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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
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Bills

Supply Bill 2015

Supply Grievances

Adjourned debate on motion to note grievances.

(Continued from 7 May 2015.)

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright) (11:55): I am pleased to speak on the Supply Bill. On Monday 4 May, I was also very pleased to see that the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption, Commissioner Bruce Lander, issued a public statement exonerating me from the allegations agitated by people who I believe to be a disgruntled public servant, the member for Unley, The Australian's Michael Owen and Paul Makin of Channel 7's Today Tonight program.

Paul Makin's story was two years ago and, so far as I know, there has been none since. The allegation was about Vicki Antoniou being appointed as ministerial liaison officer for a state government agency, Multicultural SA, in my office when I was minister for multicultural affairs, and my requiring her to travel with me to Rome, Cyprus and Malta.

The allegation was found by Commissioner Lander to be without substance. Commissioner Lander's unprecedented public statement has been compelled by a series of Michael Owen stories in The Australian imputing that I was under investigation by ICAC, without saying so explicitly, and Michael Owen's imputation that I stepped down from the ministry because of the allegation and its investigation by ICAC. His words were, I think, 'amid investigation'.

The commissioner's public statement was an attempt to negate the calculated damage that Michael Owen had done to my reputation and that of Vicki Antoniou. It is the nature of an allegation of this type that it can never be fully erased by an investigation and complete clearance. Michael Owen and the member for Unley got their gratification just by publishing that I was under investigation, and my clearance can never wipe away the mud they smeared.

Michael Owen wrote eight stories about this matter that were published in The Australian. The stories were calculated to damage not just me but Vicki and Peter Antoniou. Not once did Michael Owen even attempt, as far as I am aware, to get in touch with Mr and Mrs Antoniou and, sure enough, he published factual errors about their employment which were calculated to prejudice their reputations but which could have been avoided with one phone call to either of them. No other journalist touched this story after Michael Owen began publishing in February, although those who were hawking the story around the media outlets pushed hard, like power company salesmen on commission.

This is not the first time Michael Owen has written an inaccurate and malicious story about me. Michael Owen writes the story he wants and buries the counter to it, hoping readers never actually get that far. The Australian was compelled to publish the ICAC commissioner's public statement but, because Michael Owen wrote the final story (the ninth story) the news angle—Commissioner Lander's clearing of me—had to wait until the seventh paragraph of Michael Owen's story to be revealed.

The headline writer (not Michael Owen), being more attuned to journalistic ethics and News Limited's legal liability, headlined the story 'Ex-minister cleared by ICAC'. Not many stories does one read where the headline is about the seventh paragraph. It is, in my opinion, an ethical lapse for The Australian's management to allow Michael Owen to write the ninth and final story in the series.

Commissioner Lander's public statement made Michael Owen a player in the story and, under ordinary conflict of interest principles, Michael Owen should have stood aside from writing the story about Commissioner Lander's public statement. Michael Owen's story is a vivid illustration of why a conflicted journalist should not write about themselves. Michael Owen was compelled to record in his final story that I was cleared and, as I said, you had to wait until the seventh paragraph to find that out, but his story last Tuesday omits these crucial paragraphs in Commissioner Lander's statement:

Section 56 of the Independent Commission Against Corruption Act 2013 (ICAC Act) prevents the publication of information tending to suggest that a particular person is, has been, may be, or may have been, the subject of a complaint, report, assessment, investigation or referred under this Act. A primary object of the ICAC Act includes achieving an appropriate balance between the public interest in exposing corruption, misconduct and maladministration in public administration and the public interest in avoiding undue prejudice to a person's reputation.

The commissioner goes on to say:

There have been occasions where information has been published that does tend to suggest that a person might be under investigation by my office. In doing so, care is apparently taken to ensure that ICAC is not explicitly identified as the investigating agency, although the story itself suggests the ICAC's involvement, and in some cases it is difficult to draw any other inference.

One such occasion concerns a claim in the media that the Hon. Jennifer Rankine, Member for Wright and former Minister for Education and Child Development in the South Australian Parliament, was under investigation for a matter relating to the appointment of a public servant, Vicki Antoniou. It was claimed in some media that Ms Rankine resigned from the Ministry as a result of the investigation.

Michael Owen was the only reporter to write about this and the only person to make the imputation that I resigned as a minister owing to the ICAC investigation, but in his subsequent story Michael Owen omits this aspect—the principal purpose of the public statement—and tries to maintain the fiction that the public statement is not about him. While averting readers' eyes from the gist of the commissioner's statement, Michael Owen continues to recite the litany of the now discredited allegation that he has been reciting in the previous eight stories. For the sake of completeness, the rest of the commissioner's statement says:

I would not normally make a public statement with regard to a matter that may or may not have been under investigation by my office. However, on this occasion I feel that I should correct the public record so that neither Ms Rankine nor Ms Antoniou suffer long term damage to their reputations. A report was made to the Office for Public Integrity relating to Ms Rankine's conduct in employing Ms Antoniou in a department under the control of Ms Rankine. Neither Ms Rankine nor Ms Antoniou were aware of my investigation until they were separately interviewed, which was after Ms Rankine resigned.

I have now concluded my investigation. None of the allegations relating to Ms Rankine's conduct in the employment of Ms Antoniou were substantiated. I am satisfied that this matter required no further action and I have closed my file.

The very reason our ICAC legislation is framed the way that it is is to try to stop people doing what the malicious complainant, the member for Unley, and Michael Owen did. Michael Owen, assisted by the member for Unley, having accessed documents from my department and my office, put a spin on them that the ICAC investigation found to be untenable.

I did not make a decision that appointed Mrs Antoniou to the South Australian Public Service. She was already a public servant of many years standing when she was appointed ministerial liaison officer for multicultural affairs in my office. Mrs Antoniou had worked in Multicultural SA before she undertook a similar role in your office, Mr Speaker, about 10 years ago when you were attorney-general. She had expertise in multicultural affairs that was widely recognised in the Rann government and in the ethnic communities themselves, and her skills it seems were something the member for Unley envied with rancour and malice. Unusually for a ministerial liaison officer, she was fluent in two languages other than English, which clearly distinguishes her from the opposition spokesman on multicultural affairs.

Mr Speaker, when you stepped down from the ministry after the 2010 election, Mrs Antoniou was retained in the office of your successor. When I took on multicultural affairs, she was on the South Australian Public Service redeployee the list. The Michael Owen imputation that she stepped straight from your office into mine was false. I know of no-one in the Public Service—and a ministerial liaison officer comes from the Public Service—who had the credentials for this job that were comparable to those of Mrs Antoniou. Vicki Antoniou is an example of the gifted people within the ranks of South Australia's Public Service who serve in ministerial offices rather than our relying exclusively on party activists. I have more to say on this matter and, hopefully, later today I can continue my remarks.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (12:05): I would like to make a contribution to the Supply Bill and the theme of my contribution will be investment in the state's economy. It is a sad day for South Australians, particularly for the river communities in South Australia. We have been denied $25 million of the regional diversification fund, and it is an absolute disgrace that a government has blatantly looked me in the eye—as they have the member for Hammond—and said, 'You go and do the work for us: you go over to Canberra; you lobby the federal government and make sure we get a special deal that the other states could not get, and get that $25 million coming to South Australia, unencumbered.' It is downright deplorable. It is the arrogance that I saw, most of all, when I met with the Premier: for him to say they would not accept the $25 million because it is not supporting their local constituency was a disgrace.

I have listened to the Treasurer; I have met with the Treasurer and the Under Treasurer and asked for reasons why they would not accept the $25 million and the answer given to me was that there was a large GST component. I have asked the Treasurer, as I asked his department, to give me some proof to identify how the calculation was made around the $25 million and their claim was that there would be about a $21 million GST component. That means that $21 million of that $25 million would come out of the GST revenue into this state. To date, they have not given me any evidence of that, and it speaks mountains of the arrogance and the lack of will to invest that $25 million into river communities that have been impacted by the drought and, just as importantly, are adjusting to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

The diversification fund was put on the table by the previous Labor federal government. The then minister, Catherine King, was the minister responsible for that money, and she was also approached by the state governments to be compensated with the GST component. The rules of the Commonwealth Grants Commission are that it cannot be done; it cannot be achieved. Every state government was aware of the rules when that money was first put on the table, and when that money was put on the table prior to the last federal election, there was not one recipient who knew exactly that their project was being put forward to this diversification fund—not one.

I know that some very good projects were put up in the lower reach of the river communities, particularly in Hammond, and some very good projects were put up in the electorate of Chaffey. I know that the majority of those projects in Chaffey have been taken up with other commonwealth government funding streams of money, but to date there are a couple of large projects that warrant consideration. The Premier, this Treasurer, the regional development minister, the Minister for Investment, they have walked away on their responsibility to invest in South Australia, to grow our economy and also to give the opportunity for businesses that were primarily affected by the drought to grow and prosper. They were affected by the implementation of the basin plan. I think it is an outright disgrace.

I have been over to Canberra, I have met with minister Briggs on this issue and spoken with him a number of times, I have met with ministers Truss and Bishop, and I have described the treatment we are getting here in South Australia as deplorable, one-sided. The Treasurer says that he would prefer to spend that money on other things. The Premier has said that it is not his constituency, it is not his voting base that is going to be the recipient of this money, so I guess it typifies exactly what this arrogant state government has in store for every South Australian when you are not in favour.

The money was being taken off the table today during the commonwealth budget. The Premier and all the ministers responsible for this money have simply walked away. I must say that I have had conversations with the Minister for Regional Development this morning, and he has had talks with the federal government in the last couple of days, and I would hope that he is flying the flag for the river communities that have been affected.

I would like to point out today some of the projects that are being undertaken in other states with that $25 million or thereabouts—New South Wales got a little more, Queensland a little less. Let's have a look at some of the projects that are going ahead. In Victoria, the Echuca Riverfront Redevelopment Stage 1 is a huge redevelopment on the riverbank. It is about value-adding to their tourism, value-adding to the beauty of what Echuca is all about. We look at another wharf redevelopment, we look at the Heartbeat of the Murray project—that is all about promoting their regions, it is about promoting river corridors that have been impacted.

One of the really big projects is the supply of natural gas to Murray River towns via a pipeline. Imagine if we could have had that in South Australia, a spur coming off the main gas line that runs down the corridor of these river communities to entice business into these regions. I know that at the moment in the Riverland we have Tarac Technologies. They are looking at needing a larger gas supply. If we look at the wineries, Accolade, one of the largest wineries in the Southern Hemisphere at Berri Estates, is looking for an increased gas supply.

We look at the great River Murray walks—one of the great tourist attractions that could be in the Riverland or the upper reaches of the river—and they are being denied that opportunity. If we look further downstream—and I know the member for Hammond has spoken passionately about the Gifford Hill development which is a great community benefit project—this government, arrogantly, has walked away from being able to provide any incentive for those projects to go ahead.

Also, we look at some of the projects in Queensland. It is investing money into the Western Downs tourism industry, it is about facilitating Indigenous economic development plans, it is about securing the long-term Condamine Alluvium aquifer. This is about investing in the future of these affected communities, it is about improving economic productivity and irrigated agriculture. It is about developing opportunities in high-value horticulture. These are opportunities that their state governments have taken up. Their state governments have been prepared to back them: they are not walking away from them, as this government has done.

One of the other things that really does grind my gears is that we have a minister in the upper house who declared last week that he is prepared not to sign the review of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan next year in 2016. He has threatened to walk away because he says the federal government is not spending taxpayers' money wisely by putting a cap on the buyback.

Investing taxpayers' money wisely on infrastructure is about investing in the future. It is about investing in the future of our economic driver. We have a government that continually relies on the mining and resources sector as being our saviour. Well, let me assure you that South Australia is once again relying on agriculture, on food, on wine, and where are we growing all of that? Where are we growing the majority of that wine, that food, that clean green produce with a fruit fly free status? It is in the regions of South Australia. It is in the river communities of South Australia. Yet we are seeing another example of how this government is just politicising reform in the river every step of the way.

The Premier has spent millions of dollars of taxpayers' money on advertising programs that have not delivered one single drop of water. This state government, the largest water licence holder here in South Australia, has not contributed one drop of water back into the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and I say: shame on you.

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