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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-05-15 Daily Xml
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South Australian Museum

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (12:25): I move:

That this house—

(a) notes the proposed restructure to research and collections at the South Australian Museum, including the significant reduction in scientific and research staff;

(b) notes the proposed strategic direction and 'reimagining' of the galleries at the South Australian Museum, including the refusal of the Museum's leadership to rule out abolishing popular galleries, including the mammals, the Egyptian room, the polar collection, and more;

(c) urges the government to reverse recent budget cuts imposed on the Museum by the Malinauskas Labor government, and indeed to increase funding to the level that the Museum can fulfil its legislated scientific functions; and

(d) urges the government to cancel the proposed restructure and reimagining at the South Australian Museum.

I intend to set out, as briefly as I can, the background and circumstances addressing this motion, and look forward to the contributions of other members on the matter.

The South Australian Museum is a beloved and cherished institution in South Australia. It plays a tremendously important role in examining our natural history, both from the South Australian point of view and also from a broader global perspective. The scientific researchers at the Museum cover a wide range of disciplines. It is proposed that 27 people will have their roles cut as a result of the restructure proposition that has had a significant amount of public debate in recent months. Those 27 roles have collectively more than 470 years of experience in such roles. This is not a body of experience and expertise that can be replaced easily, nor is it one that can be fixed later should they be let go now.

I acknowledge that, as a result of some of these circumstances—which I will go through in a moment—the government has instigated a review of the matter, being conducted by the Chief Executive of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, with support from the South Australian Chief Scientist, and the Director of Museums in Queensland.

Noting that the Museum is a statutory authority reporting to the DPC effectively, we consider this to be, in effect, an internal review. I make no criticism of the expertise of particularly the two scientists who are contributing to that. I look forward to that. I think it is a good thing that the Premier has noticed that there is an issue here and has sought advice.

But the opposition does not believe that that review is in itself sufficient, which is why we are moving this motion. It is why we are calling for the government to take further steps and, in the meantime, why opposition members, along with the Greens, I note, on the Statutory Authorities Review Committee, have instigated, of their own motion, a further review, a parliamentary inquiry independent of DPC, with an opportunity for transparency and, I guess, the confidence of those stakeholders who have significant concerns about the Museum's plans.

Let's take a step back. Why are we here? The South Australian Museum, despite enormous work over more than a century, in terms of its scientific research, its public programs, its exhibitions and displays that are available free of charge to the public to participate in, which indeed have been cherished by generations of families, is an institution that is largely funded by the South Australian government. It has philanthropic support, notably from some particular donors who have put in millions over the years, and also from businesses. However, it is fair to say that the operations of the Museum are very much a function of the budget they receive from the South Australian government.

Successive governments have, at times, applied efficiency dividends—or, as some people would put it, cuts to the budget. The most recent of these, in the 2022 state budget of the Malinauskas Labor government upon coming into office, were in the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars. This was a hit to the operating budget of the Museum at a time when the Museum, and the rest of society, confronted significant increases in costs, an escalation in the cost of living and the cost of doing business in South Australia that is being felt around every kitchen table, around every boardroom, around every accountant's office.

Indeed, that has been felt around every single institution in this state over the last two years to a point, as I understand it, that at one stage in 2022-23 it looked as if the Museum board was facing a deficit of more than a billion dollars in its operations. I understand that reduced to less than three-quarters of a million dollars as a result of efficiencies applied or, potentially, expenses deferred, and some support from Treasury that got over the line that year.

That is notwithstanding that there were efficiencies—which I am sure the minister will take us through—in the 2018 and 2019 budgets. I have heard this from the government before: the suggestion was made by the Premier on ABC radio as if those efficiencies were the only efficiencies that had ever confronted the Museum. The truth is that those efficiencies came on top of, and I think were radically exacerbated by, in the figures quoted by the government, previous efficiencies from 2017 and before that were still baked into those figures.

No-one has come to this debate about the Museum with clean hands as it comes to the budget, but we are focused on the future. I also make the point that when it comes to investment in the Museum, both operating and capital should be taken into account. The former Marshall Liberal government, notwithstanding the efficiencies in 2018 and 2019, invested more than $80 million in a capital project that would both reduce the operating expenses of the Museum through storage expenses and also—very significantly and most importantly—be a fit-for-purpose environment in which to store the priceless collections of the Museum.

This includes Aboriginal and First Nations heritage items that are utterly priceless, significant collections that are currently, and that have shamefully been stored for decades, in rented facilities that are not appropriate, not fit for purpose. That cultural collection storage facility, which hopefully would also benefit the State History Collection and the Art Gallery, was due to be completed soon, but it has been delayed and there has been a challenge to the reduction in scope. I believe there has been some funding provided by the government to cope with some cost escalations, but I still have questions about whether that is going to be enough to fulfil the scope. The point is that the investment of more than $80 million tenfold outweighs any efficiencies applied during that former time.

Where are we now? We have 27 research positions that are to be restructured out of existence. I do not believe the Museum's instigation of this was on a whim; I think it was a direct response to their budget situation. That is why this motion, that the opposition has called for, calls first for a reinstatement of the budget cuts from 2022 to give the Museum board the courage and financial confidence it needs to be able to proceed without these widescale cuts to staffing.

As I understand it, the proposed restructure would reduce the staffing allocation by a half a million dollars. The minister can correct me if I am wrong, but the 27 positions to be removed are to be replaced with 23 curatorial positions, and I understand the difference in expenses is in the order of half a million dollars. That is a bit more than was cut from the budget in 2022, but the 2022 budget cuts are a good start.

We believe that the reviews—whether it is the Premier's review or the parliamentary inquiry or both—will be very useful in ensuring that we can have an understanding of the budget investment that is going to be required going forward, which may be above that cut in the 2022 budget. That is useful and important work, and the Liberal Party commits to providing such an investment at least to the level of the cut budget in 2022, and potentially more.

The reason I am so confident of the connection between the budget cuts and the review of research and collections is that I have gone to the trouble of reading the board minutes. I thank those dutiful officers within the South Australian Museum who so expertly and assiduously responded to our FOI inquiries. I am grateful for their professionalism in undertaking this, I am sure, tedious work, but it is important work.

The minutes note that in February 2023 the chair of the board acknowledged that the board had agreed to pause the review of research strategy and restructure at the December board meeting; however, I am advised the board were now considering the best timing to start the process. They agreed the new director should be involved in the decision and agreed to proceed once the preference was known.

In March, the chair noted the process had begun, with Chris Daniels chairing that review. In April, Chris Daniels reported to the board on what work was being undertaken and stressed the importance of a 360º process which invites Museum staff from other departments to contribute. In May, Chris Daniels provided the board with an update, and in July there was a full day of interviews held with researchers.

The minutes note that the review had been insightful and that members now had substantial relevant information. The committee expressed their thanks to all research and collections staff who participated. This is a review that largely took place over the first six months of last year. At around the end of this time, the new director was appointed.

In September, the new director reported to the board the key points of his review—what by this stage had become his review, as was clarified later in Budget and Finance—and his recommendations for the proposed organisational restructure. He said, according to the minutes, that it was noted that the planned restructure not only delivered clear strategic benefits but also delivered financial savings that address the current budget deficit. It was said in the minutes that it was agreed the paper would form the basis of a briefing document for meetings with the minister, DPC and DTF to gain approval for the proposed restructure.

It said in the minutes this briefing would also outline the support required by the Museum, including a dedicated and experienced change management resource from DPC to run the project, funding to cover the direct costs of the restructure and interim funding to cover the operating deficits of the Museum until such time as the new structure is in operation. These three points we have asked repeatedly about, because it has been suggested by the Premier that all of this work was done by the Museum board in isolation from government, as if the Museum was not a statutory authority reporting to a minister, with the director of the Museum responsible as a public servant to the Deputy Chief Executive of DPC herself.

The Museum, according to the Premier's logic, is almost an absentee institution from government. This is not the case, of course. The Museum, like TAFE SA, SA Water and so many other statutory authorities, is indeed a part of government, with a different management process—and indeed a board that has an important role to play—but which does not do so in isolation of government. The September board minutes make very clear that connection, that requirement and that engagement with DPC and DTF.

Further, we understand that the minister was provided a briefing endorsed before Christmas and that the Department of the Premier and Cabinet were intimately involved. The Director of the Museum confirmed at the Budget and Finance Committee that DPC did provide support for that change management resource. The idea that the Premier's own department was providing functional support to the Museum for its restructure and review and yet the Premier says that it was absent from the government is a nonsense. That is why he now has an obligation to actually put this to an end once and for all.

Throughout October, November and December, the Museum is understood to have continued this work with government, with DTF, with DPC and the minister. On 26 February, the Museum announced its restructure, which provoked a lot of the public response and commentary. Indeed, we also have plans that have been provided to the public and members of the opposition as well showing what the strategic plan would do for the Museum's physical footprint.

It is my understanding that all of this would have been encapsulated in briefings and discussions provided to the minister, DTF and DPC. It is certainly what I had read from the board minutes, but I would make the further point that if those plans were not part of briefings to the minister and DTF and DPC prior to their public release last week then I would be utterly stunned. The Premier has said repeatedly that there have been no plans to restructure the Museum's physical environment, to reimagine the Museum's physical environment in a way that would, as has been suggested, remove anything non-South Australian, which would include, presumably, the international mammals gallery, the Egyptian room, the polar collections, the range of minerals that do not bear particular geographic connection to South Australia—some do, of course, but not all.

The Premier in saying that there are no plans was really caught wanting in the last week when those plans were released. I think the Premier's only response from here is to do three things: firstly, to restore the budget that has been taken from the Museum in 2022. I am very much open to suggestions of an increase on that, as I have outlined earlier. The Museum probably would do well to have more than the money that was just the extra cut in 2022.

Secondly, the restructure that puts those scientific researchers' jobs at risk needs to not just be paused pending a review but absolutely ruled out going forward so that those 27 people can go into winter confident their jobs will still exist. And thirdly, the reimagining needs to be cancelled because the opposition would welcome and would support significant improvements to the galleries and exhibition spaces at the Museum, but the proposals that have been put forward and now publicly released we do not believe are in keeping with the traditions and the best opportunities for the future of the Museum. Let's take them off the shelf altogether.

The Hon. A. MICHAELS (Enfield—Minister for Small and Family Business, Minister for Consumer and Business Affairs, Minister for Arts) (12:40): I rise to speak on the member's motion and indicate that we will not be supporting this motion. I have to say, it is an interesting motion. From my perspective, it is appreciated that the member now admits that those opposite do not come with clean hands to this debate, but what we have seen is certainly a scare campaign that has been promulgated from those opposite catching on to the fear of the Museum's community, which really is not founded on facts. I want to be clear on that.

The house would be well aware of the Malinauskas government's position on the Museum now. The Premier and I, as indicated by the member for Morialta, have paused the restructure. We have been in discussions with a number of people who have expressed concerns over the changes and certainly the Museum leadership as well.

I do want to indicate, however, that neither the Premier nor I are indicating that I was not briefed on this. I was. In fact, the briefing that I received in January on the reimagining I thought was sufficiently important that I requested that the member for Morialta also be briefed, which he was in February. There is some level of feigned outrage at the moment on those briefings, which I just draw to the attention of this place.

What we have done is put that restructure on hold, which is one of the reasons we will not be supporting a motion that talks about the proposed restructure and proposed reimagining until the experts who form part of the Premier's review panel have done their work. As the member for Morialta indicated, that panel comprises the Chief Executive of DPC and also our Chief Scientist, Professor Craig Simmons, and Dr Jim Thompson, who is the Chief Executive of the Queensland Museum.

We are seeking advice on a range of matters through this panel, including around research functions; curatorial capabilities; repatriation and engagement with First Nations communities; collections management; public engagement; contemporary approaches to displays and exhibitions and public access to the collection, including through digitisation; contemporary approaches as to how the Museum can provide opportunities for educating and knowledge sharing aligned with our curriculum and our early learning frameworks in particular; and delivering public value to the people of South Australia, ensuring that the Museum does utilise its resources to deliver the best possible outcomes that it can for its audiences.

It is a significant review covering a significant amount of issues that will then guide us, as a government, as to what future options there are for the Museum. I can confirm once again that there have been no decisions to get rid of anything. The proposed reimagining was simply to go to public consultation. There were no decisions to remove Egyptian rooms or mammals galleries or anything else. As the member for Morialta would have it, the Premier and I should have stopped any consultation.

I think that is really the guts of it. With no decisions being made, the alternative proposition is for me to sit in a meeting with Dr Gaimster and the chair of the board and say, 'No, please don't talk to anyone about anything, ever,' which really is not the point of it. In relation to the member opposite expressing concerns about what some of those strategic visions were around education and the shadow minister for education thinking it would be somehow extraordinary that the Museum would want an education hub and would want to progress and strengthen education ties, I think it is quite remarkable that we should not even have the conversation about whether that is appropriate or not.

The member does, of course, touch on the funding issues. I can fully acknowledge there was $300,000 of efficiency savings in this financial year from our very first budget, a budget for which we were required to undertake significant budget repair off the four years of the Marshall Liberal government. But that pales in comparison to what is in this current financial year, $1.2 million less as a result of the first two budgets of the Marshall Liberal government.

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order!

The Hon. A. MICHAELS: Of the first two Marshall Liberal government budgets, $1.2 million less is now received for the Museum in this current financial year. I also want to indicate that at the last election there was very little offered by those opposite for arts and culture in South Australia. What we do have now is, within two years, an additional $72 million in funding for arts and culture through election commitments, including $8 million to support our small to medium arts organisations and our artists through fellowships, commissions and other programs. Of course, there is $8 million to the Adelaide Fringe; annualising the Adelaide Film Festival with an extra $2 million; plus an extra $2 million to the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund for producing local works.

There is our See it LIVE campaign; $35 million for the Adelaide Festival Centre; $2.3 million out of major events for our Adelaide Festival; and $5.2 million to SAFC to support an ABC partnership, encouraging more television production here in South Australia. That additional $72 million in the last two years indicates how high a priority arts and culture is to the Malinauskas government, and the Museum in no way would ever be put at risk for its world-class collections. The government is incredibly proud of its collections at the Museum and it is a beloved cultural institution in our state.

Our Museum holds the largest and most comprehensive collection of Aboriginal cultural material in the world. We need to share that with South Australians, we need to share that with the world, we need to ensure our diverse natural and cultural history as told through our Museum. No moves will be made to put these collections and those stories at risk. For these reasons, we will not be supporting this motion from the member for Morialta.

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (12:47): I, too, rise to say that this motion is completely unnecessary. Just last month, I had a fantastic day. I asked my little boy—he was turning five, it was his fifth birthday—what he would like to do. No surprises, he said he wanted to spend the day at the Museum. It is a favourite of my children, as I know it is for so many children in my community and across South Australia. It was a beautiful day and we did what we always do. We go and watch the old lion and wait for its tail to twitch, as I am sure many parents have done numerous times. We then, of course, go and visit the big squid, we go up and stick our fingers on that big block of ice on one of the other floors, and go and look at all the mineral collections. My kids absolutely love the Museum, and so does our government.

I am very pleased to see the arts minister and the Premier undertake the Premier's review. The findings and recommendations of this review will be handed to the Premier and the arts minister by the middle of the year. Once again, we have a sense of deja vu. It seems that no institution on North Terrace is immune to the opposition in an attempt at relevancy—to grab onto any issue, grab an A-frame, grab a petition and stand out the front of some of our beloved institutions.

We saw it, of course, with the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, spreading significant lies and misinformation and causing a lot of distress to staff, particularly staff at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. Once again, we are seeing the same MO here with our beloved Museum, standing out the front with an A-frame and a clipboard, taking people's information, spreading misinformation and concern in our community.

The fact is that as the arts minister was saying this is an opposition that, when last in government, cut more than a million dollars in their first two Marshall Liberal budgets. They have no concern for the Museum. They are simply playing politics with this issue.

The fact is that our Museum is part of a series of institutions that we love and that we cherish and a significant investment in arts and culture in our state—as the arts minister was saying, $72.5 million in additional investment. We have $8 million for the Adelaide Fringe; $2 million to make the Adelaide Film Festival an annual event; $10 million to support the live music industry through our See It LIVE campaign. I mention that a lot of those grants that were recently handed out by the arts minister were in the CBD recognising the significant cultural value that those live music venues provide for the Adelaide community.

We have $35 million to upgrade the Adelaide Festival Centre; $2.3 million for the Adelaide Festival; $5.2 million in partnership with the ABC to support more television productions in South Australia—and that one is particularly important given the ABC building is in my electorate in the suburb of Collinswood.

The opposition clearly have no issues in spreading misinformation when it continues to suit their false narrative. We are seeing this time and time again. I am not sure which North Terrace institution is next on their hit list but I certainly will not be supporting this motion today.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (12:51): I thank members for contributing to the debate. I know that many more would like to have spoken, the member for Bragg and the member for Unley in particular, but time is against us today. I note their particular concern along with all members of the opposition. The minister and the member for Adelaide have suggested the opposition has feigned outrage or spread misinformation, which is the accusation used by both of them at different times and the Premier before.

This is from the same party, of course, that said there were no plans to get rid of any of the galleries. The plans clearly, having been released, show that those galleries having been described were not part of the reimagining of the Museum. I thank the minister for offering me a briefing in February. At that briefing I made it very clear that I had no intention of revealing any confidential information provided at a briefing unless the same information was provided to me by other sources, and I have held true to that commitment. Other sources have provided me with information that has been consistent with the information I received at that briefing, and subsequent to that I have been happy to talk about it.

I think it is useful for government and opposition to be able to engage with the level of trust that information provided at government briefings, if it needs to be confidential or if it is sought to be confidential, as certainly was the impression I got from the Museum board saying that they were not proposing to release that detail until April. I wanted to honour that commitment.

The $72 million claimed as new investments for the arts by the minister, I point out is not a net figure; that is the figure that was committed to new projects. You can net off tens of millions of dollars in efficiencies such as from the Museum and most of the cultural institutions on North Terrace and the Festival Centre—I suppose that is on North Terrace, too—and a range of other cuts from that 2022 budget.

The member for Adelaide highlighted the $10 million live music commitment by the government, $5 million of which is never ever going to be spent because it has been locked up in a COVID shutdown fund, effectively an insurance fund for venues, which will only ever be spent if there are further COVID-related lockdowns that prevent events from going forward. So I think it is beyond time that the government can claim credit for a $10 million fund, unless they are suggesting that the $5 million from the lockdown fund is going to be applied to other things.

What I am expressing is that when the government talks about misinformation being provided, they should be very careful in how they do so lest they be accused of the same. They said there were no plans and then plans were released. They have said they spent all this money on arts and live music, and yet much of it has been netted off against efficiencies or cuts and, indeed, half of the live music fund appears never to be likely to be spent.

Finally, the minister talked about the budget repair in defending the cuts to the Museum—the budget repair, she said, after four years of the Marshall Liberal government. It is remarkable that I have to do this, that I have to remind the house that, from 2020 until 2022, the entire world was consumed by an extraordinary once-in-a-century pandemic that required greater than usual expenditure in order to ensure that people were kept alive, that people were able to retain jobs.

I am sometimes confronted by this question of, 'Why didn't the Marshall Liberal government do this?' or 'Why didn't the Marshall Liberal government do that?' I just have to remind people that, between February 2020 and February 2022, there were not that many people in the world who were moving around too much or doing many interesting things. I ask the question: given that you were likely to be in one place in the world for that period of time, where in the world would you rather have been than in South Australia, benefitting from the world's best health outcomes and some of the world's most flexible and free lack of limitation or movement? This is a state where we lost seven days of schooling due to lockdowns, which was completely unmatched by any other jurisdiction in this country, let alone elsewhere in the world.

The support provided to the arts during that time, including the more than $80 million invested in the generationally significant cultural collection storage facility, which this government is yet to deliver on, is quite frankly worthy of more than a description of 'budget repair needed', as the arts minister puts forward. I commend the motion to the house.

The house divided on the motion:

Ayes 11

Noes 24

Majority 13

AYES

Basham, D.K.B. Batty, J.A. Cowdrey, M.J.
Gardner, J.A.W. (teller) McBride, P.N. Patterson, S.J.R.
Pisoni, D.G. Pratt, P.K. Tarzia, V.A.
Teague, J.B. Whetstone, T.J.

NOES

Andrews, S.E. Bettison, Z.L. Boyer, B.I.
Brown, M.E. Champion, N.D. Clancy, N.P.
Close, S.E. Cook, N.F. Fulbrook, J.P.
Hildyard, K.A. Hood, L.P. Hughes, E.J.
Hutchesson, C.L. Michaels, A. (teller) Mullighan, S.C.
Odenwalder, L.K. O'Hanlon, C.C. Pearce, R.K.
Piccolo, A. Picton, C.J. Savvas, O.M.
Szakacs, J.K. Thompson, E.L. Wortley, D.J.

PAIRS

Hurn, A.M. Stinson, J.M. Speirs, D.J.
Malinauskas, P.B. Telfer, S.J. Koutsantonis, A.


Motion thus negatived.

Sitting suspended from 13:01 to 14:00.

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