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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
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APPROPRIATION BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 17 June 2008. Page 3583.)

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (12:01): I thank members on both sides of the house for coming to hear the budget reply—and there they all go: the member for Mawson, the member for Taylor—

The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition knows that that is highly discourteous.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Mr Speaker, I am speaking to the budget and I had hoped that the government would pay me the courtesy of listening, as we did when the budget was tabled.

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: The Premier is absent, the Treasurer is not—well, here he is; good. I thank the Deputy Premier for entering the chamber.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Minister for Transport will take his seat.

The Hon. J.M. Rankine interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, the Minister for Consumer Affairs!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: It took seven budgets for the Rann government to decide that it needed to take some action—not action now, as the Premier claims: it is action some time in the future, in a time frame far, far away. After two terms and eight years, they want the taxpayers to trust them to take action. By its own words, the government shows that it cannot be trusted. In two separate acts, one under the cover of political darkness and the other in the bright lights of political embarrassment, the government has shown its true colours.

In the key areas of health and water security the Rann government's duplicity has been exposed. And who should take responsibility for this breach of public trust? Is it the health minister, who slipped in his cuts to country health when he thought no-one was looking? He is not here. Is it the Treasurer, whose own words on Stateline last Friday night exposed the Mount Bold reservoir promise as a con?

The one person who should take responsibility for the health cuts, the Mount Bold backflip and the crisis of confidence in education is the man who fronts the taxpayer-funded good news advertisements on radio and television. He is the flimflam man: the man who claims other people's achievements as his own results. The man who told the parliament this:

When we see a politician in a taxpayer funded ad, it's just a cheap way of doing party ads.

The opposition has exposed this Premier for what he really is: he is a Premier who heralded a tramline and then shut a hospital. He is a Premier who unveiled a reservoir expansion and then slipped it back into the bottom drawer. He is a Premier who promised a joint venture with BHP to produce water—do you remember the headline—water by the river load to the Eyre Peninsula, and then sent his Treasurer out to back away from the deal.

He is the Premier who promised an extra 400 police by 2010, but admits in this budget he cannot deliver. He is the Premier who promises a transport revolution but delivers little more than a troubled tram extension. He is the Premier who claims to have started a mining boom—he started a mining boom: it is all him—but, in reality, he just changed the name of the Liberal's mineral exploration incentive scheme.

In the past week, high profile economic analysts, Phil Ruthven and Saul Eslake, have cast doubt on Mr Rann's description of the state economy and his much promised boom. Mr Ruthven told ABC talkback radio of a boom that was premature and overstated. Mr Eslake told the Defence Teaming Centre in Adelaide just last week that our state is hampered by high taxes, lower than average growth, below average export orientation and below average productivity and educational attainment.

These independent assessments show that our 'Good News' Premier is the modern day equivalent of the emperor parading through the streets convincing all that he is a grand and great ruler. But, as a ruler, this Premier does not measure up. Our Premier has no clothes. He is the Premier who promises a pot of gold but delivers human misery along the length and breadth of the River Murray.

One of the greatest deceptions in our political history was revealed just 24 hours after the budget was delivered—and I am saddened that the Treasurer and Deputy Premier has fled the house. I hope he comes pack, if he is listening, because it has to do with his comments—

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: The minister is interjecting from the floor.

The SPEAKER: Indeed, the minister should not do that, but it is highly discourteous for the Leader of the Opposition to refer to whether or not members are in the chamber.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: In last year's budget statement one of the headline items was the doubling of the Mount Bold reservoir—remember the headline—yet in this year's budget there was no mention of Mount Bold. Had it suddenly fallen off the agenda? That was put to the Treasurer by me in the ABC studios of Stateline on Friday afternoon. He made this response:

It's not gone. The Mount Bold Reservoir, as we explained in last year's budget and at the announcement, will follow the completion of the desalination plant.

He repeated the claim a minute later when he said:

It will follow the completion of the desalination plant, exactly what we said a year ago.

A year ago, the government had no plans for a metropolitan desalination plant—none. The desal backflip with pike would not come for another three months. At no stage in any statements by the Premier, the water minister, or the Treasurer has the Mount Bold expansion ever been conditionally linked to a desalination plant.

It was on 11 September last year (three months after the budget) that the Premier finally agreed with the state Liberal's policy and announced a desalination plant was likely for Adelaide. In his expansive statement on the project he said he expected this:

Fresh water would connect directly into our main water supply.

At no stage did he conditionally link the Mount Bold project to the desalination plant. Has the Treasurer reinvented his memory since last year's budget? What a goof-up on Stateline! Or was the commitment to double the size of Mount Bold never genuine from the outset? Either way, the Premier, through his Treasurer, has been caught red-handed in his attempt to deceive the public. Trying to explain away the absence of the Mount Bold project from this budget by rewriting last year's budget says everything about this government's reliability. If you cannot believe its last budget, can you believe this year's budget? Will it be in next year's budget?

You cannot trust the Treasurer; you cannot trust the Premier. There is no action now for the future, just an eye on the next election date. It is all about buying your way into another term and hoping that the South Australian people will be suckered in. Let there be no doubt that come the next election there will be no desalination water available for use in Adelaide, no expansion of the Mount Bold reservoir, no tramline to Port Adelaide, no AAMI Stadium or Entertainment Centre upgrades, no new hospital. Instead, there will be nothing more than promises cast in some cases so far out into the future that the government hopes no-one will remember them. A year ago it hoped we would forget Mount Bold, but we have not. We will remember.

I offer a challenge to the government today. Last year it commissioned a review of the Mount Bold reservoir expansion conducted by GHD Ltd in Sydney. The review was completed in December. Table the review in full. By his own words, the Treasurer has exposed the government's water security strategy as a fraud. A Liberal government would do better.

Let's talk about water. The state Liberals are already on the record with a 19-point plan to secure our water supply, yet we have nothing from the government. This is the number one issue in South Australia, in case you have missed it, which apparently from the budget it is clear you have. A Liberal government would take the step, so earnestly resisted by the water minister, to invest $350 million to $400 million in stormwater infrastructure for capture and reuse. The minister claims it is a local government responsibility. What a cop-out! Secondly—

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: We'll get to you in a minute, just be patient. We're coming. The minister claims it is a local government responsibility. What a cop-out! Secondly, there should be an immediate increase in the planned capacity of the Glenelg to Adelaide pipeline, presently earmarked for wastewater recycling alone. Increasing the size of this pipe would allow for a range of uses along the pipe route, including stormwater, not just at its destination. It is time to get a greater sense of urgency about further investment on wastewater infrastructure.

The timetable for Adelaide's desalination plant reflects the Labor government's desperate hope that it might rain and save it from having to make decisions on that matter. This government is praying it will rain. It uses every excuse it can to delay full commitment to desalination. Believe it or not, in 2008 this government still does not know if it can or will add to the BHP desalination plant; it still does not know if it can or will definitely build a desalination plant at Port Stanvac; and it still has not produced one single definite plan to increase water storages, and this is this government's seventh budget.

What is it definite about? It will increase water rates and rake in billions. Show me the money, it says to South Australians—their money. It is time the Rann government showed us the water. This government claims it needs to raise water prices to pay for any new water infrastructure, yet it cannot explain facts in this budget that show it has ripped $2 billion in dividends from SA Water over seven budgets which have not been used to build water infrastructure. It has gone into general revenue—$2 billion of tax; one-third of everyone's water bill.

On the more serious note of the human cost of this drought, the opposition is amazed and concerned that this budget makes no provision for further emergency funding from the state government to assist Riverland and Lower Lakes food producers and their families through the coming crisis—and let me say that it could get a lot worse before it gets better for these people. The government needs to explain why it continues to ignore what is happening in this key region of South Australia.

There is also no long-term River Murray/Lower Lakes infrastructure program of work to address concerns about leakage; pipelines in the Lower Lakes precincts; and river works, including salt interception, ferry crossing works and other works—nothing. On water, this budget fails; it fails the people of the Far North, the West Coast, the Riverland and the Lower Lakes. It fails to act on today's crisis and tomorrow's challenges.

The next pressing issue in South Australia is health. Do we need any proof of it after thousands of teachers and hundreds, if not thousands, of health workers have protested, have gone on strike, and have raised concerns? The words of one of the resigning QEH specialists yesterday says it all, when they said, 'With all the problems in the public health system, it is just impossible to work there any more.'

The government's focus for more than a year has been on building an iconic hospital we do not need in a location better suited for other uses. The Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital plan has already started to suck health dollars and other services into its vortex. Country health is being gutted to pay for this new hospital. If you want a clear symbol of where this plan is taking our health system, visit the demountable in the car park at the Lyell McEwen Hospital; that is for the pregnant women of the north and the north-east. Go and have a look: it is an insult. Make no mistake: the Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital is an unnecessary, expensive, private construction and leasing deal that will suck money out of the annual health budget—more than has ever been imagined—until 2046. It is the single biggest debt commitment of any government project in our history, and it must be tested at an election. Have the guts to put it to the people of South Australia. If it is such a good idea, let us see how it stands up.

The half a billion dollars that can be saved as a result of a rebuild of the Royal Adelaide Hospital could be reinvested into doctors' and nurses' wages, particularly in country health. Why would you move a central teaching hospital away from the university research and medical training facilities? It is a question that has confused the doctors and the nurses who work, teach and train there. The 'Marj' is the wrong idea in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is a city-centric idea that forgets where the patients are and where the patients' families are.

A Liberal government would not close the listed country hospitals set out in the Country Health Plan, salted out in the depths of the afternoon on budget day. Local communities need to approve any closure of a country hospital. Clearly, they have not been consulted. This government's priority is to build yet another tram extension. Our priority is health services and ensuring that South Australian families have a doctor and a nurse available when and where they need them. The Premier should be judged by his own words. In his 2002 election campaign speech, he promised that he was going to end 'patients on trolleys in [hospital] corridors' because such occurrences, he said, amounted to 'a genuine health crisis'. It got worse under Mr Rann, much worse.

In the words of emergency department doctor Robert Dunn, half of emergency department patients are today at risk of adverse outcomes because of overcrowding and poor resources. The same doctor told Channel 10 on Monday this week that it was an everyday occurrence for people to be in corridors and on trolleys, including one case of a patient who remained there for five days. In the Premier's own words, 'This is a genuine health crisis.' And what is he doing about it? What has this budget done about it? Cuts, cuts and more cuts.

Let us talk about education, because Premier Rann tried to label himself as 'the education premier'. Ask the 5,000 teachers who were outside parliament yesterday what they think of the education premier. I heard a few of them. It was not very glowing, let me tell you. Even we had never seen such a big crowd of angry teachers, even when we were in government and the Labor Party had nothing else to do but to go out and whip up anger and angst amongst the unions.

Guess what? The unions are angry all on their own. They are out there organising themselves. They do not need us out there to tell them that this Premier is a phoney on education. He likes to hand out Premier's prizes and medals, but yesterday he was given a prize of his own as the Premier who stopped listening. This Premier is so busy promoting himself that he has forgotten to listen. He is like a radio on squawk: it is permanently transmitting, but it never receives.

We play a game on this side of the house where we nominate how many times the Premier will name-drop during question time. He loves to surround himself with big names. He reminds me of an episode of Frontline on the ABC several years ago—I used to love the show—called 'Mike get the big names'. It is a comic saga of Mike Moore, the hapless presenter of a current affairs show, who thinks he gets all the big names on his show. Blissfully unaware that he is being used by the big names to promote their own wares, he bores his friends with tales of how he gets the big names.

You can see the Premier in his office with the Treasurer. They are not talking about Randall Ashbourne. Their conversation is going like this: 'Kev, I get the big names. I got Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He's a big name. I nearly got Arnie Schwarzenegger. He's a big name. I missed the plane. I would have got Ted Kennedy. He's a big name. I got Al Gore. He's a big name. Nothing to promote, he's just a nice guy, a big name. I get all the big names.'

You can see the Treasurer rolling his eyes as he counts the cost of keeping Mike Rann in the company of those big names. How much did he pay for Robert F. Kennedy Jr? I think it was $700,000. No wonder there is no money for health and education. Yes, Mike gets all the big names, and meanwhile he cannot be bothered speaking to the head of the education union, Correna Haythorpe, and, let me tell you, she is a big name and getting bigger. Compared to the whimpering ex-union officials in this parliament, she is a very big name. She is good, and she is coming after you guys. She is after your seats. The money spent on Mike's big names would be better invested in education.

The budget under invests in education. The budget heralds an education devolution. Forget about the revolution: it is an education devolution by Mr Rann with little in the way of initiatives or improved education outcomes. Strike action by teachers again demonstrates—and this is an important point: please listen—that salaries and wages are the key cost driver going forward and that industrial relations are being mismanaged. It is about salaries and wages. It is not about iconic buildings. It is not about bricks and mortar. The government's super schools' PPPs warrant scrutiny, and they are going to get them.

With full costs not fully disclosed in this budget and more debt lying there in the out years, this budget strangles small schools by depriving them of funding in a complex formula that appears aimed at sending more than 100 schools to the wall. Our education system needs a rethink. It needs direction and a plan for the future. We commit to undertaking that task.

Since he has just come back into the chamber, let me turn to one of my favourite subjects, and one of my favourite ministers, and mention public transport. For years, this government has been exposed for ignoring the increasing problems that have beset an ageing public transport network. 'Fix it, Pat' has become part of the local language and idiom, as Pat Conlon became a symbol of late buses, overcrowded trams and derailed trains that slipped, slid or just ground to a halt.

There was no greater snapshot of this government's failed grand achievements than yesterday's group of schoolteachers who were unable to get to the rally because they were stuck on a tram that had broken down on South Terrace. There it is: a symbol of all that has been achieved.

Last February, we outlined our master plan for Adelaide and sparked intense debate on the city's future needs. We identified the need to modernise the train fleet and dispense with the obsolete diesel train fleet. We resolved in principle to electrify the metropolitan train fleet. The government followed our lead, but it lacked the substance of our plan. In the budget—

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: You're making it up, mate.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: You have been making it up for seven years, as you have gone along, Pat—not very well.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: On a point of order—

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Oh, he's upset! This will be good.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: —I have listened and heard it three times. I don't mind the Leader of the Opposition referring to me—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Members of the opposition will be quiet.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: —but he needs to respect the electors in my electorate and refer to me by my electorate.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. It is a standing order that members be referred to by the title of their electorate or, in the case of ministers, they may be referred to by their ministerial title. The Leader of the Opposition.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: The Rann Labor government borrowed heavily from the American concept of new urbanism to roll out transport-oriented development along transport corridors, thereby reducing the reliance on the motor vehicle and increasing public transport patronage. In the budget, the government rolled out its so-called 'transport revolution' but, on closer examination, it looked more like an extension here and there and a raft of long-term commitments funded by future debt.

On close examination, it is revealed that we are talking about an 800 car park and ride facility two kilometres from the city at the Entertainment Centre. Why? The opposition is advised that, a few weeks earlier, the Treasurer had been there and discovered that people parked there free of charge. He wants them to pay.

Mr Williams: He'll fix that!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: He will put a stop to that. If you have been parking for free at the Entertainment Centre, the party is over. The Treasurer is on your case. By the way, of course we do not need trams to access a park and ride facility when buses already service the same route and do the same job. For some reason, we need trams to do that now.

The government's one-man passion to copy the US city of Portland has already seen us replace the Bee Line bus with a tram. We gained nothing: all we have achieved is to make access for the Glenelg-bound travellers more difficult by putting the Bee Line customers on the tram.

Here we go again! Yesterday in question time, our bumbling, fumbling transport minister could not even tell us whether the next extension would mean that we lose a lane of traffic on the already heavily used Port Road. He admitted that there was still work to be done on the design: 'We know that it is going to cost $162 million, but we just haven't done the design yet.' It is a bit like saying, 'I want to build a house, but I just haven't done the design yet, but I'll go to the bank and ask for a loan.'

Earlier in the day the minister was on ABC Radio and could not even explain to listeners how his trains and trams would be able to handle varying gauges, voltages and track conditions. In other words, this transport revolution was spun together in a paddock as a response to the state Liberals' master plan for Adelaide. Everybody knows this because the industry has told us. None of these things were on your agenda in February; they all just fell out there in a panicked response to the fact that you no longer have control of the agenda in this state.

To quote the words of one disgruntled Labor backbencher in the corridors yesterday, 'You're right; this has been pulled together out of nowhere.' They are already telling us what happened; they all know. Your own caucus knows what happened in cabinet. So here we go again! Get ready for more budget blow-outs and delay! I just cannot wait for the Minister for Transport to get his hands on this electrification and tram program. Could it double? Could it triple? Could it quadruple? We will open a book. We will get the shadow minister for racing to open a book. We will take bets on the blow-outs and see who is responsible for the most.

One thing will be clear: the South Australian public will be the losers. The minister for stuff-ups has more to turn his hand to. Heaven help us all! The focus of this government's transport announcement, by the way—

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: On a point of order, he needs to refer to me by my seat. I can sit through his personal invective—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The minister has made the point.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: The point of order is that I am quite happy with his personal invective; he has been doing it for years—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: —but he needs to do it according to the standing orders.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The minister does not need to debate the point of order. The standing orders require that a member be referred to by their seat. Convention allows that a member may be referred to by the office they hold, in the case of the minister, but respect is required at all times.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: On a point of order, a moment ago he threw the word 'moron' across the chamber, and that is okay. If it is all right for him—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! There is no debate in raising a point of order.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Minister for Transport will come to order!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: The focus of this government's transport announcement is to go west of the city where a transport link already exists. It is an area well serviced by rail and bus. Yet, since coming to office in 2002, the Rann government has announced land releases everywhere except west of Adelaide. Here is some free advice for the transport minister: stop, you're going the wrong way; turn around and go back! Let me explain. The budgeted cost of the tram service to the Entertainment Centre is $162 million. In this budget, $30 million is set aside to commence works in 2009-10. This includes 'acquiring new light rail vehicles and subsequent works for connection to the Outer Harbor line'. Little information is provided in the budget on costings for trams to be built outside the forward estimates. I wonder if they will ever happen—fantasy trams.

Using the government figures, the cost of the extension of the Entertainment Centre per kilometre is $64.8 million. Based on the figure of $64.8 million per kilometre, the tram extension proposed by this government from Clark Terrace on the Grange line to West Lakes will cost $149 million. The tram extension to the Outer Harbor line, which loops around St Vincent Street, is approximately 1.6 kilometres. On the basis of the government's own figures, it would cost $104 million. The tram extension from the Outer Harbor line to Semaphore is approximately 1.2 kilometres, so add another $78 million. The total of these four extensions is $498 million, and that is without the blow-ups and the blow-outs, and it is in today's dollars. This figure does not include land acquisitions (and wasn't that successful on Anzac Highway/South Road?), additional rolling stock and upgrades for new stations and associated works, or the usual budget slippage. There is a better way to spend this money.

The Liberals' plans are more sensible, structured plans which deal with the immediate needs and which propose a broader sense of city and suburbs. We propose a vision where we can maximise our connection with the city as a workplace and a place of recreation and entertainment. Our City West vision is alive and well. If I were premier for this budget deliberation, I would have resisted the $162 million tram to the Entertainment Centre and its concurrent $50 million refurbishment, sold the remaining land at the site and used the combined proceeds to relocate the Entertainment Centre to City West in place of the Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital. Are we tarting up something that ultimately will need to come in to the city? That is a vision which has genuine economic benefits for a key part of the city business district and which drives other prospects for that area.

The $100 million to be given to the SANFL for AAMI Stadium—which was not even dreamt of four months ago—falls well short of the significantly greater sum needed to genuinely reinvent West Lakes into a world-class international sporting precinct. We believe that the $100 million probably delays the inevitable move to a city-based stadium. The $149 million for the West Lakes tram extension, which the transport minister opposed on the record in the house, brings the government's commitment to $249 million, which would make a significant contribution to a new city stadium—$249 million—most of which the transport minister opposed on the record and said was a stupid idea. Now he is out there trying to sell it. Look at him!

We do not rule out the West Lakes site for our main stadium if a further investment is made, but the now mounting cost of that option reconfirms our view that the case for a city stadium is compelling and preferable. In the two examples above, the several hundred million dollars saved would be an irresistible carrot for private developers to propose joint ventures in the area. We dare to have a dream, not just a tarted up plan for the next election. It still astounds me that the Premier this year ruled out as madness a tram extension to the AAMI Stadium, and the transport minister ruled it out, not once but twice. The U-turn is so complete, it is dizzying. What will they do next?

We oppose these tram extensions in their entirety, including the Entertainment Centre extension and those to all other proposed destinations west.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: I will say it again for the transport minister. We oppose the tram extensions in their entirety, including the Entertainment Centre extension and those to all other proposed destinations west. You have got a very clear point of difference. These areas are already well serviced by bus and train.

We would enhance bus services west and recognise that the greater need is in the north, south and east. The needs are in Tea Tree Gully and Modbury, Norwood, Campbelltown, Paradise and Newtown. They are in Blackwood, Hawthorndene and Aberfoyle Park, and south to Brighton, Hallett Cove, Lonsdale and Noarlunga: in the places where most South Australians live and go to work. How many people from the north, south and east will use the tram extension to the Entertainment Centre?

Our main focus will be the resleepering and electrification of the north-south access from Gawler to Noarlunga; it is the foundation of our rail network. After that is complete then we will move on to electrification of the Outer Harbor line. We support an extension of the Noarlunga line to Seaford, with a subsequent feasibility study for a further extension to Aldinga, and we will have more to say about that later.

We propose a feasibility study on the extension of the Gawler line north to the Barossa and enhanced bus services to interconnect with the rail line across the network. We support resleepering of the Belair line, new rolling stock and upgraded infrastructure and bus connections, particularly in the hills. We support a feasibility study into the redirection of freight rail to the north of Adelaide, with a view to removing freight traffic from the Belair line. We propose additional bus services and Go Zones by purchasing extra buses and expanding the contracts to ensure improved services in the northern, north-eastern and southern suburbs.

I am making it very clear in my response today where our priorities lie. The government's priority lies out west: trams. Our priority will be bus services and other services in health and education for the forgotten south, the neglected north and the expanding east and Hills—not trams. We know where people live and we know where the needs are greatest. The government has lost sense of its priorities; it has stopped talking to people and it has stopped listening.

In addition, we propose further services on the O-Bahn and upgraded stations, along with new bus services to Mount Barker and the Hills' greater precincts. Our transport plan is joined at the hip with development of the City West area and understanding how the north-south spine of our urban spread is serviced. Our strategy is an integrated transport and development strategy.

Let me now move to the bitter pill that the Treasurer has difficulty swallowing: the debt pill. The budget papers reveal that the former Liberal government reduced Premier Rann and Treasurer Foley's State Bank debt from $11.6 billion in 1993 to $3.2 billion in 2001. Under Rann Labor's economic mismanagement, debt is forecast to blow out, yet again, to $5.2 billion by 2011-12. This is a debt blow-out of 58 per cent since Labor came to office; debt that should be used to finance public infrastructure and investment that will add to the productive capacity and competitiveness of South Australia's economy. However, there are grave concerns that Mr Rann's debt is not being used to fund such investment.

The latest national accounts publication from the ABS indicates that since 2004 the South Australian public sector, together with local government, has actually decreased its investment in capital works. In essence, not enough has been done for seven years, and now we have got a basket full of promises. It is unclear for what purpose state debt is being generated. The government has gone out and spent windfall revenues on shopping and it has nothing left to spend on infrastructure. Furthermore, rising debt exposes the state to further risks, higher interest rates and global economic uncertainty.

The budget debt brings the figure to $5.2 billion; almost double the 1993 Labor State Bank debt of $3.4 billion and almost half the total debt the current Premier bequeathed to the state when he was a senior figure in the Bannon and Arnold Labor governments which crippled this state with $11.6 billion of total debt. They know how to spin the story of debt: they have done it before; they are doing it again. We have been here before with Premier Rann—here we go again! The spike in South Australia's debt can only worsen as the international credit crisis raises the cost of capital for debt financing of South Australia's infrastructure projects. The former federal treasurer, Peter Costello, in a speech to the Menzies Research Centre on 1 June 2007, advised that the states were:

...not funding investments from their revenues. The states are borrowing, drawing down from savings rather than adding to them and, in this respect, adding to pressure on monetary policy.

He is right. The windfall from the GST revenue and property taxes has been used on recurrent expenditures—15 ministers, for a start, in a state that used to have 10. It has not been allocated to investment. That is why our state has insufficient operating surpluses to fund planned infrastructure spending and is now engaged in debt finance. On two of three used accounting measures this budget is in deficit.

If Mr Rann and Mr Foley had put aside the $3.7 billion of windfall tax and revenue gains this government has received since it has been in government—money it did not even expect to get—and put it into an infrastructure fund or its own future fund, there would be no need in this budget to borrow to build electrified rail; there would be no need to borrow to build a hospital; and there might not even be a need to borrow to build a desalination plant. Instead, it spent the $3.7 billion windfall and is now having to go to the bank to cover the gap.

That leads me to the question of tax. This budget shows that from 2001-02 to 2008-09 South Australian general government taxes will increase by at least 65 per cent. The government has received an unforecast tax windfall of $3.7 billion from its first two terms. The majority of this windfall is due to unexpectedly high GST and property tax collections. The Rann Labor government's claim about the amount of tax relief provided since coming to office is nothing but a furphy. First, they do not subtract new taxes, levies and increases in taxes since Labor came to office; moreover, $531 million of their claim is the tax relief package resulting from the GST negotiations with the then federal Liberal government.

This relief package was originally negotiated by the former state Liberal government. We negotiated that, but the government is trying to claim the credit for it. The relief package was originally negotiated by others but members opposite, like sucker fish, are trying to take the credit. Labor's approach to tax reform is like every other policy it has—piecemeal. A complete review of state taxation is needed and the review must be followed by action.

In summary, Labor's seventh budget creates more problems than it solves. It is a desperate attempt to create an illusion of infrastructure activity but it fails to target the state's most critical needs. Previous water security strategies have been abandoned, with no replacement. Previous major announcements on health have been deferred, with their true cost unknown. Regional South Australia has been abandoned. The world now ends at Gepps Cross and the Toll Gate. The claimed revolution in transport is partly catch-up and partly window-dressing. A genuine, integrated transport plan would be much different to this combination of short-term fixes and duplication of previous mistakes. This is a budget that is not only out of touch with the state's needs but it is also out of touch with the reality of our state's economic performance.

In the same 24 hours that the Treasurer bragged about business confidence, two independent sets of figures showed exactly the opposite. The ABS national accounts showed an 11.5 per cent drop in business investment over the 12 months to March 2008, and the Sensis Business Index showed a similar slump in business confidence. And just as the Treasurer was telling the budget lock-up that our population was growing at a fast pace, annual population figures showed an alarming drift of South Australians interstate.

South Australia continues to lag behind national growth in gross domestic product, population, employment, exports and business investment. Nothing in this budget acts to reverse the ongoing deterioration of water and transport infrastructure. The true cost of the headline act from last year's budget, the Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital, is now an unknown, a debt factor not recognised in this budget. It is still waiting there for others to pay long after these people are off in Italy or in retirement or working for BHP (if anyone is silly enough to employ them), while its hospital time line has slipped by at least a year.

In the meantime, money that should have been spent on services is destined to fund a system on the never-never. The so-called 'first home owner's bonus' will never see the bank accounts of home buyers, because it is outstripped by the nation's highest level of stamp duty. Remember the big announcement? We were going to giveth $4,000 and we were going to taketh away $16,000 in stamp duty for an average first-time buyer. This Treasurer giveth with the left hand and taketh away with the right!

Labor has had ample opportunity to implement a dynamic program of economic infrastructure and community development for the future of this state. There is nothing in this budget to excite the taxpayers in March 2010, making for a total period of eight years of missed opportunities. Bags of promises, bags of reviews, bags of summits; but nothing much that you can touch, nothing much that you can see, nothing much that you can feel, nothing much that you can use. In this period budget revenues will have risen by 67 per cent. Heavens, it is heading towards $15 billion! When it came into office this government was getting just over $8 billion, yet it is saying it is doing a good job because it is balancing the budget. Two gorillas in a VW could balance this budget, and so could Billy the goose—anyone could balance this budget, there is so much money in it, except the current Treasurer. He sweats at night trying to work out how he is going to pay the bills with this budget. My, my! We can do better.

In the same period that he has been trying to balance his cash-flooded budget, hospital waiting lists have grown, the emergency in our Riverland with the water crisis has been ignored, housing affordability has slumped to record lows, violent crime levels have risen—we have bikies in shoot-outs on the streets of Adelaide, the gang of 49—and the transport system has become the butt of national and even international jokes. The fact is that decisions made in this budget about the electrification of rail and tax cuts should have been made seven budgets ago when the Rann Labor government first came to office.

It has done nothing but tax and spend. Expenses are out of control, the Auditor-General has confirmed that, saved each year by windfall revenues. Mr Rann now wants to con South Australians into believing he deserves a third term. His basket of promises, late in his second term, seeks to redefine a 'do nothing' Labor government. Treasurer Foley's budget No. 7 has been too little, too late. There will be no budget No. 9. In March 2010, South Australians can deliver their verdict. Frankly, they deserve better.

Honourable members: Hear, hear!

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (12:55): In May 2006, Treasurer Foley announced to South Australia that the state budget was under such financial pressure as a result of public health costs in this state that he would have to delay the budget for 2006 until September. He would need to get some advice from some financial guru in New South Wales. That is how difficult was the situation facing South Australians.

We now know that in the same month the Premier and the Minister for Health were meeting to plan a $1.9 billion hospital build down the other end of North Terrace. That is the truth of it. The truth of it was that they delayed the budget because of their own financial mismanagement when, behind closed doors, they were developing a plan to build a $1.9 billion hospital, which we do not need, down the other end of the street.

Come the 2007 budget, what did we have? The day before the budget, we had the Premier wheeled out, 'Razzamatazz Rann', with the big announcement, the glossy brochures, the lovely models, the website pages, and all the plan for the big new hospital. Modbury Hospital, Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Repatriation General Hospital all got a belting but, of course this was overshadowed by this magnificent, new, suddenly affordable, massive hospital.

This year, in the 2008 budget, we actually see the other side of the ledger, and the other side of the ledger is that country health is gutted. Minister Hill, an hour and a half after this parliament got up last week, after the big announcement of the budget—infrastructure and all the grand plans of the government—slipped the Country Health Care Plan onto the website. What a despicable act of deceit not even to have the guts to produce that plan while the parliament was sitting.

It was nothing like the year before, with the metropolitan health plan, big new glossy hospital, and Razzamatazz Rann out there. What has happened this year? This year it is sneakily posted onto the website without a word. If it was such a damned good idea, why is the minister out there now, with paid advertising, trying to convince South Australia that this is an important initiative for the future wellbeing of people in the country and for the health of the whole plan for the management of public hospitals in this state? The reason is that it is not a good idea. This is a despicable act and a stab in the back for country people in this state.

What is the plan? The plan is to enhance four hospitals first, and they are conveniently in three locations where the only representation of the government is: in Whyalla, in Berri and in the South-East. They get the enhanced hospitals. They had to have a fourth, and they could not completely ignore Port Lincoln, because 35,000 people live there. That is their idea.

The second part of the equation is that 43 hospitals have to decrease their services down to GP Plus centres. What about the fourth level? This is absolutely hysterical. In Andamooka, Leigh Creek—the list goes on—they do not even get a GP Plus centre: they just get someone who flies in and flies out every now and again—an absolute GP minus. That is the plan. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.


[Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00]


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