Legislative Council: Thursday, September 20, 2018

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The Hon. J.E. HANSON (15:00): Last supplementary: since this action government already has sufficient numbers of public servants to perform any number of business cases that it might like, why doesn't this action government get on with action and have those public servants perform that role instead of outsourcing it to Infrastructure SA?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:00): I think the honourable member, with great respect, is confused, and that is perhaps a polite understatement. We are not outsourcing the business case development to Infrastructure SA. Ultimately, Infrastructure SA, if the honourable member followed the debate on Infrastructure SA, will be there to make judgements about various proposals that go before it, as does Infrastructure Australia. They are similarity constituted bodies in terms of the work they must undertake. It is up to the proponents—in this case, it will be the state government—to undertake the business cases or have them undertaken, and then to try to prosecute the case before Infrastructure Australia.

The Hon. J.E. Hanson interjecting:

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: The honourable member's question was outsourcing it to Infrastructure South Australia. It is a misunderstanding of the situation in relation to the role of Infrastructure SA. The reason why governments, both the former Labor government and the new Liberal government, occasionally outsource business cases to consultants or private sectors operators, if that's what they do, is that they might make a judgement that the collective expertise within that particular department to do the appropriate business case may not be available. The former Labor government actually contracted out business case development on occasions to private sector organisations or operations, I assume for exactly the same reason.