HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-05-02 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

SUPPLY BILL 2013

Adjourned debate on motion to note grievances (resumed on motion).

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (16:19): I am again pleased to rise in the house to make a contribution in relation to the grievance section attached to the legislation referred to as the Supply Bill 2013. In concluding my remarks yesterday afternoon when I spoke to the Supply Bill proper, I was speaking in relation to the provision of infrastructure and services, particularly in and around the township of Mount Barker. I want to continue some of those remarks and comments in relation to that particular matter.

As I said yesterday afternoon, the government only a fortnight ago, via the front page of the local newspaper, announced that a new park-and-ride facility is to be constructed in Mount Barker on Dumas Street, and everybody in the township of Mount Barker would know where that is. It is where the Mount Barker Primary School is located. There are two primary schools in Mount Barker, but Mount Barker Primary School on Dumas Street is the larger of the two.

The proposed site, as I understand, is land which is owned by the state government—it is crown land. As I said yesterday afternoon, this really shows to me and to quite a number of local residents that the government has not learned anything from its previous mistakes. We saw the fallout, all the issues and all the debate, and all the concerns raised about the government and how they went about rezoning that vast tract of land around the perimeter of the existing township of Mount Barker—that 1,310 hectares of land.

That was an announce-and-defend proposition. The government pretty much ignored each and every concern that was raised. The local council came up with an alternate proposal; they ignored that, and the then minister for planning and urban development, or whatever the title of the portfolio was at that time, (Hon. Paul Holloway) pushed ahead and put his rubber stamp on that DPA. We saw that vast tract of productive agricultural land rezoned from agricultural to residential with one stroke of a pen.

We have been through that process, that decision has been made; you cannot wind back the clock, even though some people within the community and some people involved in the minor parties within this parliament are calling for a reversal of that decision. Most recently, they were calling for a freeze on development. But, there is some confusion in relation to placing a freeze on the development because there is a difference of opinion between the local council and the Greens MLC in the other place (Hon. Mark Parnell) on the actual land that should be frozen from future development.

The council has said all the land that has not been granted development approval should be frozen, but the Hon. Mark Parnell and the Greens are calling for the whole area of land to be frozen. So, we have some confusion out there on what land should actually be frozen and what should not. I have made some public comments, on behalf of the Liberal opposition, that we do not support that freeze at all.

One of the reasons for this—and I have previously communicated this far and wide—is that you have to think very, very seriously about what the ramifications are when you freeze someone's assets. That is basically what some sections of the community are calling for. This is quite a significant decision and proposal to make and to put forward when you are looking to freeze an entity or an individual's assets. I have communicated this to those people who have raised concerns in relation to that matter.

Back to the actual point concerning the construction of this proposed park-and-ride in Dumas Street, even though we have been calling for infrastructure and services, and we certainly do need an increase in infrastructure and services in the Mount Barker district, to me and to others, this is again an announce and defend proposition. You can say we are going through the community consultation process now. There was a residents' meeting yesterday. I understand some DPTI officers met with the local primary school, which is pretty much adjacent to this proposed site, and some other consultation is taking place.

It is my understanding from the information that is provided—I know we are not allowed to display material here in the house, but I have had a two-sheeter emailed—that construction is due to commence mid-year, to be completed in mid-October. If you are going to construct a park-and-ride facility and it is to be completed in mid-October, which is only five months away—I have been advised that works on this site are proposed to be commenced in May, this month. So, again, the government is playing catch up in relation to its community consultation and engagement process.

I know that there was a meeting held with a group of concerned residents. I understand that there was a meeting held with representatives from the local primary school, which is only, as I said, adjacent—pretty much opposite to this proposed site. Now, to have a large number of buses and commuters, and the resultant traffic flow on what is really a residential street in Mount Barker, hauling all that increased traffic flow right into the centre of the town to me does not make a lot of sense.

Some of the concerns that I know that have been raised by the local residents include child safety. Obviously primary school children—littlies, reception children, five years old and through to year 7, 12 and 13-year-old primary school children—will be travelling to and from the Dumas Street school site. Traffic congestion—as I said, you are hauling a large volume of traffic into the centre of the town, where I think we should be looking at decentralising some of this infrastructure so you do not have this congestion occurring in the middle of the township.

There is noise from obviously the large diesel buses coming and going which will have an effect on the local amenity. There is obviously the Auchendarroch Wallis Cinema tavern complex, the local community library, the TAFE and then there is an open tract of land on that side of Dumas Street, but the rest of it is the primary school and residential. So, the boundary of this park-and-ride is very close to existing residential areas.

So, it is the amenity, the light pollution, air pollution and fumes. There is a buffer for the residents, 24-hour operation, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights and there are issues of hoons and vandals. They have also raised why the site cannot be located not right out of town, because I understand that you have got to have the flow of buses passing the site, but I would like to know why Anembo Park close by, which is basically a sporting facility, cannot be looked at as a proposed site, because that is requiring some upgrades, as well.

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen) (16:29): I am delighted to have the opportunity to resume the comments that I was making yesterday when the time limit so rudely interrupted me, because I had not quite finished what I wanted to say about this government. In particular, the main area that I will address that was still outstanding is WorkCover, because no-one could have made more of a mess of WorkCover than this government has over the last 11 years.

There had been a massive unfunded liability which, when the Liberals were last in, they had managed to pull back down to I think about $59 million at its lowest. In the time that I have been in here the good old government has managed to blow it out once again to $1.8 billion. $1.4 billion or $1,400 million is the immediate WorkCover liability, but then in addition to that there is another $400 million of liability for the Public Service areas which are independent of the WorkCover Corporation but which are the responsibility of the various government corporations and so on.

We have this massive unfunded liability that is going to continue to help cripple us but, worse than that, we have in this state the worst performing WorkCover system in the nation. It is the worst performing not just because of the unfunded liability but because we have by far the highest levy rates. The levy rates for people in this state are approximately double what they are for the equivalent occupations in the other states.

One might wonder why you would want to start a business in South Australia when you have the highest taxes and charges across all sectors. In particular, we have a very low payroll tax threshold so that you have to start paying payroll tax for your employees at a much lower payroll total, but then when you do have your employees each and every one of them has to have WorkCover. Fair enough, but WorkCover in this state costs double in terms of the levy.

What is the reason for that? Is it because our workers get such a good benefit or a superior outcome out of it? Certainly it is not of benefit to the employers because, in this state, in addition to having the highest of the levy rates, we have the worst return-to-work rate of any state. We have the lowest return-to-work rate and the highest levies. It is clear that this a matter for the management of the WorkCover board, and I will come back to the WorkCover board shortly.

It is clear that there is mismanagement by the WorkCover board, because the great big companies that are able to exempt themselves from operating under that legislation—they are known as exempts in the industry—have the capacity to run their own WorkCover system, effectively, but they are bound by exactly the same legislation.

The same legislation—the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1986—applies to them just as it does to the WorkCover board, yet the companies that are the exempts, again, like the rest of Australia, manage to have an average levy rate that is less than half what people have to pay if their employees are under WorkCover. One might ask why we even have this system.

Indeed, I have contemplated whether the state would be better off if we simply abolished the whole thing and said, 'Actually, if you're going to employ someone you have to go to a reputable insurance company—one of the five major underwriters around the world—and get yourself an insurance policy and show us that you have insured against accident or injury to your workers.' That would be a much better system.

It is clear that it is the board that is the problem. Some members would remember that a few years ago the government recognised that they had a problem. I think at that stage we probably only had about half a billion dollars of unfunded liability, but the government recognised that they had a problem and they decided that the only way to fix that problem was to lower the expectations of the workers.

So, they put through some legislation in this parliament, and every single member of the government voted in favour of lowering the entitlements of the workers. So much for caring about the workers; they lowered the entitlements.

The Liberal Party, by the way, had managed to get the unfunded liability down as low as it did without impacting at all on workers' entitlements, but this government said, 'No, we can save the system, we can fix it all up, we can get the unfunded liability down if only we can diminish the workers' entitlements, and that will fix the system.' We diminished the workers' entitlements and the unfunded liability continued to blow out, the rate continued to blow out and the return-to-work rate continued to be the poorest in the nation, so it did not work.

I have a very firm view about why it did not work, and one of the parts of that view is because I think they have an incompetent board. I believe that, for a start, one member of the board, who has a particular relationship to a member of this place, happens to be the person who gets the biggest buck for the rehabilitation provision. Having worked in the area of WorkCover, I can tell you that rehabilitation is the goose that laid the golden egg. In my experience, people who had significant injuries in the workplace, who wanted to get rehabilitated, rehabilitated themselves to the maximum extent that was possible and they did everything they could to get themselves back.

I saw people who had absolutely horrific injuries who, nevertheless, did return to work, but the people who did not want to return to work often used their injury at work as an excuse not to, and they found every reason under the sun not to get better. Those people stayed on the system by virtue of rehabilitation providers. If only I had thought to become a rehabilitation provider, I too could have been a multimillionaire.

Mr Goldsworthy: You would be a lot better off than you are now.

Mrs REDMOND: Yes, I could be a multimillionaire because people who provide rehabilitation services absolutely do nothing, in my experience, to improve the outcomes for injured workers. As I said, people who are injured at work, who genuinely want to get back to work, do to the maximum extent that they can. Obviously, there are some injuries where you are never going to be able to return to your former employment, and there are some injuries where you are really just never going to return to any employment whatsoever, but those who wanted to get better did.

I saw some awful injuries, such as people who had their eye literally blown out by molten metal in industrial accidents. I saw people who had had terrible accidents, and yet I saw other people who had what I would consider relatively minor accidents—the sort of thing that, if they did it on the football field on one Saturday, they would nevertheless be back on the football field the next Saturday playing for their team—yet they would linger and try not to go back to work. They would only be able to return to work for two hours a day, or two hours a week sometimes, all because rehabilitation providers were providing an assessment.

That is the goose that laid the golden egg and, as I say, there is one particular person, who is on the board—apparently this government never recognises a conflict of interest if it slaps them in the face—who I think is still the partner, certainly was the partner, of one of the members of this place.

The Hon. S.W. Key: But she's not on the board anymore.

Mrs REDMOND: She is not on the board anymore. The member for Ashford tells me she is not on the board anymore.

Mr Goldsworthy: She was though.

Mrs REDMOND: She was for a long time on the board and, strangely enough, her firm got more money for rehabilitation provision than any other firm that was providing rehabilitation services. I find that quite curious, that someone who is on the board happens to run—her name is Sandra De Poi, by the way—

The Hon. J.D. Hill: Slander people in here, just attack people's reputation without any evidence whatsoever, other than supposition. That's what you are doing; it's a disgrace.

Mrs REDMOND: This isn't without any evidence: this is with very clear evidence that this person ran a rehabilitation service and received more money from WorkCover, year upon year for the provision of rehabilitation services, than any other person who was providing rehabilitation services, which, as I say, by and large were never, ever influential in terms of the outcomes for workers. So, in my view, that has been the biggest fundamental problem with the whole of the WorkCover system—not just Sandra De Poi's company, which happened to get most of the money, but any of the rehabilitation providers.

I would guarantee that, if you actually did an analysis, you would find that you spent far more money paying rehabilitation providers than you ever retrieved by getting people to return to work by virtue of having had that rehabilitation provided. That was the last topic I wanted to cover in my comments yesterday because it is a particular bugbear of mine that we should have the world's most efficient WorkCover system after more than 30 years, but instead of that we have the least efficient system.

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (16:39): The government Supply Bill debate is underway and we have this process where, at the end of the Supply Bill, people get the opportunity to grieve for 10 minutes about anything remotely related to supply or anything else. One of the things that state, federal and local government does in Australia is support citizenship ceremonies which are, of course, one of the great pleasures and privileges of this job, and I am sure that that is felt by many members.

I had an unusual experience last week in that I am sure that I have never had the opportunity to speak at a citizenship ceremony before on the eve of Anzac Day. Members who have been here longer may have had more opportunities than I in this area, but I felt very privileged and blessed to be able to speak on that occasion because, for the 35 or so new Australians who took the citizenship pledge on 24 April this year at the Campbelltown City Council, it was a fantastic opportunity to reflect on what is such an important day across the Australian community.

I was pleased to attend the citizenship ceremony with the member for Hartley and talk a bit about Anzac Day. At the beginning of the ceremony, the Mayor of Campbelltown took what I thought was an entirely appropriate minute's silence and, in my comments, I was very pleased to be able to talk about what Anzac Day dawn services meant in Australia, and how important they were. In my speeches at citizenship ceremonies, I always say that we are looking forward to the contributions that our new citizens are going to make, particularly given the outstanding and incredible contributions so many new citizens have made to Australia for so long, whether it was 20,000 years, 200 years or, indeed, in the last year or two, our new citizens have built this country in every way.

With the new citizens whom I spoke to last week, I took the opportunity to discuss these dawn services and encourage them not only to make their contributions to our society in whatever way is suitable to their skills, talents, abilities and interests, but also the way in which they would be welcomed if they were interested in attending services. I took a poll of the people who were there in support as to who had attended a dawn service, and it was a majority of those in attendance. I think that goes to the fact of the popularity of the dawn services and how important, particularly young Australians, now find those as a connection to their antecedents.

The Magill RSL's dawn service last week, for example, had approaching 2,000 attendees which is significantly more than the first Magill RSL service I attended many years ago. We have seen them grow. Occasionally it is down due to weather and correlations with Easter but it continues to grow. I understand that the Norton Summit service, which I would have loved to get to this year, but I could not, has grown to well over 200 as well. The Magill RSL was backed up by a fantastic breakfast at the clubrooms as it so often is, with Marg Murley and her crack team on the stove providing an excellent service for the hundreds of returned servicemen and members of the community who came along and who wanted to share a beer or a cup of coffee with some diggers.

I was especially pleased to see in the crowd some of the people whom, the night before, I had seen take the oath of allegiance and citizenship in Australia. At the citizenship ceremony, I also took the opportunity to remind, and perhaps for the first time, inform people, of the words that I am sure members of parliament would have seen before if anyone has visited Gallipoli. On the entrance to Anzac Cove, there is an absolutely magnificent memorial with a quote from the first president of modern Turkey, Atatürk, which says:

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives...

You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours...

You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace, after having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

It is a message of inclusivity in the first instance, and in the second instance it is about the way that we move on. It was particularly apt on the eve of ANZAC Day, because it is important for people to understand that, on ANZAC Day, while we commemorate the landings at Gallipoli, we commemorate that very defining moment in our nation's history. It was a military moment not of a victory and success and glory in the ways of battles of old that might have been commemorated by societies and communities of old, but it was in fact the sacrifice that was made by those thousands of diggers and soldiers from England, France and New Zealand in particular, who lost their lives.

That sacrifice, that way that they gave everything for their countries and for their mates, was extraordinary, and it says a lot about who we are, but it also says a lot about the futility of war. We commemorate it in a way that we seek not to glorify war, but in a way that we seek peace. I think that message was important. It is important that, although ANZAC Day does commemorate a military event in the Australian's history, when Australians landed on the shores of Gallipoli Australia's population numbered some 5 million or 6 million people and we now have passed the 23 million mark.

Clearly, so many people living in Australia do not have ancestors who fought at Gallipoli, and yet ANZAC Day is for all of us because it says something about what we are as a nation, the importance of sacrifice and supporting each other and, in fact, the importance of seeking peace whenever we can. So, I think it was with that message in mind that a number of the new citizens came to the ANZAC Day dawn service at Magill at the Gums, who I saw and who participated in a wonderful dawn service. I think that that is the message: it is always worth reminding ourselves of that importance. It was a privilege for me to be there, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to record it in the house this afternoon.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (16:47): I just want to use my grieve to talk about some electorate issues that I hope the government might take up in the budget, given that we are awarding it this $3.2 billion of supply through this particular bill. The issue that is most commented on in the Mitcham Hills, most of which my electorate covers, is the issue of traffic. Prior to the change of government in 2002, some work was done at the Blythewood Road and Old Belair Road intersection, and there was other money set aside for the James Road and Old Belair Road intersection.

On the change of government the Blythewood Road and Old Belair Road junction was completed, but the James Road and Old Belair Road junction had not commenced, and the government in a very mean-spirited way took the money away from that particular junction and spent it elsewhere. So, 11 years later, having the department and the government of the day back in 2000-01 recognise there was a major issue with the traffic coming down through the Mitcham Hills, the state government has essentially spent nothing.

There has been a little bit of line marking and surface lines marked out on the main road at Blackwood, which has helped in a minor way, but the fundamental problem still remains, and it gets worse every day because of the significant increase in development in the Blackwood Park development, which will go from zero homes to eventually 1,200 homes when it is complete, and it is probably two thirds of the way through if not more.

Of course, all the allotments outside Blackwood Park and south of Blackwood (Aberfoyle Park, Happy Valley, etc.) are using the main road of Blackwood, Old Belair Road, or James Road, or Belair Road as their main thoroughfare into town. If you were going down Belair Road and Old Belair Road, then essentially the main corridor you would use coming from the south would be the Blackwood Main Road. The Blackwood Main Road has a five-way roundabout: five different roads hit the Blackwood roundabout.

In the late 1990s, early 2000s, there were traffic measurements done and, to my memory, the amount of traffic going down the single lane of Old Belair Road at peak hour was more than traffic going down any single lane of South Road at peak hour. As I say, that was back more than 13 years ago, and since then 1,200 houses have come into Blackwood Park.

The traffic in the Mitcham Hills is now at a point where the Blackwood roundabout is blocked due to road traffic on a consistent basis, both morning and night; it is not uncommon, and it would be nearly 50 per cent of the time of the week. So, 50 per cent of the day—either morning peak or afternoon peak—the Blackwood roundabout blocks. The reason it blocks is that the government has redone the line so that, coming up Shepherds Hill Road—and there used to be two lanes going around the roundabout—the government has now made the left-hand lane a left-hand turn only. All the traffic that now wants to go straight on and turn right at the Blackwood roundabout coming off Shepherds Hill Road now has one lane, not two, to do so.

At the same time, of course, the railway line is on Main Road about 300 metres south of the roundabout. The trains have increased both in number and in length, and we are now have trains that can actually block two of the three railway crossings at the same time—the trains are that long. It means that, when the trains go through the Blackwood crossing 300 metres from the Blackwood roundabout, if you are exiting the roundabout, and heading down towards the railway crossing, the road traffic backs up from the railway crossing right through the roundabout, that the Main Road traffic travelling from the city blocks, and that the traffic coming up Shepherds Hill Road blocks because it cannot go down that particular avenue.

I have raised this a number of times with every public servant who has dared to poke their head up at a public meeting in Blackwood over the 11 years. I will not name them, but some of them have even done me the courtesy of jumping in my car and had me drive them around and show them the problem live, as it was occurring so that they clearly understood what I was speaking about.

I am not laying the blame at the Public Service level; I think they understand the issue. I have spoken to the head of the department about it a number of times, and I have spoken to a number of ministers about it a number of times. I have given evidence to the Natural Resources Committee's investigation into natural disasters and fire about this issue. The reason I did that was that my local CFS advised me that, if there was fire through the Mitcham Hills, they believed there will be north of 5,000 cars on that road trying to escape and it simply does not have the capacity to carry that traffic.

The Natural Resources Committee recommended that there be a significant investment in the road infrastructure in that area two or three years ago. The government, for its own reasons, has decided not to do that. I just say that my view is that the only way the traffic problem in that area is going to be resolved long term is by having a road management plan, not from Belair to Blackwood, as is the current road management plan (which is actually not the problem area, and that is possibly why it covers that area—because it is easy to deal with) from Cross Road up Fullarton Road, and from Cross Road up Belair Road, then up Belair Road, up Old Belair Road, up James Road, and right through to Black Road. That is a long piece of territory, but it needs to be that long because within that 10-kilometre stretch a number of major issues link into a major traffic problem within the Mitcham Hills.

My concern, apart from the day-to-day commuter delay which is significant particularly during the school weeks where the traffic increases significantly, is the bushfire concern. While I do not encourage people to get in their car and try to outrun a bushfire (I think that is the worst possible response to that issue and I always make those comments in my electorate), I know that some people will try to do it. There are three railway crossings, but two of them are on the main entry and exits into the town. There seems to me to be a total lack of planning as to what is going to happen in regard to a bushfire, thousands of cars and freight trains that go through that area.

I have done my best to raise this issue. I will continue to raise it. I hope one day to be in a government so that we might be able to more properly address the issue, but I think the government is gambling on nature's goodwill that something will not happen while they are in government, whether that is one more year, four more years or eight more years. I think that is the wrong strategy and I invite the government to go back and look at the natural resources report. Read the evidence from the experts, don't read the evidence from the local member but read the evidence from the experts, and ask yourself how you are going to address a press conference if the number comes up for that particular area. I hope, through passing the Supply Bill, someone in the political level of government might listen and have the courage to spend money in a seat they may not hold.

Motion carried.

Third Reading

The Hon. M.F. O'BRIEN (Napier—Minister for Finance, Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (16:57): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.


[Sitting extended beyond 17:00 on motion of Hon. M.F. O'Brien]


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