Kangaroo Island Motor Vehicle Registration Fees

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (14:39): My question is again to the Premier. Why won't the government reinstate the 50 per cent motor registration concession for Kangaroo Island residents that it axed in last year's budget?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:40): I thank—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Ramsay is warned.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: I thank the member for Mawson for his question and note that his community has been through some very tough times over the past few months since the bushfires started on Kangaroo Island. I want to say that, as a government, there is a whole heap that we have done and will continue to do to help people on the island to be able to recover.

The decision taken in the last state budget was around trying to create a level of equity across South Australia in relation to registration fees. Kangaroo Island is not unique but different from most council areas around South Australia in the fact that they have a huge amount of local government road, which is a struggle for a council with only a $15 million budget per annum to be able to maintain. What our government does is that $2 million a year, each year, goes towards helping to fix council roads. On top of that, as part of the last budget, we also injected an extra million dollars into helping to fix council roads.

Certainly, in the correspondence I have had with the KI Road Safety Group, as well as other people on my visits to the island, their key concern—in fact, since the bushfires, talking to local tourism operators especially about the priorities that they have, fixing key road infrastructure and spending that money is a very important part of that. As happens, the money that we get to fix roads comes from, in part, registration fees that people pay, so we took a decision as a government that it is important for us to invest and that investing that money is the higher priority, rather than just reducing registration fees, again—

Mr Malinauskas: What about lower costs?

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —trying to create a degree of equity across the state. As a government, I think we have done a lot to invest money into assets that aren't ours on Kangaroo Island—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader is warned.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —helping the council essentially to supplement their assets. There is certainly more to come as we work through the recovery phase, helping the community to deal with recovery and also working together with the federal government around how we ensure that recovery happens as quickly as possible, using this as an opportunity to reinforce the assets and the rich tourism assets that the council and the island have to make sure that we help the people of Kangaroo Island recover from this.