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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-06-27 Daily Xml
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APPROPRIATION BILL 2012

Estimates Committees

Adjourned debate on motion:

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

(Continued from 26 June 2012.)

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (11:43): I will not be the only person to make this sort of comment, and it is not the first time I have made this sort of comment: that the estimates process is significantly lacking. It is a farce, because estimates should be about the accountability of government. It should be an opportunity for the parliament to go through the budget line by line and get an understanding of how the executive government is spending the taxpayers' money. That does not occur in our estimates.

Let me give an example of one of the experiences I had this week. I walked into one of the estimate committees and the budget line was on veterans' affairs. Veterans' affairs is basically a commonwealth function, but we do have a small veterans' affairs office at the state level. I think it has four full-time equivalents who operate in the office. It has a budget of some $700,000. The budget line is contained within one page of the budget, yet one hour of the committee's time was dedicated to veterans' affairs.

I went into the committee with the Minister for Water (amongst other things), who is also responsible for SA Water. The Department for Water budget line takes 26 pages of the budget, which includes expenditure of some $148 million. I had 30 minutes to ask questions on all of those budget lines. Similarly with SA Water. SA Water is currently in the process of delivering the biggest government project ever built in South Australia: the desal plant, and I had half an hour to ask questions.

The Minister for Water also took Dorothy Dix questions from the back bench of his own party and he made a lengthy statement, which ate into those two half-hour segments. It is a farce. I had dozens of questions that I would like to have asked the minister. Notwithstanding that we never get answers, the reality is that it is a flawed process and it is time that the parliament addressed it. It is time that we did something about it and came up with a much better process. Might I suggest that we look to the commonwealth government process, where the Senate members actually ask questions of the bureaucrats (not of the ministers) on the budget lines. That gets some of the politics out of it.

I will now turn to some of the matters raised in the committees in which I was involved. First, in the minerals area, minister Koutsantonis is responsible for minerals and energy, for which I am the shadow minister. Again, minister Koutsantonis made a 10 to 15 minute opening statement which ate into the hour, but he did not take questions from his own side, which I did appreciate. I want to comment on some of the remarks he made in his opening statement.

He said that there had been a 38 per cent increase in the minerals industry between 2010 and the current year, 2011-12. I will just remind the house that that was the year when Olympic Dam had a problem with the Clark shaft. An accident involving a malfunction in the Clark shaft resulted in production dropping dramatically that year. So, I think it is a bit disingenuous for the minister to compare the current year with the year when our state's major mine was operating at about 25 per cent capacity.

I was also surprised that the minister would not even acknowledge that BHP may well be impacted by things like the commonwealth's mineral resources rent tax and carbon tax, both of which will impact greatly on companies like BHP. BHP Billiton, as a business, relies very heavily on the iron ore and coal parts of its business. Both those sections of its business will be impacted greatly by the minerals resources rent tax and by the carbon tax, particularly the coal sector.

The minister is right in saying that the mineral resources rent tax will not apply to its operation at Olympic Dam and the expansion project, but it does impact on its ability to fund that particular expansion, and it obviously will impact on its decision-making process. The minister would not even acknowledge that. We all know that the minister is simply playing politics there. If he is not, if he seriously does not believe that it is going to impact on BHP Billiton's decision-making, he should not be the minister responsible for mining because he is so far out of touch with the reality.

We talked about the agency's ability to give timely permitting, and the minister, as he should, defended his agency. However, one of the minister's officers pointed out to him that, in this budget, they were going to appoint another 15 regulators. So, they were going to increase the number of people actually doing the work of permitting and regulating the mining sector—15 more full-time equivalents. That says to me that there must have been a problem, and it confirms the issues that the opposition raised with the minister: that we are getting stories back from industry that there are problems with delays in permitting.

I spent a few days on Eyre Peninsula recently with my colleague the member for Flinders. One of the things that we identified was that there was a huge opportunity for the regulator (the department) to have people in the field over there working with the local community as they are going through a massive change. A series of communities which are basically rural, farming communities are now being intruded upon by the mining sector.

There are huge changes and there is, I think, a great opportunity for the regulator to be over there working with those people, easing their fears and helping them to work through the changes and the issues they are facing. I hope, with 15 more regulators going to be put into the agency, that the agency becomes more proactive in that field.

We then went on to energy in that committee, and there were some interesting things there. The minister made another opening statement, which again ate into the time allotted for the committee, and that goes back to my opening comments. He said that one of the government's responses to rising energy costs is that it has developed a home energy toolkit.

This smacks of what we had under one of the previous ministers of this government in the energy field. We all remember the door snakes. The minister had a warehouse full of door snakes—I do not know what the government spent on it, but it was all taxpayers' money—which were supposed to cut people's energy costs.

The Hon. M.F. O'Brien: Which is one of the major recommendations on a full page in today's Advertiser.

Mr WILLIAMS: Yes, you are still—

Members interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: It is good, minister. You might eventually get rid of the door snakes. You have probably still got them in storage, if you look around, but now you are giving away thermometers and stopwatches. I am not sure what people are going to be doing with a thermometer and stopwatch, but apparently you can save energy by reading the temperature and seeing how long it takes or something—I am not sure—but it smacks of the door snake approach.

There are some really serious issues. We saw the announcement from ESCOSA only a bit over a week ago that they have approved price rises in South Australia of 17.7 per cent. Some 6.4 per cent of that is directly attributed to this government's feed-in tariff. The biggest part of that rise is directly attributed to this government's feed-in tariff.

The Hon. M.F. O'Brien: And you're responsible for it! You are responsible for running it out to 20 years—you and the Greens.

Mr WILLIAMS: This is the well-rehearsed line of the government: I am responsible because we supported the Greens in running the scheme out to 20 years. Let me remind the house that, when the legislation was introduced, several things were acknowledged. One was that the scheme would last for more than five years but the government would continually review it and see how it went. If the minister goes back and looks at the original Hansard from November 2007, I think it was, he will learn that.

The other thing is the government was going to have a review. This was a review which it eventually had, but it was held much, much later than the government promised to have it and then it did not respond to the review for a very long time—nearly another 12 months. Guess what it did with the review? One of the recommendations was that it cap the scheme when the cost to the average householder hit $10, as per the Victorian scheme.

Did it do that? No. What did it do? It wanted to move that the cost of the scheme actually be increased by some 23 per cent by increasing the feed-in rate from 44¢ to 54¢. What the opposition did was successfully oppose that and cut the cost to South Australian households by $90 million. In hindsight, I wish we were even more proactive, but the opposition takes no responsibility for the $114 average cost per household to the electricity bills in the 12 months because of the feed-in scheme of this government. It is wholly this government's incompetence that has caused that—$114 per household.

On top of that there is another significant impost because of the federal government's carbon tax. At least the federal government is giving a rebate. They are giving some money away to some householders to cover the cost of their carbon tax. I do not agree with any of it. It is simply churning, and a lot of money gets chewed up in the way through, but at least they acknowledge the cost impost and the cost impact of some of their mad decisions.

I asked the minister about renewable energy in the APY lands. For a government that wishes to be seen as clean and green, and into green and renewable energy, I am surprised that there are no renewable energy projects on the APY lands. The commonwealth government built a solar farm there a few years ago; that has basically been mothballed because the state just cannot get it to operate and they cannot make it work effectively. However, there are no other renewable energy schemes in the APY lands; that seems to be a pity.

One of the other things the minister has said, and I think we need to remind him of the reality of the world, is that the government has little power to impact on power prices. What he is trying to suggest is that the government, because the power sector has been privatised and no longer owned by government, has no power to influence it. He has no less power than he ever did. If he owned all of the electricity assets to reduce the price of electricity, what the minister and the government would have to do is subsidise those power companies with taxpayers' money. There is nothing stopping the government from doing that today. They have no less opportunity today than what the government of South Australia has ever had. It is complete nonsense to suggest that because they do not own the asset, they cannot influence the prices.

I remind the house that the government owns all the water assets, and water prices in this state are going up at a greater rate than power prices are where we do not own the assets. That puts the lie to that particular argument. I will move straight on to water because that is the other area where I have been involved in the estimates committees. Again, we had a minister who took questions from the other side as well as making lengthy statements but the reality is that the minister failed to answer any questions. The other reality is that we did not have time to ask the sorts of questions that the opposition would have liked to have asked—for example, the capital cost of the desal plant.

The minister confirmed that if the Auditor-General's figures are right from the amount that has been expended on that project to 30 June last ($1.5 billion), and the budgeted figures for the current year ($256 million), and the projected budget for the next year ($98 million), in fact there is an overrun on that project of $40 million. Notwithstanding that, the minister goes out on a daily basis and whenever he is asked any question about the desal plant, his stock standard answer is, 'But we are going to deliver the plant on time and on budget.' On my calculations, he is already $40 million over the budget, and it will be interesting to see whether it gets delivered on time.

We saw the first water target was missed by almost a year and we had the head of SA Water come out last December and say that punitive penalties would be imposed which would be cost imposts on AdelaideAqua, yet we now see that the government has agreed with AdelaideAqua not to impose any penalties and they have paid up the money. Again, it is taxpayers' money; that is why water prices have gone up 249 per cent in this state.

Let us look at desal plants built by Labor governments around Australia: we will start at Queensland, then look at New South Wales and Victoria. We have had a change of government in all those states. In Queensland, their desal plant at great expense has been mothballed. The New South Wales desal plant has been mothballed in the interim for at least two to three years. In Victoria I am reliably advised that they do not expect ever to use their desal plant. In South Australia the decision to build a 50-gigalitre desal plant (or a bit smaller than that as we proposed from opposition all those years ago) was a good decision and one which we defended. The decision to double the size of that and then to mismanage the construction of the desal plant—two very poor decisions—go right to the feet of this government.

The decision to double the desal plant has never been justified by this government, no modelling has ever been put up, and yet there are independent agencies (now doing modelling) saying that we will not be using the second part of the 50 gigalitre capacity in the foreseeable future; that is, the next 40 years. Notwithstanding that, the long-suffering taxpayers in South Australian households are paying inflated water prices.

We learned, from the budget and in estimates, that last year there were $125 million in savings because of delays in the desal plant, and yet the government still went ahead with price increases. I can inform the house that the Victorian government, when it had a similar situation because of delays in the construction of the Victorian desal plant, in the last couple of weeks cancelled a 9.6 per cent increase in water prices in Victoria. The Victorian government handed the money back to the people of Victoria or, more correctly, did not take the money from the people of Victoria.

I put that to the South Australian minister and he would have nothing to do with it. He wants to take the money. Bearing in mind, the reality is that when they take the money into SA Water it shows up as additional profits for SA Water at the end of the year, and 95 per cent of that goes straight to Treasury. It is not being used to pay for the desal plant, it is going straight to Treasury, and we all know what is happening to it there.

We also see that there is a projected $212 million turnaround in the 2012-13 year in the relationship between SA Water and the government; that is, the government will be $212 million better off because of SA Water than what it has been in the current financial year. That is serious money, yet it still went ahead with the water price increase for the next year, which will see an additional $175 million taken from South Australian households.

Householders in South Australia are sick and tired of being hit, particularly by water. They are sick and tired of this government, with a 40 per cent increase in prices last year and a 25 per cent increase in prices this year. Householders in South Australia are paying the highest price for water in this nation, and they are sick and tired of it. They are particularly sick and tired of it because a fair bit of it is caused simply because this government continues to make stupid and dumb decisions.

I would like to go onto other Department for Water issues, particularly pertaining to the River Murray. There were a number of issues raised. I think the government is floundering on that issue. I asked the minister what the response is going to be, how the government is going to react to the plan adopted by the commonwealth government if it does not agree with it, and he said that is hypothetical.

I would have thought, with the way the Premier is running around, and particularly the fact that he has budgeted for another $2 million, which it was confirmed in the committee was for advertising—it is not for doing scientific work, it is not for making representations to the MDBA, it is for advertising, so it is for a political campaign, and a domestic political campaign—that it is not hypothetical, that the government is not going to agree with the plan, but the minister would not accept that as being anything but a hypothetical question. I will leave my remarks there because I know my colleague the member for Chaffey will take up those issues, particularly with regard to the River Murray.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite) (12:03): I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill. It leaves us with little vision going forward and, I think, comes at the worst possible time for South Australians. At a time when South Australians might expect, after two and a half terms of Labor—we were set up for the future, with things happening and a secure financial vision in front of us. What we find is ruin. What we find is a mound of debt. Labor is putting all of the things it should have been building years ago on the credit card and leaving us with little in reserve.

As I have said previously in the house, I think the first term of Labor was a term of doing nothing. All it was about was getting re-elected in 2006, it being a marginal government. It promised nothing, it did nothing, it just waffled. In its second term I think it was caught short, caught very short indeed. It was forced by the state Liberals to take positions on everything from moving football into the city to rebuilding the Royal Adelaide Hospital to reinvigorating the city to building new roads and rail, none of which was in its infrastructure plan, none of which was in any of its vision statements

It was forced into all of those positions by the state Liberals. It collapsed across the line at the last election and has now realised that it needs to build some things. Sadly, as the money rushed across the table at it in its first two terms of government, it let out its belt, swallowed the cash and fattened itself up. All the money was spent; all the money was gone; there was nothing left in the kitty. All this nonsense we had for eight years about what good financial managers they were and what a splendid treasurer the former treasurer (the former member for Port Adelaide) was, and the premier—what a great job they were doing in managing the economy and keeping our AAA rating has all been exposed as just utter nonsense.

Why is it so? Because all of those big surpluses that they were receiving were squandered: squandered on a big fat Public Service; squandered on 15 ministers—which is nothing but a joke. We used to have 13 and at one time 10, but when the government introduced the proposal for two additional ministers—for the former member for Chaffey and the former member for Mount Gambier—it was to be for them only but, of course, they kept them. Of course, the more chiefs you have the more Indians you need, and so it goes on.

Here we are with this budget before us—a mountain of debt. Yes, we plan to build things, but it has all been borrowed. The biggest ticking bomb of all is the Royal Adelaide Hospital, the $12 billion to $13 billion hospital over its lifetime that is a ticking financial bomb that will weigh this state down for years to come. When they are all gone we will still be paying for it. My seven-year-old son will still be paying for this when he is nearly 50. That is a scary thought.

So I was surprised, given that we had to have this $12 billion to $13 billion hospital, to receive an answer to a question asked by my friend and colleague, the member for Morphett, about what was the current asset value of the Royal Adelaide Hospital. The answer came back yesterday and it was that the asset value of the Royal Adelaide Hospital is $146 million—that is an interesting figure.

What we have is a fantastic hospital, the Royal Adelaide Hospital where it is at the moment, that is valued at $146 million. It has a certain number of beds, an emergency department that is doing an adequate job meeting more than 70,000 emergency presentations a year, and some of the best surgical rooms in the world, doctors have told me. However, improving that hospital at a minimal cost, which was the plan the government took to the election in 2006, is not worth doing, according to the government.

What we have to do is build up the road a $12 billion to $13 billion hospital that will not have any more beds, that will not have any more capacity, really, in terms of emergency department presentations going forward; it is not substantially more capable than the one we have, but it just costs $12 billion to $13 billion instead of the $146 million hospital we have at the moment.

It sounds to me that it is like taking a very cost-efficient bit of infrastructure that is doing a pretty good job that costs a small amount and going to something that does not do all that much more but costs something like 100 times as much. How does that work? How is it effective? How is that good for South Australia? Of course it is not; it is going to cost a lot of money, and we are going to be paying for it for decades to come.

There are other problems in the health budget, and I have been over many of them previously. We heard during estimates that, apart from the fact that we are $125 million short for the year just ending, there is a savings target of $117 million going forward, and when you accumulate those savings targets it is heading somewhere between $340 million and $360 million. We have heard about massive problems in regard to savings targets that have been set. We have e-health proposals being rolled out from EPAS to Oracle: some of them are going well and some of them are not.

We have massive problems with emergency departments with ramping, with overcrowded EDs, with a scathing report into the Lyell McEwin Hospital where they ran out of barouches and had to see patients in chairs and on the floor in the waiting area. We saw that misrepresented, in my view, to the parliament and is something that the minister feels proud about. I would not be proud of that report. There is another report going on with the Monaghan inquiry into Flinders and ED overcrowding there.

Why is it so? Well, the government has been focused on one thing in health for three to four years—in fact longer—and that is their $12 billion to $13 billion bricks and mortar hospital down at the rail yards. That is all they can utter about on health. Meanwhile, the very substantial things, the nuts and bolts of our health system, have been falling apart. Our emergency departments and our hospitals are full, and there are not enough mental health care beds. We have had the tragic disaster of not enough forensic beds and the subsequent mistreatment of a prisoner at the Yatala women's prison. We know we are short of beds in mental health across the board, we have problems with drug and alcohol services, our primary health care network is floundering, and many of our country hospitals are struggling.

All that, and all the government wants to talk about is their $12 billion to $13 billion new hospital. I think this minister has switched his focus away from primary health care, which was the focus of his predecessor, Lea Stevens, and made his focus acute care. Under his leadership, we have seen proposals for massive new hospitals in the city, and of course in the country. It is nice to have new hospitals, there is no doubt. It is wonderful to see money invested in acute care, but every million dollars you put into acute care is a million dollars that you have not put into primary health care.

If I ever become the minister for health, I think my motto for the department, my vision statement, will be this: our mission is to keep as many South Australians as possible out of hospital. I think that will be our mission, because every South Australian we can treat and care for at a country hospital, with a GP, or at a community or allied health care facility out in the community, every South Australian we can encourage towards a healthier and fitter lifestyle so that they are proactive about their own health and wellbeing, and every South Australian whom we can intercept with another healthcare offering other than an emergency department in a major hospital, is a South Australian well treated. The more people we can keep out of hospital the better.

This minister's motto seems to be: build flash new hospitals and get as many people as you can into the hospitals. It is the wrong mission. The mission of the health department is not to get people into hospital. The mission of the health department ought to be to keep them out of there. No-one wants to go there, and we should be doing everything we can to extend the primary health care network out to achieve that goal.

There are enormous issues in health, as I have mentioned, but of course other issues are addressed in this budget. I have mentioned briefly infrastructure. I am saddened to see that there will be delays to the electrification of the rail network. I think it is sadly needed. I am saddened that the public transport system seems to be in so much disarray. I note that the Minister for Transport Services has been handed a poisoned chalice. Her predecessor in that role could not hand it over quickly enough.

I just want to remind the house about how the current government railed when the former Liberal government decided to privatise the bus service, to go away from a government-run bus service. It was the worst thing that had ever happened in this state; it was terrible, it was shocking, it should not be done. No doubt they were running around telling everybody that if they were elected they would reverse the decision. Funny about that—not only have they not reversed the decision, they love privatisation of the bus services. They absolutely adore privatisation of the bus services.

In fact, they have tried to skin the contractors to the point where they are not coping and the services are falling apart, they have driven such a hard bargain. Clearly, the services are floundering about. I just say to the minister and the government: if you do not like the bus contractors, then end the privatisation. Buy the whole thing back and run it yourselves. I am sure you will do the job just swimmingly, just as you have with SA Water—isn't that a brilliant success—and the desal plant.

That is the other great lie that the government has been spruiking in the context of this budget, the lie that electricity prices are going up because the Liberals sold ETSA. I do not know how the Premier can sit there straight-faced and make such outrageous claims. He seems to be forgetting that South Australia seems to have the highest electricity prices in the world at the moment. Guess what? Electricity is privatised in Victoria, it is privatised in other jurisdictions, and in fact the New South Wales government is trying to offload it as quickly as possible. It is corporatised and on the road to privatisation in Queensland. As you look around the world, it is privatised in most western OECD jurisdictions, notwithstanding that the whole design of the national electricity market was a Labor idea—Paul Keating, thank you.

I say to Premier Weatherill that if he does not like the fact that it is privatised buy it back; go out there tomorrow and buy it back. I made this point after the 2002 election. You railed against privatisation, and the minute you got into government you loved it so much, you could have gone and bought it back, you could have gone to the bank and said, 'Give us that $7 billion back. We want to go and borrow that money again and buy the electricity assets back.' Well, heaven knows what our state debt would be now if they went and bought ETSA back. It is bad enough as it is.

You have made a mess of SA Water. As if you would want this Labor government running the electricity network; is anyone kidding me? Look at the mess they have made of SA Water. They do own SA Water; it is government owned and look what is happening to our water bills. They do own the desal plant, and look what is happening to our water bills. They are saying that if they owned our electricity assets lock, stock and barrel, somehow electricity prices would be less.

What an abject load of nonsense, and for the Premier to sit there and say that is not even a joke, it is just sickening to watch. If you do not want ETSA to be privately owned, go to the bank, borrow the money and buy it back. You will not do that, will you, because you know that that will be an utter nonsense? You know that all your Labor colleagues in jurisdictions all around the country agree that it should be privatised and that it should be a national electricity market.

The problem is that Labor has failed in the way that it regulates the electricity market and in the way that it manages the electricity market; that is what is going wrong. It is your own mismanagement, both federal and state, and that is pushing up people's power prices, not the fact that it was privatised. If you look at those jurisdictions where it is not privatised, I think you will find that they have gone through significantly more pain than us up until recently. This government's ability to mess things up is first class.

Moving on to some other subjects, there is much in the budget to be sad about, but one good thing in the budget—and there are a few good things, to be frank—is that there are quite a lot of good ideas the Labor party has taken from the Liberals, and they stand out as being perhaps the only good ideas. I like what is going on with reinvigorating the City of Adelaide, I like what is going on around City West, I like the idea of live music in the city and a lot of those little ideas. In fact, when you look into the history of them, they all came from the Liberal Party.

I remember on live music alone that we had to amend a poker machine bill back in 2003-04, I think, to make you establish a live music fund (I was the shadow arts minster at the time) to put money into live music because you did not give a toss about it. That is what happened there. You must have gone back and re-read the Hansard. All your ideas about the City of Adelaide were ideas that we put out back in 2007-08—about Victoria Square, about City West, about reinvigorating the Torrens, and about new arrangements in regard to planning in the CBD.

All those ideas we put out there, and of course Labor was running around describing them as 'a squint not a vision'. All the Labor Party, including the current Premier, was out there saying, 'Oh, it's terrible, the Liberals' crazy ideas for Adelaide and reinvigorating the city. Nonsense, nonsense, we don't want any of that,' and of course what you have done is simply take them—and good, that is great, fantastic, I am absolutely delighted you have done that.

I say to the people of South Australia: if you want the real thing, vote Liberal at the next election because any idea in this budget that is a good idea has come from us, most of the rubbish in the budget has come from Labor, so you may as well have the real thing—just vote Liberal and we will get rid of the pretenders because you may as well go to the people who come up with the right ideas in the first place.

Of course, they do not always take our ideas and do well with them, and desalination was a classic botch-up. We suggested they build a 50-gigalitre plant, but, no, that was not good enough for them, they had to go and build a 100-gigalitre plant that cost twice as much, botch the whole show up, build interconnector pipes, run the whole thing broke and blow out everyone's water bills. It is just an absolute nonsense. It is a good idea if you are going to vote at the next election for a party with the right ideas to get one that can also implement and execute them competently, instead of the current government, which could not organise a Sunday afternoon barbecue.

Another thing I like in the budget is, of course, in Budget Paper 4, Volume 1, and it has to do with an Office of Public Integrity and an Independent Commission Against Corruption—again, something which I personally championed, which the state Liberals, of course, first mooted and which the current government ran away from at 100 miles an hour. Having been forced into a corner where it had nowhere to move, it has finally embraced and been dragged kicking and screaming to the idea, and I am glad that it has been.

Again, I think that it has implemented a model that does not go far enough. I know that is being debated at the moment so I will not go through it in detail. Can I just say that I think that any action this parliament can take to fight against corruption is action well taken. This is a matter that cuts right across the three tiers of government, but it also affects to a degree the private sector. Corruption is the enemy of democracy. Corruption is the cancer that will kill all that we have built in this great nation, and we need to do everything we can to fight it. It is an evil, evil cancer.

I just want to make some observations on that because I have witnessed what I consider to be corrupt behaviour firsthand, and I am talking about the corrupt forging of documents. I would just make this simple point that anyone who corruptly forges documents for any purpose, be it a financial gain or a political gain, should be in gaol. We will one day find out who forged those documents, and I very much look forward to that because I know that the police have an ongoing investigation into that matter.

I am talking about when you go out and obtain a political party's fundraising documents and manipulate them, when you go out and obtain people's email accounts and manipulate them and when you put a great deal of work into a clever story with the object of achieving a political goal which has political implications. Of course, if you win a council election or if you win a state election there are winners and losers, so if the object of that exercise was to interfere with the outcome of the election—some might argue that it was, some might argue that it was successful—it is still corrupt behaviour. Any behaviour of that kind should be met with the full force of the law, and I hope that an independent commission against corruption will help us in that regard and prevent that sort of thing from ever happening again because it is disgrace.

Of course, if any acolyte or member of any political party was involved in such an activity, then they should be in gaol, and if any MP knew of anyone who was involved in that matter they would be guilty of corruption by their connection and through that knowledge, and had they not indicated it either to the house or to the police, then in my view they would be as guilty as the corrupt few who forged those materials in the first place.

Of course, one day we will find out who those people are, and I look forward not only to a criminal case but also a civil case.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member's time has expired.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: I still have—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, you do not. The member for Fisher.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (12:23): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. This week, in fact yesterday, Mr Gary Burns was appointed as the new police commissioner, and I wish him well. I do not know him personally, but I am sure that he will continue the high standard that we have had from previous commissioners. When his appointment was announced he spoke of how he would reform the police force and shape it. There is one issue that has not been addressed, even through the ICAC process, and that is that in South Australia we do not have anything like a police integrity commission where a genuinely independent body can look at the actions of the police force systemically or otherwise.

The Police Complaints Authority is very limited in what it does and what it can do, and it often spends more time saying why it cannot investigate something. In relation to the Police Complaints Authority, it is generally looking at individual complaints in respect of an officer's behaviour to a member of the public, or something like that. In formulating the reform package of anticorruption, we still need a police integrity commission, and I believe and hope the government will move down that path.

There has been a lot of criticism of the NRM boards and I think some of it unfairly ignores the positive work that is done by them. I agree that the focus of the NRM boards should be on hands-on, front-line work, not on bureaucracy, but I believe that what they do in relation to soil conservation, pest and plant management, the restoration of rivers, and so on, is very worthwhile work. I think people need to have a balanced approach when assessing the role of the NRM and not simply focus on what they might seek by way of a levy but also acknowledge that the NRM boards are now a very important part of the total environmental management system in South Australia.

Members need to remember that the NRM boards come out of the water catchment management boards, which was a Liberal initiative many years ago under David Wotton, who was the minister at the time. So I just ask for a bit of balance in people's assessment because, often on talkback radio and elsewhere, you hear people being highly critical of what the NRM boards do and I think the criticism often is unbalanced and unfair.

On the matter of councils I will not go into great detail because I have a motion before the house, but I indicate to members that the government needs to do more in terms of bringing about reforms in the local government sector. It is a very important sector. People often say I am attacking local government but what I am seeking is to have it operate most efficiently and effectively and respond to the needs and wishes of local residents.

Only an hour or so ago, I had a response from the Chairman of the Productivity Commission, Mr Gary Banks AO. I have written to him about the role of councils (and, as I say, I will not get into the detail of that because I have a motion relating to it) and he has indicated to me that his final report looking at local government as a regulator—looking at its role in regulating and controlling things—will be released in early July, so that is not far away. I am not suggesting that that report will encompass all of the things that I am seeking, but he has indicated in his earlier letter to me that it will be looking at the optimal sizing of councils and giving some consideration to that, and achieving economies, whether that includes amalgamation or cooperation or sharing resources. I welcome that and look forward to that report being released in the next week or so.

I noticed in the media that the LGA was questioning why I was referring the matter to the Productivity Commission. The Productivity Commission (and members can look on the website) has the authority to look at any level of government in Australia and look at any issue, basically, that has an economic aspect to it, whether it be private or public, so the Productivity Commission is an appropriate body to look at issues like efficiency and effectiveness. I welcome that report.

One issue that concerns me, and I do not believe the government has adequately dealt with it (I know the Attorney has a lot on his plate), is the cost of what I would call justice, that is, the cost of our legal system. Without getting into personal details relating to someone, I understand a recent case involving a shoplifting matter and another associated allegation has cost that person in excess of $200,000 in legal fees. Members might say, 'You don't have to have a lawyer,' but, given the reality of our system, you basically do, especially if it is a complicated matter.

What we have now in a whole range of issues affecting the courts—and I am not relating this comment to any recent case involving shoplifting—is a constant stream of people appearing in our courts who are suffering from a psychological condition, a mental condition. We are spending a lot of money and it is costing citizens a lot of money, not only through the role of prosecution on behalf the Crown, but through people trying to defend themselves.

I believe it would be a worthwhile thing for the government, through the Attorney, if we can reform the system so that people are not forced to spend a huge amount of money to defend themselves against what many would regard as low level, alleged offending, for example, a shoplifting matter. We need a better system, a more efficient system, and a less costly system. I know the former attorney, the Hon. Trevor Griffin, was looking at trying to deal with that issue of low-level offending, including shoplifting, but I think the move for reform petered out.

Likewise, we have a difficulty at the moment with so-called sexting. In our society at any mention of the word 'sex' people have a funny sort of reaction. What we are doing at the moment is turning teenagers into criminals. Teenagers are doing what teenagers have often done: dares, silly exposure of their body or someone else's. It has always happened, but now they are using electronic media. We are turning these people into criminals, and if we are not careful we will end up like Queensland, where I think they have something like 200 teenagers on the sex offenders register who have sent, inappropriately, a photograph of themselves or a friend via the net.

I took it for granted that when we were debating legislation about sending inappropriate images we were actually targeting paedophiles: people who want to harm children sexually, not some teenager who has unwittingly or otherwise sent a photograph of his girlfriend, himself, or whatever. They are not and are never likely to be hard-core paedophiles. Silly behaviour at a teenage level needs to be addressed in a way that is not so harsh and which does not result in them being labelled as sex offenders. It can deny, as it has in Victoria for example, the opportunity for some of these young people to become teachers because someone has sent them a photo of someone without their clothes on.

I think it is an area of urgent legal reform that is needed in this state. I urge the Attorney to pay some attention to that. I have corresponded with former justice Robyn Layton on this issue; she has a very keen interest in this issue. Surely, the government can come up with some proposals to change the legislation so that we can tackle the hard core and real offenders: the paedophiles, not some teenager who has a moment of silliness.

The other issue relating to the law is spent convictions. With the support of all members that legislation went through. We find now that the police have interpreted it to mean that they can reveal everything that has happened to someone via the court system going back to the age of 11. I do not believe that was the intention of the parliament, that we would resurrect situations—and I will not use names—of people like Mr A, who went swimming naked at Port Elliot with his mates when he was a teenager.

The matter of him as a teenager being dealt with by a justice of the peace, not even a magistrate, haunts that person and his wife day in and day out. He has not done anything like that since then, but 50 years later it haunts him to a point where he is virtually on the brink of committing suicide. Once again, the law needs to be sensible and deal with the real offenders, not with someone who went swimming naked with his mates when he was 14 and was convicted by a JP of gross indecency. I know he is busy, but I urge the Attorney to really attend to that matter promptly, because it is haunting people day in and day out and not only causing them distress but causing their families enormous distress as well. We need a criminal justice system that deals with real criminals, not people who did something silly or inappropriate as a teenager and have not offended since.

The other matter that comes within the purview of the Attorney is significant tree legislation. A meeting was called, months ago, to look at this issue. We are still waiting, apparently, for the development assessment body chaired by Mario Barone to come back with recommendations regarding the significant tree regulations. I am not sure what the hold-up is, but if action is not taken soon to correct some silly provisions in those regulations, the tree environment and the urban environment is going to suffer.

There is a range of silly provisions whereby trees in the city are treated the same as trees around a farm on the West Coast—quite silly, quite ridiculous. There is a provision that no eucalypts are to be removed, which is silly because some eucalypts are inappropriate and not indigenous to the area anyway; other trees are to be protected for reasons best known to the bureaucrats who drew these up. These regulations need to be redrawn and that should be done as a matter of urgency. The minister needs to ask the advisory panel chaired by Mario Barone to report back promptly so that appropriate changes can be made.

Electricity was mentioned by the member for Waite. Maybe we need to resurrect Sir Thomas Playford: he had an answer on the issue of electricity. The concern, then, was that electricity was not being provided, particularly in rural areas, as required by the farming community—not so much pricing. Maybe the government could look at not taking over the whole industry but putting pressure on by creating a baseload generator, because what we need is baseload. Wind power is great and solar power is great; they are great when the wind blows and the sun shines but they are not guaranteed baseload suppliers.

If we want to have a manufacturing or any other base in this state, we need affordable electricity. We currently have the distinction of having the most expensive electricity in the world. If we are going to resurrect Sir Thomas Playford—we need him to help ensure that we get some affordable housing as he did many years ago, and that was the basis of the industrialisation of South Australia. Affordable housing for our workforce, and the population in general, is lacking at the moment. I cannot see any justification for a continuation of the so-called summer tariff, especially when it extends beyond summer. If you apply the same logic to water, we should pay more for water in summer because we use more water in summer.

We have some serious issues in relation to roads. I do not agree with the criticism in the total sense of our public transport system; I think, overall, it is a good system that needs a bit of refinement. The rail system is excellent, and that is what I use. Some of the major roads coming into the city from the south—Unley Road and Goodwood Road—need to be dealt with. The Britannia roundabout should have been fixed years ago by engaging a maths student from Adelaide Uni to do some calculations to apply a limited traffic light system there at peak hour; that is what we need and that is what I think should happen.

Overall, some positive things have come out of this recent budget process, but I think the government still has a way to go in terms of reform, not only in the area of the legal system, but particularly in terms of ensuring that people can afford electricity and water: two fundamental and basic commodities that people need every day.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (12:40): I, too, rise to speak very briefly on the Appropriation Bill so that we keep the whips on both sides happy, particularly the Government Whip, who is very anxious for us to be out of here by 1 o'clock. My experience with estimates this year was somewhat mixed. I was given over 20 hours of sitting, listening and learning about the position this state is in today through government mismanagement of funds, mismanagement of assets and, just as importantly, mismanagement of the future, of where we are going in South Australia.

Obviously, in Chaffey all aspects of the budget are very important, and none is more important than agriculture, tourism, regional development, health and education. While all of those issues are important, I will perhaps indulge by speaking about something that I am a little more passionate about. Starting off, I listened to the Premier speak about the Motor Sport Board.

To hear the Premier say that he was not prepared to invest in something that is a huge economic driver for this state beggars belief. We are looking at the potential of having the Clipsal race under lights. We saw how South Australia suffered when the Formula 1 moved to Victoria because we were not prepared to move with the times; we were not prepared to invest in an investment that generated huge income for the state.

It is a $15 million investment to move with the times—to move that motor sport event and keep it on a world stage. We all know that, to keep it on the world stage, we have to create new audiences and we have to address what international audiences want, and that is to put the race on at a time that is acceptable for the enthusiasts to sit down and watch, and to engage with motor sport. Of course, the Clipsal event is nothing short of world standard. My message is: let's not give that race to another state.

We look at the special interest vehicle registration that this government, again, did not support. It is an industry that is locked up in garages and sheds; the government does not give people any form of incentive or concession to get those vehicles out of those sheds and garages, and to display an investment they have made. In a lot of cases, it is a huge investment: we are not just talking chickenfeed here; some people invest many tens and, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars in these vehicles, and yet there is no incentive to bring them out.

It is quite apparent that agriculture is an issue that the minister is above. She again relies on bureaucrats to feed her information, looks at cost recovery, and looks at ways to dissolve the responsibility and support of government into producing food—producing world-class product. Again, we have a South Australian food strategy for 2010-15. The economy was $12.4 billion in 2008-09, and its target is $16 billion by 2015. The way that we are going, the way that the Premier is particularly trying to play political games with the Murray-Darling Basin plan, I think that is in jeopardy.

The Premier does not have a hold of whether or not it rains for the cereal farmers, for the prosperity of livestock. Again, we look at livestock and see the government trying to claw back cost recovery with biosecurity levies; it really does beggar belief. I just want to touch on those food sector issues, remembering that the food industry in the manufacturing sector. We do not get nearly $300 million handed out to us to keep us viable for another five years.

We do not see these huge inputs of money into a food sector. It seems that the government wants to absolve responsibility, put it all back on the private sector and industry and say, 'Look after yourself; we're only looking after the golden child—we're going to look after the mining industry because that's what we see as something that will be worthy of support over the next 20 years.' We have to remember that agriculture has been around forever. We have had to eat, had to produce food, forever.

The government is walking away from its responsibility, whether it be looking at research and development so we can compete with our international competitors, or whether we are looking at biosecurity so that we can be responsible for keeping disease out of our food chain. That is something about which I shake my head on a daily basis.

We look at the fruit fly program, and the government continually looks at cost recovery. It is a cost recovery, but again it is an ongoing tax. South Australian food producers cannot compete on a level playing field. We are competing with cheaper labour costs with our overseas competitors, cheaper compliance costs and huge government subsidies. We are smart, innovative and probably world's best practice when it comes to farming, but we need unbiased help. Our reputation has to be built on that innovation, research and development, so why slash it when we need to be competitive? To me it does not make sense. We have to look at quality and at that strict quarantine regime. Why the attempts for these cost-recovery measures from industry, finding tiny savings and putting more impediments on the food sector? Again, it just beggars belief.

I want to touch on something very important to me. I came into this place with passion that we needed to reform water, particularly the River Murray sector. Over the estimates I listened to the Premier. He even used estimates to promote himself, that he was the fighting Premier for South Australia, that he was fighting reform. I say to the Premier that he has just spent $500 million on a Goyder Institute report. He is now putting up a High Court challenge. He has put up $300,000, plus all the government departments' expenses, on top of that. He has now indulged in a $2 million campaign for 'the Premier' to stand upon so that he can stand up and say, 'I'm here as a crusader for the reform of the River Murray.' That is absolute rubbish. It is now so political that the Premier needs to own up. He has support for reform from our local paper on a daily basis. He knows damn well that he will never get up his idealistic approach on water reform.

It is about working with all the basin states, working out a solution, working out a way that we can actually get reform. It is something that has not been achieved in over 120 years, but this Premier needs to rise above the politics, instead of using taxpayers' money that we see today so that he can actually stand up on a campaign, a taxpayer-funded crusade, to say that he will ask for 4,000 gigalitres, no water from irrigators—'I don't want to give up any more for South Australia; we've behaved impeccably over our 40-year reform.' The reason we behaved impeccably over our 40-year reform was that we were forced into reform. We forwent the Chowilla dam, we put our water into storage, and that is why we have spent the last 40 years being world leaders in efficiency gains and in best practice. The Premier needs to look at that.

We have the Conservation Council giving commentary from its office in Sydney, saying that we need buybacks. Those buybacks are giving a patchwork effect, particularly in the electorate of Chaffey. It is reducing community viability and putting those producers, those farmers, at risk because those ongoing costs of having water pumped to their property is so much more expensive. The Premier needs to get off his high horse and look at how we can actually achieve reform, and not just how it can be a benefit for his profile, so that he can use the morning paper that everyone gets up to every morning and reads how the Premier is standing up for South Australia.

The Premier is playing politics with reform that will achieve nothing for South Australia other than a political war between the four states. It really is sad to see that the Premier is putting himself before reform that is so dearly needed that has not been achieved over 120 years. I would like to go on for the next 15 minutes, if I could, to just point out how it is, but there are many more people who want to speak today. Again, the Premier needs to rise above politics and endorse reform.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I just remind members that we have eight minutes left for this whole debate. The member for Finniss.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (12:50): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; I will try to be brief. The estimates committees to me have got to the stage where they are just a complete waste of time. We have inept ministers unable to answer questions, completely taken over by their public servants who whisper in their years at length whilst avoiding the real questions and real answers in prolonged speeches. However, let me turn to the minister for environment and conservation, and particularly marine parks.

I was not in the committee, but I was listening, and what an inept, ridiculous performance by minister Caica on marine parks. He was totally done over by the CEO of the department and others. Let me just say that on Friday night I watched the 7.30 SA and I watched the CEO Mr Allan Holmes make a total fool of himself on TV. He could not even get the gulf right. He kept talking about Spencer Gulf when it was actually Gulf St Vincent.

He said that fishermen could just move a bit further. They could just move a bit further out of the sanctuary zones and catch fish. He would not have a damn clue about the fishing industry, fishing grounds or anything else connected with that industry. That was bad enough on Friday night. On Sunday night I had a constituent from Cape Jervis ring me. He is a young fisherman who fishes off Rapid Head. He has bought the licence off his father and he set himself up in business and wants to fish professionally.

He went to the marine parks stand at the boat show on the weekend and he wandered up and said, 'Rapid Head, what is happening there?' The fellow behind the desk—I will not name him, but I know him quite well—the officer from the government there, said, 'Oh well, you'll just have to move off down the coast a bit.' This chap said to the government officer,' Well, the fish are not down the coast: the fish are right there where you put the sanctuary zone. It supports professional fishermen operating out of Cape Jervis, squid fishermen and scale fishermen.' He said, 'Oh well, they'll just have to move a bit. Anyway, why do want to know?' This particular fellow from Cape Jervis said, 'Well I am one of those professional fishermen.' This government officer hung his head in shame. Quite clearly the message from minister Caica, through his department, is to tell fishermen, 'You can just move down the coast a bit.'

That goes on top of the question I asked yesterday about the fishing industry on Kangaroo Island, where I mentioned in my question that the fishing industry has actually worked out that there is just under $4 million loss of production in the sector. This is why the KI Futures Authority, promoted by the Deputy Premier to enhance the primary production capacity of KI, has certainly not been brought into these discussions. They want to wipe out $4 million worth of production. The Deputy Premier's pet project KIFA has discovered that, while they are meant to enhance production and enhance income, they are going to be done over by these damn fools in the department of environment.

It is time Mr Holmes, Chris Thomas and a few others packed their bags and got out of South Australia, and it is time the government, particularly minister Caica, developed some intestinal fortitude and pulled this thing back into gear. The Premier has already dealt with it once. It is not good enough. I need to stop, because other members need to speak; however, I am going to pick up on it again next time. It is inexcusable that this government is letting this marine park sanctuary zones business blow totally out of control by an incompetent department, and it is not over yet.

The member for Norwood is firmly on top of this debate. We are seeing it around the state particularly from the West Coast, where the councils over there are rejecting it, and increasingly the professional fishing sector. We are just wondering when Premier Backflip will do another backflip on this and decide that he has made a big mistake. I can tell the house that minister Caica, minister Fox and a few other ministers will be right in the firing line over this at the next election. We will move heaven and earth to get rid of them—and I might add that it will not take too much to get rid of a couple of them.

It is a disgrace. It is not in the best interests of South Australia or the fishing industry, export income and local income. I am ashamed to sit in this place and watch this incompetent government go through this process and ministers like minister Caica make damn fools of themselves.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (12:55): I will not address the budget because I only have two minutes, but I will just say this. It is quite a moment to be standing in the Legislative Council at the end of this week, for the first time to be actually sitting in this place.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Something your father never did!

Mr VENNING: That is exactly right; my father did not do that. It is an honour not only to have served the parliament in Mount Gambier but also to serve the parliament here—and also to be ejected yesterday, another piece of history.

I would like to say this. The problem with the asbestos in our chamber was known 20 years ago. I have been in this place for 22 years and there has never been a problem. Some might say that you can tell it has affected me; I hope it has not. I just cannot believe we have reacted like this for the sake of two or three days, when it has been like that for so long. I knew that canopy was up there, I had seen it 20 years ago. We knew it was there. It is a vast overreaction, and I want to apologise for the inconvenience to all the members and thank the Legislative Council for having us. It has been an honour to be here, but it will be great to go back.

Motion carried.

The Hon. C.C. FOX (Bright—Minister for Transport Services) (12:57): I move:

That the remainder of the bill be agreed to.

Motion carried.

Third Reading

The Hon. C.C. FOX (Bright—Minister for Transport Services) (12:57): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

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