REGIONAL REPRESENTATION

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:31): I am glad I am following the member for Finniss because he comes in here and just abuses people. The guy should actually get his facts right. It is not about appointing 14 extra ministers, and this is how dumb the member for Finniss is. There are 14 ministers and it is about getting those ministers out into regional South Australia and to be engaged with regional South Australians.

Having travelled around the state since the report was made public, there has been lots and lots of positive feedback. I notice that the only people who have really knocked it are the member for Finniss here today and the member for Flinders, who put out a release. I have to say that a lot of the reason for this is that people in the regions are not getting the message through their local Liberal members of parliament because they consider that their seats are so safe that they have become so lazy and they are not reporting on the issues in the bush. I must commend someone who is Independent and that is the member for Frome—

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

Mr BIGNELL: —who I have been travelling around the state with recently—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

Mr BIGNELL: —on our grain select committee, and the member for Frome—

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order, ma'am!

The SPEAKER: Point of order! Minister.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: To be fair to the member for Mawson, he sat quietly during the member for Finniss's diatribe. I think it would be nice to be man enough to sit there and listen to the response.

The SPEAKER: I am not sure what your point of order was, but I certainly uphold that. Members on my left will be quiet. The member for Mawson.

Mr BIGNELL: This government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the regions and, through community cabinets and through regular ministerial visits to regional South Australia, we are out there in the regions. This is something that I have put up as a suggestion of some way that we can make that connection with regional South Australia even better, so it is really funny to see the Liberal Party, who do have most of the seats in regional South Australia, as the only people complaining about it. There has been some fantastic feedback from people in the regions who I have run into and also from regional newspapers.

The member for Finniss mentioned the member for Giles—the Speaker. One of the first places where I brought up this idea was Whyalla with a group of people there, and it was overwhelmingly supported. I think the member for Finniss is not only wrong in saying that we are going to appoint 14 extra ministers. What a dope you are, member for Finniss! You just cannot even get it right. We are actually getting the 14 ministers who are currently there to go out and spend a week in the regions. You cannot get your facts right: that is not my problem.

I will now get to the subject that I was originally going to talk about today, and that is Police Foundation Day. South Australia has the third oldest police force in the world and, last Thursday, 28 April, was Police Foundation Day when we recognise the establishment of South Australia's police force back in 1838 when a police inspector, 10 mounted constables and 10 foot constables were sworn in to create South Australia Police, the first centrally-controlled colonial and then state police service in Australia and the third oldest in the world.

Last Thursday's ceremony also recognised the site of Adelaide's first gaol, which is in the north-east corner of the grounds of Government House. It was a very interesting ceremony, and it was great to hear from historian Max Slee who last year wrote a book about South Australia's first head of the police force, Mr Inman. Through doing his research on the biography of Henry Inman, the first commander of the South Australian police force, he discovered that the original Adelaide gaol was in the grounds of the present day Government House, and the first four or five convicts in South Australia who were hanged in the colony are actually buried there.

It was great to have His Excellency the Governor, Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce, at the ceremony, along with the Commissioner of Police. The Governor said that he would throw Government House's gardens open to an archaeological research program and let them come in to search for skeletal remains, and also the remains of the original buildings. So, I would like to thank His Excellency for his cooperation because it is a very important part of South Australia's history.

Back when the first gaol was built, the marines who had travelled with Governor Hindmarsh had gone back on the HMS Buffalo with him, leaving the gaol to be run by the police force with its 18 members there in its fledgling days. So, there is a connection there with the modern day police force, although police officers no longer are the keepers of the gaol.