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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-09-23 Daily Xml
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Address in Reply

ADDRESS IN REPLY

Adjourned debate on motion for adoption (resumed on motion).

(Continued from page 145.)

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (16:01): Before the luncheon adjournment, I had been discussing the price of water here in South Australia. The state Rann Labor government said that it first raised concerns in 2002 about the imminent danger facing the Murray-Darling system. If that is true, what action has it undertaken to try to avert this so-called imminent danger facing South Australia? It has been four years, yet what has the government done? After all the rhetoric, what has the government done really? We are in a serious situation. The government has done very little apart from talk, suggest ideas and bring in consultants, but what has it done and what are the people out there waking up to now? The government has not done anything. It is a crisis. Some of the government members might have been going to church, praying for rain, but it has not, and we are in a serious situation.

The only action that I believe the state Rann Labor government has taken in regard to this water crisis is to impose severe water restrictions on South Australians as well as conducting numerous investigations into desalination. We now know that they are fast tracking the desal plant. After four years, why this sudden hyper-overdrive? Does it have anything to do with the concerns raised in the weekend's media? The heading was 'Rann Slides'. To say all along that these things take a while, only now to say that we will have this operating by late 2010, it is a huge turnaround. That is 18 months.

The desalination plant is at least two years away with this new forecast and, if this project goes to plan and does not experience the problems and cost blow-outs that this government is becoming known for (just look at the Port River bridges), it will be operating by late 2010, according to the government. The consideration of tenders will not close until March 2009. That means it is 18 months from go to whoa. Given this government's record, it is about as likely as I am of winning the marathon. This is a ridiculous scenario. To think that the South Australian public will buy that one, you have to be kidding.

South Australia needs to be harvesting as much stormwater as possible to supplement Adelaide's water supply and relieve the pressure on the ailing Murray system. However, given the Minister for Water Security's comments on stormwater harvesting on radio last week, it seems quite clear that this Rann Labor government has no intention of investing in this type of infrastructure to ensure this state's water security into the future.

Why not? The Israelis do not waste a drop. At the moment we have fresh water running into the sea. Right now, as we sit here, fresh water runs into the sea, yet we have severe water restrictions. It is now going on four years. The minister said, 'Local government has the responsibility in relation to stormwater.' Why? More buck-passing, more cost-shifting—what a cop-out! The people will not wear it. Indeed, they are not wearing that. Yes, read the weekend media and you will see the reasons why: three out of five people have concerns about government inaction. I find that comment by the minister to the effect of 'leave it to local government' absolutely disgraceful.

Yes, I welcome the pipeline from Glenelg to the Parklands, but that should have been done a long time ago. It is not a huge project. What about the stormwater? You talk about treating effluent but what about the stormwater that is running down to the sea? Yes, it is disgraceful. We should be investing in stormwater harvesting systems to capture as much of the free water falling from the skies as possible, and here we are with the Minister for Water Security passing the buck back to local councils. As the previous mayor of Gawler is here, I know that he would think that that is a joke because they do not have the resources or the expertise.

Again, the technology is there as is the practical example of the Israelis. That comment should be seen as a slap in the face to all South Australians. Where is the state Rann Labor government's sense of responsibility? Clearly, it does not have one. I was most surprised in the Governor's speech not to hear any mention of what measures the state Rann Labor government intends to take in the future to help out irrigators, farmers and riverside towns and communities to overcome the impact of the drought. They are going through a terrible situation. I had dinner with one of these people a couple of nights ago. After spending $200,000 on water last year, he had to decide this year to let it go and let them die. All that money is gone, it has been wasted, and he is a prominent member of the community.

It affects you when you see the long-term plantings just dying. It will affect the state for a long time. Just this week it was revealed that one-third of South Australian produce growers in the Riverland were preparing to walk off their land. Over the past two years they have been forced to burn more than 280,000 citrus trees. I note comments today in a ministerial speech prior to question time. I hope that comes about and I hope that solves the problem. All this comes on top of the announcement from Nippy's that they are sourcing fruit from interstate and orange pulp from overseas to stay commercially competitive because they cannot source the fruit they need here within South Australia. That is a disgrace.

No mention of a future plan or a policy to assist these growers was given. Also, the government said that the state is experiencing solid economic growth but, with continued inaction by this government regarding the crisis, the economy could soon be in big trouble. We are seeing it; it has started already. The Riverland food bowl has been a vital contributor to our economy for years. As well as supplying us with home-grown produce, if the trend of irrigators walking off their properties continues, the flow-on effect could be huge. Unemployment rates would go up and the cost of produce, fresh fruit and vegetables will also increase sharply, placing further financial strain on South Australians.

The region has done poorly ever since the current member won the seat in 1997. Consider what this region achieved when the Liberals were in power between '93 and '97 when they had a Liberal member: the new Berri Bridge—just the things I can think of off the back of my hand—a new primary school, a new hockey facility, a new hospital upgrade, a huge irrigation scheme to get rid of all the open channels.

Tourism and small businesses in the Riverland towns and communities are also suffering economic downturns as a result of the drought, yet no acknowledgement of their predicament has been forthcoming from the state government, either. I do not think the state Rann Labor government really understands the enormity of the crisis that we are in or the consequences that may occur as a result.

You cannot talk your way out of this one: we are in a crisis situation. You can talk all you like; rhetoric is rhetoric, but actions are actions. When it is hurting people, when it hurts the economy, you do really have to take the blame for that or take responsibility for it. Farmers from other areas across the state are faring not much better. Many were refused loans from the bank this year to put in a crop, and the ones who were able to secure finance to allow them to farm for another year are waiting with bated breath.

I know up at our farm at Crystal Brook—and we have been very fortunate over the years with a low debt—and other areas of the Mid North have not had anywhere near the rain that Adelaide has had in the past few weeks, and the outlook is not good, as I said in the house a couple of weeks ago, without substantial finishing rains, which must come in the next two to three weeks. Well, two weeks are gone and we had 4 to 5 millimetres; that is all we seem to be able to get.

This year, 70 per cent of South Australian crops were sown with borrowed money—a stat I heard on the radio this morning from the president of the Farmers Federation. That is a real worry. More and more, the actions and reactions of this government demonstrate that they have a city-centric focus and are prepared to let regional and rural communities go it alone—sink—in dealing with the impact of the drought.

This was further affirmed at the opening of parliament with regard to health care in country communities. The government re-announced the hospital upgrades planned for Whyalla, Berri and Ceduna. There was the announcement that two new mobile breast screening vans will travel to women in country and regional areas, which can only be a good thing, but what about allaying the fears that rural and regional people still have with regard to health care in their area. We have seen the debacle with how the recent country health scheme was put up.

I have never seen an uprising quite like that. The people rose up from their apathy and spoke with one voice, and the minister, after spending a fortune on government-paid advertising, withdrew the whole thing. I congratulate the country people on a fantastic victory, but do not drop your guard: they will try to sneak it in some other way.

Surely the government would have included somewhere in its plans for the future a strategy for country health care, but no, there is no mention of how they intend to maintain service delivery in the regions. Perhaps the government is waiting for opportunities to slyly release mark 2 of its Country Health Care Plan, as it did with the first plan on budget day, to try to avoid an outcry regarding its contents.

It was a massively expensive campaign that was always destined to fail. All those taxpayer-funded ads, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of them, would have been very handy to the hospitals. The result: absolutely nothing. That money would have been gratefully received by country hospitals. It would even have gone a reasonable way towards starting a new Barossa hospital, dare I say it. I, like my leader, was extremely disappointed that the address by the government contained no new initiative just more of the same re-announcements and rhetoric: new titles for old ideas.

Let us examine what the government had to say about transport in the Governor's speech. It re-announced that a tramline extension to the Entertainment Centre would be built, at a cost of $131 million. It re-announced plans to electrify all rail lines to the North and South, but this is a plan it does not intend to carry out until 2014. Well, I have to say, I do not think I will be here—I might just be here, but very close to not being here. Again, they re-announced their plans to deliver new electric trains, tram/trains and additional light vehicles—nothing new.

The Governor might as well have read out the Treasurer's speech from budget day. The speeches were nearly identical. I cannot understand, given the huge amounts of money being spent on things like tram extensions, why the government cannot find a few thousand dollars to upgrade the ferry at Mannum, or all of them for that matter.

One of the ferries at Mannum remains closed. The money that the government has wasted on taxpayer-funded ads would have paid for the Mannum ferry upgrade, and get it open again and stop all that heartbreak of the people there. The drought shows no sign of breaking, although we all wish it would, so it makes sense to upgrade this infrastructure now and, if we do return to normal rainfall, then we are prepared for when drought periods return, as they always will.

I understand that Swan Reach has been chosen as the first site for ferry modification to cope with falling water levels, with the extensions to cost approximately a quarter of a million dollars. The government should roll out a systematic plan to upgrade all the ferries along the river so that communities are guaranteed access across the Murray now and into the future. We do not understand what it is like to want to go somewhere but to find that the ferry is not operating, and it is an hour to drive around. How would you like living with that? We just talk about it, but if you live there you feel the pain of that.

A few weeks ago a school bus was stuck on the downstream ferry at Mannum for about 45 minutes. It was too heavy and due to the low river levels the bus could not drive off the ferry. In the meantime, no other vehicles were able to use the ferry to cross the river, either. This is a problem that is not expensive to fix yet the government refuses to do anything, and I cannot understand why.

I appreciate the gravity of the water security, as highlighted in His Excellency's speech, but I raise another matter almost as serious as water security: food security, a worldwide concern. Who is monitoring Australia's food stocks? In the old days, before wheat and barley marketing was deregulated, when we had statutory marketing boards, the boards had to guarantee to the government that carryover stocks would be maintained at least for a whole year's supply if we had a complete crop failure.

Today, international grain traders handle most of the grain, and they have no obligation at all to hold stocks, or even tell anybody what those stocks are. I am very concerned about that. We could be down to a minimum supply of grain and probably have about a third enough in stock for next year's consumption and, all of a sudden, we think we will go out and buy it. Well, where from: because, if you look around the world, there is not exactly a glut of grain.

I think we need to look at this. If you do not realise that food security is a problem you had better think about it, because it certainly is. The most important thing for people after water is food, and there is no guarantee that we have enough grain in our silos to feed our people. The staple diet of Australians is meat and grains, and there is no guarantee that we have enough of either of them. I believe we need to address that very seriously and very quickly; we need to put something in place and at least have someone monitoring grain and food stocks. At the moment there is no obligation to do that at all.

It is interesting to note that in the Governor's speech there was not a single mention of the government's shared services initiative, a program supposedly designed to save the government $130 million. I wonder why. I note there is a private member's motion of the member for Goyder, and I will certainly support that. I also note, with the problems associated with infrastructure spending, the bad condition our outback roads are in at the moment. We have had five rollovers in the last two months, one a very serious one. We have only two road crews working up there; we used to have five when we were in government—and we wonder why the roads are in such a condition. They are classed as atrocious, and when people start having accidents and lives are at risk it is time we did something about it. When we talk about rural infrastructure, country roads should be a very high priority because the roads up north are appalling.

The government is embarrassed that the shared services program has already blown out by $37 million, $7 million of which has been spent on office space that is not even being utilised. It is a disgrace, and I believe this shared services initiative should be scrapped—as was the Country Health Care Plan.

I note the Western Australian election results and congratulate the Liberals on achieving government—the first government in Australia to change back. No doubt it will be the first of many. I also congratulate and thank the National Party, which supports them in government. It is a pity that the National Party here does not support its natural political ally. Our National Party leader even went to Western Australia to try to persuade the National Party to support Labor continuing in government. Thank goodness they took no notice.

I support the National Party's push to have 25 per cent of royalties from mining spent in rural areas; it is a great idea. The minister went to the media and said that, as the member for Chaffey, she had asked the Premier over a month ago to consider doing the same thing here—that is, 25 per cent of all mining royalties to be spent on infrastructure in rural areas. Well, its record was poor, even terrible, beforehand; and what has happened in the last few weeks in either the budget or the Governor's speech? Nothing. So I think it is a bit rich for the member for Chaffey to backdate that comment after it was highlighted in Western Australia and say that she asked the Premier to do the same, because their record is appalling.

I spent four years here on the Public Works Committee and there were almost zero projects going through. There has been a bit of a mad rush in the last six months, but for four years there were no public works of any consequence coming before the Public Works Committee. It is a total disaster. In addition, a lot of the contractors who were doing public works have left the state, and now when we call them back to do these jobs it costs us more because they do not have a state presence. They come from the Eastern States; their head offices are out of the state. It is costing us more because of the folly of our ways. I am very concerned about that, that we have just ignored public works.

I think it is a bit rich for the member for Chaffey to come in here and say that she will support rural people. In four years she has not supported her Liberal colleagues once; she did not even support my private member's bill on drugs. There was not one, yet National Party president Mr Wilbur Klein got out there and hammered us about not supporting rural people. Well, I am one, and I have to say that if it were not for my grandfather—who years ago put the parties together—I could have been in this place as a National. However, years ago we chose to put them together under the Liberal and Country League. Remember the LCL? What a great success that was. The man up there on the wall (Playford) governed here for 27 years, and they were in government for 32 years. What a fantastic record. It worked.

I have a lot of respect for the National Party as being probably from the same base I am as a rural conservative person, but it is a bit rich to hear Mr Klein get out there and give us a bit of advice about what we should be doing to support country people when his own leader is in here totally supporting Labor—irrespective of what it is. Even today, in question time I heard the members for Chaffey and Mount Gambier both chiding us on personal matters. They should at least sit there in silence when there is a bit of haranguing going on across the chamber on personality matters. If you were an Independent you would not be joining in with those things.

All I can say is that what happened is what happened. Even in the minister's own electorate the previous Liberal government spent much more money on projects such as the new Berri bridge, the new primary school, the new sports facilities (including a synthetic hockey pitch), as well as huge irrigation projects replacing all the open drains with sealed pipes. All that in just four years! We did all that in four years, but what has been done there since? A person who is keeping a party in government, and what has been done there since? List them for me, please. I know of little. There has been lots of rhetoric and lots of ideas but, like the fantastic Teletrack, straight line racing, nothing ever eventuated. There was just talk.

I note the comments of the president of the National Party Wilbur Klein, who was pushing for more country infrastructure projects and pushing for 25 per cent of mineral royalties. I support that, it is a great concept. After all, these minerals are all coming from the regions, from the country. They are wearing out roads, looking for infrastructure, needing hospitals, needing schools. It is common sense to put the money back into these regions, so I could not agree with Mr Klein more—but is he talking to his state leader? In the six years of the Labor/Maywald government here what infrastructure has been built in country South Australia? What has been built in the member for Chaffey's own electorate (apart from the hospital upgrade that I note is coming)?

I cannot get any assistance for building a new Barossa hospital or a new recreation centre, and roads are, again, looking very poor. I also note the condition of the Gomersal Road, which has been a favourite subject of mine, as the member representing Elizabeth would know. I championed that road for years, and we eventually sealed it. I note that the member for Light is here. It has been a huge success. The traffic on that road is eight times that predicted. The problem now is that it is wearing out, and it has potholes here, there and everywhere.

It is not very nice for the government to say, 'Well, it is a local government road.' With the amount of traffic, to expect the councils, and that is the Light council predominantly, to pay for the upgrade of the road is ridiculous. The government has to take over that road instantly, because it is developing potholes and it is quite bad, and people are starting to comment to me about how bad it is. I think it is a soil problem.

I believe that there should be a road swap here. The member for Light would know that the government and local governments do this regularly. It is a major road and it ought to come under the auspices of the state government.

Mr Piccolo interjecting:

Mr VENNING: You were in government when it was finished, not us. It was our idea and we started it, but you finished it. I drive from Port Wakefield to Adelaide; it is a dual-lane highway, and I will say this to be fair and straight: it is a project of the previous Bannon government and it is a great project. Why have we not seen more of this sort of thing under this government? This government does not do these things (a project costing millions of dollars).

Yes, we are doing the Northern Expressway now, but I cannot believe that when I drive down here—and the member for Light would say this—we have roads that are choked up. If you leave here now and head home to Gawler you are going to be battling traffic. There is bad congestion. Why is it that in several places we go from three lanes to two lanes to three lanes to two lanes? Why are those roads not widened out to three lanes all the way? It is a minor job, because the road reserve is there.

I do not know whether the member for Light drives on these roads; he ought to make a comment. Driving past Parafield and these areas you have three lanes and traffic moves quite quickly, then it shrinks down to two lanes. Why is this? Why is it not three lanes right through? Why are we waiting for the Northern Expressway? It is not a big deal. It is not a big job at all, but no; we have not seen any increases at all. The traffic congestion going up there is appalling.

Mrs Geraghty: What did you do about it when you were in government?

Mr VENNING: The congestion has only started in the past four or five years. The congestion in Adelaide has been caused, firstly, by the trams.

Members interjecting:

Mr VENNING: It happened because of the trams; it happened because the speed limits were reduced to 50 km/h on arterial roads. Why is it 50 km/h running down King William Road to the Cathedral? Why, if it is not for revenue raising? It is a ridiculous situation. All arterial roads ought to be 60 km/h. What happens now is that because of this silly rule everybody now drives at 50 km/h. I know; I have been through this.

Members interjecting:

Mr VENNING: I have paid the price. I am the first to admit that; I am not hiding anything. So, why the congestion? One: the tram; two: the speed limit has been reduced to 50 km/h. Then, to top it off, the government tells the police conduct a campaign targeting tailgating. That just means that everyone—

The Hon. J.D. Lomax-Smith interjecting:

Mr VENNING: I have all my points; I have the lot. I have got them all back. So, this is the recipe. I follow people at the lights now. They take off and most people will drive at 50 km/h all around metropolitan Adelaide irrespective, because they do not want to be picked up. It is expensive and they do not want to lose their licence. We can do things about this. When the member for Light drives home next, he should just have a look at how it changes from three lanes to two lanes and then back to three again. All that does is cause bottlenecks, congestion and people getting cross with each other. It should be three lanes all the way. Where there are the two lanes it would not be very hard to put the third lane in. Why is not done? Because nobody—

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

Mr VENNING: Because there was not the problem then. I think the really bad congestion has started in the past three years, coinciding with all those things like the speed limits. This campaign on tailgating by police has not helped either, because people are now spooked about getting too close to the vehicle in front. These signs have been put up, 'Police are now targeting tailgating', and all that does is ensure that there is a great gap between the cars and people duck in to fill up the gap, causing more problems and stuff-ups, and road rage and all the rest of it. It is quite a serious situation. I certainly hope that the government will solve the water problem and get this desalination plant going as quickly as possible.

Time expired; debate adjourned.

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