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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
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Bills

Supply Bill 2014

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 22 May 2014.)

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (11:04): It is fantastic to continue my remarks, made on the last sitting day, in regard to this important bill. In those remarks, I was focusing on the important role that public hospitals in South Australia that are funded by this bill play and, in particular, how they are under threat now from the Abbott Liberal government in Canberra and its $50 billion of cuts—part of its $80 billion of cuts to health and education.

Here in South Australia, we have the only state Liberal Party in the country that is not prepared to stand up to Canberra and fight for our public hospitals. Not only that, they are trying to defend the federal Liberal cuts to our state. How can they possibly be doing that?

They are saying that we should not be critical, on this side, of these huge cuts because the government has a responsible program of cutting bureaucracy and putting funding back into more health services. So, unbelievably, we have the Liberal Party in this state criticising this government for being financially responsible and working to cut bureaucracy to deliver more health services.

They are even criticising something that they themselves support, because we know that the SA Liberal Party supported our programs of efficiencies in their own budget costings in the last election. In fact, they would not rule out going further than us in terms of efficiencies, and they would not commit to investing all the savings back into the health system. The patients of South Australia want the Liberal Party to finally give up its petty pointscoring and join with the government in fighting for South Australia.

I draw to the attention of the house the health sector group Keep SA Healthy that has started up in South Australia to combat these cruel cuts to our public hospitals. Doctor, nurse and patient groups have joined forces to take up the fight on behalf of the sickest in our community.

Mr Pederick interjecting:

Mr PICTON: These groups are organising a rally here at Parliament House tomorrow, and I know many members from this government will be there supporting that. I hope the member for Hammond, who is interjecting, will actually be there as well, supporting doctors and nurses in this state.

Lastly, I would like to quote from some very perceptive arguments about commonwealth health spending. These comments come from none other than the Prime Minister himself in his autobiography, Battlelines:

Commonwealth spending on health and education now approaches $90 billion a year, or about a quarter of its total spending. It's all in areas that were once wholly the preserve of the states. Most of it is not directly authorised by the constitution other than via specific-purpose grants under section 96. Still, any withdrawal of Commonwealth involvement or spending in these areas would rightly be seen as a cop out.

A 'cop-out' describes this situation perfectly; I could not have put it better myself. I believe, and all of us on this side believe, that we need to work together to make this Prime Minister reverse these cruel cuts to our health system.

Mr PISONI (Unley) (11:07): I indicate that I shall not be the lead speaker on the Supply Bill, but I will be speaking on matters related to my portfolio responsibility. Post the federal budget, and in the lead-up to the South Australian state budget, what a horror budget was due, regardless, after 12 appalling years of Labor's fiscal management.

The Premier, the education minister, the health minister and others in Labor's cabinet have been decrying apparent shortfalls in health and education funding over the next decade. This, of course, is in support of federal opposition leader, Bill Shorten, in his shrill outrage at fiscal measures being put in place to fill gaping holes left in the nation's budget by the profligate and unsustainable spending of the Gillard and Rudd Labor governments. These were governments he was, of course, part of—'Shorten Memory Bill'.

But, as we know, there is never any link between the spinning of Labor dreams and expenditure and any sort of fiscal reality. The fiscal realities of Labor debt are what the voters end up having to pay, and Liberal governments bear the responsibility of fixing them.

It is difficult to understand how the Weatherill government can complain about the so-called funding shortfall from the federal government when, according to the budget papers, funding for schools is actually set to substantially increase over the next four years. The forward estimates in the federal budget tell us that there is an extra $570 million from the feds. Strangely, Labor is claiming funding shortfalls over 10 years, when budgets only cover four-year forward estimates.

We heard that debate in the lead-up to the election when Premier Weatherill continued to argue time and time again that forward estimates cover four years. Yet, here we have another argument that, of course, suits the Premier and his political agenda, and that is that budgets can be cut on amounts beyond the forward estimates. Talking of school funding beyond 2017-18 was always going to be speculative. After all, who could possibly know what economic circumstances will emerge five years or at least two federal elections into the future, but the Premier and education minister must have had at least a suspicion that the reality would at some stage kick in.

The question here, of course, is: when they did sign up for the so-called Gonski package in July last year under the Gillard government (before it became the Rudd government), did they ask how it was going to be funded? The fact is that there was a six-year agreement, with only one-third of that funding over two-thirds of the period and two-thirds of that funding pushed out to the final third of that six-year period, and it was clear in the lead-up to the federal election that only that which is in the forward estimates—the four-year commitment—was going to be honoured by the federal government.

Yet, this government now says that it is a broken promise when, in actual fact, the first task that the federal education minister (Mr Pyne) had to deliver, when he examined the deal that was signed up by the Labor government with a number of states, was to find that $1.2 billion that the federal government had taken out of its reserve for Gonski funding for the states that had not signed up—Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory—which they put into their costing papers before the election to help balance their costing books. That money had to be found so that it could truly be a national system and all states would be able to participate in the four-year funding model.

However, we learn very quickly that, in the first year, here in South Australia only $16.6 million of additional funding was in the deal that was signed by Mr Weatherill in June of last year, whereas for Queensland there is $131 million this year, with every single cent going to schools. Here in South Australia, of that $16.6 million, $2.8 million is going into the bureaucracy—the only state that is not delivering all of that money into schools.

Then we need to look at why the Weatherill government is so desperate to blame the federal government for its financial mismanagement in South Australia. After 12 years of financial mismanagement, it is extraordinary that the minister for training and skills blamed last year's record low completion and start-ups in apprenticeships on the May budget in 2014. So, last year's training results, delivered by this government, were because of the federal budget that was delivered in May of this year.

That is an extraordinary claim by Ms Gago (the minister for training and skills) in the other place, but this is the pattern of this government and this is how they will continue to try to blame a six-month-old government in Canberra for their 12 years of financial mismanagement in South Australia. The writing was on the wall. Back in 2010, when the current Premier was the then education minister, in his education budget he delivered budget cuts directly affecting schools of at least $60 million, which will occur in 2013-14. That is on top of the tens of millions of dollars in cuts every year since then.

We see in the Budget Measures Statement for the Department of Education and Children's Services (as it was known back then) for the 2011-12 budget, $8.2 million was cut from the adult re-entry programs. Three-quarters of a million dollars were cut from the audit of school financial statements. Over $2 million were cut from basic skills testing grants. Over half a million dollars were cut from bus services to regional areas. A saving of $5.4 million was made in the co-location of schools. There is a $1 million cut to Family Day Care centres, and $1 million has been cut from the green school grants.

Remember the green school grants? They were the justification in 2008 for cutting the electricity allocation for schools back to 80 per cent of 2003 levels. 'Don't worry about the extra cost of electricity; you will be able to put solar panels and wind turbines on your school grounds to make up for those cuts. We will introduce green grants to do that.' Now we see that not only have those green projects failed to assist schools in managing their energy costs but now this government has also cut the funding that it allocated in 2008. That started in 2009, the very first year after the program started.

We saw savings of $1.7 million in efficiencies in multi and dual campus structures, and we know that when this government talks about efficiencies it is actually talking about cuts. Nearly $800,000 has been cut this year from new arrivals support in schools—this is support for those who have arrived here as refugees in particular—after a cut of $379,000 in 2011-12 and $772,000 last year. Even the transport services for new arrivals have been cut—$2.2 million has been cut this year from that program for those who need transport to get to specific schools that are offering services for new arrivals, after more than $3 million had been cut from the previous two years.

In addition, $162,000 has been cut from the out of school hours care program. This adds up to $60 million—$60 million in cuts that were announced for this year back in 2010-11. They have nothing to do with the federal budget; nothing to do with the change of government in Canberra. This government was well aware that it was having trouble managing its budget long before any announcements were made in the federal budget, but this government will continue to blame others for its poor mismanagement.

It is an extraordinary situation—12 years, six budget deficits out of the last seven budgets, and two budgets in a row now with deficits of around about $1 billion. It is not the impact of Canberra that is causing the crisis in economic management in the South Australian budget; that started long before there was a change of government in Canberra, long before the federal budget was handed down in May this year.

I go back to the point that this is $60 million for this year alone, on top of tens of millions of dollars every year. Ms Riedstra, who is responsible for financial matters in the Department of Education and Child Development (as it is now known), explained to the Budget and Finance Committee on 18 November last year that this year alone (the 2012-13 year) there are $30 million of additional savings, of which nearly $21.5 million are unspecified. In other words, they do not know where they are coming from.

Every year into the forward estimates those annual savings are even larger. In 2014-15 we are looking at $50 million, of which $39.6 million are unspecified; in other words, they do not know where they are coming from. Well, they certainly did not know where it was coming from when they announced these savings. In 2015-16, we see unspecified savings of $53½ million and $65 million in total. So, they really know only what they are going to be cutting in those years for a very small proportion of that funding. In the 2016-17 year—this is the big one—$77.68 million is what the government is planning to cut from its education budget.

It is all here, it is all in Hansard for members to read and, of course, it was also confirmed by the chief executive of the Department for Education and Child Development when, on commercial breakfast radio in early December last year, he confirmed that nearly $230 million of cuts had to be found in the education budget over the forward estimates. But forget about all of that because there is a convenient whipping boy for the state government, after 12 years of economic mismanagement, and that is a new government in Canberra, a government of a different colour. We did not hear anything, not a peep, from this government when the Gillard and Rudd governments cut funding to apprenticeship incentives for employers, yet we hear any excuse to blame others, rather than themselves, for the financial situation they find themselves in.

I also want to discuss a major policy of the Liberal Party in the lead-up to the last election, and that was to introduce an entrepreneurial curriculum. It was disappointing to hear the Minister for Education, in her reply to the Governor's speech, basically having a go at what the Liberal Party had put on the table at the last election and what the policy was, obviously not understanding the difference between entrepreneurial education and business studies.

Most significantly, entrepreneurial education teaches young people the skills of critical thinking, decision-making, problem solving, creativity, emotional intelligence and innovation. Entrepreneurs and learners form partnerships that will rebound to the credit of learners themselves, the state and the nation. Entrepreneurship education is different from business education. While it educates young people to understand the world of business, it teaches them far more than this. Entrepreneur education teaches an understanding of self and what is required to be an entrepreneur today in the world of the future. Most significantly, it teaches young people the skills of critical thinking, decision-making, problem solving, creativity, emotional intelligence and innovation.

The basic tenets of the argument for the development and implementation of entrepreneurship education in Australia include entrepreneurial ventures which are likely to be a major source of opportunity and new jobs in the economy. Entrepreneurship is not text-book learnt; rather, it is dynamic and inclusive of many different forms of learning, including experimental learning. Entrepreneurship education is holistic and it brings together many support skills in education. Developing good communication skills and interpersonal abilities, economic understanding, social media and digital skills, marketing skills, and management and finance skills. Young people can build confidence in their ability to become entrepreneurs in the future as a result of a variety of entrepreneurial activities provided through education.

Entrepreneurship education develops successful people. Entrepreneurship programs meet the needs of many diverse groups and help develop an entrepreneurial culture that creates jobs and wealth. Entrepreneurship programs provide individuals who lose or give up their job with a set of skills that help them to become self-employed. Of course, it also encourages our school leavers to consider being employers themselves, not just employees. For too long, we have seen the focus in our education system on producing employees for employers; our plan for South Australia is that we would like school leavers to consider themselves to be employers as well.

Entrepreneurship programs have been proven to motivate learners from an economically disadvantaged background to accomplish their aspirations and goals through entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship programs can inspire disadvantaged and minority groups who feel disenfranchised to see that they can make their own opportunities and be successful. This is all about Liberal Party philosophy, about empowering the individual.

Entrepreneurship programs can assist rural communities to see that businesses can be created at home using the advantages of modern communications and transportation. Global business opportunities engaged by local entrepreneurial businesses may be the answer to losing local jobs or creating newer and more effective jobs rather than holding onto inefficient ones. Entrepreneurship programs have an advantage of reducing business failure because entrepreneurs will have better training, providing economic benefit to all. There are many people who are actually entrepreneurs, but having that formal training will help them be more successful in their businesses.

Entrepreneurship programs will encourage partnerships with business, industry and schools. More recently, there has been increased recognition of the importance of entrepreneurship in leading economic and social development. The growth of the Chinese economy has been linked to entrepreneurs and the emergence of small firms, and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor concludes that there is a strong relationship between entrepreneurial activities and economic growth.

I asked the Minister for Education: if business studies are the same as entrepreneurship studies, why is it that there is a job crisis here in South Australia, and why are our young people moving out of South Australia to find jobs elsewhere? Why are businesses closing down? If we are doing all that in our schools, it is not working for you, minister.

Development of a school-based program on building entrepreneurial skills in the South Australian Certificate of Education would provide both personal and community benefits. Personal benefits would empower students to learn business and enhance social and life skills, encourage creativity and flexibility, encourage initiative and help develop problem-solving skills. Benefits for students would include the introduction of entrepreneurship as a unit of learning in the senior school, particularly at stage 1 of SACE, which can deliver significant benefits to the students themselves and, by extension, the community and the state.

The benefits would go well beyond the traditional framework of subjects currently on offer. For all those students, and in particular those who are educationally more marginalised, entrepreneurship would have significant personal and learning benefits, including the development of a mindset of achievement, innovation and success. With a potential to change personal and career attitudes, the subject would help students develop the self-worth needed for the nation's future. The benefits would include:

the creation of entrepreneurial thinkers who have the requisite skills and tools to start their own businesses;

the development of future entrepreneurs who have positive self-worth, accept responsibility for and take control of their own lives, are emotionally intelligent and self-aware, are continuous learners and promote this among their own staff, are motivated and inspire others, and have sound interpersonal and communication skills;

the development of future business leaders and innovators who can demonstrate skills in business start-up, write business plans, apply business and economic principles, apply basic marketing skills, manage skills, evaluate ownership structures, identify legitimate sources of capital, apply principles of human relations and management, demonstrate sound accounting and financial practices, and manage business in an ethical way;

the development of entrepreneurs who are able to think outside the box in terms of thinking creatively, using strategies for idea generation, assessing the feasibility of ideas, problem solving, translating problems into opportunities, and applying critical thinking skills;

the development of people who demonstrate the right mix of business, management and operational skills.

While there are subjects that support entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education goes further and encourages high levels of active participation and responsibility—

Time expired.

Mr TARZIA (Hartley) (11:28): I rise to speak on the Supply Bill 2014, and obviously I am supporting the bill. The appropriation of $3.94 billion from the Consolidated Account is necessary to keep the basic functions of the government operating before the Treasurer hands down his budget in June this year. This is my first opportunity to speak on the supply of the government in this place, and I wish to touch on the general state of the economy and what the federal budget really means for the people of our state. I also want to raise, in the house, the projects around Hartley that are incredibly important to my constituents.

The implications of the 2014-15 state budget will be challenging for the people of South Australia, but the waste and mismanagement of the past 12 years have certainly crippled our economic prospects. It is also an opportunity for our Treasurer to showcase his actual vision about South Australia's economy over the next four years and beyond.

The government has had 12 years to fix this economy, but it has been 12 years of failure, 12 years of neglect, 12 years of spiralling public debt, 12 years of rising unemployment. It is commonly said that there is no better indicator of the health of our economy than employment. The South Australian jobless rate is currently about 6.3 per cent; 18,000 people have lost full-time jobs since 2013-14 by that budget delivered by the Premier. Our jobs growth is the worst in the nation, with an overall decline of 1.5 per cent. Youth unemployment in my electorate is one in five; one in five young people cannot find work. The only jobs that those opposite are worried about are their own, and that is the most damning statistic of them all. For 12 years this government has ducked the necessary decisions to transform this state's economy.

While the Premier and all his friends complained, in this year's budget, that South Australia's tax revenue and GST allocation was declining—and it has—what did the Premier do to redress our revenue flow problems? What did he do to try to stimulate growth in the business sector? What did he do to cut red tape for small businesses and services? The government here says that everyone else is to blame for our economic woes, after 12 years. After they have been in government for 12 years, it is everyone else's fault. The Premier blames the global financial crisis, the Premier blames the international markets, the Premier blames the federal government—everybody but himself and those opposite us.

Well, what was his vision for the state? The government has no vision, that is the answer; the government has no vision. The government has done nothing. As I spoke about and alluded to in my maiden speech, this government's overreliance on taxpayer subsidies for unprofitable industries has hindered our economic growth. Whilst I fully support our agricultural industry, which is, by the way, our single biggest export industry, its long term decline over the past 100 years slowly but surely has restricted our revenue base over time. Without a serious long-term plan from this government to create an action plan that expands neglected sectors, like our resources sector and other sectors, our future revenue base will collapse even further.

This government has buried its head in the sand if it thinks that it can keep borrowing money to pay for its unsustainable spending spree. In January, Moody's actually predicted that if this state's debt burden is not resolved the economy and our credit rating will deteriorate even further. As well as that, I refer to the Deloitte Access Economic 'Business Outlook: Eyes on China' report, where I can see there is a forecasted decline in international exports in 2014-15 by -2.5 per cent and then in 2015-16 by -2.6 per cent. We just cannot keep going on the way we are. We need to build on our strong relationship with countries, especially China. While I commend part of the South Australian government's China Engagement Strategy, it certainly does not go far enough.

This morning, I attended a business breakfast where Sean Keenihan, the president of the Australia China Business Council of South Australia branch, spoke on this exact topic: the relationship between South Australia and China. Let me say that at the moment the largest population of overseas students coming into South Australia is from China. China is South Australia's largest two-way trading partner, and the Chinese business migrant community here in this state is continually bringing more investment and jobs. Australia will be on the doorstep of overseas' largest middle class in the next 30 years.

China's growth will be the strongest in Asia and the middle class there will be bigger than anywhere in Asia. There will be sustained growth from China with its capacity to draw down on finance and investment in infrastructure currently underway to transform their economy. They also have a lot more buying power than we will ever have. Niche opportunities will certainly present themselves for South Australia and South Australian businesses to sell to China and compete globally, and to buy from China. China is our largest foreign investor. Obviously they see Australia as being a good long-term partner with low sovereign risk—even with the events of this last week–low sovereign risk.

China is exposed to the US, to Europe, to Africa and it is also our largest tourist growth area and largest foreign student base aspect. In fact, there are more exports to China than the US, the European Union and Africa combined. South Australia, speaking frankly, has what China needs and wants, and whilst the South Australian government does have a strategy to take these things into consideration, it certainly does not go far enough. However, Australia is better placed than any other nation to take advantage of China's growth.

Speaking to the federal budget, the Premier and the Treasurer like to lecture this side of the house and the South Australian people about how terrible the Abbott government's budget has been for this state, and that there is a state budget crisis, but it is simply not true. Over the next two years, the federal government has increased spending in payments to the state. Over the years 2013-14 to 2016-17, education payments from the commonwealth are increasing by $570 million, compared with $230 million in Labor cuts to education over the same period.

South Australia is also to receive $11.6 million to assist students to undertake the learning of a second language and this is particularly important to the diversity of cultures and the migrant families that I have in Hartley. Whilst it is true that $276 million of commonwealth funding has been reduced in the period 2013-17, this government is cutting a swathe through its own health budget—over a billion dollars worth of their own cuts to health over the same period of time. I refer to the federal health minister, Mr Peter Dutton, when he recently said of the Weatherill government, and I quote:

The Weatherill Labor Government is cutting a billion dollars from health over the next four years and is now attempting to shift the blame to the Australian Government. South Australian Health Minister Jack Snelling should immediately, publicly, guarantee the people of his state that there will be no cuts to health in his government's budget next month. Mr Snelling, however, cannot do so because his government has already budgeted to slash a billion dollars from health spending after more than a decade of failure in government.

Also, the federal government's proposed medical research fund will mean tens of thousands of South Australian jobs. Let us not kid ourselves; let us not play politics with this one. This state will be a significant beneficiary of the Medical Research Future Fund for decades to come for jobs indirectly or directly.

When the Treasurer of this state met with Joe Hockey and the other state treasurers recently about infrastructure spending, what did this Treasurer bring home? No bacon, that is for sure. He brought to the people of South Australia just $2 billion—just $2 billion of commonwealth funds out of $50 billion. What representation is that? Two billion out of $50 billion—four per cent of the federal pie—that is it. That is how this government intends to keep 'building South Australia', to paraphrase Labor's election slogan.

Perhaps the Treasurer was not able to justify the infrastructure spending blowouts that occurred when he was minister for transport—$150 million blowout for Adelaide Oval; $37 million blowout for the Southern Expressway; $100 million blowout in the construction of the water conductor; and I could keep going on and on. This state will be a beneficiary of the federal government's efforts to scrap the toxic mining and carbon taxes.

Now that I have done that, I will focus on some of the needs of my electorate going into the future. I would like to commend the federal, state and local governments for committing to the Campbelltown Leisure Centre. This new and exciting development, a $22.5 million project in the heart of Campbelltown, will mean that young people have the opportunity to learn how to swim in hopefully what is an eight-lane, FINA-qualified swimming pool. It will also be able to be utilised by many sporting clubs and community groups in the north-eastern and eastern suburbs, and we welcome the support of the governments for this project; it has been a long time coming.

I would especially like to acknowledge and commend the work of our local federal MP in the area for his support. Strong local sporting clubs are an essential pillar of any close-knit community, and so I also implore the government to support the opposition's commitment to upgrade the Hectorville Sports and Community Club, which is a great community club that provides much support for our community—and they are in their 50th year, I might add.

I also commend the federal government for increased funding for Black Spot and Roads to Recovery funding; it is particularly important to commuters in Hartley due to the road safety concerns on many roads in the electorate; for example, Barnes Road in Glynde and the intersection of Magill Road and Glynburn Road. The Glynburn Road/Magill Road intersection is an issue that I lobbied for as a candidate. We now have another minister in that area, but I look forward to discussing it with him as well.

I actually started a petition on behalf of our local residents on this exact issue, and now as a member of parliament I am delighted to have been with our deputy leader during the campaign to raise these concerns about the safety of the intersection. Work has already begun on the intersection, and it has been ongoing since late last year. I thank the government for establishing a permanent fund through the Motor Accident Commission to improve road safety at trouble spots around the state.

While on the issue of road funding: Payneham Road leading to the intersection of Lower North-East Road, Glynburn Road and Montacute Road has also been plagued with congestion problems for many years, and it was a serious issue in the recent state election. A road traffic management plan for the McNally development must also be initiated. The area will see over 200 houses being built, and to think that this government has not put in a road management plan for the area is shameful.

On behalf of the people of Magill in Hartley, I call on the government to include a road traffic management plan for this area down the track, whether in the budget or otherwise. The McNally development is the largest housing development in Hartley at the moment, and I believe it is essential that a traffic plan be implemented to preserve the harmony of the local area.

I also call on the South Australian government to honour its election commitment to the people of Glynde in my electorate to relocate the proposed electricity substation to an alternative site on crown land. This issue is very concerning to me and the local residents. It is incumbent on this government to provide funding for this, to relocate this substation to government land or otherwise, but not in a residential area.

The people of Glynde deserve more than just small talk on this issue; they have had small talk from the previous member for Hartley and they deserve more now, and that is why I raise this. The house will note that one of my first actions in the house was to raise this via a grievance debate, and I would like to reiterate that today. They have been lied to and they have been neglected on this issue.

I urge and implore the Treasurer to show some valour, because he was there in the final days of the last state election; he heard the lies that the previous member for Hartley told to those people. He now has the opportunity—he now writes the cheques. He can put some money on the table and show the people of Hartley that he is serious and move this substation out of residential Glynde. On behalf of the residents of Paradise, I also call on the government to make a commitment for a long-term parking solution to stop the flood of cars on residential streets in Paradise.

I spoke last week on the concerns of Lochiel Park and how the gross pollutant trap there has not worked. Of course, this was one of the previous premier's (Hon. Mike Rann) great testimonies and one of his great projects; however, the gross pollutant trap has not worked in this development, and it is about time that the government took some initiative and took some steps to make it work.

After 12 long years of Labor in South Australia, it is official: the government, as we heard, is parasitic. The Labor government is parasitic; it is divided, it is dysfunctional, and it is not interested in good governance. South Australia's jobless rate has jumped, and in the 12 months to March 2014, retail sales in South Australia rose only 1.9 per cent compared to national sales, which have grown 3.8 per cent. We have the worst retail sales figures in all states—shame!

A report released by the Centre for Independent Studies has also provided a damning assessment of South Australia's debt levels after 12 years of this Labor government. The report notes that '…[South Australia] has one of the highest debt ratios, recorded the largest increase in debt in the three years to 2013, and has one of the least dynamic economies', and yet what is this government doing to diversify? It is not surprising that, with those opposite, the state lost its AAA credit rating in 2012.

In closing, while I will support the Supply Bill 2014, the government must certainly do many things. First, it must detail how Labor will deliver its promise to create 100,000 new jobs by 2016, which it promised to the people of South Australia. How will it do it? How will Labor deliver its promise to return to surplus in 2015-16? I am yet to see a strategy, a solution or an answer as to how this mob are going to get our state back on track.

This government must also detail how Labor will regain the state's AAA credit rating and how it will reduce debt. Which health services will it cut? Which education services will it cut? It must also confirm that every election promise will be fully funded. Also, for the people of South Australia, it must confirm that no government assets will be sold, as it promised before the election.

Rather than blame the federal government for its ineptitude and incompetence, and rather than blame the international markets and complain about the global economic crisis, this government must now, more than ever, show some leadership and discharge the responsibility of governing with an economic plan for the long-term prosperity of this state.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (11:47): I rise to speak on the Supply Bill. The leader is the lead speaker later in the debate. The Supply Bill really is a procedural matter where the parliament approves the government to get a supply of money to go out and perform its functions and pay the Public Service. As part of the debate, members of parliament get the opportunity to contribute on the widest range of topics possible.

I want to paint a picture about where the state finances are, following 12 years of a Labor government. We need to remember that this is not a government taking over from a government of a different party, which comes into government and says, 'Things are worse than we thought and, therefore, we need to change decisions or election policies.' This is a government that has had total control of the Treasury benches for 12 years, so in any assessment the state of the state's finances, liabilities and economy are 100 per cent the responsibility of this government.

The reality is that the government is going to run around and blame the Abbott government for every decision that is going to be made in the forthcoming state budget, to be brought down on 19 June. However, the truth is that before the election, through evidence given to the Budget and Finance Committee, it was clear that the Labor state government had budgeted for cuts to the health budget of over $1,000 million, cuts to education of around $220 million to $250 million and cuts to police of between $130 million and $150 million. These were cuts being made to those areas of government because of this government's—the same government's—mismanagement of the state budget and the Public Service over 12 years.

When the government goes to the people with the budget and say that they are making all these savings because of that terrible federal government, the truth is that there is about $1.5 billion worth of cuts that are required in the forward estimates that were already announced prior to the election and any decision made in the federal budget.

What is interesting is that the government is saying that over the next four years of the state's forward estimates the federal decisions in the budget will impact by about $898 million. My understanding, if you read the press release carefully, is that it is actually partly offset because there is $355 million worth of extra GST, so the net impact then comes down to $543 million over four years. If you divide $543 million by four over the four years of the forward estimates you end up with about $135 million a year, if that is the actual amount of the federal cut. Now, $135 million is actually less than one per cent of state budget. The state budget is between $15 billion and $16 billion, so $135 million is less than one per cent of state budget.

It is interesting to note that they have said that a big impact has also occurred through the decline in the state's own-source revenue, so land tax, payroll tax and stamp duties. So there is about a $300 million to $350 million hit to the budget, apparently, because the state's revenues are not keeping up with what was budgeted.

That is not a surprise to this side of the house, because they overinflated their predictions of revenues on payroll tax and stamp duties. Some of them were running at somewhere between nine and 12 per cent increases in in those tax measures, and that inflated the revenue source's figures in the budget which, of course, made the deficit smaller and the surpluses bigger. Now, after the election, we get a bit more of the truth, where they say, 'Well, actually, our revenues did not keep up with these bold predictions in the budget and there is another $300 million hit to the state budget.'

The point I make about the one per cent hit through the commonwealth's decisions is simply this: this is a state government that cannot deliver a surplus. It has run six deficits in seven years; it is just over a $1,000 million deficit, a billion-dollar deficit, that we have overspent this year. Next year the deficit is about $500 million and then, of course, like every year for the last six or seven years, in the out years (year 3, year 4) the government has predicted surpluses. The government is always predicting surpluses, but it keeps delivering deficits.

The reality is that this year's deficit—which is an overspend of over $1,000 million by the government—when it was first predicted, was going to be a $480 million surplus. It is a $1,000 million deficit. That is a 1½ billion dollar difference. If you go through all of the deficits and surpluses, in actual fact what this government has promised is $2.6 billion worth of surpluses and they have delivered $2.9 billion worth of deficit. There is a 5½ billion dollar ($5,500 million) difference between what they promised in surpluses and what they have delivered in deficits.

The reason I raise the issue about the federal impact on the state budget being about one per cent of the budget is that, had this government been running the surpluses it promised, whatever the impact of the federal budget across the forward estimates could have been met within the surpluses the government had actually promised if they had simply kept to their budget.

This government is going to squeal and complain about the federal budget—and I do not deny that there will be some impacts—however, this government, through its own poor budget management, has failed to prepare for what might happen if its revenues decline.

They should have planned for a contingency—what happens if their revenues decline—because the Auditor-General has been warning them, year in and year out, that they were building into the budget a high level of expenditure on revenues that may well be unsustainable, and he did that three years out of four. The Auditor-General has alerted the government to it, and the government has simply ignored the Auditor-General's warning and continued to build in a high level of expenditure; and now, of course, Canberra has changed the revenue mix and the state government is now squealing.

I argue that the reason there is going to be a more significant impact of any federal decision than there needed to be is the poor budget management of this particular government. As I say, it has delivered six deficits in seven years. The only surplus this government has delivered was in 2010. That happened to be an election year. That was the year they got over $1 billion extra—I think it might have been $2 billion extra but at least $1 billion—out of the Rudd-Gillard government for infrastructure and program spending which was brought into the budget as a revenue item in the general government sector, and when it was spent it was spent out of the capital side of the budget so it artificially inflated the surplus figure.

They got over $1 billion extra and the surplus they delivered was only around $187 million. Even though they got $1 billion extra in that one year, they could still only deliver a surplus of around $187 million. For six out of seven years, the government has been running deficits. I suspect what we will see in the budget is a deficit this year, a deficit next year and, again, a future promise of surpluses. Frankly, why would you believe it? They have been promising them for seven years. Just like the Gillard-Rudd government, they keep promising surpluses and they keep delivering deficits.

The reality is that the government's budget woes are due to their own mismanagement. It is the Labor government that is promising to reduce the Public Service by at least 3,800 over the next four-year period. It is the Labor government that is slashing the Public Service by 3,800—health spending by $1,000 million, education by $230 million to $250 million, police by $130 million to $150 million. That is a Labor government following 12 years of Labor government. It is a pretty simple argument to understand that if you do not need 3,800 public servants in 2016-17, 2017-18 and future years, why did you need them for the last three years? Why did they employ them in the first place if we can provide the level of services the government claims?

The government says they are going to take all these public servants out of the system—they will cut $1,000 million out of health, there will be cuts to police and education and there will be no impact on services. That will be the government's argument. That simply raises the very simple question: what was the ministry doing when they were employing these 3,800 extra public servants in the first place? There has been a huge amount of money that has washed through the system that, by the government's own admission, was spent on programs that are not a priority, because they are about to get rid of a whole range of programs and a whole range of public servants.

There is an argument to say that, had this government simply managed the Public Service and departmental expenditure better, they would not be in the position they are in today. If they were running surpluses instead of deficits, they would not be in the position of having more difficulty in managing the outcomes, whatever they might be, of the federal budget.

The reality is there is a change in the debate going on around Australia about the role of the states. The Abbott government has made it crystal clear they are going to look at passing more of the functions back to the states. There is a federation white paper coming out—I am not sure when, but I think in the next 18 months—about the role of states and the role of the commonwealth, and that will lead to a debate about, if the states are going to perform these functions, how are the states going to raise the revenue to provide those functions?

If you look at what has happened with the states over the years, they actually have their own tax revenues and, down the track, state governments are going to be forced to look at how they provide their services through the tax system they currently have or how they can change the tax system to provide better services long term. That will be a debate that I think will happen on the back of the white paper, on the back of the federal GST/taxation paper, that is going to come out at the same time.

That is the debate that is about to occur in Australia's history: what is the function of states and how will the revenue be raised? My personal view is that I want more functions performed by states. I think the closer the decision-making is done to where the service is delivered, the more likely you are to get a better outcome, so I look forward to that debate more generally over the next couple of years.

The reality is that this state government has mismanaged its budget. It went out and deliberately trashed its AAA credit rating; that impacts on the level of interest, the interest rate we pay on our debt. Our debt is budgeted to climb to around $14 billion, the highest debt in the state's history. As a result of that debt, we are paying over $1,000 million in interest on that debt—$1,000 million.

To put that into some perspective, if our interest on debt payment were a government department it would be the fifth biggest government department in the state. In actual fact, we spend more on interest on debt than we do on our whole police service. This is a function of the government's own program. It went out and deliberately trashed the AAA credit rating, and this is the result.

Once you take your eye off the ball on financial management and not have getting a AAA rating as your priority, then all discipline on spending tends to unfold, and that is what we have seen with the government. The government went to the election promising a significant number of promises and we expect them, as the Treasurer told this house, to honour every single one of those commitments made to the electorate.

There is just one other comment I want to make with regard to the internal workings of the current government, and I guess I am really talking to the right-wing members of the state government. If they have not worked it out yet, they have a premier who is working for the Premier and not for the whole of the state Labor government, and you just have to look at two areas that I think are worthy of a political observation.

This is a premier who refused to have in his parliament, in his party room, Don Farrell, who has given decades of loyal service to the Labor Party, not the party I support, but I think it is broadly recognised that Mr Farrell has given years of dedicated service to the Labor right wing and, indeed, the state Labor government. This Premier was so offended by the thought that Mr Farrell might come in and join his party room that he called a press conference and said, 'I'm not having that.'

Roll forward three months, to after the election, and he is quite happy to have within his cabinet someone who has given decades of service to the Liberal Party, the direct opponent of the Labor Party. It says something about the Premier, and my message is to the right-wing members of the Labor Party who think they might have done a deal with the Premier on certain matters: it is pretty obvious to me that he is going to govern in his interest rather than the party's interests. I think what he has done is quite clever, in that he has put the up-and-comers, if you like, in the Labor Party who might want to be future leaders into difficult portfolios that are going to take all the cuts.

You have the member for West Torrens, the Treasurer, who is going to deliver what has been predicted to be a pretty savage state budget and he will be the public face of that. Of course, the other one with leader aspirations is the Minister for Health, the member for Playford, who will be the public face of all the health cuts that are about to occur, and of course Mr Mullighan has been put into the difficult transport portfolio.

What the Premier is doing is trying to give the right wing of the Labor Party the portfolios that are going to suffer all of the political damage to protect his position long term. The left wing of the Labor Party have the party portfolios—tourism, rec and sport and those sort of things—that do not have the hard economics to them.

I find it interesting that the Premier of the Labor Party could say to Mr Farrell, who has given decades of service, 'You are not wanted one bit. You are not wanted one bit but I will take on the other hand someone who has worked against us as a Liberal for 17 years.' He will take them not only into the party or into the inner circles but he is taking them right into the cabinet. Don Farrell might not have even made it to cabinet, he might have been stuck on the back bench for a long time. The reality is that they have taken someone—or in particular the Premier has.

I think it is a stark message to the right wing of the Labor Party as to what they have created when they walked into Mike Rann's office with Peter Malinauskas and the member for Playford and tapped Mike Rann on the shoulder on the basis of a deal they had done with the member for Cheltenham. Now he is there and I think it is pretty obvious it is going to be everything the Premier's way and that the right wing of the Labor Party will just have to wear it until they are ready, of course, to cut his throat.

That is my view on the Supply Bill. I look forward to the budget with some interest. I think it will have a lot of debating points in it for the state. What I am really interested in is one simple point; that is, will the state government honour every single one of its commitments made to the electorate, including the return to surpluses in the years as predicted?

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (12:07): I also rise to speak on the Supply Bill 2014. While the Supply Bill receives opposition support as a matter of procedure, it does provide me the opportunity to make some comments regarding the state of the budget and the state of the government's performance on economic mismanagement.

The budget update handed down by the government in January this year delivered the highest debt in the state's history and the highest budget deficits in the state's history. State debt will be $14 billion by 2016 and will increase at $4.1 million per day for eight years. Interest on debt will reach $1 billion per annum in the year 2017. This is more than the police budget.

The government has an appalling record. In the last seven years it has delivered six deficits totalling $2.9 billion while, at the same time, promising $2.6 billion in surpluses over the same time period. State taxes are the highest in the nation. Water prices in Adelaide are the highest of all capital cities in the nation. CPI during the 12 years of Labor was 40 per cent, yet in the same time frame property charges have increased by 87 per cent, state taxes 92 per cent, gas bills 136 per cent, electricity bills 160 per cent and water bills an incredible 227 per cent.

As well, $2.3 billion worth of government contracts are going interstate each year and the cost of doing business in South Australia is at an unprecedented level. It is no surprise that this state is in the midst of a jobs crisis. There are 18,000 fewer full-time jobs since the 2013 state budget. South Australia's jobless rate has increased to 6.3 per cent from 4.8 per cent in 2010, when Labor promised to create 100,000 new jobs. Northern Adelaide has the second-highest youth unemployment in the nation, with 45 per cent of youth unemployed. South Australia's jobs growth is the worst in the nation. Small to medium enterprises in South Australia have the worst business confidence on the mainland. Business investment has contracted by 8.1 per cent in the December 2013 quarter—the worst performance of all the states.

South Australia's economy is going backwards under this government. Adelaide was the eighth most expensive city in the world for manufacturing out of 131 cities and ranked as the second-most expensive city in the world in its population bracket. South Australia had 4,744 (or 3.2 per cent) of all businesses closed in 2012-13. South Australia also has the lowest business start-up rate on the mainland and has done so for the last 10 consecutive years. It is no wonder our talented graduates are moving to the eastern seaboard where jobs are being created by Liberal governments in those states kickstarting their economies by backing business.

I am also affected by this in that one of my staff members is leaving to move to Sydney because his partner has been offered a full-time job in Sydney as a lawyer. Every year we apparently have as many graduating law students as we have lawyers in the whole of the state. I ask whether that is the right thing to be happening in universities, that is, graduating people for jobs they know do not exist and losing our brightest minds out of our state.

Regarding interstate migration, people aged between 20 and 34 years account for more than half of our interstate migrants, meaning that South Australia is losing valuable skilled workers and university graduates. There was a 49 per cent increase in net interstate migration out of South Australia in the last year. There have been 35,000 net interstate migrants out of South Australia under 12 years of Labor. Compare this to Queensland which has recorded an average net increase of 25,000 people annually over the past decade. The lack of jobs growth in this state has made it untenable for our own skilled workers and graduates to remain in Adelaide. This is an embarrassing state of affairs for South Australia.

As a state, we invest a considerable amount in our young through education and training. It is devastating to think that this investment is being lost to our interstate counterparts because we cannot provide opportunities here in South Australia. Speaking of our investment in education and training, let me reflect on some of the horrifying results in education under this Labor government. South Australian students are falling behind: our students are well below the national average in 19 out of 20 NAPLAN categories and no improvement in these categories has been achieved since 2008. In the results recorded in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia ranked 19th out of 65 countries. However, if South Australia was a country it would have ranked 35th. Our results in maths, science and reading have all astronomically declined according to the 2014 ACER PISA report.

Over the next four years, the Weatherill government will receive $570 million in extra funding for schools from the federal government. It is the state Labor government that is making $230 million in cuts to education over this period while, at the same time, arguing the desperate need for commonwealth investment.

Let us look at transport and consider the government's proposed car parking tax. The money of course has been spent well and truly before it has been collected in true Labor style. In an attempt by this Labor government to save money, they swapped bus providers which has led to endless problems and thousands of recorded complaints. It has led to buses running late, buses not turning up, bus users getting into trouble with their employers or schools for being late, and a general loss of confidence in our bus system. This led to a drop off of 2.2 million users of buses. To try to bandaid fix the problem caused by the government's bad decision, new bus timetables were printed, new bus lanes were installed in the city, and more time was allowed for trips previous providers had managed to do in less time for many years. We now have 5.5 million fewer boardings on public transport from the 2009-10 year compared with the 2012-13 year.

To try to force people back onto buses and public transport, the government is seeking a $750 city car parking tax. Studies by the Adelaide City Council of similar levies in other Australian cities show that in Melbourne there was a marginal reduction of car trips of 8 per cent. The corresponding increase in public transport use however, was only 2 per cent. From this, you could conclude that 6 per cent less people were visiting the city. This would be devastating for city businesses, particularly retailers who are already suffering due to many other factors such as internet shopping and no GST on sales under $1,000.

In Melbourne it was found that most employers were absorbing the cost of the car parking, adding yet another cost to running a business in the city. Commercial car park owners transferred the burden of the levy away from their long-term contracted parking spaces to the short-term users, thus making short-term parking very expensive with the effect, arguably, of discouraging shoppers and visitors from going into the city. The workers the government wanted to use public transport were not using it and the shoppers they wanted in the city were not going in due to the high cost of parking.

South Australians want a reliable, safe and affordable public transport system. Instead, the government is going ahead with its toxic car park tax. It is not just businesses, workers and shoppers who are affected by this car park tax, it is also churches and not-for-profit organisations such as the Salvation Army and the National Council of Women. Most importantly, it affects city residents who have been encouraged into this city for city vibrancy, yet the government allows buildings to be built in the city without adequate and sometimes without any car parking, thus residents have to lease commercial car parks which means they will all be hit by the $750 car parking tax.

I have had calls from residents living in the UNO Apartments which are specifically for low income people who, due to disabilities, need a car to get to their medical appointments—there are no buses on that street—and they are very worried about how they will afford to live in the city, and they have been encouraged into the city by this government. I have also had calls from a young woman who lives on North Terrace—again, encouraged into the city for city vibrancy with low-priced housing. She has to lease a car park adjacent to her building and now she is saying, 'Why did I even move into the city? It would be far cheaper for me to live in the suburbs.' People who have been encouraged into the city are pretty angry that they are now going to be hit by this car parking tax.

The Adelaide City Council is a major owner of car parks in the city and owns the majority of the metered parks on the street. They will also have to pay this levy, equating to hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not millions) that will have to be found elsewhere. It is likely that residents and business owners will also have to foot this extra cost via their rates, their rent or their leasing costs as well, making it even more expensive for people living or working in the city. The choices for people accessing the CBD are to rely on the unreliable public transport network or to pay the soon-to-be exorbitant amount for car parking.

What problem is the government really trying to address with this car parking tax? I would say it is all about making money to compensate for this government's incompetency. They might say it is about congestion in the city. Let's look at this. Congestion: it is debatable whether Adelaide has a congestion problem in the CBD. If we assume there is some congestion—and we have lost lots of lanes across the city—then I do not believe the car park tax will actually make any difference. The congestion problems have come as a result of poor planning and the lack of cooperation between the state government and the Adelaide City Council, which is also one of the reasons why I believe that the member for Adelaide should be on the Capital City Committee.

Let's look at the city. East Terrace has had two lanes removed for buses between Grenfell Street and North Terrace (a state government initiative). Hutt Street is now a 40 km/h zone (initiated by the Adelaide City Council) which forces more cars into all the suburban side streets and residential areas. Frome Street has two lanes removed for the bike lanes (Adelaide City Council). King William Street has two lanes removed for trams and the removal of all right-hand turns between North Terrace and Victoria Square (state government).

Victoria Square, if anyone has tried to drive through it, is an absolute mess. It is totally confusing, lanes merge, you cannot work out how to turn right. I do not think you even can. I am still trying to work out how to get back from the Town Hall to Parliament House from the many meetings and functions that I have there. Morphett Street has one lane missing because of the Convention Centre expansion and I am told that that lane may never be returned, so I am very interested to hear about that.

There is also no right-hand turn onto Hindley Street, which was a council initiative, and the right-hand turn onto Currie Street, if you are coming over the Morphett Street bridge, is impossible due to the bus lanes causing banked up traffic all along Currie Street. I have been on Morphett Street and, due to the no right-hand turn at Hindley and then almost impossible right-hand turn onto Currie, you can be banked up nearly to War Memorial Drive, so it is not working in the city.

West Terrace has also had two lanes missing since at least before the corflutes went up, because I know we had a lot of trouble accessing West Terrace when putting up posters. That was in February, and I believe there is still work going on for gasworks. At the same time, we have removed so many different lanes for different reasons.

If we head east-west, North Terrace on the western side lost two lanes due to the tram and there is no turning because of the raised kerbing. In Melbourne, when they put in a tram, you can actually still cross over the tramline and turn right. We have one U-turn access point.

In fact, it was the tram going onto North Terrace that seriously affected my business at the time in the Qantas building because people from the north could not turn right to access my business. People coming from Port Road or West Terrace, coming up North Terrace, could never turn right, because of the raised median strip, to get across the road. We lost all the loading zones in front of my building where people would drop off children for courses, because of the new lights that were put in for the tram.

Basically, I was in an inaccessible building, in the middle of the city, paying huge rent, so I moved my business out of the city because of the tram being put on North Terrace. If we continue with the City Council and the state government removing lane after lane, right turn after right turn and restricting access everywhere, we are eventually going to move businesses out of the city which, I believe, is the opposite of what you are trying to achieve with your city vibrancy.

Still heading east-west, there is no access to Hindley Street, as I mentioned, between Morphett Street and West Terrace. Grenfell and Currie streets have lost two lanes due to the bus lanes, which was a state government initiative.

On Pirie Street, there is a new pedestrian crossing. At times in the morning, because pedestrians keep filing through and the pedestrian crossing is so close to the intersection of King William and Pirie, I have seen that the left-hand turners coming off King William sometimes can be banked up quite far back, really holding up the traffic in that area. When it was first initiated, I was driving through Pirie Street, and the cars heading westward along Pirie Street were banked up to Pulteney. I believe people are getting the hang of that a bit more. I went past this morning and it was working a bit better, but it is very close to an intersection, and I would question whether that was the best placement. There is also difficulty accessing Wakefield because of the Victoria Square issues.

The congestion problems have come as a result, I believe, of the lack of cooperation between the state government and the Adelaide City Council. Let us look at some of the broken promises on infrastructure that we have had from this government.

We have had $75 million for the Darlington interchange promised and scrapped, and $140 million for the South Road/Sturt Road underpass scrapped. Promised three times was the electrification of the Gawler line, and it was scrapped twice. We had $122 million promised for the underpass on South Road, under Port Road and Grange Road, and that was scrapped. There was $600 million for prison facilities scrapped, $520 million for trams to the western suburbs scrapped, and doubling of the Mount Bold Reservoir was scrapped. Maybe if it had not have been, we would not have needed the desalination plant. There was $160 million for the Upper Spencer Gulf desal plant scrapped and $61 million for the O-Bahn extension was also scrapped.

Can we even trust this government to deliver on what it promises? When the government does deliver on what it has promised, on many occasions it is over time and over budget. Some examples would include the $1.7 billion for the new RAH. At this estimate, it is already up to $2.8 billion and has not been delivered yet, so who knows what the final figure might be.

The $450 million and 'not a penny more' for Adelaide Oval cost $600 million to deliver. The $370 million Southern Expressway duplication, at this estimate, is $407 million, so already over budget. The $304 million water interconnector was delivered at $403 million; again over its estimate.

I certainly question the government's ability to deliver its $36 billion infrastructure plan and transport plan and whether, for things like the tram down Prospect Road, it has had any engineering studies or costings. During the election campaign there was no ability to give us a cost for individual projects, just a random figure that covered everything. I would suspect that it is not even feasible or possible to deliver a tram down Prospect Road given that the narrowest point of Prospect Road is seven metres and a tram is 2.5 metres.

Two trams are five metres wide plus their mirrors and, if 'a metre matters' for cyclists, you do not even have enough room for that let alone cars or bikes or anything else on the street. For anyone who lived in Prospect when there was a tram, they were rapt when they got rid of it the first time, let alone initiating a huge cost that will put us into more debt under this government to bring a tram back that people were pleased to get rid of in the first instance.

It was the incompetence, the wrong priorities and the economic mismanagement of this Labor government that motivated me to run for the seat of Adelaide and whilst unfortunately I remain in opposition, I will always do my best to hold this government to account and to achieve good outcomes for the people of Adelaide whom I represent.

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (12:26): I am pleased to have the opportunity today to talk for some short time about the Supply Bill—

An honourable member: About 20 minutes.

Mr GRIFFITHS: —about 20 minutes—and indeed the $3.94 billion that is provided in the bill as an advancement upon future budget expenditure for the 2014-15 financial year to allow the government to continue operating.

I am intrigued by the process of it actually and about the specifics of the dollar, even though it is very broad—$3,940 million gives you a bit of leeway, no doubt about that—but given that the budget is presented on 19 June and there is a continuing political party in place that will be in government, how are we not in a position to ensure that the implementation of that is far quicker? Why it is necessary to give forward approval to such a significant level of dollars, which is about 25 per cent of the budget, to allow the continuation of payments beyond 1 July? But that is how the system works and far be it from me to try to criticise or improve some things. Hopefully, one day we will have a chance to change to the other side and see what we can do there.

I am a fiscal conservative by nature and normally risk-averse, who certainly likes to ensure that expenditure is appropriate, prioritised and the benefit for the community is always going to be there and that is why I have enjoyed, in my eight years in parliament, that there is some scrutiny of the budget figures and the understanding of not just the challenges presented to governments and opposition when it comes to forming opinions on where priorities should be allocated, but also the process of how that is done and to try to get the positive outcomes. No matter where we come from, what we try to do with between $15 billion or $16 billion is to ensure that the outcomes are strong ones. They have to be, because the state government is the biggest player in the game in South Australia; there is absolutely no doubt about that.

Decisions made by political parties, particularly around election time and what that does to business confidence levels, is absolutely key. In the four years in between elections, the sole responsibility rests upon the government to get it right. There are a lot of members from this side of the chamber who will criticise where decisions are made and where priorities are reached and what the actions of those priorities are, but it has to actually ensure that the parliament has an opportunity to debate it. There is no doubt that we will be here for some period today and probably tomorrow too and people will put up positions on things and try to espouse their personal views and express frustrations or express support for it and the truth is somewhere in between, probably. That is just it: the hard part is always finding what it is.

I wish to comment a little bit about portfolio areas that I have responsibility for—local government, regional development and planning—and just how, as I understand it, dollar impacts from future budgets might either support or challenge those communities that benefit from those services. Regional development funding has been a rather interesting one, it is fair to say, since the election day. The member for Frome, by virtue of supporting the Labor Party and allowing them to form a minority government, was able to negotiate some additional funds to come through which were a significant increase from the Labor Party of particular support for regional areas, and a significant decrease, I think it is fair to say, in terms of what the Liberal Party put as part of its election platform and the dollars that it was committing to regional communities.

The member for Frome continually refers to the $39 million that has come from that agreement. Part of that is a commitment of $13.6 million to the Regional Development Fund, which is predominantly infrastructure based, but it will be used, from what I understand from the minister and the announcements made about that, for probably a few different areas.

It is absolutely key to get that right too. It is a significant leap forward. It matches what the Liberal Party put there in the election two months ago, and it is part of a long-term commitment that members on this side of the chamber have to regional communities. I hope the member for Frome ensures, in the important role that he holds for the people of South Australia now, that the outcomes from that are very strong. It will take strong ministerial direction.

It will take some excellent action by Regional Development Australia groups to ensure that the outcomes are there, and by local communities demanding and having very high expectations of where the dollar is to be spent. It is a significant leap forward. I want to work with the minister to ensure that the outcomes are strong. I am pleased that there is a level of personal relationship between the two of us that allows us to have rather informal chats and to talk about things, because he knows that I also come from the focus of an outcome driven person. We will see how that goes in the future.

The minister has talked about an increase in funding for the Regional Development Australia group to provide for the administrative functions that it undertakes. It is fair to say that the original fund of $1.6 million was contestable to some degree, but the outcomes are predominantly project-based, which allows a relatively small amount of that to be used for administrative support. My understanding is that the increase is still targeted in this way.

The feedback that I have received from the Regional Development Australia groups is that that will challenge their operations. They need a level of recurrent contributions to ensure that they can meet the costs of the people and the infrastructure they need to service the communities in which they are based. The minister is talking to groups about that. I am in agreement with him on the fact that some very strong KPIs need to be in place for that to ensure the outcomes are there. I hope that in future discussions (which he has to conclude very soon, to be fair) he can ensure that some level of middle ground is found that allows him to get what he wants to see from it—that is his right as a minister—but that gives the RDAs the opportunity to move forward too.

It needs to occur very quickly, otherwise we will lose some key staff. The majority of those I have met are people who try to do great things in their community. They have the networks; they have a relationship with business opportunity, not just in mentoring and the support of current businesses, but they know who to talk to to make future business opportunities a reality. They need to be supported and it is a very delicate balancing act that needs to be concluded soon, otherwise we will get to 1 July and there will be some people who do not have continuing contracts in place and they will be lost. Then, if you have the money suddenly given to you, you have to try to recruit and then develop a whole new skill set that will allow the outcomes to be strong ones from the very start.

I am immensely disappointed when I look at the unemployment figures across so many areas of South Australia. The figures from the metropolitan north are extremely disturbing; they must be for all of us in here, I think. I know that the members of any area truly feel for the people whom they know are actively engaging in employment-seeking opportunities, the good ones who are out there developing skills, constantly applying and presenting very well to potential employers, but not getting an opportunity.

There are probably a couple of reasons for that. There are so many out there who are looking for those jobs. No matter where you are, the figures are quite high, with a state average of 6.3 per cent, but in regional communities it is up to even 9 to 9.7 per cent. In the metropolitan north it is up to 45 per cent for youth unemployed, which is just disgraceful for our future generational opportunities. That has to be a key, and to me it links back to the 2010 election commitment from the Labor Party of the 100,000 jobs to be created.

I know from figures that I looked at a couple of months ago that they require something like 4,400 new jobs to be created every month to meet that target, when in effect since the commitment was first given we have gone down in job numbers. That saddens me. It has to be the absolute focus. It is not just an opportunity for us to question the Premier as the person primarily responsible for it and to get an answer back which meets the political need of the day but does not actually meet the on-the-ground needs of the community out there. So, I urge all to ensure that commitments are met—and that word is used quite often about ensuring that you meet a commitment given or a promise made and that the outcomes are good ones; they have to be.

Another one for me as a shadow minister is planning. I am a person who does try to look at what are the forward needs of a community; therefore, planning is a good mix for me personally. Coming into this place from a local government background and being exposed from that perspective of a level of government on planning controls has allowed me to understand the acronyms of everything that is used, to understand the terminology, when I am briefed on proposals about what things are and when I have some questions about areas that require some clarification, because I do have that background in understanding it. But that means I respect how important it is. It is key, actually.

There is a level of population growth in South Australia; it is about 0.9 of a per cent. We do have a relatively low level of occupation rate in homes; I think it is about 1.75 people per household. I want our population to increase, absolutely. With that will come the challenge of accommodating people. We are not a culture where we support necessarily population continually moving up or in large concentrations. There is a need for a level of space to exist, which will put a lot of pressure on redevelopments in brownfield sites or, indeed, greenfield sites.

If we are continually spreading out, there are some significant challenges in place. The forward visions we present to the community, following engagement with the community and making them have input into it, will be either seen as an opportunity or a significant weakness by some who might work in development areas. It will create some robust discussion, there is absolutely no doubt about that, but the discussions are the good ones to have, because it is only when the really serious debate occurs that you get the positive outcomes.

No matter where you come from, you want to see a level of growth in your community. You want existing businesses to be strong, to be vibrant, to have future job opportunities. You also want to ensure that with that growth comes a sustainable community that looks at triple bottom lines—environment, economic and social impacts—and provides services for that. It presents a lot of challenges to do so, to massage that all together and to come up with a positive outcome so that there are no negatives attached to it, but it is one that government absolutely has to be focused on looking at. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Local government is another one for me. It is fair to say that a policy that we put out at the last election which talked about rate capping was not overly well received by the 68 local governments across the state. For me, though, as a former local government person, I am focused on the efficiency and the cost of delivery of services. I think that there has to be some balance between a vision that a community, via its council, holds and wants to do and the economic reality of what it can afford to do.

Aspirational targets have to be there, absolutely; we have to ensure that we strive to achieve the absolute best for us. But if that level of local government reflects upon and it is such an important one to the community, we have to ensure that the efficiency of that service delivery is the absolute best it can be. In my mind, it is a matter of either efficiency dividends or the rate capping.

I want to see a serious review take place across all 68 councils on how they can deliver their service as best and as effectively as possible because, at the end of the day, the money that they use comes from, yes, some federal government money and, yes, some state government money, but the majority of it comes from the pockets of the people who live in that area and who own property in that area—and that is where they have to demand the absolute best.

Whereas once upon time there would have been a willingness of a community to not necessarily cause too much trouble in relation to that, now any member of parliament who has been here for even a short length of time probably has a lot of contact from people who live in their community questioning some outcomes from that, and they want to see some improvements.

On 19 June, it is going to be a really important day. From an opposition perspective, we get, I think, a copy of the version of the budget that is presented, at about 1 o'clock. We get one copy, that is all. They are furiously photocopied so that you can have about five people read it. Minister, you have a great chance to review it and have input into it beforehand; we get it in that version. Until we sit down and when the Treasurer has walked in, we then get a copy, and then they are sort of shuffled off and people review it.

There is a lot of impetus, especially in that first couple of hours after it is presented. You are trying to identify where its strengths and weaknesses are from our point of view; given that we might get about 15 seconds on television that night, it is where the weaknesses are and what you can use as a grab line. It is the absolute key document that any government presents. It sets out the forward vision in some level of detail across the full four year period but in absolute detail for the next 12 months.

I have found it interesting to review it. You try to look at where the weaknesses are against where commitments have been given, and what the outcomes actually are when it comes to dollars. The budget format changes fractionally each year, so it is harder to do direct tracking against previous years' efforts. It is an exciting day, and I hope it remains an exciting day for Treasurer Koutsantonis.

When he walks in and stands up—the Treasurer is the third Treasurer in consecutive years to present a budget to the people of South Australia, in a climate of challenging economic times, no doubt about that—it will be very interesting to see how his 30 minutes go when he is standing up reading the speech, and, indeed, what the response is over the next few days and the next few weeks to ensure that the outcomes are what the people of South Australia demand.

As a fiscal conservative, I have to say that I look at the fact that there is a level of debt of $14 billion that creates an interest component of $1 billion per year. That is an absolute kick in the bum; it is enormous amount. It represents about 6 per cent of our state budget being spent as an interest cost that goes to others. It is an enormous challenge for our state budget. Am I a person who would like to get it down? Absolutely. Am I a person, though, who believes in a level of debt existing to grow the economy? Absolutely, also. It is part of that delicate balancing act that needs to exist.

There was some excellent work done by a parliamentary committee, the Economic and Finance Committee, last year, which did a quite long-term review of a taxation inquiry. A bipartisan level of support existed on that, and enormous number of witnesses came in and spoke to us. Even though I had some frustrations during that committee—everybody presents the problems but no one presents the solutions, and it is always hard to find the solution to any issue—but that was a good opportunity where the parliament met for a long time to present information to those who make the decisions, so I hope that has occurred.

The 2014-15 budget will see a lot of challenges, but in setting the outline for the next 12 months, in particular, it needs to provide a forum that gives the community the chance to be successful. I am a total believer in the fact that hard work should be rewarded. It is on those who work for businesses, those who work in the Public Service or those who run businesses that the policies the budget will set out will have an enormous impact, not just in the taxation policy but in terms of what level of commitment exists to training, because with that comes upskilling.

South Australia does face enormous challenges. There is no doubt that there will be a lot of opportunities in future years, but they require a level of the skilling of the workforce that will be a challenge for some people, who might be reluctant about that or who may think they are too old for it. Personally I do not believe you are too old; I think there is always a chance to improve what you do and develop new skills, because business will need them.

No matter what the political argy-bargy across the chamber and in the media actually is, the success of business is an absolute key to the importance of the success of our state. So the policies that come from the budget and the impact they have upon business, and the flow-through effect of that impact upon the workers, will be big ones.

There are about 840,000 people in South Australia in the workforce, and probably—in round numbers—about 100,000 of those work for the Public Service. We have to ensure, for those 740,000 people who work for private enterprise or for NGOs—those who actually build things, make things, the retail industry, those who service the community's needs—that there are outcomes from it. I hope that there are.

I am pleased that I will have the pleasure of hosting a minister in my electorate soon. The Minister for Transport is gracing the people of Goyder with a visit—although gracing is probably an unfortunate word. He is choosing to come over, and will open a boat ramp at Black Point that has been built with significant community input. What I intend to do, though, is ask the minister, through this forum and through speaking to him, to actually spend a few hours in the area and look at road infrastructure.

Those of you who have driven on Yorke Peninsula probably wonder about the condition of some of our roads; they go up and down, there are shoulder issues and cambers, overtaking lane needs, and things like that. As a local member, one thing I am spoken to about all the time is the condition about road network.

I know people harp on it all the time. The RAA put out a figure some years ago of a $200 million backlog; no doubt it is in the $400 million range now. For those of us who live in the regions, it is our transport routes, our linkages between different places and our linkage back to Adelaide that are the absolute key for us, so there has to be a focus on improvement of our road infrastructure.

The Minister for Transport, as a new member of parliament but someone experienced in the operations of government, has taken on a very significant role, and one in which I have no doubt, given the quality of the person he is, he will try to make the best decisions, but the priorities are enormous. I do not even begin to try to imagine how the department has provided to him some list of how things fit into the jumble of the maze and how the money is meant to be spent. I have asked for it as a local member a number of times, 'Show me where the forward planning is and where money will be spent over even the next four months, let alone the next four years.' They give you some information, but I think it is a fraction of what it is.

I live in a community that has some level of patience, but the patience is nearly expired. People want to see the on-the-ground results, they want to see improvements, because we are in a demanding society where people say exactly what they think now, and not necessarily care who they are talking to, and they want to see outcomes. Good luck to the Minister for Transport. I would like to work with him on the needs of my community, and no doubt every member on both sides of the chamber would like to ensure that that dialogue exists.

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr GRIFFITHS: Yes, the member for Giles is one who was suggested to me. I am sure he has some needs also in his area, with a very vast electorate, a large area. However, it comes down to that one day, 19 June, when it is out there for review, for scrutiny and for identification of any good or bad thing that exists, and it has to be a day that the parliament uses to the best of its opportunities.

Time expired.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (12:46): I rise to speak on the Supply Bill, and I am looking forward to the state budget being handed down in a couple of weeks to see exactly who will and who will not be happy constituents in South Australia, authorising the appropriation of the $3,941 million for the Consolidated Account for the Public Service of the state for the financial year ending 30 June 2015. Obviously, many people, particularly on this side, have highlighted the shortcomings of the current government. The time it has been in—over 12 years—has been to the detriment of many outside the Adelaide area.

If we look at the impacts over time on small business, and at the impacts on the economy, whether they be positive or negative, we continue to look at the shortcomings of a government that has agendas that are not for all South Australia. In particular, in my electorate of Chaffey I am surrounded by about 4,000 small businesses, and those 4,000 small businesses are reliant upon not so much government handouts but on stimulus and on confidence and, more importantly, they rely on good governance that is there not only to support them and to give ease of passage to undertake business but also to keep them in the game of viability, of being competitive.

Here in South Australia we cannot do a lot about the value of the Australian dollar, but we can put our small businesses on the front foot so that they have the confidence to embark on the challenges of rediversifying their businesses for better strategies potentially to export their produce or manufacturing businesses, to export their technologies, to export the skill set we have in regional South Australia.

We have all said it—and I would say it again—that we have extremely high taxes in South Australia, the highest in the nation. We have the highest water charges in the nation and sky-rocketing electricity and power prices, and I will touch on those shortly. In Chaffey, particularly, as a mostly irrigation district we are paying the price for what has been noted in this place many times, of having a high level of water efficiency and on-farm efficiencies, but that is slowly being undone with the high cost of power.

People here might know that pumping water and putting water into pipes is about pressurising water and about lifting water out of the river, out of the main channel and onto the higher country, and that is what is called 'lifting' water. It is an extremely expensive process in this current climate, with the ever-increasing price of power. Not only are my constituents, particularly the irrigators, being impacted by the uncertainty of water allocations but they are also now being impacted by the high cost of power, and it is ever-increasing.

We cannot see an end to our water bills or where our water bills are going. At the moment, they are going north, and there is nothing that the government has put as a stimulus, as a control point, to put a cap of some sort on escalating power prices. Those power prices will become more and more relevant as time goes by. I think a lot of efficiencies are being looked at at the moment in any business, whether it be in regional or city South Australia. I call on the government to look at ways that capping can be put in place to give some certainty, because at the moment no-one can budget for their input in the forthcoming year when no-one knows exactly what the price of power will mean to their bottom line.

Again, we look at WorkCover. One of the main complaints I get in my electorate office from small business is about the ever-increasing WorkCover levy. It is almost a disincentive, and in some cases it is driving a lot of employment under the table because people are forever paying increased costs to run their business. Also, this component of the WorkCover levy is a real disincentive to employing people because it is one of those necessary evils that has to be part of a wage or insurance package to look after your worker in case there is an unforeseen injury or accident on the premises. It is something else that continues to stifle any sort of confidence or opportunity.

In terms of interstate contracts, I know that I have stood in this place on a number of occasions and talked about government contracts that come up for tender. South Australian businesses are tendering, and they are given concessions for being a South Australian company. They have a certain type of workforce, the people they employ—an Indigenous component, perhaps a handicap component—for those contracts, yet we continually see interstate businesses coming in and undercutting the price tendered by a South Australian business.

Initially, it was always a conspiracy that there was another agenda, but if you delve further it is the cost of doing business in South Australia that is making us uncompetitive with all states in this nation, particularly for some of my constituents who have tendered for infrastructure projects or road contracts. When we look at water projects and big infrastructure builds, every time one of these infrastructure projects gets up we see foreign numberplates coming into the region and fresh faces with decal vehicles from another state. Why is it that we continually look at the short-sightedness of the initial bottom line? It is reducing the confidence for people to invest in South Australia, and it is reducing the confidence for business to employ people to forward think about tendering for some of these contracts.

Again, I want to see the government get rid of that short-term focus and look at the bigger picture because it is not just about the bottom line with the contract price, it is about the ongoing implications that it has with not employing South Australians. Again, we look at unemployment and there are 18,000 fewer full-time jobs since the 2013 state budget. South Australia's jobless rate has increased from 4.8 per cent to 6.3 since Labor's 2010 jobs promise. Again, this is impacting on regional South Australia, particularly in the Riverland, and I note that the Riverland's jobless rate is at a staggering 7 per cent. In my electorate in the Riverland, there are 1,562 people unemployed and that is something never before seen.

Potentially we have a skill set that is required for small businesses but we also have an unskilled labour requirement with fruit picking and processing, particularly at this time of the year, and those people are not able to find work because there is a lack of confidence. Yes, we have been through a drought, and we have been through re-structure, particularly with water allocations, but we are not seeing the confidence to expand businesses or to employ people. People are now running their businesses at less than a viable option. They are now looking at disregarding part of their businesses so that they can survive and just put food on the table for themselves.

What I am calling for is that the region needs a consistent strategy to grow population and today I tell everyone here, the electorate of Chaffey is open for business. If we are looking for decentralisation, the cost of doing business in the city or the cost of setting up a business in the city, come to Chaffey. Chaffey is open for business. It has a great lifestyle, it has great weather, it has affordable housing, it has friendly people, it has the mighty river running through it, and it is looking for people to set up business. It is looking for people to come to regional South Australia to the Riverland, to the Mallee, and set up business there.

There is a skill set just waiting for people to come up and put their proposals on the table. Again, we are looking at further incentives for apprentices and an overall Skills for All focus to target those employment fields. We seem to be focused on training our youth and training or upskilling our workforce, yet we are not focusing on creating new employers, we are not focusing on where are those skill sets, where are they going to be employed, and where are they going to put in an application for a new job?

Again, we look at the confidence that we need and I think particularly regional South Australia has been left on the backburner over the last 10 years. We are seeing a current state government that has a focus on their people—and I say that with a few exceptions—but their people are the people for whom we build big superways and desalination plants. That was a kneejerk reaction. The current government were 'diversity of water deniers'. They looked at stormwater—and I know I have had debates in this place about diversity of water sources, and everyone on the other side of the chamber used to deny that we could recycle water. They looked at reclaimed stormwater. Guess what? All water is stormwater. All water comes from the sky at one point in time. So what we have to look at is—

Mr Gardner: And other places.

Mr WHETSTONE: And other places, as the member for Morialta points out. The lack of foresight with the diversification in water supply here in Adelaide and further afield was mind-blowingly numb. I seek leave to conclude my remarks later.

Leave granted; debated adjourned.

[Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 14:00]

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