National Institute for Forest Products Innovation

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (14:52): My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries. Following the federal government's announcement that it will establish the national institute for forest products innovation with a hub to be located in Mount Gambier, can the minister explain why he has refused to commit state government funding to this scheme?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport, Minister for Racing) (14:53): I thank the member for the question. The simple answer is that we weren't asked beforehand, and that's a really sort of polite way to go about business—whether it's politics or anything you do in life. If you want to go halves with someone in a gift for a friend, you don't turn up to them with a $2 million bill without actually discussing what it is that you want to buy.

I was in Mount Gambier last week, and Tony Pasin, who is the federal member down there (who people are saying makes Patrick Secker look like a very hard worker), was doing what he does best: a publicity stunt. When I was down there last year, he wouldn't meet with me at all but he walked around with 130 balloons—he walked around with 130 balloons!

Members interjecting:

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: Excuse me, but I don't want the member for Chaffey coming to Tony Pasin's defence because I know what you say about him behind his back.

Mr GARDNER: Point of order, sir.

The SPEAKER: Bedad, a point of order from the member for Morialta!

Mr GARDNER: It is 127—that it is a clear personal reflection on a member of this house. The idea that anyone would be talking behind people's backs—

The SPEAKER: Not of the kind the standing orders prohibit. Minister.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: Mr Pasin held a press conference last week in the South-East while I was down there with four ministers from this government, including the regional development minister, the Minister for Education, and the minister for advanced manufacturing. We were all down there having a very good forum with people from throughout regional South Australia. It was a summit organised by the Minister for Regional Development—

Mr Duluk interjecting:

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: Yes, the local member was invited. The local member and I had a meeting down there with some dairy farmers as well, and it was great to have the member for Mount Gambier along there. The member for Mount Gambier is very good at working with other sides in politics and with different levels of politics, and I want to congratulate the member for Mount Gambier for the way he goes about that—I reckon your mate Tony Pasin could probably learn a little bit from how you go about your business.

If they sat down with us and said, 'Look, we've got this pot of money and we would love you to put in $2 million dollars,' we would have a look at it. We love the idea of the hub. We spend $500,000 a year in the South-East on forestry research, so we have been backing that end with our dollars for a long time now. We like the idea of research, we like the idea of the hub, but we are in a budget process of our own, and when all your money is committed to different things, you cannot have someone just coming out and standing in the middle of, I think it was at Glencoe, my old home town, I think he was down there near the nursery doing a press conference (I didn't get an invite to it).

It would have been polite if, a few weeks ago, he or my good friend Senator Anne Ruston—and we get on very well, Anne does a good job—if someone had just picked up the phone and said, 'Look, we want to put $2 million in. Have you got $2 million?' We don't think we have, but maybe we could have reprioritised something. Now we don't have $2 million—

Mr van Holst Pellekaan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Stuart is warned for the second and final time.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: —because we have put all the money that we want to put into the areas into the areas. We did not know this opportunity was out there. So, member for Mount Gambier, the reason we do not is because we were not asked. We were told about it at a press conference in a publicity stunt by the guy who has gone down in history as the greatest Poindexter in Australian politics.