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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-07-02 Daily Xml
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APPROPRIATION BILL

Estimates Committees

Ms THOMPSON (Reynell) (10:35): I bring up the report of Estimates Committee A and move:

That the report be received.

Motion carried.

Ms THOMPSON: I bring up the minutes of proceedings of Estimates Committee A and move:

That the minutes of proceedings be incorporated in the votes and proceedings.

In doing so, I feel it incumbent on me to draw to the attention of the house the fact that unfortunately some members of estimates committees have not yet understood that estimates committees are an important parliamentary process and that the rules of the parliament apply to these hearings as they do at any other time. I am not going to name any person, but I think a cursory reading of the Hansard report will indicate the serial offender in both Estimates Committee A and Estimates Committee B.

Motion carried.

Ms BREUER (Giles) (10:36): I bring up the report of Estimates Committee B and move:

That the report be received.

Motion carried.

Ms BREUER: I bring up the minutes of proceedings of Estimates Committee B and move:

That the minutes of proceedings be incorporated in the votes and proceedings.

I fully support what the member for Reynell has said about estimates committees, the procedures and the way they have been operating.

Motion carried.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Families and Communities, Minister for Northern Suburbs, Minister for Housing, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability) (10:37): I move:

That the proposed expenditures referred to Estimates Committees A and B be agreed to.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (10:37): The eighth Rann Labor government budget has been delivered at a most challenging and interesting point in the history of this country and of this state. The world is in the midst of a global financial crisis the consequences of which are yet to be fully realised.

There are concerns that unemployment in South Australia could reach 9.6 per cent in the coming year, according to Access Economics, and that there could be a significant downturn in a range of economic indicators. Conversely, other reports suggest that the downturn in Australia and South Australia could be milder than foreseen. The true picture will not emerge until the full range of the federal government stimulus packages, tax cuts and other spending measures unfold.

Of course, this budget is framed within the context of the bountiful largesse of a sympathetic Labor federal government determined to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of the Australian taxpayers, much of which has been handed to state governments to bail themselves out of their own fiscal mismanagement over the past seven to eight years. Such is the case in South Australia. Such is the predicament of the Rann Labor government.

Labor, having wrecked South Australia's finances in the early 1990s through its own fiscal ineptitude, requiring a Liberal government over eight years to put the state back on its feet, has since 2002 enjoyed buoyant national economic times. I made the point in my initial budget response on 16 June that revenue is up from $8.5 billion in 2002 in Labor's first budget to over $15 billion projected in 2013.

Bountiful GST and property tax revenues have been received not through the state government's good management but as a consequence of the sound fiscal stewardship of the Howard-Costello Liberal government in Canberra, but that money has not been well spent. As the Auditor-General has observed year after year, 'the state may have developed a culture of expecting growing revenues to continue to support increasing expenses.' That is an understatement—the party is over.

However, fortunately for us, as revealed in the recent federal government funding, the decline in the Rann Labor government's revenues has been gracefully offset by a $2.9 billion handout across the estimates period from the Rudd Labor government using borrowed money, which one day will need to be repaid. These are predominantly special purpose payments across a range of budget lines that constitute new money on top of that already committed in last year's budget.

As a consequence, despite the claimed collapse in revenue so oft repeated by the Premier and the Treasurer in recent weeks, revenue in this budget has risen by over $1 billion. As a result, the fact is that the state Labor government has more money to spend this year than last year by a significant margin.

I made four points about the budget in earlier debate in this house. The first point I made is that state Labor has been bailed out by federal Labor. The result over eight years has been poor and now, using borrowed money, state Labor seeks to promise its way into a third term of government.

The second point I made is that, despite the bailout, the integrity of the budget hinges on prudent cost controls over the next four to eight years. This state Labor government has shown itself to be incapable of meeting its own savings targets in the past. Clearly, this pattern of behaviour will not change.

The third point is that the government has downplayed its true debt position. Including the public non-financial corporations sector, that true position is a debt of $6.7 billion. This is without including the $1.7 billion of debt proposed for the rail yards hospital, which could bring the debt position to $8.4 billion. On top of this, unfunded superannuation liabilities in this budget have hit $10 billion and WorkCover liabilities are between $1.3 billion and $1.7 billion, when you include the government's own scheme. All of that means that we have close to $20 billion in debt and unfunded liability—$24,000 for every working South Australian.

The fourth point that the opposition has made is that Labor has not delivered on its promises; it makes policy on the run. Year after year, projects are promised in one budget, then cancelled in the next. The Mount Bold reservoir extension, the Upper Spencer Gulf desalination plant, new roads through the city, tramlines, prisons—promised and then gone. What confidence can South Australians have that the current round of promises in this budget, explored in recent days during budget estimates, will not be flushed down the same drain?

Let me turn to the detail of this year's estimates hearings. The past two weeks of inquiry by the opposition have shown again that the Rann government's budgets are not a reliable indicator of government performance or promises. Estimates sessions have shown that, in each year, programs have run over budget, savings have not been met, and promised projects have disappeared from one budget to the next.

In compensating for its failures, Labor's answer is to raise thousands in new fees and charges. The only attempt to tighten its belt is a vague promise to cut $750 million in outgoings or new income measures some time after the next election. That means public sector job cuts by the thousands. I ask whether the Public Service Association will apply the same rigour to that prospect as it did at the last election.

It also means cuts to government services or new taxes and charges—all yet to be specified. This is a political first: the axe will fall, but people will not be told where or when before the 20 March 2010 state election. The lack of openness and accountability is simply breathtaking.

In addressing the state's most important issue—water—again, this budget fails. The Rann government's response to the water crisis was typical in character: an all bells and whistles launch, and an ad campaign for a policy that kicks in some time around 2050—when the Premier will be 91 years of age.

Members interjecting:

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: We will all probably be driving gophers with little red flags on the back when state Labor's water plans kick in. Let us examine some of the detail that has emerged in recent days. We know that Labor cannot manage its expenses. Auditor-General reports year after year have shown us that. Despite international economic pressures this year, the Public Service grew by 1,485 positions above budgeted levels—same problem, different year.

According to the state budget papers explored in estimates, from 2001-02 to 2008-09, public sector employment numbers have increased by 16,393. According to the Auditor-General, only 4,400 or so of these positions are nurses, teachers, doctors and police. So, this is the furphy: that all of these increases are for such essential personnel. Well, they are not, and the question is simply: what are the rest doing?

The government now says that it will cut 1,600 public servants 'not directly involved in the delivery of frontline services'. But the government has been unable to guarantee budget estimates that this will result in a net decrease in the total number of employees, because each year, despite cuts occurring on one side of the ledger, there is still uncontrolled growth on the other. The Rann government's attempt to cap Public Service growth has failed, and appears doomed to be a continued and ongoing failure.

During estimates, the Treasurer admitted that his deficit of $304 million would be much worse if it was not for the commonwealth money. At least we have that admission. He said:

In very round numbers, that may be a billion in of that education money as capital which allows us to have a better than actual operating balance, but it goes out in capital and it is reflected in the net lending line at the bottom of the papers.

Extra and unexpected federal payments ease the need for the state government to use its own revenue towards programs which would otherwise require more state money. Let's not be under any misapprehension. Schools have had building project work in for state government funding for years. The federal government has come along and is going to conduct and fund a lot of that building. South Australians are not silly. Clearly, this money is saving the state government from having to make investments that it can then divert to other places. To argue that this money is somehow not relevant or not helpful simply beggars belief.

The fact is that this money frees up state government money to reduce the state budget deficit. The government must be held to account that repeatedly referring to budget 'black holes' and 'huge revenue losses' is simply misleading the public.

The budget papers also mysteriously understate South Australia's GST revenue by about $424 million over the forward estimates, compared to what is provided in the federal budget figures. The Treasurer told budget estimates that this was because South Australia uses a different methodology. Well, I can tell you that Treasury estimates were most interesting, and I would not be surprised to see a sudden windfall in GST revenues turn up before the next election.

The government says that debt will rise to $3.1 billion, without explaining that this is only half of the picture. The whole-of-government debt, as I mentioned earlier, includes the general government and the public non-financial corporations sector, which includes public entities like SA Water, TransAdelaide and the Housing Trust. The true debt position is a striking $6.7 billion by 2011-12.

Budget papers show that at June 2001, the general government unfunded liability stood at $3.2 billion. Under Labor, the unfunded superannuation liability has blown out now to $9.8 billion. This was explained away in budget estimates by throwaway lines like, 'Well, it's all the discount rate.' No. 'It is all to do with accounting standards.' Not so.

This budget passes on the hardship of fiscal mismanagement to families and small businesses, to pensioners and carers. Hundreds of fees and charges have been increased by between 4 per cent and 36 per cent, all above the inflation rate of 3 per cent. Land tax has increased by 292 per cent. All delivered by state Labor, which has turned South Australia into the highest taxed state in the country. The Commonwealth Grants Commission figures are in the budget papers.

The Rann Labor legacy is that South Australia is now the highest taxed state in the nation. It was not always that way. We prided ourselves on having lower costs, but not now. The foundations have been moved by Labor and we are now the highest taxed state in the country. The number of land tax payers alone has almost trebled under Rann Labor, increasing from 69,000 to 188,000. Since the previous state Liberal government left office, water bills have increased by 72 per cent.

On the state's most pressing need, water, the Rann Labor government has also failed, with no substantial commitment to stormwater capture and reuse evident in this budget. At the next election this will be one of the key differences between Liberal and Labor.

Having done little of substance over eight years, this budget makes significant promises for infrastructure building over the coming years. Labor cannot be trusted to deliver on its budget promises. The Rann Labor government has a track record of making significant infrastructure announcements at budget time, only to abandon the project in the following budget.

Let me remind the house that in the 2007-08 budget, South Australia was promised a Mount Bold reservoir expansion. One year later, in the 2008-09 budget, the project was abandoned. South Australia was promised a desalination plant to provide drinking water in the Upper Spencer Gulf in the 2007-08 budget. A year later, in the 2008-09 budget, the project was omitted, and after this budget the revelation was made that the project had been axed. We were promised an underpass along South Road beneath Port Road and Grange Road in the 2005-06 budget.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Attorney-General will come to order.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Now the project has vanished. Last year we were promised tramlines to West Lakes, Semaphore and Port Adelaide, but the projects have vanished from this year's budget, and there is no mention of quantums. Last year, South Australia was promised new prisons and secure facilities. This budget abandons these projects. Will the $1.7 billion rail yards hospital, or the rail projects announced in this budget, ever be delivered? Will they vanish in next year's budget? The pattern of achievement is poor.

Budget estimates have shown that the Rann Labor government has forgotten regional communities. There is only one Labor MP in the current government who represents the country. That is why a tram to the Entertainment Centre is a higher priority than regional roads and regional infrastructure.

Compared to other states, the Rann government's WorkCover scheme has the highest rate of premiums charged to employers, the lowest funding ratio, the highest future debt liability, and the worst rate of serious injury. It is a testament to the failure of this government. Premier Rann has promised lower industry premiums and better scheme performance, but has failed to deliver. For businesses that choose to leave the scheme and self-insure, there is a huge impost of exit fees.

The Rann government's poor management of workers compensation is hurting workers, it is hurting businesses and it is costing jobs. The government has $467 million in contingency funds, as well as another $415 million in what we discovered during estimates is the accrual appropriation excess funds account. The Auditor-General states that this fund could be used 'as a source of cash to reduce employee entitlement liabilities and fund capital expenditure'—an interesting revelation. Strangely, the budget says almost nothing about this fund. The state Liberals will scrutinise these funds to ensure that they are not used by Labor to fund election promises not revealed to the people of South Australia.

Transport was an interesting estimates session. Welcome to the land of the one-page plan! The Minister for Transport wants a tram down Rundle Mall. Infrastructure projects announced last year will now be funded by the federal government because the state government has squandered all its GST and windfall revenue; it has run out of money.

The Northern Connector has been exposed during estimates as a sham. It is a multimillion dollar project, but we are told that it will start in 2016 only if the commonwealth government funds it. The minister said 'the feds are interested'. That is good; I am glad they are interested but it is two terms away. Those gophers will look good going down the Northern Connector when the Premier is 91.

The department's transport plan has been revealed as a one-page sham. No planning has been completed for the O-Bahn. I think the minister said that the government has nine or 11 options on what it might do. On the basis of what was detailed in budget estimates to the house, it will be a $61 million paint job to create new bus lanes. I do not think the government has a clue what it wants to do with the O-Bahn. They looked startled, actually, that it had even dropped out, raising questions about whether the government is following its own strategic guidelines. We did not see that anywhere in the State Strategic Plan or in infrastructure plans; it just dropped out of the sky.

All this raises questions about whether the government is serious about its own strategic guidance. With much fanfare we had the State of the State Report. Do members remember that in 2002? Then we had the State Strategic Plan, and various infrastructure plans followed. All the glossy brochures are stacked up high in our offices—those that have not been burnt. Projects, which seem to bob up out of nowhere, were not in the State Strategic Plan, while other worthy projects that are the State Strategic Plan and the infrastructure plans languish unattended. Why have strategic plans if you will not use them, if you are going to dream up things on the run?

I turn to education. While last year the Minister for Education was unaware of the need to fund support costs for new computers supplied under the Digital Education Revolution—things such as electricity, new cabling and licensing—this budget shows that she has taken the Liberal opposition's practical advice and sourced an extra $37.8 million from Canberra to make the program workable. Again, last year's budget denials have been reversed in this year's budget.

The minister failed to explain the reason for this government's failure to rein in rampant truancy of 5,000 students per day, 2,000 being habitual truants. Despite the Premier's claims going back to 2003 that his government would do something about this, they have not even made a small dent. After seven years in government they are still 'consulting' with a view to changing the act. It just reinforces the view of those on this side of the chamber that the last eight years have been eight years of inaction, with all these things promised for the future if only the people of South Australia are silly enough to give them another term; I do not think they will be that silly.

In relation to corrections, we have wasted $10.5 million on prison projects now cancelled. We were told that these projects would be PPPs and, according to the Rann government's mantra, 'won't cost the taxpayer anything'; of course, we found out in estimates that they have. During budget estimates, the government would not confirm how much it will be paying the consortia which had bid for the PPP on prisons and which have now been told to pack up and go home.

The message to any consortia that might bid for the rail yards hospital PPP has not been lost. As the Romans would have observed, festina lente: make haste slowly. Is there any guarantee that any sunken costs for the rail yards PPP will be covered if the project is cancelled or seriously cut back? There is no guarantee, and there is significant risk for any private consortia seeking to invest in that proposal.

On the arts, we have seen the Premier flounder over slashed funding in the arts portfolio—a portfolio for which he claims a personal passion. He is a fair-weather friend to the arts. On health, the Minister for Infrastructure called the debate on whether to rebuild the Royal Adelaide Hospital' brain dead'. It is an insult to the community. The lost USB key—and we still have no detail on exactly what information is on it—has put the entire project at risk; until we know, the project's commercial security is compromised.

The key bit of information about the lost USB, in my view, is whether the information related to the public sector comparator is on the device. If it was, key information about what it would cost the government to build the hospital has been lost, thus putting at risk any commercial PPP bid.

Mr Williams: The real risk is that it has been found by somebody outside government.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Well, there we go. The minister refuses to answer questions from the opposition regarding the USB, including questions about the delays in the public revelation of that information. They are spending $15 million transferring the renal unit from the QEH to the Royal Adelaide Hospital only to knock it down to build the rail yards hospital. How much money has been spent on the hospital project so far? We do not know but, at $1.7 billion, this is the biggest infrastructure project the state has seen. We have wasted $10.5 billion on prisons projects that were valued at a total of $517 million. Who knows what the government has wasted or will waste on the Royal Adelaide Hospital PPP?

The secret reports about the rail yards' contamination clouds the question cloud the question of costs and long-term liability. The opposition is of the view that the government has a tiger by the tail with this entire rail yards hospital project, with doubts about its funding, doubts about its viability and doubts about who will build it and when—so many doubts that it would not surprise us at all, should the government be re-elected, if the first casualty of the cuts commission is this entire project.

Wouldn't it be an absolute affront to the people of South Australia if this government, having argued to an election that we should have a new hospital and that renewal of the hospital at its existing site could not be done, turned around after the election, cancelled its own project plans, bemoaning the global financial crisis, and did exactly what the opposition is proposing, thus saving hundreds of millions of dollars and perhaps up to $1 billion? Wouldn't it be an absolute affront?

The planning department was not consulted on the site for the new hospital, so who did decide on where it would be located and when? This proposal has never been put to the people for a decision by them at an election. It is time for the government to reveal the truth about this hastily concocted feelgood plan that is now backfiring on it and all South Australians.

On water, Mount Bold, although the centrepiece of the 2007-08 water strategy, is now, according to the Premier's new water plan, not needed until 2050. This 2050 is a magical time, and all sorts of things will happen. I do not know where members opposite will be in 2050—perhaps in Puglia, perhaps in Italy or perhaps the Attorney will be locked in a library somewhere reading whatever he reads. However, 2050 is a long way away, and if promises of action in 2050—action now for the future—are what we are taking to the next election, I think people will be sleeping through February and sleeping through March.

If you are voting for the first time in 2010, you can expect the Rann government's water plan to be delivered when you are up for retirement. It is a wonderful thing, isn't it? According to the Premier's past media releases, water restrictions will be lifted as soon as the new desal expansion to 100 gigalitres is complete. Maybe they will be lifted in 2050; we will have to explore that.

According to the Premier's water plan released last week, the plant will not be complete until the end of 2012, and permanent water restrictions will not be lifted at all— one minute they are on, one minute they are off; maybe they will be on for 2050, maybe they will be off for 2050. What are people to think of this government's decisions?

On stormwater, the report in April of the Centre for Economic Studies on local government's involvement in stormwater listed projects, in operation, under construction or with approved funding, that have a projected output of almost 21 gigalitres. It is interesting to see the government trying to claim ownership and credit for these projects that have been delivered by local government, having done nothing itself.

The government has bemoaned and dismissed our $400 million plan to capture stormwater at 13 sites throughout the west of the city and come up with something that is very underwhelming. In its recently announced Water for Good report, the government's target for stormwater harvesting is 20 gigalitres by 2013, which is less than current plans and current projections. We are actually going backwards. It is going to flush of stormwater back up into the hills. We will not worry about increasing what is already there.

The budget makes it official: the Rann government is not interested in the clean, green, long-term option of stormwater harvesting that the state Liberals have been championing. But it's all right, things may change by 2050. Who knows what will be happening by 2050. Water industry experts, Professor Mike Young and Salisbury council's Colin Pitman, have said publicly that the government's stormwater targets are too low and the time frames are too long, and those gentlemen are correct.

On the Parklands and Victoria Park, the Treasurer said during estimates that it cost 'between $700,000 and $1 million' to put up and take down the temporary grandstands. Remember that this is the Treasurer who, during a previous budget estimates session, said, 'We're going to build this permanent grandstand', and he challenged me and the opposition about whether or not would we support it. Well, guess what? We called his bluff. We said, 'Go ahead; we'll support the legislation,' and what did he do then? He turned completely to water before 2050 and backflipped, and we all know why: his good friend, the member for Adelaide, pulled up stumps.

It is now costing us up to $1 million to put up and pull down the Kevin Foley memorial grandstand. The Treasurer also revealed that there were no longer any plans to leave the stands up for other events, and that construction of the stands would start before Christmas every year. Suddenly, this idea mooted by the Premier of putting up these grandstands for a longer period of time has disappeared (for now) until March 2010. Guess what? I wonder what will happen in the Parklands after March 2010, because this is a budget for an election. It is not a budget that is being honest with the people of South Australia about the government's true plans for them. Those plans are all being kept secret until after 20 March 2010.

The annual expense of this exercise for the Kevin Foley memorial grandstand and the folly of the government's compromise deal that followed the decision to cancel a permanent structure tell a story about this government. Each and every year we spend a million dollars of the taxpayers' money—a million dollars that could be spent on the disabled, the mentally ill, corrections or the aged—and we make Victoria Park look like a building site for five months.

In summary, the state finds itself under this state Labor government after eight years with nothing much having been achieved. We now have a budget full of promises, funded by Canberra, using borrowed money—our money—and an uncertain fiscal future. The budget has all the hallmarks of a budget designed to coast the government through to the next election, after which the real decisions and the real budget pain will emerge.

The Rann government's budget strategy is unreliable; it is not fully disclosed and open. This government's record shows that it cannot control its own expenses nor maintain its promises from year to year. After eight years, I ask the question: what is the legacy of this two-term Rann Labor government? The answer is this: opportunities missed, burdens left for future taxpayers and money wasted on advertising in a mirage of false achievement.

In the end, despite millions of dollars of government-funded advertising, a mountain of glossy brochures and an abundance of spin designed to create the impression of progress, the Rann Labor government has achieved little of long-lasting substance over the past eight years. But, it's all right, everything will be fine by 2050. All the signs are that, if re-elected, this pattern of inaction will continue. It is a legacy of a worldwide economic boom that, under this government, South Australia failed to catch.

Mr RAU (Enfield) (11:11): I gather that we are now on the third reading of the budget, and that is an exciting thing because it means that the first reading, the second reading and, most importantly, the estimates process are behind us. I would just like to make a brief contribution in relation to this matter. Unfortunately, for those members who have heard me on this subject before, there will be much in what I am about to say which will be in the nature of repetition, but never mind.

The process of estimates is something that all of us, I think, find excruciating. I got to the point where I was inviting the member for Giles, who was chairing my committee, to name me so that I could be evicted from the building and then not have to return. Unfortunately, she refused to favour me with being named unless she could do so on the basis that everyone was named, including her. I tried on another day, when I was momentarily in the chair, threatening people who were misbehaving a little bit that I would name myself unless they stopped misbehaving, and, unfortunately, they improved.

On another occasion I invited the member for Giles to name me as an example to the member for Unley of what might happen to him if he kept going the way he was going—again, to no avail; and I remained in the parliament day in, day out, wishing, hoping, begging to be named, but it did not happen. I can tell members—

The SPEAKER: Order! The cameraman in the gallery should know the terms and conditions under which he is allowed to film from the gallery, which includes filming only the honourable member on his feet. The member for Enfield.

Mr RAU: He does not need to worry about that, either. Anyway, where was I?

Members interjecting:

Mr RAU: That's right. What I would like to do today is make, hopefully, a couple of constructive suggestions—as I said, some of these are in the nature of repetition, but nevertheless—as to how the budget, and, in particular the estimates process, might be improved. The first and most obvious improvement that I suggest to members—and I think this is entirely consistent with the reports given by the member for Giles and the member for Reynell—is that the chairs of the estimates committees should have the capacity to name a disorderly member of an estimates committee without having to recall the parliament.

That would have enabled me to have been named on at least three or four days and saved me a tremendous amount of trouble, and it certainly might have meant the member for Unley spent a bit of time enjoying the cafés of his electorate rather than entertaining—or not—the rest of us. That is my first modest suggestion. On a scale of reform between one and 10, I would put that at number one. It would be a small, little thing, but it would be really nice if we could do it.

The whole problem with estimates, really, is that it is somewhere between an experience (speaking in popular culture terms) of Groundhog Day (as the member for Morphett said a while ago) or, if you want to be a bit more theatrical about it, Waiting for Godot. Either way, it is tedious, repetitive, unhelpful, and enormously wasting of time—time of the parliament, time of the ministers, time of the public servants. How much time goes into preparing those volumes and volumes of questions that might be asked, or might not be asked, or might be answered, or might not be answered? Spare a thought, members of the opposition, for the government backbenchers who have to sit there like those clowns that appear at the Adelaide Show that you put the ping pong balls into. They get to do that for days on end.

Aside from being able to boot people out, another standing order that I think might be considered is that a cardboard effigy of the member, if they are a government member, should be sufficient. So, you could have a photograph of, say, me sitting in the chair, and that should be sufficient to count for me being there, because that is the level of contribution that I am likely to make, and it is also reflective of the importance of my involvement in the process. That may or may not find favour with other members.

Another thing, on a perhaps slightly more serious note (and this one is getting a bit bigger on the reform scale—I think we are up to about six or seven out of 10 now) is: why can we not learn from what we see on the television every night with those lovely senators in Canberra? They sit at big tables. They are like the American Senate. They do not have this nonsense where you sit in a nice little communal-type huddle around a desk. They have a great big long table with the senators spread out, and then they have a tiny little chair with a spotlight on a poor individual in front of them and they all harass this individual with questions. Apparently, it is very effective, because it is on the news every night.

We have our own senate. It is not called the senate: it is called 'the other place'.

Ms Portolesi: The place that dares not speak its name.

Mr RAU: The place that dare not speak its name—the other place. Surely, the other place is the ideal place for this to be going on. After all, they have the time to do it. They are there for eight years, each one of them. We are here for only four years. I cannot afford any more of my life spent in estimates, because my parliamentary life is very small. Theirs is huge. The proportion of their life that would be consumed in estimates is minuscule compared to mine, or anyone else in this chamber.

So, for that reason, if for no other—a basic question of equity—give them the opportunity. As John Kennedy said (badly quoting him), let them come to Berlin. Let the upper house come to estimates. Let estimates come to the upper house. Does Mohammed go to the mountain or the mountain go to Mohammed? I do not care, as long as estimates wind up up there. That is the place for them. It is a fantastic place for them. They are 22 of the wisest, most thoughtful, considerate people you could find anywhere in the state. After all, they are chosen for that reason from amongst the whole of the population of South Australia.

Mrs Redmond: And they are honourable.

Mr RAU: They are honourable! They are honourable from the day they enter the chamber, unlike me. I have been here for several years and I have yet to become even vaguely honourable. And it is the same for the honourable member—I have to call her 'honourable' in this context, but the member for Heysen also is not honourable. So, there is another good reason we should not be dealing with this. We are not honourable. They are. They are honourable, from the moment they get there. There are fewer of them, they are elected by everyone and everyone thinks they are honourable. They are the perfect vehicle for estimates.

I know I have persuaded almost everyone here of these points but, just to rub it in even more—

Mr Pederick: Is he still in order?

Mr RAU: Of course I am in order. Just to rub it in even more, another point I would like to make is this: the members of the place that dare not speak its name have already created amongst themselves a committee. I do not know its name, but I think it is called the budget review committee or something like that; but, for the purposes of this contribution I am making, I would call it The Hon. Rob Lucas Committee—or, the Lucas Committee, for short. It is my understanding that the Lucas Committee has taken it upon itself to behave more or less as the Senate behaves in relation to estimates processes in the commonwealth parliament. Speaking for myself, I do not have a problem with that. If that is what they are doing, that is fine—and, even if I did have a problem with it, they are not going to pay any attention to me, anyway.

Mrs Redmond: That is right, because you are still not honourable.

Mr RAU: Because I am not honourable. I am not one of them. I am not a member of the honourable house. I am a member of this house. So, they are doing that now, whether we like it or not. They will continue to do it, whether we like it or not. The question I ask rhetorically is this: if they are already doing it, why do we need to do it, too? They are already doing it! They are having fun. They are calling people. They are doing this sort of Senator McCarthy thing that goes down a treat on TV. Let them continue to do it, but why do we have to do it as well? I plead with all sensible people in this building, and I know there are plenty of you: why do we have to do it, too?

God knows that it is hard enough being a member of parliament, Mr Speaker. There are difficult things that confront all of us from day to day, but to have us doing, in a very poor way, what the honourable house does so well with the Lucas Committee seems to me not only unnecessarily repetitive but also as reflecting poorly on us because we cannot possibly do as well as they do. When you have experts in the field, when you have the AFL people out on the ground, why send out the Mini League? It is so embarrassing. It is embarrassing for the Mini League, it is embarrassing for the AFL people and it is just not right. For all of those very cogent reasons, I would like to say that I am very pleased that we are at the third reading stage of the budget.

I have a dream. I have been to the mountain top, and I have seen the Promised Land. Mr Speaker, I may not get there with you, but I have seen the Promised Land. I have a dream, when members of the House of Assembly, whether they be government or opposition, never have to go to estimates, when members of the upper house, whether they be government, opposition or Independent, always get to go to estimates. I have a dream that one day young children around South Australia will be able to aspire to get in their school buses and drive to the other place to see estimates. I have a dream. I do not know whether my dream will ever be realised in my lifetime, Mr Speaker; it may be in yours. As I said, I may not get there with you.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: But let us begin.

Mr RAU: But let us begin. Let us start from this place, at this time—

Mr Pederick: And move forward.

Mr RAU: —and move forward.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: And the trumpet summons us again.

Mr RAU: As the member for West Torrens says, 'And the trumpet summons us again.' It does; it is summoning us. I can hear its call now.

Mr Pederick: That's the bells.

Mr RAU: Ask not for whom the bell tolls because, hopefully, the bell tolls for estimates. I want to conclude on this point: I do have a dream. If all of us work together in a sort of ecumenical spirit, we can do this. We can do it. It worked in America, where President Obama, with that sort of can-do approach, has achieved great things; we can do it too.

I say again: why have two lots of committees in two chambers doing exactly the same thing? Why? If we have a standing committee or a select committee in either house, and the other house wants to start doing the same business they are doing, it does not happen: it is disorderly, it is inappropriate. Why is it appropriate now to have a subcommittee of this chamber doing what a committee of that chamber is doing all the time? Why is it appropriate? The answer is that it is inappropriate. With the greatest respect, it is disorderly and, I would like to think, unconstitutional. If someone would like to offer me the opportunity to write an opinion to say that, I probably will, and I hope the member for Heysen will support that; maybe that is what we need to get over this hump.

Anyway, as I said, I have a dream that one day this tedious process will be over and, hopefully, the next parliament will see the Lucas Committee, or whatever it will be called by then, doing all this work as it sees fit and enabling us to get on with the very important duties we have in this chamber.

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen) (11:26): I love Thursday mornings in this place! I was feeling somewhat bereft that, because we were not having private members' time this morning but doing the Appropriation Bill, I would not have the normal joy I have on Thursday mornings of hearing the contributions of the member for Enfield. I love the way he delivers things; in fact, I was about to start my speech by saying that I am sure that every member on the other side will agree with the comments I am going to open with (they might not agree with the ones make at the end). I think the member for Enfield must have looked at the notes I jotted down about the matters I wanted to raise, but he delivers them ever so much more eloquently than anyone else ever could.

It is entirely appropriate that I, as the shadow minister for ageing, be the person to speak next on this side. As was obvious from the leader's contribution a short time ago, most of the things that matter in this budget have been put off so far into the future that it does not matter. However, before getting onto the actual budget, I too want to make some comments, as I said, not as eloquently as the member for Enfield, and put on the record some things that, once again, concern me about the budget estimates process.

I have made the comment more than once during the week that I make no objection to the idea that a duly elected government has the right to decide how it will spend its money and what its priorities will be. I am sure that members on the government benches would agree with that. So, then, why do we go through this farcical process every year? I just want to run through some of the things I think are odd.

The very first one is that, as the member for Enfield said, it makes no sense to me that the members of the other place, those honourable members who are all honourable from the moment they are elected, are excluded from the process. It particularly makes no sense, given that we can have ministers in the other place, and they have to come in and participate in the process but, if we have shadow ministers in the other place, they are specifically kept out of the process.

Personally, as a consequence of that, it meant that I had to do extra work in here because I had to do work for people who have a far better grasp of their shadow portfolios than I will ever have. I had to come in and run their matters for them because they are kept out. So, at the very least, I think we should be able to look at allowing people who have shadow portfolio roles, as a first step perhaps, to ask questions.

I know the member for Enfield wants to get all the way to the mountain top, but I think every journey begins with a single step, and, maybe, in the first instance, we can just start that little incremental step of allowing the shadow ministers at least to come into estimates and lead the questioning on their own estimates. However, overall, I agree with the member for Enfield. Why on earth would the upper house not be the appropriate place for us to conduct our estimates?

Then we get onto the issue of the timetabling of estimates. The timetabling seems to me to be perverse to say the least. My main portfolio, of course, is that of being the shadow attorney-general and, for the Attorney-General's portfolio, I have 45 minutes. I want to put it on the record that I thank the Attorney-General that this year he did not make opening statements and he just allowed me to ask questions. However, there have been previous occasions where, in a limited time of 45 minutes, there has been both an opening statement and Dorothy Dix questions from the government benches, to the point where I am lucky if I get six questions on that whole portfolio.

Yet, this week, for instance, in committee B, I think, the government allowed two hours for local/state government relations. There is just no rhyme or reason in terms of how those timetables are allocated other than that the minimum amount of time is given to the portfolios that require the most questioning and the maximum amount of time is then spread out into the portfolios where there are virtually no programs to ask questions about.

I move on to the more mundane administrative matters that are concerned with budget estimates. We are all required to sign in and out of budget estimates and that, again, seems to me to be a nonsense. For a start, the standing orders of this place make it clear that we are all here all the time, and I know that every member of this place, whether I can see them right at the moment or not is actually listening avidly to all of this because even if someone has gone back to his office, he will be listening to every contribution by every member.

Why is it necessary in budget estimates to have this antiquated sign in/sign out on a piece of paper that applies to the point where everyone has to be admitted into a committee and excused from a committee, when the reality is that obviously the people who attended estimates have to be there and they are members of parliament in any event?

That brings me to the idea that perhaps we should not restrict estimates to members of parliament. I happened to attend my first ever Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference recently. It was on principles of democracy and it was in Sydney. I did not actually expect to be going, but I ended up going to this conference. Of course the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association involves members from all around the world and it turned out to be a fascinating conference. There were people from the island of Montserrat, from Manitoba and Saskatchewan; there was more than one chap from the UK; there were people from Pakistan, from India, from Malaysia, from Mauritius, from Bougainville—

The Hon. S.W. Key: Were there many women there?

Mrs REDMOND: There were many, many women and from many jurisdictions. I always had the view that the nature of these conferences was really focused on trying to provide assistance from what we might think of as more developed democracies to some of the lesser democracies and thereby help them in developing their parliamentary processes, because clearly the development of a strong democracy involves more than just giving people the right to vote and holding an election every little while.

I went with somewhat limited expectations and I have to tell you that I was really surprised and pleased with the level of discussion and the interchange of ideas that occurred, and one of the interesting sessions that we had was on budget estimates. In that conference, I found out, for instance, that the New South Wales parliament actually conducts its budget estimates very much the way the Senate does in the federal sphere: that is, its upper house conducts them and although the minister comes along for the first session, most of the ones that occur a couple of months later are just with the senior departmental people, and they are a much more effective mechanism.

Indeed, I was somewhat embarrassed to find that South Australia is apparently well-known, at least throughout the Australian jurisdictions, as having the most useless estimates process in the country. It did not surprise me, but it was embarrassing.

One of the interesting things that I found was that because the Norfolk Island parliament is understandably so tiny—it only has nine members—to conduct its budget estimates, it actually has community representatives attend and ask questions, and I thought, 'Now, there's an idea? Why don't we let members of the community come in?' One of the many things that I think the member for Enfield might want to consider in his regular contribution on the estimates matters next year is the idea of maybe allowing members of the community in.

I will just mention, by the way, that this conference that I attended is so important that there were members from Montserrat and Norfolk Island—both tiny little islands of less than 40 square miles—and another tiny little island the name of which may be familiar to some people: Saint Helena. If anyone knows any Napoleonic history you might be familiar with that island. Furthermore, that island which is also a tiny little place of less than 40 square miles, is in the South Atlantic, and Tony Green, the member from there who attended the conference only got home 2½ weeks after the conference finished because St Helena does not have an airstrip. He had to get to Cape Town and catch a ship to get himself home.

Mr Pengilly: Sounds familiar!

Mrs REDMOND: The member for Finniss who travels to an island as well—probably a bigger island—says that it sounds familiar. There are some things to consider, as I was saying, about the timetable, about the sign in/sign out situation, and then there are the omnibus questions. We regularly have ministers in this place bring in bills and, especially if they are bringing in a bill on behalf of someone else, they will read the first sentence of the second reading speech and then say, 'Mr Speaker (or Madam Deputy Speaker), I seek leave to insert the remainder into Hansard without reading it.' That is a daily occurrence and no one bats an eyelid, and yet with the omnibus questions, which are identical in every portfolio, for every minister, we have to read them again and again. It makes no sense; it is just time wasting.

Then, as the member for Enfield raised, there is this issue of how much it costs. We should consider not just the ministerial time but also that of the CEOs and senior departmental executives and the amount of time they put into the preparation of estimates. I was talking to one of them yesterday over a cup of tea in the members' lounge, and they told me how they had been burning the midnight oil. Hundreds—thousands—of hours are spent preparing for estimates, all on the basis that someone might ask a question and the minister might not know the answer. That is just a nonsense, because the minister will take it on notice anyway, yet people come down here and have to spend hours waiting for their part of estimates to be brought on.

Mr Goldsworthy: They have folders this thick.

Mrs REDMOND: As the member for Kavel said, they have folders several inches thick for each one of the departments and agencies. I would love to do a cost benefit analysis of estimates, because I have a very clear impression as to where I think the cost might be—and it is extraordinarily high when you look at the salaries paid to the people involved who come here for the estimates. I am not blaming them; they have to go through this process. I know from my dealings with people before I came into this place what a stressful time coming into budget estimates is for them, and then how long it all takes to be sitting here on the off-chance that we might ask a question. There must be a better way.

However, it is not just the CEOs and the departmental officers. Think about the ministerial staff who are also involved in preparing for estimates. I know that yesterday in the last set of estimates that I did, which was with the Minister for Police, very senior police officers and administrators from the police department were here. I know that the minister's adviser had prepared an opening statement for the minister and questions for the government members to ask but, before we came in here, the minister offered me a deal whereby he would not make an opening statement, there would be no Dorothy Dixer questions, and I could just get on with asking questions albeit for a more limited time. I accepted that deal but that means that the ministerial adviser had spent a lot of her valuable time having to prepare for all of that. Then, of course, we also have the media and the parliamentary staff who have to spend an enormous amount of time, shifting around the chamber and that sort of thing.

It seems to me that the only people who could possibly benefit from the process that we have at the moment are those members who are on a committee when they do not have to ask any questions and they can catch up on their reading. I do not get to do that but I did note that a number of members through the week caught up considerably on their reading. I know that the member for Enfield seemed to catch up a lot; I think he must be the most widely read man in this parliament. He is surely the greatest statement by the Labor Party that it is going to waste its precious few resources. He is the standout performer on that side of the house, yet he is in the back corner. What can he do except make himself a better educated man? He reads an enormous amount, and I have no doubt that he appreciates budget estimates as much as he appreciates the rest of his parliamentary time, because he gets such an opportunity to catch up on his reading. He will simply become a better performer. As I said when I started, the member for Enfield is an enormous talent—the standout talent on that side—yet, for the whole time I have been in this chamber, his talents have been ignored. In fact, his talents have been stamped upon and wasted—

An honourable member: Squashed.

Mrs REDMOND: Squashed might be a better description. In the time I have left, I will get onto the budget. First, can I say that this government has forfeited any right whatsoever to ask us for any costings on any proposals we put up in opposition. They have introduced in this budget this ephemeral $750 million saving that they will have one day. One day, well after the next election, they will tell us where the savings will be made.

They already have savings in the budget. For instance, in my arts portfolio, they had for this year and the next three years in the forward estimates $200,000 savings each year for each of the arts administration and the arts grants. However, that is not part of the $750 million savings: that is just part of the normal savings they are having at the moment. You cannot get any detail from them as to specifically what will be cut or where the cuts will occur on the savings that are already in there; but in addition to all of that, this government says, 'Some time after the next election, there is this $750 million of savings that we will find out of all the departments and agencies, and we are not going to tell you where any of that saving will come from'.

The debt level of this government is extraordinary: the basic debt that we can already analyse is $6.7 billion. However, as the leader said in his speech a short time ago, when you add in the unfunded liability of WorkCover and superannuation and all the other things, we are actually looking at a $20 billion debt. The only thing that has saved them at the moment is the fact that they have been bailed out by the feds. Good old Kevin Rudd ('Rudd the Dud') has come up with this largesse, which would not be too bad if it was not borrowed money that all of us as taxpayers are ultimately going to have to pay.

I do not know whether you heard on the news this morning that the state of California, which has a bigger economy than the whole of Australia—and, in fact, the city of Los Angeles has a bigger economy than the whole of this country—is facing bankruptcy. They have got to the point where, in order to retain the money to pay the bills as they come due, they are having to give other people IOUs. They cannot pay their debts as they are coming due. They are fast heading into bankruptcy. If it can happen to an economy as big, as busy and diverse as California, make no mistake: it can happen again.

This Labor government has already, on a previous occasion some years ago, brought this state to the brink of bankruptcy, with a debt that was just unbelievable. It was costing us $2 million a day in interest, the debt level was so high. Yet, that side of the house would not allow any action to be taken to save us from that dreadful situation. Two million dollars a day. Just think of all the schools, all the other things around the state, such as, hospitals and the police—$2 million a day it was costing us in interest because of its previous debt level, and here we have debt levels that are as bad, if not worse. This government needs to be held to account for its absolute failure.

One last quick comment before I go. There was a little statement in the budget papers about no new taxes—no new taxes, just new fees. I will quickly mention the Residential Tenancies Tribunal. That is where people go for a quick, uncostly response when they are a tenant and they have a problem. Now the government is going to introduce fees, but not only is it introducing fees, if you look at the government papers carefully you will see that in the first year the fees need to be subsidised to the tune of about $6,000 for the cost of running the things that it is now going to run, but in the out years the government is going to make money out of the fees.

Time expired.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:46): I apologise for my voice from the beginning. After the resounding speeches given by the previous two speakers, I will do my best to make a suitable contribution to the post-budget speeches, but it may not be as long as I had originally planned.

In my first budget estimates as a shadow minister I was very pleased with the work done by my staff and the cooperation of fellow shadow ministers and other staff in this place, who assisted me to present a good argument with good questioning. I thank all those people involved, because without such good people I do not believe that any of us can make a good contribution to this state.

I will start my contribution by discussing the River Murray and water security. It concerns me that the Water for Good program will not be fully implemented until 2050. As indicated earlier by the leader in this place, we will either be in gophers or not here, quite frankly. It is too far out a plan and puts this state's water security at risk, with, perhaps, a target of only 50 gigalitres of water being trapped by that time in aquifer storage and stormwater recovery.

It is interesting to note that even the Salisbury council acknowledges that the whole process that the government has put forward in this so-called visionary plan could be completed in 10 years. In questioning the Minister for Water Security, Karlene Maywald, last night, I asked whether the government was going to take on the process of the sharp end of stormwater management, but no, it would still rely on local government involvement. I do not have any problem with that, local government has been leading the way, but I think, with the major investment that needs to be made and the synergies that I think could be made with SA Water, the state government could take on far more of a leadership role.

I note that the government, in its Water for Good program, is relying on local government and commonwealth government funding to move that program forward. Again, this is another of the initiatives that seem to come up regularly. It seems to be a regular event that a Labor policy comes up 10 or 12 months after the Liberal Party already has it in its policy.

Mitch Williams (the shadow minister at the time) put up a policy of 89 gigalitres of stormwater capture and re-use at a cost of $400 million over 12 months ago. It is a little like the government's desalination project: the government hesitated and the Premier thought it might rain. It will rain one day and there will be lots of water, but, currently, we are in a drought. The government has seen fit to put a lot of its eggs into one basket by increasing the desalination plant to 100 gigalitres.

A lot of questions still need to be answered. The biggest issue—and this did come out of estimates—is that the plant will be switched off when the river has bountiful flow. We will be paying far higher prices for water, supposedly to make up for the cost of running the desalination plant, when the government feels it can get can cheaper—

Dr McFetridge: The one on the Gold Coast keeps conking out.

Mr PEDERICK: Yes, the one on the Gold Coast conked out. The government thinks that when there is enough water in the river it will take the water from there. Where has that progressed the state? There should have been proper management and a fast introduction of the Howard plan for the Water Act 2007 in order to get $10 billion on the ground, including $5.9 billion worth of works—and I do not believe $1 of that has yet hit the ground—to convert channels into pipes. The desalination plant may end up a $1.8 billion white elephant.

The government still does not realise that we need to look after the environment, which is suffering heavily. I see it all the time. I live not far from the river and the lakes. I am aware of the issues that will arise. The pump from Lake Alexandrina to Lake Albert was switched off two days ago. It is good that, finally, the government has listened to its own commission's report and listened, finally, to some in the community who have said that bioremediation could assist, and will assist, in relation to acid sulfate soils.

It is interesting that the Minister for the River Murray (and Minister for Water Security) acknowledged that 201 gigalitres of water has been secured for Adelaide and country towns. I asked a question about conveyance water—which is very important—because if we do not have conveyance water it just does not get here. The minister indicated that water was secured, as well. I am pleased about that, but I am concerned that for our irrigators there is not much light at the end of the tunnel, whether they be in the Riverland, the Mid Murray or the Lower Murray.

The Riverland got a critical water allocation last year. It was supposed to be about 64 gigalitres but, in the end, it was 61 gigalitres. Certainly that has helped growers to make decisions about watering and keeping permanent plantings alive. I believe that they have access to 80 per cent of their carryover water but only 2 per cent of normal allocation. I acknowledge that there is not much water in the system but, as I have said in this place many times, because we do not operate the Murray-Darling Basin as whole we will never get it right. We will get this right only when the northern basin is brought in under some form of regulation.

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: Thank you. I believe that we should have one level of high security water and two levels of low security water, because the difference in variability between the northern basin and the presently regulated Southern Murray-Darling Basin is, I believe, about 700 per cent irregularity in the northern basin and about 250 per cent variability in the southern basin. So, I believe that it could work with a plan to have two low security sources and one high security source.

It was interesting when I asked the minister the question, 'What are people with permanent plantings going to do?' because a significant investment has been made by the government (I believe somewhere around $20 million) in propping up these plantings last water season. Unless growers can afford to trade in water, they are left high and dry. It seems to me that the only answer lies in the Treasurer's $467 million contingency fund, and I believe that the minister must be planning for some sort of grants process to get those growers through. I think it would be an incredible waste if that money was invested by the state government and no more was invested further on.

Moving further down the river, regarding the proposal with respect to the Wellington weir, it seems that the trigger date has been pushed back to March, which happens to be the month when the state election will be held. There does not seem to be too much coincidence there. One has to wonder why the government has spent $14 million on the approach roads. Many people are wondering what the heck is going on.

This government has done the polling, and I firmly believe that cabinet is panicking not only about completing this dumb project, quite frankly, to tip a minimum of 700,000 tonnes of rock into the River Murray, but even commencing it. I think that we need to be a lot smarter with our water and use it in a much better way. I will now move to some of my other portfolio areas and speak on agriculture and being a farmer—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Shadow.

Mr PEDERICK: My shadow portfolio; thank you, the Minister for Corrections—'Turbo' Tom Koutsantonis. I am concerned—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member has already indicated that he has a bit of a voice problem, so let him concentrate.

Mr PEDERICK: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I appreciate the protection. I note that, as far as services to agriculture, the reality is that $1.715 million per year is being cut from the budget over the next four years in research and development and $450,000 per annum over the next four years in administration.

It is interesting that, when the minister was asked whether these people were just being put off, the answer was, 'No, it is targeted voluntary separation packages.' I believe that targeted voluntary separation packages must be different from voluntary separation packages. I would say it is very close to being sacked. I have certainly met some people in the field who are at the receiving end of these so-called targeted voluntary separation packages, and the input I have received from them was, 'Well, our jobs are gone and we're out of here, whether we like it or not.'

It is sad to see that positions will be gone from Loxton, as well as the loss of the Analytical Research Centre there. I am concerned about the future of regional offices in Jamestown, Keith, Kadina, Streaky Bay, Nuriootpa, and the fact that the Roseworthy Information Centre is being shut down, with the resultant loss of access to information at that centre and the jobs there. It comes as a real concern on top of several years of drought and the tough times that farmers have had. We have been in exceptional circumstances for several years now, and I do commend the state and federal governments for keeping that program going.

It is absolutely vital out there in rural areas, and I do commend both governments for being the first in this country, I believe, to put a River Murray corridor into exceptional circumstances. I put that out there because it is assisting people, not only in dryland farming areas but also up that river corridor, who have been suffering immensely with not just the current global crisis but also drought conditions and river slumping. I note that the government is not proposing to assist local government with river slumping. The government did say that the federal government might be able to do a little bit of work with communities, but that remains to be seen.

Moving on to fisheries, I am still concerned about licensing and quota arrangements with the cockle fishery and the oyster fishery. There does seem to be a bit of an impasse at the moment. I note that the oyster people have won a reprieve at the minute, but I do fear they could see a massive jump in fees which would put a lot of people out of business in the future. I do admire their professional work. I have met with a lot of fishermen in the last couple of months, and they are very professional people and very passionate people. They do great work in this state and they do know how to manage their resources.

I do not believe that the very heavy hammer of marine parks and the proposal to shut off 45 per cent of our coastline is really targeted appropriately, because the real risk is that, even though, yes, sanctuary zones should be protected, these things are already happening under the Fisheries Act. The real problem is that I do not believe that appropriate compensation, if any, will be available to both professional fishermen and any recreational fishermen who may be affected by these changes.

I move on to my portfolio of forestry. I am still very concerned—and it did come up during estimates probing—that the government is still looking at the proposal to forward sell up to three rotations of pine trees. This could roll out to more than 111 years. I do not know, perhaps it is because I come from small business, but I do question how you can do a deal over that time frame, because I can guarantee that no-one in this chamber today will be there. I do wonder how you exploit the right amount of money and how you do protect the jobs that are already under stress, especially in the Lower South-East around that Nangwarry/Tarpeena/Mount Gambier area.

Different arguments get about concerning what happens with the export of round log. The union says that that log could be milled, and the government says, 'No, it's not the right size for the mills.' I guess it will be an ongoing discussion. It was sad to see a major mill down there, Carter Holt Harvey, giving notice that about 60 people would have to be laid off.

Mineral resources is another of my shadow portfolios. I do acknowledge the work that mining companies are doing in this state. As I indicated earlier in this house, I went to the opening of the Prominent Hill mine—fantastic work up there by OZ Minerals. Iluka is opening up a sand mining project on the far West Coast. So many other projects over there could crank up with the appropriate infrastructure. Obviously another big problem on the far West Coast and in the Far North is the availability of water for mining projects.

That is where I come back to BHP and its expansion plans. I wish BHP all speed, but I note that we do have to ensure we protect the environment, especially in relation to the desalination plant and the work of the big expansion. I do wish the company all speed ahead, but note it could be a little way off. I also note that royalties are way down on predictions, but there is some movement further up.

There are some problems overall in the budget. The razor gang will come in after March next year and the Treasurer will not have to commit. He just gets some other people to say, 'We will cut $750 million.' That is an easy way out. There are so many things. For instance, the government has managed to put off the weir construction until March next year, because it has managed to save 170 gigalitres of water that it is pumping into Lake Albert and the 50 gigalitres that Peter Garret requested it purchase because of the projects at Goolwa. In closing, again I thank my staff, my fellow shadow ministers and other staff who helped me with my preparation for estimates.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (12:06): A fair bit has been said about estimates over the years, and I have said a fair bit about the strange process, but I will not say any more other than to concur with the contributions of both the member for Enfield and the member for Heysen this morning. When I was at university, I did some mathematics and we studied this area of imaginary numbers. To me, that is what a lot of the budget is about: it is about imaginary numbers. We have these forward estimates and numbers and plans that are outside of the forward estimates.

It always intrigued me that the imaginary number most commonly referred to was 'I'. If you talk about imaginary numbers and then you talk about the budget, it is 'I': 'I will do this' and 'I will do that'. However, when the government is saying that, you know that it may not happen and often, in some cases, it will not happen, particularly in the case of the Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure. Much of it is so far out of the forward estimates that you just have no idea about when it will happen, how it will be funded and how much it will cost.

Today, the Leader of the Opposition mentioned the recent water plan—2050. In 2050, I will be 98 years old, if I am still alive. I hope I am alive to witness that. In fact, a couple of my constituents are turning 100 next week. Morphettville is a good area: it is a very healthy area in which to live being by the seaside. Perhaps I will be here in 2050 to see the fruition of the current plan. I hope it has been enhanced by then. The imaginary numbers being used in the budget to explain what is happening are a continual frustration to me. When you see last year's budget, this year's budget and projections out in the forward estimates, it is an absolute dog's breakfast.

When you ask people about it, people far more learned than I in economics and finance, they struggle in explaining it. As well as the estimates committees system being simplified, I would love to see the budgetary system being simplified. When you can have three different methods of working out how much debt you are in, that is completely strange to me. I think I said in my budget speech that, when I ran a small business, you knew how much debt you were in because of the size of your overdraft, but you watched your turnover, too. You kept building the business and working on the business. Your turnover was vanity—you wanted to increase your turnover—but profit was sanity.

If you are not making that profit and handling your debt and overdraft, paying your wages, and building the business, you are going nowhere fast. That is what I see in this very complex way of explaining the state's finances. To me, it is a completely incomprehensible process where you can have a bag full of money and a range of expenditure, and then you can come up with three different ways of balancing the books. You can juggle those figures to come up with three different answers, and the one that you like the best is obviously the one that puts you in the best position. That is the method that is used by this state, but it is not used by the federal government. If you used the federal government method, it would be a completely different outcome and the picture would be far worse than that put out there by the Treasurer.

The compounding issue I have with this particular budget is the razor gang that is coming in. I cannot remember its correct name, but it really is a razor gang, and it is going to introduce a number of cuts.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

Dr McFETRIDGE: I am not sure who it is. We have no idea where the razor gang savings are coming from or how they are going to be implemented. The Treasurer says, 'Trust me. Don't use your imagination because we don't even know.' It is difficult for people to comprehend at any time how you can keep building the business and driving forward but keep cutting back at the same time. Yet, here we have this razor gang, we are being told that it has to save $750 million but we do not know how, and we will not know any more about it until after the next election. It is just: 'Trust me'.

The other thing you have to mention about this budget regarding transport and infrastructure, which is a huge issue, is that it was a federal government bailout. The state government debt is big enough, but, compounding that, is the federal government debt that the Rudd government is getting Australia into. Someone said that the federal government has increased its statutory borrowings from $75 billion to $150 billion, and now it will be selling $300 billion worth of bonds.

I saw somewhere that it will be at an interest rate of about 4.06 per cent—that may not be right. That is a reasonable interest rate, nowadays, and Chinese and many overseas investors are investing in those bonds, the same as the Belgian dentists did back in the days of the State Bank. We had to pay back that interest, and that debt will go on for years and years. It will be my children and my grandchildren, and probably their children, who will pay that debt.

It is a terrible position to be in. I think it is a position we should not have been put into using the excuse of the world economic crisis. I think there are better ways of managing it than just hocking yourself, because the income has to be there. The cash flow has to be there. The turnover is vanity; profit is sanity. If you are just racking up the overdraft but you do not have the income, you had better be prepared for bankruptcy. We have heard the member for Heysen talk about the state of California today issuing IOUs. We have already seen the US and the UK implementing 'quantitative easing'. Quantitative easing is just a flash way of saying, 'We are printing money.' To me, that is just another recipe for disaster.

People in financial circles (far wiser than I) have said to me, 'The next big issue we are going to face, Duncan, is hyperinflation.' That scares the hell out of me, because I can remember back in the early 1980s when my wife and I moved back from Western Australia and were living in a tin shed down at Kangarilla, we were paying 17 per cent on the mortgage on the property, and the bank had lent us 110 per cent of the valuation—they would give you any sort of money then.

We were paying 17 per cent on the mortgage and 23 per cent on the overdraft. I cannot remember exactly what inflation was, but it was extremely high compared to now. It is a real worry for me because it is going to be a worry for my children and my grandchildren—and all of the working families in South Australia. So, let us hope that the resource boom, the defence boom and all the other industries in South Australia can do what we want them to do, that is, prosper under the current circumstances. It is a real issue for me.

The big concern that I have, and I am coming back to my particular shadow portfolio areas, is that we do not see any real plan from this government. We see an infrastructure plan where we are going to build bridges and some underpasses and we are going to electrify this piece of rail and that piece of rail, but I do not see any integrated transport plan. I have seen them overseas, and I have seen them interstate, but we do not see them here.

We had a draft plan put up by this government in 2002 or 2003, when minister Wright was transport minister, and it was a good plan. I looked at it; it was a really good basis for an integrated transport plan, but it got scrapped. Then we had this infrastructure plan foisted upon us, where we have various pieces of infrastructure—great developments in themselves—but there is no integration.

As I have said before in this place, as a vet student I studied anatomy, physiology, embryology, pharmacology—all the ologies that you can think of—but you had to put them together into one animal. They had to make that animal healthy, and it had to be able to thrive. That is what we do not see here. We see various plans, such as the State Strategic Plan and infrastructure plans, but we do not see the integration of all those plans. I do not see how this beast that is the South Australian economy is going to be able to thrive and survive without some overarching integration of all these plans. When infrastructure and transport are involved, it should not be just a one-page sheet that is released under FOI. This situation would be laughable if it were not so serious.

The minister has all this money: he had $2 billion in the last budget, and he has about another $600 million from the feds this time around, so $2.6 billion. A lot of it fits in 'I' money, the imaginary numbers, because it is so far out in the forward estimates that we do not really have to worry about it at the moment. The government says, 'We are going to spend $2 billion. Trust us; we are going to do that.' I hope that is the case, but I am afraid that I just do not trust the current government, both state and federal. I do not trust that they have a real plan for the future of South Australia; it is all for the immediacy. In the state government's case, it is all for March 2010.

As the member for Hammond said, the announcement of the weir being built has now been pushed out to March 2010. We see so many decisions, such as the one about the razor gang, where nothing will happen until after March 2010. We must be brave because with government comes responsibility. It is a tragedy that we do not have a brave government. We have a government that is thinking just about the immediacy. It is thinking of itself all the time, and it is using these imaginary numbers to try to justify it.

My other area of responsibility is Aboriginal affairs. The Minister for Transport and I enjoyed our usual friendly banter during estimates, but we ramped it right up to a far more cordial exchange in the other areas of estimates. Estimates can be quite fruitful, if they are allowed to be, rather than just argy-bargy across the chamber. It is a valuable time. As other members have said, thousands of hours have been put into preparing for estimates by both sides—the opposition, in wanting to ask questions, and the government, their minders and public servants, in preparing, to the best of their ability, the answers for estimates.

I think we need to look at making estimates work without long opening statements or Dorothy Dixers. I did that in most cases, as did the Minister for Gambling (Hon. Tom Koutsantonis), the Minister for Road Safety (Hon. Michael O'Brien) and the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation. We made a deal to cut back the time, because it has been my experience in the past that I can get in more questions and get a much more civil exchange going. I give the Minister for Transport his due: he let me have a go, but I do not always find his answers as fruitful—actually, some of them were quite fruitful, and we will come back to that later—or as revealing as we would like them to be in getting information on where we are going and what the plan is.

During estimates, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation and I discussed a number of issues about the challenges facing Aboriginal communities in South Australia. I was very disappointed to see him in the chamber today. I think his rightful place is with the Premier and the Treasurer at COAG because some monumental decisions are to be made about the future of Aboriginal communities in South Australia.

I understand that today's COAG meeting will address some of those issues to try to come up with some answers, particularly in relation to closing the gap between the health of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Australia, as well as the many economic difficulties encountered in Aboriginal affairs.

Some huge changes in industrial relations came into force in Australia yesterday. The perennial albatross around the neck of any minister for industrial relations is WorkCover, yet the Minister for Industrial Relations was able to answer questions to the best of his ability. He also allowed his advisers to answer questions, which is always a pleasure. In many ways the answers were guarded, because there are issues out there, and I think anyone who has been awake in South Australia in the last eight years has seen WorkCover continue to spiral down.

I do not see any light on the horizon, but I look forward to seeing some of the things the minister talked about in estimates come true with changes to WorkCover. I hope the corporation is able to improve its performance, I hope injured workers will not be discriminated against in any way or unfairly put off the system, and I hope the WorkCover Ombudsman is able to do his job and protect the rights of injured workers, because I believe there are some serious issues around WorkCover.

I was more than happy to participate in the session relating to science and the information economy with the Hon. Michael O'Brien yesterday, because he is one member of this place who has a really good grasp of economics. He is able to be open and frank and is more than happy to talk about issues at any time, because he has nothing to hide. He is managing his portfolios really well, and it was a good session.

However, I think one of the highlights with the Hon. Michael O'Brien, Minister for Road Safety as well as Minister for Science and Information Economy, was during the road safety session. Mr Hallion, the CE of DTEI, was present, as well as Assistant Commissioner Bronwyn Killmier, and there was an open exchange between members of the committee and those people. It was a really good experience, and we were able to discuss issues and get them on the table. Notes were taken, and I expect to see those issues addressed—not only issues out of the budget but also issues that surround the electorates of various members. It was a very fruitful estimates committee session.

I enjoyed the estimates committee session with the Minister for Gambling, the Hon. Tom Koutsantonis. I really do like Tom—

Mr Pederick interjecting:

Dr McFETRIDGE: The member for Hammond said that there was love in the room. I do not know about that; I like the guy, but—

Mr Pederick interjecting:

Dr McFETRIDGE: You can only go so far.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

Dr McFETRIDGE: You are right; we are both straight shooters. However, I was able to get answers to questions, once again, through the staff. That was an interesting experience, and I found out a bit about mail order and online gambling services. Fortunately, it is not a big part of South Australia. I asked about some of the harm minimisation processes, and it was good to see that they are really cognisant of that issue and are trying to do their best.

I went home on Wednesday night and spoke to my wife about some of the things that had gone on, and she presented me with a lottery ticket that had been through a scanner but had not worked. I said, 'Well, it's only 20 bucks', but it turned out that she did get her money at another outlet. I think that issue is being addressed by SA Lotteries.

The final thing I want to talk about is that in this budget, this estimates committee process, the only time my electorate of Morphett was featured was when I actually raised it in terms of road safety with Mr Hallion and the minister. There is nothing in this budget for the electorate of Morphett other than more heartache with taxation levels being maintained, more heartache with the debt continuing, and more heartache with no real plan for public transport and transport generally in South Australia. It is a shame that, in the first place, there was not more coming out of the budget that was concrete. A lot of it is out there in the forward estimates. You have to use your imagination. We come back to the imaginary numbers—they are there, but they are not there. It is just something like a smoke and mirrors job, the height of prestidigitation, and all those other terms that I have used to describe the budget in the past.

It is something that I wish could be simplified, both the estimates process and the budget process, so that humble veterinarians like me could understand what is going on, and so that we do not look just at the turnover: we look at the profit margin, we look at where the business is being built, and we look at where the economy of the state is going. I look forward to the government and, certainly, the opposition contributing towards changes both in the budgetary process and the estimates process.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (12:26): I will raise some issues concerning the budget and the estimates committee process in the time allocated to me this afternoon. I had the pleasure of being a member of a number of committees. I think I sat on the committees every day bar one afternoon, and experienced good cooperation from some ministers. But, as is the norm with other ministers, we were exposed to their usual belligerent and uncooperative manner with which they conduct themselves during the committee and pretty well generally around the parliamentary process. I do not necessarily need to identify those ministers, because we know who they are.

I sat on a committee where the Hon. Michael O'Brien was minister, and there was quite an atmosphere of cooperation, I thought. The member for Morphett is quite right in saying that the Minister for Road Safety (and with the other responsibilities he has) is a very capable member of parliament and a very capable minister, unlike some of his ministerial colleagues.

Notwithstanding those issues and also those points raised by members, particularly on this side of the house—and I note the member for Enfield's contribution—I think there can be some improvements made in the committee process. Whether or not we look to involve those members from the other place, I think that is a matter for debate and decision, but I do think that the sign in sign out process that has to be undertaken could be refined. It is a lot of work for the officers to ensure that people are signed in and signed out, with all that red tape. We all talk about minimising red tape and the process orientation of some of the business we carry out. I think we could look at some improvements in those areas.

I will talk about are some real issues that have been highlighted through the committee process, specifically as they relate to key transport infrastructure requirements in and around the state and particularly in the electorate of Kavel that I represent. I asked the minister, during the transport portfolio estimates committee, what plans the department is looking to prepare for the real need for a second park 'n' ride facility in the Mount Barker, Littlehampton, Nairne township area.

I am pleased that, a couple of years ago now, a new park 'n' ride facility was opened at Mount Barker. However, it did not take very long for it to be at capacity. All reports are that it is over capacity and that commuters have to park outside the park 'n' ride facility in a car park some distance away from the facility that was used by commuters who were catching public transport prior to the park 'n' ride facility being constructed.

Local reports are that that facility is over capacity and, while I am not immediately asking the government to commit funding to build a new second park 'n' ride tomorrow, I am calling on it to at least start the planning process for where it might locate another facility and start thinking about it. I raise this matter, because that part of the Hills district is continuing to expand. Land has been recently rezoned, where another 8,000-plus homes are to be constructed, let alone the plan the government has for opening up further good farming and horticultural land in the Hills district potentially for massive residential development. That is something on which the government needs to focus its mind, and the department certainly needs to focus its attention on starting the planning process for a second park 'n' ride facility.

The second key infrastructure requirement in that part of the Hills district is the second freeway interchange. I have spoken about this issue since first being elected to this place and I assure the house, the minister, the departmental people and my local constituency and all South Australians that I will continue to campaign and lobby for that key piece of infrastructure until that second freeway interchange is built. I will continue to raise it as an important matter to be pursued. We have seen significant residential development in the Mount Barker, Littlehampton, Nairne township district, and there is real pressure—and congestion—on the current road infrastructure and on the only existing freeway interchange at Mount Barker that serves those three towns—the tri-town district of Mount Barker, Littlehampton and Nairne.

One only has to stand on the side of the main road to Adelaide running from the township of Mount Barker to the freeway interchange, or at the other end at the main street of Littlehampton, to see the continual flow of traffic down onto that piece of road infrastructure, which is the only interchange in that area. The traffic is continuous and, if an accident or emergency blocked the road, there would be a real issue in trying to get motorists on and off the freeway.

There are two real needs for the second freeway interchange: to relieve the traffic congestion at that point, and if there is an emergency situation we would need another access point onto the freeway. I will continue to raise this matter until the second interchange is built. To the credit of the state Liberal Party, we have committed, in our strong policy development over the past three and a half years, to building that second freeway interchange, among a whole raft of other tremendous policy initiatives we have already rolled out.

I also want to talk about some aspects of the budget that were highlighted in the second reading debate. It is important to highlight at this stage of the debate the history and the track record of this government in terms of its lack of control of expenditure and, hence, the budget difficulties that the Treasurer currently finds himself in.

We have stated previously that the government has not suffered from a revenue problem; it has suffered from the lack of ability to control its expenditure. The budget reveals that revenue is actually continuing to increase even though we are supposedly experiencing a global financial crisis. All the commentators are saying that South Australia is not feeling the effects of the GFC to the same extent as the Eastern States and, obviously, the US, the UK and Europe. That is, I think, more good luck than good management by this government, to be totally frank.

If the Treasurer had made hay while the sun shone, so to speak, and taken advantage of the seven good years that South Australia experienced, he may well have found himself in a position where the budget would not have to fall into considerable deficit over the next two budget cycles. The Treasurer's ability to pull the state out of the deficit situation is predicated on, from memory, yet to be experienced growth of 4.5 per cent in the second year, to return the deficit position to surplus.

I certainly agree with the member for MacKillop who, in his second reading contribution, said that that is all very well and good but that the state has not experienced that level of growth over the past decade. So, while we are supposedly feeling the effects of the GFC—obviously, not to the extent of some other jurisdictions and economies of other countries—the Treasurer is predicting a growth component that we have not experienced in the past 10 years to pull us out of a deficit situation. I said before and I will repeat: returning the budget to surplus is based on a wing and a prayer. That really sums it up. It is more hope than reality that we will see the budget return to surplus in that two cycle period.

As other members have stated, South Australia now has the unfortunate reputation of being the highest taxing state in the whole nation. I have said before and I will continue to say, because it is the fact of the matter, that this is a glaring example of how many Labor governments over the past 30 or so years in this country have been extremely high taxing and high spending.

The figures are there for us to see. They are in black and white in the budget papers and in other information that is available to us that we have extremely high levels of expenditure and we are the highest taxing state in the country. We are experiencing a very high taxing government and as I said, this has been the hallmark of Labor governments over the past 30 to 40 years, particularly when the Whitlam government came to power in the mid-seventies.

I would like to make some comments about water and water security. What have we seen this week? We have seen the Premier, with all his bells and whistles, going off in front of the TV cameras (where he spends the majority of his time), running out all the written and rehearsed predetermined lines that he and his spin doctors have spent hours working on, sitting behind closed doors and working on all the one-liners. We have seen him supposedly roll out the water security policy of the government.

Where has the government been for the past eight years? It has had eight years to develop a water security policy. We have seen Water Proofing Adelaide and all that sort of jazz over that period. If the government had acted three years ago, when the state Liberals rolled out a very significant piece of policy work in terms of the desalination plant, instead of trying to find every excuse under the sun to refuse to accept that policy, it would have been close to having the desalination plant built and commissioned, with desalinated water, fresh potable water, running through the mains water system and being delivered to every house in metropolitan Adelaide now.

But, no, it knew best. The government rejected it and opposed it, which has always been the norm. Any good idea the state Liberals have come up with, in government and in opposition, has always been rejected. We have seen what has happened, three years down the track: the government has had to adopt our policy. A couple of years ago, the Premier stood on top of the tallest building and shouted from the hilltops, 'We are going to build not only one desalination plant; we are going to build two desalination plants. We are going to build one down at Port Stanvac and one up at Whyalla, piggybacking on BHP Billiton.'

What do we see? There is no mention of the second desalination plant now in the budget. It has been wiped off—so much for the Premier. It comes down to the credibility of the Premier. Does he deliver on what he says? Does the government deliver on its commitments? The evidence is extremely clear that it does not deliver on its promises. It has not delivered on the two desalination plants. It has completely scrubbed the second desalination plant at Whyalla where BHP Billiton is looking to assist with the expansion of Olympic Dam.

It comes down to the credibility of this government: does it honour its promises? I was brought up to believe that if you make a commitment, you honour it. My parents instilled in me that, if you say you are going to do something, you do it. We have seen example after example of this government making promises and commitments to the South Australian public but not delivering on them and not honouring the commitments. I can tell you that, over the next eight or nine months leading up to the next election, we will be using every available opportunity to highlight that this government does not deliver on its promises.

Mr PISONI (Unley) (12:44): What an interesting few days it has been in estimates committees. They are something I quite enjoy, and I have heard comments from others who probably do not enjoy them as much as I do or, alternatively, they are not honest in their appraisal and perhaps really do enjoy them but are saying otherwise. It is not without suggested improvements, and some of the improvements that have been suggested by other members are probably fair and reasonable. Perhaps we could review the need for opening statements or Dorothy Dixers from the government and perhaps there could be a loosening of the lead-in to questions and comments made according to standing orders by the chairs in charge of the process.

I thought it was interesting that, this year, the Minister for Education had prepared an enormous number of Dorothy Dixers in order to chew into the 2¾ hours that were allocated for education. I found this surprising, because in previous years the minister was happy with an opening statement and up to six Dorothy Dixers from the government members that were perhaps then used to release a media statement, but we saw a deliberate attempt to stall the questioning process from the Minister for Education at this estimates.

The minister was more than happy to use twice and perhaps three times the number of Dorothy Dixers than she had in previous years. I think the message was loud and clear to those in the education system: the minister is disengaged from her portfolio. It is interesting to note the recent debate on radio about disengaged students in schools, because I think we have a disengaged minister in the education minister. I think her deliberate attempt to reduce the scrutiny of her portfolio during this estimates process was evidence of that. I will speak about some of the items we discussed shortly.

I think the political barbs that were woven into the minister's opening statement and the Dorothy Dixers that she had prepared answers for set the tone for the education estimates debate. It was quite extraordinary that the minister was much more interested in playing politics and trying to discredit her opposite number than being open to scrutiny about her management and department.

There were some positives, though. The minister was much more on top of the details relating to the Digital Education Revolution than she was last year. Last year she continually made the claim that there were no extra computers; yes, there were new computers, but they were replacing existing computers and, consequently, there would be no need for infrastructure. This year, the minister conceded that there were extra computers in the Digital Education Revolution after my office had exposed the fact that, at the beginning of this year, we had schools with computers in boxes but no systems in place to wire them up.

The feedback that I received from exposing that situation in the media was that the minister then took a personal interest, and her office contacted those schools in round 1 of the Digital Education Revolution package that did not get the original infrastructure funding of $1,500 per computer. She contacted them, made some effort and then that money appeared from Canberra. I was very pleased that I was able to help the minister in her role in delivering those computers to schools on behalf of the federal government, but it was not without enormous resistance.

Of course, we all know that the independent and Catholic schools had their computers installed within weeks of receiving the money on 1 July last year. It was not without a great deal of effort by the minister's department to milk the Digital Education Revolution for what it could. Due to the Liberal Party exposing the issue that schools were being charged a commission on commonwealth grants by the Rann government of $65 per computer for handling and recycling, the minister was able to clarify that this amount has been reduced to $12. Again, I am very pleased to have been involved in that process. The minister, who would not provide up-to-date computers for our schools, has instructed her department to waive the cost of dumping the obsolete machines, and that is a bonus for schools.

The amount of discretionary spending in school budgets is getting smaller and smaller. The school my children attend has 400-odd students, and the discretionary spending in that school's budget is about $180,000, and that has been reduced by a further $26,000, with the cuts in their energy budget. Last year, the energy budget for schools throughout the state was cut by 75 per cent of 2001 levels. So, schools were told they would be allocated only 75 per cent of the money they spent on power in 2001. You can see how silly the situation is when you see how much has happened to technology since 2001.

We have a federal government that made an election commitment to put computers into schools, and that is being rolled out, and we have seen more in the way of electronic devices in schools, such as electronic whiteboards, and entertainment and education devices—all of which use power. At the same time, the government, with some kind of green policy, is saying that the way for schools to reduce their electricity use is to cut 25 per cent off their budget—not for what schools were using last year but what they were using back in 2001, before schools had all of these requirements.

It is interesting to note that the minister did not impose those same standards on her own head office in Flinders Street. From what I can gather from investigating that issue with the minister, there was no obligation for central office to meet those same targets. So, that is an interesting part of the budget.

We also spent some time asking questions about school truancy, and it was revealed that there are 5,000 truants a day in our schools, 2,000 of whom are habitual truants, and that is despite premier Rann saying back in 2003 that his government would reduce truancy. Well, there has been no changes in the level of truancy in that time. It was interesting to see that the minister was very interested in semantics when we were talking about the compulsory school leaving age and training—earning or learning, I think the process is called—between the age of 16 and 17. The minister actually wanted to have a debate about whether 17 or 18 year olds were in year 12, which I thought was bizarre. I would have thought that, if a student is enrolled in school, you would expect them to be in school and that it would be in the government's interest to ensure that they were, in fact, in school. Again, this all about a minister who is disengaged with her portfolio and has no interest in it whatsoever.

However, it was interesting to see how much interest the minister had in the tourism portfolio. She seemed to know an awful lot about that portfolio—that $57 million portfolio—compared with what she knew about the $2.3 billion education portfolio. So, we know where the minister's interests lie. Of course, tourism is a very, very important part of the state's economy, but I would argue that education needs a full-time minister and a minister who has some interest.

We talked about the Education Works program. It is ironic that we learnt on Monday that schools in Whyalla have voted against closing 35 schools in and around the Whyalla district. Today we learned that Port Pirie voted against closing those schools. I am calling on the minister to restore the school maintenance budgets that she pulled out of that region to bring those schools back to the standards that we see in city schools.

There is no doubt that over the last 18 months or two years this government has made a deliberate attempt to pull back on maintenance funding in our regional schools that have been targeted for closure, so that parents would feel that they had no other option but to vote for the closure of their schools in order to have new schools. That message, or that selling job, of the government did not work. I think it is obvious that those residents in the Spencer Gulf saw that they were being sold a lemon.

The government was vague on what the education outcomes would be for these children. The government was concerned about large super schools. It knows about the trend away from super schools in the United States and the UK. It knows about the difficulties with student engagement, discipline and educational outcomes that large schools have, and it knows that parents want choice in public education for their children.

So, the government has done a terrible job in selling Education Works as an education project. We know that the Education Works project has everything to do with Treasury and nothing to do with education. I think that the people in the Spencer Gulf region have worked that out, and I congratulate them on making a decision that is in the best interests of their children and their communities.

I will make some comments about my other portfolio, that of employment, training and further education. Interestingly, we saw 128 jobs identified in the budget that will be targeted for voluntary redundancy packages, but then, with a little bit of drilling down, we also saw that another 66 jobs were targeted for redundancy. The interesting thing there was that those redundancy packages had to be funded within the department. There was a loan that would be provided by Treasury, but the department will have to pay that back. So, that has very long-term implications for the budget.

Part of the cost cutting and efficiencies involved an increase in fees. The minister confirmed that fees will be increased in the budget in the future within various departments. South Australia already has the highest cap of TAFE fees in the country, and we have had it confirmed by the minister that an increase in fees is part of the plan to reduce costs in his department.

I asked whether any areas were exempt from the Treasurer's $750 million razor gang after the next election because, of course, we do not know what those cuts are going to be; we do not even know if they are going to be $750 million or $1,750 million, because we know that this government has enormous trouble in controlling its costs. We know that at least $750 million has been admitted to by the government, but it will not tell us where that is coming from. The minister for further education has told us that nothing in his department is exempt from those cuts.

As of 31 May, the employee cap in the department is 3,564. So, we will see where that ends up this time next year, or during the Mid-Year Budget Review—that will be an interesting one to watch. Of course, the government was pleased to talk about its removal of costs for children of students in some sectors of further education in the public system. I raised some concerns about the impact that that might have in zone schools in Adelaide, and Adelaide High School in particular. We already know that families in the education minister's own electorate are locked out of sending their kids to Adelaide High School.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Would the member care to seek leave to continue his remarks?

Mr PISONI: No, that will do, thank you.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. A. Koutsantonis.


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


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