The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (16:16): I thank honourable members for their contributions: the Hon. Dennis Hood, the Hon. Tammy Franks, the Hon. Sarah Game, the Hon. Tung Ngo and the Hon. Jing Lee. I did have a sense of optimism around this, until I saw the Hon. Tung Ngo rise to his feet, and then I knew. I had that familiar sinking feeling that the bill was going to be killed off, because you know that when there is a sensible proposition in this chamber the Labor government deploys the Hon. Tung Ngo to kill off the bill, the smiling assassin who destroys good policy. He is always the one that they deploy to deliver the bad news.
I am very disappointed. I do think the position that both the Labor and Liberal parties have taken here is a slap in the face to hardworking South Australians, particularly in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. I think the Hon. Sarah Game makes a compelling point when she says that there are lots of people in our community who work very hard, who do vital work and would never dream of being able to earn the exorbitant salaries that these vice-chancellors earn. This nonsense that you need to pay people salaries in excess of $1 million to attract talent is just a complete nonsense.
I note also the point made by the Hon. Tammy Franks, when she highlighted the inconsistency of the Liberal Party on this issue. It is a very important point. Simon Birmingham was the federal education minister, and I was in the federal parliament during that period. He and I disagreed on many things, but one area where we did agree was the need to curb these exorbitant salaries and to have a discussion around that. Sadly, it seems the South Australian branch of the Liberal Party has moved away from that position.
There is an opportunity for us as a state to show some leadership here and to demonstrate that we are trying to get this under control, particularly at a time when we have a new institution that will be coming into fruition in the new year. Might I say that at the time when we were debating the establishment of the new Adelaide University the Greens moved an amendment that would have allowed the vice-chancellor salaries to be set by the Remuneration Tribunal. That was opposed by the Labor and Liberal parties as well, so it seems that they are very reluctant to have a commonsense and transparent approach adopted in relation to vice-chancellor salaries.
This is an issue that the Greens will continue to advance, because I think the broader community expects that these public institutions should be reflecting what is the public standard. These salaries are exorbitant and they are wildly out of touch with community expectations. I do thank, however, the Hon. Tammy Franks and the Hon. Sarah Game for their support, and I indicate to members that I do plan to call a division so that the views of members can be put on the public record.