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

Appropriation Bill 2014

Estimates Committees

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (10:31): I bring up the report of Estimates Committee A and move:

That the report be received.

Motion carried.

Ms BEDFORD: I bring up the minutes of proceedings of Estimates Committee A and move:

That the minutes of proceedings be incorporated in the Votes and Proceedings.

Motion carried.

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (10:32): I bring up the report of Estimates Committee B and move:

That the report be received.

Motion carried.

Mr ODENWALDER: I bring up the minutes of proceedings of Estimates Committee B and move:

That the minutes of proceedings be incorporated in the Votes and Proceedings.

Motion carried.

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (10:33): I move:

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

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (10:33): I rise to speak in response to the estimates committee reports which have just been tabled by the member for Florey and the member for Little Para. I thank each of them for their service as Chairs of Committee A and Committee B during the course of this process, which is an important process.

The SPEAKER: Is the deputy leader the lead speaker?

Ms CHAPMAN: No. It is important particularly because the government is asking us to approve under the appropriation the moneys for the various portfolios of responsibility which they have and which they have presented in the Appropriation Bill. The purpose of estimates is for the parliament to convene a committee, which is represented here in the House of Assembly by members of the government and members of the opposition, at which the various ministers and senior members of their staff and their departmental heads and the like, are invited to attend and appear before the committee and provide the detail upon which the expenditure that is proposed is to be approved.

It is an important exercise for two reasons: first, so that, obviously, the parliament can be satisfied in approving and supporting the Appropriation Bill that it is money that is going to be well spent and, secondly, very often to give the department the opportunity to present, via the minister or directly with the minister's consent, the programs they propose in the forthcoming year, together with some report on the preceding year, to satisfy us as a committee and report to this parliament that the money will be well spent again.

It is also an opportunity for them to provide that detail and present their credentials to the parliament on these programs and the proposed expenditure for the benefit of South Australians. Those who read estimates and who are interested in a particular program or proposed expenditure on that basis can go to Hansard and get some detail of that. Some ministers and their departments are very good at achieving this objective and some are not; this year was no exception. There was a wide spectrum of performance, and I wish to refer to a few of them.

It is important to remember the format of estimates having been established is very different from that which applies in the Senate in the commonwealth parliament. In fact, there the federal budget is presented to their Senate estimates and members of the departments and senior personnel from Treasury attend and answer detailed questions about the expenditure and/or proposed expenditure, and it is quite a forensic and long-term examination. Here, it is the sanitised version; it was not supposed to be.

When this was first established as a formal process under premier Tonkin, in his time as premier, when he wanted the parliament to have an opportunity to examine the budget expenditure it was a very different process. What it has become, though, is an avenue for some of the ministers to effectively quarantine information from the public—quite the reverse of what it was supposed to be. They do so in two ways: the first is not to answer any questions or, if they do, only a few; and the second, of course, is that, notwithstanding having brought an enormous number of senior personnel into the parliament, their knowledge and expertise are kept quarantined; that is, they are not given an opportunity to respond to questions.

Let me start by stating, however, that I think the estimate process is important. The way the government is failing to answer or refusing to answer questions is concerning, but that ought to be something that the parliament itself actually expresses its view on. I am now, as a member of it, expressing how disappointed I am. Let's start with those committees I was present for and contributed to, either representing the leader or the party.

First of all, in relation to the Premier I make the point that the Premier's time for examination in one committee was scheduled at exactly the same time as that for the Treasurer. Our leader, because largely the budget is a financial matter, elected to ask questions of the Treasury and very effectively did so. As the government refused to schedule the Premier separately, it was necessary for other members of the opposition to be involved.

The most stunning example of what I would say is the current state of the government was the Premier's confirmation that he had appointed Mr James Hallion, who is the chief executive of his department, as the private sector development coordinator. If ever this was a damning indictment of the current government it was when he described to the committee that the purpose of this appointment was for Mr Hallion to receive submissions for projects to a value of over $3 million from those from the private sector who are stuck in the system.

I am paraphrasing his position, but his exact words were 'for those who were stuck in some system'. This should tell the Premier himself that it is his own government, it is his own administration, which has created a situation where he now needs to put someone who is the head of his department in charge of identifying these projects by a submission and sifting through them. The detail of the process has not been outlined but, nevertheless, he is going to be somehow attached to the Department of Planning, Infrastructure and Transport or personnel will be attached to him to be able to facilitate this.

We did, of course, have Rod Hook, who was in charge as the chief executive of the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure. He was sacked by the Premier and paid out a total of over $350,000, including funds that had to be paid for his early dismissal under his contract. The government had plenty of money to pay out somebody they did not want, and they put in Mr Hallion as the private sector development coordinator. This just tells us how this government is haemorrhaging along with processes that are clearly impeding persons outside of government being able to navigate the rules and advance projects for the betterment of the state. I think it is a damning indictment.

The Deputy Premier, Attorney-General and Housing and Urban Development minister also appeared before the committee at which I was present. The Courts Administration Authority is an area of responsibility of the Attorney-General. His Honour Chris Kourakis, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, as head of the CAA, attended and outlined the government’s progress of the courts precinct. The biggest disappointment with that, of course, is that there is no money in this year’s budget to be able to advance it, but I was pleased to hear from the Chief Justice that he is still participating in a program to develop the design and terms of reference for the invitation for expressions of interest.

The Supreme Court, the District Court, the Coroners Court and the Environment, Resources and Development Court (which is part of the District Court structure) are to be housed in the new facility. It is expected to have a second tower accommodating government justice departments, and all of that seems to be progressing. I thank him for his service in that regard. He obviously outlined cuts that his department is expected to make and the consequential effects they may have on the progress and timely movement of justice matters, including trials in courts. It is disturbing.

Nevertheless, probably the most concerning aspect that came from the Attorney-General’s Department was the reaction from members of the profession and the public regarding the government’s announcement to privatise the Motor Accident Commission and its announcement to—before they do that—raid it and take the money. It has resources of over $2.5 billion dollars. It took $100 million last year, purportedly for road safety measures, some of which have not been completed, and this year it is anticipated that it will take $500 million, put it in the Highways Fund and use it for general expenditure. What is to happen to the rest is yet to be determined but it is pretty clear that the funds in the Motor Accident Commission, which should have been used to compensate road accident victims, are now going to be used to fund road upgrades.

The response from the public could not have been more clearly put by the Law Society when it wrote to the government on this matter, saying, ‘The SA government has been less than honest on this with the people of this state’ in respect of its announcement to privatise the insurance scheme, strip off entitlements in legislation last year and, of course, raid the loot that has accumulated in it. That has been a damning indictment.

We have no further information on the future of HomeStart. It is obviously a big income earner for the government. Treasury has done some reports but the Deputy Premier indicated to the committee that he did not have any understanding of what the future of HomeStart was going to be. He had not been consulted, he had not been told about the Treasury investigation and he did not know anything about it. So it seems to be a sort of Sergeant Schultz situation for some of our ministers, as will be evident as we go along.

Minister Gago, the Minister for the Status of Women, presented to the committee in respect of women's matters. It was disturbing to me that minister Gago was not prepared to make any comment or inquiry in respect of what happened to Jacqueline Davies, who was the prisoner at the women's prison found shackled for endless months. It seemed to be of no concern to the minister what happened with her, it was a matter for Corrections, yet it was a very significant issue at last year's estimates.

That is concerning, because it indicates that minister Gago—whilst I think she actually has some genuine personal commitment to the advancement and recognition of the status of women generally—is very quick to move to the easy and cheap options when it comes to women's advancement, and helping women to get into non-skilled employment. Well, hello; women have been in mining, farming and other, what she presents as non-feminised, employment, but she moves to these things.

The hard issues are reading the Coroner's report on the murder of people such as Robyn Hayward, and the subsequent police shooting of Mr Durance, who shot her. These were damning coronial reports, followed more recently by the Abrahimzadeh coronial inquiry into that stabbing and resultant death. These should tell the government that its safety framework and its meeting on domestic violence, and discussions with the Premier's Council for Women, are not enough; they simply are not enough.

For the minister not to be concerned or even able to detail to the committee the provision of domestic violence training and rehabilitation for domestic violence offenders, I find most disturbing. I ask the government, as I do every year, to give some serious attention to these matters and ensure that year after year we are not going back to the parliament without any serious attention to the improvement of the plight of women in these circumstances.

I conclude with Mr Mullighan, the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. I represent the opposition on infrastructure matters and the member for Mitchell represents the opposition in respect of transport matters. In the portfolios to which I contributed in the committees this is one of the biggest in government in monetary terms, and also employs an enormous number of people; not as many as health or education or the police department, but in monetary terms it supervises and provides for the development of infrastructure in the multi millions of dollars every year.

It has been about $1 billion a year—this year it has dropped down to about $600 million—and it is a very important portfolio, so it was very concerning to me, as a member of the committee, that the new minister, who has been appointed since the election, was, frankly, unable or unwilling to answer almost every question posed by the committee. I asked most of them, along with the member for Mitchell—it seemed that the government members did not have any questions to ask, and that is fine—but question after question was put about issues in relation to the management of commercial assets, the leasing arrangements of government properties, areas of responsibility in respect of the planning of infrastructure, and each one was met with 'We'll take that on notice,' 'I don't know,' 'I don't know about that.'

Sitting around the minister were probably some of the most senior public servants we have in this state, people such as Mr Andy Milazzo, the new Acting Chief Executive. There were probably 12 or so seated in the committee, and we had more in the audience. These people are very senior and very experienced, and in my experience they know what they are doing. They are very, very familiar with the projects they have been asked to manage and develop, yet Mr Mullighan, the minister, chose to repeatedly say 'I'll take that on notice.'

He had an army of experts sitting next to him. These people are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars. They are good at what they do but, almost without exception, they were not invited to make a contribution to the committee. I find that very concerning because in that, I think, about an hour and a half that we had, what was extraordinary to me was that there were a staggering 40 occasions when the minister took the question on notice. I look forward to seeing the answers.

He is a new minister. He has to be given some understanding, as he may not be personally familiar with a number of the projects that have been worked up and developed by the government but, when you have an army of people sitting around you who know what they are doing and who otherwise provide briefings individually and who are very experienced and they are not even called upon to make a contribution to the committee, that is obstruction, that is obtuse behaviour and that is unnecessary. It does not augur well for the future of the parliament, yet the Premier keeps saying that his government is open and transparent and wants to be forthcoming.

The other thing that is puzzling to me is how it is that, when you have the opportunity to give that information, you would not be proudly saying to the committee, 'We are proposing this expenditure. This is a really important program; this is what we intend to do with it,' and actually be proud to tell the parliament about what they are proposing—but, no.

The extraordinary example I give of this sort of buck passing through this estimates committee this year was when we asked questions of minister Rau, as Minister for Housing and Urban Development, because the head of planning—he also has planning—Mr Hanlon, had taken over from Mr Hook to be in charge of the planning and development of the Riverbank Precinct. We also asked questions in respect to the Festival Plaza announcements of the government.

Minister Rau says, 'No, that is not in my portfolio. You need to get some information from others.' When the Treasurer was asked about the Festival Plaza precinct, he said, 'You need to get that information. The best person to answer that is the Minister for Infrastructure.' So, yesterday, we asked the Minister for Infrastructure about the particulars of the $46-odd million that has been announced to develop the Festival Plaza precinct behind Parliament House. He does not have a clue. He does not know. He says, 'No, I am not the person to ask on this. You have to ask someone else.' In that instance, 'You have to ask minister Rau.'

So, we go on this merry-go-round of ministers, all of whom pass the buck. Nobody wants to talk about who is going to get paid in the Walker Corporation for the development of this site. There have been announcements. There have been requests for more information about this development. It directly affects us here in the parliament as a tenant for future car parking at the Casino in the ASER precinct and, of course, the Festival Theatre. The government are happy to make an announcement in January or February this year about what they are going to do but, when it comes to answering questions, nobody seems to know about it, so we get sent on this endless merry-go-round.

I can only hope that minister Mullighan in particular, once he gets a bit more experience under his belt, will realise that the parliament is the ultimate arbiter on these things, that the government is accountable to the parliament and to the people of South Australia, and that a level of arrogance, a level of disdain toward the committee—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member's time has expired.

Ms CHAPMAN: —is not acceptable or welcome.

The CHAIR: Member for Morphett.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (10:53): Thank you, Deputy Speaker. Can I congratulate you on the way you chaired the committees that I had the privilege to be on—an iron fist inside a velvet glove, ma'am. We did have a couple of differences, but that is the estimates committee. This was my 13th estimates committee—lucky for some.

I am not here to criticise or complain about the committee, just to explain that there are still issues that we have with the way the estimates committee is run. I understand, though, that the government has appointed one of their members to have a look at that. I just hope that that is going to be a parliamentary inquiry rather than just an announce and defend the system again, because we do not want any announce and defends, and there was some of that during the estimates with some of the issues that were announced in the budget, but I will talk about that a little bit later.

The concern for me, though, was the reduced time that we had—and I remember what some people might say were the bad old days when we worked very long hours late into the night in this place. For example, the health estimates, a $5.5 billion budget, was examined in basically about four hours. I will give credit where it is due, though. The health minister did not have government questions. There was a relatively short opening statement. The Minister for Emergency Services went along the same lines. He gave quite a long opening statement in the disability portfolio where we only had 45 minutes for the whole of the disability sector.

When you look at the values of these various departments, the impact on the state budget, that is a lot of money to be examined in a very short time, and there are literally hundreds of questions going in on notice to the various departments just from my portfolios alone. I will be interested to see how long it takes to get those back and whether we get them back. I hope I do not have to do what I did with one minister which was to send the minister a first birthday card because I had questions that had been there for over a year. I will do it, and I will make sure we do it publicly. I want the system to work, I want the people of South Australia to get the information.

The reduced time was one thing. There were a couple of ministers who gave unnecessarily long opening statements, and I think that is something we have to look at. Whether you call them Dorothy Dixers, set pieces or government questions, they are questions where a lot of the information is already on the record. A lot of time was taken up. If the minister is proud of what they are doing, if the minister is proud of the way the department is working and the way the budget has been set, then they should allow and welcome any questions from members of the opposition.

They should not be afraid to come into this place armed with all the briefings they have. I congratulate the public servants for the work they do, for the hours and the millions of dollars in time that must be spent on preparing those briefings. I know as a shadow minister, having been involved from our side of it for many years now, the hours our staff spend. I thank Heidi Harris in particular, one of my staff, for the extreme effort she goes to in a forensic examination of the budget papers. As I have said before, the budget papers are the height of prestidigitation, they are sleight of hand, they are meant to conceal more than reveal what is going on in the budget, and that is why the estimates process is such a vital process. I will defend the right for us to maintain the estimates process—whether we can improve it, whether we can expand it, whether it goes to another place, that is something I think the parliament needs to look at, and we have said that many times before.

I will quickly go through my portfolios. The other strange thing about estimates is that even the virgins of the estimates committees, the newbies who have come in in this last parliament, know that it is a particularly interesting arrangement where if you have a shadow minister in the other place, they cannot come down to the estimates committees to ask questions, so that is delegated to another shadow minister. In my case, it has been everything from Attorney-General's which was interesting being a non-lawyer—and by saying that I am boasting, not apologising—right through to, as I have had to do on a couple of occasions, the health portfolio. I have had the health portfolio here as a shadow minister and we ran it again this year as the representative of the Hon. Stephen Wade in the other place. It is bizarre that the ministers can come down from the other place but not the shadow ministers, so I think we really need to start looking at that.

I had the health portfolio as part of my responsibilities this estimates. As I said we had about 3½ to four hours for a budget of over $5 billion. There is nothing more important to each and every one of us. As much as our families, it is our own personal health. As members of parliament, we work long hours, we are under a lot of stress, we are expected to perform 24 hours a day seven days a week, so we need to look after our health. We have doctors, nurses, health professionals and all the hotel staff in our hospitals who work extremely hard, so to see this government trying to shift the blame across for what are quite savage cuts to the federal government when we know that they have over a billion dollars of their own cuts is something that is deplorable. We did not get the time to examine that in detail with all the other issues that needed to be raised in health.

The issue that sticks out at the moment is obviously the nearly half a billion dollars—I think it is about $430 million, which, by the time you add on bits and pieces, is close to half a billion dollars—for the EPAS project. That has been put on hold. We warned them about it. I have been asking questions about EPAS, Oracle, EPLIS, ESMI, all the other enterprise systems that have been put in place in our hospitals for years now, in Auditor-General's and in estimates. However, we still see this government ploughing on with the systems that have been shown interstate and overseas to not work. Doctors and nurses here have been telling the bureaucrats and ministers that the systems have issues. Minister Hill and now minister Snelling have to stop listening to the spin doctors and listen to the real doctors and make sure that they do understand what is going on.

The other big issue that is very particular to me, being the shadow minister for veterans affairs, is the Repat hospital. I could not get a commitment from the health minister that the Repat will stay open. We do not know whether it is going to be downgraded, or whether it is going to become an annex of the Flinders Medical Centre, for want of a better description, and, certainly, Tanunda hospital was another one there. If this government wants a world war III just touch the Repat, because veterans are a huge part of our community, a valuable part of our community, particularly with the Centenary of Anzac. Leave the Repat alone. Just leave it alone. It is a very good service. It does need improvement. The buildings are a bit of a rabbit warren, but the emotional support, never mind the physical support for veterans' health that is provided by the Repat, is something that this government will touch at its peril.

I will go straight into veterans affairs on that, because the new Minister for Veterans' Affairs would not give a guarantee either. In fact, he tried to shift the blame across to the federal government, which I found rather surprising, because the Repat hospital is in his electorate and he is the local member for that area. I know the Minister for Veterans' Affairs is a military man and that he has a distinguished service record. He should know the value of the Repat to the veterans not just for their physical and mental wellbeing but also their emotional wellbeing. It is a symbol of what they have been through. It is almost like a war memorial.

To have this government, the health minister and the Minister for Veterans' Affairs not giving a commitment to this place, not giving a commitment to veterans, not giving a commitment to South Australians, that this hospital will stay open, to me is an absolute disgrace. They try to shift the blame across to the federal government. We know that they are paying $30 million a day in interest on the debt that has been created, so they are under the pump just as this government claims it is under the pump, and we know they are, because they are paying $3 million a day in interest on their debt. To try to then have the veterans as collateral damage in this is something that is not going to be acceptable to anybody.

The issue of mental health for veterans in South Australia will keep increasing as veterans come back from recent conflicts, everywhere from the Solomon Islands, East Timor, Iraq, and Afghanistan. More and more veterans are being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress and mental health issues. We need to look after our veterans and their mental health. The Repat is part of that, and also expanding it to the Lyell McEwin hospital is another important part of that.

With veterans affairs, the big thing that has been put out there, as well as supporting the centenary of ANZAC, is the Anzac Centenary Walk from the War Memorial on North Terrace to Victoria Avenue along Kintore Avenue. It will cost about $10 million. Both federal and state governments have raised expectations here for veterans. They have put out the colour brochures, and now they have to deliver. This Minister for Veterans' Affairs needs to go and talk to his federal colleagues to make sure that they are both on the same page because veterans cannot be let down by weasel words or some other scheme, some delay, or anything like that. We need to make sure that veterans are getting what they deserve, and that is for all of us to remember what they have done for our country.

Moving onto disabilities, the big thing with disabilities is that we are moving into a new era with the NDIS. That is going to be something that we look forward to with great anticipation. Once again, like the veterans with the Anzac Centenary Memorial Garden Walk, we have raised expectations in the disability sector and we now have to deliver. It is going to be very, very expensive. The issue with this, though, is that there are significant differences between the numbers of potential recipients that the state department is coming up with and what the federal actuary has come up with. The difference is many hundreds of dollars between the state and feds, so we need to sort that out, because what we have to deliver will be expensive. I think the total budget is about $1.5 billion for South Australia by 2018-19, but if you are doubling the numbers that is an issue we had better get on top of straight away.

The payments to individualised funding participants right now is an issue. The minister assured the committee there are no cash flow problems, but the bottom line is that there were people out there who had no cash. Why? Because they were not getting paid. The department had delays in processing—there was some issue there. The minister has given the committee and this place the assurances that that will be fixed, but it is an issue and we need to make sure that the individuals who need that support are not being put under extra stress because of bureaucratic delays or inefficiencies in the system.

The screening costs of volunteers and employees of disability services is another area where the government just does not get it. Talking to one NGO that provides quite extensive services for a disabilities group, I was told that their screening costs are going up for their volunteers and employees by $250,000 on top of what they are paying now. Was there any discussion? Was there any consultation? A couple of days notice was all they got. Announce and defend! We were promised 'no more announce and defend' by this Premier. What do we have? We have volunteers, NGOs, disability services providers, Riding for the Disabled, they could go under if they are forced to keep paying these extravagant increases in costs.

I will talk a bit more about that in a moment, but I ask the Minister for Social Inclusion whether there was any discussion—what consideration, what social impact studies were being undertaken on the services (the value of the services) and support that these many groups give to South Australia and South Australians. It is not just about the money but about that social impact as well.

We talk about social benefit bonds. We heard the Premier talking about them before the election, and we have seen no movement on that yet. It is something we support—and we support all sorts of groups and programs—but here we are seeing an increase in the levies, the taxes on people who want to volunteer, people who want to do their best for people with disabilities. The big thing with disabilities is that it is a bipartisan area, we will try to do what we can to be as bipartisan as possible, but do not raise expectations and then fail to deliver.

Minister Piccolo also has emergency services. Emergency services in South Australia: again this government just does not seem to get it. They just do not value our volunteers. We hear the Minister for Volunteers say that volunteers put $5 billion in kind into the South Australian economy every year. I would like to know what it is in terms of the CFS, with the many thousands of hours the volunteers put in. To see their funding basically being cut in real terms—and we know the fire services funding has gone down in real terms for the last four or five years.

This government cannot expect our emergency services to be forced to have more and more efficiency dividends placed upon them, and then have their funding cut as well. It does not work. You cannot get blood out of a stone. If you want the emergency services to work, the way they are suppose to work, they way they want to work—and let us remember that when most of us are running away from a disaster or an emergency, these are the men and women who are running towards that emergency to save our souls, to save our houses and to save our families—we should be valuing them. It is something that this government just does not seem to get. Whether they are paid firefighters or in the CFS (and I am a proud member of the CFS, as are many members on this side), the SES or Surf Life Saving—you can keep going on—all those volunteers in our emergency services are priceless. Let us not penny pinch when it comes to providing these services.

The good thing I heard the minister say is that he is not inclined (I assume that means a no, and I will be questioning him and watching very carefully) to have one service model for fire services, because while the volunteers are happy to work well with their colleagues in the MFS, they are very proud of that brand, and that needs to be maintained. I know there are certain sectors of the union movement that are pushing for a one-service model. I would like to see the financial modelling on that, and I would like to see how they are going to make it work. I just do not think they are seeing the wood for the trees with that. We have the Holloway review but we do not have the Ernst & Young review yet. We are looking for the Ernst & Young review on emergency services.

Moving right along to Aboriginal Affairs, this is another area where we are very bipartisan. The big issues we had there, though, is that minister Hunter is the fifth minister we have had. We have the Aboriginal Lands Trust—and I congratulate the new members there. Their report is late, but that was because the Auditor-General had to go over their finances. I am not blaming the Auditor-General; it may have been some other issue. What comes out of that is that perhaps the Auditor-General should be looking at all the funding for APY and Maralinga Tjarutja as well, because certainly issues have been raised there.

We know that AARD has been shifted from the Department of the Premier and Cabinet across to the Department of State Development (DSD) now, but it seems that the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and the Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion do not know who has what responsibility. When you ask questions about food security, the APY task force and the bush tucker gardens, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs said it was DCSI; I asked the Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion and the minister said, 'No, that's in Aboriginal Affairs.' They had better sort it out, because these are very important issues. These are multimillion dollar issues that need to be sorted out.

We are still trying to find out how much money is actually spent globally on the APY—2,500 people. We understand it is about $200 million. The annual budget in South Australia for Aboriginal Affairs is $1.3 billion, but let us sort out who is responsible, because you cannot keep buck passing on the issues of who is funding and who is responsible. With power comes responsibility; with responsibility comes accountability.

There were several big issues with the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion, but the big issue for most South Australians is the cost of screening. We have seen evidence in the last few days of how people will get through, but it is important that we have a very robust—well, it is very important we have a robust screening process, but it is also important that it is an affordable screening process for those at the grassroots.

Volunteers should not be discouraged from volunteering because they have to keep paying and paying and paying. The service providers should not be forced to keep paying and paying and paying, because without them what is the government going to do? What are they going to do if the service providers fall over because of increased costs, increased taxes and increased levies? What will you do? You had better think about the consequences of your actions.

The people who support the parliamentary process in here—we make the laws, we set up departments, but it is all those volunteers and NGOs out there who really make the state work. We think we do, but without them this state would not work. We had better make sure this partnership is something that is locked in and valued, because it is a very valuable partnership.

The other issue that came up with the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion was obviously the concessions and advice for Seniors Information Service. We found out in this estimates that the price has gone from $600,000 to $5.8 million—$600,000 to $5.8 million. We also found out that there were 569 customers who were overpaid $311,157. It is still not working all these years later, and it is a massive blowout in the cost. There are so many costs.

I have one final point in my last few seconds: neither the Minister for Health nor the Minister for Social Housing, who is under communities and social inclusion—neither of them have the courage to say that the Clovelly Park issue is a public health issue; they cannot deny it.

Time expired.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:13): I rise today to give my address in regard to the wind-up of the estimates process here in the parliament. I know we have only had a couple of speakers so far, but estimates is an interesting process, and it is all the better—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: In the worst Chinese term.

Mr PEDERICK: I thank Madam Deputy Speaker who is agreeing with my presumption, I think. We all view it as an interesting process and, Madam Deputy Speaker, you were there for a lot of it.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: All of it in here.

Mr PEDERICK: All of it.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Half of it.

Mr PEDERICK: Yes, in one chamber anyway, so Madam Deputy Speaker is well aware of what goes on during estimates and chairs those sessions very well. But what I will say is that some ministers are definitely better than others.

An honourable member: It's a very small few.

Mr PEDERICK: It is a limited number, but what I will say, to all the ministers, in whatever estimates—and I have not done a full study of both committees—to the ones who gave a very short lead speech or did not wheel out Dorothy, that dangerous government dinosaur that just takes time and asks those Dorothy Dixers—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Government questions.

Mr PEDERICK: I firmly believe that estimates should be the chance for the opposition to raise vital questions. We have limited time anyway, and for the government to obfuscate and have their members ask the Dorothy Dixers I think is a terrible waste of time. The long lead-in speeches are a waste of time. If the government wants to have these internal discussions, I am sure they have their party room meetings where their questions can be raised and they will probably get more answers than we do. Be that as it may, I will commend the ministers who did let us have the floor, even after a long lead-in speech at times. I certainly, from my end, as the member for Hammond, appreciated that.

The committees that I was involved with were environment, water and natural resources, primary industries and regional development. In environment estimates there was long lead speech and then we proceeded to questions. I got on to the question about prescribed burning and the minister tried to fob it off and say that it was not a problem, but over many years now we have seen the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources (DEWNR), or whatever its body was called in previous times, go out and take a prescribed burn. I know there was one in Messent several years ago that was supposed to burn about 25 or 26 per cent of that park down at Keith and they burnt three-quarters of it.

Another issue I raised in the estimates was about the recent fire in the Gawler Ranges, which also overachieved. When I say 'overachieved'—and I used this term during the estimates process—that is not a badge of honour; that is when a fire gets out of control and goes behind the containment area that you are supposed to control it in.

I have had a bit of experience, as a member of CFS and a farmer, of fighting a few fires, lighting a few fires in burn-offs and also controlling fires, so it is disturbing that as time goes by we still see these things happening. What concerns me is that because of cuts to the staff numbers involved in the Department of the Environment, Water and Natural Resources, what is going to happen in the future? We will have less control—less control.

For all the people who think wonderful things are happening out there in the environment and it is getting looked after properly, I do not believe it is. I certainly understand the need for controlled burns. I have witnessed and seen some terrible fires and the results of them in Billiatt Park and Ngarkat. Ngarkat, I have mentioned in this place before, is like a magnet for lightning. With less staff I think we are going to have massive issues into the future.

Just on that, I will quote what the minister said when I kept questioning about prescribed burning and the problems with them getting out of control in national parks. The minister actually thanked me for recognising that DEWNR is overachieving. He said, 'That is what we try to do—over-deliver for the public.' If that is success, I think the minister needs to have a good look at the Hansard and what he said, and have a real good look at how they manage park fires, because it is not the idea to overachieve in managing fires in parks, as far as prescribed burning goes.

Obviously, a whole range of questions was asked about where we are going with the environment department, and it looks like more park rangers are going. The minister would not guarantee what was happening, so that means there are more park rangers going. I think there are 88 now, but there were several hundred in previous years. Again, it shows that this government has scant regard for our national parks system.

I was also involved in the agriculture estimates, primary industries. Again, we see through the budget process that over the last couple of years another 121.8 jobs have gone from agriculture. When I was questioning the minister about the estimated result from 2013-14 to the actual result, I could not get an answer. I made the point during the process that we have 900 staff in PIRSA but that no-one was in here for the estimates process who could tell me why there was a vast difference between the estimated result and the actual result.

The government will always come back—and I have seen it before with other budgets—and say, 'No, it was only this number.' But, hang on, if you have budgeted for a certain number of staff, those positions should be made up. So, it is a cut whichever way you go about it. Also debated in the estimates was the lowest spend in agriculture in 12 years of this Labor government in relation to the net cost of services. The minister tried to fob this off by saying, 'No, that's the net cost but the total spend is $221 million.'

That may be right according to the budget, but as far as the net cost—what this department is prepared to put into agriculture, $59.8 million—that is the least amount this government has spent in 12 years. However, I will look at the $221 million spend. That is made up of employee benefit expenses, supplies and services, depreciation and amortisation expenses, borrowing costs, grants and subsidies (and I note that includes a federal funding grant on the income side of the budget and commonwealth revenue of just over $76 million), and intragovernment transfers. So, like anything with the budget, it is about how you read it and how people perceive it.

It certainly is disturbing that, again, we have more job cuts and more money cut out of agriculture. We have seen it happen over the last five years, where hundreds of jobs have gone and at least $100 million cut from the primary industries spend. We know that this Jay Weatherill Labor government, when they deal with Olympic Dam, the new expansion (the second expansion did not happen), all of sudden say, 'Oh, we're reliant on agriculture,' yet there is no money going agriculture's way, not in comparison to what the Premier is saying to us that he believes the input from agriculture is for this state. I think it is time the government took a good hard look at what happens out there in regional areas and sees how vital agriculture and primary production are, being the backbone of the economy.

However, after saying that, we see that the government is getting rid of another two research centres. Flaxley has been empty for years now—it has obviously taken a long time for people to work out how they are going to get rid of it, and it is on the market; now, sadly, we see Lenswood Research Centre on the market, as well. Both these centres have been vital centres as part of our research programs into dairy and horticulture in South Australia. Flaxley is listed as one of the assets that will be sold as part of the $680,000 income side from sale of assets. I note from the year before there was a deficit of I think $57,000 from selling a vessel and a trailer, so one would hope that the asset sale program might be a bit more successful.

The sad thing is the assets sales that are being looked at now, these vital research centres, and it makes me really worry about the future of Struan, a research centre at Naracoorte, which I know the government has been running right down. It makes me worry about the future of Turretfield, and I know that Minnipa has been talked about out in the regions, and people are worried about whether that research centre will go. That would be a real tragedy, and I cannot quite see how the state can do that because, as far as I understand, it is part of the national framework of grains industry research, but anything can happen with this Weatherill Labor government.

It was interesting that when minister Bignell went into one answer about clean and green and selling product to China and other places he mentioned the GM-free status of South Australia. He was talking about the supposed benefit and, before anyone gets too excited about what I am about to say, we on this side of the house do support investigation and we do support a moratorium on GM cropping. But after the minister had finished that commentary, when I asked what science-based evidence there was and what work had been done to show that the state actually has a real benefit from GM-free, he answered, 'Oh, it's anecdotal.'

If we are running a state's agricultural production system on anecdotal comments, that really worries me because there is a whole range of anecdotal comments out there in the public sphere. I think the minister—we well know his bent: he is waging a war, I think, against Monsanto—is doing this based on anecdotes. His department obviously had not done any work on whether or not being GM-free as far as a marketing tool is beneficial.

I certainly know that you will get other people in politics, and it might be the Greens, who will say that Japan will not take GM canola. Well, that is a lie because they are already taking it from Canada co-mingled, where they co-mingle it: they put GM canola and traditionally-bred Canola together. I would like to see the government do some more work. They need to talk to their researchers out at the century-old Waite area about the work they are doing in regard to agriculture on all scales, whether it be traditional breeding or GM breeding, and perhaps get the minister up to speed on what is happening around the world.

I also asked quite a series of questions about ovine Johne's disease testing and the effect that can have on sheep producers in this state. I appreciate that the adviser was a vet, I believe, and his comments were that people are not put into quarantine from a screening test but that it does affect their market, so obviously it affects profitability. The responsible person has to make a clear decision that he does not want to upset the wool industry any more, so people who have had these notices—that have not been proven, it is just a screening test—in regard to testing for OJD will take a big hit. The sad thing is at the ram sales they will take that hit, but there is no compensation, and that is very sad.

I could go on, but time is running away and I need to talk about regional development. This is a very interesting time with the new Minister for Regional Development. He gave quite a lengthy lead-in speech—it was about 13 minutes.

Mr Griffiths: 13½.

Mr PEDERICK: It was 13½ minutes, I am reliably informed by the member for Goyder who did a great job during the estimates process just staying alive. I have mentioned this before, but I must say that I have seen some interesting performances by ministers over the eight years I have been here, and this was the worst performance of a minister I have seen in regard to estimates. We managed to get up only limited questions in the time, after the long lead-in speech. Then we had the Dorothy Dixers from the government's side to fill in time as well. Then we saw that the advisers did not even have the obvious answers to the Dorothy Dixers lined up ready for the minister. It was very difficult to get many answers at all to our questions.

A very big issue that was raised was about core funding for regional development associations. This is a huge issue out there. What the regional development associations (RDAs) out in the field are telling me is that a lot of them had been living on their savings for the previous 12 months, as far as the financial year process is concerned. These people are really looking down the gun with respect to how to fund their core activities—this is a business about opening the door in the morning and running your office—and they are using up their cash reserves.

I am reliably informed that one of the associations that deals with Geoff Brock's (Minister for Regional Development) own area, the area of Frome, Mid North and Yorke, thought that they were going to close their doors. I wonder whether there is a special deal being done to prop them up to keep the minister going.

The minister told us in estimates that boards were all signed off—that their CEOs had signed off on the deals for this $1.6 million—but the information I am getting is that the boards basically had a gun held to their head and were bullied into agreeing to the way it had to be done. It is all linked to grant funding, and people are going to have to be very creative with their grant funding applications to make sure that they retain staff, keep them on the ground, so that they can run projects. It will be interesting to see whether this has been placed on every government department. If they had to rely on grant funding, it would bring a whole new paradigm to the way government works.

What I have heard also out there in the field is that, allegedly, advisers have been telling minister Brock that the RDA has never had core funding, which is a blatant lie because they did, and that is how they operated. If that is what has happened, that is an absolute disgrace. These advisers are making this big money and are telling Geoff Brock when to get out of bed and when to go to work. They need to have a good look at what is going on.

In the last couple of minutes before closing, I want to say that I did challenge the minister about why he has not come out to Murray Bridge to have a look at the Gifford Hill project. I asked him soon after he was made the minister to come out; I rang him personally. I know that he was out there once when I was in a meeting with him, and then he was out there last week with some chief executive officers. But then he said, 'No, I can't get out,' and I said, 'Well, I'm free next week,' but who knows whether or not we will see him.

Sadly, I think the biggest problem with what Geoff Brock negotiated with the Premier when he was the member for Frome (and I did raise this in estimates) is that he asked for only $39 million for regional funding when he could have matched the $139 million the Liberal Party had put up, and he would have done a far better deal for regional South Australia and perhaps we would have got that $15 million funding that the Liberals had up as a policy for the racing club development in Murray Bridge, which would have provided funding for up to 1,000 jobs over time. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it has been a disappointing estimates time.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (11:34): I intend to have a few words to say about the estimates process. Like other members, I was absolutely ecstatic; I could not wait to get here Wednesday for my day and a half of the estimates process. It was the highlight of my parliamentary year! I know that some on the other side had the delirious experience of having five days in here. As it turned out, our time was restricted on this side. Indeed, the new members since the election had the distinct advantage of being able to sit in on most of it, which was very good for them. I am sure that members got a lot out of it.

The member for Hammond made some mention of the session the other day on regional development and local government, etc. I sat in on the regional development estimates with the longwinded statement from the minister. My view is that these statements should be done away with by both sides and we should just merely ask questions. I find it totally ridiculous and a complete waste of time to sit there and listen to 13, 14 or 15 minutes, whatever, of dissertation, that is, a minister reading a prepared statement verbatim, and then they are singularly unable to articulate answers to questions without copious communications with their public servants.

Indeed, in one hearing I was in, I did a count of the number of public servants sitting here—and it is no reflection on them whatsoever. I counted 60 ministerial staffers and public servants for one minister. The top gallery was chock-a-block full, the Speaker's gallery had many and there was a number on the floor. I think it was 58, actually, to be perfectly correct. I find it ridiculous to have 58 people sitting here and a minister who was not able to answer any questions.

It concerned me, on the regional development scenario, that the minister seemed unable to answer the simplest questions. Indeed, he could not even give the rate of unemployment in his own area for that regional development board and the Upper Spencer Gulf, which the member for Goyder asked him, and will no doubt articulate on when he gets his opportunity to speak.

I found that disappointing. I like the Minister for Regional Development. He is a nice fellow and a decent fellow and I have had many good chats with him but, in my view, he is unable to pick up and he is getting done over by his staff, ministerial advisers and public servants at every opportunity. He needs to get out there and be himself and put things in order. I find it unfortunate that that is the situation.

I need to also pick up on the member for Frome (the Minister for Local Government). I have great concern about some areas of local government in this state and, sadly, my greatest concern at the moment is currently for a council in my electorate, that is, Kangaroo Island Council. I intend to have more to say about that in a debate coming up in the near future, but I am wondering where it is going to end up. Successive local government ministers have failed to deal with what is going on over there. My view is that the LGA is, to some degree, incestuous and they prop up failing councils without dealing with the core issue.

I have witnessed over the last few years an ongoing culture of bullying and intimidation within the Kangaroo Island Council. This worries me deeply. It is not going away. In fact, even this morning I have had further evidence of that and I am not going into that today. In the last three years, over 30 employees have left the employ of Kangaroo Island Council—of a total of 64—for various reasons, many of them stress related, and I will have further things to say about that. It needs to be dealt with.

I urge the Minister for Local Government to use his best judgement on this matter. I intend to sit down with him in the near future and talk about it, but I intend to flesh it out even further in this place. It must be stopped. My personal view is that the council needs removing and an administrator—I am not talking about a commissioner—needs to be put in to sort it out once and for all so we can go forward, because it cannot continue as it is. That is a challenge for the Minister for Local Government. How long he remains in that position is unknown. We have had a succession of local government ministers. I am sure he will remain in that ministerial position until whatever happens happens, but it worries me.

I think, likewise, we are going into the local government election scenario where nominations close in a few weeks time in September. There are people starting to shoot their hands up around the place. I heard a radio interview with somebody the other day who is intending to stand for Unley council, which I found interesting. In a sign of the times, the former mayor of Victor Harbor, Mary-Lou Corcoran, has stuck her hand up and said she wants to be mayor down there again. I think the community will make those judgements and it is not up to me; whatever happens, happens there as well.

It also concerned me that, at any given opportunity, the current federal government got the blame for just about everything. There was never any mention of what happened under the former prime ministers Rudd, Gillard, Rudd or the incompetence of the former federal government and the fact that it had to be cleaned up. If there is something wrong in somebody's department, apparently the current federal government is a part of it. You need to move on with this. It is not their fault. I know the budget for the federal government has been a tough sell and there could have been ways that they could have changed that, but that is their call, not mine.

What I see is a federal government that is intent on setting the agenda. The repeal of the mining tax was a godsend for South Australia and Australia—an absolute godsend. Let me say also that I believe that last week, when those horrendous events occurred in the Ukraine, Prime Minister Tony Abbott did an absolutely outstanding job in dealing with that, and he was supported by Bill Shorten, the federal opposition leader, in an appropriate manner. I believe we have an outstanding Prime Minister who articulated a response and acted particularly well and also included the foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop, who seems to have been around the world in about three days. So, it concerns me that the federal government does get the blame for everything.

I attended the hearings yesterday with the Minister for Social Housing and the minister who is also the Minister for Volunteers, and I want to return to the volunteers in a moment, but social housing is a big issue in my electorate, as it is in other members' electorates. Once again, we do not seem to have a clear strategy on where we are going there. This morning, I had a phone call from a very, very concerned senior government agency representative on Kangaroo Island who is pleading with me to speak to the minister to stop having dysfunctional families sent to the island.

They cannot help being dysfunctional or having been abused, I totally understand that, but they are still sending people to the island where there are not the support services necessary to assist these people. It is just not there. They may get it in Victor Harbor—there are more services there, just speaking about my electorate—but to send them over to an isolated community where they cannot be dealt with appropriately and cannot be looked after and given the care and support they need is most inappropriate. It has to stop. I will say more about that in the near future as well, I think, because it is something that needs to be raised and put on the floor of the parliament.

We had quite an interesting little session on volunteers yesterday afternoon, and I would like to tie the Minister for Volunteers in with the Minister for Environment and the Minister for Emergency Services, and perhaps the rest of the cabinet. I had a phone call from a volunteer and then I met with another volunteer the other day who told me, 'Did you hear what has happened with the parks passes?' For the benefit of the chamber, parks passes are something that members of CFS and SES are issued with: a family parks pass which enables them to go into some of the national parks for their volunteer contribution—a great idea.

I said, 'Well, I understood they are continuing on as normal,' and this particular CFS volunteer said to me, 'That is not quite right.' He happens to be on KI, again, I am afraid. I said, 'What's going on?' He said, 'Well, I took my family to Flinders Chase,' which happens to be the biggest park on the island with the best camping and plenty of attractions and walks, etc. I said, 'What happened?' He said, ' I was told the parks pass is not applicable. You can't use that in Flinders Chase.' He also mentioned a couple of parks on the mainland, the names of which escape me, and I will source that.

What sort of spin exercise is this, coming from the government? They say, 'Here is a pass to allow you to participate in enjoying the national parks,' yet you cannot go to these particular parks. This is the biggest park on the island and it is a place that people have been going to for generations, well before the current situation has evolved. That is also something that I ask members opposite to give consideration to. If you are going to give out a parks pass, it should be applicable to all parks. Country people do not have public transport, they do not have this, they do not have that and they do not whinge about it—well, not too much, anyway.

The fact of the matter is, if the government wants to put out an exercise such as a parks pass for volunteers, for heaven's sake, make sure it allows them to go into the parks. No-one wants to go to Seal Bay. That is referred to as some sort of headquarters down there and no-one wants to go there very much. It is not a very great experience these days, I am afraid, but they do want to go to Flinders Chase. For a family to go down there, have a barbecue or camp down there overnight or do the walks, such as the Platypus Walk, or go to West Bay down to the arch, the rocks, because of their service as a volunteer with CFS, I believe is most appropriate. I support that, but I do not support cutting out certain parks.

In relation to the Department of Environment, I also talked about the ongoing penguin issue. Let me say that I am fully supportive of the efforts of the Mayor of Victor Harbor, Mr Graham Philp, who is a fine mayor and deserves to be re-elected, in my view, but that is another story. He is a fine mayor and he has made a passion of the penguin issue—the lack of penguins on Granite Island and the visitor experience. He deserves more support from government than he is getting and I think he deserves to have recognition for his efforts in doing that and he should be brought to the fore. We all know penguin numbers are disappearing. There are various reasons why. They are pelagic feeders which means they go into deep water, but that is not to say they do not clean up a percentage of the fish in shallow waters as well.

I am no expert on penguins, but the huge increase in the number of fur seals, which is natural, is indicative that the problem of reducing penguin numbers in some areas will not go away. Some of those areas in particular are in my electorate—Granite Island, Victor Harbor, Penneshaw and Kingscote where the penguin numbers have really dropped away dramatically, but mayor Philp is passionate about this. He has put a lot of work into it and he deserves all due recognition and support for his efforts in trying to maintain that penguin population community down at Victor Harbor.

I would also like to thank very much my staff member Hannah Cohley who did a huge amount of work on the budget in preparation for questions, which I was able to use. Hannah is a highly skilled, highly intelligent young lady who does a fantastic job and I am delighted to have her.

I would also like to speak about the way I listened to and related to the contributions by two ministers—the Treasurer, Mr Tom Koutsantonis, and the new transport minister, Stephen Mullighan. All I can say is that the Treasurer had better watch out because he is coming to get him. He is going to make mincemeat of him in due course, in my view, when eventually what happens happens and the current Premier is moved on.

The transport minister was highly articulate in his efforts in the estimates committee. He did not seem to need to refer to public servants at any time; he answered questions and took things on board. He might have been a bit too much of a know-all in some cases, but he was articulate, and I think that the Treasurer needs to watch his back really closely. However, that is for the government to sort out.

I turn to the Veterans’ estimates. I listened to the Veterans’ estimates input with some interest, but I did not get a lot out of it apart from the concerns about the Repat Hospital. I turn now to the Attorney-General’s estimates and the Kangaroo Island Futures Authority—and this just amazes me—which comes under the jurisdiction of the Attorney-General.

Earlier this week I got a phone call to ask whether I was going to the KI branding launch last night in Kingscote, and I said, ‘Well, I don’t know anything about it.’ As luck would have it, I had an email copy of an apology put in by the federal member Jamie Briggs, who was unable to attend, so I tried to do a bit of checking up on what was going on. I communicated with the KI Council CEO, Mr Boardman, who said yes, he was going, but they were not involved. I said, ‘Fine, thank you very much,’ and contacted the KI Futures Authority to see what was going on. They said, ‘Oh yes, there was something on last night,’ and oh yes, I can get a brief about it.

So, this morning, I received two phone calls from island people to say, ‘Why weren’t you at the KI brand launch last night? It was bigger than Ben Hur.’ I said, ‘Well, it’s pretty simple: I wasn’t invited.’ Now, we may not be in government, but I actually work in this parliament for the residents of my community, and I find it disgraceful that the Attorney-General should have—

Mr Griffiths: It’s a shame.

Mr PENGILLY: It is a disgrace that the local member—I do not care whether it is me, but if the government’s agencies or officers have removed the name of the local state member from invitations purely for personal reasons I am disappointed, because that is not what it is all about. As it turned out, I could not have gone last night, but I could have sent—

Mr Pisoni: For spite.

Mr PENGILLY: Yes. I could have sent a representative. I enjoyed a workshop a couple of years ago on the KI brand proposal, but I find it a sad state of affairs when personalities are actually dragged into this and local state members of parliament are excluded by a minister’s—I am not suggesting it was the Attorney-General at all, but acolytes or whatever you may care to call them. I think that needs putting on the record.

Last week, the Minister for Emergency Services gave a briefing on the island. The headline in The Islander this week was, ‘Minister visits; Holds talks on emergency services structural reforms.’ I attended that, and I introduced the minister; I did the right things and said the right things, but quite honestly, it was something of a joke. The other headline on the front page says:

The local organisations are under-budgeted now and they want to save more money—

This is the government—

The volunteer services here on the island will be keeping a close watch on what they are doing.

I put it to the minister that he went there not knowing what he was trying to sell—I did that in the meeting and got a lot of applause. It is a sad situation when the minister has been put on the rack to save money, yet he does not know what he is selling, and volunteers are going to be at the forefront of any collateral damage from this exercise.

My view and that of the volunteers—and many of them were there that night—was that the firefighters union were trying to grab complete control and take over all emergency services operations, management and everything else. They are mightily concerned about that. Once again, they are volunteers. I had this battle about 20 years ago, so it is disappointing that the minister has been put in this position and cannot actually tell us what he wants to achieve apart from a 1 per cent saving. So, Madam Deputy Speaker, the estimates process was a failure in my view.

Time expired.

Mr PISONI (Unley) (11:54): We have heard a lot of comments this morning about the government using this estimates as a shielding exercise. I think it is the first time that I have seen such an extensive number of shielding efforts by the government. It appeared to me to be a coordinated effort between those who were chairing the committees, the government members asking the questions, the ministers, and the ministers' advisers, and if you look at the budget you can understand why.

The budget comes from a background of broken promises in a record deficit of $1.2 billion on top of a $1 billion deficit last year. Of course, do not forget that back in 2011 this government promised that this year the budget would return to a surplus of $480 million. There has been an enormous turnaround in that period with the government racking up $14.3 billion of debt which it is now responsible for.

If we remember, the government said that this spending was all about creating jobs and then we see last week that South Australia has overtaken Tasmania as being the state with the highest unemployment rate in the country. Every month a vacancy report is put out by the Department of Employment and yesterday there was more bad news with it telling us that there has been an increase in job vacancies in every state, averaging 10 per cent over the last 12 months, but here in South Australia we went backwards. We were the only state that actually offered fewer opportunities for people to work compared to any other state or territory—even Tasmania—over the last 12 months.

We are in a situation here in South Australia where, on every economic measure—and you just need to look at our NAPLAN results and our training results, with the lowest number of training commencements in the September quarter last year, with cuts of $90 million in a single year to training through the Department of State Development—we are in a very, very poor way when it comes to opportunities, particularly for our young people here in South Australia.

I made the point in my opening remarks with the Minister for Employment that we are very fortunate to have found a very capable trainee in our electoral office. We were having a conversation just the other day and she said that the job she got at the Unley Electoral Office was the 150th job that she had applied for since completing her two degrees—her 150th job she had applied for here in South Australia. We were pleased that we were able to secure her, but what an enormous burden for our young people to go through to get a start in life, and I think that it is important that we remember how significant our first job is to get a start in life.

South Australians have been extremely patient with this Labor government. They have been promising deficits, they have been promising jobs. Remember the 100,000 job promise back in 2010? What the government has delivered, of course, are massive debt levels and their failure in all main economic and social indicators—whether they be employment, education, debt or taxation.

In theory, estimates provides the opposition with an opportunity to conduct a detailed examination of state spending, but in estimates on Monday, Mr Hunter in the other place—the Minister for Environment—spent 14 minutes on an extended ministerial statement in an allocated 30 minutes, and also used that time to go to the toilet, instead of answering serious questions on contamination that have been the focus of community concern for the last three weeks here in South Australia.

We should remember that it only came about because the Liberal Party, the member for Dunstan, the Leader of the Opposition, raised those questions in the parliament. It was confirmed that the government knew for a substantial period of time about the contamination issues and it was also confirmed, of course, that there was no rush to deal with the issue, even though they were planning to evacuate people from their homes, and they had not placed people in homes that had been vacated for several years earlier because they had no communication strategy or a 'spin' strategy in place to deal with that. Of course, the minister was flanked by 21 taxpayer-funded ministerial and departmental advisers for what amounted to probably 20 minutes of parliamentary questioning from the opposition.

The Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills likewise had 22 personal department staff in attendance to witness her mainly reading from a series of prepared answers to Labor committee questions that they had obviously spent weeks preparing for. It would be nice to see not only greater transparency but, to be quite honest, ministers who are capable enough to be across their portfolios to actually have a go at defending and explaining their budgets when asked questions by the opposition in the parliament.

The Minister for Education outdid herself and I think held the record for all ministers when it came to blocking access to opposition questions. There is no doubt that the Premier's claim for an open and transparent government was severely clouded by the education minister's denying the opposition any reasonable time to ask questions or even to get a flow on questioning with supplementaries on important issues.

A quick analysis of Hansard shows that there were 4,000 words answering questions from the opposition and 9,000 words answering questions from government members—extraordinary filibustering and an extraordinary attempt to block any scrutiny of the budget by the opposition, particularly in regard to the education budget.

Ministers, like the Minister for Education, want to regularly complain about just how many FOIs the opposition puts in and the cost that is to taxpayers, but I put it to the minister that simply answering questions would save the taxpayers an enormous amount of money. The minister's job is to answer questions, rather than instruct her staff to concoct questions that attempt to belittle her opponents, whether they be the member for Unley, whether they be members of the public, whether they be other commentators on education matters, and focus on answering serious questions about education policy and the budget.

Unfortunately, with the record of this Labor government for covering up their mistakes and sweeping management and controversy under the carpet, FOIs do become the only option for those who want serious answers from this government. Ministers should make things much simpler and simply answer the questions. It would be nice to see not only greater transparency but, to be quite honest, ministers who are capable enough and across their portfolios enough to actually have a go at answering those questions.

Sadly, the revolving door of ministers in my portfolios—the education minister is our third minister in four years and the employment and training minister is our sixth minister in six years—is an extraordinary situation, but I am sure there is a reason that there have been six training ministers in six years. Maybe there is just confusion about the role of the training minister, maybe the government thinks that it is that portfolio that trains the minister, but in actual fact the role is responsible for the very important area of employment and training.

I will use this opportunity to take offence on behalf of the Custom Coaches staff who were told by the acting employment minister on the radio that they needed training. These are some of the most highly skilled tradespeople in the country, and the minister's answer for them when they lost their jobs was that they need training. That is an insult to any tradesman, anybody who is dedicated to craftsmanship and who has spent their life delivering some of the highest quality work that comes out of somebody's hands in the country. People do not want training, minister. What people want are jobs and unfortunately under this government those jobs are simply not there; those opportunities are not there.

In an ABS report into the availability of labour here in South Australia, under-employment rates for South Australia show that 2.8 million hours every week are available for employers. In other words, there are 2.8 million hours available from South Australians who want the work and want the income, but the opportunities just simply are not there for them to be paid to deliver those hours. I am sure there is plenty of training for them, I am sure there is plenty of volunteer work for them, but what they actually need is to be able to put a meal on the table; they need to earn a salary, a wage, an hourly rate so they can be independent contributing members of society.

I think we need to look at some of the budget items that were discussed during the estimates process. We learnt that efficiency dividends were brought forward by 12 months in the education budget, despite what you hear from the education minister, that there are more savings happening in her department with the state budget than she is prepared to admit. An amount of $223 million of savings was put in place in the education sector even before there was a change of government in Canberra, which also includes the child protection budget.

That whole portfolio, if you recall, was the brainchild of the Premier, to put that altogether: education and child protection. We are the only state, the only jurisdiction that does that. It is a model that was inspired, I think, by Keith Bartley and the work he did in Oxfordshire in the UK, and we saw what a disaster that delivered last July, with the conviction of half a dozen or so serial rapists associated with their child protection system.

The Magill education precinct—remember that big promise during the election? The budget tells us that that is nothing more than a feasibility study; $250,000 available from 2014-15 and then nothing. Two years of dashes with no figures in them, so there will be a feasibility study. We know how notorious the education department is for consultants’ reports and feasibility studies. They commission them, they have them done, but then they do not act on them.

Peter Allen was very clear in his review on just how wasteful the education department has become in its management style. I think he identified hundreds of thousands of hours a year of meetings with no outcomes. He identified that different departments within the education department work in silos. I think he also identified that those in management roles in departments ignore the directives of their immediate managers and just go on and do what they like and there is no reporting process or follow-up. Quite frankly, it was a mess. The Allen review described an absolute less. Now this week we learn of the horrific news of more children in the care of the government who have become victims.

The new city high school—remember that debate during the election? I think anyone would have expected that the $85 million announced by the government would be new money, but the budget tells us that $54 million of that money was already there and that it has simply been taken from other projects. It was yet to be allocated so we will never know who missed out, but I am sure that an increased number of principals who applied for capital grants and capital improvements will receive refusal notices this year.

Investing expenditure is down nearly $77 million from the previous year, a tremendous drop-off in new spending in our schools. I think it is fair to say that there has been a consistent amount of money spent on new schools over the years, regardless of who has been in office, but we are now reaching a stage where we are seeing the biggest drop off—certainly that I can recall—in spending on new buildings in schools.

Of course there was also the announcement during the election of a new teacher renewal program, and during the estimates process we learned that there are still legal difficulties with the last program. Back in 2011-12, I think, the government offered a $50,000 bonus—which was effectively a cash bonus because they got a tax exemption through the ATO and it was gazetted in the federal government Gazette—that enabled teachers who did not meet minimum standards to apply for this $50,000 and receive it virtually tax-free. Another round was set up to go in 2013, I believe. The exemption was granted and gazetted, but it did not go ahead because there was a challenge, through the Equal Opportunity Commission, regarding the discriminatory nature of the program. We learnt that that challenge is still pending, yet it was announced as an election announcement by this government, that it would do that again.

Of course, the minister was unable to answer. In last year's estimates we did not have a chance to go there in more detail; this year, because of the shielding of the minister by government members, the minister was unable to answer how it is that a teacher can continue to get registration every three years, when one of the requirements of registration is that the teacher must meet minimum standards, yet also qualify for a tax exemption based on the fact that they do not meet minimum standards. It is an extraordinary situation that we have here in South Australian, and we will wait with interest to see what happens there.

We also learnt that the minister is still being kept in the dark on important issues. It came as a complete surprise to the education minister that Mr Harrison had written, and also published, an apology to Jan Andrews for defamatory comments that he had publicly made about her involvement in the so-called Debelle inquiry, and also that there were legal costs dispensed by the Department of Education. Her initial response was 'No', but then she was corrected by Mr Harrison. I am sure there was a briefing after estimates about the full details of that.

So we still have that culture that was identified by Mr Debelle, the culture that was identified by Mr Allen, and the culture that will no doubt be identified in any new royal commission into the latest child sex offences on children in government care in South Australia. Things simply do not change. The culture here in South Australia has been entrenched, and if you look at the perpetrators of that culture it is the Premier, who has been responsible for child protection for a large period of his time as minister, and, of course, the Minister for Education who confirmed, in the estimates, that she too has been responsible for child protection for this government over a long period of time.

Just quickly on TAFE, we learnt that TAFE had already reduced staff by about 400 since it was corporatised in 2012. We also believe, through the estimates process, that staff will be reduced from the current 2,600 down to about 1,800 by 2017-18. We are still waiting for details to come back from the minister on that, but we believe the minister has been briefed on it.

As I mentioned earlier, vocational education training funding has been reduced from last year by $90.5 million, a significant drop.

Time expired.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (12:14): It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Stuart and make a few comments about the estimates process we have just been through. I will touch separately on each of the six portfolio areas I represent on behalf of the opposition, but let me first just say that I share a lot of the concerns that my colleagues have already raised and I am sure future speakers from our side will raise in regard to the process.

There are enormous frustrations with a system that is set up, on the face of it, to provide information, but a lot of time, effort and work by the government have gone into actually trying to prevent the release of a lot of information as well, so that is a terribly frustrating situation. Let me also say that, until we can change it, it is the system we have, and every opposition member should take full advantage of it to get as much information as they possibly can. While we are frustrated in our efforts to get all the information we want, it is still an opportunity to get as much as possible, and that is certainly the vein in which I entered my questioning of the six different portfolios.

I was fortunate enough to support other members in police, corrections, road safety and emergency services—portfolios I held on our behalf until recently—and those new shadow members certainly made good progress there. I would also like to quickly put on the record my great thanks to my staff member Mr Chris Hanna, who is the other half of our team here in Parliament House in regard to the work we do in our office. He is an exceptionally capable, exceptionally hardworking young man who does a great job and, I think, stands head and shoulders above his peers, who are all very good, by the way. I think he should be very proud of the work he does when confronted by dozens of ministerial staff on the other side.

The first portfolio I would like to touch on is state development. State development is, of course, a very worthy cause. Why would anybody not be keen on state development? It is quite a natural thing to do, so there is no harm in the government having a portfolio for state development, a Minister for State Development and goals for state development.

The problem is that there are six ministers responsible for 13 programs, each of which have multiple sub-programs all tied up in state development. While minister Koutsantonis certainly expressed a different view when I was asking him about this in estimates, I remain exceptionally concerned for our state's development when I know that those six ministers do not all hold the same views and do not all share the same values on a lot of issues. They are all actually competing, ideologically and financially and commercially for their own areas.

I am not confident that the government will be able to merge all these other operating departments and ministers' offices into state development. There is minister Gago, minister Snelling, minister Koutsantonis, minister Hunter, minister Hamilton-Smith and minister Close, and I am sure it is going to be difficult to wrangle them all together.

Minister Hamilton-Smith is already on the record, before he was a minister, as saying that he thought it was a dog's breakfast, essentially, and that it was chaos and confusion that could never work. I do not believe that he will have changed his mind. I believe that he will change the things that he says, but I do not believe he will have changed his mind, and I suspect that at least some of the other ministers involved will hold similar views although, of course, they would not have expressed them in the way that minister Hamilton-Smith did before he decided to join them. That is my main area of concern in regard to state development. It is no doubt a very worthy cause we certainly support in opposition, but we would certainly be putting in place a much more cohesive model than the government is pursuing at the moment.

I will move on to mineral resources and energy, held by minister Koutsantonis, who I know takes a very strong personal interest in this portfolio. He has held it in one form or another—departmental name changes have happened, as have perhaps some responsibilities—since February 2011, and I know that he has a genuine interest in this area. He is also very fortunate to be in the position where his local people's lives, businesses and opinions are not relevant, because they will not be affected by mining, gas, oil and energy developments.

It is very easy for the minister to say, 'I am making decisions in the state's interest and I have had to weigh it all up and I am terribly sorry I am not actually putting a lot of credence in what locally affected people have to say.' It is relatively easy for the minister to do that because he and his government hold very few electorates where people are affected. Certainly Giles is the exception to that, and I think that the member for Giles is likely to find himself in a difficult situation within his government team dealing on this issue.

Let me say also that the Liberal opposition is exceptionally supportive of our resources and energy sector. We want it to thrive, we want it to go ahead, we want it to have every opportunity to create the jobs and the economic benefit that our state deserves by unlocking those resources. There is absolutely no doubt and no equivocation about that whatsoever. Of course, we have the job that the government does not have largely which is to consider our constituents as well, and we do not shy away from that difficult situation.

We are not just going to wash our hands of the constituents and say, 'It is all in the state's best interests so I am not really going to listen to your concerns.' We are not going to say, 'These people on the whole usually vote for us and so we are going to throw the other side of the argument away and just accept whatever local people say.' We will be very actively involved in those difficult discussions. We will represent the people of country and outback South Australia to the very best of our ability and we will also do everything we possibly can to contribute to the growth of our state's economy by unlocking those resources. We will not shy away from that.

It is very easy for the minister to say why don't we jump on board with him? Why don't we just take his view and do what he has told everybody is the right thing to do? Well, it is an easy thing to do for him because he actually has no direct responsibility for those people. We take the job very seriously and we, as local members and as a shadow cabinet, and I as a shadow minister, will deal with those issues one by one responsibly and work our way through to the best outcomes and the best result.

There is no doubt that land access is going to be a very challenging issue in this area as time goes on as mineral, oil and gas companies and other energy companies like hot rocks potentially and other areas of interest are looking at resources closer into country areas. It is going to be a difficult issue and certainly landholders, land managers, have every right to put their views forward, and we will consider them exceptionally seriously. I am sure, just like the government, we will never sacrifice the environment. We will not sacrifice the environment for these developments. We need electricity, gas, oil, minerals for export—we need all of these things—so it is a very difficult challenge, but we will not walk away from it and just take the easy path the way the government has done because it does not have the same interest in local people that we do.

I will move to small business now. During estimates minister Koutsantonis was keen to put out his connection to small business—his parents ran a small business, and no doubt he contributed to it as a family member—and I think that is tremendous. Let me also put on the record that it was not very long ago that I was washing dishes, repairing tyres, sweeping forecourts, making beds and doing all those sorts of things in my own small businesses in outback South Australia, so this is an area that I feel very connected to.

Let me say clearly, the Liberal opposition supports small business exceptionally passionately, and it is not because we want small business owners to get rich. It is okay if they do and, in fact, we are very glad for them if they do, but that is not our reason. Our reason is that we want small businesses to be successful so that small businesses can employ more people, so that small businesses can offer secure employment, so that employees can go to banks to get mortgages, or a car loan, or pay for books for their kids schooling, or put meals on the table, all of those regular things that families need to be doing.

If you do not work for a successful company you do not have secure employment. If you do not have secure employment, your options in life in terms of how you are going to look after yourself and your family start to pull up pretty quickly. That is why we support small business. Small and medium-sized businesses are the largest employment area in our state and nation by miles. That is why we want to support them.

I am particularly concerned to find that quite a number of programs that existed previously have been taken out of this year's budget for small business. We have been told that they have been put into the broader jobs, Our Jobs Plan, and the broader desire to increase jobs. However, if you do not have focused programs, if you do not have programs that target jobs in small and medium-sized businesses particularly, you will not achieve the same results in that area, so that is something that is particularly concerning for me.

I also would like to comment on an area that the minister would not comment on. I understand some of the reasons, and I disagree with some, but some of them I do agree with. It is an area which the government will eventually have to provide some answers to, and it is with regard to the Small Business Commissioner and allegations that he has been, at least temporarily, stood down from his work due to bullying. I cannot say that that is the case because I do not know that, but I am trying to find out that information. I certainly do have an invoice which shows fees charged from the Crown Solicitor's Office to DMITRE for investigation into exactly that.

I invite the minister and the government to share the information, to tell everybody exactly what is going on so that, ideally, the Small Business Commissioner can get back to work. The very best result here is that we find out that they were false allegations, that there was nothing wrong. This is a man I have had several meetings with and had very good engagement with, and I have not found him to be a bully, but we do deserve to know what is going on.

The Small Business Commissioner did not attend estimates. The Deputy Small Business Commissioner did not attend estimates, and another man—and I apologise, Deputy Speaker, I cannot remember his name—from the Small Business Commissioner attended estimates with the minister. I even offered for the minister to share the information privately, in confidence, to give me some security that everything was okay, and then I would leave the issue alone. He was not able to accept that offer, so serious questions still need to be asked.

In terms of manufacturing and innovation—and I am running out of time here, so I will have to be brief with the next three portfolios—I was very concerned to find that, while there are 80,000 jobs tied up in manufacturing at the moment, our manufacturing sector is under great stress. There is no doubt that, with the loss of Olympic Dam and Holdens and the potential loss of future submarines, future frigates, our manufacturing sector is facing many challenges.

While there are programs to increase employment in the manufacturing sector there are no targets, no KPIs, no measurements in place to determine whether those programs have been successful. I said very clearly to the minister, 'How will you know if you succeed if you are not actually aiming to achieve any specific targets?' And the minister said, 'Well, we know the areas, we know the ways, we want to be heading in the right direction, but we don't have targets.' I agree that we want to be heading in the right direction, but you will not achieve if you do not have targets, and that is something that provides me with a great deal of concern.

Unemployment in our state is now the highest in the nation. The last number put out was 7.4 per cent. Every other state in our nation has lower unemployment than we do. This is clearly a vital area. Small and medium-sized businesses, manufacturing and innovation are the areas in which we really have to focus to try to make sure people have secure jobs into the future. That has to be one of the most important priorities of any government: to provide an environment whereby businesses can offer secure employment, but if you do not test yourself with targets, if you do not as a government say, 'We aim for this program to achieve these specific results,' it is very unlikely that those programs will achieve the best results they possibly could.

Automotive transformation: many of my comments would be very similar to my comments on manufacturing and innovation. I pay credit to minister Close, because she, in our discussion about automotive transformation and the funding for that program, very clearly, very concisely, put her personal views on the record about the interrelationship between state and federal government funding, without needing to waste lots of time and make political points and be trying to bag all sorts of people. She did an excellent job. She did not beat around the bush; she said very clearly where she was happy and very clearly where she was unhappy, but she did not need to go into a whole argument, as other ministers have, trying to blame other people incessantly.

I, like every member of this house, would seek, welcome and be grateful for more federal government funding into every area of our state—there is no doubt about it. It does not matter what it would be: if we could have more federal government funding into areas of development that are needed in our state, I would welcome it. I certainly ask for it regularly, and I do not blame the government at all for asking. However, many other ministers have been trying to blame the collapse of the auto manufacturing industry in our state, and other things, on the federal government.

Even minister Hamilton-Smith, before he changed teams and became a minister, used to tell the government, 'You can't blame the federal government, not everything is the federal government's fault.' But, of course, now he is in the state government, he said several times in estimates that it is all the federal government's fault. It is amazing how quickly he manages to change his tune. With cars, and Holden specifically, for complete clarity I remind the house of the comments in The Advertiser on 15 January by Stefan Jacoby from General Motors, Mr Mike Devereux's manager, as I understand it. He said very clearly that it is impossible to make cars here and stated:

The decision to close the factories would have happened anyway. It is fundamentally impossible to produce vehicles in Australia.

Regardless of commonwealth funding—and, yes, I would always welcome more of it—we were going to face this challenge anyway. It is duplicitous of the government to try to blame the federal government for it.

The last portfolio I will touch on—defence industries—is an exceptionally important portfolio, very typically bipartisan. I have every intention of working as well as possible with the government in this area. It is a very exciting area, and one about which I am learning an enormous amount at the moment. It is absolutely vital that we put as much stock on this industry as possible, because it is one of the core foundations of our manufacturing industry in this state, and it also goes towards our national security with regard to our ability to do our own servicing and our own maintenance of our own defence fleet, and I will make more comments on this industry at another opportunity.

Time expired.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (12:34): I rise to make some comments in relation to the great joy of estimates committees. It could well be my last opportunity to comment on estimates committees, which is one of the great tragedies of leaving this place. Maybe I will come in and watch just for old times' sake.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: We will still be here.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: My view on estimates is that they are a valuable form of keeping the government to account. I think the parliament would probably be better served to go to the federal system of estimates. Regardless, there does need to be some system of questioning the government about the budget and where it intends to spend the money. What is clear following the estimates committees is that, essentially, the government's budget is in trouble, and it is in trouble for a number of reasons: primarily because of a lack of discipline on behalf of the government and primarily because it does not value or understand the small business sector in this state and how to give it confidence to employ, which would generate extra revenue for the state through a more buoyant small business sector.

If you stand back and look at what this government has done over its 12 or 13-year term, essentially what the government is saying to the South Australian business community—and let us be clear that the South Australian business community is about a 95 per cent small business community; most South Australian businesses employ less than 20 people. Essentially, what the government is saying to the South Australian business community is: 'We want you to pay the highest taxes in Australia, we want you to pay the highest workers compensation rates in Australia, we want you to pay the highest water rates in Australia, we want you to pay the highest electricity prices in Australia and then we want you to go out and employ and grow your business.'

The reality is that if you go out and speak to small businesses out there—and virtually all of my family are involved in small business in one way or other—essentially, they are on hold because of a number of reasons. First, they do not want to employ more because of the complexities of employment law as it now stands. I accept now that is primarily a federal issue with the industrial relations system going federally.

The new occupational health and safety laws are confusing and create uncertainty, and people are not going to put themselves at risk if they are uncertain, and that is just the truth. There are groups out there that are not employing as much as they could or are not employing because they simply do not understand the risk with the new occupational health and safety laws. Then there is simply the cost of whether you can actually generate enough business to recoup your costs of employing extra staff.

The tragedy for South Australia is that we have a government that really pays scant regard to what is the most important sector in the state, which is the small business sector. If you look at what the government has done, essentially it has sold income-producing assets for the state, whether that be the forests, the lotteries or soon to be the Motor Accident Commission. I suspect there will be some other sales in future budgets between now and the 2018 election.

Having sold the income-producing assets, we are still running budget deficits. In fact, we are running the highest budget deficit in the state's history this year of well over a billion dollars. The billion dollars is more than we got for the sale of the forests and the lotteries together. They have spent that or added that to the debt just in one year's overspend. So, we have sold the income-producing assets—the forests we have had for 100 years and the lotteries for about 40 years. We have offloaded them and, whatever benefit we gained in debt reduction, the deficit this year exceeds it, so it is total economic mismanagement in that regard.

Of course, they are now going to offload the Motor Accident Commission. 'No privatisations' was the promise before the election: 'We won't privatise anything; not the Labor Party, we won't privatise anything.' So, we are now going to privatise the Motor Accident Commission, according to the Treasurer.

Of course, the reason we had to change the third-party compulsory insurance scheme in the last parliament was that the Motor Accident Commission scheme was 'unsustainable'. It was unsustainable to continue to give injured drivers and passengers the level of support that had been in place through the compulsory third-party scheme for decades. The government mounted an argument that it was simply unsustainable, and the insurance scheme—the compulsory third-party scheme—could not afford it. So the parliament changed the compulsory third-party scheme.

What do we find months after the election? What we find months after the election is that the Motor Accident Commission has north of $500 million—some media reports are suggesting $1 billion—in excess funds. It was that unsustainable. The Motor Accident Commission has somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion in excess funds generated solely out of the insurance scheme and investments of the insurance scheme.

What the government told this parliament about the state of the Motor Accident Commission and the unsustainability of the scheme was a crock—was a crock. What they told the Labor Party caucus was a crock, and I suggest the Labor Party caucus starts asking some questions about why they were told that scheme was unsustainable, because what the parliament has done is gone out and cut benefits to injured motorists on the basis the scheme was unsustainable. If the scheme was unsustainable, how did it end up with $500 million to $1 billion excess capital 12 months later—just 12 months later?

What this government has done is essentially abandon the target of having a AAA credit rating. As the previous treasurer, treasurer Foley said, if you abandon the AAA, you will end up on a spiral of debt. He was absolutely right. Treasurer Foley was not right on too many things; he was right on that one. The reason he was right on that is very simple. As a former shadow treasurer, I think I have some authority to speak on this. The one discipline that the shadow treasurer has, or indeed the Treasurer has, at the cabinet table or the shadow cabinet table, is you cannot keep on spending forever because it will affect your credit rating, which will affect interest rates, which feeds into higher costs for taxpayers over many years.

Treasurer Foley used to sit at the cabinet table and argue about the level of expenditure and maintain some discipline on expenditure to maintain the AAA credit rating. As soon as you get rid of the discipline of worrying about the AAA credit rating, then expenditure flows freely. It is worth noting that the biggest deficits the state has had have been since we announced we were getting rid of the AAA credit rating.

Go back to before, when this government was saying it was going to keep the AAA credit rating and there were smaller deficits, indeed some surpluses. Since they announced they were getting rid of the AAA credit rating, the deficits have been the highest in the state's history—around $1 billion deficits. This is, of course, on the operating balance; this is not the lending deficit. This is on the operational side of the budget, not the capital works side of the budget.

These deficits of $1.2 billion are not building roads and Adelaide Oval; these are simply running the departments. This is a government that has sold income-producing assets to run record deficits simply to run their departments, because they have lost their financial ticker. They have lost their financial discipline to rein in expenditure and control the government programs.

You only have to look at this budget. It is absolutely no different to what Premier—then treasurer—Weatherill produced, what former treasurer Snelling produced. What they produced was 'We are going to have big deficits now, but don't worry, there's going to be a miraculous turnaround at some nirvana point in the future.' That is exactly what Treasurer Koutsantonis is outlining to the house, and the house simply should not believe it.

What they have promised in surplus and deficits has been staggering. In some years they were promising an $840 million surplus but delivered a $479 million deficit, a $1.2 billion difference just in that year alone. This is a government that has lost its economic management. It has lost its financial discipline and it has lost its way as to what it is doing with the economy. It has actually lost its way.

What is this government's economic story after 12 years? What is it? It is not the great promise of Roxby Downs. I remember treasurer Snelling's opening lines in his budget speech saying that South Australia would be a very different place in 20 years' time, there will be all these trucks and miners and everything, and Roxby Downs will be up and running. Of course, that evaporated into thin air.

The reality is in asking: what is this government's economic story? It does not have one. It does not have one because it simply has not focused. It has focused on the politics of issues and not actually growing the economy. If you look at this budget there is no job story to it. There is no job story to this budget. What in this budget was going to suddenly turn around South Australia's terrible unemployment rate and create employment in the northern and southern suburbs—long-term, sustainable employment? There really is nothing in this budget that addresses the key fundamental issues that South Australia faces long term about growing its economy.

South Australia is going to face some very difficult challenges in the next 10 to 20 years, not the least being that governments of all colours from other states attacking the way that the federal government funds states. It will not be just Liberal government interstate doing this, this will be Labor governments as well. This is the position that this government has now put South Australia in and we are politically vulnerable long term thanks to the mismanagement and arrogance of this government. It is placing South Australia at risk long-term.

What we face is this: South Australia currently gets about a billion dollars a year subsidy from other states through the horizontal fiscal equalisation process which is, I know, a favourite of all of us. We are getting a billion dollars a year extra thanks to the generosity of the system. We are essentially being subsidised by the other states. At the same time as getting the billion dollars subsidy, the Premier goes out and says on a regular basis that South Australia is employing more teachers, more doctors and more nurses than any other state. At the same time, we are running deficits of over a billion dollars a year.

We are getting a billion dollar subsidy from other states, we are employing more teachers doctors and nurses than other states, and we still cannot balance our budget—we are still running a billion dollar deficit. It does not take long for other premiers, who are under financial pressure themselves, to say, 'This is really interesting. Why is it that we are subsidising South Australia to employ more teachers, more nurses and more doctors than us? Why isn't New South Wales or Queensland or Western Australia employing doctors, nurses and teachers to the same level per capita as South Australia?' It all comes down to financial discipline.

What is going to happen to South Australia is that political parties, of both colours, I think will start to more closely observe how South Australia is spending its subsidy. I think there will be pressure brought to bear on the system over the next 10 to 20 years to bring South Australia and Tasmania to a position of making some more difficult financial decisions about the way they run their governments and the way they run their cabinets.

If you were a premier in another state you would have to be scratching your head and asking, 'Why are we subsidising this state that refuses to have any financial discipline at all; that is running world record deficits'—or certainly state record deficits—'and they are running the highest debt in the state's history?' Let's not forget that we have the highest debt and the highest deficit in the state's history, and let's not forget that we have the highest taxes in Australia. So, they are already taxing the business community and the families of South Australia at the highest level of any state in Australia. We are already doing that, so putting up revenue becomes difficult.

We are already charging the highest WorkCover rate in Australia, and we are already running the highest debt in the state's history. In fact, it was the fastest growing debt and the highest interest rate according to the Queensland audit commission when they did a flick around all the states: we were the fastest growing debt and paying the highest interest on our debt, so borrowing more money is not necessarily the answer.

South Australia has got itself into a very difficult financial position due to the economic incompetence of the government. The real trigger for the downhill slide was when the government announced that it was going to get rid of the AAA credit rating. It said, 'We are going to make deliberate decisions to lose the AAA credit rating,' and at that point the markets priced our borrowings at a lot higher rate, costing us a lot more interest, but, more importantly, it was a signal to the cabinet and it was a signal to the Public Service that it did not matter, that financial discipline no longer mattered, 'Just keep on spending.'

The reality is that it is not about how much you spend on a particular program, it is about the outputs of a particular program that count, and the government after 12 years still has not learned that lesson. There are still lots of inefficiencies in government, but I guess, 'If it serves a political purpose, then what does it matter?' would be the government's response. An example of that would be the public sector commissioner: a new one has taken over and she is on a salary of about $360,000 and they have employed the old one as an internal consultant for six or seven months on $360,000. This is a small example, but there are many of them throughout the Public Service.

Of course South Australia wants, expects and deserves good quality services from the government or from those providing the services. The reality is that the state has to ask itself: how much longer are they going to ask the business community and families to pay the highest taxes in Australia? How much longer is the state going to put up with the high unemployment we have as a result of mismanagement?

If you think about the long-term future of South Australia, the real answer to the long-term future of South Australia economically is to grow the small business sector, to get more of them exporting, to get more of them employing and to get more entrepreneurs starting their first business or indeed their second business and expanding. While you have the highest taxes in Australia, while you have a government that is totally disinterested in the sector, has little interest in the sector, while you have complicated laws like the occupational health and safety laws creating uncertainty, then a lot of the small business community are quite comfortable thank you. They will sit there and keep trading at the current rate because they have established themselves, they do not need to expand, and they are quite comfortable thank you—and that is not good for the state.

We actually need to give the small business community more confidence, and the only way you are going to do that is to lighten their load on both the tax and regulatory burden, and you lighten their load so that you give them some incentive to employ. The government has had 12 or 13 years to try to do that, but the reality is, I think, that they are simply not interested in it. The reason they are not interested in it is quite simple: small businesses are by definition not unionised, big businesses are unionised.

The government spends lots of time talking to big business because it assists their union affiliations. The small business community, which by definition is not unionised, gets scant regard from the government. I think the government is making a huge mistake, and I think that is a problem for the state long term because the only way South Australia is going to work its way out of its current budget position is to grow the small business sector so that we can grow employment.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Gardner.

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