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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
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Supply Bill 2016

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 23 March 2016.)

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (12:05): I rise to speak on the Supply Bill 2016, introduced, as we do each year, preceding the announcement of the state government's budget proposals and the consequential bills for the allocation of moneys for government. We do this because we need to continue the expenditure for the government and its employees pending the Appropriation Bill 2016 receiving assent. In this bill, $3.444 billion, or up to that amount, is proposed to be available for appropriation to ensure the continued orderly delivery of government services and payment of personnel.

I place on the record, in speaking to this bill, the urgency within the Attorney-General's portfolio of the need for the government to seriously address the critical infrastructure of our superior courts. We now lead the nation, unfortunately, in one more indicator of dysfunction, and that is the capital infrastructure of our superior courts. We have now the worst superior courts in the state. Having had a kaleidoscope of announcements and cancellations of a courts precinct proposal for a rebuild and upgrade of those facilities, we are now left with a situation where, during the year, we had flooding in court chambers and courts, which required the closure of facilities and which of course shut down certain aspects of the operation of the court. That is how ridiculous it has become.

We have had examples, of course, where we have mattresses at the end of stairways to protect staff in case they slide down into a damaging situation. We have had a situation where a former Chief Justice in a wheelchair was unable to access his own court. The situation is laughable. It makes us the laughing stock of the nation, and I would expect the government to progress that.

The last round of announcements, having cost millions of dollars to prepare the tendering and the like for the last proposal for the courts precinct, came at a time when the government said it simply did not come within budget. They had the opportunity, as was disclosed in subsequent documents produced under freedom of information, to progress with the court rebuild. They could have dealt with the rebuild of a great Taj Mahal for new offices for the department of the Attorney-General at a later stage, but no, they still elected to do nothing to remedy the situation. We will wait for the government's budget this year, but again, it is something that is quite critical.

The second matter relates to the District Court. Last year during estimates, the Attorney-General announced that he was considering a restructure of the superior courts. That was code for abolishing the District Court, having one trial court, and ultimately having a court of appeal. That is a structure which I think has some limitations. It would be replicating what we have in the Northern Territory if we were to go down that route, but if the government presents a sufficient case for restructuring the superior court, we would have a look at it.

We would look at any sensible proposal from the government. It is just that, in a year, we have not seen anything, and we have a situation where the government—pending no decision on this, and no presentation of a case to consider for reform—continues to strip the courts of their full complement of judges. The District Court is currently running at two judges short of the current workload. Remember that we have overloaded prisons; we have continuing law and order work that needs to be done; and we have the imminent retirement of the Chief Judge of the District Court.

We have a situation where the government's response to this—to the outrage of the courts, including the Chief Justice, who says that the full complement of judges is the critical issue to dealing with the problem with overlisting and, therefore, the consequential repeat of cases that are listed for trial, witnesses turn up, the claimant is ready, the defendant is ready to stand trial, and people spend money to turn up to court only to find that there is no judge available and that they have to come back in months or the following year, so it is quite an unsatisfactory situation as far as the progressing of people's rightful opportunity to have access to courts—the government's answer to that recently was for the Attorney-General to announce that he was going to deal with the shortage in the Supreme Court by elevating, for 15 months, three judges from the District Court and bringing in a judge from interstate.

The one from interstate was to deal with a case where there was a significant conflict of interest in any of the local judges hearing it, so therefore they quite rightly—as is appropriate from time to time—brought in an interstate judge. Three District Court judges were gazetted and announced to be appointed by the Attorney-General to do work in the Supreme Court. Now all that does is completely undermine the capacity of the District Court to continue to function on its inadequate means as it is.

To illustrate the height of arrogance which the government has reached in dealing with the management of reasonable funding to ensure that we have access to justice and that law and order continues to operate in our state, he did so without having even consulted at least one of the judges and, as a consequence, that judge said, 'I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to stay in the District Court; that is my commission and, notwithstanding that you have put in the Gazette that you are sending me to the Supreme Court for 18 months, I won't be accepting that.'

It possibly would have offered him higher duties, potentially higher remuneration, all of those things, but he stood by the principles of ensuring that his court, to which he had been appointed, was not going to be left in a desolate situation of not being able to manage, and he made it quite clear that he would not be going. Good on him for having the courage to say to the Attorney-General, 'No, I'm not going to abandon the responsibility that you as Attorney-General, and your government, gave me in appointing me to the District Court. I will stay here for the long haul and I will undertake my duties.' I want to give special commendation to His Honour Judge Barry Beazley, who has declined to accept that appointment and who continues to work in this role.

If it is the government's intention via the Attorney-General to continue this practice of elevating people from Magistrates Court to District Court, from District Court to Supreme Court, a practice which is frowned upon in many jurisdictions as making people more and more likely to respond to the requirements (if I put that in a general sense) of attorneys-general of the day; and judges being vulnerable to falling into line with what they might consider to be putting them in favour with an attorney-general, in the hopeful expectation that they might receive some advance or promotion up the court structure, it is a practice that is frowned upon, for good reason.

It is something which, unfortunately, this Attorney-General has moved from occurring occasionally—and sometimes there can be some justification for doing that—to becoming the norm. I have to say that whatever his proposal to restructure the courts, if he is going to continue this practice it will be roundly condemned from this side of the house.

The second matter that I wish to bring to the attention of the house is the plight of young families in my electorate and in surrounding areas—-the electorates of Dunstan, Morialta, Hartley, and Unley, in particular. We have a crisis in respect of access to public schools (particularly primary schools) in the whole eastern and southern metropolitan area. It was so critical that last year I wrote to the newly-appointed Minister for Education (Hon. Susan Close) to alert her to this problem and to note the critical situation in respect of enrolments being at, or near, capacity in the eastern region.

I asked the minister to consider granting approval to build a new school in the eastern region, and that whilst there had been some extra students provided for at Marryatville High School, it did not address the demand in the primary schools. Her response dated 27 June 2015 was to suggest that she was familiar with the situation and that she had approved four additional relocatable classrooms at the Linden Park Primary School.

Furthermore, the minister suggested that there was adequate capacity to deal with further enrolments in the eastern area, and identified 181 student vacancies across the six schools. Within months, that was exposed to be completely unreliable information. We only need to look at today's paper to appreciate why; that is, because the department clearly does not have a clue about the capacity of schools across the state, which is alarming enough, as many of us in the house expect a government department to keep an eye on the capital needs and requirements for each of the schools in our public school system. They also need to do that to ensure that there is an equitable advance of capital redevelopment in areas of need throughout state, instigated in an orderly fashion.

In fact, today's revelations tell us that that situation is not case and that the opposition's call for there to be an audit in relation to the schools as to their capacity and the capital works requirement of the schools needs to be attended to immediately. More pressing is that the minister indicated that she was going to address the Linden Park Primary School problem by adding four relocatable classrooms, and I would invite anyone in the house to go down and look at Linden Park. It was highlighted a week ago in the press as being one of the most successful primary schools in South Australia in NAPLAN testings in years 3, 5 and 7, and identified as the most successful school overall in respect of its students—and it has over 1,000 students.

I do not know how many other schools in members' electorates have three different lunch breaks, but we now have a situation at Linden Park where, in order to fit the children in the school space outside the classrooms, they have to have three separate lunchtime breaks. The school is, basically, in the thirds. I cannot remember exactly the times of opening and closing, but, for example, the first lunch break is from quarter to 12 to 12.15, when the first group goes out to play on the oval; then from 12.15 to 12.45, the second group gets a chance to play outside; and then, following that, of course, the third group. I do not know how they deal with recess times or whether they can get out there at all, but we have classrooms being convened and having their studies in the library (resource centre, as they are now more aptly described), which again limits the capacity and opportunity for the rest of the students to use that resource centre during the school day.

We have a chronic situation. I really shook my head when I got the minister's letter last year, but then I found that during the preparation for 2016 there was a chronic problem with children being able to fit into all of our local schools: Linden Park was full, Burnside Primary was full, Glen Osmond was almost full but soon filled up, Linden Park was at capacity, and we had Rose Park Primary School, which not only was full but also has now been advised that it has about 25 students in its school now over and above the approved number allowable for the area of external space outside a built area within the school grounds, and that they have to actually reduce their number of students in the school next year. How will that happen? Nobody knows!

Let me give an example. As I understand it, at Rose Park Primary School they will lose about 50 or 60 year 7 children who will finish at the school and presumably go on to other schools for their senior education, and that is the normal course. They will lose some at year 5, because some of those children might transfer to other schools, and of course you will have the normal loss of children whose parents might move out of the district, move interstate and the like.

They have 50 or 60 children in the Rose Park Preschool, near the school, who are increasingly taking on numbers because the number of preschools under this government of course has reduced, so there is a whole cohort of children at the preschool who in normal years would expect to transfer to the Rose Park Primary School as the year 7s and some of the year 5s and 6s move off—that is the normal course. However, next year they will have to lose about 25 kids: they have to move from something like 585 students down to 560. So, somewhere they have to find 25 places—they will have to take fewer children who are destined to come into the school under ordinary circumstances, and they will have to find somewhere else in the state to go.

I have had a good look around my schools, and at the moment the only spare space will be for children to go up the hill to the Uraidla Primary School. There are a few vacancies I think at Crafers school. That is their option, because in all the schools around them—Parkside had a few vacancies but is now full, etc., etc.—there is no room left. I do not know what planet the minister is on when she sends me these letters denying there is any demand.

We have a situation not only where they have zoned our schools now, where they have capped the schools for obvious reasons, but, having bungled even the register and auditing of schools to ensure that they are not over subscribed, one of my schools in the seat of Bragg is now facing the situation where 25 children in the local preschool will be sent somewhere because they will not be able to get into the local school.

Unsurprisingly, I receive letters from concerned parents who live in the area, who have built their house in the area, have bought a home in the area, have had their children—some have been there for years—with reasonable expectation that their children will go to a local school. If they cannot fit into the exact one next door, they expect to the nearest one. But, no, there is no room in the inn in the eastern suburbs, and the government has its head in the sand when it comes to appreciating how difficult is this situation.

Some parents will accept and meet the cost of transferring children to independent schools, but that is not ideal. We have a law in South Australia, under the Education Act, which requires children to go to school from age 6 to age 17 in this state; it is compulsory. This government has an obligation to ensure that we provide the services in public education for that to occur. In fact, because of those laws we have an obligation to ensure they have transport to be able to get to them, which is one of the reasons the education department has an obligation either to pay a fee to parents to get their children to school or, alternatively, provide a yellow bus or private operating bus to do that.

I ask the government to, firstly, come down and explain to the people in my area at a public meeting—I will be holding it in about three weeks—who is going to get in and who is going to get out. Who is going to be in the lucky dip? Who is going to be in the lottery for their child to have access to school and who is going to miss out? They are at least entitled to know that before we get to the latter part of the year. I ask the government to seriously consider that, and the invitation will be issued shortly.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (12:25): I rise to speak on the Supply Bill. The state of the state is something that all members in this place should be concerned about, and we should all be united in making sure that the good people of South Australia are able to be governed to the best of our ability. Unfortunately, what we are seeing in the state today is the highest unemployment in the nation, a budget that is in a surplus—and I use that word perhaps not in its true sense because of the accounting methods that are being used, only because we know this government have over the years railed against privatisation, but then have privatised the lotteries, the forests and the Motor Accident Commission.

The government have reaped hundreds of millions of dollars from these sales. They pull in hundreds of millions of dollars from organisations like SA Water. Of course, fines from speed cameras and other fines are in the tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars. Hopefully it is being put to good use, but what we are seeing is not a bright future for South Australia under this government.

It pains me to go back to 1993, but I refer back to some newspaper articles that were mentioned in the early nineties when the state was in a crisis: Randall Ashbourne—where is Randall Ashbourne now?—wrote in the Sunday Mail in September 1991, 'State Bank loss "blows to $3.2b"'; 'Violent crime on rise in SA,' in October 1992; 'State Bank a disaster for Labor' in March 1993; on 27 March 1993, 'SA economy "worst in the nation"'; in May 1992, 'Jobless youth crisis'; and it was announced in The Advertiser in March 1993, 'Now 230 teaching jobs go', and 'Nurses vow to fight as…1200 more health jobs face the axe.'

We said in our campaign poster back then 'Never again', but unfortunately the people of South Australia, despite having voted for a Liberal government with their votes, their minds and their hearts, have a Labor government, and that Labor government has allowed it to happen again. We said, 'Never again,' but it has happened again. The state is in a serious, serious dilemma, and at this moment, under this government, I see no way forward.

In my particular portfolio as the shadow minister for communities and social inclusion, I look at the areas that are being administered by the minister. We can look back at the waste of funds, the confusion and the frustration in that portfolio. The volunteers and the good people of South Australia who are trying to get their police and other screening requirements through that department are being continually frustrated and delayed.

We should not be doing that to people who want to volunteer. We should not be doing that to people who just want to get a job. They cannot get a job as a school bus driver or continue driving a taxi because there are delays in the government's screening unit. We need to have good screening, and we know that, but there are a number of private companies that have been to see me to say, 'We can do this much more quickly and less expensively for the participants.'

That is just one area in communities and social inclusion, but then you go and look at the Concessions and Seniors Information System (CASIS). What a wonderful thing that was—not! It started under Premier Weatherill when he was the minister. I think CASIS had about a $600,000 budget at the time. It crept up and crept up. It was in the Auditor-General's Report year after year after year. We saw inefficiencies there. There were questions over the people backing that system or underwriting that system with software developments.

What happened? We saw that CASIS, which went from $600,000 to $7 million, was scrapped by this government. Seven million dollars down the tube. We do not know how much money is still out there in overpaid benefits to people. We do not know what the full cost of CASIS is going to be to the people of South Australia.

We have got COLIN in there now, which is a similar concessions information line. We do not know what that is going to cost. We do not know how effective that is going to be but, going on the past record, whether it is CASIS, whether it is Oracle, whether it is EPAS, whether it is TRUMPS or whether it is the imaging systems in our health services, time and time again this government starts out with good intentions—I assume they are good intentions because you would not want to start out thinking that you are going to fail—but they fail. They cost the people of South Australia, the hardworking people paying their taxes, not only in taxation funds but this government is wasting their money on failed schemes. This government is then not presenting a long-term outcome for long-term problems.

I am very proud to represent the emergency services portfolio as a life member of the Country Fire Service. My father was in the MFS for 30 years. They are very close to me. They have got a solid place in my heart, and I want to make sure that this government does the very best for each and every one of our hardworking emergency service workers in South Australia, whether they are paid or volunteers.

We see the ESL (the emergency services levy) that has been pushed up by this government using excuses which are based on rubbery figures, on fantasy figures, figures that cannot be justified in real terms. So, what does the government do? Instead of facing the facts, instead of fessing up, it hits the taxpayers with massive increases in basically a wealth tax. It is a tax on their land, it is a tax on their homes, it is a tax on their cars; and, if my information is right, there is going to be a tax on their boats. There will be a tax on everything that moves, and that is just not fair.

I wonder whether we are going to get the same excuse from this government as we had with Sampson Flat and now with the Pinery fire: 'Well, it costs millions of dollars to do this. Somebody has got to pay.' Well, it is a core responsibility of government. You should not be having to add an extra levy, an extra tax, an increase in payments from our taxpayers every time there is another issue faced by this government. If you had a well-managed government providing not only for current expenditure but also for these unexpected issues, then the taxpayers of South Australia would, perhaps, be more understanding, more reasonable, because they are very angry at the moment.

The particular issues that I am still very concerned about with our Country Fire Service are the automatic vehicle location systems. Money was put out there by the Department of State Development to encourage a number of electronic firms, South Australian employed, South Australian developing firms, to develop a vehicle location system for the CFS and SES. The stage 1 funding was there, and I went and saw some of these companies and the work they were doing was really incredible, but what happened? We do not know where the stage 2 funding is. They do not know whether they are going to be able to continue after not only the hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money that was put into this but also the fact that they have put a lot of their own money into it. They do not know where it is going from here.

We need to make sure that funding for that project is going to continue on, and those companies need to be told so that they have not wasted their time and have not wasted that intellectual property, because I know that there is interstate and overseas interest in that intellectual property. On that point, could I just say that we are talking about buying Australian steel. Well, there was over three million litres of fire retardant put onto the Sampson Flat fire, but I understand there was not one litre of Blazetamer fire retardant used, which is used in the US and in Europe which is produced over at Phillips Street at Thebarton and which is employing South Australian people. I understand that not one litre was used, and it certainly was not the majority of that three million litres.

So, let us start buying South Australian. I have come out with a bit of slogan at times. I have said, 'Just buy some: South Australian owned, manufactured and employing.' You cannot be completely parochial, we know that. You have to have trade, you have to be dealing with other people, so you cannot cut them out, but let us just think about South Australia and buy some: South Australian owned, manufactured and employing. When it comes to Blazetamer and other products being made by the biotech companies at Thebarton, we should be looking at them because they are South Australian owned, manufacturing and employing.

With respect to the promises that have been made by this government, I think it was in 2008, then premier Rann and the then minister for emergency services Michael Wright talked about bringing in the automatic vehicle location system. Nothing has happened there.

Former minister for emergency services, member for Light, talked about giving a second set of protective clothing to our CFS volunteers. Particularly after their exposure to a lot of asbestos and a lot of hazards at Pinery, I would hope that those brigades are having that accelerated, but my information is that that program is being delayed.

What have we seen there with the provision of protective clothing, shows that it is not being manufactured now by that small company up at Palmer, that small South Australian company that was doing a fantastic job. The clothing is now being imported by a multinational company and sold here. Let's start buying some at home. They were doing a fantastic job in Palmer. I am sorry I just cannot remember their name, otherwise I would give them a plug here and now.

Mr Pederick: Remlap.

Dr McFETRIDGE: Remlap—thank you, member for Hammond. They were doing a wonderful job, but we have seen them displaced by orders from overseas and interstate.

The disabilities portfolio is a huge portfolio, and I am more than happy to be as bipartisan as I possibly can. I reminded this house I stood on the stage at Novita with the Premier a couple of years ago at their Christmas party and said, 'If you cannot be bipartisan about disabilities, what can you be bipartisan about?'

I am very pleased to be working with the new minister, the member for Taylor, in this area and I hope that we can work together in a bipartisan way. We certainly may have differences of opinion on what some of the priorities may be, but we want to deliver for people with disabilities in South Australia because we all know the elephant in the room is the NDIS at the moment. Federal and state governments on both sides have agreed that we need to do this. The cost is getting greater—$25 billion is the estimated cost of this program at the moment. I am not quite sure of the total figure for Australia but certainly in South Australia the estimated number is about 33,000 people.

In South Australia we have had the trial of the NDIS going for a number of years and I was happy to be at the original launch of that with the then minister, the member for Light. The launch was then for the little kids (0 to five years old), it has now gone up to 0 to 14 years old as of 1 February, and the rollout will continue until we get everybody in by the middle of 2018. From 1 January 2017, 15 to 17 year olds will come into the NDIS and, from 1 July 2017, some adults (18 to 64) will come into the NDIS.

I would have thought that, rather than delaying a significant number of those adults until April 2018 because of the modelling that has been done interstate where the pilot programs involved adults in the NDIS, we would have been able to accelerate the involvement of all these people. We have raised expectations miles high for people with disabilities and their families and we have to deliver.

I will give the house some of the dates we are expecting on this, particularly for metropolitan members. Eastern Adelaide, which is the City of Adelaide, The City of Burnside, Campbelltown City Council, The City of Norwood Payneham and St Peters, City of Prospect, City of Unley is not coming in until 1 April. The City of Playford, City of Salisbury, City of Port Adelaide Enfield and City of Tea Tree Gully are coming in on 1 July 2017, not quite such a long wait, but 1 April 2018 is a long way away. The City of Charles Sturt, City of West Torrens, City of Port Adelaide Enfield is 2018, as is the City of Holdfast Bay, City of Marion, City of Mitcham and City of Onkaparinga. The Barossa Council, Town of Gawler, Light Regional Council and District Council of Mallala are coming in 2017.

These are significant waiting times, significant delays, and there are still little kids out there who are waiting to come on, even though the scheme has been rolled out here. We need to make sure that we are not only deciding who is in and who is out. I was talking to some people on the weekend about cystic fibrosis and whether they are in the health sector or in the disability sector. It depends who you ask. If you ask the doctors, they say it is in the health sector but, if you ask the parents, it is a significant disability. It is a disabling condition for those kids involved and their families.

We need to make sure that the NDIS is going to be what we have promised it is going to be. We need to make sure it is going to work because I think in South Australia alone the budgetary contribution is going to be over $1 billion a year. I think it is going to be about $1.25 billion a year just in South Australia. Significant money has to be well managed. We are already seeing some of the big players, the not-for-profits, coming in.

I am concerned about some of the advertising I am seeing, about how they are going to manage the NDIS packages for people. I wonder what their fees are going to be. I just hope there is no conduct there that we are going to have to question. I would expect not, but I sincerely hope not. I will be the first one to be speaking to the minister if I get a sniff of anything that is untoward. We certainly cannot have any people missing out and not getting bang for their buck, particularly after having waited so long.

In veterans' affairs, obviously the big issue has been the centenary of ANZAC. It was my delight to travel to Turkey last year with the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and some of my other colleagues to be at the centenary of Lone Pine. This year we are going to France for the centenary of the battles of the Somme and Fromelles. Again, like disabilities, we work together to do what we can to help veterans. The veterans have to come first.

However, I do not believe this government has put veterans first with the closure of the Repat. Sure, it may only be a small proportion of veterans who still use all of the facilities at the Repat because of their gold cards, but the Repat is the spiritual home for our veterans. Let us just remind the house of the veterans' guarantee that was still downloadable this morning on the SA Health website. This is what this government was guaranteeing veterans. There are a whole range of issues here:

priority access to services;

specialist care 24 hours a day;

access to arrange admissions 24 hours a day;

the repat card for entitled patients to make access easier;

reserved parking for ex-service organisation representatives;

reduced waiting times for elective surgery; and

discussion forums for veterans and ex-service organisations.

It goes on, right down to a complimentary cappuccino in the coffee shop near the Repat clinics. That was the veterans' guarantee. What is happening to that guarantee? What is happening to our veterans' health services? To me, going to Glenside poses a number of questions.

I understand that it is going before the Public Works Committee this week so I will be interested to see what information comes out of that. I will be interested to read that report because we do need to look at veterans' health and not just their mental health, but also all of their comorbidities. When you are over at Glenside, what happens if you have other comorbidities, such as heart, kidney or liver problems? You will have to go somewhere else. Will they have the priorities that were offered in the veterans' guarantee?

On the issue of the Repat, where are the 250 acute beds going that are in the Repat today? This is on the SA Health website: 250 acute beds. I understand the figures for hip and knee replacements, arthroplasty, neurology surgeries and bladder surgeries down there are about 3,500 a year. Where are they going? I understand there are over 100,000 outpatient appointments every year. Where are they going? Transforming Health is going to transform it, but into what? I think into a total disaster, everything from the veterans' guarantee, right through to when you see what is happening to our metropolitan hospitals.

Aboriginal affairs is another great area and one I am very passionate about. I am working with my fifth minster there, but am very happy to work in a bipartisan way and very happy to see that the minister has come out at last with the Aboriginal Regional Authority Policy. This will set up Aboriginal regional authorities around South Australia. This will make sure that we are able to keep talking to the people at the grassroots, the coalface, so that we know what Aboriginal people want and what the communities want.

With these regional authorities there will be some devil in the detail, a bit like the Aboriginal Heritage Act trying to decide who the true representatives are for these particular areas or these particular groups. There will be some conciliation, arbitration and, certainly, I hope, a lot of discussion until we are able to settle these down, but Aboriginal people in South Australia deserve everything we can do to help them. The gap is still there.

I remember signing the Closing the Gap statement with the then deputy premier Kevin Foley in this place. We are trying to close that gap. We are all trying to close that gap, but it is a gap that unfortunately is still as wide as a chasm. It is not a gap, it is a chasm in many areas of health and education. Certainly, when you look at the justice system and the employment areas, there are big gaps between what Aboriginal people are receiving and their levels of achievement compared with non-Aboriginal people.

The hardworking people of South Australia are paying their taxes. They are doing everything they can to stay loyal to South Australia and to support South Australia. We are a very parochial mob, not just with our AFL teams, soccer teams and other sporting teams, but we are true blue South Australians. I do not mean that in a political sense. We are very parochial.

We need to make sure that everybody from Mount Gambier to Whyalla to Ceduna—all of our rural and regional people—are included in the thoughts of this government. We need to make sure that the people of Adelaide and the metropolitan areas are included in the thoughts of this government. We cannot just keep going the way we are, otherwise it will happen again and again. I do not want it ever to happen again—never again—but, unfortunately, it is.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (12:44): I rise to speak to the Supply Bill 2016. It will not be any surprise to the house that we are supporting this bill, which is an act for the appropriation of money from the Consolidated Account for the financial year ending on 30 June 2017. This bill, when it becomes an act, will allow the appropriate spending of money within government until the budget is assented to. As it says in the bill, we are talking about the appropriation of the sum of $3,444 million, and this is absolutely vital to keep the wheels of the state turning in the months before the budget is assented to. I have a list of issues I want to raise in regard to supply and where money should be spent.

Everyone in this place would be aware of my issue with the New Zealand fur seals down on the Coorong and Lakes. I notice that some wag has left me a little seal on my desk, but it is a real problem. It is already costing the state money in forgiving licence fees, and I appreciate the state giving licence fee relief to fishermen who held the 36 licences in the Coorong and Lakes. I note that work is being done with the seals working group, but interestingly, I had a phone call from the head of the environment department, Sandy Pitcher, saying I would not be welcome on it.

I found that an interesting tactic, which was obviously instigated by minister Hunter in the other place. Even though I had many differences of opinion with the former member for Chaffey, minister Maywald, when I was the shadow minister for the Murray and even though we had plenty of conflicts over water availability especially in the lower reaches of the Murray that I represent, I acknowledge that at least she had the courage to have me on the River Murray committee under Dean Brown.

I certainly appreciated being able to be in the middle of the talk on what needed to be done, not just in my end of the river but for the whole river in South Australia and getting feedback on what was happening throughout the rest of the basin. In regard to seals, over four years, I have introduced two notices of motion to get the government to put in an overabundant native species management plan, including a sustainable harvest. The government showed no appetite for the sustainable harvest, but I think they have missed a real opportunity to manage these seals when most of them left the Coorong and Lakes and went out to breed.

They could have put up some formal barriers, such as sound barriers or some sort of electronic barrier or even some form of netting, for example, similar to shark nets, to make a far better shot at keeping them out of the Coorong and Lakes. Some people may think some of those ideas are far-fetched. If you want to talk about far-fetched ideas, I witnessed something the other day when some of my members from this side of the house came with us on a trip. I note that the member for Heysen is here; she was along on the trip.

Ms Redmond: I've got pictures.

Mr PEDERICK: She has pictures. What we saw was that on Tauwitchere barrage there was a fence and I am estimating now that it might have been about 150 metres long and then, in other places, corflute had been put in place to try to discourage seals from going to the other side. One thing I have learned from farming is that, if you are going to build a fence, you have to build it from one end to the other. You cannot have a gap because, from what I understand, seals can move about 20 kilometres let alone 150 metres, and I would estimate that somewhere around 15 seals at least were sighted each side—

Ms Redmond: Eating three to six kilos a day.

Mr PEDERICK: Yes—15 seals on one side and 15 on the other, and certainly, they all eat three to six kilos a day, apart what they waste in the nets, and they inflict damage on the native wildlife—the terns and the pelicans.

I note that a member from the other place, the Hon. Tammy Franks, has been down there and sadly had to witness a seal taking a pelican. I note that the Greens have not ruled out a cull, but something needs to happen because we run a real risk of not only a fishery disappearing—and the government may be prepared to live with that—but we run a real risk of major environmental damage in a Ramsar-listed site of world renown. I think the government really needs to have a look at that.

There is so much more I need to speak about, and one matter is with regard to pest animals or birds: corellas are an ongoing menace. There needs to be some better coordination between natural resources, the government and councils. I shudder to think of the damage that has been caused to trees, not just through my electorate but the electorates of the member for Heysen and the member for Finniss, and right around the state. I note today that I know of one council that is taking positive action with its relocation action—and that is the Coorong District Council. I salute them for going through the process and for doing it, and I urge other councils to have a look at what it is doing and do the same thing.

One of the other topics I want to discuss today is my disappointment with the diversification fund, the $25 million that was supposed to go to river communities to put money into projects like the new Murray Bridge racecourse that the government turned its back on. I wonder how effective the Minister for Regional Development is in those cabinet rooms debating the fact that we need this money in the regions. There are regions other than around Port Pirie and Clare and they do need support. This money would have been vital in supporting the racing club at Murray Bridge. It is disappointing that that money was not accepted in a purely political move by the Treasurer and the Premier of this state.

Another purely political move by this government was the Black Spot funding for mobile phone towers. There has been some media of late about some of the issues around William Creek and other places in the outback where there is obviously no mobile coverage. I note there has been mobile coverage in recent years at Moomba, in the Copper Basin, and Prominent Hill Mine and Birdsville have mobile coverage. Certainly in outback areas this has given some sense of relief.

Ms Redmond: Parts of my electorate don't have it.

Mr PEDERICK: Yes. There are many black spots throughout the state, through the Fleurieu and right throughout the Mallee. I think it is disgraceful that we cannot have continuous phone coverage through the Mallee roads—the Karoonda Highway. Some of this problem—I note that members are making comment on the other side—is because the government does not put any money towards it. The state government has not put—

The Hon. J.M. Rankine interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: Yes, you have; you have had some responsibility and this state government has not put any money up with regard to this program in the initial round. What we saw were hundreds of towers built elsewhere throughout the country and I think South Australia got 11 because no money was put up from the state. Other states have put up amounts of between $5 million and $30 million. I urge the member for Wright to perhaps do some research and have a look at that.

It may be a federal issue but it certainly needs the work of the states to underpin that. I certainly acknowledge that when you go to outback places in New South Wales, I am always surprised—even north of Brewarrina, way up north in New South Wales—there is phone coverage; yet in this state it is sadly lacking, and I think it is a real safety issue for people who traverse our roads.

With regard to the natural resources management levy, my community and my councils are fed up. They are fed up with now being asked to basically fund the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources—because that is what is happening with this levy proposal.

People just keep questioning what good we are getting out of this. The councils want to be out of it. They do not want to be the collection agency that cops the hit when people get a levy increase of up to 150 per cent on their accounts. There are some individual projects, I must say to try to be partly fair in this argument, but they are individual projects.

When people ask about issues such as what is happening with corellas, with weeds or this and that, 'That is a council issue.' It all just seems that, because of the way the legislation is worded, there is the three-year renewal of plans and the five-year renewal of plans. I know from talking to people inside NRM that, essentially, that is what people are doing: writing plans. People are over it, they want to see some real action, and they are sick of sending money just to fund a state government department.

Certainly, the River Murray is something dear to my heart. I look at the proposal to reduce irrigation allocations coming up because we have not had a lot of rain in the last couple of years, and we are probably at the driest time since the rains came back in September of 2010. The government is supposedly going through this process of working out whether they will crank the desalination plant up from a low idle of 10 gigalitres to 100 gigalitres.

If this government were as serious as they sometimes make out, from the Premier down, on the clean, green food growing capacity of this state, they would not worry about it. They would kick that plant in, because they are belting South Australians with a huge amount on their water rates. I certainly know as a farmer that we are paranoid about getting leaks because you can have just one leak that is missed for only a short period of time, only a few days, and, next thing, at least $3,000 worth of water can go missing.

It should not even be thought about. There is plenty of money going into SA Water. It would be a good run to see if the desal plant could actually kick along at full revs at a 100-gigalitre capacity and do what it is there for. Yes, it is creating water for critical human needs, but it could also ease the burden on our food producers, and we have lost so many from the Riverland and Murraylands regions over the last five or six years.

Looking at other issues, I know there has been work done in regard to the fruit fly zone around Mypolonga. I would urge the government to make sure we get more work done there. I think it should be declared its own area in its own right because it has direct linkages to the Riverland, and that is a fruit fly-free area. We need to make sure that we have the appropriate protocols in place so that people can be heartened to know that we have done all we can to make sure we keep on top of the fruit fly problem in this state.

One of the bright spots happening in my electorate, thanks to Sam Shahin and the Peregrine Corporation, is the motorsport park at Tailem Bend. I know people all have different views. In fact, up to only a few weeks ago, people were saying that nothing is going to happen there, but you only have to drive down towards Tailem Bend or turn at the intersection on the Mallee Highway where there are three turnoffs—three major, I think they are called, C-section intersections—being built with multiple speed limit changes, so you have to watch your speed. There are two on the Dukes Highway to access the motorsport park and one on the Mallee Highway. I applaud Sam Shahin and the Peregrine Corporation because I believe they will be spending probably at least $100 million on that project, working in with local council and the community so that others can—

The Hon. L.W.K. Bignell interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: The state government have given a grant, absolutely, and the federal government have also granted funding towards that project—I absolutely acknowledge that. I think some of that funding is going to help pay for these turnoffs into the motorsport park which will supply so much entertainment not just for a second Clipsal but for the drift cars to keep going there and the driver training, although I know some of that has been suspended at the minute because of the roadworks.

I know the Peregrine Corporation want to have as much activity there as possible that can link into Murray Bridge, Langhorne Creek and Wellington, with the potential to have so many more marina berths for houseboats and link that straight in. I think it has a huge upside, and I commend the Peregrine Corporation for having the faith and foresight to invest in that area. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 14:00.

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