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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-07-27 Daily Xml
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Bills

Appropriation Bill 2016

Appropriation Grievances

Adjourned debate on motion to note grievances.

(Continued from 26 July 2016.)

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (12:01): Unfortunately, I was unable to contribute to the debate that was held yesterday because I was paired out last evening. Notwithstanding that, there are a few comments I would like to make about the budget and I will utilise the shorter time that I have available in this grievance debate to address a few matters of concern to me and my constituents.

I think the key to the budget and the key selling point of the Treasurer of the budget is that he has now got the budget into surplus. There is a claim—and that is all that is, a claim—that the budget has a surplus of $258 million. The reality is that that surplus has only been able to be claimed because the government has been out selling the silver once again. There is a special dividend that has come into the budget of some $403 million because the government has flogged off the Motor Accident Commission. If you do the sums on those two figures—it is not that difficult and I would have thought even the Treasurer could have worked it out—there is an underlying deficit in this budget of at least $150 million.

Instead of the headline being a $258 million surplus and the Treasurer crowing about this and saying, 'It is the first surplus that we have run for many, many years as a state and we will keep it in the black into the future,' the reality is that we have yet another deficit. The other reality is that the record of this government is that it never, never meets its budget forecasts. The reality is that it will overspend and it will probably under receive.

I suspect that, by the end of the financial year which we have just entered, the $150 million real deficit in this budget will have blown out to probably $200 million or $300 million. That is the reality of what we face in South Australia. That is a fundamental argument in the government's budget and they have got it so wrong, and the people of South Australia will yet again wear the incompetence of this government by having a declining economic future, particularly relative to the rest of the nation.

There are a couple of specific matters in the budget that I want to address. One is this job creation notion to give $10,000 to an employer who takes on a new employee and keeps them for two years or, in the case of a very small business or a start-up, $4,000. Richard Blandy wrote in the Adelaide Review recently on this matter and I thought he summed it up very well. What he said was that the government claims that this will create an extra 14,000 jobs. Richard Blandy's analysis suggests that that is about 1 per cent growth in jobs over the forecast period, which is about what the budget is forecasting.

The reality is that the government is saying that, without putting this money into creating new jobs, there will be no jobs growth in South Australia whatsoever. We all know that as more school leavers come onto the jobs market, if we do not have jobs growth, unemployment continues to rise. The government has, by its own admission in this budget, declared that it is its belief that unemployment will continue to rise in South Australia. Its solution to this is to tax the people of South Australia even more to give money to a few people who are going to take on employees—they claim 14,000 jobs.

I would suggest that this is an absolute waste of money. The reality, I would suggest, is that most of those employees would be taken on anyway without the incentive and that a majority of those employees who are taken on just because of the incentive would be in jobs that are not sustainable. By definition, if you have to get a subsidy from the taxpayer to employ somebody, the job is not sustainable. Why would we go down this path? Why would we tax sustainable businesses to underpin unsustainable jobs? That is what is happening. Richard Blandy goes on to say a little bit more. He says, and I quote from InDaily:

What the wage subsidy scheme shows is that the State Government recognises that wage rates matter in terms of job creation, and that wage rates are too high in South Australia to allow enough jobs to be created to stop unemployment rising.

I think that is very damning on this government, because it is a truthful statement. By implementing this jobs creation scheme, the government has admitted that it costs too much to employ people in South Australia and it is trying to encourage people to employ more people by giving them a taxpayer subsidy. I think that is unsustainable and I think it is ridiculous, but the reality is that the government has admitted that wage rates here in South Australia are too high to achieve a growing employment.

It was not that long ago I recall the Premier saying something along the lines of he was proud that South Australia was no longer a low-cost jurisdiction and that people were being paid more in South Australia. It has come back to bite him and his government. South Australia historically was a low-cost jurisdiction. We were a manufacturing-based economy and we had to be a low-cost jurisdiction because of our geographic location. We had to transport those goods that we manufactured to the marketplace, whether it be overseas or on the eastern seaboard.

We had to maintain a cost lower than the other states to be able to maintain that as a sustainable economy. That has by and large gone now, and we are wearing the consequences of that. That is why this South Australian economy is struggling. That is why, for well over 10 years, on every economic metric, South Australia has been going backwards relative to the rest of the nation.

The one that really stands out is the exports of goods and services out of this state. It is a little lower than 7 per cent of the nation's population, but our level of exports has dropped, relative to what it was 15 or 20 years ago, to about half when you compare it with the other states. The economy has been going steadily backwards for the whole term of this government. I would love to say a lot more about that, but there are a couple of other matters I want to touch on.

The solid waste levy, and the member for Goyder mentioned this in the last debate, is a serious impost on local government, but it is also a serious impost on every household and business in South Australia. What are we getting from it? I will tell you. The budget states:

The government is taking a leadership role in global climate change, including the commitment to achieve a Carbon Neutral Adelaide.

It says that this will be paid for by the solid waste levy. This government has proven to be spectacularly unsuccessful in everything it has done in this area to date, and I talk principally about its embracing of green energy: wind farms and rooftop solar. We have seen in the last few weeks the result of the nonsensical thinking of this government.

The reality is that the windmills that are churning in South Australia have done absolutely nothing to reduce our emissions. We know that the thermal power generators have to remain on stand-by for when the wind stops blowing. They are still burning coal and gas, so there are no savings in the emissions, and all we have managed to do in the meantime is waste—I am not sure of the exact amount, but it probably getting towards $5 billion—in infrastructure build, building new wind farms and rooftop solar panels to achieve no benefit for the environment.

In the meantime, it is basically destroying our economy by driving up the price of electricity. Yet, the Minister for Energy and Treasurer argues that they are still doing good work in this area. The proof is on the table, yet this government wants to continue down this nonsensical path of taxing South Australians to waste money on schemes which do not work.

A couple of things in my electorate were not mentioned in the budget, and I am very disappointed about this. One is the Penola bypass. The federal government offered $9 million to complete the bypass. This government has built half a bypass. How can you have a bypass that only goes halfway around a town? That is a really interesting question, but that is what this government has done. The federal government offered $9 million and the state knocked that back, and we still have half a bypass at Penola. There is nothing in the budget about the government coming to the party to finish that.

I am continually talking to the Keith and District Hospital board and I understand they are in what they hope are good-faith negotiations with the Minister for Health. I say to the Minister for Health: for goodness' sake, find the money and ensure that the Keith and District Hospital stays and continues to provide an essential service for that community and members of the public who travel through the South-East of the state.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member's time has expired.

Mr WILLIAMS: That is most disappointing, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I know. We can hang on for another instalment in grievances this afternoon.

Mr WINGARD (Mitchell) (12:11): I rise today to speak about a positive that came out of the state budget. It is something the member for Bright and I have been championing for a long time, and I would like to acknowledge the Minister for Recreation and Sport for jumping on board with this project. I am talking about the BMX track that is flagged for O'Halloran Hill. The state government is putting $2 million towards this project, while the Onkaparinga and Marion councils are putting forward $1.5 million.

This is a great initiative and one that the member for Bright and I have been championing pretty much from the time we got into parliament. Potentially, the member for Bright was very interested in this project before that as well. I met with the Minister for Recreation and Sport for a quick discussion and said we should get together and do something. To his credit, he eventually did, and he brought in the members for Reynell and Fisher to get them involved as well.

That was a real positive, and I think to see it in the budget was great for our community. I worked very closely with a few people to help progress this, and I would like to commend them in the house on this occasion. One is Trevor Wigg, Chairman of the Cove BMX Club. He worked tirelessly behind the scenes to get this proposal up and to make it happen. I also want to thank Craig Fox, President of the Happy Valley BMX Club and Brent Barrett, President of BMXSA. They were very quick to jump on board when the proposal was put to them.

I also know that Marion councillor Janet Byram did an outstanding job. I spoke to her about this project when she was running for local council, and told her how important this project would be for the community and the great uplift that it would have. She was outstanding. This is a really positive project, and it has great potential. The site at O'Halloran Hill is outstanding, and it jumped out at me and the member for Bright as we pursued this project, because it sits on the former office site for the Southern Expressway.

Some would argue it could have been benefited by an on-off ramp when the duplication was done, and the people of Sheidow Park and Trott Park would potentially agree with me. It could have really facilitated and made it far more accessible for people in the north and the south, but that will have to be worked around because that was not done. The site, as I said, was really good. The minister made the appropriate calls to free up the site so that this BMX track can be built there.

I want to have a look at the potential upsides. This is where I think we and the government need to move exceptionally quickly. There are not many sites in Australia that are set up for international BMX. I was never very good at BMX. Some of my kids' friends are exceptionally good at BMX, and it was explained to me that you need to have a ramp of a certain height to be of an international standard. A lot of the tracks around Adelaide do not have a start ramp of that height, so we are looking at an eight-metre start ramp, I think. Most of them are around five metres, so the great thing about the proposal here is that it has an eight-metre start ramp which makes it an international track that can host international events.

I mentioned the member for Fisher having been involved with this. I think the Happy Valley club sits in her electorate, and the Cove club sits on the fringe of my electorate, in the electorate of the member for Bright. I heard the member for Fisher speaking yesterday, and I just want to give her a little gee-up and pump-up because she mentioned having national events at this new track. I concur with her, and we do want to see national events, but I want this government and I want the people opposite to start thinking a little bit bigger. An opportunity is being missed here, and I want the government and the member for Fisher to join with us and push the minister to start looking at international events.

The thing about this track, as we said, was that the proposal all along was to make it an international venue so we can draw in international events. If you have a look at the calendar for BMX racing around the world, it is very exciting. We will see these competitors compete at the Olympics coming up in Rio. Sam Willoughby, funnily enough, is from Trott Park. He was a Brighton Secondary School student. He won silver at the last Olympics and is a big chance, we hope, to win gold in Rio. So, fundamentally, this track will be built in his backyard.

What I think we need to do, and what I will call on the government to do, is start thinking bigger than just national competitions and look to the international competitions. There is the UCI BMX Supercross World Cup, and there are chances for us to potentially have an event there in 2018, if we can fast-track and get this track built. The UCI World Championships have not actually been formally declared yet for 2018.

We know the minister is often in Europe at the Tour de France, and then we have UCI officials coming out here. He often spruiks in the chamber about UCI officials coming out here for the Tour Down Under. I am saying to the minister: get involved with these people, get engaged with these people and let's get the world championships here as soon as possible. To have them here in 2018 would be absolutely outstanding. That would bring those Olympic athletes here to Adelaide in the not too distant future.

We have the money there for the track, so let's get it built. We have the contacts there with people in the UCI. Let's get the world championships here to South Australia to this new track up at O'Halloran Hill. It would be fantastic. It will bring in tourist dollars, it will bring in employment, it will bring in jobs for local people and it will put us on the world stage to a new, potentially younger audience that follows BMX.

This is an exciting proposition, but we cannot sit on our hands. We cannot say, 'There is the money. The track will get built. It will roll out some day, and we will worry about that when it is finished.' We need to be more proactive, rather than just looking at national events. Again, I agree with the member for Fisher on that, but let's go bigger and hit international events as well.

We have a chance as well for the Oceania Championships—another UCI event—potentially in 2018, so I call on the minister to start attacking these bigger events and think bigger than just the local or national events. If we are going to build this facility and we have $3.5 million there, I want to make sure that that money is spent as wisely as possible so we can get our biggest bang for buck and make sure this venue is world class, world standard and really puts South Australia on the map. From what I am told, that is what we should get for the money we are going to spend, so I hope the minister can deliver on that because it is an exciting project.

I mentioned it is at O'Halloran Hill on Majors Road. This precinct is coming along fantastically in my electorate. I am very excited to see this venture go ahead. We have a driving range there as well. Riding for the Disabled have had some problems for a number of years. A wonderful big complex was built for them there, but they have not been able to get inside the complex because of a fire hazard they have not been able to remedy, and they have not yet put a floor in there.

The shed has been sitting there for a couple of years, but people may not be aware that that has not happened so, again, I call on the minister to help fast-track that because this great facility has been sitting there, and the Riding for the Disabled people are still doing it out in the weather, taking the kids on the horses. Working with the horses is great therapy and a proven winner for young and mature age people there who have a disability but, unfortunately, it has not rolled over to operating within the big, expansive shed facility they have there, which is a little bit disappointing.

Along Majors Road as well we have the archers club, which is a great little venue. It is tucked in there; it is almost a little secret. I did get a tour; I went for a walk. I did not actually shoot a round but I went with a couple of experienced archers from the club. They have held a number of events there, including the Police and Fire Games.

When the police and fire men and women from around the world came to where this is located on O'Halloran Hill, they saw the beautiful views over the city. Not a lot of people get to see this but it is outstanding, and the people from around the world were fascinated by how wonderful and how picturesque the views were. This archery club is not big and it is not very well known, but it has, arguably, one of the best locations in the world, where people can go and meet on weekends and, as I say, shoot their rounds of archery. It is a great club which has had a lot of success.

There is a pistol club just along the way and there is also a model aeroplane club just off Majors Road. So, there are some wonderful facilities along this strip. I mentioned the golf driving range as well, which is down at the other end of Majors Road, closer to South Road, on the corner there, and that is a great facility too, and it has a baseball batting cage as well. So, the potential for Majors Road is outstanding. As to the BMX, I commend the minister for jumping on board with our proposal and getting involved with this, and all the people who have pushed this along. It is outstanding.

I implore the minister to fast-track international events. We need to start thinking bigger. The problem, I think, with this government at the moment is they are thinking too small and not thinking about the potential for big events. We are building a track, let us make sure we build it ready for international events and let us earmark them and get them up and running. Let us get them locked in, let us get them ready to go, because jobs can be created and it will be a great venture for the people of Adelaide, South Australia and in particular the electorate of Mitchell.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Of course, Tea Tree Gully BMX has an Olympian in Anthony Dean, who is also watching the international BMX track with great interest, as are all of us in the Florey and north-eastern areas.

Mr Wingard: We could move him down south.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, we could try to get the funding transferred to the north-east. Let us talk about that. Member for Kavel.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (12:22): Thank you, Deputy Speaker. A very interesting addition to the member for Mitchell's contribution, no doubt.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I know you would be interested in BMX in the north-east, would you not, member for Kavel?

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Maybe.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Maybe? I did not mean personally. That is a thought picture.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: I am pleased to make a contribution to this part of the debate in relation to the Appropriation Bill. Perhaps recapping on what I covered yesterday, I was highlighting that the government has not really produced a surplus, as they claim. Without the sale assets of the Motor Accident Commission the budget would be in deficit, as has been highlighted by quite a number of members on this side of the house. So, as I described yesterday, it is really a book-entry surplus that the Treasurer has produced.

I also talked about the hypocrisy of Labor governments over a number of years in relation to how they have managed the power generating capacity of South Australia and how—back before they had formed government, back in the Liberal government days of the late 1990s, early 2000s—they vehemently opposed the construction of the Pelican Point power station. I highlighted the fact that they held rallies out the front of Parliament House, trying to convince the public that dolphins would die from the overheated water being put out into the Port River and so on. It never eventuated. What a complete bunch of nonsense.

Then we see the recent form of the Treasurer, the Minister for Energy, going to the company that owns Pelican Point to basically plead with them to crank up their capacity to meet a deficiency in the market and in the generating and power supply capacity of the state in relation to the recent storm events. I also talked about the turmoil that Transforming Health is in, in relation to the massive over capacity in the Lyell McEwin Hospital as a consequence of downgrading the services at Modbury.

In the time I have now I want to talk about some issues more specific to the electorate, particularly in relation to the provision of health services. I think it is pretty well recognised that Mount Barker township and the surrounding area—the area that was rezoned a number of years ago by, again, a Labor government without any valuable consultation with the local community—is the fastest growing inland community in Australia. Obviously, with that growth there are challenges and demands, and it is something I have raised with health ministers in the past, and I have also written a letter to the current health minister about the provision of services at the Mount Barker hospital.

A particular issue was raised in the recent federal election campaign by the newly elected member for Mayo in relation to the provision of an on-site doctor during the evening and early morning hours; so basically having a 24-hour around-the-clock doctor on site. The NXT candidate campaigned locally on that issue, and now that person is the newly elected member for Mayo, and they raised that as an issue in the campaign.

I want to remind the house that as the local member I have raised this issue a number of times and written letters to previous ministers for health. I have written another letter to the Minister for Health in relation to that and other issues concerning the Mount Barker hospital, particularly in relation to a current review that is being undertaken concerning services provided by the Mount Barker hospital, really wanting to know more specific detail about that review and what they expect the outcomes to be.

I make the point that claims are being made that it might only be a couple of hundred thousand dollars to have a doctor placed at the Mount Barker hospital around the clock, but what we really need to turn our mind to, as that district grows and as that town develops, is that the government and successive governments (and, hopefully, that will be a Liberal government after the next election) have to focus on how we want the Mount Barker hospital to be and what services it will provide into the future.

I want some thought process put in to looking at what it will cost and what the threshold population will be in that district for a fully operational accident and emergency department to be put into the hospital because that is basically where the community is going. My sense is that the community in that part of the Hills is looking for a fully operational accident and emergency unit in the hospital, so I think we have to turn our mind to the fact that that is what the community is looking for and then do some work on what the thresholds and triggers will be in terms of population levels and issues such as that for the establishment of a functioning A&E unit in the Mount Barker hospital.

That might be several years away, it might be 10 years away, we do not know, but we have to start thinking about it and looking at it and start planning for it. When that land is all developed, there will be a population of around 30,000-plus in that part of the Adelaide Hills, and it is too much to expect people who live there to travel to the city, as they do, for a certain level of A&E care. That is what happens now: if somebody presents at the hospital at, say, at 2 o’clock in the morning, a senior nurse, an RN, will triage the patient and triage the condition.

If they see fit, if they think it is applicable, there is always a local doctor rostered who can be called in to the hospital. There is a night-time roster, and a doctor can be called in to the hospital to treat the patient. If it is out of the area that the hospital can manage, they can either place them in an ambulance to take them to the city or they can travel to the city by their own means. As the district expands and development occurs, we need to turn our mind to the level of services, infrastructure and facilities that are to be provided to meet satisfactorily the requirements of the community pushing into the future.

We are seeing some necessary acknowledgement from the government in terms of a new interchange on the freeway being constructed at Mount Barker. It is very pleasing.

Ms Redmond: And you can thank the federal government.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: And I will get to that, as the member for Heysen stated, because it is fundamental to the construction of that interchange. If it were not for the hard work and commitment of the previous member for Mayo, Jamie Briggs, in making strong representation to the federal Liberal government for a commitment of $16 million to the total project value of $27 million, that project would not have proceeded.

The feds put in $16 million, the state put in $8 million and the council put in $3 million. It is a $27 million project, and the works are about to be completed and a fully operational interchange is about to come online. If it were not for Jamie Briggs, the previous member for Mayo, and obviously the strong work that I attribute to the state Liberal opposition and me, as the local member advocating for more than a decade and supporting what Jamie was doing, that freeway and interchange would not be being built now. The new member for Mayo can talk about what she wants to talk about, but if it were not for Briggs that interchange would not be built.

Time expired.

Mr PISONI (Unley) (12:32): I will use this grievance debate to touch on a few issues. First of all, there was disappointing news about Sophie, a constituent of my colleague the member for Bright, who, with other colleagues, was doing the Certificate III in Racing (Trackrider) at Morphettville. This is a course that is being run in conjunction with TAFE at the Morphettville campus with the cooperation of the South Australian Jockey Club and Thoroughbred Racing South Australia.

Sophie paid her fees and did her first semester. She expected to return on 19 July, at the start of the second semester, but she received a letter on 5 July saying that the course was no longer going to continue. She was unsure whether that meant continue after she was finished or discontinue immediately. She rang the campus to be told that it was effective immediately and that it was a decision made by the executive of TAFE SA.

There was some media interest in this on Saturday. TAFE SA took about five hours to respond in writing to the media. The minister said it had nothing to do with her, that it was a TAFE issue. However, the minister recently signed off on track racing being funded for up to 10 students in 2016. So, we saw that the funding was available for this course, but TAFE in all its wisdom decided that it was going to immediately stop the course.

We said that those students who had been disrupted should be able to continue the course and that if that was not the case they should be refunded because their course is worthless to them because nobody else is funded to do that course in South Australia. If there were someone else who was not getting WorkReady funding for that course, it would cost them a lot more to do it. Refunding the money they had paid so far would help them to achieve that or, alternatively, they may have to have done it interstate.

I was surprised when I spoke to Sophie on Tuesday, after TAFE had said in their media statement that those students who had started the course would be able to finish the course, when she initiated a call to TAFE before getting a return call at the end of the day telling her that she was to come in on Thursday, that is, tomorrow. The other students would also come in. My understanding is that they were individual meetings, they were not meeting the students together. Sophie was told that she would be asked to complete a formal completion form in order for the situation to progress.

It certainly does not sound to me as though TAFE has honoured the commitment they made to the media on Saturday, that those students who had started the course would be able to finish the course by the end of the year. What was also interesting was that they said that they were going to tell students that they could continue when they returned for the new semester. What they failed to tell the media was that the semester started last week, not this week. That is why no students turned up last week—because they received a letter telling them that the course was closed effective immediately. I will be interested in the outcome of the meeting that Sophie and her fellow students are having with TAFE SA tomorrow and to see where that ends up.

I would like to touch on a couple of issues in my electorate. Those who have been in this place for the period I have been here would know that at virtually every budget I raise the issue of traffic on Unley Road and how there was a plan to ease the peak hour traffic in particular. That was very well consulted on back in 2001, and also funded and ready to go to cabinet, but at the change of government it was all thrown out the window. The government said they had other priorities, and so that never happened.

In that time, we have seen a lot more traffic on Unley Road. RAA surveys have shown that that stretch of Unley Road is taking longer now to get from Mitcham down to Greenhill Road. The travel time is getting longer and longer every year. We are also having the debate about the tram down Unley Road. We really will not know what is happening with any proposal for the tram, other than the extension to East Terrace that was announced as part of the budget measures. There is an AdeLINK consultation process or study that the government has funded to the extent of $4 million, which I suspect will give us some idea as to where that proposed tram through the suburbs is to go.

The priority as to where it will start, the cost and the time, we do not have any of that yet. I think that until we actually have that on the table we will not know just how serious the government is about reinstating a tram network in metropolitan Adelaide. We did hear, before the election of course, a significant promise in the 30-year transport plan to do that. But then we learned a couple of years after the election that there had not even been a study done, and that is what the $4 million was for. We notice that $3.5 million is being spent in the 2016-17 year and that another $500,000 is being spent in the 2017-18 year, so obviously we are still a long way off from that study.

I have called for that to be released publicly when it is complete because it is a publicly funded, taxpayer-funded document. It should be out there for public consultation, it should be out there for public comment. We would be very pleased to see that. I also just want to touch on the Glenside redevelopment in my electorate. Again, we know that Fullarton Road, Glen Osmond Road and Greenhill Road are some of the busiest roads that we have in metropolitan Adelaide. The traffic is continuing to grow.

As part of the development, we will see an extra set of traffic lights to enter and exit the development which is now the entry into the South Australian Film Corporation's studios which have been relocated to the former mental health facility's heritage building. I think at last count that meant we had about five sets of traffic lights within about a one-kilometre length of road on Fullarton Road. The density of that facility is causing some concern with local residents, as well as the fact that despite the claims by the minister that there is plenty of open space, the open space is no longer public open space.

We know that public open space is much more accessible than open space that is part of a development. I am not sure that anybody would feel comfortable using public space within a private housing development. In effect, it is a loss of public space in the inner suburbs. In my electorate of Unley at 12.2 kilometres, it is geographically the smallest of all the electorates in South Australia. There are two reasons for that: one is the density of the housing in Unley, but the major reason is because we have a very small amount of open space.

The Unley council and the Burnside council do a terrific job with the open space we have, and in Unley in particular we will grab any open space, whether it be alongside a creek bed or a street that has been closed off to reduce through traffic on metropolitan streets. We will see that planted out, seats installed and made into an area that can be used as public space, but they are obviously very small public spaces. Having more trees, of course, is very important. We love trees in Unley, we love our street trees, we love our park trees and we are obviously very disappointed with the number of century-old trees we will lose as part of the Glenside development.

Ms REDMOND (Heysen) (12:42): I am pleased to have the opportunity to make a contribution in the final throes of this debate on the Appropriation Bill. In particular, I mentioned yesterday in my second reading contribution that I would not go into the detail of the Lands Titles Office, and I am taking the opportunity today to do that very thing.

As I assume all members of parliament did last week, I received a letter from the Public Service Association inviting me to a public rally and forum because they are so upset about this government having broken its promise of a clear no privatisation policy ahead of the 2014 state election, and they are now going to sell the Lands Titles Office. The Treasurer re-words that by saying that what they are doing is outsourcing the data aspect, but indeed the data is all that is left of the Lands Titles Office.

If I can just indulge in a bit of an explanation of how the system works and why it might be important, as members go out into the corridor adjacent to this chamber you will see that there is a wonderful portrait by Andrew MacCormack. He has done a lot of portraits around this chamber, including of Sir Henry Ayers and various other people, and there is a portrait of Robert Richard Torrens who was important to this state because of the development of the land title system which we know around the world as the Torrens title system.

As it happens, I have done conveyancing since I was a teenager because I started work on the Crown Solicitor's Office in Sydney when I was 18. In Sydney, they still use the Old System, and Old System title was cumbersome to say the least. Old System title started with The King giving a grant of land. I will use A, B and C to explain this. The King gave a grant of land to A, so A then had his title because he held a document that was the land grant from The King. If A then sold it to B by a bill of sale then B established his title by having the land grant from The King to A followed by the bill of sale from A to B. If B then died and his estate passed it to his son C, the next person in line had to show that he had the land grant from The King to A, the bill of sale from A to B and the probate and will taking it from B down to C and so on it went.

As you can imagine, Deputy Speaker, over hundreds of years that became quite cumbersome. Eventually an abstract of title or a summary of the title was developed but, effectively, all those documents had to be in order to give you good title to your land. My theory is that perhaps this did not matter so much back in the old country, as it were, but once we came to South Australia one of the things about the founding of this colony—where of course many people came for religious freedom and we were the paradise of dissent for the dissenters from Britain and various parts of Germany and so on—was that, in addition to religious freedom, there was the ability for very ordinary settlers to own property, which had not been a widespread thing in the 1820s and so on.

The idea of having a good land title system was one of considerable attraction, so Robert Torrens came up with this scheme whereby, rather than having this whole chain of successive documents, all of which had to be correct, in order, perfect and unchallengeable to give you good title, how would it be if the government actually kept a record or register of all these interests in land? Everyone who got good title would simply register it and, once it was registered, that person had a good title as against all the world and they were secure in that knowledge. That was known as indefeasibility of title.

We founded this system here where the government basically guaranteed that once your transfer from A to B or B to C was registered with the government the title issued by the government gave you the good and secure title as against all the world. That system was so successful that it was adopted not only throughout the rest of the Australian states but in many of the Western democracies that now use the system developed by Robert Torrens giving indefeasibility of title.

Over the last few years in particular, the system has become somewhat odd, inasmuch as until now the government had a registered title but they would issue to the ordinary person what was called the duplicate certificate of title. I do not own my property; it is with the bank, so my title is with the bank with the mortgage, but if you own your land you would hold the certificate of title, but what you held was actually the duplicate of the original document held by the Registrar-General. You could not do anything with that duplicate; it was handed over if you were selling, but it could not be used to prove title. What proved the title was what was registered with the government.

More recently, though, because of the advance of computers and the use of computing in settlements and by banks in particular, rather than going down to the Lands Titles Office settlement room, which is what I did hundreds of times to transfer property—you would hand over the cheque, get the title, the transfer and all that, take it in, queue up and lodge it—now what happens is the press of a button and the money gets transferred. It is no longer bank cheques and all that sort of stuff. I have not been in it for a number of years, so I have not actually experienced that, but I understand that is the way it happens now.

Another issue is that, because of that development, we are no longer going to have duplicate certificates of title issued. So, even if you own your block of land without a mortgage to the bank, you will not have a duplicate certificate of title to look at it and say, 'This is the bit of land that I own.' What is left now of the system is simply the data input and the holding of the data and the government has decided to sell that.

The Lands Titles Office, as far as I know, has run forever on a fee-for-service basis. It has not been there to make a profit for the government: it has been there simply to provide the service by which all these transactions, done largely by conveyancers in this state, and I was one of the solicitors who used to regularly do conveyancing. All these transactions are now being done by computer, but the whole of the computerisation is now going to be sent off to private commercial ownership.

Apart from the historical nicety—and I have explained the reason for my emotional attachment to Robert Torrens and his portrait in the corridor—the reality is that what the government is doing is entrusting to a third party in the commercial sector the management, control and security of our land titles. I, for one, ever since 2001 and the 9/11 experience, have always been quite dubious about the fact that we are spending all this time, energy and money on security in airports, because it seems to me that terrorists are not going to attack at airports or on planes anymore.

The next attack I think is much more likely to be a cyber attack or an attack on our water supply or something other than they have done before. They will come out of left field, as they did on 9/11, with something completely unexpected. That is the nature of terrorism. To therefore hand over to a private company this aspect seems to me to be a very risky thing to do, and it is certainly a concern expressed by the PSA, who are holding a rally about this on Friday. Probably more important than that even is the fact that there is a significant cost-of-living issue here.

A private company is not going to take over the management of something that at the moment is done for no profit and do it not to make a profit. The nature of private companies is that they are there to make a profit. Furthermore, if they are paying $300 million, let's say, for the purchase of this business of running this data input and security of our title and so on, it seems to me that they are going to have to make at least 10 per cent, or possibly 20 or 30 per cent, profit to make it worthwhile, because if you can make 5 or 10 per cent putting it in interest bearing deposit, why would you not just do that rather than running anything?

They are going to have to make money out of it, and that means that every person in this state involved in the transacting of business in relation to land tenure is going to be paying a whole lot more. Indeed, the experience of overseas in this circumstance, according to the PSA's letter, is that, when this happens, there is also a huge increase in the cost of insurance to ensure the security of your title.

I believe that this is a really bad thing for this government to do. It is not only a breach of faith with the promise that was made prior to the 2014 election of no more privatisations but it puts at risk the security of all the people in this state who hold title to land, and that is a vast number of people. I think it unreasonably imposes unnecessary and unreasonable costs on those people.

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (12:52): Can I just say that I have to endorse everything the member for Heysen said. I also for a whole lot of reasons (probably different ones) do not support privatisation, contracting out, semi-privatisation or any other term that we might come up with, either in the commonwealth public sector or the state public sector. I am really concerned, and I have been for a number of different colour governments, but also certainly with our own government, that this is something that we should not do, in my view. My view is a well-known fact in Labor circles, so I do not think it will come as a surprise to anyone in particular.

What I would like to spend time speaking about today is the excellent meeting that the Occupational Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Committee had last week with you, Deputy Speaker, and also with the Hon. Kelly Vincent MLC, with former senator and Labor minister the Hon. Susan Ryan AO, Age and Disability Discrimination Commissioner, from the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Because of her tight schedule, we managed to secure her for lunch last week and talk to her about the excellent report—I might say it is a huge report—called 'Willing to work: national inquiry into employment discrimination against older Australians and Australians with disability'. When I say that it is a big report, I actually have a photocopy of it in the chamber so that I can hopefully get through the whole report at some stage, but it is quite big.

Looking at the main data that has come out of that report, it is really interesting to note the profile that has been painted by the report. According to the report:

People aged 55 years and over make up roughly a quarter of the population, but only 16% of the total workforce.

We know from the 2015 Intergenerational Report that:

This age cohort is the fastest growing in Australia, and will remain so for the foreseeable future…

The report also states that labour force participation declines with age, and:

In November 2015, 73.8% of Australians aged 55-59 years were participating in the labour force, with 56.5% of 60-64 year olds and 12.7% of those aged 65 years and over in the labour force.

Older people face longer periods of unemployment. According to the report:

In November 2015, the average duration of unemployment for mature-age people was 68 weeks, compared with 30 weeks for 15-24 year olds and 49 weeks for 25-54 year olds.

One of the reasons Commissioner Susan Ryan is also the Disability Discrimination Commissioner is that the former disability discrimination commissioner's contract finished, as I understand it. I think the federal government made a decision that they could save costs in the Australian Human Rights Commission without that particular role.

I am very pleased to hear that there will be a new disability discrimination commissioner appointed shortly. While we are very sad to see that Susan Ryan will be retiring from her role, I think, this week, the Hon. Dr Kay Patterson, former Liberal federal member of parliament and minister will be taking up that role. I had the honour of working with Dr Kay Patterson, as did the former member for Elizabeth, the Hon. Lea Stephens. I must say I think we formed a very good working group for good on a national basis.

While I am very sad that Susan Ryan, who is someone I have always admired in the political arena, is retiring, I think she probably deserves to have some downtime and some time to herself. She tells us that she is reaching her mid-70s and thinks it is about time that she got to do the sorts of things she wanted to do. You could not tell from her energy or attitude that she was at that age, but she always maintains that you really do need to have your head right, and that is part of the way in which you cope with the advancing years. I am taking this as advice.

The reason we were so interested to meet with Commissioner Ryan was that one of the long-term areas of interest and work of the Parliamentary Committee on Occupational Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation is looking at issues for older workers. A number of issues have been brought to our attention with regard to being an older worker in the workplace. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 12:58 to 14:00.

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