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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-11-30 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Malinauskas Labor Government

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (15:09): I rise today to ask the house a simple question—

Mr Brown: Where's Marshall?

The SPEAKER: Member for Florey!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: —are South Australians—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: Mr Speaker, I will start again.

The SPEAKER: Very well. You have the call.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: I rise today to ask this house a very simple question: are South Australians better off today than they were at the 2022 state election? The answer is: not even close. The state is run by a bunch of charlatans and angry, arrogant, chortling individuals who mock their roles, who mock their communities, who take South Australians for granted, and who sneer with their elite inner-city latte-sipping inappropriate conduct at every possible opportunity.

These people are a bunch of inner-city elites. They are the empresses and emperors of woke and they have lost touch with society. They sneer and they chuckle and they drip with the most repulsive arrogance that I have ever seen. If only the South Australian people could actually see the member for Mawson and how he behaves; how the Minister for Transport, Tom Koutsantonis, behaves; how the Treasurer behaves. If only they could see the sneering elitism, the disrespect that they show their constituents.

I wonder how the good folks of Kangaroo Island would feel if they could see the vile way the member for Mawson treats our parliament, our seat of democracy right now.

The Hon. L.W.K. Bignell interjecting:

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: And there it is for all to see. This state is far worse off under this government 18 or so months into office. They are far worse off from a social point of view, they are far worse off from an environmental point of view, but more than anything else they are far worse off economically. After 13 individual interest rate rises driven by the inflationary spending of those across the aisle, with their mates in Canberra contributing to it, this has driven inflation. With every single interest rate rise that the members' opposite constituents and our constituents experience, they only have one party to blame: the Australian Labor Party and the South Australian Labor Party.

They spend Australians' and South Australians' money with arrogance. They head overseas, they go to Mexico, they pursue volleyball competitions, they spend their money and they keep their snouts deeply in the trough. It is repulsive. I wonder what the residents of Warradale would think of their behaviour, the residents of Aberfoyle Park, the residents of Golden Grove, the residents of Prospect, the residents of St Marys, the residents of suburbs and towns across our state if they could see what we see day in and day out: the waste, the arrogance and the repulsive behaviour of many of those others. As individuals, many of them are quite pleasant people but, as a collective, they bring disrepute into this parliament and this state.

South Australians now must find around $20,000 more to pay their bills, to get by, to get through day-to-day life than when those opposite came to power in March 2022—$20,000. Wages have not gone up by $20,000. People's savings, if they had $20,000, have now completely diminished. People in this state do not only worry about the monthly mortgage payments coming out of their bank accounts, if they are lucky enough to own a home and have a mortgage; they are fearful of opening their energy bills as well, they are fearful of filling up their car with fuel because of the price of it, and they are fearful of going to the supermarket.

The big question that I am posing to this house and to South Australians is: with the arrogant mob opposite, do South Australians feel better off now than they did in March 2022? I would suggest, without a skerrick of doubt, that they do not feel any better off. South Australians, because of state Labor, because of federal Labor, are far worse off. They are feeling pain day in and day out, and it is those opposite who have to look very close to home as to why that has happened.

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