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

Unemployment Figures

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (15:21): The South Australian parliamentary Labor Party commenced this week with a very deliberate and thoughtful effort to ensure that we were going to be shining a light, as a good opposition should, on the number one issue facing our state at the moment. There are 190,000 people currently looking for work in this state. We have the highest unemployment rate that we have seen in a very long time. We have the highest unemployment rate in the nation.

As I said, we currently have 190,000 people in this state who are currently either unemployed or underemployed. These are phenomenal statistics that represent an extraordinary amount of genuine heartache that South Australians are feeling at the moment. On this side of the house, we have a very deep concern that this government is not doing everything they possibly can to zero in on that effort, to stimulate the economy, to invest in infrastructure and to put people back to work.

This government inherited the third lowest unemployment rate in the nation; it is now the worst, at an extraordinarily difficult time. This should represent the sole focus of a government. This should represent every ounce of effort that is being deployed from the substantial resources of the state to make sure that we get people back to work. We have concluded the week with the exact opposite.

This Premier is not spending any effort or energy on trying to get South Australians back to work. The only jobs he is trying to protect are those of the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure and the Minister for Primary Industries. And over what? Outrageous claims of those ministers using their energy and effort to put money in their pockets at the expense of taxpayers while they are staying at places like mum and dad's. That is the exact opposite of what South Australians are looking for at the moment.

The Premier was bailed up by the media outside parliament today, and as he walked in he was asked a series of legitimate questions, the sorts of questions I think South Australians would expect the Premier to be able to answer honestly and earnestly. And what did the Premier say? He said, 'Look, this isn't my focus. My focus is on coronavirus. My focus is on COVID-19,' yet he walked into the chamber today and throughout the entirety of question time he talked about what his office has really been working on in recent weeks.

They are working on excuses, trying to explain away what the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure has done. They are working through 16 years worth of documents, trying to find out what Labor MPs did or did not do during the course of government. He is not looking after anyone else's jobs apart from those of his own ministers, and that is a reflection upon him. That is—

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Point of order, sir: the leader is making unparliamentary and inappropriate reflections on members and impugning improper motives on them. He has just said that he is making a reflection on them.

The SPEAKER: It is a grievance debate. I will listen carefully. I thank the minister.

Mr MALINAUSKAS: So where to from here? We have a full-blown scandal to do with parliamentary allowances on behalf of their misuse by cabinet ministers—ministers of the Crown, leaders in our state, who are supposed to be representing the best of the best, particularly during the course of a crisis—completely engulfing the workings of the government. At the moment, that leaves literally no choice for the Premier but to start to exercise the function of leadership and dismiss these ministers because anything short of that deprives the government of the energy and the effort on the issues that it requires.

I do not believe that anyone in this place genuinely gets into the business to do things wrong. I wholeheartedly believe that all 47 members in this place enter it with the best of intentions. But when people do the wrong thing, through a perverse human condition or palpably poor judgement, then they have to pay the consequences. This Premier expects public servants to be upheld to a standard. If they misspend their entitlements, if they mislead their employers, they are held to account accordingly.

The Premier must hold that same standard to his ministry. There are more than enough people inside this parliament who are capable of doing a minister's job, particularly the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure's, who seems to want to spend all his energy and effort cutting other people's services, rather than actually making sure that they are getting access to the things they need. Let's have a Premier who starts to show leadership during the course of a crisis. Let's have a Premier who starts focusing on South Australians' jobs rather than cabinet ministers' and takes the decisive action that South Australians are yearning for. Dismiss these ministers so that the government can get on with its job.

Time expired.

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