Wine Industry Technical Conference

Dr HARVEY (Newland) (14:58): My question is to the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development. Can the minister update the house on how the state government is encouraging growth in the South Australian wine tech sector?

The Hon. T.J. WHETSTONE (Chaffey—Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development) (14:58): I certainly can, and I thank the member for Newland for his continued interest in the wine sector. It is important that we know that we just hit record exports out of South Australia within the wine sector—$1.79 billion. It is a very, very important sector. The horticulture sector—$1.2 billion, particularly out of the Riverland region, which is now more important than ever.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for West Torrens is on two warnings.

The Hon. T.J. WHETSTONE: Last week, I was joined by the Premier and we headed down to the Convention Centre. We had 1,500 national and international wine industry delegates who attended the 17^th Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference to gather, harness and network all of the new things, the new technology and the cyber within horticulture and the cyber within viticulture.

I was lucky enough to stand with the Premier to announce an $80,000 grant to kickstart Foment, which offers intensive support to early-stage innovative wine and tourism tech businesses to help them accelerate their businesses and take their innovation to Australia and to the world.

'Foment' means to promote the growth of development, to instigate, to foster, to encourage and to stimulate. The Foment strategy is really, really exciting. It is the buzzword within the wine industry. The program is designed to help accelerate businesses with the help of local and international experts and mentors. We all know that having good mentors is as good as good wine. Foment will run in partnership with Wine Industry Suppliers Australia, Flinders New Venture Institute and Hydra Consulting and will be held in South Australia's wine regions. It is a boon for the wine industry. The opportunities that Foment present to them are very, very exciting.

The conference also gave me an opportunity to say that the government's focus on opportunities within cyber tech, agriculture, horticulture and viticulture now seem more secure than ever before. We are now putting all of those research and development programs into the new technology space. Cyberspace is well endowed in agriculture and viticulture.

It was also an ideal opportunity to speak with some of the South Australian businesses displaying innovative areas at the conference, particularly with bottle traceability, artificial intelligence—again, more cyber, the Premier will be pleased to hear—and satellite technology. As I walked away, I was inspired. It really underpinned the efforts that I'm now installing, putting a panel together as the agtech advisory panel. It's more important than ever that we actually give confidence to the agriculture sector that there is a government out there looking to implement that new technology.

Some of those innovative South Australian businesses I met with were GAIA Agricultural Intelligence, O-I Australia, Platfarm and Titanium Threat, but there are many, many more. It is more important now that agriculture, viticulture and horticulture be part of the new era within the tech space.