HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Member Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-08-08 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

Bills

Appropriation Bill 2017

Estimates Committees

Debate resumed.

Mr TARZIA (Hartley) (12:11): As I alluded to, we learnt during the estimates process that an exorbitant amount of money is still owed to the state government's Fines Enforcement and Recovery Unit, with South Australia's worst fine defaulters in fact owing more than $1 million. One of the worst fine dodgers, I am led to believe, was actually gaoled for two months last financial year, as the state government still moved to reclaim millions of dollars owed to the state coffers.

We learnt that over the past 12 months the Fines Enforcement and Recovery Unit pursued 125 people who owed significant sums of money as well. In estimates, the Attorney told the parliament that the unit had acted in five cases over the past year where fine defaulters refused to complete community service, that one person had been gaoled for 62 days as a result, that two people had paid the sum owing in response to the enforcement proceedings and that two people were still awaiting hearing.

The Attorney also told parliament that a total of $302 million in unpaid fines was still owed to the state government. Of that, the fines unit managed to recoup $124.5 million over the past 12 months, which is up 7 per cent on the previous year, but during the 2016-17 year more than $58 million in outstanding fines was waived or put on hold, possibly to be reclaimed later. It is very clear that the government needs to be doing better in this regard.

We also learnt during the estimates process about the good work that community groups do in respect of multicultural affairs. I want to thank all the community groups in my electorate of Hartley. Obviously, I have a very strong base of several groups, but especially the Italian groups, the Chinese groups, the Indian groups and the Greek groups. I want to especially thank them, as well as all the others, for the great work they do in truly enriching our state in all aspects of our daily lives.

Whether it is our food, our fashion, our language or our sport, these groups in our community certainly enrich South Australia. They have done so and they continue to do so. I also want to thank all the volunteers. We were able to ask the minister questions about volunteering in this state. I want to take this opportunity to thank all the volunteers in my electorate for the wonderful fabric of society that they contribute to.

We learned a little bit about the state bank tax in the estimates process. What we saw was that, unfortunately, adding a tax is the current government's answer to everything. Whether there is a problem, real or perceived, the answer is to tax. We know that Labor has form in this area. We know that the state Labor government has implemented, or tried to implement, or has even considered implementing, several taxes: the state bank tax, ESL increases, a car park tax and GST increases. It has proposed a foreign investor surcharge on stamp duties, and also a land tax on the family home, and we know that these proposed increases are unacceptable.

One way or another, we know that South Australians will pay for these taxes if they are forced on them. In South Australia, we know that we cannot tax our way to prosperity. The government has had a crack. They have had 15 years to get this right and, unfortunately, it has not worked. What we need to be doing is lowering taxes, not increasing them. We know that someone has to pay these taxes that the government is inflicting on South Australians. We know that these taxes—especially the state bank tax—one way or another, will be passed on and that they will result in higher borrowing costs for banks, and therefore higher lending costs for banks, but also for the businesses and the households that depend on a strong banking system.

We know that there may well be lower interest payments for savings deposits as well. We all know that if the state bank tax were allowed to be passed, it could result in lower returns for shareholders, including superannuation accounts via reduced dividends and/or lower share values. It can also have a detrimental effect on confidence in the state. As we have seen in recent times, why would the government want to inflict more pain when confidence is already as it is? That is not even to mention the increased sovereign risk, reputational risk and damage to the state if the state bank tax is allowed to be passed.

We know that it is a punitive tax. We know it is levelled at a few businesses that are operating in South Australia. We have heard that it is not just the banks that might be hit; it is also another group of businesses that, if this government deems they are not paying their fair share, may also be expected to cough up. We know that businesses think on the margin and that businesses will shop around. Ceteris paribus (all other things being equal), if they can get a better deal interstate they might just look at that as well.

We think we should be making this state a more attractive place for businesses to do business, for them to then go out and employ more people so that we can lower the unemployment rate that we have in this state, which, by the way, is the highest unemployment rate in the nation, which is just absurd. We should not be there; we need to be doing better. We need to be lowering business taxes, not increasing them. If the state bank tax does pass, we have seen that investors have already begun selling off. They have been shorting state government bonds. That will obviously increase the bond spread, lead to more volatility and raise the costs of borrowing in the future. It also potentially means high interest costs for taxpayers.

It is obviously very different from the federal bank tax. In economic terms, it is called the fallacy of composition: just because something might be good for the whole, does not necessarily mean that it is good for one part. Conversely, the Australian government provides an implicit guarantee for major banks, and this protects deposits and ensures the stability of the financial system—obviously very different from South Australia. The state government provides no such guarantee. I ask the government to review this measure they are proposing. During the estimates process, it was confirmed that not many people were actually consulted on this bank tax. Even the government's own advisers were not consulted, which is truly remarkable and also shows the arrogance that this government has fallen into.

In relation to those who work with children or people with a disability, we saw in the estimates process that at least 11 people have already had their clearance revoked in the months since a new real-time monitoring system was introduced. A $6.5 million system took effect on 1 July that enables authorities to continuously monitor whether people who have passed screening checks later commit or are charged with crimes that would then prevent them from working with children or other vulnerable people in South Australia.

I understand that the minister whose department is responsible for the screenings said that the screening unit had received more than 300 notifications about potential applicants from the child protection department and SAPOL since 1 July. The government said that the new process means that the screening unit now receives daily updates of any charges, convictions and any other relevant information relating to any person who holds a clearance.

We on this side of the chamber warn that those delays are causing good South Australians to miss out on much-needed jobs or volunteer roles. Whilst we understand that this effective screening mechanism is imperative, the latest figures show that 119,815 applications for a background check were processed last financial year and 4,667 of those—almost 4 per cent—took longer than 30 business days to process. That is an increase from 106,190 applications in 2015-16, of which 2,522, or almost 2.5 per cent, took more than six weeks to clear. Some of the people who have been left in limbo include social workers, aged and disability carers, tradespeople, teachers, taxidrivers or personal trainers—you name it.

Whilst we understand the need for these checks, we want to make sure that there are fewer delays. We know that people looking for work and looking to volunteer invest substantial amounts of money to attain the relevant qualifications for a wide variety of jobs, but if they are forced to wait for lengthy periods of time for what should be a pretty routine background screening test it is not a good outcome. We do not want to see good, capable, ethical, moral South Australians, who are both mentally and physically fit to work, watch a job opportunity disappear because the government failed them by having them wait an excessive period of time for one of these background screening tests.

We also learnt in the estimates hearing pertaining to this area that the government had collected $6.69 million in fees to process background checks in the past year and that applications for screenings can cost anywhere between $58 and $105. Whilst we do understand that these background screening checks need to occur and must occur, we do not want good, capable, honest hardworking people to have to wait longer than they already do, when they could be putting their good skills to effective use.

Mr DULUK (Davenport) (12:23): I also rise to speak on the appropriation debate and report of estimates, and I thank all those who were involved in the estimates process. It must be a phenomenal back-end process for all our hardworking public servants and departmental officials who come to this place, with folder upon folder of notes and thousands of hole-punched pages, ready for the grilling by the opposition. I have sat in on quite a few estimates, and this year there was once again a very high standard of grilling by opposition members only for them to be told by the responsible minister, 'We will take that question on notice.'

You have these chief bureaucrats and Labor appointees at the top of the chain going back and telling the very hardworking and diligent public servants in the departments, who actually do the work of government, to prepare the folders for estimates. You have staff coming in on weekends, sweating over what should or should not be in the folders and trying to work out what that single line item in the budget really means or does not mean. Does spending money through the transport department mean we are going to send out 18,000 doorknockers into the electorate, or electo-rort, which is not mentioned as a single estimate?

All the staff get ready for this, and it all ends up as a question taken on notice. Going through the process, it is quite interesting to find out which ministers take more questions on notice than other ministers. You can see without any doubt the pecking order of ability in the government when it comes to taking those questions on notice.

I sat in on estimates of Premier and cabinet, Treasury and Finance, Health, arts, of course, veterans' affairs, Defence SA, disabilities, and I was the lead in mental health. I will begin my remarks on the estimates process with the mental health section. This is an important process. I know the member for MacKillop, in his speech on the 2017 estimates, said, 'Scrutiny is what the parliament is here for—that is our job…to scrutinise the workings of the executive.' That is why it is important to have the estimates process, but it is disappointing that the government or the executive do not feel that they need to be put under scrutiny. We can see that in the longwinded opening statements the ministers provide and also in the number of Dorothy Dixers they take.

A testament to members opposite, especially the member for Ashford who is in the house at the moment, was that, every now and then when the going was tough for a minister, in the committees I attended, the member for Ashford would chirp up with a perfectly timed Dorothy Dixer to allow the minister a bit of time to reflect and seek some advice. Very well played by the government but, as I said, good ministers and good executives do not need to hide away from this process. I am alarmed, as we all are, at the number of questions taken on notice this year. I doubt I will get my questions on notice back this side of the election.

Ms Redmond interjecting:

Mr DULUK: As the member for Heysen just indicated, she is still waiting. I am still waiting for answers to questions I asked in the 2016 estimates, particularly questions I put to the Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse and for Disabilities.

I think there is an opportunity to look at reforming the estimates process. If you look at the way estimates is conducted federally in the Senate, it is run purely as an upper house system. It is a system that allows greater scrutiny of senior bureaucrats and senior public servants, who are the people actually implementing government decisions. It is also a process that happens more than once a year.

Senate estimates occur in several blocks throughout the year, which allows the parliament the opportunity to ask questions of the government on decisions they are making at the time. This leads to much greater accountability and disclosure, which is of course what good government is about. Good disclosure is fundamental to our Westminster system of government, as it keeps government honest and ensures that governments make better decisions and, when government makes the wrong decisions, allows them to be held accountable for that decision-making.

This once-a-year estimates process is jammed in over five days. In some portfolios, ministers are only required to sit for 45 minutes. After they make a 10-minute opening statement and take a few Dorothy Dixer questions, there is probably time for only four or five questions from the opposition on one or two line items. Somehow this Labor government—this tired, 16-year-old Labor government—considers that to be a good, open, accountable process of scrutinising a $19 billion state economy. I do not think that is acceptable and I would like to see that reformed.

I said I would go back and start with my involvement in the mental health estimates, which of course this year were scheduled at 4pm on Friday for 1½ hours. I am surprised, actually, that the government allocated that long to the portfolio, given that it is presided over by the most incompetent of the government ministers. It was 1½ hours on Friday, perfect timing to ensure there was very little media coverage of that estimate, given the amount of media coverage and interest that there has been in this portfolio for the last 12 months, but in particular from April this year.

It is only the work of the parliament and its committees that has allowed there to be proper scrutiny of that minister and to reveal properly to the people of South Australia the government's failed care and neglect of those it is meant to look after, in particular with respect to those South Australians suffering geriatric mental health issues at the Oakden facility and the mistreatment they have received at the hands of those who are meant to be providing care for them.

We had about an hour and a half of mental health estimates. Of course, there was a five-minute opening statement from the minister. Mainly because of media scrutiny prior to the day, we were able to get out of that estimates process that there have been more referrals of staff at Oakden to AHPRA. We know that, as of 28 July, 32 staff have been referred for investigations by AHPRA, nine staff have been referred to SAPOL and 15 staff have been suspended from the workplace, pending further investigations, on paid leave. These figures are up from when the Minister for Health made a statement to the house on 20 June 2017 when he said that there were 26 referrals to AHPRA, eight referred to SAPOL and 15 suspended from the workplace, pending further investigations, on paid leave.

The government was very good at letting us know what was happening at the time, yet in response to a further question from me they were unable to tell us the total number of employees at the Makk and McLeay facilities. They could not tell me how many employees were at Makk and McLeay, but they could tell us that 56 staff in total had been referred to AHPRA or SAPOL. I never understand in this process how the minister or the department know some answers to some questions, but they do not know what the answer is to the most logical next question. You would have thought that the answer to a common question, 'How many total staff at a certain facility are working at any one time?' should be able to be provided to us.

It is this holding up of the estimates process that I really think the people of South Australia do not like. It is the simple hiding of simple questions that leads to a lack of accountability by government. The minister only made information public following media inquiries and reports seeking a copy of the progress report on the government's commitment to its report into the review of the Oakden Older Persons Mental Health Service. In the government's own response to the Chief Psychiatrist's report, they said that they would release their report on their interim progress within 90 days. Of course, that report was due on 19 July and nothing was forthcoming until five minutes before the estimates schedule was meant to begin.

Once again, the government has failed—and this was highlighted through the estimates process—to provide certainty and clarity to the people of South Australia about the way it looks after its most vulnerable. I read again in today's paper that it looks like there have been more issues with staff working in the child protection system. I find it incredible that the government cannot get this right. It has thrown royal commission after royal commission at the way it looks after its vulnerable people in South Australia. It has received report after report from agencies and from experts.

It has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into these agencies, yet we cannot get the culture right. I think a lot of these issues start with culture, and the culture at the top of these departments is sick. Its ministers are not up to the task of leading reform. We certainly know that the Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse does not have the confidence of her department; her Chief of Staff recently quit. She is not over her brief and, of course, the care and ongoing abuse continues.

From the estimates committee, we also know that the minister could not confirm when she received the borderline personality disorder report 2017-20. She knows she has it, but she cannot recall whether she has read it or what actions will be taken in response to the recommendations. The Mental Health Commissioner has confirmed that the final report was provided to the minister in November, but the minister would not ask the commissioner, who was sitting next to her, when she received the report. I assume she did not want to admit that she sat on yet another report for an extended period of time. I go back to accountability: this is the problem with the estimates process. If we had a system where the bureaucrats were given the opportunity to be asked questions of parliament then I think we would see better decision-making and better accountability by government.

We still do not have a state mental health plan, despite the last plan, commonly known as the Stepping Up report, concluding in 2012. At least the minister did confirm that it is due by the end of the year, when it will be handed down by the independent commissioner, Commissioner Burns. When the government announced that Commissioner Burns would be the Mental Health Commissioner, there was a lot of fanfare about how he would be impartial and independent. However, that final state mental health plan has to be signed off by cabinet and the minister. It is interesting: if the commissioner is to be independent of government yet that commissioner and report need to be signed off by cabinet, you wonder how independent it can be.

We also know that we have only a draft of the Suicide Prevention Plan 2017-21. It is a shame that the government has been sitting on the draft for a while. The Chief Psychiatrist did very well to release in April that draft mental health plan in the midst of concluding his review of the Oakden report and delivering it to government. This is on the back of staff reductions in the Chief Psychiatrist's report, which were reduced last year. It also begs the question: how long has the minister sat on the draft report? We still do not have a final plan, but there is a budget line of $600,000 committed to support the draft plan, but of course the minister could not tell me what that $600,000 will be spent on.

There was a nice little surprise from that committee in regard to tobacco usage. The member for Heysen forensically asked a few questions about that. It was one of the highlights in the subprogram. If the government is puts a highlight into the program, it means that it must be pretty excited about it and meeting some benchmarks. However, when the minister was asked about this highlight in her own budget line—and we are talking about only five or six pages within the whole state budget—she had absolutely no idea what the question was related to or what the performance indicators and targets were.

It was a pleasure to sit with the member for Schubert in health estimates and ask the Minister for Health questions. We repeatedly heard that recent budget decisions about funding of Health were all made on the basis of political decisions and that the Minister for Health would not be bullied by the opposition to not take clinical advice in regard to decisions of government when it comes to spending taxpayers' dollars in certain areas.

I asked the minister whether he had taken clinical advice about the use of Ward 18 at the Repat and whether he had spoken to the Chief Psychiatrist—and I have asked this question to the minister in question time quite a few times. When I asked him whether he had asked Chief Psychiatrist, Dr Aaron Groves, whether Ward 18 at the Repat is sufficient to take clients or residents of Oakden, to facilitate the closure of Oakden, the Minister for Health was his usual best evasive self. Yet last Friday, in the Transforming Health select committee chaired by the Hon. Stephen Wade in the other place, Dr Aaron Groves gave evidence that Ward 18 at the Repat was a suitable site to take residents of the now disgraced Oakden facility.

This is the hypocrisy of those opposite, that they take advice and they pick and choose what they like. As I mentioned in this place before, the member for Lee; your good self, Deputy Speaker, in your constituency; the member for Kaurna; the member for Fisher and the member for Reynell have all fought and received political funding for hospitals in their areas, being The QEH, Modbury and Noarlunga Hospital, yet the member for Elder and the current member for Waite could not even facilitate a political decision of government to have residents in need at the Oakden facility transferred to the perfectly workable, safe, secure, friendly and accessible site at the Repat, because one political decision that the government does not want to make is the closure of the Repat.

It astounds me that in a $6 billion health portfolio the government can make political decisions across the board and listen to respected communities, but they cannot do it in one particular situation. It is particularly disappointing that health decisions are made on political bases and not made on one that is related to clinical care.

Included in other committees I sat on was the arts portfolio. Once again, I think this government has a poor record when it comes to supporting the arts. It cherrypicks left, right and centre. It looks for headlines where it can, in terms of what organisations it supports and those sorts of priorities. Also, once again the estimates process showed a lack of detail across the arts portfolio by the minister. I asked him some questions about Carrick Hill, which is part of the community that I am very close to, and there was a complete disconnect between what the Carrick Hill Trust put in its annual report, what was reflected in the budget in terms of numbers visiting that wonderful facility and what the government intends to do with that site, in terms of Carrick Hill's plans for development going forward. Obviously, the government had very little input with the Carrick Hill Trust in what it can do.

I also spent quite a lot of time in the Premier and Cabinet portfolio and the Treasury portfolio. One thing that the government did not want to go into was government waste, government advertising and the amount of wasted taxpayers' dollars. Of course, we know the government is spending millions of dollars of taxpayers' hard-earned money on government advertising. We are seeing this left, right and centre. We are seeing them spending taxpayers' dollars on selling their budget; we are seeing them spend about $2.6 million on the Premier's energy plan; another $1 million spruiking the grant accelerator scheme, a scheme that is not working at all, and about half a million dollars more on the new Royal Adelaide Hospital. So waste and government spending are certainly high on the agenda within the Department of Treasury and Finance.

Ms REDMOND (Heysen) (12:43): If I may quote Lewis Carroll:

'The time has come,' the Walrus said, 'to talk of many things—

The Hon. S.W. Key interjecting:

Ms REDMOND: And the member for Ashford can even complete the sentence. Thank you, member for Ashford. It is with some considerable pleasure that I have had my arm twisted to make a few comments on what will be my final contribution on estimates. Having had to tolerate the estimates process since 2002, I thought I would take a more broadbrush approach in my final comments on this topic, although some of the comments will be those which I have repeated, possibly ad nauseam, in this chamber over the past 15 years.

Acting Speaker, I do not know whether you have ever heard these comments, but I will start at the very beginning. It has always seemed to me to be passing strange that we undertake this process and report on the budget in August, as we are again doing now. The budget, like financial years for most organisations, runs from 1 July to 30 June. Therefore, most organisations present their budget in late April or May and pass their budget in June ready for the commencement of the new budget on 1 July. But every year our budget is not presented until mid-June, and we discuss it during July and get around to finally passing the budget bill in August or thereabouts.

I can understand why that would happen in an election year, because the parliament does not sit during that part of an election year. Of course, the third Saturday in March next year, St Patrick's Day, will be the election day. I can understand, especially if there were a change of government, why there would possibly be the need for a delay in the budget being brought into the chamber for discussion and for it ultimately being passed. That would make sense in those circumstances, particularly, as I say, when there is a change in government.

However, there has not been a change of government for an awfully long time, yet this government finds it impossible to bring in a budget in a timely manner, which would enable us to commence our year without having to pass in addition an appropriation bill so that we can continue to pay the Public Service after the financial year has ended and we are into the new financial year. That is my first comment about the estimates process; the next one is the time and money involved in the estimates process. Estimates is really just the committee stage of the budget bill, yet it has all these peculiarities that attach to it.

Normally, if it were just a normal bill, the relevant minister would introduce it to this house and there would be a debate at the second reading—which we have; we have our budget bill debate—and then we would have our committee stage. I accept that it is recognised through the estimates process that the budget bill is so big in its many volumes that it would be impossible to simply have three questions per clause and that the committee stage would go on ad nauseam and laboriously if we did not break it down, as we do, into the various portfolios with the relevant minister answering questions in relation to their portfolio. I have no difficulty with that idea.

That is the origin of the fact that we then end up with two committees going at the same time: one in this chamber and one placed in the other chamber, and the two committees have these peculiar rules where, if the shadow minister happens to be a member of the Legislative Council, they cannot be the person asking the questions because technically we are the House of Assembly meeting to have our committee stage of the budget bill. So I can understand that.

But why on earth do we have to go through this nonsense of being signed in and signed out and the peculiarity of the omnibus questions not being able to be simply read once for all portfolios? Why do we have lengthy opening statements? As the member for Davenport pointed out, usually the length of the opening statement, and indeed the number of Dorothy Dixers, is inversely proportional to the competence of the minister, so the less competent the minister, the longer the opening statement and the more likely we are to have Dorothy Dixers.

I have seen budget estimates committees on occasions have a situation where, by the time you get a 15-minute opening speech from the minister and then you get three questions to which the minister gives an extensive answer but is not really answering the question, and then three Dorothy Dixers which have been prepared in advance to allow the minister to spend a considerable amount of time answering the question, you are left with maybe another two or three questions and your estimates opportunity is over. As a habit, while I was a shadow minister I always put in the rest of the questions I had prepared as questions on notice. Most of them have never been answered, but we will move on.

What concerns me most about the estimates process is the inordinate amount of time that public servants are taken away from their normal duties and must focus, with some degree of panic I suspect, on the possibility of a question coming up at estimates. I know this from contact with various organisations before I ever came into this place and experienced estimates. I know that CEOs and senior people in various departments and organisations would spend literally weeks worrying about and preparing for the estimates process.

I have said before on many occasions in this place, and I will say again in my final comments, that I accept that the government of the day is the government of the day and they have the right to set the budget. They have the right to decide how the money will be spent. Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition has the right to understand, to question and to challenge that budget but not to prevent it, unlike in America where, for instance, in most states the governor—unlike our Governor who is basically a figurehead representing the Crown—is separately elected and has the right to veto the budget.

We have no right as an opposition to do that, but we do have the right to understand what the budget contains and, to that end, to ask questions about it. It is a big, complex document, and it takes years to get yourself across it well enough really to understand what is being said. It seems to me to have become a cat and mouse game where the government quite deliberately sets about setting the timetable for the whole process to be as useless as possible for the opposition, minimising the amount of time that vulnerable ministers may face questioning and placing those ministers at odd ends of the day so that the media may be less interested.

When I look around, even in the smaller portfolios that I was involved in this year there would usually be 15 to 20 public servants in the room for the entirety of the budget process. Admittedly, there were usually a couple of Labor candidates there, too, but there were many public servants. Let's assume that on average they are senior public servants and probably paid in excess of—let's be generous and say only $100,000 a year. If we calculated what it is costing us to run the budget process the way the government is, we could really make a difference in many communities by putting the money that it is costing to much more worthwhile uses.

My questions about this budget process are: why is it so late in the year? It should be done and dusted before the end of June. Why do we have this process where we have to sign in and out for members of the opposition and, indeed, for members of the government who are sitting there usually reading the newspaper or something else? Why do we take all this time from our public servants, who are highly paid, to prepare answers for questions that may never be asked? I accept the process in its overall concept.

What I would like to see is a change in the way we do it and perhaps a situation where the minister could meet on a less formal basis with members of the opposition who are interested in a particular aspect, find out what it is they need to know and then bring in the relevant public servants to answer questions. The way it operates at the moment is extremely expensive and extremely time consuming and, at the end of the day, we get very few answers. Indeed, we had a number of times in even the most straightforward situations where the answer of the minister was, 'I will have to come back to you on that,' or, 'I will get an answer on that and get back to you,' or something along those lines.

My favourite, of course, was not these estimates but the estimates on the ageing portfolio last year or the year before. It was only a very short estimates because not a large amount of the budget is put towards ageing. To me, ageing has always been one of the areas that I think is extremely important, particularly in this state where we have the most ageing population. Given that already in this country there are over 4,000 people over the age of 100 and they therefore have children who are in their 70s and 80s, and given that we are the most ageing, and given that by the year 2055 they anticipate that there will be some 78,000 people in this country over the age of 100, it is a very important area. At the moment, our budget line for the Office for the Ageing is very small, but I digress.

The minister on this occasion when I was in estimates began with a lengthy opening statement, and I thought, 'Well, that was very interesting, minister. Perhaps I'll ask a question or two about the opening statement before we move on,' because there were a couple of things I did not really understand. In particular, in her opening statement the minister read out a comment that they had a policy of 'prosperity through longevity'. I am paraphrasing the conversation here: 'Minister, could you explain prosperity through longevity because it seems to me that the longer you live, the more your money has to stretch out and therefore the less prosperous you are going to be? Could you please explain to me what you mean by this policy you have of prosperity through longevity?'

After a considerable silence, which of course does not show in the Hansard, sadly—and, again, I am paraphrasing—we got a response that was something like, 'I'm pleased with the march of civilisation.' I have pondered that. Maybe it was something deeply philosophical that I am just too thick to understand, but I really worry when that is the answer you get to a question about the opening statement the minister has just given on a portfolio that is very limited in its scope within our current budget.

One of the other problems with the budget, of course, is that so much of what happens in government never appears in the budget. I do not know, for instance, whether there is any sign of the sale of the Lands Titles Office in the budget. I think it is a disgrace that this government is planning to sell the Lands Titles Office. Sir Robert Torrens, whose portrait by Andrew MacCormac appears in the marble corridor outside, would no doubt turn in his grave to think that the Torrens system, which originated in this state, is to be sold off—possibly, I understand, to an overseas company to run our Lands Titles Office.

I have often said that our next problem with terrorism is not going to be another plane flown into a building. I think we take more than enough precautions in our airports these days. I think our next terrorism incident will be some sort of cyber attack, and for a government to relinquish its own controls over the running of our Lands Titles Office I think is a despicable act by an incompetent government.

One of the other things that I do not think appeared in the budget was the engagement of 18,000 trained conversationalists. If they had appeared in the budget, I am sure that a question or two would have appeared. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT