The shambolic South Australian Liberal Party has demanded more than $1.6 billion in new spending in the 10 weeks since the March State Election, showing their carelessness on economic management and determination to drive up debt.
Liberal leader Ashton Hurn today complained about South Australia's debt profile – despite debt today being less than forecast under the previous Liberal government.
However analysis of Liberal demands for Government spending since the election shows a Hurn government would have already spent more than $1.6 billion in little over two months.
It's only been 74 days since the State Election. That's almost $22 million dollars a day.
That comes after promising nearly $6 billion of new spending during the election campaign – a record for electoral irresponsibility that did not stand up to the scrutiny of the South Australian electorate.
Mrs Hurn's failure to learn those lessons shows a commitment to reckless spending that would drive debt far higher than current forecasts.
Their demands include:
- $520 million to extend stamp duty exemption for First Home Buyers to existing homes
- $350 million towards a $605 million Barossa Hospital in the Leader of the Opposition's electorate,
- $200 million to raise the payroll tax-free threshold from $1.5 million to $2.1 million
- $173 million in incentives for midwives, nurses and GPs
- A $100 million fuel response
- $80 million for a payroll tax exemption for apprentices and trainees
- $45.2 million for radiation therapy services in the Limestone Coast,
- $42 million for flashing orange lights at all new school zones,
- $38m for free flu vaccinations
- $30m for free public transport for three months
- $3m for an algal bloom royal commission
- $16.5 million for a Doppler weather radar,
- $12 million for the Port Lincoln Marina upgrade,
- $3 million towards a Cummins Police Station, and
- $1.5 million for a pedestrian crossing at Dulwich Village.
As put by Tom Koutsantonis
We are seeing yet again from the Liberals a complete failure to learn the lessons of the South Australian public's rejection of their wasteful and irresponsible budget management.
Ashton Hurn's solution to everything is to spend her way out – and then have the temerity to complain about debt linked to generational infrastructure projects such as a Non Stop South Road and new Women's and Children's Hospital.
Is she proposing to cancel those projects?
The Liberals have embraced a bizarre form of magic pudding economics; they want to spend an extra $1.6 billion and in the next sentence demand that debt reduces. It is complete fantasy.
Every time Ashton Hurn or the Liberals do a press conference, she seems to announce another spending commitment. Seventy-three days after the election, the Liberals have demanded more than $20 million a day in additional spending.
Despite their election defeat, they have learnt nothing – they are still promising everything to everyone, with no plan to pay for it and no regard for the consequences.
