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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-07-02 Daily Xml
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Member for Reynell

Mr PISONI (Unley) (15:27): I rise to speak about an issue that is as breathtaking in its audacity as it is mind-boggling in its stupidity. The current member for Reynell, a former boss of the ASU, or the Australian Services Union, spent a brief few months before the state election telling everybody that she was the CEO of a new community organisation called Together SA. I have to admit that that sounds impressive.

While I would have to question how committed she was to this organisation when just a few months earlier she had been preselected for a safe Labor seat, the title of CEO of a community organisation sounds more appealing than ‘union boss’ on anyone’s CV. No doubt that was part of the plan. Perhaps it might be wise at this point to reflect on what the public perception of a CEO is.

A chief executive officer would be expected to be the leader of an organisation, responsible to a board and focused on managing the operations of the entity by which they are employed. CEOs of government departments are typically employed on five-year contracts. Their role is advertised and usually the employment process is robust and competitive. CEOs are full-time positions that require complete dedication.

One would have thought that a new organisation with the goals of Together SA would need its very first CEO to be 100 per cent focused on the establishment of the organisation, with a commitment to its long-term success. A quick look at the member for Reynell’s Facebook page makes it pretty clear that she was campaigning extensively in Reynell instead of doing whatever taxpayers were paying her to do as the CEO of Together SA.

It seems surprising to me that an inaugural CEO would be employed to establish a new community initiative when that person was expecting to enter the parliament within a few months. We will never know what calibre of person could have been employed as the very first CEO of Together SA. As far as I am aware, the position was not advertised and no job specification was referred to on the website or in the annual report of Community Centres SA.

Put simply, the evidence suggests that taxpayer funds purported to support a worthwhile community initiative were in fact used to provide an income for a Labor candidate waiting to enter the parliament. It has been put to me that the government set this up to fund the member for Reynell's campaign to save the Labor Party or the unions picking up the bill; that is, taxpayers have funded this campaign and not the Labor Party or the unions.

In June 2013, the Minister for Social Inclusion announced that the Labor government would provide Together SA with $80,000 over two years. According to the annual report of Community Centres SA, which was used by Labor to channel this money, the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion handed over $97,500 for this program in just one year. From $80,000 over two years to $97,500 in one year is an incredible funding blowout even by Labor standards, and we do not yet know how much money was handed over from 1 July last year. The question is: just how much of this money ended up in the member for Reynell's pocket? We do not know that yet, but we will find out.

I should make it clear that there are many people in the community who are committed to the ideals behind Together SA. I just do not believe that the member for Reynell is one of them; in fact, she has betrayed them. Is there any limit to a union boss's sense of entitlement when it comes to other people's money? There is no doubt that the spirit of Craig Thomson is alive and well in this parliament.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Dear, oh dear! The member for Taylor.

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