Ministerial Travel

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (14:32): Supplementary question: my supplementary question is to the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. Who paid for his visit to Newcastle and was the minister entertained by the consortium operating the rail and tram network in Newcastle that he visited?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:32): The trip, which was an overnight trip, was paid for out of my ministerial office budget. I can detail to the house that I was offered the opportunity to have my own cup of tea in the meeting that we had. There was a teabag provided and some hot water and a bit of milk. That's about the extent of the hospitality that we went through. We did go out—

The Hon. S.S. Marshall interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Premier is called to order.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister has the call.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: We did also then subsequently go out to lunch at one of the local pubs. I did have a bowl of ragu pasta.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Who paid for that?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: As to the details of who paid for that, I am happy to come back to the house. I must admit I will need to check.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: Can I say this—that all the details of that will be reported in the usual way. Here's the thing: we need to look outwards. I think there is an insinuation that there's a dog whistle that is being presented here, that it's only us in South Australia, that we should close and blinker our eyes and only look inside in terms of how we deliver better services. We need to take a global outlook.

An honourable member: Hear, hear!

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: As a government, we want to incentivise private investment to come here to South Australia. We also—

Ms Cook interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hurtle Vale is warned.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —want to incentivise people to come and live here. In order to do that, we need to open our eyes to what the rest of the world is doing.

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: The opportunity to go and have a look at a fully integrated system in Newcastle—where the ferry, tram and buses are all being operated at the one operations control centre, operated by the one company—is a fantastic opportunity to look at ways in which we can do things better.

We as a government are not scared to scour the globe and look at the best ideas for delivering things. This is something we will continue to do because, unlike some other political parties, we don't want to have fake fights. We don't want to make it seem like it's SA against the world. We want to live in the rest of the world, we want to exist in a global community, we want to bring their investment to South Australia, we want to bring their tourists here to South Australia and we want to bring the expertise in running public transport systems from around the globe here to South Australia.