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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-09-23 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

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Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (15:20): Each and every one of us in this house has been bestowed with a particularly unique privilege to be parliamentarians of our state. The privilege of course does not rest in the power that has been bestowed upon us. It does not rest in the responsibility that has been bestowed upon us. The real privilege is the confidence that South Australians have expressed in each of us to represent their best interests.

The consciousness of that privilege should be particularly profound during the course of a crisis. When we experience a crisis or an emergency, whether it be a bushfire or a flood, South Australians are looking to their leaders, their elected leaders they have entrusted to do absolutely everything they can that is right by them in those extraordinary circumstances. That has never been truer in our lifetime more that it is now, with an unprecedented global pandemic. Now more than ever South Australians are putting their trust in us not to act politically but act responsibly during an extraordinary emergency.

That is why, from the start of the pandemic right up until now, the opposition has never sought to prioritise a political objective during the course of the pandemic. We have always prioritised, in response to the health response, what is the right thing to do by those South Australians who have confidence in us. They do not want to see politicians playing politics during the pandemic. They want to see issues raised that are legitimate and appropriate. They want to see decisions made, which are difficult ones during the course of the pandemic, but what they do not want is politics.

You can imagine in that context how confronting it is to learn that during the course of the pandemic the Premier of South Australia was having paid Facebook posts on the Premier's Facebook page. South Australians were going onto the Premier's Facebook page, with the Premier omnipresent giving an official press conference in front of the Premier's logo and the state insignia, referencing the Premier's website—premier.sa.gov.au—and having posts paid for by the Liberal Party saying, 'Sign up here for information regarding the state government's COVID response, including the vaccine rollout,' only to find out that when they clicked on signing up, their information on Facebook was not going to an official state government source but, rather, to the South Australian Liberal Party.

That is playing politics during the pandemic. That is the Premier of South Australia using the pandemic to seek to procure a political advantage for his interests, not acting in the state's interests. So South Australians understand exactly what has occurred here, when South Australians signed up to the Premier's Facebook page, ostensibly to get COVID information, including about the vaccine rollout, they were, unknowingly presumably, handing information over the South Australian Liberal Party, information like their IP address, their contact details, including their mobile phone number, even information regarding where they reside. It was all being handed over to the South Australian Liberal Party for the Premier's political benefit.

If that is not playing politics during the pandemic, I am not sure what is. It goes to the question of trust. It goes to the question of: can South Australians really put their confidence in the Premier who during the middle of the pandemic is thinking about how he can solicit their private information rather than worrying about the issue at hand?

We know that during the course of the pandemic the Premier was not the one making the decisions; he has handed over all the government's authority and responsibility to the police commissioner. That has proven to be a wise decision, because the police commissioner has been making all the critical judgements at all the critical times for the better part of the last 18 months approaching two years.

South Australians know that Grant Stevens will most likely have been in charge of the state longer than the Premier has by the time the election comes around. However, what South Australians probably do not know is that the Premier of South Australia, the member for Dunstan, was actually seeking to procure their private information during the pandemic.

We are going to continue to offer bipartisan support to the government in the health response, but we are not going to provide bipartisan support for this Premier collecting South Australians' private information during the pandemic for the Liberal Party's political benefit. That is not okay, and that is certainly not in accordance with the confidence that South Australians have placed in this government, confidence that is fast evaporating and should not last beyond the election.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Time expired.

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