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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-06-04 Daily Xml
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Vocational Education and Training

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:30): I just would like a straight answer from the Premier. Will he tell us whether or not the government received separate legal advice to the Crown Solicitor or whether cabinet made their decision based upon the risk assessment that they did themselves? If he did receive separate legal advice, can he provide that to the parliament?

The SPEAKER: The Premier should ignore the rhetorical introduction of the leader, which is out of order. I am not sure that the question is in order, but the Premier may wish to answer it nevertheless.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:30): The first thing is that we do not just divulge the deliberations of cabinet, we do not release legal advice and we certainly do not discuss—

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Chaffey is called to order.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Well, we certainly will not be identifying what source of advice we have. All of the relevant advices and risks associated with this decision were taken into account by cabinet. They were communicated to the relevant federal agency. The relevant federal agency did not raise any concerns with the policy that we announced. The reason why they did not raise any concerns was because they know this is responsive—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader will be quiet.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: The national partnership agreement had been reached between the commonwealth and the states, and they know that this state government leads the nation in relation to training and further education reform. And they know, for instance, that we are exceeding by a rate of sixfold the obligations that we committed to under the national partnership agreement. That is why when we contacted them to say, 'What on earth is your federal minister on about—

Mr Gardner interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Morialta is on two warnings.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —when he's threatening to withhold our funding?' they said, 'We don't know. We don't know—

Mr Knoll interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert is now on two warnings.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —what he's on about.' The real question here is why did Senator Birmingham, who said that they will not be receiving the $65 million the federal government has agreed to give to them under the partnership agreement, make that threat when his own agency had no knowledge of the fact that he was about to make that threat. Why did he make that threat in circumstances where his own agency had not reached a conclusion that we had breached that agreement? This is politics, base politics, which is directed by a federal government against a state government that is seeking to actually do the difficult work of reforming government to make its state more efficient so that it can grow its economy for the prosperity of its citizens.

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