Motions

Country Cabinet

Adjourned debate on motion of Mr Bell (resumed on motion).

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (15:38): It is my pleasure to resume on this particular topic. Just prior to lunch, I was speaking about the Minister for Environment and Water and his visit to my electorate back on 13 August, which was his second visit to the electorate.

The Hon. D.J. Speirs: The second time I told you about.

Mr BASHAM: The second time you told me about. He often pops into the electorate and he doesn't tell me about it. I had the great pleasure of being involved in the consultation around the Landscape South Australia Bill that is coming forward.

We also had the opportunity visit Granite Island to look at the work being done on the cafe that reopened for business just after Christmas. It is a thriving success because it is open for very long hours. Early-morning runners and walkers to the island are able to enjoy a coffee at the cafe. They also serve wonderful food—seafood mainly. It is a wonderful place, and I encourage everyone to visit. We then went across to Goolwa to visit the Goolwa wharf to look at some of the issues facing that piece of infrastructure which has been neglected and which needs investment to make sure that it lasts going forward.

It is great to be able to have ministers visit and look at problems that are occurring at the time. If we are going to schedule cabinet visits, often these events will not occur because, on the previous government's timetable, it was once every four years that they came to the electorate, and there are many things that happen outside that time frame. This has been a very responsive cabinet, particularly in my electorate. I have had 21 visits from ministers to my electorate, which they have told me about. The 22^nd visit was when the Minister for Education rang me to ask for a recommendation for somewhere to have coffee. He told me that the place I told him about was a bit hipster for his liking.

An honourable member: What was it?

Mr BASHAM: Qahwa. I will have to find something more reserved—

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: It wasn't a ministerial visit.

Mr BASHAM: It wasn't; it was just a visit to a wonderful part of Victor Harbor. I thank very much the Minister for Environment and Water for his visit. The next minister to visit only a couple of days later was the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development. He came with me to visit PipiCo, which is a wonderful business that operates in the township of Port Elliot. They have a great working relationship with fishers who operate along the Coorong on the beach and out to sea harvesting pipis, or cockles, as we have known them for many years.

They do wonderful work in that space, and it was very pleasing to be able to show it to the minister. The minister also met with farmers, who I was able to bring together from right around the electorate, from many different aspects of agriculture, to discuss the different issues facing our area. Again, I was able to bring my community to the minister when he was in the electorate.

If we had a cabinet visit, I would not be able to do that to the same extent because it is all happening at the same time. It is very much harder to operate in that sort of environment. I believe this is the best way to serve our electorates: to have cabinet visit on a needs basis, on an availability basis, on an issues basis to address the needs of my electorate and other regional electorates. I am very pleased that we are operating in this space.

Following the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development was the Deputy Premier, the Attorney-General. She came to a function at the Encounter Centre, which is an organisation that helps the disabled in the area work on different projects, including making toys and other things for children in the area, to put their skills to use in a wonderful way and help in the process of making sure that fundraising for that business is going well.

Not long after that, the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development again came back to my electorate. This time, it was for the regional budget breakfast. We had a great gathering at the McCracken resort, where many came together for a breakfast and to hear about how the budget is helping the regions and the support this government is giving to the regions. What a wonderful morning that was.

This has been a very proactive cabinet. They were proactive before they were in government, as a shadow cabinet, and that has continued upon taking office. I commend them for their work and I will expect the 2½ weekly visits from ministers that I have been receiving to this point going forward.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley—Minister for Innovation and Skills) (15:44): I, too, want to support the amendments brought forward by the Minister for Primary Industries on the motion. I do that because this government really is all about action rather than an illusion of action. I do not recall a single country cabinet event put on by the previous government that was not a media event on Adelaide television.

You knew they were in the country because the Labor cabinet ministers had their RMs and camel trousers on and no tie. They were there in the country. They did not quite know how it felt to be out there in the country, but they wanted to make sure they looked the part just in case there was a glimpse of them on the television and people would see them dressed like that and say, 'Maybe they are in the country.' Maybe that was what that was all about.

I like to wear my full suit and tie when I go to the country as a sign of respect because I am working, and I am working for those members of regional South Australia. I do not want them to feel that I am dressing down because it is not a business event. That is why I am there. I do that because a message I got very early as a minister was that people did feel, under the previous government, that things were wound down for those visits to—

Mr Cowdrey interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Colton is interjecting out of his seat.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: —the regions and that things were not quite as important, 'So we will let our hair down. We will relax a bit while we are here, we will try to blend in a little bit, but hope that we are seen on the Adelaide media.'

I would like to talk about some of the visits that I have had. Just recently, I kicked off another round of regional visits. When I was first appointed as Minister for Industry and Skills, it was very important that I had an understanding of what industry was looking for in the regions. We saw 14 TAFEs shut down in regional South Australia under the previous government—a number of them were sold—despite the fact that in some instances they were almost brand-new buildings. There was certainly no activity at those buildings after the 16 years of Labor. It was extraordinary.

The double whammy is that not only were they recovering or in a position of diminishing effect because of the substantial cuts that were implemented by the politically chosen TAFE board that indiscriminately cut I think close to 400 staff out of TAFE over four years—

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: It was way more than that.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Yes. I think it was one-third of the staff and millions and millions of dollars in redundancies.

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner interjecting:

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Six hundred, says the Minister for Education, who now has the job of fixing the mess left by the previous government. It is so important that we make sure we have strong vocational operations in regional South Australia because that is where we need the skills. We need those skills in regional South Australia. We need to make sure that, for those industries that cannot get the staff, there is a training program in place for the young people who are looking for those jobs. We want as much of that training as possible to be in regional South Australia.

I just want to share a terrific story from when I visited SJ Cheesman engineering in Port Pirie. Stephen Richter has been in the business all his life. It is a family business; his son is also working there. I met an English migrant who moved to Port Pirie from Britain 20 years ago and absolutely loves it there. I asked him, 'What is it about the regions?' He said, 'I have my house on the beach. It's about an hour's drive, but I love every minute I'm here.' He has some children here in Australia and others in the UK. He is in his late 60s and still working. He has no interest in retiring. He loves the work he does as a welder and fitter on the engineering site. He is a great advocate for migrants coming to regional South Australia.

Also in Port Pirie, I popped in to an organisation called Yourtown. It is a social enterprise that acts as a group training organisation for apprentices. They are recipients of Skilling South Australia funding. I was very pleased to meet Matt Coates, who was running it. Matt worked in my factory close to 15 or 16 years ago, so I was very pleased to see his progression from a tradesperson to a management role in this social enterprise. They were doing a very large job in Port Pirie building 200 church pews in jarrah for a Vietnamese church in Adelaide. It was an amazing job and very high-quality work. It was terrific to see that sort of activity happening and those opportunities being delivered to young people in South Australia.

Of course, my tour did not end in Port Pirie. Last week, I was with the member for Narungga in Kadina and met with a number of businesses. We had a business round table talking about skills in particular. Again, skills are what the industry needs. They want them via apprenticeships and traineeships, and they also need them through targeted migration. There are jobs that are not done, product left unpicked and animals not slaughtered because the skills simply are not there in the regions to do that. When I go out into the regions, the very clear message is how important it is to revitalise those regions through a growth in population.

On Friday, I was down in Mount Gambier, another very important visit, where we launched the Regional Accelerator Music Program (RAMP), which I spoke about in this place yesterday. Of course, Mount Gambier is known for its music. It has the James Morrison music academy. The old gaol is a concert site, and I think it was last weekend that there was a very big concert in that space. There are regular large concerts. It really is a music mecca for regional South Australia.

They were very excited about the music accelerator program. This is an example of how we have designed a specific program for regional South Australia. People in Adelaide share a vibrant music nightlife and musicians share opportunities to participate in that in Adelaide. Of course, we are now working to expand those opportunities in regional South Australia. We did not need a country cabinet to do that. We have active members in our party who actually live in the regions.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (15:54): I will make a small contribution to this matter. I will not recite all the arguments that have been put forward today so far. I would like to commend both the mover of the motion and the member for Frome, who have spoken very eloquently about this proposal, and also my colleague the member for Giles, who covered the matter very well.

It is no accident that this motion has been moved by a regional member of this parliament. It is also no accident that it has been supported by two other regional members, both the member for Frome and the member for Giles. It is no accident that Independent members of this parliament have, on previous occasions, decided to join a Labor government rather than a Liberal government. That is no accident at all because those regional members know who looks after the regions better. They were smart enough to leave the Liberal Party.

It is also very interesting that both the mover of this motion and the member for Frome hold seats that were previously held by the Liberal Party. That is no accident at all. The unfortunate thing about the members opposite is that they cannot see what is clearly obvious. People in the regions understand that they get a lot of lip service from the Liberal Party. They get a lot of fly-in fly-out ministers, people who fly—

The Hon. D.J. Speirs: No, most of us live there.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: You live there, so what? The ones who do not live there fly in and fly out, so let's not have that crap. Sorry, I withdraw that term.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Dr Harvey): Thank you.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: That might be a bit unparliamentary. The Liberal Party quite clearly take the regions for granted. They just assume that people in the regions will vote for them and that is why it is no accident that the Liberal Party have cancelled the country cabinet program. One thing they do fear is being held accountable as a government. It is much easier to send an individual minister on a tight program to the regions than send a whole cabinet to the general public and make them accountable.

It is interesting that, in their discussions so far, they have tried very hard to conflate two things. It is interesting that, as both the mover and the member for Frome have pointed out, this is not about ministers visiting the regions—all governments and ministers do that—it is actually about bringing the whole government out there to be accountable as a whole. You promote the fact that you are going out there and you promote ordinary committee members coming to see you and speak to you. It is, essentially, democracy at a grassroots level.

Clearly, members of the Liberal Party are a bit concerned. I can understand why the government may want to hide some ministers. I am sure that some of the backbenchers understand why the government want to hide some of their ministers on very fixed visits to the regions.

Importantly, these visits are an opportunity for ordinary people, who do not normally engage with government, to meet with ministers outside a visit to a school, etc., or some departmental thing. Country cabinets are very productive, but do not take my word for it. I will quote what some people in the regions have said. These are people who live and work in the regions. I will quote from some reputable newspapers.

This is what was said in the Yorke Peninsula Country Times—a very reputable paper, I understand, and I am sure they would not print stuff that is not truthful or accurate. This is what they actually reported in the paper—

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner interjecting:

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: Let me finish. It is coming; do not worry.

Mr Pederick: I want whatever you had for breakfast.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: That's fine; you can have it. You would probably have two serves.

Mr Pederick interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Dr Harvey): Order!

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: This is what a local council representative said, and it was reported in the Yorke Peninsula Country Times—as I said, that reputable newspaper and the record of important happenings in those communities. This is what council CEO, Andrew Cameron, said at the time:

I will be attending the local government presentation to Country Cabinet today (Tuesday) in Clare and then the community function in Balaklava…

He says—and I am happy to table this, if you need it—

It is a great opportunity for the premier and our cabinet ministers—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Mr Acting Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: There was an interjection that this is not what the paper says, but I was actually quoting what somebody else said. I will read from the editorial of the Yorke Peninsula Country Times, the editorial that speaks on behalf of the newspaper. There is a really good quote here:

Our region finally had its turn at hosting a Country Cabinet during the weekend.

Not only was it an opportunity for state government ministers to hear about local issues, they also announced $1.2million of funding for three local infrastructure projects.

Thanks Country Cabinet, you're welcome back any time!

This is what the editor of the paper said and what the paper said itself. This is a paper that actually values and understands its community.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: You may want to see it. This is in the Flinders News. Councillor Heaslip, from the District Council of Mount Remarkable, talked about our visit in the north:

Cr Heaslip said it was pleasing to see a state minister take time to visit the small town and construction site.

'It is good that they are interested enough in their expenditure to come and check out the works being undertaken.'

He was talking about the country cabinet, so he clearly saw value in the country cabinet. The Plains Producer, another very reputable newspaper in the region, talks about what the acting CEO says about the whole process:

'It adds a bit of rigour and meaning to those Country Cabinet meetings,' he said.

'We're pleased with the outcomes and look forward to working with the local member for the benefit of the community and the region…

There is more to come, though. The mayor of Victor Harbor council said:

The Country Cabinet was an opportunity for us to showcase Victor Harbor and to elevate local issues to the attention of ministers.

It is interesting that all these regional communities think that country cabinet is important and that a number of local country members think it is important. The only people who do not think it is important are the Liberal Party. Clearly, the community values country cabinet, and it is a pity that the Liberal Party do not.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (16:04): Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker, and what a fine job you are doing. I rise to support the amended motion and to acknowledge the hundreds of trips that our ministers and our Premier do between them. They not only come out to our electorates but obviously some of our ministers live in our electorates. In fact, you would think that the Minister for Water had a second house down at the Coorong, judging by the number of times he is in my electorate or in the electorate of Finniss or in the electorate of MacKillop.

After the member for Light's revelations about how well Labor did in the regions, I have to say that I know that some of their ministers had to ask some of our regional members where certain places were. I will leave them unnamed, but I understand that one of them asked one of our members where Pinnaroo was because they did not know. Not only that, but they could not pronounce the names and did not know where they were going. Allingtons had a huge sale because all of a sudden they needed to buy some Akubra hats, some RM boots and some moleskins so that they could put on the look to come out to the regions.

When these country cabinets were organised, I saw that they took a very confected and very stage-managed approach, making sure that things were in line so that no-one got embarrassed, because the Labor Party knew that they were heading into hostile territory—hostile territory because members on this side of the chamber live in those regions and look after the regions.

We had that scintillating display from the member for Light, who used to be the emergency services spokesman when the Labor Party were in government.

Mr Odenwalder: The minister.

Mr PEDERICK: What did I call him?

Mr Odenwalder: Spokesman.

Mr PEDERICK: Okay, he was the minister.

Mr Duluk: He wasn't very good. They sacked him.

Mr PEDERICK: Well, he wasn't very good because he went out in a farcical display of trying to merge the Country Fire Service, the State Emergency Service and the Metropolitan Fire Service. It was another case of attempted unionisation, which went badly wrong and ended up costing him his job. Obviously, there was not enough consultation and it was never going to work, and he lost his job because of it, apart from probably other failures.

The issue is that we live in the regions and we understand the regions. I know that there was some conjecture earlier today about where the regions are and whether or not they are in the Adelaide Hills. I want to talk about the Adelaide Hills for a moment. I was connected to this issue because I used to look after Strathalbyn, but it is now in the member for Heysen's electorate and has been for many years now. I looked after Strathalbyn in my first term, between 2006 and 2010.

On the issue of Kalimna Hostel, not only did the Liberal Party back that in but it stopped it from being closed. The member for Heysen fought valiantly. He had minister Wade connected straight into that community to make sure that we had the right outcome for those residents of Strathalbyn and surrounding areas, instead of what the Labor Party did to those good regional people, farming them out all over South Australia. They had people moved from Kalimna to Gumeracha and a whole range of other places because of their flawed policy plan and not listening to the community—the community that donated that land when Kalimna was built, back in the eighties I think it was. That is just some of that good advocacy. People know who really cares for the regions.

We also had some comments from the member for Light that we take our regional seats for granted—I can tell members that I have never taken one vote for granted, and I have been elected four times—and that we do not get anything for our electorates. Back in 2014, I managed to round up $20 million for a racetrack proposal at Murray Bridge, which will be opening this year. We had a $5 million grant from the federal government, a $5 million grant from us if we had won the election in 2014 and a $10 million loan from us on this side of the house if we had won that election.

That was no mean feat in a so-called safe seat. I have never taken it as safe. Thankfully, after a few years we are getting that racetrack up and going, and I had the good fortune to go through it the other day to have a look at the venue. It is going to have seating in there for 650 people for meals and is going to be a great asset not just for Murray Bridge but for the whole Hammond electorate.

I look at how good we are as a party to this state—right across the state and right across the regions, not only what we are spending in city Labor seats—regarding what we want to do for the people of South Australia because we are the Marshall Liberal government for the whole state of South Australia. One thing that really stands out in the regions is the $100 million we are putting towards the new high school in Whyalla in the member for Giles' electorate. There are people on my side of the house who question that commitment, because we could all do with money in our electorates for other proposals, whether they be for health or education. That just goes to show: it is a safe Labor seat, and all Eddie has to do is say 'thanks'. We are putting $100 million into that school.

Another election commitment I got for our electorate, working with minister Wade again, who does great work across the whole state, is $7 million for the new emergency department at Murray Bridge. That will be a great emergency department to bring the Murray Bridge hospital right up to speed into the future.

The member for Mount Gambier has brought this motion. I class the member for Mount Gambier as a good friend of mine, but I note that in 2016, when asked what score he would give Labor's country cabinet when it visited Mount Gambier, Mr Bell replied, 'Two out of 10.' He also made the comment that country cabinet was lightweight and lacking detail.

That really reflects what I saw with the confected way the Labor Party, when it was in power, arranged country cabinet. It was all very structured, who was invited, how they would speak to people—apart from the rushed trip out to Allingtons or RM Williams to load up with country gear so that they could fit in, or allegedly fit in. It did not work. Country people were not fooled.

I am not part of cabinet, but I see ministers coming through my electorate or neighbouring electorates and then hear the stories about where they are travelling right across the state. Whether they are the Minister for Health, the Minister for Education, the Minister for Industry and Skills, the Minister for Tourism, or the Minister for Water, etc., they are constantly coming through our electorates and the people in our electorates know they are accessible.

The great thing about being in government is that you can contact your ministers, catch up with them while you are in here, or talk to their chiefs of staff or other staff, and know that you can get things done. I commend the work all our ministers are doing across the state, and I commend the many visits the Premier continues to make across the state. He gets great feedback wherever he goes. Certainly, through the regions during the drought visits people were very appreciative when the Premier got around at Karoonda, Pinnaroo and Mannahill, over on the West Coast. Country people acknowledge that the Liberal Party is the party for regional South Australia.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (16:14): I rise to support the member for Mount Gambier in his quest:

That this house introduces a country cabinet schedule for regional South Australians.

I went on the first country cabinet back in 2002 as a media adviser to then emergency services and energy minister, Pat Conlon. It was something that was borne out of the agreement with Peter Lewis, a former member for Hammond, in his role of picking Labor to form government after the 2002 election. The first country cabinet was held in Murray Bridge and Tailem Bend, and we went on many more after that time. I always found them to be extremely useful, and I think their value depends on what the local member puts in and how open the local member is with ministers coming into their patch.

I always really appreciated, as the minister for agriculture, food, fisheries, forests, tourism, recreation, sport and racing—those sorts of areas that covered so many important parts of South Australia—the relationships I had with people such as the member for Flinders, the member for Mount Gambier, the member for Stuart and the member for Hammond. When we would go down, we would get on well, say nice things about each other and try to get the job done.

Sometimes it depends on the personalities involved as to how much you get out of these things. I was someone who went down as a media adviser then as a chief of staff. There was an end to the country cabinets after the 2010 election under Mike Rann, and they were reintroduced by Jay Weatherill when he became premier and rejigged a little bit. I think they were better in the second edition of what we aimed to do.

As a minister, I found them really good because, while I was out in the regions all the time, some of my colleagues were not out there so much. It gave them a great chance to go out and see things. Again, you can only do as much as the local community have asked you to do. Questions were always put out through local government and other local sources. They would say, 'Country cabinet is coming to town. If you want to have a meeting one on one with the minister, you can do that. We will find a timeslot.' So we would sit down one on one. Sometimes it was with individuals, sometimes it was with industry groups and sometimes it was with other associations or businesses. I found that a really good opportunity.

We would then have the community forum where there were no Dorothy Dixers. We were in the local town hall, school gymnasium or community centre and we sat at a big, long table, all 14 ministers, and the premier was behind us. He would act as MC, do the introductions and hand out some awards to local volunteers and local leaders, and then it was open slather. We did not know where the questions were going to come from or what the issues would be. Most of the time we were across the big issues.

Mr Duluk: Probably your Labor sub-branch members.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: There is an interjection from across saying it was Labor sub-branch members. We do not even have sub-branch members out in many parts of regional South Australia. There are places on the West Coast where I think some booths get one Labor vote.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: Yes. We were not out there on a popularity drive to get people to join the Labor Party. We were out there in the regions to listen to people and do the very best. It was the same when we went to Port Lincoln after the Wangary bushfires in 2005. When we turned up there en masse, we guaranteed that we would have a minister on the ground for those first six weeks, and we did. We worked with the local councils, local communities and government departments there.

People in and around Port Lincoln would say, 'What are you doing here? We're not ever going to vote Labor.' We said, 'We're not here to get your vote. We're here to do the right thing and get you back on your feet as soon as you can.' Regional South Australia is the engine room of South Australia, and when people are being productive in regional South Australia everyone in this state benefits, whether they live in the metropolitan area or in regional South Australia.

We were out there with the best of intentions. We were out there to listen to people and to get a broad understanding across all the portfolios of what was happening in the different regions. I can assure the member for Hammond that we all knew where Pinnaroo was, because we were there in the—

Mr Pederick: No, not all of you. You did.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: No, we all did because we had a forum there, and after the forum we ducked into the pub—not the Pinnaroo Hotel where we had those schnitties that time when we were there. We went to the Golden Grain Hotel, not the Pinnaroo pub. It was about two in the afternoon and, as we turned up there, the B-graders turned up because they were runners-up in the grand final against Lameroo. We were in there, and guys were drinking butchers of beer with a raw egg in it. They wanted to get Jay on those and all the other guys. We had a really good half an hour, 45 minutes with those fellows while we waited until the next appointment.

That night we got to Lameroo and we had a forum there. The Lameroo guys, who were actually the premiers in the B-grade that year, turned up, so we were having beers with them. The member for Lee may have skulked off to bed because he could see some danger on the horizon. It ended with Kyam Maher from another place and having some boat races with the boys and some staffers. There were five on their team, but we only had four on our team, so Kyam had to be the first drinker and the last drinker, and we beat them because Kyam has some exceptional beer-sculling skills. That is what it was. We were not tucked away and not talking to people. We were out there getting involved with the local community.

One of the good things that happens, too, is that, when you are in the cabinet, it does not matter what side of politics you are from; you are flat out seven days a week. Apart from coming together at cabinet each week you are largely out and around the state doing your things in your portfolio. I think that the country cabinets were very good for collaboration in cabinet and for throwing around ideas.

Long after a visit to Peterborough, or to Mount Gambier, or to Glencoe—we did have an afternoon tea at Glencoe at the opening of its wonderful new viewing platform a few years ago—or to Kangaroo Island, or to the Riverland, as a group, as a collective, as people who came together each week to make decisions on behalf of all of the people in the state, in all the regions in the state, we had a much better understanding.

We also built up a lot of contacts. People would ring us from time to time, whether they were oyster growers from over on the West Coast, timber millers from down in the South-East, fishers from Kangaroo Island, or tourism operators from the Flinders Ranges. We would form these contacts where we had people on the ground who could feed directly into ministers and into the cabinet process.

I think that it was an unbelievably important part of the Rann and Weatherill cabinets that we did that. I know that members opposite think that they are the only people who understand the regions. Well, that is not the truth, and I think it is a bit unfair on people to say that, and it is a bit disrespectful to people in country areas as well.

We all need to get along. There are 47 of us in here. Some are on the government benches, some are on the opposition benches and some are on the Independent benches, and we all need to work together to understand what it is all about. While we may have regional members of parliament who are around the cabinet table, things are a bit different in each of the different regions of South Australia. I do not think you can just say that just because we have a lot of regional MPs we do not need to go out into the regions and have these country cabinets.

My advice to you would be to give it a go, because I actually think it is very beneficial for the collective, for the cabinet, to do it. You will build some team spirit, you will listen to people out in the country areas and you might even learn a few things. That is an important part, because none of us knows everything, even though some people think they do. No-one knows everything. Every day in this job, every day as a cabinet minister, you learn more and more things.

I want to congratulate the member for Mount Gambier on bringing this motion to the house. He has my wholehearted support, as a member in this place who represents a fair chunk of regional South Australia.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (16:24): I rise today to contribute to this debate. We have certainly had a good opportunity to discuss this particular motion and the amendment to it. There is nothing like having private members' time extended throughout the day. I think it is important that we all have the opportunity to talk about the things that are important to us.

The member for Mount Gambier brought the original motion to this place, and being a country or regional member—I suppose 'regional' in the true sense of the word, given that Mount Gambier is, I think, our second biggest city; it might be the biggest, so will I stand corrected—it is always a bit of a—

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr TRELOAR: No, a regional centre. It is the biggest country town. I was right. Murray Bridge is growing. Whyalla possibly will have an increase in population in the coming years, given the exciting things that could potentially happen because of the arrival of Gupta, who could well reinvigorate the steelworks. That would be exciting for Whyalla and the state more generally. The original motion has been amended by Minister for Education and now reads:

That this house—

(a) recognises the importance of regional South Australia and its communities;

(b) acknowledges South Australian's regions underpin the state's economy, contributing more than $20 billion;

(c) highlights this government's $773 million investment over four years, as allocated in the 2018-19 state budget;

(d) notes that the Marshall Liberal government is committed to growing our regions; and

(e) notes that the former Labor government's country cabinet schedule did not see meaningful improvements to Labor policies and prefers the Liberal government's method of meaningfully engaging with regional South Australia.

I think I got that, as it was written by hand by the Minister for Education. I am speaking today in support of the amendment. I attended two country cabinet meetings, one in Port Lincoln and one in Ceduna, during the life of the previous government.

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: As an observer.

Mr TRELOAR: As an observer and as the local member. What I detected was very much a smoke and mirrors sort of arrangement. Certainly, the Labor government were trying to give the impression that they cared about country people when they were there. What they needed to do was be there all the time, as we are, as sitting members, as representatives of country people in South Australia. The majority of country representatives are on this side of the chamber, in the government now. I acknowledge the member for Giles and the member for Mount Gambier, who sit on the other side but represent their constituents as well as they can from outside of government, which is always a challenge.

As has been said on a number of occasions already in contributions, ministers often regularly visit our country areas. People have been quoting numbers. I am not familiar with the numbers. I have lost count of the number of times that ministers have visited country seats and visited the electorate of Flinders, including the Premier. It is always a pleasure to have the Premier in your electorate. We had a particularly difficult situation recently on eastern Eyre Peninsula in relation to dry conditions and the drought.

We were privileged to have the Minister for Primary Industries visit twice in recent times, and the Premier visited both Cowell and Cleve recently. That is the sort of action we are seeing from this government, and I expect that to continue. In relation to the ministers in this current government, I have been impressed by their willingness to visit country areas and their availability to talk with the people whenever they are there and whenever it is required.

In the lead-up to the 2018 election, in January there suddenly appeared a huge bus in the seat of Flinders, and it was premier Weatherill's bus. I had never seen a bus so big.

An honourable member: The Jay Bus

Mr TRELOAR: It was the Jay bus, exactly. I think I met it in Arno Bay or Cowell just to keep an eye on things and to ensure that things did not get out of hand. What intrigued me was that when the bus doors opened a whole host of young, well-groomed people wearing red T-shirts hopped out, but no sign of the premier. With all due respect to the premier, he did arrive in Port Lincoln and I shared a table with him at the Tunarama dinner. It was interesting, and it is all about perception and illusion to a certain degree.

I have spoken about our being able to best represent country people from this side of the government because we live and work amongst our people: we make our homes there, we run our businesses there and we raise our families there. Often, we were born there, went to school there and are longtime residents there. We are not people who have been parachuted into seats. We are not party apparatchiks and we are not career politicians necessarily; we are representing the people we live and work with because we want to.

The significant exports that come from our regional areas drive the state's economy, as the member for Mawson quite rightly pointed out. Exports such as mining products are mostly from the Far North of the state, but we occasionally see a mine pop up in the more closely settled areas. Agriculture, of course, has been the mainstay of the state's economy since settlement, since the first good harvest in 1841—there were a couple of failures before that, but we managed to get through—together with the pastoral pursuits, the viticulture, the horticulture and, of course, in my electorate particularly, the seafood sector, the fishing and the growing aquaculture sector.

I admire the perseverance, the dedication and the risk-taking of country people to see their businesses succeed, to bring exports to the port and to bring new money into the state. Prior to the last election, our current Premier was often heard to say, 'We're not going to get rich selling lattes to ourselves.' It is more than about money going around and around within a relatively small state economy; it is about bringing in new export dollars, and certainly our regional areas are able to do that.

Last night's federal budget was particularly exciting for country areas, especially in relation to roads. I know that everybody wants their roads fixed, and there are many hundreds of millions of dollars that will be committed to the state's roads; some of that, I can assure people, will be going to Eyre Peninsula. Some would say that it is probably long overdue, but we have Liberal state and federal governments, so there is no better time to achieve good results through negotiations.

There are challenges for government in providing services to far-flung country South Australia, particularly those things that state governments are ultimately responsible for, such as health, education, communication to a lesser extent because it overlaps with the federal government, and water utilities. It is a real challenge, and it is a cost, and we as a government have to determine how best to provide those essential services to people who do not live in the metropolitan area but who deserve an equitable share of the services that governments can provide—and all of this in a state with a highly centralised population and Adelaide being the focus, with more than a million people. People who live in country areas certainly are punching above their weight, and I congratulate them on all their efforts in relation to producing export income for this state.

As I said, it has been a pleasure to be a part of this debate. It is a good opportunity for everybody to flesh out a few ideas and work out where everybody sits in relation to country cabinets. I think it is probably a cost we can do without. On this side of the house, we certainly feel that we are more than willing and able to represent our country constituencies capably. We have the ear of the ministers. We have ministers regularly visiting and making themselves available, and we also have a Premier who well and truly realises the importance of the country areas of South Australia.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (16:34): It gives me great pleasure to rise to speak in favour of the member for Mount Gambier's motion in support of the country cabinet initiative, which, if we are perfectly honest, we would admit happened on an ad hoc basis leading up to 2014. After the 2014 election, it became a much more rigorous and scheduled event, thanks principally to the input to the cabinet from the member for Frome. I think it is instructive that a regional member of parliament, the member for Mount Gambier, formerly a member of the Liberal Party, is moving this motion, seeing the value of this initiative because it does deliver value.

I want to speak about my reflections on what country cabinet meetings meant to me. I am the first to admit that, unlike many of my colleagues, particularly those three I see before me conversing on the crossbench, I have had less experience in the course of my life spending time in the regions than they certainly have. I am the first to admit, especially after hearing a contribution from the member for Hammond, that I certainly have had less experience spending time in the regions than he has.

By happenstance, I found myself in the position of not only being a cabinet minister after the 2014 election but also thrust into a portfolio where, physically speaking, the vast majority of the responsibilities occur outside the metropolitan area of Adelaide, out in the regions of South Australia, where the majority of the road network is. The country cabinet regime was a great opportunity for me to become more familiar with parts of the state that I had never visited before, let alone understood the issues that were important to the people living out in those regions.

I am the first to agree with the Deputy Speaker that ministers, regardless of the government from which they hail, are less capable of representing constituencies than the local MP. It stands to reason. They are not spending as much time out there. They do not have as close a connection with those constituencies, but that is not to say that requiring the cabinet as a whole, and cabinet ministers individually, to attend different regions around the state on a regular basis to speak directly with the people who live in those regions and are members of those communities is not beneficial—it is. My experience as a minister, and what it led me to do in my portfolio, is a direct result of having those country cabinet meetings.

It does not matter whether you are a regional member or a member of parliament who represents a metropolitan constituency; roads are always very topical for all members of the community. I noticed that they are certainly more so in the regions because most people derive their living either from the use of the roads or, in an indirect way, from how efficiently and effectively those roads can be used, particularly primary producers and those involved in transport and logistics industries. It would be no surprise to any of you, and certainly no surprise to the member for Schubert, that it is usually the transport minister who is first in line to get an earbashing about the state of the roads in a particular community.

The way the country cabinet regime ran ensured that ministers were pushed out in front of the communities, and it gave every member of those communities the greatest possible opportunity to have a one-on-one personal conversation with that minister about the things that were important to them. For me, it meant driving up to the communities. I always made sure that we drove to all the communities to experience what the roads were like, with two exceptions; one is Kangaroo Island, of course, as it is a bit hard to drive all the way there, unless the Hon. Frank Pangallo gets his wishes, and then the drive to Kangaroo Island would be much easier.

Mr Pederick: It is not going to happen.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: I suspect that the member for Hammond is spot on the money in that regard. The only other region that I did not drive to was the APY lands, but I will come to that in a minute.

When driving through those regions, experiencing the roads and having the opportunity to visit the local school, even on a Sunday, members of the community knew that, if they wanted to collar you and talk to you about an issue, you were going to be there for a couple of hours and they could come and talk to you about whatever their issue was. For me, usually, it was somebody who relied on the transport industry, or was a member of the transport industry, who needed specific road improvements, and that was incredibly useful for me.

We would then go to a community forum where for two hours you were put under a blowtorch in a way where, fortunately, you do not get punted by the presiding member for having the wherewithal to interject into proceedings, but you do get the opportunity to converse directly with members of the community. They can put questions to you. Some of them are very pointed, I think we would all admit, and that was very useful for us.

We then spent some time afterwards mingling with those people who did not get the opportunity to ask a question, catching up with the council and going to the local pub and having a beer with the locals to see what they were thinking, what concerned them and what they were interested in. We would basically repeat some of that process the next day when we were invited to the local footy club or sporting club for a community morning tea, when, again, people could come up and speak with you one on one and raise issues with you, if not ask you questions in a forum. Lastly, before you left to come back to Adelaide, you had the opportunity to go out and visit those sites or places that people made representations to you about over the previous 48 hours.

Why did I go through all that rigour? It was because a lot of the feedback that I got, particularly in the early months before the first state budget was handed down after the 2014 election, led us to increase road maintenance funding across the state by $70 million and two-thirds of that was spent in regional areas. That was important at the time, of course, because in the federal budget that the Coalition delivered in 2014 they not only handed down a $9 million cut to regional road maintenance for South Australia but they also cut the $20 million of supplementary road grants to councils. This saw a massive reduction in funding to regional communities in road maintenance funding, so we stepped in.

We also committed $20 million to implement the first tranche of reforms that were developed by primary producers, led by the Hon. Rob Kerin, former premier; the primary industries department; and the transport department under the white paper, 'A modern transport system for agriculture'. It was $20 million of reforms to increase productivity across the regions for the heavy vehicle industry.

For the first time in the state's history, it allowed road trains to come down from the Northern Territory border to Port Augusta, increasing the maximum length of road train prime movers up to 20 metres—a small, you would think, but crucially important reform for the heavy vehicle industry. Finally, after asking for more than 30 years, it allowed the heavy vehicle industry to use tri-axle dollies, which was something pursued by the Livestock and Rural Transporters Association. I joked at the time that it would not stop at three axles and that we would be up to four-axle dollies and maybe even five and that Mr Quinn from the Livestock and Rural Transporters Association would finally get his quin-axle dollies. That is probably the best I can do for a heavy vehicle industry joke.

We also got higher mass-limit heavy vehicles access to grain sites across Eyre Peninsula and the Mid North and higher mass-limit access to saleyards. We increased the radius of travel to 160 kilometres for primary producers before they were required to use a fatigue work diary. We also got B-triples for the first time from the Mid North to Outer Harbor. There were hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of productivity improvements for the heavy vehicle industry and the reason why is that they had the opportunity to collar me around the state and tell me what they needed to change so their businesses and the farms that they served could be more profitable by reducing their transport costs.

I mentioned the APY lands before, and I will quickly finish off this contribution. I was also very pleased that not only did we upgrade the Sturt Highway, Dukes Highway, Riddoch Highway, Southern Ports Highway, those curves on the Tod Highway that I see the member for Schubert attempting to take credit for, the Lincoln Highway, and the Horrocks Highway—the curves outside of Clare—but I was particularly pleased that the state government co-funded with the federal government a $106 million improvement to the APY lands main access road.

I was asked by the Coalition government federally if we would cancel that project so they could redirect the money towards metropolitan Adelaide. I am pleased to say we did not and that is why country cabinet meetings are important: they deliver real change for people in regional communities.

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (16:45): I would like to sincerely thank all speakers on this motion, which, I will be quite honest, went on a little bit longer than I thought it might, but that is okay. In particular, I would really like to thank the member for Mawson for his contribution because I thought it was not a partisan speech. I thought it was getting to the heart of what I was trying to achieve, in that there is a difference between ministers heading out into the regions.

I certainly acknowledge and welcome the Liberal ministers who are very active in the regions. It is great for South Australia that that occurs. The same did occur under Labor, as well. At the heart of what I was trying to get at with this motion is there is a difference between a minister attending a regional area and the entire cabinet or a vast majority of the cabinet attending as a bloc in a regional area. The difference is that the community engages more with the cabinet, and the structure that I saw enabled that interaction to occur.

I really want to thank the member for Frome, who reinvigorated country cabinets as part of his discussions after 2014, recognising that there is a difference between a minister attending a regional area and a cabinet attending. They are vastly different concepts, and I would like to have seen the debate focus more around that. That is where I come to the member for Lee and his contribution today, talking about the improvements for regional areas that came about because of that cabinet commitment to going, not a minister going out.

These discussions and these interactions occurred because cabinet attended that regional area. As the member for Mawson said, what have you got to lose? It can be very beneficial for team bonding and for engagement with communities more at a social level. As we all know, in the regions that is where communities really do come together, whether it is Saturday football or down the pub on a Friday night, if you get there a little bit early. Many of the real insights for cabinet occur at those moments that are unplanned. The other point was the community forum is very much an unfiltered opportunity for those in the community who, quite frankly, might have a gripe or an issue that they do not feel they have had addressed, to raise that in a respectful but certainly a very direct way with cabinet.

I thank all members who have spoken on this issue. I am a little bit disappointed that it became more partisan and politically and ideologically driven. That certainly was not the intent. The intent is really about the opportunity that could present itself. If you do not give it a go, how will you know? With that, I will conclude my remarks.

The house divided on the amendment:

Ayes 23

Noes 20

Majority 3

Amendment thus carried; motion as amended carried.