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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-05-02 Daily Xml
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SUPPLY BILL 2012

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 1 May 2012.)

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (11:57): We move from one particular piece of legislation to another, that being what is known as the Supply Bill. I am pleased to speak in support of this particular piece of legislation to ensure that a satisfactory level of funding flows into the respective agencies and different sectors of government to ensure the satisfactory operation of the state until the budget is brought down, at which time there will be debate on the Appropriation Bill.

There are a number of issues I want to highlight that relate to some of the areas I have responsibility for on this side of the house, in particular the issue of the performance of what is now known as the Office of Consumer and Business Services, which is a relatively newly created agency from the previous Office of Consumer and Business Affairs and the Office of the Liquor and Gambling Commissioner. A decision was made by the government to merge those two agencies into one. It is my understanding that was a recommendation from the Sustainable Budget Commission, and I have a copy of the particular page from the commission's report making a recommendation that those two offices merge into the one.

What we have seen is that this new Office of Consumer and Business Services has been created. However, as with quite a number of examples that we have seen, this structural reform within government, if I can call it that, has resulted in a less than satisfactory outcome. We have seen the really glaring problems and issues that have come from this newly-created department or agency, whatever you want to call it, in Shared Services. The savings targets have certainly not been reached; and, to my understanding (and I stand to be corrected on this), it is actually costing more than what the functions previously were in their original form within government.

Significant issues have come out of the problems with Shared Services, particularly in the delay in the payment of certain bills. We had that example going back a month or so ago which highlighted the mechanical business in Riverton, up in the Mid North. That business operator blamed the government for the delay in the payment of bills to him which attributed to the closing of that business. That business was actually put out of business given, really, the delays in payment of his bills by the government.

There have been other examples. Members of parliament have had their phones cut off. I can talk personally. I had my iPad connection cut off because the bill had not been paid by the due date. I know that it took me quite a number of hours, paying it from my own credit card, to get it re-established, but that is what I needed to do to get that particular communication device back up and running.

I do not particularly want to spend a lot of time highlighting the issues within Shared Services because I know that a number of members have highlighted the deficiencies in that. I just wanted to raise that as really a case in point about how the structural reform within government has not delivered the outcomes that were promised, and the delays in processing some of the applications and the like in the Office of Consumer and Business Services have highlighted that point as well.

I had been contacted by people in certain sections of industry concerning the delay in issuing trade licences from the time apprentices finish all their skills training and have done their time, so to speak, and they lodge their applications to when they actually receive their trade licence, and that is something that the opposition highlighted. One particular plumbing apprentice—and this was highlighted through the media—had to wait the best part (if not all) of four months for their trade licence to be issued. It should continue to be highlighted that the difference between an apprentice wage and a qualified tradesperson's wage in the plumbing industry, it was stated to me, is about $300 a week. That extrapolates out to about $4,000 or $5,000, if not more, over that four-month period. That is what that person lost in wages because of the government's inefficiencies in dealing with its paperwork.

That is the only explanation for the loss in wages that person experienced. That government department was particularly lax in its methods of dealing with the trade licence, and that is not an isolated case. I have spoken to a number of people in the electrical trades and in other trades and they could expect at least a wait of three months. On behalf of the opposition I highlighted that problem. I received a response from the minister and a letter from the Minister for Business Services and Consumers (Hon. John Rau) dated 29 February, and I can quote from it:

A specialist team will commence reviewing the process and methodology used in CBS when assessing trade licences in the week beginning 5 March. This team will include independent expertise and process work flows of senior government employees specialising in information technology systems and administrative practices. This team will report their findings to my office by the week ending 9 March 2012.

Well, minister, I would like to know what are the findings of that specialist team. I would be happy to meet with the minister or for him to make a ministerial statement or something like that in relation to the findings of that specialist team. It is my understanding that some improvements have been made, which we are certainly grateful for, on behalf of the industry, and that those apprentices do not have to wait for those long periods of time to have their licences issued.

There was also another matter highlighted—only a couple of weeks or so after the fact that we highlighted the problem with the trade licensing application processing delays—and that was with regard to issues that were raised concerning the Residential Tenancies Tribunal. Some delays have been highlighted to the opposition in the way the Residential Tenancies Tribunal was dealing with applications concerning rent arrears.

It is my understanding that previously it took about two weeks from when the application was lodged, after a number of weeks of unpaid rent, for the matter to be heard by the Residential Tenancies Tribunal. Given the inefficiencies in the agency, that had blown out to about five weeks, so a tenant could be in arrears of up to eight weeks without paying rent until the Residential Tenancies Tribunal heard the matter. It is my understanding that a tenant has to be in arrears for three weeks before an application can be lodged. If you add that three weeks to the five weeks for the tribunal to hear the matter, it puts the landlord, the investment property owner, out of pocket by eight weeks' rent.

People might say we have these wealthy landlords owning a number of properties, but my research shows that quite a percentage of residential property investors are mum-and-dad investors. They are people not on exorbitant salaries through whatever income they derive—average Australian people, mum-and-dad investors—who have looked to use any excess capital they may have to invest in property for their superannuation and obviously for their families benefits into the future. As a result of the government's inefficiencies in dealing with these issues, they are potentially putting these people out of pocket.

Again, the minister has responded. I received a letter he sent to a particular person in the community saying again, as per the letter I quoted of 29 February, that they were getting on to it. I asked a question in the house the last time the house sat and received what I thought was a glib answer: the minister did not actually answer the question I asked. I will be doing some checking within the industry to see if matters have improved in relation to those issues that have been raised.

Again, minister Rau has some responsibility in the area of the next issue I would like to talk about, and that is concerning planning and development. I want to talk about the decision the government made about a year and a half ago, in December 2010, to rezone 1,310 hectares of land in and around Mount Barker from the various zoning categories to residential.

The opposition has been involved in the debate, in the other place specifically, where the Greens party moved two motions: one was to refer the matter to the ERD Committee and one was calling on the reversal of the decision the government made to rezone that land. It has been outlined quite comprehensively, and very accurately and succinctly by the Hon. David Ridgway, shadow minister for urban planning and development in the other place, why we did not support those two motions.

Instead of supporting those motions, the Liberal opposition has undertaken to achieve a far more beneficial outcome in relation to this matter in referring the matter to the Ombudsman. The Hon. Stephen Wade, the Hon. David Ridgway and I met with the Ombudsman and discussed the issue of whether the Ombudsman had the legislative capacity and capability to undertake an investigation, and the information we received was that the office of the Ombudsman certainly could undertake that investigation; so there has been a motion moved in the other place to that effect.

It was our view, and the Hon. David Ridgway highlighted this, that really what the Greens party was trying to achieve was to just grandstand on the issue. The Hon. Mark Parnell in the other place floats in and floats out on the issue, and gets an article in the local paper from time to time on the issue, but he is not the local member in the electorate. I am, and I deal with the issues, on a day-to-day and week to week basis, that come from the decisions the government made in relation to this rezoning.

I am not aware of the Greens party actually dealing with the day-to-day issues of constituents concerned with the lack of services for children at school, issues with the health services in the electorate or road transport infrastructure issues, but it is my observation, and the observation of other members of the community in the local district, that the Greens float in and float out when it suits them and appear in the local media from time to time.

As I said, members in our party in the other place have accurately highlighted this as political grandstanding on behalf of the Greens, whereas the Liberal opposition wants to get down to the tintacks of the issue and, as such, we intend to refer it to the Ombudsman, as I have previously highlighted. What we trust will happen from the Ombudsman's inquiry is that South Australia will receive a proper, well-resourced, non-political inquiry into the issue of the Mount Barker rezoning. I am quite confident that that will take place.

It was referred to the ERD Committee, as proposed by the Greens party. I sat in on those meetings of the ERD Committee when it was first assessing the DPA and the members of the government on that committee just ran the process. I sat there and witnessed the frustration of the witnesses who appeared before the committee, really opposing the decision of the government to rezone that land, and the process was managed. I do not know why the Greens party representatives think that by them referring the matter to the ERD Committee (in its recent motion) that there would be any different outcome.

It is my understanding that the Hon. Mark Parnell sits on that ERD Committee. I may be mistaken; I will have a look in the Notice Paper which usually gives a list of the members of committees. The Environment, Resources and Development Committee—yes, here we are: the Hon. M.C. Parnell sits on that committee. He has had every opportunity to ask those questions when the DPA was before the committee.

Time expired.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (12:17): I appreciate this opportunity to speak to the Supply Bill. As members of this house would understand, it is certainly convention that the opposition will support the passage of this bill so that the government can start spending. Essentially, that is what this is really all about: so they can start spending—but they have not told us what they are going to spend on. They have not told us, and they will not tell us until the last day of this month what they are going to spend on.

As many members on this side have commented, it is a pretty backwards way of doing things. I certainly support the convention but I put very clearly on the record that I have great personal concern, and great concern on behalf of the people of Stuart, participating in this convention because of the government's very poor track record with regard to financial management.

We know, in this house, that the entire debt including all unfunded liabilities that this government has incurred is approximately $23 billion. The debt that we know about costs us approximately $2 million per day just in interest to service. I am particularly concerned about that high level of debt but also about the government's priorities when entering into that debt, and particularly with regard to how those priorities disadvantage regional South Australia.

I would also like to say that one of my concerns about the budget that we will get on 31 May this year is that it will, I believe, leave us with even more debt. I am sure that the budget we will receive will have more debt in it than we are currently aware of. There is another related, but probably slightly sneaky aspect. So that it does not need to show any more debt than the government wants to, or as little as possible, I think the budget will probably not include some very important and some very necessary spending commitments.

I suspect the government will commit to them throughout the year but will exclude them from the current budget so as not to show even more debt than they are going to have to show already. What that is going to do is to make a lot of organisations all over our state—who need that spending and funding commitment—have to wait and wait and wait and try to operate without that commitment. I think that is going to put many organisations, public and private, under undue stress so that the government can pretend that the level of debt is lower than it actually is and lower than it is going to be.

The Treasurer often uses the example of state debt principles being just like household debt principles and, at one level, I agree with him. It is an example I have used myself, and I think some of the very fundamental principles of how you manage a budget, whether a small household one or a large state or national one, are the same. What is different, though—and what the government and the Treasurer seem to be missing out on—is that while the principles might be the same, the actions have to be very different. You cannot take the capacity to run a household debt and just assume that that capacity, ability and level of expertise is automatically going to be translatable to a state.

Households throughout South Australia would not continue to waste money the way our state government does. Households would not continue to make the mistakes that our state government does, and they are getting sick of it. We are getting sick of it, South Australians everywhere are getting sick of it. Some examples are cancelled projects like the Newport Quays project which was cancelled at a cost of $6 million to our taxpayers. The protection of Arkaroola, totally separate from the pros and cons of protecting Arkaroola from mining, was done so clumsily by this government. An exploration licence to Marathon Resources was renewed and then the protection was put in place, putting the Sprigg family who run Arkaroola, all of the people on both sides of the argument whether they support it or not and Marathon Resources under extraordinary pressure. That clumsy stuff-up cost us $5 million. The cancellation of the Mobilong Prison contract cost us $10 million. Households would not keep making these mistakes.

Other examples of government waste and financial mismanagement involve the late payments to South Australian businesses, putting our business community under incredibly unfair financial pressure and, as the member for Norwood mentioned yesterday, peaking at $1.5 billion of outstanding debt. It is incredibly unfair and it is very poor management. We know that the building of new CFS stations has been stuffed up by this government, and I can tell you that it is not only the money, the stuffed-up contracts and the extra spending and having to pay more for CFS stations to be rebuilt and fitted out than you need to, there is also a very significant operational impact. In many cases, these CFS stations were due to be completed by the start of the fire season but then we went throughout the fire season without them being done, putting incredibly high impact on local volunteers and, in one case that I know of, people were housing equipment and fire trucks in a private shed in a backyard just to get through.

The desal plant: we have had it revealed lately that the prediction is that we will only ever need in the foreseeable future (10 to 15 years out) 21 gigs at the most per year from the desal plant. The opposition was planning to build a 50-gig desal plant but the government decided to build a 100-gig desal plant at a cost of $2.2 billion and $130 million per year to operate. It is four times as big as it is predicted to ever need to be.

As to Housing SA, the sale of properties was supposed to prop up the budget and sell public assets to get money back into the budget, but guess what? They are not selling because the valuations are inappropriate in the current market. They are sitting there, quarantined for sale but not selling, so we do not even have the money back into the budget and the people who need that public housing do not have access to it either.

There has been the printer cartridge scandal and the payout to ex-premier Rann. I am astounded that one of the first public announcements that Premier Weatherill made after assuming the premiership was to announce the additional payment to ex-premier Rann and all future premiers when he knows that he will be the very next person in line to take advantage of that. I am just staggered that that was the first thing he thought it was important to announce.

As to the health department stuff-ups, the member for Waite, the shadow minister for health, has highlighted an endless list of them including the delay to the annual report, the Auditor-General's scathing report. The concerns I have at a very local level, which keep coming to me, are very broad. People know my thoughts about the importance of local hospitals and how this government undervalues them, but something that is very important, too, is that nurses keep coming to me and telling me that, because of the financial pressure that they and the health system are under, every day they are becoming more and more administrators and less and less carers—that they go to work to tick boxes, to do all the things they need to do just to keep the system alive, and that there is not enough time left for them to do the caring and nursing they want to do, the work they signed up to do.

At a very small scale, this government has taken away a $15,000 grant to the Women in Agriculture and Business organisation, a very proud and very strong organisation that supports women in agriculture and business throughout the state. The government has taken away a $15,000 grant that would not have made any difference to the government's budget position but makes a world of difference to the ongoing operation with regard to that organisation meeting its costs and their being able to have a part-time executive officer who can help them.

An amount of $30,000 has been taken away from the University of the Third Age, a very reputable organisation that supports primarily older people throughout our entire state. A $30,000 grant paid for their public liability insurance so that they could run the programs they run in CWA halls, town halls and council offices. When the insurance is not available, as it often is not for the programs they run in people's homes and living rooms, they now have to try to find that money from somewhere else. So, that entire group—thousands upon thousands of people who participate in the University of the Third Age—has been penalised for essentially no benefit to the South Australian taxpayer. That $30,000 would not make a big difference to the overall budget.

Mr Deputy Speaker, as you well know, I have many examples in regard to regional South Australia. I cannot go through them all, for lack of time, but I will start with the withdrawal of state funding for the RDAs, the Regional Development Australia organisations. This government participated in what was a very good suggestion by state and federal Labor governments to include the three tiers of government in the formation, operation and funding of RDAs across our entire state, which was a hard process.

It was very difficult for those organisations to essentially turn themselves inside out, change their way of operating, rearrange boundaries and put in a new model of governance of operation and, once all of that was done, our state government said, 'We're not going to fund you anymore, as of 1 July 2013'—to go through all that heartache, make them do that work, when the government knew all along it was going to withdraw the funding. But what is even worse is that the model is actually good, and I applaud the Labor governments, state and federal, and the local government that participated in that, for trying to coordinate these three tiers of government so that it would work efficiently and well, regardless of who is in government, state and federally. It is a good model, but the rug was pulled out from under them by the state government when it knew it was going to stop funding all along.

The sale of the forward rotations of the forestry offtakes in the South-East was a dreadful and disgraceful decision. Both the dollars and the timing related directly to the government's need to fund half a billion dollars, or a little bit more, for the Adelaide Oval redevelopment. In relation to the Murray-Darling Basin plan, there is nothing more important going on right now in regional South Australia than getting that plan right, yet the Premier is trying to walk a very tricky, slick public line, saying that what he wants is more water for the environment and what he wants is not to damage any regional communities, particularly any communities on the river. He cannot have it both ways; it is not possible for him to have it both ways with the things he has announced. He is trying to appeal to everybody at once in a way that anybody who looks at it closely knows is just not possible.

I applaud wholeheartedly the Liberal policy, led by the shadow minister for water (member for MacKillop) and the member for Chaffey, who have put together a very good policy for us to work with. It highlights the fact that the very first thing we need to do is an audit of all the places where water can be saved throughout the entire basin. We are already incredibly efficient with water in South Australia. Let's find out where extra efficiencies can be gained in other states before we put a number on it and enforce more savings upon the people of South Australia.

As the member for Stuart, I represent Morgan, Blanchetown, Cadell, Murbko and that important part of the river. I put on the record my view that the town and community of Cadell has suffered more than any other on the river with regard to the drought and the reduction in water allocation over the last several years. So, this is extremely important for our whole state, for regional South Australia, but also for the electorate of Stuart.

Regarding funding for public hospitals, both the health minister and the previous treasurer provided crystal clear information a year or so ago that made it very clear that funding for country health is not keeping pace with funding for heath in metropolitan Adelaide, and that is an issue that must be addressed.

If we are elected, we will reintroduce country hospital boards that will not only make them more efficient and more accountable to local communities, getting very important input from them, but also cheaper to run, because country people in their local areas will make them cheaper and more efficient, helping the taxpayer overall.

Shared Services has been a disgrace. I can understand the principle, the economic rationale, for trying to centralise, use technology and take advantage of what you have going for you to put services together to become more efficient. I have no problem with that whatsoever; however, the millions of dollars budgeted to implement this program have blown out. The savings have been underachieved by millions of dollars and, what is worse, the job is being done worse than it ever was before. So it costs more to implement, savings are not being found and the job is being done worse. What better example do we need of government waste, mismanagement and inefficiency?

I wholeheartedly support the use of technology and the opportunity to save money. Shared Services could be used to support regional South Australia rather than tear it apart. Exactly the same technology that allows payroll, human resources and procurement, IT and other government department services to be centralised means that they could actually be placed in regional South Australia. Instead of taking all those jobs out of regional South Australia and putting them down into Adelaide, hypothetically, we could have an office in Port Lincoln that does all the purchasing for the entire state, Whyalla could do all of the HR and Renmark or Berri could do all of the IT. Mount Gambier could do one of the other services. Those services could actually be placed in regional South Australia. Those savings could be found by using the efficiencies. We are getting the worst of everything in the current situation.

Regional South Australia comprises approximately a quarter of the state's population. People on the government side in this chamber do not understand that that is hundreds of communities. Hundreds of communities make up regional South Australia. We understand that it is a two-way street. We understand that some services will only be available in the city just as there are some things that only regional South Australia can offer. You can only go for holidays in country South Australia. It really is a two-way street, and we get that, but this government's spending is all one way—with the undervaluation of small country schools, of sporting facilities, of support for churches and very important organisations, such as hospitals, and of rural road maintenance.

An example worth pointing out—which I am sure the member for Flinders will support—is that there is not one overtaking lane on Eyre Peninsula. That is an absolute disgrace. It is an area with long distances, highly travelled by tourism, local transport and heavy freight, and there is not one overtaking lane. We know that overtaking lanes make road traffic safer. Eyre Peninsula has just been ignored by this government.

Everybody knows my views on outback roads. One of the very first things that this government did when it got into power 10 years ago was remove one of the re-sheeting gangs for outback roads, and that has just caused inefficiency everywhere.

Agriculture is the most important industry in South Australia. Mining is terribly important as is tourism and manufacturing. Mining is our greatest growth opportunity, but agriculture is, and will continue to be, the most important industry for our entire state, and government spending needs to recognise that. Government spending needs to continue to support agriculture, not just the things that are growth areas or in the public view. Those areas need support, too, but never, ever forget the importance of agriculture. We cannot get out of research and development, we cannot defund all the very important agricultural institutions and organisations that support us, otherwise our most important industry will suffer—and that is just not sensible. I will have more to say later in the week about the increase in pastoral lease rents.

What we are seeing is just taking advantage of country South Australia in many, many ways. All the examples of waste and mismanagement and city-centric priorities is disadvantaging where we make the most money for our state, which is in regional South Australia.

Very quickly (because time is running out), with regard to recreation and sport, I do not have to change my view, I do not have to change a thing I have said about Adelaide Oval the entire time this debate has been in this house. An additional or upgraded oval for South Australia, a sporting stadium, would be absolutely fantastic, but we just cannot afford it—and if we could, right now we have higher spending priorities than that. That is critically important.

Regarding marine parks, I do not think the government gets the fact that marine parks are not just an environmental issue. It is a statewide issue, it affects city people, country people, Liberal voters, Labor voters, rich people, poor people. It is not just an environmental issue, it is not just a sea issue; it is a very important recreational issue as well. The government is harming people all over South Australia with the way it is just procrastinating and stuffing up what was a very good Liberal initiative.

Racing is critically important. I am running out of time, but this government does not support the racing industry; it does not even have a minister for racing. There is no federal minister for racing, so if there is no state minister who is sticking up for and promoting racing in South Australia?

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (12:37): I rise today to support the bill and to talk about a particular part of government spending, a major part of government spending, and that is health. The health system often comes under attack in the media and from the opposition but, when I am talking to constituents—whether it is at the local markets, the supermarket, community events or doorknocking—quite often people will say that a member of their family has been in hospital. I ask which hospital and how they were treated, and the overwhelming response is that people are treated very well. There is a huge amount of respect there for the hardworking doctors, nurses and other members of staff in the hospitals.

So, while occasionally things will go wrong in our health system, I think it is worth remembering that we have a state-of-the-art health system that we should be very proud of, one that continually outranks many other states in Australia. While it is an easy target for the opposition and the media when things do go wrong, we also need to pay tribute to those hardworking people in health services who deliver a better way of life and, in many cases, save the lives of people in our community.

Almost one-third of the South Australian government's budget is spent on health, and in dollar terms that is $4,140 per person per year—a bigger spend than any other state. Just this week a new survey, called the Australian Hospital Statistics report, came out and showed that 71 per cent of patients were seen on time in 2010-11, the equal second best result in the nation. The report also showed that the median wait to service in emergency departments was 20 minutes, three minutes below the national average. That is the second best result in Australia and the first time that South Australia has bettered the national average since routine reporting began.

The report also showed that 90 per cent of patients were admitted for elective surgery within 208 days, significantly better than the national average of 252. The median waiting time for elective surgery in South Australia was 38 days in 2010-11, two days longer than the national average. This has improved to 34 days to March 2012. South Australia has the highest number of public hospital beds per 1,000 population (3.1 beds), 19.2 per cent above the national average.

The number of doctors per capita working in public hospitals was 10.8 per cent above the national average of 1.45 per cent, and the number of nurses was 7.4 per cent above the national average—both are higher than all mainland states. The total average cost of treatment per patient for South Australia in 2010-11 was $4,854—the second lowest in Australia. The state government has invested $111 million to ensure more patients are seen, treated and discharged or admitted to a bed on a ward within four hours in hospital emergency departments.

When you look at the statistics and when you listen to the anecdotal evidence out in the community, by and large we have a health system that is performing extremely well by anyone's standards. Sure, things will go wrong from time to time, and we need to hear about that so that we can make the system even better.

Last year (and I am about to go out again to repeat the exercise), I checked in on hospitals and other health facilities in regional South Australia. I would like to thank all the people who work in our hospitals and other health providers in the regions—they do a fantastic job. Our aim is that we keep as many people who are ill or who need hospitalisation in their local area, rather than having to come to Adelaide and that, when they do come to Adelaide, they are here for as shorter period of time as possible so that they can be back amongst their friends and families for recuperation and other medical assistance.

The new Royal Adelaide Hospital will be of great benefit to people right throughout South Australia, not just in Adelaide, because there is always a very large percentage of people in the current Royal Adelaide Hospital who come from country areas. The new RAH, with its individual beds and rooms, so that you do not have to share with three, four, five or six other people, will be a great advantage to people not just in Adelaide but right throughout South Australia.

In the local area I represent, we are extremely well served by medical services. We have the Flinders Medical Centre, which is the main hospital to service the people in the south, as well as the excellent Noarlunga Hospital, which also does a great job for people in our local area. The GP Plus Healthcare Centre at Aldinga has been a brilliant addition to the local area, and it has decreased the number of people who turn up at Flinders Medical Centre or Noarlunga Hospital.

Often people are afraid that the symptoms that they or a family member are showing may be something quite serious, so sometimes they go to the hospital to seek reassurance, and a lot of those times they are, thankfully, reassured that, 'No, you should be okay if you follow this procedure.' They can now get that service at the GP Plus Healthcare Centre at Aldinga without having to tie up resources in our hospitals.

The McLaren Vale and District War Memorial Hospital at McLaren Vale is another great medical facility in the south and one where the government is working with the local hospital, even though it is a community hospital and privately run by a community board. We are working with them so that people who are, say, in the Flinders Medical Centre and who need to still be under medical observation can be discharged to spend time recuperating in the beautiful McLaren Vale and Districts War Memorial Hospital.

With its gum trees and rose gardens and ease of parking, that hospital really is a wonderful place to recuperate, and for so many people it means that they are a lot closer to their loved ones who want to come and visit them and that, when they turn up, it is easy to get a car park—and, of course, it is surrounded by the beautiful town of McLaren Vale.

With those words, I reiterate that we do have a wonderful health system in South Australia. Another facility I should mention is the newly opened GP Plus Super Clinic at Noarlunga. We hope that that facility will also ease the load on our emergency departments and provide first-class health services to the people in the south.

As I said at the outset, and throughout this speech, South Australians are well served by our health service and we are always out there trying to find ways that we can improve it, and we are keen to hear from the community about ways in which that can be done. The statistics and the anecdotal evidence I am hearing from the community prove that we do have a health service that is of a very high standard and amongst the best in Australia, which of course ranks it amongst the best in the world.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (12:45): I appreciate the contributions that the member for Mawson and the member for Taylor have made from the government side. I always appreciate their contributions and am pleased that they have taken the opportunity to speak in favour of what is essentially a government bill. I have to point out that they are in fact the only two from the government benches who have chosen to speak on this, apart from the Treasurer, who of course introduced the Supply Bill briefly sometime ago; and in fact we are still debating it.

The Supply Bill, as the house knows, offers members an opportunity to make some remarks on the state's finances, and is, in fact, the appropriation of money from Consolidated Account. The member for Stuart mentioned that he felt that it gave the opportunity for the government to start to spend. I actually think it is more likely that it will give the opportunity for the government to continue to spend; but there you go, it is semantics, I guess.

The amount being sought under this bill is $3.161 billion, and I have to reiterate all the remarks that have been made from this side of the house. Unfortunately, this state's finances are turning into quite a debacle really. It just seems that every single day another bad news story comes out about the state's finances: continuing borrowings, escalating debt, and of course escalating interest payments.

The government is at this point in time borrowing an extra $3.74 million every single day. This is a key figure. It is something that we will be highlighting. Each and every day the government is borrowing an extra $3.74 million. People will come to know this figure. It is a figure they can recognise. It is not a figure that is too far out of their understanding or grasp, but when they come to realise that it is a borrowing every single day, the rest of the community will come to realise what a situation we are getting ourselves into. What it of course means is that our interest bill in this state is now $705 million per year, every year.

I would suggest that we cannot go on living beyond our means as we are. In 2010, when I first came to this place, the Supply Bill was at that time one of the first opportunities I had to speak in the parliament as a new member. In that contribution I raised some important funding priorities for my seat of Flinders and regional South Australia generally. It comes as no surprise to anyone that the majority of the regions are represented on this side of the house. I lament now and I am disappointed at how much the government has done in regard to regional spending in the space of 12 months.

Our lead speaker on this bill was our shadow treasurer, the member for Davenport, and I endorse all his remarks. I do not intend to rehash the comments of my colleagues, but it is my duty and my obligation on behalf of the people of Flinders, the people I represent, to express my dismay once again at how the deficit and debt have increased, even since the budget was last handed down (and of course the next budget is just around the corner) and how a decade of Labor's economic mismanagement has resulted in South Australia being the highest taxed state in the land. Additional pressures on the cost of living come with that, that high taxing, high spending, high borrowing government.

The member for Morialta during his Supply Bill speech yesterday quoted a former prime minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher. It is not a quote I had heard before, but I did pick up on it and understand exactly why he was using that quote. The quote was that the problem with socialists is that they eventually run out of other people's money to spend.

For a time I had actually thought that, in Australia in the 21st century, we had moved beyond socialist governments, but watching this state government in action I am not sure that that is true. I think what we are seeing in this state is a socialist government—the way they treat the constituency with disdain, the way that they continue to spend other people's money on priorities that they have, not priorities that the community has.

With regard to the seat of Flinders, we of course are based on agriculture and seafood, and primary production in general. Although it is not a certainty by any means, we are anticipating that mining could play a role in our regional economy in times to come. What is remarkable is the government's lack of investment into basic infrastructure to help support those core regional industries of agriculture, seafood and, ultimately, mining as well.

I think, in the end, it is going to come to mean that, without that basic infrastructure, or lack of investment into it, we are seeing infrastructure no longer able to properly support what are essentially growing industries—industries which are growing, which are sustainable and which contribute so much to this state's wealth—and it is just not being recognised or, for that matter, being rewarded.

A good example of this is the port at Thevenard. I have spoken about the port at Thevenard in this place before. In fact, the wharf there is just on 100 years old—it is a century old—and, without being disrespectful, it is beginning to crumble and no longer able to cope with the demands that are being put on it. There has been a lot of good work done by many people in the local community within the state authorities and within the Regional Development Authority, and the private companies that are involved with and rely on that port functioning for their businesses.

There has been a lot of good work done by all those groups in getting together a submission to both state and federal governments for funding. We are yet to see whether that funding application will be successful, but I sincerely hope it is. I would like to highlight that it has had to get to a point where the infrastructure is, as I said, crumbling and no longer able to cope, before anything can actually be done.

Way back in 2002, the Labor government promised a desal plant for Eyre Peninsula. The previous member for Flinders spoke about this often, and still speaks of it, and highlights the fact that that commitment was never honoured. Right at this moment, we are once again having discussions about the long-term security and management of our regional water resource, and how we make best use of that.

My feeling still is that to manage and cope with future expansion and demand desal will need to play a role in that. We are expecting demand to grow as population grows and also as industry grows. I mentioned mining earlier, and the likelihood is that, should that go ahead, there will be significant demands on the local water resource. We need to, through the state government, be able to manage and supply that.

Many of my colleagues, particularly from the country, have mentioned country health services. I still cannot get past the fact that the most number of constituents I see on any single topic is around the Patient Assistance Transport Scheme. Just 16¢ a kilometre is offered to those patients travelling to Adelaide for specialist treatment by road. It is nowhere near enough; it does not go anywhere near reimbursing them for their travel costs. Just $30 a night is available for accommodation after the first night. We have been pushing very strongly for the department to recognise and allow patients from my part of the world in particular—Port Lincoln, Ceduna and places in between—to be able to fly. It is convenient, it is cost-effective and it is less demanding on the patient to fly. Some patients travel often to Adelaide for specialist treatment and the impost on them, both financially and in regard to their time, is significant.

I urge the government to consider very, very soon how it may increase the funding into that scheme which is an essential scheme for the health and wellbeing of people in this state right across the country areas. There may be solutions that come to light in the future. We may be able to attract specialists into larger regional hospitals like Port Lincoln, Ceduna and Whyalla. However, just at the moment that is not happening; it does not happen that way. Sadly, those patients who do get sick and require specialist treatment need to travel and sometimes their very survival depends on it. So I urge the government to consider and to understand the importance of that scheme. There are probably very few families in the seat of Flinders who have not at some stage, for some reason, needed to access that scheme. The concept of the scheme itself is good, it is just a matter of funding it appropriately.

We have had some good builds into the school system in recent times and I do not step away from that. However, one particular school that I would like to highlight is the Port Lincoln High School. It is the largest high school in my electorate and for that reason it is the most significant. Sadly, there has been very little investment into the infrastructure of that high school campus in recent years. In fact, the Port Lincoln High School is still holding classes in temporary classrooms that were put there 40 years ago. That is sad to see and we are doing our best to lobby government to highlight that and to at least get some recognition of the importance of that high school in the state system and the fact that its facilities are dated and inadequate.

Many of my country colleagues and the member for Stuart just previous to this mentioned country roads. I have talked before about the $400 million—no less—road maintenance backlog that has been identified by the RAA. This is the combination of both state and federal government funding that will be required to bring country roads back up to scratch to a point where they are safe, accessible and provide reasonable transport routes, because in the end it is the transport industry that provides the backbone for all the other industries in this state.

Clearly, this massive road maintenance backlog is not a high priority for the Weatherill government. It has been demonstrated time and time again that the condition of roads in the country does have an impact on road safety, and I would suggest that the government should not and cannot continue to neglect country roads; it will be at their peril.

The Tod Highway is a good example of that. There are many examples of neglected country roads and I understand everybody wants money spent on their own road or the road that they use to access their local communities and required services. Just three weeks ago I tabled a petition in this house of over 600 signatures highlighting the desperate state of the Tod Highway. There is a little over 100 kilometres between Karkoo and Kyancutta, so it is a highway and it is the responsibility of the state. It is dangerously narrow in some places. I understand that it satisfies all the requirements of the department, but the fact remains that there are high traffic flows and a lot of that is heavy vehicle traffic—road train transport at harvest time and that sort of thing—and it is downright dangerous. There have been a number of near misses and I hope that the government sees fit to carry out something as simple as sealing the shoulders of that road.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Flinders, do you wish to continue your remarks or do you wish to finish at this point?

Mr TRELOAR: I do wish to continue, so I seek leave of the house.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.


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


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