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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-11-17 Daily Xml
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Bills

Appropriation Bill 2020

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 12 November 2020.)

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (11:02): I rise to make a contribution to the Appropriation Bill this year. As I was preparing my notes for last week, and we did not quite get there, I was reflecting on the fact that this is a very different response that I am making than I would have expected to make after a budget. Now, the following week, I am making an even more different contribution, given the events of the weekend.

This year, of course, as has been noted by previous speakers, has been entirely dominated by the COVID response. When the year first began I was convinced that this year would be all about reflecting on the horrific bushfires we saw over the summer, on KI and Cudlee Creek particularly, and the ongoing inquiries that ensued from those terrible bushfires. The Keelty review was announced by the government, and at the same time the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements was announced.

It was my expectation—and I was saying at every forum I was speaking to, whether it was the branch members or others—that I expected that to be the dominant conversation this year because it was so important and those bushfires were so surprising to many people in their ferocity, and the response they required, and so ferocious that they prompted a royal commission and also state inquiries across the nation into what we should do next.

I had many opportunities to visit the various firegrounds. After the fires, I should note, I visited KI on several occasions and the Cudlee Creek area on many occasions, speaking to volunteers, firies and also the local community about the affect it was having on them. I was incredibly impressed by the way all the agencies pulled together on Kangaroo Island particularly, and the previous minister is here and he would have seen the way the different agencies—the state agencies and the ADF—worked together so well. The New Zealand Defence Force also worked so well in preparing the response and responding to those fires.

The new CFS chief, Mr Jones, who arrived in October last year, I think, really got a baptism of fire, and I want to state my absolute admiration for the work he has done since his arrival. I know there was speculation in some quarters that he may not be the right person for the job, but I was never of that view.

I wanted to leave it to see what he would do and, from all reports—whether I talk to people on the ground or people within the CFS, the volunteers, from the top to the bottom—I hear nothing but good reports. My own interactions with him have been nothing but positive and enlightening, and I want to thank him publicly for the work he did—

The Hon. C.L. Wingard: You're welcome

Mr ODENWALDER: —in leading much of the response on Kangaroo Island. The previous minister says, 'You're welcome.' It was your appointment, was it, minister?

The Hon. C.L. Wingard: I think if you go back and check you'll see that I signed off on the contract, yes.

Mr ODENWALDER: You made that appointment on your own?

The Hon. C.L. Wingard: Yes, I accepted the recommendation.

Mr ODENWALDER: Noted—the minister claims responsibility for the appointment of Mr Jones, who did an excellent job, there is no doubt about that, as did the other agencies, as I said: the police, the MFS, the SES, the Australian Defence Force and also the New Zealand Defence Force.

Then, of course, as has already been observed, COVID-19 hit. In a way, given the ferocity of the fires over December and January in particular, as disastrous as it was it could have hit at a much worse time. It could have hit while those fires were still in progress and we would have been in a much more serious situation in February, March, April than we were. We can at least be thankful for that.

However, COVID-19 really did dominate the headlines in that first part of the year so much that the response to the bushfires, particularly, was completely subsumed. Of course, the work continued. The Keelty review continued to do its work, and the royal commission continued to do its work and called witnesses from the state agencies. Funnily enough, COVID-19 gave me a chance to follow that royal commission perhaps more closely than I ordinarily would have, and I will get to the royal commission and Keelty review observations a bit later.

I have already praised Mr Jones and the CFS for their response to the bushfires, but I would like to put on record my admiration for the police commissioner in his role in dealing with COVID-19 and, of course, Nicola Spurrier, the Chief Public Health Officer, and her amazing contribution in this pandemic. Not only did the police commissioner and his team, as well as the health responders and their teams, do a good job but the police themselves, the troops on the ground, have done a remarkable job both in responding to parliament's and the State Controller's directions to monitor borders, conduct compliance checks and those sorts of things, and in their professionalism and attitude towards the work. It set them apart from some of the responses we have seen in other states.

I do not want to make any judgement, but we have seen what appeared to be some pretty heavy-handed tactics by the police in some other states while enforcing what is the law. We have not seen anything like that here. What we have seen is, first, a very high level of compliance from the general populace and also a very even-handed approach from the police—and, hopefully, latterly from other public servants who have been drafted into that compliance check-type of response.

I do want to put on record my admiration for SAPOL and the calm and compassion its members have brought to their job. It is not an easy job: at any given time something like at least 10 per cent of the operational police force is involved entirely in some sort of COVID response. These are not people who just do compliance checks as part of their ordinary shift; these are people who are dedicated to the COVID response, whether it is on the borders or whether it is doing compliance checks, guarding hotels, that type of thing.

The leader and I were privileged to go and visit the border earlier this year—all the months seem to bleed into one. We visited the Princes Highway border control at Mount Gambier and we saw some of the work they were doing and their professionalism, not only with the police but with the ADF and others. It was a surprise to me to see some of these really young ADF guys down there, who it is fair to say did not quite understand what their authorities might be but were pleased to be there doing something practical in terms of the COVID response.

Of course, the police response was very professional. It is that professionalism that not only has kept South Australians safe but has also encouraged a level of compliance that we may not have seen so much in other states where the police have been seen at least to employ some more heavy-handed tactics.

The health response and the emergency management response have been almost beyond criticism, and we on this side, as the leader has outlined, have worked very hard to be constructive and supportive of the government every step of the way, and we have offered suggestions up along the way in terms of what the government could be doing in their COVID response. Now that there is a real threat of a second wave—and again the health and police response has been excellent—we again are very supportive of government measures, but we again reserve our right to make constructive suggestions to the government about how that response could be handled.

I have faith in the police commissioner as the State Coordinator to run these things and in Nicola Spurrier in charge of the health response. What remains to be seen—and this has been delayed by the onset of what may be a second wave, and we all hope it is not—is the economic response and the shadow that hangs over the economic future of the state. Members before me have made much more useful contributions to that debate than I could, but I do just want to add my voice to the concern about the tax on the uptake of electric vehicles in this state.

Getting back to the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements, it was very clear from the opening paragraphs and all the way through the report that every sensible commentator recognises that the climate is changing and it is changing fast. Sadly, the bushfires we saw last summer, and the other natural disasters that followed, are becoming the new normal; they are what we need to expect, respond to and prepare for in the future. In that environment, to impose a tax on something that may well go a long way in the future to mitigating our emissions that affect climate change seems to me to be complete madness.

I will get back to the Appropriation Bill at hand. As I said, we have been a constructive opposition. Every step of the way, particularly in this COVID response, we have supported the government when it has been sensible and we have tried to nudge the government in certain directions when we think they are not doing the right thing. In that spirit, I want to give credit where credit is due. I think there are some problems in this budget in terms of public safety, and I will get to those, but I want to reflect on some of the measures which, at first glance at least—before questioning in estimates—appear to be positive moves.

Of course, you cannot argue with $21 million of new funding over four years to increase SAPOL's response to COVID. As I have outlined, the response to COVID has been second to none. Police resources have been stretched; there is no doubt about that. I think the commissioner is on record talking about some of those problems. So far, we have not seen anything disastrous amount from that, but it shows that any further investment in the particular COVID response is to be welcomed. However, in responding to COVID we cannot forget that crime still goes on, that public safety is still an issue, that the threat of bushfires goes on. All these other things are still bubbling away in the background, no matter how consumed we and the media are with the COVID response.

In that context, it is still baffling that the government would press ahead with $38 million worth of cuts to the operational budget of SAPOL. Despite investments in COVID and other places, which I will get to—as I said, I want to give credit where credit is due—it does seem to me that this will be the perfect environment for the new police minister to rewrite this government's public safety message, hit the reset button and reverse or halt the expectation that SAPOL needs to make such sweeping cuts to its operational budget. I will of course be exploring this in estimates, but that is the overarching response to this police budget: a failure to recognise the opportunity that this is the time where we could put those things aside, hit the reset button and reverse those cuts.

It is interesting to see that after 2½ years of inaction there has been some action taken on various things that we on this side have been calling for since day one of being in opposition. There is the welcome announcement that Crime Stoppers has been re-funded to a certain extent. Decisions were made in early 2018 to fund Crime Stoppers from government. It was the last remaining Crime Stoppers outfit in the country not to receive direct state government funding.

The previous government made a decision to fund it to the tune of $960,000 over four years. As the previous minister will be aware, for the past 2½ years we debated whether they should receive this funding again. Again, giving credit where it is due, the current minister has seen the need for Crime Stoppers funding so they can run—

Mr Boyer: Good minister.

Mr ODENWALDER: Certainly it is a breath of fresh air, member for Wright. I hope it is a sign of things to come. I hope it is a sign that the government might be taking public safety a bit more seriously. I would have expected a bit more. They withdrew $960,000 and replaced it with $800,000 (indexed) after 2½ years of delay and confusion about where it was coming from. But again, to give credit where credit is due, that has now been included in this budget.

Similarly, with ballistic vests, the previous government set aside funding for a rollout of ballistic vests for every operational police officer and tasers for every police officer. Do not forget that police officers are still rolling around with one taser per crew. The Police Association of South Australia particularly do not think this is ideal and nor do I. I think police officers should all have access to a taser as part of their operational suite of options.

The government has finally put some money aside for vests. We have seen delay after delay in the trialling of these vests. It is still unclear as to when the last of these vests will be rolled out. It may be beyond the next election when some police officers finally receive their ballistic stab-proof vests. There is still no sign of any funding for tasers. Again, I say that in this environment, when the government is looking to fund certain things, you would think that health and public safety would be at the top of that list. Sadly, they are not.

As I said, we have seen a good COVID response, with $21.2 million of extra funding to SAPOL for their COVID response. That is excellent; however, in the process, I think the government is forgetting about public safety in general. We see it, too, in the emergency services portfolio. In response to the Keelty review, we see some funding for extra CFS trucks. That is a good thing.

I hesitate to call this a 'bouquet', but there is some funding for MFS trucks over four years. Clearly, this is not enough. There are clearly many, many MFS trucks still rolling around. While they may be adequate to respond to metropolitan fires, they do not have the adequate burnover protection to respond to peri-urban fires, which they will be increasingly called upon to do, as pointed out by the Keelty review and backed up by the royal commission. There is a lost opportunity there in terms of properly funding the MFS.

There is also a failure in the government to restore funding to farm firefighter units. As I go around, as I did last summer, and as I have begun to talk again to volunteers, to CFS volunteers, there is a general level of praise for farm firefighter units. There is some genuine concern among some people that oftentimes farm firefighting units are not employed in line with correct CFS protocol and sometimes they may go offline and the CFS commander, or whoever is commanding the situation, may not know where they are at any given time. I admit that is a genuine problem but that is a problem of management for the government.

To simply withdraw funding and not recommit any funding for the replacement or the acquisition of farm firefighting units, I think is another missed opportunity. For those who do not know, farm firefighter units are essentially large water tanks with pumps on the back of utes employed by landholders themselves, who may or may not be members of the CFS.

They can look after their own land, they can look after their neighbour's land and they can respond to major fires, as they did in Sampson Flat, Pinery, Cudlee Creek and Kangaroo Island. The previous government committed funding to farm firefighting units. This government, in its first budget, withdrew that funding and we have not seen any funding for it since, and I think that again is a missed opportunity.

Going to the Attorney-General's portfolio, I had a quick look and there does not appear to be any new funding to replace the City Safe CCTV program. This was to enable the City of Adelaide to renew and restore both the software and the hardware in its CCTV coverage, which keeps so many people safe in our city, particularly in places like Hindley Street. Again, this is a lost opportunity.

Again, the government could have used this budget as a health and public safety budget. It could have put some money into solving the problems that the member for Kaurna has outlined in the health system, and the ambulance system particularly, and it could definitely have been used as an opportunity to approach the last 2½ years of inaction on public safety measures. It is not just inaction. We saw in the first budget deep cuts to public safety and what we have seen since then is no effort to address those. In the grieve, I might go back to giving credit where credit is due, but thank you for your time.

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (11:22): I rise to contribute to the Appropriation Bill. Obviously, the budget this year is on the background of significant hits to our community, on the background of the fires over summer and then COVID through this year—a pandemic like we have never seen in our generations. Some of the most vulnerable people have been hit back-to-back with both of these things and are really struggling to recover. Clearly, this week is not going to help from a wellbeing and mental health point of view and I am sure there are many people in our community who are feeling anxious right now.

It is a good time to reflect on how well we, as a community, have done throughout the pandemic and how compliant and cooperative everyone has been, and are being this week, in terms of ensuring that they are tested, following precautions, sticking to the rules and understanding that we have to be agile in this environment. So I have confidence that this will be something that will pass again; we will get on top of it. For those people who are struggling, people who are vulnerable, know that there are people who are here in the parliament who are looking at ways to improve the circumstances, to assist and provide opportunity. But of course, reach out if there is anything we can do to help you.

As the opposition shadow for human services, I have a lot of areas within my portfolio that give me a sense of responsibility to every person in our state, particularly to vulnerable people in terms of holding the government to account, protecting and providing for people in times of need. One of the biggest areas in the portfolio is housing. Housing is a basic human right. We should not, in our society, be seeing the numbers of homeless people that we are seeing, and continue to see, on our streets. Housing and shelter are core and central to wellbeing. You cannot access education, health care, jobs—I have spoken in this place many times about this—and you simply cannot achieve a level of self-actualisation without having shelter.

It is contingent on the government ensuring that their policies and strategies are effective. Last year's budget saw what the government tagged as a stimulus package, which was designed to provide some much-needed housing in our community. Later in the year, we saw the announcement of the housing strategy, which had been developed on the background of consultation with the sector, we are told, and it had some outlines for a vision for the future around providing housing options. I will talk more about that in a minute. It really was devoid, though, of public housing investment or conversation, which I think is a great shame.

However, this stimulus package from last year's budget was announced over and over again. It has been announced repeatedly under different headlines and different pitches to the media. Again and again during the pandemic, it is touted as new money. It is being talked about as new stimulus. This is not new money; this is money that was announced in the budget last year.

Again, there was a $75 million package announced that was to be used for a whole range of maintenance and other items, and we saw some money from that brought forward and announced as a stimulus package. It should be noted as well that that was $75 million over 10 years. I think the public and the pundits, the people in the sector, are clever enough to know that if you announce something over 10 years it is probably not worth a lot of money, and really it is not.

It is disappointing that it is continuously being announced as new stimulus money but it is actually not. During the pandemic, we could have done with a big stimulus on housing and maintenance as a way of providing some assistance to stimulate jobs lost because of the pandemic, but this is not what we are seeing.

In fact, the $42.5 million stimulus package last year was actually cash reserves. It was receipts from the sale of further public housing properties and, to add insult to injury, during questioning in one of the very hardworking Budget and Finance Committee meetings—I think it was around 30 June this year—we actually got the revelation that the government had only spent $5.8 million of the $42 million that was announced the year before.

This is really not good enough, particularly given (a) the climate that we are in, where we need to see money going into the economy and being invested in jobs and (b) there are people who are desperate to have work done on their homes, public homes. It is not good enough to only spend $5.8 million out of $42.5 million. It is not good enough to reannounce the reannouncements continually and try to label them as new dollars. I am not sure what it is stimulating. Anyway, we have estimates coming up, so I am sure we will be able to ask some questions.

There is no money for housing, no new money for public housing, no new money at all for community housing, and no new money for maintenance of the nearly 15,000 properties that are on the maintenance backlog list under the public system. All of this is coupled with the federal government completely ignoring housing as well in their budget, apart from some capital investment fund that will see community housing providers that are in a sound economic state able to borrow money. I think it is a lost opportunity in an environment where debt is being racked up to the eyeballs, debt that will be paid off by our grandchildren's children, an opportunity lost to really invest in South Australia and South Australia's future.

What we did see during the pandemic was the housing of people who were homeless or couch surfing. People who had unstable housing at the time were offered the opportunity to access hotel accommodation through the CEARS program. I commend the government for acting on this and rolling that program out. It is very important. Similar programs have been rolled out across the country, so it is good to see that South Australia also did this.

However, the plan to transition these people out of those hotel rooms has been deficient. There have been people moved from hotel accommodation into public housing but, if you look at the big picture, people who were on the waiting list were pushed back so they could get people out of hotel rooms and into public housing. There were actually no new opportunities found, and there were no new builds and no new housing strategy that was developed, which again is a lost opportunity.

There was capacity to tweak the system and look at more creative options for housing, but this has not been investigated in the budget either. We heard a lot of talk about affordable housing, which is okay if you can afford it. There is no evidence that people from public housing are able to afford to move into these affordable homes, so I look forward to seeing how that strategy is going to operate. There is no talk about that in the budget.

In terms of homelessness numbers, it is key to point out that at 30 September there were 129 people sleeping rough on the streets of Adelaide. So, while there has been a program designed to house people during the pandemic, we now have a potential second wave and we are not seeing an investment in creative options for these people. They are just on the street, so that is not good. I wonder what is going to happen as we move on through the next weeks because these numbers are obvious. We see them every day when we walk through to Parliament House.

I have not spoken to a single person in my visits to any of the support services and other centres who accesses these services who wants to sleep rough. It is not a choice to be on the street. It is not a choice they want. There simply needs to be more creative options applied and more work done.

While there is in the budget the usual NAHA funding that is being rolled out for homelessness services, and we have seen a small injection of money in terms of early intervention for homelessness services, it is not enough. We are not seeing any change in the numbers. What we have seen are all the eggs going in one basket, investing in a model of homelessness services called the Glasgow Model, which I have spoken about in here and which we will be monitoring.

We have seen that a joint letter has been signed by the sector and sent through to the head of this homelessness program, Ian Cox, with a number of issues being raised because this model relies on a whole range of things. It relies on alliances working together. It relies on the sector running these alliances. There is no extra money to provide administrative resources for those people to do this. It relies on outsourcing from government the administration of services within those alliances.

Worryingly, there is an alliance that has been built between the south and the city, so the city does not have its own program, which makes no sense to me because homelessness is a very different operation in the inner city. It is very, very different, and that is why the Zero Project is so important to monitor and move on. What we are seeing is that southern homelessness services are being pulled into one alliance, and this is going to see cuts. Without a doubt, this will mean cuts to services.

With the tyranny of distance, in terms of our rural regional and remote sector, such as the APY lands, the Far North, the Riverland, etc., how will a model from Glasgow, this condensed, urban, tight-packed region, be tweaked and used to be appropriate within South Australia's diverse land? I cannot imagine the stress the sector is under, particularly in the regions, trying to work out how they are going to manage this because it relies on a whole range of things, and it relies on face-to-face visits and meetings and consults. While we are a bit clever with Zoom and Teams and so on, it is not the same.

I am also really concerned about the lack of public housing. There is not any additional public housing being built. In fact, the numbers we have seen come back from the Chief Executive of SAHA, Mr Michael Buchan, confirm that the numbers in public housing over the next five years are going to fall. They are actually reducing. For all the rhetoric and the huff and puff happening about stopping the sale of public housing, stopping the reduction in numbers, the forecast is for hundreds fewer public houses to be available over the next five years. That does not support a Glasgow model either because you need increased exit points, and that simply is not going to happen.

One positive thing that has come out of the letter that was put forward is in relation to the rushed tender that was supposed to be done in such a very short time frame over Christmas—that is, opening in December, closing in late January. You would not want anyone who normally writes your tenders and does all your administration work to have to take annual leave or have any annual leave plans because there would be no-one there to do this. Thankfully, there has been an extension of one month for this tender writing.

This last year or so, they have made a habit of putting out tenders, putting out contracts for people to bid for, putting short time frames on them and then leaving them sitting there for months without announcing them. I do not know what the rush was, but at least they have given them another month, which I think is a good thing.

Another issue I want to comment on is youth justice. The minister has been able to secure a bit of money in there for youth justice, which I am pleased to see. It contains $18.7 million over three years to consolidate youth detention sites. Goldsborough Road, Cavan, will be the key site and Jonal Drive, which I do not believe has been used pretty much over the last year anyway, will be closed, and we will see that happen over the next few years.

We will watch to see how that happens and how the land is used and what is done with that site because there are certainly some options I can think of that it can be used for that will support youth justice. We do not just want to see it closed and a couple of extra beds put in somewhere, or a few extra facilities, with no thought about what that land could be used for. We have to invest in our young people who go into the system because the younger people go into the justice system, the more likely they are to remain recidivist or continue on as part of that system for the rest of their life. We all know that here, so we know that this has to be done properly.

Many children detained in the youth justice centre live with disability or they are neuro divergent or they have extremely bad health or dental health issues. We need to make sure they are being looked after, so we will be watching all these programs as they roll out. The consolidation of the centre needs to be done in a way that all these needs are met because otherwise it will have huge consequences on the lives of these young people.

We have seen an undermining by the Marshall Liberal government of the successful Community Youth Justice Program, which is being outsourced, privatised. We are not happy about that. It is not broken, so why change it? The people working in that sector are very upset and very disappointed to see that is happening. I think the successes of the outcomes are being put at risk by this privatisation, particularly in terms of Aboriginal young people, who are shamefully over-represented in youth justice, as well as in a whole range of health and justice issues throughout our community.

I think that the privatisation of the community service will have a particular effect on young people, a particular effect on Aboriginal young people and a particular negative effect on young people in the regions. I think we need to continue to try to stop this shameful privatisation from going ahead. We have to maintain cultural awareness front and centre in terms of everything we do in youth justice.

There are a couple of little bits of pieces that happen, little bombs that are there are within the budget. We know that there are some fees going up. We know there are some levies going up. I am sure that people will find this out as we go along. One of the main things that has been pointed out lately is some ridiculous cuts to events—the Clipsal 500, for example, and we saw 300-odd people out the front on the steps of parliament this Saturday just gone protesting about that.

Having run a marginal seat on nine votes whose constituents are front and centre and in love with the Clipsal, I just want to give a bit of advice to the member for King. I know your electorate is front and centre, top of the tree in love with the Clipsal as well. King is a seat that loves its car racing. I think you need to do some work behind the scenes, otherwise your people are going to let you know all about it. We love our cars in the deep south, and I know that King is the same. I think we need to see a bit of work there—otherwise it will be a gift, thank you very much.

Why on earth would you put a tax on electric cars? We should be incentivising these types of vehicles that are much better for our environment, particularly where we have got charging points where we can use renewable energy. It makes no sense: it is a tiny piece of low-hanging fruit that really makes no sense. From my point of view, again, that is something where the government has just not read the room.

This was a budget of jobs. There is no jobs growth. I think people will start to see it for what it is over the next six months or so. Of course, we are going to have a budget hitting us in the next six months again, so I am sure we will be back talking about it very soon.

Mr BOYER (Wright) (11:42): I would like to begin by echoing the words of the leader and other members of this place who have made contributions on this Appropriation Bill. I offer my thanks to all those who have kept South Australians safe during the global coronavirus pandemic. I would also like to offer some more specific thanks to our teachers and school, preschool and childcare staff who stayed at work, teaching and caring for our children, while so many other people were and, in light of the events of the last 48 hours, are again being asked to work from home.

I offer that thanks not just as the shadow minister for education but also as the member for Wright and as a father of three young daughters, all of whom are in the very early days of their public education. It was not without some feelings of guilt—and I am sure they were shared by other members of this place—that I would drop my daughters off at school and leave them in the very capable hands of those staff. I found it difficult on multiple occasions to find the words to properly and sincerely convey my thanks to them for the sacrifices they were making. Nonetheless, I offer that thanks again now, particularly in the light of the events of the last 48 hours.

The first thought that occurred to me after eagerly reading these budget papers on Tuesday was: what is actually new in terms of funding in this budget for public schools? The Treasurer has proclaimed many times, both in this chamber and publicly, that this is a big spender budget, but what is actually new for public schools, and how much of the capital infrastructure funding is still from the previous Labor government?

Under that previous government we more than doubled our investment in public schools between 2002 and 2017. In fact, funding per student in public schools between 2002 and 2017 increased from roughly $7,600 per student to about $16,400 per student. Fundamentally, we did this because we believe that a high-quality public education for all South Australians is a right; it is not an optional extra for those people who can afford it.

We invested $250 million in 139 new science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) labs to prepare students for the jobs of the future. We planned to create about 1,700 jobs through our Building Better Schools program, which was to go towards the upgrade of 91 schools across the state. But I note that a considerable amount of the money put towards those 91 upgrades has actually been siphoned off by this government to cover the cost of the move of year 7 into high school, which I along with other members of the opposition have been saying since the last election was grossly underfunded by this government in its pre-election costings.

We also built a new high school, Adelaide Botanic High, and initiated the processes for new schools in Aldinga, Angle Vale and a new secondary school in Whyalla too, which I had the pleasure of touring for the first time with the member for Giles just recently. I would like to offer my thanks to the minister for continuing with this project, and I believe the member for Giles has also offered his thanks. I think the people of Whyalla and those on this side who were part of initiating that process were very thankful that the current education minister continued with it. Labor also provided additional funding to independent and Catholic schools, as well as $11 million a year in infrastructure funding.

But, going back to the original question, what is in this budget new for public schools? Alarmingly, the waitlist for a spot in a disability unit—sometimes called a special unit, sometimes going under names different to that as well—is long and it would appear it is growing longer. We all know that students with disability need specialised support. They should not need to join a queue in order to get the same kind of inclusive education that other kids take for granted.

I think it is an outrage that for many of these young people who have already had to face an incredibly long list of challenges in their very young lives they are now fighting along with their parent or parents to get that support they need to be included in our public education system. Of course, this budget was the opportunity to fix that waitlist, and it is an opportunity that has gone begging. I think it speaks volumes about the priorities of this government when it comes to education that that was not the first cab off the rank in terms of where there needed to be a new injection of funds.

I mentioned previously that it was Labor that initiated the new schools in Aldinga, Angle Vale and Whyalla, and when we did this we also expanded the number of special options placements for students with a disability and we ensured that further places would be created in those preschools and schools. We did this because we are serious about an education system that is inclusive, accessible and affordable for all South Australians, regardless of their circumstances.

That brings me to the additional $30 million of cuts to the education department handed down in this budget. As the leader said so succinctly in his budget reply, after $11 million of savings announced in this government's first budget, $48 million of savings announced last year and an additional $30 million announced in this budget, the point at which these cuts can be absorbed by the department and not flow on to classrooms has well and truly passed. The truth is, no matter what those opposite try to tell us, these cuts are going to hurt schools, they will hurt staff and they will hurt students.

Do not be fooled by this government's rhetoric that an additional $30 million of savings, on top of the savings measures already handed down in previous budgets, can be sucked out of the department without having an impact on the classroom. For this reason, I think it is incumbent upon the minister to be up-front and transparent with teachers, school staff, parents and the South Australian public at large about just where that $30 million in savings is going to be found.

The Department for Education plays a very important role in our children's education; we all know that and we take it for granted. The support they offer in a whole heap of different ways—mostly behind the scenes—to schools, site leaders and classroom teachers enables those classroom teachers on the frontline to do exactly what we want them to do, and that is to teach our kids, not to be tied up in administrative tasks that divert them from spending that one-on-one time, not just for their own children but with other children who possibly have a few more challenges in terms of their reading and writing.

In relation to TAFE, I think slowly but surely the Marshall government's plan for it is now being revealed. It started not long after the 2018 election with the closure of three campuses in metropolitan Adelaide: Parafield, Tea Tree Gully and Port Adelaide. It continued with the cancellation of TAFE courses and it is now culminating in interstate registered training organisations being allowed into the South Australian market and, in cases, being eligible for grants from South Australian taxpayers to pick over the bones of TAFE and run some of the courses that have historically been offered by TAFE in South Australia.

This is another prime example of the Marshall Liberal government saying one thing before the election and doing something completely different after it. It honestly beggars belief that at a time in South Australia when we have 165,000 South Australians either unemployed or underemployed, this government takes an axe to the public training provider. From my reading of the budget papers, and certainly this is something we will be spending considerable time on in estimates with the minister, there are $33 million worth of efficiency measures for TAFE still sitting on the books.

Incredibly, just months after we learned of the horrific case of neglect of Ann Marie Smith and halfway through the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, we heard that our state's public training provider, TAFE, will no longer be offering courses in Certificate III in Individual Support (Disability) or Individual Support (Ageing) in metropolitan Adelaide. This budget confirms those cuts.

It is my grave fear—and I know that many people on this side of the house share this fear—that if courses that train people to provide essential services such as disability and aged care are left for the for-profit private sector to run, we face the very real possibility of a drop in the quality of these courses. In turn, that will have a detrimental impact on the lives of our most vulnerable people, people such as Ann Marie Smith, who rely on the graduates of those courses to care for them.

Before I conclude, it would be remiss of me not to offer my thoughts on this budget insofar as it pertains to the seat of Wright and the north-east more broadly. Apart from the ongoing upgrades of both Modbury and Lyell McEwin hospitals and Golden Grove Road—all of which are welcome projects, but all of which are projects that were announced by the previous Labor government—there is not much new spending in the north-east.

Public transport and the O-Bahn are hugely popular within our community. That is why there was outrage at the government's policy earlier this year, which would have changed the public transport landscape in the north and north-eastern suburbs for the worse. Along with other MPs from all over the state, I was inundated with concerns from residents; people who had never contacted a member of parliament before were reaching out to voice their concerns about the dramatic cuts to bus routes and the closure of bus stops.

This leads me to the North East Public Transport Study that began way back in 2018. It was tasked with looking at extending the O-Bahn to Golden Grove as well as new park-and-ride options. It has been a long process—over two years—to see any semblance of action actually stemming from this study. We did, however, get a comment from the former Minister for Transport in an article in The Advertiser last year stating that the study did in fact recommend extending the O-Bahn to Golden Grove. However, we are now informed by the new minister that the study does not recommend the extension. It should be noted that only an executive summary has been released so far. I am yet to see the release of the full report.

Residents, of course, were promised that their voices would be incorporated within this study. There were community stalls held all over the north-eastern suburbs at shopping centres, with quite a lengthy feedback period allowing residents to submit their thoughts. I personally attended these stalls, but, here we are some two years later and that community feedback is still secret. I look forward to the minister and department making good on this Premier's commitment to be an open and transparent government by releasing the North East Public Transport Study in full so residents in the north-east can see what their tax dollars have paid for over the last two years and to see whether or not the study does recommend extending the O-Bahn any further.

These budget documents show that the upgrade to Golden Grove Road is now going to cost $31 million, up from the initial $20 million. Works on the remaining section of Golden Grove Road from the intersection of Yatala Vale Road and The Grove Way to just north of the Surrey Downs shopping centre are welcomed, but it looks as though the opportunity to upgrade the intersection of Park Lake Drive in Wynn Vale and Golden Grove Road has been missed. This is a high-traffic intersection that is badly congested during school drop-off and pickup times, and there is no better time to upgrade that intersection than whilst the intersecting part of Golden Grove Road is also being upgraded.

Finally, regarding park-and-rides, the government has come out all guns blazing on the Golden Grove park-and-ride as if the residents of the north-east have forgotten that they actually promised to expand this bit of key infrastructure before the state election. I can only assume they think that if enough noise is made about this re-announcement residents will forget that there is still no commitment for a new park-and-ride at Tea Tree Plaza.

All in all, when it comes to education, TAFE and constituents in the electorate of Wright in the north-eastern suburbs more broadly, this is not the grandiose or generous budget that the Treasurer would have us believe. If I were to characterise it, I would say it is a package of re-announcements, a lot of delays and backflips. I think this government is fooling itself if it thinks that South Australians are not able to see that for themselves.

Ms MICHAELS (Enfield) (11:55): I rise also to speak on the Appropriation Bill. I had hoped that the Marshall Liberal government would come out with a budget that would finally realise the urgency of the stimulus that we need in South Australia. I had hoped the budget would start the bounce-back that we need now for the recession that we are in. I had hoped that this budget would support small business, as the backbone of our economy, to keep people employed now, and I had hoped that this would be the start of creating new jobs in South Australia now. But, unfortunately, nothing is happening now with this budget.

Even the touted extension of the small business grants for sole traders is almost worthless. So many sole traders, particularly a high proportion of women, work from home or run mobile businesses. The criteria required for the small business sole trader grant necessitates them having commercial premises and a turnover of at least $75,000. Again, many sole traders in this state do not meet either of those criteria.

Some obvious examples include the lovely gentleman who comes to mow my lawn. He is a franchisee. He has told me that many people have started mowing their own lawns now that they are home a lot more because of COVID. He has been impacted. He obviously does not have a commercial premises and will not qualify for the grant. There is a lady who has a small nail salon in Enfield. She is also a sole trader. She does have a little shopfront but she does not meet the turnover test of $75,000.

Also, I have a friend who started her own HR consulting business last year. And, guess what? Small businesses are not investing money in staff development and writing HR policies at the moment; they are barely keeping afloat. Again, she is a sole trader impacted by COVID, but because she works from home she is not able to access this grant, which, I must say, at only $3,000, is pretty pathetic. Other examples include mobile dog groomers and food vans that have been severely hit, particularly around the CBD. Small suburban travel agents have been smashed by COVID. Rather than an attempt at a $3,000 grant, perhaps a simple 'stay local, book local' campaign would have helped them a lot more.

The nature of the businesses run by a majority of sole traders means that the extension of the small business grants to them, in reality, is largely meaningless. At the same time, those many small businesses are facing an increase in government fees and charges. This is the worst time for hikes in car registration costs, tradie licence fees and liquor licensing fees. There has been no support shown for small business in this budget. In combination with higher costs, that is the effect of this Marshall Liberal government budget right now.

On top of that, funding has been cut to Hub Adelaide and there is no real support for other mum-and-dad small businesses or any forward thinking on planning for industries that we know are going to face a potential cliff with the situation that is occurring in China right now. There is no support for the wine industry, whose exports into China will be impacted, and parts of our fishing industry and now our forestry industry are being impacted. We know more pain is coming for those sectors, yet nothing has been done to address that in this state budget.

My colleagues in this place have spoken about the long delays in infrastructure spending. Infrastructure spending has been highlighted by the Premier and the Treasurer as the centrepiece of this budget, but the reality is that real jobs are not coming for quite some time and we are risking local subcontractors hitting the wall and going bust well before any jobs eventuate from this.

The most disappointing thing in this state budget is the lack of vision for this state. Other than having some tunnels, I cannot actually tell from this budget what the Premier's vision is for this state. Yes, we are dealing with a pandemic, and the last 48 hours have shown us the uncertainty we are facing. Yes, we need stimulus, but we need the stimulus now to get ourselves out of it. Beyond that, where are we heading as a state? Where is the targeted money for building successful industries in South Australia? Where is the plan for the population growth that the Marshall Liberal government says we need?

Where is the long-term plan to grow the jobs and get the investment we need in South Australia to succeed? Unfortunately, to me, this budget looks like a bandaid with no sensible long-term plan for this state. We need to spend money encouraging locals to buy local services and goods, and we need a serious attempt at investment attraction. We have people all over the world looking at Australia as a place to come and live and, as far as I can see in this state budget, we are doing nothing to make sure that South Australia is number one on their agenda.

We cannot ignore the long-term issues, either, that South Australia is facing. These issues existed way before COVID and will be there long after COVID. Dealing with the most vulnerable people in our community, we have seen significant delays in promised public housing building. We need to give people the dignity of a stable, decent house with the opportunity for dignified work. Those issues have both been largely ignored in this state budget, nor is there anything that deals with the elephant in the room, which is our ageing population and the impact that will have on our health system in the long term.

All of this has been largely ignored in a budget that achieves very little in the short term. We also need a plan for repaying the massive $33 billion plus debt we are facing, and there is nothing in the budget that indicates to me what that long-term plan is. Unfortunately, the Marshall Liberal government did not take the opportunity to integrate short-term policies to deal with the impact of COVID with a plan to deal with the long-term vision for South Australia, and that has disappointed me greatly.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

Ms STINSON (Badcoe) (12:04): I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill. I want to start by expressing my appreciation for all those who have been working hard to deal with the COVID crisis, both since March and in this latest outbreak. This is certainly a budget shaped by those global forces of a pandemic. I also acknowledge the Public Service for its considerable work on this budget, a budget that is really unlike any other, at least since the GFC.

This is a budget with an incredible level of spending. The government's response to where we find ourselves financially is to spend. Considering the times we are in, little issue can be taken with a stimulus approach; indeed, it is one Labor employed to great effect during the GFC and an approach we have called for this year. However, spending on this scale must result in outcomes. It is essential that this largesse delivers both short-term and long-term benefits, addressing the challenges we face in the short and longer term.

In the short term, it needs to deliver jobs, and generating those jobs has very real impact on the long-term futures of our citizens. In the longer term, it should, where possible, set up our state for a more prosperous future. At this expense, I think our community expects more than simply a sugar hit. Sadly, job creation does not flow from the very handsome numbers in these budget papers. There is a zero per cent jobs growth forecast in the budget: that is a concern to me and also to the people I represent. They want to know that, if so much of their taxes are being spent, it is securing a result: a result for their family, for their neighbourhood and for their state.

My other concern—and I suppose this is a personal as much as a professional reflection—is that net government debt will increase to $33 billion over the forward estimates. With a number of projects not fully accounted for in the budget, for example, South Road, which needs another $4.45 billion, that is likely to increase from there. The Treasurer has told us that he will be long gone from this planet by the time the debt is paid off. He was referring to last year's budget figures, I believe, when he made those comments.

Of course that means that my generation and the ones after that and after that will bear the burden of paying this off. Even if that is necessary, it is a stressful prospect and there needs to be a plan on how to come out the other side of that, and that has not been articulated by this government or in these budget papers so far. I would like to turn to some particular aspects of the budget that affect my beloved electorate of Badcoe.

The seat of Badcoe, on the current boundaries at least, spans South Road, from Richmond Road at Keswick to Daws Road at Ascot Park. This section is 5.7 kilometres long, of the total 10.5 kilometre stretch to be completed on South Road. When there is little traffic, it will take about seven minutes to drive that stretch from Richmond Road to Daws Road. With traffic, in theory it is 22 minutes, but in my experience it can often be a lot longer.

This entire 5.7 kilometre stretch is to be upgraded in either phase 1 or phase 2 of the announced works program, and it is disappointing that major works will not begin until 2023, well after the next election. Only then will we start to see the 4,000 jobs promised by this project, and that is a long way away from the job stimulus our state needs now and I suspect will need even more desperately as the JobKeeper program winds down.

There is no doubt at all that this stretch of vital road infrastructure needs upgrading to cope with modern conditions and to see the completion of the north-south corridor vision. There is also no doubt that tunnels were a popular idea and welcomed by most Badcoe residents, including me. There is a variety of reasons local people preferred tunnels—chiefly, so that fewer homes, businesses and community facilities were compulsorily acquired and also so that character and heritage homes and long-established buildings are preserved.

There are also hopes that it will create greater unity between our suburbs like Glandore and Black Forest, which are currently divided by the existing four-lane South Road, but we are in jeopardy of being divided by a much wider breach. Many people also want to see further greening of our area, which is severely lacking in open green space, and this project represents an opportunity for that to happen.

It also represents a chance for some local issues to be resolved. Chief among those is the gauntlet that children run each morning getting across South Road to go to school at Black Forest. I am forever nervous watching children cross the road there, and earlier this year (thankfully, it was during the school holidays) we were petrified to see a car career off the road at the pedestrian crossing and veer around the metal barriers to where children would ordinarily be waiting to cross the road. It is issues like this that could be addressed with the South Road upgrade. But the proposed hybrid-plus model does not mean a tunnel for everyone in my electorate. For some there will be a sunken roadway, for others a surface roadway.

According to reports, there will be a 4.3 kilometre southern tunnel from Darlington to just south of the tram bridge over South Road, which many in my area would know as the Black Forest tram overpass or tram stop 6. There will be one kilometre of lowered motorway under the tramline and Anzac Highway, which is the existing Gallipoli Underpass; two kilometres of surface motorway from Anzac Highway to just south of Richmond Road; and then a lowered motorway under Richmond Road.

The questions for people in my area are: where exactly is the road going; what land will be taken up for the on and off ramp and what will be acquired to simply create the room to build the road or tunnel? People in my community are rightly asking whether Richmond Primary, Black Forest Primary, Warriappendi School and even St Anthony's School will be affected, or even be bulldozed, to make way for the new road. If their school does survive, in whole or in part, they are concerned about school drop-off points and safe access, access to school ovals, pedestrian access for children to walk to school, and whether school sizes will be reduced.

Schools like Black Forest are also due to have work start from the Building Better Schools money allocated under the former Labor government. This $5 million school improvement was delayed under the current government and parents are now asking if those works will go ahead as planned, be put on hold or indeed be cancelled completely. Parents are rightly asking if money should be spent on new classrooms and learning spaces if they will be pulled down. Equally, they want their children to get the best facilities and get what they deserve and have long been promised.

Likewise, businesses are unsure if they are to be included or directly impacted by the route, or if their businesses are even viable amid the construction phase. Churchgoers of St Anthony's on South Road want to know if their lovely church will remain near the Emerson crossing, and those at the Wayville Uniting Church on Oban Avenue just behind Black Forest Primary School are also searching for some answers. In the past week, I have had a flurry of calls from my constituents asking these questions and many more. So, while the government may have answered one question about whether tunnels will be built, it has led to many more questions that need to be answered.

Since becoming the local MP, I requested a briefing on South Road by the then minister but I did not receive a response. I hope the response from the current minister is much more cooperative. I have again requested a briefing so I can help keep my community up to date on what will be a complex and time-consuming project that will dominate our community's landscape and our conversations for another decade. I hope to hear from him soon.

Considering that the planned community consultation sessions about South Road have today been cancelled, I think it is even more important that the local MP representing the area most affected by the project is kept up to date and is in a position to advise constituents about the project and how they can have their say. After all, my community elected me as their representative precisely for purposes such as this: to help inform them of the impact of government decisions and to advocate in their interests.

I really do think that community consultation is important and I hope this government will see the good sense in communicating with the local MP and our community at large about this incredibly important infrastructure project. The uncertainty around the project since 2018 has impacted people's lives in a very real way. Their ability to make decisions in the interest of their families, community groups and businesses has been stifled. Now that a rough plan has been announced, it is important the community is kept abreast of developments and has the opportunity, at the earliest time, to contribute their own ideas.

My community is one that is well informed and engaged on current issues. Locals have thought very deeply about South Road for many years: after all, it is their home. I would urge the government to listen to the great ideas that local people have about this almost $9 billion project and how it can help improve the quality of life in our area, rather than diminishing it.

It is also important that decisions are made as thoroughly and as expeditiously as possible in order to allow people to make important decisions in their own lives—decisions like where to send their kids to school, whether to renovate their home, whether to buy or expand a business, or whether to join a local community or sporting club affected by the new route.

The fact is there are a number of buildings and blocks of land along South Road that have not been invested in, not rented out or cannot be sold because of uncertainty about the road's future. As the local MP, I am calling for as much certainty as quickly as is feasible for my community and true and thorough engagement with our community and its local leaders.

I want to turn to the question of sports funding, which is of relevance to my area as well. The decision a few years ago to limit sports funding to football, cricket and netball projects was condemned by my community and the many sports organisations that subsequently found it much harder to access funds. I welcome the sports funding rounds in this budget.

Many in this place would know of my commitment to sports infrastructure in my own community. I was pleased to help open Goodwood Oval's new clubhouse a few weekends ago. I fought really hard for that funding from the previous Labor government before I was elected, gathering hundreds of signatures and dragging endless ministers to the site to make my case and that of my community.

The sports minister attended the opening, and I am sure he was equally impressed with the end product—an excellent facility to take us into future decades. Our local leaders, including Craig Scott, Warwick Potts, Jason Scroop and many others, deserve recognition for their years of work to make this happen.

I have also been pleased to advocate for and secure funding for sports and recreation facilities at Weigall Oval at Plympton, Ascot Park's Active Elders and the Millswood Bowling Club, as well as a new home for the local Forestville Hockey Club at the upgraded Women's Memorial Gardens Playing Fields when that is completed. I was also really pleased to assist the Plympton Halifax Calisthenics Club at North Plympton to get a new polished timber floor.

I am hoping that the funding available in this budget will assist more community level sports groups in Badcoe, such as, for example, the Millswood Croquet Club. The club has been working in recent years to raise funds for a new clubhouse to replace the small and ageing facility that it has had for many, many decades, and the members of the club should be commended for the support they have so far managed to rally. The club's President, Stewart Kingsborough, even jumped onto ABC radio last week to argue his case directly with the Treasurer on air.

The club is after just $250,000. It hopes that such funding will help attract more players to its club and make life a bit more comfortable for its 80-strong existing membership. I have certainly hit a few balls through the hoops myself at the Millswood Croquet Club, sometimes more successfully than others, and there is nowhere better to be, especially in summer. There are issues to be worked through with this project, but funding would be welcome, especially now that more than just three sports can apply under this funding.

I am hoping that the mistakes of the past, when it comes to sports funding, will not be repeated in the new rebadged grassroots program; however, it is concerning that the same unfair co-contribution model that saw overwhelming numbers of projects go to Liberal-held seats remains at the project's core.

In total, just six Labor electorates received funding from the 47 successful bids under the controversial Grassroots Football, Cricket and Netball Facility Program. The $6 million round 2 funded no clubs in Labor electorates, while the $5 million round 3 saw just one of 15 projects in a Labor electorate. The government's required 50 per cent co-contribution is skewing grants towards those with the most money; many community clubs simply cannot afford the huge cost and their players are missing out.

Under Labor, all clubs got a fair share of public funding. Projects were fully funded and decisions were based on merit, not postcodes. Like its predecessor, I am concerned that the grassroots program is unfairly geared towards wealthier areas, meaning kids from lower income areas are missing out. Certainly, if we look at the Millswood Croquet Club, which is after $250,000, there is no way that club is going to be able to come up with $125,000 itself. No matter where you live, you should be given the opportunity to participate in sport and be able to access appropriate facilities that support participation.

Moving onto the area of the arts, in the arts portfolio we have seen cuts detailed in the last two budgets under this government totalling $46.3 million for the arts sector. Although belated, it is encouraging to now see funds being expended through the Arts Recovery Fund to address the perilous impact of COVID on the arts sector. Indeed, it is the second-hardest hit sector in our state, with up to 27 per cent of jobs lost in the sector during the peak of the COVID job cuts. The $10 million Arts Recovery Fund is welcomed, although of course that represents less than a quarter of the funds that this government has stripped from the arts since coming to office.

Looking specifically at the arts and cultural policy support budget lines, because of course there is no Arts SA anymore, we can see that eight workers in the arts are losing their jobs, with FTEs reducing from 63.2 to 55.1 in this year's budget, so it seems the destaffing and the defunding of arts sadly continues.

In short, considering the depth of the impact on the arts and the continuing restraints on the sector, meaning it is unlikely to fully recovery for years to come, it does seem that more could be done for the arts and it does seem to me that there is a missed opportunity for some creative thinking and for some long-term investments in arts and art creation to aid the arts economy.

In relation to the Aboriginal Art and Cultures Centre, an additional $50 million has been tipped into this project. I have to say, as I have already said in this place, that I am not surprised about that considering that for some time Labor has warned that this project was either underfunded or would not be the landmark building that we were told it would be; so that investment is, of course, welcomed.

Despite being completed in August, the long-awaited business case has been kept secret and not released publicly, leaving us to only ponder what that might say. We, of course, call for that to be publicly released. But what we do know is that the delivery date has again been delayed. Just last week, Diane Dixon, the Lot Fourteen project manager, told ABC radio that the project will not be delivered by the Premier's promised 2023 deadline but will open two years later in 2025. That is yet another delay to this project and very disappointing.

Speaking of delays, the budget papers also reveal a delay for the delivery of the Adelaide Festival Centre project. There is now not only a blowout in the cost but the delivery of the project that was fully funded under the previous government has been pushed out from June 2021 to June 2023, two years longer and after the next state election.

The budget papers do feature rather a few Labor-era projects that are underway and, indeed, one that has been completed. In addition to the Festival Theatre project underway, there is the Maj. I was pleased to tour the completed Her Majesty's Theatre a few months ago with Labor leader, Peter Malinauskas. She is a truly beautiful theatre, Mr Speaker, and if you have not been there, I would urge you to visit at the earliest possible opportunity.

It has been a pleasure to see a few shows there, including the State Opera's Summer of the Seventh Doll just a few nights ago. The experience, I suppose, has been made even more special by the fact that I think that was the only performance now that restrictions are back in place and measures have had to be taken to curtail theatres. Let's hope that the latest restrictions on arts events can be safely dropped again soon so that more people can enjoy this fantastic facility.

In relation to planning, the most glaring omission from the budget is Treasury funding the overdue Planning and Design Code. Due to the delayed implementation of the code under this government, that has seen a cost blowout. Those staff have to be paid from somewhere and that somewhere, under this government, has sadly been the Planning and Development Fund, commonly known as the open space fund.

I addressed the Local Government Association's AGM on this issue a few weeks ago and was glad to see that its members subsequently passed a motion to raise their voice on this issue and lobby the minister over the misuse of the fund, passing a motion that was supported by 95 per cent of its delegates.

In the other place, Labor and the Greens continue to raise this issue and support the disallowance of the regulations that enable the raiding of this fund to continue to happen, and it is shame that that is necessary. Obviously, it would be much more fruitful for the minister to use her sway to obtain funds for the cost blowouts—admittedly largely the result of decisions or indecisions under her predecessor—to gain Treasury funds for this cost overrun and to leave the open space fund for funding open space.

Lastly, I want to talk about the Labor leader's commitment on this side of politics to oppose the proposed new electric car tax. I myself very proudly drive a hybrid and I hope to have an electric vehicle in future. There are many people in my electorate who are environmentally minded and try to do whatever they can within their means to make environmentally sensitive decisions in their daily lives.

While there are currently only a handful of people in my area who drive fully electric vehicles that I am aware of, there are many with hybrids and, indeed, many more who plan or aspire to buy a greener car in future. There is no doubt that a new tax will only act as a deterrent for people to purchase an electric vehicle. The proposal has been slammed by the industry, with Electric Vehicle Council chief executive, Behyad Jafari, saying the new car tax would actively discourage people from buying electric cars and would send a message to the sector to move away from South Australia and do their business elsewhere. I am really proud that this side of the house is standing up against this short-sighted decision and making it clear what we stand for.

In conclusion, while this budget may foreshadow a cash splash, it is important that the money actually hits where it is needed: investing in long-term social, environmental and economic outcomes for our state and, vitally, generating the jobs we so desperately need right now.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (12:24): I rise to make a small contribution to the debate regarding the Appropriation Bill. My colleagues have covered a lot of the space in this debate, and I will not repeat some of their comments, but I endorse a lot of the comments they have made about the general approach for the budget and also the issues regarding the delay in the delivery of infrastructure projects.

We have heard time and again for the last couple of years, particularly in the last 12 months, about an X-billion dollar infrastructure plan. We have heard that a number of times. Like a lot of people in the street, I would like to see the budget rather than just hear about the budget, and certainly we have not actually seen much of the budget on the ground.

The budget is an important economic and social statement. It outlines the priorities for the government, in terms of its economic strategy and economic policies, and also its social policies and what it sees for the future of our state. I acknowledge that the pandemic poses new, additional challenges to any government of the day, whether it be at the state or federal level. While I take that into account, the pandemic also provides great opportunities: the things we previously did not do or did not think about we can do now—and the things we can invest in, the things we better understand about our community, our society and our economy.

Regrettably, this government has chosen to use the pandemic as an excuse for some of its failures rather than to use it as a way to change the thinking on the ground in our community in the way we need to do things. I will give you just one example, Mr Deputy Speaker. We have been told time and time again by the Treasurer, the Premier and others that the $33 billion debt we will have as a state is due to the pandemic. The reality is, though, that we already had a debt somewhere between $10 billion and $12 billion before the pandemic hit this state and our nation. So to suggest that the pandemic is the sole cause of our debt is misleading.

Then we were told that part of that debt was to invest in infrastructure for the future. That is a noble plan, but where do we see this happening on the ground? A number of speakers from this side have already indicated that a lot of the projects where ribbons have been cut in the last 12 months have been projects, particularly in my own electorate, which were funded by the previous Labor government. That said, they could not even deliver the projects in a proper way because there had been a number of lingering issues related to some of the projects in my electorate.

I welcome and acknowledge the $15 million upgrade of the emergency department at the Gawler Health Service. I would like to say more about that, but it is difficult to say more because I do not know what the plans are and I do not know what the timing is, and it has been very hard to find information about those two things, to the point where I understand a lot of decision-makers in the local health service there do not know either.

There was this big announcement, but a lot of people involved in the health services in Gawler were unaware of what has been planned, what is proposed and also when it will be delivered. So, while I welcome that, I would like to get more details to make sure that the project is delivered on time and that it is a project we actually need in Gawler.

While that funding for the hospital is very important and certainly needed, a hospital is only as good as the people who can get to the hospital. One of the issues we have in Gawler and also the Barossa, it has been brought to my attention, is ambulance services. Only recently I had a case brought to my attention where a school student was very ill at school, and it took an hour and a half to attract an ambulance to the site. So delayed was the ambulance service that the school principal contacted my office to see if there was anything we could do to actually get an ambulance to this student, who was obviously in need of health care. That has been a growing concern.

The lack of resources for ambulance services means that, on a number of occasions, the town is without an ambulance service, and that is also true for the Barossa from what I hear when I speak to paramedics in the region. There are times when a patient has to be taken to the Lyell McEwin, to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, or wherever. There is no backup service in the region, and that means that people need to wait unacceptable times, which is putting their health and their life at risk.

Then we look further at what is happening in Light, and I would like just to reflect on a couple of things that have happened in the last few years to paint a picture about how this government has treated the electorate of Light. First, we had the VORT program closed in Gawler. The Vehicle On Road Testing scheme was shifted from Gawler to Elizabeth, and I still do not have an explanation as to why that was the case, given that there was not a shortage in demand for the services. Certainly, it means now that young people in the local area have to travel longer distances to get the service.

Also, people outside Gawler have to travel even further. People around Mallala, Wasleys and those sorts of areas, who used to come into Gawler for the testing now have to go to Elizabeth as the closest site. The government has closed that service, which has incurred additional costs not only to the individual involved and their families but also to the driving schools because often they incur additional costs, which they pass on for the testing.

If that was not enough, one part of getting a licence these days is to do your Hazard Perception Test, which is an appropriate thing to do, but not when you have to wait three or four months to do the test, and that is because of a cutback in services to Service SA. This is a test you do online and does not take that long, but there are people in my community waiting to get their Ps, for example, who now travel to Port Pirie to do their Hazard Perception Test, which is just inappropriate. Again, that means additional cost for families and additional cost for young people because the wait times in our community have blown out under this government to very unacceptable levels, and young people have brought those cases to my attention.

One thing I talked about a bit earlier is how the pandemic can not only pose challenges but also present opportunities. Certainly, this government has used the opportunity of the pandemic to close certain services down under the cover of COVID-19. It is closing down the Housing SA office in Gawler. Housing SA, by its very nature, services the most vulnerable in our community—people who need housing support. Now they have to go to Elizabeth or Salisbury for support.

It is interesting that, without any fanfare, the government has decided to close that office down. We now have people, who are generally on low incomes already and who probably have a whole range of other issues in their lives, being forced to drive further or to travel further and incur additional costs to get basic housing support and advice.

Also, if that was not enough, the government is now going to close the Community Corrections Centre in Gawler, which is very important. It was actually opened by the previous Labor government and the Hon. Mr Koutsantonis when he was the minister. Part of that strategy was to ensure increased compliance with community orders by placing these centres out in the community rather than forcing people to come to one location.

The idea was to make the community safer by making people comply with their various orders and making it easier for them to comply with their orders, which I thought was a really good thing to do. This is related not just to Gawler but to the Lower Mid North and even Yorke Peninsula, etc.—areas where people would actually come into those centres to report, to do courses or a whole range of other activities related to their community orders.

That is very important because we want to make sure that we help people get back on track in their lives. As a society, we are safest when people do not need to commit crimes or do not commit crimes, and we do that by making sure that they can comply with their requirements set by the courts, which society expects them to do. By closing down the centre, it just makes it harder for people to comply with their orders, and it may mean that at a later date more people may be in gaol than need to be.

A week or so ago, one of my constituents forwarded to me an email that had been sent to her and one of her children. Her son is doing a construction course through TAFE, and they were told that the government is going to improve construction education by only making it available further south; that is, they are closing it down in the north. TAFE students now cannot actually do face-to-face construction training. Young people cannot do their trade qualifications in the northern suburbs. It has been shifted to one site 'because you will get a better outcome'.

This is very interesting because one of the things TAFE has done very well in the past was to be accessible. It would make it easy to attend school and to attend TAFE. A lot of people attend TAFE as part of their secondary education these days, and now they have to go past the city of Adelaide to access these courses. So we have additional costs for those young people, and additional time, and often these people also work part-time to make ends meet, which means they are travelling further, right across the city, and have less time to work part-time to support themselves, etc.

In the example I have provided, we have a government now that has made life much more difficult for people living in my electorate. It has closed down the VORT scheme for young people trying to do their testing, it has closed down the Housing SA office that makes it easier for the most vulnerable to access services and it is closing down the Community Corrections Centre, making it harder for people to comply with community orders and do the right thing. The government is closing down training courses in construction in the north, which means that young people have to go further south to do that. Where are our tradies of the future supposed to come from if they cannot actually access the training opportunities?

When you look at these things, a bit of a pattern develops. It appears the government has an operation in mind to shut down Gawler in some ways. It has certainly shut down all the public services in Gawler. What are the common themes? Well, it reduces access to services. It increases costs to the families and the people affected. There is an impact on family. There are impacts on community safety because people cannot comply with orders.

All these public services closing means public servants are not coming to the town to work. If public servants are not coming to the town to work, there is less activity in the town and the cafes, eateries and shops lose customers. Not only are they closing down services but they are having a negative impact on small businesses in the town, and that means it also impacts on the viability of our small business sector in Gawler. At this time, given the pandemic, one thing our community does not need is fewer people working there. We need people to work there and to spend money there to keep the economic activity in our town.

If we look wider to some of the Barossa areas, we can see some emerging themes there as well. As I have been traversing the area quite a bit in recent times—it is a beautiful part of the world—some of the themes have been developing from what people have spoken with me about. The need for a hospital is obviously an important issue in the Barossa. It has been around for a long time—I am not going to suggest that that need for a hospital has only been while the Liberals have been in government—and it was also there when we were in government. I remember Minister Snelling putting a case out there regarding the need for a hospital and what the conditions would be for a new hospital. A number of people at the time opposed that plan, and the hospital did not go ahead as a result of that plan.

There has been a flurry of activity in recent days by the Liberal Party in the Barossa about a hospital—a flurry of activity and announcements—but when you pick up the budget, what do you find in the budget? What do you find in the budget for a hospital in the Barossa? Despite a whole range of commentary from the Liberal Party about what they are going to do in the Barossa in relation to a new hospital, there are zero dollars in this budget for a new hospital in the Barossa—zero dollars.

What does that mean? There are zero dollars in the budget for 2020-21, there are zero dollars in the budget for 2021-22, there are zero dollars in the budget for 2022-23 and zero dollars for 2023-24. Not only this year, but for the forward estimates there are zero dollars in this budget. Despite what the Liberal Party has been saying in the Barossa, it is not matched with dollars in this budget. What does that mean? It means that obviously the Liberal Party is planning on some pre-election announcement for a hospital.

People in the Barossa are going to realise that there is nothing in the budget for it, so where is this money going to come from in 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24 if it is not in the budget? That is what it will be: it will be just an election gimmick designed to hold onto the seat without any money in the budget. Then we were told there was a business case for the hospital. By the government's own admission that business case has been ready for some time.

Does the government make that business case public? No. Does the government use the business case as a way of engaging the community or of having a conversation with the community about the proposal and whether it fits the needs of the Barossa people? No. What does the government do? It just keeps telling people that it is coming. In fact, they were promised that work would start on this hospital in this term of government.

Mr Knoll: No, they weren't.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: Well, I read it in The Leader so it must be accurate.

Mr Knoll: It wasn't accurate.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: I read it in The Leader, so that must have been accurate.

The Hon. D.J. Speirs: That's a good rule of thumb—the media is accurate.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: So the Liberal members are saying The Leader is fake news; is that what they are saying?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Light, don't respond to interjections. You are nearly there.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: The member for Schubert says on this occasion The Leader got it wrong. Well, I do not recall the member for Schubert actually writing in and saying that.

Mr Knoll: I did.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: Did you?

Mr Knoll: Yes.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: The story was repeated just recently.

Mr Knoll: And we wrote to them again.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: I don't remember seeing it.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Light, you have three minutes.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: I do have three minutes and I will use those, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Mr Knoll: The same amount of time he has been interested in the Barossa.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Schubert is called to order.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: It's actually probably 20 minutes more than you have been.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Light!

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: At least I actually spend more time in the Barossa—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member for Light will continue with his contribution. The member for Schubert will cease interjecting.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: Yes, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am actually enjoying this—not only me but a lot of people in the Barossa are enjoying this too. Another thing I would like to mention in terms of the Barossa is that water is a major issue, and there is some money in the budget to undertake a water investigation through the primary industries department, I understand. I will be very keen to see how that money is going to be spent and what it is for, because water security has been raised by people in the community.

Public transport has been raised by people. We had a huge fanfare this year. Keoride was announced by the then minister, this fantastic new public transport system, but then it was cut back by 75 per cent within months. That is the pattern of this government: big fanfare announcements and then they just shut things down; just shut things down and shut people out and there is no fanfare when they do that.

Another issue that has come up is homelessness in the community. Unfortunately, that is a growing problem according to the non-government agencies I have spoken to in the Barossa. It is a problem that is not going to be tackled, and it is certainly not tackled in this budget to help people. It did not help that during the pandemic only homeless people or rough sleepers in the city were helped, not in the regions.

One thing I would like to finish on is the $10,000 grants. I had a constituent in my electorate who lodged an application for a grant. He was doing it really tough and met all the criteria, but the application was a few days late and he was rejected. Now the Treasurer has reintroduced it. It did not help that small business.

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (12:44): I also rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill and, in doing so, I acknowledge the very challenging circumstances that we have faced as a state and as a nation, starting with the bushfires—serious bushfires—especially for some of the communities in the Adelaide Hills, Kangaroo Island and elsewhere in our state, followed by COVID and the impact it has had.

Let us all hope the current challenge we are facing with COVID-19 proves to be relatively short lived, that our contact and tracing mechanisms will be fully operational and get on top of it. Of course, as the opposition we have expressed our support for all of the endeavours taken to ensure this does not get out of hand. Everybody here has their fingers crossed that the processes in place will work and work effectively.

When I look around my electorate and at the budget, it is a bit of a mixed picture. Parts of my electorate have done it incredibly hard because of COVID-19, and they have had not much in the way of assistance from the state government, and this appears to have continued in this budget. Some of the more remote communities in my electorate, such as Coober Pedy, which is predominantly dependent these days upon tourism, have been particularly hard hit. Coober Pedy always faces lean pickings in the summer and then expects, in the cooler months of the year, to have a significant influx of tourists, both international and national, to come to have a look at that unique community.

Coming out of summer, to be hit by COVID-19, the lean pickings continue, and now we are entering into summer again. The community of Coober Pedy has been an incredibly hard hit. Very few tourism operators in Coober Pedy have been benefited from grant money available at a state level. That is incredibly disappointing and partly a function of the criteria used, and that criteria has seriously disadvantaged a lot of small businesses in Coober Pedy.

When I look at some of the big issues across the electorate and, indeed, across regional South Australia, in the health area especially, I think it has once again received slim pickings from the budget. There are one or two things that I should acknowledge: the announcement by the South Australian Cancer Council of an upgrade in accommodation for cancer patients in Adelaide I think is very positive. Many people from regional South Australia have to come to Adelaide for various aspects of their treatment, so to see the accommodation upgrade is a positive step.

For many years, I have been of the view that the PATS system needs further improvements. Once again, we see no improvement to the accommodation or travel allowance provided. That hits country people hard and it becomes a disincentive. When it comes to mortality and morbidity rates in country communities, for a range of factors they are not as good as those in the metropolitan area in general, so barriers to access have a detrimental impact.

I have been a consistent critic of some of the ways in which PATS operates when it comes to continuity of care. For someone who might have been seeing a specialist in Adelaide for many years—and a visiting specialist might come into the regions—the expectation would be to see the nearest specialist. In the case of many country communities, that would be the visiting specialist, but that lacks continuity of care.

With visiting specialists, you often cannot guarantee ongoing service to a particular community. That is always going to be a hard one to address. There is some conflict there because we want to see visiting specialists in regional communities to avoid the need to go to Adelaide and, better still in some fields, specialists living in communities, as they used to do in our major communities once upon a time. There is a conflict there. I acknowledge it is a conflict. It requires some subtlety in addressing it, but there needs to be greater flexibility on the part of PATS when it comes to delivering continuity of care.

It is not a state government responsibility, but when it comes to primary health services there is still a very significant shortage of GPs in country South Australia. It is not because there is a shortage of GPs nationally; it is just that they are concentrated in our metropolitan areas and especially in our more affluent areas. I think it is incredibly unfortunate when we see small regional councils having to fund practices in order to get GPs to set up in their communities.

I think the state government should be doing far more in that area, but ultimately it is the federal government that should be doing far more when it comes to ensuring that people in regional South Australia have access to GP services. My longstanding position has been that, until we address the provision of Medicare numbers and make that provision on the basis of an assessment of health needs in communities and population ratios, we are not going to be able to address this maldistribution.

In the immediate lead-up to the budget, a number of announcements were made about Whyalla. They were very positive announcements. The most positive interpretation is that it indicates a degree of strong bipartisan support. One of the announcements was about the Eyre Peninsula Gateway Hydrogen Project. I have been an advocate for hydrogen going back quite a few years, before the road maps and the initiatives of this government, arguing that Whyalla is the most sensible place in this state to develop a hydrogen hub for a whole range of reasons.

In the lead-up to the budget, there was an announcement about some funding for H2U. The member for Flinders, the Deputy Speaker, would be aware that they were originally looking down at Port Lincoln. At that stage, the then government allocated a $4.7 million grant plus a $7.5 million loan to that particular project down near Port Lincoln. Prior to all that, back in 2015, I had written to our government at the time about Whyalla being a hydrogen hub, and that was in the context of job losses in Whyalla.

Unfortunately, at that time, despite efforts on my part and the part of the Melbourne Institute, we could not get any particular interest back in 2015 from the private sector in funding a study, in conjunction with some local money, to have a look at Whyalla as a hydrogen hub. I think H2U have made a sensible decision in looking at Whyalla as the site for their hydrogen project, the initial 75-megawatt electrolyser, with the intention of producing about 40,000 tonnes of ammonia a year.

For people who are not fully aware, green ammonia is one step beyond green hydrogen. We use the electrolyser to create hydrogen then, if we want to take it that step further, we can create ammonia with the addition of nitrogen. Ammonia is essentially three parts hydrogen to one part nitrogen. My argument back in 2015, when we were losing jobs in Whyalla, was that we needed to use our renewable energy resource as a driver, as an input, into manufacturing in this state.

Clearly that step to ammonia makes a lot of sense, given that we can produce both fertilisers and explosives, and there are a number of other applications for ammonia, including as a carrier for hydrogen and export, because it is simpler to export ammonia at this stage than it is to export hydrogen. The other big plus about Whyalla is the steelworks, and it was good to see Gupta come on board and talk about hydrogen and green steel (and we have a way to go there).

A potential big customer for hydrogen in this state down the track is the steelworks. It will be Sweden that will have the first renewable-based hydrogen production, leading into green steel, with the intention of having a fully commercial plan by 2025, with the Germans also having a number of pilot plants at the moment. There is a strong future for hydrogen in our state, but we have to get our skates on. The money that has been committed to date has largely been money committed by the previous government as part of its hydrogen road map.

I have no doubt that the current minister is committed to hydrogen. The federal government has said some positive things about it and the state government said positive things about it, but in this state we need to take serious action, given the scale of some of the projects that have been pushed in Western Australia and elsewhere in Australia. We have some incredibly major advantages, especially given our level of renewable energy production, and that is a legacy and a foundation that the previous government left to this government. Let's have a strong bipartisan approach to developing a hydrogen industry in this state.

Of course, it needs to link in with some of the other strategies that were part of the history of the previous government—the magnetite strategy. I know that in the Middleback Ranges—and these are not JORC reserves, but are highly likely—there is probably over a billion tonnes of magnetite, which is used as the feedstock for iron and steel production in Whyalla. In this state, we have over $10 billion tonnes of JORC reserves, so we do have the potential to have a long-lived steel industry in this state, adding wealth to this state and at a scale larger than we have it now.

I wrote to the Premier and the Prime Minister early in the days of COVID to point out that the only integrated steelworks in the country that produces structural steel and rail is at Whyalla. We do not want to be dependent upon overseas supply for that particular fundamental product. A lot of things are going for Whyalla at the moment when it comes to steel production.

One of the disappointing things about the budget for the unincorporated areas, for Roxby Downs, Coober Pedy and Kangaroo Island, is that there is no reinstatement of the registration concessions that those communities used to receive. They received those for good reason, given the cost of transportation in those far and remote areas of our state. To see something like that overturned, after being there for many, many years, and through governments both Labor and Liberal, was a pretty low act.

Another thing that did not figure in the budget, which was disappointing, was the Augusta Highway. It has been called the deaf corridor. The number of people who are killed and seriously injured is deeply concerning, so the duplication of that highway is something we need to seriously entertain. There has been mention of electric vehicles, and given this stage of electric vehicle penetration—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Giles, while you do have some time left, I might suggest that you seek leave to continue your remarks.

Mr HUGHES: I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

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