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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-07-23 Daily Xml
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APPROPRIATION BILL 2013

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 4 July 2013.)

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (15:28): I rise to speak to the Appropriation Bill 2013. Every fortnight, some South Australians are lucky enough to have a job in the state with the highest unemployment in the mainland. Australians get their wage or salary and, usually, every month or fortnight they pay their bills. Some families have housing or car loans, there are water bills, electricity and gas, registration, rates, taxes and levies, groceries and school fees.

Most people live within their means, but not this government. If this government was a family unit the debt collectors would have come knocking at the door long ago. South Australia's total government debt is expected to reach 75 per cent of the state's income within three years. By then, we will be paying about $750 million a year in interest on that debt. Taxpayers will be paying more interest every hour than a typical family earns in a year.

It is not as if ordinary South Australians are not fattening the government coffers; we are. We are paying more in state taxes than anyone else in this great country. Adelaide has the highest capital city water charges in Australia. Land tax is charged at 40 per cent above the national average. Stamp duty is 27 per cent above the national average. Insurance duties are one and a half times the national average. So, where is the money going that the government collects from the taxpayers? It is squandered: squandered on things like a desalination plant and building an inner-city hospital that we cannot afford while neglecting rural health.

The real problem, of course, is that our state is falling further and further behind the other states. Last year, the national economy grew seven times faster than South Australia's. Under Labor, our economy is forecast to grow below the national average for each of the next five years. Under Labor, population growth will lag behind the other states.

Under Labor, unemployment will remain above the national average over the next five years. Under Labor, export growth will be below the national growth in each of the next five years. If South Australia had kept pace with the national jobs growth under Labor there would be 41,000 more jobs in this state today. These are the real issues in the budget before us today.

In response, the Premier and Treasurer have slashed spending and support for the few initiatives in South Australia with the capacity to haul us out of this economic quagmire. The government is attacking the Tourism Commission with a financial chainsaw and the few dollars that are left are not being spent wisely.

There is no guarantee, for example, that the government will maintain the Visitor Information Centre past March next year. The minister has no idea where such a Visitor Information Centre will be relocated. In fact, in estimates just recently in the other place, the minister was unable to answer if there would be a city based Visitor Information Centre and where it would be likely to go. Labor has also cut the Sell SA program, leaving regional visitor information centres with no assistance, training or program support. They say they have a vision for South Australian tourism but, in fact, they have nothing but cuts.

The Adelaide Convention Centre is costing us $91 million this financial year. There is no plan to guarantee that the redevelopment will attract bigger events and conferences to boost our South Australian economy. In fact, there is no bid fund to attract conferences or events. Unlike every other capital city and every other state that has a convention centre, they have a dedicated bid fund where they can bid for international and national conferences. We do not have any and we do not have any conferences.

The minister is relying on a Chinese soap opera, Facebook, Twitter and taxpayer-funded trips to mainland China—and I quote—'To build relationships.' In actual fact, the minister is burning taxpayer funds to trot the globe before he and his government are tossed out next March. It is his odyssey but, unlike Ulysses, who travelled for 10 years, the Hon. Leon Bignell is trying to see as much of our planet as he can in under 10 months, eating and drinking his gluttonous way through France, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and London before the election.

Meanwhile, he has cut industry assistance by $2 million and there is nothing in the budget for regional tourism. By the minister's own admission, he is lashing out $6 million to promote Kangaroo Island and $6 million to promote the Barossa Valley over the next 18 months, while doling out a miserable $10,000 to $30,000 of direct investment in the 11 regions. While the commission has been cutting staff, its wages bill has actually been going up. Fewer people getting more money—that is the minister's formula: the nests feathered by the preening peacocks.

However, that same minister cannot give a breakdown of the costs of the redevelopment of the commission's website or the number of potential visitors who visit the website. The minister does not know the number of tourists visiting his own departmental website and the SATC's very own mobile app does not even have the new $1.3 million SA logo. The minister refuses to disclose how much major events like the Tasting Australia cost taxpayers in his and every other electorate, despite the fact the event remains a budget target.

Speaking of food, Labor's attitude to primary industries is more famine than feast. Food, wine and fibre make primary production South Australia's largest export industry and the most important contributor to the state's economy. So what is Labor's response? Labor's budget cuts spending on primary industries by almost $6.5 million. Its supposed premium food and wine innovation clusters are a battleground in the turf war between the minister for primary industries and the Minister for Manufacturing, Innovation and Trade.

Agricultural research, which should make South Australia a world leader, is now a low priority under Labor. At the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) more than one in every 10 jobs will disappear in this budget. It is an adage that one reaps what one sows but Labor is a grim reaper sowing the seeds of discontent and failure. These cuts have been going on for years. In the long list of failed Labor primary industries ministers two names stand out: the incumbent and the 'indumbent'.

In 2010, minister O'Brien actually defended the government's decision to cut 179 jobs from Primary Industries and to reduce spending on agricultural research and development. He was proud of the fact that 100 jobs went from Rural Solutions and he boasted that the cuts within the department of primary industries had been going on for years.

In 2008-09, 100 positions were cut with the expectation that 200 full-time jobs would go by 2013-14, but Mr O'Brien gave the promise three years ago that PIRSA would still be employing 1,200 people this financial year. The budget papers show that there are fewer than 900 full-time jobs in PIRSA today.

Under the current minister, the government has again let down rural South Australia. As Primary Producers SA chairman Rob Kerin put it, Labor's cuts to PIRSA in this budget follow a decade of cuts and leaves the department with nowhere near enough resources to fulfil its roles. Mr Kerin said:

Given the downturn in manufacturing and the volatility of mining, the government needs to invest in primary production through R&D, biosecurity, and ensuring our products are promoted to the emerging markets.

Labor heard those wise words and then slashed PIRSA's budget from $89 million to $77 million, including $4 million less for SARDI.

We hear the tourism minister talk with his mouth full when he says premium food and wine is a state priority and, in the government's next breath, the primary industries minister decreases investment in the industry. Regional South Australia is the powerhouse of our economy, but the government would not be able to find regional South Australia without looking on a sat nav.

When the South-East was reeling with uncertainty over the government's forward sale of the forests, the minister stayed in her Adelaide bunker refusing to meet with foresters, community leaders or the public. Instead she cowered in her ivory tower—on the ninth floor of Terrace Towers, to be exact—and dreamed up new ways to create havoc out of harmony.

The minister has set up the Forest Industry Advisory Board to duplicate the work already done by the board of ForestrySA, and the Forest Industry Advisory Board chair, an old Labor union mate, is collecting $50,000 a year on a so-called attraction and retention allowance. That is an average Australian's yearly salary, which the Labor-appointed chair gets as an attraction on top of his board fees.

The Forest Industry Advisory Board has practically no members who live in South Australia. It is stacked with Labor mates. It costs money to run, of course, and it is money snatched from legitimate programs which could have helped the South-East and the state in general. It could have kickstarted a biofuels program using the wood waste. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to know that we have one million tonnes of surplus fibre in the South-East.

The logical solution is to put it into a biomass power station. There are people down there who have been wanting to do it for a decade, yet this government spends $1 million on a study and also then appoints a forestry industry advisory board to advise the minister that that is the logical outcome. It is just an absolute waste. Instead, the government is just burning taxpayers' money and wasting it.

There have been some mean and miserable budgets under 11 years of hard Labor. There have been some incompetent budgets under Kevin Foley, the second-worst treasurer this state has ever seen, and there have been some callous budgets under Mike Rann, the most vain and pompous premier the state has ever seen, but this current budget is not just incompetent and cruel—it is an admission of defeat and, at the next election, Labor's defeat will be complete.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. R.P. Wortley.

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