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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-10-18 Daily Xml
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GOVERNMENT SERVICES

Ms BREUER (Giles) (14:34): Will the Minister for Transport advise whether government services in South Australia can be equated with those in Bangladesh?

Members interjecting:

The Hon. P.F. CONLON (Elder—Minister for Transport, Minister for Infrastructure, Minister for Energy) (14:35): There we go, there's another Liberal claiming that we are like Bangladesh.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Mr Speaker, I am not surprised that the Liberals do not want anyone to be heard on this subject. I have got to say that I was watching television the other might and Mr Hamilton-Smith—sorry, the alternate premier—came on and said this, and frankly it was one of the most astounding things I have ever heard. He said, 'This is the sort of thing you expect in Bangladesh. Mike Rann and Karlene Maywald are single-handedly turning Camelot on the Torrens into Bangladesh.'

Members interjecting:

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Then they say, 'That's right.' They are all saying that, sir, 'That's right.' They're joking about it. Let me say this, in all sincerity as a migrant to this country: every morning I wake up I am grateful to live in the greatest place on earth, in the greatest city on earth. Let me give you the comparison that he draws between this place and Bangladesh, where people live in abject poverty. In Australia the average per capita expenditure on health is $3,123; in Bangladesh it is $64. The probability of dying under five years of age per thousand live births is six in South Australia; in Bangladesh it is 73. The healthy life expectancy at birth for a male in Bangladesh is 55; in Australia it is 71. To take lightly such tremendous good fortune I think is a disgrace. The gross national income in Australia per capita is $30,610; it is $2,090 in Bangladesh. Some 56 per cent of the population of Bangladesh are literate; 47.5 per cent live below the poverty line, and 25.1 per cent live below the extreme poverty line.

Mr Hamilton-Smith interjecting:

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: You should quit while you are a mile behind, can I tell the alternate premier. From the encyclopaedia it says this—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: This is a joke for him, and that's what I find most offensive. It says:

The urban areas, especially the capital Dhaka, and major industrial cities such as Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi, enjoy a better quality of living, with electricity, gas and clean water supplies. Still, even in the major cities, a significant proportion of Bangladeshis live in squalor in dwellings that fall apart during the monsoon season and have no regular electricity. These Bangladeshis have limited access to health care and to clean drinking water. The rural population, meanwhile, often lives in traditional houses in villages with no facilities associated with even the most modest standards of living.

To compare South Australia to Bangladesh is to do two things. It is to be utterly scornful of the tremendous good fortune we have to live here, and it is utterly disrespectful to the abject poverty those people live in. Let me say this by way of an invitation to the alternate premier: if he reckons it is better in Bangladesh, and if they will take him, please go there.

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