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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
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Address in Reply

ADDRESS IN REPLY

Adjourned debate on motion for adoption.

(Continued from 11 May 2010.)

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (11:03): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I believe that I have about 18 minutes to complete my speech. I have talked about the nice stuff that has occurred and said some complimentary words about the leader in the lead-up to the election, but I would now like to talk about some important issues which relate to the future of South Australia and which come from the Governor's speech delivered last week.

I will start on infrastructure. The obvious ones of which we are aware are roads, rail, water and electricity. I thought it was interesting that, as part of the election campaign, on 17 February, before the writs were issued, announcements were made by the opposition and the government about efforts to be made on the Southern Expressway. We were intending to announce that project. It was high on our priority list. The word now is that the government heard a whisper about the project and decided it, too, wanted to announce it.

The government suddenly came up with $445 million. It is interesting that the public record will reflect the fact that on radio and in the media both the Premier and the Treasurer were quoted as saying that it had been provisioned for, it was in the estimates, it was in an unallocated capital fund. So, it was fair enough for me to assume in the role that I was occupying at that time that provision had been made for it and it was not necessarily an election commitment. That was proven to be very different two days before the election, of course, when the finances were announced and it was suddenly decided that the Treasurer had put that $445 million in there.

It was somewhat of a tricky one for us. But, importantly for the people of the south, that project is being built. It was a commitment that the Liberal Party supported very strongly. It is pleasing that the Labor Party has been brought into supporting that now whereas, only some months before that, the Minister for Transport was saying that it was not going to happen. The member for Mawson was also saying that it was not going to occur, and it was interesting that the commitment we in opposition made to that project resulted in its coming forward, and it is pleasing that it is going to be delivered.

Mr Pengilly: Mawson-saver, it was!

Mr GRIFFITHS: It was the saver of Mawson, says the member for Finniss. We certainly did it in support of our candidate there but, importantly for the 30,000 people within that electorate and the hundreds of thousands of people who live in the south, it is an important bit of infrastructure for them and it has to occur.

However, it is very symptomatic of infrastructure needs around all of South Australia—not just in the metropolitan areas but also in the regional areas. That is why I am particularly pleased that it is again part of an election commitment that we made (and the Labor government has not supported) to fund completely the road backlog of $200 million (identified by the RAA and quantified probably four or five years ago as being at that $200 million figure, and no doubt it ahs grown to a much larger figure now) over a four year period. In the initial four years we would have put $52 million into it, funding the remaining $148 million over the following six years beyond the forward estimates.

It is a great frustration to me, and certainly to any person who drives on the roads around South Australia, that so many of our roads are of such poor quality. From the people of Yorke Peninsula, and the Goyder electorate in particular, I am constantly bombarded—and I mean bombarded—with calls and direct contact. People everywhere I go are saying they are sick of their roads being in such poor condition. It is interesting that all members on this side can reflect upon the fact that they have sections of road within their electorates that are a disgrace.

Ms Chapman: Take the roundabout.

Mr GRIFFITHS: The member for Bragg talks about the Britannia roundabout. Again, that was a commitment that the Liberal government would have fixed. But it is symptomatic of the fact that this government has no plan to fix infrastructure, and that is what South Australia needs. Taxpayers of this state put an enormous amount of revenue into the government coffers to ensure that services and infrastructure are provided, but it is just not transitioning to on-the-ground works, and that is what we need. We need to see a plan that actually addresses this, where people can have some hope and faith in the future that something is going to be done.

It does not eventuate from the other side, and that is what is necessary. If you are going to be in government, you need to ensure that the people of South Australia receive the infrastructure they need, and that is bridges, roads, an extension of our water network and ensuring water quality and supply. It is also ensuring that the airports are upgraded - it is everything. I am very frustrated by the number of contacts I have had in the short time I have been shadow minister for transport; there has been an expression of frustration that people in South Australia feel about the non-delivery of important infrastructure. It has to be fixed, and it has to be a priority. From the Liberal side of things it is, very differently, a priority, and we need to ensure that we get it right.

That is why I felt a kindred spirit with the member for Stuart when he indicated in his maiden speech that he is prepared to acknowledge when the right decision is made and compliment who makes that decision, no matter what political party they come from. I also believe in that, because I think it is important that politics are not completely negative when you are in opposition. You do need to recognise when good things are achieved, but you also need to ensure that you criticise when the work is not being done. In this case, infrastructure is sadly lacking and it is an important area for the state to perform in.

The Governor's speech also made what I think is a quite outrageous suggestion, that is, that South Australia is outperforming other states in a number of important indicators of economic activity. Sadly, in the relatively short time that I was shadow treasurer, the only area I can see that we are winning in is state taxation policies, because we are certainly the highest in the nation. Until we get our tax policies right and create an environment in which business is encouraged in this state (particularly small business, where there is the greatest risk of their falling over due to unfair and uncompetitive tax regimes), we are going to continually struggle to encourage a competitive nature in our businesses that want not only to do work in South Australia but also to see whether the opportunity exists for them to do work in other states in Australia.

We are constantly told that in larger projects such as the Northern Expressway, which is worth $564 million, there are a number of interstate contractors working, and the contractors' federation has been talking to us and telling us it is because of the frustration of the tax regimes that are in place and the unfairness that exists. We need to ensure that we create an environment in South Australia where our businesses have an opportunity, where hard work will be rewarded and where enterprise will be rewarded; the opportunity for profit is there, the opportunity for increasing their employment opportunities is there and, importantly, they have an opportunity to grow their business and let it live to its fullest potential. We need this to happen very soon. Sadly, it is not.

The global financial crisis has created a challenge, and I acknowledge that as much as anyone. It is interesting that the federal budget delivered last night talked about the additional rivers of gold of GST revenue that will flow through to South Australia—some $782 million, I think, over the remainder of this financial year and the 2010-11 financial year, but, in essence, $1.7 billion more in GST revenue from what was predicted as part of the Mid-Year Budget Review on 28 January.

That is an enormous quantum of sums. It will create the capacity for services and infrastructure to be provided, it will create the capacity for tax reform to exist and it will create an environment in which South Australia has a chance to grow. Let us indeed hope that those who control the Treasury benches have the vision and the foresight to use that initial GST revenue to ensure that South Australians get everything they need. It must happen. It is interesting because, when the Henry tax review was first launched, the Liberal Party in opposition had been very proactive on tax reform.

The member for Waite certainly espoused the virtues of the need for South Australia to reform its taxation situation. A tax summit had been held. We had been believers in tax reform in this state, but, when federal tax reform opportunities were announced (inclusive of the words, I believe from the Prime Minister, 'root and branch reform'), the Treasurer of South Australia chose to make only a 3½ page submission which talked about the fact that it was not necessary, and that just shows the complete lack of understanding I think he has for the difficulties facing South Australia. Let us hope that moves forward.

A lot of those 126 recommendations, obviously, will not be supported by any political party, and the member for Bragg pointed out to me that it proposes the introduction of land tax upon every property. That is certainly not something that the Liberal Party in South Australia supports. We want land tax reforms, certainly, but not the introduction of a broad blanket land tax regime across all properties.

I also wish to comment briefly on the 100,000 jobs that the Governor mentioned in his speech as being part of the vision for a Rann/Foley Labor government. I do have a recollection that, when the Treasurer and I had a Press Club debate a couple of weeks before the election, a lot of interesting things occurred that day.

Mr Venning interjecting:

Mr GRIFFITHS: The member for Schubert was in attendance. The Treasurer made a statement about the fact that the 100,000 training positions were traineeships, and I tweaked at that. I said, 'Well, Treasurer, you are actually wrong there. Traineeships are jobs. They are 12 month jobs that are in place, whereas training places are an opportunity for people to get their training done.' Yes, I commend the fact that 100,000 places will be funded, and it is pleasing that the federal government has identified even more funds to go to training places because it is part of the necessity for ensuring that our future skilled workforce is there.

We do have a great challenge facing South Australia over the next 12 or so years with the baby boomers suddenly going into retirement. Over that period something like 200,000 people in the workforce will be retiring; plus, if economic opportunity becomes reality and the chances for so many industry and job opportunities are developed as part of the growth that South Australia will potentially receive if it gets the support it needs from the government, we will have probably another 130,000 jobs created from that.

The dilemma is to ensure that, certainly, our young people have the opportunity to enter the workforce (if their work ethic is there), but we need to ensure that the training is there for them and to make sure that the skills that are needed in the business opportunities that will be created through retirement and through development in the state are happening. So, training is an absolutely key point. I know that the member for Unley, as our shadow minister, is very dedicated to this, having in his own previous business experience before coming into the parliament trained some 20 young apprentices.

We need to make sure that the state is focusing on that, giving young people a chance for a future and ensuring that the business opportunities in this state have all the skills needed to grow and to be competitive on a national and international basis, and that is where I want to lead into the export frustrations that I think many people on this side of the chamber feel. No doubt other members will mention it also, and the leader spoke yesterday about the fact that only 9 per cent of South Australia's business is export and that the national average is something like 14 per cent. Exports within South Australia are down by significant levels in dollar terms compared with what they were in 2003, without allowing for inflation at all and real growth in dollars.

Yes, we have been hit by a variety of issues on a worldwide basis but, if you look at the underperformance of South Australia's export opportunities, we need to grow that enormously. We need to put an enormous effort into ensuring that our businesses, small and large, are export ready and that they have the chance to capitalise upon opportunities that exist outside South Australia and outside Australia. Let's hope that it becomes a focus of government because I know that, from our side of things, we have recognised for many years the challenges facing business and industry, and we want to ensure that it gets all the support that it can to grow and to reach its potential.

The SPEAKER: Member for Goyder, can I interrupt for a minute? Could members please keep the noise down? I have had some complaints that people cannot hear and I am also trying to listen.

Mr GRIFFITHS: The member for Finniss does have a hearing issue, though. I thank you for your guidance, Madam Speaker. There are a lot of discussions going on. Land tax was a very interesting one, and it is part of the tax reform call that we have had. In October 2009, the Liberal Party released its land tax policy calling for an increase in the threshold. I have a very clear recollection that, at the time, the Treasurer called us irresponsible. It was framed in a difficult economic climate but it was framed with the understanding that investment in property is one of the basic rights of an Australian and, at the moment with the land tax regime that exists in this state, there is no encouragement to undertake that investment in property. We need to ensure that the regime is there, and that is why our proposal was to increase the threshold and to remove some 50,000-odd people from the need to pay land tax.

It was interesting that, as part of the Mid-Year Budget Review on 28 January, the Treasurer was finally dragged into the argument. No doubt pressure was being brought to bear by a lot of electorates in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide where people are under a lot of pressure and sick of paying land tax; they wanted something done about it and the Treasurer finally brought it into recognition. He has increased it to $300,000. It removes 74,500 people from the land tax need. It shrinks the base for people who will pay it.

I find it interesting that, even though it comes at a cost of $52 million per year, the forward estimates still show an increase in land tax revenue, and I think that is the fact that people need to be concerned about. There has been some adjustment to the threshold, some minor adjustment to the rate and middle threshold, but it is that top threshold above the million dollars which is the large-scale property investment that we need. I recognise that it is based upon the land value, but we have to have reform across all the areas to ensure that land tax becomes fair and equitable. In the 2008-09 financial year—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

Mr GRIFFITHS: Yes; in the 2008-09 financial year, land tax revenue from private property investors went from $220 million to $330 million—a 50 per cent increase in one year. The member for Norwood quite rightly points out that it is a tax on jobs. It clearly is a tax on jobs. So many people expressed their frustration, talked about significant increases in land tax in the range of $30,000 to $40,000 for small businesses and talked about the fact that it created the need for them to get rid of people within their workplaces. That is not good enough. In difficult times a tax from a state government forcing people out of work is a disgrace. It needs to be fixed.

Payroll taxation is also an area where we think some reform opportunities need to exist. I recognise that the Governor's speech refers to the removal of payroll tax liability as it relates to apprentices and trainees. I would like some clarification on that because my understanding is that the wages paid to those apprentices and trainees in those businesses will still be included in the preliminary calculation but then the rate of payroll tax that would have been levied on that remuneration to trainees and apprentices is actually rebated back.

The Liberal proposal which we put out as part of the election was to remove that wage component completely from the calculation—therefore, in many cases, not tripping a business over the $600,000 threshold and not making it responsible for payroll tax. Labor has the other side of the argument which is, as the member for Morphett points out, the tricky version of how you can do it because it still potentially creates a liability where, under our system, it would not have existed.

Communicating that message and making the people of South Australia understand that is the challenge but it is something that we continue to fight for. I also noted that the Governor's speech referred to a proposal for a small and medium-sized business investment development program to be established. I have done a quick search on that and I cannot find any reference to it so I would be very interested indeed to know how much it will be, how long it intends to run, how it will be rolled out and what targets are set for the program. Let us hope that small business opportunities in South Australia get the investment they need.

Small business is an enormous driver of the economy of South Australia and so many of them are family businesses. I recognise the member for Norwood who, I believe, is a previous chair of the Family Business Association of South Australia, and I commend him for that. The experience that he will bring to the chamber will help our debate enormously.

Obviously, mining is going to be a key player in the future and there will be many questions raised about that in the coming weeks as it relates to the super profit tax intended to be launched by the federal government. Members on this side of the chamber are very concerned about this. We are worried that there are 11 mines operating in South Australia at the moment and the premier continually talks about 16 by the end of this year and another 20-odd in the pipeline.

How many of those mining companies are actually going to decide that it is too risky to invest in South Australia now and say, 'We are not interested and we are going to look at other opportunities offshore.' Indeed, media reports coming out of Canada were talking about seeing it as an opportunity for their country to grow through mining investment because large multinationals are going to say, 'No, Australia's tax regime is too much.' Joe Hockey, the shadow federal treasurer, talks about the fact that it is an effective tax rate of 57 per cent on mining now. That is disgraceful. How can we expect investors to come in and take enormous risk in mining which will drive the economy of our state in the future with such a draconian tax rate in place?

Kevin Foley needs to be out there fighting and banging on tables about this. He tells us he has had briefings, he tells us he has had two conversations with the federal Treasurer (Wayne Swan) but it has not resulted in changes yet. Swan and Rudd are out there talking about it being fair and equitable: it is not.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (11:21): Thank you, Madam Chair—I beg your pardon, Madam Speaker. I should have read the paper a bit more intensively this morning: no sex in the chair!

Madam Speaker, may I congratulate you on your elevation to this prestigious position in this parliament. May I point out that my seat of Morphett was named after Sir John Morphett who was an early Speaker in this parliament. He had the distinguished position of also being the President of the Legislative Council. Whether or not you should try for the president's position or not, ma'am, we are not sure!

Sir John Morphett was elected in 1851 as the Speaker of the Legislative Council (as it was then) and in 1865 he was appointed President of the Legislative Council. The position of Speaker in this house is one that is very trying at times for the person occupying the seat and we hope that members on this side will do all in their power to assist you in your deliberations. We hope that members opposite will do that as well.

The history of the Speaker's position is a long one. In 1376 (in what was known as the Good Parliament in Westminster) Sir Peter de la Mare, who was steward to the Earl of March and a representative of Herefordshire county, was appointed as Speaker. His speeches were so well advised and reported on that the government asked him to be their first official Speaker. He did this with courage and passion for the parliament. I know that is something, ma'am, that you will be doing.

In 1642, when Charles I was trying to assert his position of ultimate power as the monarch, he entered Parliament House in Westminster and confronted the then Speaker. On 4 January the Commons sat in St Stephen's with five members in there who the king was after. The king crossed Westminster Hall and entered the chamber, leaving the doors open so that members could see the troops making much of their pistols.

Charles removed his hat and walked towards the Speaker's chair. The members stood in silence, all bare-headed. The king said, 'Mr Speaker, I must for a time make bold with your chair.' Speaker Lenthall (as he was then) vacated the chair. In silence the Commons waited. The king asked if the five named members he was seeking were present, and the Speaker replied:

May it please Your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak in this place, but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here...

That was a very brave act on behalf of Speaker Lenthall back in 1642. Since that day no reigning monarch or monarch's representative can enter this place whilst the house is sitting. We proudly point out that, as members of this house, we are invited by the Black Rod to go around to the other place where the monarch, or the monarch's representative, opens the parliament. When Speaker Lenthall defied the king back in 1642, it was the first time a Speaker had declared his allegiance for the liberty of the parliament rather than the will of the monarch, and I hope that never changes.

We heard you, ma'am, speak about women in parliament and the suffragette movement. I have done a bit of reading on this and discovered that back in the early 1900s a gallery for the ladies was provided above the Speaker's chair. I quote:

Diehards thought the Commons a most unsuitable place for ladies, and even the radical Harriet Martineau felt that the gallery would attract the wrong sort who would provide 'a nuisance to the legislature and a serious disadvantage to the wiser of their own sex.' So, by a triumphant British compromise, a metal grille had been fixed to the front of the gallery, so that each side appeared to the other as if in a cage.

Because of continuing disturbances the gallery was closed. The militant response was to charter a steam launch and moor it close to the terrace to harangue members taking tea. We see then that the women's suffragette movement (the militants) were doing their very best to influence members of parliament. We are very proud, in this place, to know that we led the world in giving women their rightful place in this parliament. We see Joyce Steel on the wall opposite, we know other members are well represented in this place and, ma'am, it is wonderful to see you in the chair.

I am very concerned that the changes that are going on in politics will be testing of not only you, Madam Speaker, but also of this place. I have been quoting from The Story of Parliament in the Palace of Westminster by John Field. If the library does not have this book I would recommend that it get it because it is a very good read. I bought my copy while on a study tour to London—and I will speak about study tours and the value of study tours to members in this place a bit later. On page 280, on the role of members, it states:

Politics has become more professional, at least in terms of careerism. Many, if not most members of the Commons cherish hopes of eventual promotion to government; fewer than in the past are content to be good legislators and good representatives of their constituencies. If the Commons is seen as a waiting room for advancement, the healthy independence of legislature from executive is undermined. There has also been a centralisation of power in all parties, which further inhibits the independence of members. Party discipline, intolerant of dissent, has devised means of deselecting mavericks, or of not selecting them in the first place; the crusader is under pressure to become pliant lobby fodder. [As members] 'Our duty...is to speak and vote as we believe to be right, within the framework of loyalty to our party, to our constituents and to our conscience.

All members in this place, particularly new members, should take note of that. The role of the Speaker has changed little; however, there are continuing disappointments expressed in this book as we see in this place. Madam Speaker, I note that you will allow debate in question time to continue, although it is really out of order. We need to have some continued expression of the sincerity and enthusiasm by which we represent our constituencies in this place. The book states further:

…the accountability of the executive can be subverted at question times. The former Speaker's impatience at political point-scoring which obscures the real issues, and long-windedness which reduces the number of questions that can be answered was sometimes palpable.

This is referring to the British parliament, and we have seen it here in the past, too. We have fixed question times and questions here, which has improved things, but we do get long-winded answers to Dorothy Dixers. In 1999, the Speaker at the time was a woman—I cannot remember her name—and her motto was, 'I speak to serve', but it did not always prevail. Madam Speaker, I wish you well in your endeavours in this place.

The member for Bright has been appointed Deputy Speaker. I congratulate the member for Bright on her appointment. I see that she has a new man in her life. I know that man will give her undying love and devotion, and that is her new son, Theo. I congratulate her on being a mother and I hope that this place, which is one of the most family unfriendly places ever that you could be involved with, is able to allow her some degree of flexibility to continue her relationship with her new son.

The pomp and ceremony we have when we open parliament is something I enjoy seeing. We should all acknowledge and appreciate the history of this place and never let go of it. I congratulate the Governor on the way he presented the Governor's speech, with all the sincerity required of that occasion. However, I will not spend a lot of time on the speech as there was not a lot in it: it was pretty much the same old same old, and it is disappointing to see we have a tired government that is really not doing a service, not only to this place but also to the people of South Australia.

The good thing we see in this parliament is a number of new members. I am very proud of the new members of the Liberal Party. The member for Adelaide runs a business and was an accountant, a lady who I know will add a lot of personality and brain to this place, as well as looks. The member for Norwood has been working in commerce, a very intelligent young man who I know will be a credit to the Norwood constituency. The new member for Morialta is a young man who has been involved in politics, business and the legal professions. He will be a very good member for Morialta.

The new member for Stuart said he first met you, Madam Speaker, in 1979 at Pimba: you must have been a very young girl at the time. Graham Gunn was probably out kissing babies at that time and you may have been one of those young babes.

The SPEAKER: 1999.

Dr McFETRIDGE: Was it 1999? I thought he said 1979. I am sure Graham Gunn was around in 1979 kissing the babes! The new member for Stuart already has the name 'Big Bird': he is a very tall man and also a very wise man, who comes from a business and tourism background. The new member for Chaffey—and people said that we would never get that seat—is another intelligent man and another good addition to this place. He is an irrigator and horticulturalist involved in business and in working for the community. These new members are a significant addition to the Liberal Party. While they may not be tree huggers, they are real environmentalists, and nobody can take away their environmental credentials, with the triple bottom line approach these members will take to legislation in this place—the social and environmental bottom lines and not just the political and financial bottom line.

The one member I have not mentioned has taken over from a lady who served in this place for a long time and did a lot of work and was always a thorn in the side of the Labor Party: I refer to the new member for Flinders. He comes to this place from a business and farming background and will be another exceptional addition to the team on this side. The background of the new members of the Liberal Party is diverse, interesting and certainly one that will add some expertise and experience to this place. I am disappointed that the new members on the other side, while being wonderful individuals and family people themselves—I have not heard the new member for Little Para speak, but certainly the members for Taylor and Mitchell have spoken—spent a lot of time thanking their union buddies for getting them here. I hope that in this place they move on from that background and become terrific representatives for their constituencies, because this place is a wonderful place to develop your ability to stand up and be a leader.

The new member for Mount Gambier I congratulate on his election to this place. He is a fine chap: I knew him when he was Mayor of the District Council of Grant down there and I look forward to working with him. I tell all new members in this place: use every opportunity to take every advantage of every issue and use every allowance that comes your way, because you need to broaden your experience and travels and need to broaden your contacts and your knowledge.

No-one out there will thank you for not using your travel allowance, no-one out there will thank you for not using all your electorate allowance and no-one out there will thank you for not going to conferences, so make sure that you do that. Use every opportunity to serve your constituency and this parliament to the best of your ability. Use every opportunity—do not forget that.

At the same time, and as I said about the member for Bright, this is one of the most family-unfriendly places there is. I was very fortunate when I came in here that my children were grown up, as I do not know how members in this place with young families cope. When I first came in here I went home one morning and the horses were working down at the Morphettville track; it was about five o'clock. That is ridiculous. We are past that now, but we still have commitments and obligations to this place that take a heavy toll on members, particularly those with young families. So, I tell members to look after their families; no-one in this place from either side will speak badly of you if you have to leave because of a health or a family matter, because they are so important.

This is my third term as the member for Morphett, but I remember my maiden speech. I had the lectern there, and I had a speech that was supposed to last an hour, but I think I took a bit over 30 minutes. Hansard will note that I have slowed down somewhat, and I thank them for their patience. I did get the nickname 'machine gun McFetridge, the fastest mouth in the south' at that time and—

Mr Kenyon interjecting:

Dr McFETRIDGE: I have just been told that I am now a semiautomatic. However, I do hope I have slowed down somewhat.

Geographically, the electorate of Morphett is tiny. It is about 12 kilometres square and, if you take out Morphettville racecourse, it is even smaller than that, but I still have about 23,000 electors, the same as every other electorate in this place. Compared with your electorate, ma'am, and that of the member for Stuart, my electorate is just a pimple in terms of the size of the state, but it is a very important one, and it would be a very painful one if it were not represented well in this place, and I hope to do that in continuing years.

In 2002, when I came into this place (I took over from the Hon. John Oswald), I had a margin of 10.1 per cent. I was in government for two hours and 55 minutes, and let me tell you that those two hours and 55 minutes, before Peter Lewis sided with the Labor Party, were much more pleasant than the years I spent in opposition. We came very close this time (and I will talk a bit more about that in a moment), and there is no way I would desert the Liberal Party—the party I think should be in government today.

In 2006, we had a very disappointing result; I think it was about an 8 per cent swing against the Liberal Party. Fortunately, I held that swing in Morphett. I had one of the smallest swings in the state: my margin went from 10.1 down to about 5.4 per cent. It appears that the harder you work in this place and the harder you work with your constituencies, the more you are penalised in the redistribution. I lost 2 per cent into the seat of Bright in the redistribution and ended up with a 3.5 per cent seat. Everybody said, 'Oh, Duncan's gone, 3.5 per cent; the Labor Party is going to come in here.' However, let me tell every member in this place, particularly the new members: work your patch, talk to your people. You may not be as lucky as I am in having a very concentrated area to work around, but make sure that you do never neglect your patch.

This time around, in 2010 there was a 7.8 per cent swing back, not the 11 and 12 per cent swings we saw in some seats, or in Adelaide, where it was nearly 15 per cent, which was a fantastic swing. The 7.8 per cent swing was great, but I am not quite back to the heady days of 13 per cent at the 1993 State Bank election, but I am more than happy to cope with an 11.2 per cent. I understand that there are some issues with the redistribution and that there is the possibility that Morphett might actually be abolished but, at the other end, I might increase my margin. It is somewhere in between all that, and I will be working very carefully to make sure that Morphett has its rightful place in this parliament for many years to come.

I thank the people I have thanked in the past and the reason I am here, that is, my office staff—Kate, Heidi, Sam and Lauren. They work so hard for me to make sure that I am in the right place at the right time. As members of parliament, we all appreciate our staff almost as much as we appreciate our family. Certainly, my family—my wife, Johanna, my son Lachlan and my daughter, Sahra—have been with me for a long time, encouraging and helping all the way. They still do not understand why I went into politics, as they would never go into politics knowing what they know now, and that is very disappointing. The sad part about this life is that we are knocked, disparaged and maligned and it is completely wrong. My brother, Stewart, is a great guy and a lot of help during an election campaign, and I thank him very much for that.

One particular person in Morphett to whom I would like to pay tribute and who was the Labor Party's candidate is Tim Looker. Tim Looker is a really decent guy. Tim ran a very straight campaign. He did not get involved in any dodgy how-to-vote cards. He did not do anything underhanded and he was always straight with me. He always spoke to me. We have a very friendly relationship, and I thank him for his efforts because you do need somebody to stand up for every political party—even if I think you are badly advised standing for the other side, Tim. He is a decent guy and I wish him well in his role in local government.

As I mentioned, the redistribution that is about to hit us is going to be a really interesting one. How is the Electoral Commission going to predict how people are thinking in 2014? How is it going to cope with the massive swings that we saw to the Liberal Party and the other way? It is going to be a very interesting exercise for them and I wish them well.

The 8.4 per cent swing to the Liberal Party in the 2010 election result is largely due to one person and that is Isobel 'Taser' Redmond. Isobel Redmond is a remarkable woman. You are never left in any doubt about what Isobel is thinking, but not in a bad way. She is straight down the line. To the best of my knowledge, she has never told a lie, which is a remarkable thing.

For her birthday a few years ago, I gave her a magnifying glass and a fine toothcomb, and that depicts what Isobel is like. She looks at things carefully and she goes through things very carefully.

The Hon. S.W. Key: Cheapskate!

Dr McFETRIDGE: It was a very expensive magnifying glass and a very good comb! The fact that we got so close yet so far is such a disappointment, not only for every member on this side but, I think, for South Australians.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak to Malcolm Mackerras, the renowned psephologist. (I think that is the correct term for one who studies voting patterns.) Mr Mackerras gave me a couple of documents and one of those shows that, in relation to the South Australian percentage of 2010 votes and seats, the Liberal Party got 41.7 per cent of the first preference votes, yet we only got 38.3 per cent of the seats. We are under represented by 3.4 per cent. The Labor Party got 37.5 per cent of the votes and 55.3 per cent of the seats. They are 17.8 per cent over represented in this place.

The swing to the Liberal Party of 8.4 per cent is a very good result. The bottom line for the Labor Party is that, on the Mackerras pendulum which I was given yesterday, there are 10 Labor seats that are under 5 per cent—sorry, Light is 5.4 per cent. Let me read those. We will start with my good friend, the member for Ashford: Ashford, 4.9; Wright, 4.7; Mawson, 4.4; Colton, 4 per cent; Elder, 3.7 per cent; Florey 3.6 per cent; Hartley, 2.4; Newland, 2.3; Mitchell, 2.2; and Bright, 0.4.

There are 10 seats under 5 per cent and, according to Mr Mackerras after discussion with the Electoral Commission, some of those seats will become notionally Liberal so there will be more seats. That pendulum is going to come around. It is going to be a very interesting next four years for members on the other side. They are going to have to get out and actually work their patches, and they are going to make sure that the arrogance and the hubris which you have already seen in the smirks on the faces of 'The Three Amigos' down the front is not allowed to continue. These guys really need to pull their heads in and decide why they are here.

Mr Pengilly: They won't be here next time.

Dr McFETRIDGE: They will not be here next time, as the member for Finniss says. That is quite right. I remind the house that the recent ranking of professions has been put out by the Reader's Digest, which is a wonderful reference journal. Let me just point out that veterinarians are at No.7 and I am a proud veterinarian, but of the 38 professions, politicians were equal bottom with car salesmen. We were two below sex workers, three below real estate agents and only four below journalists. We have a long way to go. We really do need to restore confidence in the professional approach that we as members of parliament take. Unfortunately, the theatrics in question time is what a lot of school kids see and what a lot of people out there see. I just wish they would come in here, or even visit their local member of parliament, and understand what we are going on about.

I just have to mention the media. In my maiden speech I said that Russia has two newspapers: Pravda (the truth) and Izvestia (the news). The Russians say, 'The truth is not the news and the news is not the truth', and that is a real issue for us in this place. The news cycle, even in my short time in here, has shortened so much that we really do need to make sure that we are able to resource members of parliament so that they can continue to keep up with the news cycle. We do need to make sure that the people out in voter land are being given the information as they should be given it. Unfortunately, The Advertiser is printed at an 11 year old comprehension age, a sad reflection on what newspaper proprietors think they need to put out there.

I have to mention Twitter. Our Thinker in Residence, Baroness Susan Greenfield, described Twitter as 'the world of the inane and the banal,' and it is. I do not have a Twitter account. I have only ever looked at Twitter once, and that is when the Premier made some announcement about Aboriginal affairs funding, and I just needed to check that. I must say that the United Kingdom parliament, which I referred to before, did actually put out a 19-page booklet for members of parliament on how to use Twitter. I think that is an indictment on parliament.

My role and what I would like to see in this place has changed over the years. I have had volunteers—and this is Volunteers Week; we should not forget our volunteers—local government, science and information technology, consumer affairs, education, transport, industrial relations and Aboriginal affairs. I love Aboriginal affairs, but I have decided, in consultation with our leader, to hand it over to Terry Stephens in the upper house so that I can concentrate on the trifecta of portfolios: health, mental health (which includes substance abuse), and veterans affairs, because they are massive issues. Actually, there are a lot of Aboriginal affairs issues involved in those.

When I look at that range of portfolios, I see that I am just a humble veterinarian, just trying to do a job. I do not see myself as an important person; I just see myself as an ordinary bloke trying to do an important job. There is one fellow, the member for Napier, who is a good friend of mine, who left himself wide open when he said that he is the most experienced and qualified person in this place to be the Minister for Agriculture. Well, I am more than happy to help him at any stage.

I have three science degrees, one in agricultural science in crops and soils, including agricultural economics; I have a science degree in veterinary biology, including farm management and agricultural marketing; and I have a Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery, including public health and epidemiology. I am happy to help you at any time, Michael O'Brien, Minister for Agriculture. Any time you like, just come on over. We have Hendra virus and the bats in the eastern suburbs (possibly): PIRSA put out a release on that the other day, and we have equine influenza vaccine (that is an issue that the minister wants to know about). I am happy to help at any time. I certainly would not say that I am the most qualified person in this place for any of these roles, but I will do everything I possibly can to contribute in every possible way.

The contribution that I make in this place is dependent in many ways on what we are up against at the time, and what we are up against this time is a government that prepared a speech for the Governor that really in many ways was a nothing of a speech—same old, same old. In terms of reconnecting, which was talked about in the speech, you should never have been disconnected, Mike Rann. Re-engaging: we know you have a long history, from Cora Barclay right through to country health to many other things, of not consulting.

The State Strategic Plan is great, but its targets have been revised down; we have seen that in the past. Any critics have been sidelined and pilloried. Ask Warren McCann; where is he now? The state's economy remains strong, but we are way below where we should be, and we have heard other members speak about that. Of the 100,000 new jobs that the Premier promised, we know that 70,000 were going to happen anyway; so there are 30,000 jobs over six years. That is not something I would be really proud of if I were the premier of a state that has had rivers of gold. We heard just this morning that more GST is coming into this place. We have heard that there are billions of dollars worth of new major projects being put in place. Most of that is private money.

In my last couple of minutes, I will talk about the role of this place, what has been happening to it and what is happening in many parliaments around the world and certainly in the states of Australia. I will go back to the Story of Parliament in the Palace of Westminster by John Field:

The function of Parliament has also been undermined, and its clear legitimacy muddied, by devolution in its many forms. The European Commission and Parliament, the International Monetary Fund and other multinational organisations, public and commercial, have limited the remit of Westminster's authority.

We are seeing that with the national health plans, where there is fudging of where states and feds finish. We are seeing that in many other areas with national legislation. I will leave members with this last note:

The product of these tendencies is a Parliament uncertain about how to use its power and its freedom, and one that appears to be sinking both in public esteem and under the burden of legislative work it is asked to undertake. Representative democracy needs its champions, both within and beyond Parliament. It has to adapt to a world in which the nation state is no longer the primary unit. It needs to attract the most talented men and women, with an independence nourished by wide experience, to serve it.

I commend the Address in Reply.

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (11:51): Madam Speaker, may I join in the congratulations to you upon your elevation to the role of Speaker. It is great to see women taking over more roles, not only in the house but also in cabinet and other areas. I note that that is something that the Rann government, since 2002, has been really driving home. It is something that does not necessarily happen by accident. People sit back and think that it will happen just because it is a good idea and it is the right thing when we consider that 51 per cent of our population are women. It does not always work that way. Having worked as a minister's chief-of-staff, the premier was writing to us all the time to ensure that we had equality on government boards and that there were a fair share of women not only on boards but in chair roles as well. So, I offer my congratulations to you, Madam Speaker, and to the member for Bright in her new role as the Deputy Speaker.

I would like to thank the Governor for his speech and for outlining the government's bold vision for the next four years. I would like to thank the people of Mawson for putting their faith in me for a further four years. I would particularly like to thank those people who voted Labor for the very first time on 20 March, and I know there are many. I have text messages from people I have met over the past four years, for whom I have gone in to bat, who actually said, 'Biggles, I voted Labor for the first time today. Good luck.' This was before they knew the result. They were good, genuine people of the electorate with whom I have come into contact over the past four years.

When I made my maiden speech here just over four years ago, one of the things I said was that I was brought up on a dairy farm down in the South-East, in a place called Glencoe, and that our local member was Des Corcoran. My dad would always hand-out for the Country Party and go canvassing for them. He pretty much voted for the Country Party or the Liberal Party for most of his life. He said he always voted for Des Corcoran, because Des put his area and the people of his area before his party. He said, 'Sometimes in life, you have to put the person before the party', and that is what my dad did for Des Corcoran.

That is the way I have wanted to represent the people of Mawson for the past four years. It has meant going in and having fights with my own government, and sometimes it feels like there is a bit of pressure, a bit of push back from the government on certain things, but we did win the fights. What was important was that the people down there saw me actually doing things, not just saying things. That was some of the feedback that I received time and time again: that they saw that I was prepared to stick up for the area.

I look at it this way: Mike Rann is not my boss; I have 22,000 bosses, and they all live in the electorate of Mawson, and I am there to serve each and every one of those people. It does not matter whether they voted Labor, Liberal, Nationals, Greens or Family First, if they live in the electorate of Mawson and they want me to go in and fight for them, that is what I will do.

Neil Kerley, the great football coach who coached South Adelaide to its last premiership way back in 1964, had a saying, 'The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.' I reckon Kerls is right on that. The harder you work, the luckier you get. Nothing in politics replaces that face-to-face communication with the people you represent, whether that is doorknocking, attending community forums or having street corner meetings. It is basically the only game when you are in politics. It has been proved over and over that nothing else will work. Eventually, you have to go out there and listen to what people want, not giving them lip service but actually going into bat for them and winning the fights for them—and it is not always the big things.

I know that we are delivering an $18 million overpass out of McLaren Vale, which is really going to increase the safety down there; we are fixing the South Road/Victor Harbor Road intersection; we are going to duplicate the Southern Expressway, with funding of $445 million; the rail line will be extended to Seaford, with federal government money, and it will be electrified with state government money. All that infrastructure is fantastic, but sometimes it is the little things.

When you go out doorknocking, and you find out that someone is concerned that the limb of a big gum tree is overhanging their child's trampoline and it is a council tree, and they say, 'We've been worried about this for six months. We don't know what to do about it,' it is a pretty simple fix. I go back to the office and get onto the council, and the council fixes it. They are the real one percenters that actually make a difference to people's life. Those things mean more to those people as individuals than all the hundreds of millions of dollars we spend on the infrastructure because you have had a direct influence on that person's life, particularly when they have kids and you help make their kids' life safer.

Again, a really important part of this job is to be involved with the local schools and to go into bat for them to make sure that they get their fair share of the education pie. Also, I think our role is to be involved in the school communities as leaders and role models to the students, whether that is attending assemblies and making speeches and passing on our life experiences to those students, or bringing them here into Parliament House and showing them how democracy works.

I know that my first introduction to this chamber was with Kevin Hamilton. As a school student, I was brought into Parliament House on a school excursion when I was in grade 7, and I was fascinated by the place. Then, later on in life, we had Lynn Arnold come to the school, and we had various interactions with politicians. So, we should never underestimate the role we play in the life of younger South Australians. If we can set the right example for them, they will go places. If we show that we believe in them, they will believe in themselves.

In Mawson, we have a lot of low socioeconomic areas, and there are kids there who do remarkable things. They might not always get the most positive reinforcement at home, but I know they do at their school because we have fantastic teachers and principals, who really do believe in our kids, and they give those kids the very best chance they can to get along in life and get ahead. I refer to places such as Hackham East Primary, where we have had students in here to sing for the Premier and some of the cabinet ministers. I saw them—

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr BIGNELL: And they did the haka as well. I saw them at a school assembly, and they were just fantastic. I thought, 'This shouldn't just stay in Hackham East', because these kids need to be exposed. So, we brought them in here. A few months later, the Premier came to me and said, 'Those students from Hackham East, do you think they would want to come in here and sing Advance Australia Fair and a couple of other songs for the Governor-General when she comes to Adelaide?' I said, 'That would be fantastic.'

Isn't it great that we give all the schools an opportunity! It is not necessarily those with world renowned choirs; we have had a bunch of grade 6 and 7 kids from Hackham East come into Parliament House. For those kids, their life will be changed by that experience because not only are we showing them that we believe in them but they can go anywhere in the world—and that is the message we need to deliver to the kids. As the new member for Taylor said, 'Your demographic is not your destiny'—and I think the member for Goyder repeated that as well—and that is exactly right. Something we need to remember is that we do have an important role, and that is one of the roles we play in this place.

You cannot win an election on your own, and I really want to thank my office staff—Kerry Treuel, Jane Backhouse, Lyn Royans—who have done a magnificent job. They have put in many, many hours—well above what the job specifies—to help retain Mawson. I really want to thank those three people; they were fantastic.

I also thank Bec Roy, who has been a trainee in the office for the past year and who also became really involved. I felt a bit sorry for Bec as she had to be hospitalised in the last week; it was like she had trained all year for the Grand Final. She rang me at the celebration party just to make sure that what she was seeing on TV was actually happening. To Bec, I wish you all the very best in your future because you have done a very good job, and I hope you have learnt a lot during the past year as a trainee.

It is important that, as members of parliament, we use the role of trainees in our offices because not only does it help us out to have an extra person in the office but we can really teach people, help them along and give them skills, because they go to TAFE one day a week and they spend the other four days in the office. When I am picking trainees, I look at the people who might not have got a job, because I think that, if I can take them from where they are now and help them improve themselves over the ensuing year, they are going to be in a better place 12 months down the track to get a job, and I think that is a really important thing to do. So, to Bec, Tiffany and Emma, the three trainees who have been in my office over the past three years, I say thank you very much.

I also thank other supporters: the Minister for Transport, Patrick Conlon; the now Minister for Education, Jay Weatherill; and the Premier of course—everyone in cabinet, but those two in particular, for all their support and advice not only over the past four years but over the past eight years. I thank Patrick and Jay and the rest of the team for their support.

I thank Dave Gray and Dave Di Troia at the LHMU, and Katrine Hildyard and Ian Steel at the ASU for all their support, as well as the scores of volunteers who helped out in so many different ways. We all know that there is a lot to do during election campaigns, and to the people who came on board for either the final week, just for election day itself or for the three or four weeks out, whether it was putting up posters or doing anything else, I thank each and every one of them. There are probably far too many to go through and name individually, but I would like to thank them.

I thank my parliamentary colleagues here and also some interstate. It is good, if you get around and are involved in committees that involve interstate MPs coming here, to actually meet up with other people when we go interstate. Steve Herbert, a Victorian MP, has been very good. He is in a marginal seat in Victoria, and we touch base quite often. I really want to thank Steve for some of his input and some of the ideas that he has come up with, and I wish him all the very best for his election campaign later this year.

I also thank my colleagues for putting their faith in me with my elevation to parliamentary secretary. I will be parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure, and there are some quite specific and exciting roles that the minister wants me to play; one is on the consultation for the Southern Expressway duplication and to be involved in the community. The aim is to get half of the 1,400 jobs for people in the south, and that is something we have already begun to try to push along—going out into the trade schools and engaging with them and engaging with associations like the Civil Contractors Federation. The more work that we do now, when the contracts are about to be let, when the successful tenderer is named we will be able to go to them and say, 'Look, we've already got all this in place. Please employ these local people,' and that is going to be a great thing for the south.

There will also be a lot more jobs in the pipeline once we have the Tonsley Park redevelopment, and I know the new member for Mitchell has a very close and long-term association with that site. I think it will be a really good thing and will help reinstate the high esteem the manufacturing industry has always held in this state. It has been a very important part of our economy.

The loss of Mitsubishi was very sad for the people in the south but, if you look at how we have come out of it a couple of years on, we have probably done a lot better than many people would have predicted at the time. That is obviously something that did not happen by accident: it was the federal government and the state government working together to ensure that people had training before those jobs were lost and then afterwards, so that people could transition into other jobs. I think the Tonsley Park precinct, with its focus on green jobs, will be a great thing for the people of the south, and I know that, from getting around and doorknocking, there is a lot of excitement about that.

The other area I will be assisting with in the role of parliamentary secretary is consultation with the community and entities like councils about the Darlington interchange. This is something that needs to be sorted out in the south because it is such a bottleneck. It is like an hourglass figure where it all comes in at a point; that is, you have two or three roads coming from the south, converging into one road, then going back out into three or four roads—South Road obviously continues on and then you have Ayliffes Road. We really need to make sure that the planning of that is done well and consideration is given not just to the local community but also to important institutions like the Flinders Medical Centre and Flinders University. That will involve not only road infrastructure but also light rail.

One of the other roles I will have is to work with the regions and to consult with groups within regional South Australia on the State Infrastructure Plan. This is something I know a little about because, as Patrick Conlon's chief of staff, we worked on the infrastructure plan of 2005. That involved a lot of consultation to find out what people wanted in the plan, because again, things do not happen by accident. Not everything is going to be possible in the first year which is why you have longer term goals and short-term goals in order to work out what communities and the state need. You work out whether that is going to be delivered by the private sector or the public sector, or a combination of both. That is the process that we went through in 2005. It was a painstaking process that took a lot of time and effort. You need the cooperation of all the different government departments and agencies to come together.

So, one of the things that I will be doing this year is going out to the regions and sitting around the table with councils, regional development boards and other interested parties to make sure that we get the priorities down on paper. I am pleased that 80 per cent of the things that we came up with for the original State Infrastructure Plan for the regions either are completed or underway. That is a pretty good success rate and I am hoping that we can emulate that in the infrastructure plan mark II.

During the next four years, I want to continue my hard work in the electorate. As I have said before, it is a very diverse electorate. We have one of the world's great wine regions in McLaren Vale. I want to make sure that I continue to promote and protect the McLaren Vale wineries—the grape growers and the winemakers—because it is a fantastic area and they need all the help they can get at the moment. Some of that stuff can be done locally and some can be done at a state level, but there are also other things that require federal help. There is a massive wine glut at the moment—not just in Australia but right around the world—and we really need to start thinking outside of the square.

Not all of the answers will come locally. It is going to need a national approach to some things and a change to how people do things. That is going to be something that will have to apply up the river as well, for instance, in places like Griffith on the Murrumbidgee and the Riverina area. I think we really need to look at the output from water in, the amount of jobs that are created at the end and the amount of money that can come out at the other end. There is no point in our wasting water and selling wine for less than what that water is worth to us.

That is something that needs almost a satellite view of Australia. That is to say, if you own and have control over all the water in Australia, you can get this much output and this many jobs in this area, while in another area you can get a lot more output, money and jobs into your economy. We need to work out the best place to do that. That is not going to be an easy thing to do, because people are very parochial about their own areas. It needs to be something that is done with consultation and with mechanisms put in place whereby people can change to other forms of agriculture perhaps or other land use. It is not going to be an easy thing to do, but it is going to be a necessary thing to do. Otherwise, it is simply not sustainable to continue going down the track that we are going down.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you were not here earlier when I was passing on my congratulations but, now that you are, I would like to end my speech by offering you my congratulations on your elevation to your new role.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, member for Mawson. The member for Waite.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite) (12:10): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I congratulate the Governor on his address and also you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and Madam Speaker; it is great to see two women at the helm of the parliament.

On reading the Governor's address, which spells out the government's agenda, it is clear that it contains little that is bold and visionary, nothing that defines South Australia's place in the nation or the world, nothing that seems to suggest that this third term will be any different from the first and second terms—it is really a case of treading water.

I will begin by talking about the seat of Waite. I thank the Labor Party for running a campaign in Waite for the first time. On this occasion, I believe the government spent an extraordinary amount of money in Waite. It picked a very good candidate and I had the biggest swing to me in the 13 years since I have been the member for Waite, well above the state swing. It was an outstanding result, and I thank the people of Waite for their renewed endorsement of me.

It was fantastic to visit the schools, community groups, homes, community centres and businesses throughout the campaign. I ran a very local campaign and it was great to be re-elected. I thank Jane, Cheryl, and Meghan at my office. I say to all the volunteers in the local branch of the party, 'You did such a splendid job during this election.' I also note the efforts of Adrian Tisato, the Labor candidate in Waite. He ran a very good, honourable, decent and clean campaign. He is a very good candidate and I urge the government to consider him again in the future. He did a very good job. There was a swing on and we are where we are.

After the 2006 election, our Address in Reply speeches were criticised by the media for failing to reflect meaningfully on the lessons learnt from the previous session of the parliament and lessons learnt from the election that might point to the future and the session ahead. The media commented at the time that there was a lack of frankness. The Address in Reply provides an opportunity to reflect on the four years that have passed and also to look in a positive way to the next four years and what we might be able to achieve.

I would say most earnestly to my colleagues on this side of the house: I think the Opposition can make a difference from opposition. The last four years demonstrated that we can show leadership, that we can force change, that we can have the government respond to us, and that we can get results from opposition, even though we would all rather be in government. In fact, over the last four years, I think we did exactly that.

As we all know, the 2006 election was not good for the state Liberals. We were delivered a Labor government that was arrogant and overconfident. We all remember that the result was nearly 57 per cent to the ALP and 43 per cent to the Liberals. In the year that followed that election (March 2006 to March 2007), we actually fell further off the pace. There was a Newspoll in December that showed that the ALP had risen to 58 per cent and that we had fallen a further point to 42 per cent.

In March 2007, a year after the election, we had a stunning news poll showing Labor at 61 per cent on a two-party preferred basis and the state Liberals at 39 per cent on a two-party preferred basis, our primary vote having fallen well down into the 20s. It was the worst result the state Liberal Party has ever had since World War II, and it reflected serious concerns. These were dark days for the state Liberal Party.

I commend the former leader, the member for Davenport, on his stewardship during this difficult period. The leader commented yesterday that he had announced the policy of desalination, which is quite correct. After a long six month debate in our party room, championed by the Hon. David Ridgway, the member for MacKillop, me and others, he did announce that policy and staked our claim on the desalination issue. We also need to commend the member for Davenport for another important decision; that is, the decision to raise a levy amongst the parliamentary party to guarantee we had some funds to run an advertising campaign at the outset of the 2010 election. He is to be commended for both those initiatives.

In April 2007 I became the leader. I remember an address to both the joint party room and state council at which I made three points; that is, there were three things we needed to do in order to win the election in 2010. First, we could no longer be a low profile, small target opposition. We needed to be bold, courageous and visionary, and come out with some policies of our own. Some mistakes would be made, but we needed to take some calculated risks in order to do it. We could control that. We then went on to do just that.

The second thing which we needed to do and which we could control was to remain disciplined and united, particularly if there were any setbacks. We could control that. The third thing we needed was some bloody good luck. We could not control that. In the end we got two out of three—which is not too bad.

I want to talk about our policy achievements in that four year period. Our parliamentary tactics and our attitude as an opposition changed. We were more aggressive. We defined the ALP as we saw them. We reset the definition of ourselves and how we were perceived. We reorganised ourselves on policy. We held a tax summit that heralded changes we took to the election in the way of tax reform. We developed a policy on an independent commission against corruption and we took it to the people of South Australia. This was opposed by some members of our party room but, to our great credit as a party room, we ultimately agreed to have an ICAC and it is now part of our core agenda.

I announced a master plan for Adelaide at the Press Club. It was agreed to and accepted by the media and the people of South Australia with great enthusiasm. We announced that we would be opposing the railyards hospital. Again, it was a decision disagreed with by many people in our party room who said, 'How could you oppose a new hospital?' But, when we thought it through, we knew that the right thing to do was to rebuild the Royal Adelaide Hospital on its present site. We had the courage as a party room to take that stand and it turned out to be the right position.

I announced at a police conference 18 months ago that we would be introducing Tasers to the police force. We also took our position on a new stadium to the people of South Australia. Again, it was a decision that crystallised debate and brought new voters to the Liberal Party—people we had not heard from for years. Young sports enthusiasts and teenagers were suddenly listening to the state Liberals and, in the end, it was such a compelling debate that we forced the government to concede from its initial position—that footy would be staying at AAMI Stadium; they ran down there with a cheque—to what we have today—an Adelaide Oval proposal on which I will not dwell at the moment but which cannot proceed.

We also developed policies on stormwater. Under my leadership we announced our $400 million stormwater plan and policies on the River Murray. By the way, our policies on the River Murray, which set the national agenda and which resulted in a number of meetings between me and federal MPs, had a significant role to play in setting the federal Liberal Party's agenda on the river. It set the standard and the course for the river. We defined the so-called historic agreement as nothing but a scrap of paper.

Those decisions we took during that period were brave, courageous and out there. We did not know whether or not we would win but they turned out to be winning ideas. They became the agenda we took to the election. It is a credit to our party room that we were able to change the culture of the way in which we worked. It resulted in the quality of our work improving significantly.

Our policy papers were well written, thoroughly footnoted, thoroughly researched and well presented for the first time in six years. The presentation of everything we did took a step up, from shadow cabinet meetings and joint party meetings through to responses to budgets and auditors-general reports. Our responses were very professional, written in detail, produced in a timely fashion on the night of either the budget or the Auditor-General's Report being tabled, and provided the most thorough and comprehensive analyses of budgets and auditors-general reports this party has ever produced and I have seen in the 13 years I have been a member of parliament, including when we were in government.

We also completely reorganised the Liberal Party's fundraising machinery. The president (Sean Edwards) and I conceived the idea of Future SA and took it to the state executive. It now is the fundraising vehicle for the party. It raised an enormous amount of money for us and provided the vehicle for us to succeed in 2010.

These changes were not easy to make, but they were made, and I commend the party room and the party for having made them—and the results were reflected in the polling we started to get. In March 2007, as I said, the polling was at 61 Labor and 39 Liberal, the worst result since World War II. By June we had jumped four points: 57 for Labor and 43 for Liberal. By December we had jumped seven points: 54 for Labor and 46 for Liberal. By March 2008 we had jumped eight points, 53 for Labor and 47 for Liberal. By September 2008 we had jumped a massive 11 points—50-50: we were in a position to win, and it was 18 months to the next election. The Newspoll was 50-50, a result not to be beaten until the election day Newspoll that was published on the day. It was a spectacular effort from the party room, and I commend every member of it for the effort they put in during that period.

Then came some challenges. First was the global financial crisis, which put the spotlight onto incumbent governments, both state and federal, as they worked to deal with the problem. We had the Rudd popularity issue to deal with, which washed over to the state ALP. We also, sadly, were forced into a by-election in Frome—a self-inflicted problem which resulted in the loss of the seat of Frome and, sadly, some leaking and disunity which bubbled through into the media and created some negativity for the media and public to pick up on. Then, of course, in April we had the dodgy documents affair, where we asked some questions about some material that turned out to be forged. In itself, that is not the end of the world but, again, that resulted in some disunity and backgrounding which created significant problems for the Liberal Party. I will not dwell on that: those who were ringing the media during that time can dwell on that themselves.

However, I will say this, and this is a credit to the Labor Party. When the Labor Party was faced with the Ashbourne crisis and the Koutsantonis speeding issues, and when the Chantelois scandal came along, I did not see a single comment from a Labor MP turning up in the media. That is a credit to the Labor Party. When they hit an obstacle over the last four years, they were tight. When we hit an obstacle, two or three people decided to fall over. That is an important story from the last four years. I would say this: if two or three Labor members had used the Chantelois sex scandal to run stories to the media about the fact that the Labor Party was in disarray—the Premier had to go, etc.—we would be over on that side of the chamber right now and you would be over here. Instead, you were disciplined and tight and, as a result, the issue was contained.

As a result of the events of July 2007, I stepped aside in the best interests of the party, believing that the damage had been done. I could easily have hung on—I had won a vote. In spite of what had happened, I could have hung on for dear life, but I did not. I stepped aside so that Isobel could ascend to the leadership and, having seen her outstanding performance, I know that I made the right decision. I supported Isobel for leader. I voted for her and encouraged others to vote for her, and I can see that it was the right decision. We cauterised the leadership issue. It was the circuit breaker that we needed and, as a result, we put ourselves in a position to do the best we could in the 2010 election.

Sadly, the change of leaders brought with it some disruption. There was a replacement almost completely of the leader's office staff. This is the first opportunity I have had since then—because it was not appropriate in the lead-up to the election—to thank some of those staff for their service: Kevin Naughton, one of the best people in the business; Craig Clark, assistant media adviser, an outstanding professional; John Lewis, my chief of staff; and Nicole Flint, one of the best policy people this Liberal Party of Australia has ever had on its staff. They all lost their jobs, and I thank them for their service to the party.

They are terrific professionals. I have not had an opportunity to do that before; I do so now as we deal with the last four years. We also replaced the state director, and I commend John Burston for his service to the party, he is an outstanding professional. There were other departures. Can I also say that these changes cost us a lot of money, both from the state leader's budget and from the party, and it is a credit to Andrew Coombe, given that we were not able to hire the two or three media people that I wanted to hire three or four months out from the election, that he did so well as media adviser to the leader; and also to Julian Sheezel who I think did an outstanding job as director in very difficult circumstances and who played a very significant role in our success under Isobel's leadership.

Another regret that I have, if you like, is that a lot of the policy ideas that I had prepared I was not able to proceed with. I had a complete draft of a plan for the north-south access from Wingfield to Victor Harbor, including the Southern Expressway in first draft form (it would have been nice to get that policy out in late 2009); ring-roads around Adelaide were part of the master plan for Adelaide; a master plan for regional South Australia—a city of sea-side villages; a master plan for each electorate which spelt out a vision for each electorate candidates could take to the campaign; a 20 year infrastructure plan and program of work (better than the Queensland program of work and infrastructure plan), which I was not able to proceed with; and detailed plans for industry, trade and manufacturing and economic development which I thought were quite revolutionary and quite innovative and which would have transformed the local economy.

However, the policies that we had established did become our agenda for the election. They were good policies, and it is an absolute credit to Isobel as leader that she did not walk away from them. It would have been possible to run. Some members in the party room were not that enthusiastic about one or two of them, but with great courage she picked up those policies, continued with them and made some changes to a couple of them (stormwater and the hospital), but, in effect, they became our policies, and I think she argued them outstandingly.

It was a difficult time, but we recovered extremely well. At the initial polls, as everyone knows, in August, 56 ALP, 44 Liberal, and then a Sunday Mail poll—56 Labour, 44 Liberal—on 20 September showed that we had made no gain, that we really had not improved at all. But then Rick Phillips walked into the wine centre and went 'whack' 10 days later, and the election changed. An Advertiser poll of 11 December still had Labor at 57 and Liberal at 43. There we were, three months out, looking like we were not making any traction. The Newspoll in December had 53 Labor, 47 Liberal. But then on 26 January there was the Australia Day art gallery event involving Ms Chantelois and the Premier, and then on 3 February the lie detector incident. From those two events onwards things moved.

The point that I make is simply this, because we need to recognise it in looking at the election that has just occurred: that event did change the nature of the campaign. The vote for premier Rann collapsed and it collapsed soundly (which has been well reported and well commented upon), and with it the ALP campaign, to a degree, also collapsed. It was interesting watching Labor try to get its message out. They would have a big setpiece play planned for the day, and then something would happen to do with the Chantelois issue and it would be completely knocked off the agenda, and that was the story that led the news reports that evening.

It was a transforming event. For an opposition like us, it was the good luck I referred to earlier in that it was a scandal that changed the election campaign. It is sobering for us on this side to recognise that this was an important issue which will not be there in 2014, so we need to work very hard between now and then. The electorate, as a result of largely those events, looked at the alternatives. They saw Isobel and they liked what they saw. They saw the state Liberals and they liked what they saw. There was quite a contrast. There was the Premier embroiled in this issue and there was Isobel Redmond—a female, straight-talking, plain-shooting, matter-of-fact person. There was a complete contrast of styles.

I think, too, that people then looked at us and our policies and said, 'Tell me about that stormwater policy again, tell me about your plans for the stadium, tell me about your plans for the hospital' and they started to listen to us. The reason principally that occurred—and I do not think any commentator on political life in this state can deny it—was the Chantelois issue which had a transformational effect on this entire campaign.

Suddenly, people could see that the state Liberals had a lot to offer. I think the role of the media was also important. I think the media were desperate for a contest; they were very keen for a contest. When all these events unfolded, they gave us a fair go—some would argue for the first time in a very long time—because I can tell you how hard it was during the long hard years of opposition to get your stories up every day. It is all right in the context of a campaign but it is not easy in year 2 and year 3 to get your issues up; you have to work very hard at it. Suddenly, they were keen.

In many ways, the Labor government faced a perfect storm—one they could not have anticipated. They had a Liberal Party that was properly funded in comparison to the 2006 campaign when we had no money at all and we ran a decent advertising campaign. They had a state Liberal Party that had done the hard yards on policy over many years thanks to Isobel, thanks to the previous two leaders and thanks to a joint party room that was prepared to have a go and not be a small target. They faced a female leader who was not only credible but very well regarded against the bullyboys of Labor. The usual bullyboy tactics that they had used against me and against the member for Davenport when he was the leader did not quite work against a female leader, and I am not quite sure they knew how to handle it. On top of that, they were dealing with a scandal.

All those things came together to create the perfect storm. No-one could have predicted what would happen. I think what did happen was that the Labor Party lost the popular vote and won the election in the marginal seats. I can tell you I was very pleased with the decision I made in July when I saw the outcome on polling night. It was the right decision, and I commend Isobel for her efforts.

There are some lessons that we can learn from this election. First of all, for the Liberal Party, I think you can influence the future of this state and lead to a degree from opposition if you are brave and you have something to offer. I think being a small target does not inspire people and generally does not work. You need to be prepared to have opinions; you need to be prepared to argue them to the people. Another lesson is that disunity is death. We were very lucky that we got away with it. We were looking into an abyss in July and we were very lucky.

I think another lesson is that our marginal seat campaigning must simply be improved. We cannot afford to like or not like a particular marginal seat candidate because he or she is not one of our buddies. Whoever is elected in a marginal seat must have the full and undivided support of everyone. Some marginal seat members were well supported, others were not. We cannot fund marginal seats with campaign funding of around $30,000 when you need 10 times that. We must do better on fundraising. You cannot afford the luxury, in my view, of spending time and effort raising funds for an upper house campaign when your marginal seat campaigns are underfunded. We worked the existing seats but we did not work hard enough in the marginal seats.

We won Norwood, Adelaide, Morialta and Chaffey—and these people who have come in here are absolutely fantastic new members. I was at all their preselections, and can I say that they were bloody marvellous. The best people won on the night, let me tell you. It is an absolute credit to this party that in very difficult times we were able to attract the sort of talent that we find on the bench behind me right now. I will not go through them all one by one and blow wind in their ears—they probably think they are hot bananas already—but they are bloody good.

I want to mention one member in particular (who is not here) and that is the fabulous Jing Lee in the other house. If you want to see what is coming in the Liberal Party have a look at the state council's decision to select that fantastic human being as our candidate in the upper house. It shows you the depth of support in the community that the Liberal Party is enjoying.

However, the fact is that we lost six seats that we needed to win: Hartley, Bright, Newland, Mount Gambier, Mawson and Light. You will not get any moralising from me about the fact that we won the popular vote but did not win government. We need to do better—plain and simple: we need to win the marginals. Our candidates were excellent and, during the preselection process, there were no factional brawls—unlike the previous term when there were a couple of real doozies—and, therefore, unfortunate bad publicity.

May I commend Joe Scalzi and Trish Draper. I do not agree that the so-called recycling of former members is always a negative—they are good people and there were many factors at play in those two seats. Most of the negativity about them I think came from Liberals. They could well have won those seats if things had gone differently. They were the preselected candidates; they won their preselection on the night, and they were the best candidates on the night. I think we might have preselected too early which is something for state executive to reflect on.

There were also some lessons for Labor—the arrogance and the hubris; playing the man and not the issue; not building things for eight years and leaving it for promises at the cusp of the 2010 election; and a complete and utter lack of vision. In summary, Labor started the session talking about health, police and education but they were dragged to our ground: water, tax, transport and infrastructure, and a vision for the future. We set the agenda.

The future is interesting. South Australia is in a difficult budget position. I have some advice for the government: do not build the rail yards hospital; build a new stadium, not a tart-up of Adelaide Oval; look beyond mining and defence and look at our basic industries; develop 20-year plans, not glossy brochures; and contain the unbridled growth in government.

I think Mr Rann will be here until June 2012 and I say that for the following reason: Don Dunstan was premier for nine years and four months; John Bannon was premier for nine years and 11 months; Mike Rann will have hit 10 years in March 2012, and I think he will wait until after the June budget cycle and leave in mid—2012 as the longest-serving Labor premier in history. So, get ready for the announcement in June 2012. I do not think the post of ambassador to Rome will be available at that time but I am sure there will be another position.

I think we will face one of two leadership line-ups: either a Weatherill/Rau line-up, if the left gets its way, or a Foley/Weatherill line-up (or possibly a Foley/Conlon line-up) if the right gets its way. I do not think the Treasurer will be able to contain himself if he has the numbers and an opportunity to be premier for the last 18 months. Who cares if they win or lose? It will be on his CV. I think the repositioning of the member for Elder to the centre, away from the left, has been very curious and interesting in regard to how that may play out.

I think the next election will be determined, to a degree, by how well the Labor Party handles the transition. If it makes a smooth and seamless transition it will be interesting for us all, and if it is mucked up it will be even more interesting for us all. I am not going to indicate which particular line-up I would prefer but I am happy to take either.

It is by no means written that the Liberal Party will win the next election and I think we need to work hard to get there. I simply say this: I think South Australia's best years are yet to come but we need a government which can define where we must go and which leads the way. I am sure you will find in the renewed and refreshed opposition, led by Isobel Redmond, a determination to make sure that South Australia gets such a government. I commend the Governor's address to the house.

Mr PISONI (Unley) (12:40): I rise to speak in support of the Governor's speech. I will start by touching slightly on the election campaign, in particular within the seat of Unley. As members would recall, the seat of Unley was retained by the Liberal Party in 2006 when I came into the parliament. It was a seat that was only just held, despite the fact that many described it as a safe seat—we held onto that seat by 437 votes.

We were running against a very popular mayor, who had run as an Independent in Unley and as an Independent in the upper house. He had run for the Labor Party for the seat of Boothby a decade or so earlier, and I think he described his elevation back into the Labor Party as a dubious pleasure. We just held onto that seat; it was a hard fought campaign, and I was determined to improve the Liberal Party's margin in the seat of Unley for the 2010 election.

I was very pleased with the response that I was getting from my constituents throughout my term. I was very keen to be an active member of the community in Unley, participating in community events and developing a good relationship with both the City of Unley and the City of Burnside and with many of the multicultural and community-based groups within the seat of Adelaide.

We saw the campaign proper start, I would say, some time after the new year. I was very pleased to see that the former member for Adelaide, the Hon. Jane Lomax-Smith, was enlisted to campaign in the seat of Unley. I had been spending quite a bit of time speaking with our candidate, Rachel Sanderson, about the seat of Adelaide. Rachel did a tremendous job campaigning in the seat of Adelaide, knocking on many doors, listening to people and understanding what the real issues were. In the end the real issue was Jane Lomax-Smith. I think she was a major issue in the seat of Adelaide. So, I was very pleased to see that the Labor candidate had enlisted Jane Lomax-Smith to help her with her campaign in the seat of Unley.

But it gets better, the next week, at a listening post, she had her campaign manager, the member for Croydon, the attorney-general at the time, campaign with her in the seat of Unley. I was very pleased to see the attorney-general in the seat of Unley because all the polling that we had done indicated that he was one of the most unpopular members of the government, so he was welcome in the seat of Unley campaigning for the Labor Party as often as he liked. I was very pleased to see that he made the effort, and I believe that he was welcomed very warmly by a number of protesters at the Memorial Gardens in Unley (next to the Unley Shopping Centre), when he attended a listening post.

I am very pleased to continue as the member for Unley, and I was very pleased to increase my margin in that seat, taking it to a margin of 12.3 per cent. I still consider it to be a marginal seat, because we all know that South Australians will hold their members of parliament accountable, and so they should. I come from a background of 22 years in small business, where you know the customer is king, the customer is always right, and how important it is to service the customer. It is that very same philosophy that I brought into politics when I was first elected in 2006, and I will continue to have that policy and that philosophy as I continue as the member for Unley.

I turn now to issues raised in the Governor's speech, particularly the fact that we have the Treasurer's substantial budget commission, through which $750 million in cuts must be found. I find it amusing that the Treasurer justifies the need to delay the budget and bring in an outside body to get his books in order. He said that it was done by Dean Brown and John Howard. But, hang on, they had just come to government from opposition, taking over from long-term Labor governments and the books were a mess!

We see a justification from the Treasurer to bring in an outside body to get his books in order by referring to the mess that Dean Brown and John Howard had to clean up when they brought in a similar type of commission when they came to government from opposition after long-term Labor governments. That in itself indicates the lack of ability this Treasurer has to keep control of his expenditure.

The Premier, having shamelessly spruiked the benefits of the Olympic mine—he was a former uranium denier and the author of 'Uranium; Play it Safe'—plans with his Treasurer to throttle the goose that lays the golden egg. Here we have a Premier who has been telling us for eight years, 'Don't worry about the loss of our manufacturing or traditional industries in South Australia, because we'll be saved by the defence boom and the mining boom.' There were 23,000 jobs poised: in 2006 a press release went out by the Premier which stated:

Olympic Dam is poised to more than double in size, creating a total of 23,000 jobs.

If we look at the dictionary definition of 'poised', it means absolutely ready, instant, about to go. Here we are, four and a half years later, and not only is there still no sign—

Mr Marshall: We were holding our breath.

Mr PISONI: We were holding our breath, as the very good member for Norwood says, and we need oxygen. We need those 23,000 jobs promised by the Premier, but they are all at risk. We know that the Premier is a spruiker for the Rudd government. We know that everything Mr Rudd promotes and says, Mike Rann is right behind him. Mike Rann was right behind the insulation program and right behind the new mining tax. Before any of the other premiers came online after vigorous debate and squeezing more money out of the feds, Mike Rann, on the strength of a phone call, said, 'Yes, you want to take over control of our hospitals: do what you like, I don't care. Do what you like; I'm out there spruiking for you, Mr Rudd. Forget about what South Australians want or what is best for the state; you go and do what you like.'

Other state Labor premiers, along with Colin Barnett (Liberal Premier of Western Australia), were not such a pushover. They wanted value for their commitment to the national takeover of hospitals. They squeezed an extra $1.3 billion out of Kevin Rudd that Mike Rann was happy to forgo, simply to keep Mr Rudd happy and to start his campaign for re-electing Mr Rudd at the next federal election.

We know that the government has been focused on the election for a very long time, and we are starting to see the price South Australia has been paying for this government's focusing not on its job of governing South Australia but on being re-elected. When the last round of funding was announced to the jobs fund—$39 million of federal money to create jobs across the nation in some of our neediest communities and for some of our neediest recipients: the long-term unemployed, those who do not necessarily have skills for the workforce, those in our Aboriginal communities—and the successful projects were announced, South Australia received $338,000 of that $39 million for five jobs in a recycling plant here in South Australia, and there are conditions attached that are still being worked out before we can receive that money.

So, $338,000 for training positions—not apprenticeships, not jobs that will add to the skills base that we need here in South Australia—while Victoria and New South Wales shared in more than $21 million between them with over 1,100 jobs created through that jobs scheme. Ironically, in the very same month of that poor performance by the former training minister in attracting those funds to South Australia, we saw a big lift in South Australia's unemployment figures, with an extra 5,100 in the unemployment queue.

The job advertisements that we see today tell us where we are headed in terms of employment and unemployment figures two, three or four months down the track. The ANZ job index is the canary in the coalmine when it comes to unemployment in Australia, and the shocking thing about the ANZ job index released on Monday is that South Australia saw a dramatic drop of 19.1 per cent seasonally adjusted. The employment minister was on the radio saying that I was being alarmist and that I should look at the trend figures.

Well, let us look at those trend figures. They are the highest in Australia and have been in negative territory this whole year, while in Victoria the trend figures have been growing all year. The trend figures have also been growing in Western Australia all year, as they have been in the ACT and the Northern Territory. So, yes, minister, let us look at the trend figures: they are also bad news for South Australia. Our seasonally adjusted figures are the worst in the country and our trend figures are the worst in the country.

Of course, our youth unemployment figures have traditionally lagged behind the rest of the country, and we regularly see that one in four of our young people cannot find a job. That is one in four of our school leavers who need that first job that is so important because it can set them up for a lifetime. The longer it takes you to get your first job, the less likely you are to work in a fulfilling employment situation, be independent, and move up the employment ladder as you learn skills and use them to improve your employability.

Mike Rann is the self-proclaimed education premier and has consistently talked big on early childhood. However, let's look at the government's record on early childhood, particularly its promises regarding buildings—and, remember, this government judges everything by bricks and mortar. It is interesting that during the election campaign the government promised 10 more early childhood centres, but three years earlier it promised 20 new early childhood centres. It has built only eight of those, but they were promised to be finished by the end of June this year.

Chronologically, the order goes like this: in 2006 we were promised 10 centres by 2010 at a cost of $13 million, and in 2007 we were promised 20 centres by 2010 at a cost of $16.3 million. So, either they got the costings wrong or we had downsized those 20 centres because they were able to double the number of centres for an extra $3.3 million. In 2008, the promise had changed to $26.5 million for 20 centres. Obviously they had picked up that maybe they had got that costing wrong in 2007, but it still does not account for the fact that the following year (2009), we were still being promised 20 centres by the end of June 2010, but this time at a cost of $30 million.

However, during the election campaign, the government promised 10 centres for $40 million, so we seem to be all over the place on the cost of these. Yesterday, we heard the minister tell us that these are better than what the federal government was going to provide, that these were super-duper centres which were much more sophisticated than what the federal government was going to provide, but its quote was $3.3 million per centre. The state government's latest figures—if you can believe any of its figures, because they have been so rubbery over the last four years—has them at $1.4 million each. It will be interesting to see just where we are at the end of June 2010.

Mr Marshall: Six weeks to go!

Mr PISONI: Six weeks to go, the member for Norwood interjects. I would also like to talk about the government's plan—and the Premier has ruled out ceasing the super school programs—for super schools in South Australia and what it is really about. We know that, over the last six years or so, we have seen Treasury slowly creeping into the education department where the focus has shifted from education to budget outcomes and we know from what we have read about studies elsewhere in the world—in the ACT through the Save Our Schools group in Canberra, a paper written by Trevor Cobbold who is a consultant in public issues and an economist—that super schools are all about money, reducing the cost of education and Treasury outcomes.

It is not about education outcomes, because if it were about education outcomes, you would not build super schools, particularly in lower socioeconomic areas. All the research tells you that they are a disaster in areas of high socioeconomic need. Yet, where are the six super schools that this government is planning to build in South Australia? Mark Oliphant College, birth to year 12; closing schools in Davoren Park and Smithfield Plains.

These schools are about 50 kilometres, I think, from the member for Napier's home at Springfield. He represents this area, but obviously he is not aware of the dangers that the students attending these schools will face as a result of the building of these super schools.

In fact, I visited a family at Davoren Park in the Peachey Belt during the election campaign with Cosi Costa, and on the son's first day at high school, they were introduced to drugs. She was horrified at the thought that birth to year 12 students would be going to the same school in an area that had a lot of families who were dysfunctional and who needed a lot of community support (which they were not getting) and that their children were going to be exposed to these types of situations at a much younger age.

Let us look at the justification from the government. This is the Education Works document presented by the government and it is interesting. The government is justifying the need to sell off dozens of school sites around the state. We estimate that about $160 million worth of land is being sold off. The government justifies it by referring to 'years of neglect of our school buildings'. We need to look at that—'years of neglect'. At the end of this term, the Labor Party will have been running South Australia for 33 out of the last 44 years. Years of neglect! I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.


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


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