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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-04-13 Daily Xml
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Bills

Supply Bill 2016

Second Reading

Debate resumed.

Mr SPEIRS (Bright) (12:40): It is good to see a school from the great southern suburbs, which I too represent. There may even be some students from Woodcroft Primary School—which I think is one of the largest primary schools in South Australia—who is in my electorate. They will no doubt be enjoying their time in parliament and following along with excitement the prospect of the Liberal Party forming government in 2018, when we will be part of transforming Glenelg, because that is the next policy announcement I want to discuss.

We announced earlier this week that if we form government in 2018 we will happily provide $20 million as a contribution towards a transformation of Glenelg, specifically focused around the tourism potential of the Glenelg jetty, which has been touted as a potential economic driver for South Australia and South Australia's tourism industry. The tourism dollar is very important for this state, so it has been really good to see the Liberal Party get alongside the City of Holdfast Bay.

I work very closely with Mayor Stephen Patterson. He has only been in the job for a bit more than a year, and he has leading a professional and progressive council down there. It is great to see them get involved in state-building projects, such as the transformation of the Glenelg jetty. It is good to see the state Liberal Party getting involved in that as well, partnering with the council. Hopefully there will be some federal funding attracted to that project, as well as significant private industry investment.

That covers the three policy areas that have been flowing from the 2036 manifesto that I wanted to discuss today, but I want to go on and have a moment canvassing the state of South Australia's Public Service. This is an area that I have a personal interest in, having previously worked in the Public Service for several years before my election to this place. It is always good to be able to stand up and share my reflections on South Australia's Public Service, our state's largest employer by far and a vital engine room for our state's social, environmental and economic direction.

Often the government try to portray the Liberal Party as somehow not supportive of the Public Service and the vital work that it does, but I can tell the house that we are supportive and we understand exactly what the Public Service needs to be able to do its job well. What we want to focus on is service improvements, delivering quality first-class public services which enhance South Australia's reputation as a great place to live and do business. We will invest in the Public Service. We will ensure that training and development opportunities are available to public servants, investing in the people who, through their diligence and their work, invest in this state.

The key question that I think legislators need to ask themselves, and those people in government or aspiring to government, is: what is the Public Service for? It is very much my view, and I believe the Liberal Party's view, that our public workforce in this state is one of South Australia's greatest assets. We are not just talking about our police officers, paramedics, teachers, nurses and social workers. Yes, these front-line workers are, in my view, the most important part of our public workforce, and their pay and conditions should always be protected. However, I also group a large proportion of the hidden Public Service workforce, the background bureaucracy, as being an important part of the engine room of our state.

There are clearly arguments about how large this backroom bureaucracy should be, and I personally would favour a re-emphasis on front-line workers, but there are still thousands of backroom jobs required to provide policy direction and project management for our state. Make no mistake that these people are also classed in the group I am referring to when I talk about South Australia's public workforce being one of the greatest assets this state has. In our 2036 manifesto, section 9 is entitled 'Running an efficient and stable government', and here we outline some of our beliefs about the Public Service. The first three of these are:

The public service is one of our State's greatest assets, able to drive change in South Australia when given the freedom and respect it needs to unleash its potential.

The public service should be free from political interference, with a premium placed on frank and fearless advice, with jobs won on merit, not as rewards for political loyalty.

The public service can be a place of innovation, where people are encouraged and supported to come up with creative solutions to the challenges facing South Australia.

These are not platitudes. We do believe in the power of the Public Service. We believe it should be free from political interference and we believe in a return to the traditional tenets of the Public Service where frank and fearless advice is welcomed and rewarded, rather than being a career-limiting move.

The problems I have outlined in my regular speeches on the Public Service remain as bad as ever. Jobs for the boys and girls is really the modus operandi in the executive levels of the Public Service, and even positions below, in ASO7 and ASO8, where political mates are given pats on the back and a cushy position as a reward for handing out how-to-vote cards and choreographing fake Twitter accounts.

Mr Goldsworthy interjecting:

Mr SPEIRS: My contacts in the Public Service remain solid and I continue to hear stories of public servants feeling entirely compromised when asked to do work that would once have been the purview of Labor Party operatives but is now routinely extended to the Public Service. Government events are instructed to be held in marginal seats; data must be harvested and forwarded into government databases to be fed an array of propaganda in due course.

Mr Goldsworthy interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Does the member for Kavel need medical assistance?

Mr SPEIRS: He's got a bad chest.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: He seems to be making a lot of groaning noises. I am finding it off-putting. How are you coping, member for Bright?

Mr Goldsworthy: I'm wincing at things.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Speaker Bishop has given rulings on audible grunting and groaning, and I may have to emulate that here today. I would like you to restrain yourself.

Mr SPEIRS: Public servants take direct instruction from chiefs of staff and political hacks instead of from their line managers, with governance by fear so entrenched that managers who are on contract are left feeling too exposed and vulnerable to push back against inappropriate requests.

Only last month, a public servant told me that he had arrived at work on a regular Monday morning to discover a new position had been created in his team, one that he did not know about until he arrived. A desk and computer had been set up in his area over the weekend and a new ergonomically-assessed chair had been put in place.

At 9.30am (not an early starter), after coffee with his mates at Blefari's and a few fake Twitter posts later, a former political adviser sauntered into the office. He had been made a director on about $150,000 a year or maybe more—no process, no accountability, no thought that someone else in the Public Service might like to apply for that job, a job that did not even exist and was not needed on Friday afternoon.

No, this was a gift from a minister for the loyal service of a particularly unsavoury political geezer. He will now get to occupy a spot in the State Admin Centre, consuming valuable oxygen and flushing the toilet a couple of times a day while his colleagues wonder what he is there for. Perhaps he holds the secret of where the commas are to be placed in future cabinet submissions, or maybe he will spend the next two years faking Twitter posts and contorting himself into a safe seat somewhere before the 2018 election when he joins the throngs of inspiration opposite and gives one of those memorable maiden speeches where he pays unwavering homage to whoever got him there.

In closing my comments on the Public Service, I want to turn my mind to the role of political advisers and what they do in the modern Public Service. Like a particularly bad strain of myxomatosis, advisers have spread through political offices since the 1990s, multiplying at a catastrophic rate and providing, in my opinion, the biggest single challenge to accountable, intelligent, evidence-based public administration.

Advisers. Latin name: 'Adviserous horribilis'. Usually under qualified and overly confident, largely aged 25 to 35, characterised by having the log-in details of multiple fake Twitter accounts stored in the notes section of their iPhones. Their habitat is a murky half-world, a purgatory somewhere between public service and political office.

They read InDaily, drink at small bars, enjoy fatty and sugary foods and have the physical characteristics associated with enjoying fatty and sugary foods. Chameleon-like, they have the unique ability to change their skins, depending on the location of the safe seat they aspire to represent. They often interbreed, leading to a reduced gene pool, and are loved only by their mothers. While their day-to-day habitats tend to be open plan offices, enabling them to throw foam footballs to one another, every fortnight or so on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays they congregate in the shadowy benches of the Speaker's gallery to watch their favourite sport: question time.

They are, for sure, an interesting pest, an overabundant species, to use the latest vernacular from the environment department, and as observers of the environment department would know, whether it is corellas or fur seals, this government is loathe to deal with overabundant creatures.

I am not an advocate for slashing the Public Service, but I am an advocate for slashing the use of political advisers. As their title would suggest, these guys and girls come up with advice, but it really does not need to be good advice. Advice is a very subjective term, so it can just be advice. They will make changes for the sake of change, just to justify their existence and remind themselves that despite having dropped out of their arts degree to concentrate on student politics, they are geniuses, masters of political strategy, and so they tell themselves a hundred times a day that they are normal, with emphasis on that very subjective word 'normal', and lucky to have landed jobs serving the good folk of South Australia.

Advisers are a social species, particularly due to the increasing numbers of them. Back before they had government protection they were actually a threatened species, like the bare-rumped sheathtail bat or the Gilbert's potoroo, both on the EPBC critically endangered list. There was one day not so long ago when there was only one adviser per minister—only one. Can you believe it? How did government survive? Regardless, there are many more today and they have that status of abundancy.

I will return to this subject in more detail in a grieve some time in the coming weeks when I will share with the house the views of Jennifer Westacott, Adam Creighton, Terry Moran and Professor Ken Wiltshire on the impact of advisers on government. Suffice to say it is a very poor impact.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are not going to plagiarise their work, are you? Member for Mount Gambier.

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (12:52): That is going to be a very tough act to follow. I rise to speak on the Supply Bill and note my concern for this wonderful state of South Australia. Even today there was an ABC news article talking about South Australia and the exodus of young people, particularly from the workforce of this state, and the economic impact that has. This should come as no surprise to those in metropolitan Adelaide because, quite frankly, it has been experienced in regional areas for nearly a generation.

I have spoken in this place before about what has been occurring in the bush and in regional areas will soon be felt by those in metropolitan Adelaide; that is, lack of job opportunities which will lead to young people moving out of South Australia. In the bush they move to the big city or the big smoke and take up opportunities there. When there are no opportunities in the city they will move out of the state.

What is quite frightening is that only 58 per cent of the population in South Australia is actually employed. This leaves fewer and fewer people providing for more and more. Because we are an ageing population I have great fears that when Holden closes those people in the 50 to 55 age bracket not able to secure employment will remain in South Australia on limited income. Sure, the pay-out might seem adequate at the start, but it is debatable whether over a period of time that will last into their 70s or 80s, with the average life expectancy now around 84 years.

I hold very grave fears for their future and for the young people of South Australia because, quite frankly, those who are leaving South Australia are the exact ones we need to remain in or come back to South Australia. Yet, over the last 10 years we have had a net exodus of 3,000 people per year leaving this state. Quite often they are the ones who have the exact skills that we need. Once they have left some come back in their mid 40s, early 50s, normally to care for an aging parent, and are quite dismayed at the lack of job opportunities and the fact that they are actually over-skilled for many of the jobs here in South Australia.

I fear that we are heading towards a state bank collapse type scenario. If you look at the key indicators of this state you can draw some correlation with that. The state bank to this state was like dropping a frog in a pot of boiling water. Quite quickly the frog jumped out, there was a massive reaction and we had political pain, which resulted in the Labor government being ousted and a large majority for the Liberal Party.

However, if you look at the indicators leading up to today, it is like the pot of water has slowly heated up to the point where it is actually boiling, but many people in this state just do not realise the dire situation. In 2017-18 our net debt will be $13.5 billion. For the record, when the state bank collapsed that debt hit $11 billion, so we will be in a worse situation. Some will argue that our population may have increased, but the real key point is the economic growth or lack thereof.

So economic growth in South Australia: 1.6 per cent in 2014-15, compared with nationally a 2.3 per cent growth. So we are growing at a very slow rate compared with the rest of the nation. We hear in this place the Minister for Trade get up and talk about how wonderful our exports are: they actually fell by 5.3 per cent on an annualised basis, compared with the previous 12 months, to $11.62 billion. By the way, the government's target is $18 billion by 2017. However, I fear this will go into the bucket of broken promises, like the 100,000 jobs forecast by the Labor state government.

Of course, we have the highest unemployment across Australia at 7.7 per cent, and it is the nation's highest. All of those factors are adding up to what I say is creating the environment for an economic collapse. I do not like coming here and saying that type of stuff, but I want to forewarn that, unless some things are taken very, very seriously, that is the situation that we will find ourselves in. There is no point in having us point to something like Arrium, when the state government very late in the peace put in a requirement for procurement to use Australian standard steel. Why was not that in from the start? Why was that not in years ago when this $2.1 billion investment was made in this state? I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00.

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