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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-08-27 Daily Xml
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Bills

Appropriation Bill 2024

Estimates Committees

Adjourned debate on motion:

That the proposed expenditures referred to Estimates Committees A and B be agreed to.

(Continued from 27 June 2024.)

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (11:04): I seek leave to continue my remarks from before the break. I do not have much to add, apart from acknowledging the acting chairs in Estimates Committee B. There were a couple of sessions that, due to circumstances beyond my control, I could not attend, so I would like to acknowledge the people who did step up. I would also like to acknowledge the contribution of the opposition. It was a very well-ordered series of sessions. I guess one of the perennials that often comes up when we talk about estimates is, ultimately, the need for some form of reform. The Chair of Estimates Committee A, the member for Light, also touched upon the need to have a look at estimates and the sorts of reforms that could be introduced to improve the process.

Having said that, I would like to also acknowledge that the underlying principle that guides the estimates committees is an incredibly important principle. Obviously we have been in opposition, as is the current opposition. It is incredibly useful in the name of openness, transparency and accountability that there is an opportunity to go through the budget, to examine budget lines, because that is an important underlying principle.

It is one of those approaches, along with many others, that, in some ways, is under threat globally. We might sometimes complain about estimates, but it is incredibly important, when you look at what is going on around the world at the moment and the attacks on open democratic societies, that we do have institutional processes that are able to put the spotlight on government. At the end of the day, in open, democratic societies it is important that we have that respect for dissent and then, based on that dissent, for dialogue, deliberation and, ultimately, decision-making on the part of government and also on the part of others, but especially on the part of government. It is important that we have processes that, as I said, are able to cast a light on the things that government do, and obviously one of the incredibly important things is the handing down of a budget.

Once again, I think it is a positive that when it comes to government members sitting in estimates, I have noticed that over the years there has been a big reduction in the number of questions asked by government members. Let's be upfront: those questions are often just set up questions and we know what the answer is going to be. I think it is important that those government questions have diminished over time, which does provide that additional opportunity then for the opposition to ask questions.

As I said, in Estimates Committee B it was all a very civilised affair. Most of the ministers appearing before Estimates Committee B were just willing to get into it. They did not make opening statements, so, once again, it gave the opposition that opportunity to make full use of the time available to them when it came to estimates. With those few words, I would like to acknowledge and accept the receipt and adoption of the report from Estimates Committee B.

Mr TELFER (Flinders) (11:08): I rise to speak on this bill. We reflect back on the estimates process. It is a vigorous process that gives the opposition the opportunity to really delve into the nuances of some of the numbers in the budget and also to cut through some of the smoke and mirrors that are inherently baked into a state budget.

Certainly from my perspective and from the opposition's, there was an opportunity to be able to get a bit of cut-through because the substance of this budget is never delivered with the budget speeches or the budget summaries that come from the government; that is just the spin that they want the community to see.

The reality of what is in this budget that was found through the estimates process is worrying, honestly. We have seen a budget that is based on significant growth of revenue—an additional $3 billion of revenue from taxation, more taxes coming into the coffers—but we have only seen a relatively small surplus delivered by this government. Not just that, we have seen record debt levels baked into this budget and the forward estimates, which is really setting up our state for the greatest challenge of all: facing these increasing debt levels at a time when we now see the economy starting to show signs of cooling down and those revenue increases which this government has been riding the wave of starting to dissipate.

This budget has really failed to appropriately address many of the major challenges that are facing our state, especially some of the opportunities and concerns confronted by regional South Australia. We have seen these significant revenue increases. The budget predicts surpluses over the forward estimates, sure, over those years to come, but they are significantly lower than the original forecasts in the initial budget in 2022-23.

Worryingly, the significant debt levels which are going to be taken on by this government, by us as the people of South Australia, have increased to $44 billion in the forward estimates—$44 billion. This is a massive number that the average person on the street has no ability to appropriately comprehend. Even for us in this place, it is really challenging to comprehend $44 billion in debt. The interest repayments alone on that debt are going to be in the billions—money that we, the people of South Australia, are going to have to fork out to pay the interest, which could have been instead invested in some of the core infrastructure that is necessary.

As I said, this burden that has been placed onto the people of South Australia by this Labor government is truly concerning and comes at the same time that we see government spending out of control and government departments out of control. We have seen these significant budget blowouts across most portfolio areas. There is no respect from this government and their departments to the taxpayers of South Australia. It is this, 'Spend, spend, spend; someone else will foot the bill in the years to come.' Well, that someone else is us as South Australians. That attitude towards departmental overspend and government inefficiencies is only costing us as South Australians. Not just that, government expenditure is putting additional upward pressure onto inflation during a cost-of-living crisis. During a cost-of-living crisis, the government has no care or concern for South Australian families doing it tough.

When it comes to the health budget, we see a significant blowout—$627 million—yet what do we see on the ground? We see ambulance ramping numbers ballooning out of control, now once again at nearly inconceivable levels. How can the average person get their head around what the impact is going to be: more than double the ambulance ramping hours there were when this government took control? They came in with the promise that they would fix the ramping crisis. They make promises to get power but then do not deliver. They cannot use that power effectively to fix the problems, to drive the necessary change that is needed and that is expected by the people of South Australia, because that is what they promised. That is what they promised: that they would fix the ramping crisis, but those numbers are now more than double.

Also within the health budget we see there is not the money for a boost to the Patient Assistance Transport Scheme, a scheme that really sustains regional communities who put so much into the state's budget and the state's economy. There are more than 16,000 claimants to the Patient Assistance Transport Scheme who rely on that scheme to be able to help pay just a small amount of the cost that it takes to travel from Port Lincoln, from Ceduna, from the Riverland, from Mount Gambier or from Kangaroo Island to Adelaide for the necessary medical care. There is no additional money. There is no additional vision from this government to try to appropriately help support those regional communities.

We have also seen the burdening of GPs with a significant payroll tax obligation. This is something which has significant flow-on effects to South Australians. The government's spin is that they are listening to GPs. Well, if they were truly listening to GPs, then they would have been hearing the same thing that we have been hearing for the last 12 months; that is, the decision from this Labor government is going to mean that people are paying more to visit their GPs. It is going to make health care less affordable for everyday South Australians and, because of this, there will be more pressure on the emergency departments of hospitals all around our state, more pressure on those already outrageously ballooning ambulance ramping numbers, more pressure on the bottom line for our families, our communities in South Australia that are already doing it tough.

During a cost-of-living crisis, this government has no care, no concern for South Australian families doing it tough. The opposition have been long calling for Peter Malinauskas and this government to introduce incentives to attract and retain healthcare workers, like what is on offer interstate. There is no denying that we are in a competitive jobs market at the moment. At the moment, we are being outcompeted by our friends across the borders.

There are no incentives to attract and retain healthcare workers compared to other states, so it does not matter how much cash the Labor government throws at the health system. It will not have an impact if there is not the workforce to staff it. There is not a vision for what our healthcare workers need from this Labor government. There is not a mind to effectively reflect what are the needs of our South Australian communities from this Labor state government during a cost-of-living crisis. This government has no care or concern for South Australian families doing it tough.

When it comes to housing, there is once again a lot of smoke and mirrors, a lot of spin from this Labor government. We have seen $65.9 million for public housing build commitments. The spin was $135.8 million for maintenance and building of 442 social housing units. That is federal money. The state government are using themselves as the funnel for the federal money coming in without giving us any sort of information about that social housing endpoint.

The budget papers and indeed the answers which we did get—or did not get—in response to the questions from the opposition mean that the information that we receive is very vague and really is just high-level spin. It is high-level spin because we in the opposition hear from communities on the ground right across South Australia about the vacancies, about the maintenance backlogs around our state, around the lack of a vision for where it will be going.

There were questions in estimates to the Treasurer about the lack of investment within their budget papers into water infrastructure to support not just future housing development but even the existing water needs of South Australia. A few days after the estimates process, we discovered why. We discovered why there was a gap within the information that was provided. It was because they were planning, using the shadow of the ESCOSA process and the SA Water pricing mechanism, to significantly raise the water bills of South Australians right across our state, because of their mismanagement and their lack of planning for our current and future needs.

This was not done within the budget papers, where we could have the opportunity to vigorously unpack it during this estimates process we are reflecting on. No, it came a few days later with the information that the average South Australian water bill will increase by $80 per year—straight to the hip pocket; classic Labor government, clawing money out of our communities because of their lack of planning. During a cost-of-living crisis, this government has no care or concern for South Australian families doing it tough. The government says the increase is needed to help pay for the $1.5 billion worth of new mains water and sewerage connections to rapidly growing Adelaide suburbs. That is code for: the government has had their head in the sand when it comes to planning for future infrastructure needs.

We have seen billions of dollars—billions of dollars—taken out of SA Water throughout the years, propping up general revenue and giving the government the opportunity to try to fund their niche election promises. SA Water is being used as a cash cow rather than investing in the water needs of South Australians, and now our communities are doing it the hardest. They are paying the cost for it with an $80 average increase for South Australian household water bills at a time when they are facing a cost-of-living crisis. This government has no care or concern for South Australian families doing it tough.

Then we look at the road and infrastructure network. Reflecting on some of the questions that were asked throughout the estimates process, there is only $6 million for regional road safety infrastructure across the entire state of South Australia. I did not say billion, I said million: only $6 million for regional road safety. Let that sink in. Let that sink in, in reflection on and in the shadow of last year's horrendous and heartbreaking road toll numbers. Last year was a terrible year on our roads. What does this Labor government do to reflect that? Only $6 million for the whole state for regional road safety infrastructure. It is just not good enough.

As far as other investment into regional roads goes, we see $200 million for the South Eastern Freeway and $150 million for the Mount Barker-Verdun arrangement, which is going to help commuters, absolutely. It is going to help people travelling to and from our peri-urban centres. But there is no significant investment into our regional road network which is responsible for transporting goods around the highly productive areas of our state.

I often speak in this place about the need for appropriate investment into these productive areas in regional South Australia, the areas that pump so much into our state's economy. There needs to be appropriate investment reflected back into these areas, or else we are doing a disservice to our whole state. We are undermining the economic future of our whole state.

This also comes at a time when we are seeing that regional roads have been taken off the priority of ministerial portfolios. There is now no minister responsible for being the advocate for regional roads. There is not a voice in cabinet pushing for regional road investment. I seriously worry about what the future holds for our regional road network right around the state under this Labor government.

As we delved into a number of different aspects through the estimates process of this budget, we started to see so many hypocrisies, so many inconsistencies, so much lack of vision and so much lack of planning. Take the primary industries portfolio area, which was vigorously dissected as part of the estimates process. There was a cut of $29 million to agricultural services, equal to a 40 per cent cut, and a $5 million cut to regional development funding.

The true colours are coming out. Labor government budgets seep through with these sorts of cuts to the productive part of South Australia. Agricultural services and regional development funding: these are all investing back into the parts of our state which add new money into state coffers and new money into our state's economy—$30 billion of contribution from regional South Australia, and what is the response from this Labor government? Cut, stop, ignore. At a time when the Premier is arrogantly dismissing concerns about, say, in my electorate, the future of the aquaculture industry due to the Billy Lights Point proposal for desalination, what do we see? We see cuts, we see programs stopped and we see this Labor government ignoring regional South Australia.

And this all comes in the shadow of significant revenue increase. Like I said at the top, there have been significant rivers of gold that have been flowing into this state Labor budget. The land tax take has increased by 48 per cent since Labor came to power. The emergency services levy, which we all pay, has risen by 17 per cent since Labor came to power—17 per cent during a cost-of-living crisis. This government has no care or concern for South Australian families doing it tough.

What are they doing? They are going about their expenditure, their reckless spending, their department overspend, their lack of accountability to their departmental budgets, and what is the response from the Treasurer in estimates? To try to say, 'Well, what areas would you cut?' The responsibility of each and every minister for their departments and for their budgets should be something that the Treasurer always goes back to.

Ministers, you are responsible for your departmental budgets, you are responsible for making sure your departments are fully aware of their financial obligations, and not just additional expenditure and not just spend more and then come back and expect that the next year's budget is going to reflect that additional need. Be responsible. Be efficient. Be effective.

There is a responsibility that has been put on the shoulders of you as ministers to hold your departments to account. We have not seen that at all from these Labor ministers. Nearly every single department has gone over budget, and gone over budget significantly, and I am sure that my colleagues will reflect, during this debate, on some of the nuances of that overspend.

Within one of the most important aspects of our state departments, SAPOL, which is responsible for keeping our community safe, some of the activity indicators that I saw within the budget papers were truly concerning. We have seen offences and crime up, yet future projections are down. How do they justify that? Once again, smoke and mirrors, fiddling the numbers to try to make it so that what the reality is is not reflected by the expenditure that is going to be needed.

Within our police force we see an attrition rate over 5 per cent, barely covering the existing losses with recruitment. What are the measures to retain officers? Nothing. We have heard nothing from this government. We have seen the ballooning cost of the move of the police force out of the Thebarton barracks, including the ongoing escalation of the costs for the, at this point, $100 million facility construction for moving the police horses and the dogs. There is no accountability. They talk about it as, 'It's just ever-rising costs.' Well, our South Australian communities have ever-rising costs.

We are in a cost-of-living crisis at the moment. It is no use to just wash your hands and say, 'Well, that's just the way it is.' These government ministers need to be doing what they can to hold their departments to account during a cost-of-living crisis. During a cost-of-living crisis this government has no care or concern for South Australians doing it tough.

Ms O'HANLON (Dunstan) (11:28): I rise to speak on this bill because I want to call into question in this place the behaviour of the member for Chaffey, which I and I believe others were shocked to observe on Tuesday 25 June in Estimates Committee B. It also might be interesting to those in his electorate to know exactly how the member speaks to women ministers and whether he thinks this is an acceptable way to speak to women. It certainly would not be acceptable in the private sector.

For some reason the member for Chaffey appeared to believe, when questioning the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, it was perfectly acceptable to make the comment, when thanking the departmental staff for their hard work, that they had to work 'to make the minister look good'. That is eye rolling enough, but further along the member for Chaffey makes the comment to the minister—and I again quote–'If only you knew how bad you were.'

Does the member for Chaffey truly think it is acceptable to say that to a minister at all, let alone in front of her staff? What could the member hope to achieve other than to undermine her standing, the result of which, even if it were achievable given the minister's clear competence, would only serve to diminish outcomes for those he claims to champion, namely, farmers and the regions?

On top of this, the member for Chaffey appeared to believe it completely fine to continually interject and interrupt with snide comments, such as, 'You have obviously read the wrong brief,' and 'I think you are confused.' Interestingly, when I asked a question of the Minister for Primary Industries, the member for Chaffey appeared to believe he was being very clever when he made the comment of me, 'You've only been here for five minutes and you're already an expert.'

Well, the member for Chaffey was a little bit right: I have only been in this place for a short time, but before that I was in the private sector. I worked with small and medium-sized businesses, and one area I worked with them on was company culture. I can assure the member for Chaffey that that kind of immature, undermining and, frankly, misogynistic commentary would not be accepted there. But the member for Chaffey may have forgotten that I was also previously a broadacre crop and cattle farmer, so actually, yes, I am an expert with lived experience, and once a farmer always a farmer: you never stop caring about the regions, you never forget what it takes to get grain to the silos and you also never forget the effects of droughts and floods.

Funnily enough, when the member was asking questions of the Minister for Trade and Investment on Wednesday, he was all cordiality and jokes. He was all, 'Thank you, minister,' and 'I was concerned for you, minister.' Is that because the member's confidence does not extend to belittling men? In fact, the member even said, as though looking for praise (or was he acknowledging his poor behaviour from the day before?), 'I have been well behaved today.'

The member for Chaffey might like to reflect, when he goes home tonight and looks in the mirror and complains about how unfair it is that Minister Scriven is the Minister for Primary Industries and not him, on how competent he would be, indeed, as a minister. The Minister for Primary Industries may not be competent in the eyes of the member for Chaffey, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, but he can be assured that, when she is putting in her accommodation claims, she knows which continent she is on.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (11:32): I rise to contribute to the debate on the Appropriation Bill. In making my contribution, following on from the shadow treasurer and the member for Flinders just now, I will take the opportunity to step through what are now three budgets of this government. We are now seeing that their stripes are well and truly on display, and no more so than when it comes to what has occurred in terms of the budget management in the Department for Child Protection. Some of this is not news, and we have had the opportunity to traverse the immediate response to the budget provision in the course of debates, and we have taken the time to analyse that in some detail in the course of budget estimates.

By way of framing, there is cause to draw a comparison when presented with the same subject matter in the response of the Treasurer on the one hand in the course of budget estimates, the Premier on another in terms of dealing with public comment in the media and the responsible minister, thirdly. I commend the Treasurer first of all for providing the most straightforward and I think best answer to what has occurred in terms of the budget for child protection in this last year. I just remind members that the Treasurer, in the course of that estimates session, was asked the question by the shadow treasurer, 'What is the cause for the budget overrun?'—or, to use the vernacular, 'the blowout in the child protection budget'.

The Treasurer gave an answer—and I will stand corrected if I am summarising this in any way inaccurately—basically indicating that the cost of external service provision, short-term contracts and the like in terms of responding to needs, was a key source of additional cost that would need to be addressed if costs were to be kept to budget. It was an explanation for the budget blowout in the last year.

So far so edifying, and one can point to a range of different service providers and the principal debate that might occur around the balance between those who are employed by the department and then the external services that the department might need to obtain from time to time. That is version No. 1 that the Treasurer provided. He had the opportunity to do that early doors in the budget estimates process, and that was appreciated. I will come to it in a minute, but the minister was certainly on notice of that answer by the time the budget estimates session for the Department for Child Protection came round.

In the meantime, in remarks in the media when the same question had been put to the Premier about ‘What is the cause of the cost blowout in child protection?’, the Premier resorted to what I would describe as a form of virtue signalling, which, in the Premier's view, might have served some sort of alternative purpose. There is perhaps a certain kind of virtue that might be pointed to in terms of the number of FTEs in the department, but it was a different answer. The Premier chose to highlight, in responding to that question, 'Well, we might have spent a lot more in child protection than the budget provided, but aren't we good because we've employed a whole lot more people.'

That, too, presents, at least on the face of the budget documents, that there has indeed been an increase in the number of FTEs in the department from year to year. I would point out to the Premier that that was part and parcel of the budget papers and should not actually provide an answer as to why the costs have blown out. But the Premier chose to highlight that particular point, and good luck to him.

So far we have a coherent answer from the Treasurer, we have a kind of virtue signal from the Premier to the media, but then we get into the Department for Child Protection session in which the minister has an opportunity to wrap it all up and to make sense of where the government is at and why we have experienced this blowout—and I will say a blowout for not the first or second but third time in three budgets for the Department for Child Protection.

What I got from the minister in the course of that session—disappointingly, I might say, for the benefit of members—was not, 'I agree with the Treasurer. The Treasurer had it right on Friday.' Again, I stress: there was no ambush, there was no sense of, 'What do you reckon? And by the way, gotcha. It might be contrary or not to your Premier or Treasurer.'

But, no, the minister made very clear that the minister had the benefit of the Treasurer's response, and disappointingly—and this has become now a matter of practice, though it is not for me to give advice to the minister about how the minister chooses to conduct the estimates process, answers to questions and so on—what I received was yet further admonishment from the minister that I even dare go there to talk about dollars spent in child protection and an emphasis on just how much everybody cares and therefore that it is sort of off limits, really, to be asking questions about dollars in budget estimates when we are talking about how the process of government is organised in the area of child protection.

I indicate to the house that I found it a sufficiently inadequate response, incoherent response, incompetent response, that my urging immediately on the conclusion of that session was to the Premier to sack the minister and to appoint a new Minister for Child Protection, one who is competent at managing the budget and competent in respect of managing the challenges of the care of our state's most vulnerable children.

There is a whole range of evidence of that incompetence that, as it happens, was to come to light in the period immediately following and I maintain that call. It is a test of leadership of the Premier to ensure that there are competent ministers undertaking their duties. The Minister for Child Protection is a particularly key one and I continue to make that case.

Having heard three versions from the government about what is a fairly startling blowout on the face of the Agency Statements at Volume 1, and it is neatly encapsulated at page 83 of Volume 1, what we have seen from the 2023-24 budget to the 2023-24 estimated result is a blowout of around $70 million from budget to estimated result.

I will come back in a minute to this point about estimated result. Do not quite hang your hat on that because the previous year tells a story about a blowout that became a more serious blowout. We have had a track record now over three years; I am slow to call it. Certainly, not in the first year. The second year sets a trend. Now there are three years in which we have had increasing budget after increasing budget and quite substantially. That has been matched by blowout after blowout after blowout and it points to nothing short of incompetence.

When that injury has the insult added to it of a minister who, even in the light of the Treasurer having given an out-of-portfolio assessment of the basic causes and the Premier having pointed to some virtue that might be attached, does not, when the estimates opportunity comes around, take the opportunity to give all South Australians some overview of where we are headed in child protection and why all this scarce resource is, contrary to what appears on the page, being spent in the best interests of vulnerable children, it is just a completely unacceptable state of affairs.

It is no surprise that my calls for the sacking of the minister were joined. I spoke with one voice, together with every single non-government member of this parliament, in calls that were made at that time for the removal of the minister and the appointment of a competent minister.

Here we are, therefore, analysing what has happened in terms of the appropriation. Let's bear in mind very clearly at the outset that, if we go back to 2022-23, the first of these three disastrous budgets, and I say disastrous across the board but particularly in terms of the budget management for the Department for Child Protection, what we saw in the first budget, we will recall, is a more or less across-the-board application of operating efficiencies. Operating efficiencies, of course, is a sort of neater, cleaner way of just talking about cuts; nothing turns on that. We see operating efficiencies across the board in 2022-23 in the budget.

Now, leave aside the fact that the operating efficiencies just weren't met, more or less comprehensively from stated objective to outcome, what we saw relevantly, in terms of child protection, was an exception to the operating efficiencies. So child protection stood out in the first of the Malinauskas Labor budgets in 2022-23, and we saw there, going back to 2022-23 in the Budget Statement, page 23, at the top of the page:

Child Protection—projected to increase by $80 million due to the estimated growth in the number of children and young people in care and the costs associated with providing care services. The government continues to focus on increasing the number of family based care placements and providing resources for early intervention programs to reduce the number of children and young people requiring care.

Well hear, hear to that, and if that is achieved, and there are outcomes that can be pointed to, then we would all like to describe that, see it happen, and praise those outcomes. So there is an explanation as to why the Department for Child Protection's budget was set to increase in 2022-23 as an exception to those across-the-board operating efficiencies. What did we see occur? Well, you turn to the Agency Statement for 2022-23, Volume 1, page 89, and you see that the budget for 2022-23 was $714,576,000. There is the exception.

Then we go to the Agency Statement for 2023-24, Volume 1, page 89, and we see expressed there the budget for 2022-23, the $714.5 million for the care and protection program. What was the estimated result for 2022-23? That was $763,832,000. So there is a $50 million blowout. That is 2022-23 to 2023-24, a $50 million blowout, but you kind of get it all, the bringing home the bacon, to use the Keating vernacular, but completely in the opposite. You get all this on one page in the Agency Statements for this year's budget, 2024-25, Volume 1, page 83, because not only do you see the indication of what happened in 2022-23, but you see that the actual result for 2022-23 was not just a blowout of $50 million.

The actual result was a blowout of a further $35 million—$35 million more than what was estimated as the result of the previous year—so one is left thinking, 'Yeah, well, hang on, were they saving the best for last?' They are sort of dribbling out the fact that the picture is looking worse to budget. By the time you get the next year's papers we reveal actually it is significantly worse. So we go from the 2022-23 budget, just to be really clear, of $714 million, and we see that the 2022-23 actual was just a few hundred thousand shy of $800 million. So we go to an $85 million blowout by the time we see the actual 2022-23 figures.

Alright, what does that lead to? Well, it leads to, on the face of it, a nearly $15 million budget cut for 2023-24. That is met with an estimated result in 2023-24 of $855,742,000 in expenditure, so a $70 million blowout to that. And that is where we leave ourselves in a situation where we have gone from child protection being an exception to operating efficiencies back in the first of this Malinauskas Labor government's budgets, to now the Department for Child Protection having to deal with, on the face of it, a $62 million cut in the present budget, in the 2024-25 budget. Folks, it is an understatement to say I will believe that when I see it. We have not seen the department constrain its cost of services to anything close to that proposed cut, even going back to 2022-23. We are at or above $800 million and we are heading rapidly towards $1 billion in the Department for Child Protection.

I have focused in these remarks, as we do in terms of analysing the budget, the appropriation, on the hard numbers, the reality of the hard numbers that are provided to us on the face of the budget papers. Again, I say this because I anticipate the nature of what is put against me in this regard: 'Oh, well, how dare you come and talk about dollars in an area of care and protection.' I want to make this very clear: the people of South Australia expect that their scarce resources are applied towards improved outcomes for our most vulnerable children. The test is: if the budget is set as an exception to operating efficiencies, if it is set with increases from one year to the next, let's have the government spell out the case for that and let's have the outcomes to show for it.

Again, I urge people who are focused on this area to have a look at the key agency outputs that are expressed on the face of each of those pages in the budget papers for each of those years, because with minor adjustments from one year to the next, the key agency outputs for each year are described in more or less precisely the same sorts of terms. I can hear the journalists from Media Watch approach when they go through detecting plagiarism and you hear two voices reading the same content, overlapping at the same time, minor departures from those dot point agency outputs.

Tellingly, this year, there is one dot point that has been added to the list. We have one novel dot point. What do you know? At the bottom, a novel dot point which is supporting foster and kinship carers. I am glad they got a mention for a first time. I suspect that the business of supporting foster and kinship carers has and remains at the core of what expenditure is necessary in the Department for Child Protection. It is hardly something new. I call on the government to ensure that these scarce resources are applied in a competent way by a competent minister.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (11:52): I rise to make a contribution to the Appropriation Bill in response to the estimates of 2024. I say at the start of this contribution that I am a little taken aback by the contribution of the very new member for Dunstan in this place and her turns of phrase, some of which I find quite offensive.

I want to put it on the record that I do not delineate between a female minister and a male minister—not at all. For her to come into this place and use the misogynistic turn of phrase about the way in which I ask questions not only of the Minister for Agriculture but the Minister for Trade and Investment, that new MP has a lot to learn in this place. I must say that I found it quite outrageous that she made no contribution to the budget or the reference to estimates, only attacking me. For what it is worth, to the member for Dunstan, the electorate is Chaffey not 'Chaffy'.

I must say that my questioning, particularly of the Minister for Agriculture, the Hon. Clare Scriven, was just that. I have many, many industry people who come to me with complaints and concerns about the lack of interest by that minister. She has her pet areas of portfolio. Okay, so be it. I questioned the capacity and the capability of the minister through the budget estimates process. That is what the budget estimates process is about. It is about questioning the capability of not only the minister but the department, its budget lines and exactly what its priorities are.

I guess, now that I have got that out, I think the member for Dunstan has a lot to learn. For her to reference me and my constituency you might say are fighting words. Sure, maybe it is, but I think she has a long way to go to learn. She might not be there much longer either, with an election coming up in 2026, and if she keeps playing her cards the way she is her constituency will see right through her, let me assure you.

She referred to cordial conversations with the trade minister—a very new trade minister; it is not his background—and I gave him some level of cordial conversation, which was out of courtesy. For what it is worth, the trade portfolio needs to be more bipartisan, it needs to have that continuity. That was very much demonstrated with my most recent trade delegation visit with the former trade minister over to India. It really did open his eyes to the benefit of showing a level of bipartisanship. It showed the confidence the government has in presenting a level of continuity, whether it is opposition, whether it is government.

Having the opposition spokesperson role for trade for four years prior to coming into government, I saw it as being very beneficial, as did the former trade minister, the Hon. Tom Kenyon. He took away the opposition trades spokesperson, who then became a defector and went to be a Labor minister, but it did demonstrate to our trade constituency, our global trading partners, the value of showing that level of bipartisanship.

I reached out with the olive branch to both the now Premier and the former trade minister, and I think both have seen the benefit to that initiative. I note that the new trade minister does not see the benefit of acting in a bipartisan way, nor showing that continuity to our trading partners, but that is his and his officers' decision.

The member for Dunstan, you got to ask your Dorothy Dixer; you even got to ask a question that was out of order, talking about major events to the trade minister. If you are going to criticise someone on the opposite side of the chamber, make sure you have your facts right. You can play the card of 'I came off a farm, isn't that wonderful? I know exactly what a farmer is all about', and all the rest of it, but let me assure you that you do not live on the farm today, not like many who are primary producers, living in regional settings, understanding what the heartbeat of today is and not what the heartbeat of 20 years ago was.

Let me assure the member for Dunstan that she has a lot to learn and, should she be there after 2026, I hope she can present herself with the right intent, rather than going out and attacking. Whether it is on behalf of the agriculture minister, I do not know, but for her to come in here and use the misogynistic line speaks volumes about exactly what sort of person she is, without a personal attack on her.

I want to take the opportunity to speak on trade-related matters, particularly here in South Australia. As a former trader myself and a primary producer, I now represent what I would consider the engine room to a number of commodities traded out of the state. We have seen a number of initiatives, both federal and state—and I will focus the majority of my contribution on the state trade pathway—and we are going down a very dangerous path. We are here looking in the face of what we experienced 10 years ago, and that was a pathway into China, a very important trading partner—yes, it is. But with one fell swoop we saw many businesses either put to the wall or are now still suffering financially.

I think it has to be said that we can and must learn from our previous experiences—we are trading into a major trading partner—and understand exactly how vulnerable you become when you put all your eggs into one trade basket; for example, China. I did this with the former trade minister, and I got severely hounded down by him for my questioning around putting too much reliance on one trading partner and where it got us. My view is that we have seen both federal and state governments putting a significant amount of money and investment into trying to reinvigorate the China-South Australia relationship. I think that is an initiative that has merit, but it also shows us that there is a capacity for a government to again have a singular focus of trying to trade our way out of trouble.

We have seen a significant amount of economic hardship come to South Australia's economy. It was passed on to small business, family business and big business, which have had significant hardship bestowed upon them through trading sanctions with China. We know that the majority of those sanctions have been lifted. It was very sad to see that the current trade minister, while he was in that role, never got an invite to meet with Chinese Premier Li Qiang.

There was no mention of rock lobster and no mention of the hardship that industry has been through, and there has been no mention of it since. I would like to know exactly what the government's recommendations are in supporting an industry that has been severely impacted by the live rock lobster trade with China. They are doing it very tough, and many of those family-owned businesses are still trying to find their way into new markets, trying to find their way back into China. The silence has been absolutely deathly with the lack of, I guess, commentary.

Is the government speaking to China about re-engaging the rock lobster industry and taking away the sanctions that were imposed with regard to allegations of heavy metal content in those lobster? I think the government has a duty of care to not only give some level of commentary but to actually level with the industry as to where those trade negotiations are for what is a very important industry, particularly for southern rock lobster. We do have a western zone, and they too are impacted.

We have been promised by federal trade ministers, over time, that, 'We are dealing with it, and those sanctions will be lifted very shortly,' but still there is nothing to hear. So I want to better understand exactly what the government's priority is. Is it popular politics? Probably. Are we putting all our eggs back into the China basket? Probably. Why are we not showing more initiative in regard to some of our other traditional markets?

I noticed that the trade minister put out two press releases in one day, before he jetsetted off to China, to say how wonderful it is that we have seen that export numbers have risen significantly. The comparison is: yes, it was through a COVID pandemic, and now we have seen that the majority of the impacts of COVID have slowly dissipated. It is coming off a low base when the government states a 175.4 per cent increase in food and wine agribusiness exports. I look back to 18 months ago when wine exports to China were $2 million, and now both state and federal governments are standing up and saying, 'Look at us; aren't we fantastic? We are almost approaching $400 million of wine back into China.' But I can assure you, that is filling up the pipeline and currently the goose's neck is full.

In speaking to traders in China and in speaking to wine businesses, merchants, makers and wine businesses here in South Australia, they are just filling up the supply line. What is it going to mean? In six months' time we will know. We will know much more as to how thirsty the Chinese consumer is.

We should be looking at more of a focus on how thirsty the rest of the world are for South Australia's wine, for their agribusiness products, for their food, for their value-added products that have been severely impacted, not only by the pandemic, by trade sanctions, but by, now, a government having very much a singular focus on China. Some of these emerging markets and traditional markets that we took our eye off the ball on between 2014 and the pandemic have been the US, the UK, the Nordics, Japan, New Zealand. Those countries were filthy that we had taken our focus off those trading relationships and put all of our focus into the China basket.

Yes, we were seduced. We were given premium prices. We were given assurance that they would take everything that we had to offer, but then, when sanctions came in, that was just cut off at the knees, and so we went back to our traditional markets. We went back to some of our emerging markets: the Nordics, South-East Asia. We looked right across the globe as to where opportunity was and they looked at us and laughed and said, 'You dumped us for China and now look where you are.' It might be a little bit of 'coming back to bite you'.

My call is on the federal government to put a focus on a more diversified trading strategy, to put your money on all of our trading partners, whether they be traditional or whether they be new entrants into wanting to have our services, wanting to have our food and wine, wanting to have some of our raw products.

Obviously, we have seen impacts on timber, we have seen impacts on barley, we have seen impacts on seafood, red meat, wine, livestock feed. We have seen impacts on petroleum, we have seen impacts on a majority of some of those horticulture products that now we have an opportunity to make sure that we are a powerhouse in our export space, and that we are looking at the way that other countries have further diversified. I will use New Zealand as an example.

Coming into government in 2018, the Marshall Liberal government then, as policy papers were written, released and then enacted, we saw the re-enactment of trade offices globally. We saw a hub-and-spoke approach where we would have significant presence in major trading hubs with then a spoke approach out to some of those new entrants or smaller trading partners that saw a great opportunity and a great level of confidence, not only by exporters here in South Australia but by exporters here nationally, and we saw trade numbers grow significantly. We saw services grow significantly. We saw international education was a boon until, sadly, the pandemic stopped everything in its tracks.

What I must say is that, while we are still very heavily focused on China, we must diversify. Vietnam is a great opportunity, along with Hong Kong and all of South-East Asia and north Asia. If we look at Japan as one of our great trading friends, they are still damaged goods after South Australia and Australia's behaviour in dealing with China, giving much higher preference than to any of these traditional trading partners.

My message to the government and to all of South Australian small-to-medium business, even large business and those family businesses, is that, as an alternative government, we will make sure that we have diversity in our trading relations. We will make sure that we do not do what we succumbed to from 2012 onwards by putting all of our eggs into one basket, making ourselves more vulnerable and siloed into a country that has shown us what their power and trading experience has done. We have to remember that China have been trading for 2,000 years. Here in Australia we have been trading for somewhere in the vicinity of 150 years, and it certainly shone out.

The cost of living is also playing a big part. Whether it is running a small business, whether it is growing a business, or whether it is a new entrant into the export sector, we have a lot of work to do. We have current governments that have put in workplace relations rules that are now making it harder and more expensive than ever in the history of this state to grow food, process food, manufacture that food, transport food and put it onto the shelves of our global trading partners. It is becoming much, much harder.

The inputs have really become a major factor. Not only are we dealing with the vagaries of weather, the commodity prices, the exchange rate and the high cost of inputs but we are now dealing with labour costs. We are now even dealing with being able to access labour because of a lot of these new workplace relation rules. This state, and in particular the electorate of Chaffey, have seen the peace agreement that has been installed for over 100 years and has worked exceptionally well now come back to minimum hours per week, making the cost of running a business significantly more expensive. There is the burden of attaining a workforce, the burden of being able to afford a workforce, and the burden of being able to justify an increase in the price of food. As I said, the cost of growing, packing, producing, putting it into a container and getting it offshore has never been more of a challenge.

It is highlighted on the front page of The Advertiser today that some of my constituents—a great South Australian business, the Knispel family—are fed up to their back teeth with the cost of power, as are many of my farmers who are lifting water and putting it into their farms, and putting power into packing sheds and refrigeration, making sure that produce is kept in pristine condition so that it is ready for a global market. We are dealing with the rest of the world, putting the best piece of food in a box, putting it into a market and onto a shelf so that we are given the accolades for what we do so well.

The costs have never been harder: the cost of running a business, the cost of producing food. We all know what happens when the cost of inputs goes up: the cost of food goes up and it makes it much, much more difficult for the cost of living to be able to be brought to a balance. This is my contribution to the Appropriation Bill. You will hear a lot more about trading relations, primary production, and what a great state we have here to do it in.

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (12:12): I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill and the reports of the estimates committees. It is an opportunity for me to put on the record my thanks to all those involved in the estimates process. It is a very useful exercise for this parliament, and particularly the opposition, to scrutinise how we are spending taxpayer money and to hold the government to account. This is an opportunity for me to again talk about some of the issues I have been advocating for locally in my own electorate during this budget process, some of which we explored during the estimates committee process because some of it, happily, we have achieved, including in particular an announcement about road safety.

I was very delighted to see in this state budget funding of $80 million for road safety initiatives. I am particularly interested in this topic, not only as the new shadow minister for road safety but also in my capacity as a local member. We had this issue brought to the forefront in my electorate very soon after I became the local member, when there was a shocking accident out the front of a school in my electorate, Marryatville High School, when two children who were looking to do no more than get to school that day were struck when a truck failed to stop at a red light.

So I have been advocating in this place for improvements to road safety infrastructure right around this state, particularly at school crossings. I am pleased that these calls have been heeded by the minister for road safety, in particular the announcement of a package for road safety funding near schools, as well as the consideration of something that I have been advocating for for a couple of years now, which is the consideration of 40 km/h speed limits at schools on main roads.

Of course, we all know that there are 25 km/h school zones in most side streets, but it is an unusual thing indeed, if we are hurtling down Kensington Road in my electorate or if we are hurtling down Portrush Road in my electorate past a whole number of schools, whether it be Seymour College, Loreto College or Linden Park Primary—and the school crossing there was found last year to be the most dangerous in the entire state—that there is really no warning that you are approaching a school zone or a school crossing, and there is certainly no change in speed limits.

So I am pleased to see in this budget the announcement that there will be a school crossings package, and that will include the rollout of 40 km/h school zones on main roads near some priority schools. That is the big question I now have for the minister: where are these priority locations for the rollout of 40 km/h school zones and improved school crossing packages? I have a long list in the eastern suburbs that I urge him to turn his mind to. That is something I am going to continue to pursue not only as the local member for Bragg and representing schools like Marryatville, Glenunga, Seymour, St Peter's Girls' and Loreto, and primary schools like Linden Park, Burnside and Rose Park, but also now in my new capacity as the shadow minister for road safety. It is something that I look forward to working with the government on.

The other aspect in the budget that I look forward to working with the government on from a local perspective is around the apparent crackdown on illegal vaping and tobacco stores. Again, it is something that I have been bringing to the attention of this house for certainly over a year now. I see now again that those calls have been heeded, and I am pleased that we could secure $16 million of funding to counter the illegal trade of tobacco and vaping. This is a phenomenon we unfortunately see growing right across the state and, concerningly, perhaps see growing in my own electorate.

I think it is particularly concerning when we see a lot of these stores opening up near schools and targeting schoolchildren with particular flavours of vapes or whatever it might be. So I am pleased to see the $16 million of funding to Consumer and Business Services to fund the enforcement of our laws, because I do not really like vape and tobacco stores being anywhere near schools, but I certainly do not like illegal vape and tobacco stores being near our schools.

I have written to the minister again just recently about stores that we have seen opened in Stonyfell near St Peter's Girls' School and also in Marryatville near Marryatville High School and Marryatville Primary School. There is also a store on Glynburn Road that I have identified for the minister. If Consumer and Business Services are looking for ways to spend their $16 million enforcement fund, come and have a look in the eastern suburbs, because we do need to crack down on illegal vaping and tobacco stores in our local community. It is an area of huge concern to my constituents.

There are three other local issues I want to touch on that we explored in the estimates process through various committees, and unfortunately it is not such happy news. It is happy news on the road safety front, happy news on the tobacco and vaping front, but there are three things that I thought were missing for the people of the eastern suburbs in this budget. The first is something that I have spoken about many times in this place before. It is the need to get trucks and heavy vehicles off our local roads, including in particular Portrush Road in my electorate but also Glen Osmond in my electorate.

We know that there are thousands of trucks coming down the South Eastern Freeway every single year. They spew out onto our local roads, whether it be Portrush Road running through my electorate and the member for Dunstan's electorate, Glen Osmond Road running through my electorate and the member for Unley's electorate, or Cross Road running through a whole range of electorates, mainly on the other side of the house. I am surprised I do not see the same advocacy from that side of the house for a solution to this problem because it is not only a traffic congestion issue but, again, it is a road safety issue.

I think it is devastating that we only ever seem to talk about this issue when there is some spectacular or tragic accident, often at the bottom of the freeway. We have seen it time and time again. We saw it very soon after I became the local member when there was a huge crash involving buses and trucks and about half a dozen cars, I think. I understand it was about the fifth major accident at that intersection within the last decade. What are we waiting for? Do we need to see another tragic accident before we turn our minds to this issue again? Let's not wait for the next accident before taking action on this issue.

There is a solution in the form of a Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass. This is something we have talked about for a very long time in this parliament and others have spoken about it in previous parliaments. But for the first time, in the previous government, there was actually some money on the table to start this project with the Truro freight route, which I saw as not only a really important project in and of itself but also a really important first step in a wider greater Adelaide freight network that would get trucks off of our local roads.

That funding has been cruelly ripped away by Labor governments at both state and federal levels. As long as there is no Truro freight route, we are not going to see a Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass and we are not going to see trucks being taken off of our local roads. It is something I will continue to advocate for constantly in this place until we do get trucks off of our local roads.

The second disappointment from a local perspective for me in this budget was the lack of investment in schooling capacity in the eastern suburbs. We have a problem in the eastern suburbs. It is a good problem to have in the sense that our schools are really good; in fact, they are the best, but they are so good that they are bursting at the seams. We have Glenunga International High School as well as Marryatville High School. Both are subject, I think, to capacity management plans and both are over capacity at the moment.

The picture is no better for our local primary schools, being Rose Park Primary, Burnside Primary and Linden Park Primary as well. Nearly all of them are subject to capacity management plans. I am helping, I think, about a dozen constituents at the moment who are trying to get into Glenunga International High School who live in the suburb of Glenunga. One of them lives basically opposite the school and is being sent to a different school much further away because our local schools are full. We need investment in schooling capacity in the eastern suburbs because local kids deserve to be able to go to local schools.

I think it is really concerning that we see this pressure on our local schools now, before we have even had a big influx of urban infill that is being proposed by the Labor government. The third thing that we considered, particularly with the planning minister, through this estimates process was his plan to increase urban infill in the eastern suburbs and his plan to build, or at least initiate a proposal to build, 20-storey towers in my electorate. I have spoken about that proposal before. At the moment, the proposal that is on the table is to change a medium-density development in Glenside, at the corner of Fullarton and Greenhill roads, into a very high-density development and a very high-rise development, changing eight-storey towers into 20-storey towers.

There has been a lot of concern in my local community about that proposal. The concerns fall into two main themes. One is that this is really bad planning, and it is bad planning because it is not the plan. The plan was a series of eight-storey towers. That was going to add 1,000 new dwellings to that local area in Glenside, a huge contribution to housing supply. Many people have bought in good faith on the basis of that plan.

Once those thousand dwellings have been sold, what is now trying to occur is to fundamentally change the plan on these people. They bought into a development where there were going to be eight-storey towers and now the very same developer is changing it on them to 20-storey towers. Some of these people only bought in as recently as the start of this year on the basis of a really different plan. There are a lot of constituents who feel like they have been the victim of a bit of a bait and switch here. They have been led to believe one thing and they are going to end up with another.

The broader concern is that this whole proposal is happening without any reference to investment in public infrastructure in the eastern suburbs. I have already spoken about road infrastructure in the course of this contribution. I have already spoken about schooling capacity in the course of this contribution. There is also concern about open space, about sewerage and about car parking. All of it is happening divorced from discussion about public infrastructure to support high-density, high-rise and unrestrained urban infill, which seems to be the policy of this Labor government, and it is a really concerning thing for my constituents.

That is going to go through a code amendment process now. The minister did not seem too interested in talking about it during the estimates process, which is surprising given the whole thing was announced with a great big front-page story of him smiling in front of what are going to be his new 20-storey towers. I respect his decision because he says, 'I am the sole decision-maker, so I need to make my decision in due course.'

What I say is that we all know he is the sole decision-maker. We are all going to remember the decision that he has made, and it is now up to him to determine whether it is Labor Party policy to build 20-storey towers in the eastern suburbs. The first of them is proposed in Glenside. Perhaps the second will be in Kent Town, in Norwood or along The Parade. Is this Labor Party policy to build 20-storey towers in our eastern suburbs?

With the time I have left, I want to touch on a couple of portfolio areas from the committee process that I took a particular interest in. The first was the environmental portfolio. It was an honour to serve very briefly as the acting shadow minister for the environment, and it was an honour during that time to be able to celebrate not only what I see as one of South Australia's greatest assets, being our natural environment and our built heritage, but also the very strong record of particularly the previous Liberal government in this space: our record investment in national parks, our record expansion of national parks, a huge increase in park rangers.

They were very significant reforms. There was single-use plastics reform, the latest stage of which we see rolling out just this week. These are really important practical and sensible environmental initiatives that were spearheaded by the previous Liberal government. I am pleased, and I am going to continue, to take a very active interest in this area throughout my time in this parliament.

Over the past couple of years it has been a pleasure to continue that tradition of the Liberal Party taking sensible and practical action to protect the natural environment, to try to get away from simple virtue signalling, which I think is the easy way out for those on the other side of the house, and take actual practical action to protect the environment. We saw that perhaps most recently in work that the Liberal opposition led around our Adelaide Parklands, protecting and preserving our Adelaide Parklands as the great asset that they are, as well as our work around tree canopy that we have been advocating for on this side of the house and also our work around our heritage laws.

One of the first things I did when I was the shadow assistant minister for heritage was come up with a plan about saving our suburbs, protecting our heritage homes, preserving our heritage buildings and, indeed, growing our important tree canopy as well. I am going to continue to take a very active interest in that portfolio to celebrate our natural environment to protect and preserve what makes our state so great.

I have also had the opportunity now, as the new shadow minister for police, corrections and community safety, to reflect on the estimates process that has taken place before the time of my appointment. What became really quite apparent through reading that is that crime is skyrocketing under Malinauskas Labor. Indeed, since the election there have been really disturbing increases in crime in this state right across the board. There are some really startling figures, with shop theft being up 51 per cent since the election of this government, assault on police up 48 per cent, robbery up 26 per cent, homicide up 25 per cent, and sexual assault up 12 per cent since the election of this Labor government.

My starting position as a very new shadow minister is that South Australians deserve to feel safe. They deserve to feel safe in their homes, they deserve to feel safe in our suburbs and on our streets. Indeed, I think it is the core business of government to keep South Australians safe. That is never going to happen unless this government acts to appropriately resource, recruit and retain our police officers, because one very disturbing fact that emerged from the estimates committees is just how under-resourced South Australia Police is. Indeed, we have a shortfall of nearly 200 officers currently in South Australia Police, and what the estimates process revealed was that current recruitment strategies are only yielding, net, about 16 officers a year.

So the recruitment strategy is not really working and, importantly, the retention strategy is not really working. It seems just as we have a new recruit enter the door through the front we have a really experienced officer exiting the back door, for a gain of 16 net per year. At that rate, it is going to take about a decade, on this government's current plan, just to get up to that base level that is required for police officers.

So I say we need more cops on the beat to deter crime. The crime wave is really concerning and it is going to keep happening unless we retain, recruit and resource South Australia Police. That is something I am going to be really focused on as the new shadow minister for community safety, because South Australians deserve to feel safe in their own homes, safe in our suburbs and safe on our streets.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (12:32): It is a privilege to have the opportunity once again to reflect on the estimates process as part of the debate on the Appropriation Bill. I thank those ministers whom I had the opportunity to question for their courtesy and diligence in answering questions, when they did so, and obviously condemn them for those occasions when they chose not to. I think the ratio was not too bad this year, if I am being fair. I do not really have time in the 20 minutes allocated to go through each of the portfolios that I was interested in, but I will identify some particularly interesting aspects.

The Premier indicated that the government has yet not worked out what it is doing in relation to the Tarrkarri project, for example—a $200 million project that was underway when this government was elected. It was put on pause, reviewed and has now been kicked down the road for two years while they work out whether they can afford to do what they might want to do instead of what they were going to do when they came into government. We await that information, as do many South Australians.

I found very interesting the estimates process for the Minister for Arts five days before the end of the last financial year, and at that point being uncertain as to whether the Adelaide Festival had a deficit in its budget, whether it had met its targets or not, and we still await that information a couple of months into the new financial year. I look forward to the Minister for Arts at some stage coming back with a response on that matter.

We had discussions on higher education with the Deputy Premier about a range of things, including and in particular the impact of the federal government's decision to place caps and restrict international students, and the impact that that will have on our new university. I remind members that the business case for the new university, which was a core element of the government's plan for South Australia's economic future, is based very fundamentally on a massive increase—by 5,000 to 7,000—in international students over and above the current combined international student numbers at the Adelaide University and the University of South Australia.

There are also, of course, economic impacts of the increased research that is designed to take place, but the economic underpinnings of the business case to enable that extra research to take place also rely on 5,000 to 7,000 extra international students. As the Deputy Premier has admitted and as I think the Premier has admitted too, there are real concerns about the federal government's proposed new direction in reducing the number of international students in Australia. Until and unless we have certainty that the international student numbers that Adelaide University, as it is to be called, are able to take are indeed reflective of that proposed 5,000 to 7,000 net increase then the entire business case is under threat.

This is a real and present concern for South Australia as a whole. This project is too big to fail. Despite our misgivings and concerns and reservations, once it was clear that the legislation would pass we did commit our support to it with our vote, because this is a combined effort of South Australians that has to succeed. The potential catastrophic consequences, if it were to fail, would be generational in the way that the State Bank disaster was generational. So we want to work together to help make it succeed.

I hope that the Deputy Premier will take on board our offer of bipartisan support in approaching the commonwealth. At the moment, any failure of the commonwealth in delivering this is the failure of the Labor Party alone. The government has not seen fit to take that up. We hope the commonwealth will see reason and allow our South Australian universities—not just the new university but also Flinders University, which is on track to become one of Australia's top 10 universities by measure of rankings—increases in international students, which they need for us to deliver that outcome.

We had a good discussion about that in estimates, and I thank the Deputy Premier for her thoughtful engagement on the issue. I hope she will take us up on our offer of bipartisan support in tackling the federal Labor Party on their dreadful failures.

I also, of course, had the opportunity to engage with the Minister for Multicultural Affairs and Minister for Tourism on behalf of our shadow minister, the Hon. Jing Lee. A highlight from that process was a clarification on the definition of what engagement one needs to have with the music of Taylor Swift to be called a Swifty as opposed to Swifty adjacent. I am sure that the Minister for Tourism and Minister for Multicultural Affairs estimates process will be something that many people will not forget any day soon.

The majority of my last Wednesday of the estimates, and indeed the entirety of the sitting that day, was with the Minister for Education, Training and Skills, so in the remaining time I will reflect on some of the work we did in that time, particularly reflecting on school education and, if I have time, early childhood. There will be other opportunities to talk about training and skills.

Many members would be in receipt of some documents from Catholic Education. I want to start on this issue. The federal government has taken $15 million from South Australia's students and young people. I am sure that the Treasurer and the Minister for Education will be acutely aware of this but, for the benefit of the house, I will explain.

The federal Labor Party in late 2022 indicated that it will cease what had been its operation for many years, certainly since the institution of the federal Education Act, of funding every student in our schools to 80 per cent of the student resource standard for non-government schools, less parents' capacity to pay, and indeed 20 per cent per of the student resource standard for public schools. That included students in South Australian schools who had entered reception midyear under midyear reception entry, a longstanding practice in many South Australians schools which has been reintroduced for public schools by this government after the former Labor government withdrew that opportunity about a decade ago.

These students, who are in the midyear reception entry, are students who turned five after 1 May in the year that their cohort, born before 1 May, would be entering reception. In South Australian non-government schools particularly and now public schools as well, those students get an extra six months of reception and that has been proceeding in catholic schools and a range of independent schools for an extended period of time and now in our public school system as well. They have been counted, as their compatriots in reception to year 12, as students and the Gonski model applied accordingly.

Those students deserve to be supported in their education. Those schools provide that opportunity. It is beneficial to the students. Indeed, it is particularly beneficial to those students. Records show that, whether it is year 1 phonics check data or whether it is year 3 NAPLAN results, students who have had the benefit of that extra six months of reception schooling are outperforming their compatriots. This was an election policy the Labor Party took to the last state election to extend that to public schools, and it has been popular.

I note that in the estimates process we identified that the cost for state government schools was $29 million a year, which is approximately $22 million a year more than Labor said it would cost, but, nevertheless, I am not going to focus my criticism on state Labor for having a budget blowout. It is clearly a benefit to those students and the Liberal Party will support it continuing in the years ahead. It was a close-run thing. We were certainly considering implementing it ourselves. We ultimately did not do it and the Labor government did. That is fine. That is good. Those students will benefit as students in non-government schools did too.

But $15 million from the federal government is what Treasury and the education department was counting on to support students in government schools and students in non-government schools in South Australia and the federal government has now chosen not to proceed. They gave one year's grace. In late 2022, they said, 'Okay, there are a couple of months to go, so we will fund them in 2023,' but this year, 2024, these students are not funded.

The state government can make up the shortfall in public schools, that shortfall being in the order of $7 million extra that the state government is having to come up with because the federal government is not paying for their share. For non-government schools, in estimates we explored it and we do not have the exact number but, from what I can tell, there is $2 million that the state government continues to provide to non-government schools for these students. The federal government's share would therefore be in the order of about $8 million a year that is not being paid by the federal government to our non-government schools.

Most of this money is not going to wealthy schools or schools that might be considered elite. Most of this money is, indeed, going to lower-SES non-government schools with midyear reception programs. Schools in the catholic education system, small, parish, country, catholic schools with a midyear reception program, are now getting no federal government funding to support those parents, who are either going to have to pay for that through increased fees in those schools or, alternatively, if the federal government maintains their position of refusing to pay for these students' entitlements, through the rest of the school students receiving less so that some support can be given to these midyear reception entry students or, potentially, worst of all, some schools may have to make the decision to withdraw this program, so those small, catholic, parish schools will suffer.

The other group of students who will really suffer are those students in low-SES non-government schools, independent schools, who do not even have the backing of a broader system, such as catholic ed does, to back them up. Those schools may be low fee, $1,000 or $2,000-fee schools, and the majority of their funding actually comes through the federal government's subsidy for those low-SES non-government schools.

We are not talking about schools that have the capacity to bring in extra parental funding, schools such as the one where the Deputy Speaker was formerly the business manager, serving communities with very low fees, and indeed the Gonski model recognises that. But the way the federal government is applying the Gonski model it will not recognise that. These schools will be left high and dry and, worst of all, these students will be left high and dry.

The minister says that they are still in negotiations with the commonwealth, and he said in estimates that the outcomes of those negotiations are yet to be finalised, but I think the state government needs to do more. I think that the state government needs to unambiguously come out again and urge the federal government to change their tune.

To be clear, it is not even as if there is a good reason why they are not doing this. The Catholic Education document on midyear reception South Australian funding says, 'The withdrawal of Commonwealth funding makes no sense.' I will quote from the Catholic Education document. It bears reading:

The withdrawal of funding will put financial pressure on schools committed to educating this student cohort, and it makes no sense as to why children in a school setting are now not being funded.

The only rationale being offered for the funding backflip is to save the Commonwealth government money. Yet children not in schools are likely to be in childcare.

They go on to say:

Any saving the Commonwealth makes from abolishing midyear intake funding will be far outweighed by the much larger cost of providing child care subsidies.

They are right. This is a uniquely South Australian issue because, for whatever accident of circumstance in history, schools in other jurisdictions have not traditionally offered a midyear intake. But maybe they should consider it, and maybe the commonwealth parliament should consider encouraging them to do so. The statistics speak for themselves. The commonwealth government has now actually got on board with policy that was controversial when we promised it in 2017 of having a year 1 phonics check around the place, around every school in Australia in the years ahead.

Year 1 phonics check results show that students who have done the extra six months benefit from that, as do year 3 NAPLAN results, so it is in their educational interest. But it would also save the commonwealth government an enormous amount of money in their social services and childcare budget if they are no longer having to provide childcare subsidies for that six months before students are entering school or indeed preschool, and if that goes into the education budget instead there are better outcomes for everybody.

This is $15 million that the federal Labor government has taken from South Australian students, and South Australian students deserve better. We need more work from the Labor Party here in South Australia to get their federal colleagues to reverse this terrible decision.

I will just highlight one other issue that relates to this. The state Labor government is spending $29 million a year to deliver the midyear entry program for public school students. As identified just then, the commonwealth is not recognising these students in terms of the Education Act and the Gonski allocation.

I asked a question of the Minister for Education as to whether these students, and indeed the $29 million we are spending on these students, are counted towards our Gonski allocation, towards what is required by the state government to be spent on public schooling to meet our obligations under the Education Act.

The minister took it on notice. I look forward to his response in due course but, of course, if it is not counted, if it is not entitled to be counted towards our Gonski allocation and we have been using it in identifying, as part of our Gonski allocation, to the board that assesses whether we are meeting our responsibilities, then it may indicate that we do need to spend some extra money in our public schooling system as well. I look forward to more information on that in due course.

There are a couple of other matters—and we are going to have to take some time in other speeches to go through all of the workforce issues that the government has in education—but there is one particularly interesting contract payment that I am looking forward to receiving more information on in due course. The state government spent $200,000 in the last year report in the education department's annual report; $200,717 to PricewaterhouseCoopers, a payment for what was described as professional services for machinery of government transition support.

The Minister for Education advised that this was to assist in moving skills into the education department under machinery of government. I asked some questions about whether there were other transition costs and other contracts provided towards that machinery of government change, and the minister is going to get back to us in due course, I expect. I asked what services were provided for that $200,000. It is not a small sum of money. There is a range of schools and preschools around South Australia, a range of communities and councils around South Australia, that would love to have $200,000 to spend on a useful project.

Given the fact that the government has about 30,000 staff across education and skills, it will be fascinating to me to discover what this external body, what PricewaterhouseCoopers were able to do for $200,000 that was not within the wherewithal of those government officers to do without support from PricewaterhouseCoopers. I am hoping that the minister comes back. He took the question on notice, which is not unreasonable—assuming that they were not shifting desks, assuming that they were not designing a new letterhead or logo for people—fascinating, I am sure, to find out exactly what they have done with that money. I look forward to that detail, and I hope that that response has a great deal of detail.

While in the area of contractors and consultants, there was also $342,000 to Deloitte Financial Advisory for a business case to support the case for change to guide life cycle infrastructure investment. This was explained to us by Mr Ben Temperly, deputy chief executive of the department. He said:

That work formed a component of the 20-year infrastructure plan. Specifically, what we were looking for in that work is the optimum way to prioritise and allocate funding for the sustainment of existing assets in the system. The 20-year infrastructure plan identifies investments for new facilities, where there are demographic changes and capacity increases required. One of the other components is the notion of sustaining investment in infrastructure, and that is the money we invest in schools to renew and replace existing buildings and infrastructure in schools. This work was to assist us with that.

We asked whether either the Deloitte document or, indeed, other documents in the 20-year infrastructure plan were available for public consumption. We received the press release from the minister, and there was a press conference saying that the government had a 20-year infrastructure plan for our schools, and we were advised that it was a cabinet document. I asked if cabinet would release the document, and the minister's response was a simple no.

It would not be the first time that has happened. I urge the government to release these documents because when I was with the Hon. Ben Hood last week, travelling through schools in Mount Gambier and the Limestone Coast, when we went to Millicent, Naracoorte, Mount Gambier, Mulga Street, and at Glenburnie and other schools, too, like Kalangadoo, the extraordinarily consistent feedback we had from all but one of the schools in question was that their infrastructure and maintenance was not remotely up to scratch.

It is my view that having long-term planning in terms of infrastructure is a good thing, but from the public's point of view and the parliament's point of view, we need some transparency about this, some understanding of whether the school in Mount Gambier that has the leaking roof into the art room, or whether the school in Naracoorte that has rooms that are unable to be used because of black mould, because of leaks, because of inconsistent footings, are on the list to be improved or are they not? It is all in a black box held in the Cabinet Office at the moment, and so we urge transparency here.

I also think that we need to make sure those country schools are considered. They might not meet the criteria of demographic change and they might not meet the end of life—although they might be near—but they need to have their issues taken into consideration too. I look forward to reporting to the house on more of what we learnt in estimates in other formats in the coming days.

Ms PRATT (Frome) (12:52): I grab the opportunity afforded me to rise and speak to the Appropriation Bill, reflecting on the budget that was handed down and the estimates committee that many of us participated in. I want to echo the member for Morialta's sentiments in thanking the ministers who participated and who most often graciously took our questions, and the public servants who always work hard in the background to make sure that their ministers are prepared before the onslaught, if you like, of the questions that follow.

I want to start my remarks by reflecting on the role that the Frome Economic Forum plays in my local community, a group, a coalition that I established with the CEOs and the mayors of the seven councils contained within the electorate of Frome, as well as representation from the two Regional Development Australia boards, encompassing Barossa, Light, Gawler, Yorke and Northern.

I am really grateful for their participation, I am grateful for their interest and I am grateful for the conversations we generate. Our MOU, if you like, is to meet twice a year—once pre-budget, in the approach to the budget, in the hope that as a coalition we can collate and summarise the priorities that we have in common in our region, and make sure that if there is something that we are fighting for that we are acting en bloc and writing en masse to the government to lobby and advocate for that critical investment. Sadly, for the last two budgets, when we come together post-budget to reflect on what investment the electorate of Frome might have enjoyed, the answer has been 'not very much'.

Again, I put to my friends in council and the RDA a fairly direct question, which was what had they uncovered in the budget that was going to be good for councils, and the room was silent. That, I think, reflects the budget that our state has been presented with. If I look at it through the prism of my constituents, then there are not a lot of positives to find.

I reflect on the member for Bragg's comments about the $16 million allocated to vaping. I know that my community are going to enjoy seeing me communicate with the minister to make sure that country areas, including towns in my electorate, are on the radar for this enforcement strategy. We really do need to see a crackdown across our state on the illegal trade and sale of the toxic e-cigarettes and vaping products that are now commonly found. I know that the community across the Clare and Balaklava region are concerned about the availability and supply of these products, particularly when we see young people able to access them. I note that at a state and federal level we are seeing a lot of reform around the legislation.

I acknowledge the government's investment in that. I hope the $16 million extends out to regional South Australia. I will be making sure that Frome is on the radar of the minister and that we see a crackdown with those enforcement officers from Consumer and Business Services knocking on those shop doors to make sure that legal products are being sold and that young people are not being exposed to the toxicity of vapes.

Going back to the post-budget meeting that I held with my councils, we identified a number of priorities that we have in common across the region from Two Wells to Terowie. Most often we talk about housing, water infrastructure, tourism, workforce, and government services or government investing in services in country towns. This bill did not excite us, the budget did not excite us in any way.

I touch on housing briefly. Certainly in regional South Australia, and Frome is no different, we are seeing no vacancies available and that really is a handbrake on every local economy. A number of businesses for a few years now in hospitality, primary industry, tourism and retail are looking to recruit. They want to recruit outside our townships either because of a skill they are seeking or solid employment ratios but there is no housing. You cannot move into South Australia to take a new job because there are no houses available.

Facebook is flooded with requests looking for recommendations for accommodation with people saying, 'I have taken this job; I am keen to move; I am coming to the area.' It is at the point of desperation, where it is who has a room, who has a shed, or who has a caravan. We are desperately looking for the government and the minister, with his super portfolios, to really shift the dial on the factors that are an impediment to housing supply.

Affordability is an issue because of those supply and demand pressures. It saddens me to be a constant contact for people who are looking for more affordable housing. These issues are not new, but we are looking to the government to take the lead there. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 14:00.

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