Christopher Pyne: Dan Cregan’s Speaker upheaval last week will do little to change the SA state election

Last week’s political chaos and changing alliances means trouble for Steven Marshall’s re-election … doesn’t it? Maybe not, says Christopher Pyne.

“Shenanigans.” That’s the word I heard most last week to describe the goings on in the South Australian parliament since Dan Cregan, the Member for Kavel, decided to turn his coat from Liberal hue to independent 10 days ago.

Since then, it’s been a week in North Terrace of shifting allegiances, broken friendships and game playing. Adrian Pederick, the MP for the neighbouring seat to Cregan’s, even described Cregan’s decision as “a dog act”.

The press and the opposition have breathlessly reported and promoted all these shenanigans to saturation point.

Independent MP Dan Cregan in his new role as speaker of SA's parliament during question time. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe/Newswire

But what impact does it have on voters in South Australia as we eye the next state election due in March 2022?

Not much in my view.

I was manager of opposition business in the House of Representatives and a member of the Coalition leadership group throughout 2010 to 2013 when the Gillard government was in minority and chaos reigned. Just quietly, I may have been responsible for creating some of that chaos.

When Labor lost the 2013 election and the Abbott government was installed, it wasn’t because of the Peter Slipper affair or the Craig Thomson nightmare or the Australian Worker’s Union slush fund saga.

Labor lost because Julia Gillard had said before the 2010 national election that “there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead” and then, within a few months of the election, she had introduced a carbon tax.

It’s because the Labor government of the time couldn’t manage the budget and couldn’t halt the people smugglers trade. It was policy issues, not shenanigans, that brought that government down.

While the hothouse atmosphere of the “Canberra Bubble” thought the scandals were the only things people noticed, now that I am out of parliament, I have to admit the voters hardly notice that parliament is even sitting. Sad as that might be from my perspective!

Last week’s shenanigans, where Cregan ousted Josh Teague, the MP for the other neighbouring seat to Cregan’s, to become Speaker and Labor combined with the crossbench independents to create an inquiry into their bete noire, Deputy Premier Vickie Chapman, was all just politicians playing games.

Politics isn’t a game, it’s a grind. That’s the reality.

I did it for 26 years, 16 of them on the frontbench.

I can tell you what people care about it. Not who the Speaker of the parliament in South Australia is, or whether Labor or Liberal had a good week in parliament. It’s the answer to the question: “What has the government done for me lately?”

I met two entrepreneurs in my King William St office recently. One had moved from Melbourne, the other from Sydney.

I asked what I thought was an obvious question: “Did you have partners who wanted to move back to Adelaide?” They were both astonished and said, “we both moved here because Adelaide is the new technology city”.

They are two real-life examples of what has happened to Adelaide and South Australia in recent years.

No longer is moving to Adelaide something you do as a pit stop before you get on with the rest of your life. Young, smart entrepreneurs are moving to Adelaide because the policies of the government are causing them to do so.

It is a real achievement.

It has happened because the government of Steven Marshall has managed the response to the coronavirus pandemic better than almost any other place on the globe; because of investments in defence, space, technology and creative industries, as well as traditional money earners in SA such as agriculture, mining, aquaculture and tourism; and because of an open door to businesses that want to move to Adelaide at new places like Lot Fourteen on North Tce to create new industry hubs that are actually working.

In the same week that the government announced 1200 new nurses and health workers in South Australia, more beds in the public health system and better services at Modbury Hospital, the politicians on North Tce engaged in irrelevant gamesmanship followed by cringe-worthy formal ceremonies attended by the new Speaker and Labor that are as alien to the needs of the South Australian public as cooling is to an Inuit in the Arctic Circle in the middle of winter.

Dan Cregan, right, on the walk with fellow MPs back to Parliament House from Government House after his swearing in as Speaker. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

The next election is not until mid March 2022.

Right now, we want our Premier, cabinet and government focused on coming out of the state border shutdowns and coronavirus restrictions as safely and sensibly as possible.

They need to be free to get on with creating jobs, growing the economy, lifting exports, attracting skilled migrants and creating the business environment that brings even more of those former Sydney and Melbourne residents to our state, rather than the brain drain that we used to all bemoan.

Any state politician that wants to wreak havoc and get in the way of developing our state should think twice about whether that’s really what their community have elected them to do.