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

Appropriation Bill 2015

Estimates Committees

Adjourned debate on motion:

That the proposed expenditures referred to Estimates Committees A and B be agreed to.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (16:16): I rise today, on this the last sitting day before our winter break, to make a contribution on the estimates committees, which of course finished just two days ago and began the preceding week. I have grown to really enjoy estimates. I understand that it can be at times a little bit like watching paint dry, but I do recognise that it is a particularly important part of the parliamentary process. It is a particularly important part of the opportunity the opposition has to question the budget, question the ministers and particularly question the executive government that manages the business of this state.

I was involved with committees on Thursday and Friday of last week, both Estimates Committees A and B, as these were committees I was particularly interested in. I was involved with agriculture, food and fisheries; forests; tourism; and recreation and sport, which minister Bignell was responsible for. I was also involved with sustainability, environment and conservation, as well as water, the River Murray and climate change, which minister Hunter is responsible for.

I have to comment on the different strategies that different ministers employ during estimates: some ministers are very much across the portfolios and quite comfortable taking questions right from the get-go; others, however, rely on long and often tedious opening statements—and not just in one portfolio, if a minister is responsible for a number, but for each and all of them. Of course, this eats into valuable question time, not just for the opposition but also for the government backbenchers, who I am sure value this process.

I recognise the extraordinary amount of work that goes into preparing for estimates. A criticism of estimates often is that that work is so significant that it eats into the valuable time of ministers, shadow ministers and also departmental officers, who are obliged to prepare their minister and have answers ready for whatever may be put before them during estimates. So my thanks go to all those departmental people who were involved in preparing their ministers and in preparing the answers. Some questions, obviously, are taken on notice and I would expect that we would have timely and full responses from the ministers involved in that.

I will just quickly go over the estimate committees I was involved with and relate them particularly back to my electorate. One of the questions our committee put to minister Hunter, of course, related to the emergency services levy and the government's budgetary position of raising the emergency services levy once again. A significant backlash has occurred particularly in my electorate, where CFS brigades have taken it upon themselves to make a stand against the increase in the emergency services levy, and that stand has been that they will not be attending fires should those fires occur on government land.

On Lower Eyre Peninsula in particular, I am thinking of significant areas of national park, and I am thinking of significant acreage owned by SA Water. There are at least half a dozen brigades that I am aware of who are saying they are not going to be attending those fires. They will certainly attend as volunteers, and take their brigade to fires that occur on private property, but at this point in time they will not be attending fires in the national park. This is an understandable backlash because a lot of these volunteers are also landowners and also farmers. They are busy with their own businesses and, of course, they saw increases in the previous year of several hundred and sometimes a thousand per cent or more.

My question really was for the Minister for Environment as to how the Department of Environment would manage a fire situation on government land. Because I am well aware that DEWNR has some 70 full-time equivalents involved in firefighting, I wanted to know how they would be deployed and what extra demands would be made on those in an operational capacity. Minister Hunter's response was that he directed it towards Mr Piccolo. I am not aware that we got a question up to Mr Piccolo during estimates, but certainly it is a question that minister still needs to answer because it could—

Mr ODENWALDER: Point of order: the member should be referring to the minister by his occupation rather than his name.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, that apparently is the case.

Mr TRELOAR: Minister for Emergency Services, thank you. I take that point of order. The Minister for Emergency Services needs to address this very serious question quite soon because it will not be many months before we will be into the fire season.

The Minister for Environment is also responsible for what we are calling 'puppy farm' legislation. I have been approached by a number of constituents now who are professional breeders of working dogs, particularly kelpies, border collies and the like who work within the rural industries, and also breeders of cats. Certainly, a couple of constituents who reside in Port Lincoln came to see me the other day with concerns about what impact this legislation would have on their business.

They love their animals and do not want to be caught up in the unintended consequences with regard to this legislation. I understand that the consultation is still going on and it is important consultation. I do not want us to be in the situation the Victorians found themselves in, where breeders of companion animals and also working animals were caught up unnecessarily with legislation and inconvenience.

I was interested to see also that the fox bait program is continuing. Certainly, the natural resources management board, and I compliment them on this, have been very involved with coordinating fox baiting and dog baiting right across the rural landscape. That has been a shared responsibility with landowners, and it has been a very good program; in fact, I can relate one story.

When fox baiting was first introduced, I saw for the first time in my life an echidna on my property. I had not seen one in all my life, and I can only assume that the reduction in the number of foxes had allowed the natural fauna to increase. I was really quite thrilled to see an echidna crossing the road—very slowly I might add—and I was pleased to see that this program is continuing on.

I have asked a question a couple of times in this place about the development at Ceduna Waters. The government are well aware of this situation, where the department has been pursuing the developer and, ultimately, now one of the subcontractors for the clearance of some native vegetation.

My understanding is that it was an insignificant amount of native vegetation and, in fact, that vegetation has been reintroduced and revegetated itself over the said area. I warned the government back in 2011 that if they did not address this particular issue, then the ongoing legal proceedings would cost everybody a lot of money—the developer, the subcontractors, the government and ultimately the taxpayer. I have not received an adequate response from the government at this stage, and I look forward to the Minister for Environment returning with some response to that.

I also asked the Minister for Environment about that old chestnut, water security on Eyre Peninsula. The minister was well prepared for this and, of course, walked us through the process of annual review and the trigger points that will be put in place by the new water allocation plan. I recognise the good work that has been done in this space thus far. However, a word of caution: I do not think that the pressure is going to come off our southern basins ultimately until some new water is sourced, new water is found, and our reticulated water supply is supplemented in some way. At the moment I suspect the demands still are exceeding our capacity to supply out of the southern basins. It could deteriorate very quickly. I recognise that monitoring is occurring—increased monitoring and increased scrutiny of those basins—but it is a very delicate ecological situation and the government needs to be well aware that should anything significantly go wrong, then Eyre Peninsula will be in a dire situation.

I asked the Minister for Fisheries about cost recovery. It is an ongoing issue for our fishers and the people involved in aquaculture because quite simply the department is intent on recovering all their costs, often for services that they provide for which really the growers or fishers get very little benefit. It is all very well to provide a service and monitoring and charge for that but, in many instances, what fishers and aquaculture growers are telling me is that they are not seeing full value for their charges and it is important that they do see full value otherwise they become somewhat disenchanted with the ever increasing cost of compliance and cost recovery that the government is imposing on them.

The Natural Resources Committee has taken evidence over the last few months from those involved with the Spencer Gulf prawn fishery. In fact, late last year the fishery was opened up to fishing again for the first time for a couple of years in order to get a sense of the health of that fishery, where it was at, and I have had mixed reports from that. Those involved desperately want the fishery to be productive and viable and I think, as a committee, we will continue to work with the fishery itself and those involved to get to a point where it is a productive and viable fishery for all those involved in it. Our primary industries are so important to the export income of this state that it needs protecting and encouraging. We do not need people involved who get hounded to a point where they can no longer conduct their business.

I had our shadow minister ask the Minister for Planning a question about rural living and the reason why he has such a set against that at the moment. I can think of two proposed developments in particular on Eyre Peninsula that the Minister for Planning has refused to sign off on. I know he is set against these, for some reasons that I do not think are fully justified. I felt his answers on the day were a little flippant and I am hoping to continue a conversation with the minister about how we can make these developments work. This is not Mount Barker: it is actually Port Lincoln and Streaky Bay, and the impact on the huge Eyre Peninsula is going to be minimal. For the most part, it is not prime farmland, it is not prime agricultural land. It is mostly coastal and quite stony.

We have developers and district councils that are supportive of the developments yet cannot get approval for them. It is disappointing for local councils, the developers and also the communities, who are looking forward to increased economic activity, increased residential allotments and increased population. Of course, increased population puts demand on services and the whole local economy gets much busier. I am looking forward to continuing our conversation on that and, as I said, hopefully getting a sense from the minister as to what we might be able to do to make these work.

While I am on developments, the minister has also not been able to see his way clear to sign the development proposal for Coffin Bay which the District Council of Lower Eyre Peninsula has been working on for at least 10 years—all of 10 years, maybe more—yet they still have not been able to get it to a point, for some reason, that the minister will sign. Once again, this is a small rural township. It is coastal and it is a growing township. People want to live by the sea and there is no reason we should preclude them doing that. I think it is short-sighted of the minister.

I know a topic for questions in this place for the last 12 months or more has been around police clearances, and a sad situation was highlighted to me just last week at Ceduna by a constituent who came to see me. To be fair, we have been corresponding with the minister's office on this but to no avail. The application was lodged by this particular constituent way back in December 2014. I have a timeline here in front of me. There was continual correspondence between the constituent and the DCSI screening unit.

She was in work at the time and her police clearance was due. She made an application in good time and heard nothing but kept in contact. Ultimately, she got to a point where she informed her employer that she was still waiting for a clearance and actually removed herself from her place of employment, as the clearance was outstanding and she was working with children. It was an incredibly responsible thing for the constituent to do. She asked if she needed to remove herself. That is when she contacted me.

To make a long story short, she has resigned her position, which is an extraordinarily bad situation. In July, some eight months later, she has still not been able to gain police clearance and has had to resign her employment as a result. It is like swimming in treacle, and I am not sure why it is so difficult. It cannot possibly take eight months to get a police clearance for a person who is already working and has had a police clearance in the past. This lady gave up in despair and is now seeking other employment. It is really sad.

Ultimately, this estimates committee is about the budget and we have drilled down into individual budget lines and we have had the opportunity to ask ministers questions but, underlying this budget, of course, is the ongoing debt and deficit. The debt is spiralling, the deficits have failed to be reined in. In fact, the bill just for interest for this state is about $10 million a week. This underlines the situation that this government is in.

We have seen our unemployment rate skyrocket to 8.2 per cent. We now have the highest unemployment rate in the country. More interestingly, I think what is significant is that our state of South Australia, as a percentage of the national economy, is actually shrinking. It does not mean we are not growing: it means that we are just growing very, very slowly and everybody is outpacing us.

It is a sad thing but the reality is that the state is in a dire situation, and it would seem to me that Nero is fiddling while Rome burns because, with all of this dramatically sad economic news, we are talking about time zones. The member for Heysen spoke earlier today about coming into politics to make life better for her constituents. Now I take that responsibility very seriously and considering my constituents and making life better for them, I could never as a local member support a move to Eastern Standard Time.

I have spoken about this before. We are some thousands of kilometres west of Sydney, west of Melbourne, and to move to Eastern Standard Time would be incredibly problematic. It would mean that the west of the state would become disenfranchised—and the Premier has the audacity to talk about a separate time zone for the west of the state. Talk about being neglected. It gobsmacks me to think that this government and this Premier have so little consideration for his constituents, the residents of this state, who live in the west of the state.

I just have 30 seconds left and I want to quickly touch on the issue of borrow pits. The Treasurer has seen fit to charge mining royalties on rubble pits in local councils to get a competitive market. I can tell you, Deputy Speaker, that it is going to do nothing of the sort. All it is going to do is add to the cost for councils for resheeting roads in country areas, and one of two things could happen: either the roads will not be resheeted or the charges will be transferred onto the ratepayers.

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (16:36): I rise today to respond to the estimates committee reports. Starting with my portfolio areas of responsibility, during the families and child protection estimates we found that the Child Abuse Report Line waiting times continue to rise in spite of 10 extra staff being employed. The average waiting time is now 20 minutes and 16 seconds, and that is up from 10 minutes and 46 seconds in 2011-12, only three years ago, yet the call centre does not offer a call-back feature where callers can leave their number and receive a return phone call at a later time rather than remain on hold.

We know we are all busy people these days and people do not have the time to sit on a phone. Some have been kept waiting for hours. I have had many complaints to my electorate office where people have actually hung up because they are concerned for the child's welfare but they do not have hours to spend on a phone. People have jobs to do, families to raise, meals to cook and they cannot be left waiting on a phone line that does not even offer a call-back facility, not to mention if you were ringing from a mobile phone where you are on timed calls which would make that even worse. I wonder how many people are hanging up and how many children, therefore, are left in danger because we have a system that is failing.

The number of calls continues to rise, and after 13 years this government has no solutions other than to say that they are looking into ways in which they can improve it. I have been made aware of a workload analysis and productivity report that was done into CARL, yet the minister has no knowledge of it. I am also aware of an interstate study tour to research similar facilities to CARL that was undertaken last year by the minister's department and, again, there has been no tabling of the information, no information has been made available and there are no solutions as to how we can improve this. The CARL line is not working and the minister cannot explain how things will be improved.

Despite the government actually having a key strategic plan policy to increase the number of people with disabilities working in the workforce, the minister responsible for families and child protection is yet to change the employment policy to allow people without a driver's licence to even apply for a job in the Child Abuse Report Line call centre or in reception. I have had a lady contact my office who has a degree in social work and who is keen to work. Families SA is the largest employer of social workers in the state, yet she cannot even apply for a job and get to the interview part. The minister was unable to explain the Redesign program that has been going on through Families SA. Apparently there are 10 programs in the Redesign program that could not be listed and nor could the cost of the Redesign program be explained to me so far or even just for the last financial year.

The minister has been using the excuse of waiting for the royal commission findings before reintroducing the children's commissioner bill. Given the commission was due to report in August this year, which is only next month, that was quite acceptable; however, a recent government announcement committed $9.4 million to an extension of the royal commission into child protection. This will leave our children vulnerable for yet another year, which is completely unacceptable. Given that none of the eight Families SA staff named by Coroner Mark Johns, in relation to the Chloe Valentine case, were disciplined on the basis that it was a systemic issue, it is imperative that we have a children's commissioner with investigative powers and who is independent of government as soon as possible.

Too many children are left in danger right now—this day. Every day we are without a children's commissioner could be a day too late for another Chloe. We need systemic change now. The minister must insist on an interim report and bring back the children's commissioner legislation as soon as possible. Robyn Layton recommended a children's commissioner in 2003, and we still do not have one. How many children's lives would have been saved or significantly improved had this government acted 12 years ago when it was first recommended?

In social housing estimates we found that there are rising levels of Housing SA client debt, which has been rising by $1 million per year since 2012, then tripling in the last financial year to a $3 million increase in the 2014-15 year, bringing the debt levels to $25.3 million, and this does not include bad debts written off, which the minister could not answer in estimates, nor later when asked on radio. What about the amount of debt reinstated and what accounting principle is that based on? When I asked the question, the minister asked me what it was. It is actually in their own budget paper, so I am waiting to hear back on what basis this reinstatement of debt is used.

There are 7,366 Housing SA tenants who owe a debt to Housing SA, but more worrying than that is the 7,974 non-tenants who still owe money. How likely are we to ever get this money back? The category 1 waiting list has increased by 10 per cent from 3,069 in the 2013-14 year to 3,368 in the 2014-15 year. These are our most vulnerable people, and more swift action must be taken. We have a total of 21,190 people on the Housing SA waiting list, which is a slight improvement of 37 fewer than the previous year. At this rate, it will take 572 years to fulfil the waiting list. So what is the government doing about this?

After 13 years of Labor, the Housing Trust, which started under Sir Thomas Playford and was something to be proud of, has become a constant issue always in the paper or on the news. There are huge waiting lists, spiralling client debt, constant issues with conflict between neighbours due to thoughtless placements, damage and children living in squalid conditions without Families SA intervening. The government is failing to meet its own commitment to transfer houses to the community housing sector, which is one way that capacity could be increased. This government needs to find solutions to this significant issue.

For the higher education, science and information economy portfolio, the minister had approximately 30 staff in the chamber, yet many of my questions could not be answered. The budget figures are a joke, as they are prepared on a financial year, yet all the annual reports and answers given are in calendar years, meaning they are not comparable. For example, the number of provisional patents are listed in financial years, yet when answering the number of patents registered or Patent Cooperation Treaty filing figures were given in calendar years.

The minister refused to answer questions that had been answered by her the previous year regarding STEM enrolments for year 12 and continuing enrolments for STEM in higher education in 2014. STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) is one of the performance indicators outlined in the minister's science and information economy portfolio, so surely the minister should be able to answer questions on this topic.

I am still waiting on answers to questions I asked last year of the same minister, in particular regarding student numbers for Carnegie Mellon. The taxpayers of South Australia have invested more than $22 million in that university and have every right to know how that money is being spent. I think it is only fair that we should know, of the 374 students who have graduated since the inception of Carnegie Mellon in 2006, how many were local fee-paying students, how many were overseas fee-paying students, how many were on scholarships, and how many students were paid for by government departments, so we can truly assess the success of the Carnegie Mellon University.

The minister could not answer how long Carnegie Mellon were committed to staying in Adelaide, or if their current lease in the Torrens Building would affect the government's planned sale of a large parcel of land around Victoria Square that includes the Torrens Building. The minister referred me to the Carnegie Mellon annual report for students numbers; however, they do not produce one. They produce a financial report of approximately two pages only with no detail around student numbers.

I asked the minister when the results of the business plan regarding a business accelerator for BioSA would be ready, and the best answer I could get was, 'Soon.' I asked if the definition of 'soon' was weeks, months or years and was told, 'We do not have a specific time,' just soon. Imagine running a business like that. It is outrageous. We have an 8.2 per cent unemployment rate and a waiting list for new businesses that can employ people, and the minister cannot even commit to releasing a business plan, let alone commit to the required funding to help employ South Australians in the areas of science and biotechnology jobs.

With volunteering, as we have heard from the previous speaker, we are still facing many issues around screening delays. There are people losing work and losing a lot of money waiting on the ridiculously long amount of time that it takes to get a clearance through, even for people simply renewing a clearance and continuing a job they have been doing for many years. People in the transport industries particularly—taxidrivers, bus drivers—have had multiple issues.

If any of you listen to Leon Byner on FIVEaa, just about every day there is another person who is not able to work because of the incompetence of this government's department and their inability to get their screening tests done in a reasonable time as are able to be done in every other state in Australia. I will say, however, as a positive, that in February this year 9,000 people had been waiting for more than 30 days, and now that is down to 4,000 people, which is certainly an improvement, but that is still a lot of people who are unable to work because they are waiting on their clearances.

The youth portfolio is a fairly small budget line, although the minister could not describe to me the assessment that is made when dropping one program and going onto another. It seems fairly random: they have a set time for a program and they do not really assess whether it was a good use of money or should be extended or redone. They just jump to a new idea, which does worry some of the people in the sector, so it would be good to find out actually what assessment process is undertaken or if they just spend the money and do not really care because it is in their budget anyway and it does not really matter. That is certainly how it appears.

In my electorate, there are certainly many issues with this government at the moment. Their handling of the O-Bahn issue has been such that, when they did not get their own way, they simply brought in a DPA to forcibly take over Parklands through the beautiful Rymill Park, which has upset a great deal of people. I note that the DPA actually put not only the land for the O-Bahn together but the Torrens to Torrens as well as the Reid Building, which is taking over a significant part of Parklands for the development of the extra Adelaide city high school.

Car parking for the Women's and Children's Hospital continues to be an issue with safety concerns for staff, patients and visitors to the hospital who have to park long distances far away from the hospital. Particularly for staff who are coming and going at all hours of the day and night, there are safety issues around that. I first visited the Women's and Children's Hospital soon after being elected in 2010 and, by the end of my appointment at approximately 10.30 in the morning, the car park was full. I said to the CEO, 'If your car park is full by 10.30, surely there is a need to extend the car park.'

At that time, there was uncertainty about the future of the Women's and Children's Hospital. We are five years on and the hospital is still there. A year and a half after saying that in approximately 10 years they may move the hospital, the government is still saying that in approximately 10 years they may move the hospital, yet the parking issues still exist. If they move the hospital in 10 years' time, that is 10 years during which staff of the state government are being left in danger without adequate parking.

I know that the government does not have money to build a car park because they are broke after 13 years of mismanaging our finances. However, it is potentially a good financial investment and, just like they sold our Parklands to the Walker Corporation to build a car park in the Festival Centre, there is no reason why a car park could not be extended for the nursing staff and all the hospital staff at the Women's and Children's Hospital.

It is already under a strata deal. I have already checked the engineering reports, and it is stable enough to build two more floors, so there is no reason why this government should not be taking some leadership after five years of me informing you and actually put it out to tender, like you did for the Hajek Plaza, and get some action happening on this.

A lot of people in my electorate are very upset about all the development plans and the high-rises that have been planned, particularly when they are quite misleading about it being on the urban corridor. We are finding that on Prospect Road—where the development plan says you could have up to three storeys on the urban corridor, which everyone assumed would be facing into Prospect Road—we have a development that has just been approved one off Prospect Road, facing into a narrow side street, and it is not three storeys, but four storeys: 10 units on 500 square metres. It is hardly residential urban living in the suburbs; it is more suited really to the city.

My residents are extremely upset about this. Something must be done to clarify this. When you say 'three storeys', it should mean three storeys. When you say 'on an urban corridor', it should be on the main road. It should not be in a side street and it should not be taller than you have actually agreed to. It should not be that whoever has the most power can get what they want. It should be what it says it is.

There are lots of issues at the moment for my electorate. The Hajek Plaza is but another—the building on the Parklands, basically, for a commercial venture. We hear it is something like 4,500 square metres of retail and a tower of 40,000 square metres, I think, a 10-storey tower that is again on the Parklands. A lot of people are very unhappy about that decision but, as usual, people are excluded from actually having a say because the government just puts a ministerial DPA over it and therefore does not have to listen to anything you say. Certainly, they allow people to have a say, but they do not have to listen to it at all. I am pretty sure they have made up their mind on most things before the consultation even starts.

This government remains incompetent at running a state, devoid of ideas to improve the state and hopelessly lurching from disaster to ill-conceived kneejerk reactions to save face, cover up or distract, such as with the time zone change. It continues to blame the federal government for everything, despite being in government for 13 years, over which time it has brought this state to its knees. March 2018 cannot come quickly enough for me, when the people of South Australia will have the opportunity to vote for a hopeful future, a Liberal government with ideas for a state that I love.

Sitting extended beyond 17:00 on motion of Hon. S.C. Mullighan.

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (16:53): It is with pleasure that I rise to speak on the estimates process that we have all enjoyed over the last week. I believe I am probably the final speaker on behalf of the opposition on this matter for 2015. I have listened with interest to the contributions made by members on this side; I have listened with something else to the contributions made by a couple of members on the other side.

I just thought I would clear up a couple of things raised by the member for Wright and the member for Kaurna—in particular, criticisms they made of opposition speakers for not singularly identifying suggestions to improve the estimates process if we are going to make criticisms of the way ministers conduct themselves and the government conducts itself. I think that was a fairly disingenuous comment made by the member for Kaurna. Having listened to the speeches, I have heard many suggestions, constructive and helpful suggestions, and will list a few of my own suggestions for the better running of estimates in the future. That said, I find it a useful process and I appreciate the opportunity.

I will get to those suggestions in a moment, but to the other point made by the member for Kaurna suggesting, again I think disingenuously, that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition had criticised media in this process. I listened to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition's speech and it was a very fine speech. I think that the comments made by the deputy leader have been mischaracterised by the member for Kaurna, so let me put them into some context.

The journalists who come and cover estimates are presented with a range of stories that come out. Obviously, estimates is probably the time when there is the most significant number of new bits of information that are provided in any small period of time. You get more new information often out of estimates than you do in the budget where the detail is not unpacked, and yet there is only the same amount of time on a TV news bulletin and pretty much the same amount of space in a newspaper for the information presented at estimates as any other day.

I think the journalists, whether from The Advertiser, The Australian andInDaily, or indeed from our television news crews and the television current affairs crews and our radio, have all done a terrific job this year of getting a lot of information out, but there is a lot of information about issues that this government has failed to address or has been addressing and so forth. So, I commend the journalists for the endeavours they have put in and thank them for spending so much time with us over the last seven days as we unpack the budget estimates.

In relation to ways it can be improved, I think the first thing I would note is that when I spent some time looking at the state politics of the late nineties and the early two thousands under the previous Brown, Olsen and Kerin administrations, one of the things that differentiates those administrations from the Rann and now current Premier, the member for Cheltenham's administration in estimates under the same rules is the amount of time dedicated to portfolios.

Currently, we have this operation where the amount of time dedicated to any portfolio is theoretically done by negotiation with the opposition. In practice, the standard is to look at what we did last year and apply the same amount of time for each portfolio budget line this year. That does not sound unreasonable in and of itself, except that when the starting point was 2002 the amount of time contributed in those years was significantly less than the previous year to that, or final year of the Liberal administration.

I remember looking at the Hansard of the Hon. Rob Lucas's answers as treasurer and minister for education in the nineties and there were hundreds and hundreds of questions answered, going well into the evening. Some ministers in these estimates are dealing with portfolio budget lines which are maybe for hundreds of millions of dollars yet only attract an hour or two of estimates hearings. I think that any serious look at the schedule—and I will be following this up by way of formal letter to the leader of the house prior to next year's estimates—does offer some unusual statements, to say the least.

For my own area for example, I participated in the Community Connect program in the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion as I have responsibility for juvenile justice policy on our side. It is a 45-minute budget line, with responsibility for a wide range of things, not just youth justice and the offices of the north and south and communities and social inclusion, there is also the screening unit, which is of particular note to so many people and which attracted the majority of the questioning earlier this week. That had 45 minutes and yet, one that I participated in last year, the Minister for Science and Information Economy, it is a relatively small budget line, it is a couple of pages in the budget documents, it is a few million dollars, it is an important area but it had an hour and a quarter compared to 45 minutes for the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion. It seems an unusual position. In fact, it is more than the whole Department for Correctional Services, which had an hour of discussion.

There are plenty of examples through the document and I will not go into them in detail. What I propose, very specifically, is not that we take away any of the time because I, for one, find it fascinating listening to discussion about science and information economy for an hour and a quarter, but why can we not have two hours for corrections and four hours for police? I would start by taking about half of the portfolios and doubling the amount of time because there are always plenty of questions left. Even this year, when we had a number of ministers who took few questions—a couple took no questions—from their own side, there are always a significant number of questions left.

A number of ministers negotiated with the shadow ministers to have a reduction in the time allocated for their estimates portfolios in return for there being no government questions. That is fine; I chose not to go down that path myself (and I am not sure if the offer would have been forthcoming from the minister) but I acknowledge, in particular, the Minister for Police and for Corrections. He took a couple of government questions but not too many, and certainly not unreasonable ones. However, I think that the diminution of time in return for that offer of no government questions should never have been necessary. Why do we not double the time and we can have some government questions as well? It would certainly be very useful for the community to get that information.

There is also a significant number of public servants who support the estimates process and prepare those folders for ministers so that they are all ready, and attend here in case their expertise needs to be called on. That preparation work could be brought to its full extent so that we could really unpack these issues and get the best possible information to the people of South Australia.

In terms of the time allocated to committees, I think that is my most important suggestion in relation to improving estimates. I think that amount of time would be useful. Also, cramming it into five days is a policy decision, a management decision of the government. It does not need to be five days; we could take two weeks to do this and spread out the opportunity for the public to be involved in learning about these processes through the media, and, indeed, for ministers and shadow ministers to get that information.

I note that a former Liberal minister who is no longer in this house—I will not identify him, although I enjoyed the opportunity to serve with him, which probably narrows it down—used to say that estimates was one of his favourite times of the year. It gave him the opportunity to be briefed on the whole gamut of issues within his portfolio by his department, and confidence that he would actually get the full story because he knew that he would be relied upon to provide answers in that estimates time. It was the one time when he could take a helicopter view and have a full understanding of all those issues in his department—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Bad word. 'Panoramic'. We do not use the word—

Mr GARDNER: A wholesome view of all those matters within his responsibility. That would ensure that even if he was not asked about it in estimates and was not called upon to present the government's position on the matter, if there were some that required attention it would give him the opportunity to ensure that the matter was addressed subsequent to the estimates procedure. I encourage ministers, whether they enjoy it or not, to have a think about the opportunities presented to them in estimates to be better ministers and to provide that support to the people of South Australia through being better ministers.

I note that every year during the estimates process some ministers, some government committee members—not in all committees—who sometimes seem to take it a bit more sensitively than others when they are asked questions about matters in their portfolio that they do not feel like talking about, use, as a point of order, that the question allegedly does not relate to a specific budget line. Frankly, I always find this to be a fairly specious point of order, because unless the question being asked is so tangential to the minister's responsibilities as to not be within the activities of the minister's department, it is almost never a valid point of order.

There are two budget lines in each department; one is the workforce summary and one is the whole funding provided to that department. Frankly, anything being done within that department will relate to those budget lines, if nothing else. So when a minister or any government backbencher uses that point of order I always find it frustrating. It is unnecessary and, frankly, I think it does the minister a disservice to think that they would not want to talk about something for which they are responsible by way of the budget allocation in those two budget lines. Ultimately, there is not a change in procedure but I hope there is a change in practice that develops over the year whereby that is unnecessary.

In relation to the answers provided to questions taken on notice, I identified before the hundreds of questions there were taken in previous estimates by a number of ministers. This time I was actually really pleased yesterday, when I arrived in question time and was handed a pack of answers to questions on notice. I was thinking: this is fantastic. The Deputy Premier's estimates was just last Wednesday or Thursday and I was here and able to participate in asking questions, and some of them were taken on notice; and, just five days later, answers to questions taken on notice were provided. Then I read the detail of the answers provided and they were all issues from between June 2013 and June 2014. They were actually answers to questions that I had asked in estimates over a year ago and only now being provided.

It is frustrating for the opposition, but that is not even remotely the point. It is a disservice to the community and it is a disservice to the ministers themselves. It shows them in a very bad light when it takes them a year to answer questions taken on notice. We offer them in good faith. It is a real challenge to the community to have faith in the government's alleged commitment to providing openness, transparency, open data and all those things when it takes over a year to provide answers to simple questions taken on notice in the estimates process. This information should be in the government system to start with. It is not a good sign and I think it is something the government should attend to.

A very simple administrative matter about which I have already written to the Speaker and the Standing Orders Committee to take into consideration—this will only be of interest to members responsible for the administration and those members who sign in and out—is the arcane process associated with estimates. It is time for it to be abolished; a simple improvement to the standing orders perhaps requiring that any member can come in and ask questions rather than having to sign hundreds of forms, having members being discharged and entered in to the committees. Frankly, it is a nonsense and I hope that it is something that the house can attend to in the year ahead so that future whips will not have to deal with that level of administration for clearly no benefit to the community.

In relation to my portfolios, I will just deal with them briefly by way of particularly bringing to the attention of the casual reader of Hansard those issues that were of interest. Can I first commend the media adviser, or whoever it was in the office of the police and corrections minister. When it comes to media support, providing colour and movement and pictures that accentuate a story, nothing will ever provide better colour and movement in a story than the pictures of a Labrador dog with a GoPro on its back running through a prison. The timing of those pictures being provided to the media (on the morning of Corrections estimates) ensured that all of the TV news cameras would be interested in stories to do with Corrections. So for that I am very grateful, because it did give us the opportunity to highlight the problem of overcrowding in South Australia's prisons and some of the issues that that relates to.

Overcrowding is not just an arcane issue that might concern prisoners and their families. Overcrowding presents budgetary problems, because when our prisons do overcrowd into police cells, those are unbudgeted positions and end up being much more expensive for the taxpayer than providing the infrastructure in the first place if you are going to manage prisons properly. Overcrowding presents problems for our prison officers themselves. Overcrowded prisons are less safe than prisons that are within the capacity for which they are designed, and that presents stresses and problems for our prison officers, who do a terrific job and deserve a better environment than that.

Overcrowding presents problems for our police force. When our overcrowded prisons flow into our police cells, those police cells are not available for use by the police. For example, if the Holden Hill cells are full of prisoners on remand, that means they are unavailable for the police who might need to take somebody they have arrested to Holden Hill to be charged. Those police officers then have to take them further away, which creates operational problems.

Overcrowding also presents problems in our health system; for example, when we have overcrowded prisons with a significant number of people with significant mental disabilities and other intellectual disabilities who might have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act and should be in James Nash House, or people who have been convicted as criminals but present with these problems and should be in James Nash House. The fact that we have only 60 beds available in the forensic mental health unit and there are more people who need a forensic mental health bed means that two things can happen: either we have people with those issues in our prisons—and our prisons are overflowing so there are no beds there—or they end up overflowing into our general community mental health beds, in which case those community mental health beds would no longer be available for members of the general community.

Now, frankly, I think that anybody who has a family member who has presented with an acute mental health presentation and has found that the specialised beds available for their family member actually are not available for them because of the overflow from our prisons and the overflow from James Nash House will find that unacceptable. And so we have situations such as the one where a man was in an adjunct room to the Royal Adelaide Hospital's emergency department with no access to a television and no access to the general conditions that somebody presenting as a community patient in a mental health bed would expect because of the overflow from the prisons. I think that those family members have a right to be pretty angry, and so they should be.

So, the overflowing prisons was of significant interest and we noted a very high new record number of prisoners in the South Australian prison system. Firstly, we asked about the peak figure for 2014-15, and to clarify I said it was from 1836 until 30 June 2015, and the record was 30 June 2015 of 2,737 prisoners. It was broken the next day and continually broken until 17 July, two weeks ago, when we set a new record of 2,772 prisoners. That is fine, it is just a number, but note that the approved capacity of our prisons is 2,715, which means that we are in surge capacity pretty much all the time. We are building new cells: we are building 20 beds here, 100 beds there, 20 beds there, shipping containers here and stower-packed cottages there being delivered. However, we are only doing it in an ad hoc way because the government has failed to plan. The government has failed to plan, and they are continuing to do it.

The average daily prisoner numbers for the 12 months to come has been set and it is in the budget. It is 3 per cent higher than the average daily prisoner numbers last year. That would be fine, but we asked the question and had no answer—it was taken on notice—of how they got to that figure of a 3 per cent increase, because last year it was 11 per cent and the year before that it was 11 per cent as well. We have had significant growth in prisoner numbers. The same impacts that have led to that significant growth—a higher level of policing of domestic violence offenders, higher levels of people breaching bail conditions and parole conditions through the tenser thresholds that are set for those conditions to be breached as a result of legislative change. Those factors are still there and there is no reason to expect that they will change, yet the government magically thinks that a 3 per cent increase is possible, despite everything else.

There were also other issues. We found out that there is going to be a delay in the government's recruit 300 promise, which has been delayed several times already by another year to the 2018-19 year, which will take it past three elections that that promise will have been met, if it ever is met. We noted that there were issues to do with the civilianisation of certain sections of the police force; it remains unresolved whether they will be reduced from the net numbers of police officers.

We were told that there would be a $1.1 million saving, for example, by transferring 42 custodial officers from sworn police officers to non-sworn officers. So a $1.1 million saving there. They are taking on 42 new unsworn officers—and that is the saving, from sworn officers to unsworn officers, yet we are told those original 42 officers are going to the front line. If they are, that is not a saving, that is just an increase of 42 staff, so we are yet to unpack how that is happening.

We learnt that the Holden Hill cells will no longer be used as police cells; that the memorandum of understanding between Corrections and Police is still unsigned; that the Sturt cells are no longer available for Corrections; that the Henley Beach Police Station has been delayed for a year.

The Hon. P. Caica: That's not true.

Mr GARDNER: And the minister gave reasons for why: he said it was the council's fault that it had been delayed for a year. You can check the Hansard, member for Colton. The minister told us that the eight police stations—

The Hon. P. Caica: I happen to be the local member.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr GARDNER: —closed in May were not police stations, that the academy is charging $150 for literacy tests before entrance, and a range of other things. I encourage everyone to read the Hansard, it is fascinating stuff. And, finally, I thank the ministers for their courtesy during the estimates process.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister Assisting the Minister for Planning, Minister Assisting the Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (17:14): I thank the member for Morialta for his comments. I thought I would briefly share my experience of estimates as somebody participating on the other side of the tables for what is a process, Deputy Speaker, designed to enlighten the parliament with further information about a minister's portfolio budget lines.

The experience I had this year was similar to an experience I had the previous year. The member for Morialta cast our collective minds back to the 1990s and the early 2000s under particularly the Olsen administration where we had sessions of estimates where there was assiduous questioning from the opposition at the time, to the extent that not only was information revealed to the parliament that had not been previously revealed but it was revealed in such a way that it caused the resignation of that premier, such was the import of the estimates process, such was the interest that was shown by members of all sides and such was the amount of diligence and effort put into the questioning process by the opposition of the time.

Of course, that standard is sadly lacking now. My experience this year reflects the experience that I had in the previous year where I was exposed to questioning from the deputy leader who spent, in my first year facing estimates, the best part of 45 minutes attempting to question me on budget lines which were the responsibility of another minister, despite my repeated and good-natured attempts last year to set her on the right course.

So you can imagine my surprise when, once again, the deputy leader turns up and starts not only asking me questions about another minister's portfolio responsibilities and parts of the budget specifically assigned to that minister, but when I corrected her—in frustration this time rather than goodwill—she then abandoned the budget papers altogether and decided to embark on a line of questioning which was not even relevant to the budget papers that she had before her.

Such was my exasperation that when she repeatedly pointed to some extract that she claimed to have from Hansard, and when I explained to her that despite my mere 18 months (roughly) of experience in parliament and her getting on for 14 years of experience in parliament, it was incumbent on me to point out to her how this process worked, she still was unable to cast her mind in the correct direction and enable us to get on with the process of estimates.

It is experiences like that on both sides that have caused several members, in the course of this debate, to talk about how estimates might best be conducted in the future and, principally from the other side, the process has all but been referred to as broken, as archaic, as somehow unable to elicit the sort of information that the parliament should rightly be receiving from the government of the day.

What has changed in the process? The member for Morialta gave some examples of where changes have been made and there have not really been changes to the process or the procedure or the standing orders. There may have been some changes to the allocation of times and he, as opposition whip, is perhaps in a better place to judge that than I. However, the process of the questioning has not changed and so, once again, the parliament is being asked to consider an assertion that the process is broken.

It makes me think of the assertions that the member for Mackillop put about how the 2014 state election was conducted; that somehow our electoral process is also broken. You can start to sense a theme here that whenever the opposition cannot conduct itself in a way which produces some sort of politically acceptable result for itself, it is not their fault, it is the fault of the system—in that case it is the electoral system or, in this case, it is the fault of the estimates process.

I am not necessarily casting that net over the comments that the member for Morialta has made but certainly we have had comments from other members of parliament casting the parliament's mind down that path. If we cast our mind back not 10 years, but in the last 10 to 15 years, we have seen this process be conducted far better.

I do like to think that perhaps I can guess to whom the member for Morialta was referring when he said that a former minister travelled to parliament by helicopter—I assume that might have been a federal minister at the time, or a minister took a helicopter view of the process and enjoyed being briefed in a particular way by their department because it enabled them to get a fulsome handle on all of the grotty detail of their portfolio.

I can remember two people from the opposition benches since 2002 who were fearsome in their questioning of government ministers. The former member for Davenport, who was incredibly forensic and incredibly thorough, worked very hard to make ministers think twice, if not thrice, about the information that they provided to the parliament. He was somebody who put in the diligence and the effort and was able to elicit not only information for the parliament but, I am sure, several stories about what the government of the day was doing and pushing his particular view of those initiatives. Of course, after the results of the 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014 elections, he resigned from the parliament in abject dejection.

The other person I can think of who was a sound performer from the opposition benches is of course the current member for Waite, who did not exit the parliament in the same fashion but instead hitched his wagon to the political party in this state that is presenting an agenda for South Australia across all portfolios of government.

I will not speak for too much longer, but it is on that final point that I want to concentrate; that is, ministers and this government having an agenda and putting it forward to the people of South Australia, and what role the estimates process plays in that in perhaps, ideally, examining the efforts of the government, the expenditure of funds across portfolios to carry forward those initiatives and, ideally, being able to contrast that with another set of policies, another set of ideals, another set of initiatives which are being litigated in the public, which would ideally come from an opposition. That is of course what is lacking not just in general from this opposition but what is also lacking in estimates.

I can absolutely recall the effort that ministers like the former treasurer Kevin Foley went to or the former premier Mike Rann went to with shadow ministers like the former member for Davenport and also the current member for Waite. It was not just about how the government was spending their funds and whether that was an appropriate use of taxpayers' money; it was also about how that compared to an agenda that they were pushing at the same time. Of course, it has got to the point now where the member for Waite has now joined with the government to make sure that he can put his shoulder to the wheel and push forward the policies that he can promulgate for the benefit of South Australians in concert with the effort that government ministers are making.

What benefit it would provide to parliament if the sorts of conversations or questionings, to put it more accurately, that we had during estimates were not only more assiduous, more incisive and more revealing from the opposition, but if, in addition, there was an opposition that was capable of coming up with an alternative agenda with which the government's expenditures could be compared, and that is something I think which is also lacking from the process.

It does not need an entire revision of standing orders, it does not require an entire upending of the procedure or the process, it just requires an opposition. Of course, the effort starts from the leadership and the deputy leadership. It just requires a little bit more effort and a little bit more diligence from those people opposite to put the government not only under pressure about how it is spending but about in what other ways it could be spending those funds.

I thank all members for their contributions, not just of course the ministers on the government side but particularly those opposition members. Whether they are on the front bench or whether they have to endure the hard yards sitting through hours and hours of questioning on the backbench, it is long, it is hard on everyone, it does take a great deal of preparation, particularly from the public servants as well, and I thank them for their efforts.

Motion carried.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister Assisting the Minister for Planning, Minister Assisting the Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (17:24): I move:

That the remainder of the bill be agreed to.

Motion carried.

Third Reading

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister Assisting the Minister for Planning, Minister Assisting the Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (17:24): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

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