HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Member Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-06-26 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

APPROPRIATION BILL 2012

Estimates Committees

Mr PICCOLO (Light) (16:33): I bring up the report of Estimates Committee A and move:

That the report be received.

Motion carried.

Mr PICCOLO: I bring up the minutes of proceedings of Estimates Committee A and move:

That the minutes of proceedings be incorporated in the votes and proceedings.

Motion carried.

The Hon. M.J. WRIGHT (Lee) (16:33): I bring up the report of Estimates Committee B and move:

That the report be received.

Motion carried.

The Hon. M.J. WRIGHT: I bring up the minutes of proceedings of Estimates Committee B and move:

That the minutes of proceedings be incorporated in the votes and proceedings.

Motion carried.

The Hon. T.R. KENYON (Newland—Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for Recreation and Sport) (16:34): I move:

That the proposed expenditures referred to Estimates Committees A and B be agreed to.

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen—Leader of the Opposition) (16:34): I indicate that I will be the lead speaker on behalf of the opposition in response to both Estimates Committees A and B. I am glad to see that the Premier was here and clearly uninjured from his latest backflip. That would be in response to—let me see—the backflip on the Keith hospital, the backflip on The Parks Community Centre, a somersault with triple pike demonstrated beautifully for the people of Cadell, and, of course, not forgetting the backflip on the ICAC. But at least the people of Cadell did not have to buy a seat at a Labor Party fundraising dinner to get their backflip. I seem to recall that at least some of them—

Mr Williams: The people from Keith did.

Mrs REDMOND: The people from Keith might have had to buy a seat at a dinner. What was their mantra again, the Labor mantra of debate and decide or decide and duck for cover?—one of those. Sadly, the Premier's rhetoric falls flat. This new broom, the so-called fresh approach, is clearly just a charade. There is no difference from the old days. There is no consultation. There is no sign that anything has changed. Basically, if the government can get away with it, it will. I am sure the member for Mount Gambier knows what I am talking about: the sale of the forests in the South-East is still going to proceed in spite of any level of consultation. The old announce-and-defend philosophy still seems unshakeable.

When the Premier said on radio yesterday, 'We're below the standards we have set ourselves,' what standards was he referring to? Perhaps double standards. And to so publicly slap down minister Conlon, a senior minister. Of course, minister Conlon and the Premier have not been friends ever since the Premier made his initial attempt against Kevin Foley. Remember that, just after the last election? They have not been all that close since then. Slapping down the minister and grabbing the good news announcement for yourself is very transparent, but it is also very much in mind of the former premier Mike Rann.

Where was the Premier when the people of Cadell were crying out for help, when their school, their tourism and their community was being threatened with destruction? I think the protest on the steps of parliament house was going to be tomorrow. That could well have been the first protest group that this new Premier was to face on the steps of Parliament House. I suspect that that might be what has been behind the backflip.

Of course, the Cadell fiasco featured heavily in estimates because nearly every minister had weighed in on it, demonstrating that Labor, having perfected the backflip, is equally good at belly flops. I am still curious, though, about where the government is going to find the extra $400,000 per annum that it planned to gain by stopping that ferry. I think the government owes it to the people of this state to explain how the budget is today magically able to accommodate a $400,000 turnaround.

Let us look at the management of the Cadell ferry for a moment. Transport minister Conlon revealed what the rest of the world already knew: that he did not undertake enough community consultation before deciding to wield the axe. In what can only be described as an extraordinary admission, minister Conlon said, and I quote, 'Can I say, I have discussed with my people that I do not think we did enough consultation with the locals.' To me, it smacks of a tired, lazy minister. It is high time to get out into the community and actually talk to people.

I have always been interested in how the government thought it could explain $40 million for a footbridge to the $535 million Adelaide Oval—and then, of course, the car parking on top—but it could not find anything for the people of Cadell. Of course, we have had a long history in this state of this government being focused very much on Adelaide and not caring at all about the areas beyond Gepps Cross and the tollgate. However, when there is good news, just like our previous premier, in comes Jay Weatherill to announce it.

The ferry farce extended across other portfolios. Tourism minister Gago made a startling admission in estimates that she was not consulted by minister Conlon regarding the impact of the ferry closure on the state's tourism industry. This is in direct conflict with the Weatherill government's own cabinet rules. There is no internal consultation and no transparency.

Minister Gago told the estimates committee that she had not been approached by anyone in the tourism industry expressing concerns, and yet we know that four days earlier a letter was sent to her by the chairperson of the Riverland's peak tourism body—an organisation called Destination Riverland—expressing very grave concerns about the impact of this proposed closure on the people of the Riverland, on tourism and, particularly, on their new-found organisation, Destination Riverland, which, of course, they have had to fund themselves because of the failure of this government to fund ongoing tourism development in the area. No wonder the Weatherill government gave us just 30 minutes to interrogate minister Gago on the state's tourism industry. It was clearly trying to save her from herself.

Then there was the hapless emergency services minister, Jennifer Rankine, trying to wriggle her way out of concerns from the CFS on the Cadell ferry. In estimates, she disclosed that she advised minister Conlon that closing the ferry would not have a big impact on the local community but, unbelievably, she never thought to pick up the phone and ask the CFS. In my opinion, no-one would know better than the local CFS brigades (and, for the information of those opposite, we have them at Cadell, Morgan and Waikerie) what impact this closure would have. Thank goodness that in the end common sense prevailed—and the people of Cadell did not even have to pay for tickets again to a fundraising dinner, unlike the management of the Keith hospital.

Can I go more generally to the issue of transport under these estimates. It is well known as a gaping black hole in the government of Jay Weatherill, and we have all watched Labor bungle and bumble its way through a myriad of issues, not once achieving an outcome let alone a satisfactory one. Does anyone remember On the Buses and Inspector Blakey?

Ms Chapman: Reg Varney.

Mrs REDMOND: Yes, that's right. We think about Chloe Fox's handling of the transport system—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs REDMOND: We did not even have a minister for bus timetables; we have one with this government. When we think about Chloe Fox's handling of this transport portfolio, never was her incompetence more on show than in budget estimates, where she was simply unable to answer most questions about our bus services but admitted that the government was receiving, on average, only 350 complaints or suggestions about public transport every day—350 complaints every day.

Furthermore, she admitted that she does not focus on these complaints. If she is not focused on this, what on earth is she doing? Of course, it is well known that this is a made-up portfolio—

Members interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: —because, as is being discussed across the chamber at the moment, the caucus over there votes on who is going to be in the ministry. They vote on who is going to be in the ministry, and the Premier's only choice on that side is where he puts each person who has been elected by the caucus into the ministry. He had to make one up: he had to make up a ministry for Chloe, so keen was he to have her as part of the team.

The SPEAKER: Order! I remind the Leader of the Opposition: she does not address members by their names but as 'minister' or by their electorates.

Mrs REDMOND: The Minister for Transport Services—

The SPEAKER: Thank you.

Mrs REDMOND: —was a completely made-up portfolio. I will not use the minister's name, but the Minister for Transport Services—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs REDMOND: There was no such portfolio as minister for bus timetables, but now there is. It is no wonder to me that the Premier did not actually want to have her. The minister clearly, in my view, does not have what it takes to be a minister of the Crown and, of course, it costs about $1½ million to $2 million a year to have that ministry; however, we will move on from Cadell.

Let us look at some of the other matters, such as the emergency and police issues. The emergency services minister displayed an uncanny ability for contradiction and lack of consultation. We were led to believe by Labor earlier this year that $36 million of funding was available for South Australian Computer Aided Dispatch (SACAD), but minister Rankine was adamant last week that the number was $33 million. So, which one is right? Who does not know what they are talking about and, most importantly, where is the missing $3 million?

Then came the bungling about budget cuts for police. Denying a $116 million cut during estimates, the minister, in fact, said, 'But you are just making up that figure. It is not in the budget.' What she failed to actually understand about her own budget was that there was an $88.6 million recurrent expenditure savings that SAPOL had to meet and that that was on top of $28 million in the 2012-13 budget savings. Now if you add $88 million and $28 million, guess what you get? $116 million! Yet the minister thought we were making it up just because we had managed to do the sums in her budget that she had not obviously managed. So she has obviously earned her place on the podium of ineptitude alongside certain other ministers. I think I can refer to minister Gago because she is only in this house (not this house when it is us, but this house the rest of the time).

Members interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: Yes, this house when it is not the house. Thanks to our estimates process—wonder that it is—the Minister for Emergency Services was like other ministers, able to keep our questions to a minimum through the Dorothy Dixers. Especially in the case of minister Rankine, she got Dorothy Dixers from her very own Michael Atkinson, the member for Croydon.

Ms BEDFORD: Point of order, Madam Speaker: government questions have a legitimate place in this whole process and I really object to them being referred to as Dorothy Dixers.

Mrs REDMOND: And the point of order was, Madam Speaker?

The SPEAKER: I am not quite sure what the point of order was.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! It is often a parliamentary tradition.

Mrs REDMOND: Could I point out to the member that in fact, given that the minister always had a long written detailed answer in response at the ready, it seems to me that it is a legitimate thing to refer to it as such. If you look up the dictionary, you will find that that is well known to be a Dorothy Dixer.

Ms Bedford interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Florey!

Mrs REDMOND: The member for Florey is wanting to be thrown out of this chamber so that she can meet with the member for Schubert as one of two people thrown out.

Ms Bedford interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Florey! The member for Florey will leave the chamber for five minutes.

The honourable member for Florey having withdrawn from the chamber:

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Ashford will go, too, if she does not keep quiet. I apologise to you, Leader of the Opposition, for the unruly behaviour. We will have some semblance of order now.

Mrs REDMOND: Apology accepted, Madam Speaker. After all those performances, though, perhaps the gold medal is best reserved for the health minister whose arrogance and disdain have swelled to new levels after a decade in government and more than six years in this portfolio. It was almost painful to listen to minister Hill skirt around the issues of rubbery finances, failed projects and mental health.

On the emergency department (ED) crisis at the Lyell McEwin Hospital, he advised that only 50 per cent of casualties are being seen within the nationally agreed four-hour time frame, which funnily enough means that there is a 50 per cent chance you will not be seen during that nationally agreed time frame, and of course that is nowhere near satisfactory. That puts the hospital's emergency department operations as one of the most stressed in the country.

Further, the minister confirmed that in 2011-12, in northern suburbs hospitals including the Lyell McEwin Hospital 21 per cent of emergency cases at the emergency department were not seen within the required 10 minutes and 41 per cent of urgent cases were not seen within the required 30 minutes. They are hardly encouraging statistics if you happen to live in the northern suburbs. Staff need better resources, better facilities, better equipment and more beds for them to do their job properly. Treating patients on the floor should not be an option. It was very clear from estimates that minister Hill is in dispute with doctors at a time when smooth relations are essential.

He also brushed aside concerns about acute mental health bed closures, adding to the overcrowding in the emergency departments. He said, 'I dispute the claim that the closure of these beds are having an impact.' It should be 'is having an impact' but Michael Atkinson was not there to correct him on that. Of course, neither minister Rankine as the corrections minister nor minister Hill as Minister for Health seemed to have got their head around the fact that the lady by the name of Jacqui who became the subject of so much discussion in the last couple of weeks is suffering from a diagnosed mental illness.

I tried to ask a question about it but they both still went on saying that she did not have a mental illness. The fact is that the bible of mental illness in this state is a thing called DSM; that is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. If you want to talk to a psychiatrist about it, they will explain it. If you go to our library, we have a copy of the most recent edition and in that you can look up whatever is wrong with you by looking up the diagnosis. For each thing—whether it is schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or depression, for example—that diagnostic—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: Incompetence, unfortunately, is not a mental disorder, so we cannot have them locked up. The thing about it is that each diagnosis is set out separately and the terms as to what constitutes a diagnosis of that particular illness are set out in there. I think the mistake that the two ministers have made is that, in referring to borderline personality disorder, they thought what it meant was that the person had a borderline case of something called personality disorder, which is not really a diagnosed mental illness.

In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual there is a thing called borderline personality disorder. Indeed, their own report states that poor Jacqui actually suffers from a very significant and serious form of that diagnosed mental illness. Neither minister seemed to get a hold on that throughout the whole discussion on that poor woman's situation. I am only thankful that eventually they came to their senses and realised that, no matter what the diagnosis and no matter what the circumstances, it was inappropriate, in the 21st century in this state, to have anyone chained to a bed for up to 20 hours a day as a way to secure them.

I recognise that that person needed to be secure from herself because there is a high tendency to self-harm with that particular illness, in fact they have a very high success rate with suicide attempts, which are very common with that illness, but in the 21st century we should not be handcuffing people to beds for 20 hours a day.

Back to other things. With winter here, I shudder to think how our health system is going to cope with the extra pressure and a minister who is, simply, in denial. There is the revelation of a sharp spike in code black violent incidents requiring security staff. At the Lyell McEwin, for example, code blacks rose from 892 to 1,224. That is an increase of 37 per cent in one year.

It is no wonder our doctors are worried about overcrowding. It is no wonder medical staff are resigning, burnt out by just trying to do their day's work, with no real government support. When we asked the minister to confirm the dollar value of the tender for security guards, or the increase in the security staff required, there was no confirmation. There is time for a strategy, and that is now; there is time for a proper approach, and that is now.

Minister Hill also failed to alleviate concerns about proposals to use shipping containers and ATCO-style huts to house mental health patients at James Nash House. Indeed, his answers came in his usual dismissive style. First, he told estimates that he is reviewing a $19 million plan for ten forensic beds to see if it could be turned into a 20-bed project. He then qualified that—when asked about the shipping container option—by saying:

We are thinking it through...which we hope to do pretty shortly, in the next few weeks, I will certainly make public announcements.

Quite frankly, I think the problem is that the government has decided it is going to adopt this stepping-down approach, which was recommended by Monsignor Cappo. That is all very well, but the mistake it is making is that instead of adding that on, it is trying to replace the acute care beds with stepping-down beds, when the reality is that we need to keep the acute care beds as well as have the stepping-down process.

How about answering the question, minister Hill? Are you going to use the old Labor approach of rack 'em, stack 'em and pack 'em for our mental health patients? If you are not, how are you planning to get twice the beds from the same money? It, again, sniffs of creative accounting by this government.

The cost of living and small business: it comes as no surprise that it has been virtually impossible to drag anything out of this government on cost of living issues. Minister Koutsantonis made suggestions regarding lowering energy costs. Quite frankly, it is downright laughable. Everyone one on this side of the house would remember Mike Rann promising lower electricity costs. Remember that? Before the 2002 election, the signed pledge that we were going to have lower electricity costs. Of course no-one on this side could forget minister Conlon's famous door snakes. Remember that? In fact, we should put a question on notice about how many door snakes are still in government storage—

Mr Goldsworthy: And light globes, wasn't it?

Mrs REDMOND: And light globes, yes. Now minister Koutsantonis has the idea that he is going to bring down power costs by giving every electorate office—are you ready for this—an energy toolkit to lend out to the community. The toolkit will contain (I hate to think) a digital thermometer, a compass and a stopwatch. It sounds more like we are going orienteering than fixing any energy costs. Up in Stirling, where it was 3° when I got home on Friday night, I cannot imagine how a digital thermometer, a compass and a stopwatch are actually going to help me to lower my energy costs or how I am going to persuade the people of my electorate, when I put a notice in my newsletter to say, 'Come and borrow the energy toolkit from me.'

Indeed, I have discovered on my new iPhone that in fact you have a compass there all the time; you just need to shake it around and it will tell you which way is north. That is what we are going to come up with—this laughable, ludicrous insult to the intelligence that we are going to have some improvement, but perhaps nothing more than demonstrating who the real tools are.

Let us not forget this government gave us the feed-in tariff. That is going to cost each household $114 next year and it has given us two electricity providers: one that works when the wind blows and the other on standby for when it does not. There was also minister Koutsantonis. Remember Tiger Airways? Remember we asked about Tiger Airways and the money that was being given by the government. Remember what minister Koutsantonis said? He said, 'No taxpayers' money from the $2.25 million will be lost.' But in estimates Treasurer Snelling revealed, 'I'm yet to make a determination about what is a reasonable amount for us to recover.'

When you start talking about recovering from organisations that have gone into receivership or who are just failing, it often seems to be that you get about 5¢ in the dollar—but that is to be awaited. Clearly, minister Koutsantonis was talking through his hat when he said nothing was going to be lost; no taxpayers' money would be lost—$2.25 million. The upshot of it at the moment is that neither minister Koutsantonis nor Treasurer Snelling can retrieve any of the money.

Small business is used to short shrift but news from estimates took this to a whole new level with revelations that the Minister for Small Business has only 6.5 full-time equivalents to administer Labor's one and only program to help the 142,000 small businesses in this state. The minister's own office has more than 11 advisers for the minister but he has one program called Opportunities for Small Business and it has 6.5 people. Out of 87,000 public servants in the state we can only afford 6.5 of them to actually help small business, which happens to be the backbone of the state's economy. If they had realised that we might not have got into this hole in the first place—but we have.

Then there is the issue of social justice—nothing really in the budget for the state's most vulnerable. No, I take that back. There was an improvement in funding for disability, although I will wait to see what happens because, on at least six occasions previously that I can recall, this government has said, 'We are going to provide a one-off piece of funding and that will remove the waiting list for the unfunded need in disability services, the unmet need.' Six times they have said 'We are going to fund that and we are going to get rid of that unmet need,' and six times they have failed to do so. They did make some promises that might help in the disability sector but bear in mind that we are now coming off such a low base, we are the poorest funded disability sector per head of population in the nation—but there is nothing unusual about that.

Estimates revealed that fewer than half of those who had applied for medical heating and cooling concessions (clearly people who are very unwell) had been denied access to relief from their power bills. Fewer than half have obtained the assistance that was promised. You remember that we made a promise about this. We introduced a policy on this side of the house and the government decided they had better copy it. It was one of those situations where Jay Weatherill said, 'Uh-oh, the polling is showing that this is popular. We better fix it up. We will come out and pinch the Liberal policy.'

They have also made a real mess of managing children in crisis, with a 15 per cent increase in the number of children living in holiday rentals and bed and breakfast hotels supposedly under state guardianship—a 15 per cent increase. We should be trying to remove all children from that situation and, instead of that, we have a 15 per cent increase. This is the wrong place for children in these situations to be accommodated. They have been told that by all sorts of experts and yet, instead of the situation being fixed, it has got markedly worse over just the last year. It is not good enough; children need care, not room service.

Regarding volunteers, minister Ian Hunter revealed in budget estimates that the Office for Volunteers will now be embedded in the Department of Communities and Social Inclusion. I am glad that the original minister for volunteers, the Hon. Iain Evans, is in the chamber, because it was his idea to have a minister for volunteers in the first place. Many of us on this side of the chamber have spent most of our lives as volunteers. We know the importance of volunteers in the community. The last thing you would want to do is embed that into a department as large as families and communities, now known as the Department of Communities and Social Inclusion.

I take members back to the department of families and communities, as it was then called. When the government came in, in its first year it engaged Robyn Layton, who was subsequently made a justice of the Supreme Court and has more recently retired to do other things, very much a lady with a social conscience. It engaged her to do a report. Some of the longer serving members will recall that she came back with a report. It was commissioned in the first year, and she came back with that, I reckon, about early 2003. Part of that report was that she basically said, 'We need to do a workload analysis, because this department seems a bit dysfunctional.'

They engaged some consultants towards the end of 2003 to do the workload analysis, and a few weeks later the consultants came back, almost cross eyed and tearing their hair out, saying, 'We can't actually do the analysis you engaged us to do, so dysfunctional is this department.' What they ended up doing was getting a report which looked at what was wrong as far as they could tell in the department, and they knew back then that the major things were that one-quarter of the people in the department were in their first year as social workers—one-quarter of them—and they were overburdened because of all the reporting that was going on.

Indeed, one-half of them were in their first two years post graduation. On top of that, the department had people who were a bit older who were completely burnt out because the system was grinding them down. Instead of addressing that, they have just made that department bigger and more dysfunctional and added more into it over the years. Then they said, 'Okay, now let's put the volunteers into that.' So instead of having a separation of volunteers and recognising that volunteers are such an important part of our community, we are actually going to manage them through the department of families and communities.

I have always been suspicious of this government and the way they deal with volunteers. I have been suspicious ever since they signed a little pact with volunteers and they had SA Unions sign it. You have to ask yourself why on earth SA Unions was engaged in signing a compact with the volunteers. What do they have to do with it? My view is that they do not actually like volunteers very much; they want to make them all into employees and union members. I have always been highly suspicious of this government in the way they want to deal with volunteers.

When I came into this place, the budget was somewhat smaller, but I remember that at that time the value of the work done by volunteers in our community here was roughly equivalent to one-quarter of the whole of the state's budget. That was even on a fairly limited estimation. I am sure that, if you actually added up the cost on an hourly basis of all the volunteer work done in this community, you would find that it is a massive amount of money, and that if they suddenly all withdrew their services the state would literally collapse. That would happen if we did not have the volunteers, not just the CFS and the Meals on Wheels and all those other people who contribute tirelessly to all the sporting organisations. Everything that is actually working in this state largely is done by the volunteers.

Mr Williams: I see the Minister for Finance is doing his homework; he has a book about Greece.

Mrs REDMOND: Oh good, the Minister for Finance is doing his homework with a book about Greece. Excellent! That is probably the place to look if you want to see the slope we are on.

The value of the work done by volunteers in this state was about $4 billion. Embedding the Office for Volunteers in that department is likely to neglect the amount of attention given to the creation of important projects and initiatives which aim to attract people to volunteering roles. I bring your attention to the recent report about the CFS and how the number of volunteers in that organisation has significantly declined.

Why is it declining? Because of the stupid rules they have. They do not fund it well enough so that people who come along and want to become CFS members can get the uniforms they require. Then, of course, we had the fiasco with the uniforms that needed an extra strip of reflective material; they had to get rid of those instead of getting someone to sew on an extra strip of reflective material—but that is typical of this government.

I will move on to the next topic, that is, water. We have been trying to get answers for months about issues surrounding water, but all we have had is obfuscation from this government. We only got one hour to ask them about water, and that was to be half an hour on the Department for Water, which includes the River Murray, and half an hour for SA Water, which obviously is not enough time for two large and important agencies of government.

I understand that our estimates process this year involved not only having the usual Dorothy Dixers inflicted on us but I understand that overall we had some nine or ten hours fewer allocated for budget estimates but, at the end of the day, does it really make any difference if you are not getting answers for nine hours or 13 hours? We have been after answers to some questions for some time, and we have asked them in question time as well. I am sure that my deputy here, who asked questions about it today, got no more satisfaction than he has on previous occasions.

The Productivity Commission has now made it very plain in its report that they were wrong to go for a 100-gigalitre desalination plant, that all that that has done is add extra expense and that we will never, in the foreseeable future—the next 50 years at least—need anything more than a 50-gigalitre plant at most, so we have added cost there and, of course, the wonderful former premier insisted that it have green energy, so we will pay even more for the energy.

Then we found out a couple of other things we had been trying to get some answers on. Firstly, obviously when you have salt water you need to make sure your pipes are not going to corrode. We understand that the desal plant was to be built with—surprise, surprise—stainless steel pipes but, with some cost cutting and corner cutting, we ended up with a desal plant where the pipes were galvanised with some stainless steel lining. The only trouble is that they have already been failing and they already have to be replaced.

The other thing was that they did not get to first water on time. First water is the point at which the machinery is actually in place and starting to produce, and it is a particular trigger point under the contract. The contract said, 'You have to get to that point by a certain date.' They did not get there—they did not get there even a year later, as I understand it, from their original date.

Mr Williams: It was about a year.

Mrs REDMOND: About a year later. They did not get to their original date, and there was to be a penalty under the contract for failing to get to the date with first water. When that happened, the government originally said, 'Well, they are going to pay the penalty for that.' But then somehow, in the last week or two, they turned around and said, 'We have settled all of that,' and we are still trying to get answers from the government as to exactly what that means.

We suspect it means that the people did not pay any penalty at all, that in fact they have all the money that they were ever going to get under the contract, notwithstanding that they breached the terms of the contract and failed to produce first water by the date they said they would produce it. There are a couple of explanations, one of which of course is that the contract was so incompetently vetted or drawn by the government that they could not enforce the terms of the contract; the other I am bewildered about.

As I have said many times, estimates should be about accountability, and I have made the point on numerous occasions. I take no issue with the government's right to run the budget of the state. They are absolutely entitled as the government to spend the public money as they see fit, but they are supposed to be accountable to the public for the way they spend it, and it is not just a matter of being accountable every four years at the election.

The opposition on behalf of the public has the right to ask questions and have the right to have explained to them the detail of the estimates process, but what it has done is basically reduce the time and have Dorothy Dixers. They have basically obfuscated and said that they will come back with answers, and in every possible, imaginable way avoided providing decent answers to perfectly reasonable questions.

One of the most startling things, of course, that came out during estimates—and I know that the shadow treasurer did media on it that day—was an admission from particularly minister O'Brien that it would be completely out of order for the government to use public servants during the caretaker period before an election to cost the opposition's policies or comment on or criticise the opposition's policies.

However, in fact, during estimates we got this admission, because, of course, earlier it had been revealed that minister Hill's office had emailed the health department and received a written brief—not from actual experts in the field but from bureaucrats within the health department—on the costings of the Liberal Party's plan regarding the upgrade of the existing Royal Adelaide Hospital. Furthermore, they had questions answered on that about that policy during the caretaker period, and when asked why, minister Hill said that the reason was, and I quote—this is minister Hill's response:

It was blindingly obvious: so that we could find out the cost of the propositions the Liberal Party were putting to the public of South Australia.

Well, that is fine to go and find them but you are not allowed to use public servants to do it. That is the point. That is what the caretaker period is about—absolutely out of order to do it—and minister Hill might not understand it but honest Michael O'Brien obviously does. In fact, in estimates the head of Treasury, Brett Rowse was asked whether the minister could do that, and his answer was, and I quote:

You do not discuss those issues with the government of the day when you are costing and examining the opposition's policies.

That is what he said. Then he was asked, just to make clear:

So if minister O'Brien's office wanted to ask questions about our policy during the caretaker period that would be off limits. You could not go there because that would be against the protocol?

And Brett Rowse replied, 'I believe that to be the case, yes.' Absolutely unequivocal. That senior Treasury official understood, minister O'Brien understood, yet minister Hill—

Mr Williams: And the Premier.

Mrs REDMOND: And, indeed, the Premier, my deputy reminds me. The Premier also stood up and confessed and seems to not understand what the problem is with their behaviour—that this is totally unethical and against the protocol and not allowed under the rules, but it does not seem to matter to them that they just break the rules. Sadly, the whole estimates process confirmed what we already knew about this government. It showed yet again that it is mired in financial mismanagement, coupled with blunders and arrogance.

Mr Venning: Not a business brain amongst them.

Mrs REDMOND: Well, no, honest Michael O'Brien probably has a business brain. Remember, he was the one who said, 'Well, actually, we're borrowing money to pay the public servants, and if you were in business you couldn't actually do that. It's unsustainable in the long term.' Remember? The bank would close you off. Remember? That was honest Michael O'Brien. It also showed that backflips have become de rigueur for a government that made an ill-thought out decision and then hit the panic button the minute it found out. The ministers, junior and senior, are hopelessly out of their depth and clearly not across their portfolios.

Premier Wortley—'premier Wortley', heaven forbid; you shouldn't put that name in my head. Premier Weatherill has learnt to stay out of sight, only popping his head out when it is a good news announcement. The people of South Australia have had enough of this ramshackle style of government where the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing, where there is breathtaking disregard of accountability and where transparency and honesty in government have quite simply become dirty words.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (17:14): I want to make a contribution to the debate about the reports of the estimates committees and wish to endorse the comments of my leader. I will then touch on the areas for which I had responsibility, which were the Treasury and Finance sections of the estimates committees. I think it is telling about the management of this government that, after 10 years, what they have delivered to the people of South Australia is the highest debt and the highest deficit in the state's history. The economic performance and budget performance of this government have not improved over the 10-year period.

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: At the 10-year mark, as the leader quite rightly interjects, the budget performance of this government is at its worst. We have a budget deficit for the 2012-13 year of near enough to $900 million; the year after that it is near enough to $800 million. This government is delivering, by its own budget, six deficits in seven years with a net operating balance, and the Treasurer admitted in the estimates committee that the $187 million surplus in the election year was on the back of extra revenue from the commonwealth.

If you take out the extra revenue from the commonwealth, you can essentially say that over that seven-year period we have been running a deficit every year. Then if you go to the net lending balance you are actually running deficits in eight years out of eight. This government, as the Hon. Michael O'Brien said, has been borrowing money to pay Public Service wages. I rely on minister O'Brien's comment on that particular issue. The truth is that the budget position has never been worse. Our debt position, of course, has now increased to where this government is looking at a debt of over $13,000 million.

The average punter out there is going to be paying significantly increased water charges, taxes and charges to pay the interest cost on that debt, and the interest cost is around $832 million in the year 2015-16 into the forward estimates, or around $2.3 million every single day. The reason people's cost of living is so high in South Australia—make no mistake about it—is that this government has driven up the debt and driven up the interest payments. They have to recoup the interest payments from somewhere, so they recoup the interest payments from the taxpayer, through general taxes and charges.

General taxes and charges have gone up, over the term of this government, at twice the rate of inflation for the decade. Bit by bit, the household gets squeezed and, bit by bit, business gets squeezed because of this government's budget incompetence. The reality is that the householder is getting squeezed bit by bit. You only have to look at the water prices to see the impact. There has been a 249 per cent increase in water prices. This is from a government who runs out and bleats that it cares about the cost of living. It is this government's own incompetence that has delivered a 249 per cent increase in water prices.

Its own incompetence delivered that through the desalination plant where the Productivity Commission has now said that we do not need a 100 gigalitre desalination plant and, in fact, even a 50 gigalitre desalination plant would not be used for many years to come. So, for purely political reasons, they have delivered a huge cost of living impost on ordinary South Australians out there. Then they deliver a water rebate for one year, when the price of water is going to go up every year.

Then we went to the issue in the estimates committee about the cost to the state of losing the AAA credit rating. This is a miraculous piece of information here because, when the Treasurer wanted to go out and tell the state that it would not matter, that it only costs $2 million to $4 million a year if you lost the AAA credit rating, somewhere in Treasury someone could make that calculation for him.

When the head of the Economic Development Board waltzed out to The Advertiser and said that the Economic Development Board had calculated that the loss of the AAA credit rating was only going to be $2 million to $4 million, someone in Treasury had calculated that for him. We FOI'd all the documents, and guess what: there is no document with that calculation on it—not for the Economic Development Board, anyway. There is a one line email from a public servant suggesting a figure. So we asked the Treasurer, 'How much it is going to cost us if we lose the AAA credit rating, given the debt is significantly increasing to over $13 billion?' The answer to that was, 'Well, it is a bit hard to calculate; there are too many variables, but don't worry, it's already built into the budget.' Well, if it is built into the budget and the public servants could calculate it when the minister wants to run a low figure, they can do the real calculation now.

What we do know is that, when Queensland lost its AAA credit rating under a Labor government up there, it was an extra cost to the taxpayer of $200 million a year in extra interest—$200 million a year extra interest. In New South Wales, on the very day we lost our AAA credit rating here, the government introduced legislation to protect the AAA credit rating because they estimated $375 million a year extra cost.

So it is amazing, isn't it? Queensland Treasury can estimate the cost of losing the AAA credit rating, New South Wales' Treasury could calculate the cost of losing the AAA credit rating, but the South Australian Treasury cannot seem to calculate the cost of losing the AAA credit rating when the opposition asks them about it. The reason for that is, I have no doubt, the Treasurer does not want to come out and tell South Australians that it is a damned sight more than $2 million to $4 million a year.

If you pro rata the cost down, as the Financial Review did, pro rata the debt down to the cost compared to Queensland's and New South Wales' debt, the cost becomes around $22 million a year in extra interest costs because of the AAA credit rating. And that is $22 million you cannot spend on schools hospitals, disabilities, or even tax relief for the long-suffering taxpayers of this state. But the Treasurer will not bring out the figure.

Then, of course, what we find out during estimates is: guess which state is paying the highest level of interest on its debt? It is South Australia. And how do we know that? The Queensland Commission of Audit produced a report, released it in the last fortnight. Go to page 23 of that report and there it is in black and white for all to see: Queensland pays a higher level of interest on its debt than every state except South Australia. So South Australia, having lost its AAA credit rating, is now paying the highest level of interest on our debt.

We asked the Treasurer, 'When we will get back our AAA credit rating?' because the last time the Labor Party lost it took us 12 years to get it back—I think, from memory, 1993 to 2004; 12 years, near enough. It took 12 years to get it back and to do that a whole range of assets was offloaded off the balance sheet to reduce the debt, to bring down the appropriate ratios. When we asked the Treasurer, 'How long this time?' the answer was, No idea.' Essentially, they have not put a target on it, sometime out in the future.

The reason that question is important is that Moody's put out a document about South Australia's credit rating, and within that document it says that South Australia is going to refinance 73 per cent of its debt in the next five years. What that means is that we will be refinancing at a higher rate, because we have a AA+ instead of a AAA. Had we had a AAA, the markets would have reacted differently. Whatever the rate is going to be over that five year period, we are refinancing 73 per cent of the state debt over the next five years. Is there a worse time for the state to lose its AAA credit rating in a five-year period when you are about to refinance your debt over that period? They were the issues that came out in part during the estimate committees.

I just want to touch on the issue that the leader touched on, and that is the unsustainable position of the Minister for Health in relation to his office's use of public servants during the caretaker period to gain information about the costings of the Liberal Party documents. You might recall that the health minister told the parliament that:

Governments in caretaker...can ask for costings of the policy of the alternative government. Without this principle...the costings of the opposition could not be verified, and that will only lead to less transparency and a worse result for the citizens of our state.

The health minister told the parliament that it was blindingly obvious why he had used the public servants during the caretaker period to find out information about the Liberal Party policy—because:

I would have thought it was blindingly obvious: so that we could find out the cost of the proposition the Liberal Party was putting to the public of SA.

He also told the parliament, 'What it was about, I am sure, under my direction'—that is, the minister's direction—'was to find out what the cost of your policies were so the public were better informed.' Let's make no mistake about it: the Minister for Health told the parliament that the reason his office would use public servants to get information about Liberal Party policy during the caretaker period was so that they could attack it on the costing basis during the election campaign.

Of course, we have the documents released under FOI. There is a six or seven-page minute from Mr David Panter, dated 4 March, in the middle of the caretaker period. We have a number of emails dated 1 March from the minister's office, from various staff to the department, seeking information about the policy. I asked the head of Treasury and the Minister for Finance: can the government use public servants to analyse, or even discuss, the opposition's policies during the caretaker period? This is the question to minister O'Brien:

What is Mr Rowse's understanding of the protocol? Could he ring up and discuss our policy, or email and talk to the government of the day about our policy during the caretaker period?

Mr Rowse is brought to the microphone, and responds:

I have worked at the commonwealth level, Victorian government level and South Australian government level and it is quite common practice in the lead-up to elections for agencies to prepare incoming government briefs for both sides of politics so that an incoming government has adequate briefing on implementing its policies once it is elected. So, everything that the Department of Treasury and Finance in South Australia did in the context of the run-up to the 2010 state election was consistent with those sorts of policies and programs.

He continues:

You do not discuss those issues with the government of the day when you are costing and examining the opposition's (at that time) policies. You prepare a briefing in case that party is elected at that time and there is a briefing ready for the next day once the government is elected.

To clarify the position, I asked another question:

Your answer is that this happens in other governments—that is your experience—and the protocol says that you cannot discuss it with the current government during the caretaker period. If minister O'Brien's office wanted to ask questions about our policy during the caretaker period, that would be off limits? You could not go there because that would be against the protocol?

Mr Rowse says, 'I believe that to be the case...' I am not criticising the Department of Treasury and Finance on this issue because they did not provide the information to the minister's office. I am highly critical of minister Hill and his office, I think, whose office has breached the protocol, and the department people involved, because there is a trail of emails during the caretaker period where the taxpayers, the public servants, are asking a series of questions about a Liberal Party policy during the caretaker period.

The minister says that is quite all right and you can use the Public Service to cost the alternative government's policies during the election; that is what the minister told the house. I went to the head of the costing agency; I went to the head of Treasury. They would know a little bit about costing policies; they would know a bit about it. What the head of Treasury says is, 'You simply can't do it.'

Here we have a government that has no standards. It has no standards because it has a minister who, by any measure, in my view, has breached that convention. His office has been seeking information about Liberal Party policy during the caretaker period, and I am furious that the public servants responded to those emails and gave information about the Liberal Party policy during that time. The correct procedure was what Treasury did.

The government cannot have it both ways: you cannot have two positions on the one protocol, you cannot have two positions on the one caretaker convention and you cannot have two positions on the one Ministerial Code of Conduct. Michael O'Brien, when he was asked, said there were ethical considerations as to why it did not come up. In other words, the treasurer—and Kevin Foley was treasurer at the time—is on the record as saying that he thought it was inappropriate to receive the information during the caretaker period. So Kevin Foley did not get the information and did not ask for it, and the head of Treasury did not provide it. But go to the health department and what do we have? We have a trail of emails from the minister to the health office, by his own admission and under his authority. That is what he told the house. Then you have the department answering it back up.

Now, good old Jay, the white charger, came in as the Premier and he was going to set the new standard. The Premier told the house that he had checked this out and that it was all okay. Well, I invite the Premier to go back and see what the head of Treasury said. The head of Treasury said that what the health department did, and what the minister of health's office did, simply cannot be done.

I will tell you why this is important: what it says to the public servants and the ministers is that if what the minister for health's office did, if that does not matter, then at the next election we will have 15 ministerial officers emailing down into the government departments during the caretaker period, getting all the opposition's policies costed or, indeed, the faults of the policies analysed by the department during the caretaker period. Does anyone think that is the way the process is meant to work? Clearly, it is not.

It is a nonsense that a government can think that it can use the Public Service during the caretaker period to analysis the opposition's policies. The minister says, 'I wasn't asking their opinion; I was just asking for a fact.' Really? So he can email down and say, 'Is it a fact that there is a costing error with the Liberal Party policy?' He can ask that question, can he, and ask for a fact? I do not think so. It is a nonsense.

The Minister for Health's position is simply unsustainable. It is unsustainable, and someone needs to go to the Minister for Health and ask him a very simply question: 'How is that the head of Treasury says you can't do what your office did?' Does anyone on that side of the house really think that at the next election they are going to have 15 ministers sitting there burrowing down into the Public Service, at taxpayers' expense, getting answers about the opposition's policies during the caretaker period? It is a nonsense. That position is simply unsustainable.

The head of Treasury has blown the whistle. Let us not forget that the head of Treasury has not worked for one government, he has not worked for two governments: he has worked for three governments. In every single one of those governments his understanding of the protocol is that what the Minister for Health did is simply off limits. It cannot be done.

The problem for this government is that it has no standard. You only have to look at the issue with Cadell. The whole cabinet sat there and signed off on the Cadell issue. The whole cabinet sat there and signed off on it—and there was not a bleep. It was not until the Cadell people took the fight to the government that they backed down—and good on the people of Cadell. But where was the cabinet? Where was the guts in cabinet to say no to the decision in the first place?

The government thought it could stick the knife into another regional community and it simply would not matter. Well, the regions are sick of this government sticking the knife into them. Look at the Keith hospital. They had to fight for three years just to keep their hospital—for the sake of what, $320,000? Cadell was fighting for a measly $400,000, which is just five hours' interest on the debt. It is tea and biscuit money for this government. And the government made that community go through all that angst because no-one at the cabinet table had the brains or the guts to say no. The problem with this government is that it has no standards.

Time expired.

Mr PISONI (Unley) (17:34): I would like to speak on the estimates process and the experience I had on that committee. I have to say that I had prepared many questions for the education minister because I remember her performance last year when she was minister for Aboriginal affairs, multicultural affairs, volunteers, and youth. I think the total collection of her responsibility was about $20 million. But she was absolutely fearless in her estimates. There were no Dorothy Dixers from the other side, she attempted to answer the questions, and I had free rein to ask her questions when it came to questions on Youth, in particular, that I was handling for our Upper House spokesperson in that chamber. I though, 'Well, this is a minister who obviously knows her stuff; she will be fearless again and she will be happy to take questions.'

But what did I find when I arrived at the estimates committee? Not only did we have an opening statement that was longer than the accepted 10 minutes, we then had a very strict regime of Dorothy Dixers after questions from the opposition. I have to say, there was no opportunity for the opposition to examine questions in detail with the minister, because as soon as we got to three questions, it was thrown over to the other side for Dorothy Dixers with very long and prepared answers from the minister. These answers were read into Hansard, and I am sure that the minister had no idea as to what she was reading into Hansard; she was certainly not aware of the details of the answers that she was giving.

I think that is clear because, when she came across questions of mine that she found difficult—for example, a month ago, the minister was asked in the media about the fact that a contractor for the Department for Education and Child Development had been arrested for child pornography charges in March last year, which was around about the same time that the unnamed Labor person was charged. That person went on to continue working as a contractor for the education department until his conviction in March this year.

When I asked I asked about the screening process—the entrusted person process—the minister continued with the claims she made on radio that he was not working with children, so it was not necessary. Let me just inform the house that the Department for Education and Child Development has a publication entitled 'Screening and criminal history checks policy guidelines', and those policy guidelines make it very clear.

On page 3, the document describes an 'Entrusted person'. There are no different categories of entrusted persons; an entrusted person is, in other words, a person who performs duties for the department of education. An entrusted person is:

Any individual who works, trains or volunteers in an organisation where their position is defined as:

(a) working with or in close proximity to children and young people—

Now, that was the minister's argument: that it did not really matter, and was not that serious, because this person was not doing that. It then goes on—

(b) having access to records relating to children and young people or

(c) contributing to policy or decisions affecting children and young people in education and care environments

(d) supervising or managing persons who work with or in close proximity to children and young people

(e) a position defined under legislation as requiring a criminal history check

All of those areas, except for working in close proximity to children, as far I understand, with the information that we have so far, apply to this person who was charged with and then found guilty of accessing child pornography.

And yet the minister is convinced, with her arguments both here in the chamber and in the media, that it is a different set of circumstances if people have direct access to children. However, her own guidelines tell us that the circumstances are exactly the same, whether that person is working with children, have access to records relating to children, or contributing to policy. How do we know this person was contributing to policy? There is a document here that was easily available on the department's own website, a report to the regional executive about early years development.

The purpose of the forum at eastern Adelaide region early years includes opportunities and professional learning dialogue and networking for all staff, birth to age 8. Another heading in this policy work that was developed with the offender in partnership was phonological awareness and regional professional learning opportunities, again working with young minds and young people. This is the sort of work this person was doing for the education department. Again, the department's own screening and criminal history checks in the trusted persons' guidelines say that that person should not have been working for the department.

What was the minister's excuse? Well, that he should have told us that he was arrested with child porn charges. In other words, the minister's defence was that her department did everything right because it was up to the honesty of the person charged and arrested for child porn to tell the department that they had been charged with child sex offences. So, in other words, with somebody doing a very dishonest act, which they know is against the law and they know will cost them their job, it was their responsibility, according to the minister.

It was not the minister's responsibility to have a relationship with the police so the department would be advised when such people were charged and arrested with such offences. No; it had nothing to do with the police and her department, but it was to do with this fellow who was participating in and was arrested for such activity, and it was up to him to tell the department what he was up to. The honesty policy obviously is not working in the Department of Education and Child Development.

It was interesting that we had a Dorothy Dixer to the minister about the family unit at Rose Park. Because of the complete block-out of access to the minister by the organised Dorothy Dixers, I could not get to this question in estimates in response to what the minister said but, yes, there was bipartisan support to find a solution for the family unit in Rose Park, but we did not support the $1.2 million spent in the Felixstow property. We do not support the bus that goes to Rose Park Primary School every day to pick up about eight students to take them to the family unit. We do not support the fact that the family unit has resources far and above funding to other schools, including some of our most disadvantaged schools.

The amount of money per student that is spent, with an enrolment of around about 30 students: we have a principal on PS05 and three other teachers, guaranteed regardless of enrolments. No other school has that privilege. Even the Cadell Primary School was at risk of losing a teacher if they lost two students because of the ferry closure—even the Cadell Primary School—yet this minister has spent $1.2 million of taxpayers' money on moving a school that is a dinosaur, a relic of the 1980s.

FOI documents revealed that it had NAPLAN results lower than some of our most difficult schools. This is a school in Rose Park, because of its pedagogy, its philosophy. There are even reports of family unit children defecating from trees on other students. Yet this minister decides this is a priority for education funding here in South Australia—a school for middle-class parents who have every option in the world to send their kids to any school in the eastern suburbs or elsewhere, whether it be private or public, being subsidised and paid for by taxpayers of South Australia.

It is interesting that it was more than six years ago that this government promised that every school bus would have seatbelts. We now know that it will be at least 2016 before we see that delivered for our regional students in South Australia. Six thousand students today still travel to school on old buses without seatbelts and without air conditioning, six years after that promise was made. It will be another four years before it is even budgeted to be delivered, yet the family unit gets a department-funded bus for about eight students from Rose Park to Felixstow. So, you can see what the priorities of this government are.

This minister always boasts about the extra money that is going into education every year, but in the last two years we have seen an increase of about $120 million into the education budget. The education budget remains about the same size now as what it was when this government came to office. Around 24½ per cent of the budget was spent on education when this government came to office and it is about that same figure today. However, what the minister does not say when she boasts about the extra money going into education is that last year alone $298 million was required just to meet the requirements of the 2010 enterprise bargaining agreement with the Australian Education Union. So, in actual fact, we are seeing fewer resources per outcome going into education in South Australia.

Do not forget that we are in the cycle where we are seeing the cuts that were implemented by Jay Weatherill in his first year as education minister now coming into play, with the forced amalgamations, cuts to numeracy and literacy programs, cuts to new arrival programs and cuts to bus services for new arrival programs, particularly in the western suburbs. I know that is making it difficult for many new arrivals who must now either spin a line about their child's age or try to find alternative accommodation to get to a school that caters for the fact that they have very poor language skills. We know how important it is for students to be able to speak English in order to move ahead in their new home in South Australia. Again, the government has its priorities wrong when it comes to education outcomes in South Australia.

When talking about education, I cannot go past the fact that during the estimates process this government conceded that they have done no work about the funding that this state will require if the Gonski recommendations for an extra $5 billion per annum are put into the education system in Australia. I can tell you now that, on my calculations, South Australia's share will be $245 million a year, yet we have seen real cuts of over $100 million from schools themselves in the education budget over the last couple of years.

I also note that the minister has conveniently ignored the importance that David Gonski placed on teacher quality when it comes to better educational outcomes and how, over the last 10 years, standards have slipped in education in Australia when it comes to Australia's position with our near neighbours. Also, the distance between those in our more difficult suburbs where I grew up, in the northern suburbs, and those in the leafy suburbs, is greater. The children of people living in the leafy suburbs are getting better outcomes with education than those children in our more difficult suburbs—generally the suburbs that are represented by the Labor Party; people that have been deserted by Labor over the years.

We cannot go past the fact that in the last 10 years we have seen a drift of 13,000 students from the public system to the private system. The biggest percentage drop in public school enrolments in mainland Australia is happening right here in South Australia. You have to ask yourself: what outcomes is this government delivering when we are seeing those sorts of figures? Poor NAPLAN results—the NAPLAN results are the worst every year since NAPLAN has begun and last year we did not even hit the national average in any category. We went backwards in 14 out of 20 categories while those states that were bouncing below us four years ago are now improving in NAPLAN scores right across categories.

Queensland and Western Australia, in particular, have implemented targeted and strategised NAPLAN plans for their students and we have seen significant results—14 out of 20 category improvements in Western Australia alone and dramatic increases in year 3 numeracy and literacy in Queensland—but here in South Australia, we have gone backwards in those key areas. There is nothing more important than reading and writing, and it is very difficult to learn about other cultures, about science, about community and society if you cannot read, write and add up.

These are core, fundamental, basic rights when it comes to education. It is no wonder that we are seeing a dramatic increase in the number of unauthorised absences in our schools in South Australia where we have 48,000 students who are not attending for 10 days or more per term in South Australia. It is disengagement. Of course, the government will point to the enrolments and say, 'Look at our enrolments,' but the facts are that those children are not attending school. Some 23,000 of those students are away without any reason—a dramatic increase on figures from just six years ago, and they are the government's own figures.

I would like to move to the area of employment and further education. We have had some extraordinary claims by this government over the years about their job creation. A hundred thousand new jobs—remember that cry just before the last election? A hundred thousand new jobs in six years: we found out today in estimates that there was no advice from the department of employment for the government to make that claim. We can see now that that was a promise that was made without any intention of delivering it, because the government's own budget papers and the government's own admissions say that that figure is now more likely to be 62,000 jobs over six years. It is a dramatic decrease—more than a 30 per cent decrease—in the promise that was made by this government.

The facts are that since the government made that promise, there is not a single extra full-time job here in South Australia. The only growth in jobs in South Australia since that promise has been in part-time jobs—not full-time work, but part-time work. We can understand why, when businesses are struggling under a very high tax regime here in South Australia. We have the highest taxes in the nation and the budget papers again confirm that. We have very high business-type taxes. We have payroll tax that cuts in at a low payroll figure compared to other states.

We thought we got off to a good start after the election when the government copied the Liberal Party policy in abandoning payroll tax calculations for apprentices and trainees, but we actually saw that that was removed in this budget without consultation. That again was confirmed in the budget estimates today. There was no confirmation with the industry about what impact that might have on training, when this Premier was in Canberra just two weeks ago at a training summit boasting about how important training is to South Australia.

We see a key element—a cost to training that was removed—now being placed back onto employers here in South Australia. We know it is particularly in those early years of training, when you have to take somebody off the job to help with an apprentice, that it becomes very expensive. It is at that time when the employer needs help to be able to deliver training for their apprentices.

Time expired.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. M.F. O'Brien.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT