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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-06-17 Daily Xml
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APPROPRIATION BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

(Continued from page 3248.)

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (16:22): When I listened intently this year to the Treasurer's address of the eighth budget of the Rann Labor government, I could not help but reflect on two things: first, the overall gross neglect of women and children in this year's budget; and, secondly, how we had advanced, I think, quite significantly since the 19th century in this state in terms of our legislative reform for the protection and provision of women and children and those who are sick, particularly with mental illnesses. I could only think that the only other similarity between the Treasurer's speech and the orations of former members of this assembly in the 19th century as being his now ample girth, probably matching some of those at that time.

With that said, the very serious matter of either the deliberate act or the negligent omission of provision for South Australia's women and children is stunningly glaring. I can recall reading many legal text from the 19th century which applied in this state and which often had the phrase of identifying the legal incapacity of married women, infants and lunatics, often in the same phrase, in the same legislation. It was not just an era of legal incapacity for people in these categories. Although we have modernised descriptions, it is fair to reflect that, back at that time, women were clearly in the category of property rights—particularly if they married they had limited powers of inheritance.

Our children were discriminated against—depending on whether they had been married in or out of wedlock—in relation to the capacity to inherit. There were all sorts of aspects in relation to deprivation of any kind of proper treatment of children, not least of which was the provision of welfare, which even Queen Victoria addressed with the Poor Law in England and which we developed here in South Australia. Perhaps the most cruel at the time was the fact that in the original white settlement of South Australia, there was no hospital provision for people with a mental illness and they were held in our prisons.

Legislatively we have advanced in the development of protection for women's property and guardianship rights, and to no longer be excluded from the workforce upon marriage. We have developed children's protection, with mechanisms in both the legal process and prosecution of those who might offend, and we have ensured the provision of secure, safe and appropriate care in hospital environments for our mentally unwell. All this was shattered when I listened to the second reading explanation from the Treasurer, outlining the basis on which we should accept his over $14 billion expenditure for the 2009-10 year and seeking the parliament's endorsement.

In relation to the matters I wish to raise, I would like to identify a number of factors which need to be kept in perspective. First, the government announced that it is persisting with its rail yard site hospital. This exercise will cost close to $2 billion—as best we can tell because we no longer have any figures in the budget—for the clean-up of the site at the City West end of Adelaide, next to the Torrens Lake area, and, after the clean-up, a major hospital rebuild.

Notwithstanding the financial crisis which has been referred to many times in this house, the government is absolutely, without any reservation, continuing to proceed with it. Clearly, it will suck the financial life out of many other health projects, including not only the capital works slippage we have seen already in the health budget but also many other infrastructure and service provisions to which I will allude.

It is committed to that, along with a $43 million film and screen hub development at the Glenside Hospital site—which is the pet project of the Premier. It seems to matter not a tink what is happening elsewhere in the world or in this state or the huge demand for services. The Treasurer and Premier are resolute on that.

This year we will see a massive expansion of money to be held in the slush fund for the Treasurer. He is keeping $467 million this year, just in case he gets the budget wrong and needs to prop up something or provide for some other project which he does not want to specify and disclose to the parliament.

A massive sell-off of assets will continue, including drug and alcohol sites. These are service sites in areas of valuable real estate, such as Norwood and Joslin. Some 42 per cent of the Glenside Hospital site is proposed to be sold off. I want to identify that the projects to which I will refer today—in what I see as a gross neglect of children and women in this state—are projects that are being protected by the Treasurer and the Premier in this budget.

I also wish to point out that the parliament endorsed last year's budget, and the government approved via a cabinet decision to allow SA Water to proceed with a $46 million refit or redecoration of new headquarters in Victoria Square. In the context of all this expenditure, even post the known financial limitations that we have at the national level, this government is persisting not only with those projects but also the rail yard hospital, which will suck the life out of other services and projects, as I have said.

Let me start with the Women's and Children's Hospital. This hospital, through the Queen Victoria and Adelaide children's hospitals independently, has served this state for over 100 years. It has provided exceptional statewide services for women and children. Quite frankly, if it were not for the volunteers, the charitable foundations, such as the McGuinness McDermott Foundation and the Women's and Children's Hospital Foundation, and auxiliaries—which provide millions of dollars and hundreds of thousand dollars respectively towards projects—we would see a crumbling of the Women's and Children's Hospital. It has really just kept it together, and I record my appreciation for that having occurred.

To date, the Rann government in the past seven years and, disappointingly, with no extra provision in this years budget, has provided an MRI scanner and an emergency department upgrade; these are both projects which were initiated and for which funding was provided by the former Liberal government. Through the announcement in the budget it has proceeded with a $7 million upgrade of psychiatric services at the Women's and Children's Hospital, in particular, the Boylan Ward for psychiatric services for children and the Helen Mayo Services for women and children, only for us to find that it was announced in one budget and then slashed in a subsequent budget, never to occur.

The only significant government funded capital project has been a federal government funded cancer initiative, which is at least under way at present. This is notwithstanding that between 2002 and 2008 the number of births per year at the Women's and Children's Hospital has increased by nearly 25 per cent. We have gone from over 3,000 babies a year to over 5,000 babies a year in the same space. During the same period the number of emergency department presentations has increased from 48,424 to 59,220.

Despite this major increase in patients, the hospital continues to be neglected and, disappointingly, in this budget there is no light on the horizon. This is particularly cruel when we see that the number of available beds has actually reduced over the same time period, so there is more service demand, fewer beds, almost zero contribution from the government for the capital infrastructure and absolutely no light in sight.

This is why the opposition has announced that it will proceed with public consultation on the future of the Women's and Children's Hospital, to rebuild and to renew the infrastructure that is desperately needed to be undertaken for the women and children of the state. That includes even smaller but very important projects, such as $2 million for equipment to go out and do breast screening on country women; it was not even done last year. It has been announced again this year but, again, there is an abandonment of responsibility for the health care of women.

I think we do owe a responsibility to women during the periods of their pregnancy, confinement and subsequently. They are, after all, bearing and providing for the care, support, nourishment and nurturing of the next generation, and the government should hang its head in shame for not making some provision in this regard and then being quite dismissive when it comes to its failure to honour even prior commitments.

The women's prison is another classic example; it has disappeared off the project books. This is of concern to many people working in the field of rehabilitation. Frances Nelson QC, the Chair of the Parole Board of South Australia, is just one who has publicly confirmed the urgent need for a new women's prison, yet it is axed, with no provision, no promises and not even any priority with this government.

There is the children's prison. If ever there was a sick and sorry site to visit, I have visited it, as I am sure others have. This is a property which has now been in existence for some 40-odd years. I remember hearing the maiden speech of Joyce Steele, a previous member for Burnside who is pictured up there in Versace blue. Her maiden speech was about what we now know as the Magill Training Centre, that is, the children's prison, and she urged back in 1959 that it be rebuilt. She was successful in securing that. It was rebuilt in the 1960s; and here we are in 2009 with myriad people speaking about it, including even Monsignor Cappo.

This is the priest whom the government has seen fit to bring in as its expert adviser in relation to future budgets and yet, when he recently comes out and makes a public statement saying that this is a mistake and we do need to proceed with the rebuilding of the children's prison, where is the government? We had the Minister for Families and Communities come out and say, 'Oh, it would cost us $100 million,' when in our own Treasurer's budget, when this was announced back in 2007, it was a $79 million budget.

Let me say, too, that there is also the $16.5 million which the government still needs to account for, because this government announced in 2005 that it would actually build the relocated Magill Training Centre, children's prison, from Magill out to Cavan, and they actually allocated $16.5 million to do it. When it came to the announcement then that they were going to do other prisons in 2007 they just kept that $16.5 million and said that they were going to go off and do a PP project. Now it is cancelled altogether, and what has happened to the children's prison? Completely evaporated.

We have up to 100 children out at the children's prison. They are aged between 10 and 14. It has been described variously by people, including Pam Simmons, who has been appointed as an advocate for children in this state, as being cruel and inhumane, and it is obviously totally inappropriate for the circumstances of these children. Any member who goes out there will appreciate the significance of the lives that some of these children have had. And sure, they are incarcerated because usually there has been a significant history of offending, and they are very serious offences in some cases, but these are children, and they deserve to at least have some reasonable accommodation, some chance of rehabilitation.

Members do not have to take my word for it. Monsignor Cappo, the expert there, has been appointed as a commissioner to the government. He has been appointed in this new budget's responsibility most recently, and yet the first recommendation that I heard publicly from Monsignor Cappo has been completely ignored.

I turn now to James Nash House. James Nash House is a facility that was built in the 1980s, under the then minister, Cornwall. There was significant land secured to deal with our forensic mental health patients. These are people who have usually committed what would otherwise be an offence under our criminal law but deemed medically unfit to either plead or stand trial and therefore be convicted. They are dealt with under our legislative umbrella in a manner which is to keep them secure, with the opportunity to have treatment, and to be able to provide for that setting.

To do that we do not keep them in prison. No. We have them in a totally separate facility. It is secure, no question about that, and there is an opportunity for treatment. It has a waiting list of over 20 people. Some of those people are waiting at Glenside, in a secure ward there. Some of them are actually in prison waiting for a chance to go in to have some medical treatment.

Over a hundred years ago, when this colony started, we had people with this sickness in prisons—and we have got them back there. It is a disgrace. Again, you do not have to take my word for it. Dr John Brayley, who is the Public Advocate, appointed in fact by this government, a former mental health director in the Department of Health, has been out and publicly expressed his concern about the lack of facilities, as inadequate as they are at the moment, out at James Nash House and that we need to have extra facilities and services.

So, I say to the parliament that it is important to appreciate the significance of what happens when we completely avoid the responsibility for women and children in this state. If it was a circumstance where there was no money left, if we suddenly did not have the 14 and a half billion—but in fact our budget is bigger than it was last year.

Plenty of submissions have been put to this parliament from other speakers about the fact that there has been a huge amount of money come in at the federal level, that has propped it up, but, notwithstanding that the government says that it is going to spend money, it is going to have a 750 razor gang attack after the state election. I have heard all that. But they are spending more, they have got more, and yet they are axing projects without any recovery. I am not talking even about the adult prison now. Even if they cancelled that they could still proceed to develop the facility out at Cavan for the children's prison. That does not have to be attached. It can be separate. There is plenty of money in the slush funds to do that.

They could proceed with James Nash House—for which the government had already budgeted $16.5 million in 2005 to do, but which has slipped off the balance sheet. And they could certainly make some provision to start the rebuild of the Women's and Children's Hospital. That is a statewide service for the provision of birthing facilities and the major medical treatment of our children across the state.

The significance here is particularly because the obstetrics ward and some paediatric services at both the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Modbury Hospital have been spiralled down or axed altogether during the lifetime of this government, and there has been an expectation that people bring their children for services at, or pregnant women attend, the Women's and Children's Hospital or at the Lyell McEwin Hospital. That is to be the catchment area. It is all part of the Health Care Plan. We have read all that.

The truth is these services have to be provided somewhere. We have more demand on the Women's and Children's Hospital, more people presenting for services, fewer beds already, yet no provision in this budget. It is a woeful and shameful abandonment of women and children in the state.

The government has a slush fund here, much more than it has ever had before, and I ask the government to reconsider this. Eminent people have come forward and said that this is not acceptable and we need to change this. So far, we just hear dismissive remarks from the Treasurer about the contribution, for example, in relation to children. I was appalled the other day to hear the Treasurer make the following public statements:

Now it is a custodial institution, I can say this to you, I have higher priorities in government than the Magill Centre, yes Magill needs to be addressed but it's not number one priority.

He also said the standard of the centre is appropriate for the young people in remand. He further said:

Do you think they're in there because they jaywalked? They're in there because they've been a menace to society, unfortunately, tragically, that happens with young kids.

Yes, but what is he going to do about it? He has an opportunity to deal with these most damaged children, yet he is dismissive publicly in that regard. It is a disgrace.

Time expired.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (16:42): I am pleased to make a contribution to the Appropriation Bill. It is clearly a very important piece of legislation that looks to allocate and distribute funds to the various areas of government to ensure that the state runs in a reasonably good fashion over the budget period.

I intend to highlight some quite serious and significant deficiencies in this budget. The first point I would like to make is that the budget shows that Labor cannot manage its expenses. There have been numerous examples in the past eight budgets of the Labor government that have been brought down by the Treasurer of where the government has real issues with managing its expenses. The other point is that the government is certainly willing to break major promises and willingly raid the pockets of those who can least afford it.

On the state's most pressing need of water, the government has also failed by making no substantial commitment to stormwater capture and re-use. At the next election this will be one of the key differences between Liberal and Labor, and I intend to talk more about water related issues later in my contribution, if time permits.

Even Standard and Poor's, the international ratings agency, noted Labor's past failures on key infrastructure when it said the following in its budget report, 'South Australia has a history of capital expenditure under-spending.' We ask why it is that, despite record revenues up a billion dollars this year to $14.4 billion, Labor has not delivered. The answer is simple: every year Labor allows its day-to-day expenses to balloon out of control. Despite international economic pressures this year, the Public Service grew by 1,485 positions above budgeted levels—and I will talk a bit more about public sector blow-outs later.

In a stunning move to avoid scrutiny a promised $750 million in expenditure cuts has been offloaded to an external razor gang, whose recommendations will not be known until after the election. The budget makes no hard decisions for government; it passes on the hardship to families, small businesses, pensioners and carers.

Many fees and charges are being increased by between 4 per cent and a staggering 36 per cent, all above the inflation rate of around 3 per cent. Small businesses hoping to employ more people have had those hopes dashed by record levels of land tax, payroll tax and WorkCover levies. On every level, this budget fails South Australians.

I will highlight a point. The Liberals have spoken about these issues in every budget reply speech over the last two days. Yesterday in question time we asked questions about the budget, but we received no specific answers, which is the norm for the government. However, apart from us and apart from an article in The Advertiser today by Greg Kelton reporting the leader's response to the budget, I am not seeing much pressure being put on the Treasurer by the media. We are highlighting these issues but, unfortunately, the media is not picking up on the issues and reporting them through those different mediums: television, radio and newspapers. We are highlighting these issues; however, for whatever reason, the media is not reporting that as such.

I would like to talk about the fiscal position and outlook, in particular, deficits. In the 2009-10 budget, there are budget deficits on all three accounting measures. The first is a net lending deficit of $1.541 billion this year, a cash deficit of $1.540 billion this year, and a net operating deficit of $304 million in this budget year.

The state's 2008-09 and 2009-10 revenue has strengthened by $130 million and $722 million, respectively, since the 2008-09 budget, mainly due to bailouts from the federal Labor government. The Rann Labor government has been telling the public that there are huge budget black holes; however, revenue has increased by massive amounts.

Moreover, the Treasurer counts one-off infrastructure grants from the Rudd Labor government as revenue. These grants are spent outside the government's operating account; therefore, the government's true deficit is even larger than that in the budget. Infrastructure spending is classified as capital works and is reflected only in the 2009-10 net lending deficit of $1.541 billion, a measure rarely published in the media.

Therefore, the significant grants, as part of the Rudd government's one-off stimulus package, mask the true position of the state government's budget, making it look better than it really is. We heard the leader yesterday, in his quite extensive and comprehensive response to the budget, highlight those issues in a very significant manner.

I will now talk about spending blow-outs. This is where the government has had problems pretty well over its almost eight years in government. Spending blow-outs, not falls in revenue, are the reason that the government's budget has slumped into deficit. Government spending blew out by $556 million in 2008-09 and $1.382 billion in 2009-10 above that budgeted in the 2008-09 budget. The Auditor-General's Report 2007-08, part C, page 25 states:

The projected current operating surplus for the four years of the 2008-09 Budget is therefore subject to highly constrained expenditure. This was the case in the past two budgets which forecast, but did not achieve, real terms decreases in expenses for those budget years.

For seven budgets, the Rann government has been running small surpluses as a percentage of revenue. Despite record revenue growth, spending blow-outs have caused the budget to plunge into deficit.

As the member for MacKillop highlighted yesterday, growth rates predicted over the next two years to return the budget to surplus are predicated on second year growth rates of 4.5 per cent. As quite accurately highlighted by the member for MacKillop, those growth rates have never existed in this state for the past 10 years; we have not had that level of growth for the past 10 years. So, the Treasurer's prediction to return to surplus after two years is based on a wing and a prayer.

I would like to talk about Public Service blow-outs. We have heard for many years about the level of the Public Service blow-outs and, today, there are approximately 16,000 more public servants on the payroll than were budgeted for. We hear that there has been an error in calculations and all sorts of excuses and all sorts of reasons why this has occurred. It is portrayed as some sort of accidental consequence of government's handling of issues, but I do not think it is an accident. I think it has been a conscious decision, a conscious strategy of this government, through its departments, to hire those 16,000 additional people.

I would not think you could get it so wrong that you hire an additional 16,000 people over the number you had initially planned. It has been a conscious decision by this government to hire those people, for whatever reason—probably to placate the PSA and other bodies such as that. I do not think it is by accident, certainly; I think it has been a conscious decision that that has taken place.

We will talk about revenue. We have talked about cost blow-out and deficits and the like, but we will talk about revenue. We on this side of the house maintain that the government has not really had an issue with revenue. We have had seven years of incredible revenue thanks to a federal Liberal government policy in terms of the GST. We have had rivers of gold flowing into the Treasury coffers, and I give credit to the media that have actually highlighted in some of their articles that they do recognise that there have been rivers of gold flowing into the government coffers as a consequence of the GST. I will give the media credit in relation to reporting that issue accurately.

However, the Premier and Treasurer continue to inaccurately underestimate revenue collections every year. From 2002-03 to 2008-09, the government will have collected a massive $3.8 billion more than it expected. These revenue windfalls—actual receipts above budgeted receipts—are masking unbudgeted increases in expenses which have been highlighted by the Auditor-General. The 2007-08 Auditor-General's Report, part C, page 6 states, 'the state has received very large amounts of unbudgeted revenues'.

So, the government has not had a revenue problem: it has had an expenses problem. Anyone who knows about managing a business—and government is no different from managing a business—knows that you have to maintain your sales figures, your income, your revenue, whatever you produce, whatever you sell. In this state, in this example, the government obviously receives revenues from a number of sources. In any business, you look at your revenues, but you have to control your expenses. If your expenses are blowing out, then your profit is obviously significantly affected, running into a loss. That is what we have seen: a clear example of the government not managing expenses so that we have run into a loss, a deficit position, for this year and next.

It is predicated on, I guess you could say, increased sales figures in that third year and the next of 4½ per cent but the state has never in the last 10 years achieved those revenues or, if you like, sales figures. It is based on a wing and a prayer to restore the budget to surplus in a two year period. We believe that it will take a lot longer than that.

I turn my remarks to state taxation. It is an unfortunate situation, to say the least, that we are recognised around the nation as being the highest taxing state in Australia. It is now official. Under the Rann Labor government, South Australia is the highest taxed state in the country. Total state taxation revenue in 2009-10 will now be $48 million higher than in 2008-09. Tax revenue has steadily increased by 61 per cent since this government came to office.

I have said before in this place that it is a hallmark of all Labor governments, whether they be federal or state, that they are high taxing, high spending governments. We saw that commence back in the Whitlam years and it carried through the Hawke and Keating years: high taxing, high spending governments. Then, when the federal Liberal government came in, it changed the dynamic completely in relation to the way it managed the government finances and the economy, and we saw some real stability brought to Australia's economic situation providing tremendous opportunity for all Australians in the way they live their lives.

We see some glaring examples of taxation increases, particularly those on property, such as land tax. We have seen an increase since the 2001-02 budget cycle from $731 million to $1.428 billion and the percentage change in that eight year period is 95 per cent. I have constituents who talk to me a lot about land tax. They tell me that they have to sell their properties and their business interests here in South Australia and move interstate, to Queensland or New South Wales, where land tax is significantly less, to continue their business operations in those states. So, the Treasurer and the Premier's restrictive taxation regime, which is strangling the life out of business here in this state, is seeing them pack up and move interstate. What sort of reputation does that give South Australia? A very poor reputation.

I also have constituents in the earthmoving business. They talk to me on a regular basis, and I communicate this through my party structure, and the leader himself highlighted this yesterday. They are basically being shut out of the major infrastructure projects, earthmoving projects, here in South Australia; for example, the Northern Expressway and the desalination plant. I can tell you that they are extremely cross. They are extremely upset with this government and plan to do something about it leading up to the next election. What we see is that the taxation system of this government is squeezing the life out of business, to the extent where, to survive, it has to move interstate.

The next issue I want to talk about is that of water—and I can see that my time is running down—in particular the government's decision to abandon its plans for the expansion of Mount Bold. It was poor public policy in the first place, in terms of its initial decision to expand that reservoir, and I highlighted that in the house at the time that the decision was first announced, two or three years ago. The state Liberals recognise that a number of resources must be used.

Time expired.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (17:02): Again, I am tail-end Charlie, bringing to an end the addresses on the budget. This is the Rann government's last budget and it is quite appropriate that we assess it here today. This budget, to me, as a long-term country member, is very disappointing indeed. My electorate, and country South Australia generally, did not feature in this budget. It was totally overlooked and totally ignored, and yet we have a minister who represents a country electorate.

The Hon. K.A. Maywald interjecting:

Mr VENNING: Chaffey was not ignored. The minister said that in her interjection. I hope that is on Hansard. Chaffey was not ignored; you are right, you got some money for your school. I did not get anything for any of my schools. I did not get anything for the hospital.

The Hon. K.A. Maywald interjecting:

Mr VENNING: Yes; it was happening. The minister responded that we did not get anything when we were in government. I would remind her that when we were in government we got a lot of projects up, particularly the Gomersal Road, which is extremely busy. We got filtered water under the previous Liberal government. We got a new water scheme, the BIL scheme, and we were the first to have such a scheme.

We had a new primary school in Tanunda. The Nuriootpa High School was upgraded. I can go on and on. Go and have a look at the Barossa Convention Centre, which had government money. I could go on and on, and that was eight years of a Liberal government. What has happened since? What has Schubert scored since? The question needs to be asked, because it is not right and it is not fair that a section of the community can be completely ignored by our government—totally ignored.

This group pays more than its share of taxation. The Barossa (my region) and the Hills pay more than their share of income tax and yet we had to argue like mad to get the Mannum ferry operating again. It took nearly nine months to get it operating, and we are having a similar problem getting a new train to operate in the Barossa Valley, at least as a trial. We heard the minister say that country SA did well. She might think that but I do not think that her constituents would agree and I do not think that any of us have done very well out of this government. This government has shown that it is very much a city-centric one. Its priorities are obviously in the city.

As I said, the people of the Barossa pay more than their proportion of tax. The big concern that I have is that there is nothing for the roads, even though there was $20 million for the Safe Road policy—nothing. Again, this morning there was another fatality. We are heading for a record. Yesterday an 80 kilometre speed limit has been imposed over the entire Barossa Valley floor. I think that is a disgrace. Rather than fix up the roads, a blanket 80 km/h speed limit is whacked on across the entire Barossa Valley. I know that the council may have had something to do with it, and I am opposed to that.

I certainly understand that the 80 kilometre zone, in places, could save some lives, but to put it over the whole valley, I think, is blatantly ridiculous and a vast overreaction, and I condemn those responsible for it. I am opposed to it. I have never had so much response on any issue in my 19 years here than over the last day and a half. I have been getting all sorts of messages in my office from very cross and upset people about this 80 kilometre speed limit.

The previous Howard federal government's Roads to Recovery program was working extremely well. Some of the funding that we got for the Gomersal Road and other projects came from that funding source. It has gone now. In this budget we have $23 million promised over four years for rural road safety programs. Over four years that is chicken feed. It would not even paint the guard rails, let alone fix up roads.

I want to say on the record that a lot of these deaths are road related—not entirely, but they are road condition related. Young people, driving high speed motor cars, get off the side of the road in the rough. They overreact and, boom! We have far too many trees and obstacles too close to the road for them to hit. It is pretty sad; and, again, I express my condolences to the many families who are now grieving the loss of a loved one. That should not happen. We have got to upgrade these roads to make them safer. In the Barossa so many of these roads are narrow, but to put an 80 km/h speed limit on the lot, I think, is appalling, It is a huge overreaction, as I said.

Since coming to power in 2002, the Labor government in South Australia is now more than $6.6 billion in debt. The state Rann Labor government has allowed expenses to blow out to more than $1 billion. We also heard during question time today that the total unfunded liability of all this is getting toward $20 billion. This is what the government is responsible for: the unfunded liability with WorkCover and everything else—$20 billion. The Premier and the Treasurer said, 'We'll attend to this over the next 30 years.' What if I ran my farm like that? In other words, they are telling us that this debt is going to be paid for by our children, not us. We have done it. This government has allowed this total out of control debt to happen, but it is going to hand it to our kids to pay for it. I think it is absolutely appalling.

Despite the global financial crisis, revenue has increased by $1 billion this year to $14.4 billion. The federal government has bailed out the Rann Labor government with a $3 billion hand-out. Money for schools was a part of it; and, in the panic to get it spent, you would not guess it but it has even put federal funding towards schools that are to be demolished. Hello! What is it telling you? What is the message here? What is the communication like between the two governments? They do not even know.

I now move to another very important subject, that is, that duplication of service between federal and state is causing waste and duplication. I think it is high time we had a very good look at the future in relation to the funding of schools and hospitals, etc., when you have both state and federal funding. I notice that the Minister for Health is sitting here. I believe that federalism is coming under great threat. I am on the record some years ago saying that we really do have to smarten up government, cut down waste and give the taxpayer more value for their money.

Really, we must cut down the size of parliament. I have said on the record that consideration should be given to phasing out the upper house over a period of years. I have not said anything about that for some years now because I think, 'Well, why be unpopular for the sake of it?' However, I will expand that comment to say that, in time, all state parliaments should consider whether we have a future, full stop. In your term, Mr Speaker, as one of the younger members of parliament, I think you will see a move to expedite the process of government in Australia. I believe that you will see the states rapidly becoming superfluous to the process.

This sort of thing is causing duplication and waste. I know it is controversial, but look to the future. I think that is where we are going. I believe that I will not see it but you, sir, might see that we will move to two levels of government, that is, federal government and, hopefully, a much revitalised and refreshed local government. I do not think it is capable of doing it yet but I am sure that, if we threw out the challenge, they could do it. I think we should throw out the challenge and some people should start talking about it. I am happy to be controversial about that because I do believe that now, with a modern Australia and modern communications, we do not have to represent the regions like we do.

It happened in this state when we went to one vote one value. This is now a city-centric state. The regional people miss out anyhow, so I do not believe we would be any worse off under a federacy of main government and local government to look after the communities. The 2008-09 state tax revenue will increase by $48 million, GST grants are up by $2 million and overall commonwealth grants are up by $858 million—a lot of money. Extra and unexpected federal payments ease the need for the state government to use its own revenue for state programs and services relating to health, education, infrastructure, environment, housing and so on.

Ongoing references to the budget black holes and huge revenue losses is misleading to all South Australians. Also, $750 million expenditure cuts have been announced, and an external razor gang will make recommendations as to where the cuts will come from. However, these will not be made public until after the election. Great idea; wonderful idea! How cynical is that? 'We will make the promises now and we will tell you how we will pay for it after the election.' Will the South Australian public fall for that? Of course they will not. But with the media like it is, they probably will. With a huge spin team pushing it, they probably will again.

It is up to us to reveal that we will not put up with that and we will highlight that. According to the budget papers for 2001-02 and 2008-09 public sector employment numbers will increase by 16,393. Up to 11,979 additional public servants have been employed in general administration under Rann Labor; 4,400 of these are nurses, teachers, doctors and police officers. I do not have any problem with that, or them, but what about the others? Are they all administration or office staff? The government is now trying to reverse its indulgences during the boom years and announced that 1,600 public sector jobs are to be axed, chopped, got rid of.

Government spending has blown out by $556 million in 2008-09 and by $1,382 million in 2009-10 above what was budgeted for in the 2008-09 budget. This government is a government of waste. The new ad campaign on the television and radio with the Premier selling the budget to South Australians is ludicrous. This is taxpayers' money being used to promote a government that is doing nothing. Remember what Premier Rann said as leader of the opposition on 3 June 2001 on Channel 9. He said, 'When you see a politician in an ad, then you know basically it's about politics.' What are we seeing now? In January this year it was revealed that the Rann government deferred $9 million in cuts to government advertising, which the Premier announced in the 2006-07 budget.

In early March the Treasurer was questioned about the matter on the ABC Radio. Along with saying that he was not familiar with the issue, he said, 'I'm going to drive the Public Service very hard in terms of savings. I am not going to be popular.' Why is it that the Rann Labor government expects all its departments and agencies to deliver large savings and cut public sector staff, when it does not do the same with its own staff? The phrase, 'Do as I say, not as I do', is very pertinent in this case.

Under the Rann Labor government, South Australia has become the highest taxed state in the nation. I know that because I pay more than my share; some would argue that is fair enough. This budget sees hundreds of government charges and fees increase by between 4 per cent and 36 per cent—well above the inflation rate of CPI of 3 per cent. Total state taxation revenue in 2009-10 will now be $48 million higher than in 2008-09. The tax revenue has increased by 61 per cent since this government came to office.

The state Rann Labor government has imposed the largest tax burden on business of all states. Land tax has increased a staggering 292 per cent under the Rann Labor government. The number of land tax payers has almost trebled in his time, increasing from 69,000 to 188,000. The harsh land tax regime impacts on the owners of commercial or private property and the costs are passed on to commercial and residential renters. We have crises in all these areas. On 5 June, following the release of the budget, in an interview on radio the Treasurer said:

We have issues with tax. Land tax is a problem. There is a burden felt by a number of people in the community, for which I would like to provide tax relief. Not possible in this budget setting.

This is a cop-out to all South Australians. Despite record revenue, the Treasurer maintains that it is not possible to provide any reform of the land tax regime.

Besides Victoria, South Australia is the least cost competitive for stamp duty, as well. I know because I pay these duties. I pay it on my house in Adelaide because it is not my principal place of residence. Along with other country members, I know the impact of these duties. It would be cheaper for many members to stay over the road in a hotel than in their own house because of these huge imposts.

These two taxes alone make South Australian companies uncompetitive. We all see interstate companies beating South Australian companies for contracts. I have seen it. We see it in roadworks and buildings and all sorts of projects. Interstate companies can be here—as our leader said in his speech yesterday—without paying all the high taxes and overheads our competing companies have to pay. It is deplorable.

I want to talk about the government spin team—a favourite subject of mine—which is the biggest growth area of this government.

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

Mr VENNING: Which one? The spin team? In June 2008 there were 4,073 public servants earning over $100,000 per year compared with only 782 when the Liberals were in office in 2002—an increase of 3,291 staff or 421 per cent. That is too high on any account. Even when we were in government it was too high. I am not running away from that fact. It was too high then and it is even higher now. It is a disgrace. We must put the lid on it.

In was revealed in September last year that the Rann Labor government is spending nearly $19 million a year on its media and public relations advisers, with 157 employees on top of the 18 media managers and staff working in the Premier's office. This is South Australia, this is just our state. That is not the whole country but, rather, just South Australia. I wonder whether the numbers have increased since then? I bet they have. I bet other members in this house would agree with me.

Will they have to suffer the same cuts as those with which the rest of the Public Service has been threatened in this budget? We all know that they won't. It is appalling. No wonder people are cynical about members of parliament. I disassociate myself from it in this government, as I did in the previous Liberal government.

I believe that government ministers are entitled to one media officer and the Premier is entitled to have probably four or five. That should be plenty. A good government should not need to market or spin everything that comes out of the office. It should not need to monitor everything that happens in the media, including those of us in opposition.

It is a gross waste of taxpayers' money—then the government says that it cannot afford to upgrade the Magill reform centre or build a new gaol at Mobilong. But it can afford this. How much is it again? It is $19 million. Look at the level of salary. It puts us in the dark.

This is why, when one tries to get a story over in a one paper town, it is hopeless, because most of these media people have mates in the media or they hope to be working for the government one day. Of course, one wonders why they are soft. This is why nothing happens and it is like this. It is appalling. It is the saddest thing about having a one paper town. We need to have two papers in this town. When The News was operating, one could work one against the other in order to get a fair go.

I now refer to the cuts to PIRSA. Despite the rural sector earning $5.2 billion in 2007-08, aided by a 313 per cent increase in crop production and strong grain prices, this budget fails to provide any measures to assist the agricultural sector.

The Hon. K.O. Foley: What nonsense! What poppycock!

Mr VENNING: I acknowledge the interjection from the Treasurer. Did I miss something?

The Hon. K.O. Foley: Drought relief.

Mr VENNING: The budget slashes a further $1.7 million in funding from PIRSA, cutting 101 jobs over the next three years—75 to go next year and the remaining 26 over the following two years. At a time when farmers have had about eight years of poor return, the state Rann Labor government slashes research and development funding. It is ridiculous. It was already skun out from the previous numbers. It is a soft area for Labor governments to attack—and you are doing it.

The provision of professional, independent, non-commercial advice is more important today than it ever was. It should not be left to private chemical companies to do all the research and, hence, provide advice—because it always comes with a commercial tag on it. Could you get independent advice from a chemical supplier? Of course you can't! We need the department there—and I am a strong supporter of the department—whether it be under a Labor or Liberal government. I am a supporter of them because we need them there. Over the years we have had some great scientists, paid for by the government—people such as Albert Rivera and Reg French. These guys have made modern farming very effective and efficient.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Industry and Trade, Minister for Federal/State Relations) (17:22): I do not intend to speak for long but, depending on interjections, the level of annoyance and sarcastic remarks from both sides of the house, I reserve my position. The agrarian socialist over there, my old mate Ivanovich, the member for Schubert, always says the government has to provide the scientists and has pay for them. I find it amusing but consistent that, through half the speech I am attacked for allowing the Public Service to grow too large and having too many public servants, then the second half of the speech attacks the government over the fact that we have made savings and cutbacks and reduced expenditure and services. It really is quite a contrary argument put forward by members opposite.

One of the other reasons I will not speak for too long is that I would like all members opposite to make sure they see the TV news at 7 and 9 o'clock tonight on Channels 7 and 9 and the ABC. It is in the budget context. I do not know whether my colleagues want to hear this, but I noted that, when asked whether or not he could rule out a leadership challenge, the member for MacKillop said, 'Er—um—I don't think so.' Then there was the member for Heysen—funny that they were the only two people who want out in the media today. That was the first interview the member for MacKillop has done on prisons, I am told, since he has been the shadow minister for prisons. He went out halfway through question time and, when asked whether he would rule out a leadership challenge, he said, 'Er—I don't think so.'

Mr Williams interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: No; you are right. Thank you. The question was, 'Will you rule out a leadership challenge?' and he said, 'I think so.' That is right, is it not, Mitch? The question was, 'Will you rule out a leadership challenge?' and the response to the journalist was, 'I think so.' How good is that?

An honourable member: Will you rule one out?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Absolutely. Then the member for Heysen also went out and, when asked, 'Will you rule out a leadership challenge?' she said, 'The golden rule in politics is: you never say never.' I just hope that, when members of the Liberal Party are considering the context of my budget—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Absolutely, and I intend to be the longest serving Treasurer this state has ever seen, including Tom Playford. It is important.

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: The member for Unley, the great strategist, whom we can thank for his contribution to the Liberal Party instability—

An honourable member: Found any more buildings to donate and sell yet?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: That is a hilarious line, isn't it? This is the real political genius you have in Unley. I did not realise that the Church of Scientology document had an Adelaide postcode on it. What kind of 'Duh' is that? The member for Unley prides himself on being some political heavyweight and political get-to man and bovver boy, but he is actually quite politically incompetent. I just wonder whether at any time he has reflected on the damage he has done both to his leader financially and also to his party. That was a tremendously clever moment by the member for Unley. Never mind; these things happen, and all I say is: watch the news tonight because, clearly, the members for MacKillop and Heysen are counting and preparing themselves as Dream Team Mark III. It is sensational.

To return to the budget, it has been constructed under the most difficult of financial and economic times. I am proud of this government's achievement, the discipline that has been shown by government and the courage taken by government ministers to make the hard decisions, many unpopular but all necessary.

I look in particular at the state of Queensland and its budget outcome today. By 2012-13 Queensland will have $85 billion of debt, with an interest servicing cost of $16 billion-plus every year going out the door to service its debt. It has lost its credit rating.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: That is not right; it is $8 billion. I apologise, that is what was in the paper. It is $8 billion, depending on the maturity of the loans involved, but it is a substantial amount of money. It actually did say $16 billion, but it is a sizeable interest bill, whatever rates they are paying, servicing $85 billion of debt with at least $6 billion to $8 billion a year of lost revenue.

If you want to compare what we do in South Australia and why we have been so serious about maintaining a low level of debt, that is the reason why we will continue to maintain a low debt burden for the state, which gives governments flexibility into the future in terms of expenditure and potential revenue cuts if and when we are in a position to provide them.

I thank again my parliamentary colleagues for their wholehearted support and, notwithstanding the criticisms of Liberal members, I thank them in anticipation of their wholehearted and unanimous support for the budget, as is their tradition and as is the tradition of this place. I note that the shadow treasurer is not with us in the chamber today. It is unfortunate; I would have—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: He is on the phone, counting.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: You ought to know; nothing is happening. How come Mitch is out there saying he doesn't think so? That is not very decisive. Or Isobel Redmond, why is she out there saying that you never say never. It's interesting times in the Liberal Party.

Mrs Geraghty: It's exciting.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: It's exciting times. But I all I need to say is that it is ancient history. All I need to say is that I thank my colleagues. I look forward to the Liberal Party continuing its internal meltdown, which has been a permanent position for the Liberal Party for the past 20 years. It is quite an extraordinary—

Mr Venning: Kevin, where did the dodgy documents come from?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Pardon?

Mr Venning: Do you know anything about the dodgy documents, where they came from?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Nothing at all. What are you suggesting?

Mr Venning: Does the Attorney-General know?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Are you suggesting something? I would be very careful. Whenever you make interjections about dodgy documents, they come back to haunt you. I have no knowledge, nor do I care. I never in opposition made that type of clanger. We always were meticulous in checking our sources. Most often we knew the source because they gave them to us personally. I think we know who we are referring to there, member for Schubert. Anyway, I—

Mr Venning: The brown paper bag?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: No, it wasn't a brown paper bag. There was a black suitcase or a brown suitcase. That water contract I got leaked to me. You never say never: the member for Heysen. I said, 'Vickie, you need to watch tele tonight. You might be a little bit surprised with the member for Heysen. When asked whether she will challenge the leadership, she said, "The golden rule in politics is that you never say never".' The member for MacKillop, when the deputy leader also asked whether he would rule out a leadership challenge, said, 'I think so'—after a long pause. I look forward to the 6 o'clock news. I am sure all Liberals will be glued to the television tonight to see how each and every one of their colleagues is positioning themselves, who is lining up with whom; it is fantastic to watch. I love watching Liberal Party infighting. It has been—

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: That is ancient history. But I have watched with great amazement (over 20 years) Liberal Party leadership stoushes in this place. You can sense it in the air. You know when there is something happening, and the past 48 hours in this place has had that embryonic sense of leadership challenges arising. Then when you saw the terrific performance of the member for MacKillop and the member for Heysen, both rushing out during question time. They never do it at any other time. I have never seen them leave question time to do a press conference.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Did you? Yes, you did do that, didn't you? Yes, you are right. I am losing weight. I am down two kilos. I am losing a full 10 kilos off the tummy.

Mr Venning interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Low carb, exercise. The deputy leader is correct; I have put on a few kilos.

Ms Fox: Is it the CSIRO diet?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: It's not the CSIRO diet; no. It is a simple low carb, low fat, exercise diet.

Mr Pederick: Are you preparing yourself for a challenge?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: No, I want to keep myself healthy.

Mrs Redmond: Not the lycra! Please, not the lycra!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: No; I won't go there. I think I have probably said enough.

Mr Kenyon interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Exercise bike. I don't like riding on the road because it is a bit dangerous.

Mrs Geraghty: How many hours a day?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Forty-five minutes in the morning.

Mrs Geraghty: Is that better than walking on a treadmill?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: It is better than walking. I conclude my remarks.

Bill read a second time.

Estimates Committees

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Industry and Trade, Minister for Federal/State Relations) (17:35): I move:

That this bill be referred to estimates committees.

Motion carried.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Industry and Trade, Minister for Federal/State Relations) (17:35): I move:

That a message be sent to the Legislative Council requesting the Minister for Urban Development and Planning and the Minister for State/Local Government Relations, members of the Legislative Council, be permitted to attend and give evidence before the estimates committees of the House of Assembly on the Appropriation Bill.

Motion carried.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Industry and Trade, Minister for Federal/State Relations) (17:36): I move:

That the house note grievances.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (17:35): Each year when the budget is announced I try to be helpful to the government as to what projects might be usefully added or removed. With disappointment, yet again, I read the eighth budget of the government which tells us about the poor old Britannia roundabout. It was fleetingly added for a little while when the member for Adelaide (then minister for transport) went to the Britannia roundabout next to the hotel and we stood side by side and supported the announcement of the Britannia roundabout upgrade—what a great day that was—only to be snatched away in the subsequent budget when she had been toppled and the new minister for transport had taken over the portfolio. He, of course, axed the project.

This would be a beautiful time for the upgrade to occur when there has been a proposed demolition of a number of the structures at Victoria Park on the corner of that site. On average, 2½ accidents a week occur at that intersection, and I think it is still on the RAA's list as the second most dangerous metropolitan intersection. but clearly it has been overlooked again.

The second issue—and I have raised this matter a number of times in the parliament—is the carnage on the Waterfall Gully Road after the major floods several years ago. I use the word 'carnage' deliberately. It was cleaned up by local people, including the council, who still have not been paid by the government for that clean-up. We have had the death of a cyclist and numerous other accidents involving people walking or cycling or undertaking recreational activities in the Waterfall Gully area, particularly on that road. The road surface is a disgrace. It has killed someone already; not someone who lives in my electorate, but a gentleman from Unley. It really does need to be addressed but, yet again, that has been overlooked.

We have a water problem in this state, probably the single biggest issue in the state. And what do we have from the government? Apart from a proposed stormwater project at Cheltenham, which is subject, of course, to what happens in the Supreme Court, here we are: we have offered projects to the government, and the Brownhill Creek/Keswick Creek proposal is just one of a number.

The Liberal Party has presented a number of different catchment options that are available. We have published papers on this, and we have put this matter out there for the government to be able to pick up. It picked up the desal plant. When it comes to one of the biggest issues in this state, the government has an opportunity to do something—and we have packaged up these projects for it. About $105 million would do the Brownhill Creek/Keswick Creek proposal.

On a current estimate, enough water runs off the Bragg electorate—the good people of which electorate I represent—to water the whole of Adelaide, yet this option has again been completely ignored. We can serve this up as a project that would detain some water in dams further upstream, aggregating that through a pool system at the bottom end of the Glenside Hospital site, and pumping it underground into the aquifers along detention dams and aquifers in the South Parklands.

Even the member for West Torrens was excited to hear about this project at one stage, because it will help in relation to the flooding problem that his constituents, along with those of the member Unley, suffer as a result of not harvesting the water that runs through those electorates. The projects that I have mentioned so far—Britannia, Waterfall Gully upgrade and the Brownhill Creek/Keswick Creek provisions—would all be well within the Treasurer's slush fund—the $467 million that he has kept in his back pocket ready to use in an emergency—

The Hon. K.O. Foley: Where?

Ms CHAPMAN: It's in your budget, darling. The Treasurer can use that money just to do these projects, but he does not have to pick these. We are not particularly precious out in Bragg, and we are used to looking after ourselves. We have got nothing in the last eight years, and what we have got we have had taken away from us in the subsequent budget. So we are used to that. In fact, there are people who live around me in Norwood, Hartley, Morialta, Unley and in the leader's electorate who have a high level of need but who are constantly ignored.

I will conclude by talking about the Glenside Hospital. This is a statewide service providing acute mental health services, including forensic and detention areas for the whole of South Australia. It is an area which is subject to a redevelopment proposal by the government in which they say they will rebuild the hospital. That was great and we welcomed that initiative.

We then had the Treasurer announce, in December last year: 'Not enough money—world financial crisis. We are going to have to put it off for two years.' Well, that's fine, but what about the $43 million project that the government is still proceeding with for a film hub in the middle of that site? They have plenty of money for that. They could be building that hospital right now but, oh no, they have decided to proceed with the film hub with money from the Premier, who also has a slush fund—he has his own Premier's fund—for discretionary projects. He has already used $2.5 million of his fund to buy the 2.77 hectares in the middle of the Glenside Hospital site, put it into his department and redevelop it for his pet project.

So, I do not want to hear any nonsense from the government about not having adequate funds available. They are selling off that land, they are selling off the Norwood Osmond Terrace Drug and Alcohol Centre, and they have sold up dozens of Housing Trust houses and dwellings in my area. They are quite happy to come in, conduct a fire sale, rape and pillage the assets in my area, and deliver nothing back to the people of Bragg.

Can I say, finally, that we asked for just a pittance, when we asked for the $2 million, which I presented to the government as an option, to come in and acquire the Chelsea Cinema. I am not doing it because the Burnside council is betwixt and between as to whether it is going to sell it or not. It is a state heritage listed asset. It is a listed asset under state legislation. Surely we have some obligation as a parliament to ensure that our state government makes provision to ensure this is secure and is maintained. So, it can buy it off the council, if it wishes to. If it does not want to do that it can assist in its support, because it is a state heritage listed asset, and that diminishes, as we know, the commercial value of a property, regrettably, but that is the reality, because of the limited capacity to utilise that facility or redevelop it for alternative use.

We understand that, but we cannot have it both ways. We cannot impose from this legislature rules about the protection of our heritage—and I disclose my interest as a member of the National Trust of South Australia, the headquarters of which are soon to be up in Beaumont House in my electorate, and I look forward to welcoming them—and then, on the other hand, say, 'We're just going to ignore this and leave this asset to rot or to be sold off,' by a council on which there are some members who are arguing that it is necessary to do so.

The people of my area have spoken. The people in the areas of Norwood, Hartley and Morialta, the city of Adelaide, and people who live further south, also use this facility for all the community activities that they undertake in the area. The Chelsea Cinema is well loved. The public and my constituents, both as voters and ratepayers, have spoken. I have delivered thousands of petitions to the Burnside council in relation to this project, in particular urging it either not to sell or, at the very least, to retain it for both community access and use, and as a cinema.

Other people in the parliament have been active in trying to engender some support, and that is fine. We have welcomed that. The problem is that the Treasurer has not listened. He has a Premier who sits next to him and says, 'I want to put $43 million into a film hub,' and the only contribution we get from the front bench is the minister for environment who says, 'Look, I'll kick in $25,000.' It is a joke. It is totally inadequate, given that this is a state heritage asset. The government will hear, well and truly, from the people of Bragg at the next state election, come 20 March 2010.

I hope that the Treasurer knows what day the election is. I did note the other day that in the paper he was quoted as giving the date of 10 March 2010, and it is the 20th. I hope he remembers that just in case he sort of misses it or something, and thinks that he can go away on a holiday after the 10th—after, of course, he has lost government.

Mr PISONI (Unley) (17:45): I am hoping, in the 10 minutes that I have here, to touch on some issues in my electorate where, I could say, we have seen no action. I should start with the Unley Road upgrade, and I will quickly run through the history of that project. A feasibility study was started in about 2000 for upgrading Unley Road and a substantial amount of money was spent on consultation, with engineers, coming up with several concepts.

It was a pretty difficult task, I must say, because we needed to achieve a situation where we had ease of traffic flow in peak hours, and we also had to ensure that we preserved the character of the strip shopping on Unley Road because it is one of only half a dozen or so streets in the metropolitan area that has a substantial amount of strip shopping. It is something that you see, obviously, in the Eastern States a lot more often than here because, obviously, the cities are bigger. One of the reasons that Unley is a desirable place to live is the strip shopping, so that was a major consideration.

If I cut to the chase, the end of the consultation period and the engineering period saw a plan that was approved. One of three plans was put forward. A plan was approved by the community, and I believe that preparations were being made to take it to cabinet for funding at the time. It was actually the cheapest of the three options. It meant that we could have two in-bound lanes and one out-bound lane in the morning, and the reverse in the afternoon. At off-peak times, we were to have dedicated right-turn lanes, which is an important thing for Unley Road because traffic is held up enormously at off-peak times, particularly when cars are turning into suburban streets.

That happens a lot, of course, because people like to cut through our suburban streets to try to get off the main congested areas of Unley Road, Goodwood Road, Fullarton Road, Glen Osmond Road and Portrush Road. So we see a lot of people cutting through our side streets and that is another bone of contention with the residents living in and around my electorate.

The bottom line is that all the work was done, and a substantial investment of volunteer time from the community and traders, government advisory time, consultants' time and ministerial time was put into moving this plan forward. Unfortunately, with the change of government, the plan was put to the then minister in the new Rann government who decided that the government would not fund the upgrade.

Since that time, we have seen the average speed drop on Unley Road. I think the average speed in kilometres per hour is well in the 20s now and, at peak hour, it can sometimes take nearly 20 minutes to drive that 2.7 kilometre strip of Unley Road. Hopefully, the South Road underpass might do a little bit to alleviate that, but the bulk of the traffic that comes down Unley Road obviously comes from the Hills suburbs.

Of course, when the eastern suburbs are cut off with the Clipsal 500 race, Unley Road is an absolute nightmare where you can often sit for five or 10 minutes and only move a few metres. An upgrade is long overdue, and I am very keen for the government to show some interest in dealing with this project. I was surprised that, with the amount of federal money that was being thrown around, the few million dollars that was needed for this job was not forthcoming.

We are still waiting for our black spot funding for the corner of Young Street and Unley Road. It is a notorious corner on Unley Road and, certainly, Parkside residents are very keen to see some traffic lights put in there. We do have some pedestrian lights just down from the corner but, unfortunately, they do not do the job of allowing people to get in and out of Parkside which is boxed in by a number of street closures. It is a bit of a maze at times getting out of Parkside, and Young Street is one of the ways to do that. However, not having traffic lights there does make it very dangerous, particularly if you are turning right heading into the city in the morning.

Another concern, of course, is the lack of action on stormwater. I know that it has not rained and, consequently, it has gone out of the government's mind, but we did have some terrible flooding in the lead-up to last election. Several houses were engulfed by flood waters that rushed quickly down the creeks that run through the electorate, in particular, Parkside Creek and a couple of others that are quite close to people's homes. Of course, those creeks have been there for many years, as have the homes, but what has changed is that we get a lot more run-off moving faster, because of the increase in urban consolidation, resulting in less uncovered land.

Many houses are now built from boundary to boundary on a concrete slab and so we are seeing a lot less water falling into the ground and running into gutters and then into our streams and out to sea. Fortunately it happens at a rapid pace but we have not seen any stormwater projects either for harvesting for future use or even for moving it out to the sea to protect homeowners. A large slice of north Unley, in particular, is a designated flood zone.

Then, of course, there is the disappointment of Glenside where we are seeing a hospital redevelopment that has been delayed—a development that is only being funded with the sale of land that the hospital is using which is also community land. It is used by many people in and around Glenside. There is a cricket oval there. There are schools that use the sporting facilities there and, of course, the patients at Glenside enjoy the wide open spaces. I was speaking to one particular constituent whose wife has reason to attend Glenside periodically. One of the things that helps his wife is the fact that she can walk the dog around the grounds while she is recuperating. That is just one small story about the closure of Glenside that is disappointing.

We have very little open space in Unley. With open space you get trees, birds and other forms of wildlife, and as we lose our open space, both private open space through urban consolidation and public open space through government sell-offs like this, there is less opportunity to enjoy the benefits of open space.

One issue I raise that has been concerning some residents in my electorate is the speed and also the lack of consultation with the Building the Education Revolution program, where we are seeing one-size-fits-all halls, in particular, being dropped into schools, where they fit, and with no obligation whatsoever for consultation with neighbours.

There is one private school in particular in my electorate that has had a long-term plan to put in car parking and tennis courts, knowing full well that it would have to consult with the community, doing it through the council process, but it used the opportunity of the BER money to help fund this development, which knocked down three historic homes, and then gave it the automatic stamp of approval from the commissioner of works, Rod Hook, which meant that it did not need to go to council and consequently did not need to have consultation with residents. This is a big change to the amenity of the area.

We are seeing a similar situation with a government school in my electorate, with a very large school hall, that is predominantly Colorbond, going up in a heritage area, on the boundary near another home, which would severely restrict their ability to have solar panels. Again, there is no obligation whatsoever for the school to consult with the neighbours.

Time expired.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (17:55): I want to speak about the No. 1, 2 and 3 issue in this state, and that is water. The big issue that we have at Glenelg is the amount of stormwater that comes down through the Brownhill, Sturt and Keswick creeks and then into the Pat. The Barcoo Outlet has solved many of the problems down there, but the problem is that we still have millions, perhaps billions, of litres of stormwater coming down and going out to sea.

This should not be happening. What should be happening is more wetlands being developed, and retention and detention on-site as often as we possibly can. There is a classic opportunity at Sturt Creek to develop wetlands at Marion at the road safety school. I understand that the Department for Environment and Heritage has given land to the City of Marion. The department of transport wants $3 million for its bit, which is holding things up, and there are also wetlands being developed at Adelaide Airport.

If we had the money and the opportunity we would do what they are doing in Singapore, and that is turn these concrete channels back into pristine creeks, with the help of some groundbreaking technology from Flinders University, some sol-gel filtration, through Professor Stephen Clarke. It is absolutely brilliant. I suggest to people in this place that they speak to Professor Clarke and have a look at what they are doing in Singapore. This is what could happen to our stormwater, and our creeks could be turned from concrete canyons back into pristine linear parks for South Australians.

I want to talk about the Glenelg Waste Water Treatment Plant. It does stink every now and again, and I assume they are working on that, but I have a real issue with the fact that there are still billions of litres going out to sea. Even with the $60 million pipeline coming into town, they will still only be using between 12 and 15 per cent of that water—that is all, and that is during the summertime when they are using that water for irrigation here.

The rest of the time this A grade water, water which you could just about drink, is going out to sea. It is killing the seagrasses, and that is another issue. Funding was put up by this government to help Flinders University and SARDI redevelop the seagrass beds, but that funding was pulled. I spoke to the minister and I understand that that funding is back in place.

The water going out to sea from the Glenelg Waste Water Treatment Plant is a tragic waste. It was being used by the Glenelg golf course and some other facilities around the place such as Adelaide Shores and the councils, but SA Water, in its wisdom, put the cost up by 1,200 per cent. So, what happened? Glenelg Golf Club, Kooyonga and, I think, Grange, have gone onto aquifer storage and recovery systems using stormwater, funded by the federal government.

There are billions of litres of good quality water going straight out to sea. It should not be happening. The problem is compounded by the fact that the cost of that water is now being charged at a percentage base. I understand that the Adelaide City Council is paying 75 per cent of potable water price for that water.

So, when the desal plant comes on and the potable water price doubles, what is the Adelaide City Council going to be paying for the water to irrigate the Parklands? That price rise will cripple the budget for the Parklands watering. What is the alternative? It is all going out to sea. It is a disgrace. It should not be happening, and it should be stopped by this government.

We should be doing everything that we can to make sure that every drop of water in South Australia, whether it is treated wastewater or stormwater, is going to be recycled and can be re-used over and over again. It is part of the hydrological cycle. There is no doubt that it can be done better. This government needs to do it better. It should be happening now, not waiting for promises in the future. It is an absolute priority.

It is the No. 1, the No. 2 and the No. 3 issue for this state, and it is not going to go away. This government needs to act now. It needs to do something about this, not just talk, not just empty promises, not just dam expansions which disappear and not just relying on federal government bail-outs to achieve what is an absolutely critical issue for this state.


[Sitting suspended from 18:00 to 19:30]


Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (19:30): I wish to use my opportunity tonight to talk about issues that occur in my electorate as they relate to the budget. Certainly, I will put on the record in the first instance my appreciation that a commitment of $7.1 million has been given over the forward estimates for the Kadina Memorial High School; $5.9 million of that is in the last financial year of the forward estimates, but it is very pleasing to see that some very necessary work has been done at that school. I have been there a few times, and it is obvious that a little more work needs to be undertaken, but it is fantastic to have $7.1 million committed to it.

In fact, there are 27 schools within the Goyder electorate, 22 being public schools and five private schools. All of them have needs to some degree, and it is pleasing to see that all of them have received quite substantial amounts of money from the federal government through the Building the Education Revolution fund. It is interesting, though, because I was at a local football game on Saturday and a few people commented to me that there was a level of concern about the fact that those funds were being used to build facilities that might not necessarily be appropriate in the longer term. They quoted to me an example of a three-quarter size gymnasium that is not big enough on which to play netball or basketball.

It would be ideal to use as a community facility but the fact that it is too small means that that is prevented. Let us hope that some negotiation will occur to ensure that there is an opportunity to make better use of those very important funds to which taxpayers around the nation will be contributing for many years. Again, I put on record my appreciation for the Treasurer's and the Minister for Education's support for the Kadina Memorial High School, and I hope that other grants flow through to other worthwhile projects within the Goyder electorate.

The road network, though, is something that I want to talk about for some time, because, being a regional member of parliament I have no or a very limited public transport option. The necessity for people in my electorate by virtue of where they live is to be on the roads. Much of the road length is a Transport SA controlled facility, and I think it is fair to say that much of the road length is the topic of a lot of the concern—very much in the negative sense—that I have within my electorate office. People are quite concerned about it. Some areas were done up, and I do acknowledge that, about five years ago, when the Hon. Michael Wright was the minister responsible for that area, some funds were expended to improve the road from Ardrossan going towards Federation Park, towards Port Wakefield.

Some shoulder widening was put in and a passing lane, which has improved that enormously, but hundreds of kilometres within the Goyder electorate certainly do need an investment to take place. I want to concentrate on three roads in particular. One road is going from Kulpara through to Kadina, Wallaroo and Moonta. It is a very high traffic area. It is a community that is expanding enormously. Moonta, Moonta Bay and Port Hughes currently has a population of about 4,000, projected across the next 15 years, or so, to grow to 16,000 people. The area is becoming increasingly popular with a far greater number of transport actions on that road network; and, sadly, sections of it are quite dangerous.

Some speed restrictions are in place, but there are areas of the road where I can see very little work has been undertaken. Terrible and quite shocking instances, I am told, have occurred. It has been reported to me third-hand that, when they are going towards each other, trucks are coming across very poor sections of the road, causing them to shimmy across the road, and the trailers of these trucks are touching each other as they pass. That is an accident waiting to happen. We have a vast number of people who travel that road with caravans and boats, and all these people are quite fearful of the condition of the road.

They do slow down but it is a 100 km/h road, and I think it is in urgent need of funds being spent there. I know that the District Council of the Copper Coast has been quite diligent in its contact with the Minister for Transport (Hon. Mr Conlon), trying to get recognition for a significant upgrade in the road network to occur there. I offer my full support for that, especially in terms of the ferry that travels between Wallaroo and Lucky Bay, which is further increasing the road network needs. Let us hope we get some money in the future.

In terms of central Yorke Peninsula, the road that comes from Kulpara, goes through Maitland, Minlaton and down to Yorketown, Edithburgh and Warooka has some very poor sections where the shoulders are quite pronounced. It is quite a skinny road network, too, so there is a lot of trouble when heavy vehicles travel towards each other. You do find instances where it is necessary for one truck to get one side of its wheels off the road to give each other plenty of passing room. I know that the travelling public is concerned about it.

The locals understand the condition of it and travel accordingly, but for the visitors that we have—and we have hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Yorke Peninsula each year—it is a great concern. That is a very long area of road network that really does need a significant upgrade. One road within the Wakefield or Adelaide Plains area is the road that goes from Balaklava across to Hamley Bridge. They are great little communities with wonderful people. They are farming communities that have been very supportive and that have done wonderful things in the past, but the road network from that stretch of road is quite poor.

Some work has been done on Nine Mile Corner Road to upgrade that area but, beyond that, heading towards Hamley Bridge, it is in a poor condition. The speed limit is 100 km/h and it is desperately in need of an upgrade. As is my wont for as long as I have the great opportunity to represent the people of Goyder, I will continue to bring this issue forward and hope that, in future years, an investment takes place there. One other issue I wish to talk about is the water provision for Yorke Peninsula. It is a difficult issue to raise given the desperate situation of the Murray and the continuing drought.

The minister has been quite proactive in this and there has been an investment of SA Water resources physically with some very good people doing work on a Yorke Peninsula long-term water supply plan. I understand that, in past years, a similar exercise has been conducted on the Eyre Peninsula. I know that some preliminary planning is also being done for a similar exercise on Kangaroo Island. I have been invited, with observer status, to attend meetings of this group, and I appreciate the opportunity the minister provided to me.

I also attended three of the five forums that were held after preliminary work was done when the public was invited to attend to understand some of the issues involved and to create some preferences in terms of where they wanted the effort to go. It was good; we got feedback. Five of those meetings were held on the Yorke Peninsula and one meeting was held in Adelaide. I went to that one also. It was not big in numbers, it is fair to say, even though something like 600 submissions were received, which was an outstanding effort from the people of the Yorke Peninsula in the Copper Coast council areas in terms of putting their fingers to the typewriter to write letters and to put in there comments.

It really has proven to me that this exercise has to be more than words. I know that the people who have gone to the effort to put in submissions and attended the forums want to see outcomes. They want to see some outcomes which will give them a greater opportunity to grow their region; and they know that, in order to do that, they need an improved water supply.

It is an emotive issue, but it is appropriate that it be addressed. The Minister for Water Security when answering a question in parliament today talked about the response by the state and federal governments to withdraw a $160 million contribution towards the BHP plant. She said that the action in Adelaide to create a 100 gigalitres plant means that country South Australia is quite secure in its water supplies. I know that the country licence is 50 gigalitres of water. I think it has been downgraded to something like 31 gigalitres because of the ongoing dry conditions.

It is obvious to me that the network, too, is a problem. The study on Yorke Peninsula has highlighted the fact that we have 1,850 kilometres of pipeline network that SA Water controls and owns. The majority of that pipeline network is over 50 years old. I am told that it is designed for a 100 year life—and I am quite surprised by that, given the physical condition of it and the apparent lack of maintenance that is occurring—but part of the challenge is to get the pipeline network of a sufficient size with sufficient storage in order to have the capacity to supply the growing needs of the communities on Yorke Peninsula and the Adelaide Plains and to have some option to give a water supply to the 16 communities in the area that do not have a potable reticulated water supply. Part of the vision must be to improve it.

My closing comment is about broadband funding, on which there needs to be a greater emphasis. If business is to have the opportunity to locate in regional areas and if regional people are to have the opportunity to have access to broadband technology, we need to ensure a combination of state and federal government effort goes into it. In previous years the federal government has contributed vast sums towards it and the state government within my area has supported projects, but lots of areas of the state need an improved system; and I hope the government chooses to work actively on that issue.

Stormwater opportunities for capture and reuse in the regions do exist. It needs a lot more support. Federal money to some degree has apparently dried up. Local communities are taking a proactive response to this issue. They are trying to work out opportunities, engaging their councils and challenging their communities to come up with a solution to capture the rainwater, store it in dams and pump it to a reticulated network. Let us hope that the government supports it in every way possible.

Mrs PENFOLD (Flinders) (19:40): I spoke in my second reading contribution about economic issues. I will now provide a few words in relation to mental health, disability funding and the plight of volunteers from a regional perspective.

Funding has been dropped for James Nash House, which is used for high risk patients who are a danger to themselves and/or to others—despite it having a long waiting list of around 20 people and being in severe need of an expansion to provide at least 60 to 65 upgraded beds and better facilities. Perhaps this delay will provide time to reconsider the ill-conceived proposal to move it to Murray Bridge, away from professional support and where patients, their family and friends, would have the greatest difficulty in maintaining adequate contact. This facility should be located in Adelaide, as close as possible to existing mental health professionals and facilities where qualified staff and services are nearby, and access for family and friends, particularly those from regional areas, is reasonable.

The optimum situation would be for James Nash House to be rebuilt on the existing site with expanded services. Instead, sadly, there is no funding in this budget. In addition to the James Nash House debacle, in the past year 75 patients have been shunted out of the Glenside mental health facility. The surrounding land, which allows green spaces and provides room for a hospital redevelopment, is being provided, along with $43 million by the Premier, to become a film hub. I cannot believe the government's skewed priorities.

I will quote Dr John Brayley, Public Advocate, who used to be the head of mental health in South Australia. In relation to James Nash House and the high need in prison populations for the services it provides, he said:

The other group who go through are prisoners with a mental illness who need short admissions and because people with mental illness are over represented in the prison population a common figure is up to 50 per cent. It's very important to be able to have facilities for prisoners, as well as get acute treatment.

I note at this point that there is no capital funding in the budget for Port Lincoln Hospital upgrades—promised last year—despite its being identified as a regional general hospital. A major priority at the Port Lincoln Hospital is for a mental health unit, both for community admissions from across the huge region which it services and which has been drought affected in some places for up to six years—putting huge stress on communities, some of whom are still recovering from the bushfires—and the prisoner population.

The Port Lincoln Prison has been promised funding in this budget to provide an additional 36 beds. This will add to the existing need for mental health professionals and specialised facilities in the region. Some prison inmates and their families take up residence in Port Lincoln after they are released.

The difficulties faced by disabled people living outside the metropolitan area are magnified by distance and isolation, increasing personal costs in time, money and the general accessibility of services. When one combines these problems with the total inflexibility of the government to review rules to suit the different circumstances, the pressure on disabled people and their families and carers is immense.

The case that best illustrates this amazing lack of flexibility of the Labor government to cope with regional differences and their ramifications on an individual family and the community is the case of the Richters. The Richter family lives in Ungarra, approximately 90 kilometres from Port Lincoln. For seven years their autistic son, Rodney, caught the education department funded bus—which passes their door—to travel to Port Lincoln to attend the special school.

When Rodney turned 20 (in chronological years) suddenly it was decreed that he could no longer catch the bus. His father Steve, who is a school bus driver and a highly qualified volunteer ambulance driver, runs a computer business from home. He now has to drive Rodney to and from Port Lincoln every day to enable Rodney to access the Moving On employment program at Bedford Compass.

As a result, Steve can no longer reliably service his computer customers, is no longer available to drive the school buses and is very often not available when ambulance emergencies occur. The latter is life threatening, as an ambulance has had to be sent from the paid ambulance service in Port Lincoln to patients in Tumby Bay and beyond, causing unacceptable delays.

The ministers for education and disability were both contacted by me to help fix what I thought at the time was just a glitch in the system. Since then emails, letters, questions and speeches in parliament, radio interviews, newspaper articles and even a segment on Today Tonight have not managed to sort out the problem for this family. Steve recently advised:

I started asking the disability Office about this 13 months ago, in all this time I have only received 2 emails. In the last 4 months I started pushing a bit more for a response. I asked for an explanation to a very simple statement put forward by the minister, 'what are the "complex issues"?'

Finally on 29 May Steve received a response from the Minister for Education. She acknowledged that this is a difficult situation for the family and confirmed that the 'adult' program Rodney attends is supported with funding through the Department for Families and Communities. However, there are no shades of grey.

The bottom line is that adults are not eligible for access to school buses, and heaven forbid that a precedent is set to accommodate one living in a remote regional community and his family. Rodney, who has the mental age and ability of a child, would create legal problems. The minister went on to state that she has asked her ministerial colleague the Hon. Jennifer Rankine, the Minister for Families and Communities, to re-examine how best her department may assist. The minister had been silent in this whole sorry saga, which will not go away. I am advised that next year another student who has been travelling on the 'school bus' to the special school will be in the same situation.

It is stunning that in this day and age some common sense and compromise cannot be applied. Here we have a chronologically aged adult but mentally aged child living in isolation being denied opportunities while a government funded bus drives past their farm gate every school day of the year. Can I ask the ministers involved to perhaps ask a medically qualified professional to assess Rodney's mental age to ascertain whether he could be considered a child for the purposes of bus travel? Then his father can work for his family and he can be available to volunteer for his community and help to save lives.

From what I am hearing in my community, volunteers are feeling used and abused by this state government, too. Despite all the rhetoric by the government about valuing our volunteers, they are feeling undervalued and overworked, expected to submit volumes of paperwork before undertaking activities, not adequately reimbursed for expenses and all the time being treated like imbeciles by the paid professionals.

This discontent was reinforced by a letter to the editor in today's Advertiser by Ken Schutz of the CFS Volunteers Association, Regency Park, who stated, 'It's time for successive governments to stop treating emergency services volunteers like unpaid public servants.' This view is supported also in today's Advertiser by Andy Fryar, who said:

The group members are highly community minded and want short-term assignments that allow them to make an immediate difference—and not loads of extra paperwork and after hours of training. Seems the problem is the system and not the volunteers.

However, this government's actions appear to reinforce the statement of one former union CEO, who said, 'If a job's worth doing it's worth being paid for.' The rest is for suckers, which is exactly how many of our regional volunteers feel.

Recently a review of emergency services funding that was looking for savings within the volunteer services referred to SES groups as 'social clubs'. I am also reliably advised that SES volunteers have no idea what, if any, funding they are to receive in the 2009-10 financial year, as they are considered to be starting with a $300,000 debt.

We cannot do without our CFS, SES and volunteer ambulance services in this state. This government will not be putting in paid services to replace the wonderful volunteers, as it would cost many millions of dollars to cover our regions. However, these people need these services that our city cousins take for granted.

The emergency services levy was, I understand, meant to help fund these voluntary services, but I am now told that the levy funds are being diverted more and more to pay for police, MFS and paid ambulance services that were traditionally paid for by the government from our existing state taxes. For a supposedly socialist government, a government that purports to govern for all, it seems this metrocentric government cannot see beyond the CBD.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (19:50): The member for MacKillop will not have to wait long, because I am going to speak about things in the budget for the electorate of Davenport. Other than the usual health announcements for the Flinders Medical Centre, which is a state facility on the very border of my electorate, there is essentially nothing in the budget for all the road issues I have raised over the past eight years. The rail matter, of course, as announced last year is continuing. That is the resleepering of the line, but there is no commitment to electrify as such, and there is no decision as to what will be done with the passenger line with regard to the tunnels; because of the electrification we would need to do something with the tunnels is my understanding.

The only school projects were the ones which were announced last year and which are continuing. We welcomed those last year, but this year there is nothing new. So, there is not a lot to comment on in the budget as far as the electorate of Davenport goes, other than to say—

Mr Bignell interjecting:

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: I would back the battleship if I were you. In relation to the budget, there is one item that is missing, and I have been looking for it. It is the front page announcement during the last election campaign about the Sturt Road/South Road overpass. It was on the front page—

Ms Fox interjecting:

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: Member for Bright, your government announced it was going to build an overpass on Sturt Road/South Road.

Mr Bignell interjecting:

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: The member for Mawson confirms that it is going to be built (and I thank him for it): it is just not in this budget.

Mr Bignell interjecting:

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: It was announced four years ago to commence this year, member for Mawson. So, if you have now confirmed to the house through your interjection that it is going to be built but not this year, I thank you for the interjection. The preliminary work was the election announcement four years ago—

Mr Bignell: It'll go both ways, too, not like your stupid expressway.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: It will go both ways, not like our stupid expressway. If it is so bad, member for Mawson, you would not use it, would you? The expressway. Do you use it?

Mr Bignell: I use it all the time.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: You use it all the time, but your government will not commit to duplicate it. In fact, the Minister for Transport is saying that he will not duplicate it.

Mr Bignell interjecting:

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: Can you give me a year?

Mr Bignell interjecting:

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: The other thing that is missing is the new CFS station for Eden Hills. Not only was it promised in 2002 and 2006, but even the head of the CFS suggested to a parliamentary committee it would be built in 2010. This budget is an act of wizardry because lots of things have disappeared, including the Mount Bold reservoir, the Sturt Road/South Road overpass/underpass, and now the CFS station has disappeared as well.

I have previously brought to the house's attention that the traffic is such through the main street of Blackwood that the Blackwood roundabout will be blocked all the time with an increase in traffic, and the government has absolutely no plan to deal with it, which is regrettable. So, the budget has served the electorate of Davenport very poorly. I will continue to advocate for expenditure both in relation to election promises from my side and from the government to try to improve conditions for the electors of Davenport come March 2010. With those few comments, I will hand over to the member for MacKillop.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (19:55): That was most revealing, particularly the interjections from the member for Mawson, who stood up in the second reading of the Appropriation Bill and said words to this effect, 'the AAA credit rating is so important; we worked so hard to gain it'. That proved one thing to me: the member for Mawson has no idea. If he goes back and reads Standard and Poor's reasons why we got the AAA credit rating back in South Australia, he would understand that it was because of the good work of the previous Liberal government.

The member for Mawson just confirmed what the member for Davenport said about the lack of expenditure in his seat and the broken promises. The opposition has highlighted a number of broken promises. It is the hallmark of this government. This government has come into this place—and not only at budget time but almost on a weekly basis—and made grandiose announcements and promises.

Mrs Redmond: They make the same ones over and over again.

Mr WILLIAMS: They do make the same ones over and over. They usually make them three or four times. The sad thing is that they deliver very few of them. One of the promises that has been made both by this government and by the federal Rudd government in Canberra was that, when Kevin Rudd borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars to hand out in largesse to the states to save all the broken-down state Labor governments, none of the money would be used to replace state projects which should have been funded by the state governments.

About six weeks ago, I had a phone call from one of the schools in my electorate saying, 'We have been working for two years on a project in our school and we have just been told that that project is now on hold. We have to go back to square one and apply under the BER scheme.' I am referring to the Building the Education Revolution (BER). That is Kevin Rudd's name for his borrowing billions of dollars and handing it out.

Here is an exact example in my electorate of the state government putting on hold its program and taking the largesse from Kevin Rudd to substitute and subsidise state finances. This is why we have been saying on this side that this government has been bailed out by Kevin Rudd. It is not Kevin Rudd who has bailed out this government: it is the long suffering taxpayers of this nation because every one of those dollars will have to be paid back.

About a fortnight ago I was invited to visit one of the primary schools in my electorate and they said, 'We are so lucky. We have been promised a new gymnasium and we have been screaming out for this sort of facility for many years.' Not only has the school community been screaming out for this facility but the wider community has been screaming out for it because it will be used, not just by the school but by the local community. I said, 'That is really good. That is great news.' The principal of the school said to me, 'No; it is not quite that great because we have been told that we have to accept project A—the gymnasium as per plan A.' The principal explained to me, 'That is not what we have been asking for and it will not serve either the school or the wider community. What we want,' they said—

Ms Fox interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: Well, just listen. They said, 'We want this type of gymnasium which has been built several years ago in the school down the road. We would like one of those.' I said—

Mr Bignell interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: Just wait. I can see that the members of the government have had the same problems in their own electorates because they are pre-empting what I am going to say. They have had the same problem. I asked them, 'How many extra hundreds of thousands will you need to build'—

Ms Fox interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr WILLIAMS: —'what you want as opposed to what you have been told you are going to get?'

Ms Fox interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Bright.

Mr WILLIAMS: Lo and behold, the answer came back: 'It would cost less to give us what we wanted than what they were proposing to give us.' I was told by the school principal—and for obvious reasons I am not going to reveal the school or the principal's name, because I know the way this government works, and I was asked specifically not to reveal the name of the school or the principal—

Mrs Geraghty: That's outrageous!

Mr WILLIAMS: It is not outrageous. I have told the school principal that if they cannot get any sense out of this government to contact me, to get the school council, the governing council, to contact me and we will take it up, and they are still negotiating. But they have been told: 'It will cost less but, sorry, this is what you are getting, and you cannot have that.' That is the reality, and that is what is happening right across the state.

I have a grandchild who started school in another part of the state outside of my electorate last week. That school has eight children in it. It is on the brink of closing down, and the school community are scratching their head as to how they might spend $267,000—an absolute waste of money.

Like the member for Davenport, I can name a plethora of projects in my electorate which should be funded by either the state or federal government, but they will not be funded and they are not being funded. My electorate, like the member for Davenport's electorate, has got diddly squat out of this budget. What we have got is a number of school communities that are being frustrated. What we have got is a number of hospitals across my electorate that are being squeezed, and the money being taken out of those to fund a hospital at the rail yards here in Adelaide that nobody wants.

We have good people four hours by land transport away from Adelaide; they do not want a hospital down there. They want basic medical care in their own backyard, and it is being denied to them. It is being denied to them because their hospitals are being squeezed. They have been cut to the bone—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr WILLIAMS: They have been cut to the bone. I turn to another issue in the last couple of minutes available to me. The minister for corrections came in here today and landed us with a ministerial statement which covered the tabling of the Parole Board's annual report. The Parole Board's annual report is delivered to the minister, under the legislation, no later than 31 October each year, and, under the legislation, it should be tabled this year within 12 sitting days. It was tabled today.

I can understand why the government would not want to table the report of the Parole Board, because it is damning of this government. This government professes to be tough on law and order and says that it is locking up more prisoners than ever. But, the Chair of the Parole Board, Frances Nelson QC, says:

The work of the Parole Board has almost doubled in the last few years...undoubtedly due to the increase in the number of discretionary releases.

We might be locking a few more up, but we are letting a lot more out. She goes on to say:

In terms of preventing further or repeated offending it is necessary to deal with the causes of criminogenic factors.

There's a word I have never heard of before. She continues:

They are many and varied and include drug and alcohol use, mental health issues, unacceptable levels of literacy, lack of working skills and/or experience, child sex abuse and general background deprivation.

We have an issue, which a number of my colleagues are raising, about the education system in this state. The chair of the Parole Board clearly states that 'unacceptable levels of literacy' is one of the causes for people being incarcerated in our prisons. Even when we put them in our prisons and lock them away, we still do not rehabilitate them. One of the best ways we can rehabilitate people incarcerated in our prisons is to give them basic skills in literacy and numeracy. We do not do it at primary school, it is too late when they get to secondary school, and we do not do it in our prisons.

It is no wonder that the minister came in here and made this nonsense of a ministerial statement, trying to cover up the inadequacies and the underfunding of our prison system. If the minister was proud of what is happening in our prisons, he would release the report into the riots last October in Port Augusta Prison, and the people of South Australia could judge this government on exactly what happened.

Time expired.

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen) (20:05): I welcome the opportunity to make another brief contribution on this matter.

Members interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: I wish that those on the other side would actually stand up and put their thoughts on the record instead of trying to yell abuse at people on this side of the chamber while we are trying to put some thoughts on the record in relation to this budget. Usually, of course, I would use this 10 minute grievance as an opportunity to speak more about my electorate and the impact of the budget on it, but, sadly, there is so little done in my electorate under this budget that it is hardly worth the effort of going there.

Besides that, when I was talking on matters yesterday, I really had not finished my comments in relation to those matters touching upon the other portfolios that I have under my watch, namely, attorney-general and justice, the arts, ageing, and road safety. In relation to the attorney-general and justice portfolio, of course, less than two weeks ago a judge's report once again indicated the lack of facilities in our courts.

I think I got to the point in my comments yesterday about the lack of facility in our courts and trying to make the government aware that, although this government hates lawyers, judges and, generally, anyone associated with the legal profession, courts are also places where victims and people who have been involved in accidents, and all sorts of other things, end up. We need, in the matter of appropriate facilities, to improve what is in our courts. The government this year has promised, for example, to have an early opening of the Sturt Street courts when, in fact, it was supposed to be opened last year, according to the budget.

I also mentioned yesterday the fact that we are still confronted with this dreadful situation in relation to our Coroner's reports, where people who have an unexpected death in the family have to face not only the trauma of that but also being told by the Coroner's office that the autopsy may be done fairly quickly but that they will not get a final death certificate until some 12 months, potentially, after that death.

I had got as far as talking about the fact that there had been a 19 per cent increase in the number of matters lodged with the District Court, and yet, the budget increase for that court was less than 10 per cent. Indeed, there has been an utter failure of this government in terms of addressing our courts generally and the Coroner's Court specifically, because although the government may have gone to the trouble of making a great big splash announcement about increased DNA testing facilities, the reality is that the Coroner's Court program generally has been reduced from $5,185,000 to just over $5 million—a decrease of more than $100,000 in its budget for this year.

The things that I wanted to get on to are those touching on the other portfolios that I have under my watch. I will say this: I have two good marks for the government. My mother always told me, 'If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all,' and I will say something nice. There are two good issues in ageing. I congratulate the government on its introduction of free fares for seniors card holders in off-peak times and I also congratulate them on, at long last, removing the land tax on aged care residential facilities.

I point out to the house that, whilst I congratulate the government on that, I think that thus far we have failed to address what are going to be the real issues in the area of ageing. We are all ageing and I can tell you that it is far better than the alternative of not getting older. I have mentioned these figures before. We already have in this country some 3,400 people over the age of 100.

Ms Fox interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: Yes; the member for Bright says, 'Wow,' because everyone thinks that is an amazing number of people over the age of 100—a lot of letters that the Queen has already signed. However, the fact is that, by the year 2055, it is anticipated that there will be 78,000 people over the age of 100 and, furthermore, that is going to mean that, because we baby boomers have overindulged our children and our children are expected to be the first generation not to outlive their parents, it is our grandchildren who are going to be confronted with having not just elderly parents in their 80s but very elderly grandparents in the post-95 and post-100 year age bracket as well as children to raise who then do not become independent until the age of 25. So, if you think we have problems now, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

We have huge issues in that area. We already know, for instance, that the single person household is the fastest-growing demographic in the housing sector, and yet we keep moving further and further out into the suburbs and building bigger and bigger houses when in fact we should be focusing on what we are going to need in the next few years.

I do not think that the answer is going to be building more and more nursing homes, because 90 per cent of us never live in a nursing home. Indeed, 90 per cent of us never want to live in a nursing home and we have to focus on ageing in place. So, whilst I congratulate the government, I think that we really need to be thinking in terms of the big issues that are going to confront us in that area.

Mrs Geraghty: But we are doing good things in this area.

Mrs REDMOND: The member the Torrens says that we are doing good things. I think fundamentally we have failed thus far to address the issue of the fact that the particular generation that we would classify as our older generation now are often asset rich and income poor. They are not a group, like the baby boomers, who may have been prepared to borrow against the increasing value of their house to pay their rates.

We have that increasing problem that I do not think is going to go away for the next 15 or 20 years probably, and I do not think we have confronted that well enough. As I said, I congratulate the government on those two bits that it did introduce, but I think that we need to have a bigger discussion in the broader community about how we confront those issues for our ageing community.

Moving on quickly, I was made the shadow minister for road safety only at the end of April, of course, and I have to say that it has been a fairly busy introduction to the portfolio. It was lucky for me that I had spent some 10 years on the Road Safety Advisory Council for this state, so that I do have a fair idea of the issues in the portfolio. Generally, it can be said all over the world that in road safety there are three main elements.

One element is driver behaviour, and we have for many years, for instance, encouraged 'Don't drink drive' and I can guarantee that the generation that my children represent is far more conscientious about never drinking and driving, about having designated drivers and all those things. They are extremely conscientious, far more so than the generation that I grew up in, so I think that message has got through. Regarding speeding, also, for the most part, the message has got through, although too many people are still speeding.

The next element is that of vehicle design. Over the years, we have created much safer vehicles so we have done a lot towards creating ABS air brakes, airbags, seatbelts, and all those things that have made the vehicles themselves and especially the little cocoon within which we all travel when we are in a car much safer. Those two aspects have been covered.

The third element is where we have fallen down, and I point to the government very markedly in this area because it is one the government can have a major effect in, and it has failed to address it. I refer to what is called roadside furniture and the road itself. Let me tell you what this budget does. On the Rural Road Improvement program, the budget for 2008-09 was over $8 million. What was spent was about $7.75 million. The budget for this year is $760,000. Less than 10 per cent of what was spent in the 2008-09 year is being spent on the Rural Road Improvement program.

Rural roads are a major issue because a lot of our accidents happen on rural roads. I have said before that some of our problems, I am sure, is because of driver knowledge. We grow a group of drivers in the city, young drivers who know about traffic but do not necessarily know about road handling, and we have another group who grow up in the country who are used to paddock bashers who grow up with a lot of road skills and driver skills but they do not have the traffic skills. We need to make sure that each of those groups gets the skills in the other areas, but they will be unsafe as long as our roads and our roadsides remain unsafe.

The overtaking lanes program is so important because people get impatient often behind slower moving vehicles and they take risks that they should not and that is when you get these terrible head-on collisions. The actual expenditure on the overtaking lanes program in 2007-08 was $5.75 million. The budget for 2008-09 was $1 million, and the actual expenditure was just over $589,000. The budget for this year is zip. Not one penny has been put towards that program.

So, although there are budgets there in some areas, the budgets have been so decimated that we are falling further behind, instead of getting ahead in terms of our roads and what is called 'roadside furniture'. As I said, that is the third element. There is driver behaviour, vehicle safety and the roads, the road design and the roadside furniture, and that is the area where we could have the biggest impact and it is the one where we are doing the least.

Time expired.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (20:15): I, too, wish to make comments in relation to my electorate of Kavel in the Adelaide Hills. There are a couple of pieces of pleasing information in the budget relating to educational facilities and, like the member for Heysen, if there is some positive news then I do like to speak about it. The Birdwood High School has received some funding for stage 2 of its next redevelopment program, and we are pleased—

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

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: No, not at all, minister. I am actually highlighting it as a positive outcome.

Mr Pederick: They are whingeing about that.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: She is whingeing about me saying it is a good thing. For goodness sake! As I said, it is stage 2 of the redevelopment project and I am sure that the school community is very pleased with that announcement. The local media ran an article on it a week or two ago, and I know that the principal is pleased to have received that next tranche of funding.

I can say that it was not without need, certainly, for the upgrading of that high school campus. I raised this particular issue in the house a number of years ago and helped the school and the school community campaign for the redevelopment project, along with my colleague the member for Schubert.

There is also funding in the budget for a feasibility study at the Nairne Primary School. The poor old long-suffering Nairne Primary School community has been through a considerable amount of turmoil, really, in relation to this government, particularly with the school crossing on the main road. For years and years that has been a real issue for the school community, and the ever-increasing population within the Nairne township has placed a further demand on the existing facilities at the primary school campus. I congratulate the government for recognising the need to fund this feasibility study, and that information was well received by the school as well.

I have endeavoured to establish very close relationships with all the schools in my electorate, and I would like to think that I have that type of close relationship with Birdwood High School—even though that township has been in the Schubert electorate it is now coming back into Kavel—and also the Nairne Primary School community.

Talking about matters relating to schools, I referred a minute or so ago to the school crossing issue at Nairne Primary School on the main road in the township. I have spoken about this ad infinitum in this place and finally we have received some funding from the federal government, the state government and the local government. Even though it is a state government responsibility, the federal government chipped in some money and the District Council of Mount Barker also came to the party to help fund an upgrade of the school crossing.

What DTEI has proposed is to move the school crossing from one side of the T-junction intersection with Woodside Road to the other. I have commented publicly that I do not think that is going to achieve a tremendous amount; actually, I do not think it is going to achieve much at all, because you will still have that traffic congestion at peak hour in the morning at that T-junction with Woodside Road and the main road in the township.

I have had meetings with council staff and they believe that they will see some improvements, but I am yet to be convinced on that, and I have made those comments publicly as well. The issue was also highlighted in the local press, which does not believe that positive outcomes will be achieved from the roughly $1 million being spent at that site.

The government knows what to do. The previous Liberal government undertook a consultancy, and this government has to bite the bullet and fund it satisfactorily to make that junction a crossroads, not a T-junction, but line it up with what they call Saleyard Road, which is the road that runs up to the school site.

An additional issue that I will keep on raising in this place and outside this place until we see a satisfactory result achieved, is that of the second freeway interchange. I will not give up on this issue while I am here as a local member. I will keep on highlighting, as loud and as hard as I can, the need for the second freeway interchange at Mount Barker.

Again, the District Council of Mount Barker has done an extensive amount of work in planning the whole interchange project, not so much the structural engineering side of things, but the approaches, the run-offs, the exit/entry points and how they might connect with the existing local road infrastructure. I congratulate the Mount Barker council for the significant work it has done on the issue.

We were very hopeful—'we' meaning the local community and myself as the local member, and the mayor—that the project was supposedly put on the short list for the latest round of Infrastructure Australia funding. I wrote a letter to the federal minister for infrastructure (Hon. Anthony Albanese) supporting the project and recommending it for funding, because the freeway is a federally administered highway. I got a fairly nebulous response, which did not really surprise me but, basically, the message that came back to the council was it was on the short list and everyone was hopeful that it would be funded. Unfortunately, the news has come through recently that is not the case, but we have seen the federal government fund all the state government pet projects such as the O-Bahn and the doubling of the capacity of the desalination plant; and all the other things it has poured money into, basically to bale out the state government from its infrastructure responsibilities.

So that specific issue of the need to build that second freeway interchange goes to the next issue that is at the forefront of what I call the tri-town district of Mount Barker, Littlehampton and Nairne, and that is the government's will to significantly increase residential development in that part of the Adelaide Hills. If the government wants to fill that part of the Hills with houses, it has to commit to improving the level of services, in particular, the road and transport infrastructure; and, as I said, a vital part of that is the second freeway interchange. If the state government wants to fill the hills with houses, it has to commit to these vital projects. It cannot ignore them. If it does, it does so at its peril.

That also relates to a whole range of service delivery such as health and transport—not only road infrastructure but also public transport. After a long battle, the government committed to the Park'n'Ride facility at Mount Barker. Almost at day one after the opening it was at capacity. People tell me there are no car parks after about quarter past or 20 past seven in the morning so people have to find other car parks around the town and walk to the facility to catch the buses to the city to work. So, there is a real need for a second Park'n'Ride facility somewhere within that tri-town district.

We had only a recent announcement by the Minister for Urban Development and Planning that the government is about to embark on a plan amendment report process to look at land that may well be redeveloped for residential use. I can tell it that the local community is extremely irate about that issue.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (20:25): I also rise to add some comments to the initial speech I made in this place yesterday in regard to the budget. I left off yesterday when speaking about agriculture, and I will continue with another of my shadow portfolios and make a few comments about what has happened in relation to fisheries. I will quote from the budget in regard to licensing arrangements, and it goes like this:

Completed innovative solutions projects in order to optimise decision making in relation to regulations, licensing and monitoring.

I wonder how many bureaucrats it took to work out that quote, because it is as confusing a quote—

Mr Bignell: A suite of bureaucrats.

Mr PEDERICK: Yes, thank you, member for Mawson.

Mr Bignell: A tranche of bureaucrats.

Mr PEDERICK: A tranche of bureaucrats, because that is bureaucratic gobbledegook, and it reinforces for me why there have been so many license stuff-ups—I will say it in plain English. There is no gobbledegook in that term. It is a stuff-up. We have the whole cockle industry—the Goolwa and mud cockle industries—essentially in chaos. Fishermen do not talk to each other because the quota system was brought in and people are saying, 'This is unfair,' or, 'That is not right.' Essentially, it has just been an absolute disaster from day one. I believe it is because of a lack of consultation, but this government is expert at that. I have been dealing with this issue as a local member, and now shadow fisheries minister, for a couple of years, and still there is no solution on the table.

Also, in regard to oyster growers, the former minister was using the wrong figures as the base for calculations, and he was indicating that their fees had only doubled whereas, in fact, he had almost quadrupled their licence fees. With that sort of management, it is no wonder the government decided to appoint a new fisheries minister.

The problems regarding oyster licenses will go on, because I believe the government is still keen to charge on a per lease basis and not on a per hectare basis. I know this helps other sectors in the aquaculture industry but, because there are so many small oyster leases, it impacts on them extremely hard. I hope there are some good outcomes for them in the future.

Also in regard to fisheries, and I believe fisheries are very well managed under the Fisheries Act, the government is imposing marine parks and has decided to 'fence off' 45 per cent of the state's waters and work out what is going on after that. The new minister for the environment, minister Weatherill, started touring the state, and I will give him credit for going and consulting with people—after the announcement—and then he decided to try to fix the issues. Since then, the government has set up local committees to work out how to progress the marine parks issue. Fishermen, rightly so, are concerned that at any time the government can make regulations relating to the inside of that outer perimeter of 45 per cent of the state's coastlines and restrict fishing practices, with no guarantee of compensation.

From what I can pick up around the sectors, that is not progressing well at all; and, if the government had only talked to the fishing industry beforehand and worked through it, I am sure the situation would have been much more amicable, instead of doing a typical job and picking off people one by one. I move on to mineral resources. We keep hearing about how much money this government pours into mineral exploration, etc. How much money is coming forward to assist mining exploration to become profitable? Exploration has actually dropped by $43.3 million to $36 million in the March quarter of 2009, compared with $79.3 million for the same quarter of 2008. I do not see that those numbers are anything to brag about.

Only $10.3 million of that funding was spent on new deposits, even under the much-touted plan for accelerating exploration, the PACE plan. Then you get to royalties: $143 million in 2007-08 and $163.45 million budgeted for 2008-09. We then have a drop. The estimated result for 2008-09 is $150.772 million and for the 2009-10 budget it is $143,819 million; so, royalties are down to 2007-08 levels, and this is a government that believes it is riding on the boom of mining.

I support one item I found under 'mineral resources', namely, a Materials and Mineral Science Learning and Research Hub to be set up with commonwealth funding of $40 million. That is a good initiative and I do applaud that for mineral resources. I note that five projects have come into production recently: Project Magnet; Prominent Hill (and I went to the opening of that the other day and they are doing great work up there); Beltana; Angus (the Terramin mine in my electorate); and Mindarie, Australian Zircon, also in my electorate, and that started production this year.

Yes, the mines in my area have had their problems along the way, but they have worked through a lot of the issues with their communities and things are going reasonably well. There needs to be more action on the proposed export port at Port Bonython. This is included in a raft of things where the government needs to support more infrastructure for the mining industry with local desalination plants, ports and roads and power supplies. I do applaud the foresight of BHP in putting out its expansion plans and I wish it all the best in the future.

There are a few concerns about the issue of round log. I would like to know the real answer to this. The government tells me that it is exporting 100,000 tonnes of round log because the saw mills do not like the smaller round logs, so they have to go overseas. Then we hear the union man on the radio this morning saying that the mills are crying out for some of this timber and that 100,000 tonnes is equivalent to 100 jobs. I would really like to find out the truth on that.

I wonder where the government is at this stage with its forward selling program of three life cycles of timber that could equate to 90 to 100 years of timber and selling our assets to offshore interests, which I do not agree with at all. I want to speak about the much vaunted prison projects on the front of The Advertiser three years ago. That is the way the Mayor of Murray Bridge (Alan Arbon) and I found out about them. The phones started and, as is typical, there was absolutely no consultation. I applaud the local council which tried to have meetings with the government and, yes, we did have some meetings—and I went along to some of them—to work out a way forward with the women's prison complex, the men's prison complex and the redirection of James Nash House as a forensic facility at Mobilong.

The community around Murray Bridge and Mobilong wanted to make sure that they got the best value they could for the town because, yes, not only would it have brought a lot of jobs into the town but also it could have brought some social issues. Those jobs are gone and the prisons have all gone—and that includes the new youth detention centres—to save the government's AAA credit rating. My what about the land now? Why does the government not realise that land and get on and use that money in projects for, perhaps, prison expansion in Adelaide, which I believe is probably a better site? I believe that the government will hang onto that land. Hopefully we are in power, but if for some reason we are not, in four years, post estimates, the gaols will bob up again.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (20:35): Like the other speakers, if I spent the time to discuss what the Schubert electorate got from the budget, I might as well sit down now. I will use this time to speak on another matter. I want to raise two things. In the house yesterday it was announced that moneys were headed for black spot funding for rail crossings. I have one notorious rail crossing in my electorate. There was a fatality there two weeks ago, and that is the third or fourth I can recall there. This one, again, misses out. I do not know how you divvy up the money. This crossing is between Nuriootpa and Angaston. It is on an S-bend. It is a shocker and surprise, surprise, there is still no funding. I am very concerned about that. We must address that.

Also, finalising my comments this afternoon, I express my grave concern about the severe cuts to primary industries. The minister is here, too. I have to say that I am confident that, with this minister, we can redress a lot of the problems that we have in primary industries, because I think this guy is very genuine in what he does. I think that we can do a lot in primary industries on a reduced budget. We need to do some work because morale is at a low ebb. Minister Caica is the person to get out there and meet these people. I have extended an invitation to the minister to visit my electorate, but I have not yet heard back from him.

The Hon. P. Caica: I'm coming, Ivan.

Mr VENNING: Cheers; that's good. I will make sure that the minister has a fruitful, productive day. That is what it is all about: my providing service to the electorate through the elected government and its ministers.

I am also very concerned about cuts in the budget to many things in relation to the minister's portfolio, including FarmBis and other education projects which are on a backburner because no-one cares about the poor old farmer who is trying to get educated. It is not good; it is not smart timing at all.

I believe that the previous Liberal government's final budget forecast revenue was $7.4 billion in 2001-02. Revenue in the 2009-10 financial year is forecast to be almost double that—some $14.4 billion. The Rann government has received $3.7 billion in unbudgeted revenue over the past seven years. The question is: where has it all gone?

In the rest of my time tonight, I want to talk about government waste and efficiencies at all levels. I am critical of government efficiency and delivery of service at most levels. Where does one start in a discussion such as this? I want to start right here in Parliament House. I have been here for 19 years and I have tried for many years to change a few things. I am not on the Standing Orders Committee, but I probably should be. I have never coveted being there.

I believe the efficient use of our time here is a disgrace. We are told ad nauseam by the media and the public generally that we do not sit long enough. Well, I think that is rubbish. It is not the length of time we sit but, rather, what we achieve in the time we are here. I drive for two hours to be here, and some of my colleagues drive further than that. Along with most other members, I feel that once we are here we should achieve more.

Let us start with question time. We have one hour, and half that time is taken up with Dorothy Dixers from members of the government to ministers, usually prepared by the minister to whom the question is directed.

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

Mr VENNING: The member for Torrens interjects. I understand that the opposition is guaranteed 10 questions. I am not blaming this government, in particular. I have been here through five or six governments and they all could be tarred with the same brush. I think it is high time we had a bloody good look at what we do here. It is a nonsense.

Most of the questions from government members to ministers have been prepared by the minister. It is a total nonsense and a laughable joke. It is crazy: we all know the answer. Ministers have plenty of opportunities to make a comment with a ministerial statement or to make a project public. They do not need to use question time. They can use many other avenues. After all, they are ministers. We could save 50 per cent of our time during question time and make it only 30 minutes. That is common sense.

In relation to sitting times, procedural debates, such as debate on the Supply Bill, should be extended through lunch and dinner breaks. Not many members are in the house, anyway. I stress that should only be on occasions when all members want to contribute; for example, on the Supply Bill and Appropriation Bill when we all want to have a go. I feel sorry for government members because I know that the Government Whip does not encourage them to speak because we want to finish the debate. I believe all members of the government should have the right to speak.

Mrs Geraghty: They do.

Mr VENNING: If we sat through lunch and dinner breaks, we would have so much more time. The time taken by lead speakers can extend to four or five hours—and we have seen that occur.

Mrs Geraghty: Only yours.

Mr VENNING: It is a tactic used as retaliation to bully government ministers who try to ram through legislation. I am not being judgmental here.

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

Mr VENNING: I know who the last two culprits are—I don't have to look far—but it does not make it right. I believe we should address this issue. I believe that a maximum time of 40 minutes for lead speakers should be allowed, with 20 minutes for everyone else. I am trying to be fair and use common sense.

Committee reports presented to the house should be debated within five sitting days, the same as any other legislation. What a waste! Committees spend a lot of time—sometimes five or six months—preparing submissions and reports. They are presented to the house and sit on the Notice Paper for weeks, sometimes months. Some are never debated. It is a disgrace and it would not withstand scrutiny from any business efficiency expert. We would be a laughing-stock.

Is there a historical requirement for the way we do things? We do not have to do it this way. It is just slack. Governments find it convenient to leave it the way it is. As individual members, all representing individual electorates of approximately 24,500 people, we protect our right to bring to the parliament issues relating to our constituents. We can do this by private members bills and private members motions. Well, this process is totally unworkable. Motions get moved. A member can pick a day in the future and it can be moved. It then ends up in a logjam and surfaces only occasionally, if at all.

If one looks at today's Notice Paper and tomorrow's business, especially in relation to private members time, many of the motions have been on the Notice Paper for the whole of this session, with no hope of being debated. There is no ambition to remove them. They just sit there. The government and taxpayers pay the cost of printing the bloody things—yet they sit there. We do not even read them. They just sit there. It is a disgrace.

There are two reasons for that. Some members do not want the motions to be dealt with. They put them on the Notice Paper in order to get some publicity and then just leave them there. Other members want their motions debated and voted on, but they bogged down with all the others in the logjam.

I believe that these motions should have a life on the Notice Paper—say, four sitting weeks—and then they must be debated and voted on. If there is no attempt to continue the debate, after the fifth week they should automatically fall off the Notice Paper. Does this work? Yes, it does, because in the last parliament I successfully moved to have a system of symbols marked on each of the motions and bills, and after four symbols they disappeared. Amazing! The Notice Paper was several pages thinner. Too many games have been played by governments deliberately using tactics to prohibit motions ever getting debated.

I also believe that a lot of the legislation that comes to parliament could go to various parliamentary standing committees before entering parliament and, if there is no dissent, they should be presented to the parliament and passed quickly. Estimates need to be more efficient, with questions only from the opposition and the time cut in half, and all the MPs should be used, including the MLCs. What a farce it is that we have ministers from the other place who sit in here, but we cannot use the backbenchers to sit on the cross benches. We need video connections to our offices so we are able to watch proceedings in this place and follow them with some efficiencies.

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development) (20:46): I thank all members for the contributions they have made during this debate. In the short time that I have been here I have been particularly disappointed by the negativity that has been displayed by members of the opposition. I do thank the member for Schubert for his kind words about me, but what I would say is that the budget that was presented by our Treasurer and government is a sound budget for the times. It is a budget from which our state will spring out of these most uncertain economic times, and I commend the budget to the house.

Motion carried.

Estimates Committees

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development) (20:47): On behalf of the Deputy Premier, I move:

That the proposed payments for the departments and services contained in the Appropriation Bill be referred to Estimates Committees A and B for examination and report by Thursday 2 July 2009, in accordance with the following timetables:

APPROPRIATION BILL

TIMETABLE FOR ESTIMATES COMMITTEES

ESTIMATES COMMITTEE A

25-30 June & 1 July 2009

THURSDAY 25 JUNE AT 9.00 AM

Premier

Minister for Social Inclusion

Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change

Minister for Economic Development

Minister for Arts

Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts

Minister Assisting the Premier in Cabinet Business and Public Sector Management

Legislative Council

Joint Parliamentary Services

House of Assembly

State Governor's Establishment

Department of the Premier and Cabinet (part)

Administered Items for the Department of the Premier and Cabinet (part)

Department of Trade and Economic Development (part)

Arts SA

Auditor-General's Department

Treasurer

Department of Treasury and Finance (part)

Administered Items for the Department of Treasury and Finance (part)

FRIDAY 26 JUNE AT 10.00 AM

Minister for Industry and Trade

Treasurer

Department of Trade and Economic Development (part)

Defence SA

Minister for Youth

Minister for Volunteers

Minister for Correctional Services

Minister for Gambling

Department of Further Education, Employment, Science and Technology (part)

Attorney-General's Department (part)

Administered Items for the Attorney-General's Department (part)

Department for Correctional Services

Independent Gambling Authority

MONDAY 29 JUNE AT 1.30 PM

Minister for Housing

Minister for Disability

Minister for Northern Suburbs

Minister for Families and Communities

Minister for Ageing

Department for Families and Communities

Administered Items for the Department for Families and Communities

Department for Planning and Local Government (part)

Administered Items for the Department for Planning and Local Government (part)

TUESDAY 30 JUNE AT 9.00 AM

Minister for Industrial Relations

Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries

Minister for Forests

Minister for Regional Development

Department of the Premier and Cabinet (part)

Administered Items for the Department of the Premier and Cabinet (part)

Department of Primary Industries and Resources (part)

Administered Items for the Department of Primary Industries and Resources (part)

Department of Trade and Economic Development (part)

WEDNESDAY 1 JULY AT 9.00 AM

Minister for Urban Development and Planning

Minister for Mineral Resources Development

Minister for Small Business

Department for Planning and Local Government (part)

Administered Items for the Department for Planning and Local Government (part)

Department of Primary Industries and Resources (part)

Administered Items for the Department of Primary Industries and Resources (part)

Department of Trade and Economic Development (part)

Minister for Emergency Services

Minister for Police

Minister for Recreation, Racing and Sport

Attorney-General's Department (part)

Administered Items for the Attorney-General's Department (part)

South Australia Police (part)

Administered Items for South Australia Police (part)


ESTIMATES COMMITTEE B

25-30 June & 1 July 2009

THURSDAY 25 JUNE AT 9.00 AM

Minister for Transport

Minister for Energy

Minister for Infrastructure

Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure (part)

Administered Items for the Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure (part)

TransAdelaide

Administered Items for the Department of Treasury and Finance (part)

Minister for Health

Minister for the Southern Suburbs

Department of Health (part)

Department for Planning and Local Government (part)

Administered Items for the Department for Planning and Local Government (part)

FRIDAY 26 JUNE AT 10.15 AM

Minister for Environment and Conservation

Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation

Minister for Early Childhood Development

Department for Environment and Heritage

Administered Items for the Department for Environment and Heritage

Environment Protection Authority

Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation (part)

Administered Items for the Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation (part)

Department of the Premier and Cabinet (part)

Administered Items for the Department of the Premier and Cabinet (part)

Department of Education and Children's Services

Administered Items for the Department of Education and Children's Services

MONDAY 29 JUNE AT 1.30 PM

Minister for State/Local Government Relations

Minister for Consumer Affairs

Minister for the Status of Women

Minister for Government Enterprises

Department for Planning and Local Government (part)

Administered Items for the Department for Planning and Local Government (part)

Attorney-General's Department (part)

Administered Items for the Attorney-General's Department (part)

Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure (part)

Administered Items for the Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure (part)

TUESDAY 30 JUNE AT 9.00 AM

Minister for Education

Department of Education and Children's Services

Administered Items for the Department of Education and Children's Services

Minister for Multicultural Affairs

Attorney-General

Minister for Justice

Attorney-General's Department (part)

Administered Items for the Attorney-General's Department (part)

Electoral Commission SA

Courts Administration Authority

WEDNESDAY 1 JULY AT 9.00 AM

Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse

Department of Health (part)

Minister for Tourism

South Australian Tourism Commission

Minister for Tourism

Minister for Employment, Training and Further Education

Minister for Road Safety

Minister for Science and Information Economy

Department of Further Education, Employment, Science and Technology

Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure (part)

Administered Items for Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure (part)

South Australia Police (part)

Administered Items for South Australia Police (part)

Minister for Water Security

Minister for the River Murray

Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation (part)

Administered Items for the Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation (part)

Administered Items for the Department of Treasury and Finance (part)

Motion carried.

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development) (20:47): On behalf of the Deputy Premier, I move:

That Estimates Committee A be appointed consisting of Ms Ciccarello, the Hon. I.F. Evans, Mr Hamilton-Smith, Mr Kenyon, the Hon. S. W. Key, Mr Pederick and Ms Thompson.

Motion carried.

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development) (20:48): On behalf of the Deputy Premier, I move:

That Estimates Committee B be appointed consisting of Mr Goldsworthy, Dr McFetridge, Mr Piccolo, Mr Rau, the Hon. L. Stevens, Mr Venning and the Hon. P.L. White.

Motion carried.


At 20:48 the house adjourned until Thursday 18 June 2009 at 10:30.

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