Labor’s ever increasing spending is beginning to look terrifying | David Penberthy

On the face of it there is a lot to like about this state budget, writes David Penberthy.

There is a fair bit to like about this state budget. There is also one part of it which is starting to look terrifying.

Let’s look at the good bits first.

In the midst of a cost of living crisis and a housing squeeze, there are two groups of people who deserve the most help. They are the poorest people in the community and young people trying to buy their first home.

At a time when the last thing we want is to jack up inflation, the decision to limit cost of living relief to concession and welfare recipients is prudent and fair.

The abolition of stamp duty for every first homebuyer on any new home is long overdue.

You could also say it’s the least the Malinauskas Government could do, given that the $300-odd million surplus is thanks largely to soaring property values over the past 12 months.

That surge in property values meant two things – hardly anyone got the stamp duty relief under the previous capped model, but Stephen Mullighan made about $500 million more than expected thanks to a tax bonanza every time someone bought a house over the last 12 months.

The total additional tax revenue for the next four years stands at a whopping $4.4 billion.

The other thing that deserves kudos - as Victoria slips into the financial abyss, and along with Queensland flails about belting business with new taxes and tax hikes to dig itself out of the mire, Mullighan remained true to his word not to increase taxes beyond CPI or introduce any new ones.

That’s three budgets in a row without any new taxes.

Premier Peter Malinauskas and Treasurer Stephen Mulligan leaving Parliament House walking to the Convention centre. Picture: NewsWire / Roy VanDerVegt

It’s more than a lot of governments can point to, even some former Liberal governments which claim to have a monopoly on low taxation.

We have, however, increased state debt, mainly to pay for the new Women’s and Children’s Hospital and to finish the South Rd upgrade.

Within four years our state debt will have gone from its current level of $28 billion to $44 billion by 2027-2028.

It’s a considerable increase and one we should watch with caution.

It is at least vastly lower than the debt Victoria will be lumbered with at that stage, set to reach $177 billion by 2027.

In relative terms we are a picture of restraint, but the point remains that the less debt we have, the better.

But it is the government’s ever-increasing spending on health which is starting to look genuinely terrifying.

Terrifying politically for Labor given the weight it placed on its health promises at the 2022 election, and terrifying for sick people trying to access basic services.

At the halfway mark of its first term, the Malinauskas Government does not deserve a pass mark on health.

All the money it has spent so far has failed to result in any discernible overall improvement in the quality of health care in SA.

This budget was released six days after our public health system effectively raised the white flag last Friday and cancelled all elective surgeries due to a bout of Covid and flu hitting staffing by hospital personnel.

When you look at an event like this coupled with the ongoing appalling state of ramping figures, it feels like for all the growing money being ploughed into health, a puff of wind is all that’s required to blow the system over.

The new wing of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

The government argues that all this will take time. It says it is delivering 350 new beds across the health system, 150 of them this year, basically the equivalent of a new QEH.

It also argues that it has hired more than 1400 extra health workers since coming to office, 691 of them nurses and 329 of them doctors.

But whatever measures it has taken have either not been enough or not been felt yet. The clock is well and truly ticking on all this.

We are almost into election mode.

Peter Malinauskas said at the start of last year that he expected to see improvement in ramping in the second half of 2024.

We are now there, Premier.

The most dubious line in Stephen Mullighan’s Budget speech was this one:

“We are ensuring our health system has the resources it needs to deliver the health services our community relies on,” the Treasurer said.

Really?

It didn’t feel like that last weekend, especially if you were at home laid up in bed with a dodgy hip waiting to have your surgery rescheduled.

The best question in the budget lockup came from The Advertiser’s veteran health reporter Brad Crouch, who asked Mr Mullighan whether he was concerned that the extra $7 billion spend on health meant the state was barely treading water in terms of service delivery.

Crouch also asked Mullighan if with health spending now consuming one-third of the state’s budget, there was a danger the budget could be subsumed in its entirety by health spending.

“Well, I hope not,” the Treasurer replied.

The only effective weapon the state Liberals have in their otherwise paltry arsenal is to hammer Labor over its ramping promise.

They have argued that Malinauskas – you remember, the guy on the posters reading “Labor will fix the ramping crisis” – has now presided over the 24 worst months of ramping in South Australia’s history.

All this is true.

One new flank of attack that is emerging against the government goes to the actual value of increasing ambulance officer numbers and building flash new ambulance stations when the hospital beds aren’t there to house patients.

Some of the $58 million earmarked for the SA Ambulance Service will be for the expansion of the hospital avoidance team which will steer people with non-threatening and bearable conditions away from EDs.

That makes total sense.

But there is a bit of public cynicism about the government laying it on with a trowel for the ambulance service in terms of jobs and facilities, yet still having failed to deal with the key issue of extra hospital beds and more doctors.

We risk becoming a state where it’s never been easier to get to the carpark outside a major hospital.

That’s not what fixing the ramping crisis looked like, at least that’s what most of us understood it to mean.

It almost looks like a political favour for a union that’s done two things in the past two years – been brutal in its prosecution of Steven Marshall, and studiously silent over the worsened state of affairs under his successor.

Originally published as Labor’s ever increasing spending is beginning to look terrifying | David Penberthy