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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-11-29 Daily Xml
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One Community

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:46): My question is to the Premier. Will the Labor Party pay back the $750,000 of taxpayer funds that the Auditor-General has said were used by One Community for political purposes?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Minister for the Arts) (14:46): Well, will the Liberal Party put back $210 million back into the schoolchildren of this state that they shamelessly breached their agreement with us? This is a fundamental—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader! If the leader utters another sound for the rest of question time, he will be removed, reluctant as I am to do that. Premier.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Back when the Hockey budget was handed down in 2014, South Australia was one of the few Labor governments anywhere in the nation, and we declared war against that budget, and those opposite—

Mr WILLIAMS: Point of order.

The SPEAKER: Point of order, member for McKillop.

Mr WILLIAMS: The point of order is relevance, sir.

The SPEAKER: No, this is intimately relevant because the question is: will the Labor Party pay back the money that was used for One Community? The Premier is now arguing why that expenditure was proper expenditure.

Mr WILLIAMS: Sir, you have just said the Premier is arguing why, therefore he must be debating.

The SPEAKER: Well, let's hear what the Premier says.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Being lectured by the man that wanted us to hold up the white flag on the River Murray—being lectured by the man who wanted us to haul up the white flag on the River Murray. Mr Speaker, in this very place I brought together the non-government sector, the whole of the education sector, the whole of the health sector, and we met up there in the Balcony Room. We met up there and we put on the table the question about whether we were going to stand and fight or whether we were going to capitulate, and we decided to stand up for South Australia. We decided to stand up and fight. We achieved a small victory: $125 million. It's not bad value for our investment in the fight—a small investment.

I can tell you one reason why that money was handed over. I can remember Senator Birmingham squirming when we demonstrated, as he went from school to school, the amount of money each of those schools had cut by the federal government, and he didn't like it. He didn't like it when we held him to account.

They signed up with this government and every government in the nation that signed up to the Gonski agreement. They solemnly entered an agreement—two governments, the commonwealth government and the stated government—and then they went to an election. You remember the signs, Mr Speaker. You remember the signs everywhere, saying 'Dollar for dollar', 'No cuts', 'We're on a unity ticket with the Labor Party on school funding'. And what did he do when he was safely out from underneath the election? He broke that promise. Well, we are holding him to account. We are holding the guilty party to account: the Liberal Party of South Australia.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: I call to order the member for Newland, and I warn the members for Fisher and Newland.

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