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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-08-29 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Premier's Delivery Unit

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (15:16): Some things never change in politics. One thing that has not changed with the Labor Party of South Australia is their amazing ability to give jobs for the boys. It dates back decades in this state, whether it is union bosses being put into board positions or whether it is mates and former staffers being given chief executive and senior Public Service roles without appropriate merit selection processes. It has been going on for years.

True to form, they were back in government just weeks and they started this pattern again and again, whether it was Jay Weatherill's old housemate being appointed Commissioner for the River Murray or whether it is failed candidate for Florey and long-term Labor apparatchik Rik Morris getting job after job after job. It is all about looking after their mates who have looked after them.

Let's return to Rik Morris because we saw the Premier looking exceptionally uncomfortable in the first part of question time today when being asked questions about Mr Morris's fabulous performance in front of the Budget and Finance Committee in the Legislative Council in recent days, an embarrassing performance, a performance where perhaps, untrue to form, Mr Morris was quite truthful in terms of his contributions before that committee. What we heard there was that Mr Morris is of course paid some $361,000 of taxpayers' money per annum in his salary. We found out quite a lot about what this role includes.

Mr Morris heads the Premier's Delivery Unit. I think there is a place for a strategic body that looks out for the delivery of a government's election commitments. It is not the function of the office that we call into question, but we do challenge the way it goes about its business, the way it intimidates public servants across the Public Service, the way there are increasingly anecdotes being provided to the opposition of the way that the Premier's Delivery Unit, and in particular Mr Morris and his team of goons, is speaking to public servants, politically standing over the public servants and forcing them to do things that they might feel uncomfortable doing.

The politicisation of the Public Service at the behest of Mr Morris, and these accusations that are increasingly being presented to the opposition, are making us extremely concerned about the conduct and the way that the Premier's Delivery Unit undertakes its day-to-day business. We found out from Mr Morris and the Budget and Finance Committee about his privilege of wining and dining members of the royal family. He could not tell us any outcomes (it turns out Mike Rann was there), but we could not hear about that because that was commercial-in-confidence, bizarrely enough. But wining and dining members of the royal family and floating around to various events representing the government sound like a pretty good gig if you can get it—and get it for $361,000 on top of that.

We found out that the former Chief of Staff to Premier Jay Weatherall, Daniel Romeo, was appointed as an executive director on an undisclosed salary. It is interesting that the Premier took it on notice to provide us that salary today, so there will be a bit of scurrying around up in the Premier's Delivery Unit to deliver that one.

Then we find out, and we have to question the appropriateness of this, that the Premier personally directed Mr Morris to hire consultant Peter Hanlon at the tidy rate of $600—you might think for a day—no, for an hour, to provide mystery advice. We wonder what that advice entails and we wonder about the appropriateness of spending it on Mr Hanlon. Is anyone worth $600 an hour? I am pretty sure the Premier's mate Peter Hanlon is not worth that. During a cost-of-living crisis, we should be ashamed as South Australians at the way this money is being spent by the Labor government. They are spending like drunken sailors, they are spending on mates and, worst of all, they are spending on Mr Morris.

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