01 December 2021

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS:

I rise to speak in relation to the bill requiring the disclosure of ministerial diaries. This bill is a basic transparency measure to allow the proactive disclosure of ministerial diaries. Similar legislation already exists in the ACT, while mechanisms in Queensland and New South Wales require ministers to make copies of their diaries publicly available. This practice of disclosure will help to illuminate lobbying influence, as it did in Queensland last year during their state election.

The function of this bill is straightforward. Every month, a minister would make publicly available all meetings, events and functions which relate to their professional responsibilities. These would be published on the internet.

The bill does not require disclosure of personal meetings and would permit the emission of information deemed by the minister to be contrary to the public interest. I want to assure the ministers in this place that I have no intention of wanting to read their personal diaries or to pry into their personal affairs or personal meetings. Rather, this relates simply to the meetings that relate to their professional responsibilities. The minister would have the power to deem disclosure of a meeting to be contrary to the public interest. This decision would then be subject to review by the Ombudsman or by the SACAT should a member of the public wish to contest that.

In 2019, research from the ANU revealed that the Australian public's trust in politicians has been on a downward trajectory since 2007. A report from Griffith University and Transparency International Australia revealed the number of Australians who view corruption as a big problem as being 66 per cent; so 66 per cent of Australians view corruption as being a big problem. That is two-thirds of the Australian population.

Encouraging greater levels of transparency is an important step in restoring trust. Raising the bar of political transparency has been a long-term project of the Greens. We have been at the forefront of campaigns and advocacy for anticorruption commissions, lobbying reform, caps on political donations and accountability federally, and at a state level. Nobody should be above scrutiny in our democracy. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. We should let the sunlight in.

This measure when used in combination with a lobbyist register, which we have in place in South Australia, will help South Australians see very clearly who is lobbying members of parliament, who is seeking to exert influence over government ministers, and what interest groups do they represent. The public has a right to know who has the ear of those in power and this bill would ensure that that information is freely available to them.

This is not some sort of test dummy that I am proposing. This is an approach that has already been taken in the ACT, and in Queensland and in New South Wales they also have mandated disclosure regimes of this nature. This would really bring South Australia into line. My hope is that, no matter which party is in government from March next year, they will support this sensible reform. If we have the opportunity to sit again in the new year, and if the Liberals do not succeed in their plan to shut down our parliament as they attempted to do during the last sitting period—

The Hon. T.J. Stephens interjecting

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: I hear the Hon. Terry Stephens laughing. He knows it is true.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Terry Stephens is out of order!

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: We all saw what they tried to do to avoid scrutiny in this place. If they fail in that effort and if we return in the new year, then I do plan to bring this bill to a vote, because it is an important transparency measure and it is one that I think the people of South Australia will support. If I do not have the opportunity to deal with this matter before the election, should I have the honour of being returned to this place, I will certainly move on this again in the new parliament. With that, I conclude my remarks.

18 November 2021

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: I move to amend proposed new standing order 455B:

After 'Code of Conduct', first appearing, insert 'and should a Member wilfully contravene the Code, the Council may require the Member to apologise; or pay a fine; or may suspend the Member from the service of the Council.'

This is a straightforward inclusion. It is modelled on the code of conduct that operates in the state of Victoria. I understand the points the honourable Treasurer has made in terms of wanting to ensure uniformity between the houses, but at the same time I think we have a responsibility to ensure that any code we put in place is effective and has real teeth.

I think the people of South Australia expect that if you do the wrong thing in a workplace you face consequences, that you face potential sanction or penalty. It would send the wrong message if we supported a range of laudable principles today, but we did not actually stipulate what consequences may flow for members of parliament who do the wrong thing. I think it is appropriate that we put some of those things in the standing orders.

Members may well ask how great would a fine be, or how long would a suspension last. The Victorian legislation provides some clarity on this and so if we were to establish this principle in the parliament today then we could certainly finesse that down the track. I think this is an important principle for us to establish. It is one that the community will expect of us and I am hoping that this chamber will support the amendment being advanced by the Greens.

16 November 2021

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: The Greens are also supportive of this report and the recommendations. In particular, I want to put on record our support for the code of conduct that has been proposed. I recognise, as the Leader of the Government and the Leader of the Opposition have done, that this has come out of a multiparty committee process, but it should be noted that it was not a committee that involved active participation from the Greens.

It has always been our view that when you are developing a code of conduct it is important to include penalties to ensure that we have something in place that has real teeth, that the community can have faith in, that members of this place can have faith in, and that the staff who work in this building can have faith in.

With all due respect to the Hon. Mr Lucas, I am not sure that this Liberal government has the best track record when it comes to enforcing the behaviour of their members of parliament. This is the party that said, 'Let's not progress any investigation into the alleged conduct of Sam Duluk, let's just let that slide.'

The PRESIDENT: The member should be referred to by his seat, the member for Waite.

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: I apologise, the member the Waite. 'Let's just let that slide and let's instead exhibit such a failure of leadership that it's over to the member for Waite to announce that he is going to run as an Independent,' because nobody in the Liberal Party hierarchy had the courage to move to disendorse him. So I am not sure that the argument, 'Well, the political parties will take care of their business and the government will discipline people who do the wrong thing,' really carries much weight.

I also refer to the conduct of the former SA minister, Stephan Knoll, who was found to have engaged in misconduct over his interactions with the cemeteries board by the Ombudsman. I am not sure what action has been taken by the government in relation to that behaviour. It is important that there are some clear consequences that flow if people do the wrong thing. That is the case in any other workplace in the state of South Australia and that is what the community expects of this workplace.

In terms of the amendment, I will talk to that later when I have the opportunity to do so, but in general terms what it does is imposes or provides the opportunity for the parliament to impose fines, compel a member to apologise or suspend a member from the service of this council. Members may well ask—and the honourable Treasurer has made this point—how long would the suspension last, what is the fine, and so on? These are matters that are dealt with in the Victorian model from which this language has been drawn, and were this to be implemented we could certainly finesse some of those issues through further changes to the standing orders.

It is not the desire of the Greens to hold up this process in any way. We are absolutely supportive of a code of conduct. It has taken a very long time for us to get here and with that in mind we do think it is appropriate that we ensure that any code of conduct we put in place has real teeth and ensures that there are real consequences that flow to those few bad apples who do the wrong thing.

16 November 2021

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: The Greens also support this bill, and in so doing I want to commend the Hon. Connie Bonaros for her leadership on this issue in putting forward a private member's bill. It is good to see that the government has taken this up and followed the Hon. Ms Bonaros's lead on this very important issue.

We know, of course, that when it comes to consent to engage in sexual intercourse that it is vital that consent continues throughout sexual intercourse, and that is where the behaviour of stealthing, that is, removing a condom without permission, is really so abhorrent. This is behaviour that is, unfortunately, all too common. I understand that in 2018 a study by Monash University and the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre surveyed around 2,000 people—this is reported in news.com, and I am quoting from that article—and found that one in three women and almost one in five men who have sex with men had experienced stealthing.

The author and journalist Monica Tan has described 'non-consensual condom removal—and again I am quoting from the article—as a sort of rape', in an article for The Guardian published in 2015. 'I call what he did rape like. He called it pushing my boundaries,' she wrote. To make it clear in terms of the impact of this behaviour, survivors have made clear, according to a Yale student Alexander Brodsky who wrote in her paper titled 'Rape adjacent, imagining legal responses to non-consensual condom removal', that was published in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law:

Survivors make it clear as a result of the removed condoms they experienced fear of sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy and also a less concrete but deeply-felt feeling of violation.

There are lots of places around the world that have taken this matter very seriously and have legislated accordingly. California has moved to address this issue, and also recently in the ACT—and I understand the Victorian parliament is also looking at it. It is very important for us to change our laws here in South Australia to ensure that this is adequately addressed as the crime that it is. With that, I commend the bill.

16 November 2021

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: A national campaign to raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14, in line with other jurisdictions around the world, has been backed by a coalition of legal, medical and social justice organisations, including the Law Council of Australia, the Australian Medical Association and Aboriginal-led groups.

In a statement released late on Monday, the meeting of attorneys-general agreed to support a development of a 'proposal to increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12, including with regard to any carve outs, timing and discussion of implementation requirements.' That's a quote from the statement.

My question to the Treasurer is: given advocates have said that raising the age of criminal responsibility to 12 would make little difference to the number of children imprisoned, estimating that it would only reduce the number of under 14s imprisoned from 499 to 456, will the government consider raising the age to 14 instead?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer): I will refer the honourable member's question to the Attorney-General, but if he is quoting from a statement from all attorneys-general, I assume it includes our Attorney-General. I will, nevertheless, refer the question to the Attorney and bring back a reply.

8 February 2022

Additional answer received

In reply to the Hon. R.A. SIMMS (16 November 2021).

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer): The Attorney-General has advised:

On 12 November 2021, at the Meeting of Attorneys-General, the Marshall Liberal government was pleased to support the motion for state attorneys-general to develop a proposal to increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12, including with regard to any carve outs, timing and discussion of implementation requirements.

The government has consistently indicated its preference for there to be national consensus on this issue where possible, and so the Marshall Liberal government will continue to work with our state counterparts to consider this issue.

For the year 2020 in South Australia, 489 charges were laid against 78 children aged 10 or 11 and 27 per cent of these children were of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage.

The Marshall Liberal government is supportive of the national push to develop a proposal to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years of age.

28 October 2021

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: I rise in support of this bill. This is an opportunity to reform our parliamentary democracy. These opportunities do not come along very often. The Greens have long advocated for the benefits of having an independent Speaker, that is, somebody who removes themselves from their political party and therefore is able to act as an independent umpire. This is a model that is not without precedent in democracies around the world. Indeed, it is a model that has been used very effectively in the United Kingdom.

There has been a lot written about this by academics who are much more expert in these matters than myself, but there is one article I want to quote from. Ryan Goss from the Australian National University wrote in The Conversation in an article dated 21 July back in 2015 that 'A truly independent Speaker could renew Australia's parliamentary democracy.' One of the observations he made, and I think it is a very fair point, is that by making the Speakership a political gift of the party in power, Australia is missing a major opportunity for democratic renewal of its parliament. I think that is a fair point.

We have seen over the years what can happen when you have a politicisation of the role of Speaker. Obviously, we have seen some quite dramatic examples of this over in Canberra. Bronwyn Bishop, when she was not helicoptering around, seemed to show a fairly partisan approach to the role of Speaker. We do not want to see that here in our parliament. From the Greens' perspective, though, in order for us to support this bill we want to get an assurance from other political parties that they will support the idea of an independent Speaker of this house.

The PRESIDENT: You are downgrading the role.

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: President. Apologies, Mr President. Of course, we do have that model at the moment under your leadership, and I think that has been very successful, but we want to ensure that, in the future, when a President is appointed, they recuse themselves from political party meetings. I would certainly welcome an undertaking from the political parties that that is something they will commit to doing if they are in government, because of course, if we put this scheme in place in the House of Assembly, we should then do so here in this place.

The other point I want to make is the Greens recognise that there are lots of things that need to be done to modernise the way that this chamber works in practice. Enshrining the principle of an independent President is important, but also we would like to look at standing orders more broadly, looking at questions like Dorothy Dixers and the way in which they work in practice. These are things that I think many in the community would regard as a waste of time.

We also want to look at the times in which this chamber operates, the start times, and align them more closely with the House of Assembly, ensuring that we do not have sittings that go into the early hours of the morning but rather we work more sensible hours that are more inclusive of those with families and more in keeping with community standards. We look forward to having the opportunity to talk to other parties here in this place about those elements and would certainly welcome a commitment from the political parties to consider those things.

To sum up, this is an exciting opportunity to reform our political system, to get in place this idea of an independent umpire, to enshrine that principle in the House of Assembly and to also get a commitment that we are going to look at it here in this place too, and to look more broadly at how we can improve the way in which this house of parliament works to ensure it is more in line with community expectations.

26 October 2021

Hon Robert Simms:

Mr Chairman, before commenting on the detail of the amendment that is before you, I will respond to the tabling of the letter from the Auditor-General by the Treasurer. I welcome that information. It would have been helpful to have had that provided to us a little bit earlier than it being tabled in parliament. I do want to point out, Chair, that when we were last here together, and I moved to insert this amendment and we were going to progress this to a vote, the Treasurer spoke quite passionately about how unfair it was for the matter to be sprung on him and he talked about the lack of engagement with the government around my amendment.

I was persuaded by that, as I think the crossbenchers were, and more time was provided to the government. We adjourned the debate and now we have come back two weeks later. It is disappointing to see a letter relating to the amendment being tabled in this fashion without giving anybody the opportunity to take that into consideration as part of the debate.

I will point out, though, that there is an opportunity for amendments to be made should this pass this chamber, for further amendments and finessing to occur between the houses. If there is a significant issue that needs to be addressed, there will be an opportunity to do that.

This is a fairly straightforward amendment. It is what I consider to be a very important transparency measure and really what it does is ensure that the Auditor-General is required to provide approval for advertising in certain circumstances. It adds a really important transparency measure, I think, in terms of ensuring that the Auditor-General is required to approve certain government advertising, and that is advertising in particular circumstances and during the election period.

The government may be concerned that this is going to impact on advertising that they consider to be essential. The amendment makes it very clear that government advertising will be taken to be necessary for the proper functions of government if the Auditor-General is satisfied that the primary purpose of the government advertising is to communicate information relating to the following, and these things are stipulated.

I will not read them all, but they relate to public health and public safety, road and public transport, emergencies, legal or statutory matters, electoral material published under the authority of the Electoral Commissioner, and a range of other things. If anything has been missed that is considered essential, I am sure that that can be added in as part of the engagement between the two houses.

It is important to understand why this is so vitally important, and I think the Treasurer has talked a lot about his concerns around the spending of taxpayers' money in terms of setting up an independent budget office. He must then be aghast at the eye-watering advertising bill of his Liberal government, because it has been really quite outrageous.

It is worth remembering that, back in 2019, the Government Communications Advisory Committee was formed in July and it scaled back its public reporting on communication campaigns cost and effectiveness by the year 2020. As of June 2020, that body had published just one evaluation report for the financial year and in the previous financial year the government had reported monthly on campaigns on their costs and their effectiveness.

On 1 September 2020, this group changed its official guidelines and in addition to the rules requiring public reporting of the total cost and evaluation summary for each approved communications initiative, which was usually done after completion, the GCAC would now publish the cost of each campaign as it begins. Well, that was what was meant to happen, but the new guidelines did not specify a time frame for the reporting campaigns and therefore there was a significant lag in reporting.

Indeed, InDaily reported on this last year and it was noted that, despite numerous reporting campaigns being approved in September, there had been no reporting on the Department of the Premier and Cabinet website as required by the new guidelines. That is very disappointing.

The GCAC report for September 2020, made available at the end of October 2020, contains some information which I think is relevant to highlight here. There were at least six campaigns approved, worth a total of more than $8.8 million. The bulk of spending, more than $5 million, was for interstate and intrastate tourism campaigns, and $1.5 million was approved on 1 September for a campaign to attract New Zealand tourists.

Controversially, the government launched a $1.195 million taxpayer-funded campaign called Building What Matters, which was across various media platforms, promoting an infrastructure program in the wake of last year's state budget. That was scheduled to run until June 2021. This campaign does not explicitly include politicians, but in interviews and media politicians have referenced the campaign, a campaign that is paid for by the South Australian taxpayer.

The campaign promotes the government's infrastructure spend rather than giving direct information about individual projects. There have even been reports of cold marketing campaigns. This was reported by the ABC back on 26 March, indeed my birthday. I can tell you, it would not have been a welcome birthday present for me to receive one of these calls. According to this media report, members of the South Australian community were receiving phone calls promoting this Building What Matters campaign, a campaign funded by the South Australian taxpayer. The ABC has included an example of one of the voicemails which was left, and I will read it to you:

Good evening…I'm calling on behalf of the Premier, Steven Marshall—

it is like Amway—

and the state Liberal team to get your thoughts about the $16.7 billion infrastructure spend which will deliver safer roads, ensure that you have access to better healthcare closer to home and will deliver world-class schools for our kids.

That sounds like an ad to me. Despite the caller saying they were representing the Premier—and I am reading from the ABC here—the Premier denied any knowledge of the calls when asked by the ABC. He said:

I'm not aware of that…there's nothing wrong with going out and promoting the great work of [our] government.

That [could] be something you could take up with the Liberal Party.

It is unclear whether the call was made by a third party, who was paying for it or how the information was obtained. When asked whether or not the Liberal Party was paying for it or the taxpayer, Mr Marshall said, 'It's hard to comment because I haven't heard or seen the campaign that you're referring to.'

Quite frankly, that is simply not good enough. It is not good enough for the hard-earned money of South Australians to be wasted on PR for this state government. I can understand why they would want to be undertaking PR given the scandalous period they have faced, but it is not an appropriate use of taxpayer money and it is appropriate that this money is administered in an independent way and that there is some form of independent arbiter who can make a call on what is appropriate and what is not.

I am not suggesting the Governor-General take carriage of that—that is a step too far—but the Auditor-General is an appropriate body to take carriage of that. As I say, I note the concerns that they have expressed and that is something that can be worked through within the houses. I think this is a really important transparency measure. It is one that South Australians will welcome heading into this election and I commend it.

12 May 2021

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: I move:

1. That a select committee of the Legislative Council be established to inquire into and report on the privatisation of public services in South Australia, with particular reference to—

(a) the cost to the public of privatised services;

(b) the quality of privatised services and the outcomes for the public, particularly with respect to disadvantaged members of the public;

(c) the impact on employment rates, conditions and locations, especially rural and regional employment;

(d) the effect on income and wealth inequality;

(e) the effect on public participation, social cohesion and public perception of the role of government; and

(f) any other related matters.

2. That standing order 389 be so far suspended as to enable the chairperson of the committee to have a deliberative vote only.

3. That, during the period of any declaration of a major emergency made under section 23 of the Emergency Management Act 2004 or any declaration of a public health emergency made under section 87 of the South Australian Public Health Act 2011, members of the committee may participate in the proceedings by way of telephone or videoconference or other electronic means and shall be deemed to be present and counted for purposes of a quorum, subject to such means of participation remaining effective and not disadvantaging any member.

4. That this council permits the select committee to authorise the disclosure or publication, as it sees fit, of any evidence or documents presented to the committee prior to such evidence being presented to the council.

5. That standing order 396 be suspended to enable strangers to be admitted when the select committee is examining witnesses unless the committee otherwise resolves, but they shall be excluded when the committee is deliberating.

This is a motion to establish a select committee of the Legislative Council to inquire into and report on the privatisation of services in South Australia. With South Australia now one of the most privatised states in the country, we need a wideranging inquiry into the impact of almost three decades of privatisation. From the sale of our water supply and electricity services to the complete debacle that is our public transport system, it is clear that private profits have been put before the public good and before quality public services.

It is clear that a number of members of the community, a vast majority of people in the community, are concerned about what is happening when it comes to the privatisation of their essential services. Research from the Australia Institute in 2019 found that 40 per cent of South Australians blame the privatisation of our state-owned electricity provider as the single biggest reason for power price increases, and three out of five people (60 per cent) consider it to be one of the main sources of upward pressure on prices.

This report also found that price gouging from energy companies was the number one concern for one out of three South Australians (34 per cent). Privatisation has become an ideological hobbyhorse pursued by both sides of politics at different times. It has often been packaged up and sold to the public as something that is actually going to deliver improved services to the community.

Could anybody actually say that the privatisation of ETSA was a success? Could anybody actually say that the privatisation of our public transport system has been a success? The results speak for themselves. The sale of ETSA did not see a reduction in our electricity costs; instead, it was a monumental failure that has delivered us higher prices. Privatisation of our public transport network certainly did not result in improved services; instead, it resulted in cuts and a slash and burn approach to some of our most vulnerable communities.

I had a look, in preparing for today, into some of the examples of privatisation that have unfolded over the 30-year history of this experiment in South Australia. I must say that I was stunned by the length of the list and the number of important utilities and public services that have been sold off at great expense to the South Australian taxpayer in terms of the quality of the services they receive.

In 1992, we saw the sale of the SA Gas Company; 1993, SA Financial Trust; 1994, State Bank of South Australia; 1994, Austrust Trustees; 1994, Enterprise Investments (there was a real fire sale happening in 1994); 1994, Island Seaway, ferry to Kangaroo Island; 1995, Pipelines Authority of SA; 1995, Sign Services; 1995, State Government Insurance Commission (keep on selling it all off—it has all got to go); 1995, State Bank of SA; 1995, State Chemistry Laboratories; 1995, State Clothing Corporation; 1996, Radio FIVEaa; 1996, Samcor Meatworks; 1996, Forwood Products (timber); 1997, Port Bulk Handling Facilities; 1999, ETSA (and we all know what happened there); 1999, Central Linen Service; 2000, Torrens Island Power Station; 2000, ElectraNet; 2001, South Australian Totalisator Agency Board (SA TAB); 2002, SA Ports Corporation; 2012, SA Lotteries (master agent); 2012, Forestry SA; 2016, Motor Accident Commission (that was an investment portfolio); and 2017, Land Services, the lands titles office.

It is a long list and, sadly, we know that it is a list that will be added to in the years ahead, with the privatisation of our train network and the appalling consequences that will flow from that. This inquiry is seeking to look at the implications of these privatisations, the impact that this has on the services made available to the people of South Australia and the impact this has on the workers in those industries.