Legislative Council: Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Contents

Fund My Neighbourhood

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (15:07): Mr President, supplementary question arising from the answer.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE: Yes, I know, I just love hearing about it.

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! Leader of the Opposition, you are inhibiting your own member from asking a question. You are displaying no courtesy to your own member. The Hon. Ms Bourke, proceed with your supplementary.

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE: Thank you, Mr President. Can the Treasurer advise how this $20 will be spent—I mean $20 million, I apologise—to support communities in South Australia?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:08): I only wish it were $20, because that would have only been the cost of a cup of coffee and a sandwich under the former Labor government! It wasn't $20, it was $20 million—$20 million that they were wanting to waste under the next stage of this particular program. As I said, the way this program was structured was, in essence—I am happy to get some numbers at a later stage. I won't take it on notice, but maybe at a particular appropriation bill debate or something like that I can put on the record the number of people that actually voted for some of these particular programs in terms of the expenditure.

We committed and are still committed to delivering the promises that we took to the last election. To answer the honourable member's question, 'Where will this money go?', this money will go to delivering quality services, for example in health. My colleague the Minister for Health will be delighted at the prospect of getting $20 million that he will be able to spend on quality programs, whether it be in palliative care, whether it be for veterans, whether it be for the Repat site, the health precinct, there are a variety of programs that we as a new government are committed to in relation to the expenditure of our total savings package.

There are a range of other initiatives that we will be providing. We made a number of commitments, for example, to important community recreation sporting programs. We made a number of commitments to community organisations and one in particular on the Fleurieu Peninsula that my colleague the Hon. Ms Lensink is familiar with. There is a range of programs and commitments that we gave across the recreation and sport portfolio, the human services portfolio, the health portfolio, the schools and education portfolio, and they were all part of the total package that we put together.

This particular funding in part will be used to help fund some of the community development and recreation and sport programs, and some of the human service programs. Any money that is left over from the $20 million will go towards helping to fund all of the other commitments that the people of South Australia importantly voted for at the last election when they threw out a failed, discredited Labor government.