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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-06-18 Daily Xml
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Appropriation Bill 2025

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 17 June 2025.)

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (16:18): I rise to continue my remarks from yesterday. Our 2025-26 state budget is also delivering targeted relief for students, families and small businesses because we understand that cost of living is at the forefront of the minds of many South Australians. We have permanently reduced the price of a student 28-day Metrocard from $28.60 to $10.00. This will occur from 1 July. This means that a local student in my community catching public transport to and from school every day will pay just 25¢ per trip, saving families up to $240 per year, per child.

This is in addition to savings for South Australian families with the continuation of a $200 reduction in the schools materials and services charge, and the recent doubling of the schools Sports Vouchers program to two times $100 vouchers per school-aged child from reception to year 9. These measures could save a family with two children up to $1,280 per year. Our Sports Vouchers Plus program is not just a cost-of-living measure, but one that also encourages our kids off screens to keep fit, active and connected to our community.

We also expanded the program recently to include music lessons, building on other extracurricular activities we have added in the past, including dance, Scouts and Girl Guides. I know as a kid learning piano how important that was, as well as sport. It gave you an opportunity when you got home from school to jump on the piano and practise your music. It was a really great way of coming down from the day, reflecting on the day, almost like a form of meditation for kids. Whether it is music, whether it is sport or swimming lessons, Girl Guides or Scouts, this program is not just saving families money from their wallets, but also making sure that we are contributing to really well-rounded kids that are spending time with their peer groups and connecting with their community.

We want the best for our kids and we also want the safest communities in which to raise them, and everyone in our state does have a right to feel safe. That is why the Malinauskas Labor government is making generational investments to strengthen our frontline services, improve infrastructure and introduce nation-leading reforms. We are delivering long-term solutions to keep our communities safe now and into the future, and the 2025-26 state budget will deliver almost $400 million in measures designed to strengthen our police, the justice system, and correctional services.

Some of these measures include recruiting an extra 326 sworn officers to increase our force to a record 5,000 sworn officers by 2030-31. I think we all agree our police commissioner does an incredible job leading our police force to keep our state safe, and we are backing him in order to do that. We are doubling SAPOL's motorcycle capacity to patrol and enforce traffic laws, and respond to incidents and emergencies in our community. Motorcycle officers are an integral part of providing a really agile response to emergency management and critical incidents, while also supporting and promoting positive road safety outcomes, which I know is very welcome in my community. Due to their mobility and compact size, they can kind of weave through traffic for rapid responses to emergencies, as well as for traffic control duties.

We are investing in our courts to process more cases and reduce delays, including $20 million to upgrade our justice and court facilities, and we are building 116 new prison beds and boosting prison security, helping to combat contraband and improve overall safety. These measures are building on our strong legislative agenda, including developing the toughest knife laws in the nation and expanding police search powers to crack down on sex offenders. Just last week we also proposed new laws that will give police greater powers to crack down on street gangs in South Australia, allowing authorities to deal with them in a similar way to outlaw motorcycle gangs.

We also know that we are a small business state and that they are the engine room of our economy. Small businesses account for 98 per cent of all businesses in South Australia. That's around 150,000 small businesses employing more than 300,000 people and generating more than $49 billion in revenue. We understand that energy is a major challenge in whether a small or medium business in South Australia can grow, and that is why we are supporting small and medium businesses with our $20 million investment in the 2025-26 Powering Business Grants. It will support eligible South Australian small and medium businesses and not-for-profit organisations to invest in energy-efficient equipment or improvements to reduce and manage energy use and cut costs. Our businesses will be able to apply for a grant ranging from $2,500 to $75,000, subject to meeting eligibility requirements.

This builds on a very successful rollout of small business energy efficiency grants in the previous financial year, 2024-25, which supported more than 1,000 South Australian small businesses and not-for-profit organisations, including the Prospect Broadview Bowling Club, which received a grant to help them purchase new solar panels and batteries and which has made a significant difference to this wonderful sporting and community club within my and the member for Enfield's community.

Applications for this round of the Powering Business Grants will be opened in July 2025, with businesses able to register their interest in the meantime, so I very much encourage businesses and not-for-profits in my community to do that and it will provide financial assistance to invest in energy efficiency equipment, or improvements to reduce and manage their energy costs. These targeted measures, combined with easing inflation, and falling interest rates, will go a long way to help our community with tackling cost-of-living pressures.

Following the commonwealth government selecting Adelaide as its preferred city to host the COP31 Climate Change Conference—should our country win hosting rights—we have also invested within the budget $8 million in early works, including significant planning for security and infrastructure. We know that this is one of the world's biggest summits, which would be held in November 2026. We believe that Adelaide, our beautiful city, has the capacity and the capability to play home to this significant United Nations event.

Such an event would see tens of thousands of people travel to our beautiful city, with a potential economic benefit back to our state of more than $500 million. We see this investment as an opportunity to enhance our worldwide reputation and to build off our global lead in decarbonisation. We already have 75 per cent of our energy coming from renewable sources, with a target of net 100 per cent renewables by 2027. So I very much support this budget investment which builds on the progress we have made since coming into government and I look forward to, hopefully, our hosting that very exciting event in November 2026.

Health is an area I am particularly passionate about. My family has seen how important our health system is, particularly as a regional family who spent a lot of time in Adelaide at the old Royal Adelaide Hospital accessing cancer treatment. We know that to invest in our health facilities is so incredibly important for people all across our state. I am very proud that a further $1.9 billion over five years has been invested in our health system to meet growing demand for services and improve our facilities and roll out new models of care and support for the community.

In fact, if you look at the last four budgets, we have invested an additional $9 billion in our state's health system and, in particular, an important area of that is in the area of mental health, and that investment has included more than 130 new mental health beds that have been brought online across South Australia. An important part of mental health is making sure that we can reduce those emergency department presentations, particularly around mental health, because we understand that that is not always the best place for somebody experiencing mental health challenges. So a part of our new investment is $13.9 million over five years is to support a program called the Mental Health Co-Responder program in northern and central Adelaide and then expanding the program into southern Adelaide.

That program pairs a police officer with a mental health clinician, so when you are responding to a triple zero call-out which is related to mental health you have that expertise by your side when you are dealing with that call-out. We understand that that has prevented around 2,500 emergency department presentations since its establishment. So not only is it making sure that we have people with expertise to deal with somebody who is experiencing mental health challenges but it also means it is taking pressure off our emergency department system as well. We believe that expansion into southern Adelaide is expected to prevent a further 800 emergency department presentations.

Another way in which we can ensure we can divert more people away from emergency departments is to make sure that they have access to other support, in particular using the resources we have, like our pharmacies. We also have $2.2 million over three years to support the implementation of community pharmacies and expand their scope of practice, which will enable South Australians to attend a local pharmacy for assessment and treatment for a range of conditions, really using the expertise of our pharmacists.

I am also very passionate about the arts sector in our state. My electorate really is the beating heart of arts and culture in South Australia, so $13 million over four years for our arts and cultural policy, A Place to Create, is very welcome. I have had some fabulous feedback in our community in regard to this investment and focus. One of the areas I was particularly proud about—whilst it might not be in my electorate, it is in my home region of the South-East—was $3.9 million over three years for essential upgrades to our regional arts centres in Whyalla, Port Pirie, Mount Gambier and Renmark.

It was in Mount Gambier at the Sir Robert Helpmann Theatre that my real love of music and the arts was fostered, whether it was participating in the piano eisteddfods at the Sir Robert Helpmann Theatre or watching my very first theatre production, Arthur Miller's The Crucible, at Sir Robert Helpmann Theatre. You did not have access a lot to the arts, being a country kid, so those experiences were just so incredible and I will never forget them. I am very proud that our government is investing in these really important regional art centres.

It is quite remarkable that, just last year, almost 120,000 people attended more than 1,800 events at these four centres, with almost 14,500 people actually on stage and a further 2,300 people backstage. It is wonderful to see not just the people who are experiencing arts and culture in the audience but the people who actually get to be on the stage or backstage and be a part of the excitement and joy that you get out of being in the arts and culture industry.

In regard to housing, the Southwark Master Plan development is very exciting. Whilst on the border of my electorate, it will deliver significant housing into inner metropolitan Adelaide, up to 1,300 dwellings, including 20 per cent affordable housing. Another element of this project that perhaps does not get as much attention is there will be more than 15 per cent new public open space to revitalise that city fringe, expanding on that green space along the river and near the West End Brewery site.

It will be incredibly important because we know that we see increases in density in our city but we need to match that with open green space, as I was speaking about earlier. That is why I am very proud to have delivered those two new pocket parks in our community, because it is about identifying spaces where we can add more open green space and tree canopy to our community so that people who may choose to live in higher density areas can still access open green space and trees nearby.

Another exciting initiative is the Rent-To-Buy Affordable Housing Initiative, with 100 properties under construction as part of the Affordable Housing Initiative allocated to the rent-to-buy scheme for up to three years. These properties will initially be rented out to eligible households at 75 per cent of market rent, with renters pre-qualified and intending to purchase the property at the end of the lease.

So whether it is community safety or whether it is cost of living, huge investments in our health system and also in arts and culture as well as in our regions and housing, we do understand the key needs of people in our community. I am very proud that the 2025-26 state budget is speaking to those priorities. With those comments, I commend this bill to the house.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta) (16:34): I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond to the 2025-26 state budget. I want to particularly commend the Leader of the Opposition, Vincent Tarzia, for what I thought was an excellent budget response yesterday. It did not just highlight the failures that we see evident in the budget—a diminishing surplus year on year from $458 million in operating surplus down to $179 million, that the year just gone has had its surplus cut from an expected $248 million down to just $18 million—the Leader of the Opposition did not just highlight the extraordinary record $48 billion debt, which is double that in the 2021 budget prior to the Labor Party coming to government, nor the impact of that debt being nearly $7 million in day interest payments, an extraordinary achievement in the negative sense by this Labor government.

It is natural for any opposition to highlight these failures of governance and failures of prudent management of the public finances, and he did that very well. However, he also outlined some clear, new paths forward that would improve the outcomes for people in South Australia. Some of the policy initiatives were very important.

I know that my family is one amongst thousands, if not tens of thousands, of families who would share with the Leader of the Opposition the experience of trying to get a GP appointment after 5pm on a weeknight or on a Sunday morning, only to find that very few GPs operate at such hours. The Liberal initiative to have a two year trial program sponsoring GP surgeries to remain open in those hours will be welcomed by thousands of families across South Australia. We urge the government to take up this suggestion, of course, but if they will not we will.

The Leader of the Opposition highlighted the Liberal policy to give first home buyers seeking to enter the housing market, to have a home of their own, the opportunity to have a head start, if you like, against the developers, against the people with large investments, by removing stamp duty for first home owners. So many of them, so many of those families, are telling us, when we are at their doorsteps, that they are unable to even get a foot in the door of their first home. The Premier responded to that yesterday, slamming the proposal and suggesting it was only going to be an advantage to the sellers of houses. I think that is nonsense; the Premier has his head completely in the clouds if he thinks that is going to be the impact.

What I see when I have talked to people who wish to be first home buyers is that they attend open after open after open only to find that they are priced out of the market by people paying cash for properties or by people who are not looking to buy a home to live in but to make money out of it. This Liberal policy will give those first home buyers a leg up; it gives them an advantage against those people they are competing with. I suspect it will not change the sale price of properties very much; however, it will give those first home buyers an opportunity to be in the mix.

It was a good speech. It highlighted a better way forward for the people of South Australia to consider a Liberal way forward, rooted in Liberal values and with strong Liberal policies articulated, and I him for that.

One of the things I noticed, as the member for Morialta, when the budget was read out just under two weeks ago was that despite the record debt, despite the significant deficits, despite the failure of the government to meet its election commitments—the promise to fix ramping having long gone by the wayside, and the promised hydrogen power plant having been abandoned; it was supposed to be producing electricity less than a year from now, and after the expenditure of tens of millions of dollars it is now in the dust as well—despite these broken promises and these significant debts, it was a disappointing budget that did not even provide any of the significant responses that we need in my electorate of Morialta.

There are longstanding issues such as the urgent need to improve the intersections of Moules Road, St Bernards Road and Arthur Street. That had no attention at all. This is an issue that is becoming increasingly problematic, and not just because of the longstanding urban infill in the Rostrevor and Magill area which the government is now seeking to further extend as a result of its desire to have housing in the old Magill campus site. That will presumably be a few years away yet if their proposal goes through—nevertheless, it is on its way.

There is also high school on that intersection that currently has just under 600 students. It is growing year on year with an intake of 200 students every year. It will have 1,200 students within three years. The growth in population—the school population in the area alone has doubled in the last 15 years—highlights the urgent need for attention to that intersection. The Liberal Party has promised synchronised lights at Moules Road and Arthur Street, moving the existing pedestrian crossing—nothing from the government. It is disappointing.

Equally, in Highbury, whether residents live near the Hope Valley Reservoir and Elliston Reserve or on the Highbury Aqueduct Reserve or near Silverlake Reserve, all of which have been decimated by the loss of pine trees as a result of giant pine scale infestation, those bodies that own that land—SA Water; the environment department; Tea Tree Gully Council, operating one of those reserves on behalf of state government—need to have a budget for replanting, for a restoration of amenity. That was not delivered here either—disappointing budget. I say, as member for Morialta and a South Australian, South Australians deserve better and I commend the Leader of the Opposition for his response.

In the budget appropriation of many billions of dollars, one of the appropriations is for a relatively modest sum of money for the History Trust of South Australia. Its operations are tremendously important, and I would like to use the remainder of my time today making some reflections on the History Trust of South Australia, as it is indeed a government appropriation.

The History Trust of South Australia, conceived by then arts minister, Murray Hill, in 1980 under Premier David Tonkin, was announced as a concept on Proclamation Day 1980. The legislation was written and indeed passed through the parliament, both chambers, within six months. It is now in its 45th year, and I particularly note that in the last decade the History Trust of South Australia has grown and matured, developed and delivered for South Australia.

In achieving that, I commend all of the board members, all of the staff, all of the volunteers and indeed donors of the History Trust, but I particularly note the stewardship of Chair Elizabeth Ho OAM and Chief Executive Greg Mackie OAM, who have led the trust throughout this period and who are now at the end of that period of service. I note and commend the Minister for Education, who shares my regard for the importance of this work and for the service that Elizabeth and Greg have provided our state. He hosted the Trust board for dinner in this building last night. I am grateful for the opportunity to drop in and say hello and mark their significant contributions. It was a most appropriate tribute. I am sure the minister would agree with the comments I proposed to make about them today.

I also commend the appointments of their replacements. Michael Neale is now the chair of the Trust and Justyna Jochym is the new chief executive. I know Michael well enough to say that he is an outstanding appointment. I have only met Justyna once, but from what I have seen and what I have heard and what I have read, I am extremely optimistic that she will also prove to be so. I look forward to seeing the way that Michael and Justyna make their own mark on this organisation for the benefit of the South Australian community in the years ahead. But on this occasion I particularly want to take a few minutes to acknowledge the service of Elizabeth Ho and Greg Mackie.

First, some context. Some people may not be familiar with the History Trust. It is almost uniquely South Australian, a standalone statutory authority responsible for maintaining the state's historical collection, separate from the South Australian Museum, from the art Gallery, from the State Library, and supporting the understanding of history in South Australia. It is supported by recurrent government funding, hence my discussion in the Appropriation Bill, and it generates its own philanthropic support to enhance its work. It is responsible for three of South Australia's key collecting institutions: the Maritime Museum, the Migration Museum and the National Motor Museum. It runs the Centre for Democracy in the Institute Building in the State Library. It is responsible for History Month, a remarkable festival that brings together annually hundreds and hundreds of South Australian institutions and businesses and councils and individuals, large and small, community and business, to celebrate all things South Australian history.

I said before that the growth in the impact of the History Trust has been significant over the last decade. In all of its activities it now reaches more students with its educational programs, more South Australians with its community outreach work and more community groups, history groups and other museums with curatorial support and grant funding than ever before. It fulfils its mantra that the History Trust seeks to give the past a future now.

All of the museums have seen improvements, some of which I was proud to be associated with as minister. The impact of their individual community education programs has also grown. In the context of the Appropriation Bill, I highlight that each of these museums, through the History Trust, has further suggestions for government for future works that could be considered favourably.

Perhaps nowhere has the growth and ambition and achievement been more pronounced than in the growth of the History Festival. It began in 2004—sir, you would remember—as History Week. It had dozens of events. Now, it is History Month in May, with more than 100,000 South Australians involved in attending at least one event every year. It began with several dozen events in 2021; in my last year as minister there were 620 events in every corner of the state.

I recall Greg Mackie encouraging me to go to a History Festival event in Farina. If any of the members present have not been to Farina or do not know where it is, I encourage you to book a weekend there and see how it feels. It was tremendous that the people were able to look at the history of Farina and present an event there, which was no small undertaking.

I have always valued the History Trust and the History Festival. Their work helps bring us to a better understanding and appreciation of what it is to be a South Australian in the 21st century. Knowing where we come from informs us of where we are and who we are and, indeed, encourages us and inspires us and educates us to do better in where we are going. This is a mission I always felt was shared keenly by Elizabeth and Greg, and it was through their efforts and the efforts of the teams they led so well that this work has gone so well. For the record, I wish to share a couple of comments about each in turn.

Elizabeth Ho OAM had nine years as Chair of the History Trust. I am sure the minister would have sought her reappointment if it was not against the law to do so after nine years; she expired her term limit. Elizabeth Ho did an arts degree with honours in history at the University of Adelaide, along with professional library studies. She was the first newsletter editor for the Historical Society of South Australia. She was a Jubilee 150 education officer. She was the Mortlock Library Manager, looking after the state heritage holdings, and later Deputy Director of the State Library and a State Heritage Authority member. For 14 years she served as the inaugural Director of the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre at the University of South Australia.

As Chair of the History Trust, her stewardship spanned a range of achievements of which I will just list a few:

the growth of the History Festival I spoke about earlier;

the establishment of the Centre of Democracy;

the shift from Arts to Education of the History Trust within machinery of government, and the full realisation of the opportunities for improved partnerships with schools and young people that that provided.

I know that was something that former Premier Steven Marshall was incredibly eager to see realised, hence his decision to shift the History Trust from Arts to Education, and it was something that was ably undertaken by some excellent public servants not just within the History Trust but also within Education: Rick Persse as the chief executive and Dr Peta Smith and the other people within external relations who did such great work.

Elizabeth led a major restructure of the organisation, along with Greg Mackie, restructuring the organisation for the future but managing to do so with no redundancies. She also led capital improvements and major maintenance programs for the National Motor Museum and the Migration Museum, and the increased profile overall of the History Trust, enabling it to better fulfil its mission.

Elizabeth is committed to history, to cultural capital, to humanities and to universities. In closing remarks at this year's History Festival, Elizabeth said of herself—I quote her, to be clear—that she might:

…be approaching fossil status—but we history tragics are hard to kill off. We live in a permanent state of curiosity and wonder and we believe in our discipline. We know that our society needs history to make sense of our times and to give us meaning.

She concluded that speech by saying, and again I quote:

Those who do remember the past—and choose to engage with it—can shape a future that's wiser, richer and fairer. Our young people need better access to this understanding. So let's all work to give the past a future now!

Elizabeth Ho has given service in spades to this state, and we are grateful to her. I am sure all members of the house would agree.

In the minutes remaining, I turn to Greg Mackie. Greg Mackie OAM is a cultural connoisseur, arts supremo, historical steward and Macks Factor—I hope Greg appreciates me saying that last part in the parliament. Greg's contribution to South Australia's cultural landscape over many decades has been profound, from Imprints Bookshop to Arts SA and many things beyond and in between. I will narrow the scope of my remarks today to the role he played as Chief Executive of the History Trust, a role that is to conclude in about 10 days, and in particular the value-add that he has offered the organisation over that time.

Greg provided leadership for the History Trust over a decade and managed to be both stable and innovative, responding to some pretty extraordinary circumstances but ensuring the trust was always in a position to take advantage of any opportunities that presented. His achievements included, and this also is by no means an exhaustive list:

pulling off that excellent restructure with minimal pain, as I mentioned before when referring to Elizabeth Ho's work.

the half-million-dollar solar power upgrade for the National Motor Museum;

the $6.3 million upgrade of the Migration Museum, which has led to the commencement of master planning for the future, worthy of all of our consideration; and

contributing to the development of the plans for and leadership within the work of delivering the Cultural Institutions Storage Facility.

It is a very important facility, an $80 million project announced in 2021. We were hoping it would be operational by now, as indeed were all of our cultural collections facilities. Perhaps I should have worked harder when I was the minister and had the opportunity to give Greg a greater role in that, and we might be enjoying its work now. At any rate, he did important work in establishing the ground rules for it, and in the future our state is going to significantly benefit from that important work undertaken by Greg and all of the other people involved in that project.

I hesitate to mention the back-and-forth of the proposal to move the History Trust into Ayers House because I know it is a sore point for a number of people, but I feel like, in the context of these remarks, there are two points very much worth making, without commenting either way on the merits of the proposal.

First, had the former government's proposal gone ahead, I could not be more confident in saying that the History Trust under Greg and his team would have done an outstanding job as stewards of that important building. Secondly, with the new government having been elected with a clear mandate to go down a different path, retaining Ayers House in the ownership of the National Trust, Greg did do a marvellous job in stewarding the History Trust, its organisation, its members, its staff, into a different, positive future. It is in the best traditions of the Public Service that someone in a role like Greg's will work with whichever government the people of South Australia have elected to implement government policy in a way that best serves not just the government's policy but also the community's interests.

The History Trust and the National Trust have now signed a memorandum of cooperation and collaboration. I acknowledge the important work done by Greg and Elizabeth, along with the new leadership group within the National Trust, in enabling that to take place. Indeed, in the years ahead, I am very excited—already it has significantly begun—the number of National Trust-led events within the History Festival will return, and is now returning, to previous levels.

I will just finish with a few other highlights that had global news reach, as befitting Greg's and Elizabeth's statue. I commend Greg for his role in 2019 in the centenary of the Great Air Race and the epic flight of the Smith brothers. It was a year of festivities, film and community education and celebration, led by Lainie Anderson, with support from Greg and the team, which ultimately, amongst many other things, led to the $7 million project our famous Vickers Vimy into its new home within the precinct of Adelaide Airport.

If you have not done, I encourage all members to do themselves a favour: next time you are in Adelaide Airport, put aside an extra 20 minutes and go and visit the Vickers Vimy, see what has been achieved through the collaboration of the Airport, the federal government and the state government. The South Australian government committed $2 million dollars to that project, with particular curatorial support from the History Trust. It is a tremendous project.

There are people in aviation who talk about the Vickers Vimy, the first plane that went across the world, from England to Australia, in the same breath as they talk about the Wright Flyer. All South Australia should be very proud of that achievement. They are proud of the achievements of the Smith brothers, and it is now presented in a way that looks after the needs of the plane not only to ensure it will last forever—or at least as long as these things can—but so that people can appreciate it.

Secondly, during the term of this government, Greg was instrumental in leading the History Trust's acquisition of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, the bus from the film which is now being restored and which is destined to shine brightly forever as a feature of the National Motor Museum up at Birdwood. Greg would not forgive me if I did not mention that there is an appeal available for anyone who is interested to support the restoration of that important bus.

Finally, the gift of the Flinders coffin plate. Matthew Flinders' coffin was discovered in the archaeological works for HS2 trainline recently. That plate was recently presented to Her Excellency the Governor and is now back in South Australia under the care of the History Trust. Thank you and congratulations to Elizabeth Ho and Greg Mackie on their service to South Australia.

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (16:54): I rise in support of the Appropriation Bill. I am really excited about many of the initiatives that are included in the 2025-26 budget and I would like to thank the Treasurer and his team for all the work that they have put into this budget.

There are so many items that I would like to talk about, but I will start with new loos at the Coromandel Valley Primary School. I have visited the school on numerous occasions and also took the minister there to have a look, and we were affronted by the condition of one of the school's toilet blocks—affronted mainly by the smell. The school has tried everything to try to rectify the smell coming from the boys' loos but nothing has worked, so I was very glad to be able to ring the principal, Rob Warncken, to let him know that the school has been funded to have those toilets replaced.

Coromandel Valley Primary School is one of the most popular in the Mitcham Hills and I am very happy that we have been able to get behind them and support them with this budget. Last night, their governing council joined me here in Parliament House for their meeting where we talked about the loos—not specifically—and also road safety and OSHC, and we were also joined by the Minister for Education to talk through some of their concerns. It was really lovely to have them here.

Staying on schools, I was really pleased to see the investment in lowering the cost of public transport for our kids. What a fantastic idea to get more kids on our buses and trains while at the same time helping families with cost-of-living pressures. If a child is to catch a bus or train to and from school every day, their fare is reduced to 25¢ a trip. From there, I know many of our young people use trains and buses on the weekends and at other times, so they are lowering that price per trip even more. With a monthly Metrocard now costing only $10 for students, it is a huge support.

Not only does it make financial sense to put your kids on public transport but it helps in lots of other ways as well. It provides them with a sense of independence. As a young person, I caught the bus to and from school most days and I actually enjoyed it—well, maybe looking back on it with rose-coloured glasses I enjoyed it because I am sure there were plenty of days where perhaps I did not, but in general the memories are good. It gave me time for gossip on the way to school and debriefing on the way home with other students who caught the bus, and I can honestly say that it strengthened friendships. Now, as a 50 year old, I really only keep in contact with the girls I caught the bus with, so there is something in that.

Putting our kids on buses and trains also helps reduce traffic congestion. It is obvious that this is an outcome, as our main roads during school holidays show a marked drop in traffic. Even if 50 per cent of traffic is reduced by parents putting their kids on public transport, this keeps parents off the roads in peak hour and will make a big difference. Of course, fewer cars on the roads results in lower emissions, which is good for the environment.

As a side note, the 196/195 route that winds its way down the new Belair Road is now a much smoother ride with the completion of the retaining wall works helping to stabilise the road—work that was ignored previously and is now complete. From Windy Point down to Springbank Road, the road has been completely resurfaced and it is absolutely a smooth ride. I was very pleased to see three pull-out areas for our bike riders added to the works after I advocated for them. It is a challenging road to ride, but with limited other options, providing these bitumenised pull-out areas allows bikes to pull out to let bike riders rest and also to let cars go past, making it safer for our riders.

Cost-of-living relief continues for our families with the continuation of $200 off the materials and services charge and the $200 sports voucher scheme. These are excellent initiatives that help families. The sports voucher scheme is especially well received. As the member for Waite, I am acutely aware of just how active our community is, with kids playing sport all over the community on weekends and after school, and to be able to either have $100 off a summer and a winter sport or $200 off one of those sports does make it easier for families to be able to get their kids into sport. A special call-out to the Coromandel Valley Ramblers, who not only lower their fees so that the voucher covers the cost but also fundraise through various programs to meet the residual costs for all the juniors, making cricket truly accessible for all.

Still on our young people, I was very pleased to see the additional funding to Embrace Kids: $1.5 million over a four-year commitment to support positive body image campaigns for young people. Earlier this year, I attended the Embrace Kids Symposium where I heard all about how their program was making real change, as well as the exciting plans they have to educate more of our kids and have them embrace their bodies. I was very pleased to meet Dr Zali Yager, along with past Australian of the Year Taryn Brumfitt, to hear about their funding challenges. I took the opportunity to introduce them to our Assistant Minister for Junior Sport Participation, and I am so pleased that through her hard work this outcome was reached.

The boost in this year's state budget will go towards rolling out Embrace programs that help young people build positive body image, develop resilience and reduce the risk of mental health issues and eating disorders, as well as increase participation in sport and learning. There is no denying the true and exciting impact this program is having and I am glad that we are continuing to support them.

Whilst we are talking about bodies, I was very pleased to hear about the $300,000-a-year commitment from the Malinauskas Labor government, which will see more than 140 dispensers providing free pads and tampons installed in all our TAFE SA buildings in the female, unisex and disabled bathrooms on campuses across the state.

As the Chair of the Select Committee into Endometriosis, this is an excellent commitment, as we know that periods can impact students, causing them to miss class, whether it is because they have been caught out without the necessary pads and tampons, they cannot afford them, or they are impacted by very real symptoms of heavy flow suffered by our endo warriors. In previous years, we rolled this initiative out across our public schools and it is great to see it now in our TAFEs. I am hopeful that in the future our universities will also see this program as beneficial.

Back to public transport: I was pleased to see the investment of $9.6 million in public transport safety with the establishment of the Transit Compliance Team with 19 new officers, increasing the total number of prescribed officers to around 200, which will ensure our trains and buses are a safer journey, with afternoon security patrols expanded across Adelaide's south, outer north and outer north-east bus networks, and ongoing presence of security officers on evening train and tram services, as well as new AI cameras at key stations and interchanges to detect antisocial behaviour and alert patrol teams. I know many in my community will be very pleased to see this rollout on our trains and more specifically, as we do have issues from time to time with antisocial behaviour.

Last year, I received many emails about the Koala Rescue Hospital and the incredible work that they do in caring for our wildlife and specifically our koalas. The two koala rescue services in my community, 1300KOALAZ and Koala Rescue, who do an incredible job at rescuing and rehabilitating our koalas, were very pleased with the news that the state budget included an investment of $1.4 million over four years to support the Adelaide Koala and Wildlife Centre.

I recently visited the centre and met with some of the incredibly cute babies, including Sakura who was very excited with the attention. Our wildlife carers are true heroes and not just our koala rescuers but more broadly. A few weeks back, I was very pleased to join the Deputy Premier at the SOWFI annual picnic in the Belair National Park. Members and carers of the Save Our Wildlife Foundation are incredible. They look after our smallest pieces of fluff, such as little possums, up to some of our larger birds and kangaroos. They can be up multiple times a night to feed the babies and invest so much of their own time and money into looking after the animals.

Often the animals need veterinary care and as a part of this budget we are investing a further $6.2 million to support conservation and the volunteer wildlife rescue and rehabilitation sector, including a new grants program to allow carers to access the vital veterinary services they need. I am so pleased that the budget is providing support to these carers and our wildlife, and a big thank you to the member for Badcoe and the Deputy Premier who worked hard to save our Koala Hospital.

As a CFS member, I was glad to hear about the investments in the budget to support our first responders with $5.9 million to improve structural firefighting. Our CFS firefighters train hard and, in regard to structural firefighting, attend two different training sessions. This funding will go towards the employment of additional trainers with equipment delivered locally, as well as upgrades to training facilities. This is incredibly important to ensure our firies have all the training and equipment they need to attack structure fires, which can be the most dangerous with not only the threat of collapse of buildings but the toxic fumes that are released and the sheer heat that is emitted.

A reminder to everyone that, with the cooler months coming along, clean your flues and make sure that your fireplace is well serviced. We know in the winter months it can be dangerous, and structural fires can start because of dirty flues and also open fireplaces that have not been well maintained. So I encourage people to make sure that they check their fireplaces. I also remind people to check heaters and electrical heaters, making sure that they are not under curtains or near bedding. Make sure heating equipment is installed by qualified tradespeople and that manufacturers' instructions are followed. Of course, let's not forget electric blankets and remembering to switch them off when they are not in use.

In addition to this funding, something that is equally important to my community is our investment in improved bushfire mapping based on automated modelling for likely bushfire impacts. A $2.8 million investment is well received. Knowing the terrain and how to attack a bushfire is absolutely time sensitive when a fire starts, especially in dense bush like we have in Waite. Having every piece of available information assists our firefighters to make informed decisions as to how and where to attack the fire. I am pleased we are supporting the CFS to carry out this important work.

Our SES did not miss out, though, with a $2 million investment over four years for ongoing replacement of remotely piloted aircraft—drones—used by the State Emergency Service to provide reconnaissance, intelligence gathering and hazard assessments at incidents. Having witnessed the work that the SES do firsthand not only during storms but when they are called in for search and rescue, drones make sense. Being able to check the local area, especially in hard-to-reach areas, will assist them with this work. It is a good investment and I give a special call-out to the SES crews who help our community, both the Sturt unit and the Metro South.

Having just celebrated Thank a First Responder Day last week, a big thank you to all our first responders for the work that they do in supporting, assisting and educating our community. Speaking of first responders, this budget continues to invest in our health system. I was pleased to see the co-responder program will now be rolled out in the south. The state budget provides $13.9 million over five years to continue and expand the Mental Health Co-Responder program.

Established under Labor in 2022 as a trial, the co-responder program pairs a mental health clinician with a police officer to respond to mental health 000 callouts. So far the co-responder model has prevented 2,472 ED presentations, and it is expected the expansion into the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network will further prevent approximately 800 more ED presentations a year. By teaming police officers with mental health clinicians, we are making sure individuals in crisis get the appropriate care when they need it the most. This often means helping people remain safely in their homes and connected to mental health services, avoiding unnecessary hospital visits that can add to their distress.

We are supporting our police as well, with this budget providing a funding boost of $172 million over six years to increase the number of sworn officers by 326 by 2030-31 to reach the record target of 5,000 sworn officers. As well, a further $29.6 million will fund an increase of 98 police security officers by 2028-29 to allow more sworn police officers to return to frontline duties. The budget investment will also enable an additional 33 sworn police officers to undertake motorcycle policing duties. These measures, as well as many more, will see South Australia continue in the right direction. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (17:06): I rise to make a contribution to the Appropriation Bill. A pre-election budget is a good opportunity for a government to signal its priorities, its priorities for all South Australians. We can have a look at this budget and consider what the priorities are. Is it cost of living, with the price of everything from our groceries to utilities skyrocketing? Is that the priority of this budget? No, absolutely not. Instead, you have the Liberal opposition championing genuine cost-of-living relief through measures like scrapping Labor's GP payroll tax grab, reversing Labor's water bill hikes, and easing the cost of doing business by scrapping payroll tax for small business as well.

Is housing the big issue that is the priority of this budget, given that we live in the sixth least affordable city in the world in which to buy a home? On average, it takes 12 years to save for a deposit, I understand. We have the least affordable rental market in the world. Is that the priority? No. The government says there is nothing more that can possibly be done when it comes to housing. Instead, it is left to the Liberal opposition to keep the dream of home ownership alive for young South Australians, announcing in our budget reply yesterday a new important measure that will see stamp duty scrapped for first-home buyers.

This means first-home buyers on properties up to $1 million will not have to pay any stamp duty at all, saving them tens of thousands of dollars. As a young person, I know how difficult it is to save for your first home deposit. It takes many, many years, lots of scrimping and saving, and that is just to get the deposit, let alone having to pay tens of thousands of dollars to the government in stamp duty. What we want to do is give those first-home buyers a leg-up, give them tens of thousands of dollars more that they can put towards that deposit for their first home because the dream of home ownership should not be a fantasy for my generation, for the generations that come after mine.

We can keep that dream alive by ensuring that housing is affordable in South Australia. We are going to have a lot to say on that, really launching that debate and leading that debate with our really important policy of removing stamp duty for first-home buyers. It will save young people tens of thousands of dollars as they save for a deposit for their first home. But it is not the priority of this government.

What about health? We might remember before the last election, only a few years ago, that was the apparent priority. It was a question of priorities. They told us that they would fix the ramping crisis. They told us to vote like our life depends on it. What have we seen since then? Well, 36 of the worst months of ramping in the history of the state. What we have seen since then is 140,000 hours lost on the ramp under the Malinauskas Labor government, the equivalent of about 16 years.

Is health a priority in this budget? No, it is not. Again, it is left to the Liberal opposition to announce policies, like we did yesterday, of investing in primary health care to ensure that GPs can stay open for extended hours. I think it is going to be a really important measure for people in my local community—perhaps families who might not be able to attend during working hours—to access primary health care at a time when they need it most: on a weekend or perhaps after hours. It would be really great for them. Importantly, it will also take a lot of pressure off our health system and ease pressure on emergency departments as well. It is not the priority of Malinauskas Labor.

Instead, we see the ostensible priority in this budget being crime and the police, a so-called law and order budget from the Labor government, as if it has taken them three years to realise that we have a bit of a problem with crime, and in particular youth crime, in South Australia. It is as if for the last three years they have not noticed the huge rises in assaults, thefts and property damage. You cannot open a newspaper or turn on the television without hearing another terrifying story of random assaults on our streets, violent home invasions in our suburbs, or shoplifting at record highs absolutely devastating small business.

All we have heard from Malinauskas Labor for the last three years is a denial of the problem. They have been running around with all sorts of spreadsheets trying to tell us that crime is going down. I think we have had three different police ministers now, with different copies of the spreadsheet, telling us, 'There's nothing to see here. There's no crime to see here. Everything is okay; we are very safe.' Only now, seemingly, have they woken up to this problem and we have seen a flurry of announcements ahead of the budget.

What did we see? We saw an announcement of new pistols for the police. I think that is excellent that we are going to replace ageing weapons that are not even being manufactured anymore with new ones. That is great.

The next day we saw another big announcement in the law and order space. We saw an announcement they are going to build higher prison fences to make sure that contraband could not be thrown over the fence. That also sounds great. This is from the government that brought you the prison bars that were wide enough to squeeze through. They are now going to bring us fences that are big enough to prevent contraband being thrown over the top. Well, that is a great thing. The next day we heard another announcement of some new motorbikes, as if moving some of our limited police from four wheels onto two wheels was going to be a really great revelation in fighting youth crime.

What I say is that all of these pre-budget announcements are the absolute bare minimum we should be seeing from a government that actually cares about what should be a primary duty of keeping South Australians safe. What we have always been saying is that there is no point in having new pistols if you have no new police. There is no point in having new motorbikes if you do not have new police to put on them.

What we have said over and over again is that if we really want to be serious about law and order we need to see tougher laws in South Australia, we need to see more of a focus on investment in crime prevention and early intervention and, importantly, what we have been highlighting for a long time now, is that we need to see a significant investment in South Australia Police, which has been hopelessly under-resourced by this Labor government over the last three years. We have been highlighting for a long time now the dramatic shortfall of police that we have in this state; indeed, the establishment number of police in South Australia has not changed since 2018.

The opposition absolutely welcomes an increased investment in South Australia Police in this budget. Finally, Labor is waking up to the fact that we do not have enough cops on the beat, that the number of police officers per 100,000 people has been falling dramatically over recent years. We welcome raising the establishment number of South Australian police officers. Unfortunately, though, what this budget does is says it is going to have more police but does not outline a plan for recruiting and retaining those police. In fact, some sections of the budget show that we are going to have even less expenditure this coming year on recruitment and retention than we did last year.

The effect of this budget is to turn a shortfall of nearly 200 police officers effectively into a shortfall of over 500 police officers, because if you cannot recruit the police that you are funded to have right now—and we have a shortfall of nearly 200 police officers—how on earth are you going to recruit these extra hundreds of police officers that you are promising us by next decade? Why, by the way, do we have to wait until next decade before we see these 500 police officers? We have a problem with crime now and we need more cops on the beat now. We need to see much more of a sense of urgency from the government when it comes to law and order issues, and we also need to see a really serious plan to recruit and retain the police that are now being funded.

In my remaining time, I want to comment on the budget from a local perspective for the constituents I represent in the eastern suburbs and the Hills. There are a few points that I want to touch on very briefly. The first is with respect to road maintenance, where we do see a very small amount of funding annually to road maintenance that will go a little way to eating away at that huge road maintenance backlog that we have seen grow under this Labor government.

We say it is not nearly enough, but can I urge the government to consider spending some of that amount on roads in my electorate, in particular Greenhill Road, which from Anzac Highway basically to Summertown has problems. It is in urgent need of some investment, some repair. I would urge you to spend it on Greenhill Road because we know road maintenance is not just a funding issue, it is a road safety issue as well. When our roads are not properly maintained, they are not just bumpy and uncomfortable, they can also be deadly. So I absolutely want to see an investment in road maintenance on Greenhill Road in my electorate and up into the member for Heysen's electorate as well.

On school road safety, there is a rollout of some investment to improve road safety around certain school zones on main roads. Again, I would like to see some of this money spent at schools in my electorate. My constituents are particularly concerned about road safety issues near schools. We of course had the horrifying incident at Marryatville High School a few years ago now. Since that time, I have been meeting with all the schools in my electorate quite regularly to discuss this issue of road safety, so I am pleased to see some funding in this budget for that very purpose.

It is unclear what sites will be chosen for this investment, but I would encourage the government to roll it out at some schools in the eastern suburbs: at Marryatville High School, at Loreto, at Seymour on Portrush Road and at Linden Park Primary School, where the school crossing on Portrush Road near that school has been named the most dangerous in the state. We really want to see this investment to make sure that kids can get to school safely.

Thirdly, the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass is something I speak about at nearly every opportunity in this house. We are at a really confusing and frustrating point of this project. We are now seemingly, finally, at the stage where everyone agrees that it is a good idea to get trucks off Portrush Road, because that has not always been the case from those opposite. We are now also seemingly at the stage where everyone agrees the best way to do that is with a Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass that will see thousands of trucks removed from Portrush Road. What we are not at the stage of though, unfortunately, is fully funding that project, which is really frustrating.

Frankly, the funding situation right now is a little bit confusing. To try to explain it a little bit, and to speak in very round numbers, this is a billion-dollar project. The federal Labor government has now committed about $500 million, and the state Labor government, in this budget, has now committed about $100 million. That adds up to $600 million which, of course, is a long way from the billion dollars required to actually complete this project. We have a $400 million shortfall. That contrasts with the $800 million and $200 million commitment respectively from federal and state Liberal parties ahead of the federal election.

Frankly, my community is sick of talking about this issue, we are sick of confusing funding arrangements and trickery, and what we want to do is just get on with it. We just want to get on with it because we do not want to wait for the next tragedy before we finally act to get trucks off Portrush Road. I urge the government to fix that funding shortfall so that this really important project can proceed.

Perhaps the greatest disappointment for me in this budget is the lack of investment in schools in my electorate. We have seen some of those opposite talk about various projects—toilets, or whatever else—at schools in their electorates. Well, we are crying out for the same investment in the eastern suburbs. We have some of the best schools in the state, but they are all bursting at the seams, and many of them have not seen any capital investment for a very, very long time.

I have already spoken in this place about the plight of Burnside Primary School, where I am advocating for new classrooms to replace very old classrooms, transportable buildings, on that site, as well as new toilets and a new covered outdoor learning area. I urge the government to fund Burnside Primary School so that they can have that pretty basic infrastructure up to standard at that school.

Since talking about Burnside Primary in this place I have had the opportunity once again to meet with the other schools in my electorate, and I want to highlight, in particular, two other primary schools that are similarly in need of very significant investment just to get up to an acceptable standard. Rose Park Primary School needs a bigger hall; that is their biggest priority. As the school has grown the whole school can no longer fit into the 30-odd-year-old hall that was built at that school. In fact, if they want to have a whole school assembly they have to do it outdoors. On a cold day like this, or in the middle of summer, it is really not a very good situation for those students to find themselves in.

It is currently having a bit of work done on it, that hall, because the flooring is full of mould, and we think the fact that the hall is having some works completed on it now might present a good opportunity to actually do something a little bit more substantial and create a larger hall on that site, to ensure that the whole school can meet for assemblies instead of having to do so outside.

Finally, Linden Park Primary School has essential infrastructure that has fallen very much below standard due to failure, over a very long time, to invest in capital infrastructure on that site. I had the opportunity to tour that school with the principal and a member of the governing council only a couple of weeks ago, and what I saw was pretty poor, to be honest. Despite teachers doing their very best to literally cover over the cracks and create a nice environment for students to learn in, there are big problems that need focus and investment from this government.

I saw cracked and flaking internal walls that are currently hidden behind students' artwork, just to keep the classrooms and the corridors presentable. I saw outdated and poorly maintained toilets with fittings well beyond repair, frankly, and the finish is showing significant wear. I saw threadbare carpets in some of the learning areas and some of the common areas, creating trip hazards. I saw a transportable classroom that is totally lacking of acceptable air conditioning and that makes it very uncomfortable in the summer, and then in the winter there are roof leaks when there is heavy rain, which forces lessons in that classroom very often having to be relocated. I saw a covered outdoor corridor with literally corroded metal and peeling paint exposed, raising not only aesthetic concerns but again safety concerns as well.

There are nearly 1,000 students at Linden Park Primary School. Those students deserve a much better environment. We are not asking for the world, we are just asking for basic infrastructure to be kept up to scratch, and it has fallen well below an acceptable standard at Linden Park Primary School.

I want to see the government fund some capital investment. We have a whole forward works plan at that school that I will be talking to the minister about, talking to the government about, and I would urge them to make an investment in capital infrastructure at that school. As I say, we have some of the best schools in the state but they are all bursting at the seams and nearly all of them have not seen any capital investment in a very long time. With that, I conclude my remarks on the Appropriation Bill.

Estimates Committees

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Police) (17:26): By leave, I move:

That a message be sent to the Legislative Council requesting the Attorney-General, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State (Hon. K.J. Maher); and the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries (Hon. C.M. Scriven); and the Minister for Emergency Services and Correctional Services, the Minister for Autism, the Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing (Hon. E.S. Bourke) members of the Legislative Council, be permitted to attend and give evidence before the estimates committees of the House of Assembly on the Appropriation Bill.

Motion carried.

Second Reading

Debate resumed.

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (17:27): I rise to make a contribution to the Appropriation Bill, which I would note from the outset is not my normal habit. Ordinarily I am quite happy to allow other members to make fulsome contributions to the Appropriation Bill without feeling the need to contribute myself, but this year, after the fourth budget of this parliament, I have decided to make a contribution of my own. I look forward to putting the priorities of the electorate in Narungga on the record in the lead-up to the election so that we can continue to pursue them and hopefully see some results in the not too distant future.

I would make the point from the outset as well that the budget can be confronting reading for some electorates. It might be an indictment on my intellectual capacity but I find myself turning to the glossy pages of the Budget Overview, the nice easy-to-read booklet with the headings and big numbers and turning to the final page where you would normally find the region summary where you can see different regions as well as the holistic initiatives that are designed to support all of country South Australia. I find myself turning to that page with hope and optimism that I might find an initiative or project funded under the Yorke and North headline where I can take something to my community and say, 'Look at this advocacy that we have engaged in and undertaken. It has sown the benefits and reaped the reward and, here we go, we have got what we are asking for.'

Alas, that has not come to pass in the last four budgets and, upon turning to that page in the glossy Budget Overview, we have not found a great deal listed under Yorke Peninsula. In actual fact, we have not found anything. There have been one to two initiatives each year, or in three of the four years at least, that relate to Port Pirie. Wonderful! Well done to the government and to the people of Port Pirie for securing those respective initiatives. But there is nothing specific to the electorate of Narungga or Yorke Peninsula where we can point to the glossy pages and show our constituents what we have secured. To add to the ignominy of all that, in one year in a recent budget we did not even benefit from having a headline for Yorke and Mid North, so we could not even find ourselves on the glossy pages to point to, to show our constituents what we had managed to achieve on their behalf.

So it has been rather disappointing reading for the four years. Unfortunately, I had held great hope for this year for a number of reasons that I will touch on in a second, but it was not to be and we found ourselves in a similar position that we had been in previously. But we shall continue to push for the things that we need in our electorate.

I would make the point, though, to my constituents who might be listening—the plethora of them who have tuned in online to follow this debate eagerly—that this is not the only part of the process at which we can influence outcomes. There have been some wins that we have had over the journey that have occurred outside of the budgetary process, and I think that we have by and large done quite well for ourselves in securing some outcomes, improvements and projects in our electorate.

I note that just last year, 13 or 14 months ago, we were able to secure significant funding for the Arthurton to Kulpara road and the Bute to Port Broughton road to ensure that that road was brought up to a standard that will enable it to hold significant heavy traffic from grain movements to port. That work is almost complete and we are now pushing to have it gazetted for A-double road trains to enable it to become a part of the Yorke Peninsula freight route, making it more effective and making the whole Yorke Peninsula available to the road trains that are becoming more common on our roads with our farmers trying to get their product to port.

I would like to reassure my constituents that there will be other opportunities to influence the government's priorities. We will continue to push those buttons as they become available to us. The fact that this budget has not shown any great reward for us is not a reason to get disheartened by our community advocacy.

The other thing that I would point to for our electorate is that we do have some things that have been apportioned in recent budgets that are starting to come to fruition. I can think of three examples off the top of my head that I would like to touch on and I think are exciting for a great many people in our community.

The first of these is a co-located CFS and SES shed that will be built in Maitland in the not-too-distant future. This will be a tremendous benefit. The CFS shed and the SES shed, which are nearby to one another at the moment, are in a terrible state of affairs in Maitland currently and well need an upgrade. The CFS shed, for example, is not even aligned to the road so you near-on have to do a reverse parallel park to get the CFS truck back in the shed after you have taken it out. This will make it all that much easier for volunteers to get the truck out of the shed and take it to the fire where it is needed.

It think it is a tremendous use of taxpayer money to provide a co-located facility. It is a more efficient use of money by being able to consolidate resources and facilities and ensure that that site will be used no matter the emergency. It will be a wonderful asset for the town of Maitland and surrounding communities for a long time into the future. We have that coming in the not-too-distant future.

There is also money from the jetties fund that was announced previously that is coming and is not too far away. I am led to believe, if memory serves, that Edithburgh will be among the first tranche of jetties serviced with that fund. That will be a wonderful thing. As highlighted in a report by the Local Government Association recently, community jetties provide an enormous benefit for our regional coastal communities.

Without them, we would be losing significant tourism dollars to small coastal communities that rely on that input to survive and to have the services that they need to become a town within which people are willing to live. We have the jetty fund coming soon and I think, if memory serves, Edithburgh will be right up there with that. We look forward to seeing that hopefully expanded to include other jetties in my electorate, of which there are quite a few.

The other thing we eagerly anticipate where I live on the Copper Coast is the brand-new ambulance station and paramedics coming to Wallaroo. This will be another massive benefit. It is something that is desperately needed. The volunteer capacity of the ambulance service is on the precipice of failure. There is an enormous impost on the people who choose to volunteer in ambulances and give up their time to serve people in an emergency situation. These paid paramedics will be a wonderful benefit and have a wonderful supporting role for those people going forward.

So there are those things coming but, as I touched on earlier, we are a bit disappointed that there was not more in this budget for us. I referenced the reasons that we might have thought that would be coming, and chief amongst them is the work that my community did on signing a significant petition to demonstrate our dissatisfaction with the state of our regional health system. We had almost 11,000 people sign that petition, by and large from my electorate. They are expecting action as a result of that position and some improvements to their regional health system.

I note that the Economic and Finance Committee is still working on the report that is mandated by law for petitions that reach 10,000 or more signatures. They are still working on that report, and I hope the reason that none of those initiatives or ideas that came to light as a result of that process were funded in this budget is that the government is waiting for that report before committing to them. I am under the impression that the report is not too far away. The committee is working assiduously on it. It should be published relatively soon. I cannot see how it will be a report that recommends anything other than some significant new facilities for our regional health system.

The Wallaroo Hospital is a comically-sized hospital. It is a 21-bed hospital for a Copper Coast community that I estimate would be 14,000 to 16,000 people, notwithstanding the incredible influx of tourists we get every year, notwithstanding the fact that the rest of the peninsula relies on the Wallaroo Hospital for a significant portion of its emergency care. That is a significant population. It is a significant catchment area, and we have a hospital that is insignificant in size. I cannot see how that report will recommend anything other than that. I hope that the government will get that recommendation which I anticipate will be in there, follow it through with funding, and we can get to work on building a new hospital that is of a sufficient size at Wallaroo that it will serve our community well.

To a lesser extent—or in terms of lesser financial contribution, I should say—I hope the report will also recommend that the A&E facilities at the Maitland and Yorketown hospitals could also do with a rejig. These might not need a rebuild. They certainly will need a rejig to make the throughput more easily accessible, make the doctors more comfortable working in these spaces and, hopefully, it will make for a better facility.

We need a brand-new hospital at Wallaroo, we need to upgrade A&E at Yorketown and Maitland, and we also need the replacement of the services that were offered at the Ardrossan Community Hospital, which have since been shuttered by the community, which found it beyond them to run a hospital anymore. We also need for a replacement of those services.

I have been working very closely with the Health Ardrossan Action Group. Don Hosking and his crew have done a wonderful job in advocating for an improvement, and they presented quite strongly at the petition inquiry. I hope that the report that is eventually published on that front will cite their contribution and cite their evidence and provide for some sort of replacement of services in Ardrossan. It is, after all, the biggest town in the Yorke Peninsula Council area, and it is certainly deserving of its own services, particularly an after-hours emergency triage services at the least.

There was a community hospital in Ardrossan much like the one in Keith. The one in Keith, which has since been transferred into SA Health, has since become an emergency triage centre staffed largely by nurse practitioners who can help people decide where best to take themselves next—whether they can wait for a GP appointment, or whether they should duck off to an A&E straightaway.

There are plenty of other things that I would like to get on the record in regard to health, but I shall save them for another time. We are eagerly anticipating the publication of that report that has been such work for our community. Once again, I would like to congratulate them on the work they did in both procuring signatures and signing it themselves. It is a massive effort in a community of 25,000 voters to get 11,000 signatures on a petition, and we look forward to seeing it completed.

The other thing I would like to touch on, which is imminent in our community, is three-year-old preschool. The government has committed to providing three-year-old preschool around the state. My understanding was that the Yorke Peninsula was amongst the first regions—not the only region, but amongst the first regions—that would feature in the first tranche of that rollout. To date, I am not aware of any augmentation of existing childcare or preschool facilities that would allow for the increased supply that that will bring. I hope that it is in hand, ready for next year to provide for that service.

I know we have had a couple of new childcare centres built. There is one in Maitland and one in Minlaton which are providing good services. Those facilities might well be up to scratch and allow for it to occur there already, but there are plenty of other towns and plenty of other families that are looking for three-year-old preschool so that they can get back into the workforce, contribute to the community, contribute to their local economy. I hope that the government have plans or are aware of how that three-year-old preschool will be provided across my electorate. It is something I intend to follow up at estimates. I intend to seek answers about whether they have done any augmentation work to existing centres and, if not, how they anticipate that that demand will be supplied for across the existing infrastructure.

We heard in question time today from the member for MacKillop about the importance of phone towers. He asked a question regarding 27 phone towers that will be built in his electorate or around his community in the not-too-distant future. That is a problem that exists across regional South Australia, and I commend the three levels of government and the telco for combining their forces to do a bulk tranche of work in one region all at once.

Rather than the piecemeal approach we have had previously, where towers have been built here, there and everywhere, we have this wonderful initiative where we are building 27 in one area to try to solve the problem once and for all, and hopefully then we can move on to the next area after that. I would like for that next area to be YP in the seat of Narungga; I think it would be a wonderful thing. I am not sure that we would need as many towers as 27. I think that we probably, by and large, have better coverage than what they have over there, but we certainly do need quite a few.

I have a list in my office of people who have blackspots near their home and have reported these blackspots to me, and I have submitted it to Telstra to try to get some improvement there. We clearly need significant investment to improve our reception. It is not solely a government job; it is something that telcos need to come to the table on as well. In MacKillop, at least, it has been an initiative that has brought all three levels of government together to secure that outcome.

I would also like to commend the government on the 10 new homes that the Housing Trust has built in my electorate. They are a wonderful initiative and it is good to see work being done to improve supply, but there is a great deal more to do. There are a lot of people living rough in my electorate—an increasing amount. It is certainly a problem that is growing and we need to ensure that public housing supply is adequate and increasing, so 10 new homes is good. We have nine new key government worker houses that are coming online as well and it is good to see progress being made, but I would like to see that renewed and expanded so that we can continue that progress and ensure that there is more done.

This was an interesting budget in that, at least as I perceive it, there was significant expenditure on two major projects: the $3.2 billion women's and kids' hospital and a $15.4 billion cost for South Road. These are really significant allocations in two areas in which our electorate feels particularly needy: health and roads. It is very hard—notwithstanding the merits of those two projects—for people in my electorate to look at those costs and wonder how that money could have had a tremendous benefit in our electorate.

I talk to people regularly, without quoting a specific number, who wonder what $15.4 billion could do for our roads in Narungga; likewise, we are in desperate need of improved health facilities, and I am sure there are a great many people wondering what $3.2 billion could do for our regional hospitals. It is wonderful to see things happening in the city. I am sure that South Road will have a wonderful benefit for many people in my electorate trying to get through the city unimpeded as well, but it would be nice to see some bigger numbers thrown around in regional South Australia and it would be really nice to see some big enough numbers in my electorate to feature in the glossy pages of the Budget Overview.

Mr FULBROOK (Playford) (17:42): I rise to speak in support of the Appropriation Bill, a budget that, to me, demonstrates clear intent to invest in the services, security and support that everyday South Australians rely on. For my community in the northern suburbs, this is a budget that delivers on local priorities and reflects many of the conversations I have had with residents, families and students since I was elected over three years ago.

Today I want to speak briefly about three parts of the budget that will make a significant difference to my community: public transport safety and the new security patrols; the $10 Metrocard and what that means for our school students; and the introduction of kindy care and its importance for working families. While there are lots of moving parts to the fiscal plans of the state, including the billions of dollars of revenue and spending, I want to home in on these as new spending initiatives, noting that there will be many programs carrying over that do a great deal of good and that I also welcome.

Just a few weeks ago, I sat down with a local constituent, Svetislav Krstic, who raised with me a very real concern: the safety of passengers on our public transport system. He spoke to me plainly about how the presence of security officers—uniformed, visible and proactive—makes a tangible difference in how people feel when they travel. At the conclusion of the meeting, we agreed that I would include the points from our discussion in my submission to the upcoming public transport study. But to be honest, Minister Koutsantonis has beaten me to it.

On the surface, this budget appears to have delivered what we had been discussing. The announcement of new security transport officers patrolling trains, trams and buses is a major win for our public transport network. As I see it, their presence will help to not only deter antisocial behaviour but rebuild confidence for the overwhelming majority of passengers who do the right thing.

This initiative is not just about immediate safety, it is about encouraging long-term confidence in public transport. Many in our community remember the disruption and the disengagement that followed the Liberals' decision to privatise our rail services. That decision did not just shift operations to private hands, it stripped away the support services that underpin a well-functioning, safe and accessible network.

Much of the confidence that people once had in the rail system evaporated. This budget continues to reverse that damage by reinvesting in public elements that make a system work for its people. This will be particularly welcome in the northern suburbs. We should be honest about the challenge. While most commuters use the system respectfully, it only takes a few troublemakers to sour the experience for others and to create a very real barrier to growing patronage.

We are fortunate in the north to be serviced by the Gawler line, something I would describe as one of the most important public assets we have within our community. It is electrified, efficient and in theory a backbone to northern connectivity, but uptake has not been as strong as it should be. If we want more people using our trains, we must get the fundamentals right.

I have within my office a framed print of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. It is something I studied in earnest at uni and probably to the disdain of my staff have drummed its importance into them. I say that whenever there are issues on how to prioritise things, look to the print and this will guide you.

So when an initiative like this comes along, it delivers a big tick in terms of getting the basics right. Just as the Hierarchy of Needs sets things out, if people do not feel secure, they will not travel. Therefore, these new officers are a direct investment in that foundation and in the future of our public transport system, which I hope will have a positive impact in getting more commuters back on our trains, trams and buses.

Still on public transport, another new initiative that will deliver significant benefit to the community that I am privileged to represent is the $10 Metrocard for school students. I know this has been repeated ad nauseam, but we are stoked that this means local school students will now have access to public transport at effectively 25¢ a trip. Not only does it deliver greater freedom of movement for our students, particularly teenagers but it becomes one of the most meaningful cost-of-living measures in the budget for working families.

I am also hopeful that this initiative will help grow public transport uptake more broadly. By giving students affordable, everyday access we are not just cutting costs, we are hopefully shaping habits. If they become familiar with the network now and grow confident using it regularly and safely, that will then follow them into adulthood. With the added support of the new security patrols, families will hopefully feel more comfortable encouraging students to take the bus, train or tram independently.

In highlighting this element of the budget, I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to someone in particular. Her name is Izabella Street, a year 11 student at Parafield Gardens High School. I first met Izabella a year ago when I was invited to attend the student representative council meeting hosted by the South Australian Commissioner for Children and Young People.

Since then, Izabella has been relentless in the best possible way. She followed up with me more than once. She spoke passionately about young people in the community. She floated the idea of starting a petition and while I know and respect that others will rightfully acknowledge their own local champions in pushing for this decision, I want to be crystal clear. In my view, it was her voice and her determination that made all the difference. To Izabella I say this: 'You have already proven you can make change happen.'

When we talk about services like public transport, I think it is important to acknowledge that while we must always manage services sensibly and ensure we get as much value as possible from every public dollar, public transport is not a business. It is a public service. If done correctly, it complements so many other facets of our community and our local economy. It connects workers to jobs, students to schools, and families to one another. Good public transport is not just efficient, it is equitable, sustainable and essential. And, just like Izabella, we should be relentless in our quest to improve it further.

The final initiative I want to highlight is kindy care, a bold, practical and deeply needed investment in the early years of education and care. Kindy care recognises something that working families have known for years—that as with the school days, the preschool day does not always align with the typical work day, and that access to quality early learning and care should not depend on a family's income or suburb. It is about making sure all children, regardless of background, have access to the support they need to thrive, and that parents, particularly mothers, are not left making impossible choices between income and education.

With kindy care being rolled out initially at 20 trial sites across the state, I am incredibly proud to say that one of those sites is Lantana Kindergarten in Parafield Gardens. According to preschool director Kylie Millington, the service at Lantana is expected to be operational from term 3, and I know her dedicated team will throw themselves into making it a success. The program will provide extended hours of care before and after kindergarten. It is a crucial step that will complement the rollout of three-year-old preschool, which I am confident will shape up as one of the most transformative reforms in our early education system.

I should also say on a more personal note that I regularly meet with the team at Lantana and always have a lot of fun when I do. Just recently, I had the chance to read stories to the kids and, for the second year running, I was given the special honour of dressing up as the resident Easter bunny—but please do not tell the children. This week, I am looking forward to attending their art show, which I know will be as creative and heartwarming as the staff themselves. This is not just a win for education or for equity or for workforce participation; it is a win for the next generation of South Australians, and I am so proud that a fantastic preschool community like Lantana will help lead the way.

Before I conclude, I want to briefly address a recent announcement made by the opposition leader regarding their policy to exempt first-home buyers from paying stamp duty on existing homes. While this may sound attractive at face value, the truth is that it does not add a single house to our housing stock, it does nothing to improve supply, it will create very few, if any, jobs, and risks fuelling greater demand pressures in an already tight market. Ultimately, policies like this tend to drive up house prices overall, making it harder, not easier, for the next wave of buyers. Our approach to limiting the stamp duty exemption to new builds is not just more responsible, it actively encourages construction, adds new houses to the market, and supports local jobs in building, trades and services. It grows the pie rather than just slicing it differently.

The opposition likes to bemoan rising debt levels, yet policies like these are expensive, and unless they plan to conjure up the funds from thin air, there are only two ways to pay for them: either cuts to frontline services or an increase in debt. You simply cannot have it both ways.

I also could not help but notice, especially on ABC radio on Monday morning, that the opposition leader was quick to rattle off that Adelaide is the sixth most unaffordable housing market in the world, citing the Demographia International Housing Affordability report. Now, I do not discount that we are facing a serious housing crisis, but I do want to gently point out that the Demographia report does not analyse all housing markets around the world. It focuses primarily on English-speaking countries and includes just 95 metropolitan areas.

Sitting extended beyond 18:00 on motion of Hon. S.C. Mullighan.

Mr FULBROOK: As I was saying, the Demographia report focuses primarily on English-speaking countries and includes just 95 metropolitan areas across eight nations: Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK and the US. The fact that Adelaide features on this list is not something to take delight in, particularly when the legacy of housing undersupply and infrastructure neglect is one that the Liberal Party shares responsibility for both federally and here in South Australia. However, I do want to politely stress that when you want to belittle our economy, you should place a higher degree on the accuracy of the reports that you quote.

That was a slight digression, but back on a more positive note: this budget does what a good budget should do, in that it listens, it responds and it delivers. Whether it is ensuring that people feel safe on public transport, helping students to get to school affordably or giving young children and working families the start they deserve, these are investments that will pay back many times over. So to the Treasurer, to the Premier and to the ministers who have listened and acted, I thank you and I commend this bill to the house.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (17:54): I rise just briefly in circumstances where I think a practical resolution to this second reading debate has been reached and we will get to a conclusion of that fairly shortly, so that we can actually get on with the business of the committee stage of this bill that will be conducted in the course of the estimates process commencing tomorrow.

This is in circumstances where we have all been here until late in the night last night with, frankly, a distraction to this process that the government brought on at no notice, and that is all on the public record. But, rather than be here again into the late hours and then risk compromising the service that we must undertake, as those responsible for scrutinising the budget in the course of the estimates process, by rolling up after a particularly late night, we will be now engaged in the scrutiny of this budget in its committee stage. Of course, the budget is going to pass with the support of the opposition.

There are all of us on this side standing ready to analyse and to bring to light what has been, and what I said immediately following the Treasurer's speech, a particularly disappointing budget which is lacking any vision and which has revealed again that agency upon agency has managed to blow its budget to the point where the government is presiding over now record state debt, that we will hear from the Treasurer is the result of compounding capital commitments, but, importantly, it is the result of year after year of budget blowouts. We are now accustomed to seeing $1 billion or more in budget blowouts, just looking at the agencies.

The budget, as others have said, does precious little to relieve what is by far and away the key pressing issue for South Australians, being the cost-of-living crisis that people are living through. The day to day costs of electricity, of eggs, of bread, and the basic utilities continue to rise by extraordinary amounts, with little, if anything, for the government to point to in terms of relief. As the leader said in his contribution just earlier this week, the telling situation in which we have seen electricity prices rise nearly $800 per year is an indictment on the government.

There will be a lot more to say about the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass, where extraordinary sorts of mathematical callisthenics have been entered into in terms of the significant nearly $400 million shortfall in the money necessary to complete that project, which has been sort of dressed up by this government as somehow committing to that project. Far from it. And those in my electorate of Heysen will be watching keenly that process.

Of course, the ongoing crisis in child protection, combined with another blowout in both indicators and cost will be a matter of huge concern as soon as that process commences shortly. In terms of family violence we are waiting for the conclusion of the royal commission, conducted by Commissioner Stott Despoja. There is precious little in the budget to provide for the outcomes of what are no doubt going to be wideranging recommendations coming from that process. With those short words, in anticipation of the estimates process soon to be commenced, I indicate that that process this year will be perhaps more important than ever.

The SPEAKER: Thank you, deputy leader, and thanks for expediting things.

Mr TELFER (Flinders) (17:59): I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill. It is a fascinating budget to try to unpack. We see record levels of debt, we see tax hikes, and we see the wrong priorities in this budget. It was interesting to try to unpack what the reality of the situation looks like for South Australians when it comes to debt levels. We are going to be facing nearly $50 billion of debt by the end of the budget forward period, and that means there are going to be daily interest payments at that point of $6.7 million per day.

Some of these numbers are truly eye-watering. It is hard for people to get context when we are talking about debt getting close to $50 billion for us in South Australia. That number of $6.7 million per day for interest payments is one that is especially stark. Think of what we could do with even just a portion of that $6.7 million per day. We did see in the budget papers that the 2024-25 surplus was down to around $18 million, down from a budget of $248 million. Who did they blame? Who was the blame shifted onto? They blamed Whyalla and the drought.

For me, it is galling to blame those regional communities for their own budget failings rather than pointing the finger at themselves: a drop in projected surplus, from $248 million down to just $18 million. Instead of blaming regional communities like Whyalla or those who are having to deal with generational drought, have a look, perhaps, inwards. Point the finger at yourself, at $1.6 billion of cumulative department overspend from your 2024-25 budget. These budget blowouts are truly worrying when it comes to the financial impacts on not just our current communities but future communities.

Instead of blaming regional communities, blaming Whyalla or blaming those drought measures that they have brought in, perhaps they need to point to their own ministerial mismanagement. The health budget was over $600 million over. Child Protection had an over $150 million blowout. Human Services had an over $100 million blowout. Environment had an over $100 million blowout. Altogether, there was $1.6 billion of budget blowout. This is budget overspend from what they told us 12 months ago were going to be the parameters for their departmental spend.

Not only that, it is also on top of record revenue coming into government coffers: significant extra GST, significant extra stamp duty. In fact, we saw an additional $239 million in stamp duty revenue on top of what was estimated just 12 months before, $239 million more than they forecast at the 2024-25 budget. By 2028-29, stamp duties are forecast to reach $1.8 billion in revenue compared to $1.4 billion for financial year 2022. I was interested in looking at this statement in the budget papers:

State taxation revenue estimates have been revised up by $370 million in 2024-25 compared to estimates in the 2024-25 Budget and are expected to grow by around 6.8 per cent during the year. The growth is mainly due to strength in conveyance duty and land tax collections reflecting strong property market conditions.

What we are reading between the lines here is that, instead of recognising the housing crisis for what it is, Labor are using that housing crisis as a cash cow. They are milking it for all they are worth. They are taking in all these extra dollars but spending it before they even have it to cover up their own failings and their own budget mismanagement: $1.6 billion of budget blowout on top of what they told us just 12 short months ago.

I am proud to stand here to support the Liberal Party policy for significant stamp duty relief for first home buyers. We hear from young people, in particular, all over our state on their challenge to achieve the great Australian dream of home ownership. We are hearing from parents and grandparents of their concern for their own children's and grandchildren's future.

No stamp duty for first home buyers buying a house up to the value of $1 million is real help; it is real support for those who are trying to break into the housing market, those who want to get out of the rental cycle and put their capital, their hard work, and their time and effort into a property of their own. So much of the cost and barrier for new homeowners is driven by government taxes and regulation, so this is a significant measure, and I am proud to stand as a member of the opposition that is putting it forward for consideration at the next election. It is going to save tens of thousands of dollars for new home buyers.

When we look at the health budget lines they are truly eye-watering. We do remember the promise that was made, over and over at the last election, that they would fix the ramping crisis, that they would put in that effort, that promise they made; 'Vote Labor like your life depended on it'. There is the promise, but what have we seen? We have seen the worst 36 months of ramping on record.

The health budget has blown out over $700 million after hundreds of millions of dollars last year. On this side we have long been calling for Peter Malinauskas to introduce incentives to attract and retain healthcare workers, like those on offer interstate. It does not matter how much cash you throw at a health system, the investment will not make a difference if there is not the workforce to staff it. This is why I am proud to support the Liberal announcement that if we were to be elected at the next election we would fund after-hours GP access to GP clinics that are willing and able to provide this service.

We know this is what GPs have been calling for. It is a real, tangible investment that will help families, that will help individuals, and it will circumvent the additional pressures on emergency departments from desperate families, parents and individuals who cannot currently get an appointment. This is a significant commitment and, if we are elected, it will provide real health relief.

There was nothing strategic in the health budget for regional South Australia, and especially my region. Health outcomes are getting worse and worse in my region under Labor, with some of the worst ratios of GPs per capita in the nation as well as, obviously, the significant distance we have to travel when seeking health care. There is no strategy to support regional communities with GP recruitment and retention. We have been forgotten.

We have a health budget that blows out by more than $700 million on top of the hundreds of millions last year, yet there is no money in that budget for a boost to the Patient Assisted Transport Scheme. I regularly hear from constituents, and even just this week I heard from another constituent, frustrated with the PATS system, the bureaucracy surrounding it, and the real lack of significant support they are crying out for. There are thousands of claimants from all around the state, but especially in my region. There is no additional funding for PATS; the reimbursement rate from PATS to stay in Adelaide for a night if you are needing health care is still only $44. What sort of support is that? Where are you going to be able to stay for $44 in Adelaide?

Although there has been a significant blowout in the health budget, there has not been any strategic health infrastructure funding for my electorate. I hear from my community that there is a significant need for an upgrade to the Port Lincoln Hospital emergency department. That is an ED that is short on space, it is fair to say, and it is relied on by both the Port Lincoln community and the significant population that surrounds it. I know there has been design work done to look at future upgrade potential for the Port Lincoln Hospital emergency department, and this is exactly the sort of health project that should be invested in so it can continue to provide sustainable emergency health care for Port Lincoln and the southern Eyre Peninsula.

Once again, there is very little in this year's budget for regional road safety infrastructure across the whole state of South Australia, let alone within my region. It is so disheartening to see this lack of investment into our regional road network. Our part of the state contributes so much to the state's budget bottom line, but we do not see adequate investment back into that enabling infrastructure, that infrastructure that can make sure that the communities are financially sustainable, not just now but into the future.

I am calling on the government to put funding into these key roads in my region, as well as important investment into regional road safety measures. In Port Lincoln, I am advocating for there to be a partnership with the City of Port Lincoln council to deliver an upgrade into the Le Brun Street-Verran Terrace intersection. Now those of us who know that very well know how many accidents and incidents there have been at this intersection, as well as the number of near misses.

I know the City of Port Lincoln have a design for an intersection upgrade, the work has been done, and I am calling on either the state government or the federal government or both—I do not mind who—to partner with the council to get this important intersection upgraded to make this safer for my community members.

I am advocating for there to be further investment into our regional highways and I am calling on the government to put more money into upgrading the Flinders Highway in particular. This is one of the more dangerous highways in the state, running from Port Lincoln all the way up to Ceduna. Significant investment is needed in key aspects such as road widening and shoulder sealing. It is a road that sees significant drop-offs on the side of the road and a narrow roadway and more and more vehicles which are using that road. There are more and more heavy vehicles, more and more caravanners, holidayers, and local road users of course. The Flinders Highway needs more ongoing investment into it for safer and more efficient outcomes for my community.

There is a budget line that I was interested in, the EP desal project at Billy Lights Point. Now within the budget papers, I see that the budget has remained the same, at the moment, with a budget of $330 million. But the timeline for delivery has been pushed out by 12 months. Now in the budget papers it says June 2027.

Firstly on the budget line it stayed the same, but subsequent to the Budget and Finance Committee just recently, I do not have the same confidence in that budget line staying the same as I had hoped I might. The Hon. Ben Hood asked SA Water, 'Will the delay out to June 2027 now impact the total project cost of the desal plant at Billy Lights?' Mr Ryan, the CEO of SA Water said, 'Well, we are still working through it. We are literally in the final stages around some commercial negotiations around the final elements of the costs. So I would prefer not to talk about that today, given it is commercial-in-confidence.' That is hardly speak which adds any sort of confidence that this project will stay on budget or on time, not to mention that a delay is a massive concern for our underground water aquifers as well.

We know there is going to be massive pressure, we know that SA Water will have its capacity to extract water significantly curtailed. There are major environmental concerns, there are major community concerns, there are major project delivery concerns with this project. I have been airing these concerns for the past four years and, sadly, the government has been ignoring them. Is this project going to stay on budget? Well, Mr Ryan does not fill me with any confidence. Is this project going to be delivered on time or will the timelines keep getting pushed out? I have no confidence.

What does this mean for the people of Eyre Peninsula? We need better from this government. We need more strategy. We need them to be listening to the community and we need for them to fully understand what the impacts are going to be on the wider community on Eyre Peninsula.

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (18:13): I also take the opportunity to speak in parliament today about the Appropriation Bill before us, the budget basically for the state for the next financial year. That budget has been handed down by the Malinauskas Labor government. It just reveals a lack of vision. When you look at it, it is more about papering over cracks and some of them are pretty large. There is no new plan to solve the housing crisis, no plan to bring down power bills and no plan to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis.

What the budget also reveals, though, is spending that is still out of control. Just like South Australians witnessed last budget, and just like South Australians witnessed the budget before, again we have massive overspending in departments, in just about every department across the government. Instead of curbing that wasteful spending—instead of having the riot act read to them by the Premier and by the Treasurer—that spending has just continued on.

Instead, the way around this has been to prop up that wasteful spending because of what amounts to record amounts of tax being brought in, a lot of it based off inflation that has been running really hard and really high here in the country for a good three years, with South Australia being the highest in the nation many times in terms of inflation. That inflation—whether it is on people's food, groceries or petrol—flows through to GST, of course. That record GST has been coming in, and everyday people's pain has been this government's gain.

At the same time as we are having record revenue, we are finding that debt is increasing and is on track to reach record levels. The budget reveals that debt in South Australia is going to grow to a mammoth $48.5 billion by the 2028-29 year. That means that interest payments will be on track to reach nearly $7 million a day just to pay that debt down, which is money that cannot be spent on services here that so many South Australians rely upon. The budget also reveals that there is no plan to pay this debt back.

The other major aspect to this budget is it reveals two major broken flagship election promises that this government made to the people of South Australia at the 2022 election. Of course, we can all remember the key signature election promise by the Premier that he was going to fix the ramping crisis. He told voters to 'vote like their life depends on it'. Instead, what we find in the latest ramping figures released in May is that the month of May had the third highest number of hours lost to the ramp on record.

The figures confirmed that 36 of the worst months of ramping in the state's history have occurred under this government and that over 140,000 hours have been lost to the ramp during this term of government. Compare that with the four years of the former Liberal government, in which it was 75,000 hours. When they said they would fix the ramping crisis, they did not say they would actually make it worse.

The other major election promise was that the government was going to deliver a hydrogen power station by December 2025. We can remember that promise that was made to the South Australian taxpayers. In previous budgets, that promise was pushed off into the future during questioning under estimates. But this last budget of the Malinauskas Labor government, which was meant to put the finishing touches on the government's flagship election promise of their hydrogen power plant, instead has revealed the full extent of Premier Malinauskas's hydrogen hoax.

The budget papers estimate that nearly a quarter of a billion dollars—over $250 million—could have been spent on Labor's hydrogen plans; the fact is, the majority of this will not be recoverable. This includes over $70 million in expenditure from the now-closed Office of Hydrogen Power South Australia and $196 million in capital expenditure, incorporating significant engineering and contractor payments that were required to design the government's failed hydrogen power plant.

Labor's decision to shelve its Hydrogen Jobs Plan has left South Australians with nothing to show for it, ultimately, other than experiencing record-high power bills and no new energy plan in this state budget. The budget also reveals that Premier Malinauskas will be forced to fork out an extra $3.8 million to privatise his own gas-powered turbines instead of spending that money on programs that could help bring down household power bills.

What you can read by looking through this budget is that it confirms that the Labor government has used a crisis at the Whyalla Steelworks to cover up their failure to deliver their hydrogen power plant. The Premier made a claim that all the $593 million for his hydrogen budget was going to be recovered and allocated across the support package for the Whyalla Steelworks. This budget reveals the illusion for what it really is. The Premier really needs to take responsibility for the huge amount of time and money that has been wasted on his hydrogen fantasy over the last three years, while South Australian families and businesses pay the highest electricity bills on record.

If we cast our mind back to 2021 and what was promised next to a big picture of the now Premier, the promise was that Labor would build a hydrogen storage capacity of 3,600 tonnes or two months' worth of hydrogen power generation for $31 million. They were going to build 200-megawatt combined cycle turbines for $342 million. They were going to build 250 megawatts of capacity of hydrogen electrolysers for $220 million and ensure that this plan to convert electricity to hydrogen and then convert it back to electricity again was all going to be operational by the end of 2025 for a total budget of $593 million.

Of course, as we went along—as I said, we have had five budgets and this is meant to be the pinnacle of it—what we were finding was that those core promises were starting to be broken right from the get-go. Back in December 2022 when the government put out their request for tender for the project, they revealed that, instead of 3,600 tonnes of storage, it was only going to be 100 tonnes. That is about 3 per cent of what was originally promised. They also said that the turbines, instead of being combined cycle, would be open cycle. Instead of intending to run for long periods of time and to be efficient, they were just going to be peakers and open cycle. You have the first promise broken and then issues around their second promise around their turbines as well.

Going forward, by early 2024 we had it confirmed that they were going to be combined cycle turbines, so there were issues around that. Of course, in between time, the Budget and Finance Committee held inquiries into what was going on. It was revealed in 2023 that, in fact, the power station when it was ultimately built was not targeted at bringing down household power bills; it was targeted at industrial use. So we have all this spending going on, all these changes being downsized, the Premier having to make things up as he went along, all for no impact on household power bills.

In May of 2024, AEMO in one of their reliability reports notified us that the power station was not going to be, in their estimation, online until 2026 or even 2027. The government was forced to then concede that, no, their power station was not going to be running by December 2025. The claim was it will be running in early 2026, and how much of that you can believe I think will become apparent as time progresses. As we get closer to December 2025, you can see that even an early 2026 timeline is really pushing the realms of reality.

In September 2024 is when the sham really began to unravel, because a tender was put out to truck in gas to run these turbines, when they eventually arrived—trucking gas through B-double lorries. That really showed there was going to be no hydrogen available to run the things in the first place, so then we had diesel-powered B-double lorries trucking in gas to try to run what was supposed to be a hydrogen power station running on renewable energy, when now we see it being backed up by diesel. The reason for that, of course, is that it became quite apparent that there was a real issue in terms of the cost of the electrolysers that produce the hydrogen.

The CSIRO then revealed that the electrolysers would actually cost three times what the government said they would cost back in 2021. So instead of costing $220 million, these 250-megawatt electrolysers were going to cost $675 million. All of a sudden, the cost of just one part of the plant exceeded the $593 million budget. In fact, the overall combined budget would have sailed past $1 billion, and more than likely there would have been cost blowouts in other parts as well. All four of the major promises making up the hydrogen fantasy were broken, and they were broken well before the crisis at the Whyalla Steelworks had escalated.

Of course, to try to save face with the people of South Australia, instead of being up-front and saying, 'Listen, this wasn't going to work. I have spent three years distracted and focusing on massive public sector resources, a massive workforce of over 55 full-time equivalents, trying to solve this problem and get it working before 2025,' the Premier said, 'We've had to cancel it because of the issues at the Whyalla Steelworks'—even though in parliament the Premier admitted that the steelworks running on hydrogen is probably not going to happen before the end of the 2030s or even the 2040s.

This is despite the fact that the Premier said in early 2024 that the hydrogen power station would not be reliant on Whyalla because they have a customer for their hydrogen and that customer is the power station. All of a sudden, he has had to start back-pedalling to save face and cover up to the people of South Australia. The ruse continued, though, because the Premier made out to the South Australian people, 'It's okay. That $600 million we were spending, that fake budget which was really going to be $1 billion, we're just going to pick it up and we'll sell the turbines and we'll recover that and send it across to the Whyalla Steelworks package.'

The truth is, and this is revealed in the budget, that all of that $600 million is not going to be recovered and a fair chunk of it is going to be lost to the engineering and design works that have had to be undertaken and all the contractor payments that have had to be made—maybe even just to pay for staff to go on a cuttlefish tour as well. All those rats and mice and all those trips overseas: they all add up. There is a real issue there, and the budget reveals that.

We know that under Labor, South Australians are struggling with record high power bills, and the only energy policy that Labor took to the election has now been revealed as a hydrogen hoax. Under Labor, hospital ramping has reached record levels, and Adelaide's house prices have become the sixth least affordable in the world and the second least affordable in the nation. We cannot continue down this path.

This week, in his budget reply speech and even before that, the Leader of the Opposition unveiled his vision for the future of South Australia. It is based on core Liberal values: everyone who works hard can own a home, raise a family and live in a community that reflects their values. One of the key announcements made this week was that under a Tarzia Liberal government, a first-home buyer purchasing an existing home up to $1 million will not pay a cent in stamp duty. That will save first-home owners $40,000 on an $850,000 house. It allows them to buy a house closer to where they work, closer to their family and closer to schools, and gives them an opportunity to get into the market quicker, rather than having to wait for a new home to be built.

A Tarzia Liberal government will also fund a GP after-hours increased access trial to support GP clinics and provide after-hours care to South Australians. The opposition will also commit to delivering a debt management plan so that South Australians can have confidence that state debt remains at a sustainable level and their money is managed wisely.

We also have a plan to reduce power bills for working South Australians. It includes reinstating the very successful home battery scheme. We will exempt apprentices and trainees from payroll tax and lift the payroll tax threshold from $1.5 million to $2.1 million to empower small business. They are just some of the suite of policies that will be put to the people of South Australia at the next state election to reward hard work and help South Australians raise a family and live in a community that reflects their values.

Bill read a second time.

Estimates Committees

The Hon. N.F. COOK (Hurtle Vale—Minister for Human Services, Minister for Seniors and Ageing Well) (18:30): I move:

That this bill be referred to estimates committees.

Motion carried.

The Hon. N.F. COOK: I move:

That the proposed expenditures for the departments and services contained in the Appropriation Bill be referred to Estimates Committees A and B for examination and report by 26 June, in accordance with the timetables distributed.

Motion carried.

The Hon. N.F. COOK: I seek leave to incorporate the timetables in Hansard without my reading them.

Leave granted.

APPROPRIATION BILL 2025

TIMETABLE FOR ESTIMATES COMMITTEES

ESTIMATES COMMITTEE A

THURSDAY 19 JUNE AT 9.00 AM

Premier

State Governor's Establishment

Auditor Office of South Australia

Department of the Premier and Cabinet (part)

Administered Items for the Department of the Premier and Cabinet (part)

Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science

Minister for Workforce and Population Strategy

Department of State Development (part)

Administered Items for the Department of State Development (part)

Minister for Climate, Environment and Water

Department for Environment and Water

Administered Items for the Department for Environment and Water

Department for Energy and Mining (part)

FRIDAY 20 JUNE AT 9.00 AM

Minister for Energy and Mining

Department for Energy and Mining (part)

Minister for Infrastructure and Transport

Department for Infrastructure and Transport (part)

Administered Items for the Department for Infrastructure and Transport (part)

MONDAY 23 JUNE AT 9.00 AM

Minister for Education, Training and Skills

Department for Education

Administered Items for the Department for Education

Department of State Development (part)

Administered Items for the Department of State Development (part)

TUESDAY 24 JUNE AT 9.00 AM

Minister for Human Services

Minister for Seniors and Ageing Well

Department of Human Services (part)

Administered Items for the Department of Human Services (part)

WEDNESDAY 25 JUNE AT 9.00 AM

Minister for Trade and Investment

Minister for Local Government

Minister for Veterans' Affairs

Department of State Development (part)

Administered Items for the Department of State Development (part)

Department for Housing and Urban Development (part)

Administered Items for the Department for Housing and Urban Development (part)

Defence SA (part)

Minister for Housing and Urban Development

Minister for Planning

Department for Housing and Urban Development (part)

Administered Items for the Department for Housing and Urban Development (part)

Administered Items for the Department of Treasury and Finance (part)

ESTIMATES COMMITTEE B

THURSDAY 19 JUNE AT 9.00 AM

Treasurer

Department of Treasury and Finance

Administered Items for the Department of Treasury and Finance (part)

Minister for Defence and Space Industries

Defence SA (part)

Minister for Police

South Australia Police

Administered Items for the South Australia Police

Department for Infrastructure and Transport (part)

Administered Items for the Department for Infrastructure and Transport (part)

FRIDAY 20 JUNE AT 9.00 AM

Minister for Child Protection

Department for Child Protection

Administered Items for the Department for Child Protection

Minister for Women and the Prevention of Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence

Department of Human Services (part)

Administered Items for the Department of Human Services (part)

Minister for Health and Wellbeing

Department for Health and Wellbeing

Commission on Excellence and Innovation in Health

Preventive Health SA

MONDAY 23 JUNE AT 9.00 AM

Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development

Minister for Forest Industries

Department of Primary Industries and Regions

Administered Items for the Department of Primary Industries and Regions

Minister for Small and Family Business

Minister for Consumer and Business Affairs

Attorney-General's Department (part)

Administered Items for the Attorney-General's Department (part)

Department of State Development (part)

Administered Items for the Department of State Development (part)

Minister for Arts

Department of the Premier and Cabinet (part)

Administered Items for the Department of the Premier and Cabinet (part)

TUESDAY 24 JUNE AT 9.00 AM

Minister for Aboriginal Affairs

Attorney-General

Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector

Courts Administration Authority

Attorney-General's Department (part)

Administered Items for the Attorney-General's Department (part)

Department of the Premier and Cabinet (part)

Administered Items for the Department of the Premier and Cabinet (part)

Special Minister of State

Electoral Commission of South Australia

Administered Items for the Electoral Commission of South Australia

Legislative Council

House of Assembly

Joint Parliamentary Services

Administered Items for the Joint Parliamentary Services

Administered Items for the Department of Treasury and Finance (part)

WEDNESDAY 25 JUNE AT 9.00 AM

Minister for Multicultural Affairs

Department of the Premier and Cabinet (part)

Administered Items for the Department of the Premier and Cabinet (part)

Minister for Tourism

South Australian Tourism Commission

Administered Items for the Department of Treasury and Finance (part)

Minister for Emergency Services and Correctional Services

South Australian Fire and Emergency Services Commission

South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service

South Australian State Emergency Service

Administered Items for the Department of Treasury and Finance (part)

Department for Correctional Services

Minister for Autism

Department of the Premier and Cabinet (part)

Administered Items for the Department of the Premier and Cabinet (part)

Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing

Department for Infrastructure and Transport (part)

Administered Items for the Department for Infrastructure and Transport (part)

The Hon. N.F. COOK: I move:

That Estimates Committee A be appointed, consisting of Hon. A. Piccolo, S.E. Andrews, Mr Basham, Mr Dighton, Mrs Pearce, Hon. V.A. Tarzia and Hon. T.J. Whetstone.

Motion carried.

The Hon. N.F. COOK: I move:

That Estimates Committee B be appointed, consisting of Mr Hughes, Mr Brown, Mr Odenwalder, Mr Patterson, Mr Pederick, Ms Stinson and Mr Telfer.

Motion carried.


At 18:32 the house adjourned until Thursday 26 June 2025 at 11:00.


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