, we are concerned that the Code in its current form allows development that is relatively high impact and/or high risk.

I know that my local council, which is Campbelltown, also has concerns. At its meeting on 19 August the council moved a motion that a letter be sent about those reforms, and I will read part of that letter, as follows:

Firstly Council wishes to express its concern with the tight timeframes proposed in the reform package, particularly with regard to the introduction of the Residential Development Code. The Code has the potential to have a profound impact on the built form at this Council and its detail and implementation need to be properly considered to ensure that Campbelltown retains a vital, diverse and liveable residential environment.

Further, Council is concerned that the lack of meaningful engagement with the wider community both in the development of these proposed changes and now in the consultation period will result in ongoing community antagonism and ill feeling once the impact of the changes begins to take effect. There is no doubt that Local Government across Adelaide will bear the brunt of this ill feeling.

To this end Council respectfully requests that the Government extends the proposed implementation date for the introduction of the Residential Development Code by six months till 1 September 2009. This will allow a greater period of consultation with Local Government to ensure a more robust Residential Development Code with a far greater sense of partnership between Local Government and State Government. In addition to this, it will allow the State Government to invest in a meaningful level of community engagement and education thereby lessening community angst and ill will in the longer term.

Having twice attempted to amend the Dvelopment Act to ensure solar access rights, I am also very disturbed at the prospect of two storey housing being given automatic approval. The Campbelltown council made a couple of interesting observations. In that letter, it states:

In addition to these concerns, Council would also request the Government strongly consider including further criteria to ensure that greater consideration is in the design of dwellings for good solar orientation and water saving and re-use techniques.

Then, at the Campbelltown council's meeting on 2 September, this motion was passed:

It be put to the Local Government Association General Meeting to call upon the South Australian Government to show leadership in the current planning reforms by introducing minimum requirements for sustainable design, which may include provisions for solar access zones, internal zoning, eaves and orientation, to complement the introduction to a six star minimum energy efficiency standard for thermal performance in residential buildings (through the building code) from July 2010.

I commend my local council (Campbelltown council) for those responses that they have given to the planning review and the draft residential code.

A network of residents groups under the banner of 'Save Adelaide's character 2010' states the following in its submission:

The proposed new code is bad residential planning because it sets out to bypass the role of local governments and negotiated development plans, and so will reduce or eliminate the opportunities for residents to have a say in what happens in their suburbs. The code considers building matters only divorced from all of the broader and environmental concerns that determine the quality of residential life.

A submission to the system's improvement branch from Save our Suburbs—Adelaide Incorporated, states:

Development interests and lobby organisations claim that they need certainty in their applications for planning approval. This is a sham claim as certainty of approval can always be obtained by only applying for development approval for applications which fully comply with the development plan. What these groups want is certainty that they can gain approval for any application no matter how far outside of the development plan they are. These proposals, by removing most conditions from development plans, provide the freedom to maximise profits, freedom to build whatever, sought by the vested interest development lobbies and remove appeal rights against such application by neighbours. They constitute an 'only a few rules development plan' and will accord zero rights to existing residents and councillors in their efforts to maintain the quality of their suburbs.

Under the heading 'Too high a site coverage—fewer trees, greater need for unsustainable airconditioning' it states:

As they stand, the maximum site coverages proposed in the code will ensure that the thousands of new dwellings, which the state authorities appear determined to squeeze into our existing suburbs, will be largely bereft of the cooling benefits of substantial trees in our increasingly hot summers and overwhelmingly reliant on air conditioning to survive.

This large-scale reliance on air conditioning will overwhelm our attempts to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases and lead to unpleasantly hot residential streetscapes in future summer sessions.

In its findings and submissions the Blackwood Belair and District Community Association states:

1. Fundamental flaws. The overall philosophy of the DRC is deeply and fundamentally flawed.

2. Tinkering. The flaws in the DRC cannot be corrected by simply tinkering with the wording of the various clauses.

3. Rescind. The decision to implement the DRC with effect from 1 March 2009 should be rescinded.

In its submission on the draft residential code, under the heading 'Urban design and sustainability', the Onkaparinga council states:

None of the code's performance criteria seek good urban design by incorporating issues such as sustainability principles, building orientation or building materials. This also has the potential for development to negatively affect the amenity of a locality and consideration should be given to incorporating these matters in performance criteria.

The reforms seek to move to quantitative assessment of residential development, rather than assessing against qualitative measures as currently exists. If the code is to be implemented, additional work must be done to ensure that the code provides clear guidance to applicants and the community.

The code does not contain any performance criteria that prescribe appropriate construction materials nor does it seek high standards of urban design incorporating sustainability principles such as appropriate solar orientation. Given the government's position on climate change and the need for environmental sustainability, it is surprising that this issue is not addressed by the code.

There are many other comments that I could make on the different submissions that groups and councils have put in, but they all indicate that they see this code as lacking, to say the least. But, will they be listened to? Well, I would say that, based on this government's record over the past few years, the likelihood of being listened to is very small. It seems that this government's "rack 'em, pack 'em and stack 'em" policy has now infiltrated into urban planning. When this government has an opportunity to save or create open space, time and again it passes it up.

With the Cheltenham Park Racecourse the government ignored both the wishes of the community and an opportunity to create a major wetland and water management resource in favour of another residential development with just a little bit of open space. On Buckland Park, the government ignored fundamental planning issues and the imperatives of climate change by supporting the building of this township outside the urban growth boundary, on a floodplain and away from public transport. On Victoria Park, the government showed its values—bright and shiny sprawling corporate edifices built over a sensitive and unique environment. Its plan, which fortunately did not succeed, was to destroy what makes Adelaide unique—our Victorian buildings and world-class Parklands.

The government stripped Adelaide City Council of its planning powers over the Le Cornu site. More recently, it has taken away the council's decision-making powers on any project valued at more than $10 million for the paltry reason of knocking back one project, which did not comply with council guidelines, despite the record showing that last year Adelaide City Council approved 1,190 development applications, with a total value of $864.2 million, and that, in the first six months of this year, it had approved 589 development applications, with a total value of $449.7 million. Unfortunately, the appetite of most of our major developers is insatiable and, when they do not get everything they want, they throw hissy fits for the government's attention.

It is important also to place on the record that Adelaide City Council did not hold up development on the Le Cornu site: it had approved five different applications over the years. This state government has now foisted a development on the people of North Adelaide which they did not want and which is significantly at variance with the height limits for that area in the Adelaide City Council development plan.

Ed Briedis, the Chairman of the North Adelaide Society, predicting a voter backlash in the March 2010 election, said this in a letter on the Messenger website:

We might consider renaming O'Connell Street, North Adelaide, as 18 September Avenue, in memory of the day when the Rann Cabinet abandoned its populace, its principles and its own planning rules. It would be a permanent reminder of how easily political expediency can dictate the adoption of new special rules for some developers. Rann's Cabinet has reintroduced uncertainty into the planning system.

This bias towards developers is revealed in almost every major decision of the government, but the community is fighting back. Residents are mobilising on the fringes of our city, from Willunga to Gawler to Coromandel Valley, to stop the encroachment of McMansions onto land that is used for agriculture, passive recreation or to protect native flora and fauna.

So, as it heads towards the 2010 election, the government is facing a major battle between ordinary residents and voters and the top end of town, with whom this government now aligns itself. However, for now at least, the Property Council and Business SA continue to have an unnerving power of influence over this government. This power is exercised through formal and informal channels.

The Land Management Corporation is listed as a principal partner on the Property Council SA's website, and the piping shrike logo is proudly displayed. The Department of Trade and Economic Development is listed as an associate member of the Property Council—surely, evidence of this government's being a wholly owned subsidiary of business. I doubt whether any government department is a member or an associate member of any environment or resident group in this state; if so, I would really love to hear about it.

The developers are still not satisfied. They chide the government on lack of land tax reform and say that they will be speaking to the Treasurer about that, saying, 'Property tax relief must come next year.' With the record we are seeing, I think that probably is guaranteed. They attempt to give themselves a green and environmental veneer by talking about transit-oriented development but, at the same time, they cheer when the government announces yet another attack on the urban growth boundary.

It is interesting (and perhaps it is a question of cause or effect), when we see such strong links between this government and business, to look at the website of SA Progressive Business Inc. It states, 'SA Progressive Business Inc.' (which sounds to me awfully like WA Inc.), 'was established to link Labor and the business community.' I thought they were already linked. It continues:

South Australian Progressive Business Inc. is a forum designed to ensure Labor and business remain in touch with each other's views and aspirations for South Australia. Our aim is to foster communication between business and the Labor government. The Rann Labor government, now in its second term and with a strong majority, is seeking to build on its achievement and develop closer relationships with the business community. South Australian Progressive Business Inc. provides a unique opportunity for business to meet with Labor leaders who are pro-business, pro-mining and pro-growth.

Members will be able to join Mike Rann and his team at regular functions to discuss developments in policy. Members are also invited to regular briefings by senior members of Labor's state and federal teams to have the chance to meet and discuss your views with the other business and industry leaders who share a non-partisan commitment to maximising South Australia's economic potential. Membership is open to individuals and organisations who are interested in developing the progressive ideas and policies needed to safeguard South Australia's economic future.

Then there is a list of economic packages, ranging from $500 for an individual, which apparently gets you to events, including breakfast ministerial briefings and twilight ministerial briefings for one and members' and guests' invitations to a minimum of four special events.

The peak one is the foundation membership ($10,000) with events including breakfast ministerial briefings and twilight ministerial briefings for up to three company representatives; advance notice of functions and tickets reserved for major functions for two weeks; pre-event drinks with functions' special guest; and corporate recognition at functions.

It then invites the person, once again, to join SA Progressive Business Inc. The contacts are SA Progressive Business Inc. Director, Leesa Vlahos, and the Chair of the SA Progressive Business Inc. Board is the Hon. Nick Bolkus. I am not sure which comes first—the chicken or the egg—in this case, but the links between this government and business are very obvious, and we are seeing it in urban planning decisions.

The interests of the development lobby tap into the edifice complex of this government and many other community leaders who share a deep-rooted desire to have the tallest something somewhere. Freud, I think, would have something to say about that. The Burj Dubai tower has now reached a staggering height of 688 metres—that is, of course, in Dubai—and is projected to reach 900 metres. Why should we even think about competing with something like that? It shows a deep cultural cringe that our leaders in South Australia even do.

The reason that South Australia is loved not only by its local residents but also by visitors from interstate and overseas is that it is a manageable size. It is not overcrowded, it has grace and it has charm, which is easily accessible to everyone. We can do what the government wants—run with the pack and grow our state and our capital city into a carbon copy of every other city in the world. We can have vertical sprawl, continuous development from coast to hills, from the Barossa to Victor Harbor, or we can value ourselves and our environment for the inherent quality of life that we do have. This does not mean that we have to fossilise our city, but it will require that all development complements the existing landscape and streetscape instead of trying to dominate it.

I close by saying that we should value what we have and what makes us unique and quote from Don Dunstan, as follows:

We need not so much greater quantity but greater quality, not to become the biggest of the Australian states but the best of them all.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. P. Holloway.

At 23:57 the council adjourned until Thursday 25 September 2008 at 14:15.