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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-11-07 Daily Xml
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Shop Trading Hours

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (14:30): Thank you, Mr President. I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Treasurer regarding shop trading hours.

Leave granted.

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE: Yesterday, the Treasurer made a ministerial statement advising that he had in fact received a submission from the SDA on Christmas shop trading hours. According to the Treasurer, the email containing that submission was captured by an email filter. This means that the Treasurer has failed to consider the views of thousands upon thousands of retail workers across this state.

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins interjecting:

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE: I am glad you see that as funny. The Treasurer also said that he would correct the record wherever he was asked to correct the record. My questions are:

1. When will the Treasurer apologise to the SDA and the tens of thousands of retail workers he has overlooked and correct the record in all media outlets that he previously made the comment in?

2. Will the Treasurer explain why he, or any of his staff, did not think to call the SDA to ask for their submission?

3. Given the Treasurer's consultation on the Christmas trading hours exemption he intends to issue was clearly incomplete, because of his failure to consider the views of tens of thousands of workers, will the Treasurer cancel the exemption and restart a fair process?

4. Can the Treasurer advise why, unlike previous years, the Christmas trading hours exemption consultation process was not coordinated by SafeWork SA but instead by the Treasurer's office?

5. Does the Treasurer agree that the unorthodox approach he took to conducting this process was merely political pointscoring?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (14:32): The answer to one of the questions—I forgot the actual number—is no, I won't be withdrawing the exemptions and starting the whole process over again. There is a simple answer to that, and that is no.

The Hon. K.J. Maher: Have you sought some legal advice about whether you should?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I don’t need advice from the Leader of the Opposition, a member of a failed Labor government, on any issue, Mr President, ruly or unruly, in order or out of order. Indeed, if I was seeking legal advice, he would be the last person in the nation that I would be seeking legal advice from.

In relation to the honourable member's question, it is incorrect and inaccurate to say that I have conceded that I had received a submission from the SDA. I didn't receive a submission from the SDA. It was junked, for the reasons that I outlined yesterday. I didn't receive it. I didn't see it, albeit, as I said on a number of occasions, repeated again yesterday, I am well aware of the views of the shoppies union in relation to shop trading issues.

As I said to a number of members of the media this morning, you don't have to be a Rhodes scholar to know what the attitude of the shoppies union is to shop trading hours deregulation. Indeed, in relation to public holiday trading, for every public holiday, almost, for the last eight years, the shoppies union and fellow travellers have put their position, and the Liberal Party has put their position, both in opposition and in government, in relation to trading on public holidays. You don't have to be, as I said, a Rhodes scholar to know the attitude of the shoppies union.

In relation to the issue of the junking of the shoppies union email, I said I would share further information.

The Hon. J.E. Hanson interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Hanson, it's getting annoying now. Treasurer.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: It was just white noise for me, Mr President; it was just white noise. It was just something in the background; just something over there.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I said that I was happy to share information. I know members of the Labor Party need to report to their union bosses in the shoppies union, so let me, through them, provide some advice to the shoppies union in relation to why the techos in government believe this particular email might have been junked. I advise that government uses industry-leading email filtering systems to limit the volume of spam, phishing and malicious emails permitted into the organisation. I am advised, again by the techos, that this email contained a number of words, phrases or content identifiers that filtering products regularly use to identify potentially malicious content. In the interests of security, I won't indicate—

The Hon. I.K. Hunter: Like the word 'union'.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —all of the identifiers that were malicious—

The Hon. I.K. Hunter: It's like the word 'union' has been crossed out of its servers.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I said yesterday that I did rule out that I hadn't issued any instruction to automatically junk any union emails, because my very good friends and comrades in the PSA regularly correspond with me, and their emails never get junked. We are on first name terms. Without actually identifying all of the security elements, I have a couple of suggestions to the shoppies union bosses, which are evidently telltale signs to this automatic industry-leading email filtering system: don't use generic email sender addresses, which evidently the shoppies union used. In general terms, don't use a generic salutation such as 'Dear Treasurer'. If they want to get it through to me—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —use the term 'Dear Rob', 'Dear Comrade', 'mate' or 'Minister Lucas'. I am only sharing information from the techo experts. This is not my view. Anyway, there are a number of other indicators, evidently, in this industry-leading email filtering system, which I must admit was installed, evidently, under the former Labor government. It has nothing to do with the new Liberal government. Without indicating all the others, because that would indicate the details in the security systems, the techos have advised my office that as the number of these identifiers—there are a number of them, and I haven't revealed all of them—increase with any one email, as per the email in question, there is an increase in the likelihood of the email being flagged as suspicious. The techos have advised that's the reason why this particular email from the shoppies union was junked and deemed—

The Hon. K.J. Maher: Because it said 'Dear Treasurer'?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: No, because there are a number of identifiers which the system—

The Hon. K.J. Maher: You said 'Dear Treasurer' was one of them.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: Well, it was. It's not in and of itself—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: Mr President, this is a system set up by the government of former minister Maher and former minister Hunter. So this is the system that the former government set up. There's a little bit of advice to my good friends and comrades in the shoppies union—

The Hon. E.S. Bourke: When are you going to apologise?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I won't be, in relation to that unruly interjection. I had indicated publicly, and I did so again today. I do accept—

The Hon. K.J. Maher: That you misled parliament.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: No, I didn't. I do accept that the shoppies union did try to send a submission. For the reasons that were being identified, I didn't receive the submission, which is correct and what I said on the record. I didn't receive the submission, for the reasons that have been outlined; it had been junked. I have provided some general advice to my very good friends in the shoppies union to assist them in the future in relation to ensuring that they always get through to me—a bit like the PSA's letters to me, because they clearly don't get junked or treated as having malicious or suspicious content.

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