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

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

(Continued from page 3221.)

Mr HANNA (Mitchell) (15:54): I respond to the Labor government's 2009 budget. To keep things simple, I look at it this way. Spending has increased by about $1.3 billion, state revenue has decreased by about $1.7 billion and we have a deficit, meaning we are about $0.6 billion worse off than in the previous year in terms of the bottom line. The only way these figures make sense is by including the additional federal revenue that the state government has received, and in this budget about $0.9 billion is coming in from the federal government in addition to what we had last year in order for us to balance the books.

In essence, what this means is that this budget is a pre-election budget. It is not the pre-election budget we are used to, where the Treasurer comes in like Father Christmas with goodies for all sorts of programs, but it is a pre-election budget because it avoids the pain that would otherwise be necessary, and will be necessary, even on the government's own admission, in the next two financial years. That is why the government has proposed a device called a sustainable budget commission which will take some responsibility for the political pain which will come from recommendations for massive budget cuts. But, of course, those recommendations will not come until after the March 2010 election.

Before I get on to some of the items which I think could have been better addressed in the budget, I will make some remarks about the Royal Adelaide Hospital. This is a question that I get asked about quite a bit as I go around knocking on doors and speaking to people in my electorate. The answer in terms of this budget is inconclusive. It is not actually the subject of funding in this year's budget. It remains a plan on the part of the Labor government, just as it remains a plan on the part of the Liberal opposition to upgrade the existing Royal Adelaide Hospital site.

I am in the possess of finding out more about the costing and proposals of both of the alternatives. I know that I need to know this and my community needs to know this before we go to the election in March. Labor's plan involves spending $1.7 billion on a new hospital. The Liberal's plans, of which there are three, entail spending of $1.4 billion, $950 million, or $800 million, depending on which option is chosen.

The Liberal Party puts forward the position that the existing site can be upgraded sufficiently to take account of increased patient numbers in the decade or decades to come. Essentially, it seems to me that, by building a new hospital, it must be a better hospital. It is going to have more modern facilities. It is going to have all the appropriate cabling for the expansion of computer and high technology medical equipment. The question becomes: which is the best value? I, for one, have no way of knowing at this point in time which one delivers South Australia the better option in terms of value.

The government has arranged a briefing for members of parliament, and Family First also arranged a briefing for members of parliament in relation to the proposals for retaining the current site. After hearing what was said at the briefings I am not any wiser because there are many aspects of both proposals, both alternatives, which are yet uncosted. The Liberal Party plan has the backing of several prominent Adelaide doctors, but, frankly, I would just as soon hear from prominent engineers as prominent doctors. We need a combination of medical knowledge and engineering knowledge, and financial knowledge, to work out which is the best option.

I will be addressing the issue of the hospital and which is the preferred choice closer to the election, but we, as will the community, will certainly need more information if we are going to partly decide the election on the basis of that project.

Now I turn to a number of issues which are essential, in my view, to the better management of South Australia, and the improvement of my local community. The first topic I address is in relation to water. As I go around the community, especially in the drier months, the number one topic is always water. What can we do to conserve water better? Where is the real vision for a plan to have all of the stormwater falling on the plains kept on the plains, rather than discharged into the gulf? Where is the vision for keeping the Murray River alive? It rather looks as if we are gradually letting the River Murray die, first by closing off the river at the point above Lake Alexandrina, and who knows what the next step will be if water continues to be taken out of the river at the current rate of extraction both in South Australia and over the border.

On a local level, the average residential water bill is set to rise from $340.60 to $387.50 per quarter under the new three tier usage charging scheme. I am in favour of tiers when it comes to water pricing, but I think it is essential that the bottom tier be extremely cheap water so that there can be no question that families without much income will be no worse off. At the same time, I think those people who want to have extravagant gardens or even use water for spa baths or other purposes inside their houses ought to be paying much more at the top end of the scale.

As a rough rule of thumb, I would like to see a pricing scheme which meant that average households would pay about the same, but those who use twice as much water would pay twice as much and those who use half as much would only pay half as much. It can be done, and I think it should be done. Ideally, I think we would do away with the supply charge for water. I am aware that the Productivity Commission has a view about that but it seems to me that we should go ahead in South Australia and move to a much more user pays system. For the pricing to be more elastic, we would do away with the supply charge.

Of course, the system I am talking about would need to make a number of exemptions for concession card holders and, depending on the numbers of people in the household—and there is no doubt that this can be worked out—of course, there would be an administrative cost to this. But it can be done and should be done so that we send a strong message to all water users who rely on the Murray, and indeed all water users in South Australia, that they need to conserve water inside the house as well as in the garden.

There are other ways we can approach the water conservation problem. I do not believe that rebates are sufficient, and we need to broaden the categories of eligibility for some rebates. For example, it makes little sense to me to provide a rebate for a rainwater tank that is plumbed into the household but no rebate whatsoever for a stand-alone rainwater tank which might be used to water the garden and the vegetables. It seems to me that a rainwater tank being used for the latter purpose is still going to mean less water drawn from the mains system, and that is what we want to encourage. So, it seems to me it would make sense for a rebate to exist for that purpose as well.

We need to have rebates for tap flow regulators, waterwise garden assessments, grey water re-use systems, swimming pool covers, and fixing leaking taps and toilets, even if this is just for very low income families, etc. There should be rebates in relation to certain garden goods as well, including the equipment necessary for subsurface irrigation, trigger nozzles on hoses, waterless car cleaning products, shower timers and so on. Many of these ideas are already being acted on interstate and it seems strange that, with our water problems in South Australia, we have not used best practice from interstate.

In relation to stormwater re-use, I note the state government's allocation of $833 million towards the total $1.8 billion cost of the desalination plant but only $52.3 million, as I read the budget, has been allocated for projects to increase stormwater re-use. This is not sufficient when we have such vast potential for retaining our stormwater on the Adelaide Plains. Salisbury City Council will soon be harvesting 20 gigalitres of water a year, if it is not already, but the budget announcements do very little to add to that.

A blueprint for this has already been drawn up. We do not need further research. The Water Proofing Adelaide report several years ago set out a number of sites for stormwater retention. I believe that at least 10 of these sites should be established by 2014, and I would welcome a promise from either of major parties to do just this. I think the Liberal Party has an advance on the Labor Party in this respect at this point in time.

I will briefly run through the list of possibilities: the Gawler River; the areas within the City of Salisbury that are already being used perhaps could be expanded; the Barker Inlet wetlands; the Cheltenham racecourse site; Port Road; the River Torrens; the South Parklands; the Keswick-Brown Hill-Sturt Creek complex; the Brighton area; the Field River, the Christies river; the Onkaparinga and Aldinga creeks; and the Willunga Basin. These all have the potential to deliver many dozens of gigalitres to South Australians and remove the need for extracting that from the River Murray. We should also be talking to Adelaide Airport Ltd in respect of wetlands on its land.

I understand that the government will spend $165 million in this budget and $414 million over the next four years on upgrading and expanding wastewater treatment plants, including the one at Glenelg. This should include plans to have Glenelg wastewater come to the Adelaide Parklands. If we do not already have it we should soon have consensus across all parties that this should be done.

While I am on the subject of water, we also need greater regulation of the aquifer under the Adelaide Plains. I commend the government for taking steps towards this. My community knows that I support the High Court legal challenge in relation to caps on trading water interstate. I do not think we can afford to wait several years for existing caps to be removed. I feel quite confident that some of the restrictions in place breach our constitutional restrictions on interstate trade.

I move to the topic of poker machine reform. I am as passionate about this now as I was when I entered parliament some 12 years ago. The government needs a better plan to curb the problems that arise from gambling machines. I know they are called 'gaming machines' in the legislation, but I think the more appropriate name for them is 'gambling machines'.

About 1.6 per cent of the population now seeks help from the gambling helpline every year, I am told. The government collected over $7 million from gambling revenue, I am told, and nearly $300 million of that from the tax on gambling machines. Yet, such a small fraction of that is spent on those who have a problem with those machines, those who become addicted to them.

For every person who becomes an addict it is estimated that between five and 10 others are adversely affected—their friends, family and employers—at times. There are many thousands of high-risk gamblers who play poker machines, and we are certainly not doing enough to address this issue. In the end, it becomes an expensive issue for employers and for our social services. By spending a bit more on help services and actually changing the gambling machine regime, we could save a lot of money that is spent propping up people or fixing messes after they have arisen.

I am a firm believer that the hours for playing machines need to be cut. There should not be any alcohol permitted in gambling machine areas. Moves to reduce the number of gambling machines by the Rann government in the last parliament have proven to be a complete failure. Even the tentative goal of 3,000 machines to be cut has nowhere near been achieved, so that needs to be revisited.

There should be increases in the gambling tax for gambling machines, particularly for hotels. I think hotels and clubs should always be considered in a different category when it comes to policy in this area. There are also restrictions on those who are able to access the funds that are set aside to help problem gamblers, and I think we need to broaden those categories as some people are needlessly left out at the moment.

We need to work on the addictive features of gambling machine programs themselves. For more than six months now, I have been trying to research how these machines work and how we can change their features so that they will not be as addictive. It can be done and, before the election, I hope to bring in legislation that will show the way forward on this.

I turn to a couple of areas in my electorate where major spending needs to be done. Probably the most pressing is in relation to the Oaklands crossing. This is the point where Morphett Road, Diagonal Road and the Noarlunga railway line intersect. It is a major issue in my electorate for probably about 5,000 or more people who live in Warradale, Oaklands Park, Dover Gardens, Seacombe Gardens, Seaview Downs, and other areas in my electorate.

We need an overpass or an underpass to be built at this crossing. Sure, it will cost tens of millions of dollars, but I think it ranks up there with improvements to South Road in terms of the importance. This is so particularly because, for many people, it is a significant route to the Adelaide Airport. It is a significant route to get onto the Southern Expressway for people in the western suburbs, and it is also a significant route to Flinders University and the Flinders Medical Centre.

On top of this, of course, Westfield Marion, one of the largest shopping centres in the southern hemisphere, is just next door to this intersection. A state aquatic centre and a community health care centre are due to be built and finished next year. All of these will exacerbate the existing traffic problem. In the next parliament, I would like to see proposals drawn up, consultations made, the tendering process carried out and commencement of construction—and, certainly, I will be waving that particular flag as we approach the election.

Finally, I turn to the Glenthorne Farm site in my electorate. For about a decade, I have been working not only to keep this land as open space but to have it constructively used and available to the community. My vision for this beautiful stretch of open space next to South Road is something like Belair National Park. Why should only people in the south-eastern suburbs have access to beautiful Belair National Park? There should be something more convenient for people in the south, and I think Glenthorne Farm would be the ideal site.

Mr Bignell: Hear, hear!

Mr HANNA: I appreciate the support of the member for Mawson, Leon Bignell, as I make these comments. We need to have the state government take the land back from the University of Adelaide and declare areas of Glenthorne Farm to be a conservation reserve. Parts of the park need to be developed as a site for recreation with walking paths, cycling tracks and facilities. We should explore the option of a natural burial area on the site. This could be done away from residential areas and bring in some much-needed income to make sure that the rest of the land can be maintained.

In my remaining minute, I also mention that the Dover Gardens Primary School site is now available for other use, and I fervently believe it should be kept as an education department site. It would be ideal as a behavioural management learning centre. I have sought to set out a number of aspects where I believe the budget could have been better on the whole. It is a pre-election budget, and we will have more pain to suffer after the next election.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.D. Hill.

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