Emergency Services Levy

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (15:18): Thank you, Mr Premier—Mr President, I beg your pardon, I promoted you!

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD: Sorry, President. I beg your pardon.

The PRESIDENT: I don't like to be demoted, Hon. Mr Hood.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD: My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline what impact the recently announced reductions in the emergency services levy will have on business, commerce and households in South Australia?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:19): I thank the honourable member for his question. There has been some degree of publicity and public comment about the impact of the $90 million cut on residential households, in particular in the metropolitan area, and understandably so, because the main focus of the Liberal Party's advertising pre the election was prominently on the metropolitan area and it related to residential houses, in particular the average house.

As the honourable member has indicated, the proposed $90 million cut to ESL bills will also have impacts on other properties in South Australia, not just residential properties. It will also have impacts on commercial, industrial and primary producers, obviously, in the regional areas as well. In relation to the honourable member's question, if you take a $1 million industrial property in South Australia and compare the ESL under the proposed changes in 2018-19, the ESL payable will be approximately $2,077. If there had been no change—that is, if the former Labor government had been re-elected, sadly, by the people of South Australia—the bill would have been $2,380. So that is a $303 reduction for industrial premises.

In relation to commercial premises, again for a $1 million property, the ESL payable in 2018-19 will be $1,216. If the former Labor government had been re-elected, it would have been $1,390. That is a reduction of $174 in ESL payable. Clearly, for those industrial and commercial properties that are of much more significant value than $1 million—indeed, there would be many of those, as members would be aware—the savings will be significantly larger.

In relative terms, they are modest savings in terms of industry and commercial properties. There are other tax relief policies, such as payroll tax and land tax, that the government is committed to implementing. We make no apology for the fact that our focus, in terms of the $90 million cut, has been on trying to reduce the cost of living for South Australian families who are struggling to pay the enormously high bills that they had under 16 years of a former Labor government. This is the first instalment of trying to reduce the cost of living for those struggling South Australian families.