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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-03-25 Daily Xml
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Bills

Supply Bill 2020

Standing Orders Suspension

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (11:56): I move:

That standing orders be and remain so far suspended as to enable the introduction of a bill without notice forthwith and passage through all stages without delay.

The SPEAKER: There is an absolute majority; I accept the motion.

Motion carried.

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (11:57): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act for the appropriation of money from the Consolidated Account for the financial year ending 30 June 2021. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (11:58): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

A supply bill is necessary to be enacted as soon as possible to provide appropriation authority from the beginning of the financial year until the Governor's assent is given to the Appropriation Bill 2020. The Appropriation Act 2019 expires on 30 June 2020. The Supply Bill 2020 provides interim appropriation authority for 1 July 2020 until the Appropriation Bill 2020 is passed.

The bill is required in order to respond to the delay in the 2020-21 state and commonwealth budgets, as agreed by national cabinet, to mitigate risks associated with any possible delays or issues arising from COVID-19 and to enable the operations of government to be paid for the period from 1 July 2020 until the Appropriation Bill is approved.

This bill provides additional time and flexibility for the passing of the 2020 Appropriation Bill. In the absence of special arrangements in the form of a supply act, there would be no parliamentary authority for expenditure between the commencement of the new financial year and the date on which assent is given to the main Appropriation Bill. The amount being sought under this bill is $15,336,000,000. This amount is based on the budgeted appropriations that were required for the 2019-20 financial year. Clause 1 is formal, clause 2 provides relevant definitions and clause 3 provides for the appropriation of up to $15.336 billion.

What we are seeking to do here today—and I want to thank the opposition for their forbearance and their quick response in helping to enable this house debate the bill through all stages at a time of national emergency—is have a parliament that works together for the good of all South Australians. I think it is essential for the expedient function of its government and it shows the great strength of this institution.

We are in unprecedented times. Making sure that we can respond to the health emergency and also making sure that we can respond to help stimulate our economy is extremely important. This appropriation bill, which is different from previous appropriation bills in the size and quantum of the money being sought, will allow the government to do that. I thank all members in this house for their help in bringing this bill on. I commend the bill to members.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (12:00): I rise firstly to indicate the opposition's support for the Supply Bill, and the member for Schubert is correct, we do live in extraordinary times and emergency measures are required. It is an unusual Supply Bill, not just because of the circumstances in which it is being introduced and the purposes for which it is being introduced, but also because the amount that this bill seeks is a much larger amount compared with what this parliament is used to for supply bills.

Usually, the parliament is called on to provide an amount of money that would suffice for a period of say four or five months to give a margin to the government of the day to make sure that it gets all of its budget bills passed and assented to, for example, between July—the beginning of a financial year—and say, November of that same year.

Here, we are seeking to provide a much greater sum of money: $15.3 billion, as the member for Schubert has pointed out. That is the sum the government required last financial year for the entire year, not for four or five months. That is a very different proposition from any that has been put to this place before. It is important to think that this will give the government sufficient flexibility in responding to the unfolding crisis that the coronavirus presents to the South Australian community.

It is very clear that we will need a continuation of additional resources provided to, for example, our healthcare systems and other areas within the government's response. We will also need very significant resources brought to bear by the government for the support of the community, whether that is support for people, whether that is support for households or whether that is support for businesses and the economy. We have seen the federal government act. As I told this place yesterday, it is my view that in this respect the federal government has acted decisively to provide additional support to individuals and businesses to try to maintain a level of economic and financial activity in these very difficult and uncertain times.

Yes, of course, there are some issues with it. There are those who feel that perhaps the federal government could have found ways to make sure that people could access some of the payments that they are making available more quickly in order to provide them with a bit more comfort in the coming days and weeks. There are also other views, for example, about whether it is inadvertently—not deliberately—setting people up for some level of longer-term hardship by giving them access to superannuation in these times. However, it is important that the federal government has acted and acted so quickly.

Here in South Australia we heard the state government make much of the so-called stimulus package, which they announced more than two weeks ago now: $350 million of almost exclusively already planned expenditure merely to be brought forward. Of course, not much, if any of that, has actually made its way into the community yet and we have seen over the course of the last two weeks the beginning of the impacts of the coronavirus on our state's economy and on small businesses and households. That has led the Labor opposition to call for, repeatedly, some urgent and far greater measures to be brought to bear by this government here in South Australia to better support individuals, households, businesses and our state's economy.

I am hoping that this $15.3 billion will provide sufficient capacity for the government not only to continue meeting the challenge of health care and other service delivery in response to the coronavirus crisis but also this need to support individuals, households, businesses and the economy. We are used to using the term 'stimulus packages' since the global financial crisis when we had a federal and state government response to do what its name suggests and that is stimulate economic activity, but I think what we are facing now is, as the Victorian Premier, Dan Andrews, has described it, a survival package necessary for many individuals, households, businesses and their economy.

I made some brief remarks in the grievance debate yesterday that I had been contacted particularly over the course of last week and early this week by many constituents, including small business owners who were genuinely panicked and worried about both their personal circumstances as business owners and operators and also the circumstances of their employees. They were desperate for advice and desperate for support from somewhere, and I think to some extent what the federal government has announced in their responses to date has provided some of that certainty.

I will also say, as someone who has used my position as a member of parliament as a platform to raise serious, legitimate and repeated concerns about the behaviour of the banking sector in Australia, including in South Australia, I have actually been somewhat pleased to date that at least the big four banks have chosen to respond in a more helpful way than that to which Australians have become accustomed. I do note, of course, that after the Reserve Bank made the decision to decrease interest rates by 25 basis points, all of the big four banks took the opportunity to delay passing on that rate cut to home loans by between two and three weeks.

That, of course, is little surprise to Australians. We all know that the big four deliberately schedule their board meetings as far away from RBA meeting dates as possible to make sure they can maximise the amount of time in which they can continue to charge higher home loan rates from Australians. Notwithstanding that, at least this time in response to the Reserve Bank of Australia's significant injection of funds into the banking system—the availability of additional funds from the RBA to the big four banks—the big four are taking measures now to massively reduce lending rates particularly for businesses, but also for some home loan products, to suspend the requirement for people to make mortgage repayments either on their homes or on their businesses if they are impacted by the coronavirus, and I think these are welcome developments.

I think we should have the same expectation that the federal government has created where the federal government have said that they will move again, if and when necessary, and I think all of the language and the intimation from the Prime Minister is that we can expect further movements from the federal government in terms of providing more support to Australians. I hope we also see that from the Australian banking sector as well, that they are able to provide further support when it is needed by Australian individuals and Australian businesses.

But I reiterate: the passage of this bill to provide this financial capacity to this government—$15.3 billion—also means that this government needs to act quickly and it needs to act strongly and decisively with much, much greater levels of support for South Australians and South Australian businesses and the economy. The efforts to date have not been anywhere near enough.

The Labor opposition has put forward several suggestions about how the government could be doing that. We could be seeing an increase in state-based concession payments to those 250,000-odd recipients of benefits, such as the energy concessions that would provide an immediate boost to household finances for those people. We have suggested that there could be greater support for those industries that can virtually immediately respond to the state of declining economic activity that we find here in South Australia and ramp up output and activity in that sector. The housing sector is a great example of that.

The government has a lot of levers that it can pull here in South Australia in that respect. It owns a lot of houses, particularly houses that need refurbishment or even demolition and rebuilding. It owns a lot of land available for such housing developments and, of course, it charges taxation on those people who are looking at buying or building houses. So there are a lot of measures that the state government could put in place which would benefit the state's economy by effectively turbocharging the housing sector.

We have spoken at length in this place about the most unfortunate increase in state taxes, fees and charges from last year's state budget—$500 million over four years. The government should use this as an opportunity to roll back those tax increases and, indeed, go one step further by relieving South Australians of state taxes to make sure that they have more money in their pocket so that they can continue to support themselves and their families, and they can continue to keep their businesses afloat. We are talking about things like payroll taxes.

The increase in land taxes will hit thousands of South Australians from the introduction of aggregation measures from October of this year. As I was driving home last night, I got a phone call from a constituent saying, 'Stephan, could you please raise this issue of land tax aggregation? There are thousands of us here in South Australia who are going to get a bill thousands of dollars higher. This is the last thing we need as property owners with tenants right now. We need to be doing everything we can to support tenants.'

I raise that issue of supporting tenants because that is where the state government could also assist. Pleasingly, I think it is good that the national cabinet—which has been established in recent weeks—has talked about what state governments could be doing to support tenants of landlords in these difficult times. Remarkably, I had a phone call yesterday afternoon from a constituent, a residential tenant, who had been contacted by the landlord's agent to evict them with the requisite 60 days' notice under the Residential Tenancies Act.

On the face of it, those circumstances might seem entirely legitimate under the Residential Tenancies Act but, in the circumstances in which we find ourselves in the community, must that actually happen? It would be gratefully welcomed by the community if there was more of a role that could be played by the Attorney-General, using the efforts of her Consumer and Business Services agency, in mediating some of these unfortunate circumstances that are beginning to play themselves out across the community during this time. That is something that we would look forward to.

Of course, we also think that there are sectors of the economy that have been particularly hard hit by the coronavirus and people's changing behaviours in the community as a result. It is no secret to any of us that all of us MPs have large numbers of small businesses in the hospitality, tourism, food and beverage industries. These are important drivers of economic activity but, more to the point—not to speak of it so dryly—they support so many local jobs in our communities. It is absolutely essential that the state government gets behind this industry and provides some support.

On Sunday, the Labor opposition suggested that there is a role here for the state government to play in establishing an industry support fund. We nominated an amount of $200 million, which could be used by the government, in conjunction with industry, to support those businesses just to try to stay afloat; not necessarily to keep their doors open and trading given the restrictions that have been placed on community activities at the moment to try to control the spread of the virus, but at least to make sure that owners of businesses have some chance of operating into the future once we deal with this, and that they at least have some chance of supporting their workforce, in conjunction with those support packages that the federal government has announced.

Again, we suggested payroll tax rebates and refunds for what had already been paid for the current financial year for this sector. We also suggested that the next round of liquor licensing fees, which are due to hit later this year—in fact, substantially increased liquor licensing fees because of the changes brought in by this government—should be waived. Not only should we be helping the relationship between landlords and their tenants in this particular industry, but we should also be looking at waiving the land tax for these landlords if that puts them in a better position to assist their tenants at this difficult time.

We would also like to see a level of moratorium on all other state government fees and charges apply not just to this industry—of course it should not only be this industry—but other industries going forward suffering the worst effects of the downturn in community activity. Perhaps somewhat controversially, those businesses relying on cash flow may also need to defer some of their taxation obligations, like gaming tax, to help them make sure that through these difficult months they can maintain their businesses, and a renewed commitment for the government to rapidly accelerate the payment of its invoices to South Australian businesses in particular. Other states and jurisdictions around the country have nominated a period of five business days. That, of course, historically speaking, is an absolute gold standard but we think it should be 'the standard' that is applied to how government can interact.

We have seen premiers and leaders of interstate jurisdictions post videos and talk to their communities about what their governments are doing. I was particularly taken by one comment made by Chief Minister Gunner of the Northern Territory when he talked about the support that the Territory government is providing to the construction industry. He said that his government was providing more money to the construction industry for what he called 'screwdriver ready projects' so that there can be work immediately for tradies and like businesses in the Territory. He encouraged them not only to win that work from government but also, once they got paid by government, to go out and spend that money in the Territory community and support other Territorians during this time.

I think that is a great demonstration of the power of government spending during this time. It is not just about giving money to one person or to one business, it is the power of what those funds can do more broadly, with a multiplier effect, throughout the South Australian economy and community. It is absolutely essential that we see these efforts continue. We all realise now that we are in for the most difficult time, certainly that my generation has ever contemplated. I talk as someone who has only been around a little longer than the 27 or 28 years of consecutive economic growth that we have had in South Australia, and certainly I think these times are going to test older generations in South Australia and across the nation about whether they have ever been through more difficult times.

What we now know, of course, is that the new orthodox way of responding to these economic crises is for government to get as much money out to the community as possible, rather than wait and wait, as was the experience after the Great Depression. So we urge, with the passage of this bill, that this government do the same.

I will conclude my comments about that now, but I do want to say one other thing. With the benefit of this parliament rushing this piece of legislation through for the potential expenditure of $15.3 billion comes an obligation of scrutiny on this government. We are sitting here today, of course, with different arrangements, different circumstances, with a much reduced number of members of parliament and a much reduced effort throughout the chamber so that we can maintain that important effort of not only parliamentary representation of our communities but also the operation of responsible government, holding the government of the day to account.

Now, if this government is going to ask for a much greater amount of supply from the parliament, then it stands to reason that the government should also be willing to subject itself to the appropriate level of scrutiny in the coming months for the decisions that it makes and the expenditure decision it makes on the benefit of using these moneys. I hope we do not see what we saw in Canberra earlier this week—that is, a day of sitting followed by the government in Canberra using its numbers to shut the parliament down for months and months. That has not gone down well, certainly in my community. It has been seen as a lack of leading by example. It is also seen, particularly by those people who show a keener interest in current affairs and politics in particular, as perhaps the government looking to avoid scrutiny during these important times.

So I would say to those opposite, I would say to the government here in South Australia: if you want the parliament to support this—and I have already indicated that the opposition will—then you also have to support that basic tenet of responsible government in providing the opportunity for this place, the Parliament of South Australia, to hold the government of the day to account. All 47 of us in this place—and I guess to some extent the other 22 in the other place—are the ones who are receiving the phone calls; who are getting the emails; who are even, hopefully under different circumstances, at a greater distance, getting the visits to the electorate offices from people who are desperate for answers, desperate for help, and who want to know whether the government is doing absolutely everything it can to support them and to support their communities.

If this place is not sitting then we cannot be making the necessary suggestions, we cannot be putting the necessary pressure on and we cannot be holding the government to account for how it is going to conduct itself in the coming months. So I will conclude my remarks by issuing that plea to the government. Please do not use this as an opportunity to shut the parliament down. Please do not use this as an opportunity to avoid scrutiny of the decisions that will need to be made in the coming weeks and months. Please do not use this as an opportunity to avoid scrutiny as to how these moneys may be spent in the coming weeks and months.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (12:23): I want to thank this chamber for its forbearance and certainly the opposition for its support. The evolving economic situation in South Australia is one that this government has taken proactive steps on every single step of the way.

Even before coronavirus had reached our shores, the work this government has done to help stimulate and grow our economy stands us in good stead now. Whether that be cuts to land tax; capping of NRM levies; cutting payroll tax for small business—for any business with a payroll under $1½ million; the massive cut of $90 million to the emergency services levy; as well as some modest reductions in electricity prices that we are starting to see the flow through our economy; and, quite clearly, what work is going to be done on helping to reduce water prices in South Australia, we as a government have helped to deliver a lower cost of living across a whole host of areas that government has control over so that we can help put more money back into the pockets of South Australians.

However, perhaps the biggest part of our plan to help grow the economy is that in a situation of neutral fiscal policy, which has been the mantra of the government over the past two years in relation to having balanced budgets, the way that we can provide stimulus into the economy is by debt-funded infrastructure development. It is making sure that we balance the books on the operating side but being very keen to spend money, given how cheap the cost of money is. Building infrastructure projects now is extremely important to help grow the economy. It helps the productive capacity of the economy and also does so at a time when the cost escalation on delivering these projects is actually higher than the interest rates at the time.

I am speaking about our $12.9 billion infrastructure program, a program that is really kicking into gear over the course of this year in advance of coronavirus. Whether that be some 100 education projects that are currently underway, whether it is the almost $1 billion we are spending in health infrastructure upgrades, whether it is the almost $4 billion we are spending on upgrading our roads or the almost $1 billion we are spending on upgrading public transport, we as a government are using responsible debt at low interest rates—interest rates lower than we have ever seen before—to help grow our economy.

That is the situation our economy found itself in before we were hit with this coronavirus. In South Australia we were actually the first jurisdiction to put a stimulus package on the table—$350 million worth of projects to help kickstart our economy through this time. Those projects were very much around how we utilise existing programs to get small capital projects into the community. Whether that is the bringing forward of maintenance on hospitals, whether that be the $50 million Planning and Development Fund, which is going to partner with local governments to be able to deliver stimulus quickly into our economy, or whether that be a whole host of other measures that will be rolled out over the coming weeks, that package is all about helping to stimulate our economy during this difficult time.

We do have to be nimble about how we deal with the impacts of coronavirus. There will be further stimulus by this government in the coming weeks and months. The reason we need to be nimble is twofold. First, we need to be cognisant that the stimulus we put into the community has one eye to the restrictions that are in place in our society in relation to mass gatherings and a whole host of other restrictions that are progressively coming into place.

The stimulus measures that we put on the ground need to be able to work whilst we go through the limited social interaction that can occur under the regimes that we find ourselves in as a response to COVID-19. We need to make sure that stimulus packages and future stimulus packages take that into account. There is no point, for instance, trying to stimulate the tourism economy when there are no flights. It does not make sense, for instance, to try to stimulate the hospitality sector when at the moment that sector is not able to operate. Making sure that our further stimulus in the economy is flexible is an extremely important component in helping to deal with this.

The second thing that we wanted to take heed of here in South Australia was to actually understand where the federal government was going to head. They have announced two stimulus packages to a total of 10 per cent of GDP into our economy, helping small business, helping the unemployed and the newly unemployed by a Newstart Allowance and also enabling people to access their super. I think what the federal government has done has been remarkable. They have acted early, they have acted swiftly and they have acted with a magnitude that will help to have money flow through our economy.

I also want to thank the banks, which very clearly play such an important role in helping to keep our economy going through this time. Certainly the work that they have done, for instance, on deferring home loan repayments, on deferring small business loan repayments, on extending overdrafts in some instances is all work that is going to help increase liquidity into the market. We know that that is important during this time because free cash flow is going to become the thing that helps get business through.

There will have to be quite an understanding of the business-to-business economy, because businesses are going to have to understand that there are going to be some customers who simply cannot pay their debts until we come out the other side of this. Businesses essentially have two options: they either crystallise that bad debt now and take a hit to their books or work together with the small business sector to keep those businesses alive so that when we come out the other side of this we have an economy that is functioning and a structure that allows us to roar back into life.

Perhaps the biggest message that the community needs to hear is that we are going to go through some difficult times over the next few months. We have seen over the course of just the last couple of weeks the increase in restrictions on how people can socially interact, from the banning of mass gatherings over 500 people outdoors and 100 indoors, to the four square metre rule, to the restrictions that were put in place over the weekend around hospitality venues, to the restrictions that were put in place just last night around a whole series of other venues and other opportunities that people have to socially interact.

These next few months are going to be difficult, as we head further and deeper into this coronavirus disease and its spread through our community, but we will come out the other side. As a government, we are very keen to make sure that when we do come out the other side of this we have an economy that is ready to move forward, we have a system in place that helps stimulate the economy back into life as quickly as possible and that we have much of our business infrastructure in place so that those businesses that have gone dormant can rehire people and can have people getting out there much further and much more quickly into the economy.

We need to make sure that as we come out the other side of this we are in the best position possible to take advantage of the opportunities that there will be. As a government, we have reacted swiftly at every step of the way, including even just now in the last few days with the Attorney-General putting on the table relaxed restrictions in relation to the sale of alcohol and takeaway alcohol, so that businesses can try to find new ways to adapt in this restricted operating environment.

This government has done everything it can to stay at the forefront of the curve, to deal with the health emergency but make sure that our society can continue to function in the short term. We are up to the task and what we are doing here with this Supply Bill is giving ourselves the necessary funds and the necessary flexibility to be able to respond, to be able to put further stimulus in place into the future and to be able to make sure that the South Australian economy and the South Australian society as we know it roars back into life once this awful health emergency has been dealt with.

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (12:32): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

Sitting suspended from 12:33 to 14:00.

Message from Governor

His Excellency the Governor, by message, recommended to the House of Assembly the appropriation of such amounts of money as may be required for the purposes mentioned in the bill.

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