House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-06-18 Daily Xml

Contents

Service SA

Ms MICHAELS (Enfield) (14:37): My question is to the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. In relation to the investigations he just informed the house were being undertaken in relation to the Service SA closures, has his department conducted, or will his department conduct, any community consultation in relation to the options available?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:38): There certainly will be a high degree of communication and engagement with the local community as we help support people to engage with these alternate pathways.

Currently, people are unaware of the full breadth of choice they actually have to undertake transactions. I think there is quite an important community engagement piece that needs to happen to make sure that people are fully aware of all the alternatives that they have currently and will have under our new system. Certainly, there will be a very strong focus on talking with South Australians so that they are able to transact with Service SA as quickly as possible and using the full suite of available solutions.

It's fair to say at the moment that the service we provide at Service SA isn't as good as it could be. I think that there's a lot that is cumbersome about the way that Service SA operates, and some of that is to do with their enabling regulations and some of that is to do with essentially making sure that this organisation is as customer focused as it can be. I am extremely excited about the opportunity for us to improve that service, both from its digital platform and our ability to reform those face-to-face transactions.

We do accept that there are a group of people in the community who want to transact face to face. We know that we need to provide those options, and we will be providing those options, but it is fair to say that there is a lot of red tape in regulation and existing practice that sits behind that customer service platform that makes it difficult for South Australians to engage.

Service SA has a long way to go in terms of being where we as a Marshall Liberal government would like it to be. There is a strong reform platform that sits behind the changes that we are going to be making, and we will definitely be talking to the broader community about what that means for them.