Park-and-Ride Parafield Airport

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (21:20): I move:

That this council condemns the decision taken by the former Labor transport minister, the member for Lee, Mr Mullighan MP, which led to $4.5 million of taxpayer funding being wasted because he approved a contract for land for a park-and-ride at Parafield Airport but then realised he did not need to because the government already owned land for a park-and-ride only 60 metres away.

Members will be delighted to know that this speech is mercifully brief compared to the last two contributions I have made.

An honourable member: Hear, hear!

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I say hear, hear too. This scandal is a story that needs to be told in full. I referred to this briefly in question time before. It is important because, as I indicated in an earlier debate, the member for Lee would like to be considered as the state treasurer in the future and it is a critical question about the competent judgement and common sense of people who do want to take on the important position of state treasurer. It is my view that sadly this scandal, and others that I outlined earlier in relation to Gillman and expenses, shows that the member for Lee is not fit to be considered as a future treasurer.

The details of this particular bungle are as follows: in 2014 the then minister, the member for Lee, approved a deal for a 33-year lease over land, approximately 3.1 hectares at Parafield Airport, for a major park-and-ride facility. Soon after, the member for Lee realised he did not need to lease the land, as the government already owned land immediately adjacent on which it proceeds to provide a car park. By immediately adjacent, I mean 60 metres away from where the member for Lee had entered into a 33-year lease.

The Crown Law advice at that particular time advised the member for Lee and the then government that his decision meant he was in breach of contract and there was a significant financial exposure to the state. My sad responsibility was, and it ground my gears, to use a colloquial expression, that last year I was required to authorise and approve a payment of $4.5 million of taxpayers' money to Parafield Airport Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Adelaide Airport Limited, to settle this particular dispute.

Trust me, if there was any way of actually not having to cough up $4.5 million of taxpayers' funding to sort out a mess of the making of the member for Lee, I would have done so. But the clear legal advice from the Crown that was provided to the current minister and also to me, ultimately, as the Treasurer in relation to this particular issue, was that there was really no option in relation to the issue.

I seek leave to table a map that shows the location of the member for Lee's 33-year lease at Parafield park-and-ride and the 60-metre gap to the land that he already owned, which was ultimately used.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: That map demonstrates, as I said, the 60-metre gap between the original lease and ultimately where the park-and-ride was able to be constructed. There was a huge dispute at the time, going over the years—this is going from the period 2014-15—as to what the extent of the liability might be. The department at the time estimated the total liability of the works on the land might have been significantly higher than the $4.5 million figure.

There was a draft settlement deed provided late 2017, just prior to the state election. I say it was provided by AAL, but that was not supported by the Crown Solicitor's Office. There were various negotiations that went on during that particular time in terms of trying to seek an agreement. It clearly went on through the latter part of the former government's time, right through until just before March 2018. Then, in 2020 and 2021, it was all brought to a head for the new government.

Advice we received in October 2020 from a senior departmental officer was as follows, 'This merely reinforces the poor deal the state signed up for originally. It seems to me that our only viable alternative to agreeing this figure is a costly legal battle, which we will definitely not win, are very unlikely to emerge from without incurring significant legal and other costs.' The advice, as I said, was overwhelming in relation to the potential for being able to fight for the case.

There was advice going back to the former government in relation to the potential for significant damages because of the breach of contract. I will not go through all the details of the advice the former government received, which was only then repeated to the new government after the 2018 election. There was further advice we received which said that obligations that had been entered into by the previous government (that is obviously the member for Lee again) left the department in a relatively weak negotiating position. Some of the concessions that were discussed by the member for Lee and his department at that time left the new government in a relatively weak negotiating position.

Whilst there was an offer from the former government under the responsibility of the member for Lee to AAL in February 2018, which was just before the election, that was not concluded. Whilst I had to grit my teeth last year, I eventually accepted the legal advice that there was no alternative other than to hand over $4.5 million of hard-earned taxpayers' money to settle this particular scandal and contractual dispute.

I conclude by saying that this is one further example of the lack of competence, the financial mismanagement and the negligence of the member for Lee in relation to a deal which ultimately cost the taxpayers $4.5 million. It is a cautionary tale, given all the other issues I raised in an earlier speech in relation to the scandals in relation to Gillman and ministerial expense accounts—a cautionary note to the people, should anyone contemplate wanting to see the member for Lee holding a responsible position such as a future treasurer of the state of South Australia.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (21:28): I have quite a lot to say on this; I am going to cut it down quite a lot because I know the Hon. Rob Lucas has been talking for probably about 2½ hours on a few different motions tonight, deliberately designed to make sure that crossbenchers in particular do not get a chance to have their motions heard. It is a tactic that he obviously thinks is very clever and very funny so that they do not get their motions heard. I have to say that nothing sums up the Hon. Rob Lucas and his time in parliament better than the last three motions: smear from an absolute grub and coward.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. T.A. Franks): I remind the member that he is speaking through the Chair, so that is what he has just described the Chair as, and I invite him to perhaps—

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: The Hon. Rob Lucas is an absolute coward, Madam Acting President. I can remember a few years ago there was a debate when the Hon. Rob Lucas was in opposition about planning law reform, and very late at night the Hon. Rob Lucas, under parliamentary privilege, in his usual cowardly way, talked about the member for Light, Tony Piccolo's mum. It was one of the most disgusting things I have ever heard.

We see it from Rob Lucas all the time: he has a secret report, he has an anonymous tip-off and then smears people. Quite frankly, good riddance to the Hon. Rob Lucas from parliament. I cannot think of anyone who misuses parliamentary privilege more than he does and, quite frankly, he will not be missed by many people, I do not think. I will challenge the Hon. Rob Lucas, when he finishes, on those rare occasions where he can find someone who will want to catch up with him, just ask them to reflect on his political career here. Ask them honestly what they thought of his time in this place. I think history will treat the Hon. Rob Lucas very poorly.

The Hon. Rob Lucas has a motion here about a deal that was reached by the Marshall Liberal government, but he has decided this is good fodder for an attempted political smear, as he has done with the last few motions. I was going to spend 10 minutes talking about a hit parade of the Hon. Rob Lucas's best financial decisions.

We have had the land tax, the electric vehicle tax, the privatisation of ETSA and what that has done to power prices, the sale of the TAB for just one year's profit, the paying of $2 million not to have a car race, and a government travel contract to the company owned by the federal treasurer of the federal Liberal Party. He has privatised Scoop Global just quietly in the last few weeks to someone who is a former staffer to a Liberal minister.

The litany of financial mismanagement and misdeeds of the Hon. Rob Lucas goes on and on. I am not going to go through and spend any more time, quite frankly, giving credence to the base political smear that the Hon. Rob Lucas has engaged in. If other members of his party want to follow in his footsteps in the way they conduct themselves, that is something they would want to have a look at and think how they might relate to other members of this chamber going forward, if they think it is really clever, really funny and a great political tactic to follow in his footsteps.

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (21:31): Might I say, on behalf of the Greens, this is a deeply unedifying and disappointing display that we are seeing here. I think, actually, it is the most ugly side of politics: a cynical, mudslinging exercise, where you have the two major political parties throwing mud at each other with provocative and offensive motions at a time when our state is in the middle of a huge crisis.

If you go out into the community and talk to people about the issue that is on their mind at the moment, I think most people would say they are concerned about COVID and they are concerned about myriad other issues. They want the parliament to be talking about those things, not engaging in some unedifying mudslinging contest, some sort of partisan brinkmanship, where you have the two major parties throwing mud at each other, trying to drag each other down, trying to point the finger over who wasted money when and who has run a poorer government when.

I mean, surely, we are better than this. We are all here because we have things on the agenda that we want to talk about that are of interest to the people of South Australia, important issues that they care about, issues relating to the environment, issues relating to social justice, myriad other things.

It is pretty galling hearing the Hon. Rob Lucas talk about the urgency of the issues that he has put forward, when the Liberal Party have done everything possible to try to prevent us coming back to this place, have tried to prevent this parliament coming back so that we could actually talk about the issues the people of South Australia care about.

I urge members of this chamber to move away from this farce. The Greens do not want to be part of this mudslinging. We want to focus during the remainder of the night on the issues that people care about and the Notice Paper is full of them. Yes, the matter the Hon. Rob Lucas has identified is important. It relates to a waste of public money, but there have been lots of examples of the Liberals wasting public money in relation to transport.

Look at the blowouts and mismanagement associated with the electrification of the Gawler line, for instance. We can all play this game. We can be here all night as we watch the two parties going back and forth throwing mud at each other. But I think we are better than that. We should be better than that, and I think we have a duty to the people of South Australia to actually use tonight, use tomorrow to talk about the issues that they care about. Really, this is becoming an embarrassing farce, so let's move on.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (21:34): Even though I am not here to speak, I certainly support the words of the Hon. Robert Simms about the tawdry exchanges that have been going on here tonight. In fact, some of them were actually sending me to sleep because I was waiting for them to get to the nitty-gritty and get to the bottom of it all.

Quite clearly, we know that there are issues that happen in parliamentary offices. They happen not just in Labor Party offices; I am sure they happen in the Liberal Party offices. We have seen scenes in this place, certainly in the last three years that I have been here, that I guess you would consider have been unacceptable conduct in places. It is up to the parliament to manage that. The Treasurer has gone through a litany of—

The Hon. R.I. Lucas interjecting:

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: Yes.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. T.A. Franks): The honourable member, I believe, does know what he is doing and will continue.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: Yes, I do. Thank you very much.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. T.A. Franks): I think the honourable member was just getting started.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: I was just getting into the nitty-gritty, Madam Acting President, just getting to the bottom of it all. In relation to the decision by the former minister, the Hon. Stephen Mullighan, factually he probably did make that decision. He probably did, but I would not agree with the Treasurer that the Hon. Stephen Mullighan would not make a competent Treasurer. In fact, I find him quite a talented MP on the other side of the fence.

There are mistakes that are made, but I would dare say that probably this one would not so much have been the call by the minister at the time. It was probably a judgement he got from one of the bureaucrats he put his trust in in that department, the now Department for Infrastructure and Transport. I have had some experience with them in Budget and Finance over the last couple of years and their conduct in relation to a number of matters where they have not been forthcoming and have been dodging and weaving with a lot of things, not the least their failure to ensure compliance by rideshare in the taxi industry, which they virtually destroyed and continue to destroy.

Even though the taxi industry continually asks this department, 'What are you doing about ensuring that there is compliance?' they just get fobbed off. There are rideshare drivers and others who are constantly breaking rules and regulations, breaking the law, and do not get pinged. Why is that? I spoke about it today. It is wilful blindness, and this department does do that. I am sure there are other issues with that department.

It may have not been a wise call by Mr Mullighan, but let me tell you, I reckon the dumbest decision that I have seen the Marshall government make in the last—

The Hon. R.A. Simms: That's a tough call.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: Well, they have not topped it yet, and we still have up until the election. The dumbest call had to be axing the V8s, a very popular event in this state. They axed a very popular event and got many people offside with that call and then tried to justify what they did, and I would like to know how much they had to pay out to the operators of the V8 because of the cancelled contract. That would probably run into the millions as well. Then they started selling off the infrastructure. Some of it went out for peanuts—again, taxpayers' dollars. They spent a lot of money—

The Hon. K.J. Maher: They gave some away for free.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: So there you go—and there is probably more. I am not going to go into it more. I just want to say that what the Hon. Rob Simms was saying is, yes, there tends to be a lot of cynicism and mudslinging going on here. I would hope that, going into the election campaign, both parties make a firm commitment to the voters of South Australia that they intend to lift the standard of representation in the parliament by all their members, that conduct will in fact improve markedly and that we will try to restore somehow the credibility of members of parliament, not just in this state but, of course, right around the country.

This sort of stuff that we are hearing tonight just lends to that cynicism and dislike of politicians, and all you are doing really is denigrating the work that people do in this place and also what MPs are supposed to be doing in here. When you go into the election campaign, I would say to both the Premier and the opposition leader that one of their firm policies should be to work hard to try to restore the confidence in their elected members across the board. I think that is an important thing. That is all I wanted to say.

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY (21:41): Can I say that in my 39 years' experience in the public sector, I saw some terrible recommendations being served up to ministers. The Westminster system is all about 'the buck stops with the minister'. Unfortunately, in this case, the Hon. Mr Mullighan was the minister who accepted recommendations from the public sector and he has to wear it, so I will be supporting this motion.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (21:42): I thank honourable members for their contribution.

The council divided on the motion:

Ayes 8

Noes 8

Majority 0

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: There being eight ayes and eight noes, it comes down to my casting vote. I vote in the affirmative.

Motion thus carried.