Electorate Offices

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (15:09): My question is to the Treasurer. Given the fact that the redistribution of electoral boundaries has now been concluded, can the Treasurer assure the chamber that preparatory work will be undertaken before the next election to try to ensure that MPs have suitable accommodation in their electorate?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:09): This is a very good question. Members will recall the dilemmas post the 2018 election in relation to the location of electorate offices. In a shameful, cold-blooded decision by the former Treasurer, the member for West Torrens, when he received advice 12 months prior to the election that there were a number of members who were likely not to have electorate offices within their electorate and that work should be commenced prior to the election and funding allocations made to ensure that that would occur—as I said, the former Treasurer, in a cold-blooded fashion, disadvantaged members like the member for Wright, who then spent many, many months as a homeless person almost, searching desperately for an electorate office that the former Treasurer had denied him.

I am pleased to be able to assure the house and assure the member that I have already spoken to Electorate Services, the section within Treasury that looks at this particular area, and indicated that, as we lead in to next year's budget in June, the preparatory work be done in terms of which members will need offices to be relocated or moved to new locations within their electorate, if any, and what funding allocation might be required to ensure that would occur. Once that funding allocation is made in the June budget, there will be at least nine months—and the work can actually commence before then, I am sure, in terms of actually trying to look at potential locations—to ensure that, whoever is elected in 2022, each electorate hopefully will be in a position to be able to have an electorate office located within their area.

I do hasten to say that after a large number of members were left homeless, virtually, after the 2018 election there are still two members who are relatively comfortable in their current domiciles, albeit they are just outside their current electorate boundaries, and that is the member for Lee and the member for Black, whose offices are currently still outside the electorate and they, together with Electorate Services, have been unable to come to a landing on suitable accommodation within their current electorate. I can assure the member and the house that Electorate Services are already on notice that they need to be prepared for what will ensue post the March 2022 election.