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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-07-23 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Members, Accommodation Allowances

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:10): My question is to the Premier. Are the Remuneration Tribunal guidelines regarding the country members' allowance clear or ambiguous, and with your leave, Mr Speaker, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr MALINAUSKAS: Yesterday morning, the Premier told ABC Radio Adelaide that, in relation to the Remuneration Tribunal determination of 2018, and I quote:

What happened is there was a change. Direction that was made in November 2018 is ambiguous.

Yet today he told the media, who questioned him outside Parliament House about the appropriateness of claiming the allowance to attend a sporting event, 'I think the guidelines are very clear.' So which one is it?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:10): I think the Leader of the Opposition has not been following this matter too closely—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —or maybe—

Mr Malinauskas: What are we missing? What don't we know yet?

The SPEAKER: Leader!

Mr Boyer interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Wright!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —or he's just a little bit slow. The reality is that country MPs who serve in this parliament and who represent their electorates are entitled to an allowance when they are away from their electorate provided it is more than 75 kilometres to do work here in Adelaide. In fact, for many years, sir, as you may or may not be aware, country MPs actually resided here in Parliament House, and as more and more members came down this became improbable going forward, so a decision was made to provide an allowance, and this is reasonably similar—

Mr Brown interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Playford!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —to the way—

The Hon. T.J. Whetstone interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Minister for Primary Industries, I am trying to listen to the Premier.

Mr Szakacs interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Cheltenham!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: And this allowance was paid, and a per diem arrangement was put in place for an extended period of time. I think most people are aware of how the per diem arrangement operates. It is used not only here for members of the South Australian parliament but of other parliaments here in Australia and around the world. It is used for public servants. But there is some ambiguity with the direction that was made, with the determination that was made—

Mr Malinauskas: So, it's not clear?

The SPEAKER: Leader!

Ms Hildyard interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Reynell!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —earlier in the year, but there are of course many aspects of the arrangements that have been clear and have been clear for an extended period of time. This is why I say that I have asked every member of my team to go through and check their records not only over the last couple of years since we have been in government but over the last decade. I have challenged the Leader of the Opposition to make that same determination for his own team to go through and to check to see whether there have been any inadvertent errors, and if they have they should be made very clear to the Clerk and there should be a rectification made.

To date, we haven't heard anything whatsoever from the Leader of the Opposition, so we are really not in a very clear picture as to whether there have been any—

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —inadvertent errors. But one thing we are very clear on with regard to the former government in South Australia, of which the Leader of the Opposition was a cabinet minister, is their complete disregard for prudent spending of taxpayer dollars. They all love to pipe up.

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

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: Well, I note the member for Mawson's interjection.

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

The SPEAKER: Member for Mawson!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: He actually booked up to the taxpayers a night staying in the CBD so he could go to the pageant the next morning. He had to repay that after he was found out, and the guilty parties over there are very, very clear—long boozy lunches, sneaky behaviour one after the other. We know some of them have a real taste for fine wine and fine dining over there all at the taxpayers' expense. It's been outrageous, and that's why, since coming to government, we have cleaned up the filthy mess.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: The member for Lee should pipe down and so should the chap he is sitting next to. They are the guilty party and we are fixing up that mess.

The SPEAKER: The member for Morphett and the member for Cheltenham can both leave for half an hour—yes, you, one for one.

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan: I couldn't hear anything.

The SPEAKER: Neither could I. We will see you in half an hour.

The honourable members for Morphett and Cheltenham having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: He's remembering those first three goals against Port Adelaide.

The SPEAKER: Yes, I never forget.

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: It was an outstanding 15 minutes of footy.

The SPEAKER: The Minister for Education is called to order.

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