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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-02-16 Daily Xml
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Address in Reply

ADDRESS IN REPLY

Adjourned debate on motion for adoption.

(Continued from 15 February 2012.)

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (15:24): I rise to speak on behalf of the opposition to the Address in Reply to the opening of the second session of the 52nd Parliament. As members would be aware, it was done with the usual fanfare and ceremony on Tuesday, and I take this opportunity to thank the Governor, Kevin Scarce, and his wife for the great way they discharge their duties. I think he is a very popular choice for Governor and is well liked around the state. The Hon. Carmel Zollo indicated how pleased she was that his tenure had been extended by a couple of years. I certainly think I speak on behalf of all of my colleagues when I say that we enjoy working with him and his wife, and to do so for another two years will be an absolute pleasure.

I thought the Governor did a very good job reading one of the most uninspiring speeches I have heard since I was elected to this parliament some 10 years ago. Maybe post being the Governor he might get a job as a newsreader, because he did a great job with a pretty un-interesting story.

On Tuesday we heard the government, led by Premier Jay Weatherill, apologise to South Australia. It was not wrapped up as an apology: it was wrapped up as a gift. The Premier's program for South Australia will deliver less and will cost more. The government has identified seven primary areas of focus for attention. These can be summarised under the following headings: the clean green food industry; the mining boom, its benefits and the future fund; advanced manufacturing; a vibrant city; safe and active neighbourhoods; affordable living; and early childhood.

The opposition recognises that these fields of failure do not include every mistake in the life of the government or every area of government incompetence. The government has made choices; these choices are strategic. They are to hold on to metropolitan seats without a fundamental change of direction while condemning rural and regional South Australia to an assured economic contraction.

I would like to address my comments in relation to those seven areas and then, when I eventually get to my closing, I will just comment on some of the remarks made by the Hon. Carmel Zollo and the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars and also perhaps address the by-elections we had just last weekend.

In relation to the clean green food industry, as the world's population grows, so does its demand for food. Our state has missed an opportunity to meet this demand by condemning valuable productive agricultural land to housing, such as Mount Barker and Seaford. I think the Seaford area had been rezoned some 30 years ago, yet the Liberal governments led by the Hon. Dean Brown and the Hon. John Olsen, and the Hon. Diana Laidlaw, who served in this place as planning minister, chose not to sell that land. It was government owned and they chose not to sell it for very good reasons.

However, over the last 10 years, this government under the stewardship of firstly the Hon. Jay Weatherill as planning minister, I think the Hon. Trish White and then the Hon. Paul Holloway, this land was sold. So, it was this government that condemned that land to go under bricks and mortar. Buckland Park is also an area of farming land that this government has decided to rezone for residential development. This government has really proven that it has learnt nothing from the past.

The government is trying to present this clean and green image. It has talked about the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale and trying to protect those iconic areas—and I think we all recognise that they are very important areas—from urban sprawl; however, it is under the 10 years of this government that those areas have come under threat from urban sprawl. They were not under threat prior to that. As I said, a Liberal government chose not to sell the land at Seaford, yet this government did.

However, the former premier, the Hon. Mike Rann—who, incidentally, I think was tweeting vigorously again yesterday; surely he must be suffering some sort of deprivation syndrome or relevance deprivation—now wants to re-engage. It is always interesting when a former premier wants to re-engage in public debate. It will be interesting to see—

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: I don't think the public wants to re-engage with him.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: As my colleague the Hon. Michelle Lensink interjects, the public probably does not want to engage with him. The decision made by former premier Rann and planning minister Rau to guarantee to protect McLaren Vale and the Barossa Valley was really a decision made, I suspect, driven by polling, research and focus groups but not really with any understanding of how that may be achieved. It was a very simplistic approach and not practical, and full of unintended consequences.

We have seen outrage in those communities, by and large, with everyone wanting to have some sort of continuation of the amenities that they enjoy, but when the draft ministerial DPA was put in place, we found that developments such as shops in shopping precincts were non-complying, industrial buildings in industrial precincts were non-complying, and in fact development in McLaren Vale and the Barossa Valley had almost ground to a halt in the six months since that ministerial DPA had been in place.

I think that they have now admitted that they got it wrong. My understanding is that minister Rau is going to do another ministerial DPA and come back with some new draft legislation. I think we have had a significant amount of community consultation, but that is all for nothing because my understanding is that there will be a new DPA, new legislation and another round of consultation.

I am not really sure about this clean green image and why the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale need to be protected. They only need to be protected from the Labor Party, not the Liberal Party, and probably not from any other party that is represented in this parliament. The easiest way to protect those areas is to have a change of government at the next election.

One of the other areas the Governor focused on in his speech on behalf of the government was the mining boom, its benefits and the future fund. A future fund is rather interesting. I am sure members would be aware—and I think the Hon. Iain Evans did some media straight after the Governor's speech—that a future fund has been proposed; that is, we should put some of the state's wealth into a fund to support future generations.

It is interesting to note that, on the day premier Rann resigned, the Hon. Iain Evans moved that the Economic and Finance Committee investigate a sovereign wealth fund for South Australia. It was not rejected at that point. The Labor Party representative said that they would have to take it to caucus. Of course, in the next week or so, we then have the Hon. Jay Weatherill and his new team installed. It went before caucus and they rejected it. They decided it was not important enough. I think the minutes of 11 November show that it was rejected and voted down by the Economic and Finance Committee. It is rather bemusing to think: where has this thought come from?

We also see a government that is selling the forests, although we have a minister who, as we saw today in question time, does not really understand much at all about that particular industry. She has obviously gone running to her office now hanging her head in shame that she does not understand the industry that she is paid very, very well to represent. That is a future fund in itself. It has been there for in excess of 100 years. It has been building up; it is something the state government has invested in. It is, if you like, a future fund. It is an asset in which we have invested and from which we get a dividend—

The Hon. G.A. Kandelaars interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I didn't hear the interjection from the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars, so he might like to speak louder next time so that I can hear it. The Premier talked about—

The Hon. G.A. Kandelaars: Like ETSA.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: At the end of the day, the sovereign wealth fund or future fund which the Premier is talking about is like having an income earning asset. We have an income earning asset with the forests, so I do not understand why, on the one hand, we would want to sell a future fund which we have developed and supported over the best part of a century, yet, on the other hand, say that we are going to establish a future fund.

It is also interesting to note that one of the major investors in that is the federal government's Future Fund. The federal government considers investing in forests a sensible investment for its sovereign wealth fund, yet we think it is a sensible thing to sell. It really makes a mockery of this government's financial credibility when it thinks it can sell a forest to pay for its reckless financial management.

I think the very genuine concern is that the minister who is in charge of the forests has no idea of the length of rotations. People might think that there does not seem to be much difference between 25, 30, 32 or 35 years. But in the end, that is all about the diameter of the logs and the yield of cubic metres of timber per hectare, and those last few years certainly make the forest much more sustainable. So, I would be very, very concerned and alarmed if any rotation less than 32 years is agreed to when that particular asset is sold.

I want to pay tribute to and congratulate the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars, because he is the first member of parliament I have heard in this place pay a compliment to the Liberal Party. When he talked about the PACE program, he spoke about the fact that, over the last 20 years, we have had a program to get companies to invest in exploration. So, he is the first one to actually acknowledge that. I think—

The Hon. S.G. Wade: He is a fair man.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Yes, I was pleased yesterday. He made some other mistakes, but that is one that he did not make. So, when we talk about mining, there has been a long-term bipartisan approach to that sector. We had a program called Targeted Exploration Initiative (TEISA). Of course, when the government came to office, it scrapped that program, renamed it PACE and relaunched it—

The Hon. T.J. Stephens: And called it their own.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: —and called it their own—and that is one of the standard things that you do in government; that is, when you win office—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Well, it was working prior—you scrap it all. Then you let the dust settle, and then you choose the things that are working, rename them and relaunch them and claim them as your own. But he did pay tribute to the fact that a program had been in place for about 20 years, albeit called different things at different times, and it has served the state well, and it will continue to serve the state well.

He also talked about the fact that it is not just luck that we have this mining industry that is set to boom and that it is because of all the hard work of the Labor Party. Well, I do not think it is due to all the hard work of the Labor Party. I know you are nodding your head, Mr President, but you were probably still busy in the shearing sheds of the South-East when your former parliamentary colleagues opposed the first indenture to establish the Olympic Dam mine.

The Labor Party is a latecomer to mining at Olympic Dam. Really, at the end of the day, we all know that will be the jewel in our crown. In fact, it will be the crown, I suspect, and all the other mines will be the jewels around it. But it was not just luck; it was a lot of hard work and effort put in by the industry 30 years ago by a Liberal government—

The Hon. S.G. Wade: Normie Foster.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Normie Foster and also David Tonkin and his team. On opening day, I asked the Hon. Russell Wortley a couple of questions in relation to planning approvals. It is a bit typical of the government. We have this mining boom, and we think, 'Fantastic. BHP has passed the indenture.' Everybody has their fingers crossed that the green button is going to be pressed and away we go on the mining boom.

But when I visited those areas in the outback, the areas of Roxby Downs, Andamooka, Marree, Copley, Lyndhurst and Leigh Creek have a real concern. They are desperate to get their share of the mining boom. BHP is going to build its own village and do its own thing. There is all the ancillary development that happens around that area, and they cannot get development approvals. There are insufficient personnel and insufficient resources being made available in that area. It is outside of council areas, so it is not a council responsibility. All of the planning decisions are made by Planning SA and development approvals are done here.

I raised the matter as a question to the Hon. Russell Wortley, and I have mentioned it to him privately. I have also raised it with minister Koutsantonis and minister Rau to say, 'Let's not play politics with this. This is something we need to make sure that those people have the resources there so that they can get on and build their developments and capture their little slice of the mining boom.' The development I mentioned, which was in Andamooka, I think I did quote the figure of a $7 million investment. I have now been told that it is closer to a $13 million investment. Any profit from that—every cent of it—will stay in the Andamooka community or in the South Australian community.

With BHP, as wonderful an organisation as it is, there will be a lot of fly in and fly out. The shareholders who get dividends are all around the world, yet these little developments that cluster around the big mining areas are the ones where the genuine local wealth will be created. I think the government has an obligation to make sure that all government departments—planning is just one I came across—are well enough resourced so they can assist the locals to capture their share of the action.

When I called in to Hawker it was raised with me that they still struggle with poor quality water and water supplies, so it is great to talk about the mining boom, but we must never forget about all the other communities that have been there working hard, paying their taxes and providing support for our outback enterprises. We have to make sure that they are supported and not forgotten in this mining boom, otherwise we will have paid them a great disservice.

Advanced manufacturing was the next area to be covered. It is very easy to say, 'We are going to have advanced manufacturing.' It is very easy for Labor to talk about the type of manufacturing we are going to have. First, they have to have an advanced and sophisticated economy, a modern, understanding government, and a taxation regime that promotes competitiveness and efficiency.

Members would be aware of some recent discussion about General Motors-Holden's. During that time, a small South Australian company called Custom Coaches came to light. The South Australian Premier has given a significant automotive contract to an Asian company. Seventeen people have lost their jobs from that particular company which, incidentally, is located in the Premier's electorate. Of course, he was the minister for education when he signed off on this particular order.

It is easy for the government to talk big about providing support for Holden's and the big manufacturers, but it is the little businesses like Custom Coaches that suffer under this government. The big boys can say, 'We are in big trouble. We need to bring a new model out,' and, while some concerns are raised, by and large the community accepts that it is a lot of money but, provided there is an adequate business plan attached to it, it is probably something the government should do.

This government neglects the little businesses. Custom Coaches has been in the Hon. Jay Weatherill's electorate since 1975, so it has been there for approaching 40 years. It is interesting to note that when the government sought expressions of interest to build a new fleet of more than 50 large and medium school buses they settled on Malaysian school buses. I raised this, and minister Conlon responded by saying, 'Well, we can't just give contracts willy-nilly to South Australian companies, it wouldn't be prudent. We need to respect the South Australian taxpayers' money and get the best value for money. We have to have a competitive tender process.'

How can it be fair when our businesses are the highest taxed businesses in the nation then to say to them, 'Oh, well, we have to have a competitive tender'? These people are not necessarily competing against other Australian companies (where we are the highest taxed): they are competing against overseas companies. Mr President, it is a bit like shearing a pen of crossbred lambs versus a pen of merino lambs: to the uneducated, they are both lambs, but you know yourself that one is a lot easier to do than the other. It is a bit like fighting with one hand tied behind your back or a horse running with lead in its saddlebags. It is really, really difficult for these small businesses.

That is the key that this government has missed. They talk about advanced manufacturing, but all of those companies with employees will have payroll tax and stamp duty, and there will be a whole range of government taxes and charges that will affect small businesses and that continues to affect them. There was nothing—absolutely nothing—in the Governor's speech that said, 'Yes, we recognise that we have got it wrong; our economy is in a mess and we are really killing small business with an uncompetitive tax regime.' There was no mention at all about any preparedness to look at how they might resolve that issue.

One of the other areas that was looked at was a vibrant city. The government has been dragged kicking and screaming to this particular issue. Of course, we saw the 30-year plan—and I might refer to it later on—but that was all about TODs, development along transport corridors and growth areas. The Hon. Paul Holloway was never able to explain why those growth areas were chosen and others rejected. In fact, on a number of occasions I asked him to table a list of sites that were looked at and rejected because they were unsuitable for growth areas, because we ended up with half a dozen or so growth areas that we saw in the 30-year plan. He was never able to do that, and I suspect that they did not do it.

It was all about the city rim, infill in some of the suburbs, transport-oriented developments, and a shift from the 30 per cent in the city and 70 per cent on the fringe to a swap with the other. But the city was always neglected, so it was the Liberals who raised the city as the number one TOD, as the number one area we should look at. I started talking about it, and Isobel Redmond made some commitments about the city about 12 months ago in relation to stamp duty, land tax and open space levies, to try to say that in government the Liberal Party would actually do something to try to attract investment, to get developments that were more affordable to get people living back in the city. This government has just talked about making it more vibrant; it has not actually put its money where its mouth is. It has done none of that.

We also need to look at some the other developments that the Governor spoke about in relation to a vibrant city. There was the riverside, or riverbank, development. It is interesting that, at the time the Liberals proposed a new inner city stadium, people like Jack Snelling, Mike Rann and others who have lower house seats wrote letters to their constituents saying that their focus was on law and order, schools, health and education. There was a PS across the bottom: 'We will not be spending any of your taxes on football stadiums for the elite in the city.' How things have changed! They have now committed us to who knows how many hundreds of millions of dollars—535, 635; who knows exactly what it will be?

Again, the riverside development was not something on the government's agenda. It was brought screaming and kicking to it, and I am not sure it is quite right. We still do not know where the footbridge is likely to go. Do we need a footbridge? Maybe we don't; maybe we can just close King William Street and people can walk down there. I am not sure that we need a footbridge; we have not seen the business case for it. We do not really quite know how all that will work.

Of course, one of the key components was the redevelopment or expansion of the Casino. I think it was yesterday that we saw artists' impressions of what the new Casino might look like. It had a rooftop pool, lots of glass; it looks pretty spectacular. However, if you read the fine print I do not believe that SkyCity is going to spend a cent unless it gets the government to look at a more level playing field when it comes to its taxation regime compared to other states. SkyCity is a big company with a board and shareholders, and the board has to be responsible to the shareholders. Why would it invest money here if it can get a better return on its investment somewhere else?

I am sure Adelaide Oval will go ahead—I think preliminary work has already started—but I am not sure about the rest of this whole riverside precinct: the bridge, the location, where it is going to land, whether the Casino will do its expansion. My understanding is that at the moment Intercontinental will only do its expansion if the Casino goes ahead with its expansion, and there has been no talk about any extra concession. In fact, Treasurer Jack Snelling said that the Casino would be dreaming if it got an extra concession on its gaming tax. So, regarding the vibrant city, I am not sure that the government is in control of anything much at all.

We have seen artists' impressions of all sorts of buildings behind Parliament House, on top of the car park, on North Terrace in front of the Intercontinental, but they are all just pipe dreams at this stage. None of it has any substance yet, and my understanding is that the government has gone out to some sort of a competition at this point, trying to come up with the final designs.

Of course, we had the announcement of a new City of Adelaide act. I hope it is a little bit better prepared than the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale protection bills, because they clearly failed. I am not quite sure what will be in the City of Adelaide act. I did note that the Lord Mayor was up in the gallery during the Governor's speech. Maybe he has some understanding of what the government is proposing, but it is a bit like the urban renewal authority that minister Conlon announced late last year, and Premier Weatherill spoke about it last week at an industry luncheon. As a shadow minister who has been affected, I have written numerous emails to minister Conlon's office requesting a briefing; nothing has been forthcoming.

I suspect it is a little bit like, 'Let's talk about something and hope to hell nobody asks any questions about it and we can sort of make it look like we know what we are doing,' but in actual fact, I think they are really struggling. Let's see how the new City of Adelaide act unfolds, but I will be interested to know when it will be introduced, when we will see a draft, what its effect will be and what we are trying to achieve from it. I will be interested to see.

The next area the government talked about was public safety. I think the Hon. Iain Evans in the other place said, 'What modern government wouldn't talk about public safety?' But hang on, that's right; this is the government that has been saying for 10 years they are tough on law and order and tough on bikies. In fact, premier Rann had a drugs summit in the first half of 2002. I do not believe drug use or abuse have declined at all in our state over that time. It is a real admission that this government has failed. There have been 10 years of talk but no action.

We saw yesterday the lady and her children who were in the photograph in The Advertiser. I cannot recall the name and, even if I could, I would not bother to name her, but she is saying, 'What we just really want is to be able to be safe in our communities.' Well, we have had a government claiming record numbers of police, with more than 4,400 to be on the beat, and 'We have the highest investment ever in the history of this state in policing,' yet we have people who do not feel safe in their communities.

I think it was the Hon. Carmel Zollo who said she was proud of the fact that she had been part of a government that, since 2002, had been tough on law and order. Then she said that in recent months she has been pretty disappointed that the community now is very scared about this turf war that has erupted between the bikies, and that the community could well be in harm's way because of it.

I was shadow minister for police for five years, and our policing model is sort of based around intelligence-led policing, but I am no longer police shadow. We have these individuals like Mr Focarelli and all of the others of his ilk who associate and operate the way they do, which is outside the law. I just cannot understand how this government can hold their head high after 10 years when this sort of behaviour is still going on in our community. Of course, they throw back, 'But you Liberals blocked our legislation in the Legislative Council.'

The Hon. G.A. Kandelaars: You have.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Mr Kandelaars, I thought you were smarter than that. Can you not count? There are only seven of us. If the Greens, Ann Bressington, John Darley, Family First, Kelly Vincent—our honourable colleagues—thought that it was good, sensible legislation, you would have your bill. You blame the Liberals. We are but a third of the 21 members who are in here. You have an opportunity to get the others—

The Hon. G.A. Kandelaars: Did you vote against it?

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. G.A. Kandelaars: Come on, tell us: did you vote against it?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: It doesn't matter if we voted against it.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: It doesn't. It is like the Hon. Paul Holloway whingeing that he could not get his significant tree legislation through. I said, 'You have got everybody else. If they agree it's a good idea, you've got your bill.' You blame us when you do not have the capacity to convince the rest of the group of the strength of your argument; that is your failure. Ten years on—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! It is not a debate.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: —all you do is blame the fact you cannot convince the seven other members of the Legislative Council. You only need four of them; you do not need them all, only four—less than the fingers on one hand: four fingers. Four people is all you need, and you have been unable to do it because of the weakness of your legislation and the weakness of your debate. So, we now have a government that, after 10 years, has failed on law and order. Speeding fine revenue has gone through the roof. We have blitzes out in our country communities where people are fined for having mud on their numberplates. We have blitzes on jaywalking. We have changing speed limits.

I had the example recently of a young couple—I do not know what nationality, but they were of northern European extraction—across the street on Hindley Street. The traffic lights were green, the traffic was moving up and down King William Street, but the pedestrian light was red. They wandered across and there were some police officers there. I did not loiter around, but they were quite bemused as to why they would receive a fine for doing something you can pretty much do in any other capital city in the world.

I am told, 'Oh, but the police advise the community we are having a blitz on jaywalking and not obeying the pedestrian rules' but these people had just flown in from some other part of the world. I do not suppose they were advised on the plane when it landed, 'Make sure you put your fruit in the quarantine bins, and by the way, you have to be careful because we have a police blitz this week on jaywalking.'

That is where I think this whole law and order debate has failed the people of South Australia. It has been focused on areas that I do not believe make the community safer, and now we see, of course, with this recent outbreak of bikie-related type behaviour that the community, rightly, is quite concerned.

Affordable living was another of the areas that this government spoke about, and the high cost of living. The government will exacerbate the burden of living costs on working families by increasing taxes and charges without an increase in services. Electricity charges have doubled under Labor. Gas charges are up 79 per cent, and now Adelaide has the highest capital city water charges in the nation. It is a bit rich to say we are now going to focus on the cost of living and making our living a bit more affordable, when it has been this government that has imposed all these extra taxes and charges on hardworking South Australian families. It just does not make sense.

The government likes to quote the figures of the number of police in 2002, the number of crimes in 2002, and how we have more police and crime has gone down. What they do not quote is the cost of electricity, the cost of water, and the cost of gas, the things that every South Australian has to pay. If you do not break the law, you do not get a fine, but everybody needs water, power, gas; they are things that we just have to have. South Australia is the highest taxing state, pinching money from every household budget, contributing to the nation's worst economic growth and business confidence.

I now quickly move to the seventh priority which the government has identified, that of early childhood. This may be honourable, but the government seems to ignore the general predisposition young children have to get older. They go to school, perhaps university or TAFE, and then what? Instead of investing in our children and making them the highest priority for any lasting improvements in social justice and prosperity, the government is still condemning them to the almost inevitable: the move interstate to find work in other states whose premiers and treasurers run their economy better than South Australia.

More people are moving from South Australia interstate than arriving. They are going to Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales. The bureau of statistics says that South Australia had a net loss of 3,000 people in the 12 months to June last year. South Australia experienced the second highest net loss across the states and territories. The 25 to 29 year old age group had a net loss of some 700 people—that is about two people a day packing their bags and belongings and driving over the border. The 20 to 24 year old age group was a little better, with a net loss of about 500 people, but that is still nearly 1.5 a day. So much for opportunity, so much for caring for the young. Almost one in three young South Australian full-time job seekers are unable to find work.

Now I would like to turn my attention just briefly to a couple of the comments that the Hon. Carmel Zollo made in relation to the great work that the government had done building the desal plant, which I suspect is one of the main reasons that we are now seeing water prices go through the roof. She claimed that the opposition is opposed to it. You are dead right we are opposed to it; you are dead right we are opposed to a 100-gigalitre plant.

We were the people who initiated the debate on the 50-gigalitre plant. We thought that was a reasonable size, given the size of our population and the demands that would be placed on us over the next 20 years with the Hills, the Murray (even though it was in severe drought)—all the best advice we could get. A number of us travelled to a number of destinations in Australia and around the world, talking to desalination companies, and found that a 50-gigalitre plant was all we needed. We could get it at the time for around $400 million, and it could be much quicker than the one we have got.

In fact, the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull was the federal member responsible for the environment at the time. I do not know whether he was meant to tell me this, but I am sure he will not mind my repeating it: he said that he had had a discussion with premier Rann and premier Rann had said, 'But, Malcolm, what if it rains and we don't need it—I'll look like a fool. We'll spend all that money and we won't need it. I really don't know what we should do.' The federal government was suggesting that every state should have—we can compare it with a base load of electricity generation—a base load supply of water. The federal government was supportive; premier Rann said no.

Eventually, as we know, after about 18 months to two years' delay, they decided that, yes, we will build a desalination plant and that it would be a 50-gigalitre plant. What is new? We called for that almost two years prior. Out of the blue, the decision is made to double it. Some of the work, we would acknowledge, needs to be done in preparation for the city growing over the next 30 or 40 years. Maybe with the tunnels that go out to the gulf, while we have the specialised equipment here to do that, that needed to be done when a 50-gigalitre plant was being built.

The Hon. Carmel Zollo referred to the $1.8 billion desalination plant. That is one of the major factors driving up household water prices, for something we do not need. The thing I would love to see—and I know that this government, secretive as it is, will never, ever release it—is the advice. Who gave them the advice they needed to double it? Where did that come from? Nowhere in the world for a population of one million or thereabouts that we have here, with the other sources of water—the Hills, the Murray and stormwater, as has been done in Salisbury—do they need a 100-gigalitre plant. The $64-million question—or the $1.8-billion question—is: where did that advice come from? Why was that decision made? It locks future generations into paying for a big bit of equipment they probably do not need.

Sure, I suspect that at some point in the next 30, 40 or 50 years we would possibly need a bigger desalination plant, but why spend that money up-front? Where did the advice come from? I am not a hydraulics expert, nor are any of my colleagues and nor is anyone in the government. We come from a diverse range of backgrounds, but it is specialised advice. I would love to know where that advice came from. I do not know whether it is appropriate in the Address in Reply debate to ask the Leader of the Government to reply when she sums up, but she may like to take that one question on notice as to where the advice came from and, if possible, table it so that we can actually see who gave the government that advice, because that is one of the dumbest decisions of the last 10 years.

The Hon. Carmel Zollo also talked about the new RAH and what a wonderful project it is. With the cost of living and pressures on our community, $1.1 million a day for the next 30 years after 2016 will be a burden. Sadly, some of us will probably have departed this place here and also this earth before it is paid for. I would like to think none of us will, but sadly I am sure that some of us will have by then—maybe more than some. Already we have seen that the laboratories are smaller than in the existing facility.

We are spending this incredible amount of money to replace the old hospital, but it will not be adequate to do the job. I suspect what we have seen from the government in the past, where it has talked about giving that area back to the Parklands or the Botanic Gardens, that we will see two campuses of the Royal Adelaide Hospital—the new one down here and all the bits they cannot fit in back at the old RAH. Parts of it will be knocked down, and I am sure little bits will go back to the Parklands or the Botanic Gardens. I would hope that, if the South Australian community sees fit to endorse the Liberal Party at the 2014 election, it will be us having to make those decisions. However, I suspect that the new hospital will not have the capacity to provide all the services that it should and the only overflow place would be to leave them at the old site.

The Hon. Carmel Zollo brags about those things, but those two decisions—the RAH and the desalination plant, decisions made in the last 10 years of this government—will directly impact on the cost of living in this state for generations to come.

I will quickly touch on the by-elections. The Address in Reply is not normally a time to touch on by-elections, but both you, Mr Acting President, and the Hon. Carmel Zollo mentioned Mrs Close and Ms Bettison in your Address in Reply. You opened the door, so I thought this would be an opportunity for me to discuss that.

I think the Labor Party was genuinely worried in the seat of Port Adelaide; less so in the seat of Ramsay. I know there will always be criticism that the Liberal Party did not run a candidate. Well, the Labor Party did not run one in the federal seat of Mayo. Premier Weatherill said the other day, 'I give you a commitment to run candidates in every seat; we will always contest'. That is right; they contested in the seat of Mount Gambier.

Kyam Maher was the state secretary of the Labor Party. He is not the state secretary any more. I know his mother and father; I have met them. Notwithstanding our political differences—his dad is on the council—I actually get on very well with them, and I know them quite well. Kyam Maher's mother was the candidate for Mount Gambier, which was announced about two minutes before the nominations closed. Premier Weatherill says, 'We always run candidates,' but, in some seats, they run them very low-key, almost running dead. So, I do not think any criticism could be levelled at the Liberal Party for not running a candidate.

My criticism of that whole process comes when a government of the day does dodgy deals. There are two that spring to mind. One is the decision to cancel the Newport Quays development, spending at least $5 million. I am on the select committee, with the Hon. Mark Parnell, which is looking into the Lefevre Peninsula development. We have seen a copy of the affidavit. Newport Quays and its consortia believe that they have been denied significant opportunities to make some profit. There will be significant legal battles over that. This is a decision that the government knew it was in trouble with. The people of Port Adelaide did not like it, so, straight away, they will spend $5 million of taxpayers' money to try to buy the election.

The other thing is when—and it is a desperate act—a cabinet makes a decision during a by-election to do a preference deal with another party, and that is with the Green Party. Cabinet made a decision on the Torrens Island Conservation Park. I have been to Torrens Island—

The Hon. G.E. Gago: What's this got to do with the Address in Reply?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: The Hon. Gerry Kandelaars and the Hon. Carmel Zollo spoke about the two new candidates coming to the parliament. I was not going to talk about it until they raised it.

The Hon. G.E. Gago: What's this got to do with the Address in Reply?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: They raised it. Did you interject on them and say, 'What's that got to do with it'? No.

The Hon. G.E. Gago: Did the Governor raise it?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: They raised it.

The Hon. G.E. Gago: Get on with it.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: You just do not like it because you know that it was a dodgy deal. They did a deal with the Greens. As I said, I have been to Torrens Island. I have been to the quarantine station; I have had a look at it. It is probably a sensible thing to do. Why was it not done six months ago or in six months' time? No, it is done right in the middle of an election. It is interesting to note that they have the Greens' preferences—

The Hon. T.A. Franks: It's on the website—a nine point plan, including financial counselling services, which you seem to be advocating for. What's your problem?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: At the end of the day, when the Greens preference the government of the day—which they did at the last election, and they have again—let us just remind them of some things, because this was a test. As we all know, this was a test. We knew that the government would not change, no matter who was elected.

This was a test for the Greens to say, 'Actually, we don't like what you've done in government. We don't like the fact that you are selling the forests. We don't like Mount Barker; we don't like Buckland Park. We don't like the sort of economic management that you have undertaken. We do not like seeing our businesses uncompetitive, bus contracts going to Malaysian companies.'

Another favourite one was when the Hon. Mark Parnell talked about desalinated water as bottled electricity. They had a chance to say, 'We don't like the fact that you have spent $1.8 billion bottling electricity', but no, they just sat there and preferenced the Labor Party. I am not saying that this government is without vision but that this government spends most of its time naval gazing. It refuses to see the inevitable. This is a government without a future, ashamed of its past and very, very timid about the present.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (16:10): I would like to acknowledge the hardworking Governor, Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce AO, CSC, RANR and his wife, Liz Scarce, and congratulate him on his reappointment for an additional two years. I would like to acknowledge the great commitment that this couple have to South Australia in performance of their civic duties. They attend a great number of events in their roles. I note that Mrs Scarce is the Patron in Chief of the National Council of Women of South Australia and I had the pleasure of her company on Australia Day at their event at which I was a guest speaker.

I wonder what sort of change in landscape we have had since the last Address in Reply was delivered in this place. I think 'not much' would be the simple answer. We have had a new Premier who, following the deposition of Mr Rann, promised a different form of government. However, it is worth noting that Premier Weatherill started on day one of his new job in the parliament as a Rann cabinet minister, so he has been a part of every single bad decision that has been made.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: They have all got their fingers over it.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: They do indeed have all their sticky little fingers in all of them. For him to try to portray himself as somehow new Labor, Labor 2.0, I think is very high farce. Because we were going into the period with the upcoming by-elections, we saw some pretty amazing backflips, notably the Newport Quays, which my leader has referred to as well. I think it is a great shame that in all of that the boatsheds had to be lost.

It is very unfortunate that this government did not listen to the wisdom of the Legislative Council in asking for a stay of execution to retain those heritage properties, which, unfortunately, were not listed and which are gone forever, and any future development will be the less for not having them. We also had the backflip on the marine parks and a number of other things as the government sought to clean up its mess before it had to face the polls.

In terms of the content of the address, I also wish to congratulate the Governor on his delivery of what was a fairly uninspiring speech. A number of us, I think, were waiting for some sort of thunderbolt, some sort of grand announcement that would be a signal to what would be the new direction for this government and were left sadly disappointed. It was a great big yawn.

There were seven priorities, and I had to laugh at number one being the clean green food industry. There seems to be a sort of latter day Damascene conversion on that one, although I am sure that the rhetoric will not be met with any sort of genuine commitment. The irony is that food is largely produced in regional South Australia which is an area that is neglected—to provide a kind assessment to this government.

I think regional South Australia just does not feature on the agenda of this government. Agriculture makes the most significant contribution to our state's GSP, yet, at the same time, country people are facing cuts to hospital funding, roads and services, massive cuts in PIRSA. When you ask why, I think the answer was provided to us by the Minister for Agriculture in this place recently that 'these are not our punters', which is something we have always known.

There was also a reference in the speech to bikie laws. Again one has to ask what genuine commitment there is, given that this is a government that has had 10 years. I wonder how that promise to tear down all those bikie fortresses is going—not one. In relation to cost of living, water charges alone are up by some 200 per cent and rising.

We also had the call to all members to maintain proper standards. I would say to the Premier that, if he wants to call for that, he needs to look in his own backyard first. He may be lucky that Messrs Foley and Rann have just left the building. However, minister Wortley used very unparliamentary language to my leader this week, which unfortunately has not made it into Hansard. All members in this chamber are regularly abused by government members during question time for asking for a straight answer to a straight question, such as, 'How much does such-and-such a program cost?' So, I look forward to seeing that code of conduct.

The new Premier was at such pains to push some strange concept he has developed, that this is a decade of definition, that he sent a missive to everyone on the SAGEMS email list, which is everybody who has a Public Service email address. I am sure that they were all delighted to read the product of this government's spin machine.

We have had 10 years of hard Labor. It has recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary, although there were not too many champagne corks popped on that occasion. It has just been a litany of lost opportunities. As usual with a Labor government, they cannot help their spending habits, and they have squandered a hard-fought surplus, which was brought back into the black by our honourable colleague Rob Lucas as treasurer and Mr Stephen Baker before him. We have had unexpected rivers of gold from GST and property taxes, which propped up the government's budget in the early years, but we have reached the point where the government is running out of cash.

There have been expensive exercises in vanity, such as the new Royal Adelaide; the Adelaide Oval; the too-large desal plant, which we do not need at that capacity; and Puglia. Just today, the $1.5 million for the Resistance children's program, which was to tempt the producers to produce it in South Australia, may have gone down the drain; Lance Armstrong's undisclosed temptation fund; and even the proroguing of parliament has been an exercise in vanity. I am told that Mr Rann's hush deal, which was to send him on his way, now sees him being provided with an office and a driver. Mr Rann is located on the 16th floor in the State Admin Centre. So, now that he is located above the new Premier, I guess he gets to be on top all over again.

We are back to a state debt of $11 billion, which is some $2 million per day in interest, which could fund all kinds of projects, not least of which could be hospitals in Keith, Ardrossan and Moonta. As mentioned, this budget is getting very, very short on cash, so the fire sale is to take place, with the forward sale of the South-East forests and penny-pinching from such programs as the State Herbarium.

The rot is well and truly setting in, with the factional bickering and paranoia on the Labor side, with the member for Croydon FOI-ing his colleagues ministers Portolesi and Rau and now openly criticising the latter's role in the McGee case.

As my leader, Isobel Redmond, said in her speech yesterday, South Australia now has the highest taxes in Australia, the worst economic growth, the biggest decline in job vacancies, the worst building approvals, and an appalling performing workers compensation scheme which, from an unfunded liability of $59 million, has blown out again to over $1 billion.

It is no wonder that we have seen such significant swings in Labor heartland seats in the recent by-elections. Every time this government receives a rebuke, it promises to listen, so much so that it is just like a broken record. They might need an ear trumpet! I might get them one for Christmas, or one for the whole lot of them. The seat of Port Adelaide certainly had a lot of issues brewing, including Newport Quays, which has been such a balls-up. The Premier and his infrastructure minister were dishonest in their recent interviews about how much they had embraced this project. I still recall all those shots on the news of beaming ALP identities at Labor fundraisers at that site, and now they deny that they were ever in favour of it at all.

The preference deal was very disappointing, although I do not know whether the word 'disappointing' really cuts it. Time after time in this place, the Liberal Party has had more common ground with the Greens than the Labor Party, whether it is agreeing to motions, amendments to bills, or referring things for investigation. Those issues include, among others, significant trees; the EPA's secretive practices; the closure of pubs and clubs from 4 to 7am; school closures; native vegetation; waste and landfill; the Mount Barker, Glenside and St Clair developments; population; and desalination.

You have to wonder whether the Greens are fair dinkum about preferencing on merits or whether they are just into doing deals. No doubt we will hear on talkback radio all sorts of complaints about what rogues this government is on this and all sorts of issues, including Torrens Island. It is like watching someone in a bad relationship. Even when the Labor Party tries to humiliate and embarrass the Greens they still go back to them and preference them every time, so in our minds a vote for the Greens is a vote for Labor.

They also had the opportunity to preference a local candidate in there, Gary Johanson. The Greens espouse that they support grassroots politics and frequently on the Environment, Resources and Development Committee the Greens are very supportive of the local government position which is probably many times for good reason but, again, they could not help preferencing the Labor Party. So, a vote for the Greens really is a vote for Labor, and a vote for Labor is a vote for botch-ups, spending like drunken sailors and never having to say you are sorry and mean it.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M. Gazzola.

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