HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Member Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-07-31 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

Appropriation Bill 2019

Estimates Committees

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (15:56): I bring up the report of Estimates Committee A and move:

That the report be received.

Motion carried.

Mr TRELOAR: I bring up the minutes of proceedings of Estimates Committee A and move:

That the minutes of proceedings be incorporated in the Votes and Proceedings.

Motion carried.

Mr DULUK (Waite) (15:56): I bring up the report of Estimates Committee B and move:

That the report be received.

Motion carried.

Mr DULUK: I bring up the minutes of proceedings of Estimates Committee B and move:

That the minutes of proceedings be incorporated in the Votes and Proceedings.

Motion carried.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (15:57): I move:

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

I thank members who participated in those sessions for their contributions. I thank the Deputy Leader of the Opposition for what I thought was, by and large, good decorum in the session that I was involved in. As she gets her notes together, I acknowledge the positive discussions we had about a couple of issues. I invite members to now proceed in the usual fashion with comments.

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:57): I am the lead speaker for the opposition and I am happy to give a summary of my experience of the committee stage of the budget. I will confine myself to the estimates that I attended and participated in, rather than giving a fulsome summary at this stage of all the estimates, as entertaining as they were. I know that my colleagues will do an excellent job in doing that summary.

I start with yesterday. I was involved in nine hours' of estimates and I start with the second lot of 4½ hours, being the environment estimates yesterday afternoon. I was interested and concerned about some matters that were raised in that time. One matter raised was the question of rangers being appointed into the department. The minister has made much of the decision by the government that they will have more rangers—20 more rangers. In fact, I believe that the minister anticipates achieving those net additional 20 positions by the end of this year. Naturally, I have no objection to people being appointed into permanent positions as rangers within the department.

However, I am concerned that the department has had to bend itself out of shape to accommodate this election commitment, not least because there was absolutely no money given to the budget either last year or this year to pay for these additional rangers. Therefore, in the context of achieving significant savings in any case, the department has had to bend itself out of shape in order to get these positions filled as the minister has directed.

One of the issues, I think, that we are beginning to understand—and we expect to get more information from questions that were taken on notice—is about the pay level of the rangers. The chief executive, with the permission of the minister, spoke about the reprofiling of the workforce. I suspect it is there that we find the explanation to the otherwise mystifying decision to pay $560,000 of public money to eight existing rangers to stop working while at the same time appointing, then, 18 new rangers, meaning a net increase at that point of only 10.

Why would a department do that? Number one is that they do not pay the TVSPs; Treasury do. They were not out of pocket, although the public are. I know that at least one of the rangers who was given a TVSP came from Kangaroo Island, and I know that at least one of the new rangers is being assigned to Kangaroo Island. Why would that have occurred? There was an interesting discussion on ABC North and West a couple of weeks ago to that end, when the minister did not seem to have an explanation for why you would pay people to stop doing the job at the same time as recruiting people into the very same title of the position.

I think what has happened is that the wage profile of rangers has been dropped. The people who are coming in, the 18 who are coming in, are all or substantially coming into lower paid positions than those who have left. So the department have been able to make a saving by getting rid of experienced people being paid a decent salary and dropping the status and the level of the ranger workforce to a lower level because they have not been given any additional money despite the requirement to have additional staff.

Some of the new rangers, up until their recent appointment, have been graduate rangers, which is a two-year program at the end of which there is no guarantee of employment, and some of them had been on contract. I am concerned that there has been not quite a sleight of hand but a reduction in the status, the quality and the experience of the ranger workforce through using Treasury's generosity in paying for TVSPs, removing some of the more senior and experienced and expensive rangers and dropping the level.

I do not think that is consistent with the mantra from the minister that everything is about having more rangers. In fact, he is so keen on having more rangers that, in addition to the 20 new positions, there are people who have been doing maintenance and construction work whose title is now going to become 'ranger'. When I asked whether the maintenance and construction work was still going to be done either by someone new or by the same person, there was not a lot of clarity. I am looking forward to finding out more through questions having been taken on notice or through FOIs or through questions on notice. I am looking forward to understanding better exactly what this reprofiling of the ranger workforce means.

The Murray-Darling Basin, and specifically the Murray for South Australia, has been a very vexed topic for this minister. This minister is the only minister I am aware of in my time of observing politics as well as being in politics to have a royal commission finding that a decision he led was against the interests of the state, to have a finding that the minister did not act in the interests of South Australia in making an agreement with other states.

The minister defends that by saying that he knows better. He knows better than the people who advised him, whose department had written submissions to the royal commission saying that there was no need for additional socio-economic criteria to further bind up the criteria that a project must meet in order to receive funding to deliver water efficiency and therefore water down the Murray to us. He said, 'You just wait and see.'

Well, we waited from the January finding to now, and we are still waiting for a response to the royal commission. We waited from the January finding and the December decision, which the minister made which was so deeply criticised, to the end of June, when 62 gigalitres were due. None arrived. We are waiting to see whether the minister's gamble, for which he has been criticised by water experts in a royal commission, pays off. What we know is that the water coming down the Murray for the environment has dropped significantly. It is in the budget papers.

The minister was asked on ABC radio a few weeks ago: 'How much more water is there for the environment?' He said, 'I don't know how much more, but there's more, and gigalitres don't mean anything to your listeners anyway,' which is nonsense. But there is less, and there is less for two reasons: one, of course, is the drought. Of course there is less because of the drought, but also because every time we try to get more water from the Eastern States down the Murray we are checked by a federal government that is utterly on the side of Eastern States irrigators and utterly against the idea that there would be environmental water.

A National Party member of parliament only the other day said exactly the same thing, that the river is being wrecked because of water being needed for the environment, as if the river is not the environment. Because we have been unable to have a federal government show leadership since the conservatives have been in office, we have been unable to reset the way in which allocations are made and the way in which water is taken.

So when a drought inevitably occurs—and the one we are having now is awful and the next one we have will probably be even worse—we do not have the underpinning of efficiency and an appreciation of the importance of water coming all the way through to the mouth that means that the river is stable. The river is under dire threat and, when you look further up at the Darling, it is heartbreaking. The Darling is in the process of dying. If we are incapable of fixing that, then we are sacrificing current generations of irrigators, as well as future generations, and all those who depend on the Murray-Darling.

But here is the thing: I am not sure the minister has read the royal commission report, and I am not sure the minister has read the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. I say that because there was an exchange that I did not expect to have, when I asked about the additional socio-economic criteria that were signed off by the ministerial council, that he agreed to and that caused the very serious criticism by the royal commission. He said that they are not additional socio-economic criteria because there were no socio-economic criteria.

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan very clearly says that there must be no negative socio-economic impact and that it be measured through the willing participation of the water holder, the consumptive user, the irrigator. If they participate willingly, then that is proof of no socio-economic harm. That is the test—it is in the law—the plan being a legislative instrument. The royal commission, in criticising the additional socio-economic criteria, which run to several pages and which are very difficult for any project to completely fulfil, stated that they are going to cause a big problem in being able to have projects approved because they are additional to what is a very reasonable, straightforward and legislated approach to judging whether the socio-economic criteria have been met.

The fact that he disputed that these were additional disturbed me and surprised me, but it made me wonder, as I say, about the reason that we do not have an answer, a response by this government, to the royal commission six months after receiving it. Imagine if, when I was the minister for child protection, I had taken six months to respond to the Nyland royal commission. Imagine if I had taken six months and that royal commission had criticised me personally for a decision I had chosen to make. Imagine how the other side would have viewed that, quite rightly, as an inability to deal with a document that is of serious weight and has been critical of a government minister.

However, neither of those things happened. They were not personally criticised at all—and responded to expeditiously, seriously and quickly. This government has not responded for six months. This government has a minister who does not think there are socio-economic criteria in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to which he has added complexity in the decision that was criticised by the royal commission.

Another area that we canvassed was the waste levy. The waste levy is going to cause all sorts of pain politically for this government. An increase of 40 per cent in the bin tax is very hard for anyone to swallow and very hard for anyone to accept as necessary and justified. But I am interested in reducing waste and I am interested in the problems that we have in our pattern of producing, consuming and disposing. I am very concerned about what is happening to this planet and our use of materials, our waste of materials, and the way in which we treat materials is a big part of the challenges we are seeing and visiting upon the next generations.

I did not ask, 'Why did you lift the waste levy? Will you not lift the waste levy? Why have you done this to councils?'. They are legitimate questions, but I did not ask them. I asked, 'What is your target for the reduction in solid waste to landfill? What is the plan?' There is not one. 'What is the modelling that says if you raise the waste levy by this much you will see that reduction in waste?' There is not any. I wait with great interest the answer to the question that was taken on notice. The question was: 'If you expect this to work and you are doing it because you want to reduce waste to landfill, how much of a tapering down of waste to landfill have you factored into the amount of money that you have booked to receive as a result of the increase?'

I will be very interested to see that modelling and whether there is much, if any, reduction in the expectation of waste to landfill, because if there is not a significant 40 per percent decrease in the waste to landfill commensurate with the 40 per cent increase in the levy, then this is about revenue, not about waste. This is about seeing an instrument where you can get more money in and leaning hard on that lever.

It is not about actually dealing with the challenges that we have in our use, in our production and in our disposal of materials. I will be very interested to see what happens. I think this minister has been used by the Treasurer to create a bit of a cash cow, to take some more money in, but not for the purpose that the waste levy ought to have of having a commensurate decrease in the amount of waste going to landfill.

I turn to education, another subject of which I am very fond and in which I am very interested. The minister just talked about relatively interesting discussions, and there were some good discussions over the course of the 4½ hours. However, there were some points of concern in the interaction that we had, and because I am in the opposition I will focus on those. First of all, in early childhood, I think that we are yet to show leadership on early childhood in Australia. Former premier Jay Weatherill did an extraordinary job in focusing attention on early childhood when he was both education minister and premier. He knew that those first years, the first 1,000 days and then the first five years of life, are crucial for the path that a child will have for the rest of their lives.

The development of children's centres, the bringing together of early childhood with education, making sure that people are being paid appropriately and trained appropriately, making sure that we had the national quality initiatives so that we had the right ratio of staff to students—excellent, but there is another step to go. That step is that we need to offer a quality early childhood education program to children from the age of three at least. People who do not know that are not really paying attention to what is necessary for not only early childhood but our school performance and the future.

When the federal Labor opposition went to the election, they committed to it. This government are not interested. They are not interested in doing the work required to work out how we expand the number of three year olds receiving early childhood education programming. A report presented to the ministerial council, of which the minister is a member, makes it very clear: forget doing better in NAPLAN, PISA or finishing high school if you are not going to do something about early childhood because the trajectory for kids who do not do well is set then. I was disappointed that the minister was not more interested in engaging in that.

We see a retreat in schools from NAPLAN Online, unsurprisingly given the very chaotic week that a whole lot of kids went through here and interstate. I am curious, though, that the interstate ministers seem very willing to be quite aggressive about this, to take it up to the federal government, to point out that the federal government has been incapable of providing a NAPLAN Online that works. Trials have failed, and this is when South Australia had the highest proportion of students in the public system sitting NAPLAN Online in all Australia.

It is not working properly. I recall when it was first happening. I had some insight not only because schools get in touch with the opposition when these things happen but also because my daughter was going through the last round of NAPLAN for her, and she experienced disruption as well. I recall the minister saying, 'Well, we shouldn't catastrophise this. It doesn't really matter. Don't overemphasise NAPLAN,' as if that were the way he spoke about NAPLAN in opposition.

I am not overemphasising NAPLAN: the minister and his department are. The minister and his department are using it to assess how schools are going in their performance. They are categorised according to NAPLAN and, if they are high schools as well, the SACE completions and SACE marks. For primary schools, it is only NAPLAN that puts them in the school improvement model. Is the minister going to reflect on the inadequate performance of the system so that these schools are being judged not only on NAPLAN this year? I do not know.

There are two elements that I really wanted to know about that I could not get out of the minister—firstly, how much capital money is being spent on moving year 7 into the secondary setting. It is a simple question. I have asked it twice on notice and just had words back, no numbers. I asked it in estimates. I asked how many schools were going to need capital spend and how many needed general learning areas, what we call classrooms. There was no answer. He does not want to say. I think the reason he does not want to say is that so much of the Building Better Schools money for high schools is being used to move year 7.

As I have long said, I do not resent the minister moving year 7, given that he made an election commitment and he was up-front about it: I resent money that was destined to build performing arts spaces, more science spaces, language spaces and gymnasiums being used for classrooms for year 7s who have classrooms down the road. I think that is why I am not being given a straight answer, but I am going to persist.

The other area where I was trying to get clarity was: who are the 200 people who left the education department last year? There were only 1,200 staff in the education head office and, of those, 200 were given TVSPs. We asked on an FOI what jobs they were doing, and the job titles were redacted as if that were personal information. We do not want their names. We do not want to match their names and salaries; we just want to know what jobs they were doing that are not happening anymore. But, no, they were redacted.

I asked the minister. He referred three or four times in three or four different questions about how savings have been achieved to the fact that he has fewer staff from the department in his ministerial office. That is not giving me 200 FTE. I want to know what is not happening. As easy as it is to say, 'Oh, bureaucracy, head office, bureaucracy,' head office supports the schools. What head office does not do, the principals finds themselves doing.

There is another $48 million worth of cuts coming: $12 million, $12 million, $12 million, $12 million out of head office. Where is it coming from? The answer I received was, 'Well, we're working on that. We're working on it.' What have you already stopped doing? 'Well, we're having a look at it.' What about the incident management division, or human resources support for principals, which the minister seemed to think was only about helping with poor performance? Human resources does a lot of work for principals. Of course they do: that is where the staff are and where the students are.

What about communications? IT might be handy, given the difficulties with NAPLAN Online. No idea. The minister would not tell me, he did not take it on notice and has redacted an FOI. Why? Why not just say, 'We decided that these 200 staff were not necessary and that schools can absorb the work they were doing'? Be up-front. There was an interesting line of questioning which the minister had no knowledge was going to be asked and therefore took on notice.

There is something going on with special options in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. Special options are when a child with a disability of varying degrees might be better out of mainstream. Many children with a disability fit well in mainstream, but some may be taken out of mainstream in order to be in a special class, or in a unit in a school, or even at a special school. There appear to be a lot more students who qualify for those options than places for them to go.

There appears to have been a shift in what the department said about how those students would be supported in mainstream. Initially, it was no problem. If they were going to go to a special class, then you would automatically get this level of support, and if they were going to go to a special school, you would automatically get this level. A few months later, it would be, 'No, we have changed that. You are going to have to assess them one by one for the additional assistance they need.' Why is that? Is that part of the $48 million saving? Why is this happening?

I appreciate that the minister would not necessarily be familiar with that level of detail, but I would be very interested to hear about the response he receives from the department in preparing the question on notice. Similarly, questions have been raised with me about the importance of students who have a disability being able to go on to work options and study options after school. The member for Light talked about this in his grievance earlier today. I am hearing concerning stories about how those students are being looked after at present and whether there is not as much support as there had been. If that is true, that is a tragedy.

Students have a good and supported experience in school. As long as they have the right funding, schools do a very good job for all their students, including students with a disability. If that transition is not being supported, I fear for the future of those young people, who deserve, as much as any other young person, to go on to study or to go on to work. The final area that I will canvass of the nine-hour extravaganza I had is TAFE. Let's go back.

Last year, the minister announced that several TAFE campuses would be closing and then a few months ago said, 'Actually, not all of them.' Still Port Adelaide—thanks very much—but not Urrbrae. He said, 'We have already closed the one up in Tea Tree Gully and we have already closed the one in Parafield, but we are going to keep Urrbrae and a couple of others.' This was in the context of signing a memorandum of understanding with private providers to be able to use the facilities. Watch how that works. I have had concerned people from TAFE raise that with me.

However, Gilles Plains TAFE was not on that list. According to what the minister announced last year and this year in the 'saving' of a couple of campuses, there was no reason to think there was a problem with Gilles Plains TAFE. Yet Renewal SA held a public meeting a few months ago where they showed people the development around the Gilles Plains TAFE and had, over the Gilles Plains TAFE, open space and housing. The local member, the member for Torrens, questioned that. 'Isn't that TAFE?' 'Well, we're going to be looking at rezoning.'

So we went to the website for Renewal SA. Renewal SA has a contract with a company to do a preliminary site investigation that can be provided to future purchasers looking at the TAFE campus with a view to having it rezoned residential. I know that because there was a public meeting and there is a public website and there is a private company that has been employed by Renewal SA. Do you know who did not know about that? The minister responsible for TAFE.

How does that happen? How does Renewal SA and its minister start a process that ends with closure, demolition and building over the top of a TAFE campus that is a really good TAFE campus? It has dental training and vet nurse training. How is that minister not informed by his colleague that that is on the cards. I felt for the minister. He was genuinely surprised to hear it. He had no idea that that was the proposal that Renewal SA was marching towards. It is a mystery.

The minister says, 'That's okay. That won't be happening.' Won't it? He did not know that it was even being proposed, so what confidence can people have who might be receiving this preliminary site investigation as future purchasers or future developers of the land should it become residential? Would they not have reason to have confidence that that is in fact what Renewal SA wants to do? We shall watch that with interest. I would like to commend the member for Torrens who, when seeing the map at that open meeting, asked, 'Isn't that TAFE that you have a big green square over?' We shall watch that with interest.

There is much more to be thought about and understood. I have a picture of a fairly chaotic government that is not quite sure what it is doing or in what direction it is going. They are often supported by very good public servants—almost entirely—who are thorough, knowledgeable and try to keep them safe, yet they did not know that TAFE was being proposed for redevelopment and had not remembered that there are in fact socio-economic criteria already in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

They were very proud to have new rangers. It does not matter that they are going to be really low-paid rangers for a while. That is okay. It does not matter that we are going to be renaming some people doing some other work as rangers as well.

The Hon. L.W.K. Bignell: Then there are volunteer rangers. They want volunteer rangers as well.

Dr CLOSE: They are now looking for volunteer rangers. They were a little surprised to be asked a question about Friends of Parks striking on Kangaroo Island. They were a bit surprised. 'Striking?' They were very upset. Apparently that is all our fault, member for Mawson. It has nothing to do with the current minister who has been in there for 16 months.

It was interesting for only a second round of estimates in a government. It was interesting how many cracks are starting to show. Although we support the bill, I look forward to hearing from my colleagues in their summaries of their experiences in their estimates.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (16:28): I rise to make a contribution about the conduct of the Appropriation Bill, in particular through the committee stage, or the estimates committee process as we more commonly know it. This is now the second estimates committee process that we have seen under this government. I think parliament and the people of South Australia in general were very much looking forward to seeing how ministers in the Marshall Liberal government would be conducting themselves during the estimates process because, of course, they were the ones who had complained for many years about the conduct of estimates.

They said it was a process that was not in fact designed to provide information to the house, and more particularly information about the expenditure of moneys within different portfolio areas, as set out in the bill. We were therefore looking forward to a substantially different approach to the estimates committee process from that of ministers under the Marshall Liberal government.

I have had the privilege of witnessing the estimates committee process for many, many years—certainly as a member of parliament, in the hot seat for some time as a minister, and for many years before that as a ministerial adviser. I remember some advice given to me by a former minister, by a former employer, who said that you can always tell those ministers who were confident in how across their brief they were because they did not feel the need to make an opening statement and they did not feel the need to take Dorothy Dixers from members of their own side in order to run down the clock.

I have been surprised, I have to say, by the approach by some ministers in this government who you would expect better of, who ostensibly are lacking such confidence in their own brief, lacking such confidence in their grip on what is going on within their portfolios, that they feel the need not only to make opening statements but also to take Dorothy Dixer questions from their own side, none more so than the Treasurer, who has been a member of parliament since 1982. Admittedly, and I am sure not through design or direct fault of his own, he has spent the vast majority of those 37 years in parliament in opposition.

Notwithstanding that, he has been a minister, firstly, for education, then treasurer and then the long period once again in opposition before becoming Treasurer again. To his credit, he did not feel the need to make an opening statement, but he did feel the need to take Dorothy Dixers during questioning, which I was very surprised by. I was particularly surprised not because those particular questions he was asked were designed to make a particular political point, or designed to try to speed up, I guess, the political pointscoring or the political progress the Liberal government was making against the Labor opposition or even the former Labor government: they were merely designed to run down the clock.

In one respect, during the second Dorothy Dixer that the Treasurer was asked, when he spoke for nearly seven minutes about medical malpractice claims, which are currently being handled by the South Australian Insurance Corporation, a division of the government's South Australian Government Financing Authority (SAFA), he made the extraordinary claim that, while SAFA has been responsible through its subsidiary, SAicorp, for managing and paying out medical malpractice claims for doctors working in the public sector, I think he listed that in the last (and I am sure this is not exactly the right figure, but it goes to show the point he was making) 10, 15, or 20 years $140 million worth of medical malpractice claims have been paid out by SAFA on claims made against the performance of doctors in the public system and that that has now changed, an extraordinary change according to the Treasurer.

Apparently, in the 2018-19 financial year there has been a massive drop-off in medical malpractice claims, and the claims that have been made have attracted a maximum accounting expense of only a few hundred thousands dollars. I think that it was $470,000-odd. The insinuation seemed to be from the Treasurer that, merely because he was Treasurer and merely because the member for Dunstan is Premier and merely because the Hon. Stephen Wade is now health minister, the performance of doctors in the public health system has so radically improved that medical malpractice claims have dwindled and that the expense against those claims estimated by SAFA has also reduced very substantially.

Of course, it only takes somebody who presumably has reached adult age and who is responsible for taking out an insurance policy to know—presumably the other million plus South Australians in the community—that the mere lodgement of a claim and the cost of receiving and filing that claim, which is what I believe the Treasurer to be referring to, does not equate to the final cost of the payout of those claims.

So his claim that because of his stewardship the cost of medical malpractice claims is going down in South Australia remains to be tested, because of course these claims can run for many, many years, particularly the more expensive ones. We look forward to that. The point is not necessarily about the costs of the claims; it was that the Treasurer felt that he needed to take up six to seven minutes of the committee's time running down the clock because he did not like the direction of the questions being put to him by the opposition.

However, that was the better of the experiences of Dorothy Dixers. The first Dorothy Dixer that was asked—in my recollection, by the member for Narungga—was about the wage claims that were being put to the government by industrial groups and by public sector employees or representatives of public sector employees. I think it was meant to be another process of modest table thumping by the Treasurer to try to establish his bona fides in holding the line against excessive claims for pay rises by public sector employees.

Of course, it then led to an extended line of questioning from the opposition about the 6 per cent pay increase that had had been awarded to his media adviser, Ms Belinda Heggen—an $8,000 a year pay increase. Understandably, the committee thought, 'If you think that a 3 per cent pay rise for teachers in South Australia is too much, why are you paying the individual, whom you charge with the responsibility of briefing against the interests of teachers out in the media, a pay rise approximately 40 per cent higher than the rise the teachers are claiming?'

The extraordinary response from the Treasurer about why his media adviser deserved an $8,000 or 6 per cent pay rise each year, as opposed to what the government is proposing to pay teachers, was that Ms Heggen now has an important job to do, that is, to act as the Treasurer's delegate in considering and making approvals for government advertising. It is absolutely remarkable. Not only has the Treasurer said that he will convene and chair a political committee to consider political advertising campaigns—the very thing he railed against when he was in opposition—but he has now appointed a delegate, a political staffer, to take on that responsibility for him.

When he was asked what work value assessment had been undertaken into the workload of his media adviser and whether it would justify an $8,000 a year pay increase, he said that he did it. Of course, we would like to see this work value assessment, and of course he had to admit that, well, perhaps he had not actually done one. I think he said that it was just done in his own mind and that he arrived at that being a reasonable figure. Well, good luck to the Treasurer's media adviser.

Unfortunately, her case was not as well made as that of the senior adviser to the Deputy Premier, Madeleine Church, who is not in receipt of an $8,000 a year pay increase: she is in receipt of a pay increase of more than $20,000 a year. The Deputy Premier tried to justify that by saying that she has had a change of role. Really? I wonder which portfolio responsibilities have changed for that staff member in order to warrant a $20,000 a year pay increase. I do not think the portfolio responsibilities have changed. I think there might have been the insertion of one word in a gazettal notice—'senior' before the term 'adviser'—but I do not think anything else has changed.

That goes to show the double standard that this government is guilty of holding: there is one rule for hardworking teachers and there is another rule for those people closest to the Liberal government ministers who are charged with advising them. Those people who are closest to those ministers can expect generous pay rises when they have the wherewithal to ask for them. If only teachers were so lucky.

I have spoken to a lot of teachers in my electorate, teachers at schools like Seaton High School, Westport Primary School, West Lakes Shore primary school and Grange Primary School. They all think that they are entitled to reasonable pay increases commensurate with the ever-increasing workload that is being pushed onto them as teachers by the education department, particularly principals but also teachers. They are in receipt of an increasing workload. What they are not in receipt of is a commensurate pay increase from this government.

It was not just the Premier and his response to those Dorothy Dixers that raised eyebrows from the opposition; it was also the faux consultation process entered into between the government and the opposition. The estimates schedule was released and there was a request from the government: 'Do you have any suggested changes you would like to make?' Suggested changes are made, not to ask for more time in total, but perhaps a redistribution of the time between lines of inquiry for the estimates committee. They were transmitted to the government and the government summarily rejected each and every inquiry.

Despite questioning opening for the Treasurer at 9 o'clock in the morning and closing off again at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, some seven or so hours including lunch breaks, tea breaks and so on, only two of those seven or so hours were dedicated to Treasury and Finance. Instead, we had hours upon hours dedicated to areas like Shared Services, SafeWork SA, ReturnToWorkSA and Fleet SA, of course. These were all matters of such importance for the government that huge amounts of time needed to be dedicated towards them, at the expense of the Treasury and Finance portfolio.

The Treasury and Finance portfolio deserved some inquisition in the estimates committee process because we have the extraordinary situation of the government facing an internal revolt over its planned changes for land tax aggregation. There is uncertainty within the government, not just from their own backbench but apparently, as we learnt today from the media, within their own cabinet about what landholdings are liable for land tax, and that is under the current law, not under the proposed legal changes.

We have a situation where we have two ministers apparently in conflict in the same media article about what the land tax obligations are for land ownerships held ostensibly by the same person but under differently named ownerships. That is remarkable. There are serious questions for both the Premier and the minister to answer, particularly the minister about whether he is meeting his current land tax obligations.

We had a confession from the Treasurer that no external work, no independent advice, was sought by the Department of Treasury and Finance before cabinet made the decision to introduce this land tax aggregation measure. It is now hurriedly having to be engaged by the Department of Treasury and Finance: a Big Four accounting firm we are told, as well as an individual accountant who, according to the Treasurer, is very practised at setting up these mechanisms to try to minimise land tax liabilities.

How extraordinary. Here we are, nearly in August, nearly six weeks after the release of the budget, and Treasury is having to procure this advice. How much is the advice going to cost? Apparently it is uncapped. Was there a market call for it? No, it was a direct approach. Both are in clear breach of the procurement guidelines that all governments and all government agencies must adhere to.

Speaking of not knowing their obligations, the Minister for Human Services, Michelle Lensink, held on to Healthscope shares during the first 16 or so months of this government at the same time that services were being put to market by the government, that cabinet was arriving at decisions to put health services to market, where Healthscope was clearly either a registered tender responder or was likely to be. That is remarkable.

Did she furnish the parliament with appropriate answers about what steps she had taken to maintain her shareholding, divest herself of that shareholding or at least divulge that shareholding to the Premier and to the cabinet while these discussions were being held? She refused to answer the question. She refused to answer the question that would have established whether she had a clear conflict of interest or whether she did not. She could have exonerated herself. Maybe she would have been worthy of exoneration in this matter if only she had the wherewithal to be up-front and answer those questions in the parliament, but apparently she was not.

Of course, when it came to not answering questions, we had the Minister for Transport who, despite it being made clear to him and to everybody else in the estimates committee that they enjoyed the full privileges and immunities of the parliament, refused to answer questions about a chief executive who apparently had been stood down as a result of an investigation by the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption. We will not know whether or not this is the case because, despite the parliament being covered by these privileges and immunities, we are refused by this government any indication about what is going on.

The Deputy Premier, who purports to be a lawyer of some standing, waded into this area after last year's estimates and, I have to say, nearly very quickly hastened the journey of the member for Heysen or even the member for Kavel into those portfolio responsibilities of attorney-general. If and when that happens, we will look forward to it. In fact, I think the state would look forward to it because they will get much better service out of an attorney-general, but the Minister for Transport refused to answer those questions.

Last, of course, is the Premier. The Premier is the head of a government of which there are members who have stood in this place in recent weeks and made contributions about threatening and intimidating behaviour and that it had to end. We even had the Speaker stand and reiterate those concerns, that this sort of behaviour needs to stop and that there needs to be greater civility in this place. I think it is something we can all aspire to.

Then, of course, the member for Badcoe had to draw the Premier's attention to what she had heard being exchanged during the changeover of advisers during an estimates committee. That was denied by the Premier, yet, strangely, I think the next morning he contradicted that and perhaps confirmed that there had been some use of an inappropriate term by him.

I provide these little vignettes of the estimates committee as we have had to endure them over the past week. This is a government that promised to be different but is worse. The ministers sought to protect themselves by making opening statements and taking Dorothy Dixers, and when they took those Dorothy Dixers they embarrassed themselves and the positions of their own ministerial offices and ministerial staff. There is a culture of ministers being unwilling to provide information to the house when reasonably asked.

It could be open for the opposition to agitate for change, to say that we need to change the estimates process to make it more accountable to the public. That might be something that we are interested in because we refuse to be the bovine-like supplicants we saw in the last term of parliament: 'Oh well, it's estimates. I'll ask a couple of questions in a monotone and if I get an answer or if I don't get an answer, whatever; it's time to go home.' That is not the approach we will take. We will be interested in information and we look forward to continuing the debate on this matter.

Mr PICTON: Deputy Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (16:50): I also rise to make some comments in regard to the pretty lacklustre performance we saw from the government in terms of this year's estimates committees. The first estimates committee I was a part of was in relation to the member for—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Member for Kaurna, just a moment. I bring the house to order, please. The member for Kaurna has the call.

Mr PICTON: The Minister for Human Services was the first minister who I sat in on for estimates, and she partook in a complete mockery of the process. What was revealed was the minister's significant conflict of interest and, I believe, the minister's breach of the Ministerial Code of Conduct. It is not the first time under this government that we have seen a minister breaching the Ministerial Code of Conduct, but what has occurred in relation to the Minister for Human Services is a very clear breach.

Her shareholdings are three times that of any other minister of this government. She has declared over 30 shares in a wide range of different companies that are on the register, and it seems quite clear that at least one of those shareholdings has had quite a significant conflict of interest with her work as the Minister for Human Services and also her work has a minister of the cabinet. Members will recall that the Ministerial Code of Conduct makes quite clear that ministers should dispose of shareholdings that they have within 14 days of becoming a minister. If ministers do not do that, it is quite clear that they should not buy or sell shares during the time when they are a minister.

What happened is that the minister owned shares in Healthscope, a private hospital company but also a company that provides a wide range of different services in her human services portfolio specifically. The government then embarked upon a process of privatising a whole range of different public sector public hospital patients to private hospitals. It embarked on this over a significant period of months and has now signed contracts with 13 different providers across South Australia to deal with those patients.

Five of those 13 contracts are with hospitals run by Healthscope, so five of those hospitals have a very clear conflict of interest with the shareholdings of the Minister for Human Services. Both the member for Hurtle Vale and I asked a number of questions in relation to the minister's shareholdings, which she mostly refused to answer in their entirety, and eventually got an admission from the minister that she sold those shares.

She said she did not have any choice in the matter due to the company being bought out, but the Ministerial Code of Conduct is quite clear about situations such as those where there might be extraordinary circumstances. Normally it says you are not allowed to buy or sell shares, but it says that if there are extraordinary circumstances you need the Premier's agreement to that beforehand. Of course, we asked: did she get the Premier's approval as per the Ministerial Code of Conduct? The answer was, 'I'm not going to answer that.' We asked it again. 'I'm not going to answer that.' We asked it again. 'I'm not going to answer that.'

The Hon. L.W.K. Bignell interjecting:

Mr PICTON: It was a complete dodge, as the member for Mawson says. It was a complete mockery of her responsibility to the parliament and a complete mockery of her responsibilities under the Ministerial Code of Conduct. This is something the opposition is going to be continuing to take seriously. We have taken it to question time again today in the other place and here, getting once again non-answers on this.

But we are going to take this up with other relevant authorities who have the power to pull documents, pull records, and find out the truth about whether the minister breached the Ministerial Code of Conduct, as appears very clear from the fact of the transactions that took place whether she properly absented herself from discussions in the cabinet and elsewhere in relation to private hospital contracting for public patients and whether she took measures that protected the taxpayers of South Australia and the government in relation to her dealings within her own portfolio in regard to human services where Healthscope provide a wide range of services in that area. All these questions are unanswered. We have started to get a bit of information through the estimates process, but the minister's complete lack of answers to these important questions is something that we are going to take much, much further.

I then had that afternoon the Minister for Health before Estimates Committee B, and it was quite telling. You really know when they are worried about a minister because they put them on Friday night when the journos have done their stories and no-one is paying attention. That is the timeslot that the Minister for Health gets in the estimates program devised by the government.

Members interjecting:

Mr PICTON: That's right. I am sure that if they could have organised it on Melbourne Cup Day at 3 o'clock they would have done that. Whatever time would hide the Minister for Health getting any scrutiny before this parliament is what this government would organise. So on Friday night from 2 o'clock until 6.15pm, I believe, the Minister for Health was before the estimates committee. Of course, those four hours that the minister was subjected to are significantly less than previous health ministers in previous health portfolios were subjected to.

I went back and looked at the records of the last term of the parliament, and the health portfolio, on average, had 4½ hours. This government has chopped half an hour off that to try to avoid a bit more scrutiny. So we have over $6 billion worth of expenditure, about a third of the state budget, and the government is burying it away on a Friday night. They have cut down the amount of time for which the minister is subjected to questioning in estimates.

The other thing that was very clear from the estimates process was (a) how he was basically not answering any questions, and (b) how he abused, and the government abused, Dorothy Dixers to chew up a significant amount of those four hours over the time. What was quite interesting this time was the tactic, which I have not seen before in practice, of the minister now coordinating his Dorothy Dixers with the public servants. It was quite an incredible thing to see.

Every single time a Dorothy Dixer was asked by the government, not only did the minister have a pre-prepared answer but the senior public servants at the table had a pre-prepared answer as well. The minister would read out his attempt to soak up the time and would then say, 'Public servant X, would you have anything to contribute?' and, funnily enough, that public servant would have some pre-prepared notes ready to read out on that subject.

So here we have public servants, who are required by the Public Sector Act in this state to act impartially, to act fearlessly and to act independently from the government of the day, partaking in the minister's attempt to avoid scrutiny in question time. This is something that we will be investigating a bit further, and we will look at the coordination that occurred in this regard. It was a very clear attempt. Every single time there was a Dorothy Dixer, we got a double-barrelled human shield answer to protect the minister from scrutiny. That happened time and time again. It was so farcical at one stage that the member for Waite—who does his best to shield the minister every single time we have these estimates committees—

The Hon. L.W.K. Bignell: It is a protection racket.

Mr PICTON: It is a protection racket, as the member for Mawson says. The member for Waite said, 'The member for Newland is seeking the call,' but the member for Newland was not even paying attention. He was not even looking. It was a complete farce. It was a complete attempt to soak up the time and ensure that he was not subjected to questions. But despite the reduced time, despite the soaking up of time with Dorothy Dixers, despite the Friday night timeslot, we did question the minister on a range of very important subjects in this very important area.

We kicked off in relation to comments that week from the Chief Executive of SA Health in relation to his ride along in an ambulance, when Dr Chris McGowan went on an ambulance and, funnily enough, found himself ramped. That would not be a surprise to anybody because ramping has doubled over the past 16 months of this government. Our paramedics and our patients are finding themselves ramped twice as often as ever before and twice as often as 16 months ago. It is not a surprise.

The surprise was that the Chief Executive of SA Health said that he was very bored with the situation and so he went home. That is not something that anybody else in that situation can do. That is not something that any of the patients can do. That is not something that any of the paramedics can do. They cannot just go home. The doctors and nurses cannot just go home. But the chief executive, who is being paid a total remuneration package of $560,000 a year by this government says, 'I'm bored. I'm going to go home.' Well, I think that that stinks, and not only do I think that but there has been an outpouring of concern about this on social media.

We have heard that a number of SA Health staff wrote that they have lost confidence in their chief executive. This is the chief executive who is directly responsible for the SA Ambulance Service under the act—they report directly to the chief executive—and their staff have now lost confidence in him. We asked the minister about this. This would have been an opportunity to get the chief executive to respond to these claims and be able to answer them, but he did not want to do that. He answered for the chief executive, as is his right to do under standing orders, and said that he was happy that the chief executive got out of his ivory tower.

The Hon. L.W.K. Bignell: He got back there pretty quickly when he found out that he was ramped.

Mr PICTON: That's right: when he was ramped, he was bored and got back there. But that is how this minister views his own chief executive—as living in an ivory tower. I thought what he said before the estimates committee was absolutely stunning. It became quite clear that the government's care, the government's knowledge in terms of the issues facing our Ambulance Service, is almost non-existent. Issues about the maintenance of vehicles we raised: the government said that they do not know anything it. Issues about performance times: they do not know anything about it. Issues about reports, which we understand the government has before them and which recommend significant numbers of extra staff: 'We can't talk about that.'

This is an ambulance service that is under pressure it has never been under before. We have the union going to the Industrial Relations Court to try to get the government to actually implement their own enterprise bargaining agreement in terms of the breaks and entitlements that our hardworking paramedics are entitled to, but the government washes their hands of it, they are bored of it, they do not want to answer questions about it.

We also had a discussion in relation to KordaMentha. It was very telling from the Premier's estimates hearing a couple of days prior, which the Auditor-General attended, that the contract the government signed with KordaMentha to do their initial work in relation to the Central Adelaide Local Health Network is under investigation by the Auditor-General. That is a very startling admission and it goes to the fact that this government appears to have broken a whole series of state procurement guidelines in their signing up KordaMentha basically with no process behind it whatsoever, without going through the proper processes. So keen were they to sign this million-dollar initial contract with KordaMentha that the rule book went out the window.

That is something that we know is now under investigation by the Auditor-General. We know that the government has been asked for documents in relation to that from SA Health. The minister would not say whether all those documents have now been provided. He would not say whether staff have been interviewed by the Auditor-General in relation to this. I think that is something this parliament is going to need to have a continuing close eye on in relation to what appears to be a very dodgy arrangement in how that contract was signed up to.

While that is happening, we have KordaMentha—who are getting paid, as of this point, well over $20 million, but it looks like they will probably get up to $50 million by the time they are finished—going around cutting services, cutting staff and cutting dollars out of our healthcare system. We asked the minister about a document we obtained under FOI that pointed to TVSP payments, TVSP arrangements that KordaMentha were discussing with Treasury in relation to CALHN staff.

The minister did not seem to know anything about it, he claimed. He had to take it all on notice: 'This is a matter for Treasury to look at.' Well, this is your health department, you are in charge of this and here we have the minister deflecting knowledge of it. We need to know how many staff are going to lose their jobs, how much that arrangement is going to cost taxpayers and how hospitals that are already under the pump are going to be able to cope without a significant number of staff who are going to lose their jobs.

The budget papers reveal that 1,140 staff are set to lose their jobs in SA Health this year. That would be the biggest reduction in SA Health staff that this state has ever seen. At a time when our hospitals are under the pump, at a time when ramping has doubled, at a time when Code White is now the norm in our emergency departments, we cannot cope with losing that many staff. It also became apparent that this government, under their new governance reforms, have not signed agreements between the local hospital networks and the government, so all those local hospital networks are currently running without performance targets and without a proper budget set in place.

Clearly there are issues, clearly those board members are not happy with the budget presented to them by the government and SA Health and clearly that is going to be a significant issue to watch. We raised the issue of, once again, the minister's own breach of the Ministerial Code of Conduct in relation to his office sending out cabinet attachment documents to Ms Georgina Downer, a private citizen. The minister says these are very sensitive documents that the public cannot see, but he was very happy to give them to a private citizen to see who still has those documents. The government, it appears, has not asked for them back. For all we know, they have been distributed elsewhere, but apparently the minister claims that these are very sensitive documents.

We asked the minister, 'What is the breakdown of the $550 million for the Women's and Children's Hospital?' We got no answer. We got a panicked huddle about that. That is something that should appear in the budget papers but is not there whatsoever. This is a government that is clearly lost at sea in relation to that development.

We asked the minister, 'Who is getting free car parking?' At a time when he is increasing the car park costs for hospital staff by 129 per cent, when he is increasing the cost for hospital patients by 20 per cent, are his executives getting free car parking? Are his ministerial staff getting free car parking? Is his chief executive getting free car parking? Does he get free car parking? The only one of those he could answer was when he said that he did not recall paying for his car park.

I have to say that those hardworking nurses and those hardworking cleaners do recall paying for their car park. It is a cost they notice, but this minister does not even notice whether he is paying for his car parking or not. These executives, these ministerial staff—and we know that at least five ministerial staff in his office are getting free car parking—do not work night shifts, they do not work 24 hours a day, they do not have to come in late to deal with patients and they do not have to deal with security issues. There is no reason why they should be getting much more favourable car parking arrangements than our nurses who are working nightshift, who are subject to security risks when they go to work and who are going to work to save lives, not to draft briefing documents for ministers, not to draft press releases. That appears to be the priority of this government.

We heard about issues in relation to the Lyell McEwin emergency department upgrade. It has been delayed by a year by this government. They have delayed this very important upgrade by a year but, not only that, they have cut at least $6 million perhaps $7 million out of the budget. So the upgrade that the people of the northern suburbs are going to get to their emergency department is not only going to be a year later than it was meant to me but it is also going to be a smaller upgrade than was originally planned because of decisions by this government.

We also discussed this government's plans to cut 25 per cent of funding for non-government mental health organisations, which is going to have a real effect for organisations such as Catherine House. The people who go to Catherine House are not going to be getting NDIS packages, but it is going to have a real effect there. The government is pushing this all out to a review they are undertaking. We have the Mental Health Commissioner, whom the government is sacking, despite saying he is doing a good job. He is going to be out of a job, just as the victims' rights commissioner was out of his job and just as the DPP was out of his job. They are going to reappoint somebody to that position. They did not even bring him along to the hearing.

We had the mental health governance review, which had the worst consultation we have ever seen on a report, which had a video published to describe how bad the consultation was and which the government appears fine with. We had serious questions raised about this minister's delegation of eating disorders and whether or not it was done in a timely way and whether he made decisions in relation to that delegation before it was made that potentially could have been a conflict of interest. There is a whole heap of other issues that I do not have time to get to in this speech, but this shows how at sea this government is on a whole range of issues.

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (17:10): I rise today to make a brief contribution in regard to a follow-up from our estimates hearings. In my portfolio of human services, I have a range of areas that I consider to be extremely important in relation to supporting vulnerable South Australians. Throughout the course of the estimates hearing, with the assistance of an able team I constructed some questions to try to dig down to the heart of this budget, which is really letting down the people of South Australia. It has nothing in it for vulnerable people. It actually hits the hip pockets of South Australians who are already struggling.

I have spoken ad nauseam in this place before regarding some of the issues in relation to people with a disability transitioning to the NDIS, so I will not repeat those calls. I will just point out that we and many other people across the country have highlighted a number of areas of real concern in relation to disability, which have not been addressed in this current budget. We still hold out hope that the voices of people living with a disability in South Australia will be heard, as well as the voices of the providers who are doing their best to try to provide the best quality service to people living with a disability.

One of the hot areas at the moment that we are looking at is transport, in relation specifically to the cancellation of the taxi voucher scheme as it cashes out to the NDIS. Nationally, there is a whole range of different ways that that is being addressed. We hope to see a little bit more action in regard to that, and we will continue to press on that. There were some questions in estimates around the transition of the NDIS and, again, the movement of moneys that were block funded across previously. A small portion of money has been set aside to help facilitate this ongoing transition.

However, when we questioned the minister regarding this, we did not receive satisfactory information or assurances that amounts had been set for organisations using any specific calculation that was going to provide organisations with a way of delivering KPIs and outputs that were congruous to the amounts being delivered in terms of a dollar value. We will continue to pursue that and advocate for organisations on behalf of consumers and hope that, again, we can get their voices heard by the minister and see good outcomes.

The member for Kaurna in his health and mental health portfolios has spoken and asked questions about mental health funding to organisations where people are vulnerable. We see that some of these really amazing organisations like Catherine House are receiving a reduction in the amount of funding based on NDIS, as well as some of the other great places, like Diamond House. We will continue to advocate for that, because really what we are seeing is a pretty short-sighted response.

I take the responsibility of my role seriously, and I want to see that the minister is doing so as well. In this last week we have seen a light being shone on the quantity and types of shares held by the minister that have been declared as part of the pecuniary interests. Questions have been posed to see whether or not the Ministerial Code of Conduct has been followed in terms of decisions being made to privatise health services and other services, which include people with disabilities within the Human Services portfolio in hospitals or step-down facilities.

We have had no real answers to these questions. In fact, the responses have generated more questions than answers. As the lead questioner in the estimates hearing, I am very concerned that the hearing plus follow-up questions have not given us any real substance. I would expect that, if somebody has nothing to hide and everything has been done according to the specific code of conduct and the rules, then they would just come out and say so. This has left me with some degree of doubt at the moment, so I have made a referral to the Auditor-General in regard to this particular issue. I wait with interest to see whether that investigation yields anything.

In regard to questioning around housing in particular, we learned in estimates over the last week that the stimulus package that has been announced—which is $104.5 million broken down into some commitments around maintenance plus some funding packages for homebuyers on low incomes and a very modest building package of some 90 homes over 700-odd days—is really nothing more than a cash grab out of the reserves of the SA Housing Authority. There really is no new money being used. It is simply the shuffling of deckchairs. As we know, if you take money out of cash reserves, you can only do it for so long and then there is no money left.

The very low and unambitious target of 90 homes is a microeffort. It is really a poofteenth of what we need. Some modelling suggests that some 14,000 homes are required to alleviate the affordable housing crisis. As we know, that flows down to housing stress and a pressure that ultimately can end up in increased homelessness, which is what we have seen here in South Australia for the last 18 months. There is an increase in the numbers of people sleeping rough. It is in the regions and it is in the city. We need more homes; the 90 homes are not going to do anything.

As well as that, none of the 40 beds that were promised for victims of domestic violence by the then opposition, the now government, are yet in operation. I asked a number of questions about whether that is 40 beds, 40 homes or 10 homes with four beds each and how different families would be accommodated in these houses. I had no firm responses other than that there are nine beds, I believe, coming online in September. That is one firm number. It is a far cry short of the 75 per cent promised by the end of the year, which would be 30 additional crisis beds. For those who are wondering, again we are left without any firm delivery on what was a firm commitment. We do not have any detail about this either. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get an answer, but we will see how that goes.

In respect of older South Australians, we know that there is a cut in this budget to the subsidisation of monitored personal alerts, which are used by many vulnerable South Australians. They are a great safety net. They provide confidence to families and confidence to the people themselves. They keep people out of residential care and often keep people out of hospital. It allows people to maintain independence and increase and improve their quality of life.

We heard from the federal minister before estimates, via a media interview, that the first information he had regarding this was a bump into the Premier in Canberra. He had not been consulted about this change in the funding model or the rebate that was happening. I would not have minded being a fly on the wall when the human services minister got the phone call asking, 'Please explain.' We are left wondering how that might have ensued, but during that phone conversation that he had on radio FIVEaa, I believe it was, he said that he did not think there was any change to the rebate of $250 per annum on monitoring fees.

I rang in because I heard that this was said and I said, 'Actually, I think you might be wrong because we understand there to be a $50 cut to the subsidy, which leaves people getting $200 a year back.' I have spoken about this before. Okay, it is only $50 but it is another $1 a week added on to other dollars a week with a cascading, cumulative effect. I am here to say that I am pretty confident that the federal minister, who did not think that cut was happening, is sadly incorrect.

We have been inundated, as I know other members have, with letters from constituents informing them that they are now up for an extra $50 unless the monitoring company would like to absorb the cost. Well, hello, trickle-down economics. This program saves lives and I think the minister just needs to suck this up, reverse the decision and help people in the community. I would hope that members of parliament on the other side are also putting pressure on the minister to do so.

One of the portfolios that I cover is youth and another is volunteers. While some of the questions that we asked last week in estimates were concerning to youth organisations, volunteer organisations and myself, the answers also explained some things to us. Without really any fanfare or change announced or information to the public, we understand that there really is no office for youth anymore, there is no office for volunteers anymore and the minister does not really know how many people are allocated to do what work in those departments either, in terms of youth and/or volunteers.

It seems that there is just a bunch of people working in the department, available to do a bit of this and that for youth and for volunteers, which probably explains the increase in phone calls to other non-government organisations about volunteering and some confusion about who they actually now contact to ask questions from a policy point of view. I think it also beggars belief that we do not have specific numbers or an understanding about who is going to implement the volunteer strategy, and how many people are going to develop, consult and then deliver the youth action plans.

I know there are some grand plans that have been spoken about but we do not know what is happening there. Over the last week I have spoken with many organisations who work with these groups of people, and they are quite concerned about the future of the priorities here. I am very concerned about the budget. I am very concerned about the lack of answers that we were able to secure.

I will certainly be following up for people who have asked me questions and asked for explanations and for people who are unhappy and bearing the brunt of this Marshall Liberal budget, and the unfair results that it will bring. Really, the blame will have to fall directly on the Premier and his cabinet in terms of the unfair decisions that have been made.

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay) (17:24): I rise today to talk about the estimates process. The Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment has a very important responsibility within the South Australian economy. In fact, when you consider the whole of the portfolio, it is worth around $22.9 billion to our economy. Our total goods and services exports sit at $15.7 billion for the 2018 calendar year. Added on to that is our visitor expenditure in South Australia, at around $7.2 billion.

It was disappointing this week when CommSec's State of the States report said that South Australia's economic performance ranking has fallen to sixth position out of all the Australian states and territories. South Australia is now ranked either fifth or sixth on six of the eight economic indicators. From the estimates hearing with the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, I think it is quite clear that the Marshall Liberal government has no plan to turn this around.

There is a much talked about yet secretive South Australian growth agenda, but it is still a work in progress. In the 16 months that this government have held office, they have yet to articulate a cross-government agenda to boost our trade and investment. For those in the chamber who have not heard this backstory, I will give a short recap. When it first came to office, this government ripped up all our state's industry and regional engagement strategies. They then fired senior trade officials and our international engagement advisers. While all this was happening, guess what? There was not lot of movement or focus within the department.

The Premier then asked our conservative friend to come over from New Zealand and conduct a review. The interesting thing about the review was that he had a completely different view from what the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment had been articulating. He said that the government's trade office plans were far too expensive and should not come at a cost of completely dismantling our trade missions. This was interesting. He gave the recommendation that the government needs to have a plan and that the plan would be called the South Australian growth agenda, which is a bit like the South Australian strategic plan that was ripped up.

Again, the public sector went through yet another machinery of government change. Alas, what do we hear about this budget? We hear that $26.8 million was cut from the Department for Trade, Tourism and Investment. If we are going to have this 3 per cent growth in state product—this 3 per cent target—why would you cut the department? I spoke to the minister at length about the way he changed the performance indicators. We have gone from very clear, transparent measures of the department's immediate impact on the economy to very broad and vague measures of overall economic indicators.

We know how much foreign direct investment we have received and we know how many international students we have. However, from now on, that is not going to be captured. What is going to be captured are our targets: our target for foreign direct investment and our target for growth in exports. Why is there a lack of transparency? That is my question. It makes me wonder what kind of signal we are sending to our own trade officials and to trade officials in the commonwealth and overseas.

Is this really the best we can do? Must we be the state that has no plan, no direction and no resources to grow our trade and investment? I can tell you that when I came away from estimates yesterday I did not feel that we were on track. I did not feel that this minister is taking charge of the so-called sector development plans. I feel that we have had 16 months and nothing has happened.

Let me turn to tourism. What do we know from the budget? That is right: a $12 million cut. An efficiency dividend cut. Cut, cut, cut on a fantastic growth industry. Sure, there was an announcement that existing marketing funding was going to continue—well, so it should—but let's not get too excited that you are continuing what was already there and what was relied on so strongly by our sector, that marketing. The fact that our hardworking tourism operators are disappointed must be understood. I expressed that to the minister, that people know that marketing is important, but we have gone backwards.

We learned from estimates—because I asked the minister where these cuts were going to come from—that they are going to be cuts to areas that directly service the industry. I have asked for details, and it was taken on notice, but I thought it would be pretty easy to say; you have made these cuts, so what are you going to cut. The only thing I heard from him was that the signage program is cut and that internet connections in our tourist hotspots stay as they are. That is going to be cut.

What I was deeply concerned about in this budget—and the minister just said this is it—is that the government has stepped away from the industry. It has cut support to the Tourism Industry Council South Australia by 26 per cent. We heard from the minister, 'Oh, there's growth here. They need to stand on their own two feet.' I tell you what, if I were a peak body in South Australia that had support from this government I would be very concerned that I was next to be cut off because apparently they are all okay to go on their own. There is no shared partnership here. There is no shared collaboration. So watch out for the next budget if you are a peak body that has government funding.

I am very concerned about our hardworking regional tourism organisations, and I think they are going to be getting quite the rough deal. The minister continues to be evasive about making any commitment about the future of any funding for our regions. The minister was more than happy to talk about the importance of tourism in our regions, but when it comes to giving certainty and stability to those regional tourism organisations we get nothing. All I got was vague statements and no commitments, just promises of intention.

I tell you what, we know that more than 40 per cent of money in tourism is in the regional areas and they deserve better. They deserve better than a vague commitment. What they need is a multiyear commitment for regional tourism organisations from this government, and they need it sooner rather than later. Our tourism industry is an area of supergrowth. We know it provides economic stimulus, job growth and long-term career pathways for the people of South Australia, so while the latest statistics on visitor spend are welcome we on this side of the chamber will continue to advocate for tourism operators.

There are 18,000 tourism-related small businesses that drive the visitor economy, and what they do not feel they have is a government standing up for this sector. I spoke to the minister about this and asked him for his commitment, but I think the reality is that this $12 million cut is going to be hard, that it is going to be difficult and that we are going to hear about more and more of them going to have to be cut to reach those efficiency dividends. That is a concern for anyone out there. We know that the fashion festival went, we know that the motorsport festival went—what is next? How are you going to achieve this budget? How are you actually going to get there without making serious cuts to programs, services and events?

I had the absolute joy of representing the shadow minister for innovation and skills in the estimates committee to talk to the Minister for Industry and Skills about his budget, and I have to say that the lack of transparency was quite interesting. Instead of delivering on 20,800 apprenticeships and traineeships that the minister and Premier constantly refer to, all we heard from the Minister for Industry and Skills was that this figure included pre-apprenticeships, pre-traineeships, higher apprenticeships and training with similar characteristics to an apprenticeships and traineeships.

It has now become very clear to the parliament, to the opposition and to the people of South Australia what this figure actually means. We thought that we were talking about traineeships and four-year apprenticeships, but instead—or in addition, one might say—in its figures it will count courses such as a four-week childcare course, which is a preparation course. It will include a five-week disability preparation course in its so-called apprenticeship and traineeship figures.

I asked the minister, 'Does that mean a person, an individual, could be counted multiple times in this figure?' Of course, we need to answer that question because yes is the answer. You could do a pre-traineeship course and you have completed a course. You could do a traineeship and be counted and maybe you will commence an apprenticeship and be counted again. One of the areas that we have always had concerns about, while this is an ambitious figure to have for additional traineeships, apprenticeships, pre-traineeships, etc., is commencements. It is not about completions.

I think everyone should share our concern that the completion rate is not good enough. What about support programs to make sure people are completing their traineeships and completing their apprenticeships? We are concerned. While the minister very clearly thinks that things are going well under his watch and that everything is on track, the facts tell us otherwise. Data from his own department shows that commencements of new traineeships and apprenticeships are down, completion of apprenticeships and traineeships are down and apprentices currently in training are down. We have concerns about the increasing numbers of cancellations of and withdrawals from apprenticeships.

We know that this has been an ambitious focus of the government, but it was very clear in the budget papers that so far only 3,400 of the promised aim, the target, of 20,000 have really been delivered, so we are only at 16 per cent. We know that the minister likes to talk about apprenticeships, and well he should as Minister for Innovation and Skills, but we are not getting there. We are not on track. Meanwhile, the other area that the minister is busy cutting funds from is foundation skills courses, such as Adult Communication Education.

Adult Community Education programs (often known as ACE) support many people in South Australia. These play a role in providing people with the opportunity and the chance to start their pathway on education and a pathway often into employment and further studies and skills. This opportunity might be just the thing needed to help them embark on a traineeship or apprenticeship but, alas, in this budget we have cut another $1 million from the sector—$1 million from the Adult Community Education sector. How are we reaching out to people who need the most support if we are prepared to cut the funding there? This service cut follows on from cuts made in last year's budget. I really think that it means we have abandoned those people, the people who need our support the most.

When it comes to small business—and the minister is the Minister for Small Business—we just feel that there is really not much of a plan and there are certainly no policies for small business in this state. In a change of events, the MoG changes, the minister had the portfolio responsibilities for the Office of the Small Business Commissioner taken away from him earlier this year. In the most recent budget, there is hardly a mention of small business.

As every South Australian knows, most South Australians are employed in small business. This is an incredibly important area, if not the only area, where most South Australians are employed. There was no mention of any new initiatives to assist small business, no mention of any plans for the state to assist small business. There is no new funding for small business support in this budget. You have to wonder, what does the Minister for Small Business do? What is the direction he is taking South Australians? What is his focus?

We also had some interesting questions around migration. I am personally quite concerned about the polarising response we had to what is supposed to be an incredible area of focus for this government—population growth—encouraging skilled migrants to migrate to South Australia. They could not tell me quite what the headcount was initially and then they said it is 24 people. So you have 24 people who are working on this area, and this is my concern. I asked: how many of these people have more than five years' experience as case managers? They will come back to me on this.

One of the areas I was most concerned about is the understanding of South Australians about how much money the commonwealth is providing to Skilling South Australia and how much of it is actually coming from South Australian employers. These employers, who want to sponsor skilled workers to come to Australia, are required to pay four up-front annual payments of $1,800 each, that is $7,200 to the commonwealth, which goes to the fund of Skilling South Australia.

While we have this great agreement with the commonwealth, it is actually South Australia's employers who are wanting to have skilled migrants come to work here, who are paying into this fund. So the fanfare around gaining this funding from the feds failed to be pretty clear to South Australians that they are actually footing the bill. I thought that was quite interesting.

During this time, we raised with the minister questions about his appointments to boards and the industry skills councils, with some dark clouds remaining over his head about his perceived continued way of appointing people to boards. There have been widespread cuts to the Department for Innovation and Skills, and we are going to see $51 million of cuts over the next four years.

We have seen lots of MoG changes for this department. We have seen the Small Business Commissioner lost and we have seen the Office of the Industry Advocate lost, but what is interesting is that the minister himself has slightly increased the funding to his own office and not reduced any of the full-time equivalents there. So, while the Minister for Innovation and Skills takes the axe to his own department, he keeps his staffing levels in his office the same. The minister obviously has one message for his department and another for his office.

While it was a somewhat entertaining estimates schedule, of course, the ambition for both these ministers is incredibly important for South Australia—the development of innovation and skills, the development of skilling South Australians for the future economy. These are incredibly important. Trade, tourism and investment, these are where jobs will come from in the future. We need to make sure that we are focused, that this government is on track and actually has a plan. I have to say that, from this estimates process, I am convinced of neither.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (17:43): I would like to take a few minutes to make some observations about the estimates process. I will not cover the same territory my colleagues have, because I think they have covered that territory better than I have, but I will add some of my own observations regarding not so much some of the issues but perhaps some of the approaches the ministers have undertaken towards the estimates process and some of the behaviours, etc.

The first thing I would like to raise with the house is the actual presentation of the budget, which is the government's second budget. When you compare the presentation of this budget with last year's budget, it is interesting to see how it is actually structured. When you look at it closely, the first thing you notice is that it is actually hard to find the different bits and pieces, compared with last year's budget, in which there were discrete parts so that you could quickly reference those areas of interest to you if you were a shadow minister and also quite easily find stuff that may be of interest to your electorate.

I found that there was a lot less detail in the budget, or fewer reference points, which made it very hard to raise questions because often there was no reference point, or the reference point was not very direct, and it was very hard to find things that were not actually mentioned. They were obviously in the budget, because they had to be budgeted for, but not actually in the printed document of the budget. So it was very hard to find points to hang your question onto. One can only speculate whether it was a deliberate policy of the Treasurer to restructure the budget papers in a way that would reduce accountability. Certainly that was outcome; that is what was achieved.

I would say that both Chairs of the committees were reasonably fair in their approach and assisted the opposition to find reference points on a number of occasions. I think it was very frustrating when clearly an item of expenditure existed but was not represented in a way that made it readily accessible or able to be referenced for questioning purposes. The government may think that that is pretty smart politics, and it may be, but it tells parliament and the people that this government, despite their rhetoric to the contrary, are less interested in accountability and transparency.

For all their faults, our previous budget documents had a lot more detail in them, and that made it easier for the opposition of the day to find points to ask questions about. It will be interesting to see what next year's budget looks like. If this trend continues, the budget papers will be half a page: there will just be budget items and the ministers and the Chair will start arguing about whether the question we are asking actually relates to that budget page or not.

It was certainly clear this year that the government said a lot less in its budget. I think that that was deliberate, because the less the government said, the less they could be held accountable for. As I said, I commend both Chairs. Certainly your chairmanship, sir, was very fair and honourable, despite your disagreement with some of my questions. In the time I spent in committee B, I found the Chair had mellowed since last year too. His chairmanship was quite fair and reasonable, certainly during the time I was there.

Another thing that I found quite interesting, which happened last year and also this year, was the handballing, where a minister says, 'Sorry, it's not in my budget. Find the reference point in my budget for that,' or he notes that someone else is the relevant minister. When you ask that minister, he says, 'It's nothing to do with me; it's actually that minister.' Unfortunately, that minister had already come and gone, in terms of estimates, and you could ask no questions. Ministers may think that was a smart tactic, but it is not. As far as I am concerned, playing those sorts of games shows that there is more to be dug up in that area, and I would be spending some time to look into those areas. Clearly, if ministers are playing that game there is something to hide or something they are trying to spin.

I will give the example of rental subsidies for start-ups at Lot Fourteen. The amount allocated, $4.8 million, was in the Renewal SA budget last year, but this year that amount did not appear anywhere. Through questioning, we then found out that that amount was actually transferred to the Department for Innovation and Skills. I was not in that committee, but I understand from my colleague who asked those questions that, when they asked the Minister for Innovation and Skills questions regarding rental subsidies for start-ups, the minister said, 'My department doesn't deal with leasing; that's Renewal SA's business.'

Then minister B, the minister responsible for Renewal SA, said, 'No, we don't provide subsidies. I can guarantee that there were no subsidies given. We sublease to the Department for Innovation and Skills, and I can tell you that we have given a commercial rent to that department.' We do not know which department that is actually leased to—that is their business. We do not know if they have been given any subsidies. There is some sort of artificial Chinese wall in this department.

In further questioning, Renewal SA acknowledged that actually they did know, but they are not responsible for it; therefore, they do not have to answer our questions. At the end of the day, we were not able to find out—and I think it is quite appropriate to find out—what the level of these subsidies is and who they are being given to. They might be quite legitimate. Are the subsidies now being given so huge in order to attract the right people?

Is it that the commercial rates, which the overall policy is about, are actually being diminished? Is the government, despite their rhetoric about people beating on their door, finding it hard and therefore have to find more subsidies? If there was nothing to hide, why did the minister not say, 'These are the subsidies and this is what we have attracted.' It was a very simple question.

I move on to veterans affairs. I try to be very cautious in what I say on veterans affairs because I understand that we try to be as bipartisan as possible in this policy area. I think it is important for the reasons outlined today in your motion, sir. That does not mean that, as an opposition, we have to agree to everything the minister does or that we do not make the minister accountable. The approach we take is very important in this area.

I certainly try to do that, and I will give you an example of how I do that. I actually have a regular forum with ex-service organisations in the sector. Probably about 15 or 20 different organisations attend those forums. Just to show my bipartisanship, I actually invited a representative from the department to attend those meetings. They can hear everything we say and any concerns raised. The department obviously works for the government, so the minister actually knows what is happening.

It was quite clear from the last meeting that the department did report back to the minister because the minister was ready for some issues that were raised at that forum. They did not appear in the budget, yet the Premier was quite happy to talk about them. He raised them himself. They did not even appear in the budget lines, but he was happy to talk about them. It was interesting that with things that do not appear that they do not want to talk about they do not talk about them. But things that do not appear, that they are happy to talk about, appear again. That was an interesting thing with veterans affairs.

One issue in veterans affairs that I think is a growing issue is the merger of Veterans SA into Defence SA. There is certainly disquiet in the veterans community about that merger and what impact it will have on the delivery of services to veterans and their families. Certainly the answers I got at the estimates committee did not reassure me that the concerns are not there. They are quite valid and they need to be progressed.

Then we come to HomeStart Finance. One of the key issues raised by people in the industry who play an important role is the amount of time that HomeStart Finance is taking to approve finance. Contracts are going over into a second financial year, which means that land tax is now payable by the person providing the land, which is then passed on. We have a situation where land is actually costing more because of the government's inability to progress these HomeStart Finance contracts very quickly.

Another issue is the lack of communication between HomeStart Finance and developers in trying to streamline that to make sure that the buyers—the people we are trying to support and help, the people on low incomes who need HomeStart Finance—are the beneficiaries of the cheapest possible land. It was disappointing that the department seemed to be disinterested in improving—

Dr Close: Uninterested.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: Sorry, uninterested. I have my pet dislikes as well. They were uninterested in progressing that, and that was an issue. Another issue which has been raised, which the minister either did not know the answer to or just refused to give the answer to, was the impact of aggregation on land tax, particularly how it hurts this sector and how it will add cost to the land in this sector.

Then we come to planning. The area of planning is a major area of reform and therefore requires quite a bit of resource, and that is understood. What became clear from the minister's answers was that, for him, engagement or consultation—call it what it you like—is literally ticking a box to say you have done it without actually trying to engage truthfully. Do you need me to finish very quickly, sir?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Light, it is entirely up to you. We can move to go past 6 o'clock.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: No, I will not go past 6 o'clock.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: We need a few minutes just to wrap it up.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: I will keep it brief. It has been helpful that I have had no interjections as well, except for the one about my grammar.

Mr Pederick: And that is out of order.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: It was out of order. The minister gave pretty flippant responses to the issues regarding engagement. He said that one of the committees he engages with is called the infill committee, which provides him with early advice on how to address infill issues within the metropolitan Adelaide area.

The only stakeholders involved in that committee are industry people. There is no-one from the community, local government or any other sector. He justified that on the basis of, 'They can talk to us later. We will get our real opinions from industry and talk to the community when we are actually just ticking the box at the end of the process.' That is why there is quite a bit of disquiet with this particular minister's approach to the implementation of these reforms.

In relation to local government, the minister was quite dismissive about concerns raised by local government. One bill he had regarding local government failed to pass, yet he has this bold agenda about reform. Given his record to date, we will have to see how that pans out.

The EPA is interesting because the minister who deals with the EPA and waste management was quite dismissive and displayed a level of contempt for local government in terms of their concerns about the impact the waste levy increase, the bin tax, of 40 per cent will have on illegal dumping. The minister continued to say that he has received no advice that suggests it is an issue, yet local governments tell me that the cost of collecting illegal dumping and the clean-up of illegal dumping is increasing.

The minister did not even suggest that he work with local government to make some assessments. He was quite dismissive. He did not actually want to hear about it. He basically said, 'It's not an issue. Let's move on to somewhere else.' When ministers behave in this way, they think they are scoring political points. That might be fine, but they do two other things: they diminish this parliament and insult our electors.

Motion carried.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley—Minister for Innovation and Skills) (17:57): I move:

That the remainder of the bill be agreed to.

Motion carried.

Third Reading

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley—Minister for Innovation and Skills) (17:57): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.


At 17:58 the house adjourned until Thursday 1 August 2019 at 11:00.


PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT