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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-06-05 Daily Xml
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Adjournment Debate

State Budget

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:36): What a disappointment. The headline for tomorrow no doubt is going to be, 'Treasurer claims tiny surplus and meanwhile towering debt for South Australians'. Many of us will have up on the pinboard one round of Treasurer presiding over towering debt in South Australia, when it was just at $44 billion. We have just heard from the Treasurer that the state is now going to be burdened with just about $50 billion by the time we next look at it. We are at 48.9, based on what we have just been told and against the background of what appears to be a complete lack of vision from this government nearly four years in.

Who would have thought that Malinauskas Labor would at this stage be such a tired government lacking in any vision whatsoever for South Australians and yet burdening them with more debt than this state has ever seen by far. If it was not enough to see that lack of vision on display, it is compounded by yet another display of incompetence across the board simply to manage the executive responsibilities of government.

We only need to turn to the Budget Statement at page 23 to see yet again what South Australians have become used to looking at as the table of despair for this Malinauskas Labor government. We go down in alphabetical order and, as I feared this morning, we see Child Protection expenditure over budget by a full $156 million. What does the government have to show for that but ongoing crisis in Child Protection? We do not have anything to show for it, but we have not only generous provision but $156 million in blown budget in Child Protection.

Just to take another example, we do not have to go much further down the list to see Health and Wellbeing blown out by $739 million to budget, Human Services blown by $148 million to budget, Infrastructure and Transport $300 million, and the list goes on. Compounding what we have now become used to is this combination of a lack of vision and year-on-year incompetence.

What it leads to is a budget measures process that announces that, to take that first example of Child Protection, we are going to have more measures, we are going to have provision for out-of-home care in Child Protection. That is just mopping up the over expense that has just occurred, and it has happened year on year on year. My colleagues and I will be unpacking that in the estimates process shortly to come, but it is a tale of woe.

As I have indicated, a tiny surplus. The Treasurer has just stood up and said that there will be this tiny surplus and an even more towering, unprecedented debt for all South Australians. The key issue for South Australians today is that Labor has proved to South Australians that it is completely out of touch with our needs, with the needs of all of us here in South Australia. Instead what it has committed to is frivolously whittling away what few taxpayer dollars are now available on ongoing vanity projects. It is not delivering the relief that South Australians need, and meanwhile South Australians are continuing to face sky-high energy prices and sky-high water bills, with more to come, and the ongoing housing crisis.

We have heard the Premier endeavour to spin his way out of the housing crisis. When he is presented with the opportunity to provide relief for first-home buyers, what does he do? He spins that as 'Nothing more to see here' and defends his Treasurer, who said just a couple of days ago, 'Oh well, actually, there's nothing more for the government to do,' and how dare we, on the opposition, come along and propose more.

No, that would disrupt the sort of benign situation of a super minister over here who is presiding over not one slab, despite all of these announced releases of land that are supposed to answer the Premier's supply-side problem but with no measures to provide relief, particularly for young South Australians looking to build or buy their first home. You will hear more from this opposition about that because we care about young South Australians who are wanting to find their first home. So Labor provides no vision for South Australians, and it compounds that by the incompetence that is on display right on the face of the budget statement.

As I have indicated, what we have heard today from the Treasurer and what South Australians will read about tomorrow in the paper is this towering debt iceberg. Normally you talk about an iceberg and there is just that bit above the surface; this is a towering debt iceberg. It is more than we have ever seen, at $48.5 billion by 2028-29. It is the biggest debt in our history. We belled the cat on it last year, and South Australians will now be saying, 'When does the debt end? When do you stop spending our money, and when is this going to turn into some sort of engagement with the real issues that affect South Australians?'

In case that number is just too mind-boggling to get to grips with, I think we have heard the Treasurer concede that what that is going to do is present to South Australians a staggering $7 million a day in interest alone. I know what $7 million could do this year for my constituents in Heysen. I know what $7 million could do next month and next year for those constituents in Morphett or in Hammond or, indeed, for those constituents of members of the backbench on the other side, government members who must be now looking on to their Treasurer with dismay and saying, 'While South Australians are going to be bearing this multimillion-dollar daily interest cost, where are the opportunities for real relief and real achievement for South Australians locally and throughout our state?'

We know that this is a time when hardworking South Australians are being crushed by the rising cost of living. At this time, South Australians will have been approaching this budget about as soberly as one could ever. Far from looking for more bells and whistles, more vanity projects, more bread and circuses, South Australians will have been approaching this budget time soberly indeed. What they have heard is that Labor is not for them, Labor is not for providing the relief to this cost-of-living crisis because there is no meaningful relief.

While we know that Labor is entirely out of touch with South Australians' needs, we are now going to see that should, heaven forbid, there be some economic shock that comes along, dare I say some further shock to a regional town in South Australia, some shock that affects us throughout the country, what Labor has done is render us vulnerable. There is nothing left in the stores. We have this $48.5 billion debt hanging over us.

What we are going to see when that day comes is what the Labor Party always does when it runs out of your money to spend and that is we are going to start to see desperate measures, we are going to start to see more of the bill increases just like they have started down the track with those water bill increases.

There is no vision, no competence and no relief for South Australians suffering under this crisis overseen by Malinauskas Labor. It is a disgrace and South Australians will be hearing from us.

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