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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-05-15 Daily Xml
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Supply Bill 2024

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 14 May 2024.)

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (15:48): I rise to make a few comments around the Supply Bill. I really want to talk about the exciting prospect of the next two years, as long as we can get SA Water and the sewerage sorted out, because it is going to put a major dampener on what I was going to talk about. Over the next two years, Mount Gambier and the region is going to see significant development and significant investment, which will be tailored to come to a conclusion, I suppose, at the start of 2026.

The first project is the technical college, which will be based at the TAFE site. I want to commend Peter Gandolfi, who is heading up that project. He has worked tirelessly to ensure that all stakeholders are coming together, having input, to develop and deliver a precinct which I think everybody will be proud of. I do not want to understate it, but I think it is the most significant investment and project for our region, particularly training and development going forward.

In fact, with Peter onboard, there is another exciting opportunity for $20 million federal funding that will dovetail beautifully into the TAFE precinct, where we have the University of South Australia, TAFE and now the education department. This is around allied health and having a doctor's surgery and orthopaedic training on that site.

In terms of development, that $35 million investment is very significant for our community, particularly our youth. On top of that, we have a $5 million upgrade to existing TAFE facilities, and then on top of that we have a $15 million Forestry Centre of Excellence being built on the same site. It is quite a significant project to be developed and delivered in the next 18 months. On top of that, there is the $24 million Mount Gambier hospital upgrade, with a new emergency department, mental health beds and drug and alcohol detox rehab beds. Obviously, they are greatly needed.

In the next three months, I believe our new 12 paramedics will be on site. I have met with ambulance officers in our community, and I really want to thank Rachel for her insights and helping me understand the impact that this will have in a positive way for our community. On top of that, there is nearly $1 million for the expansion and upgrade of the ambulance station to house those people. Public housing is obviously a big issue. We will see the completion of a number of key worker houses, which are under construction at the moment, as well as the maintenance blitz on our public housing stock, which had been left in neglect for at least a decade, if not longer.

The other big project, which is a real combination of three levels of government and industry, is our mobile phone coverage on the Limestone Coast. This $28 million project will see the build of 27 new mobile phone base stations. The state government's contribution is $5.5 million. Telstra is putting in $7 million, industry is putting in $1 million, and the federal government is putting in $15 million. It is a real credit to all levels of government that have put funding towards that very important scheme. The Mount Gambier and District Saleyards project will receive $2.7 million. What I really wanted to focus on is that it is an exciting time in the South-East over the next 18 months. There will be a hive of activity delivering on those budget commitments.

Leading up to the next election, I will be putting out the Future Mount Gambier 2.0 document, where we really want to take our region into the future. There will be a number of things involved in that, so I am really forewarning the government that these things will be on my radar. There will be an increased accommodation allowance for the Patient Assistance Transport Scheme—that has not increased in the last 10 years, yet accommodation costs certainly have—as well as a better process for large institutions that handle a lot of patient assistance transport forms. By that I mean Ronald McDonald House, where they are processing in the order of $150,000 to $200,000 worth of payments and forms from individuals who have to come up here for accommodation.

There has to be a better way that we can support those organisations, particularly when they are almost employing somebody to fill out the forms, or work with the parents to fill those forms out. There are greater efficiencies that could be made there.

Regarding our public schools, I will be taking to the next election a funding wish for our public schools. All of our public schools need maintenance and need attention. You can compare any of our public schools to Tenison Woods College or St Martin's Lutheran College and, whilst I vehemently believe that the education is just as good, if not better in our public education, particularly on the Limestone Coast, which I have intimate knowledge of, the school buildings are looking tired and worn. They need a facelift; they need basic maintenance undertaken on them.

For some of our schools, we need a projection of future enrolments, because Suttontown Primary School will have a 400 housing development surrounding it—hopefully—in the next two years going forward, so that school will need greater capacity, as well as Mulga Street Primary School, which is the next school over. All of our public schools do need some money spent on them.

In relation to regional road maintenance, the contract with Fulton Hogan I think is a disgrace. I do not know if it is because Fulton Hogan came in too skinny on their quote or what, but our local roads are falling apart. The repairs do not seem to be up to standard—that is my personal opinion—and I think we need to do much better when it comes to regional roads. I think one thing the government could look at is value for money.

There is a road project between Mount Gambier and Millicent, which has been going on for six months, and every time I drive past you see one person working on a bit of machinery, and three or four other bits of machinery just sitting there. There are more people holding stop/go signs than there are actually working on the road. I think we need to do better at getting value for money for the state government in these projects.

I will put Ventia in that bucket as well, where our schools are getting charged exorbitant amounts of money to either fix a leaky tap, clean gutters, or do basic maintenance. I think the principal should have the authority, up to $100,000, to do that type of maintenance themselves. I put a motion before this house, which was passed with a slight qualifier, that the government would go away and investigate any potential downsides to that. That will certainly get better value for money for the very scarce public dollars that we need to spend in our public schools.

It is great to see palliative care on the agenda. We will be campaigning very hard for a dedicated palliative care service for the South-East and radiation therapy around cancer services and increasing that. I do genuinely thank the Minister for Health for appointing a truly independent group to look at the viability of radiation therapy in our region. I have met with them; I have been involved in community consultation where this group have conducted it, and I am pleased to report back that they are asking the hard questions and they do seem very independent, which is all we want. We want the facts on the table so that informed and accurate decisions can be made going forward.

There are a couple of things I will be talking about more going forward. Tourism is our most undervalued industry in the South-East. It has huge potential for employment, for not only attracting but retaining tourists in our region. I am not putting this on the state government but as a community we need to do much better at how we encourage entrepreneurs and private money into the tourism sector so that those who do want to spend their dollars and contribute to our economy by employing people in the tourism field by either events or attractions have the ability to spend those dollars in our community.

In relation to increased assistance for regional athletes and the number of parents I know who are constantly on the road driving athletes who show promise at an elite level but are disadvantaged by living in Mount Gambier, the five hours to Adelaide where the training is or the games are or the coaches are, I would like to see some type of partnership with our local council and business community in establishing a fund for our regional athletes to achieve the best they can achieve and not have living in a regional area as an impediment to their success and, of course, our state's success and maybe national success going forward.

The only other things I will mention are marine rescue and Port MacDonnell. None of these will be a surprise going forward. I have spoken in this place many times about them in past motions and tried to work with the government and the opposition in developing a good package for the South-East so that the South-East can really contribute to the state's economy as well as provide a great standard of life and services for those who live in the regional area of the South-East of South Australia. With those comments, I conclude my remarks on the Supply Bill.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (16:02): I place on the record my thanks to members for their contributions. The second reading debate on the Supply Bill is often an opportunity for members to speak about issues that are important to them and their local communities. It has been interesting to hear some of those issues raised by a range of members. I will leave my comments there and welcome questions in the committee stage.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

Mr COWDREY: I do not anticipate that this is going to take very long. I do want to express my gratitude to the Treasury officials for taking the time to come down to the house today. My first question to the Treasurer is: has there been any change as to how the government determined the quantum for the Supply Bill? Secondly, could the Treasurer outline to the house the consideration framework that was used to determine that amount this year?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Thank you for the question. The methodology has not changed and the methodology is that it is the actual first four months of appropriation, and the current financial year is used to determine the figure going forward for the appropriation for the following year.

Mr COWDREY: If that is the case, if we look at previous financial years, the amount sought in the Supply Bill in 2019-20 was just over $5½ billion. The 2020-21 financial year was obviously the COVID-affected year when the government came to the house seeking a rather unprecedented level of money in the Supply Bill which was, as acknowledged at the time, welcomed by the opposition. I think that level of sensible approach and gratitude was welcomed by everybody around South Australia at that period of time, that being $15-and-a-bit billion. In 2020-21 it was $6.1 billion; 2021-22, $6.6 billion; and last financial year, $6.5 billion. As the Treasurer is, I know, acutely aware, those numbers are obviously very similar in terms of taking out the COVID-affected year. I am just seeking an explanation from the Treasurer as to why there is a significant increase upwards of $1.2 billion for the amount sought in this Supply Bill, at $7.7 billion?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: I am advised that we had a relatively late passage of the Appropriation Bill last year that caused a change in the timing of some payments necessary for agencies, and so there was an amount of about $1.2 billion which was appropriated to agencies in that last week of October.

Mr COWDREY: I take it from the Treasurer's response, and again I do not want to put words in his mouth, that none of the increase here is attributed to the significant increase in across-government expenditure baked into this budget of near $2 billion more across government?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: No, I would not say that. Obviously, as we have been releasing the budget, the Appropriation Bill provides for the appropriation of moneys for what you could refer to as ongoing operations but also new initiatives. Agencies try to manage their cash flow within the capacity they have under how much is able to be provided to them through the Supply Bill. The Appropriation Bill is really to fund the marginal increase in operations that you will get from year on year, but also new funded initiatives.

An example of that is the significant amount of additional funding that we have taken the decision to provide, for example, to Health. In fact, I think in the current financial year the total Health budget is—I will correct this figure if I do not get it exactly right, because I do not have it in front of me—about $1.2 billion higher than the amount of money that was provided under the previous government's last budget. That reflects that we have had two budgets, and we have also had a couple of Mid-Year Budget Reviews, so we have had a number of opportunities progressively to increase resourcing to the health system to combat some of the pressures that it has been under. So it is not just timing because of payments which we are making for the ordinary course of business or ongoing operations; it is also reflecting the fact that there are new initiatives and additional expenditures that have been approved in subsequent budgets as well.

Clause passed.

Remaining clauses (2 and 3) and title passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (16:10): I move.

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

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