HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-05-21 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

Address in Reply

Address in Reply

Adjourned debate on motion for adoption.

(Continued from 20 May 2014.)

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (11:04): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I do congratulate you on your elevation (or re-elevation, I guess) to the honoured position of Speaker of this house. For those readers of Hansard—and I know there are many beyond the walls of this place—the motion reads in part:

May it please Your Excellency—

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

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

3. We will earnestly pray for the Divine blessing on the proceedings of the session.

It gives me great pleasure to support the motion to adopt the draft address for this, the opening of the 53rd parliament. In June last year I had the privilege of being a delegate from this parliament, to the mother of all parliaments in Westminster, and I attended a seminar on parliamentary procedure.

It really gave me the opportunity to view all the pomp and ceremony and importance of what we do here and recognise the significance and the traditions that are involved in a parliament. That is highlighted, I think, on the opening day. It was the second opening day that I have attended, having been re-elected in the 2014 election, so it is my second Address in Reply.

I was very pleased to be re-elected as the member for Flinders. It was a very pleasing result for me personally. This is public knowledge and obviously has been well noted, but I managed to achieve 72 per cent of the primary vote in the seat of Flinders and, sadly, the Labor primary vote was only around 15 per cent in Flinders. I polled 79.2 two-party preferred—an excellent result, not just for me personally but for the Liberal Party as a whole. I will thank the constituents of Flinders, not just those who voted for me but those who I will continue to represent, which will be all the people of Flinders.

I would like to thank my supporters and the Liberal Party members, particularly for their assistance on polling day. They do a lot of work right throughout each and every year, of course, but election day is especially challenging and it is challenging logistically because, as you would be aware, Mr Speaker, the seat of Flinders is extensive. I think it is in excess of 900 kilometres from one end to the other—not as large as either Stuart or Giles, of course, but we come in a close third, I think.

As a result of that we have 27 polling booths across the seat of Flinders—four in the city of Port Lincoln and then the rest beyond that, including one mobile booth which operates out in the Far West and takes in such places as Penong and the Aboriginal communities at Scotdesco and Yalata. What the Liberal Party members in Flinders and our supporters do is man those booths, and the organisation of that falls with the local branches and also our local SEC. As I said, it is quite a task, logistically, but we managed to do it. We managed to man each and every booth and hand out how-to-vote cards on that particular day. I do not think city members sometimes realise the challenges that distance create for us, not just on election day, but in our everyday lives as local members.

I would also like to congratulate and thank my parliamentary colleagues including Geoff Greene, our state director, and his staff at the Liberal Party secretariat. It was a hive of industry during the campaign and they had lots to do, obviously. It was managed very effectively and very efficiently, and I will actually say publicly thank you to Geoff for visiting Port Lincoln just last week and speaking with our local branch in Port Lincoln. It is always a wonderful opportunity to have people from head office come and talk to the grassroots.

I am also going to thank my electorate staff who have been with me for the last four years and, very kindly, have decided to stay with me: Jacqui, of course, my office manager; Aimee, who has been with me for those whole four years, is in the Port Lincoln office and I wish her well in the next 12 months because she is taking maternity leave in July/August to have baby number three so we wish her well for that; Simon here in Parliament House; Dianne in Ceduna, who does an extraordinary effort and holds the fort often on her own up there. I get to Ceduna when I can but, of course, much is left to her. Also Myriam Hyde who does some work for me in my Port Lincoln office and is president of our SEC. They all do a fantastic job and have been a fantastic support to me. As all members in this place would know, we cannot do our jobs well without good staff, so I thank them for that.

I say congratulations to all the new MPs on both sides. We have heard all of their maiden speeches and you will all be relieved that that is done. I am sure it is a good thing to have out of the way. It is an auspicious moment and I say well done to everyone. I mention particularly those on our side—those on the other side will understand me not dwelling too much on their new members, although I look forward to a working relationship with my electorate neighbour, the member for Giles. In fact, we have already had a couple of conversations about a number of things that impact on the Eyre Peninsula as a whole.

We welcome aboard the member for Hartley. At the age of just 27, I congratulate the member for Hartley. It is an extraordinarily young age to be elected to any parliament, to a place like this, so I congratulate him. I understand he has a legal background and has done ample community service, he has even been a local councillor at that tender age. This is the last time I will mention his age, I promise, but I think it is worth noting that somebody so young can be so capable as to hold a place in this house.

We also welcome aboard the member for Bright who has also done much community service. He is the national director of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards in Australia, has been the Deputy Mayor of the City of Marion and was, in fact, a public servant for a time, employed in the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. Once again, he is still under the age of 30 at 29. So, welcome aboard to the member for Bright. I am sure we will get used to that lilt, member for Bright. He tells me these days his accent is more Irish than Scottish, but I will have to take his word on that.

Yesterday, we heard the member for Mount Gambier give his maiden address. He started his life as a school teacher and he and his family have been life-long residents of the South-East. He has been an educator for a big part of his life, but he has also been involved with business—so a resounding win there. I guess as a traditionally conservative seat we always knew the votes were there, we just had to get them and I congratulate the member for Mount Gambier on being able to do that.

We also heard the member for Mitchell speak yesterday. He is a former journo and TV presenter—I think he undersold himself a little bit during his opening address, but I did enjoy it. He has been a volunteer and active in local school and sporting communities. I particularly noted in the member for Mitchell's maiden speech his ties to the Eyre Peninsula. He has some roots there: both his parents were Port Lincoln people. His father (who I met for the first time yesterday) and my father played football against each other in the same little town of Cummins 50 years ago, he tells me. They both remember each other, so that is kind of nice. I think I am right in saying that his wife has connections in Ceduna, so strong Eyre Peninsula connections and I look forward to working with him on that.

In his maiden speech yesterday, the new member for Schubert spoke of his family business in the important sector, the vital sector of foods. He has been the chair of the local food industry association, Barossa Fine Foods, and he also mentioned that he has been president of the Young Liberals. The Hon. Andrew McLachlan—who, of course, we have not heard but he joins us in the other place on our side—has a background in law, financial services and in the area of superannuation, banking and finance.

Welcome aboard to you all and to those on the other side, I think the place will be better for your input. It is an incredible honour to be elected to this place. It is also an incredible honour to be re-elected and I wish you all well in four years' time. It is also a very emotional time and I was pleased that many of you were able to have family and friends come along. I think the diverse professional backgrounds of our new Liberal members, and they are diverse—they come from all walks of life and all parts of the state—bode well for an invigorated and energetic parliamentary Liberal Party. I have to say it is in contrast to the members and the candidates we see put up by the Labor Party, which have been historically and continue to be from a union secretary political-staffer genre. It is a very small pool. I think with our extended pool we have talent and we have enthusiasm that will make a great contribution.

It is an honour for me to continue to represent the resilient and hardworking people of the Eyre Peninsula on the West Coast. I have spoken many times about my electorate—the electorate of Flinders—as we all do. We all think our electorate is the best one, but I have no doubt in saying that Flinders is, in fact, the best electorate in the state. We have a community and business and regional economy based on agriculture and seafood, and strong primary production sectors. Tourism is also important, and we have been talking about mining for a long time but, of course, it has only ever reached the exploration stage. Whether it will go any further or not I do not know, but there is still a lot of activity on the exploration front at least and I think people need to understand how this works.

The Crown retains the mineral rights. The state owns the mineral wealth of this jurisdiction, and freehold landowners own their property and the tenure is known as fee simple which, in fact, gives them the top few inches of dirt. It is not absolute ownership and I think people from time to time forget that or at least are not prepared to accept it. What it means is that those mining explorers who gain access to tenements have an obligation to both the government and the people of South Australia to explore that tenement. If they do not, it is taken away from them.

I would also like to congratulate the member for Dunstan on being re-elected as the state parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party; my congratulations to him and to the member for Bragg on her re-election as the deputy leader. I look forward to working with them. They were both elected unopposed, and they obviously have our full support. I look forward to serving them. I am also pleased to be in the role of parliamentary secretary to the Leader of the Opposition, which I will enjoy doing and make the most of that opportunity.

I want to talk about the election a little bit because the remarks I hear from within the community and the electorate of Flinders is absolute disappointment that the current government has been returned and to a certain extent they are nonplussed. I would like to endorse some of the remarks made by the member for Davenport during his Address in Reply as they echo the sentiments of many of my constituents. Many people have expressed to me their dismay that the fairness test is not clearly being adhered to when you have a situation where 53 per cent of the vote goes to a party and it does not allow that political party to form government. I know we are talking about this time and time again, but it is important. It has angered people in my part of the world that such an outcome is possible in a modern vibrant democracy.

The member for Davenport said something else that resonated with me and that was that the people we are meant to serve—the voters—are not being served by the current rules. I do not think any fair-minded person could disagree with that. This parliament is meant to be representative of the communities that we serve and right now the collective democratic will of the majority of people in South Australia is being ignored. A much quoted figure has been that 92,000 more votes came to the Liberal Party than the Labor Party; that is a telling figure, but it is not the most important one. More important to me is that only one in three people across this entire state voted Labor, only one in three, and yet they were able to form government. Something is wrong.

I might also talk a little bit more about the election just gone in March because in one particular electorate I believe political campaigning reached a new low and that was in the seat of Elder where there was a campaign launched by the Labor Party against our candidate, Carolyn Habib, which I believe was unwarranted; it was deliberate and it was incredibly offensive. It was offensive because Carolyn Habib was offended. Sadly, and this is a poor reflection on everybody concerned, it worked; that is the extraordinary thing. I think we all need to take a breath, step back from this and remind ourselves that everybody in this place has come from somewhere else to be here. Remember that always.

Debt is still a concern. We will talk more about that in the Supply Bill, but I have heard our leader say this, and it is correct: businesses talk about profit and loss; government talks about surplus and deficit—it is exactly the same thing. When a business runs at a loss, debt increases. When government runs a deficit, debt increases. It is that simple. What is hard about that? Why do people not get it?

I am pleased to see that the government has a new-found interest in regional communities and regional affairs. We on this side have established a Regional Affairs Committee, and we will ensure that the job of creating prosperity in the regions is firmly back on the agenda. We could be slightly cynical and suggest that Labor have only just rediscovered the regions. The proof will be in the pudding as to how well they support them. Of course, we all know that 50 per cent of this state's exports come from the regions, and that may well increase. I think it is quite likely that more and more we will see an increasing percentage of our exports coming from the regional areas.

The big challenge, I think, for our export industries is remaining competitive, and it is a challenge under the current business environment. We compete with every other producer in the world—we have to remember that. We do not work in isolation; we work in a global financial framework. I compete as a grower against the growers in Canada, the USA and Europe. If we are constrained by government policy settings, we are going to be less competitive. It is all about the cost of doing business. If it is too expensive to do business in South Australia, we become uncompetitive and we do not survive.

As this parliament goes on, I will talk more about the issues confronting the seat of Flinders. I have spoken about water already in a grieve last week. There are challenges around the sustainability of the resource and the supply of water on Eyre Peninsula, and I do not think that the pressure is going to come off the basins until we source some new water. Of course, the previous Labor government way back in 2002 indicated that they would be prepared to build a desal plant somewhere on the West Coast. We have not seen that happen.

My intention as the local member is to keep driving for a change in water policy within this government, because I think the opportunity for the Eyre Peninsula community to grow is going to be really constrained sometime in the very near future. In fact, SA Water have themselves identified that demand is going to exceed supply in the next four to six years; it is only four years away. I think that is one of the big challenges, and it is a matter of some urgency.

As I said, we have been drawing our water supply mostly from the southern basins, which are underground lenses to the west and south of Port Lincoln; 85 per cent of our water comes from that rechargeable, renewable resource. However, the consensus is that those basins have been overextracted, and the findings of the parliamentary inquiry by the Natural Resources Committee last year found that that was a part of the reason for the drop in water levels within those basins. They also attributed some of the drop in water levels to climate change. There is much debate about that but, incredibly, I do not think there is going to be any change under the current situation.

Something that has been in the mix for a while, but has just come to my attention again, is the coastal conservation zone. Way back when minister Holloway was minister for planning, he decided that it would be a good thing to have a coastal conservation zone right around the coastline of Eyre Peninsula, all the way from Whyalla to the Western Australian border. I guess we were a trial in this sort of situation, the idea being that local councils (and nine or 10 are involved) would implement a coastal conservation zone. That really was that part of the coast that was vulnerable, exposed and subject to flooding. It possibly could be vulnerable to sea level rise sometime in the future.

The councils are at various stages of implementing this coastal conservation zone much to the chagrin of the local landowners, I have to say. A lot of the coastal land around Eyre Peninsula is farmland, a lot of it is owned under freehold title, and it has come as quite a surprise to the owners to find that their freehold land is within a coastal conservation zone. Of course, that means they can continue to farm and operate as they have been; however, there is now not the opportunity to do anything else with that land—for example, subdividing, which some had intended to do to fund their retirement, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Of course, the situation changes and, even as recently as last night, the District Council of Streaky Bay had a submission night for that, so it will be interesting to see where that goes. I think that security of tenure is a real issue for me right across the state. I think freehold country does not necessarily mean what it used to and people feel nervous about their tenure.

As to infrastructure, I have mentioned water already, but country roads right throughout this state have been run down. This country, this state, is carried on the back of a truck. It is imperative that we have good roads, good transport corridors, that are adequate for doing business and carting freight.

One of the real challenges for governments in this state will be the delivery of health services and education services, not just in the city but out in the country as well, where distances are vast, populations are small, and they are real challenges—I understand that. I am hoping that we can work in a bipartisan way to solve some of those problems. We have had a recent hospital spend in the hospital of Whyalla, Ceduna has just had a rebuild at some $30 million, and Port Lincoln is about to have its rebuild finished at about $40 million.

Our base hospitals have been upgraded and they provide wonderful service. My concern is always about the smaller hospitals that lie in between and how we are able to maintain the services to the local community. It is imperative that we maintain those hospitals. I have to say that people in a small country town have a sense of ownership towards their hospital and the health service. We need to understand that, recognise it and support them in that.

I want to refer back to the Governor's speech where he made mention of the government's strategic priorities and included 'for South Australia to become an affordable place to live'. We would argue that the current government has not managed to achieve that, given that we are the highest taxed state in the nation. State taxes, such as payroll tax and land tax, are exorbitant and a dampener on doing business, and that flows through. Not everybody has to pay payroll tax, not everybody has to pay land tax, but many do and there is a trickle-down effect that ultimately makes this not just an expensive state to do business in but an expensive state to live in.

Creating a vibrant city is a noble priority. Sometimes I walk down Leigh Street or Peel Street on my way to catching the bus home after a sitting day, and it is great to see those restaurants open but, seriously, what percentage of the population of South Australia goes to Leigh Street or Peel Street? A minuscule percentage, I would suggest. It is lovely for those people who can, but there is more to life than a vibrant city. As to bicycle lanes, I see more of them around the city. In June last year I was driving home from this place late at night when it was raining and dark, and I spotted three cyclists over two nights riding in the dark without reflectors and wearing dark clothing. In many ways, I believe the cyclists are their own worst enemy much of the time.

Realising the benefits of the mining boom for all: there was great disappointment when the Olympic Dam expansion did not go ahead. It was a disappointment. We had spent a good part of 2010, I think—it might have been 2011—discussing the Olympic Dam expansion in this place, and unfortunately BHP chose not to go ahead with that. Exploration continues, but as far as the mining boom goes, we are not seeing evidence of that in this state. I think some of the problem is that we have some valuable resources but they are very deep below the earth's surface and in many cases it is prohibitively expensive and difficult to get that ore body out.

Safe communities, healthy neighbourhoods is aspirational stuff. I can tell you that I live in a town where I do not have to lock the car and the kids can walk to school. That is a safe community; that is a healthy neighbourhood. It is aspirational stuff. It would be nice if we could achieve that, but the reality is I think people are becoming more concerned and feeling less safe in their towns and their suburbs around this state.

Premium food and wine from our clean environment: I spent 30 years as a farmer and this is a wonderful aspirational target. The Governor also suggested that we will protect the pristine environment from which our premium food and wine is sourced. Well, of course, pristine is a word that is bandied around and often misused, I think. Pristine in the true sense means unsullied or untouched. Of course, most of the environment that we produce from is not that. It is not unsullied, it is not untouched and therefore it is not pristine; it has actually been developed. It has been developed, it has been managed and it is managed so that it is productive and sustainably productive.

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon: It is pristine compared to China.

Mr TRELOAR: It is pristine compared with China; I take that on board. I have been fortunate enough to visit China a couple of times over the last 20 years and I do agree, member for Newland; you are quite right. I think the point is that we do not have that pristine environment here, but it is a landscape that we can manage, manage well, and manage sustainably. That is the way to continue the production of our premium food and wine.

Every chance for every child is aspirational and very difficult, once again, to achieve when you have generational unemployment in places like the northern suburbs. I hear tell that there are families up there where there are three generations of unemployment and the outlook is pretty bleak. Youth unemployment in the northern suburbs is around 40 per cent. The extraordinary thing is, they keep electing Labor members of parliament. There is generational unemployment, there is 40 per cent unemployment amongst the youth and yet they keep voting Labor; nothing changes. What is going on? If anyone can answer that, I would be a happy man.

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon interjecting:

An honourable member: See, I am listening.

Mr TRELOAR: You are listening, yes. I think we have covered pretty well all the state's strategic priorities. In closing, I only have a couple of minutes left, Madam Deputy Speaker. It seems to me that—and this is just a comment and opinion—good government is like a good umpire in a footy match. You do not notice they are there. Unfortunately, we have got ourselves to a point in this state where the tentacles of government have spread into every single part of everyday life, and I would suggest that we do notice very much they are there.

A lot of the time they are in the way. You just talk to our farmers or our fishermen about how much of a burden this government is placing on them. It almost seems that the tentacles of government have extended into every single facet of our everyday life, in an effort to create some sort of socialist utopia, which is really a rather outdated notion, I think. The best thing in many instances that the government could do, regardless of their seven strategic priorities, is actually get out of the way.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Deputy Premier.

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Industrial Relations) (11:33): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can I start off by extending my congratulations to you in your new role. You are a great asset to the chamber and you look entirely the part in that setting.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No big pearls.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: There are no pearls presently, but that is the only—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: They will never happen.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I need a big brooch.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Madam Deputy Speaker, if you are alluding to another person in another place, I can assure you that I think you have a far sweeter temperament than that other person.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I would also like to congratulate the Governor on his speech, which I thought was a very helpful opening to the parliamentary session, and I congratulate all the new members who are entering parliament for the first time. I recall when I first came here I wondered what the hell had happened to me. I imagine that a number of you are probably experiencing similar emotions.

For what it is worth, can I just say that the parliament is a place where you will find, over time, that collectively we have more in common than that which separates us and, even though there are bits of theatre here and there, some of the great work of this parliament is actually done on committees. It has been my experience—and I know that the member for Ashford is the chair of probably the premier committee, in my humble opinion—that great work is done on committees, and it is a great opportunity for members, first, to learn about things that many of us would never have known the first thing about but for being on a committee, and, secondly, to have the opportunity of getting to know your colleagues on both sides of the political divide in a context of informality without there being any particular aggro attached to it. That is a constructive thing.

I say to all members, particularly the new members, that you will find that, in terms of discharging your parliamentary duties, members of the government, in particular the ministry, are here to assist you as much as people on this side of the chamber. I think you will find that members of parliament of whatever persuasion are treated with respect and assisted as much as possible. As far is the ministry is concerned, it is probably the position that it is a universal viewpoint, so you do not have to be aggressive with us—we do respond to polite interaction in a positive way. As the member for Morialta will be able to tell you, we are all quite easy to get on with.

Mr Gardner: It depends on the minister.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Maybe. I congratulate the Government Whip. He has already demonstrated himself to be a thorough and very—

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon: No amount of sucking up will get you that pair.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Okay, fair enough. I will not go on for too long then, but he is doing a splendid job anyway, and I congratulate him on his election to that role. He has some very large shoes to fill, following Robyn Geraghty, who very well performed that role for many years. I wish Robyn all the very best in her retirement: she was a fantastic colleague, and I am sure the member for Newland will do a great job in picking up where she left off.

I congratulate the Premier on his return to office for another term. There is no doubt that the Premier's determination and resolve through the period of his premiership, including a rather difficult and testing election campaign, is in no small part the reason for the government's having been returned. I congratulate him and express my thanks to him for his great leadership in the past years, particularly in the context of the election campaign.

I thank the electors of Enfield, who have again, in my humble opinion, returned the correct candidate. Obviously they have been, to my mind, well served. I intend to recommit myself to serving them as a member of this house as best I can, and I express my sincere thanks to the electors of Enfield.

I also express my thanks to my parliamentary and ministerial staff. These people have worked tirelessly for me and assisted me through the whole of the last four years, and I say to each and every one of them: thank you very much for your efforts. No good work is ever done by a group that is not united as a team. I would like to say that I believe my staff, both ministerial and parliamentary, have been fantastic, and I applaud each and every one of them.

Supporters: there are a great many supporters whom I would like to name and there are literally so many that it probably would take up a large amount of time. If I get the wind-up from somebody in a while, I perhaps will resort to that. I will go through a few names because I think these are particular people to whom I should express personal thanks. Thank you to Senator Gallacher and his wife Paola, and the Hon. Tung Ngo. I might share with members that the Hon. Tung Ngo, who is now a member of the other place, and the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars, appear to be populating many of the committees of the upper house, to the point where I expressed my concern that we were just seeing a rerun of the Tung and Gerry show.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: It's my own work: that's one of mine. Some of the later ones are better than that. That was just a warm-up. I also thank Mr Bob Harris; Mr Wasim Saeed; Mrs Minh Nguyen; Tim Walsh; Edgar Agius; Fiona Cheminant; Brian Woods; Gary Lockwood; David Entwhistle; Kevin O'Halloran; Tolley and Barbara Wasylenko; Mr Hanif Rahimi; Hafizulla Zamiri; Mohammad Rezai; Joe, Teresa and Giordana Cimino; Mirella and Romeo Iuliano; Anthea Pasilidis; and Maria and Rocky Labozzetta. As I said, there are so many of them I could keep going forever, but I just wanted to express thanks to them and also all the people who have served in my sub-branch over the last few years.

I want to say a few words about a couple of other matters now that I have dealt with those very important expressions of thanks. First, I want to say a few words about the election. Secondly, I want to say a few words about what my aspiration is for what I might be offering to the house over the course of the next year or two.

First, in respect of the election. There has been, on a number of particular occasions over the last few weeks, an attempt to ignite a debate around the theme of the two-party preferred vote. I recall, in particular, the member for Davenport having made a rather passionate contribution here a week or two ago expressing his concerns about the current system. I thought that, since the member for Davenport has had a crack, I might as well have a roll and see what happens. The views that I am about to express are my views: they are not the views of my party, necessarily. They are simply observations that I make about the process.

The first point I make is that the two-party preferred vote, everyone should remember, is a mathematical construct. It actually does not exist in the real world. If I were to compare it to something in the physical world, it might be something like Laurencium or Einsteinium that only exists in theory in a test tube somewhere.

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: And in a theoretical test tube somewhere. We know the periodic table has something that theoretically might be there. It is just that nobody has ever seen it, felt it, touched it or know anything about it, and I think Einsteinium and Laurencium fit in that category.

Thus, as they say, is the two-party preferred vote. It does not exist in reality. It is a mathematical construct. And, it is a mathematical construct which requires certain unnatural behaviour to enable it to work. The unnatural behaviour is that, in the event of one or other of the major parties not being the winner of a particular contest, there must be a count-through to determine this mathematical construct out of what does not in real life resemble this construct.

If what you want is an electoral system which is a proportional representation system, then we have an electoral system which is a proportional representation system, and we see it displayed in all its finery in another place. For those of you who wish to see that replicated here, I invite you to consider the consequences of that—two of them. Just imagine! One of them is bad enough, imagine two of them. That is where proportional representation leads.

The impure version of proportional representation that the member for Davenport was postulating about involves proportional representation only in so much as the two major parties get proportional representation. The rest of them can nick off because they are not relevant. You cannot be half pregnant. You are either into a PR system or you are into a single-member electorate system.

There is an alternative and it is a hybrid. This hybrid usually manifests itself in the real world in places where they have a unicameral system like, for example, New Zealand, where you have an MMP system. I do know what MMP stands for, but it is mad, mad politics, because what it means is you never, ever have a government as such: you just have a bunch of people who are friends some days and not friends others. Remember again this is a unicameral system, not a bicameral system.

With the greatest respect to the member for Davenport, I fundamentally disagree, first of all, with his unrealistic inflation of a mathematical construct of a two-party preferred vote being of any particular significance. Secondly, I put on the record that those who are so obsessed with this particular thing would do well to consider that there are other alternatives that might be considered in terms of the way the redistributions occur.

For instance, how much community of interest does the South Australian redistribution system take into account? Answer: not much. There is a whole bunch of electorates here which, by any definition, are bizarre when viewed from the context of community of interest. What voice does that get? None. How much concern did the member for Davenport have about that? None.

Why is it that the member for Finniss—who, of course, is a splendid member of this place—is now representing people who live in Sellicks or Christies, where they have to drive 40 kilometres to see him instead of driving two kilometres to see the member for Kaurna? I will tell you why: it is that the 2PP 50 per cent mathematical construct has been imposed on the system over and above that. Where is the perfection there? Of course, there is not perfection.

We have dealt with PR; we all know what the consequences of that would be. Can you imagine this place with PR? My God! Imagine it. As the former member for Elder used to frequently say, there would be something about the bar room scene from Star Wars about it.

I have dealt with MMP. Can I make another little point as well? Everybody knows in South Australia that, since representative government, the name of the game has been majority of votes in a majority of seats. We all know that, years ago, during the period of the great Tom Playford, there became a non-alignment in terms of numbers between the seats, but it was ever so that a majority of votes in a majority of seats won government. It is just that, in Playford's day, one seat might have 20,000 people and another one 200. I exaggerate slightly; but nevertheless, the proposition did remain the same that, with a majority of votes in a majority of seats, you win.

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: We consistently won a majority of the primary vote but not in the right places. I make these points. In relation to the majority of votes in a majority of seats, it is not the government's fault that two things occurred at the last election.

The first one is: that is not the government's fault: it is that people like the member for MacKillop—yes, the member for MacKillop—and the member for Flinders are outrageously popular in their seats. They are so beloved by the people that nearly 100 per cent of them vote for them. Saddam Hussein is the only person I have ever heard of who is more popular than the member for Flinders.

Mr Gardner interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No; the member for Flinders, in fact, I have heard it said, cannot walk through Flinders without rose petals being thrown at his feet. When one looks at the results of the last election, one can see why. The two people who voted against him, he knows where they live. He goes around there and he is so generous about it, he says, 'Look, it's okay, I don't care.' The amount of time and effort that is put into making sure that this wonderful man's immense popularity remains at astronomical levels, I do not know, but can I say that every penny that is spent on it is a penny wasted, because he is that good he does not need it. He is that good, and everyone in this chamber can tell you that. And, the member for MacKillop, again, another one—absolute walk up start.

Mr Gardner: Not much more than us.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Now, I ask this question: how much time and effort and money does the Australian Labor Party spend trying to dislodge the fabulously popular member for Flinders? Answer: not much. What was that?

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Fair enough; good point. There is point number one. Can we help it if Middle Eastern potentate-style popularity attracts to members of the opposition? No, we cannot, we cannot help that; it is just the good fortune of them. Second point: why is it that a nice young man, a man who for all I know is a splendid fellow, was inveigled, or persuaded, or supported, to spend vast amounts of money attempting to remove the highly effective member for Enfield?

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon: Why would they do that?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Why would somebody do that in the public interest? First of all, he is not a bad member of parliament and, secondly, realistically, it was going to be a little bit difficult. But now I can tell you that there could have been a better allocation of resources—theoretically.

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon: I don't think so.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No, I know; that's true. Especially for the new members, this is one of the funny things here, how everything is connected. Why is it that His Worship the Mayor of Playford had the unspeakable privilege of being able to wear that large medallion at the meeting of the royal family out there not so long ago? Answer: the favour done to him by the member for Newland. If the member for Newland had not defeated him he would not have even been there, so there is that connectivity. The point is that instead of spending money where it might have made a difference, maybe, the money is spent in Enfield. That is fine. I am taking it for the team. I have been taking it for the team, absorbing the blows, absorbing the cash, but is that smart campaigning? I actually do not think so. So, do not complain to us about the fact that you spend money in the wrong place.

The next one—this is the real good one, this is the kicker—the proposition is that the Electoral Commission, had it done its job correctly, would have ensured that the Liberal Party, with more than 50 per cent of this non-existent artificial construct called the two-party preferred vote, would have had a majority of seats in this place. Well, guess what? If two of the seats, in which the Liberal Party definitely would get more votes than the Labor Party, were held by the Liberal Party you would be sitting here now; the Liberal Party would be sitting here right now. However, there are two Liberal Party seats that the Liberal Party cannot win. Again, do not blame the Labor Party for that.

I come back to my point about resources. When the Liberal Party cannot even win its own seats—and, by the way, if it had the Liberal Party would now be in office; do not forget that—and it has outrageously popular people like the member for Flinders getting over 80 per cent of the vote and being carried around his electorate in a sedan chair, and it still spending money on him and it is still spending money on me, why should we feel upset when they cry about it? Please just face the facts: the two-party preferred vote is a mathematical construct, and does not mean anything other than roughly something. Secondly, if you want to have proportional representation then good for you. This place will be like the bar room scene from Star Wars.

Point number three is that the actual result of the election, had it actually been that the Liberal Party controlled all the seats in which it could always outvote the Labor Party, would have been a Liberal government. That did not happen, and that is not the Labor Party's fault, nor is it the Electoral Commissioner's fault. My final point is: why spend a whole lot of money on seats you cannot possibly win when you do not win the ones you need to win, and have to win? Rhetorical questions perhaps.

I would like to make a point here, too, in respect of the upper house. I think that reform of the upper house is important. I know it is one of those things that are perennial conversations but, when I open up this topic with friends, it is the usual thing that happens at the barbecue. When you go to a friend's barbecue they start saying, 'What about the upper house?', because everyone is talking about it. They get quite excited, particularly when they have had a couple of beers: 'What do you think about the upper house?' Everyone has a view.

When they start rapping a bit about the upper house they have views, and I can give you a few views that come up quite often. Number one is, 'Who are these characters?' That is a view. Number two is, 'Are they really there for eight years? Are you serious, eight years?'

Mr Gardner interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No, no. Number three is, 'What about the people in that chamber'—and not just that chamber; any upper house anywhere in this country, including the Senate—'who are there by basically'—and I will use a neutral term—'serendipity?' That is a real issue. Before the last election I put up two bills to reform what is going on in the upper house. One of those bills was to do what I call 'tinkering' (and it was not my preferred outcome), and the other one was to bring in something known as Sainte Laguë. For those of you who are not, like me, a linguist, you could actually say it is something approximating first-past-the-post.

The effect that would have had would have been that people who got most of the votes up there would get most of the seats up there, and the serendipity would be completely off the agenda. Unfortunately the opposition, at that time, was not prepared to go for it. We actually got very close when one of the members of the upper house—

Mr Gardner: You had four years.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Can I just tell you about a magical parliamentary moment? One member of the upper house moved a bill to introduce PR. We supported it, a few of the crossbenchers supported it, and then, at the critical moment when it came to a vote, guess who voted against it? The person who moved it. That was unexpected.

Anyway, that is why we do not have first-past-the-post yet, but I hope we can have intelligent conversation about that over the months ahead. It is important that we keep electoral reform in front of mind, and we do not just say, 'Oh well, it is over for another four years.' Why don't we get stuck into it early? Why don't we have a look at it early? I think that would be the intelligent thing to do.

Now that I have dealt with those very important matters, I will raise a couple of other things very quickly—firstly, my priorities for the next few months in terms of the work the Premier has asked me to conduct. I thought I would mention to the house that there are a few things on the drawing board; the first one is reform of WorkCover. Everybody in this place is aware that the WorkCover system we presently have needs to be improved. It is not satisfying the people who are the injured workers or the employers, and it has enormous problems associated with it. This needs to be a matter of attention for this parliament, and I hope, as I expressed to the member for MacKillop, that I will be in a position to bring something forward in the not too distant future for everyone's consideration.

The second point is that our justice system is in need of a thoroughgoing tune-up. I say this because there are too many instances where elements of the justice system are not acting in unison with other elements of the system. I am presently doing a lateral overview of the system, starting with the criminal justice system, from the point where a person is apprehended by the police through to the point where they finish being a customer of the Parole Board, and everything in the middle.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The whole experience.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Everything in the middle. Can I say that the member for Stuart has often raised important questions in this space, and I want to acknowledge that many of the questions he raises are important questions which do require answers. Unfortunately, he jumps to incorrect conclusions occasionally and blames the government, but there are reasons that many of these things do need to be looked at.

I know that recently the member for Stuart has spoken, for example, about prison numbers. Prison numbers are a function of many things. Let's keep in mind that prisons do not select their customers; their customers are delivered to them, and they are delivered to them by a system. The question is: how many people are being delivered and why, and need they be delivered to the prison or is there somewhere else they might be delivered that would give the community a better outcome, not create a risk to the community and save the system being clogged up by people who do not need to be there? I give that as one simple example. So, I am looking at that.

Finally, I will also be doing some work in relation to the ongoing project of developing the City of Adelaide, making it a vibrant city, seeing the opportunity for private sector development to occur in the city, to leverage off the considerable expenditure the government has put in in terms of things like the Adelaide Oval, what is going on now with the Convention Centre and suchlike.

I say to all members that I would be very happy to discuss any of these matters with you at any time. I do appreciate contributions from members. The member for MacKillop and I, for example, have had many conversations about the WorkCover issue, and I pay tribute to him because he is genuinely interested in doing something constructive about it, and I welcome that. Likewise with the member for Stuart, about issues relating to those matters he frequently draws our attention to, I would again extend that invitation to him and be very happy to have a conversation with him about those matters at any time. With those few remarks and, in view of the fact that my time has nearly expired, I will sadly have to say, 'That's all for now.'

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (12:03): Madam Deputy Speaker, may I start my contribution by congratulating you. We both came to this place on the same day, I think, back in 1997 and I am delighted to see you take on the role of Deputy Speaker. I congratulate the Governor, Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce and his wife, Liz ,for the way that they carry out their duties on behalf of the citizens of South Australia—they do a fantastic job.

I also congratulate all new members and all members who returned to this place, but particularly the new members, and particularly those on this side. Amongst those, I congratulate my new colleague, the member for Mount Gambier. I am delighted that we now have that seat back in the fold. Whilst I am on this, I thank the good folk of the seat of MacKillop for returning me here once again and once again with an increased majority. I was musing on the fact that I have increased my majority at every election when I have stood and, if I stay here for another 20 years, I might get to 100 per cent. I do not know whether that is possible, but we are finding that those who are voting for the Labor Party, their numbers are dwindling.

An honourable member: There are not many left.

Mr WILLIAMS: There are not many left.

The Hon. J.R. Rau: You and the member for Flinders.

Mr WILLIAMS: Yes, I am concerned about the member for Flinders, but I have a very important matter I wish to address in the time allocated to me, and I am going to get onto it. I am delighted to be following the Deputy Premier because the matter I wish to address is very much the matter that he addressed in regard to the electoral system in South Australia. I will point out that the Deputy Premier's views on electoral matters, particularly pertaining to the two-party preferred vote, vary substantially from those of other people in his party and, indeed, those who brought us to the electoral system we have here in South Australia today, and I will highlight those issues as I go through my address on this matter.

The Governor, in his address to the joint houses, talked about an urgent need to reform our democracy and then went on to talk about political donations. The problem with our democracy is not that which the Governor refers to; the problem is that it is not democratic. The biggest problem the citizens of this state have with our democracy is that they cannot get rid of a bad government, a government they do not want, and that they cannot get into power a government they do want. Whilst the Labor Party won more seats than the Liberal Party, the people of South Australia clearly wanted a change of government, as they did four years ago.

I am fascinated that there appears to be a general acceptance of the outcome—a small rush of letters to the editor lasting a few weeks, a begrudging acknowledgment by a few commentators and journalists that maybe the system is flawed, and a few comments from a few Liberals seem to be it. There seems to be an acceptance that the Liberal Party just has to work harder, as the Deputy Premier suggested. That is not the problem. The problem is that the electoral system in South Australia is seriously flawed, and it seriously disadvantages the Liberal Party whilst seriously advantaging the Labor Party.

I will delve into the state's recent history to illustrate the inequality of our system, how it came about, and what we might do to fix it but, firstly, let me make something very clear so that there can be no misunderstanding: although there is a clear disadvantage to the Liberal Party, it is the people of South Australia who are the losers. It is the mums and dads, the workers and retirees, and the young who have been stymied in their attempt to have a government and the policies of their desire. The electoral system should not be there for the parliamentarians. It should not be there for the political parties. It should be there for the people.

When confronted with the same scenario, the Labor Party's attitude to electoral unfairness was in stark contrast to its attitude today. On 5 March 1962, The Advertiser quoted the then leader of the opposition, Frank Walsh, after failing to win government, as saying:

We have received a mandate from the electors of South Australia to form a Government. My party has received an overall majority of the vote of the electors.

Another Labor spokesman stated that it was 'against the tenets of responsible government for a party to hold office when the vote was clearly against it'. That is very different from what we just heard from the Deputy Premier. On 18 March 1968, Don Dunstan was quoted in The Advertiser as stating:

The only way to get effective balanced development of the whole State is to have one vote, one value, so that no matter where he lives every citizen will have an equal say in electing the Government he wants and rejecting the party he doesn't want.

I contend that no-one observing electoral outcomes in South Australia in the last 20 years could accept that we have achieved those sentiments expressed by Dunstan, yet that is the foundation on which our current electoral system has been built.

At the election held on 15 March, the Liberal Party achieved a two-party preferred vote of 53 per cent and the Labor Party 47 per cent. On the numbers cast, an average of 19,971 electors supported Labor for each candidate elected, whereas 24,522 votes were cast in favour of the Liberal Party for each of the 22 Liberal members elected. On a statewide basis, it required just over 4,500 votes more to elect a Liberal member than to elect a Labor member. I challenge anyone on the other side of the house to reconcile those numbers with Dunstan's statement to have:

…one vote, one value, so that no matter where he lives every citizen will have an equal say in electing the Government he wants and rejecting the party he doesn't want.

Indeed, I am fascinated by the parallels between the 2014 election and the 1968 election. Other than the anomaly where, in 1968, there was a rerun of the poll in the seat of Millicent ordered by a court of disputed returns, at the end of that process the two parties had an equality of members in the house, with the deciding vote held by an Independent. The Labor Party had polled in excess of 53 per cent of the vote, yet the Independent (Tom Stott) sided with the Liberal Party, installing Steele Hall as the premier.

If we assume that the seat of Fisher were a Liberal seat, the result of the 2014 election is almost a mirror image of that in 1968. This result in 1968 created such public turmoil that it brought about a significant change in the state's electoral system. Historical facts show that the Hall Liberal government reformed the electoral system in South Australia knowing full well that it would be to the detriment of its ability to win the subsequent election.

I am not foolish enough to expect that the current Labor government shares in any way the idealism of the Hall Liberal government. In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, the Labor Party argued that the unfairness of the electoral system in South Australia was a result of the malapportionment; that is, where the state was divided into a country zone and a metropolitan zone, and the electorates in the country zone had far fewer electors than seats in the metropolitan zone. The Labor Party argued that, if the malapportionment was done away with, then a fair electoral system would ensue.

Joan Rydon, an election specialist, in 1963 published an analysis from the 1959 South Australian election which concluded that there was a bias against Labor of some 8.7 per cent. Her analysis, however, apportioned 3.5 per cent of this to the malapportionment and 5.2 per cent due to 'differential concentration of majorities'. As a check to her analysis, she applied the booth results from the 1958 federal election to those state seat boundaries. This analysis showed a disadvantage to the Labor Party of 8.8 per cent, with 4.7 per cent of that attributed to malapportionment and 4.1 per cent due to differential concentration of party support.

I mention this work because it shows that, at the time, it was recognised that the concentration of a party's support could have a significant impact on election outcomes. There has been in South Australia an ongoing argument about the meaning of 'one vote, one value'. The Labor Party by and large has suggested that it is about providing equality, that is, equal numbers of electors in each electorate. In reality, that concept ignores the impact of differential concentration of support.

Dr C.A. Hughes, in a paper entitled 'Fair and equal electoral districts—the problem at the state level', to a federalism conference in 1983 said, 'the concepts of equality and fairness are often confused'. Boundaries may be fixed so that exactly the same number of electors reside within each electoral district, yet in the end a serious gerrymander may have been created. The federal parliamentary joint standing committee in 1988 in its first report on electoral matters stated:

A gerrymander may be achieved with entirely equal electorates, that is, with equal numbers of voters in each electorate.

It went on to report:

A classic gerrymander endeavours to lock up one's opponent's voters into safe seats whilst spreading one's own vote so as to win as many marginal seats as possible.

I contend that that is exactly the situation we face in South Australia today, and I believe the Deputy Premier emphasised the point of the number of votes that we have locked up in some of our country seats.

Interestingly, it is my belief that Dunstan knew that the changes that he made to the Constitution Act in 1975 would indeed lead to an advantage to the Labor Party. I make this statement on the basis that those changes directed the Boundaries Commission, a newly formed independent body, to make subsequent redistributions with minimal changes to existing boundaries.

My belief is that Dunstan knew that the existing boundaries favoured the Labor Party, and as such he wanted them to be disturbed as little as possible. Dunstan knew that the 1975 election saw the Labor Party returned with a minority of the two-party preferred vote, yet the first report of the independent Boundaries Commission of 1976 was constrained in this matter.

The 1989 election saw the Labor Party return to office with only 48 per cent of the vote; notwithstanding, it was a minority government supported by two Labor Independents, Martyn Evans and Norm Peterson. Prior to that election, the Liberal Party had been campaigning about the inequality of the electoral system in South Australia and, subsequent to that election, continued with that campaign. Interestingly, part of that campaign was because of the malapportionment which had occurred between the previous redistribution of 1983 due to the rapid population growth in certain districts.

For example, at the 1989 election the Labor seat of Elizabeth had a mere 16,558 electors whilst the Liberal seat of Fisher had 27,027 electors. Notwithstanding the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission writing to both the premier and the opposition leader on 14 July 1987 pointing out the disparity and urging the parliament to take action, the then Labor government took no action prior to the 1989 election. Knowing that its electoral stocks were falling it eschewed its previous one-vote one-value mantra, allowing a malapportionment to remain when it favoured itself.

After the election of 1989, with the Liberal Party failing to form government in spite of achieving 52 per cent of the popular vote, Labor introduced legislation to bring forward an early redistribution. The Liberal Party believed that the further changes were necessary and with the support of Martyn Evans forced the matter to a select committee. A number of changes were made to the Constitution Act as a result of this work. The principal ones were:

The insertion of a new subsection (1) in clause 83, known as the fairness clause, which obliges the commission to provide for boundaries which give each group of candidates which wins 50 per cent plus one vote an even chance of winning 24 seats and forming government.

The changes to subsection (2) of clause 83, by substituting 'must' for 'shall' and repealing subclause (c) which obliged the commission to minimalise any disturbance to existing boundaries—the point I was just referring to.

These changes were adopted in a bipartisan manner and, as per the law, were only implemented after both had been passed by the parliament and agreed to by a referendum of the people. In my opinion, the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission of 1991 is by far the most interesting of any of the commission's reports. It concluded that there was a disadvantage to the Liberal Party. In paragraph 14.2 the commission states, amongst other things:

…that there is an enduring but uncontrived imbalance in the South Australian electoral process which operates to the disadvantage of the Liberal Party. As a result of this imbalance it has been more difficult for the Liberal Party than the Labor Party, ever since the 1975 amendments to the constitution, to gain the same number of seats with a given percentage of the popular vote. This disadvantage arises from a number of factors peculiar to South Australia which combine to isolate large surpluses of conservative rural votes in 'enclaves' where the votes cannot be 'mixed' effectively with Labour Party votes.

This is exactly what the federal joint standing committee (which I previously referred to) called a classic gerrymander. Interestingly, the report notes that section 83(1) is silent about the necessity to ensure comfortable majorities for the party which attracts a particular percentage of the popular vote above 50 per cent, nor does section 83(1) say anything about the cube rule.

The report goes to considerable length in analysing the meanings of the amendments created to the Constitution Act, noting that 'this commission is empowered by the new section 83(1) to look at the political consequences of a redistribution and to do something about the correction of this imbalance'—that being the imbalance against the Liberal Party. I repeat that the report says that 'this commission is empowered by the new section 83 (1) to look at the political consequences of a redistribution'.

As a final check in its redistribution process that 1991 commission reapplied the polling booth votes from the 1989 election to the new boundaries to check that, if those boundaries were used at that election, the Liberal Party would indeed have been able to form government. It is also of vital importance to understand that the commission did highlight the imperfections within the process and noted in paragraph 52.2, amongst other things, 'swings are usually not uniform'. I seek leave to insert a table into the Hansard.

Leave granted.

Election Year Two Party Preferred Vote Majority Seats
Liberal Labor
1977 46.6 53.4 27 (Labor)
1979 55 45 26 (Liberal includes one National)
1982 49.1 50.9 25 (Labor includes one independent)
1985 46.8 53.2 29 (Labor includes two independents)
1989 51.9 48.1 24 (Labor)
1993 61 39 37 (Liberal)
1997 51.5 48.5 23 (Liberal)
2002 50.9 49.1 23 (Labor)
2006 43.2 56.8 28 (Labor)
2010 51.6 48.4 26 (Labor)
2014 53 47 23 (Labor)
Source: Electoral Districts Boundary Reports


Mr WILLIAMS: The table shows the election results from 1977 to 2014, indicating the number of seats won with the percentage results. This evidence of the elections in South Australia over the last 40 years clearly shows that our electoral system is far from fair. Indeed, in the years of 1975, 1989, 2002, 2010 and 2014 the Liberal Party won the two-party preferred vote but was unable to secure enough seats to form government. Indeed, it seems that the problem has become worse since the introduction of the fairness clause. One must ask: why would this be so?

I now come to the most recent report of the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission and draw the house's attention to chapter 10 and particularly paragraph 10.2—and this is what happened after they had made the redistribution and recast the previous election's votes on the new boundaries:

The pendulum shows that as a result of this redistribution when applying the voting pattern of the 2010 election a greater number of seats will be held by the Labor Party with 25 seats graphed to the Labor side of the pendulum compared with 22 seats to the Liberal side. The Commission recognises that the Liberal Party received 51.6% of the two party preferred vote at the 2010 election.

The Boundaries Commission absolutely failed in its statutory duty to fulfil the requirements of section 83(1). Its excuse is also contained in the same paragraph, as follows:

However, it is of the view that the boundaries upon which the 2010 election was held were fair. Had the Liberal Party achieved a uniform swing it would have formed Government. As quoted in paragraph 6.5 of this report, 'the Commission has no control over, and can accept no responsibility for, the quality of candidates, policies and campaigns'.

The Boundaries Commission claims that the 2010 boundaries were fair; they patently were not. The Boundaries Commission claimed that a uniform swing would have delivered a fair outcome, yet, as I previously noted, the 1991 commission clearly stated that swings are generally not uniform. The authors of the 2012 report obviously failed to read the previous reports of the commission and, worse still, the commission seems to make the judgement that it was the Liberal Party's fault because of its candidates and campaign.

Again, if the authors had bothered to read and understand previous reports, they would have noticed that the 1991 commission had already discounted the Labor Party's argument that it presents better candidates, better policies and better campaign methods—and I refer members to paragraph 14.14 of the 1991 report. It is my firm opinion that it is both scandalous and outrageous that the commission has failed to meet its obligations and has sought to excuse that failure in such a manner.

Whilst I am referring to the 2012 report, another matter disturbs me: at paragraph 14.19, the report seeks to explain the Electoral Commissioner's comments on a radio interview on 31 May 2012, where she talked about moving as few people as possible as part of the redistribution. The report notes that section 83(2) of the Constitution Act gives the commission the ability to have regard to any other matter it thinks relevant. The report then states:

We consider that the desirability of minimising the number of voters whose electorates are changed as a result of a redistribution is a relevant matter for the Commission to take into account.

I have already noted that one of the important changes to the Constitution Act, made by this parliament after the 1989 election, was to delete the clause which sought to minimise the boundary changes.

Because the commission of 2012 has obviously failed to understand those changes made in 1991, it has failed to understand that the parliament specifically intended that the commission not consider that minimalistic changes were necessarily desirable. That may be of little consequence or, indeed, it may be of great consequence. What we do know is that the commission has failed miserably to provide for a fair electoral system within South Australia.

I now turn my attention to an article published in The Advertiser under the name of the Premier where he chides the Liberal Party for complaining about the election outcome because—to quote the Premier—'this is the electoral system that the Liberal Party advocated for and then secured in the aftermath of the 1989 election.'

I make two points. It is correct that the Liberal Party advocated for the fairness clause. Our argument is that the fairness clause is not being applied correctly. The 2012 commission report quite clearly shows that, with the 2010 electoral pattern on 2,014 boundaries, the Labor Party would win 25 seats while securing little more than 48 per cent of the vote. I ask the Premier: how does he reconcile that with the intention of the 1991 changes to the Constitution Act? How does he explain that that bears any resemblance to the intent of the parliament that the group of candidates gaining 50 per cent plus one vote should have an equal chance of forming government?

The second point I make is that the Premier arguing that, having won 53 per cent of the popular vote, the Liberal Party should not expect to form government. Is he arguing the opposite of what has been argued by his party over the last 40 to 50 years? If that is the case, it only adds to the litany of Labor's incredibly poor track record when it comes to advocating for fairness within South Australia's electoral system.

Whilst I started my remarks suggesting that the response to the election outcome has been somewhat ho-hum, I was delighted that no less than Dean Jaensch, in an article of 19 March, concluded that the outcome showed that our electoral system is flawed. He said:

…in three elections, 2002, 2010 and now 2014, the Liberal Party has won a majority of votes but not a majority of seats. This is simply not good enough.

He goes on to say that he makes no criticism of the commission and then he explains the process followed in making a redistribution. He claims that the commission draws the boundaries such that the party winning 50 per cent of the votes in the previous election will win a majority of seats.

I have just read from the 2012 report showing that the commission failed to do exactly that. Mr Jaensch, for whom I have great respect, has overlooked the simple fact that the commission has failed its statutory obligation, as highlighted in its own report at paragraph 10.2. Mr Jaensch concludes that the fault was with the process. I conclude that the fault is at the feet of the commission.

The Electoral Commissioner, Kay Mousley, was quoted after the election saying that it was an impossible task for the Boundaries Commission to achieve the legislated requirement. This remarkable revelation after the 2014 election debacle begs the question: if the Electoral Commissioner believes that there is a problem with the Constitution Act, why did she not write to the parliament pointing out her concerns?

I note the comments made by my colleague the member for Davenport in his contribution to this debate and I am quite supportive of some sort of top-up list system to provide for absolute fairness to the people of South Australia in our electoral system. It is worth noting that the select committee report post the 1989 election also recommended that a top-up option be reviewed following the first general election after the implementation of all the report's recommendations. Given the recent history of election outcomes in South Australia, given that the Electoral Commission seems to think the current system is unworkable and given that the review I just mentioned was never held because of the outcome of the 1993 State Bank election, surely it is time to revisit that option.

My concluding remarks on this matter are directed to the member for Frome. In the last 50 years, there have been three major changes to the electoral system in South Australia. The first was made in the late sixties by the minority Hall government in the knowledge that the changes would diminish its re-election chances. The second was made in 1975 by the Dunstan government after years of campaigning by Dunstan for such change. The third change was made post the 1989 election with an electoral outcome not dissimilar to what we have just experienced at the last two elections. But changes were only made because the then Labor government was in minority and Martyn Evans supported the principle that our democracy should be one that provided fairness.

I put it to the member for Frome that he finds himself in a unique position where he can provide something enduring for those disadvantaged rural and regional people of this state and that is to support changes to our electoral system to ensure that those people are no longer disenfranchised. After I heard what the Deputy Premier said with regard to our electoral system, I went back up to my office and I picked up this quote, which is what Don Dunstan said on 25 June 1968, standing in the leader of the opposition's position just here to my right. He called for:

…an immediate electoral redistribution and the holding of a general election in South Australia on a fair electoral distribution (a fair electoral distribution that would allow a majority of citizens to elect the Government they want and to reject a Government they do not want), an electoral redistribution that will not allow, between the voting support for the two Parties, the disparity which now exists in South Australia and which allows the minority Party to take office.

I happen to agree wholeheartedly with Don Dunstan. I happen to agree that he saw an unfair electoral system existing in South Australia, just as any, even casual, observer would see an unfair electoral system existing in South Australia today.

I have come to the conclusion, having been elected to this place now for five terms and observed five elections, three of which saw the Labor Party come to government having achieved minority support from the people of South Australia, that it is time to reform our electoral system. And as I said earlier, not for the benefit of us—the parliamentarians or the political parties—but for the benefit of the people of South Australia.

The reality is that by and large it is the country people of South Australia who have been disenfranchised by the electoral system. By and large it is the country people who have suffered because it is so long between drinks for them. Since 1975, the only times that South Australia has had a conservative government and a government that represented most of the country areas was in 1979 when we won 55 per cent of the two-party preferred vote, 1993 when we won 60 per cent of the two-party preferred vote and 1997 when we won between 51 and 52 per cent of the two-party preferred vote but also enjoyed incumbency in a number of seats. I believe that without that incumbency we would not have been returned in 1997.

So, we have a serious problem and that problem manifests itself in the way that people in a large portion of South Australia—all of those people outside of metropolitan Adelaide—are treated by the government because they rarely have a government that understands them or has any sympathy for their causes. That manifests itself in things that we saw in recent years in my electorate: the Keith hospital, where the government of the day totally ignored the wishes and the needs of the people of that community. I see it right across my electorate in all facets of government service delivery where the delivery of service is somewhat less than desirable in many instances.

The reality is, as Don Dunstan said, the only way that we will have the delivery and the build-up of the state is if every citizen has an equal say in the government that governs them. The reality is that without a decent electoral system we will not have a decent government, and it is quite clear to me that for most of the last 12 years we have not had a decent government in South Australia and the people of South Australia have said exactly the same. They said it in 2010 when they had an opportunity, and they said it only weeks ago when they had another opportunity.

The problem is, irrespective of how hard they want to go about changing government, changing the direction of the state, they cannot achieve it because, in my opinion, the Electoral Boundaries Commission has failed its statutory duty and the parliament continues to fail to relook at the election system in South Australia to ensure that that situation ceases. There are many other issues which I would have liked to have canvassed today, but I think this is probably the most important issue facing South Australia today.

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (12:33): I am really pleased to speak just briefly on this debate in reply to His Excellency's speech and I would like to start by restating how fantastic it is that that august position is filled by a boy from Elizabeth, like myself. His family still reside in my electorate and it is obvious from every interaction that I have had with him and with Mrs Scarce that he has not forgotten his roots and he continues to exercise his responsibilities with both great energy and great dignity.

It is an absolute privilege to be re-elected to this place and before I go on, I congratulate all the new members. It has been an absolute pleasure to hear the speeches from both sides. It reminds us all of why we are here and that despite the bad press that politicians get—and I think the member for Colton talked quite a lot about this yesterday—most people, in fact probably everyone here, is here for exactly the right reason: we all want to make our communities better. So, it was a real pleasure to hear all of those speeches.

I also want to congratulate all of the marginal members and perhaps newly marginal members who have retained their seats in the fight of their lives—and I will not single anybody out. It was an absolutely sterling effort from those marginal seat holders and challengers on our side, and that is the reason I am standing on this side today and I want to thank them. As I was saying, it is a privilege to be re-elected to this place and to be re-elected in a seat that looks a little different to the seat that I ran for in 2010. It was a pleasure to get to know the people in my old stomping grounds of Elizabeth Park and Craigmore and also to spend a lot of time getting to know the good people of Elizabeth South for the first time.

I want to acknowledge and thank my Liberal opponent, Damien Pilkington, who is a Salisbury councillor. It was a clean and civilised campaign and I just want to acknowledge his hard work on that campaign. He drove me and my team to work harder than ever before and it has helped to make me more determined than ever to represent my community to the best of my ability over the next four years.

If there was one sour note it was on election day. There were some problems along the way with candidates canvassing votes along the campaign trail. I want to make it clear that I do not actually think that is a problem. The only problem was that I was not doing it on the day. I think that perhaps while we are talking about the electoral system as a whole that is one provision which we could easily look at so that candidates can canvas on the day in their own electorates and talk to the people who are voting for them. I think that is a pretty obvious change we could make among the many other changes that are being called for.

As the member for Napier said in his excellent inaugural speech, the impending closure of Holden is going to transform this state and it is going to particularly transform the northern suburbs and the north-eastern suburbs. I am proud to be part of a government which has a plan to keep diversifying the economy and to absorb the impact of the loss of jobs in the automotive and component sectors. I am proud to be a part of a government which has at its core a commitment to workers and their families and I will devote my time over the next four years to helping facilitate the transitions that these families in the north will have to go through.

I will speak a little bit later in the Grievance Debate about the budget and some of the effects that the budget will have on the north and potentially on those very people who are going to lose their jobs from Holden over the next two or three years. Part of this is also going to be making sure that morale does not drop any further in places like Elizabeth. That is why I am newly committed to working with the executive government and the local councils on any initiatives that might improve the lives of people in the north and to explore ways for Elizabeth to realise its potential as a true CBD in the north.

I know that the City of Playford has some initiatives on the table that it wants to explore and I am happy to help it explore those. I know that others, like the federal member for Wakefield and my predecessor, the Hon. Lea Stevens, also have many ideas that are floating around at the moment and I think we should be entertaining ideas from all directions to see Elizabeth, and the northern suburbs generally, emerge strong and proud as it always does following hard times. In that regard, I look forward to working with the members in the north and particularly with the newly elected member for Napier who I know will devote the next four years to that very issue of the displaced workers from Holden's.

I just want to end my brief contribution by thanking a few people who helped me in my campaign: obviously my hardworking staff, Chantelle Keeris, Amy Ware, Derralyn Mulroney, Jade Ryan, Elyse Ramsay, Wendy Thomson, Wendy Gee and Michael Bombudieri, who have all helped me over the last four years, particularly during the stress of the last year or so. I want to thank the union movement as a whole, particularly Peter Malinauskas and Jason Hall; Reggie Martin, Steve May, Matt Ellis and everyone else at party office who ran such a sterling campaign, and obviously the Premier and the leadership team who pulled off a remarkable victory, it has to be said, along with those marginal seat members that I mentioned earlier.

Finally, I am forever grateful to my son Jimmy and my partner Ann for their love and support and their endless patience and forgiveness, particularly over the last six months. I hope we all got through it relatively unscathed. I want to thank my volunteers as well; they are too numerous to mention. Some of them would have overlapped with the member for Napier's volunteers, I am sure, because there is a northern Labor family up there, but I want to make particular mention of Phil and Cricket Fox, who were out there every single day letterboxing and doing everything they could to ensure that I and the member for Napier and the member for Taylor also got re-elected. So, with those few words I commend the motion.

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (12:39): Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I would like to start by congratulating you on your new role. I am sure you will do a fantastic job. I would like to thank His Excellency Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce for the opening of the 53rd parliament and for his speech regarding the future of our state. Both the Governor and Mrs Scarce have provided a great service to the people of South Australia. Many, myself included, will miss them both when their term ends in August this year. They have both shown such compassion and love for the people of South Australia, and for that I thank them both.

I would also like to express my concern and send my best wishes to Dr Bob Such and his family. I wish him a speedy recovery. This place is not the same without him, and what are we going to do on Thursdays without all his motions and private member's bills?

I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate our leader, Steven Marshall, for attaining 53 per cent of the South Australian vote. It is unfortunate that once again, despite gaining more than 92,000 extra votes than Labor, we still remain in opposition, against the wishes of the people of South Australia. Labor put immense resources into attempting to regain the seat of Adelaide, and although I had a tough battle in my electorate, I was able to improve my vote at every one of my 12 booths, with my first preference increasing by 4.7 per cent overall.

Being elected once again to represent the people of Adelaide in parliament as their member and to represent this great city is truly a great honour. The Adelaide electorate comprises a diverse and dynamic group of people, including 41.1 per cent of residents being born overseas: 4.9 per cent from China, 4.6 per cent from England, 3.2 per cent from India, 2.9 per cent from Malaysia, and 1.4 per cent from Italy. After English, the top three languages spoken at home are Mandarin, Greek and Italian.

The electorate has 15,080 volunteers and, on a side note, last week was National Volunteers Week. I would like to congratulate and thank all our volunteers, who form such a vital part of our community. I was proud to attend various functions and events in recognition of volunteers again this year, and I am extremely happy to play a role in representing their interests as now the parliamentary secretary to the shadow minister for volunteers.

As part of my regular volunteer work with various organisations, including the Lions and Meals on Wheels, last year I successfully worked with other service clubs in Prospect, including the Lions, Rotary and Kiwanis, to establish a Prospect branch of Operation Flinders. This gave students from two local high schools an opportunity to turn their lives around. I am very pleased to be part of the fundraising efforts again this year; this is a very worthwhile cause and one I am tremendously proud to support.

In my maiden speech, I supported Rundle Mall becoming a designated tourist precinct under the Shop Trading Hours Act, like Jetty Road, Glenelg, was at the time. My speech recognised Rundle Mall as one of our key tourist destinations that would greatly benefit from opening on a number of our state's 11 public holidays. Although my private member's bill to achieve this was rejected by the Labor Party in the lower house, Labor soon after passed a bill of their own to open Rundle Mall on public holidays, achieving the same result.

I thank them for following my lead and note the huge success and sales results that Rundle Mall has achieved since this change. However, I condemn the government for also introducing two extra part-day holidays on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve as part of their bill in what was described as 'a pig of a deal'. This not only exacerbates the fact that we are the most expensive state to do business but also, in their effort to create a vibrant city, they have forced many businesses to shut down on what should be two of the busiest days of the year.

In addition to this, people in this state are struggling on all fronts. Our state continues to lose our highly-educated young people to other states due to a lack of jobs and career progression here. Whilst small bars add some vibrancy to the city, it is jobs that we really need. Where are the 100,000 extra jobs that Labor promised? In an eight-month period last year, 27,000 jobs were lost. What is the government doing for these South Australians?

There has been a lot of media and government attention, and rightly so, on the Holden workers who will be losing their jobs in three years; however, they have three years notice to retrain and reorganise their lives and have the support of both state and federal governments. This is great, but what are Labor doing for the businesses that are failing—the people who are not only losing their jobs, but their houses and every cent they have, those taking great risks to try and build a better South Australia, trying to give people jobs and provide a future for themselves? Where are the government's policies to help them?

WorkCover is a mess and charging double that of most other states. We have high payroll taxes, high land taxes (which increase the cost of commercial leasing), high costs of electricity, high costs of water, high costs of council rates, along with endless red tape to get anything done. Basically, Labor is making it as difficult as possible to carry on doing business in this state.

Now, adding salt to their wounds, city businesses will be lumped with an extra car parking tax on top of their already high costs. Apparently we want more vibrancy, as long as you do not try to drive into the city. How can the government expect to tax people who drive into the city when their next best option is public transport that fails them miserably? In 2012-13, there were 5.5 million less boardings on public transport compared to the 2009-10 financial year.

Surely it is much more logical to fix our public transport system before we tax people. If we had a transport system that was reliable, affordable, safe, clean and efficient, there would not be a need for a car parking tax. I believe people would be more than willing to catch public transport if that was the case. An efficient system would increase revenues and decrease the number of cars travelling to the city, thus eliminating the need for a car parking tax.

As a former business owner for over 18½ years, like all business owners I am well aware of hard work, deadlines, pressure, adapting, budgets, getting results and taking responsibility. Small business is a major employer in South Australia, with 148,277 registered businesses statewide, including 15,180 in the Adelaide CBD. Currently, too many government contracts are awarded to interstate companies over our own local businesses, taking profits and jobs out of South Australia and damaging our businesses. South Australian businesses cannot compete on an equal playing field when they operate in a state with the highest business-related costs.

Things must change in order for our state to prosper. Labor needs to adopt some of the Liberal policies that support business, such as reducing payroll tax, halving the cost of the WorkCover levy to bring us into line with other states, abolishing the car parking tax and convincing their federal Labor colleagues to abolish the carbon tax to reduce the cost of electricity. I will continue to use my business experience and knowledge to assist others in business and support legislation to improve business conditions and cut red tape.

In addition to my passion for supporting local businesses, I have always had a particular interest in youth, including education, health, safety and self-esteem. I am thrilled now to be the parliamentary secretary to the shadow minister for youth as well as for families and child protection. This means that I can now further be involved in making positive changes for our state's young who are tomorrow's leaders.

Through my former businesses, Rachel's Model Management and Training and Rachel's Junior Models, I have met with, interviewed, taught and worked with thousands of young people. From this I believe that good role models, encouragement and self-belief are important basics to the wellbeing and future of our young. I personally believe that many problems, such as binge drinking, drug use and eating disorders, are a result of poor self-esteem. Since entering parliament in 2010, I have been keeping abreast of juvenile justice issues. I believe there is much work that can be done in this area to ensure our youth have the best chance at a great life.

Our city needs reinvigoration in order to provide employment opportunities and to give our youth a reason to stay in our state. We lose too many of our finest young and capable minds to the Eastern States. More people leave our city each year than are born here. Immigration is the only reason that our state's population has increased. I want to engage with our young and work with them to find out how we can make our city more liveable for them.

A good education is a high priority of mine and something my mother instilled in me from an early age. While doorknocking during my first campaign prior to the 2010 election, I identified a strong demand for a second campus of Adelaide High School for the people of Prospect and Walkerville council areas. This demand still remains today, as parents worry about their child's educational future.

The Adelaide electorate contains a total of 17 primary schools, six of which are public and 11 are private. Of the 12 secondary schools in the electorate, only one is public and until recently was not zoned for any suburbs further north than North Adelaide. The Adelaide electorate has the highest percentage of families choosing non-government education for their children for secondary schooling, with 74 per cent of children attending private schools for their secondary school years, compared with the figure of 43 per cent statewide.

I believe this high figure can be attributed to the lack of adequate public high school options in the area. Prior to the 2010 election, Labor announced plans to expand Adelaide High School by 250 students by 2013. This was a desperate attempt to protect votes in Adelaide after ignoring parents for eight years at that time. We now find that only 50 extra students will enter Adelaide High School starting in year 8 by 2015, thus taking until 2019 to achieve their 2010 promise of 250 extra places, some six years later than promised.

I hope their proposed city high school on the old RA site due in 2019 will be delivered on time. It is not often that from opposition a backbencher can force the government to deliver an opposition policy funded to $85 million to build a second high school for their residents. I am pleased to have achieved this and look forward to seeing the government's plans for the school.

Safety is another aspect that resonates with many people I represent. There is a high percentage of single people living alone in the Adelaide electorate, along with a high percentage of university students. There have been six sexual assaults on women in North Adelaide, and there have been bikie shootings and alcohol-fuelled violence issues in my electorate.

Given this knowledge, I was shocked to discover that the newly built Adelaide Oval and surrounds have 300 CCTV cameras. There are none in North Adelaide, and only 71 CCTV cameras that are surveilled by SA police in the city area, despite the constant claims of alcohol-fuelled violence in the city. Last year I successfully lobbied the federal Liberal government for $255,000 in funding for CCTV cameras and other safety measures for North Adelaide. I am pleased to announce that they were included in the budget and the money will be forthcoming soon.

I have also challenged the government's plans to sell the Women's and Children's Hospital car park and have advocated for expanded parking facilities for the safety and convenience of staff, patients and visitors to the hospital. This is a serious and ongoing issue for North Adelaide that is highlighted by the assaults in the area. I believe that providing health care also involves providing access to the service. Expanded parking will also be beneficial for Adelaide Oval patrons and local residents, who struggle to find parking near their homes.

I am a strong advocate and supporter of local existing Neighbourhood Watch groups and have strongly encouraged and supported new groups that are formed. From a safety point of view, these groups are an excellent way of informing residents on keeping safe and identifying potential trouble spots and problems, as well as engaging with the community. In terms of what is happening in the city, I have supported residents of Adelaide City Council in their actions against proposed changes to their ward structure and borders, which would have seen the loss of ward councillors in both the north and south wards and part of North Adelaide joining the central ward.

I am very concerned about the government's plans for the Parklands, particularly the new Riverbank authority, which I believe adds yet another layer of bureaucracy when the Capital City Committee is well placed (after the addition of the member for Adelaide) to establish the right use of the precinct, with all its members answerable to the public, unlike nominated committee members.

I also have grave concerns for the Hajek Plaza, which I believe should be predominantly an open public area designed for and by the Festival Centre, in consultation with Adelaide City Council and the residents of South Australia. We need a balanced approach to the protection of the Parklands, as they are an important state asset, along with considered activation and enhancement of underused or neglected areas of the Parklands.

I organised a protest rally on the steps of Parliament House and successfully blocked a government regulation which would have enabled the $40 million footbridge to bypass proper planning processes, which would have seen it equated to minor home improvements, such as a car port, and therefore not requiring planning approval.

There have been many other issues resulting from the government's development plan amendments. In particular, city residents have been hit hard by changes. I have supported, and will continue to support, city residents who have been adversely affected by the changes. I attended and addressed a protest rally organised by the residents of the south-west community in the city against the government's development plan assessment amendment that allowed building approvals using an interim provision while consultation was still ongoing, along with the introduction of catalyst sites for land over 1,500 square metres to have unrestricted use.

I have also assisted Prospect residents with their own actions against high-rise, submitting their petition to parliament. In addition to their fight against high-rise, I supported Prospect residents who objected to the removal of ward councillors.

In 2009, Mayor David O'Loughlin broke convention to use his casting vote to remove wards, despite receiving 400 submissions against the change. I have supported residents and councillors to have these wards restored.

During this last election, I was overwhelmed by how many people were keen to ensure I retained my seat; people who were not Liberal members and even some who had voted Labor all their life were keen to assist in keeping their hardworking local member. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my branch members, helpers and supporters, of whom there are too many to name individually. I would especially like to thank my SEC campaign team for their assistance over the last term of parliament and particularly around the election.

I have been impressed and amazed by the speeches given by the new members of parliament—and I welcome all new members to this house, in particular the members for Bright, Hartley, Mitchell, Schubert and Mount Gambier, and the Hon. Andrew McLachlan in the other place—that show their varied and extensive experience and passion to represent their community. It is it to be applauded, and I although forward to seeing them progress over the years.

In regard to this term of parliament, you can expect that I will continue to advocate for substance over spin, continue to put my constituents first and foremost in all deliberations and always to do my very best for the people of the Adelaide electorate, whilst considering the state as a whole.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Gardner.

[Sitting suspended from 12:57 to 14:00]

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