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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-10-31 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

State Debt

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (15:07): This Labor government's economic credentials, or lack thereof I should say, have been on full display over the last few days. The old saying that you can't trust Labor with your money could not be any more accurate. The front page of Monday's The Advertiser reads, and I quote, 'State Hits a Debt End', revealing that debt will explode under this Labor government and this Treasurer by $11 billion to the 2026-27 financial year. SA's net debt at the end of forward estimates is projected to hit thirty-seven and a half billion dollars to 2026-27.

But what does that look like at a household level, at a per capita level? It equates to a debt of $19,000 a person in South Australia at this point in time. It is the second-worst position of all states around the nation, only second to the basket case that is the Labor government in Victoria.

What was very clear over the last couple of days is what this Treasurer does not want to talk about. He does not want to talk about his inability to turn a surplus last financial year, a $500 million whoopsie as it was described at the time, or the over $1 billion operating expenses blowout last financial year that squandered additional GST in state revenues. More importantly, he does not want to talk about his own budget papers that reveal that approximately $12 billion of the combined $18-plus billion price tag for the north-south corridor project and the new women's and kids' hospital project that have both blown out substantially under this government is an amount that actually sits out beyond the forward estimates. So there is much more debt coming for us in South Australia.

Despite the rhetoric by the Treasurer that this debt is being taken over the next four years simply for infrastructure, the reality is quite different. That debt is coming still; that debt is well into the future. Debt is going to go up, borrowing costs are going to go up, and that is on the head of this Treasurer. This feeds directly into The Advertiser editorial on Monday, and I quote the title: Mega projects need scrutiny in debt-laden state. Well, that is South Australia, but how did we get to this point where nearly $20 million worth of public funding is not able to be looked at by our state's Auditor-General?

That is the position we are in, where the Auditor General's office is being denied access to the appropriate documents to interrogate these very projects. We do not even know if they have actually been undertaken in accordance with the law. How can the South Australian public have confidence in the significant projects and the significant changes that have been made to those projects by this government—the most consequential cost to be incurred by the state of South Australia over the last couple of years—without the Auditor-General doing his job?

As the editorial notes, the work of the independent watchdogs is more crucial than it ever has been. There is only one person who is frustrating that process. There is only one person who is standing in the way of that scrutiny, and that is the Premier himself. This is his legacy and his legacy only: that billions of dollars' worth of public money is being spent and massive debt is being undertaken by this government, with no scrutiny. His only response to this point is 'Trust me.'

Finally, I want to touch briefly on payroll tax. We have had the Treasurer this week reference a step change in payroll tax revenue coming into the state. That is true: we had a tight labour market and businesses have had to increase wages, which is a good thing. But what that means is that those wage bills for our bigger companies are up 10 to 15 per cent. More of those small businesses that have previously been under the threshold of $1.5 million have started to hit that threshold.

We have a business community in South Australia that is being punished, that is paying a more substantial proportion of tax than they were just a couple of years ago, and this Treasurer and this Premier are happy to sit there and punish our business community and call it a step change in revenue coming into the state. On this side of the house, we want to see small business succeed, we want to see small business create opportunities, but we simply do not want to punish them.

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