Christopher Pyne: Last Tuesday, Rob Lucas was transformed from Scrooge to Croesus

The thriftiness of SA’s Treasurer is legendary but recent events make those accounts seem like fairy tales, writes Christopher Pyne.

South Australian Treasurer Rob Lucas. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Kelly Barnes

It’s hard to think of anyone quite as parsimonious as the Treasurer of South Australia, Rob Lucas.

Well, perhaps one. There was the story of a now-retired South Australian senator who, in the early 1990s, secreted a 250ml carton of milk into his laundry bag on a flight from Canberra to Adelaide that leaked on the occupant of the seat underneath the bulkhead.

His explanation? That the carton was only half empty and he wasn’t going to waste 125ml of milk!

If he had been Ebenezer Scrooge’s bookkeeper, the penny pinching senator may well have been asked how he thought he could afford milk in the first place when water would do?

Lucas is not nearly as thrifty as old Ebenezer, although he did drive a 1970s Volkswagen bug for decades as his private vehicle. It was a car that would have caused a parent to hesitate if they were purchasing their progeny’s first car.

But who am I to comment. My first car was a 1970s Volkswagen bug. The only difference was that his was polar white and mine was navy. These days, we would be regarded as real hipsters if we were getting around in either of those old boilers!

Rude colleagues of the Treasurer have privately told me that he has kept the first dollar of pocket money he was given.

It could be an exaggeration. Of course, that’s the Treasurer’s job. Find me a treasurer who throws money around and I’ll counter with a gold-toothed otter.

Last Tuesday, Lucas was transformed from Scrooge to Croesus.

Who? Croesus was the King of Lydia in the sixth century BC.

He was reputedly the richest man in the known world and was the stuff of legend. His gifts and lavish lifestyle were beyond what anyone else could hope to match.

In other words, he liked to spend the green ones.

Like all profligate spenders he came to a sticky end – defeated in battle by King Cyrus of Persia. But that’s a story for another day.

In last week’s State Budget, Lucas showed how adaptable he can be – even after 38 years in politics!

Because of the economic circumstances created by the coronavirus pandemic, the advice to governments, from economists to the Reserve Bank governor, has been to spend up big on infrastructure and support every kind of business in order to keep the wheels of commerce turning.

Economic growth will solve unemployment, ease demand for JobKeeper and JobSeeker, reduce homelessness, mental health strain, business failures, marriage breakdown and the deadly impact of the coronavirus – faster and more effectively than any other antidote. Lucas gets that. The purse strings were loosened. Scrooge became Croesus.

The budget released more money for the Business and Jobs Support Fund, the Community and Jobs Support Fund, the Economic and Business Growth Fund, the Regional Growth Fund and the recently announced Tourism Industry Development Fund.

All of these resources will go to leveraging other sources of money in order to drive jobs and growth in the construction and operation of worthy projects.

The final stage of the North-South Corridor – connecting Anzac Highway to the River Torrens including a 4km tunnel – will be funded at a staggering estimate of $8.9bn. It will be the largest infrastructure project in the state’s history.

There is $25m for a grassroots sporting program, $100m for community infrastructure grants and $120m for tourism marketing.

Of particular interest are two specific projects: a cultural institutions storage facility to house the collections of much-admired places such as the SA Museum, Maritime Museum, Migration Museum and Art Gallery of South Australia; and the redevelopment of Memorial Drive, next to the Adelaide Oval, into a world-class tennis precinct again.

Both are much needed and have been put on the back burner by previous governments for too long.

It’s terrific to see the Marshall Government commit to international-level sport – in which South Australia has a long and distinguished history – and in maintaining our arts and cultural-heritage assets, not just turning up for ribbon cuttings, plaque unveilings and cocktails and canapes.

To jump-start businesses languishing through the pandemic, Lucas and Premier Steven Marshall will provide $233m of payroll tax ­relief for small businesses and a payroll tax incentive for businesses on wages paid to eligible trainees and apprentices for the first year of their employment.

As someone who has known Lucas since 1985 and liked and respected him all that time (we have sat through plenty of long meetings and events together for 35 years without having an argument), I can imagine what a wrench such a big-spending budget must be for him.

But because he is a pragmatist, he knows what needs to be done to keep the state moving.

Lucas is retiring at the 2022 South Australian election. Can we afford for the state to lose him? Can anyone convince him to stay?