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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
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Infrastructure South Australia

Ms HABIB (Elder) (14:25): My question is to the Premier. Will the Premier update the house on what action the government is taking to establish Infrastructure South Australia and how this independent body will help ensure our infrastructure planning meets the long-term needs of our state?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:25): I thank the member for Elder for her question. The news is there is not long to wait. Very soon, the government, as part of its 100-day commitment, will be introducing legislation into this parliament to establish Infrastructure SA. We have talked about this for a very long period of time. Those opposite, when they were in government, didn't want a bar of it. They didn't want to look in a logical way at spending the finite capital that the taxpayers of South Australia provide to the government in a logical, considered way, which would advance the overall productivity of our state. They loved pet projects around marginal seats and electoral cycles.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: At nearly every single opportunity, they were found wanting. Take a look at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital. I think it's already $600 million over budget. They didn't provide useful supervision for the important capital investments that the people of South Australia have needed them to make for a long period of time. The good news is there was an election on 17 March, and those opposite are no longer on the treasury bench, and that provides the new government with the opportunity to put positive policies in place straightaway.

One of the most important responsibilities of a government is to invest in productive infrastructure, to grow the size of the economy, remove those burdens which inhibit the growth of the economy and make sure that we are making sensible decisions with the finite capital that we have available to us as a government. We have long advocated for the establishment of an independent statutory authority to develop a long-range productive infrastructure plan for South Australia. That is exactly and precisely what we are going to do.

Infrastructure SA will be set up to deliver to the government, to the people of South Australia, a 20-year productive infrastructure plan: road, rail, ports, airports, water augmentation, electricity augmentation—all the things that individual members of society can't provide and rely on their government to do so.

In the establishment of this, we have relied on some advice. I must say, I am very grateful to Sir Rod Eddington, who was the inaugural chair of Infrastructure Australia, and the Hon. Mark Birrell, who has also been a longstanding chairman of Infrastructure Australia. What we did was work with these two eminently qualified individuals to look at the other state-based infrastructure bodies that exist. Yes, there are others. Even the Western Australian Labor government is now putting in an infrastructure body because they can see the logic of developing a long-range plan, and that is what we are going to be doing.

One of the advantages—if there is an advantage in coming last in this sequence—is that you can look at what other jurisdictions have done and you can learn the lessons from those other states around Australia. That is what we are going to do. I am quite sure that when we introduce it—we have given notice, but we will be introducing the legislation very soon, so not long to wait—people in this parliament will see that we put a lot of effort into developing a very logical way to spending the finite infrastructure capital that we have.

Importantly, we need to see much more transparency on the advice to government than we saw under the previous Labor regime in South Australia. So, yes, advice will be provided to the government. We will be releasing that advice to the people of South Australia so they can be assured that when this government spends a cent of their taxpayer dollars we are applying it to the highest value, highest return project to grow our economy, to grow jobs and to keep young people here in South Australia.

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