House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-04-09 Daily Xml

Contents

GM HOLDEN

Mr MARSHALL (Norwood—Leader of the Opposition) (14:27): The Premier has just outlined to the house all of these great things that were going to flow from this agreement that he negotiated. Given it was such a great agreement, why did he actually not get around to signing it?

The SPEAKER: Yes, I think that is a supplementary. The Premier.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (14:27): The agreement is evidenced by an exchange of correspondence—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —both of which were signed. It is orthodox—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: I warn the member for Morphett for the first time. I call the member for Unley to order. Premier.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: It is orthodox for agreements to evidenced by an exchange of letters, both signed by both parties. This is orthodox. It is also orthodox for there to be later more detailed implementation agreements, which in fact happened in relation to the Cruze model, and I am advised that it took over 12 months to negotiate the final detailed arrangements in relation to that implementation agreement.

Look, there is an air of unreality about this. General Motors stood up in Canberra along with the Prime Minister and myself and said they were going to spend $1 billion and that the Detroit boardroom had signed off on the expenditure of $1 billion. Are you seriously suggesting that they did that without reaching an agreement with the South Australian government, the Victorian government and the commonwealth government?

The Hon. I.F. Evans: So Victoria does have an agreement.

The SPEAKER: I call the member for Davenport to order. The member for Mitchell.