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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-10-28 Daily Xml
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APPROPRIATION BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

The Hon. J.S. LEE (21:24): I rise to speak briefly to the second reading of the Appropriation Bill and to pass on my congratulations to my colleagues on this side of the chamber for their worthy contributions so far. Halloween is generally observed on 31 October in some parts of the world, but it seemed that Halloween had arrived early in South Australia when the Rann government handed down its budget. I think this budget has the Halloween theme because the budget cuts are not dissimilar to listening to frightening tales or watching horror movies. The common Halloween activities include trick or treat, but when it comes to the Labor government, there are more tricks than treat.

This is a Halloween budget made up of horror stories, mismanagement, lies and deceit from a government that tricked the people of South Australia to stay in power. The state election in March was fought mostly on trust. In order to be returned to power, the Labor government misled the people with promises, only for the people to find out with this budget just how dishonest the government is. The budget is not the budget that was promised prior to the state election, but it is the budget that was designed for the state election. It was designed to trick the people of South Australia.

Before the election, the government did not say that it was going to axe about 4,000 Public Service jobs. Before the election, the government did not say that it was going to slash public servant's entitlements. Before the election, the government did not say that it was going to close down small schools, cut community hospitals, adult education and business assistance, and that it was going to increase tax by $1 billion. This Rann Labor government cannot be trusted. It has misled the people of South Australia.

Thousands of people across electorates—the Parks community supporters, Public Service workers, country people—are very upset about the budget. The steps of Parliament House have never been busier, with rallies and groups of people protesting against Labor budget cuts. If this continues, very soon there will be a need to schedule bookings for the steps of Parliament House!

Even Australia's most powerful union leader has led an unprecedented public assault on the Rann Labor government at Parliament House. Thousands of Public Service workers have rallied outside Parliament House over budget cuts. The ACTU President told the large crowd—and it was a really large crowd indeed—that the ACTU is calling on the Rann government to come to the negotiating table. The Public Service Association indicated that about 10,000 people turned up at the rally. They do have the right to be upset because the Labor government has broken its agreement with public sector workers.

The PSA has taken out a full-page advertisement in The Advertiser warning that all South Australians will carry the pain of 3,700 government job cuts. The PSA rally on the steps of Parliament House voiced its outrage at Labor's leadership team. The state's peak union body formally condemned the Labor government for its blatant disregard for workers' rights.

SA Unions secretary, Janet Giles, said the organisation would continue a vicious campaign against the budget until planned cuts to jobs and leave entitlements were abandoned. She said:

They have, in our view, moved away from Labor values and no longer represent the interests of workers and their families in this state.

The Labor government went to the election in March promising that there would be no forced redundancies. The Labor government tricked the Public Service Association into thinking that the negotiations would be done in good faith, but the government knew the whole time that there were going to be drastic cuts.

The teachers were going through arbitration. They all thought they were entering into a new enterprise agreement in good faith. They were led to believe that there would be no cuts to the current situation and that their current entitlements would be retained. The budget delivered earlier this month revealed a different story—a horror story. The government has breached the agreement with the unions and all those public sector employees who trusted this government. Good faith went out of the window. This government intends to get rid of 3,740 public servants, yet it kept it a secret—another secret the government kept hidden until after the election.

Yesterday another rally happened, with hundreds of people on the steps of Parliament House protesting against the closing of country hospitals. Country people have every right to be angry, because the Labor government is going to remove money from private hospitals. It is a saving of $1.2 million per year and the government is going to take away the money from small country private hospitals such as Keith, Ardrossan and Moonta.

Those hospitals provide a service in their communities. Often they have boards of unpaid people who are there serving their beloved communities. With a very small amount of input from the government they are able to keep those hospitals running to provide a service to those communities, but the government does not seem to care and cannot see the serious implications of closing a hospital. The government does not care for the sick and weak in our community. The city-centric Labor government is constantly depriving the people of the regions around South Australia. It is shameful.

I do not understand why the Labor government hates country people so much. Why does it believe that country people do not deserve the sort of services that you expect in the city and urban electorates? The Leader of the Opposition and my colleagues talk about the cuts to PIRSA, cuts to agriculture, fishing services and all that research and development. It is so sad, because this state was built on its primary sector and continues to reap huge benefits from its primary industries.

Primary industry can only survive if it can continue to be innovative and stay at the cutting edge of new technologies. Continuous improvement through research and development has been delivered through having a viable primary industry department such as PIRSA, and that has now been cut to the bone. It is no surprise that our exports continue to decline in this state. We know that a high proportion of exports come from our primary industry sector and yet, with less and less support from this government, primary industries have been disadvantaged.

One of the harshest cuts of the budget is to cut the state's leading economic agency, the Department of Trade and Economic Development. DTED's allocation will be slashed by nearly $100 million over four years as the government targets services which have minimal impact on the ordinary voting public. The Labor government has no sympathy with small businesses in our state, even though the small business sector is a key driver for the state economy. Funding for incubation agencies and nine business enterprise centres will cease at the end of June 2011, as will funds for Small Business Month, the small business helpline, the South Australian Youth Entrepreneur Scheme, Innovate SA and the Technology Industry Association.

International trade development has also been targeted for severe cuts. Overseas trade offices in Singapore and Dubai will be merged with the federal government's Austrade network, and funding for the Council for International Trade and Commerce SA (CITCSA), as I said yesterday, will be phased out. Cutting the Department of Trade and Economic Development demonstrates that the Labor government's priorities are all wrong. After eight years of the Rann Labor government, our living standards, service levels, infrastructure and economic position relative to other states have all declined. Our share of the national economy has declined.

Our share of the national population has also declined. If we had kept pace with the national growth, we would now have 34,000 more people employed in this state than we have. We have failed to keep pace with what the rest of the country is doing. We used to be the third largest state. We are now trailing along at the bottom because of the mismanagement of this government. When Mr Rann came to office, we had a 7 per cent share of national business investment. We now have only 5.4 per cent of national business investment. The SA Strategic Plan said we were going to triple exports. What started out at $9.1 billion per annum in exports when the Liberals left office is now down to $7.9 billion.

Our exports declined by 14.5 per cent last year. We are falling behind the other states and the government wants to cut the funding in an agency such as the Department of Trade and Economic Development that potentially promotes trade and economic activities in our state. We have the lowest proportion of exporting businesses of all mainland states. We continue to lose residents to other states, with three times more people migrating to other states than when the Liberals were last in government. We used to be roughly 8 per cent; we are now down to about 7.3 per cent.

The tourism budget (this is the shadow ministry area of the Hon. Terry Stephens) has been cut by $12.5 million. Tourism is one of our growth areas and important to many country regions, but this short-sighted government is going to cut the number of programs, which will reduce the capacity for the state to expand its tourism appeal. This cut will have a serious impact on our tourism potential in this state.

What else? This state remains the highest taxing state in Australia. That has been confirmed by two independent authorities. Tax revenue has increased by 76 per cent since this government came to office. Property tax revenue has more than doubled. In fact, aside from Victoria, we pay the highest stamp duty in the nation. In this budget the $4,000 first home buyer subsidy on existing purchases has been cut.

Land taxes are up by over 300 per cent since this government came to power: it has increased four-fold. It is about time the Labor government recognised that land tax actually affects everyone—nearly all the business in this state. However, the Treasurer does not seem to realise that nearly all the businesses in this state are small to medium sized enterprises and most of them use rented premises to operate their business. If businesses are operated out of rented premises, then someone is paying land tax and that land tax has been passed on to that business and they are passing it onto their consumers. When the cost of doing business goes up, products and services become more expensive.

Furthermore, people who are the most vulnerable in the community are probably the ones in rental accommodation and, if landlords are paying land tax, then they are likely to increase the rent which will reduce affordable rental options for people in the low income group. Their rents go up because of land tax going up. The land tax is going up by huge amounts, yet this government does not seem to care. This is the highest taxed state in the nation. We were not always in that position but we have landed in that position because of this incompetent government. Now we have $1 billion in increased taxes and officially South Australia really is now the highest taxed state in the country.

In this budget there has been a huge number of increases, including rises in water rates, stamp duty, drivers' licence fees, vehicle registration and bus tickets, as well as fewer subsidies for country residents and the abolition of the first home buyer grant on existing homes. All this—the cuts and the tax increases—will hurt families and businesses. This government is blowing out the debt to a point where we will be back where we were after the State Bank disaster, where the people of this state will be paying approximately $2 million a day in interest.

The Leader of the Opposition has often invited people to think about what this state would look like if you could take that $2 million every day and put it somewhere useful—perhaps to upgrade a community centre such as The Parks Community Centre, to fund a small school or to save a country hospital—somewhere where it will benefit the community as a whole. All I can say in my concluding remarks is that this budget is a Halloween budget. It is a budget of broken promises and will hurt South Australia.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.

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