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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-09-18 Daily Xml
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State Budget

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (15:30): I rise today to offer what I think are helpful hints to members of the government in relation to the budget and the discussion we have been having about it over the past number of months. I do note the great varied and many number of speeches made in this house by members opposite about all things various to do with the federal government. In fact, we heard it just then from the member for Colton. If only he were a minister again, and the fantastic job he did when he was in charge of PIRSA is something I congratulate him on.

The member for Elder, the member for Kaurna and the member Reynell have all talked about the federal government and the bad policy the federal government is seeking to institute. Maybe they do not think that their federal colleagues are doing a good enough job arguing that case on their behalf and are showing them the way here in this house. What I think it is for a couple of members, especially the member for Elder, is that, if they squint their eyes just so, if they can delude themselves into thinking that the leather on the chairs in this chamber is a little paler green, if they can ignore the beautiful portrait of Tom Playford sitting up there, maybe members opposite can believe that they are members of the federal parliament.

I am sorry if they believe that, but unfortunately they are members of the government in the South Australian parliament. They should be talking about state-based issues and standing up for the government of South Australia. I find it quite odd that we have a running commentary on all things federal, yet we have so very little commentary espousing the virtues of the state government and the policies they are seeking to put forward.

The budget that has been handed down demonstrates what I think is a new and unprecedented process in South Australia. Gone are the days of 'consult and decide', the Premier's great 'I'm not Mike Rann' mantra, the 'consult and decide' mantra. We do not even have, in the great tradition of Rann and Foley, the 'announce and defend'. We do not even have 'announce and defend' anymore. What we have is 'announce, point somewhere else, try to get everyone to look the other way and then walk off'. We have announce and walk away, and it is of great disgust to the people of South Australia that this government does not even seek to defend its own budget. Instead it seems to point the finger anywhere else it can and try to fool the South Australian public into wiping from their memory the last 12 years of Labor rule.

This is entire rhetoric and spin around external factors when, really, if this Treasurer wants to look at why this budget is such a mess, why the budget is in complete disarray, he need not look to Canberra: he should instead talk to his mates who sit next to him. He should talk to the Premier. He should talk to Kevin Foley. He should talk to his good mate the member for Playford, although I understand that, at the moment, their relationship is not as good as it was, but still they sit next to each other in the chamber, and they could discuss this matter with each other because that is where the genesis of this budget mess lies.

South Australia is desperate for a government that takes responsibility for its own actions, that it is mature enough not to just say, 'Well, it's not my fault. There's a department for someone else that takes responsibility for everything.' In this house, I think that we have often talked about the fact that if interest were a government department it would be the fifth largest department. I believe that the department for somewhere else would have to be the largest department in the South Australian government.

The South Australian public are desperate for a government that is willing to stand up and say, 'This is our record. We are the government of South Australia. We will take responsibility for the $16 billion budget we have control of, and we will do what we can for the people of South Australia.'

I would like to put a couple of things in context in the last couple of minutes. First, all week we have heard about the increase that the changes to remissions on the emergency services levy will bring ($90 million a year), which could be reversed by a reversal of federal budget cuts. I would like to point out that, in the 2013-14 year, this government was $311 million over budget, and it would take only a quarter of that being brought under control in order for there to be no need to remove the ESL remissions.

The genesis of this budget mess also lies in the fact that, even though since 2011-12 this government has raised $441 million over revenue, it has spent $841 million over budget—an extra $400 million since 2011-12. In the examples of waste, the one piece of waste that I would like to talk about in these last few seconds is that this government has spent $267.9 million giving voluntary separation packages to over 2,000 people yet at the same time has increased the Public Service by 1,898.

Time expired.

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