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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-02-11 Daily Xml
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Address in Reply

Address in Reply

Adjourned debate on motion for adoption (resumed on motion).

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (15:48): I was actually correcting the record on some information that the member for Kaurna provided to the house about pensioner concessions on council rates. I think the last number I referred to was $269 million, which is on page 24 of the 74-page taxation review document that was released today, which relates to the total expenditure on concessions across all areas in South Australia in the 2014-15 year. It does deal with things like the emergency services levy, Save the River Murray levy, motor vehicle registrations, stamp duty on CTP, energy costs, council rates, water and sewerage, public transport and drivers' licences. The national partnership agreement, which was stopped by the federal government some 12 months early, was a $27.7 million contribution towards that $269 million cost.

My point all through the discussion about pensioner concessions has been that politics is being played here quite seriously, because the decision made to remove pensioner concessions on council rates was made solely by the Treasurer. No other person was involved in that. It was a state government decision. Yes, the feds made a decision across the broad section, but the Treasurer had decided to target that particular area. I do respect the fact that local government have the right to conduct a campaign and I have no concern about that.

I understand it is their role to ensure that the community understand the implications of decisions which factor against them, but I am very concerned that since a policy announcement has been made, and a very strong one, by the state Liberals of what it intends to do within the parliamentary realm on the amendments that are required either to the legislation or the regulations that control that pensioner concession, it has committed from a very strong financial policy sense to return to pensioner concessions in the fullness of time from the March 2018 election, on the basis the Liberal Party is successful.

I am frustrated that the Local Government Association has not ensured in ways that satisfy me or in a timely manner that the community, who they are asking to contact the LGA website to get the information to forward their concerns onto other people or members in this chamber, actually has full disclosure available to them. That is where I think politics are being played at multiple levels. One could argue all three are involved in it, but there are strong policy positions out there. It is quite right that when 160,000 property owners are impacted by a decision—and that is the number of property owners who receive pensioner concessions—and it is between a $32 million and $34 million implication to them per financial year and less support to pay council rates collectively, it is an important issue, so accurate information needs to be out there.

The Hon. A. Piccolo interjecting:

Mr GRIFFITHS: Well, it is an absolute commitment.

The Hon. A. Piccolo interjecting:

Mr GRIFFITHS: This is an absolute commitment, minister.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr GRIFFITHS: The state Liberal Party has given an absolute commitment to do everything it can for pensioner property owners in the area. I want to go into a couple of things that I recognise are quite reasonable words in the Governor's speech. I must say that I love the reference in the speech that:

…South Australia can be known as the place where you age but you do not grow old—a place where people in their 70s, 80s and 90s maintain meaningful roles working, caring, and volunteering.

I have to say that is the place I want to live. That is a great aspirational target and the minister certainly acknowledges that too and we both want to be part of that.

The Hon. A. Piccolo: I am getting there closer than you are.

Mr GRIFFITHS: Well, we will see. I also fully support the fact that White Ribbon Workplace Accreditation be sought within all government departments. I think one of the most absolutely tragic things in human society is the violence that it inflicts upon others, particularly violence against women, so this is a very good aspirational target that the government has set and I fully support it on that. One would hope that it would be a quick matter of course to ensure that that target is met and that all the public servants adhere to it and talk to their relatives and friends about it, and we get it through to our society of nil violence against any person in our society. That is the important thing to me.

Quality health care is an important issue and the Transforming Health report of recent weeks and the references to it in the Governor's speech certainly put out that there are a lot of issues that people support and some have concerns about. For many of the people I have spoken to it is not the political argument for them, it is the reality of what the implications of it will be upon their lives in their time of need, but I do have one example given to me by a person who I know who has been tragically diagnosed with a very serious illness.

I had a call from their daughter-in-law only yesterday. They are from a country area and have been in the RAH having treatment. A suggestion came through Friday of only last week that they could take this person out and take him home and that his wife in her mid-70s could do that, but it was just physically impossible. So the family has posed the question to me: is that an example where through whatever tragedy that exists in the system there was a need for the bed to be vacated for a short-term period and it was being suggested to the family that 'you look after dad for the weekend'? Now, that did not occur.

A lot of discussion took place in the family. As I understand it, one member of the family who has a relationship with a member of the government rang that member on the weekend to talk about what occurred. I do not intend personally on taking it any further, but it was terrible to hear about it and it is not something that I want to see occur in the future.

I will talk briefly about the state tax review discussion paper and I do apologise for the fact that in the time since it was made available to the opposition—I think I first saw an electronic copy at 10.30 this morning—I have not had the chance to review it, but I will read this because—

The Hon. A. Piccolo interjecting:

Mr GRIFFITHS: No—it is an absolute key, and it is one of the reasons I tried to enter this place the first time. I do respect that Treasury relies upon transactions to occur and that is taxation policy in all of its forms. From those transactions is derived the income that it needs to provide services and infrastructure.

A continuing debate occurs across the chamber about where changes should be made to policy to ensure more equity, or to ensure that those who can afford it pay more tax. It is one of the key discussions that the state needs to have, so it is appropriate that it is out there, but it has to be followed through. We have to ensure that there is a change. I note that consultation is open until 10 April. It is no doubt an issue that many will have a variety of opinions on. Those who pay large amounts of tax already will say that they want it to be reduced. Those who do not necessarily pay quite as much will not want to pay any more either. So, how do you spread it and make everybody happy? I am not sure if you feasibly can, but it will be an interesting debate.

There has also been the announcement of a royal commission into the nuclear industry. I have done very little research on the implications of nuclear energy, but I am a person who believes that informed debates need to occur. My concern is that the discussion might be raised at this time because it takes away from some of the key issues of questioning that the opposition is pursuing the Premier and a variety of ministers on—

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr GRIFFITHS: Yes, I am; but the association of Kevin Scarce as the person who will be in charge of the royal commission certainly adds a very strong claim to the validity of how thorough it will be, and to ensure that South Australians are challenged to think about the future and what they want and what they are prepared to accept, what opportunities it presents for industry growth in the future, and what it can bring to our state and its challenges. Again, it is a matter that communities need to be involved with. This is a decision that will have far-reaching effects upon generations of South Australians to come, so it is important that the discussion takes place.

I also support the words 'the strength and vitality of a democracy is reflected in the quality of our educational institutions'. That was in the Governor's speech, and it is the sort of life that I want to live. I tell younger people in the Goyder community that, no matter what they might think about school, it is but the start of their lives, and education will empower them to undertake great things. 'Yes, it may be frustrating, but you will be excited by what you will learn. You've got to commit to it, you've got to be prepared to work hard on it, but if you put the hard work in the rewards will flow to you enormously and more than once.'

I am pleased to support in a small way things like the University of the Third Age. I know many members have such groups in their electorate. I know they live by the motto that learning is a lifelong experience. Being in this place has proven to me that you might think you know a lot when you come in, but you actually learn a hell of a lot more seemingly every day. Parliament is an example of us continuing to learn. Because of the challenges that South Australia faces, it is important that our economy works well to provide what the state needs going into the future. It demonstrates to me that skill development, learning opportunities and continuously challenging ourselves to ensure that we have that right balance in place to position ourselves to do exceptionally well in everything we choose to do relies upon our attitude to learning. It is a key aspect.

Minister Close, the member for Port Adelaide, in taking over that responsibility will have a significant responsibility to get it right. I have spoken to the member for Unley, and he is looking forward to the debate that will occur about that. It is from birth, basically, and the learning chances it provides and the engagement of the human mind to ensure that we get great outcomes.

I want to listen rather intently to the contributions of others on the Governor's speech. It is interesting that that 30 minutes or so sets the opportunity for a grand vision to be espoused. I am not necessarily sure if it did. I heard whispers that there were some things that it might have been included that are not. They are 18 suggestions that deserve consideration, and I hope the outcome from it is beneficial for South Australia.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (15:59): I rise today to speak in the Address in Reply debate to the speech by His Excellency, the Hon. Hieu Van Le AO, the Governor of South Australia. I congratulate him on his excellent reading of the speech, but I do note that this is a speech written for the Governor by the government, so let there be no doubt about that.

The first thing I want to look at in my contribution in regard to the Address in Reply is the commentary in the speech about the recent bushfires. Certainly, it was a very challenging time, and I quote directly from the speech:

If there was any doubt about our capacity to rise to a challenge, then it should have been removed in January when we saw South Australians work together in the face of catastrophic bushfires.

We saw many hundreds, probably many thousands of people involved in fighting fires—not just at Sampson Flat and Tantanoola. I also had a small fire at my property on the Dukes Highway at Coomandook where a wheel bearing on a trailer fell to bits and started a fire. I was up here in the city and thankfully the local brigades got there, and local farmers, and controlled that very quickly. I only lost about 150 metres of fencing and a little bit of ground was burnt. My personal experience with fire most recently was very minor compared to some of these other fires, and sadly we saw 27 homes lost. We did not see any loss of life, which is fantastic, and from what I understand we did not have any major injuries. There were certainly injuries sustained by firefighters—whether they be CFS or local people helping put out fires at their own place or their neighbour's property. I commend everyone for what they did.

I also commend the work of the air crews: Aerotech are one of the main contractors in fighting fires and they did a fantastic job alongside the helicopters and we had some planes come over from Victoria. I was listening to some Victorian media over the break, and I think they have access to over 60 planes and helicopters to fight fires. I think it just showed what can be done by people on the ground and that is extremely important, but you do need those air assets and I would just make comment in regard to what happened at Cherryville: I think if those air assets had gone up immediately, no matter whether they were in contract or not—and I heard all those arguments—there would have been a different outcome in Cherryville. I do take my hat off to everyone involved across the board with that fire suppression. It was a fantastic effort to limit the damage to as little as possible. I note that the government appreciates the support that it received from the commonwealth government and other state governments, and I acknowledge that support as well.

The speech also related to the uncertainty and angst felt by workers at Holden, and people who have recently lost their jobs at Arrium. We have BHP Billiton cutting jobs, and that is not good; it is not good at all. You have to wonder what is going on. I know there are low commodity prices, but we are seeing many, many jobs going. I know there has been some criticism from the other side of this house, from the government benches, about the so-called lack of federal support for Holden, but I have made it clear here before, and I will make it clear again today, it was Detroit that made the decision. They said that no matter how much money was thrown at Holden, General Motors were not going to support it, and that is not good.

It is not good that we will not have a car industry, not just in this state but in this country, after about 2017. I think there will be some vehicles, like the last Holden utes off the line, the last Fords off the line and maybe even the last Toyotas that come off the line in Australia, which may become a collector's item down the track. But, sadly, we are seeing cost of production putting more manufacturing in South Australia out of business. I want to concentrate now on one comment in the speech which says:

It is time to open doors to new opportunities for our priority sectors such as resources, energy and renewable assets.

Yes, that is a great aim and it is what we should be doing. It is what we are already doing to a degree, but why is the rural sector, the primary industry sector, barely mentioned in the speech? I think there is one line talking about premium wine and food, which is trotted out by the government on a regular basis. The amount of money that agriculture supplies to this state, employing close on 25,000 people, is huge. It is time the government really acknowledged what agriculture does for this state.

When the Olympic Dam expansion fell over the government could not fall over themselves quick enough to talk about what our rural industries are doing, our primary industries and our added value industries. I am saddened that they barely rated a mention in the Governor's speech. I certainly support resources, our energy and our renewable assets, but with the cost of resource pricing and other matters, at the moment, they are not the world beaters that they could be into the future.

I am intrigued a bit with the debate around the nuclear issue. I note that after more than 25 years of uranium production it is now time to engage in a mature, robust and informed debate on the future role of the nuclear industry. As also indicated by the Governor, the government will establish a royal commission into the nuclear industry. I think that is a very good idea. I think it is time we had an informed debate. There was obviously heavy debate decades ago when Normie Foster—a Labor man who helped get Roxby Downs operational, Western Mining at Olympic Dam—crossed the floor in the other place. I think we do need to have this debate.

I am particularly interested in a few things, but one thing is whether there is a potential to value add the potential of uranium and enrich the product and make money out of that in a safe manner, but I also want to talk about burying waste. When we look at our continent, it is one of the most—if not the most—stable continents in the world. I think there are some vast opportunities that we are missing. We continue to store our waste up and down North Terrace, whether it is through hospital surgeries or in hospital basements. Low-level waste is being stored right here in the city, right under our noses, but we do not hear any outcry about that. It actually alarms me that this waste is so close to us and all around us.

I heard an interesting comment one day from one of the staff here at Parliament House soon after I was elected. He made a comment—and it was just a fairly dry comment, I guess. He said, 'We've had some nuclear protests here, and there would be more radiation coming out of the granite that the protesters were protesting on than there would be in a low-level nuclear waste dump.' So, I think it is time for a mature debate. Whether or not it goes ahead, that is up to the process. From what I gather, the new generation reactors are a lot safer and a lot better than any reactor produced before, but that will be up to the royal commission to look at, and I congratulate Kevin Scarce, the former governor, on his appointment to do that work.

Going on through the speech, I note the commentary about Adelaide being the heart of the vibrant state, it being talked about as another of the 10 economic priorities, which was identified by the government, and how the capital city has a critical role to play in South Australia's critical performance. Perhaps it does but, as I indicated earlier, what about our regions? What about our fabulous regions: from Mount Gambier through to the Mallee, through the Murraylands, the Fleurieu, the Clare Valley, around to the Mid North, Far North, Upper North, the West Coast, and Yorke Peninsula. We have some fantastic country that produces great wealth for this state and it does not get recognised enough. I stress that the government needs to take more notice of the benefits of our great state.

Sure, there can be things done in the city. I note that the government has said we must seize this moment to make Adelaide more attractive to businesses. If we had a more attractive business climate perhaps it would work. I note that the government has recently given $10 million to OZ Minerals to set up an office here. Why should we have to give money so that a company sets up their office here? I think it is great if they are setting up their office here, I think it is absolutely fantastic, but why do we have to give them $10 million? Would not that $10 million be better going into the upgrade of the Strzelecki Track to support our mining industries in the Far North?

If this so-called oil and gas hub gets going at Gillman (at the ill-fated Gillman site, which is under a cloud through the ICAC) it would go a lot better to supporting our oil and gas industries by getting on with the upgrade of the Strzelecki Track. I fear, as someone who has witnessed the good road going through Queensland to Brisbane, that too many companies will set up in Brisbane or Toowoomba, as they are already (they have been there for decades anyway), and transport oil and gas supplies from the east. We need to get on with it and get that Strzelecki Track up and going. That is an absolute must. It is a horror story for trucks and certainly if you are driving up there in a vehicle with a camper trailer, as I have done, if you go above 80 km/h you are in strife and you have to go a lot slower than in other areas.

I am a bit intrigued at some of the claims by the government about establishing a carbon neutral Adelaide green zone to make it the world's first carbon neutral city. Listening to 891 this morning, I think they blew that claim out of the water, and talking about that within a decade electric and hybrid vehicles would be the preferred form of transport within the Adelaide central business district. Does that mean that if I come up here in my V8 Holden ute, I have to park it at Glen Osmond and hop on a bike and come through? Some of these plans—

The Hon. A. Piccolo interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: Madam Deputy Speaker, I might need your protection in a minute.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will spring to your aid immediately.

Mr PEDERICK: Thank you. Members opposite might need to be reminded of what happened to the previous lord mayor, who seemed to have this vision of putting everyone on bikes and riding through Adelaide. Yes, Adelaide is a city, but it is basically the centre of business for everyone else in South Australia, who will commute in their petrol or diesel-powered vehicles and do want to be able to commute around the city in a viable manner so that they can conduct their business. That has to be remembered. To think that within a decade electric and hybrid vehicles will be the preferred form, well, I do not think so. I know lots of countries and jurisdictions are going that way, but I do not think it is going to happen.

There is discussion about the Motor Vehicles Act being reviewed in the Road Traffic Act and the government is going to legislate for driverless vehicles, which will revolutionise transportation in South Australia. I note the discussion about Google having a driverless vehicle. It has not been tested long enough to see if it rates the safety concerns, but there is going to have to be some massive investment if they are relying on phone towers to drive these cars. They will not be able to go too far in my electorate, I can assure you. They might be driverless, but you might be sitting out there like a fish without water, wondering: well, what do I do next? There are a lot of strategies going on with vehicles at the moment, with self-parking strategies, and some of the high-end cars have some self-driving capabilities, like recognising vehicles in front or the potential of impact. That is all great, but I think we have a long way to go.

I note here also that the government talks about enshrining in legislation an urban growth boundary for Adelaide, which will protect our prime agricultural land, and debates about future growth will occur with full transparency, as demanded by the community. I certainly think that is a reasonable statement, but you do not want to preclude certain areas for development. I have a motion on the table in this place about the potential of developing land in my electorate around Murray Bridge with the Gifford Hill proposal, and other expansion around Murray Bridge could get up to 4,000 to 5,000 homes very quickly within easy striking distance of the city, as Don Dunstan recognised with his Monarto proposal. It is the one thing Don Dunstan was probably on the money with. I will not agree with anything else he did, but he was actually on the money.

An honourable member: It's 40 years too late.

Mr PEDERICK: Well, it is a zoo now and it is a great zoo. We put a few animals in there. Anyway, there is some great potential. I think people need to look beyond the square about where development should really happen and where the options are. I certainly look at my electorate and in areas around Murray Bridge and Tailem Bend where I think there will be greater demand into the future.

Just quickly on that, I note the Peregrine-Shahin proposal for the motorsport park at Tailem Bend, and I wish that proposal all the best. I think that will be a great asset not just for my community but for the state. It will attract people to travel that short 95 kilometres from Adelaide and will be a great boon to add onto what is already happening at Tailem Bend in regard to the driver training, the four-wheel drive training and the drifting.

If anyone wants a little bit of excitement, if they are a bit bored one weekend, they should go down there when the drifters are there, sign the three or four pieces of paper that sign your life away and get in and hold on. It is fantastic, it is unbelievable, so you need to get on. I also note that the speech talks about—

Mr Williams: Use the Fleet SA card, do you Peds?

Mr PEDERICK: No. The speech talks about creating affordable living in our neighbourhoods, well supported by public transport. I note again more commentary about opportunities to walk and cycle around our beautiful city. What about the rest of the state? Public transport is quite a notable issue at the minute in my electorate. It has been an issue I have taken to various ministers over the nearly nine years I have been a member of parliament. It is a hot debate in my electorate at the moment with Link SA deciding not to have direct runs through to the city at all. They used to have two runs—one morning and one in the late afternoon—straight through to the city from Murray Bridge and back. They have decided to still have seven runs with a connection at Dumas Street at Mount Barker into the Metroticket system.

At first glance, you think that is a great use of resources and that sort of thing, but it is not that simple. Since that proposal has come out and has had a bit of media attention in the last week or two, there are a lot of people, especially elderly people, who are not that keen on switching buses, and I understand that. They are not sure about security, and they are a bit unsure about which bus they change over to at Mount Barker and, certainly on the way back from Adelaide, where they go to get onto the Link SA bus, so it does create confusion. I think, at the end of the day, the government really needs to look at a link to Murray Bridge similar to what I believe happens with the link to Strathalbyn where there is a metro service but a country zone fare in place.

I certainly understand the costs of public transport. It is probably subsidised about 85 per cent by public money, but I think the 20,000-odd citizens of Murray Bridge and all those who surround the town need a better public transport system. I think it is obvious that Link are not that keen on it. They have cut the direct services through to Adelaide, and we really do need to look at a Metroticket system. I understand everything has to be paid for, but it may be a system where there is a country zone ticket applicable for the Murray Bridge to Mount Barker section, and I am happy to have that discussion with the minister at any time.

I look also at what the government is looking at with renewing Housing Trust stock. There will be 4,500 homes within 10 kilometres of the city. I hope they do not forget that the regional areas out there too need Housing Trust stock restored. Certainly but sadly, I have had to deal with a few issues in my electorate where sometimes people do not treat stock as they should and there have to be some quite significant rebuilds. It does sadden me. It is an issue that comes up from time to time. Quite frankly, people need to respect the housing they are being supplied with. Here is the one bit, the one line, about premium food and wine products in our region, and I quote:

The growing prosperity achieved across Asia has also helped more people realise a better quality of life. Demand for South Australia's premium food and wine products will increase in our region.

And that is it! That is the one line in all the pages of the document that the Governor read out for the government. I think there is plenty of growing prosperity across Asia. With free trade agreements to Korea, Japan and one just about signed with China, I think there is huge potential, especially when I look at the potential for the live cattle trade. It is really getting back on its feet.

I know some people do not like that, but it is a fact of life. It supports thousands and thousands of people from Darwin right through to the south of our great nation, right down to South Australia where feed is supplied. As demand grows, I know more and more cattle are sourced from the south—dairy heifers going out of Portland into China and things like that. I think there is going to be great opportunity and we must be able to supply that stock into the future to really get on board.

The speech talks about attracting significant, direct foreign investment. This can be a hot topic at times and I think we do need foreign investment. One thing I learnt during our sustainable farming select committee trip around the state was that some people were quite open that they would love a percentage of perhaps Chinese ownership or perhaps someone else in their properties, so they get that much needed capital in their farming properties so they can be more of a viable system.

It is what is happening right across the state, because some people might not believe it but it is very hard to make a living on what farmers get for their raw products. The costs are high; the costs of machinery are high; the costs of land are massive. It is tough, and I can certainly see why some people are keen to see some foreign investment.

It needs to be managed, and I note that very shortly the Foreign Investment Review Board limit will be brought down to $15 million and the Australian Taxation Office will be conducting an audit of all properties with any foreign capital involved. I think it is good to just keep track of what is going on, because I am not saying that Chinese investment is entirely a bad thing but we certainly cannot just go to China and buy their land. We live in different ways and we run our countries differently as well.

I note another comment in the speech about a cultural change within the Public Service to attract the volume of investment needed to create new jobs. I think that speaks for itself and I think everyone, whether they are public servants or in the private sector, needs to pick up to make sure we can get this state to be the great state that it is. I note the government is talking about taxation reform. They are open to radical reform, saying nothing is out of bounds. Will we have a land tax on every house, dwelling, business in South Australia? I do not know, but I have a funny feeling that that is where the government is leaning and there will be an interesting debate when that discussion paper on options to reform the state's taxation system is released. In fact, I think it has been released.

I will get to one of the real doozies of the speech and I note that the minister in the house was discussing the other day whether it is appropriate to remain in the Australian Central Time zone, which we have had since 1899. I think this is a commentary that they are using to try to deflect all the issues of the day, whether it is the Gillman land deal or the health reforms but, quite frankly, I think it is a waste of air. Perhaps this debate may have been necessary in years gone by, many years ago, but the simple fact is, with electronic communication and email, who cares what time it is? You can operate 24 hours a day.

We are only half an hour off beam with the Eastern States. The kids on the West Coast get on buses in the dark now. Next thing, they will have to get up before they go to bed. Now, that is a joke, so do not take that too seriously, but I just think it is a waste of time even discussing it. I know part of the debate is about whether we go further towards Western Australian time and I think there will be opposition from the government side in regard to that but, in real time, that is probably where we need to be heading.

I note there is discussion about the Electoral (Funding, Expenditure and Disclosure) Amendment Act coming into force in July this year, and the Governor talks about greater transparency. I take my hat off now, before that does come in, and salute volunteers. There will be volunteers on all parties—probably more paid people on the other side—that will have to keep up these physical records of finance. I am not saying that is a bad thing, but it is going to need a lot more work from a lot of people to make sure that donations are followed correctly and that the process and transparency is followed directly.

There is talk about the need to review the remuneration of members of parliament. No-one is going to win any prizes talking about that too much—

The Hon. M.L.J. Hamilton-Smith interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: Yes, no worries; thanks. It was interesting, in recent years, when we used to be a couple of thousand dollars behind our federal colleagues in the base pay rate, but now we are I think around $42,000 behind. I will just leave that out there for debate. I know it does not matter what we say in here, people will still say, 'Self interest is a great winner,' and all that, but people do need to be recompensed so that you get good people to represent their state, whether they are from the Labor Party, the Liberal Party or the crossbenchers, and work the many long hours that I know all members work in their capacity as members of parliament.

I noticed discussion around eliminating the anti-democratic practice of preference harvesting. I welcome that debate, because I think that if someone gets elected with 0.5 per cent or whatever ridiculous amount of votes, it is totally undemocratic. I think the public education system certainly needs a lot of work. I note my wife currently works in the system as a library services officer. I note in the speech it states:

…every South Australian child should be guaranteed the attention they need to reach their full potential. This is especially important for children with disabilities.

Absolutely, it is especially important for children with disabilities. Whether it be a physical disability, learning disability, or they have had an abused childhood, they do deserve assistance. My wife was basically employed in the last term of last year to look after one person. That one person was a bag of strife, but sadly it was not the lad's fault on his own. I think it was his upbringing, as he was a foster child.

But, I do think the reaction by the department in assisting this child, in sending out 13 senior Department for Communities and Social Inclusion and Education staff, was over the top. Sadly, there are too many of these cases, and if they are sending 13 heavy staff to address these issues all the time, that is tying up a massive amount of resources. I am not saying it is not a big problem, because it is, but it does need to be resolved in a better way.

Just in the few minutes I have left, as I am running out of time, the speech mentions that the government is looking at investing in 'quality health care for South Australians'. It makes a point in the speech that, 'Every metropolitan hospital and all major country hospitals have recently been rebuilt.' There is a lot of work that needs to be done on other hospitals throughout the regions. I am certainly appalled at the sale of the Daw Park Repatriation General Hospital, because I think that is just a disgrace, and it is an offence to our defence personnel.

I had cause to visit the hospital for a couple of days in December and talked to staff about the failure of EPAS, for a start, but not only that. They were appalled at the prospect of it shutting down. My wife and I have many friends around the place. A couple of them work at the hospital, and they are disgusted. They have long been loyal Labor voters but they might come our way because of this senseless decision by the Labor government in reference to not only our Diggers but the many civilians who go to that health unit, and I welcome that. With those few words, that is my Address in Reply.

The Hon. M.L.J. HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Minister for Investment and Trade, Minister for Defence Industries, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (16:29): I would like to commence my Address in Reply by thanking and congratulating His Excellency the Governor Hieu Van Le. I think he and Mrs Le are a wonderful asset to this state. Every time I hear the Governor speak I am filled with pride, not only in his own accomplishments but in those of South Australia that shine through him. The Governor covered a lot of the challenges we face and the opportunities we can take to deliver better outcomes for South Australia in his address. This is our first and foremost responsibility.

I want to acknowledge that we are joined in this new session by two new members, Natalie Cook, the member for Fisher, and Sam Duluk, the member for Davenport. I very much look forward to working with them. Being a fellow conservative, I am sure Sam and I will agree on a lot of conscience issues in the parliament. I am glad to have Sam on the team. No doubt I will also agree with an awful lot of what Nat has to say, and I found her address remarkable. Sam is probably on tomorrow and I will make sure I am present for it.

If this government did nothing else in the remainder of its term in office it would be still a reformist government that had made a historic achievement, and that was WorkCover reform. That WorkCover reform—$180 million worth of savings to business—in the way it was delivered by the Attorney and by the government, is simply remarkable. I am not sure if business or the broader community fully appreciate yet the full significance of that reform. Previous governments have tried and failed. It is an absolute credit to the Attorney, to the cabinet and also to the government caucus that they allowed that to go through. I know there were very diverse views on it and there would not have been full agreement. We will see how it works. Maybe it needs to be tweaked later, but I think it is a historic reform.

I think the Governor's address signals that this government is prepared to make further historic steps to ensure that at the end of this term it has got on with the job and made a difference, that it has got on with the job of ensuring that our children and our grandchildren go on to a prosperous and fulsome future, because indeed many of the things covered in the Governor's address are bold indeed.

I want to start with health reform, because I think that is as historic as WorkCover reform. I absolutely commend the Minister for Health for bringing that forward through the cabinet, through the relevant cabinet committees, through his own party caucus and then into the parliament. Many have tried and failed. When the Liberals were in office—and I was part of the government that did this—we sold Modbury Hospital to the private sector. There were attempts at reform between 1993 and 2002 because it was widely recognised that the health system needs ongoing reform because it is simply too expensive to sustain if it is not constantly reinventing itself to make itself more affordable and more achievable.

These procedures in our hospitals have changed: hip replacements, knee replacements. The sort of technology that is required and the things we can achieve now go so far beyond what was required when these hospitals were first built that you simply cannot spread yourself too thinly on the ground, and nine hospitals is never going to be a sustainable model going forward. Everybody who is intelligently engaged in this debate knows it. I know it. I knew it when I was the shadow health minister. I think every shadow health minister there has been would know that there is a need for health reform. The opposition would well know that, as does the government. The federal parliament, government and opposition, would know that as well, because there is a need for national health reform.

In commenting on health reform, it is incumbent on all, if they are unhappy with what is being proposed by the government and by the health minister, to be in a position to suggest an alternative. I do not think it is good enough to rip things down unless you are able to indicate what you will build up to put in its place. What the health minister has proposed I think is quite remarkable. It is a time of change. It will be emotional for many people.

I have one of those hospitals in my electorate. I grew up across the street from the Repat and my mother has regaled me with stories. My grandfather was in the 2nd/10th. He used to have barbecues at his house for the 2nd/10th boys in the 1940s and 1950s. Apparently they would come in their pyjamas and slippers from the Repat the two blocks to our place to the barbecue, have a barbecue and a beer all day, and go home slightly sozzled in their dressing gowns and slippers back to the Repat by 5 o'clock to get ready, because they had to be back or they were in trouble with the matron. That was in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

It is a wonderful hospital, but eventually it would have to be rebuilt either at its current location or somewhere else and the Minister for Health has come up with a plan that does both because part of it is going to be rebuilt where it is. I hope that includes Ward 17, but we will see. There is work to be done on that. Of course, there is a private health facility there now. The chapel is remaining and the gardens are remaining, but a lot of it is going to be rebuilt at other hospitals where new rehabilitation facilities are going to be created, hydrotherapy pools and gyms, close to where veterans live and work where they will be able to access those brand new facilities.

I can tell you veterans have heart attacks, they have strokes, they need emergency department services, they need rehabilitation services, and they need all sorts of things they will now be able to access that will be new, that will be world class and that will be right up to the measure. I am confident and I will be ensuring that we get a wonderful new Ward 17, not a flashy multistorey building, but something that is appropriate for purpose—hopefully at Daw Park, but we will see—that veterans and clinicians are involved in creating and that, at the end of the day, veterans will be better off not worse off.

I know it is also difficult at Hampstead and St Margaret's, but I am encouraged by the changes that we will see at Flinders, Lyell McEwin and the new RAH and at other locations like Modbury and QEH where we are going to see new facilities, enhanced facilities and a better coordinated system. I think, frankly, if this government did nothing else but WorkCover reform and health reform it could sit down at the end of this four-year period and say, 'We made a difference and we made historic changes to this state.'

So I absolutely commend the health minister for having the political courage to bring this forward because you know what? I have worked out in the 18 years I have been here that political courage is like other forms of courage—it is often in short supply, it is very easy to squib, and it is very easy to just make incremental changes and not be brave enough to bring in bold historic reforms. There are two in the first 12 months of this government's life and I think they are reforms of which the government can be rightly proud.

Now, there are a lot of other things in the Governor's speech. There is going to be a review of time zones. There is going to be a review of the nuclear fuel cycle to see whether that is an industry which we can take full advantage of. There is going to be renewal of the Housing Trust stock—long overdue—which will stimulate the housing and development industries. There is going to be parliamentary reform. There is going to be further super schools, particularly in the secondary space, and I think the super school system has always been quite a clever model. I said that when I was in opposition and I will say it still. I think it has led to a lot of renewal within the education system and that is good. There are a host of other changes.

I think it is one of the boldest statements of a government's intentions that I have seen in the time that I have been here. I say that as someone who has contributed in the debates leading up to the ideas that were in the Governor's speech. I commend the Premier for being brave enough, as I mentioned earlier with the Minister for Health in respect of health reform, to bring forward an agenda which is bold and courageous and which is probably controversial within the Labor Party itself, both state and federal, in some of its aspects, but which has got South Australia thinking and focused and which has been well received by the business community.

I know it has delivered a couple of chestnuts for business associations like Business SA in respect of, for example, the nuclear fuel cycle and time zones which are issues that they hold dearly, and tax reform which is another important initiative further announced by the Treasurer today. Again, full points to the Treasurer.

This is the first time I have seen a government come into this house with a discussion paper on tax reform. I felt so passionately about it. When I was the opposition leader I had a tax summit and produced a tax discussion paper myself with members opposite just to get the debate going. I would hope, and I am sure they will, that members opposite will welcome this debate and be active contributors in it. Again, I say to members opposite, if you are not happy with what is in it, suggest some alternatives. Let us have a battle of ideas. Let us have some meaningful policy debate, because I know there are a lot of fantastic ideas on the benches opposite from the Liberal opposition and I would love to see those ideas blossom in the form of this debate. I do not think we should be afraid of that.

I think it is a more respectful parliament than it has been for many years. The first few years I was here I thought it was a little bit messy to say the least. I think we can engage in a battle of ideas without getting snaky or personal, and we can have an effective exchange of genuine ideas as we go through health reform, as we go through tax reform, and as we go through many of the other initiatives in this paper.

Frankly, I think the Premier is a decent enough bloke, along with the Leader of the Opposition, to allow both sides to have those debates and work through those issues in an intelligent way, over the coming year or two, in a way that all South Australians, I think, will find quite admirable. I certainly hope that is how it unfolds. I certainly hope what does not happen is that everything that has been put down in the Governor's speech is simply ripped apart over the next year or two and nitpicked with no meaningful alternatives put on the table. I think South Australians would like to see us work collegiately and collaboratively in their best interests.

I just want to hunker down onto a few issues for which I am personally responsible. I might start with, of course, investment and trade, because to me it is all about jobs, jobs, jobs. There are kids out there now at school who would have hoped to have been apprentices at Holden or in one of the related companies, and those jobs will not be there in a few years' time. We need to create alternative jobs for those kids. We also need to help those who are currently working in the automotive industry relocate into other opportunities. By being an outward economy, by trading, by exporting more, by attracting new investment into the state, we can create new jobs and new opportunities for those people, and that is exactly what we plan to do. Economic priority 9 of the Premier's 10 economic priorities talks a lot about that. I am principally responsible for delivering it, and we will, and we are doing that in a number of ways.

First of all, there will be a new investment agency created. I will have a lot more to say about that later. We have looked at the Irish model, we have looked at the Singaporean model. It will be funded. It is going to cost some money to make that investment, but a group of people will be put together to go out and progressively seek further investment into this state. If we can get more head offices here, if we can get companies that are here to expand through investment, if we can create new jobs and new opportunities through a more sophisticated approach to investment attraction, then that is to the betterment of all. There will be more brought to the house about that later. There are 6,000 new jobs that we have targeted to create over the next three years from inbound investment, and I am going to make sure that I play my part as a member of the cabinet team and the government team in delivering those jobs for South Australians.

I thank the Economic Development Board for their wonderful contribution to that initiative of the new investment attraction authority. They are doing a wonderful job helping the government on many fronts, along with the wonderful Professor Göran Roos, with his bountiful supply of bright ideas, who is again helping the government to be more business friendly. My message from the Governor's speech to the business community is: the government is on your side. The government recognises that if small businesses and businesses are thriving, then they are creating jobs, and if they are creating jobs our constituents are happy.

We want business to succeed, and that is why we are out there talking about tax reform, that is why we are out there talking about investment and trade, that is why we are out there talking about the things that Business SA and other industry groups want us to talk about, because the government is listening to them. We have heard it, we understand it, and I can tell you that the discussions we have around cabinet are very business friendly. Their debates engage not only with business but with the unions, because, guess what? The unions and workers want the same thing: vibrant and successful businesses that employ more workers and look after them. We are all pulling on the same rope here, and they want business to succeed. I will come back to that point later.

We did meet with the chief executive of the IDA in Ireland, Barry O'Leary, and talked about investment and trade. The Premier, during his recent visit to Singapore, talked to the president, Tony Tan, and the trade and investment minister, Teo Chee Hean, to discuss their government's success in attracting new industries, and we will be trying to emulate some of that success. That will require some reorganisation within government. Again, that will be changed, but it will be changed for the better.

I have also looked at the Gateway Program. We have reinvigorated the funding for the Gateway Program. We have revised the rules for the Gateway Program. I recently allocated seven or eight grants under the Gateway Program to make that funding more accessible to people. I want every dollar at my disposal deployed to the benefit of business so that we create more jobs and more opportunity. I want to get as many companies as possible—not only in the city but in our wonderful regions—and I agree completely with the points made earlier by the member for Hammond about the importance of the regions to our economic growth. We want to use this TradeStart funding to get them off overseas selling their wonderful products.

We have TradeStart advisers located in the northern suburbs, the southern suburbs, Naracoorte, Paringa and Port Augusta. I would like to thank them all for their efforts at the grassroots level for fostering export capability in our SMEs, and the commonwealth government for their continuing partnership with this important program. I ask all members in the house to encourage their local firms to get in contact with the trade and investment agency, ITSP, perhaps through our TradeStart advisers to explore opportunities to sell their products and attract new investment into their businesses.

On 5 February, the Premier announced that the government would be regularising its overseas business delegations, and this is an innovation that the Premier and I and the remainder of cabinet have worked on together. I can tell the house that we will be doing a regular outbound mission to China every May and we will be doing a regular inbound mission from China into Australia every September to align with the Royal Adelaide Show. We are going to try to repeat these missions every year at the same time and in the same form and make them better and better each year.

I am hoping to take as many as 200 businesses to China this year. The Premier will lead the mission, and it will be an all-in effort from government. It will be the biggest overseas trade mission the government has ever conducted, and we are hoping to make sure that there are as many South Australian businesses sitting down with Chinese businesses and writing cheques to each other and doing deals with each other as is humanly practicable. We have absolutely cranked up our efforts in China. We are already exporting nearly $4 billion. The growth, with our efforts in China—and I commend previous ministers for the groundwork they have done—is extraordinary, and we are going to take that to a new level.

I can also tell the house that, having returned from India in January, we are going to have a regular outbound mission to India in August. I hope to go to Delhi, Mumbai and Jaipur in Rajasthan, and we will have an inbound mission from India every January to line up with the Twenty20 cricket. We have one commencing in the coming week to line up with the World Cup. We will model on that and develop further our business relationships, and the jobs and opportunities that come with it, with India.

We hope to take a delegation of around 60 businesses to India and we hope, eventually, to crank our level of interactivity up with India. It is a mystery that there are 11,000 Australian companies with a presence in the United States and only 350 Australian companies with a presence in India. The reason for that gap is something that we need to explore and we need to close it, because that is a wealth of opportunity.

We will also be shortly announcing our South-East Asia strategy. There will be a mission there this year and there will be more said about that later. I will be going off on a reconnaissance soon. The overall message though is if you are a winery, if you are a farm, if you are a flour mill, if you produce meat, if you produce grains or processed foods, or if you are an aquaculture business, or if you are an advanced manufacturer or service provider in the water industry or in the waste management industry, or if you are looking for students to attend your university, if you are looking to do trade of any kind overseas, the South Australian government is going to help you do business. We are going to help you get over there, we are going to help you make the right connections, and we are going to help you create jobs and opportunity and grow your business for the betterment of this state.

If your business is growing its profits, you are hiring more people and you are paying more taxes by the way—everyone is happy about that—and you are taking home more profits that you can reinvest in your business for the betterment of this state. That includes some very new initiatives which we will be announcing later in the year about investment models where we hope to attract investment into South Australian companies in ways that opens up lines of communication and distribution for them in the parent countries I have mentioned.

I want to move on and talk about time zones. I will be managing that process. We have put the issue out there. This is the first time the government has led on this issue. Private members have tried it. The government is dead serious about getting it resolved. There will either be no change, or we will go half an hour back to Eastern Standard Time or half an hour forward to make it an hour.

I was recently in the room of one of the biggest investors in this state overseas—they own billions of dollars' worth of South Australian assets—and the first issue they raised with me was the absolute joke of a half-hour time gap. We are a laughing-stock, which is confirmed by our Agent-General in London where it is regularly raised by European investors. A half-hour time zone, unfortunately, is the subject of ridicule. It either needs to be an hour, or it needs to be Eastern Standard Time in my opinion—that is my personal opinion—but we are going to consult with people and see what they think, and there will be a two-month period for everyone to have their say because everyone deserves to be heard.

At the end of that two-month period the government will consider a further period of consultation. That might involve putting a firm proposition on the table and then further consulting on that firm proposition. However, we hope that by the time it ultimately comes into parliament, if it does come into parliament and we do decide to change and the government does propose something, that it will have been very thoroughly consulted. We are very sensitive to concerns in the regions.

We know that there would be farmers down in the South-East who would probably welcome going to Eastern Standard Time but, conversely, there would be farmers over in the west, as west as Ceduna, who, for all the reasons that have been mentioned, would hate the idea of going to Eastern Standard Time. They all need to be given a fair go. We will look at all the options, moving the opening and closing hours of schools and government offices, look at all the things that could possibly be done to make this possible, but I can tell you that, as the minister responsible for managing this process, I will make sure everyone gets a fair go on it. Hopefully, at the end of it we will reach some sort of consensus.

I want to talk now about defence industries. There has been a lot in the media about this. I just want to make one very important point, and that is that it does appear that the federal government and the Prime Minister have made a captain's pick and are trying to engineer an outcome where we build submarines in Japan. There is growing concern that a contrived competitive evaluation process of some kind is being set up to give an appearance of a competitive tender, where the Germans, the French and the Swedes can have a go, but which is subject to a preordained outcome: Japan.

As a government, we are not disposed unfavourably to a Japanese submarine or a Swedish, German or French submarine. We do not care about the design. The Navy can pick that. The federal government can pick that. We want the best submarine to protect our shores. But what we are absolutely immovable on is that it will be built in this country. We are not going to export 120,000 man years of jobs and wages to somebody else's country, using our money, taxpayers' money, and we are not going to export up to $250 billion worth of Australian taxpayers' money to build surface ships and submarines overseas because somebody thinks they will save money or that it will be expedient to do so, or because somebody thinks that we are not good enough to do these things.

What we need is federal leadership that says, yes we can. What we need are prime ministers and federal politicians who have faith in South Australian and Australian industry and our workers and their families and will back them. I can tell those workers and those businesses that, while it has breath in its bones, this government will fight for that outcome and we are absolutely immovable. We will do whatever it takes. We are not going to sit by and allow such decisions to be made.

I just ask a couple of senior federal Liberals in this state to reflect on their actions. They actively ripped the automotive industry down and there are a couple of them there—I will not name them in the house, but I tell you it is close—who are actively ripping down the shipbuilding industry. They do not want it to succeed, for ideological reasons or perhaps to curry favour to pursue their own careers—I do not know why—but they should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.

Can I also add that there are several federal Liberal MPs of whom we should be proud, and I want to make special mention of Sean Edwards and David Fawcett. I think Matt Williams has been pretty good, and I believe Anne Ruston. There is silence from some of the others. It is time to stand up, ladies and gentlemen. It is time to stand up for your state. That also goes for members opposite. You are not bound to lash yourselves to the sinking ship of a federal Liberal parliamentary party hell bent on building submarines in Japan. You can cut them loose at any time and you would win nothing but three cheers from the people of South Australia. Come with us on this journey. We have to win this one. It is too important to lose. That also holds for LAND 400, the $10 billion combat vehicle project which is soon to be announced for first pass.

Again, I have sat with combat vehicle manufacturers overseas who have told me that the only customer they have in the world who does not require local industry content in their offering is the current Australian government. I have sat in with combat vehicle manufacturers gobsmacked that we are the only country in the world not saying to them, 'Before you tender make sure you've got 20, or 30, or 40, or 50 per cent local content in your bid offer.' Every other country in the world does. Two of them told me they just sent their industry participation people out of the room because they were not needed.

I will be looking at that tender very carefully, but if we have a government that wants to offload 750 to 1,000 combat vehicles down at the wharf, paint them, put a numberplate on them and drive them off to the Army base with virtually no value-add for our workers and our businesses, then that government should hang its head in shame because we have an opportunity to assemble those vehicles here. We have an opportunity to build some of the parts for those vehicles and even export vehicles overseas based around that capability, if the government simply says, 'Let's get it right with industry.'

I can tell you, the unions have to play the game, businesses have to play the game, and I think they will because if they give us a competitive shipyard and a competitive combat vehicle manufacturing park we are all going to be winners, including the workers and the businesses. I think everyone wants this to succeed. What we need is leadership in Canberra; that is what we need. I hope that whatever happens in the months and years going forward that that is what we get, one way or the other.

We are receiving the Governor's speech in uncertain times. The global economy is awash with liquidity as a result of quantitative easing in the United States and a new raft of quantitative easing money printing in Europe. The Australian dollar has dropped spectacularly from nearly $1.10 to into the 70s and interest rates have been cut. That presents challenges and opportunities. Oil and gas prices are at historic lows. That is bad news for companies like Santos, Beach and others, for the present, and I am sure they will bounce back, but it is very good news for businesses.

It is very good news for the punters of South Australia. I went to fill my car up with fuel the other day. It normally costs $100 for diesel; I got it for $71. I was pretty happy. If that is happening all over the state then somebody has got more money to spend on retail, more money to spend in a restaurant, more money to spend investing back into their business or on their kids' education, and that is good for the economy. I am confident that that will help with our economic recovery, because it is coming and it is coming like a steam train.

Can I also commend the parliamentary reforms mentioned in the Governor's speech. It is high time we had new deadlock provisions. Upper houses everywhere are blocking government budgets. It is happening in Canberra and it is happening in the states. I think it is wrong. There should be debate and delay, but there should not be blocking. The nature of our system is flawed. It needs fixing. My personal view is that I would favour joint sittings of both houses as a way to clear any deadlocked legislation, and particularly on budget matters there needs to be a process where the will of the people can be exercised and people can get their budgets through, both federal and state. Federal is not my problem to solve, but state is, so I am delighted the Premier has set out his determination to deliver some budget reform.

Can I just wind up by talking about veterans and the centenary of ANZAC because we will shortly commemorate the landing at Anzac Cove, during which so many of our great-grandfathers were killed. The beginning of the Great War was a sobering event for everyone in this state and those who preceded us in this very chamber would have stood here, just as we are today, solemnly reflecting on those events. As the Minister for Veterans' Affairs I think it is very important that we commemorate these next four years solemnly and that we remind the young of the sacrifices of those who came before them.

We will be talking to the people of South Australia about a very exciting program of activities that will get out of the city and into the regions, which will involve a number of capital works as well as individual events, of which I think all members will be proud. We will do it in a bipartisan way and I think members will be pleased with it. I commend the Governor's speech to the house and wish the parliament well in its deliberations over the coming year.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (16:59): I am delighted to be able to join this debate on the Address in Reply. I congratulate Governor Hieu Van Le on the opening of the parliament this week and on the way that he is conducting himself as the Governor. I congratulate him on attaining that high office.

I had the pleasure of having the Governor and his wife in my electorate in the latter part of last year when he came down as a special guest to open and be the guest of honour at the Coonalpyn Show. He told me that it was the first country show that he had attended in South Australia full stop, not just since he was Governor. At no better place could he have had the experience of attending a country show than Coonalpyn in the Upper South-East. We had a delightful day introducing him and his wife to a country show.

Having said that of the Governor, I need to ensure that nobody misinterprets my comments. I am fully aware, and I am sure the house is fully aware, that the speech delivered by the Governor is not written by the Governor. It is not the Governor's opinion: it is a speech written by the government expressing the government's opinion. I am sure that the Governor, possibly, does not agree with everything in the speech. I certainly agree with very few of the things that are in the Governor's speech.

I will go through the Governor's speech in chronological order because, from time to time, there are things that I want to talk about. Just for the sake of somebody who comes along and reads the Hansard of my contribution, the order in which I am speaking on matters is the order in which they come up in the Governor's speech.

The first matter that I want to talk about briefly is the fact that we are going to have a royal commission to look into the subject of the uranium fuel cycle and the nuclear industry as it applies and might apply in South Australia. Can I say I welcome this move. I welcome this announcement by the Governor; it is long, long overdue.

I recall that, but for Norm Foster crossing the floor in the upper house, Roxby Downs may well have never got off the ground. It may still well be one of the largest ore bodies in the world but totally untouched. The Labor Party in South Australia has taken a long, long time to come to its senses on this particular matter. I welcome the Governor saying 'it is time to engage in a mature, robust and informed debate'. Hear, hear!

To remind the house how immature and how ill-informed the debate has been in South Australia, a number of years ago, since this Labor Party has been in office, one of my colleagues, the Hon. Caroline Schaefer, who was a member of the other place, came back from a trip to France as part of an overseas study tour. She commented that she had discovered there was a nuclear power station in the middle of the Champagne wine district. She just made that offhand comment. The then premier, premier Rann, put out a statement saying that the Liberals wanted to build a nuclear power station in the Barossa Valley.

That is the level of the debate we have had in South Australia to date, so I welcome this with open arms. At last, after having a uranium mining industry in South Australia for a lot more than 25 years, probably more than 30 years, the Labor Party has finally caught up with the nonsense of the position they have held for so long. It is way overdue.

Might I also note that the Labor Party's proposal to have a royal commission to look into this has nothing to do with establishing whether this is a viable or safe industry that we should have in South Australia. I think the jury is out on all those things. If we are serious about global warming, if we do believe that we have to do something about the fossil fuel cycle, nuclear is the only technology available, at this stage and into the foreseeable future, that can meet our energy needs without continuing to increase the percentage of carbon dioxide and other pollutants in our atmosphere. It is the only technology available to us.

We are not having a royal commission in South Australia because the technology is not proven: we are having a royal commission in South Australia because we need to either sway or confirm the public perception of the industry in order that we can have acceptance for taking this not incremental but giant step, which I hope we do in South Australia.

I counterpoint that particular position with this government's position with regard to fracking in my electorate and other parts of the state but principally down in the South-East in my electorate and the neighbouring electorate of Mount Gambier where the government and the Minister for Mineral Resources have opposed any form of inquiry into fracking within the oil and gas industry or unconventional gas.

As I have always said, I do not have a problem with the technology used in the unconventional gas industry, but I have to tell the house that many of my community members and many of my constituents and those in the rest of the South-East do have problems with it. They are not convinced. We need to have the inquiry, and I am pleased to see that a parliamentary inquiry is about to kick off into that.

Hopefully that inquiry will go a long way to allay the fears of the people in the South-East about the unconventional gas industry, just as the government is proposing to have a royal commission to allay the fears of people about the nuclear industry, bearing in mind that most of the fears that are held by people in South Australia are held because the Labor Party has actually generated those fears over the last 30-plus years.

Mr Tarzia: Shame.

Mr WILLIAMS: It is a shame. We are a long way behind where we should be. The next part of the Governor's speech is where I really disagree with the direction of this government. He says:

'Adelaide, the heart of the vibrant state'…Our capital city has a critical role to play in South Australia's economic performance.

Then he goes on and talks about 'the vibrant city…the vibrant city…the vibrant city'. As my colleague the member for Hammond said, where was the comment in the Governor's speech about the economic drivers that still remain in this state, principally those in the rural and regional parts of the state, those parts outside metropolitan Adelaide?

There is a great part of South Australia outside metropolitan Adelaide. A great number of people live outside the city, outside the CBD. There are great industries operating outside metropolitan Adelaide. I constantly get the impression that this government fails to understand that, that they do not even realise what is happening out there. South Australia's future depends on a lot more than a vibrant city. It depends on a lot more than planning changes in the metropolitan area, and I will come to that momentarily.

A lot of the issues that the Governor identified in his speech with regard to planning and with regard to vibrancy in the city, etc., would be addressed immediately if this government were not so city-centric, if this government understood the potential we have in other parts of the state, if this government had a decentralisation policy where, instead of trying to jam another 100,000 people into the inner suburbs and the CBD, it said, 'Let's put the next 100,000 South Australians outside metropolitan Adelaide. Let's grow some of our major regional centres—Mount Gambier, Berri, Port Augusta, Port Lincoln, Murray Bridge.'

I have never seen in my time here in the life of the Labor government in South Australia any attempt to grow the centres outside metropolitan Adelaide. Indeed, a lot of the policies of this government have done the exact opposite. It has been centralisation, centralisation, centralisation, and I think that is creating lots of problems. An urban growth boundary for Adelaide would not be necessary if this government had the correct policy settings for decentralisation. The population of metropolitan Adelaide would grow at a much steadier rate. We would not have to have these sorts of policies about urban infill.

I am really concerned about this policy of urban infill in South Australia. I look around inner suburban streets where there used to be quarter-acre blocks designed for families and lots of open space. South Australians, I think, believe that metropolitan Adelaide is a city of gardens and a city of open spaces. That is wrong; it is not. We have less open space in suburban Adelaide than virtually every other major city in Australia. We have lots of open space around the CBD, with the city Parklands. Get away from that and Adelaide has very little open space.

That has not been a huge problem with the traditional quarter-acre block, but now in my street, most of those blocks have been cut up and three and four units have been put on those blocks. All of a sudden, for families growing up in those suburbs, in those streets and in those units, their children have nowhere to play. They have nowhere to develop through physical activity, because there are no parklands; there are no schools with extensive yards and ovals, because of this government's policy of closing down and amalgamating schools, and creating super schools.

Children do not ride their bikes to school; they have to go a long distance to their super school because they are farther and farther apart. They are generally transported, either on a bus or with their parents in a motor car, so they do not have access to the schoolyards, playgrounds, tennis courts and netball courts for out-of-school-hours activities. I really have some concerns about the whole idea that this government has with regard to planning. The Governor said:

But…our physical environment influences a person's health and wellbeing…

I agree. He goes on to say:

Healthy, inclusive communities will mean more South Australians will be ready to grasp the great opportunities in our midst.

I agree. I wrote here the word 'livability'. I think we are creating an urban environment which has no livability, particularly for families and growing children. I think that is one area where the government is just getting it wrong.

The previous speaker (member for Waite) made a lot of comments about jobs, and said it is about 'jobs, jobs, jobs'. I think the key to jobs in South Australia is not the government taxing those people who are running businesses and employing people in order to give money to other businesses supposedly to come here and create jobs. I do not think that is the answer at all. I think the answer is to get out of the way of existing businesses, making an environment where they can thrive, and watch them employ more people.

What is the point of taking $10 million out of the pockets of existing businesses and giving it to the likes of OZ Minerals to shift their headquarters to Adelaide? That is an incredibly false economy. That $10 million by and large came from existing businesses or householders, who I am sure would rather spend the money here in South Australia on something that they needed, or employing more people here in South Australia. It is a very false economy.

The member for Waite talked about the subs project. I do not think there is anybody in this place who does not want to see submarines built in Adelaide. I think we all want to see that. He also talked about the motor industry. He suggested that politicians in this country actively destroyed the motor industry. The motor industry in Australia was destroyed because it could not produce a product which Australian families could afford to buy. Australians chose not to buy Australian-produced motor cars. That is what happened to the motor industry. It was not some decision in Canberra. It was not even a decision in a boardroom in Detroit.

This really came home to me when the Ford Motor Company announced that they were closing down their operations in Australia. We all know that you can build a car more cheaply in Asia simply because of the wage rates. Ford announced that they could actually produce a car at one-quarter of the cost in Asia than they could in Australia, but what they also said is that they could produce a car for half the cost in Europe to what you could in Australia. The wage rates in Germany are not half what they are in Australia. They would be equivalent, if not even higher, but Ford can still produce a motor car for half the cost in Germany than they can produce it in Australia.

We have to ask ourselves the question: why is that so? If we ask that question, and if we ask it honestly and look at it carefully, we might get some revealing answers. By and large, one of the problems with industry in Australia is that the people who are supposed to be running and managing the business are hamstrung in making management decisions. Manufacturing in Australia is still controlled by unions that hamstring the operators to run efficient and effective businesses. That is why the motor industry will no longer be a part of the Australian scene in a few years' time, and I suspect it is one of the reasons that we are even having a debate about the submarines. It is the same problem, and the problem is not caused by a decision by some government, other than the fact that governments have not tidied up the mess that we have in our manufacturing sector.

The Governor talked about our public sector, that we need to modernise and have a cultural change within our Public Service. I totally agree. I suspect that large portions of our Public Service, although well meaning, are more about self-serving rather than providing a service to the public, which is what they should be doing. We have public servants or bureaucracies which continually stand in the way of things happening, and I think all of us would come across this regularly as members of this place advocating for our constituents. I do almost on a daily basis.

A constituent comes into my office, they have a problem, you try to sort it out for them and you hit the brick wall. There is not a can-do, will-do attitude in our public sector, and that needs to change. We have to have an attitude ingrained within our public sector that when somebody comes forward with a good idea you do not put your hand up and try to come up with a reason that they cannot go ahead with that idea, you acknowledge that it is a good idea and say, 'How can we help you?' I have to say, as disappointing as it is, that that is not the response I normally get.

We are going to have a debate about taxation, and I welcome that as well, but I have some concerns. I have not had time to read it, but I have had a very quick look at the State Tax Review Discussion Paper that was tabled by the Treasurer today. I draw members' attention particularly to page 12 where there are two pie charts. I think as South Australians that we have to have a really serious think about this. Commonwealth grants on average to the state treasuries—this is general revenue—is 43 per cent of the states' revenues. In South Australia it is 49 per cent. Why is it so? Why is it that we are well above the average? We are a mendicant state, yet all the Premier does is squeal that those in Western Australia and other states want to change the way the money is distributed.

The Premier should indeed be asking himself, 'Why is it so?' and, 'Is it sustainable for South Australia to rely on the generosity of the other states indefinitely?' I suspect the answer to that question is no. I suspect it is the adage the good Lord helps those who help themselves. South Australia has to start helping itself. It cannot go on forever with its hand out and we have to stop telling ourselves lies.

Further down the same page at paragraph 3.2.3 is 'Horizontal fiscal equalisation'. I call on every member to read that section because it explains the reality of the funding arrangement between the states and the commonwealth:

GST grants are the current mechanism for achieving horizontal fiscal equalisation (HFE) in Australia. The aim of HFE is to ensure that after equalisation, each State would have the capacity to provide services and associated infrastructure at the same standard if it made the same effort to raise revenue from its own sources and operated at the same level of efficiency.

That is what horizontal fiscal equalisation is. It levels out the ability for each state to supply services. Post the last federal election when the now Treasurer had an argument with the federal government about whether money should be put on South Road at Darlington or on Torrens to Torrens, he came back and said, 'What a good boy am I. What a good job have I done. We are going to get both.' At the end of the year, through horizontal fiscal equalisation, the commonwealth government said, 'You asked for those two projects when we were only prepared to give you one. You asked for it. You will get the money, but you will, under horizontal fiscal equalisation, lose money somewhere else because under the Commonwealth Constitution we have no choice. We have to treat all the states equally.'

I think it is a bit rich for the Treasurer to come in here and say the commonwealth government has withdrawn money for pensioner concessions on local government rates because that is part of the result of the deal that he did to get the extra money on the Torrens to Torrens project.

I draw members' attention to and remind them what happened when we doubled the size of the desal plant. Then premier Rann told the parliament and the people of South Australia, 'Well, one of the reasons we have done this is the commonwealth government is going to give us an extra $120 million. That will cover a fair bit of the cost and it is a good deal at $120 million.' He did not explain to the people of South Australia that through horizontal fiscal equalisation over the next two years we lost $112 million of GST payments. The net benefit to South Australia for that deal was a mere $8 million.

That is the exact same thing that is happening now, yet we have the Premier, the Treasurer and other senior ministers bleat that the commonwealth government is cutting funding to this program or that program. The commonwealth government has a signed agreement with all the states. It is locked down because of the constitution. They are all treated equally. It is the states that make the decisions on how they spend the money they get. It is the states that make those decisions. So if we are going to have a tax debate—and I am delighted that this document reveals the lie that has been told to the South Australian people—let us do it in an honest fashion. Let us do it in an honest fashion and let us have one of those informed debates where we do not talk nonsense, we do not peddle lies, and we do not try to fool ourselves or the electorate.

Regarding time zones, I agree with the member for Waite that it is a nonsense to have a half hour difference to the Eastern States. I disagree with all of those who advocate that we should adopt Eastern Standard Time. I think we should put our clocks back half an hour. Anybody who suggests that a business has trouble operating across a time zone in this day and age is quite frankly kidding themselves. It happens all over the world.

There was one printing industry business in South Australia that specialised in printing wine labels. They had their office staffed 24 hours a day such that they could supply wine labels to every wine growing district in the world. They always had somebody available to talk with their clients in South Africa, California, France, Italy and New Zealand. That is the way modern businesses operate. I think it is a nonsense. I totally agree that the half hour does make us a laughing-stock, but to go back to Eastern Standard Time because of the geographic nature of our state, the width of our state east to west, I think the burden, particularly on those people on Eyre Peninsula and the West Coast, would just be too great.

Let us not forget that our state is made up of people—mums and dads and families. Let us have a little bit of care about the impact it has on those individuals. Let us not turn around and say, 'Oh, there's only a few thousand people over there on the West Coast; they can go to hell.' That is not the way that we should be addressing that particular issue.

The Governor spent a fair bit of time talking about our democracy, our election systems and things like citizens' juries. The member for Waite touched on parliamentary reform and the deadlock of matters between the two houses. He used the phrase, 'parliament has got to reflect the will of the people.' I do not need to remind people, surely, that our democracy in this state fails to reflect the will of the people, and it has done for decades. In four of the last seven general elections in South Australia the will of the people has been denied. We have had governments which the people did not want.

The Premier came in here after question time and moved a motion to establish a select committee. He made the Governor make comments about parliamentary reform, and we have had all these red herrings brought up about political donations. Where is the evidence? Where is the evidence that the Premier can bring forward about there being a problem in this state about political donations buying favours? I can tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, if it has happened in this state in the last 12 years, we know who is at fault. The only political favour you could buy in South Australia under our current electoral system, where it is not an even race, would be from the Labor Party.

I call on the Premier, if he has some evidence, to bring it forward, because I can guarantee there has not been any political favours bought from this side of the house, because it would not be a very good purchase. Your return on your investment would not be very good. Where is the evidence? This is another red herring, because the Premier does not want to talk about the real issue with regard to our democracy. Our democracy is a sham. We have an election. We put up an agenda. The political parties and the various groups, and minor groups and individuals, put up an agenda of what they would like to deliver for the people. And the people get out and have an election, and if a significant majority of those people say, 'We like this set of plans, we like this agenda,' if we had a working democracy they would get what they asked for, but that does not happen in South Australia.

It does not happen in South Australia; in fact, South Australia is one of the very few jurisdictions anywhere in the world where we have elections and we get the sort of result that we get. There would be very few places anywhere in the world. I have said this before: it is more difficult for the Liberal Party to get onto the government benches in South Australia today than it ever was for the Labor Party to win government in Queensland. That is the reality. I will not go back over my issues with the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission. I have canvassed that before, and I will again, no doubt. The first thing we have to address about democracy in this state is electoral fairness. We have to have a system that delivers the will of the people.

I could talk a lot about this, but I will be participating in a citizens' jury affair in my electorate over the next few weeks. I have been invited to present to a group. One of the things I will be saying to them is that, if we had a decent electoral system in South Australia we would not even be going through that exercise, because my constituents would not be treated the way they have been treated.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (17:29): Thank you for the opportunity to rise and say a few words about the Governor's speech yesterday. I would like to put on the record my admiration for Hieu Van Le, the Governor, and his wife, Lan. I think they are remarkably good people and they will do a remarkably good job.

I have known Mr Le for a number of years and had quite a bit to do with him on various occasions, and to be perfectly honest, I was delighted when he was appointed Governor. But equally, I was embarrassed for the poor man yesterday in having to eloquently read out a speech prepared by the government, which, to my mind, had a fair bit of claptrap about it and not much of any substance whatsoever. Talk about an exercise in detracting from the main game. The main game, of course, being things like the closure of the Repat hospital, the Gillman land deal, pensioner concessions and a number of other things like that. We had a substantial amount of nonsense that the poor Governor had to go through.

I would like to pick up on a few things that I feel that the Governor's speech (or the government's speech, more to the point) missed out on. I will stand to be corrected—and I have reread it—but nowhere did I hear anything whatsoever about the huge problem we have with drugs in South Australia, and particularly with our youth. Nothing about the huge problem with ice methamphetamines, the enormous problems we have with marijuana and their effects and what it is doing to our youth. I am extremely conscious of what is going on with drug use in my electorate and the awful effect it is having on communities and families, and I think the potential serious break down of some sort of community order. It is abhorrent, it is terrible, and this government spoke nothing about what you can do about drugs yesterday. Absolutely nothing! We did not hear about it.

What do you see on the news regularly? What do you hear on the news regularly about crime activities around Adelaide and, to a lesser extent, regional South Australia? Well, when you drill down into them and find out a few things that happen, you know there are a lot of drugs involved, and these people are spaced out of their minds—they are not even thinking laterally. I urge every member in this place that, if you get the slightest sniff of drug activity, dealers, people selling drugs, or where activities are taking place, let SAPOL know. You may well be doing that; I do not know.

I do not hesitate to inform police officers if I become aware of what is happening around the traps. What really infuriates me is when there are people in the community who are probably getting a few dollars on the side who let these drug dealers and whatnot know that something is about to happen—they are informed. That is not coming from within SAPOL, I can tell you—absolutely not. I am absolutely adamantly opposed to what it is doing to our community, particularly young people, and there was no mention whatsoever.

Likewise, there was no mention of any effort to try to do something in regional South Australia. I am aware that there is only one member on the other side who comes from regional South Australia—the member for Giles in this place—yet we never heard a thing about it. We never heard a thing about regional South Australia. Absolutely nothing. You can look at the member for Frome but he is actually not a member of the Labor Party—well, not at the last count, not that I know of. We have heard nothing from him either, I might add.

We heard nothing about regional South Australia and the huge effort by way of economic input that rural South Australia puts into the state economy. You just do not hear about it. Occasionally you hear one of the ministers get up and wax lyrical about what a great crop we have had, or whatever, but very little else. There is no encouragement.

The Premier today—I think it was the Premier—talked about donations and about money from the fishing industry. What he failed to also add is that that organisation predominantly fishes in commonwealth waters. It does not fish in state waters. If I can just talk about fishing for a minute, let me return to something that was once again conveniently left out: the marine park sanctuary zones. I will rot in hell before I give up on this, because it is having a catastrophic effect in my electorate, an absolutely catastrophic effect.

The rock lobster fishermen are literally on top of one another with their pots. They now have restrictions on areas where they have traditionally fished sensibly, economically and sustainably for decades. They are now all seemingly putting their pots in the same spots. It depends on the weather and where you go. A lot of things come into it. What happens with the southern rock lobster fishery around Kangaroo Island particularly is going to be a frightening scenario.

Then I read the nonsense in the paper last week by so-called experts on marine park sanctuary zones. They were saying that it has been watered down too much. A couple of people in this place need to hang their head in shame over what happened with the marine park sanctuary zones. They will be crucified politically in due course over their actions or, more to the point, inaction. It is a sad indictment on them.

Much has been said about submarines over the last few months. We have not been helped on this side by some comments that have been made by our federal colleagues, but I concur with other speakers on this side who have said—and I think the member for MacKillop said it only a few minutes ago—that if you think that the Liberal Party in South Australia, the state members, the division, do not want those submarines built in South Australia, you are stark raving bonkers. Of course we want them built in South Australia. We are desperately keen to have them built in South Australia and we will do everything possible to make sure they are built in South Australia, but it is not our call: it is the federal government's. On that note, what the hell was the federal Labor government doing for the last six or seven years? They did not do anything about it. They could have made the decision and got on with it. Now they sit there squawking like a mob of corellas having achieved absolutely nothing. Talk about sidetracking from the main issues.

We have a huge collapse in jobs in the mining sector across Australia because of world economic conditions and iron ore dropping and China's consumption of iron ore reducing accordingly. I was told by someone who went to China on a Nuffield scholarship a couple of years ago that they were actually dumping the iron ore from Australia in the sea, to store it there. They were dumping it over the sides of the ships so that they would have a stockpile. The stockpile may have surpassed the requirement for current supplies of iron ore. It is no different in my electorate. Lately we have been seeing fly-in fly-out workers in the mining sector being put out of a job pretty quickly. We have missed the boat on mining in South Australia to a large extent. I am very supportive of the mining industry but, at the moment, we have missed the boat. I think the former premier and the former treasurer, and whatnot, went off on a spending spree, thinking that we were in goldmine conditions financially, and spent what we did not have and now the state has to pick up the baggage from that effort and it is not a pretty sight.

The Governor then spoke about the nuclear power royal commission, the debate and whatnot. My personal view is, and has been for a long time, that nuclear power is the way to go. If you want a clean source of power on a very stable continent like Australia, you go nuclear. The evidence has been that it is not financially sustainable at this stage for us to put a nuclear industry or nuclear power stations in Australia and—shock, horror—the Premier has had a complete turnaround from his longstanding position (and the Labor Party's) to the extent that he said that Bill Shorten and his mob can go and do what they want to do because he is going to have a royal commission into nuclear power. I will be interested to see what comes out of this.

Some years ago, I had a constituent from Goolwa (when Goolwa was in my electorate) who came to me with a plan for putting a large nuclear power station up the gulf somewhat and pumping the water through there, using the water for Adelaide and then pumping the water further over—this was during the drought—pumping whatever water was required into the Murray (further up the Murray, at Morgan, or wherever) in an effort to increase the flows down the Murray. It seemed it was an idea that he had.

At the time, the federal member in my electorate was Alexander Downer. I gave it to him and he was very interested. He actually met with the gentleman concerned, and that would still be floating around somewhere in (possibly) the Mayo electorate office. It was not an extreme idea. It was actually a sensible and practical idea. If you want to reduce the amount of pollutants in the atmosphere, the fact of the matter is that nuclear power is the way to go. So, we will see where this debate ends up. We will see, in due course, where the royal commission findings lead us. I suspect they will probably say, 'It's a jolly good idea, but, no, we can't do it,' or something like that.

Similarly, we have another sidetracking event called the tax review. Once again, I remind the house that this is another little deviation to get away from the fact that they want to close the Repat Hospital, they want to cut pensioner concessions, they want to do this and they want to do that, so you dream up the story about a tax review. I would put nothing past the sticky hands of this government in order to generate income from the poor unsuspecting community of South Australia. Nothing they do surprises me. They have absolutely no conscience on it and they will continue to pillage the community of South Australia in an effort to boost their revenues from the ridiculous amount of expenditure they have had over the last few years when we did not have any money. It will be interesting to see where that does end up. I, along with my colleagues, will follow that with interest.

I briefly heard the member for Waite in here a while ago. I really could not be bothered with a lot of what he said because I am over him and have been for some time. As someone who was a close supporter of the member for Waite, I find the man disgusts me and I cannot be bothered even listening to him. However, that is another story.

Then, we got onto the issue of driverless cars. The issue of driverless cars; what a wonderful idea. We do not make cars anymore in Australia, or we will not do soon. We have priced ourselves right out of the market there. It is a sad indictment on Australia what has happened with the wonderful car manufacturers we have had over the years, that in a very short period of time there will be no cars manufactured in Australia.

The iconic Holden will be gone, the Ford Falcon will be gone and everything that goes with them. Many of those things were born out of World War II, and they were remarkable achievements indeed. The Holden was named after the Holden family in South Australia, some of whom I know quite well. They and the families who have gone before them must shake their heads in disbelief at what has happened to this fantastic company.

Even though it was bought out by General Motors, it maintained the name. The Holden banner will disappear from a Commodore or Calais—call it what you may. I think, once again, it is a sad indictment on where Australia has gone. We have just completely priced ourselves out of the market as far as wages go and everything else.

Let me return to a regional matter which I talked about yesterday, which was the issue of Granite Island. Only yesterday, I gave my lunch tickets to somebody else, and I went over the road and had lunch in a place on North Terrace. This particular establishment said to me, 'I have always opened on ANZAC Day for my regulars who come up here, but we cannot do it this year.' I said, 'What is the problem?' He said, 'The penalty rates just kill us. There is no way known I can pay a 17 or 18 year old $40 an hour to wash dishes on ANZAC Day, so I am not even opening.'

What is wrong with these people? What is wrong with you? You are just destroying our small businesses with penalty rates. There was a similar issue on Granite Island to some extent with the kiosk. The peak visitation time on Granite Island is obviously the school summer holidays over December/January, but every weekend is a peak visitation time down there. The people like the kiosk owners and the operators cannot afford the penalty rates. They simply cannot afford the penalty rates that are being inflicted on them, so they just do not open. They remain shut. They have the day off.

If you go in there and make X number of dollars, then have to pay out Y and achieve a negative result, there is not much future in that. So, unless they are a family business where they do not actually have to pay wages, they are just not opening. It is all around the place. It does not matter much where you go. Across my electorate, and I suspect across everybody else's, there are businesses everywhere that do not seek to open after hours or on public holidays or whenever it costs them a fortune.

South Australia is in a mess, and it is sad. I am highly disturbed and it worries me greatly that a number of our young people are leaving the state and getting out because they just cannot see any future in South Australia. Jobs interstate are far more attractive. Places in the north and in Darwin seem to attract a lot of our young people to move there where they will not be taxed out of their brain and can afford to get a job up there or wherever they choose to go.

I note on the tourism side that the minister has had a few words to say recently. Yesterday, they talked about bringing the Fashion Festival from Norwood into the city. I say, 'Why don't you take the Fashion Festival and put it out in a couple of the big regional centres and get a few people to visit them as well?' It might sound a bit bizarre; however, there is simply not enough done to create a market for people to go out and about and get out of the metropolitan area.

Adelaide—surprise, surprise—is not the centre of the universe in South Australia. Obviously, it is our biggest population base, our biggest business centre and everything else, but it is not the be all and end all. Particularly international visitors and others who wish to see a bit more of what the state has got to offer do not really want to be in Adelaide for any time at all.

I turn to my electorate and I will just briefly touch on the dairy industry. I did not hear anything about primary industries, as I reported earlier. I heard even less about the dairy industry—a great industry in South Australia, which has had some ideal areas in which it can grow but it is all through the hard work of the industry. It is through no help of the government.

Companies like Fleurieu Milk have done a marvellous job in expanding their operation and are now going to be putting milk into China within 24 hours. Twenty-four hours, or in some cases less, after it is milked on the farm, it will be on the shelves in China. I think that is a wonderful thing, but they have to put up with the ludicrous demands that are put on them by bureaucracy, covering all aspects of water and waste disposal and I have a regular series of complaints from the farming community on the Fleurieu particularly from the dairy sector or anyone irrigating. The poor old farmers get the impression that they are the most terrible people in creation, whatever they are doing. Here they are producing export income, producing food to feed the world, Australians and South Australians, and they are pilloried.

I think the member for MacKillop talked about the public sector in South Australia. It seems to me that it does not matter much whether it is state government or local government. All they seem intent on doing is telling you how you cannot do something instead of telling you how you can do something. I get it all the time. They are looking for assistance. In the main, they do not want financial assistance. They want to be able to get on and do what they do best and not be told why they cannot do this and they cannot do that.

A classic example is the issue of little corellas. They are decimating an area at Yankalilla. They are decimating the bowling green and around the ovals, killing the trees. In desperation, the community went to the NRM board to ask if they could assist and they said, no, they could not assist. They really were very much opposed, is my understanding, to the destruction of little corellas. You just cannot do it. Let me tell you, little corellas are not protected and I think what you are going to find is communities taking things into their own hands to try to do something about it because the bureaucracy will not.

On that issue, I also just want to briefly mention pensioner concessions. That is something that the government has announced it is doing away with because that dreadful federal government is cutting the grants and cutting the funding. The pensioner concession is $190. The federal component of that $190 is $19. The government, in my view, has successfully politicised the Local Government Association to the extent that mayors and CEOs have been writing to their communities with a standard letter talking about that dreadful federal government that has cut this money and the grants.

They have not mentioned in any way, shape or form that the agreement had actually finished. Every other state as I understand it—and I will stand corrected if necessary—is continuing the pensioner concession. I say to the backbench on the other side, you want to get on to your ministry and tell them to maintain the pensioner concessions because you know what we are going to do. We have announced it and it is no news to anybody. The crossbench in the Legislative Council will move to disallow the regulations to enable the pensioner concessions to be still in place.

My office and, I am sure, many others have had streams of letters, emails and phone calls regarding pensioner concessions. I am giving the standard answer. It is $19 out of $190. It is a state-based concession. It is not the federal government's fault, and for the Treasurer to keep slamming the federal government every time they run out of money on some particular issue is hardly surprising, but it is hardy sensible either, in my view.

I also pick up the thread on time zones, which other members have talked about in here. My personal view is: if you want to change the time zone in South Australia, you put it back half an hour. You do not go forward half an hour, because I think it is ridiculous. In the central part of Australia, you only have to look at how the Northern Territory operates; they are in the tropics, so it is slightly different, but not so different. I do not believe, in a state as geographically broad as South Australia, that it makes any sense whatsoever to put the time zone forward. When it is discussed in our party room, we will formulate a decision, but my personal view is to put it half an hour backwards and lock into Asia.

In the few minutes remaining to me, I would like to talk about a couple of issues on the island side of my electorate. The government and the opposition (the Labor Party and the Liberal Party) are at one over the need to do seismic survey for oil and gas in the Great Australian Bight. We are at one; there is absolutely no difference of opinion on this. It has been quite interesting for me to monitor a group called OIL Free SEAS_Kangaroo Island, which has sought to attack me fairly regularly, changed a few of my speeches around to suit their own purposes, and has been quite defamatory.

I am not worried about being defamed by them in the slightest. If I tipped them upside down and shook them I think their pockets would be empty, so there is no point in suing them, and I do not think it does anything for the public debate. These people are bewilderingly naive if they think that we do not need oil and gas. They are entitled to their point of view. I think they are completely wrong. The debate has been had. The former federal government and the current federal government have all been in agreement with where we go on this. They have put in conditions, and it is monitored by federal authorities. I will be delighted for South Australia and for Australia if they find oil and gas in the Great Australian Bight, because I think we need it. That is one issue.

I am also still concerned about the lack of action on managed investment schemes for blue gums. There are 13,000 hectares on the island which remain growing and growing, and nothing is happening. It is a convoluted problem, but it is one that needs some urgent action, and we need to get something happening at that end of the island. If I get time, I will come to why that needs to happen, but that lies in tandem with the issue of freight costs.

Once again, the government have done nothing about the problems on the island. What we went through last year with this ludicrous commissioner bill was just plain ridiculous. The government have built up false hopes on the island that this commissioner is going to do everything, save everything and be everything to everybody. Let me tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, it ain't going to happen—not with $1 million a year; that will all be sucked up in bureaucracy. You are going to have an unholy fight with government departments and agencies over there.

The bizarre part of the whole outcome is that they are now advertising for a commissioner for three days a week. Three days a week! It is absolutely ludicrous, and I am hopeful that eventually people will see through it. But, in the eyes of some people on Kangaroo Island, Pengilly is a dreadful fellow because he does not support the commissioner. Well, this is a democracy. No, I do not support the commissioner, because I see no useful purpose served by it, and yet we have seen spin, spin, spin put out in the Governor's speech, and detractions from the main events and main issues.

I will sit back and observe, note legislation and note things that happen this year, but driverless cars, changing time zones, nuclear power and other things are all sideshows in comparison to what is going to happen to people's lives with the—I seek leave to continue my remarks.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Not for 20 seconds; I think you are finished. Thank you, member for Finniss.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Odenwalder.

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