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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 (resumed on motion).

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (15:52): I will note that the member for Flinders was on his feet prior to the luncheon adjournment and had some six minutes left. He has been called to a conference and it is impossible for him to continue, but he will continue in the 10-minute grieve opportunity. I note at the outset that minister Kenyon's introduction of the ICAC bill was rather interesting. I hope that the Deputy Premier (the Attorney) is engaged in some form of conference on legislation also.

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon: A deadlock conference.

Mr GRIFFITHS: Okay. I thought that I would put that on the record, otherwise I would have expected the responsible minister to be in here to introduce such a very important bill to many South Australians and something which the Liberal Party has fought for. I think for probably the last four years it has been our policy that such a commission to be established.

I will now turn to the supply debate to allow for the forward expenditure of some $3.161 billion. I have always been intrigued about the process. The budget will be presented before the end of June. I respect that the estimates process will not be completed until after the commencement of July and the new financial year, but I am rather intrigued that we spend an enormous amount of time in this chamber, predominantly members of the opposition, talking about supply and the fact that there is a lot of repetition occurring in that process.

If there is ever a chance to improve the process in this place, the opportunity to consolidate positions being put to allow for important legislation to be debated, it would allow for a far better use of our important time. I note that there is legislation proposed for this week that we have not even got close to yet. Let's hope that the chamber has enough time. I will make a brief contribution; I am not sure whether I will use the 20 minutes, either. So, the member for Schubert, who is following me, might want to take this up.

A lot of things have occurred in my electorate, though, that I want to put on the record. The first one, which I know has caused a lot of debate in my community, are the speed limits which occurred in November last year, when minister Rankine, as the Minister for Road Safety, made the announcement that roads which were not dual carriageway roads within 100 kilometres of the CBD area or on Yorke Peninsula which were state-controlled roads would be reduced to 100 km/h.

It is fair to say that it has caused a lot of debate among the people of Yorke Peninsula and the Adelaide plains. It is important to emphasise, though, that these people are all for road safety. Clearly, they respect the fact that it is important to do whatever possible to reduce the tragedy of any road accident or fatality and the impact it has on the family and friends of those involved. People have also put to me very clearly, though, that they believe that it is speeding and not speed limits that create accidents, associated with the condition of the roads.

The fact that the minister has chosen unilaterally to reduce the speed limit from 110 km/h to 100 km/h has caused a lot of frustration. People have put to me that the longer they are on the road, the greater the risk of an accident occurring. Indeed, as much as people concentrate and are focused on what they are doing, cruising along at 100 km/h lulls people into a sense of boredom, if I can use that word, and the focus is not there the way it should be and they feel that even that might contribute to accidents.

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon interjecting:

Mr GRIFFITHS: Minister, there are a lot of diverging arguments about the best methods, and I say this with careful deliberation because there was another collision today between a truck and a car near Kadina on Yorke Peninsula. I am not aware of fatalities and certainly it is my hope that no-one has died as a result of that. There was a terrible collision on Thursday last week when a truck heading north hit a car near the Mount Rat intersection, and two people aged 81 and 83 were killed. I believe that that was through the fault of the vehicle's driver coming in front of the truck and, even though the brake marks are apparently some 60 metres in length, it resulted in the tragedy of those people being killed, and the tragedy of the driver having to live with the thoughts of what occurred, even though, from what I understand, it was not his fault.

Road safety is a focus but I am not sure if the reduction in speed limit is necessarily the answer. My community is demanding all the time that an increasing amount of funds be spent on road maintenance, and that is what they would like to see. They quote to me constantly, and in my travels around the electorate it is obvious to me, that poor road conditions create a lot of frustration, especially during footy season when you have people from the Copper Coast who travel south on some of the roads, and they think, 'Oh my God, what are these things?' Sometimes they refuse to go to some of the games when they are a bit iffy about going to support their team, so that is a great frustration.

The next issue I wish to bring to the attention of the house is school bus contracts. It might not be an important issue to some people but, in a previous role that I had within the Liberal Party, I had contact with many family companies who operated school buses who were very concerned about their future. In some cases they had been servicing the community's needs for decades, and I had terrible instances of phone conversations with adults, worried about their own future, crying on the telephone to me because they had done all they could. They had trimmed their tender price as much as they could in the hope of still making a dollar (and I use that term literally, a dollar) and they had still lost the opportunity to continue to provide that service, and it had been allocated to another contractor.

I know in my questioning in estimates last year on education, now Premier Weatherill, when he was minister for education, quoted to me that the majority of the contracts let at that time, a bit over 50 per cent, had gone back to the previous contractors. I said, 'Yes, but does that truly reflect the fact that these people have screwed down their prices so much? The odds are that, yes, they will have a business, but will that business be profitable, and will it be sellable in future too?' It is still a great concern. There are probably about 250 private school buses. We are still involved in contract negotiations with that and those people, no matter how far away they are from the city, are fearful of the bigger corporates coming in—big and small operators—taking away their livelihoods. I still get contact from bus operators, and a company in Gawler is about to close soon because of a variety of reasons, and it is just devastating to those people. Many members have spoken about it in the house and it is an important one.

I put on the record, as other members have chosen to do, the need to support small business. We are often quoted the fact that there are 138,000 small businesses in South Australia. They drive our economy and they need every level of support they can get. They are hardworking, committed, honest people who want to provide an opportunity for themselves to be profitable, to provide for their families, and to provide job opportunities for people around them. They need government support, they need policies that assist them, and they need some mentoring and financial support on occasions too.

I know the member for Stuart has commented about the reduction in funding for the business enterprise centres and the proposed removal of funding from 1 July next year of the Regional Development Australia Board. I find it rather frustrating, too, and if you take away those first contact points for small business to get their problems sorted out, to get some positive mentoring, to be told about who the connection opportunities are to grow their business, I am really fearful about what is going to replace it, and what the impact will be on small business. I hope that there will be a review of that decision to make sure we have a chance to move forward on it.

Health is an important concern across South Australia and in the Goyder electorate. We are lucky enough to be serviced by wonderfully dedicated staff in our hospitals at Yorketown, Wallaroo and Balaklava in the public system, and the private hospitals at Ardrossan, Moonta and Hamley Bridge, and also with the facilities that are available to people around Minlaton area.

The member for Waite, in some recent contributions, has talked of concerns about the management of the health budget and the implications that might have on some capital projects, one of which is $3.3 million for a dental facility at the Wallaroo Hospital. It is my desire that that project happens as committed to in previous budgets, that there is no delay to it, and that it is delivered and servicing the people of the Copper Coast and the greater area.

Other members have commented about the health advisory councils; many of those people flowed over from the previous boards. They are all good people but they want a job to do that actually makes a difference, whereas at the moment they meet but their voice does not count for very much. I hope that the HACs are returned to a position of authority where the commitment that these people make allows them to make a difference.

Wind farms are a very emotive issue, too. Late last year a ministerial DPA was released which talks about, I think, a diminution of democratic principles with the removal of third-party appeal rights and a reduction in the buffer zone of one kilometre from residents and two kilometres from townships. On Yorke Peninsula it is an emotive issue because of the very large project proposal from the series wind farm project of 180 turbines that are 152 metres in height from the ground to the tip of the blades. It will be a veritable forest of the things if that actually happens with 180 turbines of that size. The power will be directed through submarine cable across the gulf and into the St Kilda station.

Some people want them and some people do not want them. Indeed, 35 families have signed in-principle agreements to allow the turbines to be on their properties. I have told people that the process has to be right so that the rights of all are observed. I hope that as part of the project application that the series project is going through (with 26 different studies which will be part of the application they submit as part of the major project status) that the community is still given a chance. I know the process demands that that should happen but the community's voice has to be heard. We have to get it right because these turbines have a minimum 25-year life and if it is not right the community will pay for it for many years.

Marine parks will continue to be a difficult one for the government to manage. The member for Finniss talks about it constantly, and rightly so; he was the first person within our group to express concerns about it. There is universal support from the Liberal Party for the principle behind marine parks but the way it has been managed is the great frustration. The revised plans that were released on Friday of last week where, on an A3 page, you are meant to identify from little green dots exactly where the sanctuary zones are, is near impossible for people.

For example, in marine park 11 (the Port Victoria, Balgowan, Chinaman Wells group) they are unable to comment yet on what the impact will be of the revised proposal put forward by the government late last week because they cannot get the detail on it. These are fisher people and people who are good recreational fishers who have put a lot of scientific effort into putting a counterproposal forward but they want the opportunity to have an informed debate about it. It is not fixed. There has to be a lot more debate about this and the community's input has to be sought.

The local advisory groups did the best possible job that they could do for the eight-month period after they were appointed, in taking a lot of flak from people. It was brave of them to actually stand up sometimes and to put the position as proposed to them by the government out to the wider community. Let us hope that when the eventual solution is there and the sanctuary zones are declared that they are at a level that the community can accept and afford.

I use the term 'afford' very importantly because I have constantly sought from minister Caica, as the responsible minister, the release of the impact statement which looks at the social and economic points of view. I have argued with him on the fact that the economic point of view needs to discount the agricultural production that takes place in the communities around where the marine park sanctuary zones are proposed and looks at the impact of small business on those communities that rely upon so many thousands of visitors every year to come and go fishing.

If you lose that opportunity to bring the fishers there people will sell properties, they will not go there to fish, they will not buy fuel, they will not buy bait, they will not stay there for meals, they will not require accommodation and the communities will suffer from it. It might not be thought by many people to have an impact on a wider economic sphere, but it does, and marine parks have to truly be right.

I also want to talk about public transport. The past two days have brought home to me how frustrating things are. Monday morning it took me one hour and five minutes to travel eight kilometres from Oakden into the city—admittedly I left at 8.30 so I took the risk of the heavy traffic, but it was banked up. There were no works occurring on any of the roads that I travelled on, but it was just madness. Last night leaving this place at about quarter past six and heading out to Oakden, again, if you went down North Terrace, if you went down Hackney Road, if you went out the North East Road, you were caught in traffic terribly. If you tried to take a side street you were caught in traffic.

For the last six years I have spent a lot of my time driving around the city and I have developed a bit of a road rage culture within my own mind, much to my wife's frustration. It is terrible and there is no reason for it. I truly do believe it is because people are so frustrated about the problems with public transport that they have chosen not to use it. They have decided to jump back in their car and be responsible for transporting themselves, and that means that we all suffer for it. As taxpayers we suffer for it. The programs we have put $1.6 billion into—which the Minister for Transport Services referred to today—are being used to a fraction of their capacity, and it is because people do not trust them.

They do not believe that it is going to get there and pick them up on time. They do not believe that it is actually going to deliver them on time to where they want to be. Since 4 October when the new contracts came into place there has been nothing short of rioting in the streets. Again, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but I was bombarded with emails. I know that the member for Bragg has been contacted by hundreds if not thousands of people who are just sick of it. Talkback radio is consumed by it.

It is a mature service. Public transport should work well. It has been in existence for a long time. The timetables have been there. The current contract is based on January 2011 timetables that were released. They should have been the ones who should have been able to get it through. We have got the advice today that the minister is instigating fines for the second quarter of the contract amounting to about $220,000. These companies need to understand that they are playing with people's lives terribly. For the SDA to come out and say that the minister's office should authorise the issue of apology notices for employees who are running late to give to their bosses so that they can keep their job is an absolute farce. It shows how desperate some people are to still try to curry some favour, but it is not satisfactory for the people who are trying to get to work on time, who are trying to get on with their lives and who want to be transported around. They want to use the bus, trains and tram network but they do not trust it anymore.

If you have a failure in one section of public transport, do you lose complete confidence in all the other sectors, too? An investment is taking place. The Minister for Transport Services and the Minister for Transport will stand up constantly and talk about the $2 billion of investment that is occurring (the absolute majority of that is coming from federal money, anyway), but it is not working. Yes, you need to invest in our infrastructure, but how about getting the most basic thing right, that is, actually making sure that people work to timetables and they have not.

I just want to finish with a couple of little things. One is CFS uniforms. Questions have been raised in the chamber about that before. It was one of my brigades that actually brought it to people's attention first. I was rather frustrated that, when the member for Morphett asked the question, minister Rankine was rather flippant towards it and accused him of saying that he could afford to buy his own boots. The question was asked in all sincerity because of the fact that, in one case I am very aware of, a chap who has been a volunteer for 25 years needed a new uniform because he had had that same uniform for nearly all that time. He had to wait over six months.

His boots have holes in them. He is not asking for the world. He is just asking for equipment that allows him to get on the back of a truck to save people's property and lives, and it cannot be delivered. And then to be told that because new uniforms have one stripe missing and therefore some of those uniforms are being thrown away because one stripe was missing, at $700 a uniform just defies all logic. It is about contract management, it is about getting the process right, it is about ensuring that things get out to people when they are meant to and that things are done properly.

If it cannot happen in that most basic of areas, it is frustrating. There is an investment that occurs in the CFS, and it is fantastic. The emergency services levy raises about $100 million from private property owners per year. I am pleased to stand up and say that I got some money in my electorate for Hamley Bridge and the Balaklava CFS stations that were opened during the laugh 12 months—wonderful. People appreciate it. All the volunteers appreciate it. They are wonderful facilities, but you still have to make sure that the uniforms are there so that people can actually volunteer; and, importantly, uniforms for new people.

These brigades work very hard to get young people and older people to come on and go through the training so that they become qualified, so they can go out and protect people and property, but when they cannot get a uniform they cannot do it. They have to sit at the station. At best they can man the comms area. They get frustrated by that and it is all for the want of a uniform. Please get it right, please make it happen and please improve it.

Finally, on farm machinery movements, there has been a bit of difficulty in the Goyder electorate in the last six months over this. Regulations came into force in the middle of last year, which now require farmers, when they move machinery, to have a gazettal notice on their person or in the vehicle they are towing with. If the gazettal notice is not with them, even if they understand what the rules are, and they are pulled over and a police officer chooses to fine them, it can be between $300 and $1,000.

Mr Pengilly: $6,000.

Mr GRIFFITHS: The member for Finniss says $6,000. This is absolute madness. There are major and minor roads that have been declared. Yes, the farming industry knows it has to do the right thing, and these people are doing the right thing, other than carrying a slip of paper. Apparently, they can have a copy of it on a smartphone, and that will satisfy the police.

Mr Venning: Really.

Mr GRIFFITHS: The member for Schubert says, 'Really,' but that is what they have been told (sometimes) as being the solution. It is bureaucracy gone mad. Yes, we want to make sure that we have safe laws in place so there are no accidents on any of our roads with anybody hitting a machine, and yes, there is a need for site distances, flashing lights, the 'wide load ahead' and all that sort of stuff, but please, let us actually use some common sense and make sure the rules are appropriate. I had one bloke from Arthurton ring me who had a $997 fine because he did not have gazettal notices in his vehicle. I appreciate the fact that minister Rankine has had those fines removed, and I am grateful for that, but let us get it right.

Bill read a second time.

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