HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Member Index
Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-02-20 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

Address in Reply

Address in Reply

Adjourned debate on motion for adoption.

(Continued from 18 February 2020.)

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (15:33): I rise to address the Address in Reply and in that regard I want to thank the Governor, His Excellency Hieu Van Le, for his address on the opening of the Second Session of the Fifty-Fourth Parliament. With respect to His Excellency, it was not that long ago—two years, roughly—since he opened the first session for the first time for the Marshall Liberal government. Having listened to His Excellency this time and last time, not much has changed in the government's written speech or their agenda since his return, and that is unfortunate. One thing that has changed that is not unfortunate at all is your ascension, Mr President, and I wish to congratulate you on that as well.

I can say that the main importance of His Excellency's address in bringing us together on that day was to hear about the impacts of the bushfire crisis and to pay tribute to our state's resilience and public generosity. His Excellency issued well-deserved and meaningful praise to all our magnificent volunteer and paid firefighters, and also other emergency services workers, who continue to serve selflessly and tirelessly to minimise loss of life and property. To quote His Excellency:

No praise is too high for them. We remain in their debt for the lives saved and property losses avoided.

The speech for His Excellency was issued to criticise, in some regards, members of this place for not passing certain bills. Notably, these were: extended shop trading hours, the capping of local council rates and lifting the prohibition on growing genetically modified crops. Those particular bills were not passed in this place, in some cases, for good reason. These are contentious issues that cause angst in the community.

We have a premium reputation around our food and wine. We have more independent retailers in this state than in most others, and from talking to workers and small business owners, I know that extending shop trading hours is likely to hurt them and their families. We encourage South Australians to buy and shop local. I know that both sides of this aisle do; however, only this side seems to acknowledge that deregulation is also likely to impact the availability of South Australian made products.

I think the capping of council rates has been dealt with fairly extensively by this chamber. There does not seem to be a good level of support for it. Indeed, we have recently seen a Productivity Commission report issued on this basis. The report did not find that the capping of council rates is in any way the most effective mechanism of achieving the aims the Marshall government has stated.

The bin tax, which was imposed by the Marshall government, seems to level a certain amount of hypocrisy. The level of cost-shifting in this government has increased, not decreased, for councils. Councils cannot be expected to keep costs down if they continue to have costs shifted upon them by the state government.

Since coming into office, the Marshall Liberal government claims there is a continuing focus on providing better government services. When they first came into government, they claimed they had a plan for real change to create more jobs. Unfortunately, from what I see and hear out in the community—and I do say 'unfortunately' very sincerely—it is the exact opposite. There seems to be a lot of shifting behaviour out in the community.

There is a push to privatise our train and tram network. There is the privatisation of the Adelaide Remand Centre. There are pending closures of Service SA centres, perhaps in Modbury, Mitcham and Prospect. Recently, there seems to be a downsizing following the relocation of the Adelaide Service SA centre, where 15 service counters are going down to six, if you do not count self-service.

There is the privatisation of Modbury Hospital patient transfers. There is the downsizing and closure of TAFE campuses. There is the possible privatisation of SA Pathology and South Australia Medical Imaging. There is the axing of bus routes and the potential closure of the Grange train line. There is the cancellation of the Tea Tree Plaza park-and-ride expansion. There is the hike in public hospital car parking fees for patients, visitors and staff. There is the closure of the Adelaide Metro call centre. There is $23 million in cuts to the South Australian tourism budget, and funds have even been cut from the food budget for police dogs and police horses.

These are not the actions of a government that is looking to increase services. The Marshall government, by the very fact of these matters, is diminishing government services, not enhancing them. I can tell you that the people of our state are quite upset and angry about it. They feel like this is a broken promise, and they are not wrong.

Further to this, we were promised more jobs. The fact is that it is getting harder and harder to find a job in our state. This is directly because of two years of the Marshall Liberal government. According to an economic report by ANZ released today, the ANZ Stateometer—that is right, it is the 'Stateometer'—it finds that 'the South Australian job market has softened substantially,' and that South Australia's 'momentum indicator was the poorest of all states.' The ANZ report also stated that the weak jobs market is leading to weaker consumer spending, and that:

…retail sales went backwards, particularly in discretionary categories such as electronics and clothing. This suggests that household budgets are being squeezed.

The weak job market follows the Marshall Liberal government's decision to cut 29 job-creating programs. These programs reduced the unemployment rate under the former Labor government.

In regard to that, I note that at New Castalloy the government decided to cut the upskilling and retraining programs that were provided to workers who were unfortunately becoming unemployed by that company closing its doors. It seemed a particularly mean and malicious act to cut retraining for those workers so they could go and find jobs in some other industry. It is also a bit disappointing to note that, on ABS figures, we have now seen over seven straight months of job losses in our state.

In the blink of an eye, we have seen retail stores closing or shutting down completely under the Marshall Liberal government. Over the last few months, these have included Jeanswest, Harris Scarfe, Colette, Bardot, EB Games, Roger David and Oroton. German supermarket giant, Kaufland, also decided to retreat from the South Australian market. It announced last November that it planned to open about 20 stores in Australia, focusing on Victoria and South Australia. The award-winning SA firm Hybrid Agency collapsed, losing 13 staff. That came as a direct result of the Marshall Liberal government's decision to outsource SA tourism to a Victorian firm. It is very easy to see how the decisions made by the Marshall government are adding to the unemployment crisis.

Most recently, of course, two major Asian airlines decided that they are going to pull out of South Australia, with the withdrawal of China Southern and Cathay Pacific services. This will mean a big hit to visitors from China and Hong Kong. Cutting $23 million from the tourism budget certainly will not help to resolve that. We also hear media reports that industries, such as Santos, our largest gas producer, are preparing to relocate to Queensland. They are offering redundancies to somewhere between 150 and 200 Adelaide staff, mostly based here in Santos's Flinders Street headquarters. This headquarters, despite the share price, managed to stay open in Adelaide under 16 years of Labor.

Where is the Premier? The fact is he should be knocking on doors and fighting for these jobs. Last year, we had Ed Harry close its doors, including its national office in Adelaide, not to mention that in 2019 Radio Rentals announced the closure of 12 South Australian stores and the loss of 100 jobs. Mr President, I am sure you walk around Adelaide and regional towns and you would notice, as I have, the number of vacant shops that seem to be popping up. As of today, we are not wrong: Commercial Real Estate lists 2,556 properties for lease in South Australia.

As I have stated here before in other matters, manufacturing jobs, particularly in defence, really concern me. French submarine builder, Naval Group, is warning it will slash the percentage of local work on the Future Submarines project. This would be a devastating blow to South Australian jobs. The Australian newspaper reported that a French company building Australia's $80 billion Future Submarines said that local firms may not get half the value of the subs contracts. What does that mean? We are talking about local content.

The federal Liberal government promised that at least 90 per cent of the work would be local. In 2016, the then Liberal defence minister Christopher Pyne famously said that less than 10 per cent of the work would go elsewhere, meaning that 90 per cent would remain here. From the original promise of 90 per cent of local work, that number seems to have steadily slid. First it went to 60 per cent and now Naval is clearly warning that it will be less than 50 per cent. As I have said previously in this place, estimates are falling as low as 30 per cent.

Steven Marshall to this point has been largely silent on this issue, quite unbelievably, despite being present at the good news announcement when he signed the strategic partnership agreement in Canberra on 11 February 2019. He was quite happy to be at the ribbon-cutting ceremonies but he is not quite so happy to be there when it is time to get results, as was the case yesterday when he was quite happy to be at a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Prime Minister down at Lot Fourteen, but he could not seem to find time to ask him the basic hard questions around defence manufacturing jobs in this state.

The fact is that uncertainty surrounds the future of hundreds of Collins class submarine maintenance jobs at ASC. Those jobs are at risk of moving interstate. It beggars belief that our Premier could not simply find the time to stand before a camera with our Prime Minister and ask the simple question of, 'Why can't they stay here?' It just beggars belief.

If you are serious about defending jobs in this state, if you are serious about maintaining a defence state, if you are serious about maintaining manufacturing and high-skilled jobs here, you have to ask these basic questions. It is not time to involve ourselves in Canberra politics. It is time to make sure that our unemployment rate, which continues to remain above 5.5 per cent and has remained on trend—as I said, seven months of job losses in this state; we need to be asking the tough questions. We need a premier who is going to be present to do that.

The building industry is another important sector that creates jobs. It trains apprentices and it drives economic growth. Not only that, it also creates communities. A record number of builders have gone bust under this government. Since December 2018, up to 12 companies have gone insolvent. HIA figures show that home builds in SA fell by 21 per cent last financial year, from 13,062 down to 10,380. Twelve companies went insolvent.

Manufacturing generates 5.7 per cent of national GDP, but it is down 10 per cent over the decade. Governments have to back industry, and they have to back them to incentivise. Whilst in government, Labor helped secure the future of Nyrstar in Port Pirie. We worked with the workers, the community and the company and we secured an agreement to support, through a taxpayer guaranteed loan, the construction of a state-of-the-art metal processing plant. In November 2019, Nyrstar made final payment on that loan, three years ahead of schedule. On this side, we understand that every job is important. By standing up for workers we saved more than 700 direct jobs at the smelter and many more across Port Pirie, with the city facing a dire future if the plant closed.

I have already mentioned that we also stepped in to save the manufacturing jobs at New Castalloy in North Plympton. Regrettably, in 2019 it closed, under the Marshall Liberal government. It is disappointing, now, to hear that General Motors has announced its plan to withdraw entirely from Australia and retire the Holden brand. Their 164 years of history can be traced back to Adelaide in 1856 when James Alexander Holden started the saddlery business here, and the firm evolved over decades into carriage construction.

I mention this because recently there have been quite a few attacks in the media. It seems it is not good to provide subsidies to companies which provide billions back in payroll receipts. It is not good to provide subsidies to companies which provide tens of thousands of jobs to families across our state and other states. It is not good to provide those subsidies, they say, because apparently you do not see a benefit. Well, I look to what we see now, and the fact is that what we see now is unemployment. We do not see those manufacturing skills remaining here. We see them bleeding interstate. We see those same companies setting up overseas, producing cars which are then imported back over here for us to drive. It just does not make sense.

Labor has a strong track record of investing in infrastructure. We deliver on jobs and we deliver on prosperity for South Australians. I say this in particular pointing to the recent completion of the Northern Connector project. It is opened, as the biggest road project currently under construction in our state. Since commencing under Labor four years ago, it created more than 600 jobs, with 50 per cent of the roles filled by local content and 90 per cent of on-site labour hours undertaken by South Australians. That project, of course, has come to an end.

We know that investing in infrastructure creates jobs and economic activity in the short term and boosts productivity and economic growth over the long term. So one wonders what the Marshall government is going to do to maintain this key driver in our state moving forward. Again, it is another hard conversation not had with our visiting Prime Minister yesterday. Where is the money that is being taken out of our state for creating key projects, key road projects?

We know that GlobeLink has been scratched. That places in serious doubt, frankly, the contention that the Women's and Children's Hospital can be completed either by 2024, 2025 or 2026. If they are willing to scrap key election promises like GlobeLink, this billion-dollar saviour for our economy, one wonders if they are actually ever going to deliver on their promises when it comes to building hospitals.

There is also very little investment in public and social housing provided by this government. It comes as no surprise that His Excellency was provided with pretty minimal information on how the government plans to assist the vulnerable in our community, including how to assist remote Aboriginal and Indigenous communities.

In health more generally, we have all heard it and we all know it: under the Marshall government we have seen a significant increase in ambulance ramping. Ramping has more than doubled. It has caused significant delays and is putting lives at risk in our community. According to September 2019 statistics released by the office of the health minister, patients were forced to wait in ambulances outside of Adelaide's crowded public hospital emergency departments for a staggering 2,303 hours. This represents the worst ramping figures in the state's history and unfortunately, tragically, three lives were lost in 2019 while ramped outside hospitals.

There are some positive matters to look at. Labor had a strong and proud record when it came to renewable energy. Under the Rann and Weatherill governments, South Australia went from zero renewable energy to about 50 per cent, or somewhere thereabouts, between 2003 and 2017. This is a remarkable achievement. The previous government even helped deliver the world's largest lithium-ion battery, which, of course, we all know is located near Jamestown. Not only were we creating cheaper green power, but we were creating jobs and kickstarting industries in the future. As a result, we have a reputation as a global leader in renewable energy.

We also have a reputation, somewhat, as a global leader in autonomous vehicle technologies, which was also kickstarted under the previous government. The Liberal Party has already chased one car industry out of South Australia. I hope they are not going to kill another in regard to autonomous vehicles.

It is worth noting that in 2017 we hosted the first international space conference in our state. No doubt this paved the way for the establishment of the Space Agency that was opened by the Premier and the Prime Minister yesterday. I sincerely say that I hope we are going to see more jobs out of that. I think it is a great thing that it is located here, and I am glad that it was celebrated with the attendance of the Prime Minister. I note that it is a largely bipartisan effort and we did not seem to have too many Labor people there, but nonetheless it is a great announcement.

The government now has the opportunity to capitalise on attracting high-tech and advanced manufacturing businesses that will create new and emerging STEM jobs, whether it is in renewables, autonomous vehicle technology or space-related technologies. These are some of the new and flourishing areas because of the previous state Labor government's policies supporting jobs in a growing and innovative industry. I hope that the Liberal Party is able to capitalise on those green shoots that the Labor Party put in place for them.

In closing, with no longer the highest unemployment rate in the country but certainly a seven-month trend of jobs decreasing in the country, the government needs to be fighting hard for every single job that it can get hold of. The Marshall government's plan that they took to the election was a strong plan for real change, they said, for more jobs and better services. Put frankly, I am not seeing it. Over the last two years, we have seen more broken promises and minimal results. There have been fewer jobs and there are fewer services.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (15:53): I rise to welcome this Address in Reply. I certainly wish to start by thanking His Excellency yet again for his fine service to this state and the inspiration that he provides. Indeed, I cannot help but reflect that it is a wonderful legacy that our state has someone who came with that suitcase of dreams as a refugee to this place now occupying that Government House just across the road from this people's house.

I also wish to congratulate you again, Mr President, on your ascension to the role. I trust that you will enjoy the role and that you will keep order in this place in a way that provides fruitful and productive debate and outcomes.

I commence by reflecting on the bushfires that occurred over the summer and those that reached catastrophic level over the summer. Indeed, those bushfires were burning on the eastern coast in rainforests in winter to commence the horror season that culminated in the summer that we have just seen, not just on the east coast, and not just here in South Australia, but also elsewhere. I think it has been brought starkly home to many South Australians just how crucial it is that we respect the environment in which we live.

For those whose summer was spent breathing in smoke in the suburbs, we are ever grateful to the volunteer efforts in particular, but also the career and volunteer firefighters and emergency services workers across the board who responded, protecting property and people in our state. We know that with climate change, those sorts of situations will increasingly demand more from those people who put their life on the line for us. We owe them not just nice words and respect and thoughts and prayers but equipment that works, the supports they need and the real respect that ensures that they are consulted about decisions that affect them and decisions that affect our very safety in this state.

With that, I renew my commitment in particular to working with our emergency services workers in this state, be they paid or volunteer, and note that we are in a climate emergency. These instances, where we have to come together in crisis as a community, are going to become more frequent unless we take quick and decisive action.

I note that today the Prime Minister has finally called for a royal commission. That royal commission will, no doubt, do some fine work, but I believe we have had some 50 or so inquiries into various natural disasters, bushfires and so on, in just the last few decades. We have the evidence and the information that we need to respond to these crises, but the real evidence and information that we need to be responding to is that in the IPCC report, which tells us that unless we turn this around within a decade we may not be able to turn it around at all, and that the language will need to change to that of adaptation rather than avoidance of this emergency.

I welcome the government's announcements that show they are trying to establish some green credentials. As a Greens member of this place, that is certainly something we hope to see become more and more mainstream. I note in particular, though, that they still have a focus on gas in their policies, and they are not alone in that. Certainly, gas is not going to be the solution that they seek it to be and, as my staff member notes, it is basically the fibre to the node of sustainability. If you want to create a less effective and far lengthier way of getting to the renewable future that we need, then you would choose gas, but the Greens urge all members of this place to see gas for the folly that it is.

We have also seen the government show their commitment to these green credentials with the recycling of many of their policies in this reset parliament, following the prorogation, simply recycling that failed legislation from the previous two years. What they have missed in the point of that is that when you recycle, it is important to turn it into something both new and useful to really have an effect. We need to transition. We need job creation. The government needs to step up. Essential services should be in public hands and we need real transformative change to effect that.

That is why the Greens, and I believe in some ways in this country Labor, but across the globe people are talking about a Green New Deal. A Green New Deal is a way of turning the rightful anxiety and anger that we have about the climate emergency and the climate crisis that we are in, into something that provides a hopeful vision; something that in the spirit of FDR and America, makes us more equal; something that is a movement for change, for social justice and environmental sustainability; and, indeed, the very future that we need for all of us.

To quote from the previous Greens leader, the still Senator Richard Di Natale's national conference speech to my party:

…the reason people are taking to the streets is because they can see that we are facing an economic, social and environmental crisis. They see through the big lie that government and big business have been peddling for decades—that we can't have a safe climate and a healthy economy at the same time.

The truth is we can have a safe climate and a healthy economy at the same time, and the reality that should be recognised in this parliament is that we must have a safe climate and a healthy economy at the same time. Indeed, those elements of the Green New Deal are that the government needs to take the lead to create new jobs and industries and that services must be universal, and that no-one is left behind.

The government outlined its agenda for reform through our most excellent Governor in the Address in Reply. I was unsurprised to see shop trading hours will continue to be one of the campaigning tools of the Marshall government, advocating for people to be able to shop whenever they wish, and not understanding, as the Hon. Justin Hanson just noted, that that will stretch particularly small businesses in this state, and in the grocery sector where we have the least penetration into the market of the big two—the Coles and the Woolies—and proudly have our Foodlands and Romeos providing South Australian produce directly to South Australians in a way that no other state enjoys, and that is partly because of our current regime.

Of course, the Treasurer has shown that there is no need for reform, with his various announcements of addressing situations as they arise, be it a cricket match bringing in international tourists or a particular morning where we know that there will be many people, actually making it viable for those particular shops to open for those few hours where necessary—but not day in, day out, 24/7 every month of the year.

The idea that we need to completely deregulate shop trading hours to ensure that people have the ability to shop actually misses a really fundamental point about the stresses and pressures that people in South Australia face in 2020. That is, they would love the ability to shop, to get the things that they had no time to get all week, at 9 o'clock on a Sunday morning. That is because we are working people to the bone and they have very little leisure time and free time to get to the shops as a result.

Where is the vision for a four-day working week to ensure that people can have a balance of leisure and shopping and work? Where is the promised land that we were all told that technology would bring? Well, it seems to be in Finland. I suggest that perhaps South Australia could look at some more innovative ways of ensuring that people find a balance of being able to buy the things they need, to put food on the table and enjoy time with their families and time to do things other than their job, but also enjoy a very meaningful and pleasurable work environment in this state, aside from a silly debate, yet again, about completely deregulating shop trading hours. That debate misses the point that we actually need to fundamentally redefine our working life in this country.

We also need to fundamentally redefine what we consider is fair. Very early this year I attended a conference that I was very pleased to attend, with Stephanie Kelton as the keynote speaker, at Adelaide University. She is, I think, an ongoing but certainly a former economic adviser to Bernie Sanders, currently a presidential candidate. She was his economic adviser in his previous candidacy.

At that conference many ideas were put forward. However, I have to say that that was a conference in the second week of January, and I was astounded that it was completely booked out. Over 400 people were in a lecture theatre in Adelaide University at a time when people are normally taking time out of their busy lives to have a summer holiday. The thirst and the hunger for new ideas—some of which are old ideas, I have to say—and for different ideas was so great that there was quite an enormous waiting list. I note that she got quite a bit of attention as she travelled around the country with these ideas.

They are ideas that the Greens have long championed as well and certainly debated and discussed. Ideas such as a job guarantee: that people have the right to work. Ideas such as a universal basic income: that people have the right to be able to afford to live. Ensuring that people are not living in poverty in a developed nation is surely not something that is beyond us. That is a Greens agenda. I am disappointed that the government's agenda is shop trading hours being deregulated rather than having a look at trial sites for a universal basic income, rather than putting people on a cashless welfare card, which is punitive and punishing.

The government, however, did have some positive ideas in terms of a Greens response following the prorogation of parliament. I do indeed acknowledge that there is much unfinished business here to do from that previous session. I, for one, am looking forward to the abortion law reform debate. I welcome that it was mentioned in the Address in Reply. While I acknowledge that it will be a private member's bill of some form, it is a debate that needs to happen. Our abortion laws are now over 50 years old. When they were developed and debated, that was when we settled the question of whether or not there should be lawful abortion in this state.

Following those debates, we have also ensured that we have access to abortion through our public health system, which I believe is outstanding in terms of the best healthcare provision. It is something that I commend the Shorten campaign for having highlighted during the previous federal election. Indeed, I was most heartened to hear Bill Shorten, then as Leader of the Opposition, talking about the need for access to abortion health care to be ensured through our public health system wherever people were, and that funding was essential to ensure that happened.

The SALRI report, I am sure, is night-time reading of all members of this place, knowing that the debate is coming forth. The SALRI report is an extraordinarily comprehensive and erudite analysis of the situation that we currently have in South Australia and strongly recommends that we decriminalise abortion and remove it from our criminal codes.

I welcome that debate. I no longer want to live in a state where women who live in remote, regional areas of our jurisdiction are forced to drive long distances, to travel long distances, to find care for their children, to take time off work, to take a tablet because that tablet must be taken in a prescribed hospital under our 50-year-old laws. That tablet, of course, needs to be taken not once but twice over a period of some 24 to 48 hours.

So that woman typically, who already has several children, who lives in rural, remote or regional South Australia, who needs to find care for these children, who needs to take time off from her job, who needs to perhaps not inform those around her and who may well not have a supportive doctor in her local community, who needs to cover up what she is doing to take several days to take a tablet and then another tablet some 24 to 48 hours later to ensure that she has the choice that should be her human right in this state, to ensure she has the choice that 50 years ago this parliament actually decided she should lawfully have, has the choice that some decades later this parliament ensured and debated and decided she should lawfully have in a way that was supported by the public health system.

And yet, because we are too afraid to debate these matters to update our laws, we have archaic laws that literally put these women in stressful, unacceptable and, indeed, harmful situations. I look forward to that debate, and I am sure some members in this place will welcome it. I am sure it will be a difficult debate because people do hold very personal and strong views on it. I hope that it will be a respectful debate that recognises the realities that the SALRI report has so effectively put together for us to assist us in that debate.

It will come as no surprise to members that I also look forward to finally removing the criminal penalties associated with being a sex worker in South Australia in coming parliaments—I hope it will be this parliament. Under the auspices and the leadership of Fiona Patten, MLC for the Reason Party (previously the Sex Party), and at the behest of Premier Daniel Andrews, the Victorian government is currently undertaking a six-month consultation for the decriminalisation of sex work in Victoria. Fiona Patten I believe is herself a former sex worker, although I am sure she would not be offended if I was incorrect in that assumption; she is well-placed.

I welcome that work in Victoria because I point out that many sex workers in South Australia travel to Victoria, where they currently have what is called a legalisation system, where they need to put themselves on a register. That register had its privacy breached in the last two years and so those workers who have been on that register have been outed for their profession. Our South Australian workers will at least have one more jurisdiction in this country where they can work safely and legally and not have to choose between those two factors.

I note also that just a few weeks after we rejected a bill for the decriminalisation of sex work, the Labor Northern Territory government passed one, and that every single Labor member of the Northern Territory parliament voted for the decriminalisation of sex work in the territory. We have now two jurisdictions: Victoria, with a Labor Premier, and the Northern Territory, with a Labor Chief Minister—indeed, it was the leadership of the Attorney-General in that territory. They have taken that step forward to ensure workers' rights for sex workers in their jurisdictions.

I urge all members to pay heed to that and to ensure that we no longer continue to have a system in this state where we have the oldest laws in the country, laws that criminalise people simply for the exchange of commercial adult sex between consenting adults. Nobody should be telling women what to do with their body and, should those women seek to make a profit from what they do, we do not stop them from doing that in any other field.

The Greens will again be putting forward animal welfare law reform. I was disappointed that I was not able to progress some of the shelter law reform that I had put on the parliamentary agenda before the previous election. Only because there was prorogation have we not progressed that. I hope that all sides of parliament will be able to work with us to ensure that we have some contemporary laws in this state to ensure the best treatment for animals that we can possibly provide, but also to ensure supports for those organisations, such as the AWL and the RSPCA in particular, that provide that very important animal welfare work.

On the topic of gambling and reforms that were recently made around note acceptors for poker machines, the Greens note that we are currently into the consultation period for how these note acceptors will be implemented with facial recognition technology. Again, we express our concern that facial recognition technology is actually used as a tool to groom gamblers rather than for harm reduction. The Greens will be bringing forward a bill to ensure that any facial recognition technology is only used for harm reduction and not to groom gamblers, not to create more harm.

The Greens again—and I am sure that, given the moves around the country, our comrades in the Labor Party will join with us on this—will be putting on the agenda industrial manslaughter laws. Other states and territories are now proceeding further with this. It is time for us to take that essential step. I note that the Marshall government will be vehemently opposed, but it is a fight worth having and it is a fight that I think we need to have because, if the Marshall government is not going to stand up for workers who are killed, who will they stand up for in our workforce?

Finally, in terms of something that I would have liked to have seen, given the reset button was pushed and parliament was prorogued yet what we got was a recycled rehash of a few odds and sods that we have already debated, we have spent much time in this council and in the other place in these last two weeks talking about standards in parliament, standards in the parliamentary workplace and a lack of accountability where workplace safety is compromised, where harassment goes unaddressed and without remedy.

Again, I look to my Greens colleague Senator Larissa Waters who currently has a bill before the federal parliament for a standards commissioner. I note the fine work of the previous member for Indi, Cathy McGowan, in developing that particular piece of legislation. I note that the ACT government, a Greens-Labor government, has for some years now had a standards commissioner for their parliament and that the UK parliament has a standards commissioner.

These work with a standards committee and are equipped to address the particular needs of a parliamentary workplace. They provide transparency but they also provide pathways because, while some may take a journey to recovery, I am looking for a journey for victims to take to ensure their recovery. A standards commissioner would provide the remedy that parliaments need to represent and reflect the expectations the community has of us for setting the standard, not being basically the Wild West where those who make the laws are not subject to the laws that every other workplace is subject to.

I was heartened to hear the government talking about medicinal cannabis in their Address in Reply. I was disappointed to see that it was very limited in terms of a compassionate access model, addressing in their response access for children with epilepsy. Do not get me wrong, I think that is a very fine and worthy initiative. Children with epilepsy have had that remedy through the actions of the Andrews government in Victoria for many, many years. In fact, it is not new to have such a small program.

However, I will not damn it with faint praise. I urge the Marshall government to go further with compassionate access to medicinal cannabis. It should not just be restricted to children with intractable epilepsy for whom all other treatments have failed. We are failing the broader cross-section of people who need that access if we do not expand it beyond that.

The obvious area, as health economist Simon Eckermann has often observed, is palliative care. We also need to look at pain management. There are so many areas that the government could have addressed in the speech outlining their vision, where they stated they would be addressing this issue in a compassionate way. I urge them to consider broadening their intent.

I note that there is currently a Senate inquiry into access and issues around medicinal cannabis. This is because the federal model has failed. It was set up to fail. The federal model went through the Senate in one form and was changed in the lower house at the last minute. While it was called 'Dan's Law', it is now, after Dan's death, something that Dan's parents vehemently want to see changed. They are vehemently and utterly disappointed in Dan's Law because it has not enabled the access to medicinal cannabis that it should.

Indeed, according to the figures of those who are able to jump through all of the hoops, South Australia and Tasmania are the two states where medicinal cannabis is the least accessible. As I have been vocal on this issue, constituents come to me for assistance to get through the bureaucracy in this state. As is the case in many other states, I need to refer them to a broker to help them navigate this very complex system. I am pleased to say that the time frame is getting shorter, but it is still months and not weeks. Once they do navigate that system, it is still out of the question in terms of affordability unless those people have access to wealth. That is not good enough.

In terms of setting the reset button, there is a reflection I wish to make in order to sum up my response to this government's particular vision. It was extraordinary to finally see, on the pages of The Australian today, an article lauding renewable energy as the saviour in the storm crisis. The article, by David Penberthy, notes that the storm of 21 January, which saw South Australia shut off from the rest of the country via the interconnector, endangered the Portland smelter. The article states that, for the past three weeks, the state has run on renewables and gas alone, and that South Australia's renewables have saved the Portland aluminium smelter.

I do not see Chris Uhlmann making any comments or weighing in on the debate. I do not see the federal Liberal leadership rushing to laud the success of renewables in this particular crisis: the storm event that could have potentially led to the loss of thousands of jobs. The fact that it is in the pages of The Australian and written in such a way is a sign that all things can change. In this parliament, I hope that many things will change. With those words, I welcome the Address in Reply.

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

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT