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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-09-17 Daily Xml
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Emergency Services Levy

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:29): My question is to the Treasurer. As the government has announced that it is intending to provide an emergency services levy remission to pensioners or concession card holders who are tenants in a retirement village, will the government extend this remission to other landowners who have tenants who are pensioners or concession cardholders?

Mr Tarzia: Shame!

The SPEAKER: The member for Hartley is warned for the first time. Before the Treasurer starts, the presence of Speaker Gunn in the gallery has encouraged me, and I have warned the member for Unley a second time when I hadn't warned him a first time, so I apologise. Treasurer.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, Minister for Small Business) (14:29): The government is not wanting to pass on the ESL to pensioners and concession card holders because we believe that they are under sufficient attack by the commonwealth. It is good to see the Leader of the Opposition nodding his head in agreement that the Prime Minister's unprecedented attack on pensioners is probably the most hostile attack we have seen on a group in our community.

Re changing the way pensions are calculated rather than calculating it on the basis of wages growth, they wish to change pension growth to CPI, and we all know that CPI doesn't grow as fast as wages—some would say unfortunately, others would say fortunately. The government is doing everything it can to minimise as much as we possibly can the impact on pensioners, so what we will be doing is making sure that people who are in retirement villages, nursing homes or any other form of supported accommodation who are pensioners are not subject to the—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I am getting to it.

Mr Marshall: Over what period of time?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I have been speaking for about 30 seconds. I know 12 years seems like an eternity.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: We will return to the substance of the question.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Sir, I was attempting to be thoughtful and answer the question, but I was provoked by—

The SPEAKER: Then don't be provoked.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: We are doing everything we can to minimise that. In terms of people who are in accommodation that is rented, it would be very difficult for the government to extend that remission to those people. The government is considering how best to minimise the impact of that. I suspect that what would occur through that private rental market is that the costs are not being passed on in the immediate because a lot of rental agreements will already have been put in place.

We will wait and see what the impacts of it are, but it is not the government's intention in any way to have pensioners or concession card holders pay anything more in terms of their emergency services levy. We value South Australian pensioners. We think—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Mr Speaker, I find it fascinating that the Leader of the Opposition has all this compassion for pensioners yet has not raised a word to the $30 million worth of cuts the commonwealth government has made to pensioners—not a word. He hasn't raised a finger, hasn't written a letter, not so much as a complaint to the Prime Minister despite how close they are.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The alternative leader of the opposition says, 'How would you know? How would you know?' Show me the transcript. Where is the transcript? Where is the letter? Perhaps you could provide the letter you sent to the commonwealth. Perhaps we could see the letter that you have sent to the commonwealth complaining about the cuts to health and education because all I have heard is: subs built in Japan, tick; closing Holden, tick; cutting pensioners, tick; closing hospitals and schools, tick, tick.

The SPEAKER: Is there any chance the Treasurer could stop being provoked soon?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Well, that's not up to me, sir.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I will answer all your questions on this, and I will just make this one point: who was it who first levied an emergency services levy on pensioners? Which party was that? Which party decided? The members opposite. We haven't increased the emergency services on pensioners at all, but who was the party that brought it in? The members opposite. The members opposite decided to charge pensioners the emergency services levy, not this government.

The SPEAKER: Alas, the Treasurer's time has expired. Leader.

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