HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-03-25 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

Supply Bill 2015

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 19 March 2015.)

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (16:56): I rise to speak on the Supply Bill 2015, and I am sure I will capture your imagination with every moving word I present to you, Deputy Speaker. I do await the surprises this Labor government has in store for the people of South Australia when the state budget is handed down in the coming months. The Supply Bill 2015 is for the appropriation of money from the consolidated account for 2015-16, and that amount is in the order of $3.291 billion.

Under this state government South Australia has, over the past 13 years, worked up a significant credit card debt. Facing this deficit, the Labor government has further taxed businesses and households until the cost of living is so high that the price for everyday life is unachievable for many. I guess that is what I face as a local member and what everyone in this place faces as local members, we face the pressures felt by our constituents on everyday living. In my case I have many, and that list is increasing with people who are not coping with the cost of day-to-day living, particularly with the tax burden, with the rising cost of utilities, with the costs of all types of government charges continuing to rise.

It is having an impact on people's psyche here in South Australia, and that is probably what concerns me most. It is not only about the cost of living, but about people being able to cope with the day-to-day pressures of just living. Having that financial burden does play on people's minds and knocks their confidence around, because knowing that they cannot deal with those day-to-day pressures distracts them from what they should be thinking about, what they should be doing—working, looking for work, just having an everyday life and living life as it is.

As an example, I was recently at my son's university graduation, where the vice chancellor claimed that 91 per cent of graduates would have a job within four months. I was very proud on Monday watching my son graduate construction management with honours. He has secured himself a permanent position at McMahon Services. It is a great South Australian family business. He is one of the lucky ones. He has a good work ethic, he is smart and he works hard, but there are many like him who just cannot get a job. Many graduates and people with qualifications, some skilled and some unskilled, just cannot get work in South Australia, so the young ones in particular are leaving this state in droves. We know that interstate migration and unemployment is playing a significant role in the future of South Australia.

Where will these people get skilled jobs? Where will international migrants coming over here with skills get jobs? Where will the new graduates coming out of university get jobs? We know that a lot of the skilled graduates who come out of university are international students. It is always nice to think that the majority of them will stay but, as we know, many of them do not. They come here to get a good education, to get the qualifications and then return home.

The number of young people leaving South Australia is of immediate concern. My son has mentioned that many of his friends who have qualifications have decided that it is too hard and they are seeking employment interstate, and overseas in a lot of cases, because of the lack of confidence in our business sector to employ more and more people due to such an uncertain investment future in South Australia.

We have talked about net interstate migration from South Australia. It was 2,968 in 2013-14 alone but, on average, 2,925 residents have left South Australia for another state each year during the term of this Labor government. I do not have the Treasurer's calculator in front of me, but over nearly 14 years we are losing nearly 3,000 residents each year. That is significant. The majority of those residents who are leaving South Australia are skilled and they are taking skills with them. Again, our workforce is poorer for that interstate migration.

This month's ABS data revealed that South Australia recorded its worst trend unemployment rate in 13 years, with the title of the highest unemployment rate in the nation in terms of both trend and seasonally adjusted data. That is a damning statistic. I know the Premier and many of our ministers talk about seasonally adjusted, but this is trended. These statistics are seasonally adjusted and they are trended, and it is a damning number.

There are 6,400 fewer jobs now than when Labor made the 2010 election promise to create 100,000 jobs in South Australia within six years. That promise has been absolutely blown out of the water. It was a promise at both the 2010 state election and the 2014 state election. The Premier did state many times that it was an ambitious promise, but we all know that his ambitious promise and reality are far away from each other. I think reality is what South Australia is facing at the moment.

The creation of 100,000 jobs in six years was political spin, let us face it. There was no justification and no reality behind making that commitment, and we see that today. If we look at unemployment figures, they are seasonally adjusted and annualised, and it is not something that we can walk away from. It is a real figure that has credence. To create jobs in South Australia, as the Leader of the Opposition continually uses as one of his talking points, we need to lower taxes, reduce red tape and encourage business to invest and be part of our economic growth.

I can assure you, as a business owner myself, that when the economic climate is dim there is little incentive to have confidence. I would be very hesitant to further invest in my business, and I would be hesitant to employ more people. For many years, as my business got bigger, I employed more and more people, and if it did get into the hundreds of people, it did, but that was through heady times. As those commodity prices came back, as we had weather implications on the workforce, I adjusted. We have a government that is not prepared to adjust their expectations. They are prepared to sit on their laurels and continue to give us that unsubstantiated winding of political spin that 100,000 jobs will be achievable—ambitious but achievable. We all know that it is a long way from being achievable.

In terms of taxes on homes and businesses, there was the introduction of a rise in the ESL. Any business that was studious enough to build up their brand and business to make it bigger and better and employ more people was hit even harder by the ESL rise. Anyone that has a building business or is contributing to the state's economy, employing people, was hit the hardest by the ESL increase, particularly landowners and farmers because they are asset rich and finance poor, particularly with the commodities that we are facing at this time.

I think it was the member for Goyder who said that he had constituents whose ESL increases were up over 1,000 per cent. It is just outrageous and it is another disincentive for small to medium enterprises to build their business and to employ more people. There are about 4,000 small businesses in Chaffey, and the cost of doing business I think is outrageous. Land tax has been another burden, and red tape is crippling businesses of all sizes. Whether you are a large or a small business, you are all hit with that land tax relatively.

As of 30 June 2014 there were 143,585 businesses which operated mainly from South Australia, 14 fewer than at the same time 12 months earlier, despite the national number rising. That is a trend that South Australia must be aware of. We cannot keep denying that people are closing their doors. In some cases, businesses are consolidating. The neighbour is buying out the neighbour, the small business within a certain sector is buying out his competitor. Yes, that is happening, but that has happened forever. That has been a natural progression forever. If you are a business owner and you aspire to be bigger and better and employ more people you buy out your competitors, because by getting rid of your competitors it gives you that market advantage and a competitive advantage going into markets.

South Australia has the lowest rate of business entries of any mainland state. Only 11.4 per cent of new businesses commenced last year compared with the national average of 13.7 per cent. Again, we are behind the eight ball when it comes to setting up new business, and that is all around confidence, it is all around the government of the day putting it out there and giving support and confidence to the business sectors as to why they should embark upon improving their business or setting up a new business. It does not have to be about the government giving handouts; it is just about the government installing confidence in the business sector.

The Australian Energy Regulator's most recent annual report on retail market performance revealed that there was a 32 per cent increase from the previous year of South Australians in electricity retailer hardship programs—32 per cent more people are on hardship programs. They cannot afford to pay their bills on a monthly or a quarterly basis. I think that is a sad indictment—and that number is rising. I am sure that the minister must have concerns, and if he does not have concerns he is not looking at his data, that is clear.

The average low-income household in South Australia experienced a 10 per cent increase in its gas bill. There is an above-average number of South Australian customers on payment plans with a high level of debt. So it is not just about being on those programs, it is about the debt burden sitting behind those programs.

There is a reason that people cannot pay their bills and it is not just that they do not earn enough money for the cost of living, it is because the bank has said to them, 'We won't lend you any more money.' Their debt has increased to a point where the bank has concerns about their viability or it is people who have just got a job and cannot make ends meet.

Many people, particularly the elderly, are taking drastic measures to get by. I know a number of elderly people who have come to me with medical conditions but they cannot put heaters on and they cannot put air conditioners on. That is just the way they combat rising costs of living. They do not have creature comforts; they use a candle instead of a light—that really is a sad indictment of this state. I guess that is painting a pretty gloomy picture about what is happening in South Australia. It is alarming that 56,000 South Australians have those large gas and electricity debts.

I turn to the retailers. A staggering 1,339 tourism businesses, the majority of which are small businesses, have disappeared from South Australia since 2010. There are 58 alone in Chaffey that have gone, in the Riverland, Murraylands and Mallee. That is an alarming statistic: 58 tourism businesses alone. We are not talking about SMEs looking at supplying services or small businesses that support the main street—these are tourism businesses that are part of our tourism economy. I know the minister said that he would like to build up South Australia's tourism economy to $8 billion by 2020. Again, that is almost a projection that is a little bit like the 100,000 increased jobs in six years.

Since the government came to power in 2002, state taxes have increased by 106 per cent; property charges have increased by 120 per cent; electricity bills, as I stated, have increased by 140 per cent; gas bills have increased by 157 per cent. Of course, water bills have increased by a massive 236 per cent. Again, why have water bills increased? Because they are using SA Water as a cash cow. It is just an offset for this state government. It is propping up one sector to prop up another sector.

The Treasurer regularly points out that we privatised ETSA, we privatised electricity, and yet I notice here a 140 per cent increase since 2002. We have not privatised the water utility, SA Water. We have not privatised it and yet it is up by 236 per cent. Maybe the Treasurer needs to go back to his computer and work out why because I know he regularly uses that to get his numbers right.

A recent survey I conducted particularly in the Mallee showed that 40 per cent of all respondents to that survey ranked the cost of living as their number one concern. So out of all people surveyed, everyone registered a concern with the cost of living but 40 per cent registered as the number one priority the cost of living as a real concern.

On the issue of investment and trade, Labor finally has a strategy for South-East Asia. It is funny because I was exporting into South-East Asia 25 years ago and I had a strategy back then and it worked. I exported a lot of my produce, my citrus, into South-East Asia. Back then the economy was a poorer economy but, luckily for them, their economy is growing and they are much more buoyant now and importing a lot more fruit. While $300,000 was allocated towards putting that strategy together, the Premier has failed to reveal any allocation of funding to put actions forward on a strategy to enter that South-East Asian marketplace.

Interestingly, no member of the opposition was invited to the launch of the strategy. I met with the Minister for Trade a number of times and I looked through some of his press releases last year and he always criticised the government for the lack of bipartisanship and yet we did not see any bipartisanship at the recent launch, not a bit. We even had mention that there were no Liberal members at the launch. How good is that? That is a minister who has really got his bipartisanship working beautifully.

The strategy also highlights the recent record to invest. The 2015 Asian Cup soccer was held in Australia, but the government failed to take part in it. We talk about 1.5 billion viewers for the India-Pakistan game, but we do not talk about the 2.5 billion viewers for the Asian Cup final. Where is the logic? Australia were part of it but not Adelaide, yes, but we had 2.5 billion international viewers. They were all looking at that green and gold jersey take the win, so that was great to see.

South Australia's trade into South-East Asia bordered on $2 billion in 2013-14, the second largest after China, but it is well under the $2.2 billion or $2.3 billion from 2010-11 and 2011-12. Opportunities for high value-added products into South-East Asia is really where it is at. Changes to the Gateway Business Program have now been realised and were long overdue. We look at less than $1 million in helping an export program. If we go to Victoria and New South Wales they are talking about $100 million, and you wonder why their economies are growing at the rate they are.

With sport and rec, Labor is persisting in cutting the Community Recreation and Sport Facilities Program by $3.5 million that kicks into effect in 2015-16. It is all about grassroots facilities; they will miss out. The ESL impacts on grassroots sports clubs. The impact it had on Adelaide Oval is a perfect example. We also had the fun tax on transport around sport and the $50 voucher program.

Time expired.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (17:17): I rise to indicate my support for the Supply Bill. It is interesting that we are debating the Supply Bill in the same week as we had a eulogy, so to speak, for the former prime minister, the Rt Hon. Malcolm Fraser, who changed Australia federally over supply.

I thought about what I was going to say and I thought seriously about this state government, and I decided on this quote: one week they do nothing and the next week they do twice as much of nothing. I think it is an applicable quote. The list goes on and there are a host of things. My colleague, the member for Chaffey, has gone comprehensively through a list of financial figures and other things in his contribution. I do not intend to do that because I am sure we will hear it again, but I would like to put on the record a number of issues that are causing grief. Some of the issues will not be a surprise to you, such as the Repat Hospital.

I can tell you that the forecast closure of the Repatriation Hospital by the Weatherill government is causing enormous amounts of angst in my community, as it is across South Australia. I cannot comprehend how stupid this government is, nor how stupid the bureaucrats apparently are, in doing what they are doing, particularly to the veterans' community. It is abhorrent, it is a disgrace and it is a sad announcement for South Australia. I have some 700 vets in my electorate, many of them Vietnam vets, and they are letting me know in no uncertain terms what they think of the closure of the Repat Hospital.

We have seen what the government is proposing for emergency services reform and, to say the least, the Minister for Emergency Services has worn it loud and clear and continues to wear it, and does not seem to want to hear what is going on in the area of emergency services. The shame of it is that last night I went out to Centre Hall to meet some guests. There was a group of people out there who had come from near and far to meet with the Minister for Emergency Services only to find that he was not here. I said, 'He hasn't been here all day.'

The minister's office or the minister himself—I am not sure who is responsible—are so incompetent that they never even told these people, when they would have known first thing in the morning that the minister was not here. They never bothered to ring him up to tell him. It is outrageous and it is a disgrace. Fortunately, I spoke with one member on the other side, and I understand that he was able to run around and try to do something about it, but it was a disgrace.

The CFS, SES and MFS are all up in arms, and I am sure my colleague the member for Morphett will have more to say about that. People are confused. They are fed up with volunteering and being taken as fools. They do not want substantial change. It is quite often quoted that South Australia does not like change. Probably Australians generally do not like a lot of change but, on something like that, to change what in my mind is a successful formula for purely political purposes is ridiculous.

I would like to mention and put my aim fairly and squarely on the firearms section of SAPOL. It is a disgrace, and I say that because I am getting increasing numbers of concerns, emails and comments on the issue of licence renewals. Just let me bring up licence renewals. You get your renewal, you go and get your photo taken, you send it in and you get a piece of paper that is supposed to cover you for 28 days until your plastic licence arrives. Guess what is not happening? They are not arriving. Sometimes, after two months, they still have no plastic licence.

This firearms section is an incompetent section of SAPOL—incompetent, to say the least. People who wish to go interstate with their firearms for a competition or whatever reason are finding that they do not have their plastic renewal, so technically the 28 days have run out and they are not licensed. Is that fair? I say no. On top of that, if you wish to buy a new gun, the delay in getting your gun after you purchase it and put in the application, etc., which used to take a couple weeks, is now weeks.

Members on the other side of the house may wish to pick up these things because I think that there is a deliberate strategy and that the people of South Australia are being targeted by someone or more than one person in the firearms section to deliberately make life difficult for good, honest South Australians who wish to use firearms for sport or, in my case, on the land. We carry a firearm around in the vehicle for various reasons.

Training approvals: if you wish to do a training course for a pistol, that is taking absolutely ages. To top it all off, when you are sent your firearms renewal, like any other sort of bill some people tend to put it to one side and forget about it. If you do that with your power bill or your water bill or your gas bill, you get a reminder, but, no, not with firearms. You are not getting any reminders for your firearms licence.

What has happened to more than one of my constituents is they have had a knock on the door in the evening from a police officer who has had the firearms section advise them. They have to do it, and I have sympathy for the police officers who have to do it. They are going and knocking on doors, and they are required to take DNA samples of people who have not renewed their firearms licence, quite often because they have just forgotten and overlooked it. They are having a DNA sample taken, they are having their firearms confiscated and they are having to go to court and be prosecuted by the police over a simple thing like just overlooking the bill.

Why on earth the firearms section cannot send out a reminder on the day after it is due I do not know. A lady in my electorate was basically left in tears after being visited by the local police. She ended up in court, and the magistrate actually threw it out. He threw the case out, quite correctly in my view. It is simply not good enough. The firearms section in South Australia under SAPOL needs a giant stir and a giant turnover and it needs to be brought back to reality. I do not know exactly, but probably 99 per cent of people who have firearms, or at least the vast majority, do the right thing and use them properly. Unfortunately, the criminal element that does the wrong thing means that the vast majority of the population is persecuted. I am not happy about it.

Distractions like the time zone debate are going through yet again. I will not make any comment on my view, but let me say that the people of my electorate are letting me know in no uncertain terms that they do not want a change to the time zone in South Australia. That will run its course and we will see what happens. It is a mere distraction to the main event—the main event being, of course, the state of the economy, jobs and everything else that goes with being in government in South Australia.

In my electorate, the matter of health reform and Transforming Health have created a lot of angst. The member for Hammond and I held a couple of forums, one in Goolwa and one in Victor Harbor, a couple of weeks ago. The people of Goolwa, whom the member for Hammond can talk about in his contribution, are not happy. The people in Victor Harbor are confused, to say the least. The councils are not happy. They were never consulted. The fact that they are basically doing the private sector doctors out of a job down on the South Coast is not going down well.

That, in tandem with what has happened at Yankalilla with the Southern Fleurieu Medical Practice, where they have taken the funding away so that now people have to go to South Coast or Noarlunga hospitals to get treatment after hours, is indicative of the contempt that rural South Australia is held in by this Labor government, who have been there 13 years and made a mess of it.

Issues on the Fleurieu and Kangaroo Island and in the electorate of Finniss do not go away. They will continue to be debated and discussed, I am sure, long after I have left this place. The issue of roads is ongoing. On the Fleurieu, which, according to the figures I have been given, is visited by three million people a year, the condition of some of the roads is not good.

In the western Fleurieu, the road from Myponga through to Yankalilla is a goat track. It is a disgrace and, unfortunately, I see no plans—and from my discussions with departmental people, there are no plans—to do anything about that road, such as taking out the bends. It is the lifeline for all the vehicular traffic, such as trucks and cars, etc., that go through to Yankalilla and also down to Cape Jervis and on to Kangaroo Island.

That leads me on to another subject: water. I would have thought that, with the long-range view that the population is increasing down that way, water reticulation past Yankalilla and through to Second Valley, Rapid Bay and Cape Jervis would be a priority. If you spend the money, you will get something back as it will increase the population, but there seems to be no sign of that either.

The Victor Harbor to Adelaide road is a perennial thorn. There is nothing the media likes talking about more than the dreadful Victor Harbor to Adelaide road. Let me tell you that if the government and the department would just come up with the idea of starting by duplicating the Cut Hill section of the road, I would be mighty happy, but there is no sign of that. Why? Because it is not in the metropolitan area.

The emergency services levy has hit the people in my electorate and across wider South Australia like a ton of bricks. It is nothing more than a tax on the family home; it is land tax brought back in on the family home. That is what I am telling people and that is the simple fact of the matter. This is an incompetent, bumbling, financial disaster of a government and it is going from bad to worse.

If you put that in tandem with the absolutely ridiculous campaign by the state government when $1 million is being spent to criticise the feds for removing pensioner concessions, you can put it all together. Unfortunately, the Local Government Association was conned by this government into believing that that was correct. I have simply told my constituents that, of the $190 pensioner concession, a mere 10 per cent was federally funded.

On top of that, the fact that every other state in Australia has maintained those pensioner concessions, yet South Australia continues to just go on and try and blame the federal government for its incompetence, defies comprehension. I am not going to back down on that and I know this side of the house, as you well know, intends to do something about that in another place. We will see what comes of that later in the year. I am hopeful that the Premier, the Treasurer and cabinet may come to their collective senses and make sure that those pensioner concessions are combined in the state budget when it is handed down in a few weeks' time.

A big issue across both sides of the water again is drugs, and the drug ice. We are seeing the impact of ice in the sad case of Ben Cousins in Western Australia and others, and the impact is horrendous. I am seriously, seriously worried. I have raised the impact of ice with the mayors and councils in my electorate. I am putting it in my newsletters. It is not good enough for the community to be worried about ramifications; they must inform the police if they see activities or if they view their own families and see something that is not the norm. It is killing our younger generation particularly; it is a tragedy. Both sides of the house, I am sure, would be fully united on this, but we have to do more. We have to convince people to let the police know and do something about it when they do have evidence. I am encouraging my constituents on a regular occasion to do that.

There are just a few other things I want to talk about, including, on the other side of the water, Kangaroo Island. Four weeks ago yesterday, they held the interviews for the three days a week commissioner for Kangaroo Island, which you may recall we debated in here for 7½ hours. Three days a week, interviews four weeks ago, so I am told, and still no commissioner. It will be interesting to see what is happening over there. I have been highly critical and I will continue to be highly critical of the commissioner's position—not the person, but the position. I think it is a waste of time. I believe it will be the beginning of the end of the Kangaroo Island Council. Unfortunately, some do not see it that way, but we will wait and see what transpires there.

I would also raise the issue of Brand KI, an organisation that came into existence just before the end of last year and is being very pushy, overly aggressive and, in my view, right out of their depth in doing what they are trying to do. Government members may want to chase up on this, but I am told that Brand KI has been given $750,000 of taxpayers' money from the Kangaroo Island Futures Authority. If this is correct, I shake my head in disbelief.

While we cannot find enough money to deal with roads, health and drug problems, we can spend $750,000 on spurious ideas such as Brand KI. The selling point for Kangaroo Island is the very name. It is the very name and always has been. I witnessed and attended a function a couple of years ago where this was thrown around, and at the end of the day most people decided that it was not worth the paper it was written on. However, there has been a persistence by some to try to get this up. They now have a logo. That logo is Kangaroo Island with a heap of spots around it, which I thought were oil wells, but then I was told by one that they are actually fishing spots. I said, 'Well, they are in the sanctuary zones.'

What really worries me is they have conned the Kangaroo Island Council on this by being aggressive. I view it seriously, because I do not believe there is adequate community consultation. I have written, both in my current capacity and also as a ratepayer and former mayor of Kangaroo Island, a separate letter. I think it is outrageous that they have been bulldozed into this. From what I understand, new councillors do not know what has happened. If they are willing to spend $750,000 on such a foolish idea, I shake my head in disbelief. We will see: there are many more things that the money could have been spent on.

I quote King Island because King Island was the peak, I suppose, in identification of branding. It had a magnificent local brand and they were producing cheese, beef and all sorts of things with the King Island name on it. Do you know what? None of it is produced there anymore—there is none manufactured there, I should say. It is still produced but it is not manufactured. The abattoir is gone and the cheese factory is gone, and so on.

Not all Kangaroo Island people have been conned by this, I might add. There are a number who have spoken to me who will not have a bar of it. They are trying to force government entities to adopt their logo—the schools, the hospital and suchlike, which I think is most foolish. The one that annoys me more than anything is that the identity of the Kangaroo Island Council has been lost. It was the first settlement in South Australia, which is something to hang your hat on. That has gone and we have seen this silly situation with this organisation pumped up by government funds, and I suspect that when the funds run out the organisation will run out, too.

I welcome the opportunity to make a few comments about my view of the world in relation to some of these subjects. I do not expect everyone to agree. I reiterate that my attention on the firearms section of SAPOL leads me to shake my head, again. I think it is outrageous. With those few words, I indicate again: this government, one week they do nothing and the next week they do twice as much of nothing.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (17:36): I appreciate this opportunity to make a few comments on behalf of the people of Stuart on the Supply Bill. Deputy Speaker, as you would know, the government is asking permission to spend $3.291 billion in the next three months of the next financial year. Of course, we on this side of the house support that. Of course, it is necessary to do that. The financial year runs out but the budget bill is not passed for an unknown amount of time (approximately three months) so, of course, the government needs the right to spend that money as it sees fit to keep everything turning over.

The 'as it sees fit' is the part that gives us on this side of the house a great deal of concern. I will be as fair about this as I possibly can. It is an incredibly tough job running a state budget. It is an incredibly tough job to be the Treasurer. I know that Treasurer Koutsantonis has his heart in the job. Nobody doubts that he is trying to be the best Treasurer that he can possibly be. I think it is also only fair to point out that there are things that come along which are out of your control as a Treasurer or a state government.

The key, though, is that you have to be right on top of the things that are in your control and the fact that things come along which are out of your control cannot be used as an excuse—because, do you know what, Deputy Speaker, we all deal with that every day of the year in our own lives. It does not matter what level of financial acumen or what level of funding a person, household or business is dealing with, you have to deal with the unexpected things that come along and you have to be right on top of the things that you can control.

This year's budget is going to be very difficult for the government—incredibly difficult for the government. We are used to, and I think members in the government are used to, the fact that we have an ongoing, perpetuated pattern of the Labor government saying, 'We are going to be in deficit this year and maybe deficit next year but there will be a surplus the year or two after that.'

I have stood here and rolled off the specific numbers so many times, it is just terribly disheartening. But I am positive that, when we get around to budget time this year, the Treasurer will be saying, 'You know that promised surplus, I just don't think it's going to come, but don't worry there will be another one shortly down the track.' I say again that it is a difficult job being the Treasurer but it just cannot go on forever, and that is the pattern we have become used to.

Predicted GST income to this state will be significantly less than was previously forecast, and that is going to be a blow to this state. A very simple example of that is the fact that the price of fuel has dropped significantly over the past 12 months across the nation. Now, GST income to every state from purchases of fuel is one of the most significant contributors to each state's overall GST income, so when the price of fuel drops by approximately one-third for an extended period of time the GST income from fuel that goes back to the state drops by approximately one-third. That will be very difficult to deal with, but it cannot be used as an excuse.

The federal government did cut money out of our state budget; not nearly as much as the government would have the public believe, but, yes, there were cuts. However, they cannot be used as an excuse either, and the government's advertising and public spend on those issues is pretty disgraceful. It completely overcooks that issue as if it were the issue that the government can hang its hat on for the fact that its own budget is not going to go as well as it should.

Royalty income will come down. Again, that is no fault of the government. When prices which are almost all set overseas come down, royalty income to the state comes down in a few different ways, not only from the reduction in price but also from the reduction in activity, and it has a very long-term impact. A reduction in the profitability of mining businesses—minerals, oil, gas—not only hurts now, it also hurts exploration, and exploration reduction now hurts mining operations—oil, gas, minerals, etc.—several years down the track.

That is going to be a blow, there is no doubt about that, and a lot of that is out of the government's control. Again, however, it cannot be used as an excuse because when you are running a state budget, when you are running a state's finances, you need to know that some of these things will come along. You need to know that you will get some good surprises—and let me say that former treasurer Foley got an enormous number of very good surprises which made him look better than he deserved, let me put it that way, with regard to his performance as a treasurer—but whether they are good surprises or bad surprises, you have to accept that that is what they are and get on with the things you can control, not use those other things as excuses.

I will give a couple of examples of things that are well within the government's control which it has not dealt with. I will start with the potential missed income to the state from the Gillman land deal. We have had at least two companies go to court saying that they think that deal was done inappropriately, and the very logical flow-on consequence of that is that it is pretty fair to assume that they would have paid more for that land. It is unrealistic to think that they would have tried to take the government to court over that issue if they were never going to pay any more for the land themselves. So there was a missed opportunity there.

There was $160 million spent on Public Service redundancies, yet Public Service numbers have increased. The number of public servants we have operating in our state has gone up while the government has spent $160 million trying to get them down. These figures are very readily available from the Hon. Rob Lucas in the other place, who pursues this issue very capably and in great detail. There is a huge gaping hole in the budget which was completely within the government's capacity to have addressed.

I will give another example. An amount of $176 million will have to be spent—which was not budgeted and not forecast and not predicted, but will have to be spent—to deal with transition issues from the current Royal Adelaide Hospital to the new Royal Adelaide Hospital. Now, anyone building a new hospital to replace an old hospital would have known that there would transition issues with regard to transport, the moving of patients and equipment, and a whole range of issues that need to be dealt with. There is absolutely no way that former health minister John Hill would not have known that, that health minister Snelling would not have known that, that the Premier would not have known that. There is no possible way that those ministers would not have known that this was an issue that was going to have to be dealt with. That issue was well within the government's capacity, so the bad surprise of $176 million cannot be blamed on anybody else.

I will give another example that we dealt with in question time today, which is the issue of petroleum exploration licence 570. We know that that is a petroleum exploration licence that was granted by the current Treasurer in April 2011, but we also know that not one bit of actual exploration work has taken place on that piece of dirt in the Cooper Basin. They were promised that work would be done and they handed out the licence or the permission based on that, and many other promises. They have actually allowed the successive companies which have owned that right to change their work programs over and over again, yet still nothing has been done.

We now have a situation where we are in a very difficult time for the oil and gas industry—prices are low, the business is depressed and it is very hard to get anything done, even on the very best and most prospective tenements. There was opportunity for this one to have had some work done back in 2011 or 2012, but it did not happen. Now it is very unlikely to happen anytime soon because it is such a difficult time for the industry, whereas it was very buoyant back in those years. If the government had managed that process properly it is very likely that exploration would have been done. I cannot say whether the exploration would have been fruitful or not, because nobody can say that. Geologists and company directors can be very optimistic about it, but nobody knows. The reality is that now we have no chance, but if that process had been managed well, we would have had a chance.

There are a lot of things that the government will have to deal with that are out of their control, which they will blame, and they should not. There are a lot of things that are within their control, which they will not blame, and they should. That is the heart of the reason that we have successive deficit budgets. I do not have the exact figures, but I think it is about eight years since this government ran a surplus budget, so it will be very interesting to see how we go this year.

In the time that is left to me I will touch very quickly on the portfolios for which I am the spokesperson for the opposition. I will start with mineral resources and energy. This is an incredibly important portfolio and one I know is very dear to the heart of the minister and Treasurer. He takes this portfolio very seriously, but the reality is that we have the highest electricity prices in the nation. Electricity prices have risen so quickly over the last several years that it has been an extraordinary burden on households and businesses. I have already touched on mineral resources. This is an area which is incredibly important to our state, but even the one example I mentioned a minute ago has quite possibly led to us missing out on royalties to our state.

The portfolio of defence industries is again incredibly important. Let me say again, as I have many times both publicly and privately, that defence industries is probably the most bipartisan of all the portfolios that exist. You could not slide a piece of paper between the government and the opposition with regard to our beliefs on this portfolio and what we want to do. I say very clearly that anyone who says differently is guilty of playing politics with this issue. Anyone who says differently is actually the person trying to make it a portfolio area that is not bipartisan, because we want the very best for our state and for all the industries, companies and employees that work in this incredibly important portfolio for our state.

Small business, Deputy Speaker—goodness gracious! The government could certainly help our small business sector if they were to award more of their own contracts to South Australian businesses. It would also help medium-size and large-scale companies. I think approximately 60 per cent of government contracts are given to interstate companies. I am very aware of the probity that needs to be gone through to hand out contracts. It is not possible to just say that we give contracts only to local companies. I accept that full well, but for 60 per cent of them to go interstate? I cannot accept that. I cannot accept that the government would really believe that our local industries were incapable of providing the service it needed more than 40 per cent of the time; I just do not accept that at all.

I would also put very clearly to the Treasurer, who is also the Minister for Small Business, that he should always remind himself that the overwhelming majority of companies that work in agriculture are small businesses. I know he admits regularly that agriculture and the businesses that work in it—and I am talking primarily about family farms—are small businesses. The family farm deserves just as much support from the Minister for Small Business, who is also the Treasurer, as every single corner shop or other small business that might be in metropolitan Adelaide. They deserve exactly the same support, because they are also small businesses trying to get by.

Manufacturing and innovation is a very tough place to be at the moment. I agree with most of what former minister Close said about this issue. I have not yet had much opportunity to work with current minister, the Hon. Kyam Maher, from the other place. This is going to be difficult. This is an area that also deserves bipartisan support. We need to transition most of our companies away from our traditional, large, bulky-type, heavy industry manufacturing towards smarter manufacturing. I have a view that most of that is going to be linked to the transportability of the product.

The government focus on advanced manufacturing, smart manufacturing or high-tech manufacturing of course will be a big part of it, but it could be quite simple manufacturing. If you have a patent or a contract which allows you to make a relatively simple, small and very easy to transport product, which might be just a component of somebody else's bigger and broader product, that will be one of the things that is most important to us. Because we are an island nation so far away from the rest of the world with a relatively small domestic market, compared to the rest of the world, transportability of the products that we manufacture, so that they are relatively cheap to get to big markets overseas, I think is going to be one of the most important things to try to achieve in manufacturing and innovation.

Automotive transformation is a very tough area. I am sad to say that I am not overly optimistic about where our state is going to go in this, and this is a burden which government and opposition have to share. I emphatically reject all of the rhetoric that comes from the state Labor government about it being the federal Liberal government's fault. On numerous occasions GMH has said very publicly and clearly that, 'It would not have mattered at all how much money the federal government gave us, we were going to leave Australia anyway. We were going to shut down our production at Elizabeth and we were going to go anyway. It was not an issue about the federal government funding.' I reject the government's excuses in that area completely and I accept wholeheartedly the opposition's responsibility to work with the government on that very important issue. It is an important issue not only for the northern suburbs but also for the entire state.

The last portfolio for which I have some responsibility for the opposition is state development. 'State development' as a term, 'state development' as a phrase or as a department sounds fantastic and very important—and no doubt those two words are very important, but I am not sure that it is necessarily warranted to have a Minister for State Development when within the Department of State Development there are five or six other ministers all responsible for different components of that department. Yes, of course, state development is important, and perhaps it is the most important piece of work going on because of course it encompasses everything else, but I am not sure that it really warrants a Minister for State Development when all those other ministers are working in the subsets.

Lastly, in the small amount of time I have left let me just touch on regions. As you know, I am a very proud regional member of parliament. We need money in the upcoming budget. We deserve money in the upcoming budget for the many regional development issues I have regularly spoken about in this place. 'Regional development' covers everything; it is not just the limited work of the Minister for Regional Development or PIRSA, and I do not say that in any deprecatory way. Regional development includes schools, includes education, includes health, includes transport—it includes all of those things.

Now that the government has some clear air, after the two by-elections have passed and the government governs in its own right with the numbers on the floor of this chamber, this is the government's opportunity, when it announces its next budget, to prove that it meant what it said—that it wanted to be a government for all South Australia, including the regions. This is a chance for the regional development minister Brock and Premier Weatherill to prove that they mean what they say.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Gardner.


At 17:56 the house adjourned until Thursday 26 March 2015 at 10:30.




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