Address in Reply

Address in Reply

Debate resumed.

Mr GEE (Taylor) (16:41): Thank you, Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your election to the Deputy Speakership. I also extend my congratulations to the new Speaker on his election. I wish to acknowledge and show my respect to the Kaurna people, the traditional custodians of this land where we meet, to the elders past and present, to those who were the first to place their footsteps upon this land and to those who continue to do so today.

Also, I thank His Excellency the Hon. Hieu Van Le AC for his speech in the other place. His Excellency and Mrs Le are excellent representatives for our state. It is always a pleasure to meet with Mr and Mrs Le. I recall all the events that I have been to with the Governor and Lan, and I have noticed how they always manage to have a few words with everybody in the room. They seem to represent South Australia in a most positive way.

I congratulate all the new members of this place on both sides of the chamber and those in the Legislative Council. I also want to congratulate those members who have been re-elected. I know, as a new member four years ago, that the first month or so is a bit chaotic, where you are being introduced to a whole regime of electronics, new cars, new procedures, policies and everything else, but things soon settle down.

I say to all those members who retired at the time of the last election that I enjoyed working with them and good luck and best wishes for the future. I would specifically like to acknowledge the former member for Newland (Tom Kenyon), as have many other people, as well as the former member for Elder (Annabel Digance). Both Tom and Annabel, as government whip and deputy whip, provided very good organisation to our side in the last parliament.

My perception really was that it was very unfortunate for both Tom, in Newland, and Annabel, in Elder, that the redistribution put these marginal seats just out of reach this time around. The same thing occurred with retiring member Paul Caica's seat of Colton. Again, my perception is that the redistribution literally handed these seats to the Liberal Party—

Mr Pederick: We got rid of a gerrymander.

Mr GEE: —which in turn delivered government to the Liberal Party for the next four years. It is interesting to listen to those members opposite, that false sense of security, but congratulations just the same. It was not really South Australia, as you say, saying, 'We want a change,' that delivered a Liberal government; it was the Electoral District Boundaries Commission that delivered government to the Liberal Party.

However, congratulations to the member for Dunstan on becoming Premier and to the member for Bragg on becoming Deputy Premier, but I am not sure how long they will be able to hang onto that top job. I would encourage them to get on with the reality of the election result, or they could find themselves back in opposition in four years' time. Again, I congratulate all members. I know the commitment and hard work that is required to win.

I want to acknowledge the shadow ministerial team, led by Peter Malinauskas as leader and Susan Close as deputy leader. The team will hold this government to account and will work every day to ensure that the positive progress delivered by Labor governments, under the leadership of Jay Weatherill and Mike Rann, is not destroyed over the next four years. I want to thank Jay Weatherill for his support and leadership since becoming premier and leader of the parliamentary Labor Party.

I also became good friends with Duncan McFetridge, Robert Brokenshire and Steph Key while working together on the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee and the Natural Resources Committee. I will really miss them, and I really thank them for their friendship during that time.

For long as I can remember, I have been focused on grassroots, down-to-earth issues, and I try hard to ensure that my community gets its fair share of the prosperity in South Australia. I have lived in the north almost my entire life. I have played junior and senior sports for local clubs (as have my children and my grandchildren). We have attended the local schools and we have all worked across the north. In fact, I love living in the north, and it is unlikely I would choose to live anywhere else.

I am very fortunate to have been employed, continuously now since my 14^th birthday. I spent 12 years of my working life at Holden, and during that time I also worked a second job at the Adelaide Produce Markets at Pooraka working from midnight until 7am, and then I headed off for my shift at Holden's. I now enjoy talking to all the growers of our fruit and vegetable produce from Angle Vale, Two Wells and Virginia, whose produce I used to pack and deliver and whose areas I now have the pleasure to represent.

At a recent shopping centre visit, I met a grower from Virginia I used to work with at Holden, and he and his family now have a successful horticultural business in the area. Following my time working at Holden, I went on to work for the next 20-plus years as a union official representing car workers, and now I find that at almost every community engagement or event I attend I am approached by old mates from the auto industry.

In my last term, I fought for road safety upgrades, more investment in our public and independent schools (including more school places), community safety improvements, more public transport, better council facilities and services, the construction of additional affordable housing, our emergency service personnel and greater support for our not-for-profit community support organisations.

I know the Taylor suburbs of Burton and Salisbury North well. My wife, Wendy, and I used to live in Salisbury North. We were fortunate enough to be given a Housing SA property while saving a deposit for our home together. I remember the deposit was $500 in those days, and it took us nearly two years to put that together. Recently, it was a pleasure to doorknock the current residents of that property during the election campaign. I always remember we had a magnificent mural on the wall in that house, and when we doorknocked those residents they asked me if I was the person who put that up—but it was some 35 years ago, and it was already there when we lived there.

I have been able to spend many hours in the suburbs of the Peachey Belt, enjoying sport, meeting workers or socialising, and have many friends in Smithfield Plains and Davoren Park whom I have known for several decades. I have seen the expansion of Andrews Farm and Direk over the years, and it is good to now meet with those new residents. I look forward to the continued growth of these parts of Taylor. I want to thank the voters of Taylor who have stayed true to the Labor Party and trusted that I was the best person to represent them over the next four years.

I was pleased, despite the challenge by a third party, to achieve the highest primary vote in every booth in the electorate and increase the Taylor two-party preferred result against the Liberals back into double digits. In fact, the 2018 result for the Liberal Party in Taylor was the lowest on record. Apart from the 2006 election, when we witnessed a 15 per cent swing to the Labor Party across the state, now less than one in five voters supports the Liberals in the seat of Taylor. I acknowledge the dedicated local Liberal candidate, Sarika Sharma, who, despite her best efforts, was outpolled by SA-Best candidate Sonja Taylor.

The Taylor electorate was created at the 1993 state election and won by former premier Lynn Arnold. The seat is named after Doris Taylor MBE, renowned for her work in setting up Meals on Wheels in 1953. Despite being severely physically handicapped from the age of seven, she spent most of her life devoted to the welfare of the aged, needy and chronically ill. She was also active in the Labor Party, arranging office space for Don Dunstan when he returned to this state in 1950. I am the fourth member for this seat, after Dr Lynn Arnold AO, Trish White and, most recently, Leesa Vlahos.

I would like to say that, from my experience since moving from the seat of Napier to Taylor, Leesa Vlahos and her electoral office staff are held in high regard for their service to the people of Taylor. The electorate of Taylor is very diverse, ranging from the suburbs of Andrews Farm, Davoren Park, Elizabeth North, Eyre, Smithfield and Smithfield Plains in Playford and Burton, Direk and Salisbury North in Salisbury, to the rural towns and localities of Middle Beach, Port Gawler, Two Wells, Virginia, Waterloo Corner, Angle Vale, Buckland Park, MacDonald Park, Penfield, Penfield Gardens, the employment lands of Edinburgh Parks and Edinburgh North and the very important RAAF Edinburgh.

The electorate contains a mix of young families and older people and is very ethnically diverse, with notable populations from Afghanistan, Cambodia, Greece, Italy, Serbia, Vietnam and all the countries of the African continent, as well as probably the largest group of Indigenous folk outside of the APY lands. It is the mix of culture, food and colour that makes my community exciting and ripe for opportunity.

The electorate also has a percentage of severely disadvantaged people, high levels of intergenerational unemployment and many residents suffering with mortgage stress and struggling with ever-rising costs, including our growers trying to access water for irrigation at a reasonable price point. These are the many challenges and many battles to fight, but that does not faze our community. Our community has battled drought, fires, floods and tragedies and is used to fighting hard. Having said that, I, and the residents, remain hopeful that this government will continue to deliver prosperity, jobs and training opportunities into the area.

It is a real privilege to be the local member representing the Edinburgh Defence Precinct, including more than 3,500 RAAF and Army personnel at RAA Edinburgh, the Defence Science and Technology Group and key defence companies including Airbus, BAE Systems, CAE Australia, Lockheed Martin, Meggitt Training Systems and Raytheon. RAAF Edinburgh is one of two superbases in Australia and is the centre of the nation's military intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and electronic warfare capabilities.

The base is home to No. 92 Wing, which operates the AP-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, and No. 1 Remote Sensing Unit, which operates the Jindalee Operational Radar Network and Space Surveillance systems at the Air Warfare Centre. The staff at the base have been welcoming and I look forward to working with Air Commodore Joe Iervasi AM and his team over the next four years. It is important that we support our ADF personnel.

This is my second term in parliament and being in opposition will not hinder my efforts to continue trying to improve the lives of the people in my community. Over the last four years, we have delivered record investment in health, education and key road safety upgrades. The upgrade and expansion of the Lyell McEwin Hospital continued with an expanded emergency department underway soon and I am hopeful that continuing investment for this important northern hospital will occur as the demand grows.

Our record investment in education includes a $5 million upgrade to Swallowcliffe Primary School, which is almost completed, and a further $5 million to Elizabeth North Primary School, where planning for the upgrade is currently underway. Also, $1 million was invested in both the Burton Primary School and the Two Wells Primary School and there was significant investment in our other local schools.

Labor encouraged new business investment in the north, which should also be a priority for the new government. It is important to continue investing to attract businesses and jobs to South Australia. If the state government is serious about small business tax cuts, it should commit to deliver them in full in the 2018-19 budget. It should not be reviewing grants and loans that have already been committed to for local businesses, placing thousands of jobs at risk.

In the Taylor electorate, I also have the coastal area between St Kilda and Middle Beach. My hope is that the state government will continue to develop the Adelaide International Bird Sanctuary, which is already an important location for local and interstate visitors and will become a go-to destination for the international birdwatching community.

I also hope that the state government will commit to appropriate investment to mitigate flooding in the Gawler River basin so that local landowners' and residents' flood risk is minimised. I note that the Hon. Frank Pangallo, of the other place, made a commitment to fully fund the floodway flood mitigation infrastructure at a cost of $27 million if elected. I further note that the Hon. John Dawkins MLC supported action in relation to the Gawler River.

Over the next four years, I will again be fighting alongside our communities to ensure road safety is a major priority, along with public transport to Angle Vale, Virginia and Two Wells. Programmed school upgrades must go ahead, along with the elimination of all asbestos fibre from classrooms in our local schools. School expansions and the new school in the Munno Para West area must be delivered to accommodate the growing population in the north.

Meeting with the residents' association at Angle Vale during the election, I was made aware that there is no land available for sale in Angle Vale. It has all been sold to developers, and within the next four years some 8,000 new residences will be established. This is on top of thousands of other new homes around the Andrew's Farm area. I will also be working to ensure that residents receive appropriate services and facilities from local councils and I will be opposing any policies that will disadvantage my community.

I am lucky in my community to have a wide range of sporting, community and faith groups who provide valuable service to the community. I have 29 sporting clubs in my electorate, over 10 service clubs (including the CWA, Lions and Rotary), faith groups from the Buddhist, Christian and Islamic communities, and other volunteer groups, including our selfless CFS volunteers and the Northern Carers Network. Education is a key priority of mine, and I am proud to have 11 schools in Taylor. I have eight public primary schools, two independent schools and the very successful St Patrick's Technical College.

All these schools have strong leadership and are delivering good outcomes for our young people, but continued investment in literacy and numeracy and assistance for schools and parents with students identified as having learning and behavioural needs across all sectors is crucial. I look forward to the next four years doing what I enjoy, which is helping residents, businesses, clubs and schools make improvements to our community. I want to spend more time assisting families with disabled children. I was sorry to see that the Disability member, the Hon. Kelly Vincent, lost her seat in the Legislative Council.

While it is my face and my name on the Stobie poles and on T-shirts and caps, every member in this place knows that you do not get here solely by your own efforts. I want to thank the many people who supported me, those who have given me advice or been friends and mates. I cannot mention everyone individually, but I must start with my parents, my father, Les, and my mother, Olwyn, who tried to guide me with a set of values that has assisted me through my life, including hard work, persistence and determination.

I thank my wife, Wendy, who is the most important person in my life and who has always been there by my side. In fact, Wendy was more involved in politics than I was. She worked for many members, federal and state. A couple of years ago she was working here in Parliament House and, having got long service leave, decided to leave so that she could care for her mother, who has dementia. I thank our children, Robbie, Matthew and Julie-Anne, and our beautiful daughter-in-law, Hayley, and grandchildren, Benjamin, Franklin and Marley. I love and thank you all.

I think one of the most important things for politicians, certainly for me, is to have a very strong family structure. When you are in a situation or a position of being a politician—and I learnt this as a union official—you tend to put everybody else first, all the members, all the community. You tend to look after everybody else and you leave your family until last. So when my children were growing up, as a union official and before that working two jobs I really did not have much time to spend with my children. I know now that they are grateful and understood that I was acting and working for their best interests. I may have missed that time with my own children, but in this term I am certainly making up for it with my grandchildren, much to the delight of their parents, I think.

I want to thank my staff: Alex Coates, Frances Fitzgerald, Sonya Smethurst and Tyler Curness. They have really looked after me and the electorate with effort and compassion. When you live in an electorate like mine—and it may be all electorates—there are a lot of disadvantaged people, and a lot of people knock on our door who do not have anywhere to stay that night, who do not have any relatives and who only have the clothes they are wearing. It is a bit of a tough gig, but my staff have worked very hard and have given freely of themselves to respond to the demands of this campaign and, through careful and strategic planning, have delivered a better than expected outcome.

To the Taylor sub-branch, led by Glen Malthouse, Stephen Hollingworth and Geoff Pope, who are not just members of the local Labor Party but also very good friends of mine, some for more than three decades, and really to all our committed membership, every person who volunteered in my campaign, whether it was letterboxing, erecting corflutes, folding, stuffing, delivering, standing on a polling booth on election day or just spreading the Labor message, it was a fantastic effort by everyone. I would especially like to thank my booth captains for their care, compassion and professionalism.

I was extremely lucky on polling day. If I remember rightly, I think we were very lucky with the weather. We had a lot of cloud cover, and it was going to be a very hot day, but across all the booths we had a sea of red with friendly smiles. These volunteers were there to ensure that everybody had a positive experience, no matter what their choice was at the ballot box, and it was great to be able to join my volunteers handing out how-to-vote cards. I remember in 2014 I was told that candidates were not allowed to hand out how-to-vote cards.

The only negative on the day came when I received a phone call when I was at the Angle Vale booth. I was told that one of my volunteers had collapsed, so I headed back to the Smithfield Plains booth just as the ambulance was about to leave.

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr GEE: I was glad she was in good hands. Thankfully, Joan Mentha made a full recovery, and I am grateful for her support. I thank the member for Waite for his good wishes.

In closing, I would like to acknowledge and thank John Camillo, the state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, and Scott Batchelor, the vehicle division secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. When I worked at Holden, John Camillo was the union organiser when I became shop steward, and we have maintained that friendship. Every year, I find myself up on his property picking his olives, and no doubt that will happen again.

I would like to again thank Jay Weatherill for his leadership and support over the last four years. I would also like to thank our hardworking and committed staff in the community liaison group and secretary of the state Labor Party, Mr Reggie Martin, and his team for the excellent campaign we ran in the 2018 election.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I welcome the member for Morphett to the parliament. As this is your first speech, I ask other members to extend the traditional courtesies to the member.

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (17:09): Thank you. Deputy Speaker, parliamentary colleagues, friends and family in the gallery, it is an honour to rise this evening in support of this motion. I offer my heartfelt congratulations to you, Deputy Speaker, on your re-election to parliament for another term and also to the Speaker, the member for Hartley, whose win was crucial to the delivery of a majority Liberal government and who was subsequently elected as Chair of this house for this term of parliament. I am sure he will carry out his role with dignity and ensure the orderly conduct of proceedings in this house. I also offer my congratulations to all new members of parliament—16 in this house—and in fact all members on their election to this 54^th parliament.

I sincerely thank His Excellency the Governor for opening parliament last week and the dignity with which he conducted himself. I would like to recognise his service to the state. In my role as mayor of Holdfast Bay, I regularly attended ceremonies with His Excellency. His presence at these events always brought a significance to the event. At Proclamation Day ceremonies, he would speak of the hopes and aspirations of the early European settlers in an uncertain time in our state's history. On finishing the ceremony we would exchange speeches.

Both His Excellency and his wife, Lan, were always welcoming to me and my wife. We were privileged to be invited to dinner after a Queen's Birthday celebration and, in our discussions, His Excellency's passion and true desire for the welfare of all South Australians were evident, which are sentiments I am sure all of us in this house share.

Last week, His Excellency outlined the government's agenda for the coming term. It is an agenda for change and renewal, and I am pleased to say that it is an agenda that brings with it optimism, which is supported by many in my electorate in Morphett. It is therefore an honour and a privilege to be delivering my maiden speech as their voice in parliament. I hope that in this role I will represent the electors of Morphett with passion, integrity and humility, and that I will be a strong advocate for all the people who live in Morphett, irrespective of who they voted for in the March 2018 election.

Morphett really is a fantastic part of not only metropolitan Adelaide but of South Australia. It offers the best of both lifestyles, being close to the city and where no suburb is further than five kilometres from the beach. The eastern-most suburbs of Plympton, Camden Park, Plympton Park and Park Holme came into the electorate at this year's election. Like the remainder of Morphett, these suburbs are mostly residential in nature, with Plympton and Camden Park also having a light industrial precinct.

With their convenient metropolitan location, these suburbs are currently experiencing renewal via a surge of new residential building activity, with younger families moving in. These are aspirational families who are susceptible to cost-of-living pressures and benefit from a strong economy that provides jobs, both aspects that are front and centre in this government's plans. Moving in a westerly direction towards the middle of the electorate, there are the suburbs of Glengowrie, Morphettville and Novar Gardens. Novar Gardens is the home of Immanuel College, where the current Premier went to school, and is a unique suburb where there are often no side fences between neighbours and grass verges take the place of footpaths.

While I was out doorknocking, I came across an old council sign prohibiting horseriding on the footpath, a throwback to the suburb's first origins, which derived from the land surrounding the historical Cummins House, built in 1842 by Sir John Morphett and his wife, Elizabeth. Cummins House originally stood on 130 acres of working farmland on which orchards, vines and olive groves were tended. Today, the house and remaining grounds are preserved to give visitors a strong sense of history and the life of one of Adelaide's founding fathers.

Sir John Morphett is who the electorate of Morphett is named after. John Morphett came to South Australia in 1836 on the Cygnet, one of the survey vessels sent from England to found the province. He first arrived on Kangaroo Island before sailing with Colonel William Light to Glenelg near the mouth of the Patawalonga River. The following day, his survey party found the freshwater stream that was later named the River Torrens.

John Morphett was present on 28 December 1836 when the first governor of South Australia, Captain John Hindmarsh, read the charter of proclamation beneath the Old Gum Tree at Glenelg. He was first appointed and later elected to the Legislative Council. He became Speaker and later President. John Morphett took an early interest in horse racing and kept a stud at Cummins House. He was one of the original directors of the Morphettville racing club, founded in 1847, which moves us along to the neighbouring suburb of Morphettville, which includes the Morphettville Racecourse. The racecourse is the home of thoroughbred racing in South Australia, with the Adelaide Cup and other significant horse races occurring throughout the year.

The remaining suburbs of Glenelg East, Glenelg, Glenelg South and Somerton Park border the electorate and are home to 2½ kilometres of spectacular coastline that makes it truly Adelaide's premier seaside destination. The beach itself provides a natural barrier to westerly travel and at the same time, along with the foreshore, provides much of the electorate's open space. As such, it is a place that is highly valued by the community and brings so many other people in the electorate together. Consequently, coastal protection is an important priority for the people. The seaside environment itself lends itself to relaxation and, as such, there is a strong community feel that is easy-going and friendly.

Being so close to the beach and also so close to Adelaide Airport, tourism is one of the key industry sectors in a local economy that is thriving and vibrant. Approximately 80 per cent of visitors to Adelaide will visit Glenelg during their stay and there are over 1.3 million unique visitations per year. The residents have a progressive mindset and embrace the activity and continual refresh that occurs, but they are also very respectful of the area's history. Glenelg is the birthplace of European settlement on the mainland of South Australia in 1836.

The waters off the shoreline of Glenelg are known as Holdfast Bay, so named because the anchors of The Buffalo and other ships could hold fast in the sandy ocean floor. Being such a fantastic place to live, many families have lived in the area for multiple generations. My young family moved into Glenelg South 14 years ago. Not living in the electorate all our life does give us a great perspective on how truly fortunate we are to live here, and I truly feel it is the best electorate to represent in the South Australian parliament. The experiences I went through before I moved to Glenelg South and also since living there have significantly shaped me and, with your indulgence, Mr Speaker, I would like to share my journey.

I started my life living in the north-eastern foothills of Adelaide in the then new suburb of Highbury. The suburb was still made up of many family-owned market gardens that have since been converted to housing. Being a new suburb, there were many young families moving into the area and the local primary school, Highbury Primary School, was one of the biggest in the state. To keep up with demand, many of the classrooms were made using transportable buildings, which, on hot summer days and prior to air conditioning, were character-building experiences, to say the least.

Being one of so many students allowed me to form many friendships, and I remember cycling to and from school with mates and that the bike racks would take up more space than the car park. The trip to school was mostly up steep hills, but the advantage was that the trip home was quick. Prior to any structured physical education program in schools, this was a great way to develop fitness and build up my leg muscles, which held me in good stead for my later sporting pursuits. I lament the decline these days in the number of children riding or walking to school. It gives each student a sense of freedom, but also lets them take personal responsibility for their safety, which can only be beneficial later in life.

It is at this point that I wish to recognise my parents, who are both here today, and the debt of gratitude that I owe them. Both my parents are now retired. While I was growing up my mum, Susan, was a part-time teacher and looked after both my brothers and did so much for her three boys so that we could be the best we could be—thank you.

My father, John, was a university lecturer and researcher who holds a PhD in nuclear physics after studying at ANU in Canberra and Caltech in California, USA. He studied at such an exciting time to be a scientist, when the limits of human understanding were expanding. The nuclear industry never eventuated in Australia. However, he maintains a keen interest in its future as technological advances are made and, out of respect to him, it is an area of interest for me.

My father's focus turned to astrophysics and deep space exploration, including building a gamma-ray telescope based in Woomera to understand supernovas. This allowed me to visit the derelict launch pads and empty mission control buildings in Woomera, and it is exciting that the government is once again pursuing the space industry in South Australia.

My parents both highly value education and the importance of continual learning. They sacrificed a lot to send all their three children to Pembroke School. The school not only had a strong academic focus but also provided great sporting opportunities where I played First XI Cricket and First XVIII Football. I was very fortunate to have the then state cricket captain, John Inverarity, as an influence on my school life. He was one of those leaders who demanded high standards who you did not want to let down. So later in life it meant a lot to play football for South Australia on the WACA in Perth and run down the wing in front of the John Inverarity Stand.

I had many influential teachers along the way, including my maths and physics teacher, Dr Possingham. She was a key factor in my first visit to Government House where I received two merit certificates for attaining 100 per cent in year 12 maths and physics. Following on from school, I attended Adelaide University where I studied electrical and electronic engineering, but at that stage of my life my real passion was football. Living in Highbury, I was in the Norwood Football Club zone and so began my adult life. When I first joined the mighty Redlegs, the SANFL was the pre-eminent competition in South Australia and a player retention scheme was set up to stop the Victorian football clubs from raiding the state's best talent.

It was my dream to play league football. I started in the under 19s and, along with my junior teammates, we developed our game believing we would go through as a cohort. This changed abruptly when the Adelaide Crows were established and entered the AFL in 1991. At the time, I was in my first season of senior football and Neil Craig was our coach. Being a sports scientist, he introduced innovative training techniques and a heavy emphasis on fitness. In the summer months while on university holidays, I worked on the production line at Holden's Elizabeth factory doing the day shift and then backed up with pre-season training where Craigy would not let us drink during training in the summer heat so that we could condition our bodies not to get thirsty during matches. He is a hard man!

Both taught me the value of hard work and respect from an early age. On the production line, I was working alongside an Italian migrant who had been there for many years to make a better life for his children. In football, I played alongside bricklayers, painters, plumbers, doctors and lawyers. Sport brings out the egalitarian Australian culture of mateship. Football has taught me to value each person equally, and I have taken this with me in my public life.

I played with legends of the Norwood Football Club—Michael Aish, Keith Thomas and Garry MacIntosh—who played over 300 games for Norwood. Supporters saw their great skills executed on a game day but they also taught me the value of preparation by the way they went about their training. Neil Craig set high standards and would often say, 'Raw talent is not enough.' Not only did he emphasise hard work but he sought to build each player's character and leadership so as to be able to perform under pressure.

During this time, I graduated from Adelaide University with a Bachelor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering with First Class Honours and also a Bachelor of Science, majoring in Physics, and worked at Technology Park and DSTO. From here I was drafted to Collingwood in the AFL, which has the biggest supporter base in Australia, and I was coached by some of the game's legends—Leigh Matthews, Tony Shaw and Mick Malthouse. They were each strong leaders who showed me the importance of strategic planning and developing people.

We would play in front of big crowds on the MCG. My first game against Carlton was in front of close to 90,000 people. Other highlights were playing on ANZAC Day to honour our service men and women, and of course playing against the Adelaide Crows and Port Power, especially kicking the first three goals against Port in their first AFL game in 1997. I have played with and against Brownlow medallists and club champions. To compete in this atmosphere requires self-belief and a desire to continually improve.

During this time, the game was evolving from a tribal suburban league to an elite national competition. Towards the end of my football career, the TV rights had increased to a level that allowed the rookie players to be paid well enough, and so the game became fully professional. Prior to going into full-time football, I worked at the Telstra Research Laboratories at the birth of the internet into homes with its resulting commercial opportunities, as well as the widespread take-up of mobile phones beginning. Today, these two technologies have merged and transformed how society functions but then they were in their infancy.

By the time I had finished playing AFL, I was married to my wife, Tammy, and we had started our family. My football journey had taught me the importance of hard work, discipline and team first, where success does not come from individuals but from working for each other. These are qualities that I hope to bring to my time in parliament. As proud South Australians, we both wanted the best for our children, and we believe there is no better place to raise a family than South Australia. In 2004, we purchased a house in Glenelg South. Without knowing it at the time, this would lead me to the path to parliament.

My engineering background allowed me to start a company with my business partners that specialises in sporting membership and ticketing software and web hosting. We also proudly run a membership call centre and packing house located in Adelaide, providing South Australians with jobs when so many companies seek to cut costs by outsourcing overseas at the expense of providing a quality, responsive service.

Living close to the beach, our family became involved in the Glenelg Surf Life Saving Club. The club has over 850 members. Surf lifesaving clubs are key community hubs along the Adelaide coastline. They allow adults and juniors, both male and female, to be actively involved together. Being volunteer-based, they provide a vital community service in keeping our beaches safe while at the same time providing a healthy lifestyle through competition. Currently, my family and I are volunteer patrolling lifesavers for the Glenelg Surf Life Saving Club, and I have myself been a patrol captain for five years.

My family grew over time to four children, and we all lead an active, outdoor lifestyle, utilising many facilities that thousands of other constituents of Morphett use. This is at the heart of why I chose to serve my community, firstly in local government, starting in 2010 as a councillor, in 2014 as mayor of Holdfast Bay, and now as their representative in state parliament. As mayor, I promoted a plan that incorporated four pillars to transform the local area: community, leadership, economy and environment. Implementing this vision required rebalancing the way the local economy was valued.

Tourism and related industries are key local job providers, and a plan was implemented to grow visitation that in turn grew expenditure. There are opportunities to set Glenelg up as a hub that connects to the regions, such as Kangaroo Island via a ferry service. As the member for Morphett, I look forward to contributing to this government's agenda to grow tourism in South Australia.

Prioritising the local economy also allowed investment into community infrastructure, important upgrades to CCTV and lighting to increase safety, health initiatives such as being the first dementia friendly council and home care programs for seniors to give them the support and respect they deserve. While a lot of these achievements are highly visible, I feel the most worthwhile achievement has been the community building that has been achieved over the last three years. Being mayor is a rewarding role that allowed me to authentically connect with so many wonderful volunteer community groups.

My time as mayor was both challenging and pleasurable. I thank all of the elected members I have served with, including former mayors Dr Ken Rolland and Rosemary Clancy, as well as the CEO, Justin Lynch. I hope I leave the council better than I found it. Importantly, being mayor reinforced that the most important role of any elected leader is to be close to the community that they represent. Citizens are crying out for politicians who can connect with the community and, importantly, articulate that connection.

As mayor, I worked hard to engage the community in decision-making. It is my hope that I continue to build this connection with the community in Morphett as their newly elected representative in state parliament. While campaigning in the election and listening to the electorate, I identified a suite of priorities that will continue to allow Morphett to be a great place to live and conduct business. These include an emphasis on building community, supporting and growing the local economy, ensuring safety, protecting the local environment and coastline, assisting seniors and improving our road and tram transit corridors.

The journey to election day based upon these priorities saw local commitments made to extend the Glenelg Police Station operating hours, playing surface improvements at Plympton Oval and installing a safety barrier for the Glenelg Primary School. I look forward to delivering on these commitments and then continuing to further build upon these pillars to inform and guide me in my local role over the coming four years.

I am very mindful that my election to parliament is by virtue of being a member of a larger team and a fantastic group of volunteers. Rather than waiting for people to come to us, we went to the community and engaged at a grassroots level. The people of Morphett were crying out to be listened to and involved in the democratic process. They are an intelligent electorate who want to contribute to the betterment of South Australia.

There are many people to thank and, pleasingly, many are young, desperate for change and to make a difference to their future in this state. I would especially like to thank my campaign manager, former minister Joan Hall, who worked tirelessly to keep the campaign on track and, importantly, train the next generation in our committee. I thank my Morphett SEC president, Trent Harron, for providing continuity and level-headed advice throughout the campaign. Trent doorknocked with me without complaint, sometimes in the most punishing commitments, such as one weekend when both days were over 40°.

Thank you to our campaign chair, Alex Antic, who also came doorknocking, and my other doorknocking companions. To communicate what we had heard while doorknocking and at listening posts required an army of letterboxers, who covered the electorate. Thank you to two of my hardest working volunteers, Emma Harron and Luke Vagenas, for organising information and street maps to distribute the literature and for the feet on the ground. Special thanks to my father, John, for making time each week, and Henry Lodge, whom I would often see in the backstreets of Morphett, bundle in hand. Thanks also to the many Young Liberals who helped out with the blitzes along the way.

To my listening post companions, Hugh Sutton, Laura Coppola and Jack Newton, thank you for being on hand to note down people's concerns as they chatted to me in the parks, shopping centres and street corners of Morphett. Jack Newton deserves special mention for his work rate and commitment. Jack gave up time to stand with me in Plympton Park on a Sunday and, sadly, his father passed away the following week after battling cancer. In the early days of the campaign, I received terrific support from Sara Duncan, Tim Rose, Penny Pratt and Michael Pratt, with whom I first crossed paths when he was the federal member for Adelaide and would MC at Norwood Football Club after matches—he has not improved.

Then there was the group of volunteers who helped out on election day, many of them friends and family who had never been involved in politics. Jim and Gerry Burston were at the biggest booth in Glengowrie, and my father-in-law, Kym Peters, who is here, would rather, truth be told, have been at a pub on the day, but he has been a great supporter of mine, and he has even changed his footy team to Collingwood. My brother, Tain, and his wife, Nat, also helped put up posters on Stobie poles. A special mention goes to James Scott Young, Grant Edwards and Michael Eyres, who spent all day on the Plympton booth and charmed the undecided voters. Jamo was resplendent at times, wearing the coveted Norman Craig jacket. The overwhelming feedback I received was that the Liberal volunteers had a positive energy and were the friendliest.

Within the Liberal Party, I would like to thank members of parliament for their assistance. I thank the Premier for his support from the early days when I first became mayor and, more recently, during the campaign, including running the City to Bay with me last October. I worked closely with the member for Black, previously the member for Bright, which spanned the southern half of Holdfast Bay council. While mayor, I saw firsthand the energy and commitment he provided to his constituents. His advice to me over coffee was crucial and, because of the boundary changes, he helped doorknock the first street he ever doorknocked in the early days of my campaign.

The member for Gibson assisted me at shopping centres, and the member for Colton stood with me during pre-polling. To the people living in these neighbouring electorates, and some I formed close relationships with as their mayor, the electorate boundaries are arbitrary. These coastal communities span across lines on the map. Consequently, I look forward to working collaboratively and as a unified team with my coastal neighbours to provide positive outcomes along the coast.

I thank the members for Waite and Schubert, who spent time doorknocking in the rain, and the member for Stuart for speaking alongside me at the energy forum. In addition, I would like to thank the member for Hartley and the Hon. Terry Stephens MLC for providing sound advice, and also the hardworking team at Liberal HQ—so many to name. Thank you also to my federal colleagues. I have worked alongside Nicolle Flint, member for Boothby, starting from my time as mayor. I have seen her dedication to her constituents. Thanks also to Senator David Fawcett and Senator Simon Birmingham.

Finally, as I am sure you would all understand, I want to publicly thank my family for their extraordinary patience and their hands-on help with their enthusiastic letterboxing approach, especially my youngest, Gabe, who ruthlessly charged $5 for his efforts. My children, Oliver, Coco, Violet and Gabriel, who are here today, have been understanding throughout as their dad held listening posts at a tram stop or a shopping centre and could not watch them play sport or help with homework. I hope that it demonstrates to them the importance of making a difference to the community they live in. Their volunteering as surf life savers would say that they do understand. In return, they drive me to work hard in this parliament to make a better future for them and their generation.

The person who deserves the biggest thankyou is my wife, Tammy, who is also here tonight. She has been through the weekly highs and lows that went with my life as a footballer, the uncertainty that goes with starting and running a business and the long hours that being a mayor, a candidate and subsequently a member of parliament entail. Tammy is always there to keep me grounded and act as a sounding board. Stress levels and exhaustion are part of any election campaign, especially for a first-time candidate and all I can say is heartfelt thankyou. Her contribution and support made it all possible over months and months of disruption in our house.

My path to this parliament is not as a career politician but rather as a citizen who has real-world experience, who is self-made and aspirational, but who has a firm sense of community and state pride and wants to give back to South Australia, which has given me and my family so much. I sincerely thank the electors of Morphett for the faith they have shown in me. I am proud to become the fourth member of Morphett and the third Liberal member, the first being the Hon. John Oswald, who was a former Speaker of this house.

I acknowledge the previous member, Dr Duncan McFetridge, who has represented you well. That the baton has now passed is less a reflection on him than it is a belief in renewal. In fact, the desire for change and renewal was expressed by the people of South Australia. After 16 years of Labor rule, South Australia is faced with systemic problems with the economy, electricity, education and health. His Excellency outlined the government's reformist agenda for the next four years to transform the state.

The priorities are to create more jobs, to lower costs for households and businesses and to provide better government services to address these problems. It is a plan to govern for all South Australians, rather than pick winners. It is a government that will conduct our business in the light of day so that we can restore trust with the people who give us their consent to govern. I stand ready to contribute to this plan as part of the Marshall Liberal team, knowing that I have the skills and life experience as an engineer, professional athlete and business owner to make a difference at this point in South Australia's history.

My particular interests cover energy and our transitioning of the electricity system, growing businesses and improving general community health to keep people out of hospital. Our electricity grid was originally designed at a time when generation was centralised in a few larger power stations with consumers spread out across distribution networks spanning thousands of kilometres. The previous government's interference via aggressive renewal targets pushed too much wind and solar into the system too quickly and contributed to the premature closure of the power station in Port Augusta.

For the first time in 50 years, South Australia had a shortage of reliable base load power and an over-reliance on intermittent wind and solar, leaving South Australia exposed to an unreliable network and higher electricity prices. Engineers have changed the world in many positive ways, and a properly engineered grid that includes renewable energy can be made reliable. Decisions relating to electricity need to be based on engineering and sound economics. This will allow the electricity grid of the state to again become the foundation of our prosperity for the next 50 years.

We are currently in the fourth industrial revolution and the lines are blurring between the physical and digital. Ours is a period in history characterised by the rapid pace of change, while at the same time the cost of innovation has been reduced. This presents significant challenges to strategic government direction to be able to address the aspirations of the community of tomorrow. As a business owner and software engineer, I have firsthand knowledge of the hard work and sacrifice it takes to commercialise innovation in a modern globalised economy.

Small business is the backbone of the state's economy, and as each business grows they employ people and bring desperately needed interstate and international money into South Australia. Private business, not government, must lead the expansion of the future. To support this, the government is equipping our state's young people with the skills to participate in the future economy. My ethos is based on Liberal philosophies which, among other key tenets, encourages individual initiative and enterprise as the dynamic force of progress. As a father of four children, I also view family as fundamental to the wellbeing of society and that youth should be provided every encouragement to fully develop their talents.

I am a product of education, and so I look forward to having input into the introduction of entrepreneurialism and innovation into the school curriculum. I firmly believe that a strong economy that provides jobs will give not only our youth but everyone the chance to reach their full potential here in South Australia. Hope is a powerful motivator, and I believe that we can harness our youth to be part of the solution and take their rightful place in making this state great again.

This parliament will begin the work of rebuilding South Australia. The challenges we face are significant and will not be easily overcome or solved in a short period of time. I dedicate myself to serving for the common good of Morphett and South Australia and to building communities so that individuals can contribute to a shared future. Our success will depend on hard work, discipline, sacrifice, honesty, curiosity, tolerance and courage. My journey to this parliament has proved to me that these values can be relied upon as the engine of progress and, knowing this, I can faithfully say that the best is still ahead for South Australia.

Honourable members: Hear, hear!

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, member for Morphett. I ask members to take their places, please. Member for Giles, my next-door neighbour.

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (17:42): Indeed, and congratulations on your elevation. I am sure that you will make a very able Deputy Speaker, so it is good to see you there. In rising to give my Address in Reply speech, I acknowledge His Excellency the Hon. Hieu Van Le AC and the dignity and grace that he brings to his role as our Governor and to the part he played in the opening of this 54^th parliament. We are very fortunate to have a Governor who not only carries out his duties in an exemplary manner but also shows what is possible in our state and nation, given the circumstances surrounding his arrival in Australia. It is worth reflecting on whether that would be possible today: the milk of human kindness does not seem to flow as freely.

I offer the new members elected on 17 March and all those re-elected my congratulations. To those members who lost their seats, I wish you well for the future and acknowledge the contribution you have made to our parliament and to our state. I congratulate the Premier. I also congratulate the new Leader of the Opposition. He will lead us with vision and strong leadership, hopefully back to government in four years, but that will not be an easy task and will be in the hands of the people of South Australia. I would like to acknowledge our former premier, the member for Cheltenham. He was always there in those difficult few years for the community of Whyalla. He was unstinting in his support, as was the member for West Torrens in his role as treasurer.

I was going to wax lyrical about the new Speaker. He is not in the chair, so I might reduce the waxing lyrical a little bit, but I am sure that everybody in this chamber as well as places further afield took a strong interest in what the outcome in Hartley was going to be. On that St Patrick's Day night, I did have a beer to toast his success in Hartley because it did give me a sneaking amount of pleasure. I would of course have loved to see the Labor Party take that seat, but that was not on the cards. To see the member for Hartley do what he did, I think is a credit to him.

When Mr Xenophon announced that he was going to run for that seat against somebody who had just been there for that first term, I tried to imagine how the member for Hartley would have felt. I imagine there would have been a degree of trepidation, so to see him come through in the way that he did—good on him. I hope by saying that he will never kick me out of this place. I do wish the Speaker well, and I hope he carries out his role in a fair and balanced manner.

To my family—Kathryn, Liam, Sinead and Ciaran—a loving thankyou for all your support during the campaign and over the years. When you are running in such a large seat, with such a massive area to cover, with so many diverse communities, you really do need the support of your family.

Elections are always a collective effort, and I deeply appreciated the work put in by many volunteers. I especially acknowledge the voluntary work put in by Tracy, Caitlin, Cherie and Shirley, to name just a few. In Roxby Downs, I was deeply appreciative of the support offered by the Cranes, and in Coober Pedy, Bill, Matt and Ian held the fort. In the vast APY lands, a big thank you to all who lent a hand. I look forward to visiting the lands in June. I also want to acknowledge the support of the union movement and especially United Voice, the AMWU and the work done by its local organiser, Steve McMillan, and the AWU, to mention just a few.

The election this year was, of course, on St Patrick's Day. I figured that might be a good omen, given my mum was Irish and my dad Scottish, of Irish descent. In the seat of Giles, we held our party on election night at that unique Whyalla institution, the Left Hand Club, a club noted for its support for charities, its billiard tables, its hosting of blues nights over many years and its on-tap, well-priced Guinness. On that St Patrick's night, the Guinness was not available—not a good omen on St Pat's Day, especially given we did not know if we were there for a celebration or a wake.

As it turned out, it was a celebration, at least as far as retaining Giles was concerned, and that is down to the good people of Giles. For those people who voted for me, a big thankyou. I am committed to delivering for all the people of Giles, in all the communities from the Far North in the APY lands to the most southern community at Cowell, and all the communities scattered far and wide through an electorate larger in size than Germany but probably with the population of a relatively small German town. Whether you are in Whyalla, Cowell, Kimba, Quorn, Hawker, Woomera, Pimba, Andamooka, Roxby Downs, Coober Pedy, Marla, Oodnadatta, William Creek, the APY lands, Oak Valley or the Maralinga lands or outside of those communities and areas, I am there for you.

I will make special mention of Liberal voters in numbers in Whyalla who did not follow the Liberal how-to-vote card and gave me their second preference and those lifelong Liberals who told me that they were going to vote for me first. They did say, 'My dad would probably turn in his grave if he knew that I was voting for Labor.' I am not going to put that down to my charm or to my capacity but they knew what was at stake in Giles courtesy of Nick Xenophon's pick.

I would like to congratulate the Liberal candidate, Robert Walsh. He was a very decent and down-to-earth person, so I wish him well in his future endeavours. I will have more to say on another occasion about Nick Xenophon's pick and what actually transpired in the seat of Giles over a period of a year and a half.

I listened with interest to the Governor's speech and the laying out of the Marshall government's agenda. It was a mixed bag with some specifics but much that was general in nature. A regional roads and infrastructure fund will be established, but whether that will lead to a net increase in financial support for regional infrastructure is yet to be seen. I suspect there will be nothing to match the port authority that we were going to set up to address the issue of market failure when it comes to even the expansion of a port at a brownfield site or the setting up of a new port to unlock additional resources and agricultural potential in our state, especially in the north of the state and Eyre Peninsula.

A regional growth fund will be created, with the reported allocation of $150 million over 10 years. The money will support employment and community growth. It looks like a rebadging exercise, as the previous government's indexed regional development fund would have delivered $160 million over the next decade. Of course, specific programs like these do not capture all or indeed most of the investment that does take place in regional South Australia. In my electorate, there is serious unfinished business, especially in relation to finalising the assistance package to secure the future of the former Arrium operations in South Australia.

I look forward to a bipartisan approach and acknowledge that, when in opposition, the leader and his front bench did not play politics with what was an existential crisis in the community of Whyalla. I was proud to be part of a state Labor government that provided real leadership in response to the Arrium crisis. Both the Premier and the Treasurer were unstinting in their support when it counted for my community of Whyalla. In the lead-up to Arrium going into administration, over 1,000 direct jobs were lost in Whyalla, to be followed by the initial profound uncertainty generated by administration. Support was provided in many ways by the Weatherill government and the list of initiatives across departments is long.

During much of that period, the federal Liberal government was missing in action when it came to supporting a community experiencing real pain. Indeed, at times they responded to the crisis by cutting funding for essential community services, such as the withdrawal of $8 million from the community mental health rehabilitation beds. As a measure of the responsiveness of the Weatherill government, we stepped in to ensure the continuation of that essential service, an especially essential service given the stress the community of Whyalla was under.

The federal government was nowhere to be seen when a whole series of local contractors faced going to the wall due to cash flow problems arising from Arrium going into administration. Once again, it was left to the Weatherill government to protect those jobs and to support those companies, often family companies built up over many years. So, I find it a bit rich when Liberals talk about support of the regions when the Liberal government that was there at a federal level was sadly lacking when it came to the community of Whyalla when it was going through a real crisis.

The lesson from the Arrium crisis and Nyrstar near-death experience in Port Pirie is that you cannot just let the market rip because the consequences for communities, families and workers are likely to be dire. There are times when government should not get out of the way; there are times when government needs to step in. If government had got out of the way in Port Pirie, we would have seen the end of the smelter and the people of Port Pirie would have faced huge job losses.

The former government played its part in helping to secure the future of the steelworks and associated operations and now the people of South Australia have handed the baton over to the Marshall government. Do not drop that baton when it comes to the future of Whyalla's main industry. I am confident that as a government you will do the right thing, given the importance of structural steelmaking not just for Whyalla but for our state and our nation.

I will be more than supportive if you do the right thing, but the right thing may be, as one serious option, helping to underwrite the transformative redevelopment of the steel industry in Whyalla. As a Labor government, we did that in Port Pirie and we were prepared to do that in Whyalla based on a credible business plan. It probably would have been on a greater scale and over a longer time period than what was needed in Port Pirie.

The South Australian economy is in transition and there are positive signs everywhere. The green shoots of regrowth started to appear in abundance last year. We now have the third lowest unemployment rate in Australia, and there is a stream of committed or planned private sector investment in regional South Australia. We have weathered a very difficult period but the momentum is now with us as a state, and it was clear that the transition that we are going through predated the change of government by a long way.

Sitting extended beyond 18:00 on motion of Hon. R. Sanderson.

We have weathered a very difficult period, but the momentum is with us and I hope the government goes with that momentum and adds to it. I have mentioned the challenges faced by Whyalla and Port Pirie, but another community that suffered in the lead-up to the 2014 election and just after was Roxby Downs. Many jobs were lost in Roxby Downs, but this has now been turned around with a $600 million investment at Olympic Dam. This will help set the conditions for a potential $2.3 billion investment package, assuming the BHP board gives the green light. I was in Roxby Downs and Andamooka two weeks ago and the mood is very buoyant.

If we get it right with GFG Alliance in Whyalla, up to $1 billion of investment might well flow. In addition to what is going on in Port Pirie and Roxby Downs, we are talking about over $4 billion in investment and the jobs that will be generated as a result. Add to that the close to $1 billion development of the OZ Minerals Carrapateena deposit, the largest undeveloped copper resource in Australia. Mine development and operation will deliver over 1,000 jobs.

At this point, I will just briefly discuss the discovery of that Carrapateena deposit because it is a Labor initiative that I am very proud of: the PACE program and its predecessor. For those who do not know, PACE is the plan for accelerating exploration. The government has actively invested in exploration efforts, the aerial magnetic surveying of the state and other sophisticated approaches to discovering mineral wealth in South Australia.

I am particularly proud of this because it was an initiative of the late Frank Blevins, who used to be the member for Giles. That program was initiated in the early 1990s and I acknowledge that it was continued by the incoming Liberal government at that time. I hope that the current government will also commit to the continuation of the PACE program. It was with some direct assistance from PACE that that one hole was drilled at Carrapateena, and the largest undeveloped copper deposit in South Australia was discovered.

That was done in conjunction with a small explorer, Rudy Gomez, who was willing to give it a go with a few mates, and they certainly struck pay dirt. In the broad northern region, covering the seats of Giles, Stuart and Frome, there is actual and planned investment beyond what I have just mentioned, not the least of which have multiple energy projects, including solar thermal with storage, solar photovoltaic, winds, pumped hydro, co-generation and batteries.

We are also seeing the start of investment in renewable-based hydrogen production because of the support provided by the previous government. I think the potential for hydrogen production in this state, and related ammonia production, using renewables, if it can be done commercially at scale, is one avenue that we should really be following in South Australia. So, all of these changes are part of an energy system in transition, which will drive down wholesale energy costs while giving us clean, reliable electricity.

Sanjeev Gupta, the new owner of our state's steel industry and Middleback Ranges iron ore operations is on record as saying that he will drive down the cost of energy for his operations through renewables by 40 per cent. The capital costs of renewables and storage continues to fall, and the recurrent costs are negligible. That is why South Australia is going to be in an ideal position to capitalise on cheap electricity, given our premium renewable energy resources in the form of wind and solar. There are not many places in the world where a world-class solar resource overlaps with a world-class wind resource.

Given the Marshall government's support for a new interconnector, I would suggest their revisiting the Rann government's initiated green grid study, the study focused on upgrading grid infrastructure on Eyre Peninsula, with a view to exploiting the largely untapped, world-class wind resource. The study found that the wind regime on Eyre Peninsula could support up to 10 megawatts of capacity, but focused initially on developing 2,000 megawatts. In order to effectively use that resource a new interconnector with the Eastern States was proposed. There would be multiple benefits for Eyre Peninsula and the state if we were to move in that direction, and I am sure the member for Flinders would like us to move in that direction.

To date, more than 40 per cent of the $77.1 billion investment in renewables in South Australia has been spent in regional South Australia. Contrary to what is often said opposite when it comes to the regions, with the story put out of neglect and doom and gloom, there is in parts of our state distant from Adelaide, well north of Gepps Cross, real growth and vibrancy. It is well on the way and it will continue.

As another measure of our commitment to the regions when in government, we initiated the redevelopment of several general hospitals, including those at Mount Gambier, Port Lincoln, the Riverland and Whyalla. Some of the redevelopments represented a partnership with the former Labor federal government. In the case of the $70 million upgrade of the Whyalla hospital and other hospitals, the then federal Coalition, fortunately in opposition at the time, opposed the funding stream to upgrade regional hospitals in South Australia. So much for Liberal commitment to regional centres.

The Weatherill government also injected an additional $140 million for minor capital works at country hospitals. I would have preferred that that happen sooner, but that commitment was made and money put on the table. That money will especially benefit some of our smaller hospitals. PATS funding was also increased by 30 per cent. I would be the first to acknowledge that additional work needs to be done on PATS to make the system easier, more flexible and have a greater degree of common sense.

Sometimes there is that conflict about getting specialists out to regional areas and using those specialists as opposed to people travelling to Adelaide, but there is sometimes good reason for people travelling to Adelaide, even though there might be visiting specialists coming in to regional communities. One of those issues—and it is an important issue—is around continuity of care.

We invested very significantly in educational facilities in regional South Australia. I was fortunate to get five STEM facilities in the seat of Giles, in Whyalla and in Roxby. We invested $17 million in upgrading the school at Fregon. We made very significant investment in early childhood education, and education generally, in Roxby Downs, but there is a lot more that needs to be done.

On the agenda, with funding committed, is the new high school in Whyalla, and I hope the new education minister will commit to that new high school. As I said, in the Mid-Year Budget Review the Weatherill government committed money to the new high school, and it is needed. We are one of the few places in the state where we have three public high schools, two of which are junior high schools feeding a senior high school. One of the schools has well under 200 students. It is just not a viable or sustainable proposition.

The new high school, which will be located next to TAFE and the university, will create an educational precinct. It will allow a far greater range of choice and have far more resources than the current three high schools can provide. I am conscious of the time, so I will use another opportunity next week to go into more detail about a range of other initiatives.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. R. Sanderson.

At 18:06 the house adjourned until Tuesday 15 May 2018 at 11:00.