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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-07-03 Daily Xml
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Member for Unley

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton) (15:39): It has been about 15 days since I last stood up for a grievance, but it is very important, I think, that I already need to provide an addendum to the list of gaffes that have been committed by the hapless member for Unley over the past six weeks. When I last spoke on this topic those 15 days ago, I recapped what had truly been a horror month of May for the shadow minister.

It began with a ludicrous claim that the government was forcing students to study retail in the hope that they would eventually join the SDA. Of course, the member for Unley squirmed his way out of that one by saying that it was tongue-in-cheek. It might seem obvious, but it seemed a little bit more foot-in-mouth than tongue-in-cheek to me. I think I heard a little bit of a denial today, so I might stand corrected, but I understood that it was written in a press release, so it was not something he could hide.

The Hon. J.M. Rankine interjecting:

The Hon. P. CAICA: Yes.

The Hon. J.M. Rankine: He claims it wasn't.

The Hon. P. CAICA: He claims it wasn't, that's right. Then came the rehashed media release calling on the government to recommit to a new CBD high school. It was a case of (and it is a tried and true practice but it does not always work), 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again.' The member for Unley took this advice very literally and, after he failed to sell his snake oil to the South Australian public the first time round, he elected to simply reissue the same release.

Again, I will stand corrected, but I think that it was Albert Einstein who said, 'The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting different results.' The result was, of course, the same on this occasion: the government remained committed, and remains committed, to building a brand-new high school at the site of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Then three weeks ago, we saw an ever desperate member for Unley make the astonishing claim that Labor had increased school fees to fund the education budget. I am sure members got a few phone calls in their electorate office from people concerned about this claim. It is embarrassing that after so many years as the shadow education spokesperson he still does not understand how the school fee system works. But if he does understand it, it is even more alarming because that means that he chooses to deliberately mislead families.

On Friday of last week, it was reported that an after-hours sports coach from a western suburbs school had been charged with possessing child pornography. The media was alerted to the letter that was sent to parents by—guess who—the member for Unley, up to his old tricks politicising child sexual abuse. Sadly, there is nothing new about this kind of behaviour from the shadow minister, but what was most galling was the comment he made in an article marking a year since the release of the Debelle report. The Advertiser reported the honourable member as saying that he felt academic standards had suffered as the department tried to get on top of child protection issues. This is coming from the very person who has made it his mission to turn child sexual abuse into a political pointscoring exercise.

But, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you thought that this was a new low for the member for Unley, you must have missed the coup de grâce last Friday afternoon. I am reliably informed that the shadow ministers for education and child protection were very keen to be briefed on the government's Child Development and Wellbeing Bill, which includes a commissioner for children and young people, so keen, in fact, that they insisted that it must take place before this sitting week, so it was organised for Friday afternoon. But, lo and behold, the member for Unley was a no-show.

But, of course, we did not have to look far to find him. The radio bulletins that afternoon show that he had chosen yet again to chase a headline about child sexual abuse instead of honouring his commitment to a briefing about a bill and commissioner that would actually do something to prevent that despicable abuse from occurring. If there was ever any doubt about where the member for Unley's priorities lie, the last six weeks have erased all doubt whatsoever.

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