Grievance Debate

Barossa Valley

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (15:21): Today, I would like to update the house on some of the things I have learnt from my travels to the Barossa Valley over recent weeks. It has been insightful to meet a number of people, and to get some insights into how the Barossa Valley is dealing with COVID-19 and also some history of the valley and their vision for the valley from a number of people.

I met with some really interesting and important people in the community. By 'important', I mean people who roll up their sleeves and do the hard work in those communities. I will just mention some of them and provide further reports to this chamber on other occasions. I met Chris Linden from the Vine Inn, Jack Ferrett from the Tanunda Club and Neil Retallick from the Barossa Co-operative. These three institutions are very important to the Barossa community and all of them have a community component to them.

The Barossa Co-op, obviously a co-operative, is one of the oldest and leading co-operatives in this nation. It provides an important service to the valley in terms of providing direct employment for the people in the valley. It also—like the other two institutions I will talk about in a second—actually reinvests in that community through a whole range of grant schemes. The Barossa Co-operative is a key institution based in Nuriootpa but it serves the whole of the Barossa. I was able to meet with the CEO yesterday and have a lengthy discussion about his vision of what he thinks the Barossa Valley could be in the future.

Jack Ferrett is from the Tanunda Club. The Tanunda Club is a community-based club that provides a whole range of opportunities for organisations to have a place to meet and socialise. Importantly, the Tanunda Club reinvests a lot of the profits it makes into those communities, particularly sporting organisations and young people, so I commend the Tanunda Club for their work.

The Vine Inn is one of the oldest institutions in the Barossa Valley and one of the first community hotels and accommodation places and still is a community-based organisation which makes its services available to the community and, again, actually reinvests in the community. I am pleased to say that the whole of shadow cabinet will be visiting the Barossa Valley soon and holding a number of events at the Vine Inn.

On the economic side, I had the pleasure to meet with the CEO of Tourism Barossa, Jon Durdin; the CEO of the Barossa Grape and Wine Association, James March; and the CEO of the Barossa RDA, Anne Moroney. When you talk to these organisations and go through the challenges that businesses and industries, particularly the wine and grape industry and the hospitality industry, have faced because of COVID-19, you can see a community that is extremely resilient. That said, there are people who are hurting at the moment and these organisations are doing their best to support their member base.

Tourism Barossa is looking at new ways to attract new tourists to the town and to ensure that the Barossa brand is a strong and clear brand internationally. That is why they supported a range of planning reforms we undertook in government, which actually protects the Barossa brand. The Barossa RDA works with a number of organisations both in the economic sense and the social sense to make sure that community wellbeing through employment, industry and social services is maintained.

I had the great pleasure to meet three great women of the Barossa as well over the last few weeks: Jan Angas, Margaret Lehmann and Maggie Beer, doyennes of the Barossa. These women have an incredible passion for the Barossa, an incredible understanding of the Barossa and a fantastic vision for the Barossa. I learned so much from sitting down and talking with these three women about where the Barossa has been and where the Barossa could be in the future.

These women, amongst other people, have invested their lives in this region. I would like to thank them for making their limited time available to sit down with me and discuss what the future for the Barossa could be and what role a future Labor government could play and potentially a future Labor member for the area could play.

In terms of community services, I also met with Carers and Disability Link and Lutheran Community Care, and over the next few weeks I will be meeting with others. These organisations provide important and valuable services to the most vulnerable in our community. The Barossa is an extremely wealthy community, but there is also an element of poverty in that community and these three organisations are doing well. I was also able to attend the official opening of Elcies, which is an op shop, but an op shop with a difference in that it is a bit up-market. Funds from this op shop go to support Lutheran Community Care.

It has been a great pleasure to be able to interact with a number of people throughout the Barossa and to understand not only the history but also the future of the Barossa.

Time expired.