SA Treasurer Stephen Mullighan's curious law and order budget

Australia Broadcast Center

05-06-2025

When journalists filter into a budget lock-up, the first thing they do (perhaps apart from making sure they have a caffeinated beverage) is pick up a stack of budget papers.
For a rookie reporter it can be an intimidating tower, but this year there was no mistaking the message the South Australian government was trying to send.
On the front cover of the pile of paper were the faces of two smiling police officers, leaning on a park bench, talking to a small child.
The same image was projected onto screens around the room.
The government made sure everyone knew — this was a law and order budget.
The curious part of that was in the same breath, the Premier and Treasurer acknowledged South Australia did not have a law and order problem.
"South Australia is a safe state to live in. Our youth crime rates are of the lowest in the country," Premier Peter Malinauskas said in his opening address.
Treasurer Stephen Mullighan had a similar message.
"Overall crime levels continue to decrease. The monthly statistics that South Australian Police publish show that total crime numbers continue to decline," he said.
The key to this budget, they say, is keeping it that way.
"What South Australian police are telling us is in order to combat crime or deter crime, the job is getting much harder or more time intensive, and they simply need more police out on the beat," Mr Mullighan told reporters.
"We don't have crime or law and order issues getting out of control as we've seen in some parts of the country in recent years. This package makes sure that won't eventuate here in South Australia any time in the future."
After winning the 2022 election, Labor's first budget was all about health — unsurprising given its election slogan was that it would "fix the ramping crisis."
There was money for more beds, more health workers and more ambulances.
But more than three years later and ramping is still high.
Ambulances spent 3,700 hours waiting outside emergency departments in April, a decrease on the month before but still much higher than the worst month under the previous government.
The government now points to other issues causing hospital blockages — a lack of aged care beds and a crisis in primary care — two areas that are Commonwealth responsibilities.
It begs the question, will this year's law and order budget be doing something similar — will putting more cops on the beat be like putting more ambulances on the road?
Yes, you might get a quicker, more efficient response to an emergency — but would that even be needed if there had, instead, been early intervention?
The government's promise is it will spend $172 million increasing the state's police force to 5,000 by the end of the decade.
But the Treasurer said there was also money for crime prevention, particularly via the Attorney-General's department.
"The continuation of the crime prevention programs, the justice rehabilitation fund and so on to try and stop crime," Mr Mullighan said.
There are also plans to expand a program that sees mental health professionals attend jobs with police, and funding to implement recommendations from the state's domestic violence royal commission.
But following the budget, Michael White from the SA Network of Drug and Alcohol Services said there was no funding for the increasing number of people accessing treatment for addiction, despite the fact that intoxication was a major factor in crimes like family violence and public order offences.
"We call on the state government to redress the imbalance between policing, justice and the court system and the needs of people for health services that address their alcohol and other drug addiction and dependence," he said.
"And to fund early intervention, prevention and treatment services."
While he said South Australia was a safe place to live, the Premier acknowledged not everyone in the state might feel that way.
"While it is true to say that in parts of our state law and order isn't top of mind, it does matter to people in communities where they feel the rough and tumble of crime more," Mr Malinauskas said.
"Many of us around the cabinet table and within the government represent lower socio-economic communities where we do see a greater disproportionate demand on police resources and we hear it from our constituents."
But people in those low socio-economic areas, and elsewhere, might want to know if, on top of law and order spending, there was something on the table that would relieve the ongoing pressure on household budgets.
The Treasurer pointed out interest rates and inflation were down, and he talked up South Australia's economy as having gone from "laggard to leader".
He said that meant, although there was still some pain, the pressures being felt by families were beginning to ease.
There were some measures for cost of living in this budget, but it was far from a focus.
Most are continuations of existing programs like the subsidy for school materials.
There was one new concession some families could take advantage of — school children can get a bus ticket that will give them a month's worth of rides for $10.
Another important piece of context on this "law and order budget" — is this will be the last budget Stephen Mullighan will hand down before South Australians go to the polls in March 2026.
In the last cabinet reshuffle, Mr Mullighan took on the police portfolio for the first time and said the funding boost was something the Police Commissioner had been calling for.
Crime has certainly been an issue the opposition has been attacking the government on for some time — claiming youth crime has "sky-rocketed", that bail breaches have hit record highs and tougher laws for things like knife crime were needed.
And on top of the additional funding for police, the government has passed laws to crack down on knife crime, drug offenders, child sex offenders, domestic violence offences like strangulation and on people who boast about their crimes on social media.
All moves that could cut off opposition tactics months before the campaign officially starts.