Matthew Abraham: Treasurer, it’s time to hand over the purse strings

It’s time for Rob Lucas to retire as treasurer, Matthew Abraham writes — as debt soars, and the “budget crisis” is in full swing, South Australia needs a treasurer with some skin the game.

It’s time to hitch up the Jayco, slip into a pair of Crocs, and start living the dream.

No, no, no. Not me, I’ve already entered Retirementsville, a place where you’re always on holiday without ever being on holiday and suddenly realise that super isn’t just something you used to pump into the Tarago.

It’s time for Rob Lucas to retire.

As that great philosopher Kenny Rogers sings in The Gambler, you’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away and know when to run.

The man who has been Liberal treasurer to John Olsen, Rob Kerin and now Steven Marshall, who has been occupying a seat in the Legislative Council since he left kindy, who’s just turned 66, needs to give the treasurer’s gig a permanent rest.

This thought occured to me during a Nigel No Friends moment in the recent State Budget media lockup, sitting alone at a long table of empty chairs.

“Why are you here?” I was asked, more than once by the fully employed.

“To be annoying,” I answered. The lock-up forces detainees to do a deep dive into the budget papers, particularly Budget Paper Number 3, where the dirt is buried.

It also gives a bird’s eye view of the state’s treasurer of the day and how they’re performing. It’s a privilege to get a seat at the table, even an empty table.

The Lucas budget briefing was conducted in his typical grey-on-grey style.

SA Treasurer Rob Lucas speaks at the SA Press Club State Budget Lunch. Picture: Kelly Barnes

Lucas doesn’t do Kodachrome. At about the 30-minute mark, a thought occured to me. “Why are you here, Rob?”

So when he threw to questions from the floor, I asked whether he would consider resigning as treasurer and handing over to someone who might have fresh ideas to fix SA’s alleged “budget crisis”.

As annoying questions go, this seemed to fit the bill.

He replied that no, he wouldn’t quit unless Premier Steven Marshall wanted someone else to do the job.

The problem for Marshall is this: He hasn’t got anyone else who can do the job. Except himself, of course, and that’s something he should consider.

Marshall might say Rob Lucas is a nice problem to have. Not only is he a decent person, he’s the nation’s most experienced state treasurer, holding degrees in economics and science, and an MBA.

He actually understands his own budget papers.

But two days after the party’s March 18 election victory, after being sworn in as treasurer, he announced that this was his last hurrah. He’s retiring at the 2022 election.

Months later, former premier Jay Weatherill told me he believed it was a mistake for Marshall to appoint Lucas as his Treasurer because he doesn’t have “skin in the game”.

In short, he said he’d never have someone as treasurer who didn’t need to lose sleep about winning the next election.

A younger Rob Lucas.

Remember, Weatherill appointed himself treasurer a year before winning the unwinnable 2014 election. Nobody had more skin in that game than Jay.

In this year’s Budget, Lucas is breaking the trust of South Australians who believed the promises of lower costs and better services from a Liberal government.

The breach of faith comes in the so-called “one off” hike in state charges like bus fares and motor registration, the “wheelie bin tax” and in myriad, penny-pinching service cuts.

All the while, the party that preached “debt is very bad” is now piling on debt at a ridiculous rate.

The state’s non-financial public sector debt will rocket from $13.5 billion to $21.3 billion over four years. The debt to revenue ratio – the true measure of budget risk – will accelerate from the current dodgy 63 per cent to an alarming 91 per cent by 2023.

Could someone else have come up with a better plan?

If voters still fall for the old three-card trick, we’ll have forgotten all this come the next election and Lucas can retire as a genius.

But we live in dangerous times for politicians who break promises, or promise taxes. Just ask Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten. It’s a high-roller’s gamble, by someone who isn’t a gambler. Rob, it’s time to fold ’em.