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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-06-18 Daily Xml
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Bills

Appropriation Bill 2024

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (15:46): Before the break, I was talking about this state budget as being a typical Labor budget where we have seen record spending, record debt and record taxation. I conducted a bit of a compare and contrast of various taxation policy and concluded that under Labor, South Australians have ever been paying more tax in the history of our state; under the Greens, we know that South Australians will pay even more tax with their new developer tax, their new holiday home tax, and their commitment to increase land tax and payroll tax; and, under the Liberals, we have committed to lower your taxes.

I spoke of three policies that we have been talking about over the past few days and weeks, including our commitment to reduce stamp duty for all first-home buyers, our commitment to reduce payroll tax for small business by lifting the threshold and exempting apprentices, and our commitment to scrap the GP tax. The choice is clear: more tax than ever under Labor, even more tax under the Greens, or the Liberals who want to reduce your taxes.

I was moving on to talk a little bit about some local issues and celebrating two wins in this budget following significant advocacy by me and my community, including the $80 million in funding for school road safety. I have urged the government now to roll that out in my electorate, particularly at schools that are on or close to Kensington Road and Portrush Road. There is also the $16 million in the budget to crack down on illegal vaping and tobacco sales. Once again, I urge the government to roll out that package in my local area and to investigate new stores that have opened in Stonyfell and Marryatville to help alleviate and respond to very significant community concerns.

There were two main disappointments locally in the budget for me. Before this budget, I was calling for increased funding for schooling capacity in the eastern suburbs. Unfortunately, we do not see that in this state budget. We do see tens of millions of dollars being spent on new school sites, but mainly in the northern suburbs and also in Mount Barker.

We have a real problem in the eastern suburbs, which is that our schools are at capacity. We have three local primary schools in my electorate all of which, I think, other than Burnside Primary School, now are subject to capacity management plans. We have two high schools: Marryatville High School and Glenunga International High School. Glenunga is subject to a capacity management plan as well. Indeed, it is projected to be 153 students over capacity this year. Marryatville High School, which is also under extreme pressure, is projected to be 136 students over capacity this year. It is more than just numbers—it affects people in my community greatly. Local kids deserve to be able to go to local schools.

I go back and look at the correspondence I have received or the people I have met with only in the last six months or so. A family I met from Linden Park on 6 December is desperately seeking to get into Glenunga International High School. On 4 April: a different family from Burnside has been unable to get their children enrolled at any local high school. On 11 April: a different family living in Frewville—they had just moved into Frewville—are seeking to get their child into either Glenunga or Marryatville, but both were not possible. On 4 June: another constituent from St Georges who I have been dealing with for quite some time is still unable to get his daughter enrolled at Glenunga International High School. As recently as this week: another constituent who I have been dealing with for a little while now has had children on the waitlist for a spot at Glenunga since 2022. They are still unable to get into a local high school. It is not good enough.

We really need to increase schooling capacity in the eastern suburbs so local children can go to local schools, and I would urge the government to consider either a new school in the eastern suburbs or substantial investment to increase schooling capacity.

Ms CLANCY (Elder) (15:51): I rise today in support of this Appropriation Bill. I am really proud that we have for the third year running delivered a very clear Labor budget: a budget that is focused on housing, cost-of-living relief, jobs and skills and of course, importantly, health. The cost-of-living measures have been really widely welcomed in my community. Whether I have been at a train station, a school gate, out doorknocking yesterday or on the phones, people are really pleased to know that they have been heard by this government. We understand that these are difficult and challenging times at the moment, and I am glad that we are able to provide some relief.

We are providing $51.5 million in the 2023-24 financial year, so right now, to provide a once-off additional Cost of Living Concession payment of $243.90 to all recipients who have received the payment in this financial year. Those payments should have started to hit people's bank accounts this week, which is really important, particularly at a time when people are starting to get their energy bills as people have started to try to heat up their homes. We have also doubled the Cost of Living Concession for next financial year for tenants and Commonwealth Seniors Health Card holders. That aligns it to that of home owners, which supports around 73,000 people.

At the school gates over the last couple of weeks, since we announced the budget, people have been really excited to hear about our expansion of the Sports Vouchers program. I know there is a bit of contention about it being called the sports program, because we keep expanding it. So it is not just sports but it is dance. As a proud Girl Guide, I am happy to know that Scouts and Girl Guides are also included in it, and we have also expanded this program to include music lessons.

So there really is something for every child in this program now, and people are able to use the full $200 on one activity or they can use $100 on one activity and the other $100 on the other. It gives families flexibility, and it also provides an opportunity to some families who potentially have not been able to participate in extracurricular activities at all, so it makes it a lot easier for those who have already been doing it but have started to feel the pinch.

The materials and services charge subsidy is another thing people are really excited about. So for another year, we are providing a reduction to the materials and services charge, but we are actually making a $200 reduction this year. That is very exciting and well received.

One thing that does come up a lot, and I think I have probably even shared it in this chamber before, is people living in social housing talk about the difficulty of keeping their home cool in summer and warm in winter. We know that that is a challenge for many people. It is something you think about a lot as you think about your energy bills.

I am really happy to see in this budget $35.8 million over three years as part of a social housing energy upgrade initiative. That can help people to put in some new insulation, which I know for one family in Mitchell Park will be a real lifesaver if they are able to get it, and also replace some inefficient appliances. Those things are better for the environment, it is better for people's comfort and it is also better for their bottom line as well.

We are also extending the public transport concessions. I cannot tell you how many people in my community have shared with me how happy they are that we made it possible for people, Seniors Card holders, to travel on public transport free all the time, every day. It has made a real difference. People are using it. People are not panicking that their doctor's appointment is at 9.15 so they are going to have to pay for public transport as well. It has made it so much easier for so many people and I am really happy that we did that.

I was extra excited to see that we are also extending public transport concessions to all Health Care Card holders. That benefits around 15,000 people in our state, saving about $2.25 per trip when people use their Metrocard.

We also have some relief for our businesses. While we are obviously very proud of how well our economy is going, we do also know that some small businesses are having some challenges. It is really good to see that we have the small business energy grants. That is a grant process that a number of small businesses can go through to either make their premises more energy efficient or purchase more energy efficient equipment. That will make a difference to small businesses as well, making things a bit more affordable.

Last year, straight after the budget, I stood up in St Marys with the beautiful Tim and Vanessa and their little boy, Fletcher—who is probably running around everywhere now but was very little at the time—as well as the Premier and the Treasurer and we were talking about our changes to stamp duty for first-home buyers. Tim and Vanessa and Fletcher are going to be moving into their new home in the next couple of weeks.

Around this time last year they were struggling to get into the market and very soon they are going to be moving into a new home, and I am really proud that we were able to support them to do that through this initiative. I am very sad that they are leaving the mighty electorate of Elder, but thankfully they are moving into the electorate of my good friend, the member for Gibson, and so I know they will be well taken care of there.

Today, in this budget, we are providing relief to first-home buyers buying a new home or building a new home regardless of the cost. We are removing that property value threshold, which will make that relief accessible to a lot more people.

Also in housing, we are spending $135.8 million over five years to build and upgrade around 442 additional social housing dwellings by 30 June 2028. That is funded from the commonwealth government's Social Housing Accelerator Payment (SHAP) and it is being distributed across five SAHA and nine community housing projects in areas including Camden Park, Oaklands Park, Tonsley in my hood, Seaton and Eastwood.

I would like to now talk about our work in early childhood. I think all of us, regardless of whether we are parents, grandparents or wherever we might be in our journey in life, can recognise and appreciate the importance of early education. So much happens in those first few years. Our work as a government, through the royal commission and our significant investment, being $1.9 billion over the period of 2032-33, is going to make a huge difference long term.

I know people might have gotten a bit sick during the last election campaign of us constantly saying 'for the future', but this really is for the future. Setting up the next generation with the skills they need early on and identifying challenges and difficulties really early so children can get the support they need is incredibly important.

One thing I am really proud of that we are doing in this space is making kindy, or preschool as some people call it, more accessible to more people. I know that for a lot of working families kindy hours are really challenging to make work. For us, it was our neighbours who did pick-up and drop-off one day, we did drop-off one day, my dad did pick-up the other and we could not make the half day work as it was just too challenging for us and that was even with a lot of support.

Our pilot for out-of-hours preschool care is really exciting. That starts next term and two kindies in my electorate, Clarence Gardens and Clarence Park, are both involved. I am really excited to see how that plays out because I would love to see it rolled out more broadly so every family is able to access kindy. I am really excited that three year olds are soon going to be able to as well.

Obviously, we are investing a significant amount of money in health, which is one of our greatest priorities along with housing. We are full of ideas, and we are full of action to implement them. We have significantly built our workforce. We are investing in beds. We are investing in new ambulance stations and rebuilds. In this budget, we have funding to rebuild five stations, including the Marion station, which is based in Mitchell Park. That was originally going to just be an upgrade, but if you talk to anyone at that station they will let you know that there is a fair bit of work to be done, including a giant crack that keeps getting wider and wider, so a rebuild really does make sense. That is in addition to the brand new additional station that we are building at the Repat.

We also announced $5 million over four years in youth mental health support. That includes an expansion of the Child and Adolescent Virtual Urgent Care Service to include mental health. I know a number of people who have used that virtual care service, and they swear by it. I think this expansion will really make a big difference, along with workshops to support parents with children or teens with mental illness. It will be a great support to them to know how to navigate through the system and help them to help the children in their care. It also has funding for the organisation Eating Disorders Families Australia to support families and carers of young people with eating disorders.

This work adds to our government's significant commitments to improve the mental health of children and young people, including building 10 extra mental health beds in the new Women's and Children's Hospital, employing an additional 10 child psychologists and five psychiatrists working in CAMHS, employing 100 new mental health and learning support specialists to work in public schools, partnering with the Albanese Labor government to open the Head to Health Kids centre in Bedford Park—just over in the member for Davenport's electorate, but which will be very much used by my community as well nearby—and also employing an additional six specialist mental health nurses at the Women's and Children's Hospital.

Before I conclude, I would also like to draw attention to some funding that we secured to help secure the future of an incredible organisation in my electorate called MarionLIFE in Mitchell Park, on the corner of Marion Road and Alawoona Avenue. The member for Gibson and I advocated really strongly for some support for this organisation to ensure they would be able to stay on the land they currently are on and to help enable them to really start working towards their plans to become a real southern hub in our community and in the future to develop some community housing on the site as well. It is really exciting to see what could happen there. I am really proud of the work done by the member for Gibson and myself and I am very grateful to the Minister for Human Services and the Treasurer for their support on this really important project. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (16:04): I rise today to provide a contribution to this year's Appropriation Bill. The leader delivered the opposition's response to this year's budget earlier today and outlined at a high level the areas in which the opposition stands side by side with the government in terms of specific policy areas. He outlined a number of things that we would have liked to have seen done differently.

Really, in the time that is available to me, I want to spend that outlining as best I can the fiscal situation in the state and provide some commentary on some specific budget measures. At a high level, if we pull this budget apart, as has been articulated already, it really is defined by three records: record tax, record debt and record ramping.

I think it is stark to have seen some of the media commentary post the budget being handed down. You only needed to look on the front page of The Advertiser to see the AMEX card depicted and other media outlets around the state to see the reaction in earnest to what was probably a budget that is defined, as I said, by those three things but also missed opportunities. It is difficult to fathom just how much tax South Australians are paying now this financial year and have been over the last couple in comparison to what the expected take of the government was when they handed down their first budget—drastic.

We are talking about significant increases year on year to an extent that has not been seen before, I would have thought, in the state's history. Essentially, we have the total revenue position year on year having jumped by nearly $3 billion through 2023-24, just over $3 billion in 2024-25 and $3.5 billion next year. We have a government and South Australians who are paying more tax than they ever have before.

The opportunities that were lost on the back of that are stark, in many ways because instead of having that additional revenue put towards projects that can further the state and provide additional revenue perhaps in some instances, whether that goes towards spending that makes sense, what we have seen is a systematic pattern over the last couple of years, particularly in operating expenses of government of significant overspend. You only need to look at last year when well over a billion dollars was overspent through department budgets.

While there may be some through health and child protection and others where you would think with increased activity there is a level of explanation, it is not just health and child protection. Again, this year the same story was evident where just about every government agency again overspent their budget to the order of $824 million, with the expectation obviously not yet at the financial year.

This is a worry for a number of reasons. The lack of fiscal discipline, shown across government over the last 24 months in particular, is shocking. But it is shocking in the context of where the debt story for South Australia is. We know on coming to government the Treasurer and the Premier were faced with a difficult decision. They had promised $3.1 billion worth of election commitments and, at the time of their first budget, they were looking at a set of figures that would not allow them to deliver that. They came up with a plan. There has been a delay in the north-south corridor project and the women's and kids' hospital project that happened to open up some headspace in government expenditure over the forward estimates that would allow them to deliver that spending.

But what does that mean for the people of South Australia? Well, debt. The cost of those two projects has increased by well more than $7 billion. We have a debt level that is reaching $44 billion at the end of forward estimates and is only going to escalate further, as indicated by the Treasurer in a roundabout way in an answer to a question today in question time.

More than that—and this is the question that is always interesting to pose—had the Treasurer been aware of the rivers of gold that were about to encompass the state when he did hand down his first budget, would those decisions have been made? Would we have delayed those projects had he known that the increased revenue was coming? Right now, South Australia and the South Australian budget is in a position where we have a $44 billion debt bomb coming for us that is just the beginning of the debt we will need to take on to deliver those two projects.

It is so easy to use big numbers to make things sound scary, but when you break it down to what that means on a per day level, what that means on a per capital level, it gives a bit more context to what we are actually dealing with moving forward. It is not just the constraint of having the debt there; we know there are also going to be some significant transfers of bonds that will go from low interest to significantly higher in the current marketplace.

Essentially, the year on year debt repayment amount has shifted from about $800 million a year to all of a sudden $2 billion a year. A significant portion of the state budget is taken up by debt servicing, and that is just the very beginning of the story: five and a half-ish million dollars a day to service the debt, per capita just over $24,000 a head in South Australia.

These were levels that the Victorian government was looking at a financial year ago. Theirs have obviously increased since, but there are also some big fundamental differences in the two jurisdictions on a per capita basis. The first is a productive population: we have a much smaller percentage of our population who participate in the workforce, who are continually contributing to our state's economy. They will be carrying a much higher burden in comparison to Victorians, where there are significantly more people in the population breakdown who contribute in that way.

Of course, the question the Treasurer needs to answer is: at what point is this something that he is not comfortable with? It is okay to say that the budget has grown, that revenues have grown, but that is also having a significant impact on South Australian businesses and families. The one question we posed to South Australians in the immediate aftermath of this year's budget was a simple one: are you better off now than you were in 2022? The answer is a resounding no, with families sitting in a cost-of-living crisis, more than $20,000 a year worse off than they were when Labor came to power, with small businesses struggling with rent increases, electricity price increases, and now wage increases—rightfully, on the back of the inflation data that has fed through.

What has that meant? Instead of finding ways to help small businesses, instead of finding ways to put them back, as best the state government can, onto the same footing as they were four years ago, in the face of small businesses closing their doors, struggling to stay in business, instead of taking steps to rectify that through payroll tax reform, through the lifting of the threshold, finding ways to except trainees or apprentices, the government has done nothing. They have left small businesses out in the cold.

There is very, very little, through all the pages of this budget, to assist with the cost of doing business crisis in South Australia for those in the hospitality industry, in particular, where payroll makes up such a big part of the cost base of their business. This is a simple approach that the government could have taken, to have some reform in this area, to answer the calls of the SA business chamber and others to deal with one of the significant cost burdens that business has that is in the control the state government—instead very, very little.

It is one thing to walk down the pavement and say that you have got the back of business; it is another thing to actually deliver for small and family business in South Australia. This government—the Malinauskas government—may whisper sweet nothings in the ears of small and family business in this state, but they certainly do not deliver much for them.

In terms of other missed opportunities, prior to the release of the state budget we outlined our view that the threshold at which stamp duty relief is provided for first-home buyers should have been lifted. That was done on a very simple basis: the government had put in place a model take-up, but the reality was that they were getting nowhere near what they expected.

It would not have been difficult for anybody to realise that house prices in South Australia had been going up very quickly, but instead of dealing with this in a sensible manner in the first place, we ended up with the release of stamp duty abolition mark-1, almost this time a year ago, that had numerous asterisks on every advertising campaign. They were somehow missing that it was the abolition of stamp duty for first-home buyers on new builds last year.

This year, the government announced essentially the exact same thing, but without the asterisks, because instead of there being close to 4,000 people a year taking that up in South Australia, there were just over 1,100 in March of this year. That is nearly 66 per cent lower take-up than was expected. That is a clear policy failure. If you are preparing a budget and you want to provide assistance to people, and you manage to put together a program that ends up with well under a third of expected take-up of the opportunity, that is a policy failure. So we had the Treasurer come in and deliver his budget speech this year, making the exact same announcement without the asterisks.

What we see now is something that we actually welcome. We think it is a sensible idea. There are still some questions as to whether it would have been more sensible to have retained a cap. There are certainly some in the property industry who have concerns that having an uncapped stamp duty concession will have some perverse impacts on fixed-price contracts. I am keen to explore that issue through the estimates process to understand what advice was provided to the Treasurer in that regard, and the impact that could potentially have on fixed-price build contracts in South Australia.

But the missed opportunity was also in regard to existing homes. We know that not everybody is going to be in a position to buy a new-build property as their first property. Some people will be less inclined, because of the risk involved and because of the long time frames involved, to undertake the purchase of, or a contract for, a new-build property. While we certainly agree with the Treasurer that a key issue is supply, and we are committed to ensuring that our policies are in line with ensuring that supply is prioritised, we put forward a suggestion—something that we will take to the next election—of $10,000 worth of relief for first-home purchasers of existing properties.

We are the only state in Australia that does not offer stamp duty relief for first-home buyers on existing properties. Importantly, in retaining that policy decision to prioritise new builds, we are not offering the same level of relief. A $10,000 cap on existing properties: we think this is a sensible suggestion. We called on the government to take it up but, again, it was an opportunity that was missed, despite the significant increases in payroll tax being paid by South Australians for the last couple of years and well into the future.

There are a other couple of issues in regard to direct budget measures that I want to cover off. The Cost of Living Concessions: again, we do not have any issues with those, apart from asking the question of why the Treasurer went the route of shifting to direct payments rather than providing electricity subsidies or rebates.

We know that South Australia has the highest level of inflation in the nation. Inflation, in fact, is one of the key underwriting issues that we have that is providing for increases in GST returns to the state. That is driving up house prices. That is contributing to the revenue that is coming through to the state government.

When we are of the understanding on both sides of this house that there has been commentary from experts in this area who had the view that electricity rebates were one of the best ways to deliver cost-of-living relief for purposes that are effectively, at the very worst, neutral in terms of contribution to inflation, because they go to a direct cost incurred by a household, why would we shift away from that? When we have already the settings in place to be able to deliver those rebates, where it has been done last year already, why the shift? That is the question that we ask. Why take the risk of further fuelling inflation when we did not need to?

Then we move to payroll tax as it applies to GPs in South Australia. After much consternation, a period of time from that side of the chamber where the Treasurer simply refused to acknowledge that there was any sort of issue in regard to general practitioners and payroll tax, I am glad at the very least to have seen an acknowledgement in this budget that the Treasurer does think that there is an issue here that needs to be addressed, because on this side of the house we certainly do.

When the Premier's rhetoric to this point has continually been that he would grab every lever, take every opportunity available to him and flick every switch, why in the world would this government make decisions that end up making it more expensive to visit your GP? It does not make any sense. That is why we are committed, as the Liberal Party in South Australia, to ensure that general practitioners will not need to pay payroll tax on their revenue derived from their patients. It just makes sense.

I hope that the government sees the light over the next little while. I hope that this is not something that has to be taken to the next election because it should not need to be, but in the absence of the Premier and the Treasurer coming to that realisation, we are standing here committed to doing that. As some other Liberal parties around the nation have done, we will take a similar position to eliminate that cost burden, to eliminate the introduction of a further cost to South Australians visiting their GP.

In closing, I just wanted to recognise the contribution in the budget to a local issue of mine around sand management in this state. We have nearly $20 million committed towards a trial. It is something that I hope works. It is something that I hope is sustainable. I am yet to be convinced of that. There is nothing that I have seen by way of evidence that convinces me of that. It is interesting to note that that $20 million spend for a one-year trial is approximately half of what the long-term solution was that was introduced by the previous government. That does not seem like sensible fiscal discipline by any stretch either, but the decisions have been made and, again, let's see. The proof will be in the pudding. But the people of West Beach, Henley Beach and those other beaches are owed some level of solution, given the three years it has taken to get to this point. It is a very Labor budget that has delivered record tax, record debt and record ramping.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (16:24): I rise to make my contribution to the Appropriation Bill. It is my 14th contribution in this place, and I must say that over time I have become quite aware of the different natures of government priorities and what it means to the state, and how the state deals with the government's priorities. Once again, we continue to see that the South Australian Labor government's priority, the majority of it, is in the city. It is a city-centric government because they obviously have a majority of city and peri-urban seats—of course, taking you into account, sir.

But I think what I would say is that I have given the budget a reasonably low grade. It is a lacklustre budget. A lot of hardworking South Australians, business owners and small business entrepreneurs are giving it everything they can, they are giving it a shot, and they are employing people, but they have never ever had it so tough as at the moment. Not only is it tough to do business in South Australia, it is tough to put food on the table.

I know that my office is now starting to receive a lot of correspondence with the cost-of-living impacts coming into winter. It is obviously very cold at the moment, particularly in the Riverland. People cannot afford to have heaters turned on. People cannot afford to have the luxuries of some of those warm meals that keep them warm and keep them sustained through a difficult period. It is not a difficult period because it is cold; it is a difficult period because they cannot afford to have those everyday necessities commensurate with what we believe we should have as a standard of living here in South Australia. What I must say is that the cost-of-living crisis is coming through further and further. Every day people have to deal with either an accumulation of debt or not being able to live a life that they should, rightfully, expect to live.

I must say this budget is big talk in the city and little action in the regions. The budget has seen a real neglect in the electorate of Chaffey. The Riverland and the Mallee have received little. But I am gratified and I have to show my appreciation for what we did receive: a small amount of what the government is calling 'cost-of-living relief'. It is little comfort to those who are having trouble putting food on the table.

What we are seeing at the moment is a $44 billion debt bomb—$44 billion. I have not done the calculation on what that is costing the taxpayers' credit card. I am not sure what that is costing every South Australian on a day-to-day basis. I am not sure what it is actually going to mean to our future generations. I know that the government are very quick to talk about surplus but are very, very sketchy when it comes to what the big picture means, and that is debt. Any business person who runs a business knows that when their debt exceeds their capacity they are in trouble. What I can see here is that our future generations in South Australia will be in trouble when they are going to have to pay off this debt.

Specifically, I will touch on regional roads. The $310.6 million for regional roads and transport improvements: gee whiz, you turn the page, you read the fine print and what does that tell you? It tells you that 80 per cent of those upgrades are going to the Adelaide Hills and the peri-urban areas. Every regional area, every peri-urban and every metropolitan road is needing work, yes, granted. But when we are looking at road safety, we look at the Sturt Highway that runs from the border through the Riverland. It is the main thoroughfare down to Adelaide. We look at other arterial state government-responsible roads and federal government-responsible roads. We are seeing people continually die on our regional roads. A majority of accidents where people are losing life and being severely injured are happening on our regional roads. I say that with the utmost of concern, because we are seeing now a reduction, particularly in the Riverland, of road funding.

We are now seeing that the $20 million that was put into the regional road program—that is 6 per cent of the road funding program—is going to a four-year planning exercise. There are no major upgrades, there are no major black spot programs for fixing up dangerous areas such as intersections. We do not see programs there to remark the lines on our highways. We do not see programs to upgrade roadside posts, initiatives that help make our roads safer. I am not saying that we need to put down hundreds of kilometres of bitumen, hot mix, spray pave. I am just saying that the small amount of cost that should be in a road safety program is nowhere to be seen and that is critically disappointing.

I am dealing with blackspot sites on the Sturt Highway. In recent years we have seen 40 deaths in a section of the Sturt Highway just in the Riverland alone, and yet the former Liberal government and the National Liberal Party federally put an $87.5 million road safety program in place which is just about completed. All of a sudden now that is completed the government have decided they are not going to put any more money into road safety. What we have seen on the Sturt Highway are overtaking lanes, we have seen better road signage, we have seen guardrails and we have seen parking bays, and that is going to make our highway safer. It is going to make it a better road to commute on.

By the same token we are seeing more heavy vehicles, larger heavy vehicles and due to those heavy road mass vehicles we will see fewer trucks on our road. I think that is a good thing. It does give some road users heartburn, because it is a big vehicle if you do need to pass it, or if you need to navigate around that heavy vehicle. Some people become very intimidated—and I think rightfully so. If you are intimidated or you do not feel you have the capacity to either overtake a truck or deal with navigating your way around that vehicle, that is when accidents happen. That is when situations arise when you are on a regional road. Many people who live in the city deal with a 40, 50 or 60 km/h speed zone on a daily basis, but that is something that we rarely deal with up in Chaffey because we spend the majority of our time on a federal highway or on a state highway.

I look at some of the roads that are in dire need of repair—not just rebuilds but repair. I look at the Wentworth Road. It is an unsealed road. It is a road that gets used every day, not by a lot of people, but it is a road that has now been smashed to pieces. The former SA Water project, the Chowilla regulator, has been there for a considerable amount of time but the road never recovered after it was built. It saw a large number of vehicles, particularly heavy vehicles, cranes—you name it—big trucks and big equipment that would go out there to install a piece of infrastructure that cost a significant amount of money, but the road never had enough road base put on top of it.

Then came along the interconnector. ElectraNet have run their equipment and all their vehicles along that road. There are many cranes all operating there at the one time. There is a huge amount of steel, a huge amount of concrete and a huge amount of workforce using that particular stretch of road. That road is buggered; it is absolutely buggered. I must say that the department officials have given me their time for me to state my case, but an extra large amount of material needs to be allocated to that road that currently is only allocated to be graded once a year, and I think that is just an absolute joke. That road now needs to be maintained and needs a program where we can put large amounts of road base there.

Other roads are desperate for upgrade. We have the Lyrup causeway that is now down to one lane—a flood-affected road with no sign of being remediated. We have the Old Sturt Highway that has had a lick of spray pave and it needs that program to be finished; it is currently a very dangerous road.

If we move on to other programs, the Truro freight route services about four and a half thousand people every day. Where did that funding go? Was that funding redirected to the Heysen Tunnels upgrade? I wonder. No-one has told me that it has not been, so I would suggest that it is a program that was funded, that has had that small amount of money taken away and redirected to a peri-urban road project. So, again, the regions are missing out, particularly up in Chaffey.

There are many roads that are desperate for attention and safety upgrades as a matter of priority. We must also understand that efficiency and productivity gains are through the big road user, pay-as-you-go types of businesses. A lot of those large trucks pay exorbitant amounts of registration and costs to use those roads every day.

We do have some big trucking companies that particularly use the Sturt Highway. Sturt Highway is a thoroughfare, not only from Adelaide to the eastern seaboard, but it is seeing an increase in traffic. As primary production increases its tonnage, so do we increase the number of trucks. We are putting more pressure on the roads, and that is something that the government should put a level of care and consideration into.

Another area of concern is the Mobile Phone Black Spot Program. The former government put in a significant amount of effort and energy in conjunction with the telcos and the federal government and we saw some gains. We saw what people in the city currently expect, and that is mobile phone reception wherever you go. Well, get out into the country and have a look at what it means to be a second-rate citizen where you go over a hill and the phone drops out, you try to do business on the phone and the phone drops out, you try to run a business and you have no phone service. Many farmers, as did I, have to drive to the top of a hill, or you have to stand on the roof of your tractor so that you can actually get mobile phone service. It is an absolute crime that this state government has not shown any foresight, any futureproofing of South Australian mobile phone black spot issues, and that is something that is sadly not in the budget.

I also want to talk about our police stations. I noticed that the Treasurer was very happy to talk about having just tipped an $18 million bucket of money into the South-East. Well, good luck to the South-East, but I have police stations that have not been manned now for a considerable amount of time. If we look at Morgan, Blanchetown, Swan Reach and Renmark, Renmark is the cracker. Renmark is a town of over 10,000 people, it has a police station and it is not manned. There are no police. It just needs to have some form of commitment to keep that town with an operational police station, but currently it is not manned; it is not operational.

I have spoken to police officers, I have spoken to those in the know of what is going on, and they have said, 'Our hands are tied. We are going to leave it up to you. Please, if you have any capacity, make a noise.' That is exactly why I am making the noise here today. It is absolutely unconscionable that a town of 10,000 people has had the capacity of a police station taken away.

If we look at Country Health—I know that the member for Frome has weaved her concerns, and very knowledgeable she is—yes, it is a tougher environment to live in regional South Australia, particularly dealing with health services. We are serviced by a very good regional hospital. We do have outreach hospitals in some of the Riverland towns, but yet we saw no money for regional mental health services. At the moment we are going through very uncertain times, particularly in the commodity sector, and that is proving to be creating a lot of mental health issues, particularly within the wine industry. Again, it is of particular concern, when we are dealing with regional health services and mental health, that there is no considered approach by this government.

We look at metropolitan Adelaide and they have been rewarded with $2½ billion for their health. This government promised to fix ramping; they cannot fix ramping. They promised to do a lot of things within the health system and they cannot do them. I really do worry for where the health system in South Australia is headed.

I do not want to talk about the ramping issue because that is an embarrassment for the government. They promised to fix it, they cannot fix it. It has become worse. We have record ramping hours: 4,773 hours ramped up to last week. Since they have come into power ambos have lost over 91,000 hours on the ramp. It is out of control. We moved a no-confidence motion in relation to the minister, and I think rightfully so. As an opposition, we are here to keep the government in a straight line. We are here to criticise the government where criticism is due, and the health system is very much a warranted criticism.

I guess the health system is one of my major concerns. Roads and health are the two big issues in the regions, as well as primary production and the care and considered need for making sure that we have every lever operating to make us more competitive. If we are going to generate an economy for every South Australian, we need primary production to be humming, we need the wine industry to get back on its feet, and we need all the commodity sectors within horticulture to be competitive. We need all those sectors to be able to go into an export market and return premiums for their premium product so that we can actually generate an economy, pay our taxes and help the South Australian budget get out of what is a huge debt—and the list goes on.

I must acknowledge the $30 million in new funding for biosecurity in South Australia. It is a welcome measure, but there are only a few. It does show that the government is potentially continuing to eradicate. The eradication program is something that I fought very hard for as a minister. It is very costly, but it is something that is worthy.

For those who are not aware, and as I have said in this place on a number of occasions, you will only understand what the biosecurity measures for fruit fly are when you go to someone's backyard or you go into a fruit shop and you bite into a peach and you get a mouthful of maggots. That is the reality check when you do not have good biosecurity measures in place. That is exactly what the Riverland is looking to do, to eradicate so that we can be more competitive on a global stage and we can be more competitive when we are looking to secure new markets.

I have much to contribute to this Appropriation Bill and I am going to use what time I have left to continue, but I will be using my 10-minute grieve to finish this off. While we are talking about the South Australian wine industry and the grapegrowers, there was little support for an industry that has been a powerhouse, with about $1.2 billion into China. We lost China, but both the state government and the federal government were on drugs, they were on China drugs. They are back there like nothing ever happened.

The South Australian economy has lost over $100 billion in the last four years due to the tariff barriers by China. As soon as we get a whiff that China could give us those opportunities back again we are not for one minute looking at what are our alternative global trading partners. I will sit down but I will resume my contribution at the earliest convenience.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley) (16:44): I rise today to talk to the Appropriation Bill 2024 and what can I say? Record tax, record ramping, record debt and lost opportunity for South Australia. This government has the very privileged position of having the opportunity to help the lives of ordinary South Australians who are doing it tough at the moment, but they have failed on every single metric. What I will try to do today is to go through some of those metrics. I also want to take the opportunity to talk about the local electorate of Hartley and how a number of issues have also not been addressed by this budget.

With record tax and record ramping and, as I said, a whole range of failures by this government halfway through their term, I think if the people of South Australia were to reflect on whether they are better off or worse off they are far worse off. We know this as a fact. Our numbers show that the average South Australian is $20,000 worse off under this current Labor government.

All one has to do is look at debt levels at the moment. When Labor governments run out of money, what do they do? They come after yours. We have seen this time and time again by Labor governments, both state and federal. We have seen record tax, record debt and record ramping. As I said, this government has a very privileged position to improve the lives of everyday South Australians, but they have absolutely failed.

If you look at the most recent state budget that was released, net debt, as has been explained, will proceed to $44 billion by the year 2028. Let's break that down. It has been reported that when that net debt reaches $44 billion the interest bill will be over $5 million per day. That is almost $2 billion a year. If you put that into even more perspective that would be the equivalent to paying for the construction of basically three ovals—maybe three Adelaide Ovals—a year. Wouldn't it be nice to invest that money back into the state, back into the pockets of South Australians, instead of just having to tread water to pay off loans? The interest on those loans is an absurd amount of money, if you ask me.

There is another alarming statistic. As of 2021, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that South Australia had a population of around 1.8 million people. I do not know about the maths of those opposite, but it equates to about $24,400 of debt per South Australian. That fact is that it is not going to be this generation that is paying that debt off and it will not be the next generation paying that debt off. It might be the generation after that and the opportunity cost is enormous because, instead of being able to invest in things like productive infrastructure and productive gains, we are literally going to be treading this debt water for years and years to come because when this Labor government runs out of money they come after yours. That is why we have seen record tax grabs by this government.

There is no fiscal discipline by this Labor government, a government that has provided a typical Labor budget. As I said, there is more debt, cost blowouts, no way to control inflationary measures, no way to reduce the cost of living and no way to get power prices significantly down and, as I have pointed out, you will not be seeing our children paying this debt off. If we are lucky, it might be our grandchildren who will get to pay off the debt.

We all know what the government promised to do in terms of ramping and, as we know, it has never been worse than under this government and that promise by the now Premier will come back to bite him. We have seen the warped priorities of this government, despite coming in to govern on an election promise to fix ramping. They even said, 'Vote Labor like your life depends on it.' Well, we all remember and what have we seen? We continue to see the worst ramping in South Australia's history. Only last month we saw 4,733 hours lost on our ramps. If you want to look at the worst months on record, you only have to look at what this government has delivered or failed to deliver in terms of ramping.

In comparison, the final month of the former Liberal government saw 1,522 hours lost on our ramps. Now, South Australians can work it out. They will be able to work out whether this now Premier has delivered on his election promise to fix the ramping crisis. You know what: numbers do not lie. In case after case, the examples, the families who are coming out, the doctors who are coming out: they do not lie either. In my own electorate we saw a gentleman pass away waiting for an ambulance. We have seen other constituents who cannot get reasonable care in a reasonable amount of time. These cases will continue to mount, unfortunately, under this government.

When it comes to cost of living, we know that the cost of living is absolutely biting at the moment. Everything is going up. The cost of living is going up: mortgage rates are going up, energy bills are going up, grocery bills are going up, the cost of taking kids to school and sport is going up. This government is in the privileged position of being able to alleviate some of those concerns, some of those burdens that families face, and it has absolutely failed to address those concerns in this budget. We know that energy prices in South Australia are not only the highest in the nation but also some of the highest in the world. Inflation continues to rise as well. Cost blowouts are adding to that inflation.

What about the CFMEU? What are we seeing by the CFMEU? We saw the tragic example last week of the belligerent tactics of the CFMEU, taking on an august national sporting organisation through the media, and we are seeing what is happening in Victoria at the moment. People do not want to see that thuggish, militant, belligerent-type behaviour here in South Australia. People are worried at the moment. People are worried, the construction industry is worried, and my fear is that the former union boss who is now leading this union-controlled government is going to have to answer to this and stand up to these bullyboy tactics by unions like the CFMEU. If he does not address those bullyboy tactics, then unfortunately what you are going to see is this belligerent, militant behaviour play out in worksites right across South Australia, and that is going to lead to more cost blowouts, more delays and more disgusting activity as you have seen recently interstate.

I would like to see every single minister on that side of the chamber make a stand and condemn the thuggish, militant, belligerent behaviour that we have seen in regard to projects, because we know that if that behaviour comes here to South Australia, that is going to have an effect on productivity and that is going to have an effect on the costs and the cost blowouts on some of these projects. By the way, I have no problem with reasonable union activity. But when it becomes standover tactics and when it becomes intimidation and when it becomes thuggish and when it becomes disgusting the way it has, it has no place in South Australia. People are sick and tired of that.

I have many in my own electorate—many builders, many concreters, many tradies—who remember the bad old days and they do not want those days to return here. They will not have a bar of it. This Premier and these ministers need to stand up to this belligerent, militant, disgraceful behaviour by unions like the CFMEU that we are seeing playing out.

Despite promising to get the cost-of-living crisis under control, what has this Labor government actually delivered? I know that ministers actually meet with their departmental heads, their agency. Some of them meet with them fortnightly, some of them meet with them weekly. There remains a number of unanswered questions as to why we are seeing these blowouts. In my experience, you have to hold these agencies to account, you have to ensure that budgets are met, you have to ensure that timelines are not blown out, and if they do blow out you have to ask them why and what they are doing about it.

In terms of payroll tax, we want to make it easier to see a GP if South Australians need to see a GP. We do not want to make it harder to see a GP, and that is why the Liberal Party has pledged to end the GP tax grab. Of course, today we have also launched a submission for a nuclear energy inquiry. If only governments—this government included—would take a long-term vision when it comes to affordable, reliable base load energy. We know it is going to take courage, but we know this is certainly something the government needs to embrace if we are to be serious about the nuclear situation.

For a long time now we have said we are willing to have an open-minded conversation about the potential for a civil nuclear industry in South Australia. We are paying some of the highest electricity prices in the world, and therefore every option to produce affordable, reliable power should be on the table. We are not interested in culture wars, we are not interested in any of that; that time has come and gone. We need to get on with doing what we can to act in the state's best long-term interest.

One only has to look at jurisdictions around the world. The best time to have looked at this type of thing was probably 20 or 30 years ago—but we are where we are. We are now drawing a line in the sand and saying that we need to have this open-minded conversation about the potential for a civil nuclear industry. With nuclear submarines set to be built in this state, it makes great sense to consider civil nuclear energy generation here, which is why a future Liberal government will establish a royal commission to at least investigate its viability—in a mature way, in a thorough way, with the most up-to-date, best economic information at our disposal.

When it comes to housing, it is becoming increasingly difficult for people, especially young people, to be able to afford the great Australian dream. Once upon a time it took people, on average, about six years to save for a deposit; unfortunately, it is now over 11 years for the average person to be able to save a deposit. Home ownership is becoming further and further out of the reach of many South Australians. My parents would have loved me to have stayed home until I was 40, being the good Italian parents that they are—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: I am still under 40, that is right, but I am not at home; I have not been at home. However, not everyone has that support network. We need to encourage home ownership, we need to encourage people to take the leap, to build some equity, to develop that freedom, to make sure they can provide for themselves and their family and provide independence as well.

There are so many advantages when it comes to homeownership in terms of economic development. Unfortunately, that is becoming more and more out of reach for more South Australians. As I said, it used to be an average of six years to save for a deposit, but it has now become over 11 years. The government has failed to address that core issue.

You can make some policy adjustment, sure, but I would have liked to see more ambition by this government in terms of helping to provide people, especially young people, with an opportunity to crack into the housing market. That opportunity has been lost by this government. The opposition has announced that, if elected, we will provide relief of up to $10,000 in stamp duty for those first-home owners looking to buy an established home. Why would you also not provide that relief for established houses, not just ones that are yet to be built?

In terms of the regions, a number of regional towns and centres are lacking core infrastructure development by this government. I only have to look at my current shadow portfolio areas, one of which is transport, for example. Here in South Australia we have some of the lowest per capita spend when it comes to, say, regional bus spend.

Unfortunately, that is to the detriment of many of these communities. Why should they not have the ability to get around in their local communities like we do here in the city? That means you have to have some courage and you have to make some policy adjustments and make sure that you invest more in those regional communities. I am talking about regional communities like the Riverland, the South-East, the Limestone Coast and Mount Gambier. All of these communities are not having the right amount of investment into regional transport.

On racing, we know that the racing industry has been given some good news in South Australia with the increase in share that the racing industry receives from the betting operations tax. We welcome that, but we would also like the government to continue that momentum and increase the return to the industry as well. I want to congratulate the team at Racing SA for the impeccable job that they have done this year in raising prize money.

I think we are seeing great momentum in the racing industry, and we are happy to work in a bipartisan way if it is in the industry's interests. It is great to see million-dollar races and it is great to see, for the first time in a long time, many more trainers and investors coming back to South Australia through some of the work that we started, investing in key infrastructure. We want to see that momentum continue.

For many regional communities, we know race day is actually one of the biggest days on the calendar. For example, at places like Port Lincoln, Penola—where I visited—and Kangaroo Island, their race days are some of the biggest events on their yearly calendar. Of course, the racing industry is also a provider of several thousand jobs right throughout the state, so we want to continue to see that industry do well. Alas, there is not really any more additional funding for that industry and no real significant adjustments in this budget, so we want to see that improve.

In terms of industry blowouts, we know that many infrastructure projects have blown out, whether it is the new Women's and Children's Hospital or the north-south corridor—a project, do not forget, which was $9.9 billion before the election and is now $15.4 billion. Wait until the CFMEU get involved in this project. What do you think is going to happen with this project with the CFMEU involved, despite the minister telling us on a number of occasions and belittling me about how I do not understand anything about union politics?

You can bet your bottom dollar, and you heard it right here again today, that the CFMEU are going to be involved in the north-south corridor. Do you know how I know that? Tradesmen who are likely to work on that project are already coming to my office and they are telling me, 'Vincent, we are really worried about this because we're already getting the calls and we're already getting the coercion, and we're already being told what will happen and what won't happen,' and they do not like it because—do you know what?—we are not in Victoria, we are in South Australia.

Watch this space, because people will continue to speak up, and if people do not listen, then they will come to us. This government and this Premier have an opportunity here to stamp out the militant behaviour that we are seeing in Victoria. We do not want to see that here in South Australia. If this goes on unchecked it will continue to lead to cost blowouts and cost delays, and when you couple all of that with design changes, do you know what happens? You pay more for projects and the people of South Australia pay more for projects. That means you forgo more opportunities and it means you cannot do things that other states and territories are doing.

We are talking to investors and companies all the time about other states and territories and the incentives that they are offering to lure the best and the brightest minds to their states. When you continue to be strangled by unacceptable levels of debt, you cannot afford these positive measures.

There is plenty more to talk about in terms of significant infrastructure projects and how they have been abandoned by this government. Take, for example, the Truro freight route. Infrastructure cuts by federal Labor and state Labor have caused this much-needed project not to be funded. The Labor government had an opportunity to fund this project to ensure that Truro gets that much-needed road upgrade; however, it is simply not going to happen. It is not going to happen because of a federal Labor government that does not listen and a state Labor government that also does not listen.

What about the South Eastern Freeway? The South Eastern Freeway is a classic example where you have bodies like the RAA and SARTA saying that we need a third arrester bed on that freeway, but this government and this minister think that they know better. Somehow, they know better than the RAA. Somehow, they know better than SARTA. They have continually said—

The Hon. D.G. Pisoni: Tom's got a good driving record.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: Yes, indeed. I would not trust them to take those lessons, that is for sure. What we have seen is that too many times heavy vehicles have been involved in accidents at the bottom of the freeway, and so we are renewing those calls for a third arrestor bed on the South Eastern Freeway. I will continue my remarks at another time.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley) (17:04): I take this opportunity to make some responses to the budget, and just picking up on the some of the points that the member for Hartley raised about the infiltration of the CFMEU here in South Australia, led by the most notorious person in the trade union movement, John Setka, who is also a perpetrator of domestic violence. This must be called out. The Labor Party must call this out. Labor men must call this out, and say it is simply not acceptable.

Why is the Labor Party doing business with a perpetrator of domestic violence, a man who threw his wife down the stairs, and injured her so severely that to this day she lives with metal rods in her back. This is John Setka, the perpetrator of domestic violence, the wife basher, and he has been welcomed into South Australia with open arms by the Malinauskas government. I bet you, despite the fact that there were accusations of some MBA cars being damaged by the CFMEU a couple of years ago, and the Premier was embarrassed into returning a $130,000 donation back to CFMEU, the Labor Party has accepted the affiliation fees for 2022-23 and for 2023-24, and that it will accept the affiliation fees for 2025-26 as well from the CFMEU. There is no doubt that the Labor Party is in bed with the wife basher, John Setka, and the CFMEU, and they are able to—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Unley, resume your seat for a moment, please. Member for Unley, we are actually debating the Appropriation Bill. I have given you quite a bit of space to introduce the topic of the Appropriation Bill. There is an opportunity for you to do what you would like to do with unions and other people in the time you have available in your 10 minutes later tonight or tomorrow. Can I suggest you get back to the Appropriation Bill now if you wish to use your time to speak.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Thank you, sir. Another point that the member for Hartley raised that I would like to contribute to is the need for the third arrester bed. I know that the intersection of Cross Road, Glen Osmond Road, Portrush Road and the South Eastern Freeway is at capacity. We know that cars that are stopped at those lights are at enormous risk on the down track. Those vehicles turning left into Cross Road or those turning a slight left into Glen Osmond Road or those heading a slight right into Portrush Road are at risk of a truck with its brakes not working ramming into them. Yes, there has been a promise to move further west on Cross Road the line where vehicles stop so that no cars that are planning to enter the freeway from Cross Road would be affected by a runaway truck, but it does not protect those cars that are diligently obeying the law and stopping at a red light from being rammed from behind by a truck that is out of control. A third arrester bed is the last chance for a truck to be able to take action to prevent a catastrophe and death.

I was shocked to hear the Minister for Transport—who some 12-odd years ago was stripped of his ministry for road safety because of the discovery of a shocking traffic record: 60 infringement notices for speeding, for using a mobile phone while driving, going through red lights, the list went on and on and on—lecturing members of this chamber and those listening or reading Hansard on how to drive a truck. It was extraordinary that that was the evidence that was being brought forward to this place by the minister as to why a third arrester bed is not necessary.

My advice to the government is, do not listen to Speedy Gonzales, the Minister for Transport, on traffic advice. Get some real advice.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Member for Unley, you will refer to members by their name or their electorate.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Were you thinking I was talking about the Minister for Transport when I said Speedy Gonzales?

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Member for Unley, do not be smart, just keep giving your speech.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Thank you very much, sir. Just for the record, I am referring to the Minister for Transport as Speedy Gonzales.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Member for Unley, you will refer to members by their name or their title or their electorate.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Certainly, sir. And of course, we know that the South Australian Road Transport Association (SARTA), the organisation that represents the transport industry, supports that third arrester bed. They see it as being part of a suite of reforms—of tweaks, if you like—at that intersection that will make it safer. I support that and would like to see that.

Another issue that has been raised with me by constituents at Mira Monte is the condition of the footpath. There are several hundred people living in Mira Monte. If you are driving down the South Eastern Freeway and you notice the width of the footpath and where the light poles are located, if you were using a frame, for example, when you were out walking or if you were using a buggy or a gopher to move to a destination, you would not get past that fence and the post. It was a design fault from the very beginning and needs to be rectified. We would also like to see access to the park as an alternative pathway through to Cross Road so that people can actually leave their cars in the garage and walk to their destination and feel safe in that area.

We saw a press release put out pre-budget by the government about the introduction of 40 km/h speed zones at selected school crossings in South Australia. That is welcomed, of course, but it is only an announcement and a job half done. It is not starting until the 2025-26 year, it is only for about 40 school intersections, and it will not be completed for another five years. In the meantime, there are intersections in my electorate where there are crossing points specifically there because there are schools in that same location.

Walford Anglican School for Girls on Unley Road has a button-activated crossing point, but it is still 60 km/h in the lead-up to that. I am grateful for the government reducing the speed of Unley Road to 50 km/h, but that is only from Greenhill Road to Park Street, so you are back up to 60 km/h as you head further south to that intersection in front of Walford.

I wrote to the minister on 9 November, asking for consideration of some ideas that came out of meetings I had with both Goodwood Primary School for their situation with their intersection and Walford Anglican School for Girls, which included a reduction in the speed at school time zones, as members would be aware. We are the only state, as I understand, that does not have specific times as to when reductions of speed for school zones apply. Drivers are expected to make a call as to when children are present and then reduce their speed to 25 km/h, but not on roads like Unley Road or Goodwood Road. There are no speed reductions there.

From what I can make from the budget announcements on those speed limits, there will be a series of consultation and work to be done, which is contrary really to the response I received from the minister to my 9 November letter that I received from the minister on 7 May this year, which was that the government had acted previously by putting up a couple of blue signs with white traffic lights on them with the word 'school' about 150 metres from the Goodwood crossing.

Anyone who is a frequent user of that part of Goodwood Road knows that it is absolutely littered with signs. There are shops everywhere, there are tram signs, there are 'no left turn' signs—there are signs everywhere on the road. It has a camera, and that was one of the requests that I asked the government to consider for the Unley Road crossing at Walford, but the process is failing because I understand that that camera is one of the most profitable in the state. In other words, people are going through red lights and are speeding through that 50 km/h zone in front of the school, and lot of that is to do with the fact that it is difficult to see that crossing until you are almost on top of it because there is car parking on the side, which is essential for the economic health of the precinct. People must be able to park their cars to shop at the shops that are there—so it is important that people still shop—but there are other things that the government can do rather than just cameras and reducing the speed.

Reducing speed is important, and I encourage that. In designated school zones, anyone with a car younger than about 10 years, which has a GPS system in it, will get an automatic warning when they are in a school zone. That happens in Victoria whether you are on the Dukes Highway, whether you are going through a small country town on your way to Melbourne at 100 km/h. You will get a warning that there is a school there. You will see the signs that will tell you; in their instance, it is 40 km/h. At certain times of the day on school days is when you must slow down to that speed, but here in South Australia, if there is a school there on those main roads, it is just bad luck. There is no warning that comes through on your car to tell you that you have entered a school zone and there is no reduction in speed.

So why the government has chosen to only have a speed reduction in 40 of these crossings around schools is beyond me. It has been done everywhere else for every school, regardless of the road. One of the crazy things about this is if you are on Unley Road and you turn into Commercial Road, you will immediately get a warning that you are entering a school zone because it is another entry point and there is a pedestrian crossing across Commercial Road for Walford school. So on a 40 km/h restricted side road, you get a warning that there is a crossing and that you should be reducing your speed to 25 km/h when children are present, but if you continue to the next crossing that is on Unley Road, which is only a walking distance of about 70 or 80 metres from that intersection, there is no warning and no speed reduction.

I would like to see the government take a commonsense approach on this and actually roll this out as a 40 km/h speed zone, but add to it the declaration of school zones so that we get that warning through in our cars. Maybe even at intersections like at Goodwood Road, whether it be in relation to St Thomas School or whether it be in relation to Goodwood Primary School, there could be some road base alert, something that might send a rattle sound through your car, a small corrugated effect.

Even in the shopping district on Goodwood Road, I suspect even a slight raise a few metres before the intersection would make the driver aware that there has been a change in conditions and pay more attention as to where they are. We see that on other roads around Adelaide where there is a slight rise where you are expecting to see pedestrian traffic. I would like to see something along those sorts of lines.

This program itself should be expanded. It should allow the schools whose students use those button-operated intersections outside of their schools to be in a school zone so that there is more notice to drivers of the fact that the lights may change at any time and children will be crossing the road and might not be quite as aware of traffic and its behaviour as adults, so more care should be taken.

The other point I want to raise, as somebody who ran their own business for 22 years before entering this place, is the government's flat refusal to make any adjustments to payroll tax. When we came to office in 2018, it was a major priority of ours to lift the threshold to $1.5 million. Back in 2018, for $1.5 million the average small business would have been 15 or 16 staff and they would have been exempt from paying payroll tax. Now, a $1.5 million payroll is probably 12 to 13 staff. Do not forget we have had a significant increase in inflation and pay increases, whether through market forces or alternatively through decisions of Fair Work Australia of increases much higher than what we saw in the low-inflation environment just a few years earlier.

Consequently, we have seen, through no fault of their own, businesses just trying to stay in business. Businesses that rightfully are paying legal wages and paying wages at a market rate to keep their staff are pushed into a tax category that they were exempt from previously. That is why the Liberal Party made a commitment to increase the payroll tax-free threshold to $2.1 million and also to exempt apprentices and trainees from the calculation. This is important, of course, because what we learnt when we were in government was that there is a large cost for employers to take on apprentices and trainees, and this is just a mechanism of reducing that cost to encourage more employers to take on apprentices and trainees.

We have seen what happens when you remove the support that has been there for on-the-job training that was instigated by the Marshall government and that supported employers for on-the-job training. Around $10,000 per training contract was available to support employers for their on-the-job training.

Consequently, we saw over 1,100 employers taking on apprentices for the very first time because they had that support for the very first time. That was removed during 2023 by this government. What we saw from June 2023 to June 2024 was a 60 per cent reduction in commencements of apprenticeships and traineeships in South Australia—a 60 per cent reduction, which is an extraordinary turnaround in such a short time. Last time we saw a reduction in those numbers, it took over six years to achieve that, but they did that in just 12 months.

Ms PRATT (Frome) (17:24): I rise to speak to the Appropriation Bill for this new financial year and state my surprise that in anticipation of a budget that was projected to be targeting cost-of-living pressures, jobs growth and starting to address the housing crisis that we have seen the state struggling with for a couple of years now, the opposite is true and we saw another cash splash in health. This budget has delivered not just record revenue but also record debt and sadly continues to deliver record ramping.

When we start to unpack the real figures of this budget and look at how the state is groaning with record debt, it is still astounding to reflect that while we see record spending in health that continues for the third budget under this government, we are not the better off for it, we are not seeing better outcomes.

At what point does the public say enough is enough? Where is this money going to any real effect when the metric set by this government was to fix ramping, to take pressure off the EDs, to deliver hospital avoidance pathways, to support our primary care services by supporting and respecting our GPs, and to improve access to regional health much closer to home? There is a long shopping list of expectations that voters had and continue to have, but sadly are seeing the light with a government that just is not meeting any of those metrics.

Here is the third budget handed down by the Treasurer and yet from what we know—and I reference the front page of The Advertiser: a compelling image, no doubt—the people's bank of South Australia has been left with a record $44 billion debt bomb on the public credit card. I think those calculations, when we look at them, come down to something like $5.5 million a day that the South Australian public has been lumped with.

To focus on health for a moment, we know that the health department is certainly generously funded. It needs to be. There are lots of layers to the Department for Health and Wellbeing and SA Health and it has consistently been in receipt of an approximately $7 billion to $8 billion operating budget per annum. It is astounding that with that budget comes a lack of discipline by the department heads, the executives, the executive directors, and that we have not seen really across any agency much discipline in terms of fiscal responsibility, managing the books well enough, getting outcomes from the input and, yet again, Health sits at the top of the leaderboard with an agency blowout to the tune of $627 million for the financial year.

The South Australian public was told in the lead-up to the last election to vote Labor like your life depended on it, but no-one really got to read the fine print and here we are looking at how this government is spending, budget after budget, three budgets in a row. What is clear is that the price tag for the promise by this government to fix ramping is $7.1 billion and rising. What we have seen over the last three budgets is a top-up to the $8 billion operating budget of another $7 billion in the last three years and we are still as health consumers in receipt of the worst outcomes, and they are not worse by a little bit; they are worse in a record-breaking kind of way.

To reflect yet again, unfortunately, on the ramping hours lost just for the month of May, the previous month, we know that the hours lost in May for ramping were 4,773. When we line up the metrics, the measurables, the evidence of outcomes from this health system, we see record ramping, record hours lost on the ramp, and more and more money being poured into a system that is broken. It is leaking like a sieve. The price tag for the Labor Party's promise to fix ramping is $7.1 billion at the moment. We will wait with anticipation to see what the Treasurer delivers to the state in next year's budget.

One way that the government is set to perhaps recoup its losses or its wasteful expenditure or its expenditure for poorer outcomes is to now go after GPs with the implementation from 1 July of payroll tax. We see that the cost of doing business in primary care has only increased for our general practitioners.

Sadly, with this new interpretation, this application of the payroll tax, to cover their costs of doing business, of running a clinic and of paying their overheads, GPs are declaring that in two weeks' time, by 1 July, as that payroll tax accrues for them, there will be some clinics that will need to apply a $10 to $20 consult fee on top of what they might normally be charging. There is no doubt that the government, in needing to meet its own promise to fix ramping, to reduce response times and to demonstrate an avoidance of presentations to the emergency department, has needed to recoup those losses by attacking a workforce that is already broken and overworked.

One of my great disappointments started pretty early when reading the front page of The Advertiser, waiting in anticipation to see a strong investment in mental health because why not? That is the direction our stakeholders and mental health consumers are pushing the government in. That is the direction that the federal government needs to go in response to the royal commission into the NDIS.

We know there are benchmarks expecting state and federal governments through bilateral agreements to fund mental health, yet the front page of The Advertiser declared a simple investment in a perfectly fabulous program—$5 million being dedicated towards youth mental health. I congratulate the young teenager who, through her own lived experience with family members, has been able to work with the government to secure this funding. These are outcomes that are very important for the community.

Five million dollars for youth mental health is exceptionally important, but we know that the elephant in the room is the absence of any other funding and in particular $125 million that has been consistently called for when we look at investing in psychosocial services and supports for people living with mental health distress who are unable to access the support they need.

This report sat on the minister's desk and was not released by the Office of the Chief Psychiatrist for the better part of five to six months after it had been finalised. Again, I suspect there was some method to that political madness of making sure that report was not captured in last year's budget. So we failed to see $125 million in last year's budget, and the government has missed a second opportunity to fund that. They say they are waiting on part payment from the commonwealth, but half of that $125 million—let's split hairs and call it $62 million from the state—would go a long way to starting to invest in and support the service providers who already exist but need better resourcing to reach out to 19,000 people who are identified as living with these unmet needs. We can be sure that by budget day next year it will not be 19,000—it will be more—and sadly they are being left behind.

When I look at the amount of money required for the state government's split—it's share, it's investment in mental health services and unmet needs—I discovered that that very amount, $62 million, has been allocated to ambulance services in three particular ways. My first declaration is that Two Wells, in my electorate of Frome, will be the beneficiary of an ambulance station, and we welcome that. We welcome investment in government services, particularly in country areas.

It is passing strange that the local Adelaide Plains Council did not even know on the day where the station will be located, and still we are in the dark, having asked a number of questions. There is a missing piece there where the government is dictating terms and patting itself on the back for investing in these services, but not working with the community that knows best at the local level.

So, that is three ambulance stations across the state, investment in what I am going to phrase clumsily as call centre services, as well as investment in the electronic patient care records system, totalling $63 million in allocated services to SAAS. But, it is the exact same amount that this state needs to find and invest in mental health services per annum. To say I am disappointed is an understatement. My views matter less; it is the stakeholders, like the Mental Health Coalition and service providers across the state, who are waiting desperately to see investment in mental health.

I had the great joy of inviting the Mental Health Commissioner to visit my own electorate, to come to my home town of Clare and spend some time with mental health professionals and volunteers, and we really enjoyed our time together, in particular popping into the Lifeline Connect centre based in Clare, meeting up with my favourite human, Lorna Woodward, and understanding what benefit there is when we see investment in bricks and mortar—walk in, no fee, no referral—mental health services, psychosocial services, like the one that exists in Clare. There is another in Port Pirie. We are waiting with anticipation to see a third one come online in Moonta, and many more should pop up. These are the opportunities already in front of the minister to find those discretionary funds and support these services.

Regional health is something that I not only talk about a lot in this chamber but I live and breathe at the local level and have the great fortune to travel around the state interacting with and visiting my country colleagues in their own electorates but also then building relationships with the regional health workforce.

There is not enough time today to unpack all the missed opportunities, challenges and burdens that exist when it comes to the delivery of regional health services and access to treatment. We are certainly seeing a squeeze on country health patients, a squeeze on patients who are, more and more, discovering that the services or treatment they need do not exist closer to home—and they should. More often than not the hospital infrastructure can provide it, but we do not have the workforce, we do not have the diagnostics, we do not have the equipment. That puts them on the road to the city, and we do not have the roads—which I will come to shortly.

I am worried that we are seeing promises by the government of investment in hospital upgrades but what we are not seeing is the output, the deliverables, the commencement. A lot of these projects have been delayed, deferred or pushed out, and I implore the minister and the government to fast-track these projects.

I put Clare at the top of my list, the Clare Hospital upgrade of $4.5 million. However, we know that the health professionals in Clare and the district know that that project is already expected to blow out beyond $4.5 million to $6 million. What worries me very much is where that top up is coming from, and whether there is a view to it being sourced locally as opposed to the government doing its job, finding the extra $1.5 million and getting the job done.

As well as the Clare Hospital there is the Mount Gambier hospital, which was a sugar hit from the Premier a couple of days after the election, flying into town like a hero to promise millions of dollars in upgrades. The best information I have at the moment is that not only has the upgrade at that hospital not started, it has only just gone to tender. This is a community—or any community—that has been promised millions of dollars in investment in its hospital, that takes that in good faith and waits, in good faith, to see that delivered. It is scandalous to think that we are not a priority.

The opportunity for this government to fast-track the projects and upgrades in regional health infrastructure may possibly allow our country patients to stay closer to home, to travel less, and reduce not just the burden of over-presentations to our city system but also to be less reliant on PATS, the Patient Assistance Transport Scheme. Again, that had no profile in this budget.

It is beyond urgent. It is something the government needs to turn its mind to immediately, yesterday, last year, the importance of increasing the overnight accommodation from $40. As a commercial rate that just does not come close enough to the costs accrued. We know, through the Code Yellow experience, that a lovely gentleman flying in from Port Lincoln for back surgery, for spinal surgery, had his surgery cancelled three times in the space a week. He was out of pocket to the tune of $800 or so, and was treated poorly, treated with disrespect.

Our country patients having to come to the city are a burden on the city system, but there is nowhere else for them to go, so an investment in PATS, the reimbursement, is essential. If this government is going to retreat from country health and push us all to the city then it needs to create some equity of access there.

I also reflect, when looking at the budget, on the absence of workforce incentives. The minister knows I am quite interested in his workforce plan, not just for the city workforce but for the country workforce. The government is spruiking Spencer Gulf and the green hydrogen plant, looking to invest in the Spencer Gulf region, which is welcome. I am sure that people who live around Whyalla are excited about the opportunities that seem to be coming their way, and the 700 jobs being created, particularly around a new school and bigger childcare centre.

But no-one is talking about the absence of babies being born at the Whyalla Hospital. We are truly 12 months on. This hospital historically has had 250 babies born per annum. Since December, nine emergency caesarean surgeries have been performed, so nine babies have been born because they were urgent. Let's call it what it is: a hospital that is not delivering babies, and a budget that has not delivered for regional South Australia.

Mr TELFER (Flinders) (17:45): I am speaking today on the Appropriation Bill, which is the budget that is funding the necessary items throughout the whole state. For me, when reflecting on what I have seen within the budget, it seems as though it has failed to address the opportunities and the concerns of regional South Australia in particular. For me and the electorate of Flinders, and for my region of the Eyre Peninsula, this budget has failed to really confront the major challenges, but also to make sure it is setting up the structure for the opportunities which we are facing, and the opportunities which we, as a state, have got knocking on our doorstep.

It has been spoken about already, and my colleagues—especially regional members—have done so in reflecting on the fact that when you see a health budget which has had billions of dollars of extra money spent on it and blowouts of $600 million on top of the budgets that were allocated, we do not see increased health budget spending in regional centres. We do not see the necessary funds for the Patient Assistance Transport Scheme which is relied on by 16,000 claimants from regional South Australia every year. These 16,000 people, rather than having the services delivered to them that their city cousins get on their doorstep, have to travel to get to Adelaide to be able to have these services.

To have no more money actually allocated, and no change to the arrangements for the Patient Assistance Transport Scheme, is an absolute body blow for those of us in regional South Australia. When you are having to rely on a scheme that is reimbursing $40—only $40 per night—for someone to stay in accommodation in the city is laughable. There is nowhere within Adelaide where you can find a spot to be able to stay for $40 a night. Our regional people are out of pocket in having incurred not only travel costs but also accommodation costs. As I said, to have a health budget which had so much expenditure put into it—billions of dollars—but to not see, on the other hand, money put into regional health and basic services to support regional patients, I think is absolutely shameful on the part of this government.

Shortly after the last state election the Premier proudly made the statement: 'Your prospects in life shouldn't be determined by your postcode.' They were the exact words that the Premier shared with the community of South Australia but, unfortunately, indeed it is. Those of us in regional South Australia have to go over and above what our city cousins have to do. When we reflect on the health expenditure, we have already heard that there is barely any more of that money being invested into mental health supports.

The opposition, for a long time, has been calling on Peter Malinauskas to introduce incentives to be able to attract and retain healthcare workers, such as what is on offer interstate. It is a competitive market that we are in at the moment and other states are doing the heavy lifting to make sure that their regional communities are well served by medical professionals, and have the appropriate healthcare workers within their regions. What are we seeing from this government? Nothing. It does not matter how much cash Labor throws at our health system, the investment will not make a difference, it will not have that impact if there is not the workforce to staff it.

For those of us in regional South Australia, we know how much of a challenge it is to fill positions all across the workforce and especially high-level professional positions. If the government is not being proactive in the attraction and retention of healthcare workers within regional South Australia, we are going to go backwards. So that grandiose statement from the Premier that your prospects in life should not be determined by your postcode, just like a lot of the statements that are made, has been shown to be only hot air.

For regional South Australia, the investment in our road infrastructure that connects the products we produce to an end point and an opportunity to be able to export, whether domestically or globally, is so essential. Investment in infrastructure for upgrades and maintenance is crucial. Unfortunately, the numbers we see coming out of this year's budget do not properly reflect the amount that regional South Australia has been putting into the state's economy. I always say in this place at any opportunity I get: the amount of money which is invested into South Australia's coffers and the national coffers by those of us in regional South Australia should not be forgotten and should not be ignored and, in fact, equivalent investment should be going back into maximising economic opportunities.

We see in the budget papers statements around regional road safety infrastructure. Take away the regional road safety infrastructure, which is what I would call peri-urban and serving those who live in close proximity to the city, and there is only $6 million—$6 million—for the rest of regional South Australia's road safety infrastructure. Now, $6 million does not go too far. It really is a slap in the face for those of us having to live in regional areas and drive on regional roads, with the messaging coming from the government around the fact that the vast majority of incidents and accidents that happen on our roads in country areas involve country people. Where is the investment back into regional road safety infrastructure? It is just not there in this year's budget.

This comes at a time when people in my community on Eyre Peninsula are having to deal with changes to traffic movement within Port Lincoln through Liverpool Street, the main drag through town, where changes have been made to intersections and roundabouts to take away the opportunity for people to be able to exit those roundabouts and get into the rest of the city. No-one in Port Lincoln thinks the changes that have been made are a good idea, and I worry that the changes are going to end up having a detrimental effect on traffic movement.

We also had word from the government that the proposed mooted overtaking lanes on the Tod Highway between Cummins and the Flinders Highway, which had money in the budget and subsequent budgets, got all too hard: 'Sorry, it got all too hard, this isn't going to be delivered.' This comes in the wake of the rail closure on Eyre Peninsula and the additional freight that needs to be taken on the roads of Lower Eyre Peninsula in particular, and the people who traverse the Tod Highway, down the middle of Eyre Peninsula, having to deal with interactions with heavy vehicles. After being told by the department and reassured by the department that yes, this project was going to continue, we now see that, sadly, no, it all got too hard. The budget has been expended somewhere else to fill gaps for mistakes made in other aspects and this overtaking lane is not going to be delivered.

On top of that, there was also a positive announcement that was made over 12 months ago now—I think it was 15 months ago—by the federal government around an upgrade of the Porter Street-Liverpool Street intersection in Port Lincoln: the announcement of $3.6 million from the federal government. But we have seen no movement and we have heard no messaging. In the electorate of Flinders, we do not know what is actually going to be happening with that crucial intersection. There is a lot of noise, a lot of spin and a lot of announcement but, unfortunately, what we see is very little actually delivered on the ground.

Public housing, within regional South Australia in particular, is so crucial for those most vulnerable within our community. The investment that is necessary for the maintenance and ongoing longevity of our public housing network within South Australia's regions is so obvious to those of us who are having to deal with it every single day.

Within Port Lincoln alone, the main centre of my electorate, there are dozens of public houses that are sitting vacant at the moment because of a lack of maintenance, because of a lack of investment to make sure that they are still a part of the housing opportunity and housing scene in Port Lincoln. We are talking about those within my community who are most vulnerable: those who obviously struggle to break into the private rental market and those who are relying on the structures of the housing department to provide affordable housing for them. There are people who are seeing houses on their streets that are empty because there has not been that investment.

We see within the budget that there is money promised for maintenance and building of social housing units. It may look good at face value, but then we break it down a little bit more and realise that, indeed, it is federal money that is there and it is pretty vague as far as the social housing info goes.

Within regional South Australia, if we are not investing into the basics to set the foundation for what our future is going to look like, we are going to miss the economic opportunities, we are going to miss what could be a real positive for our state, and we are going to end up with an ever-increasing centralisation in South Australia and ever-increasing challenges in regional South Australia. This is why, prior to the budget and even now, I am calling on the government to make sure they are investing into those basics, into those essentials within our regions, none more so than the public housing network.

The SPEAKER: Member for Flinders, sorry. Would you mind taking a seat for a minute? I just want to address some people who we have in the gallery, and then we will come back to you straight after that.

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