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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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Address in Reply

ADDRESS IN REPLY

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (11:23): I move:

That the following Address in Reply to His Excellency's opening speech be adopted.

May it please Your Excellency—

1. We, the members of the House of Assembly, express our thanks for the speech with which Your Excellency was pleased to open parliament.

2. We assure Your Excellency that we will give our best attention to the matters placed before us.

3. We earnestly join in Your Excellency’s hope for our deliberations to serve the advancement of the welfare of South Australia and all of its people.

I am honoured to have the opportunity today to move the adoption of the Address in Reply. I begin by thanking His Excellency the Governor for attending parliament yesterday and for his address to which we all listened in the other place. I also thank the distinguished Kaurna elder and friend of many, Lewis O'Brien, for his welcome to country yesterday. Also in passing I congratulate you, ma'am, on making an acknowledgment of the Kaurna people a part of our formal proceedings in this place.

I note, too, that His Excellency has recently been given a two-year extension of his appointment, which will now continue until August 2015. It is a great pleasure to know that His Excellency and Mrs Scarce have been willing to make themselves available to continue the outstanding service they have already given to the people of South Australia. It will be no easy task to find worthy successors to them.

His Excellency (also an Elizabeth boy like me) is an inspiration to me personally. I was pleased to hear His Excellency speak in such specific terms about a vision for this state, a set of goals that we can all share and work towards: a clean, green food industry; the mining boom and its benefits; advanced manufacturing; a vibrant city; safe and active neighbourhoods; affordable living; and early childhood.

His Excellency noted that this government recognises that this list of priorities does not include every subject of importance in the life of the state or everything we will do. It sets out priority areas, and it is aimed at changing the direction of the state to ensure a bright future for all of us. His Excellency said yesterday:

...this government has comprehensively reviewed where the state stands now and made decisions about where its focus needs to be for the future. Its emphasis is not just on the next year or the next decade but on a future which will provide rich and worthwhile opportunities for our children and for our children's children.

I think that this is exactly the right approach, and I am proud to be working with Premier Weatherill and this government on this agenda. The Premier and the government have adopted an approach which is forward looking and focused on the future of the state. We recognise both the achievements and the mistakes of the past, but we are firmly focused on the future, and we lost no time yesterday with the introduction of legislation to combat drug trafficking—and with more to come today.

I was also pleased to hear that a major focus moving forward will be the idea of a liveable and vibrant capital city and on safe and liveable suburbs. We have a great opportunity to shed the image of Adelaide interstate as a place where nothing much really happens. We all know here that it is not entirely true (and certainly not at this time of year), but that is the perception, and it is up to us to change that. We need to embrace demographic changes, changes to work and life balance, and we need to recognise that we need a city that is both exciting and liveable—a place where people can both work and have fun and raise families, and this vision should extend to our suburbs.

The north of Adelaide where I live is the focus of much of our advanced manufacturing, and I for one want to see this continue. My own vision—and one which accords with the government's vision—is for the Elizabeth Regional Centre to be really considered a second CBD—a vibrant place where business, industry and residential living exist side by side, and where the local people share more in the economic good news of the area.

In the north we are working collaboratively with the local council on initiatives to achieve this, with discussions ongoing around the potential for a sports hub and for a health precinct based around the Lyell McEwin Hospital. The massive and ongoing investment in the Lyell McEwin Hospital itself, and the spin-off effects in both health and economic terms, is a story of its own, and I would like to elaborate on this at another time.

In the northern suburbs, universities are collaborating with local schools, breaking down barriers and showing local kids that they have the same opportunities as people from more affluent suburbs, and I have seen this start to bear fruit just recently; and, of course, with Holden on my doorstep, I talk to people about manufacturing every day, and they understand that car making is not only a major employer but a key driver in advanced manufacturing generally.

As His Excellency noted, manufacturing is one of our biggest employers. It makes up 14 per cent of our state's economy and it creates spin-off employment across the economy, but we know that it must evolve; and, as the Governor said, we need to develop an advanced manufacturing sector driving productivity and innovation and providing secure and fulfilling work for people in this state, and that is why we are determined to continued to support car manufacturing in Elizabeth.

In my first speech in this place I spoke about my father's work at Holden and the many other direct connections I have with the place. I said then that it is a place which figures largely in my mental map of the northern suburbs, and I went on to say:

While I am in this place I will do whatever I can to ensure that Holden, and the northern suburbs, remains a place which makes cars.

Holden really is the heart and soul of the north, as important to its economy as the Central District Football Club is to its life and culture. I will say again that, as long as I am the local MP (and I am sure that I speak for the members for Taylor, Light, Napier, and others in the surrounding areas), I will be fighting to keep car manufacturing in Elizabeth.

I want to congratulate the Premier and the ministers involved on their efforts and their recognition that this is an industry which is absolutely vital, not only for local employment—and this includes, of course, thousands of jobs, both direct and indirect—but also for the future of innovation and advanced manufacturing in this state.

I was also pleased with His Excellency's reference to the mining boom. As I doorknock around my local area, I often talk about the mining industry and the opportunities that it presents for the people in the north and what it will mean for people not only directly involved but for the whole state. I believe, and this government believes, that mining will transform our economy in ways we can barely predict. It is our responsibility—everyone here—to ensure that the people of this state benefit, above all, from this boom.

In my first speech in this place I spoke about my experiences in the police force and how they, in a strange way, led me back to the Labor Party and, ultimately, to parliament. I spoke about law and order as a working class issue. I pointed to pockets of our community which really are broken, and we have all been appalled by the violent manifestations of this breakdown in recent weeks. That is why I have always been a vocal advocate of strong law and order policies, and that is why I will continue to support policies which will allow people to feel safer in their homes.

Various bills will be reintroduced in the coming weeks (and one was introduced last night) to try to combat specific elements of illegal activity. I will be supporting these bills and hope to speak on some of them; and I hope the members opposite will join us in our attempts to make our suburbs safer.

I hope it is not premature to say that I look forward to welcoming two new faces to the Weatherill government in the weeks ahead. I have known both Zoe Bettison and Susan Close for a long time, and I have absolutely no doubt that, once elected, they will make excellent and lasting contributions both to this place and to the communities in the port and Salisbury.

I was at the Salisbury RSL on Saturday night and I heard Zoe deliver what was one of the best speeches I have heard in a long time. The speech was largely to thank the many volunteers who believed in her enough to put in so much effort over recent months. Zoe also said she was committed to mentoring young women and encouraging more of them to become involved in the political process and to join her in parliament. If anyone can come into this place and help to change a culture which is still very male dominated, Zoe can.

I also want to finally pay tribute to the former members for Ramsay and Port Adelaide. These two men reshaped our state and I know that history will reflect kindly on their enormous contributions. Like many here, I owe them a debt of gratitude. In my first speech to this place I had a shopping list of thankyous, and I meant them all, but today I want to finish simply by thanking my staff and acknowledging the work of MPs' personal staff generally. They work hard to support us and minimise our follies and our occasional flourishes of ego, and they worked tirelessly for the people we represent. We all owe them our thanks. I commend this motion to the house.

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen—Leader of the Opposition) (11:33): It is my pleasure to rise in response to the Governor's speech at the opening of parliament yesterday—the reopening of parliament. It was quite an unnecessary process, it seemed to me, but, nevertheless. Of course, last week, on 9 February, we marked 10 years since the election of quite a number of us to this place and, therefore, almost 10 years of 'hard Labor' in this state—and it has been hard labour indeed. It has, overall, produced a very poor report card for our state. Where once we sat at the very top of the class on many national indicators, we now languish unchallenged at the bottom. We have the nation's highest taxes. We have the nation's worst economic growth. We have the nation's worst business investment growth, the nation's highest decline in job vacancies, along with the nation's highest capital city water charges, the worst building approval figures and the worst performing workers compensation scheme.

I remind members how much work we did on that workers compensation scheme before the 2002 election. It had blown out very badly under Labor, but we brought back all that unfunded liability, and in fact we got it down as low as, I think, $59 million at one point, but this government has managed to blow it out yet again to almost $1 billion. You would not mind that if we were getting better results, but we still have the worst return-to-work rate and we still have higher levies than most states. That is why we have the worst performing scheme.

The Labor government in this state has revealed itself—somewhat gradually, I have to admit—to be a lazy and complacent, and self-serving government that prefers to feather its own nest rather than do what it should be doing, that is, to serve the needs of actual working South Australians. It has been a decade of spin and a decade of self-congratulation, although for what I do not know. Sadly, for the rest of us—the hardworking, tax-paying people of this state—it has been a decade of going backwards while the rest of the nation went forwards.

Of course, we have all heard this story that the new Premier is putting about that he has freshened it all up, that it is a new start. That was indeed the point of yesterday's reopening: we reopened the parliament just so that Jay Weatherill could say, 'This is a new government,' but it clearly is not. Clearly, the decisions we have had over the last 10 years will be continued by this new Premier.

Let us be very clear: it is the same old team—nothing, not a single thing, is really any different, and yesterday's speech was proof of just this: more broad statements, no pathway as to how we will achieve any of the things, just like when they came in 10 years ago and said, 'We're going to set up this economic development board; we're going to have a Strategic Plan.' For 10 years, that Strategic Plan has been nothing but an added obstacle and bit of red tape for every government department and every person making any application or suggestion to government, 'How does this fit in with the Strategic Plan?' Yet, they have gone nowhere with their Strategic Plan.

Remember that when they came in they were going to actually treble exports in the next few years—the first four years I think it was originally? For the first 10 years, exports have gone backwards. We are only just now getting back to the level of exports we had the state at when they took office. That is this government for you: more broad statements, more general principles and, disappointingly, more spin. South Australians are sick and tired of grand plans, visions for this state that never eventuate. We had to listen to this sort of rubbish from Mike Rann for 10 years, and now Jay Weatherill has replaced him and is saying the same drivel, just more quietly. He is busy spruiking his vision.

Premier, we have heard it all before. It is spin, pure and simple. How about coming up with some ways to actually address the economic mess your government has created over the past decade? It is the same old style of politics as well. Mr Weatherill likes to get up and say, 'We want a change; we don't want to play party politics.' Those who were here when Mike Rann first began will remember that he kept saying, 'We want a bipartisan approach.' That is because it would be much more convenient for governments if they did not have an opposition holding them to account. Of course they want a bipartisan approach! They want us to agree to everything without any questioning whatsoever of the basis upon which they are proceeding.

In fact, the previous speaker referred to GMH and the wonderful example of how we need to support GMH, but of course we have seen no business plan from this government as to what is involved. I say in passing that I happened to go and talk to Ted Baillieu in Victoria. The Victorians got the same outcome from GMH as did South Australia. But, you know what? The Liberal Premier of Victoria was not even invited to go on the trip to Detroit our Premier went on. So, one wonders how much more money this government has wasted just in going on that trip, because clearly it was not necessary for the Premier of Victoria to go to get the outcome. That was just a stage-managed event so that Jay Weatherill would look as though he was doing something for GMH, when in fact he came back and said in his media releases that it will be a smaller but more secure system at GMH—but he will not tell us how much smaller. The word I am getting is that, in fact, it will be significantly smaller than what it was. He will not tell us how much because he wants to hand over all this money and then sometime later, probably a year or more later, we anticipate there may well be job losses.

We may well be prepared to support the GMH money, but we need to see what the detail is. Instead of that, the government wants to stand there and simply say, 'Well, we are just going to do this and you should get on board. You are bad people because we want to be bipartisan. We want you to agree without knowing any of the details.'

Of course, the proroguing of parliament itself and its restart yesterday is yet another example of how Jay Weatherill, having been taught by the master, Mike Rann, is just playing politics. He did it only for his own selfish political ends, not for any benefit whatsoever to this state. He is hoping that, by proroguing parliament, he will divorce himself in some way from the Rann/Foley era, giving him a clean slate to say, 'We are a new government,' and stamp his own personal authority and style on it.

That is nothing more than playing politics. It is just a waste of time and money for taxpayers. Consider the hundreds of hours that have been spent paying politicians to be in this place to debate bills that have just been wiped off and now have to be started again. Consider all the time that we have spent yesterday and that we will spend for the rest of this week responding to this new opening of parliament. What is more, of course, the Address in Reply is usually the time at which new members of parliament make their maiden speeches, but we are doing the Address in Reply before the two new members are likely to be sworn in and have the chance to do their Address in Reply, hence their maiden speech.

We must not forget either, in thinking about Jay Weatherill wanting to paint himself as a new Premier who has a clean slate and is a new government, that Jay Weatherill has been a minister in this cabinet from day one. From the very first day he sat in this parliament he became a minister in the Rann government, and the fact that he is now the king honcho in the group does not change one bit of his responsibility for the state in which this state now finds itself. What he is doing in opening and closing the parliament is simply playing politics to try to give himself a political advantage that he clearly does not deserve.

In fact, only yesterday during question time, the Premier was busy playing politics again. He has recently been telling us, remember, how he has been reconnecting with the voters in Port Adelaide, spruiking the new Labor feel-good message. So why was there a swing of almost 10 per cent against Labor in last weekend's by-election? Embarrassing really, when you consider that is a worse two-party result for Labor than in the 1993 State Bank election.

The Hon. I.F. Evans: Makes John Bannon look good.

Mrs REDMOND: Yes. After all week saying, 'I have got to take responsibility,' yesterday, the new Premier was doing anything but taking responsibility for those election results.

What about the Premier's statement that he wants to raise the standard of debate? That term 'debate' might actually suggest that, when the opposition asks questions, we might be able to expect some attempt at an answer. Indeed, in his very first statement to the house—everyone would remember it; the new Premier came in on 8 November—he said, 'Questions with serious intentions should be given serious answers.'

But the reality is that, to each and every question asked by the opposition, the response on the part of the Premier or any other minister is, firstly, to fire back a gratuitous insult, usually based on some made-up piece of frippery that they have come up with during their preparations for question time, followed by a complete failure to even go anywhere near what this is supposed to be questioning and answering. It is just a disgrace and, as I say, the only difference is that Mike Rann had a slightly louder voice than Jay Weatherill and he was not quite as boring.

Mismanagement, blunders and waste have been the hallmarks of this Labor government over the last decade and under Mr Weatherill it remains the same. How else do you explain a $200,000 golden handshake to the departing premier? You could even maybe justify it if we were in the midst of an economic boom, but we are sitting, as I have already indicated, at the very bottom of all the economic indicators for all the states, yet we can find $200,000 to give Mike Rann a golden handshake.

The government has been trying to run this line that it is only $100,000, yet their own figures, the Sustainable Budget Commission, show very clearly that they were talking about getting rid of some of the drivers and cars. That package was valued by their own Sustainable Budget Commission at $300,000 a year. That means that for six months that package costs $150,000. Before we even talk about the office, the secretary, the mobile phone, the staff force and all the other things that go with it, before we talk about any of that they have already done $150,000. So, it has to be no less than $200,000 because I cannot imagine that the secretary's salary is going to be much less than that sort of money. This government not only does things that it cannot afford to do, it then tries to pretend that it is not costing the taxpayers of this state as much as it is going to cost them.

Furthermore: $200,000. It cannot find $370,000 to fund the Keith hospital but it can find $200,000 to give Mike Rann not an entitlement, just an extra bonus. If he wanted to do that work that he says he has to do now that he is not the premier then he could have sat on the back bench as the member for Ramsay and done the work while he was the member for Ramsay. He could have saved the cost of a by-election by remaining as the member for Ramsay until the 2014 election, that would have saved the taxpayers of this state even more money, but no, this government finds largesse in its heart for someone who has left this parliament on the old superannuation scheme, so he is going out on over $200,000 a year, and then manages to find an excuse to give him another $200,000. It is just extraordinary.

Just this week we have had a compensation payout. This week's one has been to Marathon Resources. Let us look at them. We have had $10 million that the government paid out by way of compensation because it said, among many other promises that were not kept, that it was going to build a new prison. Then, down the track it realised, 'Well, no, we can't quite afford to do that, so we won't proceed with that, but it's going to cost us $10 million to have gone down that path and not built the new prison because we have to compensate the people we have engaged in the process.'

We then go to Newport Quays. Newport Quays, understandably, wanted some compensation because just 10 days before cancelling that contract it had been renewed by the government. That means that 10 days earlier there was an opportunity to say, 'Well, sorry, no, we're not going to renew this contract', and everybody walks away according to the terms of the contract, but no, this government renews the contract and 10 days later says, 'No, we're going to change our minds.' It might have had a hint that there was about to be an election in Port Adelaide, that might have changed its mind, but maybe that is too cynical. So, 10 days after renewing the contract it then cancelled it. The cost to the taxpayer: $5.9 million, plus, no doubt, a little bit of money in terms of how much the government had to pay for legal advice on the consequences of its stupidity.

Then again this week we had Marathon Resources and another $5 million. What for? Marathon Resources had an exploration licence that was legally obtained. This government was aware, when it came time to renew that licence, that it had been breached. It was actually cancelled, I seem to recall, because of the breach. The breach was discovered. Remember the bags of stuff that were buried up there by Marathon? At that point the government had the opportunity to say, 'Well, we actually want to protect Arkaroola so maybe we better not renew that licence and stop it at that point'—no compensation involved. It could have done that, but no, not this government, it wants to continue on with Marathon, allowing Marathon to spend a considerable amount of money and then, after renewing the licence, say to them, 'No, we're now going to ban mining,' making the only asset of that company worth nothing and therefore entitling it to compensation.

So, when you add that up: the prison, Newport Quays and Marathon Resources, that is over $20 million, nearly $21 million, and that is without the legal fees that were no doubt involved, so I would venture to say at least $21 million of taxpayers' money paid out for no reason at all and yet this government cannot find $1.174 million a year to fund the Keith, Ardrossan, Moonta and Glenelg hospitals, all community-based hospitals that cost this state far less than an occupied bed would in any publicly owned hospital because they are actually owned by the community. Communities have put these hospitals together, they have provided the land, they have built the buildings, they have provided all of the infrastructure. This government has shown itself to never have any idea of the right priorities.

Yet this government had the audacity yesterday to say that it is planning for the future fund of all things. If only we had the $21 million you wasted on just those three things to put into the future fund, we could maybe understand it. Where are we going to get the money? We are $11 billion in debt under your management—$11 billion in debt. We are looking at an interest payment of over $700 million a year, and that is $2 million a day, near enough.

I invite members opposite to think about what this state would look like, because I remind you that for the first seven years of your government you had riches coming into this state that this state has never seen before. We had GST flowing into this state, and remember that they did not want GST. We had a property boom, with stamp duty coming in—rivers of gold with roughly $1 billion extra every year for the first seven years.

There was extra money on top of the budget, so if you had just kept to your budget and not even spent much of the extra money coming in—and health might blow out every year—you must have been able to save something out of $1 billion extra year after year. Instead of having money in the bank to see us through hard economic times, you have managed not only to spend the whole lot but to give us a debt, a debt that is going to cost us $2 million a day in interest.

Just think what this state would look like if after one year of interest payments, just one year, instead of having to pay $2 million a day in interest we were able to say, 'Here, Mount Gambier, have $2 million. Here, Port Pirie, have $2 million. Here, Ceduna, have $2 million. Here, Salisbury, have $2 million. Here, Seaford, have $2 million,' all these places, 365 of them, just for one year. You imagine what the people of this state would be able to do in their communities if that money was out there, but instead of that you have given us a massive debt and we are paying interest. It is a disgrace.

To go back to the future fund, having departed from my script a moment, it was an idea put by my shadow treasurer to the Budget and Finance—

The Hon. I.F. Evans: Economic and Finance Committee.

Mrs REDMOND: —Economic and Finance Committee a mere three months ago. What is more, that was at a time when Jay Weatherill was already taking over as the Premier of this state. It was not as though it was under Mike Rann's watch and you changed your mind under the new watch. This was a decision under the watch of the new so-called government to reject the idea. It was put by the shadow treasurer, within a day or so of Jay Weatherill becoming Premier, and it was taken back to the new cabinet under the new Premier and soundly rejected.

Yet three months later, when he reopened the parliament, in one of the most boring opening of parliament speeches (with no disrespect to the Governor, because I know he is just reading what he has been given by the government) apart from the future fund there was nothing new in this speech. The future fund was an idea rejected because it was put up by the Liberals three months ago; yet three months later the only new thing in this opening of parliament is an announcement that we are going to have a future fund.

One might wonder where we are going to get the money to put into a future fund, given that we have to pay $2 million a day in debt. It seems a little preposterous that we are going to somehow have a future fund. One might wonder, especially in light of the fact that you are planning to sell the forests—and there is a good future fund. The feds are planning to invest in our forests as part of their future fund, but where does that make any sense?

I remind members opposite that the forests of this state produce in excess of $40 million a year of profit, income for this state, yet you are going to sell it off. As I have said on a number of occasions before, that is because there are only two possible rational explanations: one is that you are offered such a magnificent price for it that it would be foolish not to sell it (that is not the case), and the other is that you are cash-strapped, and you are cash-strapped because of your own financial incompetence and the economic mismanagement of this state for the last 10 years.

Again, in addition to the forests, we are going to sell off the lotteries. The lotteries bring in about $80 million a year for this state, but we are going to sell them off for the same reason: you only sell an asset that is producing an income if it is more worthwhile to sell it than to keep it. Neither of these sales are for anything but the fact that your economic management has been so bad that you have no cash and you are trying to grab it from everywhere at a great cost to the people of this state. Five months after Jay Weatherill has taken office as Premier, the economic figures are no different from when Mike Rann was in charge; in fact, in many instances they are worse. So much for new Labor. We now have, as I have already said, the nation's worst economic growth.

Ten years ago, when the Liberal Party was in government, our share of the national economy was 6.8 per cent; you have managed to get it down to 6 per cent. We have the worst business investment growth. Ten years ago it was 7 per cent; you have managed to reduce that to 5.5 per cent. The nation's highest drop in job vacancies: in 2002, we had a 7.5 per cent share of the national jobs market and it is now down to 7.2 per cent, and manufacturing jobs have disappeared. We have gone from 92,500 in 2002 down to 75,500 this year. We have the nation's worst workers compensation system and, as we know, the nation's highest taxes.

People on that side may not understand that, in private enterprise, the paying of taxes actually means that you cannot employ more people, and we want more people employed in this state. The list goes on, but this government is not interested in the rise in the cost of living. In fact, yesterday, it barely raised a mention in the Governor's speech. All the government is promising is minor concessions to housing affordability, and one might wonder how it is going to get that housing affordability.

I may have mentioned in this place before that a constituent of mine who came in recently was leaving the state and taking with him his entire investment portfolio. Over his whole life he had built up an investment portfolio of some $15 million in the residential property market, and he was taking the whole lot and selling it off and moving to another state because of the land tax in this state. There has been a complete failure by this government to recognise that those high taxes have such a profound detrimental effect. He is not the only one leaving this state and saying, 'If I've got money to invest, why would I invest it in South Australia?' In fact, I seem to remember that the former member for Port Adelaide (the former Treasurer) had investments himself in other states, where perhaps—

Mr Pederick: Sydney.

Mrs REDMOND: Yes; I think that was the case. He had a property on the King Street Wharf, I seem to recall. The government is also offering some flexible payment options for service charges. You still have to pay the bill, but you may just get a bit longer to pay it, and you will probably be charged interest for the privilege.

Mr Pederick: They need Shared Services to work like that, because they already are.

Mrs REDMOND: Do not get me onto Shared Services. Let's not forget how much these bills have gone up. Water bills are up 178 per cent in the last 10 years. We have the highest water bills of any capital city in the nation. Why? It is not as though we have the best water. Our power bills are up 106 per cent under Labor. Gas is up by 79 per cent. When you compare it with how much our actual CPI has gone up, you will realise that these things are all going up massively according to the Labor management but way above the CPI rate for this state, and that is why people are struggling.

Sending children to school—I love this—our free education system that these people on the other side trumpet, do you know how much it has gone up since 2002?—400 per cent, and they wonder why people are screaming about the cost of living. This government, of course, is not interested in small business. Again, it barely raised a mention in the Governor's speech. The government instead outlined seven areas for action, not because they sat down and delineated for themselves what seven areas most need attention, but I will guarantee that the government's seven areas for action are based on what its polling showed.

The government did some polling and it showed these things, because that is the way Labor works. That is the way the Hawker Britton model of government works. You do some polling and you find out what the problems are, just as this Premier's polling showed what the problems were. What were the problems? Hospital car parking—let's pretend to reverse that and neutralise it. 'The Liberals want an ICAC. We haven't agreed to an ICAC; we had better say yes to an ICAC, because that's another area with problems.' Marine parks is another area with problems.

The Premier also recognised that failure to engage with our rural and regional communities might be a problem for them since they never go there. So, he decided that he would go and visit Mount Gambier—that was a success. He went down there for a smiling photo opportunity and got met by a rabid crowd of 4,000 people screaming angry things at him about the sale of the forests.

Can I mention small business, since the government chose not to. Small business in this state employs 55 per cent of our private sector. That is a workforce of hundreds of thousands of people, and not one mention in the government's speech. Look at their decisions on small business recently. For a start, let us look at the public holidays issue.

Peter Vaughan and Peter Malinauskas get their heads together and decide that they will do a deal. 'We'll get the shops in Rundle Mall allowed to open on public holidays,' but at what cost? I am told that you could have blown Peter Malinauskas over with a feather when they actually agreed to this proposition for two extra seven-hour public holidays from 5pm until midnight on Christmas Eve and 5pm until midnight on New Year's Eve.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order, sir: the member for Unley yelled out, 'Brown paper bag,' insinuating corruption. I would ask that he withdraw that immediately.

Mr Marshall: He was talking to me about what he brought his lunch in here today.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Norwood will keep quiet while I am asked to adjudicate, thank you. I am sorry, I did miss that comment.

Mrs REDMOND: The words 'brown paper bag'—are they unparliamentary?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Did the member for Unley suggest that or did he say it?

Mrs REDMOND: He said 'Brown paper bag.'

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am asking the member for Unley, Leader of the Opposition. Member for Unley, did you speak those words?

Mr PISONI: I did. I was talking about my lunch, sir.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will ask for a copy of the Hansard and if your second comment is inaccurate, we will deal with that later. You can resume.

Mrs REDMOND: Thank you, sir. So, we've got these extra public holidays so that we—

Ms CHAPMAN: Point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker: as I understood your ruling, you are asserting that the speaker had made a statement not only about a brown paper bag but some other comment about a lunch bag or whatever. My understanding of the submission put then in response by the member for Unley was that he had made the statement about the brown paper bag. He then explained to you why he had said that. There was no assertion, even by the complainant over here, that the member for Unley had asserted all of those words. So I ask that to be clear in that direction that you have just given about who you are going to deal with.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think the minister made it quite clear that he understood the comment to be made that suggested something corrupt or improper between the two Peters. That was my understanding of his comment.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Let me finish! Members of the opposition on my left should perhaps just listen for a moment. That was a comment. The comment I was referring to was the member for Unley's explanation. If his explanation is consistent with the transcript provided by Hansard, it will end there. If it is clear from the context that his explanation is inconsistent, I will progress. Thank you. The Leader of the Opposition.

Mrs REDMOND: Thank you, sir. Can I also suggest that you might consider the difference between implication and inference in deciding.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: You don't even understand the difference between inference and implication.

Members interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: You don't even understand it.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition may wish to return to the substantive nature of her speech.

Mrs REDMOND: I will return to the substantial part of the speech, Mr Deputy Speaker. We were talking about extra public holidays, but I think I have probably said enough about that for the moment. The other thing that they have done, of course, is this Small Business Commissioner—another bureaucracy to set up. We not only have a Small Business Commissioner, but remember Laura Lee? She was a Thinker in Residence and she decided, 'My aim in life is to become a thinker in residence and I think Paris would be a nice place to go and think. I hope the French government decides that I could come over there and think about them for a while and tell them what to do.'

The Thinker in Residence, Laura Lee, came into this state and came up with this idea that we should have an integrated design commission, so then without any advertising of the job, without any further discussion, this government decides, 'Yes, we'll have that and we'll appoint Laura Lee as the Integrated Design Commissioner.' For reasons that I am sure I do not need to explain in this house (because everyone knows the reasons), Laura Lee ended up not taking that appointment. She had been appointed to a very high salary without any advertising of the job, without any hope of a local getting it, and what do we get? Tim Horton is appointed to cover that little hiccup.

So just like that we get this legislation and the recommendation that we should have a Small Business Commissioner. The government pushes through its legislation, and who do they appoint? They do not even advertise the job. They appoint Frank Zumbo. Who is Frank Zumbo? He is a guy who lives in New South Wales who suggested we should have this. He is an academic, and we do not even open the job to the possible appointment of someone who might be able to do something. Furthermore, not only does he not live here but he is being paid a fortune to give advice.

The member for Norwood has Frank Zumbo's mobile number, and I suggest that when he gives his Address in Reply he might make a point of putting it onto the record because I think the more people who ring him the better. This Small Business Commissioner has been absolutely silent on the issue of the extra time and extra pay people are going to have to pay out as small businesses across this state to accommodate these public holidays.

This Small Business Commissioner has been absolutely silent on the suggestion that we have online betting and the removal of X-Lotto and so on from newsagents. If he knew anything about small business, he would know that for newsagents across this state the staple part of what they sell is no longer newspapers but the commission they get on the sale of their X-Lotto tickets. Where is your Small Business Commissioner speaking about that on behalf of small business? Oh, that's right, he does not live here; he is in another state.

I made a small mention earlier of the new Premier's visit to the regions—well, the region; he went to one, and he did not get such a good reception. It was a very warm reception, I have to say, and in fact it might even have been called heated. He has not been on many country trips. Mount Gambier is a lovely spot, and I always get a nice reception when I go down there. I was there last week, and I think it was the 12th time I have been there since I became leader. However, this government has been so Adelaide-centric that yesterday in the speech there was not even a mention of rural sectors—not a mention. They did say they wanted clean, green, sustainable agriculture, but there was no mention of how our farmers are actually going to achieve that, because this government has ignored the rural sector and the regional sector for its entire 10 years.

South Australia is now at very great risk of becoming irrelevant. Our voice will not be heard on the big national issues such as occupational health and safety and water. We will be marginalised and treated with disdain. Next month, we are coming up to the halfway point of the electoral cycle. In fact, who can forget that the Ides of March 2014 will be our election day? We know and understand that we, as the Liberal team, cannot simply sit around and just hope that you guys will fall out of government. We are not that silly.

We know we have to work hard to regain our position for South Australia on the national stage. That takes drive and determination and an understanding that it is private enterprise that actually keeps this state going. The Liberal Party has that drive and determination in spades. We will prove that we are a party ready to govern and ready to lead South Australia once again out of the economic chaos created by a Labor government. It tends to be a pattern we see both at state and federal level with Labor governments.

We will listen to business and will listen to families and young people. We will listen to farmers, retirees and those struggling to get by created by this government. We will cut government wastage, refocus priorities and, above all, listen to the people. We will cut pet projects like the Thinkers in Residence and the Puglia Festival (I did not even speak about Puglia, but let's not go back there for the moment), the delegations, the expensive refits of ministerial offices, and the handouts to people like Mike Rann, who should have been taken out and drawn and quartered as far as I am concerned, rather than being given a $200,000 handshake.

We will not be held to ransom by the views of a few, particularly the SDA, the union heavyweights who like to control and dominate the agenda. I thought it was interesting in the Four Corners program on Monday night when they were talking about Julia Gillard and how the Labor Party federally has a choice between a leader who is toxic in the caucus but very popular out in the electorate or a leader who is toxic in the electorate but very popular in the caucus. However, the key thing that was not actually mentioned was that I think the people of this country resent the fact that they elected one prime minister and the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees' Association and a few other union heavyweights decided who would be the prime minister, just as that union decided in this state who is going to be the premier.

Indeed, I had the temerity to ask Peter Malinauskas when he came to my office last week whether he had come to tell me that I could not be the Leader of the Opposition anymore. We will not be held to ransom by the union heavyweights who like to control and dominate the agenda—that is not community, that is not government: that is self-interest by a selfish few, and that is this government.

The Hon. S.W. Key: What did he say?

Mrs REDMOND: He did at least smile. The Liberal Party, like the people of South Australia, has had enough of self-interest instead of being focused on the interests of the people of this state. We will be offering an alternative way to govern—one that is inclusive, respectful and has the best interests of all South Australians at heart.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (12:11): May I at the outset congratulate the Governor for the fine role that he plays in fulfilling the position of Governor of South Australia. I have had the great pleasure of meeting with the Governor and his wife on a number of occasions at various functions around the state and, like other governors whom I have met previously, he does a fine job on behalf of South Australians and is much more than just a figurehead. He is a promoter of South Australia and I congratulate him and his good wife for the work that they do on behalf of all of us.

Having said that, may I also point out that the reality is that the Governor's address to open the parliament is not his words. He is actually reading a speech prepared by the government. I quote from his opening remarks to the honourable members when he says, 'My government believes that'. Let us not be in any doubt that the comments that I am going to make in my reply to the Governor's address bear no reflection on the Governor, but they do indeed reflect on the government.

I am going to go through the Governor's address, pointing out some of the things that I find quite amazing. The reality is that I have sat through a number of openings of this parliament in the time that I have been here and never have I been more underwhelmed than I was yesterday. It was a speech that was a jumble of motherhood statements and platitudes. All it did was demonstrate to me that this is a very tired government, bereft of ideas. It certainly was not a blueprint even for the next two years—the rest of this electoral cycle—let alone a blueprint for the future of this state.

Let me go to a couple of things that the Governor did say, and this goes to the theme that the new Premier wants to create an aura about himself and his government, and it is a theme that he keeps proposing. I want to highlight this, because I will then point out where it falls down. The Governor said:

To be able to achieve all that my Government believes we can, South Australians must have confidence in our public institutions, and in the way these institutions arrive at decisions which affect everyone's lives.

He goes on to say:

Parliament should demonstrate how debate and dissent can be constructive—and not a forum for endless squabbles that lead nowhere.

Let me say that they are very fine words, but they apply to a theoretical world. They certainly do not apply to the way decisions are taken here in South Australia. They certainly do not apply to the way this parliament—and particularly its committees—operates under this government, because this government chooses not to be accountable to the parliament. That is why in question time, day after day, the Premier and his ministers refuse to answer questions.

That is why decisions are taken and no information is given to the parliament. That is why the committees of this parliament are ignored by this government, and sit there week in week out with nothing to do. The Economic and Finance Committee has a subcommittee which is supposed to scrutinise industry assistance. This government makes decisions on the industry assistance but refuses to have that committee scrutinise the data that sits behind those decisions. This government has made an art form out of secrecy, so I think it ill behoves the Premier to have the Governor say parliament should demonstrate how debate and dissent can be constructive unless the Premier leads by example.

The day this Premier instructs his ministers to answer questions—as he suggested on his first day as Premier in this place that he wanted to happen—the day he instructs his ministers to answer questions, the day he starts to lead by example in answering questions truthfully and honestly and giving the details to the parliament, that day I think he can proudly stand up and say I have changed the way the parliament operates, and parliament now is demonstrating how debate and dissent can be constructive, because it cannot be constructive in a vacuum, and that is what we have in this state: we have government by vacuum.

May I turn to some of the themes that the Governor moved to in his address. He said:

My Government believes that, more than at any time since the formation of the first government for this State 175 years ago, our future will be determined by the decisions we make in this decade.

I ask members to reflect on that particular sentence because there is nothing to back it up. I ask myself and anybody who reads that—we all heard it—if anybody reads it and contemplates it, on what basis was that statement made? On what basis does this government believe that decisions taken today—now, and in the next little time, the next little period—will be more important than any decisions taken at any time in the state's history? The government is trying to paint a picture that it has important work to do. The government is trying to paint a picture that it has not been responsible for the mess that this state is in. The government is trying to paint a picture that it is going to do something positive about the state's future, when the state's future has been squandered over the last 10 years to the point where we are flogging off the assets.

In the meantime, the Premier has the temerity to talk about a future fund, and I will come back to that, because I think it is a very important point. This Premier would have us believe—would have us as South Australians believe—that this is a new government, that this is a fresh government, and it is different than what we have experienced over the last 10 years. I am unconvinced in listening to, and then re-reading the Governor's speech, that this Premier has any new ideas.

As my leader said a few moments ago, this Premier sat at the cabinet table every day during the last 10 years that the cabinet sat, and was part of every decision that this government has taken over those last 10 years, and he cannot walk away from those decisions. He cannot even suggest that he has no responsibility for those decisions, and that he is now leading a new government. The reality is that the government, financially at least, is in such a mess that he is unable to walk away from those decisions, because this government is constrained by the mess that it has created. It is swimming in its own cesspool. The Governor then went on and said:

The Government's aim is not limited to improving material circumstances of South Australians. It seeks also to help transform the way we all think about ourselves, and the way we relate to one another.

I ask myself, 'What the hell does that mean? What does that mean?' The people out there in South Australia want a government that delivers services, and delivers them efficiently and effectively—that is what it wants from government. It does not want a government that indulges in some form of social engineering to try to make itself look effective. It wants a government that delivers services effectively and efficiently, and this government has failed to do that; it has failed on every turn.

I have said this time and time again: when I was a schoolboy and a young man growing up in this state, I was very proud of this state, and I believed that this state would continue to take its place in this nation—and I am talking about in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Unfortunately, for most of the period since then until now, we have had Labor governments in South Australia, and we have all seen how South Australia's position relative to the rest of this nation has slid continuously.

I remember, as a young man, expecting that Adelaide would soon be a greater city than Brisbane, that South Australia would continue to be a greater and more financially powerful state than Western Australia. It did not take long for that vision for this state to disappear, and that is because we have had so many years of governments in this state that have failed the people of South Australia, and we had this speech yesterday that seeks to do nothing to reverse that trend.

The Governor talked about seven themes, and one was about agriculture as a clean, green food producer. It is this government which has gutted the very department which was there to support agriculture in this state. It is this government which has turned PIRSA from an agency which historically was a great supporter of agriculture in this state into an agency which is not much more than a regulator—not only is it not much more than a regulator, it regulates on the basis of full cost recovery. This government keeps making new regulations and laws which impose more obligations on the farming community and then charges the farming community for the privilege of having those obligations imposed on them.

As members know, I am a practising farmer by trade—and I am getting better at it. When I was a full-time farmer, before I came here—and I am very, very much a part-time farmer; I get to spend a few hours a year on my farm these days—I had the experience of working with the department of agriculture developing and upgrading the way in which I ran and operated my farm, and I was proud to be at that cutting edge. That service from our agriculture department is no longer available to farmers in South Australia.

The first place superphosphate was used in Australia was at Roseworthy, I think in the first year the Roseworthy College was established in about 1879 or 1880. It turned agriculture in this nation around. It was not established by an individual farmer; it was established by collectivism. It was established by working together. It was established and promulgated throughout this nation by government agencies, in just the same in which coast disease was wiped out in the South-East of the state, that is, by scientific discovery which was promoted and sponsored by government.

It ill behoves the Premier to talk about clean, green food production in South Australia when he sat at the cabinet table and gutted our primary industries agencies. The advisory board of agriculture, a great institution in this state—one of the oldest institutions in this state—has been again gutted by this government. Instead of having an Advisory Board of Agriculture which represents practising farmers, we now have the Minister for Agriculture taking advice from big business.

It might come as a surprise to those opposite, but it is family farmers who drive innovation in this nation; it is not corporate farming. It is family farmers who look after the vast environmental assets of this state; it is not corporate farmers. It is family farmers who we will be relying on to produce food and to produce export income for this state, not corporate farmers, yet this government has ignored them. It has endeavoured to wipe out the Advisory Board of Agriculture and the Ag Bureau network across this state and it has decided to talk to the big business end of agriculture—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: Mr Deputy Speaker, may I seek your protection?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for West Torrens.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for West Torrens.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do not need advice from my left, please. Member for MacKillop, the floor is yours.

Mr WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Governor also spoke of legislation to protect the iconic South Australian districts of the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale from urban growth. What about the iconic district of Mount Barker? What is so special about the McLaren Vale and the Barossa Valley, the public may ask? They both have wine grape growing and they both have tourism, but as far as agricultural production in South Australia there are many other districts which are just as important as those two icons.

The point I make is that this government has no plan for the future growth of this state. It is wedded to the urban sprawl of Greater Metropolitan Adelaide. It has no plan about decentralisation. This is a government of centralisation—just think about Shared Services. It has taken—

Mr Pederick: Every time our phones get cut off we think about it!

Mr WILLIAMS: Yes. This government has taken every public servant it possibly could from regional and rural centres in South Australia and it has accumulated them into central Adelaide. Then it turns around and says, 'We've got a problem with population growth in Adelaide and we have got a problem with urban sprawl.' There is no plan under this government to manage the development of this state outside of Greater Metropolitan Adelaide. That is a great failure of this government.

The Governor talked about mining, and I hark back to what has happened in Western Australia over the last 30 to 40 years compared with what has happened in South Australia, yet this government has done nothing to support mining other than talk. The mining industry has been crying out for a deep sea port to export iron ore and other mining product out of this state in a financially viable way.

There is an iron ore mine in the middle of the Far North of South Australia, west of Coober Pedy. To export iron ore (which is a bulk low-value commodity) they load it into individual 40-foot shipping containers, rail them to Outer Harbor and, when they have enough to fill a boat, they individually unload each of those 40-foot shipping containers. That is an industry that is trying to compete with BHP and Rio Tinto in the Pilbara. They are in the same marketplace and look at the way that they export from those mines in the Pilbara. It is a nonsense.

It is a nonsense for this government to suggest that it has done anything to support the mining industry in this state. The only thing it has done is picked up the targeted exploration initiative which was established by the previous Liberal government and renamed it. That is all it has done. I am very proud of the mining industry in this state. I think it will develop over time into a very important industry for this state and I am pleased that that will happen. I do not think that this government can take any credit for it.

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Norwood, do not provide a running commentary on what the deputy leader is saying.

Mr WILLIAMS: He's not annoying me, sir.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, he's annoying me.

Mr WILLIAMS: I get to the point where the Governor talked about the future fund. Future funds are a great idea. Peter Costello did it brilliantly when he was the federal treasurer, and how did he do it? He recognised that we were entering a period of good, strong economic growth and that he was going to have an excess of revenue over the requirements of government, so he established the future funds and put billions of dollars into them.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: It was John Howard.

Mr WILLIAMS: Well, Peter Costello and John Howard. They put billions of dollars in there during a time of economic growth when revenues were exceeding the needs of government. What happened in South Australia during those same times? We have a Labor government, and what it did was take every cent of that and spend it. The old saying goes, 'Make hay while the sun shines'; while the sun was shining in South Australia this Labor government spent every cent it could, and when the sun got covered a little by clouds and things started to slow down it started to borrow.

At a time when our indebtedness is approaching $11 billion the Premier has the Governor come out and suggest that we will establish a future fund. Where is the money to come from? Are we going to go out and borrow more money so that we can put it into a future fund, because that is the only opportunity we have in South Australia at the moment?

Let me tell you one other thing, Mr Deputy Speaker. We already have a future fund in South Australia; it is called our state forests. They were established well over 100 years ago and they have been built on continuously over that period. The forest estate was established in the late 1800s—in my electorate at Mount Burr they started planting pine trees about 1890, that is 120 years ago; they were planted at Bundaleer earlier than that, and at Wirrabara—and the forest estate has been added to continuously over the intervening period. We now have an asset which in the last financial year returned, from memory, I think $43 million to the consolidated account.

Speaking to previous members of the ForestrySA Board, they believed it was making a return on asset well above what you would get from most other businesses in this nation, and I could not think of a better future fund this state could have than to continue to grow that asset. Not only is it a future fund that provides an income stream for the future of the state, it underpins thousands of jobs in the South-East. It does more than any other thing in this state to ameliorate our carbon footprint. There are significant benefits in those forests, yet this government is intent on throwing all that away because it needs the cash. Why does it need the cash? Because it is incompetent.

The temerity of the Premier to say that he is contemplating establishing a future fund in the same breath that he is saying that he is committed to flogging off, at a fire sale, our state forests is just mind-blowing. It is a disgrace, and I cannot believe that the morning newspaper in this city actually even mentioned the fact that this Premier has talked about a future fund. It is just fairyland stuff. Where would the money come from?

He suggests it is coming from the mining industry. Let me remind the house that when we were debating the Roxby Downs indenture and were informed that at full production Olympic Dam would return some $350 million a year in royalty revenues, we were reminded that under the commonwealth financing agreements a little animal called horizontal fiscal equalisation means that the net benefit for this state would be about $20 million.

Let me remind the house that that is probably 20 years off. In 20 years' time, we may have $20 million a year, some of which we may be able to put into a future fund if we have managed to pay off the $11 billion of debt. That is why I say it is fairyland stuff. Anybody who seriously thinks that this government could ever establish a future fund must be blind, deaf and dumb.

I see that I am not going to get through all of the Governor's speech in the time left, so I might speed up and go to a couple things I find particularly galling. I mentioned in the earlier part of my address about the Governor's statements on behalf of the Premier how parliament should demonstrate how debate and dissent can be constructive.

I talked about the Industries Development Committee and the way this government has ignored it. General Motors-Holden's comes to mind. General Motors-Holden's apparently has been demanding $200 million behind closed doors; they are the numbers that have been bandied around in the media. The minister for business berated the opposition for having the temerity to ask to see some sort of business case, some sort of cost benefit analysis and to ask whether this was the best use of $200 million of taxpayers' money. Within weeks we saw that he offered to the workforce of General Motors-Holden's a most amazing pay rise—18.3 per cent to all of its workforce, some workers getting over 22 per cent. Was Premier Jay Weatherill informed of this when he went to the US?

An honourable member: How does that drive productivity?

Mr WILLIAMS: Yes, exactly. How does that drive productivity? Everyone of those $200 million comes out of the pockets of other South Australians, other Australians and other business operators. Every time you use a taxpayer's dollar to prop up one business, you have to take it from another. The money does not come out of thin air; it comes from somebody else. When that money is used to drive up wage rates in an industry, it is just nonsense. That is why the opposition was asking for a business analysis; that is why we wanted to see the numbers that sat behind it. Was the Premier aware that those wage negotiations were underway? Even the union has described the outcome of those wage negotiations as spectacular. I find that fascinating.

The Governor's speech talked about how the manufacturing development in South Australia was based on the state's competitive strength of low costs. That has gone out the window; it has disappeared. Why has it gone out the window and disappeared? Because of this sort of nonsense that this government involves itself in. Hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money driving up wage costs will impact on every business in this state. The government ignores it.

Let me also say that the Governor talked about how the government wanted to find other ways to reduce the burden of costs of living, costs on working families, by developing flexible payment options for service charges. My leader talked about the price of water in South Australia. What is the government going to do about the cost of water in South Australia? It is going to find other ways to reduce the burden of living costs on working families by developing flexible payment options. Maybe we will have our water meters read once a week and you pay for your water every week rather than quarterly or six-monthly (quarterly, it is now). I do not think that is going to relieve the burden. I really do not think it is going to relieve the burden.

The reality is that the cost of services has gone through the roof because of bungled decisions—over $1 billion on a desal plant that was not needed. We agreed to it and we accepted it, and there was bipartisan support for a 50 gigalitre a year capacity desal plant in this state. That would have done us fine, but this government chose to spend another $1 billion, which will be paid for by every household.

He also went on to say that we are working closely with the non-government sector. I looked at that and I thought, I wonder what that means. This government has demonstrated how closely it works with the non-government sector in my electorate. I invite members to visit the Keith hospital. There is a community that has been forced by this government to work differently from every other community in this state. It means that they have to go out and fundraise in their own community to keep health services going in their own backyard. That is the way this government currently works with the non-government sector. It says, 'We don't care about you.' The Minister for Health says, 'I am not responsible for the Keith hospital. They can close down.'

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: That is outrageous. I agree with the member of the Torrens, it is outrageous. What I really question is why the government treats the hospital at Keith in my electorate differently from the hospital in McLaren Vale in a Labor held seat.

Mrs GERAGHTY: Point of order: I was not listening all that intently, but I do think that the member may have said that he agrees with the member for Torrens about so-and-so. I never said that and I certainly would not say that. You are quite wrong. He misrepresented me.

Members interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: I apologise. I agree with whoever it was over there who said it was outrageous that the government cut off the funding.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for MacKillop's time has expired. Before I call the next speaker, I would just like—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member for Torrens.

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