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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-09-10 Daily Xml
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MITSUBISHI MOTORS

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (15:14): My question is to the Treasurer. Where is the $35 million refunded to the government by Mitsubishi located? In budget estimates on 1 July, the Minister for the Southern Suburbs told the house that he had established a Southern Suburbs Coordination Group to provide advice on the expenditure of $80 million, a package of funds which he said included the $35 million repaid to the state government by Mitsubishi. But the budget papers released on 5 June 2008 reveal that the money has been placed off the government's balance sheet with the Land Management Corporation. The Land Management Corporation is a statutory authority over which the Minister for the Southern Suburbs has no control.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Industry and Trade, Minister for Federal/State Relations) (15:15): So, you know the answer. You are sort of suggesting that I stuck it in my back pocket or something and I was about to hop on a plane to Brazil. I will get a detailed answer, but what I—

Ms Chapman: $35 million. Can't you find it?

The SPEAKER: Order!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Treasurer has the call.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: We have a number of funding issues with the Mitsubishi issue.

Mr Venning: $35 million.

The SPEAKER: Order, the member for Schubert!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: I can give either a verbal answer or a written one, but I am not going to fight with your interjections on this. We have a fund of money from the commonwealth with which we are establishing (and have established) an investment fund which we are overseeing with independent advice as to those parties that are eligible for grants based on innovation and jobs, primarily in the south of our state. The government money we received back from Mitsubishi, as the minister and I have said, will be used for infrastructure for the southern suburbs.

Mr Venning: Pork-barrelling.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Pork-barrelling now? So, we shouldn't put—

Mr Hamilton-Smith interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: We have a split in the opposition. The leader has just turned around to the whip and said, 'Shush', because the whip said, 'Pork-barrelling'. Absolutely, that money is going to the south. There is no way that money is not being used in the south, and the member for Schubert wants to use that money elsewhere and he wants to criticise this government for investing that money in infrastructure in the south. He should hang his head in shame.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, the deputy leader! The deputy leader will come to order.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: Let's see. It's hidden. We kept it a secret by writing it in the budget papers. You are a goose.

The SPEAKER: Order!

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Members on both sides, come to order.

Ms Chapman: He doesn't know.

The SPEAKER: Order, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: As I said, I will get from Treasury the appropriate accounting response. But what happens when you receive an amount of money into government and you expend it, that money hits the bottom line. At this stage—

Mr Hamilton-Smith interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Can you just listen? I am happy to get you a written response but, if you want to hear the answer, show me the courtesy and listen.

An honourable member interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Treasurer has the call.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: We are accused of hiding the money. We published in the budget—and I am being upfront now—that that money was transferred to the Land Management Corporation. Why was that money transferred to the Land Management Corporation? Because there is a significant—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Well, I understand the commercial realities of business. There is a reasonably significant chance that we will be a bidder for the Mitsubishi site, and the agency that will bid for that site and oversee its infrastructure development on that site will be the Land Management Corporation. We have put that money into the Land Management Corporation as the state's contribution to infrastructure development on that site, as we said we would do, and we put it in the right vehicle that manages land acquisition, land subdivision and infrastructure development for industrial premises.

That was my decision as Treasurer—an eminently sensible thing to do. So, how can we be criticised for putting the money into the vehicle for which it should be used? If, on the off chance, we are not a participant in the purchase of that site—and we may well not be; it may well be that Mitsubishi gets a superior offer to ours and a superior offer to anything else the government may do—that $35 million will be returned to the general government sector and will be applied to infrastructure in the south in a different format. So, hello; I thought that was quite prudent, sensible, transparent and quite aboveboard. Honestly, you have to do a lot better if this is the financial mismanagement that you have been briefing the media about all week, saying you have some humdinger of a mismanagement issue with the government. I put the money into an entity of government, fully within the government; it is not some private sector entity.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: It's not Catch Tim.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: It's not Catch Tim.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Yes; she knows that, because she is right across Catch Tim. It was an eminently sensible thing to do, and it was released on the budget in June. Hello! What more can I do? If it is not used to purchase and develop the property, it will be returned as an extra dividend to government. For goodness sake, understand financial management!

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