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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-06-26 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.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (19:01): I am pleased to have the opportunity to address the parliament as we now conclude another estimates committee period. This is an important opportunity for the government to explain to the people of South Australia the detail that sits behind their budget announcements. In the ten years that I have been here—this is now the 11th estimates—the confirmation of the government's commitment to squander that opportunity never ceases to amaze me.

Yet again, the government takes the view that it is convenient, cute, appropriate or whatever to fill this time with information which is often available on websites and the like, rather than using the opportunity to explain the detail of the budget. So, the great aspiration of the Hon. David Tonkin to make his ministers available for the first time in an estimates committee so that the parliament may have an opportunity to scrutinise and have this information has, yet again, in my view, been abused by this government. The ideal was important and, if the government actually took advantage of this opportunity rather than attempting to sit behind the veils of secrecy in the way that they obtusely deal with the questioning in estimates, then South Australia would be better served.

Nevertheless, we are in a situation in South Australia where we have a government which continues to rely on a high level of debt to service its bloated expenditure and fails to address very important issues, such as arresting the debt and deficits in their budget. They continue to career along, crippling the state's future with their addiction to debt and gross incompetence.

I was pleased though this year—and I wish to pay special tribute to Mrs Lucia Snelling, the wife of the Treasurer, who brazenly and bravely made a public statement on the day of the announcement of the budget when she said:

My two daughters catch the bus in the morning and they've been having a lot of trouble with the buses not coming and buses being late...It would be good if that was fixed.

Well done, Mrs Snelling, for speaking up on what has become a very important public outcry now as to the state of our public transport, and I am going to address that shortly.

I am just going to give a few minutes of dedication to the contribution made by the Hon. Gail Gago who is presently the Minister for the Status of Women in South Australia. I am used to making an observation about the shallowness of contribution by the minister, but this year's contribution was about as illuminating as a dead match. It concerns me that the minister continues to fail to deal with very important women's issues.

In short, this year, her contribution largely outlined a very important issue for women; that is, updates on strategies to deal with domestic violence and the safety of women—a very, very important issue, the significance of which is never to be underestimated. Yet again, we come to committee and she cannot even tell us how many intervention orders there have been in the last 12 months, which was a keynote contribution by the government in response to the review on women and their vulnerability with domestic violence.

We know from last year, it took two years for the police to even be trained, then we got to this year and the fact that she did not even know about this key area of importance to women—that is, their personal protection and safety—is just mind-blowingly incompetent, in my view, as to the failure of this minister.

Of course, she succeeded the Hon. Jennifer Rankine as the Minister for the Status of Women. Frankly, she was not much better; in fact, I have to say that minister Gago is a marginal improvement or at least she has an opportunity to be. None would ever match the Hon. Stephanie Key in the time I have been here in the parliament when her contribution to this area was outstanding, and I am very happy to say that. We would get to estimates, she knew her subject matter; she had spent the preceding year fighting for issues important to women.

Where was minister Gago this year when a 20-year-old woman was shackled to a bed for nine months in a prison? Where was she demanding that this matter be dealt with? Where was she calling on her government to deal with the advance and development of the Women's Prison which has been called for over decades in this state and on which there had been a commitment made but then abandoned by this government. Where was she when it came to the regulation of the sex industry and the assessment of the legislation that was under consideration by our parliament? She did not have a clue about what was happening in the Premier's Council for Women. She could not even recall having any advice from her own department.

Where was she with the house of horrors when we saw women and children left in squalor and in disgraceful circumstances? Where was she calling on her government to deal with the protection of women and children in those circumstances? Where was she on the issues surrounding the fair work case for community workers which granted a significant percentage increase to salaries? Where was she in making a commitment of the government financially to support that when the fair work tribunal had announced that this introduction of an increased salary for people who are clearly underpaid should come in over an eight-year period? Where was she? Why was she not outraged that anyone else who had been granted a finding that suggested that they were entitled to a decent salary and return? Where was she in fighting for the implementation of that promptly? Well, she was nowhere to be seen.

Where is she on important issues? We have had allegations that young women across Australia are stolen or removed from the country illegally to be child brides. Has she made a statement on this issue? Dead silence. Where has she been in relation to the current issue that is very important—even the young women's association had put submissions to the government this year—about body image of women and the appalling treatment and oversexualisation of children and women in advertising? These submissions go completely unanswered. There is even no statement on them. There is no consideration of them.

As we speak, we have women in prominent positions being ridiculed publicly because they have frizzy hair. Now, I do not know what it is that attracts the media, for example, at the moment to get stuck into Gina Rinehart—

Dr Close: That's not why she's being criticised.

Ms CHAPMAN: No, wait for it. Allegations are made in public about why she cannot afford to have her hair cut or prepared properly. That is the sort of the statement that is out there. It is interesting, I have been around a few years, as have some other members, and I can remember Colleen McCullough, the eminent Australian author, who has long frizzy hair. She is a very bright woman, if anyone has read The Thorn Birds and all of the other great books she has written. She has certainly made a lot of money. I do not know if she is a rich person now, and I do not intend to take that any further. What I would simply say is this: she is a well-regarded, highly-acclaimed Australian author, but has anyone been complaining about her having frizzy hair? No.

Therese Rein, if you want to use the other arm of the political spectrum, suffered criticism because she had curly hair, and so forth. These body image issues are out there right now, but where is our Minister for the Status of Women? Nowhere to be seen. It is not acceptable that she puts her head in the sand, or the desert, or wherever she puts it, and does not deal with these issues, because they are important women's issues.

The list goes on. We can talk about food waste in this country. She is the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries (or primary industries) as well and yet do we have a peep out of her about the fact that $3 billion worth of food is wasted in this country every year? These are important issues that need to be espoused. She had the opportunity, with PIRSA, to reinstate the funding to the Women in Agriculture and Business organisation, which had its funding slashed for a support service officer, and its annual conference, in the centre of it, has now been threatened, in fact it has been reduced as a result of that funding.

So, she has had plenty of opportunities. She has been sitting in the cabinet. She has been able to make a statement, but not a tink, not a word, not a whisper, not a little shout about the Cadell ferry closing, and yet we had women in tears at the public meeting for the closure of the Cadell ferry. When asked, 'Were you consulted about this?' we got some rambling answer about the Minister for Transport Services recognising that he had not consulted enough.

Where was she sitting in the cabinet? Scratching her nose? I do not know what she was doing, but remember this: she knew about it, as did all the cabinet know about it. Members only need to remember that the Sustainable Budget Commission report was put out in late 2010. We had a leaked version first, which stated, on page 130, in detail, how much money could be saved with the closure of the Cadell and Lyrup ferry services. We then had the official report, dated August 2010, which clearly stated, on page 253 of the second volume:

Ferry services—discontinue at selected sites.

Close the River Murray ferry crossings at Cadell and Lyrup...

It could not be more clear. The report was sent to cabinet. They had a great long list available to start in the axing of services. Ferry services, again, on page 245, discontinue at selected sites and the monetary amounts. So, she knew about this and she did nothing about it.

I go back to minister Conlon. We had quite an enjoyable estimates with minister Conlon, but there are a couple of things I want to bring to the attention of the house. Although shortly after estimates the Premier announced that there would be a backflip on the decision about the closing of the Cadell ferry service, only hours before the minister was in here saying that he was disappointed about the level of consultation, that it was going to be looked into and that there were meetings organised. The reality is this: firstly, he had also been privy to the Sustainable Budget Commission report in 2010. Unless he did not read it, which would be unusual considering there are other initiatives in there that have been acted on under his portfolios, he knew full well what the position was.

Here is the incredible thing that came out of estimates. We were discussing the Urban Renewal Authority, which is a new unit set up, basically, to sell property from the Housing Trust, Defence SA and the old Land Management Corporation. It is in an embryonic stage but, nevertheless, has been set up by the government. It was announced late last year and is now awaiting the appointment of its final board, which is, apparently, imminent. While the minister was making decisions (this year) about cancelling the Cadell ferry service for a pittance of $400,000 a year savings, at the same time he was privy to the fact that the new Urban Renewal Authority was purchasing a $15 million site, known as the Caroma site, on Magill Road.

Why? He tells us in estimates that, in short, it is to protect it against inappropriate development. That is very interesting because sitting next to him in the parliament is the Minister for Planning and the Attorney-General (minister Rau). He, of course, is in charge of a number of planning laws—apart from those under the development act—the new structure plans that are coming in to deal with inner metro rim TODs (transport-oriented development). He is in charge of all the laws that protect against developments and, indeed, for the site in question to be developed in a manner which might be inappropriate if it got into the hands of the private sector. It raises some questions about the veracity and capacity of the planning laws we have in South Australia if you cannot trust your own planning minister and the legal structure that we have to protect those assets.

He says, 'I can say it's okay as the minister for the Urban Renewal Authority to borrow $15 million from SAFA, which is our South Australian Government Financing Authority, to buy up land to protect it against a property developer's inappropriate development, and we will sit on it for probably at least four years because, really, the market is in a mess and we are not getting any money.' That was his explanation as to why the $58 million estimated return from the Land Management Corporation was not delivered last financial year—not even one dollar as the dividend.

The market is flat, he decides he has $15 million capacity to service a debt to borrow that money to go and buy a piece of property when, as he spoke, right at the other end he was closing down the Cadell ferry. It is just not acceptable. Ultimately, the people in the Cadell and surrounding community said, 'We are not going to tolerate this. We had to fight hard for the services we have. We have to fight even harder for what we need to keep.' They sent a very clear message to Adelaide that that was unacceptable, it was unconscionable and it had the potential to put the whole town at risk, not only its viability but the safety, education and residential arrangements for the families in it; not to mention what would inevitably follow, and that is an extra and significant cost to run Cadell prison or, alternatively its closure and relocation.

The government realised a few things on a number of fronts: one was that the public was outraged (even metropolitan Adelaide was outraged) so the polling was clear; secondly, Cadell is in a marginal seat and the penny finally dropped that this would put the government at risk in relation to the seat of Stuart; and thirdly, when it did a proper assessment of this rather than just try to cut it and get away with it by keeping it secret, the government realised that the cost was therefore going to be significantly greater with extra bus services and the like, and that it was not going to succeed in being able to convince even its own Treasury people that there was a cost saving.

The government did a backflip and we welcome that. I congratulate the communities in Cadell and the regional areas in the Riverland. I put out a high alert to the people in Lyrup and other surrounding districts: clearly this government has to have an eye kept on it because of what it will rip out of the community in those circumstances. I also commend the member for Stuart and the member for Chaffey, particularly, for their efforts in assisting people in their local communities to make that message loud and clear to the government.

Can I also say that all of this is at a time when he is a senior minister sitting in a cabinet that has approved that SA Water be raped financially of an extra $125 million. To prop up the government's embarrassing deficit situation this year, about which there has been a massive turnaround from the predictions that it made a few years ago, it took another $125 million off the top of SA Water's money. Why do I say they have raped it? They have raped it because in the 10 years of this government we had a 249 per cent increase in water costs. We have been told, softened up, beaten up, bullied, whatever, that we have to pay more in preparation—

The Hon. T.R. KENYON: Point of order. The member for Bragg just spent the first few minutes of her address lecturing us on women's issues and the need to be sensitive about issues facing women and now trivialises rape with this little tirade over here. I think it is an objectionable use of the word. I think it trivialises rape, a very serious women's issue.

The SPEAKER: Thank you. I do not think there was a point of order there, but I would ask the member for Bragg to be guarded in her comments.

Ms CHAPMAN: I understand the sensitivity of an issue like that and I do not want the member to be offended in any way, but it might have escaped his attention that men are also victims of rape. It is the exercising of a violent act against another person without their consent and it is reprehensible, but so is this. The carnage that is left as a result of the raping—that is, the forceful taking—of funds which have been specifically accumulated for the purposes of paying for our desal water is unconscionable. That is not acceptable. The one thing in this year's budget that I think is so sneaky and underhand is the harvesting of that money—not to mention the funds they are already taking—off the water funds to prop up their deficit situation, and it is completely unacceptable.

I turn now to the Minister for Transport Services. She is a gem. What a gem she is! She is so predictable. In her session, I thought she came in to provide us with some answers on three basic issues; one was how much we paid the bus contractors in the last financial year and how much we were going to pay them in this financial year. It took about 15 minutes to get a straight answer out of her on that, and Rod Hook, of course, as the CEO, came to the rescue. We then went on to the cost of the changes to the timetable. This was very interesting because the—

The SPEAKER: Member for Bragg, I am not sure if you are aware, but your time has actually expired. We may have a problem with the clock, I think. I am not quite sure how to overcome this, but we have no 20-minute setting on the clock, unfortunately. The clock has been set for 30 and I am told when the 10 minutes is up. I would just ask you to wind up.

Ms CHAPMAN: I am happy to do that. The performance of the Minister for Transport Services was a sight to behold. Regrettably, her capacity was on show again, and Rod Hook had to come to the rescue again. There are some very severe deficiencies in relation to the information provided, and I will be addressing this matter in a later contribution to the parliament.

The SPEAKER: Thank you, member. Also, you did mention the Treasurer's wife, Lucia Snelling, and I am sure we all pass on our sympathy to her in the loss of her father—very sad for her. The member for Morphett.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (19:22): Thank you, my lady.

The SPEAKER: A fitting title for this place.

Dr McFETRIDGE: I get 30 minutes now, do I? The 10th budget, 10th estimates, different portfolios, but if there is one really good thing about the estimates committees it is that it makes you, as an opposition shadow minister, go through the annual reports, through the budget. I am glad the member for Croydon is sitting down here and going to listen to this contribution.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Dr McFETRIDGE: Trust me, I have done a lot more reading in this job than I ever did when I was at university and in my five years at veterinary school. I had 156 exams, and I do not know how many other tomes of information I had to produce for reports and special topics, but I have done more reading in this job than I have in any other job. It is good for the grey matter to get in there and work out how things work.

However, I mentioned in my budget speech the way the budget papers are presented. Other state and territory governments present a guide on how to read their budget papers for people like myself, who are not accountants or economists. It would be good if we had one of those here to help us walk our way through them because you hear ministers coming out with particular figures but you cannot for the life of you find those figures in the budget papers.

Even today, I was reading over the estimates replies for the police budget. I think the police minister said in the estimates that it was $767 million for the police budget, yet the figure in the budget papers, the net cost of services summary of the whole of policing, was about $740 million. So, where the extra $20 million came from, I do not know, I cannot find it, it would be interesting to find out. But what I can see in this budget is that there are so many issues that are going to face not only the people of South Australia but also the people involved in the portfolios that I have with police, emergency services, corrections, road safety, volunteers and Aboriginal affairs.

I will start with emergency services and minister Rankine. I said to one of the newer members of this place on our side that it is interesting in estimates, you can tell the ministers who really have some issues with their portfolios; as there are long introductory statements and lots of Dorothy Dixers. It was interesting this morning, Paul Caica, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, gave quite a short introductory statement, then there were a couple of government questions, and the rest of it was up to the opposition.

Ms Bedford interjecting:

Dr McFETRIDGE: The member for Florey is quite right, they are government questions but I think the colloquial expression is Dorothy Dixers. They provide important information and we in the opposition do not ignore those government questions because sometimes you can get little snippets of information out of them, particularly if the minister is feeling a bit comfortable and relaxed with the question, they will sometimes adlib a bit and that is when they can get into trouble.

We all remember that it was not the estimates committees or shortly thereafter that got a former premier into trouble, it was sometime down the track when people were going back over the estimates to see what was said, by whom, when it was said, and whether it was correct. We do that in opposition as well. Part of our job now is going back, reading the estimates, checking on what was said, and circulating the estimates to our various stakeholders to see what they think about it, and the feedback can be very interesting. Already there is some interesting feedback coming to me which I will be examining a bit further to make sure that what the minister said, and what the minister promised, is exactly what is going to happen.

With the emergency services, the current minister, the Hon. Jennifer Rankine, has made a lot about the increased funding, but my big concern is when you look at the savings that are being forced upon the emergency services, the fire services, the SES, and the police, there is a significant challenge ahead for the leaders of those. The Deputy Commissioner of Police, Gary Burns, who will soon be our new police commissioner, has admitted that there will be significant challenges for him. The current commissioner, Mal Hyde, has said it will be very difficult to maintain operational services. The Police Association's Mark Carroll said you would have to have rocks in your head if you did not think there were going to be cuts to frontline services with budget cuts. In the Metropolitan Fire Service and the Country Fire Service, there are millions of dollars in budget cuts being forced upon those services.

The minister made a great point about the $2.6 million that is being given to the CFS and SES for extra training over four years but, the problem is, when you divide that $2.6 million by the over 15,000 volunteers, over four years—and assuming each of those volunteers does about three training sessions, and that is what is reported in the annual reports—that works out at $43.02 per volunteer per year. They are doing three training sessions, so that works out at about $14.34 per training session. The minister has just bought them morning tea and a bit of lunch. It really does not do more than that. That is assuming that that $2.6 million is not going to pay for wages for extra trainers who are coming in, and those extra trainers are welcome, but is it at the expense of providing frontline training?

I have been in the CFS since 1984. I had a few years off but I am back in it again now, and I understand that the minister is in the Salisbury CFS, and I congratulate her on that. This should give her a greater understanding of the challenges of volunteer firefighters and those in the SES, and the need to undertake those training programs you want to undertake so that you can feel fulfilled as a volunteer firefighter. Often, though, you cannot get on the courses and you cannot do what you want to do. The classic example here is first aid. The MFS firefighters all get trained in senior first aid, which you would expect, as sometimes they are the first people on the job.

If you are a volunteer firefighter in the Country Fire Service from a one-appliance brigade, only four people in that brigade can be trained in senior first aid. If you are a two-appliance brigade only eight people in that brigade can be trained in senior first aid. The fact that you might have 30 crew on your books, during the day time those four or those eight might be at work—and the local farmers and the people working in the area are the day crew—and they need to be trained in first aid because often they are the first on the scene.

Certainly Kangarilla and Meadows, the two CFS brigades closest to my place, are the first on the scene. At Easter time we had a crash out the front of our farm. I was there just afterwards. The Meadows CFS arrived and the ambulance arrived 10, 15 minutes later. If it was not for the fact that we knew first aid, the guy who was trapped in his car could have had very, very serious problems.

We need to make sure that all our volunteers get trained in the area they want to be trained in. It is not just a wish list for them to fulfil any fantasies. It is far from that. It is about training them in a complete range of volunteer or emergency services, and we need to make sure that this minister understands that. I would have thought that she would have understood that, being in the Country Fire Service.

The small amount (and it is a relatively small amount compared with the budget) that is being increased in training is not going to be enough to provide not only what is required by the volunteers but also what they want to have. I think that we should give them some of what they want, not just what they need.

The other big concern for me with respect to the emergency services, and particularly the Country Fire Service, is that we have got a small company called Remlap at Palmer, just outside the Barossa. Remlap has been making personal protective clothing for the CFS for nearly 15 years now and it has been doing an exceptionally good job to very high standards. But now, because of centralisation of purchasing, the purchasing of that protective clothing has gone to Stewart & Heaton, a company that has quite a significant presence in South Australia down at Ridleyton, I think it is.

They are not buying from Remlap: they are buying from a Queensland company using imported materials, which Remlap would be doing, anyway. They are buying a material called Tecasafe. You cannot get Tecasafe, I am told, at the moment. They are using Proban, which is quite a good product. Unfortunately, if you wash it out that fire retardant depletes, and then you will end up having a firefighting outfit that could actually catch fire.

The need to make sure that we are pushing South Australian companies, small firms like Remlap, cannot be overemphasised; six, seven, people will lose their jobs because Remlap will not have the contracts to supply personal protective equipment for our fire services. It is a shame that this is happening. There is the need to economise, to get the best bang for your buck, there is no doubt about it.

The social consequence in a town like Palmer is a smaller scale consequence to removing the ferry in Cadell, but let us see whether we can have a turnaround on getting Remlap back into the picture and get it supplying (as it has been doing for 15, 16 years now) to our fire services top equipment. My uniform for wildfire bushfires was made by Remlap. It is made from a material called Nomex, which is very good. They do a terrific job. It fits well and it has lasted a long time. The problem with PPE in South Australia, though, is not just about the suppliers and the types of material. It is absolutely unconscionable that people, the volunteers, are having to wait for that equipment.

I know in my case that I had to wait for a month or so for some boots. I could do that, not a problem. I was not going to every job that Kangarilla CFS had—far from it—because of other constraints on my time, but the captain of the Kangarilla CFS, Geoff Benham (who has been in the CFS for a very long time; he is a very experienced firefighter), has been waiting over 12 months for a pair of firefighting pants. Why is that so? That should not be so. We should be giving them everything they need to do the job they want to do, because there is just absolutely no way that we could pay a fire service to do the job that the CFS volunteers do.

For Geoff Benham to be waiting that long, or for any volunteer to be waiting to be fitted out with a uniform, is just something that this government should attend to. I hope that Stewart & Heaton has got its act together so that there are no delays in supplying personal protective clothing to our volunteers.

The other disappointing thing about supporting South Australian business with our fire services is that we are getting a whole lot of new fire trucks for our volunteers, which is fantastic. We are getting new 3/4 fire trucks. I can advise the house that the 3/4 is a 3,000 litre fire truck. It is a four wheel drive, so it is not three or four, they are 3/4 fire trucks. They are coming from New Zealand.

I have not seen the fire trucks personally. All the reports are that these are quite good fire trucks. In fact, they are exceptionally well made with parts being manufactured in New Zealand. The problem is that they are being made in New Zealand. The guy who owns the company is a South Australian, but he is not over there for fun. What is the problem? What is the issue with manufacturing in South Australia? Is it taxes here, is it overheads, is it WorkCover, is it land tax? What are the issues with being in South Australia? Is it that the wages are cheaper in New Zealand? Is occupational, health and safety less severe in New Zealand? I do not want to downgrade occ, health and safety in South Australia, or wages here, but let's find out why this chap went to New Zealand and is not manufacturing our fire trucks here.

Moore Engineering at Murray Bridge has done a terrific job in manufacturing fire trucks and they are still doing some work, but they should be doing a lot more work. We had another company here making fire appliances and they have gone through the hoop. We should be supporting South Australian businesses because there is a flow-on from this. The need to make sure that we support South Australians is not just out of parochialism; it is about the reality that there are jobs there. These people pay their taxes and GST and spend money in their communities. What goes around comes around, and that is why we need to make sure we are supporting our South Australian volunteers and those who are supplying our volunteers.

The South Australian Computer Aided Dispatch system that serves our volunteers, police, ambulance officers and Metropolitan Fire Service firefighters has been in place now for about eight months, since October 2011. It was a cost initially announced at $36 million by then minister Wright and premier Rann. Now we find out in the budget it is $33 million and $3 million has been cut from that. I have a real issue with that, because there is a dire need to have extra support staff to implement SACAD so that we know SACAD is going to function the way it was meant to be working, that is, providing as quick a response as we possibly can for police, fire, ambulance and SES, sending the right types of equipment and the right responses so you are not going halfway across the countryside to do a job that could have been attended by somebody much closer.

That happened at Clarendon. An appliance from Kangarilla was sent to a job 200 metres from Clarendon CFS station. SACAD did not work in that case. There have been some 'typos' where other appliances would have been sent very long distances had the operators not been alerted by those who had local knowledge about what was going wrong. SACAD (South Australian Computer Aided Dispatch system) needs to be given the resources. The minister knows that system is not working as well as it should be. I have been getting information from officers in the CFS (volunteers and paid officers) that there are still issues there, and I know the chap in charge in the MFS is doing his very best, but they need more support staff to make sure that SACAD works.

Once SACAD was in place, the CFS was going to get an automatic vehicle location system to enhance their ability to see where the trucks and volunteers were so we knew where the resources were so an emergency could be dealt with as quickly as possible, but also to maximise the safety for the volunteers. We knew where they were and what was going on and we could get the extra assistance to them if they needed it.

However, the AVL system (Automatic Vehicle Location system) is still being worked on. They are still doing a business case. The minister said they did not want to rush into it in case the technology changed. For heaven's sake, technology is changing and you have to bite the bullet at some stage and you have to make a commitment. You may have to upgrade that equipment at some later stage, but you need to do it.

I was talking about supporting the volunteers, and the cruellest cut that we had to the CFS and SES was the volunteer support officers. There were six of them spread around the state and, because of budget cuts, it has gone back to two; and they are located in Adelaide and sharing a car. The minister said that has been topped up with some extra trainers so they are back up to six again, but they are still sharing that job.

The VSOs (Volunteer Support Officers) were helping the volunteer brigades with recruiting, retention of recruits, organisation of the management and governance of the brigade and everything down to their constitutions, which were changed just recently. It is a very important role but, because of budget cuts, we have seen that cut. It is just not a good thing to be doing.

The other thing that was brought up in estimates committee the minister had no answer for—in fact, I think she should go back and check her answers—and that is about an SES volunteer at Port Pirie, a lady who was doing home duties (I think that is the correct political term nowadays) looking after her kids. She was injured as an SES volunteer. Her husband had to take time off to look after her and the children. Some help from the government was offered, and whether that was taken up I do not know. The minister said it was not, but I understood there were some offers of help, but there was no insurance cover.

The CFS and the SES do have top-up insurance cover, but it does not cover people who do not go to work, it does not cover people who do home duties. This particular lady and her family are left out on a limb. The government needs to step in here and make sure that this family, these volunteers, are able to get on and do what they want to do, that is, volunteer, but then not suffer the consequences if something does go wrong.

The need to make sure that we look after our police force is something that I will talk about in last few moments, because $116 million has been cut from our police budget. The minister said that I was making it up, but she should be able to add up the sustainable budget cuts, which have been in the budget for a time—$88 million of them—and then there is a little bit over $27 million in cuts in the current budget, and it adds up to $116 million.

The Police Association and the current commissioner have all expressed real concern about the ability of the police to do their job. The new Commissioner of Police, Gary Burns, is an excellent policeman. He is a very practical policeman, who was part of the Focus 21 review of policing in South Australia. I know he will do his very best to make sure that front-line services will be maintained to the best of their ability, but the best of their ability may be constrained by the budget cuts enforced upon them in this budget.

The need to recruit police is another disappointment. This government made an election promise to recruit an extra 300 police. They are going to do that now, but not by 2014; it is by 2015-16. They are not doing what they promised. There is a real need to make sure that this government does do what it promises to do, does do what is expected of it, and does not announce and defend, does not do a Cadell ferry, and then have to turn around a decision they have made because it was ill-thought out, ill-planned, ill-conceived and certainly punishes those whom we are here to help.

This place is about making sure that South Australians get what they deserve, get what they want, if we can possibly give them what they want, and get what they need, and that is what they are not getting in South Australia. They are not getting a service from this government. The CFS volunteers, the SES volunteers and the police officers are not getting what they require, and that is the very best from the ministers. We have had a number of ministers now. I think we are on our third minister in a short period of time.

You need to get your head around the portfolios, you need to know the consequences of your portfolio and the decisions you are making. It is just not good enough to try to fob it off and say, 'Well, the budget cuts are there, there will be some austerity measures, and we'll still keep on delivering the services.' You cannot have it both ways. The current minister really needs to have a rethink, have a reread about what she said at estimates, because I think she will think about what she is doing, where she wants to go, and how she wants to do her job.

Time expired.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (19:43): We are indeed privileged, as members of the House of Assembly, to be speaking in the other place, which is now the House of Assembly, so I am not sure whether to call it the other place, and we are in the other place and the House of Assembly is the other place. Be that as it may, I hope we do the house justice and appreciate the upper house allowing us to sit here.

In my response to the estimates of the last few days I want to mainly reflect on my portfolios of agriculture, food, fisheries and forests. One of my first questions in estimates was about the Governor's speech, which is essentially written by the government for the Governor to deliver, and clean, green food is supposedly one of the seven pillars of this government. Yet, in the budget speech it was not mentioned at all. That just shows the importance of agriculture and food to this state Labor government. Not once was it mentioned in the speech, but it was put up in the Governor's speech. I do not reflect on the Governor, because his speech is written by the government, but it was not even mentioned, which I think is disgraceful, quite frankly, because we do have a vibrant agriculture industry.

I note the government always talks about the crops we have had in the last couple of years, the over $4 billion contribution in each of the last two years from the crops, as if the Labor government was responsible for the rain. Obviously they were not and a much higher authority was, but they will certainly take the taxes and whatever they can get out of the farmers who are paying tax after some tough times and paying their way when they can make a profit.

I was interested in the accelerated plant breeding at the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics. This is one of the small, bright lights, and I thought it was applicable to agriculture—that is, $780,000 extra being put in for wheat breeding. The minister said to me, 'That that is not my line of questioning. I am not the minister.'

The Hon. S.W. Key: No, it is in Tom's.

Mr PEDERICK: As I am being reminded again by the member for Ashford it is in Science and Information Economy. It is in another portfolio and that is fine, but I would have liked to think—

The Hon. S.W. Key: We were not being rude; we were trying to—

Mr PEDERICK: No, I am not being rude, I am just making a point. You can make your point if you want to make a speech, but I would have thought that the agriculture minister might have known something about wheat breeding—even acknowledging that it was in another portfolio—and at least acknowledged that this money was going to help the agricultural industry, but the minister could not find anything positive to say even about that.

As we have seen over the last six years that I have been here, and I am sure previous to that, if a minister does not like a question (and I certainly noticed this when I was shadow minister for the River Murray) they fob it off and say, 'No, that's an environmental minister question,' or the other way around. I note that this year we lost a lot of time, and the leader talked about the allocated time over the whole of estimates being cut by nine or 10 hours, and agriculture certainly lost half an hour. I note the statement of minister Gago, when she says:

The South Australian government values the significant contribution agriculture makes to South Australia. Our vision is for an industry that is prosperous and sustainable.

It is hard to believe that this government will achieve this vision with the amount of cuts progressing through to the year 2012-13. We are currently in a four-year budget period when we are losing $80 million over that time. We have projected $24 million more coming out of agriculture, as well as another 98 jobs on top of about 400 other jobs that have gone in recent years from Primary Industries. We now see, because such a dearth of talent has gone from Primary Industries, that they are advertising for a director of agribusiness for Rural Solutions so that they can get someone out of the private sector to assist. I believe that too many good people have accepted packages and, essentially, left the building, and it has been a great loss to the industry.

It was not very clear on these job cuts over the next three years whether it was 50, whether it was cumulative or whether it was 98; certainly the budget paper states that it is 98, although I could not get a sensible answer during estimates. Any of these losses are significant when we have already seen massive cuts in funding right across the board in agriculture. I then asked some questions about the Cadell ferry and wondered whether the minister had lobbied minister Conlon, the transport minister, on the effect that closing the Cadell ferry would have on agriculture in the Riverland. Certainly, there had been none of that—no thought at all in regard to agriculture there.

Minister Gago is also the Minister for Regional Development. I talked about the Liebich family who have land on either side of the river at Cadell and do hundreds of trips annually to shift equipment and use the ferry for contractors to get across the river and back. I reflected mainly on this one farmer, but there would be not only many farmers and contractors, in relation to agriculture, who need to access this ferry but also people who need it to attend schools and as access for emergency service vehicles. Yet we saw what I called in my estimates questioning an act of political bastardry, when a few weeks ago the Weatherill Labor government did a Rann stunt of announce and defend and said, 'In three weeks' time we are going to shut off the Cadell ferry.' How ridiculous, in this day and age, to think that one of the 11 eleven ferry crossings in this state would be cut off. What are we going to see next? Are we going to see them come down to Tailem Bend and say, 'Oh, we won't need that one open; you can all go down to Wellington?'

We had the transport people do the numbers, and, from what I am told, on the Cadell ferry in the slow time—100 vehicles a day. Well, they want to be there in the busy times, when there are so many people who need access to get across, whether it is for tourism, education, or firefighting. There was a lady—I can't remember her name—who almost lost her life many years ago, but was saved because the Cadell ferry was there and emergency service vehicles could reach her in time. Sadly, she lost her sister, but if it were not for the ferry she firmly believes that she would have died on the scene as well.

This is what we are seeing with a city-centric government that has no idea about the regions. I say that with all due respect to the Speaker (the member for Giles). She is the one regional member in this government and would have some knowledge of the regions; but she is the only one on the other side. These people need to wake up and realise that it is not just small communities that are cut off by these poor decisions. We saw the Premier making his oh-so-gracious backdown. Well, he needs to think about his own doctrine, where he said that the government would consult before they make a decision—and this was to save a lousy $400,000 out of a $16 billion budget, and we can reflect on the decision with Keith hospital that had to be backflipped on as well.

I have already talked about the clean and green food bowl, and the lack of the government talking it up as one of its seven strategic priorities. There is a $50 million decrease in operating expenditure from the 2011-12 budget to the 2012-13 budget, and we note that Primary Industries and Regions SA is one of the only agencies to see a continued decrease in operating expenditure from 2011-12 through to 2014-15.

Something else I also want to talk about is how the government wants to get clear away from research and development in this state, in regards to agriculture. In the past, and even now, we have one of the premium research entities in the South Australian Research and Development Institute. The government, in their early negotiations with transferring SARDI over to the University of Adelaide—this was supposed to be done by 30 June this year, but negotiations are still being finalised.

Even though I am not entirely happy about this, I firmly think that this is our only way forward for research and development in agriculture in this state, because the government, from what I understand, has just wanted to walk away and say, 'No more money; no more money to agriculture research and development.' The minister went on the record and talked about how the negotiations will be finalised, and said the merger is worth a lot of money. She also said, 'There are a number of complexities associated with it, and it is important that we take whatever time we need to get it right.'

I asked the minister about the $70 million-plus of SARDI land-based assets, which include assets such as the Minnipa research station, West Beach (where a lot of the fish research is taken out), Turretfield, and Struan. There are a whole range of entities, that are worth $70 million-plus, and the minister would not rule out whether these entities would be gifted to the University of Adelaide. What worries me is whether they will be sold off as time goes on as assets that the university does not want in the future, as it has done with some of its farms in the Mid North.

I want to talk about branched broomrape, which has been a big issue in the Murraylands, and my electorate has a lot of the branched broomrape impact in this state. We note that the funding will be cut back from about $4.5 million a year of state and federal money. In the last 10 years about $45 million has been invested by governments and about $70 million of farmers money. I have certainly been concerned about where we go in the future with the branched broomrape. I admit that some farmers are saying, 'Look, we can't beat it; its just another weed; let's just get on with life.' Others say, 'No, we must keep up the controls.'

I met with the Victorian minister just to get his angle on it to see that we do not have any trading restrictions across the border, and he said, 'No, I'm pretty sure everyone's going to be signing off at the cross-ministerial meeting so there won't be any restrictions on trade.' I hope that goes on in future, because this program has taken a lot of energy from a lot of people. The community consultation committee, headed up by John Berger, a very good man from up Wanbi way in the Mallee, now living in Murray Bridge, is doing a great job in making sure that the community can hear from the departmental people on a regular basis what is going on.

We are seeing a massive cut in funding to this program because we are going from eradication to management, and the federal government is only putting in $400,000 this next financial year. I suppose I should be thankful when I ask the minister whether the state government will be matching that funding, and they will. We note across the sectors that there is more cost recovery; there are cost-recovery implications in the aquaculture industry, but there is really only a $185,000 in real money increase in the aquaculture sector, which will be a major sector in promoting and filling our seafood void into the future as we need to feed more mouths. It does not say that we will not have a lot of wild catch, but aquaculture needs a bit more attention so we can promote it into the future.

I am also concerned with fisheries and aquaculture and even agriculture, where we see the property identification codes introduced. This is a cost recovery mechanism the government wants to keep imposing on our farmers and fishermen, hitting them with more costs but on the other hand taking it away. What are people paying for? They keep paying and paying and there is less and less government support. The governments are expecting millions of dollars to be put in by the private sector, yet they are more than happy to take out tens and tens of millions of dollars that would support our primary industries.

In regard to forestry, the government has decided to continue with the forward sale of the three forestry South Australia timber rotations, although the AAA credit rating is gone. This reflects on comments former minister O'Brien made down in Mount Gambier in October 2010. When he was asked by Ian McDonnell at a forum down there whether this was about protecting the AAA rating, minister O'Brien—good old honest Michael—said, 'Yes, it is; this is what it's about.' I ask, now that the rating has gone down to AA+, whether we need to sell the forests, because the impetus to keep the AAA rating has gone out the window. But, no, it is going to keep going and minister Gago has not lobbied the Treasurer to halt this sale.

In former years we have seen contributions of $43 million, $44 million, close to $45 million annually from Forestry SA go to government coffers, which over 111 years would be close to $5 billion as a contribution to government from this sector, yet we see in this year alone that where $38 million was budgeted it has dropped to around $18 million, and next year, because it looks like this is when the Weatherill Labor government is going to finalise the sale, forestry will actually cost the government $3.8 million. On those numbers alone, over the 111 years of three rotations, it will cost the government $422 million over time, without allowing for inflation. Instead of forestry being a major boost of income over time, it will become a major cost to government into the future.

There were confusing answers from the minister around the community service obligation, how the fire service cover will be maintained and whether ForestrySA will be the main provider of fire services. I was told that the new owner would provide some fire cover, then it was that ForestrySA would be the main provider and contract back to the owner of the forests, and in the end it was just, 'We are still working through that part.' It is confusing. We do not just have forests in the South-East. There are forests at Wirrabara, up in the member for Stuart's electorate—

Mr van Holst Pellekaan: Bundaleer.

Mr PEDERICK: —and Bundaleer. We have Kuitpo and Mount Crawford in the Adelaide Hills. All these forests will still need management, so this will become a cost to government over time. It is a disgraceful proposition that the forests will basically be given away for something like $600 million when in reality it should be worth at least $1,300 million to the economy. Another sad thing is that the funding for the Advisory Board of Agriculture ceases on 30 June. They have been serving this state for well over 100 years with grassroots advice to government, but in another non-brilliant move—

Mr Gardner: Suboptimal.

Mr PEDERICK: —suboptimal move—former minister O'Brien decided to cut that funding, and minister Gago has done nothing to replace that funding to get that grassroots advice for agriculture in this state.

Reflecting on the River Murray, we heard today during estimates that work is still being done on getting the Narrung bund and Clayton bund back to as close bathymetry as possible. Here we are nearly two years from recovery of the river and we still have interference in the river. We still have people at Lake Albert who cannot irrigate because their water is in a terrible condition. We have people there now who, because they will be paying $3.45 a litre from 30 June, are putting in lengthy pipelines through Lake Alexandrina so they can water their stock.

Time expired.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (20:03): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. You are Madam Speaker in here, I suppose.

The SPEAKER: I was referred to as 'my lady' earlier by one of your colleagues.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: My dear lady Madam Speaker—

The SPEAKER: Thank you, my lord.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Whatever you think is appropriate.

The SPEAKER: We must remember where we are.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Things change in here. Yes, it is a very highfalutin place, of course. I cannot help thinking it is a little bit like the Crows or Port Power playing a regular season match on one of the outside ovals. It is not quite the same as being in the main stadium, is it? Nonetheless, we will do our very best and we will play as hard as we can.

We are here to talk about the estimates process. Let me say that from my perspective I share the frustration of many of my colleagues—and I am sure many government members as well—with regard to some of the difficulties of getting your questions up and some of the protection that some ministers enjoy through the estimates process. Nonetheless, I do think that whatever opportunities you do get are still well worth it. While in an hour you might only get 20 minutes of questions, it is 20 minutes that you would not get any other time. From that perspective, we should make the very most of it.

I would also like to thank all the departmental staff—department heads and all the other people—who put an enormous amount of effort into preparing for estimates. Of course, there are questions that ministers can answer, but a lot of the time they need a lot of help, so good on the hardworking departmental staff who give them as much support as they possibly can.

I participated in quite a few committees. Obviously I have portfolios which I focus on myself, but I was very pleased to participate in regional development, emergency services, education, tourism, local government and forestry. Recreation and sport was the last one I participated in today, one of my own areas of portfolio interest.

Ministers go about things in a wide range of ways. There are ministers who just lay it all open and say, 'Ask me whatever you like; I don't need a great deal of protection,' and there are certainly ministers who make long opening statements and then look for protection and get protection. One dreadful example, as far as I am concerned, is one minister who twice, I think, used up 15 minutes of a one-hour questioning session just for their opening statement and then, of course, sought protection from government colleagues for the other 45 minutes. So, it really narrowed down a one-hour questioning session by probably 15 or 20 minutes for genuine questions.

Members interjecting:

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Let me just say that the offender is not here at present. That is the only thing I will say. The bottom line is that that is pretty disgraceful stuff. If you had any courage, you would stand up and face the questioning with some confidence. I am sorry to say that that did not happen. By the way, more than one person behaved that way.

I would like to start off by saying a few things about the Cadell ferry, a very topical issue. I will not talk about the Cadell ferry for too long, but let me tell you, it is in Stuart, so I feel that I have every right to talk about this issue. The first thing I would like to do is congratulate the Cadell community, the broader regional South Australian community, and also those people in Adelaide who supported Cadell. Those people who supported Cadell did it because Cadell deserved and needed support and because they knew that they might be next. They also had my full support as well as my staff's full support. Many people worked incredibly hard. Local government and every single council on the river approached the government about this, because they knew this was a shared issue of significance.

I will not dwell on all the aspects of this, but I will just point out two key things. I know that hard decisions need to be made in government. Anybody in government and anybody who aspires to be in government knows that hard decisions need to be made, but if you want to make a hard decision, you have to do it properly. Two key things were not done properly in this case. Number one, the government did not follow its own internal cabinet rules. I will just read a short excerpt from 'A guide to regional consultation' by the government:

The inclusion of a regional impact statement (Diagram 1)—

and there is a diagram 1, and it makes it pretty straightforward how it has to be done, so there is no excuse—

is...a mandatory requirement in cabinet submissions. Cabinet requires that it be fully informed of the regional impacts of any proposal being presented in a cabinet submission.

Clearly that was not done. I also point to an agreement signed in May this year by the Premier entitled 'State/Local Government Relations. An agreement between the State Government and Local Government in South Australia'. Point 8 of that agreement states:

The state government commits to:

b. consulting with individual or multiple councils...on issues affecting specific individual communities or groups of communities;

Neither of these things were done, and that is a great shame. As I said, hard decisions have to be made. If you want to make a hard decision, or an easy one, you have to make sure that you do it properly. That was not done in this instance, and, because it was not done in this instance, it actually brought all of regional South Australia together to stand up for Cadell, because they knew that if Cadell fell it could be them next.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: We weren't invading.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: The Minister for Mineral Resources says they were not invading. No, Madam Speaker, they were not invading: they were overtaking. They were trying to overtake; that is what they were trying to do. We stood firm, we resisted and we made sure that it did not happen.

Let me just say that credit has to be given. The Minister for Transport did say that he made a mistake and he did do everything he could to correct his mistake, so I stand here and give him credit for that, but let me just say that he had no choice. He had no choice because the people of Cadell stood up for themselves. They stood up for regional South Australia. I applaud them for that and I applaud all the people who supported them doing that. I think that is a shining example for all other country towns that the government might try to run roughshod over the way they have at Cadell.

Let me move on to some other aspects of estimates. I would like to start with regional development. I will certainly concentrate on regional development and work through a few things that stood out for me. One of the key issues we need to focus on in regional South Australia is making sure that the money that is promised to us comes to us. There was $20 million promised to the Riverland through the Riverland Sustainable Futures Fund, which is very important money, but that money has not been spent in the timely fashion that was committed; that is, $5 million per year over four years has not been spent as we were told it would be.

It was very important through this estimates process to make sure that, while it might be delayed, the full $20 million is still spent in the Riverland because the Riverland deserves and has been promised that money. We cannot let even a small amount of it slip through the deserving hands of the Riverland communities. Exactly the same applies to the Enterprise Zone Fund for the Upper Spencer Gulf and Outback. There was $4 million over four years, which is a lot less money but nonetheless very important money to the Upper Spencer Gulf.

I pass on a very friendly reminder to the government and all government members not to make the same mistake that one minister made today in estimates in referring to the Upper Spencer Gulf as the Iron Triangle. I can assure that minister that, if they ever visit the Upper Spencer Gulf and refer to it as the Iron Triangle, the Mayor of Port Augusta will ensure that that minister departs not fully intact. That is a very serious breach in our part of the world, so it is 'Upper Spencer Gulf', please. It is a very important issue that that $4 million is, again, not being spent in the timely fashion that was promised. It deserves to be, so an important aspect of estimates is to make sure that the full amount of money is spent in the Upper Spencer Gulf.

I was particularly alarmed to see that the Upper Spencer Gulf heavy industry hub study promised in the lead-up to the 2010 election, which was promised at that time to be completed by mid-2011, has not been completed yet. We are in mid-2012, but I have been promised that it is nearly done; I hope that is the case because half a million dollars of taxpayers' money has gone towards that.

I would also like to just concentrate on the replacement of the Regional Development Infrastructure Fund by the Regional Development Fund. The Regional Development Infrastructure Fund has been a very good program. It was a good Liberal initiative that was continued by the Labor government, and it has brought great rewards to regional South Australia. I recognise the fact that the government has the right, if it chooses, to make a change like that, to swap $3 million from one fund towards another fund, but I think it is also important to recognise that, while on the surface it appears to be a swap of $3 million for $3 million and just changing the way the money can be spent, it is actually a swap of $3 million for what is currently $7.1 million in place for regional development in South Australia.

There is the $3 million Regional Development Fund, but we also have $4.1 million at the moment of core funding to Regional Development Australia organisations throughout South Australia. I wholeheartedly support the three-tiered model the Labor federal and state governments put into place with federal government, state government and local government contributing together to Regional Development Australia. I think that is a very positive thing; it should live on regardless of Liberal or Labor governments at state or federal level. I think it is despicable that the state government has decided just after that model was implemented that it would withdraw the state government funding. I think that is disgraceful.

I was particularly disappointed to hear the Minister for Regional Development trying to pretend that it did not matter, trying to say, 'Look, that was a previous decision. I am just swapping the $3 million for the $3 million. The $4.1 million, a previous minister said that was going to go, a previous treasurer said that was going to go.' That is disgraceful. Right now the state government contributes $7.1 million in regional development funding and after this financial year that we are about to enter into there will be $3 million, and I think that is dreadfully disappointing.

With regard to the way the money is made available, aside from the quantum, the fact is that right now there is core funding. On average there is something like $585,000 per Regional Development Australia organisation per year. The new Regional Development Fund will give RDAs a maximum of $400,000 each through the two streams—a $1.4 million stream 1 and a $1.6 million stream 2. RDAs can only access a maximum of $200,000 each per year out of each of those streams. If they are as successful as they can possibly be under the new competitive model, they will get $400,000 but on average they currently get $585,000 and some can actually get approximately $700,000 at the moment towards the work that they do.

When the Minister for Regional Development was asked, 'How do you expect them not only to continue the work but to do more work and to improve?' She just said, 'Well, they will just have to manage.' That is my precis, but essentially she said they will just have to manage, they will have to cut their cloth, they will have to do more with less. I think that is absolutely disgraceful because I think we all understand that there is not as much money as we would all like. It does not matter whether it is health or education or transport or regional development, no portfolio has as much money as it would like to have, but to go to regional development organisations and say, 'Number one, we are just pulling the rug out with regard to core funding and, number two, we are going to give you approximately two-thirds on average of the funding that you currently get.' That does not happen anywhere else. I do not see health taking two-thirds of their money; I do not see education being cut down to two-thirds; I do not see mining or mineral resources being cut down to two-thirds of their funding. It should not happen for regional development.

The other point I would like to make on this issue is the fact that, while I am not fearful of competitive funding, I think competitive funding for projects is a very positive thing. You have to stack the projects up and you get the money, you get the support, you get the resources for the best ones. Competitive funding for organisations to do ongoing long-term work to pay people to stay in regions and do a good job or to come to regions to do a good job does not work if you are trying to do that on a competitive funding model. To hire really good people to work in the regions and tell them that 'we can give you an employment contract for one or two years' is not good enough and that is not going to attract the best people.

When I asked the Minister for Regional Development about that, she said, 'I think they just get three or four or five-year contracts at the moment,' and again she just does not get it. She does not understand. I said that there is a big difference between a one or a two-year contract or a three to five-year contract—a gigantic difference. It did not seem to make any difference to her but I suspect if her eight-year term was going to be cut by that magnitude then she would certainly get it. Let me say that that competitive model is no problem at all for projects but when you are trying to supply core funding to organisations that do good work, that is just not an option. It is just not the way to go. For her to say that they will just have to manage is not good enough.

I would like to move on to one of the government's highlights in the budget. Again, under regional development, it said that it facilitated four regional consultation visits by the Regional Communities Consultative Council and supported its work on identifying opportunities from the seven state government priorities. It makes pretty good sense. I asked the minister, 'What were the opportunities identified for the seven regions in South Australia that were linked to the seven government priorities for the state overall?' She told me all about the seven government priorities again. I said, 'No; what were the opportunities that you found in each region to make these government priorities work?' Not a clue. She kept going back and saying, 'These are the government's seven priorities, the regions will just have to manage.' I said, 'No; you have a highlight here, a highlight in your budget, that says that you have identified opportunities, now what were they? Don't just read me the Governor's speech again that the Premier wrote for the Governor.' She could not tell me.

I move on to another target: continue to work with regions to finalise a statement that outlines the role of regions in delivering on the state government's seven priorities. It is the same thing again: using the regions to deliver on the government's priorities. Stand aside an argument about those seven priorities, whether they are good or not good, this needs to be turned around. This is not about using regions, RDAs or businesses to provide support for the government's plans, it has to be the other way around: how can the government support regions to achieve what they identify as the priorities in their regions?

Some of the seven regions in South Australia will have common goals and some of them will have very different goals. You cannot go down there and say, 'These are the government's priorities and you will work on all of those. In fact, we have come to tell you that it is your job to help us implement our priorities.' It has to be the other way around. Mr Deputy Speaker, as a peri-urban, semi-rural electorate representative, I am sure you would understand that this is important stuff. You cannot just tell the regions, 'You have to do what the government has decided.' The whole issue here is: how can the government help the RDAs achieve what they identify as the priorities for their regions?

In the context of this government assuming the setting of priorities for regions, I asked the Minister for Regional Development, 'Right now we have RDA boards that are set up to be independent, to run their own ship, to do what they need to do in their regions, but it seems to me you are trying to subsume them, you are trying to bring them into your system. Is there any chance that you or the government intends overtaking RDAs that currently work in South Australia, just like you have overtaken natural resources management boards? You have taken what were independent natural resources management boards and you have brought them under the wing of DENR. So, essentially you have stripped that independence, you have pulled it back and now you have extra resources to do your own government departmental work. I fear that that is what the government is likely to do with Regional Development Australia organisations.' To the minister's credit, she said, 'No, there is no intention to do that.' But let me put on the record that I am extremely worried that that may well be exactly what the government intends to do with Regional Development Australia in regions—overtake them.

Time expired.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Kavel.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Kavel will be heard in silence, please, minister.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (20:23): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I certainly appreciate your protection from the lion of the parliament, the member for Little Para. I am pleased to make some comments with regard to the estimates committees, that particularly the members of the opposition have had to endure for the past couple of weeks and what I have had to endure for 11 years. I have been in this place for a bit over 10 years, this is the eleventh estimates committees that I have been through and I have to say it does not get any better from what we were experiencing a decade or so ago.

I want to focus my remarks particularly on the areas of my responsibility on behalf of the Liberal opposition, which are: consumer and business services, veterans' affairs and state/local government relations. The first committee was that of Consumer and Business Services. I had a long list of questions but, as usual, you do not get the opportunity to get through all your questions for one reason or another—long answers and so on and so forth. I acknowledge that the Minister for Business Services and Consumers (that is his title, even though the agency is called Consumer and Business Services) did not put up any Dorothy Dixers during the course of that committee. I certainly acknowledge that, even though his office made the offer to me that we would knock back some time if Dorothy Dixers were held.

However, I did not agree to that arrangement so we ran the full three-quarters of an hour and we did not receive any Dorothy Dixers, anyway. It just goes to show that you have to be aware that the government can try some of these tactics on. We have experienced that in previous years and I know the minister for mineral development and trade has tried to negotiate that strategy in previous years and, alas, he has failed as well.

Members interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: That's not me, minister. The questioning initially encompassed liquor licensing fees. We have seen the government make a real habit of this in terms of backflipping on policy announcements. We saw the backflip, as the leader communicated and spoke about this afternoon, on The Parks Community Centre, the Keith hospital funding, the Cadell ferry, and now we see the Minister for Business Services and Consumers do a backflip on the liquor licensing fees.

We know that a fee schedule was added to the regulations and the regulations had been tabled in parliament. There was a significant backlash from a sector within the liquor licensing industry at the magnitude of those fees, particularly the small bars and clubs sector that open past 2am and 4am. The new tax structure—and let us not make any bones about it, it was a new tax that the government was going to introduce—could well have been the death knell to those businesses in terms of the dollar amount of that new tax and the impost on those businesses. The communication I received was that some of those businesses, those small bars and clubs, just could not afford to pay the level of tax that the government was trying to strip out of them.

It is my understanding, and I am happy for the minister to come in and correct me if it is wrong, that there was strong representation made to the Premier's office. There was representation from the small bars and clubs sector to a senior staff member within the Premier's office to have this new tax structure rejigged. I would like to know what pressure the Premier put on the Deputy Premier (who is the Minister for Business Services and Consumers) to go back and rejig or rework this fee structure on liquor licences.

That is what I think has happened, because I received some communication from an owner of a bar who told my office that that person had been dealing with a senior staff member within the Premier's office. It is my take on it that the Premier communicated that to the Deputy Premier. I am more than happy for them to come in and put their version of events and say what took place in relation to how it proceeded. However, what we have seen is a backflip by the government and a new set of fees tabled, and I understand the minister did that in the last sitting week. I think by and large the revised set of fees has been relatively, I would not say well accepted, but accepted, by the industry. It has less of an impact on their financial sustainability within the industry, so it is my understanding that it is more palatable, if you like, than the previous tax regime that the government was going to impose.

The tax was to raise $3.6 million, and if you look at the budget figures it appears that that amount of $3.6 million was to basically make the liquor regulatory service—that is the name of the subprogram—cost neutral. It was to cover the costs of running that program. I asked the minister whether the new regime of taxation that has been introduced, at a reduced level through the different sectors within the industry, is going to result in $3.6 million or thereabouts.

The minister prevaricated at the time of my asking the question but, remembering the answer, he said, 'I think so.' We will have to wait and see, because the invoices, the payments for this new tax will not be until the end of the year, so it will be well into the last half of this budget year, I think, before the minister and the agency know how the land lies, so to speak, where things sit in terms of what level of funding the tax will bring in.

The question I want to ask the minister is, if this revised tax regime does not result in about $3.5 million or $3.6 million, is there an intention by the government to impose other fees or ramp up other fees, penalties and so on, to make up the difference between what the tax raises and the $3.6 million? I want an answer from the minister in due course on what his intentions are in making up the difference between the level of tax that is raised and the $3.6 million, which was a figure specifically stated in last year's budget and obviously also in this year's budget.

In relation to other questions, I only had time to ask one or two questions concerning the performance of the Residential Tenancies Tribunal. The minister admits that that part of his agency is delivering a less than satisfactory level of service to the industry it serves, being, obviously, the real estate, landlords and tenancy industry. The minister admits that, but we want to know what he is he going to do to fix it.

I know he has issued a discussion paper in relation to some proposed amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act. That is all fine and dandy, but I cannot see much in that discussion paper that will actually have an impact, an effect on the performance of the agency now. That is what we need; we need an improvement in the performance of the residential tenancy branch now. I will read from an email I received from somebody within the industry. They have been told that a bond hearing will be a 90-day wait and they say that when you are trying to get through on the phones you are put on hold for up to 20 minutes and then get cut off. To wait three months to have a bond hearing matter heard, I think, is unacceptable—a 90 day wait. If there is a dispute in relation to a bond, it takes at least three months for the Residential Tenancies Tribunal to start assessing the matter. That has to be a less than satisfactory performance.

I have received some quite interesting information through freedom of information. We received a whole swag of documents through FOI, and it is interesting reading. Three months ago, the minister realised that his agency was, I think, in chaos on a whole range of fronts—in the occupational licensing area, the Residential Tenancies Tribunal and the tenancy branch area—and they are all issues I have highlighted here in the house and publicly.

The report in relation to the performance of the residential tenancy branch (and I am not necessarily criticising individual members of the tribunal) identifies problems with the performance of the tribunal, wanting hearings to start at 9am instead of 9.30am, and I understand that that has happened recently. I also understand that the workload of the tribunal has reduced; however, the hearings are taking longer to conduct. Despite having a reduced workload as a result of the July 2010 introduction of an application fee, hearings now take longer to conduct. That came through some information received through the FOI process.

I understand that one of the recommendations was that the tribunal members do not need to produce reports after every hearing, but some of them are ignoring that instruction and still producing reports, which obviously takes some time. I also understand that there was a note that highlighted that usually the residential tenancy branch and the tribunal only take a break during those three or four days between the Christmas and new year period, but last year they took a two-week break over the Christmas and new year period, which produced a backlog, and I think (and I am happy for the minister to come in and tell us otherwise) that the tribunal has been battling to address that backlog ever since. It is my understanding that they do not usually take that break over that period, only between Christmas and new year.

I think the minister has a fair bit of work to do now and should not wait until the end of the year when he thinks the discussion paper will be finalised and some legislation will be introduced into the house to amend the act. He has some immediate work to carry out to improve the performance of the residential tenancies branch.

I will move on to the next committee, veterans affairs. I see the clock winding down; it is amazing how time flies when you are having fun. I want to highlight an issue, again, with the negotiations that ministers try to make with shadow ministers in relation to reducing the time of a particular committee. The veterans' affairs committee was about to start, and the minister rolls in and says, 'Hey, Goldy, we'll hold our Dorothy Dixers back and we'll knock the time back from an hour to half an hour.' I said, 'Well, no, I'm not going to agree to that. We'll split the difference and we'll go for three quarters of an hour so long as you hold your questions, your Dorothy Dixers.' So that was the agreement made. We are sailing through the opposition questions—fine. Then all of a sudden the government member pops up and says, 'Hang on, I want to ask a question.' I said, 'All right, well, that's fine but the deal's off.' We were going to run for an hour, because I had more than an hour's questions, I can tell you.

You might think that, with about one page in the budget and a $700,000 budget allocation and about 3.5 FTE, it might be difficult to get an hour's worth of questions, but I can tell you that I had a couple of hours worth of questions, because it is a very important portfolio and one that I have a great deal of interest in. So, all bets are off. After the government member asked that question, I said, 'Righto, all bets are off. We're going to run for an hour.' What had happened was that someone had texted up to our side and also texted the government side. The arts portfolio was on next. The leader came a quarter of an hour earlier and the minister, also with his entourage—all the advisers rolled up.

I told the leader what had taken place and she was quite happy. She left and came back in a quarter of an hour after we ran the full hour of questions. I just tell the government and its ministers that if they make a deal, a deal is a deal. Do not, halfway through the show, try to change things because we will go back to the original process.

The Hon. S.W. Key: It was one little question.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: It might have been one little question, but it was quite a lengthy—

The Hon. S.W. Key: And it was an important one, too.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Yes, it was an important question, but I actually had that as part of my questions. It was quite a lengthy answer, too. Anyway, do not whinge to us about the time that is being set. You set the timetable. The government set the one hour timetable for veterans' affairs. If the minister thought it was too long, his office could have rung me weeks before and said, 'Hey, we think an hour's a bit long. Do you want to knock it back to half an hour?' Negotiate a couple of weeks before the estimates committee actually gets going, not the day it starts. Don't walk in at the start of the committee and try to negotiate knocking back time. Your government sets the time frame, so if you do not like it come to us a couple of weeks before to see whether you want to knock back the time, not a minute before the committee starts. That was veterans' affairs.

I have only got about a half a minute to go, but I want to talk about state/local government relation and, wowwee! The poor old beleaguered Minister for State/Local Government Relations. He has been in that job for a year. I had him 12 months ago and he had only just been appointed, but the poor old Minister for State/Local Government Relations, I do not think that the year has really helped him much in understanding the portfolio, unfortunately. He really struggled with the questions that were asked of him. He really did struggle with the questions asked of him, particularly when we came to the issue of the carbon tax.

Time expired

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (20:43): This is 20 minutes of opportunity I have to respond to the estimates process that we have just been to. Other members have commented at length on how the process works. I will limit my comments in that area to just two observations: first, in relation to the time. I think that overall it would be great if we had a lot more time so that all the opposition questions and all the government questions could be asked in each portfolio, but specifically the Families SA area within the education portfolio.

I note that the member for Kavel was concerned about the limit of only one hour for the veterans' affairs portfolio. Families SA, of course, the care and protection within education and child development, is some $300 million of the state budget and dealing with the most vulnerable children in our community. We had half an hour to deal with that section of budget estimates, and I would suggest to the minister and whoever organises the schedule for estimates committees that it would be greatly appreciated if next year we could have more than half an hour, and preferably at least an hour or two hours, for that part of the budget. The opposition would be grateful and I think it is an appropriate change that needs to be made.

The second observation on the process, which other members have talked about, is how some ministers take questions as they come and answer them quickly and get through them as much as possible and some make long opening statements and take protection from government questions, and so forth. I want to pay particular tribute to the Minister for Transport, who was in my first estimates session, and was happy to take as many questions as could be thrown at him, and I give him credit for that.

I also want to give the Minister for Transport excellent credit, before I get into talking about some of the issues in my portfolio areas, for what I think was the highlight of the whole estimates process, which was confirmation that Gorge Road will be resealed in the next 12 months.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Obviously, my estimates committee was the highlight of the whole process, not the Minister for Transport's estimates process.

Mr GARDNER: The Minister for Small Business gave the people of Morialta nothing in his estimates process, so he will not get the credit that I give to the Hon. Patrick Conlon on this occasion. I feel like I should, because minister Conlon went on to say (apparently, because I want not there at the time) that I am quite a nice fellow, whom he quite likes, so bravo to minister Conlon. That said, there were many things in the estimates process that concerned me, and I will get to those in due course, but I want to touch on each of my areas in the 17 minutes I have remaining and tell members what I have learned. It feels like a school report.

Quickly, on minister Conlon's responsibility of housing, we talked about a number of things and one that I want to draw to the attention of the house, for those who were not able to attend that riveting estimates session, is the concerns that I have in relation to Housing SA stock in the new redevelopments. River Street, Marden and Woodville West have recently been transferred from the Housing Trust to the URA. I am aware that, particularly at River Street, Marden, and I am sure at the other location, a number of those Housing Trust properties were kept vacant for a long period of time. Although they could have been tenanted, they were not, so that the government could sell them off and do the developments that the URA is designed to do.

It concerns me that the level of Housing Trust stock is not going to be maintained at the levels prior to the sales. I think at Woodville West the minister identified that, out of all those houses, there were I think 150 that were transferred recently and we will have 60 Housing Trust stock after the redevelopment. For River Street, Marden there was no commitment made. There will be some more community housing but there was no commitment made as to the level of Housing Trust stock that will be there after the development.

In relation to the portfolios of communities and social inclusion, disabilities and housing, we met earlier this week—yesterday, it probably was—with minister Hunter. The Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion identified in relation to the medical heating and cooling concessions that the government introduced last year that, as at 31 May 2012, 2,397 applications for the concession had been received, 1,196 had been approved (of which 678 had been paid), 1,017 applicants are assessed as currently not eligible for the concession and 184 applications are being validated or followed up with the applicant or the medical practitioner for further details to support their application.

This was a program that was identified in last year's budget papers, and I am quoting from the 2011-12 Budget Paper 6, page 41 if the minister doubts me, because he seemed to yesterday when I quoted these figures. It states:

This initiative provides $0.4 million—

which, I assume, is $400,000—

per annum (indexed) along with establishment costs...for the creation of a concession on energy costs for people on low incomes who for medical purposes require the regulation of temperature in order to control the symptoms of their disease.

The symptoms of conditions like Parkinson's Disease and Multiple Sclerosis can be affected by ambient temperature levels.

The measure was identified in a press release by minister Hunter on 20 December last year saying that up to 2,000 vulnerable South Australians will receive this additional financial assistance towards their energy bills. What was established yesterday was that, far from 2,000 vulnerable South Australians receiving this additional assistance, in fact, as I said a moment ago, 1,196 will receive it; 1,017 have been denied. Then we got into a discussion about the eligibility criteria. The minister listed a number of conditions that the department has determined will add up to someone being eligible to receive this concession. Again I am quoting from yesterday's draft Hansard:

Qualifying medical conditions for the concession include multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, motor neurone disease, muscular dystrophy, fibromyalgia, lymphoedema, post polio syndrome, poliomyelitis, systemic lupus erythematosis and tetraplegia.

Those conditions require this concession to be applied, and that is appropriate. However, what was initially in the government's announcement last year was that it would not be an exclusive list. If you had one of those conditions and support from a doctor saying you needed to have regulated temperature control, then you would get the concession. Also, last year the government said—and I am quoting from minister Hunter's press release of 20 December—'A qualified medical practitioner may also nominate other conditions that may be eligible.'

However, yesterday in estimates the minister changed his tune and confirmed, when asked a direct question as to whether that list was going to be exclusive or whether there was flexibility if somebody had other conditions, that the list was, in fact, exclusive and that there would be a medical panel appointed that will eventually give other advice to the government on other conditions that may be received. However, last year the government was specific. They said that potentially 2,000 people would be helped by the measure and that if somebody did not have one of the conditions on the list—and I am quoting from that 20 December press release—'A qualified medical practitioner may also nominate other conditions that may be eligible.'

It has completely changed the goal posts for this scheme. That is why people with a disability, people with medical conditions who require that their temperature be regulated, took the advice of Mr Hunter, who announced program several times last year. He went on TV, he went on radio and told people they needed to get a doctor's certificate saying their temperature needed to be regulated, fill in the forms, send it in, and they would get the concessions. That is why so many of these people have been disappointed, and that is why so many of these people are upset with the government, because the government overpromised and under delivered.

There is a question about the budget. We went into it a bit yesterday, and the minister did not have a firm answer. I know that someone in his office checks the Hansard for the House of Assembly for any potential mistakes that I might make. I am sure I have not made any yet, but maybe it will happen. We went into this at some length. The budget last year was set at $400,000 per year. However, yesterday Mr Hunter said:

...the amount for 2011-12 has not changed; it is still $316,000. For 2012-13, the budget for medical heating and cooling concession is $348,000, which includes an additional amount of $18,000.

When I pointed out that that is in fact $59,000 a year less than the government advised last year, the minister said, 'I am a loss to understand the question.'

The budget paper from last year said $400,000, the budget paper for this year says $330,000 a year. Last year's announcement and subsequent press releases said that there would not be an exclusive list, there would be flexibility depending on people's conditions. This year the minister says, 'If you are not on the list you do not get the payment.' That is why people are upset. I urge the government to seriously rethink this.

I noted the Premier on television last night appearing to back down from the minister's intransigence on this issue. I hope that this is going to be another one of those backflips that we have seen over the course of the last couple of weeks where the Premier listens to the community. How about listening to his own government's press releases just from last year in which they promised one thing and now are delivering another?

More than 1,000 South Australians, the most vulnerable in our community, have been distressed and let down by the way the minister has handled this measure. I trust that it will be addressed in the not too distant future so that these people, who need to be kept cool in summer and who need to be kept warm in the winter, do not have to suffer through too many cold winter nights without their heating on because they are too afraid that they cannot afford to pay their bills as the cost of electricity spirals out of control.

Another area that I am somewhat concerned about is in relation to juvenile justice facilities. There is a range of questions on all these areas, but I have eight minutes left. I note that many of the questions that were put were taken on notice and I look forward to getting the answers so that we can explore those issues more fully.

There has been some concern in recent days about the number of people in our prisons who are on remand: a much higher proportion than elsewhere in the community. I can inform the house that the situation is far worse in our juvenile justice facilities. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, in recent times, has done quite a bit of work on this. Last year it released a report that showed that South Australia had the greatest increase in juvenile detainees on remand, as opposed to having been sentenced—I think 'non-sentenced versus sentenced' is the terminology they use—and it was a 50 per cent increase from 2007 to 2011.

We have to nail down what their figures exactly are at the moment. I can advise the house that yesterday the minister advised that, at the moment, over the 2011-12 year (with a week left, obviously), 18 per cent of our juvenile justice detainees have been sentenced. Less than one in five people in our juvenile justice system have been sentenced. Thirty-six per cent, so twice as many as have been sentenced, are on remand, and the remainder (which, by my year 6 maths, adds up to about 54 per cent) are in police custody. So, 54 per cent are in police custody, 36 per cent are on remand and only 18 per cent of the juvenile justice clients at Magill and Cavan have actually been sentenced, and that is something that very much needs to be addressed.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: You're like Michael Dukakis; you just leave the doors open.

Mr GARDNER: Right. Moving to the disability area, the other nice thing I will say about the government during this speech—we have all been asked by the Premier to be kinder and gentler to each other, so I am trying to make sure that I say something nice for every criticism I make, which is very hard, on occasion—but the other nice thing I want to say about the government, and I have said it before, is that it is thoroughly appropriate that the government has taken the opportunity, in this year's budget, to respond to the Strong Voices review into disability services and to provide significant input (let's be fair) of funding.

We know that between 2002 and 2012 the share of the South Australian budget that had gone to disability went up in absolute terms. It is a bigger number now than it was before, but as a share of the budget it went from 2.8 per cent of budget revenues to 2.3 per cent of budget revenues. The injection of funds into this year's budget goes a long way towards bringing it back to the level, the share and the importance within the budget that it was in 2002, and I commended the minister for that yesterday, as I have before.

There are some issues with how it was spent, and those who are particularly interested can read the Hansard to learn about some of the issues in relation to the moving of people with disability currently residing at Strathmont into other areas, into community housing under the new model that the government has picked up in the last couple of years and which the opposition has been pushing for much longer than that, and that is great. There are a lot of challenges that the government is going to have to overcome for that to go well, and we will be keeping a close eye on it.

I note that, in relation to the Community Visitor Scheme which was funded in the budget, the minister confirmed that although the Strong Voices report recommended that the Community Visitor Scheme report to an independent person, and Monsignor Cappo identified the Office of the Public Advocate, the minister confirmed yesterday that they will be reporting to him. So, the Community Visitor Scheme will not go to an independent reporting mechanism, and that is something that I think we need to have a serious look at.

I will be interested to know, because the minister said that most of the Strong Voices report's recommendations have been picked up in full by the government. This is one where I will be interested to see how they classify it, because it is quite important that the Community Visitor Scheme, according to Monsignor Cappo, report to the Office of the Public Advocate, so I suggest that they have accepted this one in part only and it will be interesting to see how the minister classifies it when he gets back to the question on notice.

The Hon. Kelly Vincent has a bill before the Legislative Council dealing with community visitors and a range of other measures, and I note that the minister yesterday confirmed that the budget measure makes no provision for the way that the Hon. Kelly Vincent has structured her bill and suggested the budget measure is not compatible with the Hon. Kelly Vincent's bill, which I think we will need to have a look at when considering it.

I know that the Hon. Kelly Vincent put a lot of work into it, and I hope the government has had a very serious look at it so that when they have made the determination that there will be no funds made available for it they have good reasons for doing so. I look forward to hearing more about that in due course. With three minutes left, I hope I can at least touch on all the areas for which I have responsibility, and I apologise to those who have been hanging out to hear about some of them.

In the area of youth, the minister confirmed yesterday that he is in negotiations with the YMCA at the moment because, with our being in this chamber and not the other one, we have also had to move forward our next sitting by a week, which means that we are moving forward into the week that was going to be Youth Parliament. The youth parliamentarians are having to deal with the fact that they either have to delay their program or move to a different venue, which is a crying shame, but what is to be done? This is a very strange circumstance, and the minister was good enough to indicate that he is looking at it.

In the area of Families SA and child protection, I can identify that there was not a lot of time. I think the opposition got to ask questions on about six lines, which is very disappointing. In relation to the child abuse reporting system, we regularly hear concerns and complaints from mandatory reporters who are kept waiting for half an hour—somebody said recently it was 50 minutes before they gave up waiting, and somebody else said that the phone was answered after half an hour.

These sorts of complaints come in all the time because the waiting times for the Child Abuse Report Line are extraordinary. I note that last year the Hon. Jennifer Rankine, in an answer to the member for Bragg, reported that waiting times, at that time, were between six and seven minutes. This year, the Minister for Education and Child Development identified that the waiting time is in fact now between nine and 10 minutes, which is extraordinary—and that is the average waiting time.

Anyone who calls at a low time is going to be waiting for a minute or two, and then a whole heap of others are going to be waiting for 20, 30, or 50 minutes, as we have identified. The minster, in her answer, said, 'I often walk into a school and see a teacher on the phone to the Child Abuse Report Line.' Often walking into schools and seeing teachers waiting on the phone to the Child Abuse Report Line, yet she does not see that there is a problem there—it is extraordinary.

As the Child Abuse Report Line and the electronic Child Abuse Report Line are redeveloped, I put the minister on notice that we will be keeping a very close eye on this because it is important that if somebody has a notification to report—that they are required to report and that we want them to report—that they be able to do so in a timely manner so that it can be dealt with and so that they can get on with their important job as a health worker, or as a teacher, or as a police officer, or whatever else they are doing. I look forward to estimates next year hopefully being a better process, and thank you for your time.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, member for Morialta.

Members interjecting:

Mr GARDNER: I try to be courteous.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sure member for Norwood will make up for it now. Member for Norwood.

Mr MARSHALL (Norwood) (21:03): Yet more impartial comments from the Chair; that will be another paragraph in my letter to the Speaker on you.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is okay, just keep adding to it.

Mr MARSHALL: Anyway, Mr Deputy Speaker, it is my great pleasure to speak tonight on the Appropriation Bill. It is always hard to follow the member for Morialta because he is a thorough, hardworking and very articulate member, and I wish I was put after some of our other members. But, he is an outstanding member—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Which one? Which ones do you think are incompetent?

Mr MARSHALL: There is a list.

Mr Gardner: He was talking about other members in the house.

Mr MARSHALL: Other members in the house. Can I just say that he is a credit to his electorate of Morialta. We have several boundaries which abut, and it is a pleasure to work with him. I am rising to speak on the estimates process, which we concluded today. It has been an interesting time. There is no doubt that it is time to reform this situation, the estimates process that exists in the parliament. This is a once-a-year opportunity where the government is held to account in detail, each minister and department, by the shadow minister. I think it is an excellent process. Many other parliaments have adopted different public accounts scrutiny processes, and I think it is probably time for a review of our current system and perhaps provide something that goes over the entire year and is not just focused on a particular week or couple of days in parliament.

It is good for the opposition to ask questions freely of the minister and his department to get detailed answers that go to and fro, but it is also very good for the minister and for the government to be held to account because, when you have an active and engaged scrutiny process, you have a better government. From that perspective both the government and the opposition should be joining in a review of the process.

I would like to start by thanking the ministers for their time. Most of them were very forthcoming with information, and I thank them for that, and I particularly thank the staff who put in countless hours preparing their answers for the ministers to read out. Thank you to the staff who come along and give answers to the best of their ability.

This year I was the lead opposition spokesman on seven committees. It was a bit of a mixed bag. We had some excellent sessions and some not so excellent sessions, but overall I found the process to be a very good one and I appreciate the minister's interaction. I would make some comments regarding the process, in particular the time allocation. I know that other people have already spoken on this, but I would like to add some of my anecdotes.

For example, we had a fulsome hour for small business, and I must say that the minister was very forthcoming and answered all of my questions directly. We had a fulsome hour for $1.9 million worth of expenditure, yet for the EPA, which has a budget probably 30 times larger, we had half a hour. In that EPA process not only was it half a hour, but the government insisted on a lengthy opening statement and a series of Dorothy Dixers (as they have been referred to today) government questions, which really restricted the amount of time to provide scrutiny to this important regulator to around 15 minutes: 15 minutes for $50 million worth of expenditure I do not think is adequate, and this would be something we could also incorporate into this area.

I now switch to talking about some of the information that I learnt from the estimates process, and I will start with the small business area as it is an area particularly close to my heart. We hear a lot of rhetoric from governments about the small business, the SME sector, the family enterprises, being the backbone of the South Australian economy, and they are—there is no doubt about this. The minister in his opening remarks made the point that there are 142,000 SMEs or small businesses, in South Australia. It is an outstanding contribution to the South Australian economy.

We do not have the large corporates that other states around Australia have. In fact, South Australia has one ASX200 listed company in South Australia. So the SME sector is vitally important to our economy. You can imagine my surprise when I learnt from the estimates process that, of the 89,000 public servants in South Australia, we are down to 6,500 supporting SMEs in South Australia, and the budget for the backbone of the South Australian economy is $1.9 million. I have the calculator out and I reckon that is about $14 per SME per year. To me, that is outrageous. As I said, this is a government that pays a lot of attention to putting out press releases, calling press conferences and telling us what they are doing, but let us run our eye over some of the things that this government has cut: cut to the small business sector, cut to the engine room of the South Australian economy.

I start with none other than the Small Business Month itself. The government has turned its back on the small business sector—gone. Budget saving. What has it done with the SMEIDP project? This was a very important program that was providing much needed funds to facilitate small businesses investing in technology which would grow their business. What did the government do? Cut it. It did not just cut it at the end of the program or at the end of the year: it cut it halfway through. That gives you a clear indication of precisely what this government thinks about the SME sector.

As an aside, I must say I am grateful to the minister for considering reimbursing some of the firms that were significantly out of pocket putting in their applications. Anyway, that aside, it is still disgraceful that the government has dropped that program. The small business helpline was cut by this government. These are just some of the programs that this government has cut to the backbone of the South Australian economy.

Let me tell you—and I know the minister knows this—that small businesses in South Australia are doing it tough at the moment. There is no doubt about it, they are doing it tough. We have high taxes in South Australia, we have cuts to the payroll tax exemption for the small business sector and now we have cuts to the specific programs that were helping this sector. I also want to turn to the area of family enterprises. There is overlap with the SME sector, but family enterprises do actually differ markedly from the SME sector by itself. Again, family enterprises are a crucial part of the economy here in South Australia.

Of course, I asked the Minister for Small Business: 'Tell me, minister, about that wonderful report under the Thinkers in Residence program presented by Professor Dennis Jaffe. Tell me which if its recommendations have actually been implemented by this government.' He is going to take that on notice and I look forward to the response. I specifically asked about the family business manager, which was one of the recommendations of that report.

The previous family business manager has left that post and he is not to be replaced. This is a very, very important component of the South Australian economy. A lot of those people opposite want to make little jibes about, 'Family business, born with a silver spoon in their mouth,' and all this sort of rubbish.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: No-one says that. Who said that?

Mr MARSHALL: The Premier and the minister, and I am very happy to present to the house the Hansard references to both.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order: I only said that you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, no-one else.

Mr MARSHALL: You were making those comments in reference to the family business sector. I am a very proud ex-president of Family Business Australia, the South Australian chapter, and the simple fact of the matter is that there are a lot of people opposite who think, 'Well, do you know what, the family business sector—these people have inherited businesses from their family.' I will tell you one thing: a lot of people going into the family business sector have choices. They can go interstate, they can work for a multinational, or they can stay in South Australia and employ South Australians.

I cannot think of too many things that are better for the South Australian economy than people in family businesses following their family into employing South Australians. That is what I stand for and that is what our party believes in. If those people opposite want to knock it then they knock it at their peril, and it is an absolute disgrace.

Members interjecting:

Mr MARSHALL: The heckling from opposite reinforces their hatred of the enterprising sectors of our economy. I now want to turn to DMITRE, because there are a number of elements in this budget as well that I relate to and, in particular, manufacturing, innovation and trade. I can deal very quickly with the innovation component, because there is not much left. They closed Innovate SA. In fact, I was at Innovate SA last night and let me say that it is an excellent organisation. I do not know what the government is going—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Was.

Mr MARSHALL: It still is. It finishes on Saturday night. I was there last night. Where were you? Nowhere to be seen.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: I closed it and I am proud that I did.

Mr MARSHALL: You should hang your head in shame because, quite frankly, innovation is a crucial component to enterprise in South Australia. I am yet to find any shred of evidence of any government programs to promote innovation. Innovation creates the businesses of the future, and I cannot find it anywhere. In fact, I went looking for it today with the Minister for Science and Information Economy. I asked him if he had any program—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Minister, Member for Croydon, the member for Norwood has the floor.

Mr MARSHALL: —and the minister said there was nothing in his budget which dealt with innovation. Those opposite say: why should government be involved in innovation? Government does not have a role in every single part of innovation, but government does have a role where there is market failure, and there is market failure in the innovation process in South Australia, and if the minister does not understand that process, he should get a briefing. It is absolutely incredible. He does not have a clue about how business operates in South Australia, and that is why his department leaks like a sieve.

There is another important area where this minister actually looks after manufacturing, and again this is an area where, unlike the minister, I have considerable experience. I applaud the government for its green paper by Professor Göran Roos on manufacturing futures in South Australia, but I do not applaud the South Australian government for its pitiful support for the implementation of this project. The government went to great lengths to actually point out that it was going to spend $8 million—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: 8.1.

Mr MARSHALL: —$8.1 million on implementing this process. We scratched the surface and found out that it is $8.1 million over four years. It is $2 million a year. In fact, in that line in the budget, in a line under manufacturing and innovation, the budget goes down by 20 per cent next year. So, do not believe a word the government says when it puts out a press release talking about what it is doing for the manufacturing sector. It is an absolute disgrace. The whole department is in complete and utter disarray.

I want to touch very briefly on the overseas offices. There are eight overseas offices; 25 per cent of them do not even have any staff. This is complete disarray. They have not had staff for more than 12 months. It is an absolutely hopeless situation. It is a hopeless situation because we have a hopeless minister. Anyway, I will leave DMITRE there because I have other areas to talk about.

I would like to now turn my attention to two other areas: the EPA and Zero Waste SA, for which I have shadow portfolio responsibilities. I thought DMITRE was bad. Let me just say that, in terms of the EPA and Zero Waste SA, the government has again got it wrong. These are regulators. What has the government done? The government has made these into profit centres. This government is incredible. Things that it should be running profitably—no hope; things that it should be regulating—'We will make a profit out of them.' Give me a break! Where do these people go to school? Probably in their own system, no doubt. Again, with the EPA, we had less than 15 minutes worth of scrutiny. This is a government department—

Members interjecting:

Mr MARSHALL: I went to a public school.

Members interjecting:

Mr MARSHALL: We have learned today about the appalling standards in schools under your jurisdiction.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Is that right? Appalling?

Mr MARSHALL: Absolutely; bottom of the class. You should listen to question time more often. Let us go back to the EPA.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr TRELOAR: Point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, members on my right!

Mr TRELOAR: I am having great difficulty in hearing what the member for Norwood has to say.

Mr MARSHALL: I hope my time will be extended.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: I will move an extension, don't worry.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will not accept it.

Mr MARSHALL: They have the votes, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, I will not put the motion though.

Mr MARSHALL: You are not the only one to ignore that minister. Can I just say in terms of the EPA, and I will be brief, that the EPA has a total expenditure of $45 million, but they have a total income of $51 million. This is a profit centre. This year is the first year in the history of this state where the EPA will actually make a profit—a projected profit of around $1 million. Next year, that is increasing to $6 million; that is not what our regulators are there for.

In terms of Zero Waste SA, the story only gets worse. This is an organisation which was set up to divert material from landfill—to recycle, reduce consumption and try to keep valuable resource out of our landfill. Let me tell you that this year that organisation will make a profit of $9.7 million and that is all being driven by the solid waste levy increases put through by this government.

This is an absolute disgrace because this year there is no way that this government can justify an increase in the solid waste levy. The minister repeatedly says that this is sending a price signal to people who put product into the landfill. That is just a complete load of bunkum. The simple fact of the matter is the carbon tax is coming into effect on Sunday and that is going to have a massive increase on the cost of material going to landfill.

We are getting a double whammy at precisely the time that ratepayers are suffering from cost of living increases, councils are getting a massive increase in their costs associated with this carbon tax, NRM levy increases and so forth, and businesses are struggling in this economy. There is no justification whatsoever. This is a greedy tax grab by a cash-strapped government.

I will now move to DENR. We remain very concerned about this department. Our institutions in South Australia are massively underfunded and I particularly speak of the Botanic Gardens, which is again—

Members interjecting:

Mr MARSHALL: In case you have not worked it out, that is precisely what I am saying. Your priorities are all over the place like a mad woman's breakfast. You have no idea. You are underfunding some things and you are pulling the guts out of other things—pay attention! Anyway, the Botanic Gardens—

Members interjecting:

Mr MARSHALL: I hope I am getting at least five minutes extra.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members on my right! Member for Norwood.

Mr MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Botanic Gardens is an institution which I value greatly. It is an institution which has been attacked mercilessly by this government. In fact, this year we have learnt that the government, as a $46,000 cost saving measure, has decided to cut out the heating to the bicentennial rainforest conservatory. This was South Australia's bicentennial project. It is an iconic structure in South Australia, has massive visitation each year and is recognised throughout the world. They want to turn off the heat to save $46,000.

At precisely the same time, this same department spends—are you ready for this? I am glad you are sitting down, Mr Deputy Speaker—$29 million per year on policy advice, yet they do not have $46,000 to keep our tropical rainforest Bicentennial Conservatory going. This is a government which has no idea about their priorities.

Members interjecting:

Mr MARSHALL: Have I really only got 15 seconds?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will extend it by a minute.

Mr MARSHALL: One minute?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thirty seconds if you like.

Mr MARSHALL: Alright. I am being told to wind up, despite the fact that I have been interrupted the entire way through and I am only just starting to get up a bit of steam. Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to talk about estimates. It can be a frustrating process but I think that, if we work together, I am sure that the Minister for Manufacturing, Innovation and Trade and I in a moment of rare bipartisanship can sit down and assess the public accounts review process within this parliament. Estimates would have to be a component of that. There is no doubt that the time allocation and the frequency of the visitation of estimates needs to be reviewed. I look forward to working with the government on this important review to improve outcomes for all South Australians.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. A. Koutsantonis.


At 21:25 the house adjourned until Wednesday 27 June 2012 at 09:00.


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