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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-05-03 Daily Xml
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SUPPLY BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 6 April 2011.)

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (15:29): I rise today as one of the two members of the Greens who will be addressing the Supply Bill this week. As members are aware, this is a bill that guarantees the surety of public moneys, in particular to our Public Service. It is a very important bill, and a bill that exemplifies how the Rann government has treated the public sector of the state and the workers in that sector with contempt.

Under a year ago—because we had the latest budget in the entire country—the Rann government announced a slash and burn of our public sector. Over the next four years, there are plans to lose 3,743 existing workers. Of course, they will create 1,981 new jobs to meet those election promises, so we are looking at a total of 1,762 jobs to be cut by this government—a Labor government—over these next four years. Of course, public sector jobs are not the only things to go: public sector worker entitlements have also been axed. This Labor government has axed holiday leave loading for some public servants. It has also reduced long service leave entitlements.

It sees us in an almost unprecedented situation in this country where the union movement, out of an election cycle, is currently running advertising against a Labor government, where the union movement is taking a Labor government through our court system because the Labor government, as the employer of our public sector workers, has in fact betrayed enterprise agreements and enterprise bargaining arrangements made in good faith by workers, their unions and their representatives with this government.

It is unprecedented, and it goes some way to explaining the low support levels for the Premier of this state at the moment, which are at an all time low. I note that although minister Tom Kenyon said that they had only one way to go and that way was up, I suspect that, if the government continues with its slash-and-burn agenda of the very values that Labor should hold near and dear, it will only go down.

The Public Service Association quite rightly labelled the budget as cruel, and the Liberal opposition has also quite rightly said that we, as South Australians, are paying a high price for the economic mismanagement of this government. I think you have to question the priorities of this government when we put football stadiums ahead of essential services.

Let us have a look at the budget cuts and the impact that they have had on public sector workers so far. Of course, when I talk about public sector workers, we are also talking about the services that help those people in the South Australian community who most need that public sector assistance. The one that speaks to me as being of grave concern to anyone who would call themselves a defender of the working class or the underclass is the cuts to the SA anti-poverty program.

There has been a cut to 44 positions from the Families SA anti-poverty program. This is a unit that helps those who are in dire financial need. It assists people to handle their financial affairs, and it reduces their reliance on community support, providing long-term benefits for this state and of course for those individuals and families who are supported by this service. We have cut 44 positions from this essential service. My question to the government is: what impact will this have on those who are not currently Families SA clients and need this service? Will there be additional resources provided to non-government organisations to enable them to provide this service?

Further cuts have been made to the Department of Health in ICT. The Information & Communications Technology Services program has been cut by $6 million. It equates to approximately 100 full-time staff. Given that there have been cuts of approximately 100 full-time equivalent staff in the ICT unit of the Department of Health, why is the government, as of 30 March this year, continuing to advertise not internally but externally for ICT staff in this department? I would like the government to respond to that and demonstrate to the people of South Australia that it is not yet another example of their financial mismanagement.

The Department of Primary Industries and Resources has been asked to meet a savings requirement under this slash-and-burn budget, and it has seen the decision made that the Ceduna quarantine station is to be closed. This station provides a valuable biosecurity protection service to South Australians and conducts inspections of goods and stock. I understand that the solution that has been put forward by the government, in its wisdom, is to move this service in fact to Border Village on the border of WA and South Australia where nothing else, I understand, exists except for a petrol station and a much smaller population than exists in Ceduna.

I ask the government: what impact would such a closure have, not only on the people employed in this isolated area but also on the people of South Australia more generally? Will this not potentially increase our exposure to and risk from biosecurity threats to our crops and livestock in this state? I would like to hear from the government how those very valuable goals will, in fact, be upheld by this government, and I seek assurance from this government that we are not risking our biosecurity.

In the Department of Environment and Natural Resources 65 staff are to be cut by June 2011. The majority of those staff will be from national parks and botanic gardens. I ask the government what measures it is taking to ensure that the Mount Lofty and Wittunga Botanic Gardens are maintained in proper order for the many thousands of South Australians—as well as other Australians, of course, and international tourists—who wish to visit these valuable state assets each year.

As I said, the Rann government has gone ahead with a slash and burn of our public sector, which flies in the face of true Labor values. Members are aware that the union movement has challenged the government at every step, and we have seen thousands of people on the steps of this place. We have seen public outrage, and a lack of support for these cruel budget measures, and we have also seen the government's support fall.

I think that when the community finds out that we might, perhaps, lose further positions from The Parks facility they may question whether or not the Rann government has truly seen the wisdom of its original error in calling for the closure of that facility. With the review of The Parks centre almost complete, I eagerly wait to see whether the government simply stalled the bad news on The Parks facility or whether there is, in fact, a commitment to that community out there, to the valuable services and to the sense of community and pride that The Parks facility currently upholds.

I started in this place with words that Premier Rann spoke to us—that this would be a third term in the Dunstan style, a third term of great social reform. I am still waiting for this great social reform in the Dunstan style; perhaps it will not come under the leadership we currently have in this Labor Party. I, like many other South Australians—and certainly like some former Labor voters in New South Wales—wonder why this Labor government has so badly lost its way.

I am heartened to see that the treasurer who crafted this budget is no longer our Treasurer, but I remain to be convinced that this government has, in fact, seen the error of its ways. Like Kristina Keneally, the former premier of New South Wales, I think that this South Australian Labor government will find that it has left the people of South Australia, not that the people of South Australia have left it. It is a warning that this government should heed. With that, I seek leave to conclude my comments.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

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