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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-08-02 Daily Xml
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Bills

Appropriation Bill 2017

Estimates Committees

Adjourned debate on motion:

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

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (15:53): When I was finalising my brief remarks before the lunch break, I was talking about an issue that has been brought to my attention regarding hot exhausts under some fire trucks. I am conducting a bit more of an investigation, but I did stress to both the chief officer and the minister that I will be sending them some correspondence because I think it is a serious matter that needs to be addressed.

In the agriculture estimates, we asked a lot of questions in relation to moneys for various financial issues that farmers have faced, whether it be the dairy concessional loans, financial farm assistance concessional loans or drought assistance loans. It is interesting how much money was not approved to go out to farmers and some of the hoops that people had to jump through to apply for those concessions. It makes it so darned hard when people just want to keep producing great food for our state. As was acknowledged in estimates by the minister, just far too much money is made available that gets absorbed back into the budget.

It was most telling when I asked questions of the agriculture minister about a GM canola outbreak in this state, which was found when a farmer was trying to spray out some volunteers after he had grown the crop. Because he was in a vineyard sensitive area, he was only using Roundup—he was not spiking it with a broadleaf spray, as they say in farmers' terms—but these volunteer canola plants kept growing and he realised there was a problem. I believe that he went out and had another go and dosed it up with a bit more Roundup, but he could not take out these volunteers. Obviously, through no fault of his own, he had grown some genetically modified canola, as somehow some genetically modified canola seed had become involved in some fresh seed bought from the seed supplier.

When the Khapra beetle issue was happening, we were brought into a briefing by the minister and his staff outlining the issue around it. We understood on this side of the fence that we did not want to alarm people about how it was being managed, and we were satisfied. But it was kept under the carpet and kept in the cupboard of secrecy that there had been a genetically modified canola outbreak.

When I questioned the minister about the size of the paddock, his staff answered the question and said that it was one paddock. I said, 'That is very subjective. That could be 40 acres, as in the old days, or it could be 400 acres now.' Actually, it was bigger than that: it was a 200-hectare paddock (500 acres), which is a sizeable piece of country. With the season we have had, a lot of canola would have been grown. It is interesting that this has happened in this state, and it certainly adds to where there have been, and I assume still are, licences for genetically modified seed canola grown at Mount Gambier.

I asked some questions in relation to tourism and around the Elite Systems bungle by the government in relation to seating for the Clipsal. Contractors were left a million dollars out of pocket, and we know of one company that was left $450,000 out of pocket yet still had to pay payroll tax on that money, even though they did not receive the money, and did not receive any relief from the government. When I asked the member for Mawson whether he had done any lobbying on their behalf, he just said, 'That's a Treasury issue. Don't want to know about it.'

The caring soul that he is, he had not done any work to make sure that these people did not have to pay tax on money they had not even been paid. It is just outrageous and beggars belief. This money is held by the government and we are still awaiting an outcome. The Elite debacle is a real tragedy for some local businesses, and the effect it would have had on those businesses and the harsh decisions they would have had to make to make up those massive shortfalls of a billion dollars all-up just beggars belief.

Then we were talking about regional development, and this was quite an eye-opening event. We were talking about the different rounds of the Regional Development Fund. The members of the Liberal Party on the committee just about fell over when we realised that the minister was telling us that they did not shut off these funding rounds and then start another round; there was just a rolling-round program for people who were applying in 2016-17 to go into 2017-18.

That sets off alarm bells at all levels in regard to managing a grant program in that manner. In all the time I have been a politician (I am now in my 12th year) we have had to deal with people who are applying for a grant that is closing and we are writing support letters or assisting them with those grants, yet we were told in the estimates session for regional development, 'No, it's just a rolling program. We have had hundreds of applications and people trying to get grants.'

That is all fine, but the member for Goyder asked a very good question: 'What about the people who didn't apply because they thought, "Oh, well, the new grant fund will open up for 2017-18."?' But essentially it is just a rolling fund. It is like a lottery: it just keeps rolling on. It seems that there is total unaccountability by the government. I asked the minister whether there were any companies that were disaffected and shared their disaffection with the government. I did not get a very satisfactory answer to that question at all.

In regard to issues around companies that finally did not take their grant, I think there were seven because of different things that happened. There was a McLaren Vale distillery that did not accept about a $500,000 grant, I think it was, because it was just too hard. They just got on with it and did it themselves. Sure, you have to be compliant because half a million dollars is a lot of money, but you do not need to make the program that hard. It is a big decision for anyone. If I was in that company and I was going to make a decision to knock back half a million dollars, that is a very serious decision to have to make, but people are making those decisions.

In his opening remarks, the Minister for Regional Development talked about making power affordable for regional South Australians. Well, hello! This gets into the power debacles that we have not just for regional South Australians but for people right across this state. We have a government that has put us in the dire straits and the total debacles in which we find ourselves in relation to power supply to this state and affordability of power, and it is just disgraceful.

A perfectly good power station at Port Augusta was shut down on ideological grounds. That plant could have run for another three years for less than $25 million and stopped all this chaos. We have seen Hazelwood close, which generated 22 per cent of Victoria's power, and our interconnectors fed right into that. It is interesting to note that our interconnectors still suck into Victorian coal, but let's not let that reality get in the way of where we source our power.

We have lost Port Augusta and, for $25 million of taxpayers' money, we could have kept it going. Alinta could not compete with the RET subsidies for wind and solar, but mainly wind. We have seen what happens in this state when ideology gets in the way and the wind stops blowing: the lights go out, and that is exactly what has happened.

More and more regional businesses have come to me that have had long-term quotes put to them. They have been told, 'Because Port Augusta has gone and Hazelwood is shutting down, here are the different quotes.' I have a full list of quotes sent to me by one business, and the highest quote for what their power bill was going to be was 142 per cent, and the others were not far behind. That is just outrageous. This is what is killing business and incentive not just in the regions but in this state. For the regional development minister to make such a bold statement as, 'We are trying to make business more affordable with power prices,' shows the debacle we are in.

We have had all sorts of commentary. We were even going to have Turkish power-generating ships come in that could have run on bunker oil, sump oil or basically anything, but now we are going to be running on diesel. I note and have stated here before that the clean energy targets were at 55 per cent, and the government's own documents have them coming back to 43 per cent.

We have the Treasurer coming in here today, saying that he is hoping these diesel generators will not have to run. I am prepared to have a small wager with anyone on the government side, and I am pretty sure I will win it, that all nine of those diesel generators will have to crank up. We will have such a deficit of power that, on days during summer when the wind does not blow and interconnectors do not have enough coming across because so much other energy generation is shut down, we will need those diesel generators.

It is all based on an ideological lie. The Finkel report itself states that at the moment the whole of Australia is reliant on 58 per cent coal generation and that in 2030 we will still be relying on 56 per cent of our power coming from coal. So, yes, we need to have affordable options for power, and they need to happen fast, because this government have driven us into darkness.

I want to close with a few remarks about water. We had the press conference earlier this week with a range of people from different parties, with the Premier looking very smart and happy with himself up the front, and a few River Murray community people. I asked the water minister, the Hon. Ian Hunter from the other place, whether these community people were told that the Liberal Party were part of this process, because I know that his office was directly asked this when they contacted one of these people. They said, 'Yes, the Liberal Party are involved. They will be there on Monday with everyone else.'

Imagine the shock on this bloke's face when he turns up and realises he has been duped. I suggested that these people had been misled, but the water minister did not want to have anything of it, but that is what really happened. People were duped. They were told the Liberal Party were going to be part of the action calling for a judicial inquiry into the River Murray, but they were duped.

What I also get upset about is this government talking about how strong it is about the River Murray yet, when we had $25 million coming to us for the diversification fund that would have assisted businesses from the top of the river near Renmark right through to the mouth, that did not need so much reliance on the river, to get funding, the government just knocked it back because they did not like it. That is how much this Labor government like the River Murray.

Mr PISONI (Unley) (16:08): It is that time of the year again—estimates time—and it reminds me of my childhood. I can remember world championship wrestling every Sunday afternoon on Nine's Wide World of Sports. In those days, there was a lot of local TV. As children of a father who migrated from Milan, we were very interested in the wrestler Mario Milano. Do you remember him, Madam Deputy Speaker?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I am far too young, but I have heard of him.

Mr PISONI: My grandfather actually thought it was fair dinkum. He thought it was real. It reminds me of estimates because we get in here and we have the two teams: we have the government minister with 30 or 40 advisers, and we have the opposition, who have been in here since the day after the budget writing questions for estimates. Then there is this lock, this clash of the Titans, where the shadow minister and the minister embrace in all sorts of positions in order for one to trip up the other.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It sounds exciting. Which room were you in?

Mr PISONI: This is obviously taking some artistic licence, Madam Chair. Then, of course, we get through the one or two hours, however long it is, and the truth of the matter is that a lot of questions are asked but a lot of answers are avoided. It is very reminiscent of the days of Mario Milano and world championship wrestling on Sunday afternoons.

I would like to raise a couple of issues that popped up in the estimates process. I was not terribly satisfied with the responses; one is the development plan amendment by the minister for one particular development plan in my electorate of Unley. Just for the benefit of the house, Unley has been a very cooperative council for ministerial DPAs and I think generally they balance the containment and the preservation of heritage and streetscape with the ability to also allow corridor developments of up to five storeys high, which is part of the first round of the development amendment in Unley.

Basically, that development assessment process happened quite a number of years ago now. No-one has taken up the offer yet, of course; the economy is not running very well here in South Australia so we have not seen any development. We have seen development applications but we have not seen any of those come to fruition. We have not seen any building work happen. We are quite pleased that the first one that was approved was in a five-storey zone.

The whole idea of the development assessment process is really about doing all the consultation work prior to applications coming forward. The consultation with the community, the council and stakeholders happens at the time of the DPA amendment, when matters of height limits and change of use are being decided. That was a concept that people were prepared to put some trust in and there was a lot of activity in Unley and there was very large community engagement in that process.

Although many people living in Unley were not entirely happy about the five-storey proposition, they were realistic. They thought, 'It's going to happen on Unley Road. We understand that, but we do know that this will help us keep our streetscape and our heritage in many of our other suburbs in Unley.' So it was agreed to, the DPA was signed off by the minister and then there was going to be a second round that was south of Cheltenham Street and south of Northgate Street. However, earlier this year the minister basically said that that was not going to go ahead because there had not been the population growth that was forecast by this government 10 years ago. In fact, the population growth was about half what the government had forecast.

As to that second phase of the DPA, not just in Unley but in the inner and middle ring, that was planned to go out for consultation sometime in the near future, the minister decided that that was not going to happen. What we saw in its place were a number of DPA amendments of specific properties in particular areas. Some of them make a lot of sense, such as the Le Cornu site on Anzac Highway, for example; obviously there is an opportunity there for a change of use. The curious one in Unley was 299 to 307 Unley Road in Malvern, which has only recently had a new buyer. About 18 months ago, it changed hands and, curiously, the agent who was acting for the sale seemed to know a lot about proposed planning changes that were going to happen on that site.

I was curious how widely that information was held, so I asked the city manager whether information had been publicly released that that property was going to have its zoning changed from two storeys to five storeys and whether that had been publicly discussed or publicly released before the DPA was produced—in other words, 18 months ago to two years ago. The answer was no. That process had not even started, so heights were not part of the discussion at that stage.

I know that the council was very reluctant to allow five storeys in that second phase because that is a lot more residential. There are more offices there, as opposed to retail. The focus for the council was around the CBD in Unley, around the Unley council chamber and the Unley Shopping Centre, where there was a focus on even higher density, which has recently been approved in what they call the Unley commercial district. The council was very keen to have the focus of the development around the CBD, and they were not keen to see a five-storey development south of Cheltenham Street and south of Northgate Street.

Interestingly, in relation to the purchase from 301 to 305, one of the owners, Bookends, was told that there was an opportunity for him to sell the property because it was going to get a five-storey zone and that raised alarm bells from my point of view. I was very concerned about how a real estate agent would have that information when it was not publicly available. It was certainly not the intention of the Unley council, so much so that at the planning committee meeting last month the committee voted to remove that particular property from the development plan amendment, and that was endorsed by a unanimous vote of the full council a couple of weeks later.

It was very clear from the beginning that five storeys was not the intent of the Unley council on that site, but for some reason somebody had been given information—and we do not know where that has come from—that that property was going to get a five-storey rezoning on its own. There was no other rezoning south of Cheltenham Street or south of Northgate Street. There were no other changes to the zones other than that particular building owned by a new owner, a known developer, and purchased less than two years ago.

I tried to get a bit more information about that process, but debate was raised continually during that process about the relevance to the budget, and there was an attempt not to really address questions on that matter. However, the budget is very clear. It does describe the role of the office of planning, and that is implementing the policy, regulations and parliamentary acts under which the South Australian planning regime operates.

There is a point of difference there, or a difference of opinion I suppose you could say. I felt it was relevant to discuss it in that process. The Chair was generous in allowing me to ask some questions, but the minister, as generous as he was in attempting to answer them, when some of those questions became a bit more uncomfortable then decided that it was not really relevant to the budget and that they were doing me a favour answering the questions I had asked earlier. It was an interesting exercise.

This development actually comes before a consultation process where 435 or so submissions have come in from the public on this particular development plan. That will be heard on 8 August. I am not quite sure how many of those have requested to present orally, but I believe that there are a couple of hundred at least. That will certainly be a process worth watching. I think it shows what value my constituents in Unley put on their surroundings and on proper process. As I said earlier, I am very happy to work with the council with the first DPA.

There were very justifiable reasons for why some changes were made and some compromises were accepted, but my constituents find it very difficult to understand why this particular property has been singled out and why the DPA is now at five storeys. It was news to everybody that it was even a consideration—except for the person I believe was acting for the developer in trying to purchase the properties in that area—that five storeys was going to be the outcome of a change of zone. We will keep an eye on that and see where it ends up.

My time with the Minister for Local Government was interesting. If any of you have had a chance to review the budget paper for local government, it is literally one page with a budget of about $1 million. There are three lines in the expense and income column, there are some targets and highlights, about three or four under each of those headings, and that is about it. Dare to try to ask a question more generally where you cannot refer to a literal highlight or a literal table and the Minister for Local Government simply confers with his advisers on how to answer. The answer came back time and time again, 'That is not an estimates question,' or, 'That is not part of the estimates process.'

It is concerning that the minister was not as generous with his answering as were both the transport minister and the planning minister.

Mr Gardner: He was not as confident in his capacity.

Mr PISONI: As my colleague the member for Morialta suggests, I think it is evidence of the lack of confidence he has in his capacity. I think that most ministers tend to relish the opportunity to expand on their portfolios. I certainly know that, if I am fortunate enough to be in a position next year, I will be very proud to talk about the portfolio I am managing because I will certainly be very engaged in that process.

I was interested to read about the Premier's State/Local Government Forum, which I believe was set up as part of the 'Brockument' with the member for Frome. This is one of the rare occasions where the Minister for Local Government chaired the meeting. There are a number of highlights in the communiqué, which I suspect are edited or based on the minutes from the meeting itself. This was a direct line in the budget, but they wanted to continue working with the group and the minister on the Premier's State/Local Government Forum.

I think it was legitimate for me to ask questions about the latest minutes that were available online and refer to rate capping. I asked the minister if he was able to advise the chamber about the views raised by Mr Lamb and Mr Scales, who represent the Australian Workers Union and the Australian Services Union. They believe that rate capping will impact negatively on councils, in particular the local government workforce. I asked the minister whether they expanded on that view, and he refused to answer the question. He was at that meeting, and that was back in March.

Rate capping is a very important political debate occurring in the community. I was very surprised by the local government minister, who has gone only so far to say that his agreement for the government to oppose rate capping is relevant at the moment and that he does not know what will happen after that, in other statements. It was disappointing that he was not able to elaborate. There were a number of other areas of interest in that communiqué.

I have now applied to be on the mailing list, so I look forward to keeping up to date with the limited amount of information that comes through on the communiqué, but it certainly makes for interesting reading, despite the fact that it is a very abrupt version of what actually happens in those meetings. It covers the topics discussed, but it does not have an action sheet, nor does it report on previous issues that were raised, so I am not quite sure how effective that committee has been. That is my experience of the estimates committee this year. I also spent two hours with the transport and urban development minister, but that is for another day.

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (16:27): I thank the various ministers with whom I spent some time over the last week in estimates procedures for their courtesies. As the shadow minister for multicultural affairs, the arts and education, I had a range of interactions. I will briefly take this opportunity to reflect on what the people present and the South Australian community learnt in those portfolio areas during the estimates process.

I thank in particular the three ministers I asked questions of—the Minister for Multicultural Affairs, the Minister for The Arts and the Minister for Higher Education and Skills—because they gave time to the opposition to ask questions without having lengthy, prepared statements in response to so-called questions without notice from government members.

The time allocated in the program for multicultural affairs and the arts was fully given to the opposition. The time in education was negotiated, and the time allocated was reduced slightly through those negotiations in order to have no government questions. However, I acknowledge that the Minister for Education provided more than half the time that would have been allocated in the original program in return for having no government questions and that she did not seem to obfuscate or delay her responses.

Those thanks given, I do have some concerns about the way that the government manages the South Australian budget. The poor choices that they have made have dreadful consequences in some areas, and today's shockingly bad NAPLAN results are a prime example of that; however, I will come back to education last. It is the topic on which I talk about most often in this chamber and there was plenty of time devoted to it last Friday in the chamber.

I will start with what we learnt in some of the other areas. The multicultural affairs line is one of the shorter ones that I had the opportunity to interrogate. We learnt a couple of things. The budget for SAMEAC last year was $409,000. The estimated result is $410,000, and $409,000 is again provided for SAMEAC in the year to come. In addition to that, of course, multicultural affairs forms part of the Minister for Social Inclusion's various programs, and much of the support work done in multicultural affairs is done by the back office in that department, which has been combined with other units in recent years.

In particular, in relation to SAMEAC, various things make up that payment, but one of the jobs that SAMEAC used to have and has traditionally had was an allocation of grants that were considered by the commission. However, it was made clear in estimates last week that that process is well and truly concluded. The input that SAMEAC and the Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs Commission members now have in the allocation of grants is reduced to two commissioners participating in the consideration of grants by a broader committee that takes place within the Department of Communities and Social Inclusion. They contribute to the consideration of grants for non-multicultural grants.

Of course, the alternative side of that is that the decisions about multicultural grants are made by a group of people, only two of whom are SAMEAC commissioners. This causes some consternation in the community, as the board traditionally had a much more significant role than this. I note that one community organisation wrote to me just two days ago, since the multicultural estimates, having had their grant application denied. It is just one example of a range of community groups that find this development somewhat troubling.

I will go to the arts portfolio. Yesterday, the Minister for The Arts in this chamber presented for an hour. In relation to multicultural affairs, I thank the member for Hartley in particular for asking many questions on those issues. In the arts portfolio, I was joined from the opposition benches by the members for Davenport and Heysen.

The member for Heysen indicated that it was her last estimates hearing yesterday and it will not be the same without her. Of course, I had to remind her that next year, had she not chosen to retire, she would have had a different role because we would have been sitting on the other side of the chamber. Nevertheless, I think that there is part of the member for Heysen that may well be missing the prospect of future estimates, but maybe not a substantial one, though.

In relation to the arts, we learnt a number of interesting things. In relation to the South Australian Museum, the former director of the South Australian Museum, Suzanne Miller, was arrested the week before last on fraud charges in Queensland for having allegedly gained $45,000 in benefits for herself using the private health insurance of the Queensland Museum. The minister, through his deputy chief executive of the Department of State Development, Ms Reid, confirmed that the department is 'undertaking some due diligence to have a look at our records and our arrangements at that time'.

As has probably been made clear from the media, when Ms Miller arrived in Australia to take up the role at the South Australian Museum following an international recruitment process, she was not a citizen of this country. She went on to say:

The strict answer to your question is, yes, we are undertaking some proper due diligence ourselves about the matter, but no questions have been raised for us at this point…

and then went on to confirm that Queensland police may not have approached them to their knowledge. This is a concerning matter, and we hope that the due diligence work that has been done in Arts SA and in the Museum has not seen any adverse outcomes for South Australia. Of course, there is also the possibility that the case may not proceed. In Queensland, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, obviously. Nevertheless, it is a troubling matter, and I note that the information provided by the Department of State Development indicates that due diligence is now being done, and consideration of what happened in South Australia is now being undertaken.

We learnt that despite the press release issued by the Minister for The Arts on 6 November 2014 in relation to Fowler's Live—which is of course an all-ages live music venue in the Lion Arts Centre—that at the time, with the State Theatre moving in to become the anchor tenant, the Minister for The Arts said:

We will work with the current tenant on how we keep live music performances continuing in the event of any changes.

However, we then learnt from Mr Louca, the head of Arts SA, that the lease for Fowler's Live will not be extended after 30 June 2018 and it is therefore unlikely that this institution will continue at that venue into the future. It is a venue that the government has previously seen fit to use for their own events, but obviously they have lost interest in that going forward.

We learnt some other things. We learnt that in the government's current review, which some members of the arts community would have noticed, some 80 groups in the arts and cultural organisations of South Australia have been approached to participate in a survey of South Australian cultural infrastructure, and that is a significant piece of work that is being undertaken by the department and by SGS Economics and Planning, which was engaged by the government to assist with the project. SGS Economics and Planning is of course a Sydney-based firm. The value of this contract, which is money going to an interstate firm, was not, however, available to the minister yesterday. He took it on notice, and we look forward to finding out that quantum of money.

Anyone who works in the building and who has been out on the balcony of the Balcony Room lately would note that despite the first of the Hajek sculptures plinths being removed just over a year ago, a year later the rest are still there. It was confirmed that a year ago the first plinths were removed so that they could be preserved for future acknowledgement of that sculpture and to be reimagined 'in the new plaza works' to quote from Mr Louca. However, the rest are of course going to be demolished when work on that car park commences on the Walker development, presumably in the months to come. No doubt, that will be a sight to see.

We also learnt that of the $300,000 that was committed towards the Riverbank Palais, currently in a denuded form showing itself as a blank concrete block on the River Torrens from the vista of Adelaide Oval right now, that Riverbank Palais was installed without any undertakings being sought from the state government in relation to how the Palais would be managed between festivals. The state government committed $300,000 towards its construction, no questions asked. Now the new director of the Adelaide Festival and the Adelaide city council find themselves in the challenging position of how to manage that process in the intervening years. A number of other things came up in both those portfolio areas, but I think those were some of the highlights and some of the things that were interesting and new.

We had some time with the Minister for Education, Skills, and training and various other things, on Friday. Of course, one of the questions on training was in regard to subsidised training places, and the support that the state government provides to the training sector is going to become contestable again. After the Skills for All debacle, the state government decided that all the money was going to go to TAFE so that it could compete in the years ahead, and our private RTOs and others were left in a more difficult situation. So 2019 is supposed to be the year in which the state government has decided that these funds will be more contestable. The minister reported, and I quote:

TAFE has undertaken an extraordinary effort in modernising its service operations. It has made significant savings in the process and is operating extremely professionally, so I have no reason not to believe that they are well on their way to the contestability anticipated by the end of 2018-19.

That is good news, I suppose. A lot of damage has been done in the meantime, but in 2019 we will be in a better situation. We also learnt that the board remuneration for TAFE in 2016-17 had grown to $518,000 and the remuneration for the chair had grown from $85,000 last year—which was $37,000 plus a retainer of $48,000—to 'just under $100,000'. The board members have a base remuneration of $24,000 and $23,000 in payment and more for participating on board committees—$5,000 a year for those board members. That was information in relation to the TAFE Board.

In relation to the education portfolio, there were a number of concerning aspects that came out and there were some interesting things that came out. The government announced in the budget that there were going to be two new superschools in the north and the south. We asked for some details on this and on some of the work that had gone into it.

In relation to the southern superschool, which is identified in the budget papers as being at Sellicks/Aldinga, I asked, 'Which is it to be?' and the minister confirmed that the location for that school is yet to be determined. She did say that they will be completed by 2022. So, presumably, at some stage before then the government anticipates choosing a location. She suggested that they were not quite sure which schools would be impacted in the surrounding area. I am sure those schools within the catchment will be interested to know some of those details and hope that the minister will engage with them in detail and the department will consult with them in detail in the years between now and then to ensure that that transition is managed properly.

Of course, the opposition will be very keen to see any new infrastructure completed in a way that works in well with the neighbouring schools, so obviously we will be committing to consult very closely with any neighbouring schools that will be impacted before the new schools come on line. I hope the government will do the same.

In relation to the proposed Magill education precinct announced about four years ago by the member for Wright when she was education minister, the current Minister for Education, the member for Port Adelaide, confirmed, 'I understand with Magill that a feasibility study is either close to completion or may, indeed, have been completed. I am yet to see it.' This, of course, comes after the scoping study that was undertaken in 2014 and a large range of works undertaken with the governing council members of the Magill Primary School, Norwood Morialta High School, Magill Kindergarten and the University of South Australia.

There has been back and forth over this and an enormous amount of work undertaken, not just by paid staff, which is what they are paid to do of course, but by volunteers and volunteer parents, parents of children, particularly at Norwood Morialta High School, who are putting in work because they care about their school community and they value the future of their school, even though by the time these works are completed they know full well that their own children may well have left the school.

This is altruistic work from volunteers that deserves more credit than to be spun a line for four years and then still have no further information in the budget process, as was the case. The minister was able to provide no information as to even when the feasibility study would be completed. She said, 'I cannot comment about the timing. We will see.' That was very disappointing and we hope that information about this project and potential future plans will be forthcoming sooner rather than later.

Some questions were asked about the issues at the Errington Special Education Centre. On 11 April, the minister took questions on notice and said she would get back to the house about the findings made by Magistrate O'Connor in relation to criminal charges brought against a teacher. She was very critical of the department and some people in the department.

The minister had no answers in relation to those questions, which she again took on notice. I look forward to some responses coming in due course. I do note, however, that in the days since former members of the governing council of the Errington Special Education Centre have expressed their concerns in a public way about the way the department has handled the situation, the lack of support given to teachers, SSOs, parents and students at that school.

It was described as extremely unprofessional conduct, so we are very concerned about what has happened here and we are very eager to hear from the minister about what actions are being taken in response to the review of those matters. That review is being undertaken by not only the chief executive of the education department but also SAPOL, and that was the reason that the minister made the excuse to take questions on notice.

We asked many questions about the detail of staff in different areas and all of them were taken on notice. We learnt that there is a new building being refurbished at Hindmarsh, which will finally take the 300 staff that were promised to be moved out of the education department I think when Tony Harrison, two CEOs ago, was appointed as the head of the education department. He said that 300 staff would be moved into schools, then it became closer to schools and then we learnt it was going to be Hindmarsh.

At estimates last week, we learnt that they had not actually finished building the accommodation at Hindmarsh that all these people would move into, so they are all still in Flinders Street, which is not what was suggested by the former minister about three years ago, or certainly by the former education department CEO about two or three years ago.

We learnt a number of other things, but I will finish by touching on the state contributions as a result of the National Education Reform Agreement, where there have been promises of increased money by the state government in what was sometimes described as years 5 and 6 of Gonski, which this parliament has put in its budget papers for the last two years and which will be delivered under the current budget or, indeed, under a Liberal administration would also be delivered in full.

With that state component, we learnt that a section is going to non-government schools, but the minister said on Friday that she could not tell us where the rest was going. She could not tell us because it had not been decided yet because the government was considering how that money was going to go. We asked who it would be spent on and she said, 'We will determine within our system the best priorities for that money.'

Today, we have learnt where a little bit of it is going to be spent. Some $70 million over four years will be spent on literacy and numeracy programs. Can I say that, after 15 years of utter failure by the government through the NAPLAN tests, it is nice to see that they have noticed that literacy and numeracy are a problem, but pretending that that was new money that they announced today when it has been in the budget papers for the last two budgets is just outrageous, and it is a pathetic and cynical attempt at crisis management.

Time expired.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (16:48): It is actually rather a joyous occasion for me today to stand up and speak about estimates because it will be the last estimates I attend as a member. I can assure you all that I will not be rushing back when I retire from this place to sit in on estimates committees in the future. I will not be attending any further estimates by choice, but I would suggest there are some in this place who will not be attending estimates in the future, although they do not know yet that they will not, but that is another story.

I would like to pick up on some of the points the member for Morialta raised in relation to the superschool that is proposed down south. Nobody I know would object to this new facility; however, what they will object to in most strident terms is that it is not much more than pork-barrelling and spin. I sincerely doubt whether we will see it for years and years. The answers that were given to the member for Morialta by the minister were completely useless. She had no detail that she could come back to the member for Morialta with.

There is no site, regardless of whether or not that be in Sellicks/Aldinga as was announced in the budget. I might add that Sellicks is a village without a town centre. It only has a small shop and post office down on the foreshore, whereas Aldinga is quite a busy little area. Interestingly, the fact that the minister could not answer questions about when it was going to happen, how much it was going to cost, where it was going to be sited, etc., is somewhat in keeping with the porky pies that came out with the budget announcement.

It is quite clear that this was really designed to assist the current member for Mawson and the current member for Kaurna more than anything else, but when it came down to the guts of the business the minister could not answer any questions. What makes it interesting for me is that Sellicks Beach is currently part of my electorate. The Myponga Primary School has around 140 students, half of whom come from the Sellicks area. It is pretty significant that 60 or 70 students come up Sellicks Hill each day to go to Myponga.

I am told anecdotally that there are parents who do not want their children to go to the other schools down that way on the Plains. I do not have any evidence that that is right, but I am told that it is the choice of parents to go up that hill. Likewise, there are children moved back and forward between schools across the Southern Fleurieu to fit in with what parents want for their children in relation to education. That is pretty common right across my electorate. The issue of why the government made this announcement of a superschool in the Aldinga/Sellicks area is quite bewildering when they cannot put any guts into the debate whatsoever.

I also raised the issue of the Main South Road. Again, there was an announcement, some months ago now, that the Main South Road would be upgraded. Nobody, least of all me, has any objection whatsoever to that; however, nothing will happen in the foreseeable future. The budget process does not allow for anything to happen between now and probably the end of June next year, with the state election in the middle.

An upgrade to that road is much needed. This side of the house is very cognisant of the fact that something needs to be done with that road. However, there is quite an agitated group down there at the moment that does not want the proposed works that have already gone through the Public Works Committee to happen. They want those held off, and then they want the road upgraded properly.

Some $11 million was going to go into roundabouts and whatnot down that way. There was some expectation that, after that work was done, the speed limit would be raised to 100 km/h again. I have talked about that before in this place. People in the country need to get from one spot to another, and the constant reductions in speed limits being put in place only serve to aggravate people in much the same way as the bus lanes up Anzac Highway did.

I was very pleased when those bus lanes were removed the other day. It was with some glee that I came up Anzac Highway today with three lanes in use. I suspect it cut 10 to 15 minutes off the time it took me to get into Adelaide. Quite frankly, it was a damn fool move in the first place. Why governments do these things I do not know. It was a bad mistake, and it must have certainly been impacting on the polls. People who use that road more regularly than I do felt that these bus lanes were a joke. It was made even more ridiculous by the fact that normally the bus lanes were pretty much full of cars anyway. Apart from one day when they stopped and warned people, when driving on Anzac Highway when the parliament was sitting, I did not see the police pull over and penalise anyone. I welcome the announcement and I welcome the fact that this morning all is back where should be.

If I go back and look at the speeches I have made over the past 10 or 11 years, I have probably repeated myself ad infinitum. I think estimates are just a joke. My view is that the estimates that are held in the Senate in the federal parliament are a much more useful exercise. They get the public servants in to answer questions. They are required to answer questions. My view is that the Senate is a good place for that to happen. We would probably get much more out of members of the Legislative Council in this place if they did estimates instead of doing nothing for five days. My view of the world is that they should be involved. They should be doing it. House of Assembly members who have electorates to service should obviously be able to be out doing that rather than being tied up in this place for five days.

I have not heard any comments from government members whether they support my remarks, but I feel that over the years the general consensus would be that the estimates are pretty much a waste of time. Enormous effort is put in by the Public Service departments to provide answers for hypothetical questions that may or may not be asked. A lot of work has to be done by this side of the house in formulating questions. The long-winded introductions that I heard when I attended a couple of meetings, particularly from the member for Mawson, who puffed and blew and really said nothing over 10 minutes, were a waste of time.

If ministers are not going to be serious about the estimates, if they are just going to try to puff out government spin, there is not much point in having them in any way, shape or form. I may be cynical—and I probably am—but I know that the shadow ministers from this side of the house and their staff worked very hard to formulate questions, as did the team on this side, and not to get answers I find supremely ridiculous. It is no surprise to me that the general public is highly cynical of the political class. If they came here and sat through five days of estimates, they would probably be even more cynical.

One of the items that comes through in the budget is an allocation to Kangaroo Island of $8 million over four years for road funding. I have some concerns about where this is going. I had a few words to say about it recently. An amount of $2 million a year has been spent over the last few years, which came in via former minister Conlon of blessed memory. For all intents and purposes, much of that money has been wasted. It has been put into unsealed roads and, in some instances, it has not been done properly.

We now find ourselves in the absurd situation where some of the first roads to be done, such as the North Coast Road, are almost back to where they were before. This is after $2 million a year. The wrong material was put down and the road surface was not worked on properly before the material was put down. That is, the potholes were still there and the material was dumped on top of them and, of course, the material has fallen into those potholes and some of the roads have turned to slush.

In my view, the government would have been far better off insisting that that $2 million a year was put into sealing parts of the road network, not into unsealed roads that were not done properly. I do say that two of the roads that were done by a local contractor, Mr David Halloran, namely Harriet Road particularly and, this year, the Bark Hut Road were examples of how to spend taxpayers' money properly, and he is to be commended for the work he has done on those roads.

However, I am concerned and I intend to get to the bottom of this. In relation to future roadworks over there and the necessity to upgrade roads just in case a port is developed for the timber industry—which I will say again should not be at Smith Bay—there is a very nasty smell coming out of all of that, which concerns me greatly. There seem to be forces at work that have close connections to the government that thinks that this thing is all cut and dried and is going to go forward.

The message I got this morning in relation to some of this next $8 million promise is that it is going to go into the roads that are to be used by Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers, if they get approval. They want those roads upgraded. This money is allocated pretty much by the council in terms of where it should go. I am asking the question: has there been a shady deal done? It would appear that the message that is coming out of at least the administration at Kangaroo Island Council is that part of that $8 million will be used to upgrade the road network so that KIPT can use it. Let me say this: that would be completely rejected by island residents.

Quite frankly, if the timber industry—and we want to see the trees gone, I might add—want roads done up, they should have to pay for a vast part of it. They are even talking about doing up a road called McBrides Road, which is not much more than a goat track now, and it would cost millions of dollars to do up that road alone. I am adamantly opposed to any of this $8 million going into roads to build up a road network for a private company. If they want roads and if they want particular roads, they should be making a major contribution, and the poor long-suffering ratepayers over on the island should not be hung out to dry to provide roads for that company.

I know that in the past when CSR and Frickers were operating the gypsum mines on the eastern end of the island, the dirt roads that were used then were upgraded almost on a weekly basis, graded and fill-carted as required. In those days, the Dudley district council had the roads, but they did not even ask the council to come and do it. They did it themselves. They got in there and upgraded the roads, put down fill and kept the roads in a good condition.

There is a precedent and I am sure that other members in this place are aware of similar projects with other mining or forestry projects in South Australia. I do not like it. I am going to look into it. I intend to have more to say about that because I do not trust what is going on with KIPT. I think they are hoodwinking too many people. They are conning people. They are putting out far too many spin announcements, and I do not think that they have any intention of actually operating the tree-felling operation and export.

My view is that they will flog it off to the first probably overseas company that comes along, once they have approvals. They should never get approval for Smith Bay. It is wrong, wrong, wrong and it should not happen. I intend to say more about that in the weeks ahead in this place, but I am not going to sit back and watch taxpayers' money be put into doing up those roads for a company that has no income, no industry and no business and are complete spin doctors, in my view. I do not think that they are serious. I take the opportunity again to thank the house for putting up with me and I resume my seat.

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (17:05): I rise to make my report on estimates from last week. I am no longer the shadow minister for social housing or youth; however, I did participate and ask questions on behalf of the shadow minister along with sitting in on the questioning about the status of women. They were all with minister Bettison. I must say that I almost developed an ulcer from frustration with how long every single question took to answer, how rambling and long all the answers were and how they went off on tangents. The minister was certainly very skilful at not actually answering any questions.

It was quite a frustrating experience, and I certainly do not feel that I am any more enlightened in any way on the topics of social housing, youth or the status of women. I think about two questions on each of those were actually answered in full. In contrast, it was fantastic to have an hour and a half with minister Close on child protection. There were no Dorothy Dixers, which was wonderful as well. We got through a lot of questions. Unfortunately, 14 of those were taken on notice, so we do not actually have the answers, but I did ask the questions. I really hope that I am able to get some of those answers in a timely manner, preferably in the next few weeks or the next month—that would be fantastic. I hope that I do not have to wait until after the election to get those answers.

We were able to get some answers. It has been over a year since the royal commission report was handed down, and there have been slight improvements in the time taken to answer the Child Abuse Report Line. However, we find that there were still 23,000-odd calls that were not answered. It is a small improvement, but it is no joy for those 23,000 people who attempted to make a call to the Child Abuse Report Line in good faith because they felt that children were being left in danger or neglected but gave up before their calls were answered. It is quite shocking to think of how many children are left unsafe.

There were also still a lot of children who were substantiated and then resubstantiated within 12 months, which means that whatever processes or safety plans were put in place for those children, or whatever remedies were sought, made no difference to those children's lives. In fact, they were left in danger for a further year and then reported again. As many of the non-government organisations and stakeholders have said repeatedly, the government needs to put a lot more effort and energy into early intervention and prevention.

In August last year, the government had already committed an extra $200 million into child protection. In the Mid-Year Budget Review, they announced a further $232 million, and in this budget a further $86.5 million was introduced, which was mostly for the extra cost of housing children in residential care due to their inability to actually fill the full-time equivalent staff. They are having to outsource. It was mentioned in 2014, in my first estimates with minister Rankine, that 360 extra staff would be employed in the residential care facilities to save money by not outsourcing to commercial care.

Three years later, that is still not fixed. This government makes announcement after announcement of big spending. Money is announced and there is a big show and a press conference, yet nothing happens. It is incredibly frustrating that three years later the government is having to put a further $86.5 million in this budget because they have failed to employ enough people in residential care. We saw that last year $99.7 million extra was required for residential care as well because they were unable to fulfil those FTEs.

The government has reduced the number of children in commercial care, which is eight-hour shift workers in accommodation such as hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts and that sort of thing. They have reduced that from 212 to 162 and we are assured that, whilst they are in commercial care, they are no longer in hotels or motels, but the number in residential care has risen by more than the commercial care numbers have dropped. Basically, they have just moved them to another eight-hour rotational shift care that may be slightly better, but we still know that eight-hour shift workers with different staff is the worst form of care a child can have, and we know that they are 12 times more likely to end up in the juvenile justice system.

Many of them become institutionalised. Many of the teenagers I have heard speak who have come through the government system, particularly through residential care, have mentioned in their speeches that their breakfast was made for them every morning and everything was done. When they are put into their own private accommodation at age 17, they have never made breakfast or lunch, they have never travelled on a bus or got themselves to an appointment, and they have never had to ring and make an appointment. These children are totally institutionalised. They are not taught life skills, they have very bad results in schooling and in NAPLAN and they are failing to finish year 12.

They are at a serious disadvantage, and it is costing around $200,000 a year to give these children this horrible life. This government is failing to make the necessary changes to turn that around. For $200,000 a year per child, you would think that you would have the best tutors, the best chefs and the best mentors for these children and that a lot could be done. I understand that some children are better suited to residential care, particularly those with high and complex and multiple needs.

However, at the only residential care facility that I have been allowed to visit with the minister, Tregenza House, the five or six children I personally met did not have a severe or a particular need to be in that residential care facility. They were all under the age of 10, and we know that children under the age of 10 should definitely never be put in these types of facilities. Years ago, the Guardian for Children and Young People recommended that the large facilities all be closed and as many children as possible be moved out of residential care and into family homes.

We know that the government has made multiple announcements on foster care. There was $4.4 million one year and $9 million the year after, I think in February 2016, and we still do not have any answers on how many new foster families came in. How many foster families left? How many are there in total? These are the answers that I am not able to get; the questions were all taken on notice. We need to be more transparent because apparently there are 4 per cent more children in foster care, but I would allege that this is probably just extra capacity with the families that already existed and that all the ads that we are all hearing repeatedly on the radio and on TV, costing millions and millions of dollars, are not getting results.

We know that word of mouth is always the best form of advertising and that looking after existing foster carers is the best way to strengthen and increase the numbers of foster carers in the system. I was also unable to get figures for Other Person Guardianship. Years ago, again in estimates in 2014, there were over 100 children under OPG orders and at that time, there were 85 ongoing applications. That has dropped off, and only about nine or 15 each year have been added.

Clearly, there is an issue, and there has been an issue for three years, so what is being done about it? Why are children not given the stability they need? It is in every report that children need stability, that they need security and that they need to know where they are living. Foster families want to be able to make decisions about going away on the weekend, going on school camp or cutting hair. They do not want to have to hassle the department and wait for them to get back to them. It is mutually beneficial, and I do not understand why it is so difficult for this government to enact it. What is the hold-up and why has it not been fixed?

There are still so many different areas with so many unanswered questions taken on notice. It is still unclear how many FTEs the government is under. The Public Sector Association alleges it is somewhere around 380 FTEs under, if you include the expected increase as well as those that have already been promised. It is very difficult, with so many questions being taken on notice. I hope that we can get answers back soon.

Whilst we have spent around $6 million on the royal commission, I am also still waiting to hear what the cost is on the one-year report, the cost of the government's response, the cost of the legislative changes made and the cost of the new child protection safety act, the screening act. What is the cost of what is going on and what are the results? This government is very good at throwing around millions and millions of taxpayers' dollars to make it look like something is happening. However, it has been more than three years since the Shannon McCoole incident, which was the trigger for this royal commission, and a year since the reporting of the royal commission, yet there are no substantial positive changes.

The number of children going into care is still rising. The number of children on eight-hour rotational shift workers is still rising. We still have over 23,000 unanswered calls to the Child Abuse Report Line. We still have a backlog of eCARL reports. We still do not have children assessed for the NDIS, which was a recommendation due to be fulfilled by 31 March this year. There are still so many failings that the government needs to get on top of.

Whilst it was an improvement, insofar as I asked lot of questions, I am still waiting on at least 14 questions on notice from child protection. Not enough has changed so far, but I hope that we and the minister continue to make changes and amendments, definitely at the early intervention and prevention level, because the numbers are burgeoning, the system is not coping with the number of children it now has and more needs to be done.

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton) (17:17): I had not intended to speak, but I feel compelled to do so, and I will elaborate on that a little bit later. Like others who have already spoken in the chamber, this will be my last estimates, and of course I am very pleased about that. There are going to be things that I am going to miss about being a member of parliament, but one of them will not be estimates. I am often asked by people, 'How's estimates? What's it like? It must be exciting.' I explain it to people by saying, 'Have you ever been to the dentist and had a tooth drawn?' They say, 'Yes, I have.' I say, 'Well, imagine going to the dentist and getting every tooth in your mouth drawn. That's about how exciting estimates is.'

Mr Picton: Over five or six days.

The Hon. P. CAICA: Yes, that's right—over five or six days. As I said, I was not going to speak, but I feel compelled to do so. I have been sitting down in my office having a listen to what is going on, and it is safe to say that I have never heard so much diatribe in my life. That is probably not true because I am used to hearing diatribe, particularly in this place, coming from the other side. To have members talking about those ministers who are not answering questions, those who are circumventing the process, those who are just not willing to answer the way it is—well, I did not witness that in the estimates that I sat in.

Mr Wingard: You were asleep.

The Hon. P. CAICA: I was not. Well, if I was asleep, it could only have been because your questions put me to sleep. The opposition's questioning is a bit like an anaesthetic: it does put you to sleep.

Getting back to the point, before I was so rudely interrupted by the member for Mitchell, I sat in the estimates. I am reliably informed—and this may be wrong; I hope not to have to come back and correct the record—that in estimates B, the one I attended, about seven government questions were asked during the entire estimates. I can say, in having a look at those government questions, that they were more probing, more interesting and I got more out of them than I did out of any one the questions that were asked by the opposition. I assume that might be the case for estimates A as well; I do not know, but I expect it would be.

I will tell you when you know you are bored: when you are sitting in estimates and you are grabbing the Hansard to read the estimates from the other committee. I did that. Interestingly, in doing that, I had a look at the questions that were answered by the Minister for Transport, minister Mullighan. I look at him—and I have told him this before—and he, amongst a few others on this side of the house, is what I call the future. He is a very good operator, he knows his stuff and he is right across his portfolio responsibility. He answered every question in not only a forthright way but with a high level of expertise.

But, when reading Hansard and looking at the questions that were asked by the member for Unley, he ran to a script, it appeared to me, and that script was, 'I'm going to ask these questions because I've worked them through and I will continue to ask them,' bearing in mind that for about 50 minutes—I assume it was 50 minutes because it almost took me that long to read it—those questions that were directed at minister Mullighan were not connected to his portfolio responsibility.

Far be it from me to suggest that the opposition are saying that ministers are circumventing the process and not willing to answer. In reality, you have to ask the right questions. You have to ask questions that are in accordance with the rules that apply to estimates hearings. From what I witnessed, I do not think that the opposition were complying with those rules. They used it as a mechanism to try to get some political mileage. I will tell you how well it went. Looking at both the media reporting and what I have read, I do not think one glove was laid on any one of our ministers during that time.

I saw a bit in the Sunday Mail when I got up very early on Sunday morning and had a look at it. Dan Wills and Laurie Oakes usually have this little bit about state politics and federal politics and who has had a good week and who has had a bad week. Contained within who had a bad week was the Minister for Disabilities. I sat through her estimates hearing. If I had had breakfast, I would have vomited because that was just a misrepresentation of what the circumstances were. She certainly did not have a bad week. That was very poor form. It must have been written before she actually appeared before estimates.

Anyway, getting back to the point I made and I am going to reinforce now, every minister answered every question. Where the information was not available to answer that question appropriately, those ministers took that question on notice and, as is always the case, will get back to the committee and the parliament with respect to answering those particular questions.

I do not think the opposition should mix, if you like, the performance of ministers during estimates with their incompetence. I heard the member for Finniss saying, 'We have some extremely hardworking shadow spokespeople.' That may be true but, if you are not competent, the fact that you are working hard actually shows you up as being more incompetent than you are. Continue to work very hard, but I would suggest that you need to get better at what you do because you were exposed during this estimates period as being, as I have said in the past, an opposition that has become not even a very good opposition over 16 years.

This was my last estimates and, as I said, I am pleased about that. I liked estimates a lot more when I was a minister because you are actually in the action, or when I got the opportunity in the first four years to replace the Chair of the day, but it can be very frustrating as a backbencher. It is particularly frustrating when I sit there and think, 'Good God, I wish I was asking the minister questions because I think I can ask better ones than the opposition.' It might actually create more trouble for our ministers than their questioning actually does. Notwithstanding that, there is no reason for me ever to come back to witness an estimates anymore or ever again in the future.

I do want to say that the opposition ought to have a good look at themselves in the mirror because if that is the best they can do, God help us. The next election is going to be tight; there is no doubt about it. Deputy Speaker, you would be aware of that. The next election is going to be tight. I feel that we are in at least an equal or even slightly better position than we were at this time leading into the electoral cycle in 2013.

The difference between us and the opposition is that we enter every election on the basis that we think we may win and that we have a chance of winning. The opposition go into the election thinking they have a God-given right to form government because that is what they were born to do. The reality is that that then reflects on the level of work they put into winning an election.

It is going to be a lot tougher this time for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is the very unfortunate boundary redistribution that occurred. Notwithstanding that, unlike the opposition, who whinged for the four years leading into the 2014 election and then whinged for another—however long it is—three years since then that they were robbed, the reality is that we know it is going to be difficult, but we are going to work accordingly. We do not take anything for granted.

The point I am trying to make in a very longwinded way—and I know that you are used to me being longwinded in this way, Deputy Speaker—is that it relates back to their performance during estimates. Their performance during estimates was lazy. It was lazy to the extent that it reflected as incompetence and did not do anything that was going to properly extract from the ministers of the day the information that they purported they wanted, because the questions they asked were answered in a very good way.

I am going to leave it at that. Again, I am not going to apologise for taking up the time of the house. As I said, I had not intended to speak on this because the sooner we get anything that refers to estimates over the better, and this is part of that particular process and part of the rules. I could not sit in my office and listen to the diatribe and what I thought was nonsense and—it has become a common term these days—their ability to attempt to promote what is fake news about the reality of estimates because I found them, as boring as they were, to be very competently and expertly conducted by our ministers and, indeed, the chairpersons of both committees.

I did pop my head in here for a little while and I thank you for the way you did it. Generally, I think the estimates were conducted in a proper way and that is no small credit to the Chair of the committees. Also, I think generally they were conducted mostly in—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Civil.

The Hon. P. CAICA: —a civil and respectful way. At the same time, as I said, you cannot make up for incompetence that exists and, in my view, the opposition was incompetent during the estimates process and should be looking in the mirror and not blaming ministers for doing their job as effectively as they did.

Mr WINGARD (Mitchell) (17:28): I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill and to outline the experience in estimates. I must say that it is good to see that the member for Colton is awake today. We know he likes to nod off. As he works his way into pasture, it is great to have him in the house. He talks about the estimates situation and what goes on in estimates. Apparently, his friends ask him about it regularly. I would really like to know who his friends are if they are interested in estimates because it is a tedious task. I know what you mean: it is hard getting answers out of the government when we ask these questions.

I asked a number of questions, as we do each estimates, and they took them on notice. They do not know the answer and they take them on notice, so we have to wait. I note with interest that 22 October is the deadline for those questions to come back.

The member for Colton will take interest in the fact that, having asked questions just recently in estimates, today some answers to questions on notice were returned to me. It was only a few days ago that I asked these questions—I was flabbergasted. The member for Colton would appreciate this because he knows how efficient this sort of system is. You will not believe it, but the problem with the answers that I got back is that they were from last year's estimates; they were 12 months late. They were 12 months old. That is how efficient this government is.

The member for Colton is a big part of this government and he is a big part of the reason that South Australia is in the position it is in. We are languishing at the bottom of the table. Maybe when the member for Colton and his colleagues on the other side go out and actually engage with their community, whether it is in the pub, at the school, at the local shopping centre or wherever it is out in the constituency, rather than talk about estimates, maybe they could ask these people, 'How is South Australia going? How is our state going?' If the member for Colton, or anyone else on the other side, is brave enough to ask that question, I can tell you that the response would be, 'We are not going so well.'

People out there do not believe South Australia is going well. That is a fact. The government on the other side of the chamber are the reason for this. We have had some more figures come out today. The BankSA State Monitor figures have come out today, outlining how South Australia is going. It recorded the lowest ever level of consumer confidence about South Australia's future. Also, when people were asked about state pride, it recorded the lowest level ever for South Australia. The lowest ever level of mood in South Australia was recorded. That is how people are feeling about our state. It is the first time there has been a negative figure in this category. It also recorded the lowest ever level of lifestyle stability in South Australia. That is how consumers—people out there in the community—are feeling about our state. That is what the current Labor government have done to South Australia.

Business is important. We know that growing business grows jobs in this state. We know that we have the highest unemployment rate in the nation and have had for 31 months in a row. We have been sitting at the bottom of the table for a very, very long time. Quite frankly, South Australians have had enough. If you do go out into your community, like the member for Colton talked about, you will not hear people talking about estimates, you will hear people talk about how badly South Australia is going.

As far as business confidence is concerned, again the survey that came back today recorded the lowest level of business confidence since August 1998. That is a heck of a long time. It was the lowest level of confidence about the future recorded in the last five years. So this is the worst government in the last five years as far as business and confidence in businesses in this state is concerned. It is also the lowest level of state pride recorded and the largest decrease recorded in South Australia.

Last week, the Sensis report came out as well, which said that there was no faith whatsoever in this government. The state Labor government really have let South Australians down. Again, we talk about the budget and the bank tax—that is their response to everything. The Treasurer on the other side just wants to tax everything that moves. He wants to take money out of the pockets of South Australians and it is crippling our state. That is where we sit.

When we get to estimates, we like to ask questions to find out what is going on. They must turn off the smoke alarms during estimates because the smoke and the mirrors that we see come out is absolutely phenomenal. I started with my questions to the Minister for Employment, Kyam Maher, from the other place. He gave me an hour for employment questions so we could talk about jobs. Just about everywhere I turned to ask about the job situation, he would say, 'Oh no, the Treasurer deals with that. No, someone else deals with that.' He said that on every issue I asked him about. He is the employment minister, but he will not talk about jobs and our unemployment crisis that has been created, again, by the Treasurer, who sits on the other side. He has given us the highest unemployment rate in the nation.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

Mr WINGARD: He smiles about it. I think it is absolutely laughable that he has that sort of attitude and is doing that to South Australians in this state. As we went through employment looking at what was going on, we looked at industry and innovation to see where jobs will come from in the future and what sort of support the government is giving. Industry and innovation is very important in South Australia in growing our state.

If we look at grants and subsidies, or even just the total expenses for 2016-17, the government spent $52,900,000 on industry and innovation in 2016-17. That is quite a healthy figure, yet we roll over to the budget going forward and they have slashed—slashed—$33,700,000. That is what the Treasurer has done to industry and innovation in this state—slashed $52 million down to $33 million. Nearly $20 million has been taken out of that budget. He has just slashed it because that is how he considers industry and innovation. It was an amazing thing to see that sort of money cut out.

If we roll over to industry development, last year $19 million was spent in that program. That was slashed down to $8,700,000 for the 2017-18 budget. What they will say is, 'Oh, we're spending it somewhere else.' Well, we can see where they are taking it from. They are just shuffling the deck chairs, and that is the smoke and mirrors that I talk about. Money has been taken out of the Our Jobs Plan and the Manufacturing Works program, which is a 10-year program. We have reached the fifth year of it and had two reports. The government spent nearly $100,000 on one of the reports and we are still waiting for the figure on the second report. It is a 10-year program not five years in and they have cut funding to it.

That is where the funding was; they have taken it out, shuffled it over to somewhere else and said, 'Look at our new plan. We've got money here for that.' They are just shuffling the deck chairs, which the Treasurer is very adept at. When the member for Colton talks about not getting any answers and smoke and mirrors, there is a classic example. They are cutting money out of programs: $52,900,000, which is as good as $53 million, down to $33,700,000. Money is just slashed left, right and centre.

Automotive transformation was also fascinating, and we talked about this with the minister as well. We know that Holden of course closes at the end of the year and that there have been programs in place to help transition workers out of Holden. This program has been underspent; budgeted money has been underspent by $15 million, so the government cannot find the programs they need to put in place to help transition these people. The minister said, 'You know what? People haven't been ready to move. That's why we haven't spent that money, but now is the time to move forward with this.' There is $15 million in budgeted money that was not spent over the last three years.

When we look at last year's figure, $19 million was budgeted and $18 million was spent. That was what was forecast last year. With Holden closing in the next 12 months, that is when you would think there should be an injection of funds into that program. If you look at the automotive program, sub-program 1.2, how much are we going to spend now that Holden is closing? An amount of $10 million. We are going to slash it in half.

We have underspent by $15 million over the last three years, and now we are only going to spend $10 million when last year we spent $18 million. That is what this Treasurer is doing. He is slashing money out of that program and half the money has gone out of it. Again, $7.6 million has come out of the Our Jobs Plan and so on. It is just quite phenomenal that this government wants to have the smoke and mirrors, and they cut money out of programs like that.

Let's look at the value of grants committed under the Automotive Supplier Diversification Program. The target in 2016-17 was $6.6 million. The result was $3 million. That is how much was spent. They budgeted $6.6 million and they spent $3 million. What is the target on the value of grants committed under the Automotive Supplier Diversification Program for 2017-18? It was $6.6 million, but they managed to spend only $3 million. Bearing in mind what the minister said, that this is the time that it is really needed when Holden is about to close, what did they budget for? They budgeted $1 million—again, a massive cut. Last year's target was $6.6 million, but this year's target is $1 million. They amaze you everywhere you turn. It is quite phenomenal.

Again, more money has been cut out of innovation and commercialisation. The estimated spend for last year was $14,661,000 and the budgeted target for this year is $13,703,000. Mind you, they do say that the decrease in expenses of $1.1 million is primarily due to a once-off expenditure in 2016-17 for the establishment of marketing and promotion of the state's innovation strategy—$800,000. The state does not even have an innovation strategy. They have a statement but no strategy, and that has been pointed out in a number of reports. They have spent $800,000 on the state's innovation strategy, but it does not even exist. That is quite amazing.

No doubt the Treasurer will use smoke and mirrors to get his way around that; he always does. It is quite phenomenal how he keeps doing it, but South Australians are waking up. Again, as the member for Colton pointed out, if he goes to the pub and asks people, 'How are we going in the state?'—it is a very simple question: how is South Australia going? How are we going when you stack us up against everyone else?—I can tell you that the answer is, 'Poor'. I am not sure what the Treasurer does on weekends. He probably stays home, too afraid to show his face in public, because the answer is very clear and very pointed to him—that South Australia is going very, very poorly.

We also had plenty of questions about science, technology and the information economy and where South Australia is going. Again, there were not a lot of answers, but we will wait with bated breath for when they come back from questions taken on notice. It does take a while. As I said, last year it took more than 12 months for me to get some of those responses. Of course, with an election only a few months away, it will be interesting to see if we do get those answers before that next election.

We had a look at growing small business as well. This centres around the Small Business Commissioner and also the Industry Advocate. A number of questions were raised in this session as well, and a number of questions were also taken on notice in terms of how much money was spent through different grants programs. We hope we do get that information back but, again, only time will tell. One of the things we did notice with the Industry Advocate, though, is that there has been a slight change in role.

The Industry Advocate, of course, is put in place to help South Australian companies with the procurement of government money. In an ideal world the government would be working with these businesses and there would be a great relationship, and whether or not the Industry Advocate would have a lot to do would be questionable. Just facilitating things, helping things go through, making sure everyone is happy could pretty much be the extent of it in an ideal world, but that is not the relationship the government has with business and industry in South Australia, so they have had to put this person in place.

We questioned a bit further regarding the Industry Advocate and whether or not they spent any time overseas, and there were two overseas trips taken by the Industry Advocate. If you read the description on page 88 it quite clearly outlines the direction or objectives of the Industry Advocate. It states:

The Office of the Industry Advocate investigates, monitors and ensures compliance with the South Australian Industry Participation Policy (IPP), investigates complaints about industry participation in government contracts, oversees supplier commitments in industry participation plans and assists small to medium enterprises (SMEs) to participate in government procurement processes.

At no stage does it talk about international relations or anything like that, so why the Industry Advocate would travel overseas is a very perplexing question. We also noted that the FTEs of both the Industry Advocate and the Small Business Commissioner were rising. When I asked about the number of FTEs going up for the Industry Advocate, they said that they had two more people on board to help with procurement initiatives. Again, one of the questions raised was whether it was because the Industry Advocate has been spending time overseas that we needed more people in that role.

That is a concern because we do not want to add red tape to businesses and we do not want to create situations where businesses are getting bogged down and cannot get on with doing what they have to do—that is, growing their business, growing the economy, creating jobs for South Australians and giving people plenty of opportunities. That is what we want to see from business, and that is where we sit.

As I am running out of time, Deputy Speaker, we will roll over to sport, recreation and racing. I think the minister was not long back in the country when he gave a very long blurb at the start of this one. He read his heart out to chew up as much time as possible. It was interesting that any time you started to get some good traction with some of the questions you were asking the ministers, someone from the other side would ask what is called, in this place, a Dorothy Dixer. That is just a straightforward question with a very straightforward answer that you could probably have got off a website anywhere around, or perhaps a ministerial statement had been done on it in this place once before.

That is a tactic of the government; we understand that. That is the way it all goes and we have to deal with it. Of course the other tactic is at the start, where the minister can make a speech. They are entitled to do that—I am not questioning that—but some of them are excessively long. Also, when you ask a question there are no real bounds to the answer they can give, and a number of times, when the minister was under some sort of pressure, the answers were long and varied. I thought I was going to hear about grandparents and first loves and all that sort of stuff; they were going off on a number of different tangents. Again, that is what ministers do and that is what the member for Colton has come to expect from this place, and if that is what he is happy with then so be it.

We got to sport, recreation and racing and we had a look at that. We know, looking through old budget papers—2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14, those three years, I think, or it might have been three years after; I will have to double-check old budget papers because this is where this stuff gets shuffled away to—that for three years the government underspent its sport, recreation and racing budget by $15 million or thereabouts, maybe $13 million to $15 million, something in that vicinity. I will have to go back over the old budget papers and confirm that; in fact, I might have the exact figures here, if you will bear with me.

This is in the sporting section, and I find it quite fascinating, and it is just a trick out there that the member for Colton would no doubt be aware of. Across a four-year period (I do apologise; I said three)—2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15—the government underspent by nearly $15 million. That is quite a considerable underspend. They do that and then, lo and behold, we get towards election time and they start throwing plenty of money around and catching up.

In that time period, what has happened, and what has been brought to my attention, is that a lot of sporting clubs and facilities have been left to run down and now the government is playing catch-up. That is disappointing because communities miss out, grassroots sport misses out and so on. That was a line we were keen to pursue with the minister, but he did not want anything to do with it. It was before his time, and that was his cop-out from that line of questioning.

We did see on program 1, recreation, sport and racing, summary expenses, income and FTEs, that the number looks really good, with an increase in total expenses, from $63,000 to $77,000, so again it looks as though more money is going in. Last year, other expenses were $786,000, but this year they are $18,375,000. We asked the minister why this was. The reason is that there is a deal with Netball SA at what was ETSA Park (now Priceline Stadium) for Netball SA to buy that precinct for a dollar, which would mean, I think the budget papers say, about a $17.6 million write-down against the budget bottom line.

We asked whether or not Netball SA had taken up that option, and again they did not know. I am led to believe that they will not, so that is going to leave $18 million sitting in the budget. We are keen to see what the Treasurer does with that money and where it goes because it could go back towards helping a lot of these clubs that have been struggling with funds and with their facilities right across the state, but mostly in areas where grassroots sport is really important, as it is right across the state.

We cannot forget recreation because not everyone plays competitive sport. I am involved in a number of sporting clubs, but recreation is also important because keeping people active is very good for the health of our state. We did ask the minister a number of questions about the programs: the Sports Vouchers program and the Female Facilities Fund. Coincidentally, all these close in 2018-19, so they all have a cut-off time. The government is turning its back on these programs, and it is interesting that they run them through an election cycle, use them politically to every measure and then walk away from them.

Likewise, Thoroughbred Racing South Australia has had two lots of $3 million towards their autumn racing carnival, but that is it. After 2018-19, there is no more money going forward for them and it dries up. That is the tactic they use, and they are the sorts of things we do like to expose in estimates, as the Treasurer gets out his smoke and mirrors and tries to weave a whole heap of magic.

If the Treasurer does get out into the suburbs and if he does speak to people and asks the very simple question, 'How do you think South Australia is going?' I can tell you that the answer is, 'Very, very poor.' We need to roll up our sleeves. We have great people in South Australia and we can turn our state around; we on this side of the house know that. It is going to take a lot of hard work. There is a lot of mess that has been made by this government. They really have done very poorly by South Australia. We need to get ourselves off the bottom of the ladder, using a sporting analogy, because South Australia is languishing, but this side will do everything we can to get South Australia up and moving once again.

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (17:49): First off, can I say I am an estimates junkie. I did not beat my record from last year in the number of sessions I was involved in, but shadow ministerial duties have had to come first. I was lucky enough to sit in on the Premier's estimates on Wednesday when we went through the Premier and Cabinet and then went through sitting with the Treasurer in relation to the Treasury and Finance portfolios, especially in relation to the South Australian finance authority, the Motor Accident Commission and a number of other budget lines that were included as part of that.

Interestingly, on questioning the Treasurer—who some would say became increasingly agitated—he became increasingly belligerent, in the way that he does. In fact, you can tell when you are really getting to the Treasurer because he turns up the dial, turns to attack mode and talks not about the record of his government's 15 years in office but tries to somehow malign the opposition, which is a pretty sad and pathetic tactic, especially from someone who pretends that he has the prowess to be across his portfolio. For me, the thing that really stood out, though, was the questioning on the bank tax. In the opening statement, the Treasurer said that South Australian consumers and customers will be protected from this tax.

Admittedly, that is a fundamental misunderstanding of how the system works, but that is fine. We then asked, 'What sort of exposure does the South Australian government have to bank equities?' The answer was $1½ billion. The next question that logically flows from that is: has the government done any modelling to see whether or not there has been an increase to borrowing costs when SAFA funds need to go back to the market, which they need to do in August? I understand it is about $2 billion or $2½ billion or thereabouts that we need to refinance. The answer was, 'No, we haven't done any modelling on whether or not we are going to see an increase in borrowing costs, but we don't expect it to be anything because borrowing costs aren't going to increase.'

We then asked a question about bank equities and the fact that the government is exposed to $1½ billion worth of bank equities through its portfolio. Then we asked, 'If it's not customers and if it's not going to increase borrowings, then how much less dividend money and what is going to be the net change to the share portfolio of the government's exposure to bank equities?' The answer, again, was none. This is what gets confusing for me because the bank is not a physical thing. It is a corporation that exists on a piece of paper, but it is made up of employees and staff, customers and shareholders. If customers are not going to pay, borrowers are not going to pay and shareholders are not going to pay, who is going to pay?

The only answer we could get out of the Treasurer was, 'It's going to come out of retained earnings.' In fact, he said it today in parliament again: 'It's going to come out of retained profits.' I genuinely think the Treasurer thinks that there is this bucket of money that exists called 'retained earnings' that just sits there and that he can put his hand in to grab that money but that does not affect any of the other equations in relation to how a corporation operates.

In any company I have ever seen, when they look at what is left over at the end of a financial year, that bucket of money is split up. Some of that money is retained in the company to reinvest in the company; some of it can go to paying off debt and some of it then goes to shareholders by way of a dividend. If you have less money in your retained earnings, the only way you can do that, if you are looking to balance your distributions, is to reduce your dividends so that you can maintain your retained earnings. Presumably, you have worked out how much retained earnings you need in order to reinvest in the business and also whether that will keep the business to a level of liquidity and whether that would be looking at future capital spending.

But you cannot turn around and say retained earnings are a pot of gold. The Treasurer is basically like a leprechaun looking for the end of the rainbow, trying to find this pot of magic money that somehow does not hurt consumers, does not hurt borrowers and does not hurt shareholders: it only hurts the bank. It is such a fundamental misunderstanding of how a corporation works and how our economy works, it really does make me worry for broader South Australia.

We moved on then to the afternoon and estimates that I attended in relation to Consumer and Business Services, where we found out that Mr Robert Chappell, essentially, was paid from September of last year through to May of this year. The government could not tell us how much he was paid out.

In fact, the Attorney-General was extremely coy about what information he could tell us in relation to Mr Chappell and whether or not he had been referred to police. He certainly told us that he had sought legal advice in relation to Mr Chappell but was not able to provide any further details. I think there is still more to come on that case. We then talked about liquor licensing, the potential restructuring of the Independent Gambling Authority and a number of other issues in relation to declared public precincts, which was an interesting discussion and probably quite worthwhile.

On Thursday, I had the 'pleasure' of leading estimates questions on the youth department in South Australia. We were questioning the member for Ramsay, who was quite interesting. We were referring to a budget line, and under that referred to a youTHRIVE youth strategy, but there was spending contained in that strategy that the minister refused to talk about because, even though it was within her portfolio, it was not in the budget line that we were talking about, even though the spending came under a plan that was talked about in the budget line that we were referring to.

The smile that was on her face suggested to me that she was much more excited about hiding information from South Australia than actually providing information to South Australia. These questions, I might add, were fairly benign, but she seemed to take great joy in hiding how the government is spending taxpayers' dollars from South Australians. We had a separate short session, again with Zoe Bettison, on a number of other issues as well.

Turning to Friday, the Hon. Peter Malinauskas and I sat opposite each other for the vast majority of the day. We started off with Police. Minister Malinauskas was at pains to move questioning as far away as he could from the Coroner's damning report into the Marksman incident and the suicides that happened there. He was ably protected by the Chair in that regard. Suffice to say that this issue also has a long way to run.

We then moved on to questions about delays within the e-crimes branch. In fact, Commissioner Stevens admitted that, quite regularly, cases are delayed in the court, and the judges' comments on the cases have been delayed, as a direct result of the e-crimes branch of South Australia Police not being able to cope. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

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