Costing row dominates SA election campaign
Tim Dornin |
The row over South Australian election promises looks set to continue right up to polling day with Labor standing firm behind its plan and the Liberal government accusing the opposition of “rookie” errors.
Labor says it will use a combination of savings and uncommitted capital already in the SA budget to fund its $3 billion in election commitments.
The Liberals have offered $288 million in sweeteners and say Labor would have no choice but to raise taxes and charges.
Labor treasury spokesman Stephen Mullighan said the party’s pledges had been verified by independent audit firm Charterpoint and showed the party could deliver without hitting taxpayers in the hip pocket if elected on Saturday.
“The Liberal scare campaign has been comprehensively debunked,” he said.
Labor said it could save about $670 million over the next four years by imposing a 1.7 per cent efficiency dividend on government departments not delivering frontline services.
Agencies such as health, police, emergency services and education would be exempt from the savings measure.
It will also use about $1.5 billion in uncommitted capital reserves already in the state budget as well as bringing forward the $662 million the Liberal government planned to spend on a new Riverbank Arena in Adelaide.
Those funds would largely go to pay for Labor’s $1 billion in health initiatives, including plans for hospital upgrades, more hospital beds and the recruitment of extra doctors, nurses and paramedics.
But Treasurer Rob Lucas said the state would be burdened with significantly higher debt and taxpayers would be forced to pay for Labor’s mistakes.
“They’ve made assumptions that there’s a lazy couple of billion dollars sitting behind the treasury sofa that they can spend without any impact on the budget,” he said.
“The main issue for punters out there is they’re the ones who are going to have to pay for the rookie mistakes.”
SA-BEST upper house MP Frank Pangallo said taxes would rise regardless of which of the major parties won on Saturday.
“Car registrations will increase, bus and train tickets will rise, hundreds of government fees and charges will spike and don’t rule out stamp duty and payroll tax being looked at to help them balance their books,” he said.
While SA Unions said confirmation on Thursday that South Australia had the worst unemployment rate in the nation meant it was time for a change of government.
Secretary Dale Beasley said South Australians needed secure, good quality long term jobs, and a detailed plan to deliver them.
“We need long term investment in renewable industries, high technology manufacturing and other emerging industries that will deliver good quality secure jobs for all South Australians and their children,” he said.
AAP
