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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
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Bills

Statutes Amendment (Boards and Committees - Abolition and Reform) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (16:34): The Health Performance Council outlines a number of features in its annual report of 2013-14, which I was detailing prior to the brief adjournment to accommodate the reception by His Excellency, so I interrupt my contribution by recording our appreciation to His Excellency for receiving members of the parliament and especially those who are new members. I trust that they appreciated the hospitality of the Governor and were provided with some refreshment.

Mr Knoll: A glass of water.

Mr Duluk: A glass of water I had.

Ms CHAPMAN: Yes, excellent. Frugal and modest as it should be so that we can continue our deliberations. Nevertheless, it was spearheaded by you, Mr Speaker, to His Excellency's rooms across the way.

Shortly prior to that adjournment of the house, I had indicated that the greatest advocate of the Health Performance Council, I think, was the Hon. John Hill when he introduced the Health Care Bill in 2007. In support of the Health Care Bill, which was to set a new structure and governance for the administration of health services in South Australia—some of which this side of the house agreed to and some of which we did not—one of the things he endorsed was the establishment of the Health Performance Council. On 27 September 2007, he said:

The capacity for providing independent advice is addressed in the Bill by the establishment of the Health Performance Council. The Council will ensure that the Minister can have access to high level advice independent from the Department and provides greater public accountability for health outcomes. Having a single body will also support a more consistent and strategic approach in providing advice.

The Health Performance Council will evaluate and report on the overall performance of the public health system in relation to agreed outcomes. It will produce an annual report to be tabled in the Parliament as well as a substantial four yearly report. This latter report will identify significant trends, health outcomes and future priorities of the health system. It will review the health system as a whole, including the public, private and non government systems involved in the provision of health services. The four yearly report will also be tabled in the Parliament and the Government will provide a response to the Parliament within 6 months of it being tabled.

He goes on to say how its membership will be appointed and the spread of skills, etc. that were desirable for being on that board.

The former health minister took the view that it was important to have this body. He singled out the relevance of having one body rather than multiple bodies in this regard so that there could be an across-the-spectrum, consistent strategic approach in providing this independent advice. He made it very clear that this was an important addition to his new structure, particularly in light of his proposal following the Generational Health Review. That was a report that was prepared in about 2003-04 by Mr Menadue, and he set out a number of recommendations as to governance change and service delivery.

As part of this restructure, it was very important. His proposal was to get rid of the boards, get rid of the regional boards and people like Mr Ray Grigg and his board for the central regional health service (or it was called words to that effect). It covered the main spine of major acute hospitals. We had a central, we had a northern, we certainly had a southern, and I am not quite sure where the Women's and Children's Hospital fitted in but it was attached to one of the regional metropolitan boards.

They all got sacked—'Don't come Monday.' The IMVS board was gone, all taken in-house, but this Health Performance Council was going to be the body which was going to provide this panacea of independence and the like. I think largely that it has been very helpful in the reports it has provided to the parliament and, as I said before, we thank them for their service.

However, we are still awaiting the four-yearly report which was concluded last year, which has been provided to the minister and which the current Minister for Health has not yet disclosed to the parliament. The period for review by the community and all the stakeholders has passed, the expiry date has now gone and the government have already apparently made their decision about where they are going to go in this next stage. They published a fairly thin report yesterday, but it was padded out with about two inches worth of appendices in respect of data that was attached to it.

Ms Cook: It was only an inch in total.

Ms CHAPMAN: Let's go to centimetres: it is about half a centimetre of report and the rest of it, which is about an inch and a half to two inches, was all appendices. Members who have not had a chance to look at this document might be a bit disappointed when they see the one or two pages on each major health service. For the whole abolition of the Repat Hospital, we got two pages about what is going to happen, so of course the detail is stunningly omitted.

Nevertheless, I make the point that here we are in the midst of the government telling the parliament and the people of South Australia that they have apparently listened, that they have read all their thousands of submissions, that they have identified to us what they are going to do next and tabled that in the parliament, and yet still we are completely quarantined from the recommendations and report of the Health Performance Council. Why could that possibly be? First, surely if the government were proud of the level of service delivery and the efficiency of the service delivery of the health services they are currently overseeing, they would be rushing that report to us to tell us what a great job they were doing.

Secondly, if there were areas the Health Performance Council had identified where the outcomes were unacceptable or under par or the disclosure of documentation to support that were inadequate, surely they would also be rushing it into the parliament to say, 'See, this is why we have to change the structure of the health services in South Australia. This is why it's necessary to have three 24-hour super ED departments in three big metropolitan hospitals and cram the other four ED services out of the other hospitals into those three. This is the basis upon which it is necessary to do that. This is why, because here is the Health Performance Council's report.' But, no, we do not get to see it at all.

All we get from the government is the Premier announcing that he is just going to abolish this board—this board, which has been independent, frank and fearless in its advice, and whose reports are so important that the government is prepared to progress a major reform into one of the biggest and certainly the highest costing services of the government without us even seeing it. In fact, the Premier and the Minister for Health have come into this parliament day after day and argued their case, they say—answered questions, or avoided answers to questions probably more likely, but made statements about the need to reform, even today.

Even today, the Minister for Health told us that there are 500 deaths a year that are avoidable. He is suggesting that the reason for that is somehow or other associated with deficiencies in the way that health services are administered in South Australia. He may be right, but why should we not actually see the report of the Health Performance Council to tell us whether they have identified this problem or whether it is just Professor Dorothy Keefe, who is the employee of the health department who is sent out to spruik the apparent merits of this restructure?

There is no detail and no accountability of what has occurred. There is no Health Performance Council four-yearly report to justify and support the actions of the minister. I think the ultimate in arrogance is that there is no preparedness even to allow that material to be presented before they close off the cut-off time for South Australians to have a say. All of this, frankly, is an insult.

Then today I was absolutely stunned to read an article which purports to quote the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, who is also the local member covering the Repatriation General Hospital. Unsurprisingly, he is quoted as saying, 'My issue is what's best for veterans' health and the health of the electorate.' I do not doubt for one moment that that would be an interest, and I would certainly hope it to be, both as the local member and as the minister. But then he goes on to say, allegedly:

(Health Minister) Jack Snelling made a good case to me (that) the reforms he’s proposing are good for veterans’ heath and health for the aged … I’m confident they’ll all be better off through the health reform offering.

What kind of private briefing has the Minister for Veterans' Affairs (the member for Waite) had that we all are missing? What is the case that has been presented by the Minister for Health that justifies doing this?

All we have had, as members of parliament who are being asked to support this initiative, is an assurance by the health minister that, firstly, this is not about money; secondly, it is about providing a better, safer and more efficient service—and I paraphrase that, but that is the gist of what he has been saying—and thirdly, at the briefing he provided to MPs, which Professor Keith also attended, he told us that there is an unacceptable level of avoidable deaths in our hospital system and that somehow, without any detail, this is going to change it. That is the presentation that we have had from the government.

We have had a couple of glossy booklets which talk about ideas for restructure, about transferring the location of some services from one site to another, and yesterday a bit more detail on that. We still do not have anything clear, I think. There was an indication, for example, that acute aged mental health services, up to 30 beds, would be relocated from the Repat Hospital up to the Flinders Medical Centre. I am not sure whether they are going to tip out the people in the Margaret Tobin Centre or whether they are going to build another facility, because we do not actually know the detail of that. We have absolutely no idea what is going to be left at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Let's remember what has gone from that hospital already. The government has already, under minister Hill, cherrypicked out The Queen Elizabeth Hospital's iconic feature, namely the kidney transplant facility, and relocated it to the current Royal Adelaide Hospital at a cost of $15 million. The government has relocated the professors, the kidney transplant surgeons, the experts in that regard, to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, into a hospital which it is about to demolish. It has spent $15 million on relocating them.

I remember asking minister Hill at the time, 'Why is it necessary for you to take this iconic health service out of The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which they have developed, pioneered and are very proud of, where they already have special rooms with air conditioning to make sure that there is a germ-free environment for kidney transplant services, etc.? Why are you relocating this service, at a $15 million cost, into a building that is going to be demolished when you build and relocate the Royal Adelaide Hospital down at the other end of North Terrace?' Do you know what the answer was? Because they have to get used to the new culture—whatever the hell that meant.

So what we have is a situation where the government was prepared to take out a piece of that hospital, of which it was rightly proud, and move it—even if it meant spending millions of dollars—to a property that it was going to demolish. Secondly, the government downgraded the intensive care unit from the highest level down to its current level. Of course, it is about to get another slashing. There was a report at the time that this could mean an extra 100 people a year would die (avoidably) if the government did this.

Every time you reduce the formula, the number of trained ICU staff to patients, obviously you will have a lower service. Therefore, as that diminishes down, you leave the rest of the health professionals with no other option but to cut out a whole lot of procedures. For example, unless you have the highest level of intensive care capacity, you do not perform heart transplants at that location. If you reduce it to a level of extra care, you may get to a stage where it is unsafe to deal with any coronary or stroke-type activity, and it seems that is where we are heading with The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, if you are chronically ill or you have a life-threatening condition, whatever that is. I was no clearer after today's answer from the minister in question time as to what a life-threatening condition is or who on earth is going to do that. It seems that if you have a headache and you think you are having a stroke or heart attack, you ring the ambulance. That seems to be the gist of today's advice in question time.

Does the wife say, 'Look, we don't live in a place that's close to a hospital. We live just outside of Oodnadatta'? As for ringing up that great paramedic who is going to rush over and tell them whether the headache is about to be a stroke or not, as usual, the government have completely forgotten the fact that a third of the state lives outside of the metropolitan area of Adelaide. That is what they completely ignore. It is disgraceful. However, let us go back to what is occurring at present, and that is the government as of yesterday are clearly going to try to salvage some services out of the Repat Hospital. They are apparently going to build a new swimming pool at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital to help with the rehabilitation and prosthetic services which will be provided there, but The Queen Elizabeth Hospital is effectively going to be a rehabilitation centre and a bandaid clinic.

That is not to say that those services are not needed, but the people of the western suburbs and the people who are using the Repat Hospital, who are returned veterans—men and women who have served this country—need a bit more than that. They do not need to have their Repatriation General Hospital sold out from under their feet and told to go and line up at the Flinders Medical Centre and hope like hell they can get in, or turn up at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital because the spouse has said, 'Well, you've got diabetes, you've woken up with a headache, but it could be a stroke because you carry a comorbidity which might suggest that, so we better rush to get the paramedics out here, or I'll take you across The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and just take a lucky dip that they will not divert us back to Lyell McEwin or to the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.' And, of course, the new Royal Adelaide Hospital is not even open yet; in fact, the person who is in charge of that—

Mr Knoll interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: —apparently has just defected today; they have resigned, so they have left—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I remind the member for Schubert he's on his second warning.

Members interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: So, for a while those people in the western suburbs not only have to get into the Lyell McEwin, but they of course might try to get into the new hospital—

Mr Gardner interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I haven't called him to order.

Mr Gardner: They're screaming like banshees.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Excuse me, I didn't call him to order. I reminded him what was on the book. It is very disrespectful.

Ms CHAPMAN: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. At the moment, they might be expecting to go to the brand-new hospital on the corner of Port Road and North Terrace. Well, good luck! That is a couple of years away. Of course, we do not even know yet the full extent of services that are going to be provided there, because that is all still a secret. We still have question marks over a number of services that are going to be provided there. We are assuming there is still going to be a helipad, there is still going to be some kind of acute services, and we are told it will be 24/7 ICU-supported emergency department. Great! In the meantime, where are they going to go? They have to go down the other end of North Terrace. So, let us assume you live in Woodville, and you wake up in the middle of the night, say to your wife, 'I am feeling a bit crook, I better go down to the emergency department'—

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: Point of order.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Do you have a point of order, member for Wright?

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just a minute!

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: As interesting as it may be to the member for Bragg to talk incessantly about Transforming Health, that is irrelevant to the bill at hand. We are talking about the abolition of boards and committees, not Transforming Health.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! For goodness sake, it's like being in a chook house. I will listen very carefully to what you say. Continue, deputy leader.

Ms CHAPMAN: I am concerned that the member for Wright either has not been listening or not understood that I am discussing the government's proposal to abolish the Health Performance Council.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am listening.

Ms CHAPMAN: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The Hon. J.M. Rankine interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Ms CHAPMAN: In the meantime, where are the people going to go? They are going to have to go down the other end of North Terrace into a private car parking facility—

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: Point of order.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: You have a point of order, member for Wright?

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: Point of order: the member for Bragg has gone straight back to the Transforming Health proposal, not the abolition of boards and committees.

Ms Chapman: She has already ruled.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: No, she never.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is the custom of the house, sadly, to allow quite a bit of leeway, so I am sure the member for Bragg—the deputy leader—will continue to get to the nub of it. I am sure she is going to move along. That is not going to be the only topic she speaks on this afternoon.

The Hon. J.M. Rankine interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: If you are not happy, we will call in the Speaker and he can give a ruling.

Ms CHAPMAN: That is not going to end well.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Not necessary? Okay. No laughing. Excuse me, but there has been a ruling in Canberra on audible laughter and I will use Speaker Bishop's precedent if necessary. Let us keep going with the debate and move along.

Ms CHAPMAN: When the government decides it is going to have this change, which I have given an example of, what we want to be able to do is find out what the Health Performance Council says about that. At the moment, what happens if that couple living in Woodville bypass The Queen Elizabeth Hospital because they think they could possibly be in a situation of having a stroke or needing some help and go across to the Lyell McEwin only to hear, 'Sorry, we are a bit busy—go into the Royal Adelaide.' Okay, lucky break—they get a spot in between everyone else lined up and then the wife says, 'Okay, look it's 2 o'clock in the morning—I'll go and park the car.'

What happens in three or four hours' time? Hopefully, the husband is alive; he has been treated in the emergency department, perhaps gets admitted. She might attend with him. Then three or fours hours later she goes out and gets her bill for the parking—which is like the French national debt—and then has to go home. Then, of course, next day she comes back again and has to pay for parking again. Then, of course, she has to wash his pyjamas, so she comes back the next day and has to pay for parking again. I make this point—

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: Point of order.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Wright has a point of order.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: It is factually incorrect—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is factually incorrect—

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: —to say someone taken to the emergency department—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is factually incorrect—

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: —of a public hospital—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: —but I am not sure what point of order—

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: —is charged—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: —a parking fine.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am not sure what point—

An honourable member interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I am not sure what point of order prevents factual incorrectness.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just sit down!

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: If I hear another word, I will have to leave the chamber. You are all on two ticks. I would be very careful—there is no purpose in it. We have noted it is not a point of order, but factual incorrectness is to be avoided, one would think.

An honourable member: There is an obligation to tell the truth.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, you know what you want to do if you want to call some sort of a procedural thing and expose it—otherwise we will all sit here and listen to her in silence and hope she will finish shortly.

Ms CHAPMAN: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Just in case any of the members misheard what I said—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, we all heard it. Move on, please.

Ms CHAPMAN: Well, no—I will make a personal explanation, if you like; if there is any allegation that I said that the person who is going to the emergency department would be left with a parking fee or fine, that is not what I said at all.

The Hon. J.M. Rankine interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: Perhaps the member for Wright would like—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No. I would like you, deputy leader, to ignore her—as I am ignoring her, and other interjections in the chamber—and move on with your speech.

Ms CHAPMAN: If, in fact, that family will get a better, safer, quicker, cheaper service under the new structure, then I will go he—that is the first thing. What I would like to hear is what would the Health Performance Council say about it, because even in that four-yearly report they say that the people of the western suburbs are the oldest and sickest and poorest people in South Australia's metropolitan area. They have a high level of chronic disease and they would be better served by having a 24-hour emergency department in the Lyell McEwin and the Royal Adelaide, and closing down The QEH and selling off, altogether, the Repat Hospital. If that is what they think, I would be very interested to hear it because at the moment, on the face of it, unlike the member for Waite, I am far from satisfied—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Which member?

Ms CHAPMAN: The member for Waite—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Alright.

Ms CHAPMAN: —who I was quoting as saying, Madam Deputy Speaker:

(Health minister) Jack Snelling made a good case to me (that) the reforms he's proposing are good for veterans' health and health for the aged…I'm confident they'll all be better off through the health reform offering.

Mr Knoll: Someone just forgot to tell the veterans.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, member for Schubert!

Ms CHAPMAN: All I do is make the point that I value the work that has been done by the Health Performance Council. They are an independent body and I would like to hear what they have got to say. I can tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I do the rest of the house, that if we find, when the minister finally does come clean with that report and tables it in this parliament, that there is no mention whatsoever of the basis upon which new work has to be done in the terms of what the government has announced in Transforming Health, I will be shouting it from the rooftops.

I will be asking, 'Why do the people of the south-west have to lose their local hospital in the Repat Hospital and why should the people in the west lose the amenity and services they currently have at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital? Why should that happen?' If I find that, in fact, when that report is finally tabled in this house, the Health Performance Council has not even been asked, I will be dumbfounded. I suppose I should not be surprised, but if I find that the Minister for Health has not even asked the one independent body that they have appointed to give independent advice to the minister about what needs to be done, then I just wonder what we are all doing here, because the government will do whatever they want, whenever they make up stuff as to why they might need to transform.

I do not know whether or not the one group that holds the body of the data, and currently at least has the right to access that data in the health department is cooperating or giving all that information as required—and I do not have any reason to suggest not—but if there is a problem and we have 500 people a year dying from avoidable deaths in hospitals (which just about makes me choke), then why has something not been happening about it already and will this reform actually change that?

So far it is a quantum leap between an admission that 500 people a year are dying in our hospitals who should not be—allegedly because of the structure of our health services—and that this new model is going to fix it. It is a quantum leap and I tell you I have not made this leap. I do not have the same faith that apparently the member for Waite has in this compelling case, or 'good case' he says, that has been put by the Minister for Health to him. I am not at all happy about the government coming in here with this bill and saying, 'Of the 400-odd boards that we have looked at and reviewed there are 56 or 57 that we want to get rid of and this is one of them.' I will not support a bill which includes the abolition of the Health Performance Council and I think it is a disgrace that the government should even ask us to do that.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Schubert. Lucky you are still here, isn't it? Lucky you are still here.

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (17:03): That's right. I rise today to speak on the Statutes Amendment (Boards and Committees—Abolition and Reform) Bill 2015. Obviously a bill that was considered in the last session but, unfortunately, did not get over the line, and so here we are once again, as am I. Obviously there are portions of the bill that we do not mind on this side of the house, but there are a few boards and committees that we feel are worth keeping and do not feel that the government has really made the case for getting rid of them.

The one which I would like to speak about in particular is the South Australian Tourism Commission. The South Australian Tourism Commission has had many achievements and, indeed, today in the house during question time the minister tried to suggest that SATC did not have that much to do with bringing events to South Australia, but it is interesting that SATC think that they have had something to do with it because it is reported in their annual report that they helped to bring the 2014 Australian National Masters Rowing Championships, the 2014 Australian All Schools Championships and the Schools Knockout, the 2015 Pacific School Games, the 2016 Club Crew World Championships dragon boating and Peter Brooks production, The Suit, secured exclusively for Adelaide.

Obviously we have had the relaunching of Tasting Australia under the new direction of Simon Bryant, Mr Paul Henry, who has done a lot of good work in the Barossa, and the great and venerable Maggie Beer, who has done so much for the South Australian brand in food and wine.

The SATC has a very strong history. Its goal is to increase tourism expenditure in South Australia to a potential $8 billion by 2020. Can I say that, on this side of the house, we all sincerely hope that they get there because it would be fantastic to see growth in the private sector. It would be fantastic to see employment numbers go up anywhere but in the Public Service. The tourism industry directly employs more than 30,000 people in some 18,000 businesses. This is three times more than either the mining or defence industries, which shows how important it is to South Australia. It is a shame that this government wants to get rid of the SATC.

I have been extremely grateful to the SATC for the work they have done for my electorate and my community. The Barossa Be Consumed campaign has won so many awards across the world but, more than that, the mark of the ad is not the fact that the Warsaw Film, Art and Tourism Festival liked it, that the Berlin Golden City Gate tourism awards liked it, that Cannes Corporate Media and TV Awards liked it, or that the Riga Tourfilm Festival, the Zagreb Tourfilm Festival, the Baku International Tourism Film Festival or the International Tourism Film Festival in Bulgaria liked it.

They all thought it was a pretty good ad, but what really matters is the fact that it worked. What really matters is the fact that it has helped to bring greater visitation to the Barossa. It has helped to increase the number of overnight stays and it has helped to increase the amount of money being spent in cellar doors. On this score and maybe this score only, I would like to congratulate the minister for telling us in estimates last year that we had secured extra funding in this 12 months for a continuation of that ad. This is fantastic work that the SATC has done.

Some of the key achievements of the SATC, from their annual report, are around supporting the development of premium tourism experiences across the state, investing in tourism infrastructure projects critical to attracting high-yield travellers, and cruise developments, with 28 cruise ship arrivals in 2013-14, including 19 at Port Adelaide, seven on Kangaroo Island and two in the beautiful electorate of Flinders at Port Lincoln. It has helped with aviation development and it has helped with international marketing.

I would like to congratulate the board members of the SATC for their hard work and for all their efforts in helping to make our tourism industry truly great, because it is a fantastic arm of the South Australian economy. It needs to be fostered, but what it really needs is a strong, industry-led voice that has real credence and real influence around the table. It is on that score that I would like to say it deserves to be kept.

I have heard the minister speak previously about why we should get rid of the board. In broad terms, he said, 'Why do I have to have a tourism board when, for instance, there is no board for the defence industry or the mining industry? Why is it that I have to put up with these pesky industry people when other ministers do not have to?'

Could I say that this is an industry of small operators and they need to work together to bring people to South Australia. It is not the case that the tourism industry can work as a disparate group of people. They need to come together to have consistent branding. We are talking about a lot of small operators. There are lots of mum-and-dad operators operating single B&Bs, and small tour services offering unique and special small experiences for tourists who come here, so it is extremely important that we work together in a collegiate way and in a way that has industry buy in. That is certainly something that the SATC does when you look at the calibre of the people who sit on that board.

There is a central communications role that brings together the collective efforts of the industry, and the government has a strong role in funding this. This role is played by the SATC—the South Australian Tourism Commission. To abolish the board and replace it with a more toothless alternative takes away the buy in and support of industry. We need to have an organisation that has teeth and real credence when it sits at the table.

Certainly, the minister has expressed a number of reservations about the SATC because he obviously wants to get rid of it, but if we are successful in keeping the SATC, one thing I would really like to see is an increase in regional representation. I know that under the new model there would have been increased regional representation, but the two things are not mutually exclusive. There are ways in which the South Australian Tourism Commission can have a stronger regional voice, and that is something I would be pushing for and strongly suggesting.

We will agree with much of what this bill puts forth in relation to the 57 boards and committees, or whatever the number is they are looking to get rid of, but there are a number we would love to keep, and the South Australian Tourism Commission Board is certainly one of them. In addition to what I have just outlined, this is also the overwhelming view of my electorate and the tourism operators within my electorate.

When this bill came forward last year, I undertook to go out and visit major and smaller tourism operators in my electorate to get their feedback. Their voice was extremely clear: almost without exception, they wanted to keep the commission. The only criticism they had of it was, first, that it needs more money (but, then again, that is a charge we could put against all things: we always need more money to be able to do more and help bring more tourists to our regions), and the only other criticism they had was about regional representation. But, certainly, that is not an excuse, in and of itself, to get rid of the commission.

As governments, we can think that we know best and, as governments, we can think that we are somehow privy to more and better information, and that means the decisions that government makes are not necessarily the same as those industries make. I see this in a lot of industries where there is a government-industry nexus and industry organisations. What is good for industry is good for government. Surely, we are all on the same page. All tourism operators want is increased visitation and more dollars spent in the tourism industry, and that is good for government because that is where the revenue comes from. That is where the taxes come from that we get to spend on all sorts of other beautiful things.

We have goal congruence in that way, so this idea that somehow we are not all working towards the same goal is wrong. Surely, we would trust those on the ground—those who are dealing day upon day with visitors who come and express their delight and frustration with certain things. I know in my electorate that local transport options is one issue that we are dealing with to try to improve. I know that increased translation of signs and marketing collateral into Chinese and Mandarin is extremely important, and it is something that we are working on locally.

We get that feedback by being on the ground, and we get that feedback by dealing day to day with tourism operators. This then feeds back through industry voices, through industry bodies, who all talk to each other, and we get together and hash out issues. Certainly, I have been involved in a number of networking events where I have been able to get that sort of feedback firsthand, and that feeds through to organisations like the South Australian Tourism Commission. For those reasons, I think it is extremely important that we keep it.

The second area of boards and committees I would like to discuss is where we are looking at changes (some will say technical changes) to the way that our health advisory councils work. I know there was quite a bit of angst amongst my local HACs about the changes this bill has in store for them. Largely, I think we are okay but, as with these things, the proof is always in the pudding and in the eating, and we will wait and see what happens from here.

We are certainly also extremely concerned about the abolition of the Health Performance Council. I think, Deputy Speaker, with the latitude that you spoke of earlier, it is another opportunity for me to talk about health services in my electorate—very specifically, the push by my community since the very heady days of the early 1990s (1992,1993) when I was but a mere boy. In fact, I think at that time I may have been travelling in Germany. My community first mooted at that time that they needed a new hospital. It is something that has had consensus in my community for over 20 years, and I will not stop until this hospital is delivered.

We have been having discussions about the performance of our health system in recent weeks, and we have talked about the Repat Hospital and the fact that the Repat Hospital is slated for closure because it is an old building and it is not up to date. In fact, I think that the member for Waite made as much of an admission today in a media report, where he basically said, 'Well, the building is pretty run down. It is the oldest of the hospitals we are talking about,' which is indeed true because Transforming Health does not deal with regional hospitals. Well, can I say that my Tanunda Hospital was built in 1955, but my Angaston Hospital, which is the more major facility in my electorate, was built in 1910. So, if we are looking at upgrading facilities—if we are looking at saying that the modern performance of our health care—

Mr Pederick: The ghost of Ivan speaks.

Mr KNOLL: That's right. If we are looking at the performance of our health system, something I know that the Health Performance Council is in charge of looking at, and if we are talking about aged facilities, I have a hospital with its 105th anniversary, and it looks every day of its 105 years.

Ms Chapman: It's older than the Repat.

Mr KNOLL: It is well older, and that is precisely my point, deputy leader.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: May I remind all members that it is unparliamentary to interject and unparliamentary to respond to interjections.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member for Schubert is entitled to be heard in silence. The member for Schubert.

Mr KNOLL: So, the beautiful, graceful old beast that is the Angaston Hospital, feeling all of its 105 years as it creaks and groans and tries to do its best, along with some very dedicated local staff, to deliver quality health care in the Barossa, really needs some help—and on that score, every single opportunity I get to raise that issue in this house, I will continue to take. Certainly, the ghost of Ivan Venning is alive and well. On this score, he was 100 per cent right, and he will continue to be right, and the members for Schubert in—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Speak as one.

Mr KNOLL: We do—on a whole variety of issues—and will continue to make that case in this place. If members opposite want to stop hearing about the push for a new Barossa health facility, just fund it. I will praise the government.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

An honourable member interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr KNOLL: Deputy Speaker, I would love nothing more than to invite the Treasurer and the Premier to come up and cut that beautiful ribbon.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Here's another schnitzel night coming.

Mr KNOLL: That's right. We could go down to the Brauhaus Hotel on the main street of Angaston, just up from my house. I would be more than happy to host members opposite in my house. I will pull—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The clock is ticking, member for Schubert. You have substantive points to make; you might want to move on.

Mr KNOLL: I will pull out the finest reds.

An honourable member: Is your cellar as good as Ivan's?

Mr KNOLL: It takes time to build a cellar of that quality and quantity, but I will put on the best. I make this case: if a new Barossa health facility is funded, I can suggest that Grange will be on the table. I would put Hill of Grace on the table—whatever it takes. I would be willing to put portions of my soul on the table to get this facility for my community. My soul is for sale to the highest bidder, and a beautiful 40-bed facility is all that it is going to cost.

With that, I will conclude my remarks, and I thank you for the opportunity to speak on this. Hopefully, on these very few boards and committees where we disagree with the government, the government can see sense and we can pass this legislation in amended form to the betterment of South Australia.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport, Minister for Racing) (17:18): I rise to talk through the view on this side of the chamber about the South Australian Tourism Commission and why we would look to get rid of the board, and it is not a reflection on anyone who is on the board at the moment, it is just about the structure.

I spoke with my opposite number, David Ridgway in another place, late last year, and we went through a lot of the things we were doing, and I have to say that there was a lot of agreement about getting rid of the Motor Sport Board and bringing that in under the South Australian Tourism Commission because we run the world's best bike race outside of the Tour de France so we can continue to run a great car race—and also bringing the Entertainment Centre and the Convention Centre boards together. So, we found a lot of agreement there, and I want to thank those on the other side for coming with us on that part of the journey.

I think that we had a fair bit of agreement, too, in talking to the opposition's spokesperson, in that some of our views were quite well aligned. In fact, I thought that he came back to us on a few other committees and boards around some of the ones in agriculture, but he did not come back on tourism and I probably made the mistake of taking that as your side being in support.

Having said that, I would like to go through some of the reasons behind our decision to put this forward as a board that we would get rid of. One of the first things is that there is about $200,000 worth of board fees which are paid, which is money we could spend on marketing the state. Every spare dollar that we have, we throw it at marketing the regions and marketing the state both here, interstate and overseas. We would free up that money.

Mr Knoll interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do you want to leave the room, member for Schubert?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: I think there is some sort of misconception about how the board actually operates, so if I can go through a few of the things there. I get to read the board papers after each monthly meeting, and I have to say that the board has often acted in isolation to what the government as a whole is trying to achieve, and one of the examples I will give is to do with when we built the Adelaide Oval and obviously spent a lot of taxpayers' money there.

One of the things we really wanted to do was make sure that we got as many people as possible coming here from interstate to fill the hotel rooms. The first season of AFL football was going to be in 2014, so in 2013 at the start of that season I met with Collingwood, Carlton, Brisbane, Geelong—the teams that will bring corporate Australia into South Australia and bring their fans. One of my messages was I did not want all these AFL clubs turning up here and not bringing their fans with them and then deciding, 'This is the best stadium in Australia,' which we now know it is. We looked forward as a government, and that was something the Premier spoke to me about, as did minister Koutsantonis when he was minister for infrastructure, and we did that as a collaborative thing.

By the first week of October in 2013, we had the commercial managers of all AFL clubs here in South Australia. We took them for a look around the Oval; they were blown away by it. We took them down to McLaren Vale to show that we have the Barossa, Adelaide Hills and McLaren Vale all within easy reach so that when you bring your corporates over you can show them a good time as well as taking them to a great game of footy.

The board papers show that, some time after that event in October, close to the start of the football season, someone on the board said, 'We should look at getting the AFL clubs to come over and make sure they bring their people with them.' Because we had been concentrating as a government, and we did not just see things through the prism of the tourism board but as the government as a whole, we were already all over that.

One of the other things that the board put up was to have a brand for the South Australian Tourism Commission. The CE came to me and said, 'This is the SATC brand that the SATC Board has signed off on.' I said, 'We have just launched six weeks ago the state brand,' and we had spent a lot of government money on that state brand that we all know with the open door and the red map of Australia. It is a great brand and as tourism it is one of the most outward looking government departments. We, as a government, expected that tourism would be using that logo. Here I was presented with something that the board had signed off on. I asked how much that cost—$150,000. That was $150,000 to come up with something which did not align with what the government as a whole was doing. When we look at the brand, we worked closely with the opposition on that as well because we wanted everyone to be singing off the same hymn sheet.

The reason that the SATC Board wanted their own brand was because they thought the SATC was not getting enough recognition from other government departments, so it was like an ego thing with a government department saying, 'We give images that we take to other government departments to use and we do not get any credit for that.' I just see that as $150,000 that we could have spent in marketing South Australia.

Another example is the Word Adelaide Festival. This is one that my opposite number, the Hon. Mr Ridgway, attacks us on quite regularly. It is because it was a failure. It was something that I only knew about three or four days before they wanted me to launch it. I rang Chloe Fox, who was the minister assisting in the arts at that time. I said, 'I can't do this Word launch. Can you help me out and do it?' She said, 'What Word launch?' I said, 'It is a word festival. It is the arts. Can you do it for me?' She said, 'We do not know anything about it.'

We checked, and tourism—and this had been signed off before it got to me—had gone ahead and organised a major arts festival without actually talking to anyone in arts, whereas where you have a minister who deals directly with the department, you have those sorts of discussions. They are just a few examples. Again, it is no-one's fault as individuals: it is the fault of the system that has been in place for about 30 years.

One of the other things that is quite often levelled is that tourism is a really commercial portfolio, and I agree. The member for Schubert says that the majority of people are small to medium-sized businesses, and I totally agree with him. They are the people we want to get in and support, but the fact that you have a board does not necessarily make it any more commercial than if you just have the government working directly with the department. There is no other department where a minister has to go through a board to direct the CE of that department.

While tourism is a commercial product and a commercial industry, so is primary industries. When you look at PIRSA, 71 per cent of the funding that goes into PIRSA is actually funded by outside sources: federal government money or user pays in aquaculture and that sort of thing. If there was ever an argument for someone to have a board, it would probably be in the area of PIRSA. However, as we know, PIRSA works quite well with the minister and the department having a close affiliation with all the primary industry sectors right around the state. So it does not really work like that.

The board members told me that it was good to have a board because it gave me insulation, so that if something went wrong I could blame the board. I told them, 'Well, that never works, because the buck always stops with the minister.' If I am going to be responsible for mistakes and stuff-ups, I want them to be my mistakes and stuff-ups and not some decisions that are made without my involvement. I would urge people on the other side to think of that, because one day when you inhabit this side of the chamber and you are running government departments, you actually want to be able to leave your legacy and make decisions that are done in relation to every other department. We all need to work together. Education Adelaide is out there marketing education to students right throughout the world but in particular to Asia. We need to get those people coming down here. Historically, they have been doing it separately from tourism, yet they are both marketing bodies that we need to have working closely together.

That was the main view I had in developing this. It was not just an idea that I had; it came from talking to tourism operators right throughout the state. One of the big concerns they had was that regional tourism operators did not have a voice on the tourism board. You can go through the board and a lot of people have a lot of qualifications, but there are no small tourism operators on that board. One of the other problems we have had is that, when we have had tourism operators on there, too often they have had to leave the room because of potential conflicts of interest.

Consider someone like Jeff Ellison who used to be on the board. He is one of the smartest tourism operators anywhere in Australia. He has been elevated to the hall of fame of South Australian tourism operators and he is one of the smart people who you would want on a board. He was so frustrated that he left the board because he kept having to leave the room when all these discussions were being had that he thought could be a potential conflict of interest.

The set-up that we worked out after talking to a lot of people from industry was that we would not have a board that had more say than the minister. We did not want a board that did not work in with the wider government agenda and the public agenda. Instead of having the board that was paid $200,000, we would have an industry panel that would meet every eight to 10 weeks. There would be no fees paid to these people because they are people we want because they already have the skin in the game. They are the ones, more than anyone else, who want tourism to be successful.

The idea of the industry panel was to have it co-chaired by the Minister for Tourism and the CE of the South Australian Tourism Commission. We would have an industry leader on there, and Jeff Ellison was the person who I would have put on there. We would have Adelaide Airport and Education Adelaide, which is the group that I said has been working in isolation, but I must say that things have improved recently. The regions are so under-represented in the message that comes directly to the leadership at tourism, through the board. Each region in South Australia has a tourism chair. My idea was to have the chair of chairs, who at the moment is the chair for Kangaroo Island, and then a second regional chair. My idea was to have it on a rotational basis: you could have the chair from the Riverland on at one time, the chair from the Murraylands on it the next time, and then the chair for Eyre Peninsula. They could come and see how the industry panel works and also give a presentation about what is important in their area, what they see are the latest trends, and where they need a hand.

Also on the industry panel we would have the South Australian Tourism Industry Council (SATIC), which does a very important job. They have a few hundred members, and we thought it would be good to have the CE on this industry panel. We also want to have the CE from the West Beach Trust, Kate Williams. Kate is on a national board (the Big 4 Holiday Parks Board) and she runs a pretty good tourism and sporting precinct at West Beach. We would also include the Adelaide Convention Bureau, and we would also have someone from the arts, and as well as someone from the Australian Hotels Association, who have a spot on the board at the moment.

We would include restaurant and catering, who do not have a spot on the board but still have a large interface, obviously, and an important role to play in the tourism sector. We would have the chair of the new Adelaide Entertainment and Convention Centre Board there, as we bring those two boards together, and the Australian Tourism Export Council. We would then have someone who is an expert in premium food and wine because we know tourism in this state is largely driven by food and wine.

I had a meeting with Mr Ridgway a couple of weeks ago when we learned that the opposition would be opposing this part of the abolition of boards and committees. I sat down with him again and said that I would be happy to have the opposition tourism spokesperson on this industry panel. I am not in here today to have a blue: I am here to try to have a constructive discussion.

Tourism is worth $5.2 billion at the moment, and we want it to be worth $8 billion by 2020. We are not going to do it by my going off and acting on my own, or the opposition acting on their own, or any tourism operators around the state, or the airport, or anyone else, acting on their own. I want to collaborate. I want to have a bipartisan approach to this, and that is what I said to Mr Ridgway. If that helped seal the deal and we could have him on the panel, I would be more than happy to do that.

That is the industry group wrapped up. We would then have someone from that industry panel—I was going to nominate Jeff Ellison for this role, given his expertise, his high standing in the tourism community and his marketing background as well—promotion of the state subcommittee, which is part of the economic development cabinet committee. You would then have a direct feed-in from what is happening in tourism straight into the Economic Development Cabinet Committee. That is one of the most important things we can have because that is where the decisions are made about where the priority spends are for government, and it also takes away a lot of that 'working in the silos', working in isolation.

That was the plan we outlined. I must say that it is easy, when you are not sitting in this role, to have an idea of how things work which is not necessarily accurate. It is also easy for lobby groups to get involved and write letters and emails. The two main groups that fought the abolition of the Tourism Commission Board were actually based in Sydney. What value they add to South Australia is beyond me. The way they went around it was not to come and have a discussion with me and sit down and go through what that industry panel would look like. I had conversations with their local people here, and local industry members, and had received support for this approach.

The Transport and Tourism Forum and the Australian Tourism Export Council, both out of Sydney, wrote to MPs saying that no other state in Australia had got rid of their tourism board. Argument does not sit with me. While it might be true that no other state or territory in Australia has got rid of their tourism boards, just because no other state has done it does not mean that it is not a good idea for us to do it. We are the only state that is phylloxera free. We are the only state that is fruit fly free. We are the only state with a container deposit system, where people are paid to bring back their cans and bottles and not dump them on the side of the road like we see when we go to other states. Sometimes, we can show great leadership as a state.

I do understand that the TTF and ATEC letters have carried a lot of weight with people in this debate. I would just like to point out to people on the other side, and to other people who might be looking at my views, that these are not views that I just came up with. I hit the ground running in January 2013 when I was made tourism minister, and the first thing I did was ring all the regional chairs because I knew that they had felt a disconnect, particularly with the board. I rang them straightaway, we talked through a lot of issues, and then I got out into the regions.

As most members from regional areas would know, we invited local members along to those forums and we talked about things and discussed things. This was all borne out of discussions with people at the coalface, those people in the regions who live, breathe and work and whose families rely on income coming through the door. They were the people who inspired me to come up with this industry panel approach.

I am not sure whether it is too late for you guys to go back to your party room and have another look at it, but I would be really pleased if you could. As I said a few moments ago, this is not something that I want to stand up here and play politics with. The industry is worth far too much to us and we all really need to chip in and make it grow. I do not think the board helps us to grow it. I do not necessarily think it presents an impediment, but there is a lag factor there: they meet once a month.

As we were talking about in question time today, if you get a chance to get in and bid for something, you want to be able to have that money or be able to make the decision to do that. We have a very competent team in the South Australian Tourism Commission executive and the staff members there as well. Look at Hitaf Rasheed and her team in major events. The fact that they put on the greatest bike race outside of France is a huge tick for her. Look at Emma Nicholls and the team in marketing and the ad they came up with, working with local producers for the Barossa, that has won all these awards. The board did not design that ad; the minister did not design that ad: it was actually the people in the creative part of the South Australian Tourism Commission who came up with that ad.

We have Nick Jones, who heads up Destination Development. The member for Schubert talked about the great figures in cruise visitation and all these new boats that we have here. Nick is the guy who, with his team, has gone out and built that year-on-year. That is worth $12 million to the economy. Every time a cruise ship lands at Port Lincoln or Kangaroo Island, the people from that cruise ship pump $200,000 into the local economy in one day. It is not the board doing that: it is the people we have employed in those positions who are doing that.

Look at Rodney Harrex, the new CE. He is coming up to his second year anniversary. He came in around the same time I did. He has great credentials in terms of his work with Tourism Australia. He has worked extensively in the US. He just had five years running Tourism Australia's operations in Europe, based in London. We have a great, very tight-knit team, that is really engaged with the local communities right around the state.

How much has the board got out into the regions? They have been to McLaren Vale, which is a commute that I do every day. They have been to the Adelaide Hills, again it is a commute. They went to Yorke Peninsula last year. They caught a bus up there in the morning and came back on the bus that night. The only time that I know of that the board has been away and stayed overnight was a trip to the Eyre Peninsula a couple of years ago.

I have encouraged them and I have mentioned this to the chair before, that I want to see the board. If there is going to be a board, I want to see it out there listening to the people at the coalface, the people whose livelihoods are on the line, the people who we need to work with day in and day out to help grow this business.

Again, I am not having a go at any individuals on the board. This is a system that has been in place for 30 years. I think not coming in and looking at how things have been done for years and asking the question: can things be done better is something that I do not want to do. I have responsibility for this portfolio. It is something that I am passionate about. Every morning when I wake up I think to myself: how can we make it better?

We engage with the private sector, we engage with people at the national level and at an international level, and with our team here in the South Australian Tourism Commission. If we are to get rid of the board, I will thank them all for their service over the years. I do not want this to reflect in any way on any members of the board, because they have all done a sterling job under the charter they have been given. However, I quite strongly think that there is a better way of doing this, and that is why we have put up this proposition. I look forward to hearing the contributions from those opposite and thank those who have already made contributions and for their recognition of the tourism industry.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (17:39): I rise to speak to the Statutes Amendment (Boards and Committees—Abolition and Reform) Bill. As Liberals we recognise that streamlining the process of red tape can make things better, but it can also potentially cause some problems. We are certainly concerned about the Pastoral Board, the Health Performance Council, the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee and the South Australian tourism board all being abolished under this bill, and I will go into more detail later in my contribution.

I note that the government made their point in July last year that government boards and committees would be abolished to try to streamline decision making. The Premier in the second reading speech was trying to assure us that more South Australians will have the opportunity to be involved with any changes. We will have to see whether that happens or not.

Of the previous 429 boards and committees that are in the scope of this bill, the government have said that they will retain 90 of these outright and, of the remaining boards and committees, 107 will be abolished, 17 will be merged, and 62 are subject to other reform efforts that are underway. There are also another 120 boards and committees that the government are indicating should not be considered government boards and committees and they are reclassifying those, and their options for reform are still being considered for the remaining 33 boards and committees.

I think that shows that there a lot of things that we do not know on this side of the house in regards to a lot of these boards and committees—some being put on hold, some being put on review and there are some, we are told, that will be outright abolished under this reform. I think debate in committee will be for an extended period of time in regard to this bill.

In regard to this legislation, there are 43 pieces of legislation to abolish, merge or simplify 56 boards and committees. As I indicated before, some of the boards that the government are chasing are the South Australian Tourism Commission Board, Community Benefit South Australia Board, the Natural Resource Management Council and the Minister's Youth Council.

A lot of my concerns are in regard to a lot of the agriculture and forestry impacts that come about with this bill, and I think agriculture, sadly, in this place seems to be a poor cousin when it is actually the mainstay, I believe, of the economic future of this state. Whatever happens in this country and in this state, agriculture has always been there in the background doing the job, and at the moment currently supports around 25,000 jobs in this state and is heading towards $20 billion annually in total economic output. So, I think we need to approach the reclassification or abolition of these boards in a very careful manner.

Just going through an implementation table that the government have supplied, it indicates that for the alpaca, goat and horse industry groups the aim is to abolish by June 2015; for the deer and the apiary industry advisory groups the aim is to abolish; and for the pig, cattle and sheep industry advisory groups the aim there is to delegate power to appoint members to a chief executive. Then we get to the South Australian Wine Industry Council, which is to be abolished; the Agribusiness Council—abolish; Aquaculture Advisory Committee—abolish; the Fisheries Council of South Australia—abolish; the Rock Lobster Fishery Management Advisory Committee—abolish; and the South Australian Forest Industry Advisory Board—abolish.

Just while I am talking about forests, we had the tourism minister speak eloquently about Adelaide Oval, paid for out of taxpayers' money, and yes it was. Much of the funds that went from the sale of the South-East forest went to the Adelaide Oval. Yes, the Adelaide Oval is a magnificent place to go and attend sport or other events, but I think it has come at a great cost to this state. We had an asset that was earning the government close on $45 million per annum, yet the government decided that was a risk. If I was in business and if I was a farmer with a big enough property (and it would have to be a huge operation) and I was bringing in $45 million a year, I do not think I would be getting rid of the asset, but anyway, perhaps I have a different mind as it relates to economics. Just in regard to—

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: Madam Deputy Speaker, the member for Newland is interjecting out of his seat.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, and you're not taking any notice of him. I commend you, but not—

Mr PEDERICK: I'm just taking any notice. You sounded—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr PEDERICK: —very much like him.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: If I could just remind everybody, the Treasurer is on one warning and the member for Newland is only on a call to order, but I can change that very quickly. It was much better when you were all busy, so, keep busy, and we will listen to the member for Hammond in silence.

Mr PEDERICK: Thank you, Deputy Speaker, for your protection. What I want to speak about now is the South Australian Forestry Corporation Board. The deputy leader asked the Minister for Forests some questions about it last year in a briefing in November. It is interesting to note that the response to the deputy leader describes the action of the South Australian Forestry Corporation Act, and it prescribes a board of management under a charter co-signed by the Minister for Forests and the Minister for Finance.

It oversees the operations of the South Australian Forestry Corporation, and it obviously manages forest reserves proclaimed under the Forestry Act in the Mid North, Mount Lofty Ranges, Bundaleer, Wirrabara, Whyte Yarcowie, Leighton, Mount Crawford, Kuitpo and Second Valley, and forest reserves proclaimed in the South-East, namely, Cave Range, Penola, Mount Burr and Mount Gambier, the extent of which no longer contain any commercial plantations following the sale of harvesting rights to OneFortyOne Plantations Pty Ltd, and the forest lease to OneFortyOne Plantations Pty Ltd in the South-East and in western Victoria.

The response from the Minister for Forests to the deputy leader indicates that, in the Premier's final review of boards and committees, the board is being retained subject to further investigation while an alternative governance model is explored. That concerns me greatly. We were extremely concerned on this side of the house. We were against the sale of the forward rotations of the forests. What I am hearing from the South-East is that, in terms of the forestry that was sold to OneFortyOne Plantations, when the financial implications are better they can export log, that log is exported, and we are left with some of our mills—in fact, most of our mills—in the South-East not getting the quotas, which they are supposed to get, by 10 or 15 per cent. This is one of the effects of the forward sale of those forests. I hope that the government is having a very good look at the South Australian Forestry Corporation Board. In my thinking, that board should be retained.

I notice that the Phylloxera and Grape Industry Board of South Australia selection committee is to be abolished and replaced with a consultation-with-industry process and a nomination process to be developed within industry. When I first did a quick reading of this I thought the government was going to abolish the Phylloxera and Grape Industry Board, but, thankfully, that is not going to happen because we certainly need to keep up our phylloxera-free designation in South Australia. I do note that the Phylloxera and Grape Industry Board of South Australia will be a delegated appointment to the chief executive.

I note that the South Australian Citrus Industry Development Board has already been abolished. The Aquaculture Tenure Allocation Board will be retained. I realise that it is probably being kept because it works out the tenure and, I am assuming, the lease costs for people involved in the aquaculture industry. The South Australian River Murray Sustainability Program Steering Committee will be abolished when the project is completed.

The Genetically Modified Crop Advisory Committee will transfer the appointment power to the minister. As an individual and coming off the land, I find that interesting when we all know that the minister has a certain thought process in regard to genetically modified crops, yet I acknowledge that we have a world-leading plant accelerator at the Waite Institute at the University of Adelaide, where there is a lot of genetically modified crop work happening. I wonder about having a minister certainly stuck on one view of GM crops who will end up with the overall control of that issue.

I note that the Veterinary Surgeons Board of South Australia will be retained. The Rural Assistance Appeals Committee will be abolished after the present scheme expires. The Dairy Authority of South Australia will be retained. The South Australian Forestry Corporation Board Audit and Risk Committee is to be reclassified as non-government—it will be interesting to see where that turns up. The Meat Food Safety Advisory Committee will delegate power to appoint members to the chief executive.

A lot of my major concerns are about what is going to happen in regard to how we manage things in this state when a lot of these boards go, because my understanding about what is supposedly going in place—and it was certainly very raw when this bill was first proposed—is that there were no alternatives to what was going to happen. For instance, the Pastoral Board, a board that looks after the interests of most of this state, and certainly in light of stocking rates, animal welfare issues in the Far North on the pastoral lands and a whole range of issues relating to pastoral lessees which is a whole different kettle of fish to most of us on the internal farmlands or the suburban farmlands who farm with title. They have a different title arrangement with this station country and they do not work underneath a local government system in most of this area. It is 'out of area'.

You only have to see the difference between an 'out of area' part of Australia by driving through to Birdsville and heading just north of the South Australian border. You have basically been driving on a track to get to that border and then you hit a nicely graded road up to the South Australian border, or in the case of just out of Innamincka heading towards Brisbane, there is bitumen right to the border, about 24 kilometres from Innamincka in the Cooper Basin.

Some very real questions need to be asked. I know there have been some ongoing discussions and I would be very keen to hear the member for Stuart give his speech in this place because I know he has been involved in discussions on where this might head as far as maintaining governance over the pastoral lands of the state. I have a real fear about having that amount of country delegated to a minister without having local representation. I have a real fear that things could get out of control very quickly.

It is not just with the Pastoral Board but it is like this with a lot of these industry sectors. I have gone through the bill and I have gone through the expenditure clauses, and I have seen that a lot of the power will be put into the minister's hands. I note that the agriculture minister, the tourism minister, commented that he thought it would be a great thing if he could take control of tourism instead of having a tourism board, but will we end up with basically a dictatorship over these things? It concerns me that so much power will be directed through to the minister of the day, but as I indicated earlier in my contribution, I think a lot of this will be fleshed out at the committee stage.

Certainly with regard to animal welfare—and as a farmer by background I am absolutely concerned with animal welfare—and the government wanting to abolish the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, we want to know what will be in place. Will it be a structure that stands up? Will it be something that looks after the animal welfare of our state and helps our pastoralists and our landowners in their production of animals?

There has been much talk about the tourism board, and we are certainly concerned on this side of the house about it being cut out of the equation, and it will be interesting when we go through the committee process. We have heard some of the commentary by the Minister for Tourism, but I think a whole lot more needs to be unpacked around that to convince me that it is better for the minister to have the final say.

The issue that is probably timely to discuss in light of what is happening with the government's Transforming Health arrangements at the moment is the abolition of the Health Performance Council. There are a lot of concerns at the moment about where people will be in relation to health performance and the services required for people and their health needs right across the state. I know a lot of the Transforming Health proposals are in regard to urban hospitals, with the declassifying of emergency wards and the shutdown of the Daw Park Repatriation Hospital, but they do have an impact on regional people because at any one time probably 30 per cent of the patients in urban hospitals are from the regions who have to come for more specialised care.

Certainly some of the things that are happening that are a bit quieter out in the regions are like those that happened out on the Fleurieu. The member for Finniss and I had a forum the other day about the impacts on the Yankalilla community, the Goolwa community and the Victor Harbor community, since both Yankalilla and Goolwa will not have triage at their medical centres anymore. People will have to be transported further through to Victor Harbor, which could mean an extra 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the traffic, and could mean, I believe, a real difference between life and death for a patient.

Not only that, it is also what will happen with the triage for the patients in our nursing homes in Goolwa and other areas in the state if we do not have that medical service close, with doctors on hand to make the triage decisions. What I am concerned about in this whole debate on health is the delegation of who is going to make a decision on where people land when they have an accident or an illness. It looks to me as though there is going to have to be a list stapled on the back door of an ambulance so that people can go through the list and say, 'Oh, no, you're only this sick, we'll take you to this regional hospital. We may fit you in the surgery. That's not the thing we should be doing, but we don't think we need to transport you through to Victor Harbor, for instance, if there is someone at Goolwa needing a service.'

It is just mind blowing that a lot of the decision-making could be very much life and death, especially in regard to declassifying the emergency section of the Noarlunga Hospital, which we thought was going to be closed. If people are at the scene of an accident or have a serious illness—a stroke, for instance, was brought up today during question time—someone down the line is going to have to make a decision. I think this could have more ramifications for our volunteer ambulance people out in the bush and the regions. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.


At 17:59 the house adjourned until Thursday 19 March 2015 at 10:30.


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