Job Accelerator Grant Scheme

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (15:24): I rise to report to the house on some of the travel around regional South Australia that I did last week as part of my role as assistant minister to the Treasurer. I spent three days driving around, in particular, the Yorke Peninsula, Mid North and Riverland areas of the state last week, and it was a fantastic opportunity to get out and meet lots of the businesses in South Australia as well as local governments in those regions.

One of the key reasons I embarked on this travel was to highlight the government's Job Accelerator Grant Scheme that we established in the last budget, which of course provides grants for each new job created by small and medium-size businesses. Grants of up to $10,000 each per new job have been provided, which have been very strongly welcomed by the business community both in the city and around the regions of South Australia. We need to ensure we are getting the word out to as many people as possible to make sure that those people who are eligible know about the program. Hopefully, this program can help tip the balance when they are deciding to hire an extra person or two in their businesses.

Across the time of my travel, I went to Balaklava, Kapunda, Port Hughes, Moonta, Kadina, Wallaroo, Loxton, Berri and Renmark. I had significant travel across different areas and visited four businesses that are putting on extra people, including The Dunes at Port Hughes, the Kapunda Medical Practice, JMA Engineering and Cash's Cabinets at Loxton. All those businesses are hiring extra people thanks to the new Job Accelerator Grant Scheme.

I was able to meet some of those people who have been hired recently, particularly at JMA Engineering just outside Berri. They are a very significant contractor for the wine industry. Not only are they hiring up to 13 extra people through these grants but they have also recently bought some new equipment, with some support through one of the government's innovation grants, that is going to increase their ability to export their equipment for the wine industry to not just South Australia but also interstate. They have also recently started exporting for the first time overseas. Thank you to Jeff and Mark for the tour around JMA Engineering.

I also visited the Kapunda Medical Practice. It was great to meet Sandra and Kylie, who was a new employee who has just started there with the Job Accelerator Grant. I also visited Cash's Cabinets, where I got to meet Karyn Greenham, who has recently been employed as a new employee. There was also another apprentice who has recently been employed there. They are also doing work on the new Loxton Research Centre, which is another investment by the state government. They are installing all the cabinetry into that new facility through PIRSA, which is great to see.

The other business I visited was at The Dunes, where I got to meet Bayden, who is a young school leaver who has just been hired as an extra groundskeeper, so it was great to see additional employment that was happening. I also held two business breakfasts—firstly, at the Goyder Street Cafe at Kadina and, secondly, at the Renmark Club in Renmark. Thank you to both those premises for putting on a great spread for us.

We had over a dozen businesses attend both those events to talk about some of the initiatives in our budget that they might be eligible for and also to talk through some of the issues and opportunities that they face running businesses in regional South Australia. Certainly a lot of those businesses are looking to employ extra people and are very interested in all the details about how they can apply for our grants.

It was also great to meet with local governments across those regions. Firstly, I met with the Wakefield Regional Council, and thank you to Mayor Rodney Reid. I also met with Mayor Ray Agnew from the Yorke Peninsula council. I met with Mayor Paul Thomas from the Copper Coast council. I also met with Mayor Bill O'Brien and the Kapunda Business Alliance at the Light Regional Council. In the Riverland, I had a joint meeting with all three councils, including Mayor Leon Stasinowsky, Mayor Neil Martinson, Mayor Peter Hunt and CEO David Beaton.

They were all very enthusiastic about a lot of the opportunities for all those respective regions across South Australia. They also gave me a few follow-up things that they would like for me to work with relevant ministers on. I think all those councils do see great opportunities, and they all have a number of exciting projects underway in their areas. They are looking forward to the ability for the regions to grow and they are quite excited about the future of the South Australian economy.