Labor brings out the dirt file

Labor’s spin doctors have been handing around a document showing Liberal leader Steven Marshall’s financial interests, which they say “raise questions” about his position in the bank tax debate.

Marshall, who opposed Labor’s failed attempt to impose a state-based tax on major banks, says he is a director of a self-managed superannuation trust that has shares in major banks – an interest that he says he has formally declared.

It’s also likely that every other Member of Parliament – indeed, every Australian – would have an interest in the performance of banks, at least indirectly through their own superannuation funds’ investments.

But that hasn’t stopped Labor slinging the sloppy brown stuff today.

They say the financial disclosures indicate Marshall is a director of a company – Next Australia Pty Ltd – with interests in the banks. The directorship is noted in Marshall’s register of interests.

Marshall says the company is the trustee for his family’s self-managed super fund.

Premier Jay Weatherill, asked about the dirt file by journalists today, was somewhat evasive.

“We always have to be accountable for all of the decisions we take, so ultimately, it’s for Steven Marshall to answer these questions, not for me,” he said, despite the fact that his own staff had briefed journalists on the issue.

Pressed repeatedly on which questions Marshall needed to answer, the Premier said the Opposition Leader needed “to answer questions about the way in which he votes in the South Australian parliament, having regard to his interests”.

However, asked whether any of his ministers declared conflicts of interest regarding relevant shareholdings during Cabinet meetings concerning the tax – and absented themselves from those debates where necessary – Weatherill declined to specifically say.

“All of our state ministers and all of the relevant MPs have declared all of their appropriate interests,” he said.

He declined to say how many of his ministers declared conflicts at the Cabinet table.

“I’m not going into Cabinet deliberations.”

Asked if he declared a conflict of interest at the Cabinet table because of his loan with Bank SA, Weatherill said it was “not a relevant matter for that purpose”.

“We don’t disclose Cabinet deliberations except to say that all the relevant disclosures were made by the Cabinet.

“I just have a loan in the ordinary way that everybody does that has to be declared when you have a loan.”

As for Marshall, he said today his family had a declared self-managed super trust which “I’m a director of because you need four directors”.

“I’ve declared all of my shareholdings on my register of interests… I’m not even aware of what the shareholding of the family superannuation trust is [but] I pretty much guarantee there would be bank holdings.”

He said “virtually every person in Australia” would have indirect bank holdings through superannuation investments.

“The details of my shareholding in a family superannuation trust has been on the public record since the day I was elected into parliament,” he said, calling the attempted smear “just Labor reverting to type”.

“They can throw as much as they like, but we’re getting on with a straight race [while] Labor’s back to the old campaign tactics… they have nothing positive to talk about so they want to talk negative about their opponents.”

This afternoon, Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis stepped up the attack, saying Marshall should explain why he didn’t disclose during debate on the bank levy that his company – Next Australia – owned about $1.3 million in Westpac and ANZ shares.

He said Marshall could not claim that he didn’t know where the company had its investments, as being informed was a duty of a company director.

SA-Best the worst?

Nick Xenophon’s SA-Best have released a TV commercial which could well be one of the worst political ads ever made.

But that might be the point.

Poker machine hypocrisy?

There’s something a bit too cute about the major parties getting stuck into Nick Xenophon’s anti-pokies policy.

The former “No Pokies” MP announced his full policy yesterday, which includes a significant reduction in the number of poker machines in South Australia and other measures to limit damage to gamblers, such as capping individual bets to $1.

As has been foreshadowed for a long time, Xenophon has backed away from prohibition in favour of harm minimisation – what’s realistic and do-able, he argues.

However, Labor and the Liberals have both got stuck into him, suggesting he now stands for nothing.

Which seems rather rich considering both receive thousands of dollars in funding from the hotels industry and neither party sees a particularly urgent need to ameliorate further the well-documented harm done to South Australians through poker machine gambling.

Liberal leader Steven Marshall said Xenophon had “sold out on his single principled policy position”.

His deputy Vickie Chapman doubled down this morning, saying: “Nick Xenophon used to accuse the State Government of being addicted to gambling revenue. Clearly, he is now happy to trade in that addiction.”

Yes, good point. So how would the Liberals deal with this scourge?

“The Liberal Party proposes no changes whatsoever to the number of poker machines in South Australia,” Marshall said yesterday.

Labor, on the other hand, has been slowly reducing the number of poker machines in a half-hearted, snail’s pace sort of way, embroidered with some waffle about economic and social balance and the threat of online gambling.

The Greens are the only ones who can go full bore without any stain of hypocrisy: they want to ban poker machines from pubs and clubs within five years.

Labor’s growing real estate portfolio

The cost of Labor’s election promises this week alone is heading towards $2.5 billion and it’s only Tuesday.

On top of a rubbery $2 billion announced on Sunday for infrastructure, Premier Jay Weatherill today added to the election bill with a $350 million promise for the redevelopment of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site.

The cash splash this week also includes a $3 million city skate park and $35 million for super-fast internet across metropolitan Adelaide.

The old RAH announcement appeared to be more thought bubble than policy, reiterating a previous commitment to keep the site clear of pestilential residential apartments.

Rather, the Government will maintain control of the site where it will provide “workspace” to “start-ups and businesses in future-facing industries”, to be co-located near university and other researchers. It’s pretty much the template used at the Tonsley site, south of the city.

As previously announced, about a third of the site will be returned to the Botanic Gardens.

The most potentially interesting addition to the old RAH site, the much hoped-for Adelaide Contemporary art gallery, isn’t yet part of the grand plan because a design competition won’t be completed until April. The result of that, the Premier says, “will inform the Government’s commitment to the proposal”.

Labor does seem keen on keeping a Government interest in city real estate.

It threw $10 million to the Adelaide City Council to help buy back the Le Cornu site from a private developer and, after years of failed attempts, has given up trying to sell its State Administration Centre to a private buyer.

Growing bureaucracy

Of course, all of these new plans and assets in Government hands will also require more bureaucracy.

Labor is announcing new agencies and departments at a rapid rate.

Today, the Premier promised a whole new agency, the “Department of Digital Innovation”, adding to his recent promises to institute a “Level Crossing Removal Authority” and create an “Energy & Water Services (E&WS) Department”.

A real bad day

Lots of politicians will have bad days on the campaign trail but, hopefully, none as bad as Labor’s hopeful for the seat of Adelaide, Jo Chapley.

She was attacked by a dog while doorknocking before breaking her arm in two places.

Dog attack and two breaks to the arm. Very grateful for the excellent treatment by doctors and nurses at the new RAH pic.twitter.com/sn1F8vZSBc

— Jo Chapley (@chapley_jo) February 19, 2018

– additional reporting by Tom Richardson and Bension Siebert