Parks 2025 Program

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (14:40): My question is the Minister for Environment and Water. Can the minister update the house on how the Marshall Liberal government is supporting the South Australian economy—

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Narungga, be seated for one moment, please. Leader, you can leave for 20 minutes today under 137A. It's been a long time since I have removed you, but the interjections today cross the line. Twenty minutes, thank you.

The honourable member for Croydon having withdrawn from the chamber:

Mr ELLIS: My question is to the Minister for Environment and Water. Can the minister update the house on how the Marshall Liberal government is supporting the South Australian economy through the Parks 2025 strategy?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (14:41): I thank the member for Narungga for his question and know that he values the role the natural environment can play in stimulating regional economies here in South Australia. The Parks 2025 program is part of the Marshall Liberal government's record investment in the environment and water portfolio, part of a large capital injection of funds, particularly headed towards regional South Australia, to enhance our long run-down national and conservation parks and create a situation where they will attract visitors to regional communities in particular. Of course, those visitors seeing those destinations and travelling to those destinations will spend money on their way and when visiting.

There is no doubt that there are exciting things happening as part of the Parks 2025 program. It was great to head up into the Southern Flinders Ranges, perhaps quite an undiscovered part of our state, not that far beyond Clare and not in the better known part of the Flinders Ranges around Wilpena, but that little bit around Mount Remarkable. We travelled up there last week. We were joined by the Minister for Primary Industries and the Minister for Energy and Mining, who is also the local member, and Senator Simon Birmingham in his role as the Australian tourism minister.

We were announcing, as part of Parks 2025, a $5 million state contribution matched by a $5 million federal contribution in that Mount Remarkable landscape. That's a connected landscape, which is either owned by SA Water or the Department for Environment and Water, which really runs from Beetaloo Reservoir in the south, right through the Mount Remarkable region, through Wirrabara Forest, through Willowie, and Telowie through to Alligator Gorge in the Wilmington area.

There is a great opportunity to lift the quality of the amenities in that area, invest in campsites, picnic areas, walking trails, and in particular to invest in mountain biking. We know that research shows that mountain biking is a sport, an activity, that attracts a high-value customer, people who will spend along the way and who will contribute to the economies in which they visit. We have recognised that the Melrose community and the Mount Remarkable landscape around that area really does lend itself to that adventure-based tourism and mountain biking.

It was great to be able to call in on local businesses who will benefit from this project and who have been driving the project. The project is not being laid down by the state and federal governments: it's actually bubbling up from the community, the local councils, Port Pirie council, Mount Remarkable council and Northern Areas Council, coming together to shape this vision with local businesses.

The Premier and I called in to Over The Edge, the mountain bike shop and cafe, and caught up with Richard Bruce, the owner. We also met Don Norton, who along with his wife is running Under the Mount, an accommodation provider specifically targeted at mountain biking. We see huge potential here, and we see that potential because it is mirrored in other places—communities in other parts of this country which have been reinvigorated by investment in adventure sports and nature-based tourism.

Maydena in Tasmania, Mount Beauty and Bright in Victoria, and Derby in the north of Tasmania are communities that we can replicate. We can create those destinations here. We can invest in these landscapes and encourage business to then coinvest with us. Parks 2025 includes that nature-based coinvestment fund—a clear market signal to say to South Australian businesses, particularly small regional businesses, 'We are with you and we are keen to invest in you.'