No-confidence Motion

Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (14:27): I move:

That this council has no confidence in the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation in light of his incompetent handling of his portfolio generally but particularly in light of his recent deplorable behaviour directed towards ministerial colleagues and public servants.

This motion speaks for itself but it is particularly focused on the foul language and behaviour used by this minister and whether he has genuinely taken responsibility for it. In relation to the now infamous episode at Rigoni's on the evening of Thursday 17 November, the minister is alleged to have directed profanities towards ministerial colleagues, used similar language towards his own public servants in directing them to leave the restaurant, and then stormed off. He crossed a boundary that he should not have.

The choice of words was inappropriate, particularly given the language used towards his female ministerial colleague, Victorian water minister, the Hon. Lisa Neville. Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has expressed concern for the women present at the event rather than for himself; however, he is still the Deputy Prime Minister and was Acting Prime Minister at the time. The behaviour towards this minister's own public servants is also an abuse of his office. It took several days before he issued an apology of sorts which, given that he has said he would behave in a similar manner again, calls into question whether it was a sincere apology.

Other stakeholders came out following the publicity and said they had received similar treatment. Business SA said they had complained to the Premier about minister Hunter's behaviour last year, following a meeting with him, and I quote from The Advertiser report:

Mr McBride [Business SA Chief Executive] said the meeting attended by himself, his staff and Mr Hunter was called to discuss complaints that the State Government was competing unfairly against private businesses.

The meeting lasted seven minutes before Mr Hunter 'stormed out'.

'He then got up when I kept asking him questions about why this was happening and stormed out saying, 'I won't be cross-examined!' leaving our member and my policy team stunned,' Mr McBride told The Advertiser.

I called (Mr Weatherill's chief of staff) Dan Romeo, and strongly raised my concerns about this kind of behaviour, but got no response or follow-up.

'SA deserves 'responsible ministers'…not an emotional loose cannon.'

Mr McBride said he feared Mr hunter's conduct would hurt the state's ability to conduct serious negotiations and ensure it got the full benefit from national water agreements and other deals.

'It's time for him to be replaced with someone who can work credibly at national levels,' Mr McBride said.

The Law Society also made a formal complaint in August, and I quote from the article the following day. Mr David Caruso, the then SA President of the Law Society, said:

The chairs of the Animal Law Committee and myself did not consider that the meeting was being conducted appropriately by the minister or that he was conducting himself appropriately to be productive. The primary issues were that the way in which the minister was conducting himself was intemperate and unnecessarily dismissive of issues the chairs and I were wanting to discuss. We had attended this meeting on the basis that it would provide for a productive dialogue. We consider the minister's approach did not facilitate this, but was rather dismissive of the issues that we sought to discuss.

This minister should not need reminding that he is in a position of relative power and he should take care not to abuse it. Unfortunately, we have seen a disregard for others before with this minister. Perhaps we in this chamber are a little immune to it. We see it most days in question time. Questioners are mocked for asking stupid questions, or the minister deflects the issue at the heart of questions to other issues without actually responding to the substantive issue. We can all think of examples when we have been on receiving end. I was most recently offended by his response to genuine questions on camping park passes in national parks.

Minister Hunter might think he is being clever. I think he is just plain disrespectful. In light of his handling of the Clovelly Park contamination matters, one would hope that he might have tried to make amends. In May this year, following local flooding caused by SA Water pipe bursts, the minister had to be counselled, once again, about his lack of sensitivity towards those affected. It seems like pointing out the obvious that the role of minister is a privileged one—privileged because it is a role that provides both power and capacity.

The minister has the capacity to alter government policy and redirect funding. Those who meet with him to express their views have the right to a fair hearing. I have heard a number of complaints from stakeholders about the minister's rudeness in meetings from other stakeholders and my concern is that genuine issues cannot get a fair hearing from this minister, whether they are raised in this chamber, or in face-to-face meetings in his office.

In their response to these matters there are significant questions that the Premier himself, and the Australian Labor Party need to confront and take responsibility for. The response of Premier Weatherill was inappropriate in light of the Rigoni's episode. In the first instance, he said that he had not received a formal complaint—which begs the question as to whether he genuinely believed the minister's behaviour crossed the line—and later that he had been counselled: big deal. Rather than provide an up-front admission on this behaviour, the Labor Party collectively decided to try to deflect criticism by claiming that the minister was just being passionate about his portfolio responsibility. Apparently the ends justify the means.

The River Murray is an issue that is vitally important to every South Australian and to every political party represented in this chamber. The minister's outburst does not prove that he is more passionate than anybody else: he is just a national embarrassment. Yesterday, in question time, the minister and his Labor colleagues had an opportunity. They could have answered questions with a straight bat. Instead, one by one, they downplayed the minister's behaviour.

They might think that is clever politics to do whatever it takes to back him. I believe it reflects poorly on them, and the standing of leadership roles in government and in the parliament. This minister has behaved deplorably, as described by White Ribbon Australia. He has breached the Ministerial Code of Conduct. His apology needs to be sincere and his subsequent words and actions need to reflect some contrition. I commend the motion to the house.

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (14:34): I rise in opposition to this motion. I remember a period in the early 2000s—in fact, I believe it was early 2002—and I had the opportunity to do community work with an Aboriginal community in Bourke. I went over to Bourke in the early months of the year 2002; in fact, specifically, I believe it was around Australia Day. I went to Bourke at this particular time of the year, and it was hot: I have not experienced temperatures quite like it. I remember painting a fence of a community facility in 45 degree weather; I got more sunburnt than I ever have in my entire life.

During the course of that afternoon, I took the opportunity to go for a swim with a bunch of community workers and Aboriginal kids. So I went to the Darling River (which runs just out the back of Bourke) on this sweltering day, and there were a whole range of people taking the opportunity to seek relief from the scorching heat, and jump in the Darling River.

I took that opportunity and jumped in the river, and the immediate relief of the cool water was profound right up until the point I put my head below the surface of the water. As soon as I did that, I heard a sound that was rather horrifying: it was a mechanical sound of pumps sucking the life gigalitre after gigalitre out of the Murray-Darling Basin—all to supply the surrounding cotton fields in and around the area of Bourke.

On the drive from Bourke to Cobar, you drive through what is in essence complete desert—nothing is growing apart from saltbush. Then, all of a sudden, you hit an arbitrary line in the sand where cotton fields as high as my chest were growing in luscious green conditions, all because of that pumping effort that was coming from the Murray-Darling Basin. To any casual observer this was patently absurd—patently absurd that we were sucking out so much water to irrigate plain desert into cotton-producing facilities.

To any South Australian worth their salt, it was a horrifying sound to know that our river system was being dilapidated by upstream users in such a grossly inefficient way. To any observer it was clear that a response was necessary, and that is exactly what happened in due course. Finally, in 2011 and 2012, we had a Premier who was willing to compromise his own political allegiances in the interests of the state in order to get a long-term solution to this vexed issue. We had a Premier who, in this particular instance, was even willing to stand up to his own federal colleagues in order to be able to get an outcome that would see a benefit to the South Australian community, including the river itself.

As a Labor member, I thought this was an outstanding proposition and a good deal because it acknowledged the communities upstream whose livelihoods of working people genuinely relied upon that irrigation exercise. This was an arrangement and a deal that extracted from the federal government an extraordinary sum of money—I believe in excess of $10 billion—to compensate a whole range of interested parties in regard to the river to ensure that South Australia would see its fair share of water flowing down the river, including a very substantial 450 gigalitres that would be returned to natural flows.

Our Premier secured the deal, despite having to fight with his own Labor colleagues at a federal level. Once that deal was in place, all we needed from that point on was people to hold the line. That is all that was necessary: people who are leaders within our community, people who are in positions of authority to hold the line.

Some of us were somewhat concerned earlier this year when the Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, was appointed to the role he now holds where he has authority in and around this deal. We were concerned that the person who has said on the record previously that people should simply get up and go where the water is would not have South Australia's interests at heart, and would not be wholly committed to ensuring that deal.

Reservations existed but, nevertheless, we decided we would wait and see what he actually decides and how he acts and, of course, in due course, what occurred? The Deputy Prime Minister of the country wrote a letter to minister Hunter outlining a whole range of concepts and ideas which were clearly going to undermine the agreement for which all we needed to do, as I said, was hold the line. Hold the line was all we needed.

No longer could we rely on the Deputy Prime Minister, so then who do we turn to? Well, let's look at the actions of the Leader of the Opposition. He is another leader within the community that we would expect to hold the line on the interests of South Australia. The Hon. Mr Marshall, the Leader of the Opposition, decided to jump in a plane and go to Canberra and what did he come home with? He came home with a photo and a bunch of frequent flyer points. Nothing more. Nothing more that was going to see this deal being honoured in full.

So then, who does the South Australian community turn to? Well, naturally, it starts to look at somebody who holds considerable power now in the federal parliament, Senator Xenophon and the Xenophon party, to see what they would be able to deliver in the interests of the River Murray and South Australians, and what do we see occur in recent days in regard to Senator Xenophon and the Xenophon party? We see them delivering absolutely nothing apart from another subparagraph on a meeting agenda. Nothing that is going to guarantee an outcome of that 450 gigalitres being returned to natural flows.

We cannot rely on Nick Xenophon who, on the face of it, looks as though he has simply used the issue of the River Murray as a guise to support his anti-worker legislation. We know that Senator Xenophon does not care about workers' interests, he is opposed to penalty rates, and now it becomes very clear that he is willing to do away with basic civil rights that have been bestowed upon so many citizens over the course of centuries of development of basic Westminster principles. He is willing to do away with all of that in pursuit of anti-worker legislation and he used the Murray as a guise to be able to support that proposition.

So, we cannot rely on the Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, we cannot rely on the Leader of the Opposition, Steven Marshall, we cannot rely upon Senator Xenophon and his crony Xenophon party mates. So who can we rely on to be able to fight the fight that is worth fighting in the pursuit of that 450 gigalitres? The responsibility ultimately rests with the South Australian government, which previously has demonstrated its strong track record in being able to stand up, get community support and fight for the River Murray. In the context of this government, minister Hunter, the responsible minister, has taken it upon himself to stand up for South Australia.

The question is: why are we here today not having a no-confidence motion in the Deputy Prime Minister? The Deputy Prime Minister is trying to weasel out—even yesterday during the course of public debate during question time, the Deputy Prime Minister was rather whimsical and dismissive of this particular discussion in the federal parliament. In response to questions regarding the Murray-Darling plan he said, 'Yes, all the problems are your problems,' as though they are the problems of the opposition rather than him taking on his own responsibilities as the responsible minister.

So, why are we not having a no-confidence motion in the Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, who is clearly trying to look after his mates upstream rather than doing something about the issue? Why don't we have a no-confidence motion in Mr Joyce? Why don't we have a no-confidence motion in the Leader of the Opposition, who is more interested in getting a photo and frequent flyer points and actually delivering a real outcome?

Jay Weatherill, as Premier of the state, decided to stand up to his own federal colleagues in order to get a better deal for the Murray. Why not Mr Marshall.? Why don't we have a no-confidence motion in him? Why don't we have a no-confidence motion in the Xenophon party, when he has demonstrated his anti-worker agenda and used the Murray River as a fig leaf to his real stance which is, of course, pursuing an anti-worker agenda in the parliament? Why don't we have no-confidence motions in these? Simply because this no-confidence motion is nothing more than a shameful political exercise on behalf of the opposition. They would rather be talking about—

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: I don't know how you people sleep at night.

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: I listened to you in silence—

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: I honestly don't know how you sleep at night.

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: I listened to you in silence.

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: I do not know why the Liberal opposition is not standing up for a real issue. They want to talk about swearing. Let's talk about swearing. Swearing in this particular context is not appropriate, which is exactly why the responsible minister has apologised and expressed contrition in respect to the issue. Let me be clear, we need nothing more than a line in the sand to be drawn regarding the River Murray. That is what we need in this state, and that occurred back in 2012 when this plan was put in place. All we need now is leaders in their own right to stand up and hold the line. That is all we need you to do: hold the line. Instead, we are trivialising this by talking about a few swear words conveyed in a restaurant. None of that is acceptable—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: —but why can we not just get on with the business of working together? We would gladly welcome the Leader of the Opposition, the Liberal Party, to stand with the government and take up this fight to Barnaby Joyce and the federal opposition in the interests of the River Murray. That is what we need from leaders in the community; that is what the responsible minister in this place is doing: he is standing up for the people that he represents in the state of South Australia. More than that, he standing up for the River Murray, and I commend him for doing so.