Bills

Supply Bill 2017

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 30 May 2017.)

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (15:33): I rise on behalf of Liberal members to indicate, as per convention, support for the second reading of the Supply Bill debate. As members will be aware, the Supply Bill enables the government of the day to continue to pay for public sector wages and services in the period between the end of the financial year and the passage of the Appropriation Bill sometime later in this calendar year. Without the passage of the Supply Bill, state public services would potentially grind to a halt, and it is therefore an essential part of the financial and governance structure of the state that a Supply Bill akin to this be passed.

I do not normally delay proceedings in the Supply Bill by a series of detailed questions—I generally leave those for the Appropriation Bill debate—but there is one question that I intend to pursue during the second reading. If it is not satisfactorily answered by the minister in the response to the second reading, I give notice that during the committee stage of the debate I will ask the minister to have a senior officer from Treasury present to provide advice to answer one particular question, and that is the gravamen of this particular bill.

This particular bill this year is asking for $5.9 billion to be approved by the parliament as part of the Supply Bill. That is an extraordinarily large sum of money, and it is an extraordinarily significant increase on the normal size of the Supply Bill allocation. For example, last year it was $3.4 billion, so this is an increase of $2.5 billion—almost double—to $5.9 billion being asked for by way of supply.

If one goes back over the last three or four years, the number generally has been somewhere in the threes. It has been lower than $3.4 million and it has been higher than $3.4 million, but it has never been anywhere close to the $6 billion being asked. One then asks the question why, and there is no explanation given at all in the second reading explanation, either in the House of Assembly or in the Legislative Council. The issue was raised in the second reading debate in the House of Assembly, but again no specific response was provided.

When this issue was first raised with me, there was one issue that I pondered and that was: is there likely to be a longer period between the start of the financial year and the passage of the appropriation? The answer to that is no, there is nothing that we are aware of in relation to the sitting weeks of parliament or the timing of the budget bill that would necessitate an almost doubling of the amount of money to be allocated as part of the Supply Bill.

As I said, I give fair warning that I seek from Treasury, through the minister in charge of the bill in this council in his reply to the second reading, a detailed explanation as to why we are being asked for such a sum of money. As I said, if a satisfactory explanation is not provided, I will seek to pursue the issue during the committee stage of the debate to get some satisfactory explanation from the government, and in particular from Treasury.

Again, if I can put the question, I am assuming that this number was first suggested by Treasury, and therefore it is for Treasury to indicate, via the Treasurer or the minister, why they asked for such a significant allocation. If it was not suggested by Treasury, my question then goes to the Treasurer, as to why the Treasurer asked for such a significant increase in the money appropriated or allocated under the Supply Bill, or being asked be appropriated or allocated under the Supply Bill. Again, those issues should be pursued during the committee stage of the debate.

If I can now address the general issues in relation to the Supply Bill. Clearly, one of the significant issues that impacts on our state budgetary situation continues to be the commonwealth-state financial arrangement, not just through the GST allocations but also through grant appropriation sectors, national partnership grants and specific purpose payments, and generally the nature of the financial relationship between the federal government and the state government.

I do not intend to prolong this debate by going through the gory detail of this state government seeking to point the finger of blame at the commonwealth government for every problem the state government confronts. The reality is that the federal government is big enough and ugly enough to defend itself. On occasions, the state Liberal Party, under Steven Marshall's leadership, has disagreed with decisions and budget decisions that the federal government has taken, and on other occasions we have supported those particular decisions, as would be appropriate.

What I would point out is that in the most recent federal budget, in a little-publicised table, there is an indication of the total commonwealth payments to South Australia for next year as compared to this year, that is 2017-18 compared to 2016-17. This is a table concerning a fact that the state government does not want anyone to be aware of and certainly does not highlight in any of their own discussions about the treatment of South Australia by the commonwealth government. What this table shows is that this year the state of South Australia received $9.8 billion in total commonwealth payments; that is, GST, national partnership grants and specific purpose payments.

Given we have a budget size over the forward estimates of around $18 billion to $19 billion, it is clear that more than 50 per cent of the total money that we in South Australia spend is actually raised through commonwealth payments. Next year, the commonwealth budget tells us that there will be a $700 million increase to South Australia in total commonwealth payments. In 2017-18, total commonwealth payments to South Australia will be $10.5 billion compared to $9.8 billion this year. That is $700 million extra next year coming to South Australia. Yet, all we heard after the commonwealth budget were the squeals that South Australia had been dudded in a particular area or a particular portfolio budget line.

The issue that the state government needs to address and to respond to, and I think media commentators and the community need to understand, is that the commonwealth arrangements with the state cover many, many portfolios and many, many funding lines. The biggest and most important for us is the GST because it is unencumbered funding. It is funding that comes to the state and we can spend that funding however we wish. The national partnership grants and the specific purpose payments clearly are as a result of agreements between the commonwealth and the state. In some cases they require state funding to match, in part, the commonwealth grants that are given, but clearly the commonwealth there has some say in the priorities in the spending that state governments have.

The GST, which is the biggest component of the total commonwealth payments, is unencumbered. That is completely a discretionary funding line for the state government and can be spent on whatever priority we might have. We have an increase of $700 million. Of that, around about $400 million (approximately—this is back-of-the-envelope numbers) is increases in GST. That is the unencumbered funding. So, the government cannot say, 'Yes, we got $700 million extra but we have to spend it on the South Road project,' or, 'We have to spend it on this particular capital works project.' Of the $700 million, $400 million is unencumbered, extra GST funding.

As I said, whilst we in the Liberal Party will, when required, always put the state of South Australia first, and will therefore disagree with some decisions of federal governments, whether they be Liberal or whether they be Labor, we will be fair about our commentary and, unlike the state Labor government, will not seek to make an art form of, every time the state government stuffs up, pointing the finger of blame at the commonwealth government and saying it is all their fault and we have had nothing to do with it.

On the one side we have massive increases, and on the other side we still see massive waste and financial mismanagement within the state public sector. I have detailed a number of these in recent contributions last year and I will go through some of these in greater detail during my Appropriation Bill contribution later in the year, but just briefly, there is now a $700 million overrun for the Royal Adelaide Hospital project; that is, $1.7 billion now at $2.4 billion.

That does not take into account additional costs which have not been included in that $2.4 billion and the fact that some other health funding lines are being used to fund equipment purchases and a variety of other budgetary allocations, to which the Auditor-General referred in a recent report and we have asked him to provide further detail in this year's report as to where the state government was hiding additional expenditure required at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital project site, but hiding it in other budget lines because they were already embarrassed by the $700 million budget blowout and they did not want that number to get any higher.

We have seen any number of blowouts on IT projects: the EPAS project; the EPLIS project, about which I think there is another report from the Auditor-General today; the RISTEC project within Treasury; the CASIS project within the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion—projects, in some cases, where millions of dollars were spent and then literally scrapped before they could even get underway. We have seen something almost akin to that with EPAS, a project budgeted at more than $400 million and we are still seeing, on a monthly basis, problems being raised about the adequacy and usability of that particular IT project.

We have seen millions wasted on government and party political advertising. In the last two years we have seen a low point in the government using taxpayer funding for party political ends with the government secretly channelling $700,000 through a front organisation called One Community during the last federal election campaign, part of which was used to pay volunteers at polling booths on election day to hand out material advocating opposition to federal Liberal government candidates in four seats.

These were non-government organisations in South Australia, well known to members here and to the community, who helped the Labor Party to construct this front organisation called One Community and then, mysteriously on the same day they applied for it, to get a $700,000 grant to go out and advocate and call for causes that are sympathetic to the state Labor government and the federal Labor Party. That was the low point in terms of this government being prepared to use taxpayer funding in any way that it could get away with to further its own party political ends.

We have seen massive amounts of money being wasted on government consultants and contractors, Mr Acting President. Through the Budget and Finance Committee, you have had a look (as I have and the Hon. Mr Darley and other members in this chamber) at some of the answers that have come back in relation to consultants being employed through SA Health. We are talking literally hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on consultants, some to help construct Transforming Health and then some to try to fix Transforming Health, and now we are being told that, in essence, because Transforming Health has been an unmitigated disaster, on the government's spin on it anyway, they have moved successfully through the implementation of that program and are moving on to spending on hospital and health infrastructure as part of this particular budget.

We have seen the massive waste of money in terms of the way in which the government has managed its targeted separation package programs, its Determination 7 forced redundancy programs, and a number of HR-related governance issues which have demonstrated this government's and these ministers' incapacity to manage the departments that work for them.

We have seen in the last couple of budgets—and, we are told again, this budget—that this will be the jobs budget, or a jobs budget, now. Last year, we were told by the Treasurer that last year's budget was God's own work. So magnificent was the construction of that budget and so pleased was the Treasurer with the nature and structure of last year's budget, that he described it and some of its programs as God's own work.

The brutal reality for the people of South Australia is that misery continues. We continue, as we have for the last two or three years, to have the highest unemployment rate in the nation: the most recent figures on seasonally adjusted terms for May at 6.9 per cent and the trend figure at 7.1 per cent—by far and away the highest unemployment rate in the nation.

So, if we have had two jobs budgets and they still deliver the worst unemployment rate in the nation, heaven help us if we are going to get another jobs budget from the Premier and the Treasurer, because the proof of the pudding is in the eating and we have seen what two jobs budgets have done to the economy and to South Australia. Heaven help us with the third in the trilogy of jobs budgets: it is sure to deliver more misery to South Australians, particularly young South Australians.

Some interesting analyses done by some economic commentators, and also the journalist at The Advertiser, Mr Daniel Wills, highlights the underemployment figures produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as well as the unemployment figures. As members in this chamber would be aware, in the calculation of unemployment and employment, one only has to answer the question that you have been employed for one hour or more in the last period to be taken off the unemployment list and to be placed on the employment list. So, if you are working for three hours a week you are no longer unemployed, you are an employed person, albeit significantly underemployed.

So, there is this additional information provided by the Bureau of Statistics, which in South Australia's circumstance, if you combine those who are unemployed in South Australia and those who say, 'I'm only working a few hours a week and I want to work more hours', we have 17 per cent of South Australians who are unemployed or underemployed.

Again, in South Australia this measure of the misery index is such that it is significantly higher than for any other state in the nation. Again, that comes as a result of two jobs budgets from this government. The reality is that this government has had 16 years. They have tried everything, they have done everything, and they have been singularly unsuccessful in terms of tackling the significant economic problems and crises that confront the state, and in particular the jobs crisis that confronts South Australia.

I think the people of South Australia need to look rationally at the continued claims of governments and jobs budgets on, 'Well, we have successfully implemented Transforming Health, we are now going to move into the next stage', and look at the reality of where we are in South Australia. The unemployment and the underemployment figures, our economic growth figures, our net interstate migration figures, are all indicators that there is something wrong in terms of the state Labor government's management over a 16-year period.

Increasingly, we are hearing—and I am sure it is the reality out there that people are saying—that this lot have had a chance, they have had a fair go, they have not been able to achieve what they said they were going to achieve, and it is now time to give someone else a chance to see whether or not a fresh new vision for South Australia, an alternative plan, new policies and options, might produce better results for the state, but in particular for South Australian families and small businesses. That is certainly what Steven Marshall, on behalf of the party, outlined early last year: a broad future vision, with 2036 highlighted, and has continued to highlight with a series of policy announcements over the last 18 months.

What will be clear in this election is that there will be a clear difference between the two parties come March 2018. It will no longer be possible to say that it is a choice between Tweedledee and Tweedledum, because the policy differences between the two parties will never be clearer. That has been indicated by a number of commitments that have already been given, for example, in relation to the critical area of the cost of living for South Australian families. The state Liberal Party made a commitment almost three years ago now that if elected in 2018 it would reduce the cost of living for South Australian families and businesses by $90 million a year, or $360 million over four years, by a massive reduction in ESL bills in South Australia, something which will be implemented in the first budget of a Liberal government, if elected.

Also in the area of cost of living, tackling the increasingly highly publicised area of massive increases in local government rates. Since last year, the Liberal Party has been out there with its clear policy that it will be introducing a policy of capping local government council rates, something which has been implemented by a Liberal government in New South Wales and is being implemented by a Labor government in Victoria.

That has been strongly opposed by the Local Government Association, as one can expect. That association, run by a former Labor Party staffer, employing consultants almost solely comprised of other Labor Party staffers, has threatened the Liberal Party with a massive seven-figure advertising campaign. Good luck to the LGA, good luck to those who make the leadership decisions, because the state Liberal Party will be on the side of the ratepayers and will be on the side of small businesses and others who are saying enough is enough.

The Labor government is the one not prepared to support struggling families and businesses. It is hopping into bed with the LGA, because again, as I said, the significant movers and shakers within the staff and organisation and the consultancy are former staffers of theirs. They are former ministerial advisers; they have easy and ready access through to ministers' offices. They get on the phone to the ministers and say, 'Hey Tom, we don't want you to do this,' or, 'Jay, we don't want you to do that.' They are on first name terms with the Labor ministers in South Australia. Steven Marshall and the Liberal Party are on the side of the ratepayers. So, in those areas, and there will be others, we are prepared to tackle the cost of living issues for struggling South Australian families and businesses.

In other areas there are stark differences in policy. The state Liberal Party is firmly opposed to the proposition for a toxic nuclear waste dump in South Australia. That is in clear contrast to the positions publicly enunciated by the Premier and senior ministers, like minister Malinauskas and minister Koutsantonis, former ministers like Tom Kenyon, the member for Newland, and others—significant movers and shakers. If that party was to be re-elected, contrary to what it might say prior to an election, you can rest assured that the issue of a toxic nuclear waste dump would be back on the agenda in South Australia.

I remind members and South Australians that, prior to the last election, the government said and made promises with their hands on their hearts that there would be no privatisation under a Labor government and under Premier Weatherill and Treasurer Koutsantonis. As soon as the election was out of the way, they embarked on widespread privatisation of the Motor Accident Commission and the Lands Titles Office. They have scoped and had a look at HomeStart. We uncovered the secret plans for minister Hunter, SA Water and Treasury to look at the possibility of privatising SA Water.

The Labor government has demonstrated through its own actions that what it promises before an election is not what it will deliver after an election. The fact that, as of this week, the specially set up nuclear waste disposal agency in South Australia (called CARA) is still operating—staff are still being paid and it is still undertaking the task which it has been asked to do—and that there are still members of the Labor Party pushing for further consideration in the next parliament of the proposition of toxic nuclear waste dumps in South Australia, are all clear evidence that indicate, contrary to a throwaway line from the Premier that he has had a change of mind, that not only should he not be believed, but that this government should not be believed in relation to the issue. Again, this is a clear policy difference.

With regard to shop trading hours, again, there is nothing starker there. The shoppies union will not allow minister Malinauskas and Premier Weatherill to make any changes in terms of shop trading hours. The Liberal Party, again, has been prepared to take on the battle with the shoppies union and, indeed, with some of our own strongest supporters among some of the independent retailers who have strongly opposed the Liberal Party proposition that we believe it is in the best interests of families. We operate under the simple premise that if a trader wants to trade and a shopper wants to shop and a worker is prepared to work, why should the shop trading hours legislation, with only limited exceptions, prevent those circumstances from occurring?

There is the embarrassment of having national stores like Harvey Norman—only in the state of South Australia—having to construct their stores with a built-in roller door in the middle of the store because, on public holidays and at some other times, the state government and the shoppies union say, 'We will let you sell bedding and furniture in the front part of your store, but we won't let you sell the computers and electrical goods in the back part of the store, even though you're open.' So, if you want to operate Harvey Norman stores in South Australia, you had better construct a roller door in the middle so that on public holidays the roller door comes down and customers come in and the sign says: due to state government legislation we cannot sell you electrical goods and computer goods on this particular public holiday, but we can sell you bedding and furniture.

Those are the sort of crazy laws that this government is not prepared to tackle, but a state Liberal government would be prepared to tackle. It is one of just a handful of issues, already, that I can talk about: infrastructure in South Australia, the Productivity Commission in South Australia and a range of other initiatives where there are clear policy differences between the current government and a future potential Liberal government. As we approach March 2018, there will be clear policy differences between the two parties.

The last issue I want to address in the Supply Bill debate today is something which has only arisen publicly in the last 24 hours, and it is within my portfolio remit. It relates to ReturnToWorkSA, or WorkCover. We have seen the appalling case reported in the last 24 hours in The Advertiser today, titled 'Adelaide businessman wins compensation bid for alcoholism developed after WorkCover bungle'. It states:

A businessman drank himself to the point of alcoholic brain damage over a worker's compensation claim he believed to have been unfairly rejected—because WorkCover forgot to tell him for a decade that he had actually won the case.

WorkCover's failure to tell the meat industry business owner that his claim had been approved in June 2002 led to the man becoming so enraged that it caused the alcoholism that rendered him unfit to work.

Culminating in a comedy of errors, it was only in late 2011 when the businessman's brother phoned a talkback radio station that WorkCover employees realised they had failed to inform the man that he should have been compensated for a decade.

There is an article in InDaily today, headed 'WorkCover "must be held accountable" for compo failure'; an interview with the gentleman where he indicates his frustration at the way he had been treated and his business, a family business in South Australia, had been treated by WorkCover (now ReturnToWorkSA). That decision, which came down on 2 June, states in its conclusion:

Mr Lesiw's psychiatric gastrointestinal and alcohol-induced brain damage injuries are compensable. He has an incapacity for work as a result of such injuries from 8 February 2013. I will hear from the parties as to the nature of the orders to be made to conclude these proceedings.

This really is an appalling example of the sort of governance and mismanagement that this state Labor government has presided over for the last 15 or 16 years. It has had tragic implications in relation to this particular case. They really are issues that minister Rau and the government, and in particular ReturnToWorkSA, need to answer; that is, how was this error made in the first place, what caused the error, and why was the decision not communicated to Mr Lesiw and his brother? The evidence given during this hearing was that at the time a number of other WorkCover employees discussed the case with Mr Lesiw's brother and did not advise them of the decision.

However, minister Rau also needs to answer questions because there has been released under freedom of information an indication that Mr Lesiw's brother contacted the minister's office in May 2013 complaining about this particular case, and the evidence there is that minister Rau sent a pro forma letter in essence which stated, 'Look, it's inappropriate for me to comment on matters before the Workers Compensation Tribunal.'

My question to minister Rau and the government is: what actions, if any, did the minister take internally as a result of that in terms of establishing the accuracy of the claims that had been made by Mr Lesiw? Was the simple question asked: is it correct that an error was made back in 2002 and that the people were not advised? What were the procedures which applied in WorkCover at the time and what changes, if any, have occurred to ensure that no similar errors are repeated? What actions, for example, has ReturnToWorkSA taken to ensure that these sorts of appalling circumstances never re-occur in the case of another workers compensation claimant?

When I get the chance during question time, at some stage this week, I intend to put questions indirectly to the minister in relation to what the total legal costs and total costs of settling this particular issue are, which are, of course, part of the ongoing costs of ReturnToWorkSA which need to be borne by employers in this state.

Whilst the Liberal Party supported the changes made a few years ago by the government to try to bring down the appallingly high workers compensation rate in South Australia, the premium rate in South Australia still remains uncomfortably high when compared to most other state jurisdictions. This case and other cases that we have heard about are examples of why there are clearly continuing problems with the old WorkCover organisation, and one needs to hear whether or not these issues have been resolved in relation to the new return-to-work organisation.

These will be important questions to be answered when we debate the Return to Work Corporation of South Australia (Crown Claims Management) Amendment Bill, where the government is asking that what, on the independent advice from the government's own experts, was a reasonably successful self-insurance arrangement of government departments should be handed over holus-bolus to ReturnToWorkSA.

In this appalling example and the implications for this particular individual and business, we see a tragic example of how WorkCover has been managed. We still see that the premium rate in South Australia is higher than those of other states and territories. Certainly we in the Liberal Party have not seen the evidence yet that ReturnToWorkSA has changed its overall approach and is managing as efficiently and effectively as equivalent bodies in other states so that the premium rate and the management of cases of injured workers is comparable to the policies and practices in other states or jurisdictions as well. They will be important issues that we will need to address when we get into the committee stage of the Crown claims management bill.

As I indicated in the second reading of that debate, one still unanswered question is that ReturnToWorkSA is going to be charging government departments approximately $25 million in premiums in the next 12 months, whilst those departments will still be employing almost 200 claims managers and other employees—some almost $20 million in costs of employees.

Unless the government can rebut these numbers, the net cost of managing workers compensation claims looks like increasing by at least $20 million to $25 million. At a time when we are struggling for every last dollar that we can in the state public sector, the government jams up taxes and charges whenever it gets the opportunity. We cannot afford to make decisions which, by the single stroke of a pen, significantly increase the cost of managing workers compensation in the state public sector with no identifiable benefit in terms of the management of claims and benefits to injured workers as a result of that particular decision. With those comments, I indicate my support for the second reading.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS (16:13): I rise to endorse the comments of my colleague the Hon. Mr Lucas, who obviously has the lead on this matter for the Liberal Party. I have spoken on many supply bills in this house and, of course, it is simply a mechanism to allow continued payment of public servants and for public services until the Appropriation Bill is passed by the parliament later this year.

It is extraordinary that the appropriation for the Supply Bill this year is almost $6 billion—$5.9 billion—when last year the appropriation in the Supply Bill was $3.44 billion. I suppose in recent years it has been of a similar amount, and all of a sudden it has blown out to almost $6 billion. I do not profess to have any great economic understanding, but to me that is something that is a great surprise, and one wonders whether it is indicative of the way that, overall, the government manages its funds with the funds of the taxpayers of South Australia.

I particularly wanted to reference today the work that is carried out by the public servants that I referred to and the work that has been done on behalf of the government in relation to not only the Northern Economic Plan, which was announced with some fanfare on 29 January last year, but also the work that was done in the development of that plan prior to that. I have no doubt that the aims of the Northern Economic Plan are based around the fact that the impact of the closure of the General Motors Holden plant at Elizabeth was going to be very significant for the northern suburbs of Adelaide and large areas close to those.

I acknowledge that there were many well-meant intentions that were put together by members of the government and its bureaucracy, but I have to say that, in the period since the first development of ideas and the gathering together of local people, the work of the department, DSD and other agencies within the government has seen that the potential for this plan to deliver to the people that it was meant to deliver to has been undermined.

I can exemplify that by the fact that there was some very good work initially done by the gathering together of leaders in the community. I have very good friends in the cities of Salisbury, Playford and Port Adelaide Enfield who put together some great efforts in the development of the plan. The thing that I was initially alarmed about was that it was only designed for those three cities. The Town of Gawler, which to my understanding has almost exactly the same number or had exactly the same number of employees at Holden's as the City of Port Adelaide Enfield, was for some reason excluded.

I have asked questions over a very long period of time. In fact, I have asked a dozen questions and some five supplementary questions about various aspects of the plan and its development. Specifically, I have asked probably at least five questions on Gawler's exclusion from the Northern Economic Plan. As the minister's responses came back, it became clear that some of the advice he was getting from his department was not accurate.

While at some stages my claims about that have been questioned, the reality is that, given the lack of consultation with the Town of Gawler over its inclusion or lack of in the Northern Economic Plan was raised in this place to a great degree, any contact about further schemes—and compensate is not the right word—to replace the inclusion of the Northern Economic Plan should have been at the highest level. It would seem that, if there was any consultation with the Town of Gawler in more recent times, it was done at anything but the highest level.

I think that, when you have some of the employees of agencies caught in the middle of this having to take some of the heat that has resulted out of the poor communication that has obviously come from the Department of State Development or other bodies that have been leading this work, it would show that it has been a very poor public relations exercise.

The Northern Entrepreneur Scheme has been based around Gawler and given to Gawler as a pat on the head saying, 'Well, you know, this will make up for you not being in the plan, but by the way, most of the program is going to be based at the Stretton Centre in the City of Playford.' I have nothing against the Stretton Centre at all, but if you are going to do something for Gawler, then do it in Gawler. The lame excuse that has come out of the department is that they could not do anything in Gawler because they could not provide appropriate after hours facilities. As someone who has lived in and around that town all my life, that is a lot of nonsense.

I think it has been an unfortunate period. It does show—and I have said it in this place before—that in the period after the member for Light was demoted from the ministry, he took his hand off the steering wheel. He was not interested in these matters, and it was only because I kept raising them in this place that the minister, to his credit, brought back answers, but on occasions they were not as prompt as they could have been and sometimes they came back with information that was not correct. I think the fact that the member for Light did not drive this has shown up very recently in local media that the Town of Gawler was excluded in the first place. It should not have been excluded in the first place because it had equal representation of workers in the Holden plant as did the City of Port Adelaide Enfield.

There are many other issues in relation to the Northern Economic Plan that I could talk about today. I am passionate about Gawler, as a place that I have spent a lot of my life in, and also about the northern suburbs. I have probably done as much work as, or more than, most other members of parliament in this place in the northern suburbs in my life, and I am proud to say that I have worked with many candidates and with many of the councils and community organisations in that area.

I think it is disappointing that a plan that was released on this fancy letterhead and with all these grand ideas has resulted in many other questions being asked in this place, not just by me but by so many other members, including the Hon. Mr Lucas, and I think we have continued to have questions raised about that whole process right up until today. In that sense, I am disappointed about the fact that some people have raised false expectations. One thing in my parliamentary career that I have always been disappointed about is when people have been given false expectations and then crudely let down.

The other area that I want to touch on today is one that most people in this place would know is very close to my heart, and I referred to it to an extent in question time today, and that is suicide prevention. I have indicated in the past a frustration at the delay in the development of the state government's second suicide prevention strategy.

The first one was developed only because of the work I did in the parliament, along with the member for Adelaide, to basically drag the government into recognising that this was a significant community concern and issue. The first strategy ran out at the end of 2016, so you would have thought that in 2016 you would have the next strategy ready to go in 2017, but no, that has not happened. The consultations for the 2017-20 strategy only closed in May this year, I think it was. So, almost half of this year was gone before the strategy was closed.

I will give great credit to the work of the officers of the Office of the Chief Psychiatrist. They have been given not only the role of developing the suicide prevention networks around South Australia and with a very small staff have been doing very great work in that area, they have also been given the job of developing consultation for this new strategy. I am not sure when this strategy is going to be released but what I am sure of is that the Minister for Mental Health's lack of care and focus on these issues has been glaringly obvious. I have said before in this place that her inability to attend any particular suicide prevention events or functions in this state has been remarked upon widely.

People who do this work in this area as volunteers need support. One thing that people who work in the mental health space are told is that to be able to help other people you have to look after your own mental health and you need to take care of yourself. Those people need the encouragement of the people at the top. People in the mental health sector, and the suicide prevention sector particularly, get no encouragement from this minister. She has been a gross disappointment. I always thought she would be far better than the previous incumbent, who has no interest in the area, and I thought this minister had an interest. Unfortunately, her priorities have been overtaken by other matters and I am really frustrated by that.

Having said that, I give great credit to the continuing work, I hope, and that the strategy can be released before the year 2017 is over because I think it is something the community deserves to have in a focus on this important work. With those words, I commend the Supply Bill. It is one that historically, in our form of government, is a manner by which the government can continue to complete its identified priorities before the next Appropriation Bill is passed. With those words, I support the bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.E. Hanson.