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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-07-06 Daily Xml
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APPROPRIATION BILL

Estimates Committees

Debate resumed.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (17:34): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I had the privilege of not attending estimates. I have read nearly everything that went on and, a lot of it does not impress me at all—especially the foul language and other inappropriate—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: I will not repeat it. But, I think it is time—and I have been saying this for a long, long time—the process that is called estimates needs to be reformed.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is a point of order.

Mrs GERAGHTY: Point of order: the member for Fisher has said there was foul language. I was at estimates every day, popping in and out or listening to all of them as a member of committee. In defence of other members, I do not recall foul language.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am not quite sure what the point of order is there, member for Torrens, but I may also reflect upon your—

An honourable member: I heard the minister for environment swear once.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I did chair a number of these extraordinary sessions. There is a lot you could say about estimates, but I do not think there was much foul language used.

An honourable member: There was some.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Was there some? I missed that.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: There was.

An honourable member interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Oh, just the ministers.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: I will not repeat it, but I am confident there were at least two occasions.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is true that someone used the word 'dope'; but they may have been talking about university cigarettes.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: No, someone used stronger language than that. Someone reminded me today that someone else had used even more foul language, which was picked up and later edited out. I do not want to dwell on that too much. The point I want to make is that it is time that the estimates process was reformed and revised. It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars for public servants to produce material in the event that a possible question may emerge related to that information.

It is the most inefficient, ridiculous process that one could imagine. You have hundreds of public servants preparing for something that may not eventuate. I think it is time that the process was revised and reformed. Maybe we could have more questions on notice or people submitting the questions, or else all the material prepared by the public servants for answering could be given to the parliament—something as radical as that.

I think what we need to ask is, what is the benefit of estimates for the community? By and large we know how the game is played: the government and the opposition want to get a good press release out; they want to get one headline, a good one for the government and one negative from the opposition about the government. That is basically what it is about, but in terms of assisting in our role as legislators and representatives of the people, I do not think estimates reflects well on any of us and I think it is time it was changed.

In passing I draw members' attention to an article in the recent edition of The Parliamentarian, where the Speaker of the Queensland parliament reflects on what our role is. He says, and I agree with him, 'Our role is to be legislators and representatives, but what we have become is largely social workers and ombudsmen'—and 'ombudswomen', I guess.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is a Danish term, that actually does not need to be gender specific.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH: That is the first point I want to make. In not being here for estimates, I was out amongst the community and I must say there is a lot of angst out there and concern about increasing costs being imposed on the community. This is not just in country areas, where I spent most of last week, but it is throughout the state. In fact, it is getting to a point where I do not know how people on a basic income can make ends meet. I just do not understand how some of them get by.

What has happened as a result of this latest budget—and it has been highlighted through the estimates committees—is that taxes and charges are going up, by more than CPI in a lot of cases. I will not get into the issue specifically of impact on motorists, because I hope to deal with that later in the week, but that is just one area where the cost increases have become quite significant. What is probably equally as bad is the fact that a lot of these measures come into the category of being draconian.

We have had an indication—and this was touched on through the police estimates, where the minister said it is not his bill (I am sure he is happy not to have it)—that the government is about to impose a vehicle defect system involving a fine. The person who gets the fine for a defect then has to go to Regency after it has been repaired and get it cleared; and I can tell you when you go to Regency they will find another fault. You have to go out and get it fixed and then you have to pay a release fee.

That will hurt not just country people, but I think it will hurt them very harshly. What the police have been telling me—the police who do the real policing—is that they are not motor mechanics. It is not their job at a police station to be checking vehicles for mechanical faults and making sure they have been fixed. What you will have is a draconian system. In fact, many people have said to me that they are thinking of not staying in South Australia because it is getting to a point where they feel oppressed and it is going over the top.

The Premier said earlier this year and last year that his government would be out there listening to the people. I do not see any great evidence of that, and I do not see enough evidence of the opposition really pushing the government hard. I know the argument is, 'Don't go too early because you have an election, and it is a few years away,' but, in looking at estimates, I notice that many of the questions were fairly meek and mild and not really punchy enough. People say to me, 'Why weren't you there?' I do not automatically get on estimates, and I would have to rock up and try to wangle a question if I could.

For example, the health budget is $4 billion, as we heard the member for Morphett say. Why are we not seeing more effort in terms of trying to reduce ill health and people becoming ill? We cannot sustain that sort of cost in the long term; it is $4 billion now, but what is it going to be in a few years? It is going to be even more.

On my recent trip up north, people in DECS told me that children in the Port Augusta area who have problems with their eardrums cannot get their ears checked until possibly November because there is not enough capability in the system for them to be checked out by the health system. That is appalling. We are not a Third World country. Why is there not more emphasis on trying to improve health so that we do not end up with a budget bigger than $4 billion?

In regard to the police, I thought a question that could have been asked of the police minister was: where are the 4,400 police? They are largely invisible. Where are they? We are told that there are more than ever before, but I do not see any evidence of more police out and about; whether they are camouflaged, I do not know, but I have not seen them. I was quite surprised by a figure that was given that, out of the 400 plus police recruited from the UK, over 140 have left. That shows there is some problem, and I think the initial problem was that the police recruited from the UK, who might have had a substantive promotional position in the UK, were basically made to start from scratch again here. The former minister can correct me if I am wrong, but I think that was part of the problem.

We see a trend in terms of increasing costs for the public, and we are seeing it now with the removal of the registration disc. What we will find is that numerous people will be caught, and the government is already budgeting for an increase in revenue from that; likewise from the defect notice procedure when that comes into play.

In terms of infrastructure, I have been travelling on some of the roads in this state. I have spoken to the member for Frome, because I was in his electorate, and he tells me that, hopefully, there are plans in the not too distant future to improve the section of road between Clare and Yakka, but there is no decent road verge. Coming back on Monday night, it was raining and there were big grain trucks on the road (which have every right to be on the road), but if you have to go onto the edge of the road there is nowhere to go because there is no road verge.

Some country roads are very variable in their quality, and I have raised before the Murray Bridge to Loxton Road, which is a recipe for trouble. A lot more money needs to be spent on some of these basic things. I have acknowledged before that the government has done a great job on the edges, the curves, and so on, on the old Princes Highway through the Hills, from Wasleys through to Callington, but it needs to be repeated in a lot of places throughout the state.

Another issue I picked up on was the petty harassment of people in small business by bureaucracy. I spoke to the leaseholder or owner of the North Blinman Hotel, who was warned that he would get a $1,200 fine because his liquor licence was just inside from the main entrance and not close to the front door. That is ridiculous, petty nonsense. How many people go into licensed premises to read the liquor licence and need it right by the front door? The hotelier running the Austral Hotel in Quorn told me that she had been warned because a lot of people had gone to the hotel after the Quorn races, which is not surprising—they want to go there for a drink.

More and more draconian impositions are being applied in this state without common sense. In Quorn, people were telling me about the police officer who was there, I think, until recently, and he was one of those country police officers who showed common sense. An old lady had a numberplate that was in need of repair or replacement and he said to her, 'Love, you need to get that fixed. If the city police come up, you will be in trouble.' That is old-style policing and what you need to do in a country town if you are a country police officer because you live in the town, your children live in the town, and they go to the local school. We want a return to more of the old-style policing, where people were often given a warning rather than this heavy, draconian, money-raising exercise—tax collecting—using the police force to do that.

In regard to other issues, this did not come up in detail during estimates but I am now aware that the government has decided that it will not seek to have the independent inquiry into Burnside council vetted and then released. It has also maintained a suppression order in relation to not allowing freedom of information requests to be granted in terms of that inquiry. What is going to happen—and the people already feel this—is that South Australia will be the secret state where things are suppressed.

I have not read the judgement of the Full Court, I will be interested to read that, but one could reasonably argue that Ken MacPherson (for whom I have the greatest respect) would not have highlighted issues if there was not some concern about the behaviour of individuals. If he went too far and if the report continues to be suppressed, I think there is still an obligation to make sure that people—if they did wrong, if they behaved inappropriately—are held and brought to account. The way the ministerial statement reads, it sounds as though, 'Look, it is all too difficult. We will walk away from it. We have spent over a million dollars. Let's move on.'

All that will do is leave things under a cloud; it will create a suspicion and people will believe that the whole thing relating to what may or may not have happened at Burnside council is smelly. That is just not acceptable. I have argued for years in here that the Auditor-General should have oversight over councils. That has been opposed or resisted. If we had that system in place, this saga at Burnside would never have eventuated, in my view. When Ken MacPherson was auditor-general, he indicated to me that he did not have the power to investigate wrongdoing in councils where it related to inappropriate practices, and I raised with him instances where people in councils have got away with blue murder. I mentioned when I was on a council at the time (and I have said this before), where the outgoing CEO was given a Holden Berliner as a going away present. That was suppressed under staff confidential items, and a whole lot of other funny business went on as well.

Until and unless the Auditor-General has oversight, you will never be able to get to the bottom of these things. You are not going to have people accountable and they are going to continue to do the sort of things that almost certainly went on in relation to Burnside council where, it would appear, some people did act inappropriately, if not illegally. I think it is incumbent on the government not only to indicate that they are going to move on or work with the LGA, but also they need to make sure that the people, if they did wrong, are brought to account.

As I say, I have the greatest respect for Ken MacPherson. He is a man of great integrity, and it is highly unlikely that he would have made any recommendations if he did not believe that there was some substance to them and that they were not worth investigating. I am sure he was compelled in his report to say things which now, unfortunately, have been suppressed because the people under investigation took legal action and managed to convince the Full Court to suppress that report.

So, that matter was not, obviously, fully canvassed in estimates because the minister, the Hon. Russell Wortley, only released his ministerial statement today. The fact that that report is being suppressed and will continue to be suppressed, and any person seeking information under the Freedom of Information Act will be denied, I think, just adds further suspicion in the public mind and raises their concerns even higher. It makes the case for an ICAC even more compelling.

One of the other issues I come back to—and I understand the opposition is opposing it or has agreed to oppose it in the upper house, along with others—is the outrageous suggestion that people who win in a Magistrates Court will either get no costs awarded or get low costs. Now, that is outrageous.

What concerns me more than probably the issue itself is the fact that it was suggested by the police department—that really concerns me. So, for the sake of probably $2 million at most, out of a budget of $700 million, the police have argued and the government has rolled over and said, 'Let us take away people's rights for consideration of costs in the Magistrates Court.' In other words, let us make the system even less just than it is now and make the pursuit of justice more expensive and more difficult. Let us deter people from even questioning anything in the system.

We know that the government—and I hope they have second thoughts about this—is not even prepared to have a system in relation to some of the speed detection, where there is integrity in the system. They are not prepared to even consider that. The public is starting to get even more concerned about those aspects than some of the financial implications of what the government is doing.

Now, an issue close to the parliament—I would not say close to my heart—is this issue of the bridge over the River Torrens. I personally find it hard to believe that you need a pedestrian bridge there when you have got a good bridge already on King William Road. It would only add 500 metres or so to your walk, coming from the football, back to catch a train or whatever you want to do in the city. It may be 500 metres. I doubt whether it would be a kilometre.

So, the government wants to spend $40 million on a bridge and yet, we are going to have extensive parking, presumably near the oval, in the Parklands area. Now, why would the people parking there, after the football, want to leave their car there? We know that football is generally played in wet weather, but it may be sunny for the cricket. Why would the people who park over there then walk over this side on this gold-plated bridge? Why would they walk across this side and then have to walk back again afterwards? I do not think that is going to happen.

I come back to my original suggestion, which I have been trying to get the minister to consider, which is to run the tram down past the oval, preferably out to North Adelaide and even further out. That would not only reinvigorate the city and North Adelaide, but people could park out in the northern area and catch the tram in, as well as people from the south and people joining the tram in the city catching it to the oval.

So, as I say, it is time for estimates to be reworked. It needs more than a little makeover. I think it needs fundamental and drastic surgery to turn it into something that is productive and of benefit to the people of South Australia, rather than the costly ritual which it is now. May that reform happen sooner rather than later.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (17:55): I rise tonight to contribute to the Appropriation Bill, and I, too, will make comment in relation to the whole estimates session debate. I have sat through about 50 hours of them in my time here—probably more than that, probably more like 500 actually.

Mr Pederick: A fair few, Ivan.

Mr VENNING: A fair few, but I am amazed that we all agree that we need to do something about changing the way we do it, and the shocking waste of money, but that we never seem to achieve it. When governments become oppositions and oppositions become governments, all of a sudden the rules change.

I find it incongruous that we have members of the other house involved in this chamber as ministers, but we cannot use members of that place on the crossbenches to listen or participate in the exchange in the house in relation to the investigation, and I always find it little unusual that it is a House of Assembly investigation, but we allow ministers from the other place to participate. I think that is rather strange. By the same token, we are unable to use the shadow ministers in that place, and I find that strange to the point of being a little ridiculous.

If we can use ministers from the other place, why can we not use the shadows from that place? The Hon. Michelle Lensink, the Hon. Terry Stephens and the Hon. Rob Lucas would love to come down and participate in estimates, but of course they cannot. Irrespective of that, I offer my services to the house as a member of the Standing Orders Committee, with the current Speaker (Hon. Lyn Breuer) to look at this and again attempt to bring some sanity to the situation so that we do not bring all these departmental people in here at great cost, some of whom have spent weeks preparing.

We should be able to do away with all that, and I think the answer lies somewhere in putting the questions in writing so that the departmental people only have to address the questions that are asked; they do not have to spend hours and hours preparing for questions that might be asked. I think we could have a session where it is all in writing, as in questions on notice, the difference being that they would have to deliver the answers in a given period and in bulk, all at once, so that when we had the sessions we would actually get all those questions put up at once and on time.

Returning to estimates, I find the information revealed from the past five days of estimates hearings to be far from surprising, and it demonstrates what South Australians, and we on this side of the house, have been saying ad nauseam; that is, the Labor government is expert in economic mismanagement, waste, inefficiencies and blowouts. The clock is ticking, and every day under this government state debt is increasing to the degree of being quite alarming exponentially. As someone who has been around here a while, I have seen many members come and go from this place. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

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