Address in Reply

Address in Reply

Adjourned debate on motion for adoption.

(Continued from 8 May 2014.)

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY (15:29): I rise to speak to the Address in Reply 2014. At the outset, I join others in thanking His Excellency the Governor for his speech as well as the Chief Justice and other judges for overseeing the swearing-in of members. I would also like to make special mention of the member for Fisher and extend my best wishes to him and his family. I think we all agree it was quite warming that he was able to attend the first sitting day of parliament. I would also like to extend my congratulations to Andrew McLachlan and Tung Ngo—our two most newly elected members of the Legislative Council.

The government has recommitted to focusing on its seven strategic priorities, as outlined in 2012: an affordable place to live; creating a vibrant city; every chance for every child; safe communities, healthy neighbourhoods; growing advanced manufacturing; realising the benefits of the mining boom for all; and premium food and wine from our clean environment. I have to say I am a little underwhelmed by the government's agenda—not because the policies do not have merit but because, so often, many of the decisions this government makes seem to fly in the face of the very outcomes they claim they are trying to achieve. There is also a lot of emphasis on what the government claims it has achieved, not what it will achieve. I am not going to dwell too much on all of the priorities, but I will make a few brief comments on some areas.

The first and most obvious disappointment from this government's agenda has to be the recent sacking of Rod Hook—a decision that took most people by surprise. As we know, the Premier announced some 10 days ago that Rod Hook had been sacked, effective immediately. The only explanation I have heard through the media about Mr Hook's sacking was that the government wanted to rejuvenate its departments with some form of long-term commitment.

By all accounts, Mr Hook has been regarded as one of our finest public servants. He is held in high regard not only by members from all sides of politics but by so many members of our community who have rallied behind him, especially since his dismissal. There is no underestimating what Mr Hook has managed to achieve in terms of this state's development. You have to wonder what on earth the Premier was thinking, if anything, when he made his decision 10 days ago. Was this really the way to thank Mr Hook for his commitment to South Australia's vision?

On a personal note, in all my dealings with him, Rod has always been a very approachable, fair and reasonable man. I for one wish him all the very best in his future endeavours and thank him for his tremendous contribution to our state. I am certain he will continue to play a pivotal role in future developments.

My second disappointment: we all know the importance of making South Australia an affordable place to live, especially in today's economic climate. People are struggling. Families are struggling to make ends meet. The government claims to understand the economic difficulties our communities are experiencing. It claims to understand that economic problems and human problems go hand-in-hand. Why is it then that absolutely nothing has been done to ease the cost of living pressures?

I for one am at a loss to understand how increasing water rates, increasing electricity costs, refusing to consider alternatives involved in the calculation of sewer rates on valuation, calculating water rates for commercial and industrial properties based on valuation in addition to consumption, calculating emergency service levy rates for commercial and industrial properties on valuation and then applying a penalty differential rate and, finally, how introducing a car parking tax in the CBD can possibly enhance the government's affordable living objective.

We all know about the importance of creating a vibrant city. Indeed, during the last session, as a parliament, we managed to make some positive changes around licensing requirements for small venue businesses that have contributed to the CBD's vibrancy—that was a positive move and I commended the government for it at the time. More recently, however, I was alarmed to hear the Minister for Tourism not only criticise some restaurants, cafes and bars in the CBD for making the decision not to open on football days but also go as far as to suggest they may not receive ongoing support from the government if they do not open—a comment made without having any regard whatsoever to the viability of the businesses.

On the issue of food, the government is always quick to take credit for and boast about our premium food and wine industry, yet so little is being done to support our farmers. Increasing the cost of water for stock and irrigation purposes, offering little in the way of drought assistance, and imposing unrealistic obligations on farms and farmers through the efforts of some land resources management board staff is not conducive to good farming practices. In Port Lincoln the concerns of farmers about the impacts of mining exploration are being completely ignored. The very people who produce our premium foods and our premium wines, and earn South Australia its reputation as a food capital, simply do not get the support they need from government.

I have been rather disappointed with the attitude of some departments, in particular, on the issue of jobs. As an example, I recently requested a meeting with the Minister for Recreation and Sport on behalf of some constituents to discuss employment in the racing industry, bearing in mind this used to be the second largest employer in the state and has now dropped to fifth place. I did not get to meet with the minister; in fact, I did not even get to meet with the executive director of the department. The meeting I did have was a complete and utter waste of time.

This is just a snapshot of concerns. It is by no means complete. That said, I will endeavour to end on a more positive note. The establishment of the Department of State Development is a move in the right direction as long as it focuses on, among other things, the removal of unnecessary red tape. The board has been given responsibility for the job accelerator fund, and will need to focus on training courses for real jobs required for now and in the future, not increasing the number of training courses that lead to little or no prospect of employment.

It will also be essential for the government to focus on the number of public sector jobs and embark on an operational audit of each and every agency in the department of government, something for which I have advocated strongly. An operational audit is the only way to ensure that public servants are involved in essential activities and, importantly, are focusing on essential front-line services. In addition to improving the collaboration between business, government and academia, we also need to ensure that government agencies act on a whole-of-government approach as espoused by the Public Sector Act . There are so many examples of duplication within government departments which could be remedied if government departments adopted a more cooperative approach.

In closing, South Australia is going through an extremely difficult time, and I agree that there is a sense of anxiety that we have not experienced in a very long time. The impending closure of Holden has created unprecedented angst, especially for our northern suburbs. The release of the most recent federal budget has only served to magnify those concerns.

The issue has to be: how do we address the problems that confront us? My focus will continue to be on issues that affect our communities, issues such as training and employment, cost of living pressures, assistance for our primary producers and small businesses, housing affordability, WorkCover, Public Service reforms, gambling reforms, online predators and electoral reforms. I look forward to working cooperatively with the government, the opposition and crossbenchers to achieve meaningful reforms in these areas, amongst others.

At the risk of repeating what I have already said I have to end, once again, by placing on the record my complete and utter dismay with the Labor Party's and the unions' dirty and desperate tactics during the election. During the campaign we saw how far the Labor Party was willing to go to mislead voters. I certainly hope this is not something we can expect to see more of during its reign as government.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (15:38): I rise to support the Address in Reply. I will begin by thanking Uncle Lewis O'Brien for welcoming us all to Kaurna land. This is a task he always undertakes in a spirit of reconciliation, and I am pleased that the welcome to country is now a fixture in the opening of parliament.

I would also like to thank His Excellency Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce for his address on the opening of the 53^rd parliament, and for the ongoing work that he and Mrs Scarce do for the people of South Australia. Whether one is a monarchist or a republican there is, in my mind, no doubt of the benefit of having a person and an institution to represent us all in acknowledging and thanking the efforts of our community organisations, thanking our volunteers, and congratulating those who do well in various endeavours, such as study or community service.

These are tasks that the Governor fulfils admirably. These are views that I have long held but it is a happy coincidence that, in a few hours' time, His Excellency, as Patron of the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia, will be presenting university students with academic achievement awards and that I will be playing the role of proud parent on the sidelines for a change.

If you had asked South Australians last year whose agenda they thought the Governor would be outlining at the opening of the 53^rd parliament, I doubt that many would have thought that we would see a fourth Labor government. But that is the situation. It is a result of the electoral system that we have and now for all of us it is back to business.

The Governor outlined a few new initiatives for the government but all in all, amongst the gnashing of teeth and the tearing of sack cloth, there is not a lot of vision to be seen. In fact, it looks pretty much like business as usual but with a few tweaks here and there to try to accommodate external factors such as the pending closure of Holden's or the failure of BHP's Olympic Dam expansion—in both cases, I would add, despite generous and, in BHP's case, extraordinary concessions being granted over many years. The test for the South Australian government is whether they really do have their eye on the future or whether they will continue to repeat past behaviour and hope against all logic for a different outcome.

I have to say that the outlook for a visionary rethink of our economic and social direction is not very promising. There will be infrastructure projects to create short-term jobs but will they be projects that make our society more resilient to future shocks or will they be business as usual? In the case of transport, a classic example is that the government still does not understand the transport pressures of the future in a carbon-constrained world with peak oil and rising fuel prices. The government's overemphasis on freeways and lack of attention to public transport, walking and cycling will not put us in good shape for the future.

It is a truth bordering on a law of physics that traffic expands to fill the available space which is why the hugely expensive road projects being prosecuted by both the federal Liberal government and the state Labor government will ultimately be seen to be poor value. The government points always to the partial electrification of the rail network, as to their seriousness in dealing with public transport, but the sad reality is that the trains are no more frequent and, in the case of the new Seaford line, in fact they are slower than before with the axing of express services.

Similarly, in relation to a sustainable energy future, the government is hell-bent on fracking for unconventional gas, not just in the outback, but also in our prime farming areas such as in the South-East. The government is locking in a fossil fuel based, climate changing policy that future generations will not thank us for.

Because I am an agreeable fellow, I tried to find something I could agree with in the Governor's speech, and I have settled on the following:

The growing tendency to separate economic policy from social outcomes has diminished the power and value of political discourse. We need to remove any distance that currently separates economic growth and social benefit.

However, what we need to appreciate is that social benefit is not just the re-election of the government in four years' time but the social, natural and economic environment for generations to come. That is why long-term thinking is so important and why it is so disappointing that it is in short supply in many areas of government policy. If the government really was thinking about the future, it would not be sacrificing South Australia's natural environment by gutting the department, slashing staff, de-funding programs and generally behaving as if a clean, healthy and biologically diverse planet is some optional extra rather than the thing that ultimately sustains us all.

The Greens are back in state parliament and we appreciate the support we have been given by the people of South Australia to continue our role of keeping the government to account and advancing 'A better way for SA'. Over the coming four years we will be working, hopefully alongside other members, on cost of living pressures. Much has been said about the rising cost of energy and the Greens firmly believe that these costs can and must be brought under control. We will be focusing on a range of initiatives, including demand management and we reject the victimisation of renewable energy which, in fact, is driving the price of energy down.

Those who followed the debate on Australia's energy future would realise that there has been a gross overinvestment in infrastructure in poles and wires. The companies have overinvested and they want their money back, and they want their money back from us. I have no doubt that the pressure that will come from the energy utilities to the government to readjust pricing policy to make sure they can get money back on their assets will be immense.

I note that Oxford University, for example, has already established a school of stranded assets because they can see what is happening around the world. When you see in the scientific literature and even in the newspapers that within the next few years households will be encouraged to disconnect from the grid and to become self-sufficient with a combination of solar energy and battery storage, that must send shivers down the spines of electricity companies if they can see people disconnecting. I would be very surprised if they do not come crying to government saying that all South Australians need to contribute to paying back their billions of dollars of overinvestment.

When it comes to health the Greens believe that our current system is inadequately described. In fact, it is not a health system it is an 'illth' system. The focus is on people being ill not on people staying healthy. We know that prevention is better than cure; we also know that it is cheaper than cure. The Greens, like all members, are very concerned at the prospect of the health budget consuming the entirety of the state budget within just a few short decades if we do not turn around the approach.

The Greens will also be working in this term of parliament to protect our farmers and protect our farmland from urban sprawl, from fracking for unconventional gas and also protecting valuable cropping land from open-cut mining such as that proposed on Yorke Peninsula.

We will continue with our program to clean up and improve South Australia's democracy. I will be reintroducing an optional preferential voting bill that failed by just one vote at the end of the last parliament and I am given some heart by the fact that at the federal level the wisdom of that approach has now been seen and it is likely to be the model that is adopted for Senate voting in the future.

The Greens are not giving up on some of the social policies that we have championed over many years, including policies in relation to marriage equality. In conclusion, the Greens are grateful to the people of South Australia for giving us a further opportunity to represent these issues in state parliament. We look forward to the next four years and we look forward to working constructively with members on all sides.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (15:47): I take the floor to support the adoption of the Address in Reply to the Governor's speech and thank His Excellency for his ongoing service to the state of South Australia. I also thank Uncle Lewis O'Brien for his very passionate Kaurna welcome. I have been very privileged to enjoy that on a number of occasions and certainly am always very happy to see Uncle Lewis.

In his speech the Governor reiterated seven primary areas where we will see the government's action focused with some updates given the impending closure of Holden and a decision by BHP not to proceed with the Olympic Dam expansion. On behalf of Dignity for Disability I welcome the government's statement that it must lead by example in developing stronger innovation in South Australia and look forward to what we hope will be the state government supporting industries that Dignity for Disability believes South Australia can develop through natural advantage.

The corporate welfare that the government had been offering large multinationals such as Holden was not fair. What we need is fair opportunities to be given to small and medium enterprises (or SMEs) in this state. This includes supporting SMEs that seek to make Adelaide and this state more accessible to residents and tourists with disabilities, older tourists and residents who use mobility aids, through retrofitting and pop-up accessibility concepts and design.

We also need to continue to push to make Adelaide and the entire state amiable to bikes and their riders. This is also a niche tourist market we could target on the back of the continuing success of the Tour Down Under. To me, wheel-friendly and disability access go hand in hand. We want our streets to be a welcoming environment for people, not cars. It is people who are the lifeblood of our communities, not the petrol engine.

As I have said before, I would love for all footpaths and corridors around the city to accommodate all wheelchairs and mobility aids properly. Making Adelaide more wheel-accessible is something I am, for good reason, very passionate about, because it is not just for those of us who use mobility aids or have some other mobility impairment right now: it is for those of us who will acquire them in the future and it is also for people using prams as well as walking-frames and crutches, too, for that matter.

There is no doubt that having a city that feels available to all who use mobility aids, people on bikes and families with children and prams and so on will help to make Adelaide a truly international city—not only because Lonely Planet says it is so, but because we know it to be so and it is deserving of that title. But engines and cars are needed in modern day Australia and I wonder if SA might not become a national leader in modifying cars to suit a range of disabilities, for example, given that we have the oldest population on mainland Australia in particular.

Looking at the issue of employment, I would urge the government to look in its own backyard. Given that the state government's own public sector continues not to meet its own targets for employing people with disabilities, as I mentioned in question time just this afternoon, I look forward to the Premier and his ministers ensuring that their own government departments are developing more inclusive attitudes, as well as physical infrastructure, towards employing people with disabilities, so that we do not face the highest unemployment rate of any group within the community.

Still on the topic of employment, I would like to strongly recommend that the state government supports the commonwealth government's phasing out of Australian disability enterprises in their current form and more particularly the wage tool that the High Court found to be unfair and to be a breach of human rights, and indeed any other tool that may amount to this. We need to pay people with disabilities a fair wage for fair work and, where we do not have the capacity to work, to provide basic community options, including comprehensive respite for families. It is time to end the skill apartheid that says that, because you were born a certain way, you are suited to one particular job, whether or not that job necessarily caters to your abilities or indeed your aspirations. It is time that the employment opportunities of people with disabilities were dictated by our aspirations and our abilities and our life goals, not the limited imaginations of other people.

Considering action No. 5—safe and active neighbourhoods—where have we come in the past two years? Well, I am sure we people with disabilities would love to feel safe and able to be out and about in our communities, and in some cases this may well already be true, but the opportunities are often limited. For a start, not all people with disability can rely on buses and trains being accessible or even arriving on time, and the failings of the Department of Transport and Infrastructure to provide a reliable public transport service in this state has been a continuous and ongoing problem for the past two years, leaving commuters stranded all over Adelaide.

I hope we will be moving past this situation soon because, again, if we are truly going to deserve that spot in the Lonely Planet booklet not just now but in the future, this is something we must fix. The problems with the SATSS voucher schemes continue to exist: a lack of them and inflexible rules still create barriers to accessing social, education and employment opportunities.

But being safe in your own neighbourhood is more fundamental than just being able to safely get around. It is about knowing that there is a decent police, courts and corrections system in place that is fair and that is just. To get to this point we must fully implement the disability justice plan (or DJP) in its entirety, including resourcing and legislative change.

I have been impressed to see the constructive cross-departmental teamwork with stakeholders on the DJP, but until we see the current draft become reality, we must continue with a multipartisan approach to reform our justice system. Indeed, it is my hope that that multipartisan, constructive cross-departmental approach will continue in other departments as well, not just on what you might call 'special occasions', because that is how we achieve real and effective outcomes for the people of South Australia.

Dignity for Disability, like all parties and individuals in this parliament I am sure, never want to see the situations we have recently seen in South Australia occur again. People who sexually abuse vulnerable children with disabilities, or any child, should feel the full force of the law and know that society does not tolerate this behaviour. Instead of justice being served, however, we have seen lawyers in the department of public prosecutions forced to drop their cases because witnesses with disabilities are considered unreliable, often because of a lack of support for them in court to tell their story.

I am reminded of a recent case where a young woman with disabilities was indecently assaulted while using an access cab in Adelaide. When interviewed about this case, the young woman's father (who was speaking on her behalf because she is non-verbal) was asked whether there really had been an effect on the victim because there was no way that she could communicate whether or not this was the case. Again, this is treating people with disabilities as a different class of person. The fact is it is wrong to abuse any person, whether or not they have a disability, and so reforming the justice system must also be about not only the supports readily available to people who need to use that system but also people's attitudes towards the people who go through the system.

People with disabilities are also, of course, offenders sometimes, and it is essential, particularly when those offenders have cognitive disabilities, that they understand their rights and can access protections and equal rights in the same way as the rest of the population. Moving back for a moment to the issue of victims or alleged victims of crime: in recent days and months we have seen some tragic cases of domestic violence against women, resulting ultimately in the murder or alleged murder of these women. What I would remind this chamber of is that women with disabilities are at a higher risk of experiencing domestic violence than their non-disabled peers and are often in situations of financial dependence or personal support needs that make it incredibly difficult to leave that situation.

Still on the topic of women, I noticed with some dismay during the state election that Dignity for Disability had the highest proportion of female candidates of parties that stood 10 or more candidates in that election.

The Hon. S.G. Wade: You're the only party with 100 per cent of women in the parliament.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: That's right. As the Hon. Mr Wade rightly points out, we are also currently the only party with 100 per cent female parliamentary representation. I look forward to making that 200 per cent in the near future—and that is why I did not become a maths teacher, but you know what I mean. I am much safer in here.

The Hon. S.G. Wade interjecting:

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: This is actually a very serious topic, if you don't mind, Mr Wade—

The Hon. S.G. Wade: Is that about child protection—protecting children from your maths?

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: Protecting children from my maths, yes. It is a vital child protection issue that this state faces at this time; let us all remember that. But I would also expect us to provide leadership, Mr Wade, in running candidates for election who have disabilities—but to have to lead us in the area of female representation is not a mantle I was expecting to take.

Even more concerning is the fact that we have fewer women in parliament that we did before 15 March this year. I think this is a timely reminder for all of us, including other political parties, to look at our candidate selection process. Instead of saying it is difficult to have female candidates if they do not put themselves forward, perhaps those parties should be asking themselves what those barriers are presented to women that inhibit them from coming forward and how they can help to get rid of them.

The South Australian population is now represented by women in only 17 of the 69 positions in parliament. I might not be a maths teacher, but I do know that that is less than 25 per cent, and this is, to put it lightly, not good enough. Women make up more than 50 per cent of the South Australian population and so should be duly represented in the state legislature in the same numbers. This is not the case and the old parties, Labor and Liberal, need to take a good hard look at themselves and at the opportunities they offer, or fail to offer, women in the political realm.

Moving on to affordable living, or action area No. 6, I have said on countless occasions before, and I will say it again: living with a disability in this state is currently a full-time job, but I am going to have to do it until something actually changes. There is not affordable living for people with disabilities in this state while we still have an ever-growing unmet needs list. There is an accommodation crisis for people with disabilities in this state. There is not adequate affordable housing to meet demand, including in the private rental sector.

We are not talking about a few people either. Back in my 2012 Address in Reply, nearly 1,200 people were awaiting accommodation support, and more than 1,700 were awaiting community support, access and respite. Now, in 2014, incredibly there are even more. In particular, the area of category 1—critical need—continues to grow.

So I say to the government: on your agenda of reform, keep it up, but you are still failing those people on the unmet needs list who need help now. They cannot wait for the NDIS to happen, so if you actually care about individuals with disabilities, you will help them with an immediate injection of funding. This also includes funding to address some of the stereotypes and misconceptions around people with disabilities wanting to enter the private rental market.

Finally, regarding area No. 7, early childhood, South Australia's commitment to implementing the NDIS for young people is to some extent commendable, but not enough. Until we arrest the situation within the Department for Education and Child Development that sees future South Australians damaged, it is not good enough.

I will continue on behalf of Dignity for Disability to work with the government, opposition and crossbenchers, and indeed whomever we have to, to improve the lives of all South Australians, but hope to see much more rapid action in the areas of disability and social disadvantage. Dignity for Disability certainly remains committed to those areas in particular and will continue to lobby to make sure that the government and other parties are as well.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (16:03): I rise to make some remarks in relation to the Address in Reply. At the outset, I would like to commend the Governor and Mrs Scarce for the work that they do in serving our communities and the friendly manner in which they welcome all people both to their residence and when they are moving about in the public domain. I would like to congratulate the Governor on the delivery of his speech on 6 May for the opening of parliament.

I would also like to welcome our two new members to this chamber, Mr Andrew McLachlan and Mr Tung Ngo. I congratulate them on their maiden speeches. I will not go through all the names in the House of Assembly, but I would like to congratulate the new Liberal MPs, Mr David Speirs, Mr Corey Wingard, Mr Stephan Knoll, Mr Vincent Tarzia and Mr Troy Bell. I had the pleasure of hearing Mr Bell's maiden speech this morning.

I also congratulate our new President, the Hon. Russell Wortley. However, it was disappointing the manner in which he was selected and the unseemly behaviour of the Australian Labor Party in government, having just won—or I think the correct term would be that they formed government again, to their own surprise as much as to anyone else's—very quickly went back to business as usual, dividing over the spoils.

I also join with a number of members who have made comments in relation to the Governor's speech in that it certainly lacked an agenda. At the outset we had the repetition of the seven points which the Premier, when he first came to that position, had developed. Not a lot is new in the address, and there are a couple of things I would like to remark on in that there is a fairly tokenistic reference to protecting the pristine environment from which our premium food is sourced—there is no reference as to how—and also references to regional South Australia.

Yes, wake up South Australian government: regional South Australia accounts for 20 per cent of the state's population but contributes more than half of our overseas exports. That is the sort of thing members of the Liberal Party have been saying for many years, and it will be interesting to see whether or not this government takes a different approach, but it has certainly neglected and, in many cases, abused regional South Australia in its cynical focus on metropolitan South Australia, in the knowledge that it only ever has the chance of winning one seat outside metropolitan South Australia.

I was also bemused at the comment in the speech that our economy depends heavily on our capacity to retain our brightest minds, and that is true and they need a job. There is a jobs crisis in South Australia—it has been going on for quite some time. I do not see that this government has any agenda to address that, and we have seen Business SA come out just this week commenting on that issue, that there is a distinct lack of appetite from this government to reduce any of its taxation measures. It certainly seems like it is business as usual.

Indeed, on the day the Governor delivered his speech, I was quite surprised that the newly re-formed government did not seem to be particularly interested, particularly the Premier. You would almost have thought that a relative of his might have died as he sat there slumped in his chair not looking bemused. I recall when we would have the opening of parliament under his predecessor, the Hon. Mike Rann, that he would always appear jovial and would be commenting to people sitting either side of him—they would be cracking jokes and looking pretty pleased—but I have a sense that this government is not all beer and skittles, which is quite surprising. Looking at the ministers here in question time, one could be forgiven for thinking they had had a breakfast of lemons and three-corner jacks the way they carry on.

Also, the Notice Paper is looking noticeably thin, and that is a reflection of the lack of policy substance that the Labor Party took to the election. We have one bill in relation to pastoral lands, which we will debate fairly soon. I note that our colleague in this place, the Hon. Mr Brokenshire, has suggested that there be reviews of the NRM Act and the Native Vegetation Act, and that certainly was contained in the Liberal Party policy and we would wholeheartedly support those reviews and urge the government to get on with it posthaste.

We are also awaiting the reintroduction of the third-party access bill, which is quite critical to providing third-party providers with access to our water assets and being able to provide those at more competitive prices. The bill, which was tabled very late in the piece, did not allow for debate of it prior to the election and was described to me by people who work within that industry as not worth the paper it was written on. ESCOSA was particularly critical of that bill. We will be waiting with interest to see whether or not this government reintroduces it quickly; that is something that I think is quite critical and should be one of their important commitments.

Just going back to the issue of jobs, we have had net interstate migration within this state of some 33,000. Most of those people, Graeme Hugo will tell you, are of working age. They are younger people and they keep leaving the state in large numbers because the opportunities just are not here, so we certainly need a jobs strategy here.

We need a proper focus on the regions. I am concerned about the committee that has been set up under this current government because I think that it is probably a way of trying to squeeze out the voice of our regional development minister, the Hon. Geoff Brock. We are certainly keen to provide him with as much information as possible from our regional members about the issues that are happening in South Australia.

We have established our own regional affairs committee of the Liberal Party which will be looking at a number of those issues as well. Certainly, we have a very strong history of representing the regions. We have a number of primary producers who have entered the parliament and, certainly, in my roles of having responsibility for the environment, water and the River Murray, they regularly raise those issues. They raise issues to do with natural resource management, native vegetation and marine parks.

I think there has been a very strong disconnect under this government. Decisions which are made in Adelaide, particularly in relation to water allocation plans and the marine parks, are felt very severely by our regional cousins. There are a lot of opportunities to expand production in regional South Australia, but those are hampered by very centralised departments which are not good at listening and taking those issues on board. I think that some of the current policies of this government are going to lead to job losses, loss of production and loss of export income for this state.

In relation to the election policies, I could go through them in great detail, but from our point of view on the Liberal side, we had a very strong emphasis on biodiversity and enhancing the current legislation in seeking to link the areas of natural resource management, native vegetation and national parks and wildlife together because a lot of biodiversity exists on private land as well as in national parks. We think that they should be managed in a much more joined up, cohesive manner, so I was disappointed that the Labor policies did not address any of that. There was a commitment to an international bird sanctuary at the old salt fields, which is to be commended, but, as far as other areas go, there was very, very little.

This government has not been keen to establish trigger points for the use of the desalination plant which is, of course, going to have an impact on our Riverland food and fibre growers. We were also very keen, if we were to be elected, to look at the engineering works, in conjunction with the federal government, which would assist to droughtproof the Murray.

We hear all the time from Labor members in this place that they save the Murray, but that is just such a load of rubbish. This government has played a disgraceful game of politics with the River Murray. When we had the drought and the money was on the table from the Howard Liberal government, in those days, Mike Rann refused to sign up to that agreement. He played a disgraceful game of politics. We have since had the signing of the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement with all the states. This government was quite slow to sign up, and it has now halved its contribution to the Murray-Darling Basin Association. I suspect that was based on its own internal polling which showed that, since the breaking of the drought, the issue of the Murray River environment had slipped off the list of priorities in the South Australian public's mind. So it has really just allowed that to slip.

One of the areas I think it should be commended on is its adoption of Nature Play, which is about reconnecting children, particularly with the natural environment. As we hear and read about regularly, kids are spending far too much time these days in front of screens and not getting out and about exploring their world. However, I do note that is also in contravention of its approach to the remaining life tenure shacks. If you talk to people who spend time in shacks over Christmas, it is a very important way of connecting kids with beaches or rivers, and gaining a love and understanding of the natural world around them. So I think there are a lot of contradictions that come from this government, and we will be holding them to account—as we should, as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

In closing, I would like to thank the people of South Australia for re-electing my two colleagues the Hon. Rob Lucas and the Hon. John Dawkins, as well as myself, and also a new member, the Hon. Andrew McLachlan. I do note, following on from the Hon. Kelly Vincent's speech, that she referred to the lack of female representation. Unfortunately I was the only woman elected into the Legislative Council out of the 11 candidates on this cycle. Women's representation is something about which I am very passionate. I think we often find that women deselect themselves from the process because they see the argy-bargy and, particularly if they have young children, are not keen to enter the fray.

I would have to say that the treatment of the Liberal candidate for Elder, Ms Carolyn Habib, was one of the most disgraceful lows in the campaign, and this contributes to women not wanting to stand for parliament. They see that sort of behaviour and say, 'That's not for me; I do not want to expose myself or my family to that level of gutter politics.' So while this Labor Party is in government it should reflect upon itself. If the minister is ever to raise any issues about women in the Liberal Party, as long as that stain remains she does not have a leg to stand on.

I note that the people of South Australia overwhelmingly wanted a Liberal government, but did not get one because of the system we have. I think we have to examine our systems and have some fairly rigorous debates in here about what is the best and fairest outcome. There are a lot of angry people in South Australia who were very hopeful there would be a change. If nothing else, the people of Australia and the people of South Australia think that every couple of elections you ought to give the other mob a go; that is the general attitude. Sadly, that was not the outcome.

Those who occupy the Treasury bench have a duty to do a good job, to come up with a fresh agenda and stop squabbling over positions. That is letting down the people of South Australia, who in their majority did not vote for them in any case. With those remarks I endorse the Address in Reply.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins.