Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I rise to speak on the 2010-11 report of the Commonwealth Grants Commission. The Commonwealth Grants commission is a critical body when it comes to the interaction of the Commonwealth with the states and the financial management of the states. Of course, some states are better managed at a financial level than others. Some have competent management, sound government and clear leadership and others lack competent government, sound management and particularly clear leadership. In fact, if ever there were a leadership vacuum in a government in Australia one may contend—and it is often contended in this place—that it is in the federal Labor government. They certainly have their leadership woes and there is at times a leadership vacuum or a waxing and waning of leaders at the federal Labor level.

However, in the case of South Australia, a state that is of course a recipient of Commonwealth Grants Commission funds, we see the ultimate waxing and waning of leadership at present. Over the last few months it has been hard in the case of South Australia to work out whether we have two premiers or no premier. It has been hard to work that out since July this year, when Mike Rann announced that he was going—not exactly a voluntary announcement. He had been tapped on the shoulder by the factional masters, and not even the factional masters that we see at play here in Canberra, who have at least managed to get themselves elected to parliament.

No, we saw Mr Peter Malinauskas, the head of the shop assistants union in South Australia, trundle along to the Premier's office and say, 'Mr Premier, your time as Leader of the Labor Party and Premier of South Australia is up.' The Premier said, 'Thank you, Mr Malinauskas. You, of course, are a duly elected representative of the people of South Australia and I bow to your will. I shall depart the office of the Premier and depart the office of the Labor leader in South Australia. I shall leave the decisions of the Commonwealth Grants Commission to somebody else as Premier of South Australia.' Strangely, amazingly, that somebody else is Mr Weatherill, the current education minister.

Mr Rann insisted that he was going to stay. He was going to stay because he wanted to mentor his successor, Mr Weatherill. He probably wanted to tell him how the Commonwealth Grants Commission would work. So Mr Rann said he was going to stay. Significantly, one of the key things that he wanted to see done, and presumably wanted to mentor Mr Weatherill through during the several months that Mr Rann would hang around, was the BHP Billiton deal for the expansion of the Olympic Dam uranium mine. That is another matter that will have significant implications for Commonwealth grants to South Australia. The royalties coming from that mine will have an impact on those grants.

What did we see happen through that deal being struck between the government of South Australia and BHP Billiton? What happened to the mentoring process? Every time there was a meeting between Mr Rann and BHP Billiton the invitation to Mr Weatherill must have been lost in the mail. The mentoring opportunity for him to go along somehow went missing.

Senator Edwards interjecting—

As Senator Edwards rightly suggests, in Melbourne this week we finally saw the deal signed. And who was there? The outgoing Premier, Mr Rann, who has just a few days left on the clock as Premier. 'Turbo' Tommy Koutsantonis, one of the shoppie union officials, the disgraced former road safety minister who acquired dozens and dozens of speeding fines, made it to Melbourne for the BHP Billiton announcement. Kevin Foley, the Minister for Police who seems to occupy an extraordinary amount of police time as a result of his late night activities, managed to make it to Melbourne, but where was Jay Weatherill? Where was the mentoring for the allegedly incoming Premier? Nowhere to be seen. He has been nowhere man over the last few weeks.

It has been quite a remarkable situation. In fact, over the last few months the mentoring has been cast aside. Mr Weatherill has not been seen nor heard from. South Australians have no idea what this man will do who will soon be cast into the premiership as a result of Mr Rann's factional enemies in the shop assistants union. South Australians have no idea what this man will do, what he stands for, what his vision for South Australia is or what he has learned from Mr Rann during the mentoring process. We do not even know whether Mr Rann has explained to him what the Commonwealth Grants Commission does.