Fund My Neighbourhood

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (14:26): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Treasurer regarding Fund My Neighbourhood.

Leave granted.

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE: The following is an extract from an article regarding round 2 of Fund My Neighbourhood, published in the Barossa and Light Herald earlier this week:

As the government previously stated, the $20 million program for 2018-19 will be cancelled.

In the article, the member for Schubert, Stephan Knoll, states—

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: The honourable.

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE: Sorry, the Hon. Stephan Knoll. He states:

In the Barossa region, we've committed to a number of new local projects, including $100,000 to help deliver two new dog parks and committed a further $500,000 towards sealing Lyndoch Road.

My question to the Treasurer is: did the government take away Fund My Neighbourhood, a program that gives South Australians the power to decide where the government funding should be spent to help improve their neighbourhood, and turn it into a slush fund to help win votes in Liberal seats?

Members interjecting:

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (14:27): As my colleagues say, I am sorely provoked by the member when she mentions those words 'slush fund'. It would only be a former ministerial staffer or a former minister who would dare utter the words 'slush fund' and try to keep a straight face. At least the member doesn't keep a straight face at the moment, Mr President. She and the Labor Party will be sorely embarrassed when the details of slush funds are revealed to all and sundry, because I have put some small amount of detail on the public record in relation former treasurer Koutsantonis's personal slush fund, some $2.7 million in the period leading up to the state election.

There is not a Greek community or a Greek church in South Australia that wasn't funded through the Treasurer's personal slush fund. There isn't a marginal Labor candidate at the last election or a marginal Labor MP who didn't receive some largesse from the former treasurer in the period leading up to the last state election.

I am stunned that any member of the Labor opposition, any former ministerial staffer in a ministerial office, would have the temerity, would have the hide, to ask a question about slush funds. Consider the difference between what the treasurer was doing—no-one found out about this personal slush fund and where it was being spent until there was a change in government and we were actually able to go through the personal slush fund—and openness and transparency prior to the election, where the former Liberal government announced a commitment to fund a range of projects and programs and then released, prior to the election, not only the details of the projects and programs it was going to fund but how it would actually fund them.

So I am stunned that a former ministerial staffer would not be able to understand the difference between what was an open, transparent and accountable process, where a political party, now government, openly stated what it was offering to the people of South Australia if we were elected, and the personal chicanery that was going on from ministers and ministerial staffers in relation to slush funds, where there was no transparency, no accountability, and the only reason it ever came to light is that there was a change of government and there is a new minister there having a look at the details of those particular funds and accounts.

So the member, having asked questions some time earlier in relation to Fund My Neighbourhood, knows there is no stage 2 of Fund My Neighbourhood. The incoming government has got rid of Fund My Neighbourhood, stage 2. As a general principle, I do not support, and the government does not support, in essence, signing over to a popularity contest, to whoever could organise the most number of votes in a particular area, the expenditure of taxpayers' money. We actually believe that governments are elected to govern. We actually believe that ministers—

The Hon. I.K. Hunter interjecting:

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: Exactly. We actually believe that ministers and governments are elected to govern, to make decisions, to be transparent and accountable in relation to those decisions and we believe that this is not an issue of outsourcing decision-making on the expenditure of scarce taxpayers' money.

That is the sort of rampant financial mismanagement that Labor parties and Labor governments have been renowned for for decades, and that is why they were thrown out of office. That is exactly why they were thrown out of office. It was with that sort of financial mismanagement that the people of South Australia said, 'Hey, this isn't right, this is not the way to run a budget, this is not the way to make decisions about how scarce taxpayers' money is funded.' Someone who can organise the most number of people to sign up for a petition to support a particular project and the greatest numbers win.

That is not the way. That's the Labor way. That's the way the AWU used to operate, that's the way the shoppies union operates. You crunch the numbers, you organise the sign in. In the Labor Party you can be dead or you can be alive, you can still vote! That is exactly the way the Labor Party would like to see decisions taken.

That is not the way of the reformist Liberal government. We were elected on a platform and a program. We were open about that, and we said, 'You've elected a government.' They rejected the ways of the former Labor Party, and that's why they are languishing in opposition, and, unless they change their ways, they will languish for a long time in opposition—unless they are prepared to reconsider the way they approach responsible financial management.