The South Australian Premier has defended his decision to attend a charity ball in Canberra with the Deputy Prime Minister during last night's sitting of parliament.
Premier Peter Malinauskas attended the federal parliamentary press gallery's Midwinter Ball on Wednesday night as a guest of Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles.
While he was at the ball, MPs were debating the government's legislation to allow a plebiscite to be held in the state's south-east to merge the adjoining Mount Gambier and Grant councils.
The opposition has criticised Mr Malinauskas's decision to leave Parliament early to go to the ball, calling it "arrogant".
"It really does raise some questions about the Premier's priorities," Deputy Opposition Leader John Gardner said.
Mr Gardner said Mr Malinauskas had "plenty of opportunities" to meet Mr Marles during the eight-week parliament break rather than at the black-tie event.
"I think members of the public would be disappointed by this," he said.
He said the standard process was to request a pair when a member was absent from parliament.
"If the Premier was seriously prioritising government business last night over the parliament, the simple fact is they would have asked for a pair and they didn't," he said.
Mr Malinauskas said the invitation from Mr Marles, which included a catch-up before the ball, was a "really important opportunity" to advocate the state's interests and he had "fulfilled all of my duties" at parliament before leaving.
"My judgement was that was a good opportunity and I'm not going to be a Premier that misses an opportunity," he said.
"We've got to make sure the Commonwealth government delivers on a range of programs plus others that we're in discussion with them about to maximise the economic opportunity coming our state's way."
