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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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APPROPRIATION BILL 2013

Estimates Committees

Adjourned debate on motion:

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

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (20:07): Can I say that, after a week of estimates, I am refreshed with enthusiasm for the legislative progress of this bill. I am not highly comforted by the degree of confidence that I have in the government in either preparing the budget or, indeed, applying it. Largely, this arises from the fact that, after six days of estimates for me, and I think some other members have obviously spent considerable time in committee, we are really none the wiser on a number of matters. This is disappointing, because the very purpose of having estimates is for ministers to present, with their senior executive members of staff in their departments, to provide the detail that sits beneath the budget.

We have an opportunity to ask some questions about the details but, with all the pictures and budget speeches and all the expanded self-congratulatory remarks that are made by Treasurers year after year since I have been in this house, I have found, increasingly, over the last 11 years that they have become more and more filled with grandstanding, self-congratulatory statements of ministers as to what they have either done or what they proffer to do. That is very disappointing—not because they are not entitled to make statements about this (they issue press releases, give public statements, make ministerial statements and answer Dorothy Dix questions in parliament) but they still seem to have a need to fill the time available for useful information for the parliament with this self-congratulatory approach.

This year for the budget 2013-14 and the forward estimates we are talking about a $15 billion annual budget, and the application by various ministries were, in my personal involvement on committees, covering: the Attorney-General's department; Courts Administration Authority; planning department; transport and infrastructure divisions; urban development, particularly the Urban Renewal Authority; emergency services; women; agriculture, food and wine; forests, environment, water and natural resources including EPA and Zero Waste SA; and SA Water, including the now separate Department for Water. These were the portfolios that I had the pleasure of sitting in on during the committees. The ministers that I sought information from included ministers Rau, Koutsantonis, Fox, O'Brien, Gago and Hunter.

I wish to place on the record my appreciation to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, as an excellent chair, and, indeed also the member for Giles, for her patient deliberation of committees which I attended. It is a sometimes tedious task but, nevertheless, I think you both undertook that admirably, and I think that that should be acknowledged. Obviously, our senior clerk staff were in attendance and we thank them for doing that.

This is a time where the executive elite of departments sit with their minister or ministers and are available to provide counsel and wise advice to them to provide this information. A number of aspects are deeply disappointing, but one which is so apparent each year is that members of the department, particularly at the senior level, provide from their departments, an enormous amount of material which they make available to the minister for the purpose of estimates, and possibly 1/100th of it ever gets to see the light of day. That is very disappointing for those who undertake a lot of work to identify how money is going to be spent, provide information and, yet, it never translates through the minister's mouth to the committee, which I think is a disgraceful waste of resources.

It is disappointing to the extent that I support the estimates process but I am very much reminded of the new administration in the Northern Territory. They now have a situation where the ministers attend, usually for the day—sometimes for 12 hour days—but they come along to estimates with their advisers, having received notice from the opposition representatives on the committee as to what topics of interest and areas they would seek advice on, and the detail to be particularised, and they bring the relevant advisers with them, and they get on with the job.

They spend a productive day or half day, or whatever the length is justified by the extent of the portfolio that is under consideration, and it works efficiently. I am advised by the Northern Territory Attorney-General that it saves an estimates cost of about $4½ million in estimated time for departments in the preparation of material that never sees the light of day. I think that that is something to be considered as to how we might approach estimates in the future.

Of the disappointing aspects this year, some of which I have seen over the time, one is that the overall time for very large portfolios, for example with the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure Mr Hook accounts to five ministers, and the overall time provided for this very senior portfolio—over a billion dollars in the budget—is an hour. That to me is just unacceptable. Each year I enjoy up to an hour for the status of women but, I have to say, for a less than, or just over now, $2 million budget, it seems to be an excessive amount of time. Not surprisingly, when I asked the minister about a number of areas of her portfolio she did not have many answers; but I will come back to her in a moment.

I will also identify that each year there is a draft representation of a schedule presented to the opposition. There is apparently a period of negotiation. I just want to place on the record that this is not a negotiation. We are told by the government what is convenient to them. Even if there is a known overlap of portfolios from the nominated publicly known shadow ministry representative, they do not seem to give a tink about that. Nevertheless, the assiduous work of our opposition whip this year was able to negotiate some transfer of jurisdictions so that we could at least ensure that the committees have the full complement of shadow ministers or another nominated party.

It just happens that I am the opposition's House of Assembly representative on a number of other portfolios from another place, so I had a fairly extensive list this year. It seems to me, if I could suggest an improvement in this regard, we need to have the minister available on a day to cover the portfolios that they might be responsible for. We do not want to unfairly inconvenience them and have them back on different days. Pick a day in that week, or 10 days, that is convenient to them and be available all day and give it some realistic allocation of time.

As I say, unfortunately, another aspect of time—and this has been repeated—is that there are serial offenders in the ministry in this regard. They have changed a bit over the years, but a couple of them have never given up on this in the time that they have been in cabinet. Their way of managing to avoid any real scrutiny or information giving is to fill up as much as they can the time in a statement, usually self congratulatory, certainly self glorifying statements, about things that they have done and say they are going to do. I suggest that this really just indicates to the committee either inexperience or failure on their part—

Mrs Redmond: Inadequacy.

Ms CHAPMAN: Yes—to be able to either understand their portfolio or their preparedness to volunteer information. It could be a churlish sort of reaction, but it seems to me on the face of it that they simply do not have a grip of their portfolio, and that is very disappointing. We had limited time, even within the schedule, to be able to provide information to the committee.

Finally, the most outstanding is the stunning failure of a number of ministers to provide any answers at all of any substance even during the time they do answer questions. This is really disappointing because either they fill up the time with their own pre-prepared statements or, alternatively, they fail to provide a timely response to the information sought, or at all. Each year we hear of the indication of direction by the chair of the committee that there is an expectation that by a certain date within a few weeks' time we are to receive the answers that are taken on notice. Do we ever see them in the same year?

Mrs Redmond: Never.

Ms CHAPMAN: Never, in the 11 years, the member for Heysen. Today I picked up some answers to some questions that were tabled today, from October last year. We are very often into the next financial year by the time we get answers from the preceding year; it is extremely disappointing. It is very illuminating watching these ministers over the years as to how they address their portfolios and how easily they are exposed to their lack of understanding of their own portfolios. The identification of topics of interest is one thing, but to have no answers indicates either an inadequate or a foolish ignorance of their own portfolios.

Can I just come to the ministers in particular. The Attorney-General, who also covers planning, this year, for the first time that I observed, had a public display of conflict in The Advertiser on the day of his own estimates. We had, you would recall, a statement by the Chief Justice, who is also the executive head of the courts authority, make statements that were published in The Advertiser in which he identified that there would be a significant delay in trial time as a result of a failure to fill vacancies in judicial appointments. There was a display of what seemed to be a childish spat in response, giving this implicit threat that the head of the CAA would be removed; that is, the Chief Justice is likely to be removed as the head of the CAA—

Mrs Redmond: For daring to speak out.

Ms CHAPMAN: —for daring to speak out, as the member for Heysen says, about an important area of responsibility that he had. We did see the rather meek withdrawal of that during the committee, when the Attorney had a change of heart in presenting an attempt to restore a cordial and civil conversation with the Chief Justice and all sorts of promises to continue to negotiate and resolve these issues and so on.

But we had a public display of, I think, disgraceful behaviour with this implicit threat, withdrawn as it appeared to be at the commencement of the estimates but which does not resolve the real issue; that is, the Attorney-General must take responsibility for the allocation of the total resource. Sure, the head of the CAA has a role in giving advice and, over the years, chief justices have, I think, appropriately earned the respect of former attorneys to be able to present their proposals.

They have to work within a certain parameter; they understand that. They can have a legitimate complaint if they feel that they are unable to comply with their statutory obligation to provide a judicial system and courts services if certain funds or resources are withdrawn. Why should they not be able to make that statement? Other heads of departments do not usually, although the police commissioner has been fairly vocal in the past 12 months.

I make the point that, although other chief executive officers are silenced under their contracts and other things, I think a very unfortunate precedent was being set here. For there to be this public display between an Attorney-General—the first law officer of the state—and the Chief Justice was tawdry and should not be repeated.

Minister Rau is the Minister for Planning. We had an interesting session on the URA—this is the urban renewal authority. Clearly now they are into the business of debt. Like every other statutory corporation of the government that is drowning in unfunded liabilities like the WorkCover Corporation, this year we found that the urban renewal authority is now up to over $450 million worth of debt. It is just a staggering revelation.

Minister Koutsantonis, I would have to say, apart from his level of self-praise which was pretty much nauseating, did have a refreshing style with a prompt delivery of answers. Of all the ministers in my committees, I think he certainly demonstrated the highest level of understanding of his portfolio. He should be applauded for that. When cornered, he gave the usual predictable responses and generally would go on the attack, but, apart from that, I have to say, there was a general level of understanding which was impressively refreshing.

Unfortunately, minister Fox (Minister for Transport Services), of course, on the other hand, was predictably, as usual, inept, uninformative and hardly able to make any productive contribution. She is about on a par with the services of her buses at the moment. Her level of competence in relation to any understanding or providing any useful information to the committee was completely deficient.

Minister O'Brien, as usual, was frank. He was able to present the committee with a prompt response. He did not fill it up with all sorts of unnecessary information. I think he was generally helpful to the committee; I thank him for that. The emergency services portfolio is very important and we had some important issues to consider. I think he certainly gets the academy award for his contribution.

Mr Gardner: The gold star.

Ms CHAPMAN: A gold star or ministerial star this year. Minister Hunter was a new boy for me, after 11 years. It was the first time I think he had been to a committee at which I was present. I think he has a reasonably quick grip of the environment department, a part of his portfolio. Unfortunately, I think his understanding in respect of the water obligations is quite deficient. The River Murray for him is something that has been signed up for in some fantastic agreement entered into by the Premier, yet his understanding of the living Murray, the real Murray and the people who are on it and the industries that survive on it, has completely escaped his thought process. However, in respect of general environment matters, he seems to be interested and adept.

SA Water: well, here we go! They could not even get the spelling of one of the most significant rivers on the West Coast correct. I think the biggest area of concern for SA Water is that this is just a machine of spending. It is an apparatchik that is not only harvesting money through the most grotesquely high water prices that South Australians are now facing but also going on a continued spending spree.

We found out only a couple of days ago that the visitor information centre at the desalination plant cost some $3.2 million, for everyone to rush in there with their iPads to have a look at a facility that we are not even going to be using. It is obscene to think that we have this extraordinary expense going onto people's water bills for a facility—I do not even need to repeat the detail—about which the federal Auditor-General was scathing in his comments concerning the application of funds to expand that from a 50-gigalitre to a 100-gigalitre facility. It is a disgusting waste of money that the government should wear not as a badge of honour but as a badge of shame.

I have left the best to last. If we on this side of the house have the privilege of government next March, I am going to miss minister Gago: she has been a treat! Unfortunately, her capacity to make any useful contribution to her portfolio areas—she was not disappointing again this year—was as utterly useless as it has been in preceding years.

Time expired.

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen) (20:27): I had hoped, when the budget was brought down on 6 June I think it was—an auspicious day, 6 June; I seem to think it has some historical significance—that with the new part-time Treasurer and part-time Premier we might get a new style of budget estimates that was actually informative. The member for Bragg has already enunciated in almost exactly the same order the very same issues that I was going to raise, and I seem to remember raising time and time again after estimates in this place.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: And no-one was listening.

Mrs REDMOND: The member for Elder says, 'And no-one was listening,' and that has been very clear indeed. Over the 11 years and 12 budgets that I have done in this place, the government has made an art form out of avoiding giving answers. Although, I must admit, the member for Elder and the former treasurer, Mr Foley, did at least have enough knowledge of their subjects to be good ministers to deal with in the sense that they at least answered the questions as much as they could.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: Never took a Dixer in 11 years.

Mrs REDMOND: I was about to say, neither the member for Elder nor former treasurer Foley had the habit of doing Dorothy Dixers. Like the member for Bragg, I am bewildered by the way the estimates process, for a start, is timetabled. As the member for Bragg said, you can have a situation where a huge department like transport, planning and infrastructure gets the same time allocation as Aboriginal affairs, which has two whole pages out of the nine volumes of the budget.

Ms Bedford: Does that matter? Isn't Aboriginal affairs just as important?

Mrs REDMOND: It matters, member for Florey, because it seems to me to be a deliberate attempt by the government to avoid having any real assessment by the opposition, on behalf of the people of this state, of what is in this budget. We have always understood that the government has the right to bring down its budget; we have no control over it and do not have any right to stop it like we would a regulation. We do not have any chance to really debate any of it and we do not get any say in it.

It is already brought down when it comes into this place and the problem is that we, on behalf of the people of this state, only have the estimates process through which we can ask the government for some more detail on what is now a complex budget of over $15 billion—approaching $16 billion—yet we have this ridiculous situation.

When I was shadow attorney-general, for instance, I used to get 45 minutes for the Attorney-General's Department which covered all sorts of aspects of this state. Yet, as I say, yesterday there I was helping with the Aboriginal Affairs portfolio (which literally had two pages in all of the budget) and we had a bigger time allocation of one hour. That just seems to me to be a nonsense.

This budget delivered to the people of this state the biggest debt and the biggest deficit that have ever been delivered and I think the only comfort the new Treasurer (part-time Premier) can take in that is that they will not always be the biggest debt and the biggest deficit. I am quite convinced, given the way they have got the economy of this state going, that they will be replaced by an even bigger debt and an even bigger deficit when we get to the Mid-Year Budget Review shortly before the election. It saddens me that the government does not want scrutiny on these things.

That is the problem with it, that not only is there this ridiculous system of having shadow ministers in the upper house who are not allowed to come into the estimates process and actually ask their own questions but, as the member for Bragg spoke about earlier, there are the enormous costs. I think she said the Northern Territory has actually calculated how much they would save—or how much they do save—by actually adopting a different and better process.

We make no complaint about the fact that the government is the government; it has the control of the Treasury and it is entitled to decide how the state's money in the budget will be spent. But it should be open to the scrutiny of the opposition and what we see is this enormous waste of money. I know for a fact that at the time that the budget is on, these very senior public servants—some of them paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in very senior executive roles in the Public Service—are dragged in here and sit in here hour upon hour, and when we ask a question, the response we get is, 'I'll take that on notice.'

It is just a nonsense. Those people are not only sitting in here for hour upon hour, but I know that they have spent weeks—some of them months—preparing for the estimates process which, in itself, means that they are not spending time doing the job that the department is meant to be doing, only to come in here, sit here and then not provide answers to questions.

Like the member for Bragg, I have had the same experience. In fact in June this year I was receiving responses to questions that I had put on notice that I did not have a chance to ask in estimates last year. They went on notice in June last year and I was getting the answers after the budget came down in June this year. How is that a satisfactory way to run the budget and the state and the estimates process?

I put it to you that it is simply a nonsense to call it any sort of a process. It is just an enormous waste of money and I have often said that it would be better to have some sort of briefing from each minister and those of us who want to go along to each one could go along and ask whatever questions, put some questions on notice and then have a day with the relevant people asking the relevant questions.

The amount of time that is taken up by ministers then who are often incompetent and certainly inept in avoiding answering questions during that estimates process is extraordinary. I know that, during one of the estimates processes that I was involved in the last couple of days, one of the ministers made an opening statement of 17 minutes. I have had that occur when I have only had 45 minutes to ask the questions.

You literally get to the situation where, having dragged all of these highly-paid people in here, set up everything and got it all underway, there is an opening statement for 17 minutes. I would then get to ask three questions, often the response would be, 'Sorry, I am taking that on notice.' Then there would be three Dorothy Dixers from the other side with no time limit as we even have in question time and all the more time taken up so that I would not get more than five or six questions out in the time allocated for the whole of the estimates for an important area like the Attorney-General's Department.

For a government that says that they were going to be accountable—indeed, yesterday in Aboriginal affairs, minister Hunter said, 'We expect to be held accountable'—I just dearly wanted to have the time to ask, 'In what way have you ever been held accountable?' At no time since I have been in this place, particularly on Aboriginal affairs, which as the member for Florey says is an extremely important area, have they ever come anywhere near meeting any targets as far as improving outcomes for Aboriginal people. What I wanted to ask the minister was: in what way and when are you going to expect to be held accountable for your utter abject failure in this area? But of course, we did not have the time and opportunity to ask that.

The Hon. L.R. Breuer interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: Yes, I asked a very important question about the APY lands, and that was just how much money is this government putting into the APY lands, because when I went up there last year, I was not only saddened and shocked, but appalled that the few thousand people who live up there, who must have many millions of dollars spent in that area on their wellbeing year upon year, can be living in the abject squalor that you find up there. It just makes no sense. That was the most important question for me to ask and hence I did not ask the minister the other one.

I really do not know that there is much more that I can usefully contribute in terms of the estimates report, though, because ultimately, I do not believe that the estimates report does what it was originally intended to do, and that is to give the opposition, on behalf of the people, the opportunity to question the government about the detail of the budget and to get proper replies to reasonable questions about just where this state's money is being spent.

We have seen this government waste more money than any other government has ever seen, and I mean waste: $500 million a year over and above budget for the first seven years comes into the coffers of this state, and yet we have a debt which is blowing out to $14 billion, which is going to cost the people of this state $2.6 million every day just to pay the interest on a debt we should not even have, and yet this government does not seem to believe that it should be held accountable, even in terms of answering questions as to where on earth the money has gone in relation to its spending agenda.

Mr PISONI (Unley) (20:37): I stand here in the chamber debating the estimates process for the sixth time, I think it is, as the shadow minister for education and the fifth time as the shadow minister for further education. In that time, I have faced five ministers of further education and four ministers of education. I think that that tells a lot about the priorities of this government. Of course, the further education and training portfolio is the most interesting one, because that is where the Labor government tends to put its new ministers. It tries them out in the training position.

I think it is a bit confused about what the purpose of the training portfolio is. The training portfolio is there, of course, for the general public and the government to support people who are in training programs, but Labor's view is that the training portfolio is the portfolio for training up ministers. We have seen that time and time again, except of course for the last reshuffle where we saw, for the first time I could recall, a minister going backwards from the education portfolio—the member for Hartley—back into the training portfolio. I thought it was interesting that the minister felt vindicated today by the Debelle report.

Mr Gardner: It's an ambitious interpretation.

Mr PISONI: A very ambitious interpretation, says the member for Morialta. I think that anybody that experienced the painful way in which the member for Hartley managed her education portfolio—it was not just the managing of the sex abuse in schools issue that started under the Premier when he was education minister: it was every aspect of the portfolio that she was struggling with, not even having a briefing when she took over in the education portfolio. I can see members on this side shaking their heads saying, 'How can that be? How can it be that a minister would come into a portfolio as complex as the education portfolio and not have a briefing?' It is absolutely extraordinary.

The new minister is the fifth minister of education this government has had in its time in office. Anybody who was in the chamber would have thought it was an extraordinary situation, the time and the effort of the minister's staffers and departmental people in going through every single word that I had said in recent years as shadow education minister and using them to develop a point of attack on me, the member for Unley. It was extraordinary.

In the meantime, we have one of the biggest crises in the education system in South Australia, not just the recent Debelle inquiry, whose findings went to cabinet on Monday and were released to the public on Monday afternoon, but the fact that we have fewer students now in South Australia gaining a pass mark in their ATAR in STEM subjects, that is, maths, chemistry, physics, etc., not just in percentage terms, but fewer in overall numbers gaining an ATAR in year 12, a pass mark ATAR or equivalent in year 12, than when this government set the benchmark in 2003 to increase that by 15 per cent. If you look at the latest strategic plan, the target of increasing that by 15 per cent by 2014 has been pushed out to 2020.

What else has happened in that time is that we have seen NAPLAN results in South Australia continually deteriorate. When NAPLAN first came to South Australia (as it did with all the other states) in 2008 South Australia sat at what I would describe as around about the middle. We were comparable to Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT, who dominate the results, but year after year we have deteriorated, in numeracy in particular, but numeracy and literacy, to such a stage where we now do not meet the national minimum in 20 out of 20 categories. It is a shocking situation for a government that continues to boast about the money it is spending on education, and which has a leader who said that he was going to be the education premier.

Let us look at the record of education in South Australia under Labor. It is an extraordinary record. If you go through the nearly 300 pages of the Debelle report you can see there is a rot that has developed in our education system within central office. The Premier was on the radio on Monday suggesting that those who were criticising the government in the way it was managing the education portfolio were attacking teachers, but the facts are that this government has not been supporting teachers. Read the Debelle report. This government has not been supporting teachers. Teachers have been left hanging under this government, with no support at all. It has been an absolutely shocking situation.

The estimates process was, as I said, an interesting one, with the member for Wright as the new education minister. I asked questions about the number of recommendations. Do you remember this? It was just one business day before the Debelle report was released. The minister said she had seen the report and been briefed on it, yet she could not tell me how many recommendations were in the report. As a matter of fact, we all heard and saw Mr Bartley whisper in her ear the number of recommendations but she still refused to answer that question. The minister refused to answer any of the questions on the Debelle inquiry, even though she had a whole room of advisers. She would argue that she did not have that information with her.

We learnt that the minister was not sure whether departmental policy was adhered to regarding political activity in DECS schools when the former prime minister visited Mitcham primary school to launch the so-called Gonski reforms (the new funding model), where she also introduced the federal Labor candidate for Boothby—a clear breach of the guidelines and policies set by the department of education.

What else did we learn? We had it confirmed that face-to-face teaching time, this year, in 2013, includes 10 minutes for students to eat their lunch. We learnt that an extra $28 million was collected from schools above the budget in the way of school fees and other revenue measures. That is $28 million above the $85 million, to a record $113 million. The forward estimates have been adjusted with an extra $29 million to $30 million every year based on that.

The government says that schools choose to do that and schools decide what their fees are going to be. I put it to the minister that the reason that is happening is that schools are forced to do it because of the cuts that are starting to bite now very hard, in particular—the cuts that were introduced by the former education minister, the Premier, in his first budget as education minister. One hundred million dollars has been taken straight out of schools in response to the recommendations from the budget review after the election. That is what has pushed up school fees.

Of course, parents are not going to see their schools deteriorate if they have a choice. You have schools where parents are lining up to send their kids—in my electorate in Glenunga and Unley, and at Brighton, where school fees are $700, $800 and $900. Go to Victoria and there are no school fees. When a Victorian talks about a school fee, they talk about the cost of an excursion or a camp, not for getting into the classroom, as we have here in South Australia. That has reached record levels under Labor.

The minister also refused to explain how the budget estimate figure of around $40 million in other revenue was arrived at. She flatly refused. She said it was too much work for her department to explain how that figure was arrived at. That is a sign of true arrogance if ever I have heard it. Why the minister bothered turning up at budget estimates is beyond me, when she refused to answer many questions just because she did not want to, she did not know or it was too much work to bring it back to the estimates committee. The resistance that minister Rankine has to scrutiny as a minister is extraordinary.

The Westminster system has served this country since federation and at a state level since the 1850s. The Westminster system has served this country well and relies on a robust opposition and a free press. It relies on a parliamentary process that is open to scrutiny, yet this minister finds it offensive that members of parliament want to know what she is up to in her portfolio.

It is interesting that the minister boasted about the funding program for school fencing, for graffiti and to minimise the chance of fires, but she then had to concede, when I asked a supplementary question, that $2 million had, in fact, been cut from the budget in Mr Weatherill's first budget as education minister back in 2010. Two million dollars had been cut from the fencing budget.

We also tried to learn details about another restructure on 8 April—the Brighter Futures restructure—but the minister was not able to confirm any details. She was not able to explain what would happen to the regional offices and she was not able to explain where those staff would be deployed when those regional offices closed down. As a matter of fact, there was supposed to be an announcement today about what was happening—3 July—in the next stage of the Brighter Futures program. I have not seen that announcement, I have not seen that release, I have not seen a press release, and principals have not advised me that there was any announcement today.

This is another indication of a department that it is disarray and a minister who is out of her depth. The minister was not able to explain any of the detail of the Brighter Futures program, when it would start or where staff would be deployed, and how many staff would go. She would not rule out 1,000 DECD employees being cut out of the department either. I gave her the opportunity to rule that out and she would not rule it out—1,000 job cuts in DECD.

We are none the wiser about what the structure of the department will be next week, next month, next year because yesterday the minister appointed Mr Peter Allen for yet another inquiry into the education department. Despite the fact that Mr Bartley was hired to change the culture and the attitude of the education department back in 2011, we have a retired bureaucrat from Victoria being paid $100,000 to report on what Mr Bartley should have identified after being here for two years as the chief executive of the Department for Education and Child Development. It is a very sorry state, and today in the parliament the minister could not rule out if we would see another restructure of the education department after Mr Allen had completed his report.

The lack of detail and the minister's reluctance to hand over any information about the Office of Non-Government Schools was also very extraordinary. If you look at the budget paper, there is no detail about the Office of Non-Government Schools. We learned that it has a salary budget of about $1.4 million and about 13 staff. I was not able to establish what the CEO's salary was—that was refused—and I was not able to obtain a list of the positions of those other 12 staff in that office, nor was the minister able to tell me the total cost of running the office, such as the office costs and the other costs that are booked up against the Office of Non-Government Schools. She said 'Oh well, it is just in with the other staff in the department.' It sounds like an extraordinary accounting process, I have to say.

It needs to be remembered that neither the Catholic sector nor the independent sector were consulted about the establishment of the Office of Non-Government Schools—an extraordinary situation here in South Australia. The minister could not advise on how many families were engaged in legal action with the department. She confirmed that there was no compensation fund for victims of sex abuse in schools, yet the Premier told parents on the release of the Debelle report that the government is taking full responsibility, but it made no contingency. There is no signal out there that we want this fixed in a hurry and we are going to make sure that if we have done you wrong, that you are compensated. It did not even occur to them—and the look on the minister's face and the adviser's face when I asked that question. They were completely startled by the question of compensation for victims of sex abuse and their families in our schools.

We learnt today, yesterday and Monday that no mates of the Premier will be sacked—an extraordinary situation. I know what Mike Rann would have done. Immediately he would have held those ministerial staff to account, and they would no longer be on the payroll, and that would be the end of the matter; but, no, Premier Weatherill much prefers to look after his mates, because it is his mates that have put him in the job that he is in. It makes you wonder what sort of deal was done with Mr Blewett and Mr Harvey for their loyalty and taking the knife for the Premier on this issue. Nobody believes that the Premier was not told.

EBA obligations added $93 million to the cost of the budget, but that did not include the funding of the 10 minutes for children to eat their lunch, face to face. That is unfunded, so what is happening now is that schools are closing 10 minutes earlier. And what happens? It is 10 minutes per day, so we have students getting 50 minutes less tuition each week at a time when South Australian students are falling behind other students around the country in numeracy and literacy. There is $152 million in unspecified savings from 2012-13 to 2015-16. It is still not identified; the department does not know where those savings are coming from.

The teacher renewal program was an interesting result. Last year—and it expired on Sunday—the department got approval from the ATO for a tax exemption for teachers who qualify for the $50,000 bonus. However, the department did not go ahead, because this was another one of Premier Weatherill's harebrained schemes from when he was the education minister. It has been challenged in the Equal Opportunity Commission, because the applications to replace those jobs are capped at a certain level of experience, which has stopped literally thousands of teachers who have been on short-term, unsecure contracts for a decade from applying for those full-time positions.

This is a minister who said in a previous answer that they did not discriminate on the basis of age in the department of education. We learned about the spin that was used at the last election by Labor to fool the residents of Prospect and Walkerville that, by 2013, their children could attend Adelaide High School. It was interesting that the member for Kaurna was quick to point out in a point of order that, 'No; up to 250, not 250.' A true con.

Time expired.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (20:58): I rise tonight to give my contribution with regard to the estimates process. I must say, in a lot of ways it does not get any better. I only say that because, apart form the fact that it is good to try to get information out of government ministers, we do not have government ministers who approach estimates with the same style as some former members of this place. There are not too many things on which I would agree with the former member for Port Adelaide, Kevin Foley, but he would come into this chamber and sit there and basically say, 'Give it to me.' He would sit there for the time he was allocated and take opposition questions for as long as he had allocated.

What we have is a situation that has happened over time, certainly since I have been here, since 2006, where ministers do not want to have sustained questioning and try to put forward a deal to reduce their time. And when you have some portfolios that only have half an hour anyway, what is the point of reducing the time? What happens is that you get some ministers who will come into this chamber or the other place and give a 10 or 15 minute speech, and you have only half an hour allocated for that portfolio, and then, if you are really unlucky, you will get a couple of Dorothy Dixers thrown in. As far as getting good information is concerned, it is somewhat diluted.

I certainly think there should be some reform of the process. I think we could have a longer time for it. I think all ministers should do as other ministers have done in the time I have been in this place, that is, just sit there and take the questions.

If your departments are up to speed, as I am sure most of them should be, they can give you the appropriate answers if you do not have them. It has certainly happened during the estimates process that some ministers have said, 'We will have to come back to you on that,' and that is fine as well. We would rather get the facts, if not straightaway then down the track.

In relation to estimates, I want to talk about the primary industries portfolio, which we have seen, over the last several budgets, basically have the financial guts ripped out of it. We had a Premier who had a new beginning when the Olympic Dam project fell over during the last 18 months, and suddenly we had a government that was advocating that agriculture was going to be the new shining light. There has been a lot of talk about premium, clean, green food but, for the last four years, we have had $80 million cut out of that primary industries budget and hundreds of jobs.

We have got farmers out there who wonder if there are any extension officers left to give advice to our farmers out there on the land. What we have seen is, as a matter of course, private consultancies having to set up to fill the void left instead of the once great advice we used to get from our independent services from people working in the primary industries sector. There are certainly a few of these agronomists left in Rural Solutions, but that has had the heart ripped out of it. There are certainly not too many left, in the broadacre sense, giving this advice to our farmers in South Australia. It just makes a tough job tougher.

Farmers have been working against the high dollar. It has been coming back a bit in recent times but, even though we have had a couple of reasonable seasons, the lack of government support for this very important sector is unbelievable. This is a sector that puts up to $16 billion annually of finished food into the state's economy and it so often does not get recognised as a sector for what farmers, food producers and other people involved in the food sector do for this state economy.

Another big issue in regard to the agriculture funding sector is the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI). We saw the government, because it wanted to offload it and because it was treating agriculture as something they did not want to know about, offload SARDI and the assets to the University of Adelaide. We finally got the absolute acknowledgement during estimates that that deal is finally, totally gone.

I was concerned about this deal as to where it was going and what would happen to the assets. We have many valuable assets here in South Australia but, sadly, because of budget cuts and lack of recognition for agriculture, those assets have been left run-down. Obviously, when the university did their due diligence, they could see that they might be entering into a world of pain.

Certainly, in the last few years, I have made several visits to the Minnipa research station on the Eyre Peninsula. They do excellent work in the field of dryland farming techniques, and there could not be a better place to have a research station. I guess we should be thankful that that is there. It really is only kept up, I understand, because it is part of the national program. If we were not part of the national program, I am sure the government would have found a way to get rid of that valuable site.

There are other sites that are on board. We have got Turretfield and we have got Struan. I went down to Struan during the last 12 months. Even just picking up on a few things that staff and agronomists would say to me down there, the place is a shell of its former glory. You could see in their eyes that it is not what it used to be for valuable research in both our crop and pasture- growing research areas and also with our stock production.

We look at a site like Flaxley, which has been abandoned because we do not do the dairy work here in South Australia anymore—that gets operated on in Victoria as part of the national process. Yet, this is land where there is a whole range of ideas coming out from places like the Mount Barker Council and others who have ideas on what they can do with this country, if the government realises it, because they are not using it and certainly it could be used for research. But the government need to decide what they are going to do with this land.

What we need to see instead of this dilution of funding to agriculture and these platitudes that fall on farmers' ears about what this Labor is supposedly doing for agriculture and food producers in this state, we actually need to see some funding put back in. One thing through the estimates and the budget process is that it has in the budget about the 120 jobs that were going from last year's budget to this financial year's. I had one of the advisers say to me afterwards during a break in estimates, 'Oh well, it is how you read it. It is really not that many jobs,' and I said, 'Well, why did you draw the budget up like that if it is not that many jobs?' What happened is that these jobs were supposed to be there in last year's budget but they were not jobs that were put into these areas, so why were they budgeted for? There are obviously some very poor accounting practices going in here as far as working out what staff levels there should be.

If you read it, as I did, in the budget line for the agricultural area, under SARDI, there are over 50 staff going there. It is a job cut because why would you budget for those numbers and then suddenly those numbers are not put in place so they are just not there? There is so much work that could be getting done here in this state as far as research and our agriculture sector, and not just in agriculture but in our fisheries sector. Sadly, it looks like the onset of marine parks down the track with this government taking management of fisheries away from the Fisheries Management Act where we have one of the world's best managed fisheries in this state, yet we seem to have these zealots who think they can manage an already well-managed fishery another way.

I also want to talk here tonight about issues with the River Murray. I asked questions of minister Hunter about establishing and implementing the inaugural Environment Protection Authority 2013-14 Compliance Plan. I wanted to talk about that because some people are concerned—and I have been in the past, certainly when I have seen some of the things that the EPA do and the compliance they force on people. I have been very concerned. Some people shake in their boots when the two words are said. The issue I have is what I call the precautionary principle which the EPA seem to use as far as management of most things environmental. I am not saying we should not have environmental management—of course, we should—but let's have real management. Let's not have people saying you can't develop this or you can't do that because there might be some waste going to the River Murray. Well, that is exactly what we are dealing with in this state.

A shack owner came to me and he was worried about the development approvals for an old shack at Younghusband he wanted to replace on the River Murray. This was just a little shack not very far from the edge of the River Murray, and it doesn't have a community wastewater management scheme just by the location. I think it is close to 15 shacks over several kilometres that would have to be connected if there was a community wastewater management scheme put in. Both financially and logistically it would probably be close to impossible unless you had an endless bucket of money and we know that there is certainly not that available, not at state level and certainly not at the local government level that would have to be involved in that program.

But here is this couple who have this old shack and it is running very nicely. It has the appropriate holding tanks for the black water and the grey water and they get them pumped out as they do appropriately. When it comes to redeveloping this site—as these people believed they could when they bought this property—they have been told no. Do you know why? Because the EPA said, you build a nicer shack, you might visit more often and you might fill the holding tanks quicker. What a thing to say! Yes, you might go to your shack a bit more often if it is actually in a presentable state for someone to enjoy their leisure time.

These people have already invested $300,000 and they have made a huge commitment for their lifestyle. Yet I get told at a briefing when I took this issue to the minister that we have to pull up this practice of replacing shacks because people might put holes in the holding tanks and it might run into the River Murray. That is why I asked the question in estimates in regard to the EPA. Instead of having this precautionary principle you have $5.9 million of extra money over three years—surely that would pay for several staff to actually put in real compliance so that people could do the appropriate thing. But no, everyone is essentially a criminal and we will just put that in place.

There are so many issues and things that can happen as far as waste going into the river. We have seen the programs with houseboat compliance; we have seen the programs with the flood plain management and, of course, that all fell apart during the drought where we saw massive levels of acidic water going into the river. That is still happening to this day as nature is trying to heal itself in regard to that process.

I think we need some proper management as far as that is concerned so that people can appropriately have some decent outcomes for using their own funding. To me it seems like the politics of envy and it reflects on the government's decision in regard to shack sites like the Milang shacks in my electorate where the government will not allow any freeholding because someone might enjoy themselves on a parcel of Crown land.

In regard to Riverine recovery, which I am obviously very concerned about, having the electorate at the bottom of the river, I asked the question around the $21 million that was allocated in the 2012-13 budget, yet only $2.9 million was spent. Essentially, the minister's answer included facts around the issue about, 'Well, there was too much water there because we had high flows.' Thankfully, we have had high flows because that is the only way the river has healed itself in recent years when that water came back in 2010.

Instead of getting additional funding on top of what was allocated last year, we just see close on $16 million carried over for the program. I note that there have been quite a few flood plain programs implemented along the way and analysis of new programs to come onboard like the Pike River flood plain, work on the Katfish Reach on-ground activity and Yatco Lagoon, and other programs that have come in place.

I must say that at the end of the extended answer the minister gave he offered me a briefing, and I would be more than happy to take him up on that because we need to make sure that we get the right outcomes for the river environment. If we get those outcomes right, we will see communities and irrigators and the right social outcomes happening right along the river's length.

Also in regard to the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, I asked a question in relation to a point about the Lake Albert Scoping Study for the long-term management of the lake and the Narrung Narrows. I just asked minister Hunter about whether he would be consulting local groups in regard to that scoping study. I note that the Meningie and Lakes Action Group has put in a multi-point plan to both the state government, the opposition and also to the federal government and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority in regard to some of the things that need to be investigated down there.

Certainly at the Narrung Narrows there needs to be the investigation about whether the causeway that was put in I believe in the '60s should be pulled out and whether to extend the ferry so that we get better flow-throughs of water. We certainly need something happening there, because the water is I believe somewhere around 2,400EC after nearly three years of recovery after the drought ended. So we certainly need major investigation on what can be done there.

Another point out of this multi-point plan is the investigation that needs to be done and whether it is viable or not and feasible on an economic and environmental ground, and whether we will get the right outcomes on an interconnector between Lake Albert and the Coorong. The study might be done, and it might be worked out that, no, it is not good. But in the first look at something like that, it could be easy to see that there could be a good outcome with getting that salty water if it comes in through Lake Alexandrina, as it does in times of drought, goes into Lake Albert and has an outlet out the other end.

That would have to be fully investigated before something like that was in, but I certainly congratulate the local groups around Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert, because they are very keen to bring their issues to us in the opposition and also drive their issues to government to hopefully get some real outcomes. Something that really concerned me in estimates was the fact that the member for Chaffey asked the question, and I will quote:

Minister, I am wondering how you can conclude that representing South Australia's interests in the negotiations on the Murray-Darling Basin as a highlight in 2012-13 when your decision to slash the government's contribution to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority from $28.6 million to $14.3 million a year proved that there is a lack of total commitment to the river and its environment.

I think the question sums it up. It shows that there is a total lack. We heard the Premier in here over time, carrying on at whatever opportunity he could get, about returning more water to the river, forgetting about the constraints in getting 3,200 gigalitres per annum of water down to the Mouth, which is over six Sydney Harbours annually. It is just incredible to think that the government would cut the funding when we need vital funding in works down the track for the Goolwa barrages—which would be multi-hundred million dollar projects and potentially billion dollar projects in time to come—yet we have a government that is skint on this funding, worried that we will cross-subsidise the other states.

Time expired.

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