Review of the year in SA politics - Radio comments - 27 December 2011

Robert Brokenshire, Family First MLC (5AA 19.44-20.18) Review of the year in SA politics [Interview from the 27/12/11]

Rob Brokenshire MLC outside Parliament
House, Adelaide

(Rodda: … 2011 has been a pretty volatile year in South Australian politics … Jay Weatherill is now at the helm and he appears to have injected new blood into the party and sort of brought a new energy and dynamic to what was I thought was a very old and tired and … very arrogant government. So, to get an independent view of how he saw the year unfold, I’ve asked Family First MP Robert Brokenshire to join me … it’s been a long time since we had a discussion on politics and I think the last time we did so you were a Liberal MP.)

That’s right …

(Rodda: …how long have you been with Family First now …)

… I lost my seat in the 2006 election which was a very bad election for the Liberal party … probably the worst election I can recall from the point of view of lack of structure and strategy etc … a couple of us on those knife edge marginal seats just missed out …

 I went home on the farm and I was happy working with my son, I love farming, but to cut a long story short Andrew Evans rang me up … probably 12 months after I left politics in the Lower House and he said … I’ve watched you with interest … Andrew said … would you be prepared to take my seat because he had … diabetes and it was making it hard for him to work … I said … I’d fit quite comfortably into that … whilst I enjoyed my privileges as a Minister and everything … the one problem in the two major parties is that you’re not really able to be as independent as most would like and … with Family First you’re pretty well totally independent … I said yes I’d take that offer up … I’m probably now heading to three and a half years with Family First in the Legislative Council …

(Rodda: …you really enjoy being more independent rather than toeing the party line …)

Yes … it’s a lot different because it’s more of a watchdog role. I’d be telling you a fib if I said I wouldn’t have enjoyed an opportunity as continuing as a Minister because I had a lot more plans for the portfolios I had but in politics you’re basically there from one election to another … that’s important … if the people are happy with what you’re doing … then you’re fine, if they’re not happy you get kicked up the backside and that’s good democracy … with an independent party …we say

1. is this good for South Australia,
2. does it have merit,
3. is it going to help to grow the state both from an economic and social fabric point of view

and if the ticks are yes … then we support the Government, if they’re not with the Government with those ticks … often we’ll vote with the Opposition and amend legislation or at times oppose it outright.

 (Rodda: …it must be good … to be able to just vote for good policy …)

It is … the one thing that Ministers won’t want to admit to but with cabinet solidarity which you must have once cabinet make a decision you go out in front of the TV cameras … you sing the virtues of what the Government want the listeners to hear but sometimes you may not necessarily agree with all of that and that’s not easy work … now I call it as a I see it and I fit much more comfortably with that. At times we actually upset both the Opposition and the Government and I think when we do that we’re probably on the money.

 (Rodda: …let’s look at 2011. What do you think the biggest issues have been this year in politics for South Australia?)

 … this is my 16th year in Parliament and up until now every one of those years has been with Mike Rann either as leader of the Opposition or Premier and Mike Rann did some good things, there’s no doubt about that, but he I think did start to get out of touch in a huge way probably straight after the election, probably just before the election, and so he copped the demise of that with his own party … they’ve given Jay a go, he will try and reinvigorate the party although I think … that any political party that’s been in office for 12 years … is probably almost at its use by date … I think even Howard showed that …

(Rodda: …I thought John Howard was a very good Prime Minister … but I saw him grow more and more arrogant …)

 … John Howard’s Government delivered enormous opportunity for Australia but because of the energy and demand levels in politics … you do have a burn out rate … I think the American system’s a better system … from point of view of leadership … the other problem is that when you’ve been in Government for some time you tend to not even necessarily listen to your backbenchers a lot … you wrap yourself around your own team and I think that’s what happened to John Howard … if you look at Howard he was definitely a statesman and … also Paul Keating and Bob Hawke were statesmen, you felt confident when you saw them in the international scene, but I think we’ve lost that both at the state level and the federal level.

(Rodda: …I certainly didn’t feel like that about Mike Rann and Kevin Foley.)

… they got in by doing a deal, and I’ll never forget that deal, and then it was all about deals … I’ve heard one of them even mention that to me on occasions but I think it’s actually a lot more than about deals. I think it’s about putting the people first and the power second and the problem that all leaders have got now is being able to balance the power and the glory with the fact that you’re actually there to deliver for your community first and foremost.

(Rodda: …do we as the voters actually take enough interest in our politicians … people don’t take enough responsibility for these people that we’re putting into politics …)

The Legislative Council or 'Upper House' in Session
Rob Brokenshire argues voters support independent parties
in the Upper House as a check on the major parties

… I do agree with that to an extent and I think it’s important that more people do engage with politics because as I often say to young people … whether you like politics or whether you like politicians or not the reality is that most things that occur in your day, in your year … will affect you in your job creation … is determined by the people in politics right now and so it’s a good idea to actually take an interest in them and I encourage them to engage … I think there is a voter trend now that’s starting to pay more attention than probably what used to be the case … now, particularly in the Legislative Council … with Family First and other Independent parties … nearly a third of all the MLCs are on the cross benches and people have deliberately made a decision to do that … they may traditionally vote Liberal or Labor in the Lower House … because they’re the major parties but they’re saying … we actually want that check, that balance, that independence, that watch dog role in the Upper House and I think that’s healthy … if you compare what’s happening in South Australia in the Parliamentary debate compared to Queensland, certainly our South Australian voters are acutely aware of the importance of the Legislative Council.

(Rodda: …let’s look at some of the things that have occurred this year … Kevin Foley, there’s part of me that really feels sorry for this man because it was like watching a train wreck unfold … almost day after day in the papers and he just couldn’t put a foot right.)

And it’s unfortunate because I know Kevin Foley and Mike Rann probably better than a lot of people because I’ve worked with them for so many years … Kevin Foley is actually deep down not a bad guy and he was very committed to what he was doing but I think the way they actually got Government and then the fact that the Liberal Opposition, and I was part of it then … we were very bad in that first term. We were too frustrated and concerned about how they got into Government when we should have been there … we actually forgot to be an Opposition and so that allowed the Government to become very, very arrogant … the bottom line is that whilst major parties like to have a big majority, the truth is for a state like ours, the tighter the margin the better.

(Rodda: …I think Kevin Foley heaved a great sigh of relief when he hung up his boots finally …)

… Kevin liked the night life … but the unfortunate part was that because he’s high profile if any of us are involved in night life then you’re going to cop the wrath of the media if anything goes wrong … that’s a responsibility you have to take on when you put up your hand for these jobs … you are basically 24/7 in the public eye …

(Rodda: That’s the unfortunate part about it … and you do have to become careful don’t you?)

… you put up your hand, taken on the role and with that comes a lot of responsibility and the offset for that is you need to be careful. If you want to have a private time you’ve got have it with your closest friends or home but when you’re out publicly you’ve got to be very careful

(Rodda: Especially in politics … and a fairly volatile character like Kevin Foley … because there’s a lot of people that love to have a go at him because they don’t like his policies, or attitude, get a couple of drinks involved it’s a tinderbox situation …)

 … it’s a bit like a footballer … some can play a hard game, and Kevin Foley was very good at that … but then because of that and the way he went about it there were the consequences … he’s a bit like a Barry Hall in the AFL …

(Rodda: Let’s look at some of the initiatives over the last year; we’ve had the go ahead for the hospital … and the Adelaide Oval redevelopment and the reinvigoration of the Torrens precinct. First of all … the hospital … what are your thoughts on this new hospital that’s going to cost us so much money?)

The Emergency entrance at the Royal Adelaide Hospital
which is scheduled for closure when the New RAH is built

I’ve always been strong and Family First had a close look at it … and we made a decision to support a continued restaging of development at the existing campus … because there’d already been $200 million to $300 million spent and that was mainly spent in the A&E and acute care areas … you won’t get better medical treatment than right now and the technology is there. What it did need was new accommodation … and that could’ve been done a lot … cheaper. So we supported the idea of paying as you go and owning it.

 But the Government needed to do something with health because their polling showed they were on the nose with health. This became a project they decided on. It will be good, offer a lot for South Australia, but it’s going to come at a big price and if we’re going to continue with the Greater Adelaide Plan of another half a million people coming into South Australia we’re not going to have the capacity with that new hospital probably by 2020 and yet every day we’ll be paying $1 million on interest … so I don’t agree with the decision but it’s there now. The Government have bulldozed their way through. I just hope that it comes in on budget and that it is able to deliver the services that the Royal Adelaide has delivered for so long

(Rodda: Where does it leave our rural hospitals? That’s an awful lot of money to plough into one hospital … and where does it leave the Queen Elizabeth, Modbury and Flinders … is there enough money to still support them?)

Rob Brokenshire addresses a rally on Parliament House steps
earlier in the year comprising Keith, Moonta and
Ardrossan residents

 I don’t believe so. I believe they’ll need to find that whoever is government a lot more money for that. Now the Flinders Medical Centre is getting some upgrades … and all of the hospitals are but there’s a … question mark over the QEH in the longer term and … the Lyell McEwin and definitely the Modbury Hospital. Then what the Government wanted to do … when they had Country Health Mark I, they wanted to shut down a lot of little rural hospitals and we’re still seeing it with Keith, Ardrossan and Moonta. Keith is just a dumb decision. The money they would save out of that is irrelevant in the big picture. It’s a lot for you and me … but for a government on a $15 billion budget to save $300,000 … they won’t save it

(Rodda: It’s just a no-brainer to me … I don’t get that one)

This is when bean counters take over from medical practitioners …

(Rodda: Why do they ask for medicos’ opinions and then not listen?)

Because … the Government says the Health Department has got to deliver dividends or cut its budget and while … deep down they would probably like to do what the medical people say, they’ve got to look at savings.

The bizarre one was the hospital car parking … at the moment a lot of South Australians think Jay Weatherill has done a back flip on that but it’s only half a back flip. What he said is we won’t charge you for the first two hours. People will soon start to find out that they spend more than two hours in a hospital. It’s mostly the vulnerable and pensioners … paying that. So these small amounts of money are not where you save money; you hurt people … you’ve got to be more careful in what you do with your bureaucracy and also your own departments, like your media department where the Government have about 64 media advisers. That’s where I’d see savings rather than the Keith Hospital



Hospital car parking at sites such as Modbury Hospital
(pictured above) were controversial for the Rann Government
in 2011, and distanced from the new Premier in October



(Rodda: Indeed … I have to say I have interviewed John Hill about the new hospital and I’ve had a lot of the doctors in my ears from the Save the Royal Adelaide campaign I have grave misgivings about this hospital and whether by the time it’s built its going to be able to service the need; I have concerns about car parking … and one of the reasons I choose not to work in the CBD is because of the car parking frustration. It’s just dreadful trying to find a park at 7:00 in the morning. … just doesn’t happen … let alone at 2:00 if you’re on a late shift)

 Well exactly if you’ve got an appointment with the medical people at 2pm … I think as I said, that one’s a bad decision. I mean in England as an example they are having tertiary hospitals, state-of-the-art hospitals just like we’ve got with the RAH on a 300 year old campus and … look at the St. Vincent Hospital I think that’s in Victoria isn’t it, and the work there and the development … it’s like renovate, upgrade but own it; there are certain things that the Government can get out of and there are certain things that the Government need to own … I’m not comfortable with a Public Private Partnership arrangement there.

A key issue during 2011 was the campaign to save SA's public
forests from privatisation.

I think we’re leaving something that’s going to cost our grandchildren a lot and it’s a bit like the privatisation of the forests. I mean there were some good things done by the Government this year; you would expect that, that’s important but there are some decisions that the Government have made that I think are very wrong and as Chair of the Select Committee into the privatisation of the forests of South Australia and the southeast I think that’s again a bad decision that’s going to cost our grandchildren a lot.

 (Rodda: What’s going to be the impact on the people of Mount Gambier and the southeast?)

… in the short term the Government will be able to tie the contracts so that there probably won’t be a lot of short-term impact … in the mid and long-term I think there’s enormous risk to the southeast and four or five thousand jobs and also of course I think there’s an enormous risk to South Australia because the reason why successive Liberal and Labor Governments since the 19th century have grown renewable forestry for South Australia because back then we didn’t have the hardwoods … for building.

But the point was we’ve always had our own security with our timber supply for our housing … I’m concerned that that puts the housing industry at risk. It may put the cost of houses up further which we don’t want and for short-term gain to try and save the Triple A credit rating which apparently we may not save anyway, why would you sell something for $600m or even $640 or $650 when it’s actually going to return you at least $50m net each year?



Rob Brokenshire says housing is one
industry that will suffer if forests are
privatised



(Rodda: That doesn’t make sense does it … a little bit like water … I’m of the school that thinks utilities should not be privatised, should be managed by Government because they’re fundamentals … look what’s happened with SA Water, that’s the biggest disaster this side of the Black Stump)

Well the desal plant’s the real problem there;

(Rodda: Well there’s some more money going out of the coffers isn’t it?)

… unfortunately your listeners haven’t even started to feel the real impact of power and water costs and I’m very concerned about them, particularly for low income earners, people in Housing Trust and superannuants and pensioners, but … there are some things Government can get out of but there are some things that Government need to control. But the problem we’ve got with Government at the moment of all colours is that it’s all about ‘how do I hold the seats in the marginal areas for the next four years?’ so a lot of stuff is done without long-term strategy and planning and the desal plant was a classic. The Government said ‘no desal plant’, you know, refused to even engage in it. Then they said ‘we’ll build a 50 gigalitre desal plant’ and then Kevin Rudd and Mike Rann had a brief meeting I understand and said ‘we’ll double it’. And as a result now we’ve got probably a quadrupling of water costs in the next few years.

(Rodda: Yeah and still nothing done about the River Murray But don’t get me started on that one)

That challenge [unclear] next year Ali.

(Rodda: Indeed. Alright Rob let’s quickly look at the good things the Government have done over the last year?)

 … I think some of their road infrastructure has been very good. They’ve put a lot of effort into some capital works there and that’s desperately needed.

Some of the work they’ve done in education has been very good, technology and some of the new schools they’re building I think are a tick for the Government and then when it comes to the issues around the River Murray fight I think it’s fair to say that this Government has tried their best to take that fight up to the Commonwealth and the authority and knowing that at the bottom end of the Murray Darling Basin we need to have a healthy river you’ve got to have a healthy river from the Mouth back through to the source not the other way. So I think the Government have done pretty well there. But … there’s been a lot of areas where they’ve probably … just bumbled along.

(Rodda: Mm. Anything else? [laughing])

Anything else that they’ve done that’s good? Um, I don’t wanna be negative but I’m struggling to come up in all honesty Ali to get some, a lot of other [unclear]. Because if I look at social impact and decisions that have had an impact on the rank and file which is the absolute majority of our community I think we’ve been flogged and we are now the highest tax and charge state in Australia and we’ve got a debt now that’s back to where it was when the State Bank issue occurred. So you know I’m sorry but I can’t really give them any credit for those things. I’d like to -

 (Rodda: Indeed)

 I’d like to say they got the debt down more ,we’re the cheapest state to live in but we’re losing that cost competitive edge.

I guess the other thing that’s important that I will give them credit for although they opposed it as a party earlier on, but the Roxby Downs expansion, they did work hard on that and that one is very, very important to get a tick from the board of BHP Billiton by the middle of this year. So to be fair there’s another one they’ve worked really hard on.

(Rodda: Okay. Well let’s face it. Where have the Liberals been in the last year? I mean we’ve had this Government for over ten years now and in the last year we haven’t heard that much from the Liberal Party; they’re almost like a Toothless Tiger at the moment. What are your thoughts on the Opposition’s performance?)

Well some of my former colleagues that will be listening to your program now won’t like what I’m about to say but I think the Liberal Party have tactically made a couple of very bad decisions this year that they need to rectify next year. It was no good sitting back and letting the Rann Government implode as it was because clearly the heavy weights from the Labor Party would come in and do the job they’re happy to do which they did. So now it puts the Liberal and the Labor Party right back on an even keel; there’s nothing in it - two points either way. And why they weren’t out there attacking harder as an Opposition I really don’t know; they could have actually gone to the point now where they have become the alternative government … they chose to wrap themselves up in as small-a ball as they could in cotton wool and now next year they’ve really gotta come out.

It’s not too late for the Liberal Party … Isobel Redmond is a strong leader but there’s a few troops there that’d be a bit sore at the moment because they’re no longer in Cabinet, Shadow Cabinet and I think they need to be team players rather than dissidents. But if the Liberal Party want to win the next election and I think it’s going to be pretty concerning if the Government gets 16 years without pressure on them at the next election because that’s a very long time and everyone in Government gets tired by 12 let alone 16 years,

(Rodda: Yeah)

But I would like to see the Liberal Party coming out, making some specific statements about where they want to take the state and pointing out where the Government are wrong and really attacking there and supporting them where they’re right. But … the job of an Opposition Ali is the same as Family First; we’re a watchdog party. You need to point out where the Government’s going wrong. People will see where they’re going right but people want to see effective opposition. That’s what makes good government. So I think the Liberals probably wasted a bit of this year, quite a lot of it but hopefully for them they’ll come out next year and they’ll have their new Shadow Cabinet, they’ll be reinvigorated, they’ll have some strategy and they’ll start to announce that strategy and people will see the alternative differences between Liberal and Labor.

(Rodda: … I hope they’ve become a little bit more aggressive because you know some of these initiative have just been rammed through without any protest from the Liberals at all which is a bit disappointing because they’re our representatives as well. Just because they’re not in Government they’re still representing us.)

Well they’re the alternative Government and I said in the House - and some of them didn’t like what I had to say - but I’ve said it with well-meaning and that was, I said you’ve got to learn to focus as an Opposition. You’ve obviously - you also need to understand about winning marginal seats and some of them raised their eyebrows and … the bottom line was, because they were saying ‘well we got 52% to 48%’ two party preferred at the last election but that’s not worth anything to you when you’re in Opposition. Because … if Jay Weatherill wins the next election it will be because of Rann’s master stroke with his marginal seats at the last election. You know he managed to hold seven marginal seats and … you know Rann should go down in the history books with a Credit next to his name for that. It’s not easy to win seven seats in one election and if Jay Weatherill wins I think he’d want to go and thank Mike Rann for that

(Rodda: Yeah)

And the Liberal Party will need to understand how to actually target marginal seats … really they won two marginal seats last election, Adelaide and Norwood, and that was dismal.

(Rodda: Yeah; … I know that you have to go to bed early, you’ve got cows to milk … we could talk like this for hours but I do hope you’ll come and join me in the studio one night before we get kicked off air in March … and continue the chat because it’s always good to talk to you and there’s no shortage of conversation … so much going on there at the moment)

Well there is and I’m sure that there’s a lot that we can engage with your listeners as well … they are interested in seeing the state grow in a positive direction. I’d love to take the opportunity of coming in and this time of the year our staff are getting time off so that’s when I can have a little bit more time on the farm … .

(Rodda: Listen all the best for the New Year … we’ll catch you a little bit later on in January or February)

Thank you … great and healthy and safe New Year and also to all of the listeners on 5AA that they’ll keep safe, enjoy the New Year and … hope that it’s a growing and developing new year.

(Rodda: You too … Family First MP Robert Brokenshire there who’s always good to have a yarn and … it’s his favourite subject, politics.)

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