Parliamentary Committees

Select Committee on the Privatisation of Public Services in South Australia

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (16:01): I move:

That the report of the select committee be noted.

Very briefly, the privatisation committee was established back in May and handed down its report earlier this week. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of the committee for their efforts: the Hon. John Darley, the Hon. Heidi Girolamo, the Hon. Frank Pangallo and the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos. I also acknowledge the contribution of the former member, the Hon. David Ridgway, who departed the committee in June. I acknowledge the work of Leslie Guy in the Secretariat and I want to thank her for all of her efforts in ensuring that the committee ran so smoothly and that we were able to provide a timely report to this chamber.

In terms of a brief summary, we received 22 submissions and there were six public hearings. The committee heard a range of evidence. In particular, it is clear that privatisation has had adverse impacts on services in South Australia and also on the experience of many staff working in public services that have been privatised.

The report made a range of recommendations for the future that would improve the accountability of private corporations that run public services and safeguard them against the sell-offs of our public services without due consideration of the impact. In terms of some of the key recommendations from the majority report, these include:

the establishment of an independent regulatory body to provide oversight over services that have been privatised;

the establishment of a standing parliamentary committee to review existing privatisations and make recommendations on any proposed privatisations prior to government approval;

subsidiaries of multinationals awarded contracts for delivering public services to publicly report on their domestic and international revenues and tax payments;

protections of employment standards for those working in government services that are privatised; and

a moratorium on further privatisations on government services until all recommendations are actioned.

That is just a snapshot of the recommendations. There were 13 recommendations in total, and I certainly think that if these were implemented they would greatly improve the transparency around privatisations in our state. With that, I conclude my remarks.

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO (16:04): Today, I rise to speak about the Select Committee on the Privatisation of Public Services in South Australia. Firstly, I would like to begin by thanking the witnesses who appeared before the committee and provided their evidence. I would also like to thank the committee's Chairperson, the Hon. Robert Simms MLC, and the other honourable members of the committee and our secretary, Ms Leslie Guy.

I would like to advise the council that the South Australian government and I wholeheartedly support accountability, transparency and honesty throughout the South Australian Public Service, and the area of privatisation is no exception. However, the South Australian government does not support unnecessary layers of bureaucracy, administration and red tape, which costs taxpayers with little return.

For many years in South Australia, various Labor and Liberal governments made decisions to privatise certain services under the recommendation that it was both publicly supported and in the best interest to do so. I would like to state that I do not support the establishment of the independent regulator or the establishment of yet another parliamentary standing committee focused on privatisation. Furthermore, I do not support any moratoriums on current and future privatisations or the reverse of current privatisations, given that the decisions that were made were done so in the public's best interest.

For the purpose of the committee, privatisation also includes the use of external providers and public-private partnerships. These arrangements often reduce fiscal burden, create growth in competition, reduce political interference and provide optimal utilisation of resources. This often means getting work done that is of better quality and at a faster pace. There are often benefits seen with government outsourcing services, which allow for more cost-effective, specialised and tailored service delivery.

It should also be noted that it was under the former Labor government that South Australia saw large examples of privatisation, with the privatisation of ForestrySA, SA Lotteries and the Motor Accident Commission, to name just a few. It is also worth noting that the former Labor government also investigated the possible privatisation of HomeStart Finance, EzyPlates and Medvet, along with a hefty payment of $100,000 to KPMG for a secret report into privatising SA Water.

This makes it difficult for the committee to continue its focus on the government of the day when many of the changes were seen under the former Labor government. A standing committee, too, only lengthens the red tape and unnecessarily extends the process. It is for these reasons I do not support the recommendations of the majority.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.