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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-11-24 Daily Xml
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FORESTRYSA

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:29): I have a supplementary question.

The SPEAKER: If it is supplementary.

Mrs REDMOND: It is, Madam Speaker; it is directly supplementary. Will the Treasurer put into a contract for the sale of the forests a clause to guarantee no job losses in the South-East?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Federal/State Relations, Minister for Defence Industries) (14:30): I do not know where the leader has been for the last three or four weeks. I have been saying it in here; I have said it on public radio. Unfortunately, this debate has got ahead of itself.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Finniss, be quiet or you'll go out.

Mr Venning interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: I beg your pardon, Ivan?

The SPEAKER: The Treasurer will just answer the question and not respond to interjections.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: I am not going to answer questions if they want to keep yelling abuse at me. The government is only now in the process of engaging the appropriate expertise to provide to government a considered economic and financial analysis—apart from the separate work being done on the regional impact statement—as to what is the best way to move forward: two rotations or three rotations and, if we do it, what contractual obligations should we tie to the project to ensure that the things that I have said in this parliament are guaranteed. In relation to guarantees of job losses, I do not know what job losses may or may not occur in the natural operation of ForestrySA as it exists today. I do not know what is going to happen to building cycles with the housing markets—

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Technology—I don't know how—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Well, I don't know how at present ForestrySA operates its workforce, so I am not about to intercede in an independent arm of government, but what I will say and I will repeat, if people want to listen: the government will—and I have said this some weeks ago in this parliament—contractually oblige a purchaser to deliver the required outcomes of government. That is the work that we are now starting.

The report that was released publicly was an internal working document for Treasury to understand what the potential was and how we should move to this stage. It should not have been made public, not because it was hiding anything because it was not a document that was sensitised or in any way—

An honourable member: Sanitised.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: No, I said sensitised. It was not done to show government and to tell government how to proceed with this as a long-term sale. It was simply—

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: It was, as we do often in government, an internal paper that showed us what was possible in a broad approach. The report made it clear to government that now, if you are going to go ahead with any of these options, you need to undertake the more detailed work. That is a prefeasibility study. It is, and I would have thought that commercial people opposite would know that prefeasibility studies on anything are not documents that are necessarily released because what in fact ends up being the result of what you choose to do in government may not bear a lot of resemblance to what was initially scoped by the people. I apologise to the people of the South-East for that being made public. It should not have been. Unnecessary anxieties and concerns were raised. I hope we put them to bed today.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! If you want to talk, can you go outside the chamber please. This is question time, not discussion time.

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