Bills

Appropriation Bill 2020

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (15:37): I believe that when I concluded before the adjournment I was about to talk about electric vehicles. Before getting onto that, once again question time had some points of interest, especially the question about energy. I am always interested about questions to do with energy. What can I say but that you are incredibly fortunate as a government that we laid the foundation for these falls in energy prices with our strong commitment to renewables and our strong commitment to storage across a range of different fields.

I remember very clearly all the disparaging remarks from the federal Liberals in relation to the big battery in this state, but the current government had the good sense to see the wisdom of expanding the big battery. We also now have AGL with its commitment to a 250-megawatt battery at Torrens Island. They are great initiatives that clearly demonstrate the direction we are moving in and how out of step the federal government is.

I am not one to have a really strong go at the current government because I think that in a lot of ways this state has an essentially bipartisan policy when it comes to energy, even though some of us do not like to admit it. That is building on the fantastic legacy that we left the incoming Liberal government.

The current government is committed to 100 per cent renewables, and potentially further than that given the potential for hydrogen in this state. In a lot of ways in regard to energy, when it comes to a fall in prices, when it comes to the right direction to pursue, the current government has been kissed on the arse by a rainbow courtesy of the former government.

As I said, I recognise now the significant overlap in direction. I would like to point out though that the initial SIMEC ZEN deal off-take arrangement (it is now ZEN) was also a Labor government initiative. I would say that the $60 million commitment to energy efficiency when it comes to government buildings is a worthwhile initiative. However, it should be really concerning as a nation as a whole that, as a country, we have essentially dropped the ball when it comes to energy efficiency, if we ever had it in our hands in the first place.

We lag behind a lot of other countries. When you look at some of the things that need to be done, the stuff that needs to be agreed to on a national basis through COAG in terms of some of the energy efficiency measures, we end up as a state, as have other states, pursuing a lowest common denominator approach.

Before the adjournment I was speaking about electric vehicles, and as someone from the country I probably have a particular perspective when it comes to electric vehicles. I do believe they are going be the future, and possibly there is going to be a contribution from hydrogen as well when it comes to our transport sector, and that future will come with greater speed as the capital costs of the vehicles decrease and as the range increases.

All of that is going to happen, and the beauty for this state with electric vehicles is that it will break that nexus, that dependence that we have on overseas oil. We see in this country that refineries are closing. Another one is about to close at Kwinana in Western Australia because it cannot compete when it comes to economies of scale.

The thing about importing fuel is that we pay world parity pricing, and as a country member I watch those fuel prices go up very quickly and come down very slowly. Prices sometimes go up to $1.50 a litre, so when we move to electric vehicles the recurrent costs of having an electric vehicle will be significantly less than the cost of maintaining and running an internal combustion engine.

At the moment the policy position of the government leaves a lot to be desired, notwithstanding some relatively minor commitment to put in place some infrastructure. The announcement about a tax on electric vehicles, both a distance-related one and a fixed charge one, is not the way to go when you are starting at a very low base level when it comes to the penetration of electric vehicles in this state.

We should possibly be looking at taxation regimes nationally down the track when there is far greater penetration, but at the moment to put in place what is essentially a disincentive for the uptake of electric vehicles is not the way to go. At this stage we should be ensuring that we put in place incentives because, in the long run, as electric vehicles do penetrate, it is going to deliver a far cheaper form of transportation for the bulk of the Australian people and people here in South Australia compared with the current conventional approach to vehicle transportation.

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:43): As the grandmother of the house I can definitely say this is a state budget with big numbers and lots of zeros that I never expected to see. I have listened to lots of appropriation speeches over the years, in opposition and in government, and heard many where only the best bits or only the worst bits of a budget are discussed.

I want to take a broad view and make some observations on the impacts, especially for the people of Florey. It is a record-setting budget for debt and deficit delivered at a time when the mantra of debt and deficit has been used as a potent weapon for decades. It is a budget delivered at a time when a pandemic recession, just as in the 2007-08 global financial crisis before it, has made people vulnerable and life and times so volatile.

Who would have thought we would ever see a South Australian Treasurer delivering a $2.9 billion deficit and state debt exceeding $33 billion? Budgets always seem to lead to pea and thimble scenarios, so we must all hope this budget delivers on at least some of its stated aims. It is true there are few options and economic stimulus is the only responsible choice, so the best way to judge the merits of this budget is not at the macro level but in the detail of what projects and initiatives economic stimulus is delivered and directed toward.

When we compare this projected economic stimulus with actual expenditure in last year's budget, a picture emerges showing a heavy bias in favour of significantly increased business and industry support, while increased boosts to operating expenditure on education, community health, old age and transport have already been wound back.

Put simply, the various new announcements in this budget disguise underlying cutbacks to what many would say is essential spending on services. In short, the underlying mindset of this budget seems grounded in old habits, and I worry what it will mean if there are cuts to essential services for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in the community while there is political cover to do so. I can only hope I will be proven wrong, because the one thing we should be doing right now is looking at a fiscal reset, not just stimulus to business as usual.

Like all South Australians, I hope we will have the strength and resolve to be able to withstand the new COVID wave and continuing global shocks. Frankly, for many of my constituents in the north-east, business as usual can never be considered good enough anyway.

Does this budget take timing into consideration—the timing, merit and readiness of the big spending projects? It could prompt some of the more cynical political observers to think the happy coincidence of big spending mid-COVID is great for those merely having a keen eye on the election cycle. What awaits us in the future is really in the realm of crystal ball gazing. We are told and have to accept that the level of this economic stimulus is temporary because the economy will bounce back. That is a promise we have heard before and perhaps more so than ever it is a high-stakes rationale.

South Australia can and will recover, but the length and ease or otherwise of the path of recovery will depend on the choices made now. We should be honest, especially in this place, with ourselves and with our community about how hard this recovery will be, even if, as we have seen reported in the media recently, an efficacious vaccine is widely available to Australians in the new year. I note the federal budget's economic projections on which this budget relies depends on this happening.

We know from past recessions that the effects of unemployment are long lasting, and we also know the ongoing global impacts of this pandemic will not be neatly concluded because a viable vaccine becomes available. This virus will likely be with the population of this planet for some time and its disruptive effects will remain a threat to the global economy—history repeating itself—just as it did with the flu pandemic after the First World War.

When I spoke during the Address in Reply debate earlier this year, I spoke of the sense of frustration and disappointment so many people I meet express about our political system. I spoke about the need for this parliament to live up to the expectations South Australians have of us, the need to lift the standard of debate and open up our minds to new ideas and new thinking wherever those ideas or thoughts may originate. At that stage, COVID-19 was still a flickering concern to the north of us in Asia, and the summer of catastrophic bushfires was not yet over.

Since then, 2020 has turned out to be a year many of us will be very glad to see behind us, just as 2019 was before it. As the extent of the threat COVID-19 posed to Australia became clear, we have seen the best and worst of our political system on display. We have seen governments come together and rise above partisan politics, working hard and harmoniously through the national cabinet process, which is an example perhaps of how our federal constitutional mechanisms could work better.

We have also seen policies and programs rolled out with great speed at all levels of government and with the cooperation of business, unions and NGOs to lift up unemployment benefits, house rough sleepers, provide small business support, legislate rent relief, promote hygiene practices and social distancing, establish quarantine protocols and deliver widespread virus testing. Thank you and well done to all staff involved in preparing this national and state response and to the frontline workers who continue to deliver it.

But we have also seen political pointscoring and partisanship at its worst, here in parts of Australia and internationally, exemplified by the continuing chaos of the pandemic response of the United States in particular, and echoed locally by the blame game and buck passing between federal and state governments. It is a sad reflection on the state of our democracy that, despite the grave need to lift our standards, our political leaders were unable to maintain the united front that the nation deserves.

Even before the pandemic hit here, our domestic situation and society were facing grave economic challenges. With constant demands on the everyday cost of living, household budgets were under pressure, wages were flatlining and jobs were scarce. In the wake of this pandemic's recession, unemployment and underemployment have become an even greater concern for my community in the north-east. Unemployment, which at the last census stood at 8.9 per cent in the electorate of Florey, has risen steeply since, and I fear the consequences, even if the situation does not deteriorate any further.

We now face the dilemma in the community of encouraging people to access food parcels so that they have money to pay the costs of accommodation and other essentials, particularly now that the JobSeeker payment continues to plummet back to the levels of the dark old days. I worry we could end up winding back to the state-sanctioned enforced poverty levels that no-one could live on for very long without dire consequences.

That is why I will continue to pursue the important agenda I outlined at the outset of this year's sittings: to work on the cost of living, to protect and sustain local services and to make sure the north-east gets its fair share of funding for new services and improvements to existing services—building a better north-east, a project close to the heart of my constituents. As part of this agenda, I also want to build on community actions, such as the success in blocking the mooted closure of the Modbury Service SA office, particularly because of the impact this loss of service would have had on those on the wrong side of the digital advance—and the digital advance is a topic I want to expand on shortly.

Like many South Australians, the people of the north-east are patient but they have long memories. After constant cuts and underinvestment in their communities, they have little trust left in governments or political parties of any persuasion who promise the world so many times but invariably deliver considerably less. They are unlikely to have much faith in this budget unless they see proof and outcomes in their daily lives.

Sadly, while this budget is big and touts big numbers, it barely scrapes the surface when it comes to reversing damage done after decades of cutbacks, penny pinching, privatisation, underinvestment, underemployment and a lack of job security, which has been the legacy of various governments—damage which has left fundamental weaknesses in our social fabric and which this pandemic recession is now exposing. It is, though, an important start and must be backed up by results on the ground, particularly in the local north-east communities I represent.

The funding initiatives to allow schools to get on with maintenance backlogs are very welcome, but they only go part of the way to address glaring issues. For instance, I have toured public schools with broken machines and equipment from the sixties, decommissioned but still on site because it is too expensive not only to replace them but to even have them removed.

The untied maintenance grants of between $20,000 and $100,000 for each public school will in some cases do a lot, but will leave a lot left to do in others. I must say here how grateful I am for the voluntary work of governing councils at our schools and childcare centres in leadership and planning at their sites. Much more needs to be done to address the residualisation of public schools and the undermining of a public TAFE sector, both of which will be vital to the training and retraining of workers as we recover from this global crisis.

I have already made representations and spoken to the Minister for Education about the multitude of issues which schools in the north-east experience. I know he cares, and I hope to see improvements going well beyond what this budget contains so parents can have confidence in a bright future for their children.

A crucial issue for the people of the north-east is housing affordability, housing inequality and housing insecurity. While the $75 million housing stimulus measures are very welcome, they effectively target moderate-income households and are unlikely to help those on very low incomes. This is exactly why we need to dramatically boost the role of the Housing Trust.

Similarly, ongoing initiatives for rough sleepers are modest and do not match the scale of homelessness. The response to provide emergency accommodation during the initial phase of COVID-19 showed we can deal with homelessness and that a zero target is achievable and vital. I want to acknowledge the great work of SACOSS and thank them, the Adelaide Zero Project and the Australian Alliance to End Homelessness for their continuing advocacy. They have all shown we can do this, and this pandemic has shown that we must.

We need to do much more to improve the public and social housing supply and housing diversity so that people at all stages of life can find a home that suits their needs and their income. This budget could but does not do more to tackle endemic levels of housing disadvantage, inequality and insecurity for young people and seniors as they age, and it fails the test when it comes to tackling our growing public housing backlog.

It is well beyond time for this state to return to the Playford vision of affordable housing as a driver of business investment and jobs growth, but the Housing Trust has been reduced to a shell of its former self and nothing in this budget instils confidence that this long-term declining trend embraced by all recent governments will be reversed. For so many people in the north-east and beyond, this is a desperately important public policy imperative that remains unmet.

In a recession which has been widely recognised for its disproportionate impacts on women and young people who are the most likely to be in insecure work after decades of casualisation and labour market deregulation, there is little in this budget to create jobs and inspire confidence in them. Just saying we are creating jobs does not make it so. There are so many variances to take into account. 'Jobs, jobs, jobs' is another one of those three-word slogans—they sound good but what do they actually mean or achieve?

The government's gamble on a tradie-led recovery will certainly offer work in one particular sector and plenty of high-vis photo ops, but whether the trickle-down effect will help those in highly feminised industries, such as health care, childcare, aged care and disability care services, or youth-dominated sectors, such as hospitality and tourism, is yet to be seen.

ABS Labour Force data for September 2020 shows the impact of this recession on the South Australian workforce, particularly on women and young people. At one point in June, the female unemployment rate was 9.2 per cent compared with 8.5 per cent for men. While the statistics seem to indicate a recovery in some female jobs, the old problems of insecure casualised work remain.

More generally, while we have seen a welcome return of jobs over recent months as lockdown measures have been lifted, South Australia's unemployment profile remains weak. At 58 per cent, our employment to population ratio, seasonally adjusted, is the lowest of any jurisdiction bar Tasmania—even lower than Victoria, which is still coming out of lockdown—while at 11.1 per cent our seasonally adjusted underemployment rate is the highest of any state bar Victoria, which, again, is still recovering from its lockdown. Of course, headline unemployment at 7.1 per cent is an improvement to be welcomed, but with a labour force participation rate of just 62 per cent—again, just over Tasmania's—we know real levels of unemployment are much higher.

In short, we must recognise South Australia continues to have a relatively fragile economy, and by moving so strongly to support traditional male dominated industries this budget has missed an opportunity for a reset. For so many who have lost their jobs or their businesses in Florey, or are about to, this budget does not do enough fast enough.

One of the many weaknesses in our social fabric this pandemic has highlighted is the digital divide. For many years, the shift to online delivery for information services and cashless digital transactions has come at the expense of those without digital capacity or resources. The Australian Digital Inclusion Index, prepared by RMIT and Swinburne University, paints the wider picture. Measuring a range of factors, South Australia lags behind the national average in many parts of the state, including regional communities, and in the lower income suburbs of the metropolitan area digital inclusion falls even lower.

COVID-19 has made the digital divide even more stark for the most vulnerable in our community, those who have limited financial means, little or no family or other support, or simply have a hard time navigating technology. This has been a concern for many years for SACOSS, Jane Musared at COTA and Ian Henschke in his national role as spokesperson for National Seniors. Once again, this budget has missed an opportunity.

The $120 million Digital Restart Fund, while marketed as a tool to promote digital inclusion, in fact does very little. It is largely a program designed to help government agencies put data and information online, but it does little to help the digitally disadvantaged in our community from building their digital capacity.

In our most disadvantaged schools, not all families can even afford to purchase books let alone a laptop or decent home internet. This is also a reality for many workers whose lack of affordable digital access means working from home is not really an option. In health, while governments have at last fast-tracked telehealth options, the benefits are unavailable to those who lack affordable digital access or capacity, and going to your local library for these personal services is simply not a solution. We need a digital inclusion strategy for our state, perhaps even digital inclusion legislation. Sadly, this is not something which is even on the radar of this budget, but we all live in hope it will appear some time soon.

This budget fails to recognise decades of privatisation, outsourcing and asset stripping of the public sector by all sides, meaning we are left with a depleted capacity to respond and rebuild in the wake of this global crisis. Frank and full advice is either not available or not sought. That said, there are a number of commendable initiatives in this budget: the rollout of new money to support shovel-ready local infrastructure programs, new money to support community and sporting clubs and new money to support schools, apprenticeships and small business. Upgrades to Hindmarsh Stadium, Memorial Drive tennis centre and the Aboriginal culture gallery and the upgrade of storage facilities for the state's valuable collections are wonderful but show a bias towards particular types of sporting and cultural activities.

Where is the investment to help preserve one of the few remaining medium theatres, the Royalty Theatre? The Royalty Theatre has a dual role in that it supports the state's vibrant calisthenics community, a girls' sport that, along with netball, is a major participation sport. And, I might say, funding to support the Aboriginal cultures gallery, while welcome, will have most value if it is matched by funding needed to sustain Aboriginal culture and redress the disadvantage and dispossession persisting today.

As we see so often, this budget has a collection of reannouncements and refashioned ideas, many pushed off into the distance and too few to overcome the valley of death so many in industry have warned about, pointed to and say is already here.

Reannouncements, such as the Modbury Hospital upgrade, is welcome of course, but I would have preferred the upgrade was completed without acute services being removed and seeing public operating lists outsourced to private hospitals. A recent report in The Advertiser I am yet to fully investigate advises surgery at the Women's and Children's Hospital is also being done at private hospitals. This is a very worrying trend.

It worries me, like so many others in the north-east, that things in health are not as they seem or should be and not happening in the way we expect. Our healthcare workers and paramedics do an amazing and fabulous job but cannot deliver with one hand tied behind their backs.

The standout example of the reannouncements is the north-south corridor, a project which seems to go on and on without end—quite literally. I look at the north-south corridor project and I shudder to think of the disruption and dislocation it will produce.

While the government has made a virtue of the fact its revised model will reduce the number of properties to be compulsorily acquired, the experiences of the 90 householders along Portrush Road, including one couple who had the guts to stand up for their rights, is a salutary reminder that compulsory acquisition is not a pleasant process and the government does not ensure the department responsible acts in a model and conscionable way. This must change. I will talk more about transport in communities in the grievance debate to follow.

Speaking of communities, I would like to mention the importance of volunteers in our communities, particularly the cohort of mostly older men and women making up service clubs, and the value of their unpaid work. Service clubs, such as the wonderful members of the Modbury Kiwanis, have provided many opportunities and services for decades and their demise should be the subject of an inquiry.

I know volunteers do not necessarily want to be remunerated, but their out-of-pocket expenses are growing and sometimes mean they have to re-evaluate the level of their contributions. As more and more older workers are unable to find paid work and are directed to volunteering, this does need to be rethought.

This budget does indeed represent a turning point in the history of our state, but it could end up being a missed opportunity to reset and reprioritise the terms and debate around agendas of our state and political debate. In so many ways, it feels like a budget grounded in economic forecasts that do not seem to meaningfully reflect the reality of people struggling in communities in electorates across our state.

Sound bites using words recently entered into modern jargon—words like 'snap-back' and 'pivot'—will not help the over 55s or young workers who have never had a job and have no likelihood of getting the full-time employment they need to establish themselves at the beginning of their lives or the huge over-representation of Indigenous people in unemployment queues.

Sadly, for my constituents in the north-east, there is not much difference in this budget from the many before it. There is little that instils long-term confidence or inspires hope—in short, little to deliver long-term change in their lives. They see real-time fuel pricing delayed and, unfortunately, those who are victims of crime re-victimised as the service they came to rely on remains poorly serviced while levy increases are used to offset the balance sheet elsewhere.

There are definitely some good initiatives I hope to pursue with the government, particularly initiatives suggested from the work already done with the Better North East project, knowing trust in any of the promises made is difficult until we see evidence on the ground. One such case, being the $20 million redevelopment at Valley View Secondary School, is still waiting to get off the ground.

We have been told the trickle-down economy will one day work so many times now no wonder the people of the north-east are cynical until it is proven. I can only hope, as delivery of some of the unallocated stimulus funds unfolds, evidence will emerge while we wait for the longer term implications to take root.

Bill read a second time.

Estimates Committees

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (16:04): I move:

That this bill be referred to estimates committees.

Motion carried.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: By leave, I move:

That a message be sent to the Legislative Council requesting that the Treasurer (Hon. I.R. Lucas), the Minister for Human Services (Hon. J.M.A. Lensink) and the Minister for Health and Wellbeing (Hon. S.G. Wade), members of the Legislative Council, be permitted to attend and give evidence before the estimates committees of the House of Assembly on the Appropriation Bill.

Motion carried.

Appropriation Grievances

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (16:04): I move:

That the house note grievances.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (16:05): In my contribution to grievances, I would like to add some more comments to what I started last sitting week in relation to the general state of the Barossa area and also report on feedback I have received from people in the Barossa, particularly through the shadow country cabinet held recently. When I last spoke on this matter, I was going through and providing information to the house about the presentations given to the shadow country cabinet by a range of business and community organisations.

One of those was the Krondorf Road Cellars Alliance. The speaker on behalf of the alliance was Jess Greatwich from Krondorf Creek Farm. Jess talked about the alliance, which is a newly formed local business association of cellar doors along Krondorf Road. I have also now been invited to undertake a cultural and historical walk, to be hosted by Jess, regarding the history of Krondorf. I understand that by undertaking this walk I will get a better understanding of not only the culture and history of Krondorf but also the soul of Krondorf, if you like. I am looking forward to undertaking that tour.

Jess is also one of a number of people who have raised with me the importance of finding out more about the traditional Indigenous owners of the land, the Peramangk people, and their history. Unfortunately, their history is not well documented. Certainly, a growing body of research is being undertaken, which needs to be brought together to paint a fuller picture of the Peramangk people and their association with the land and country there.

One of the other speakers at the presentation to the shadow country cabinet was Mr Simon Taylor, who was at that point in time still the chair of the Southern Barossa Alliance. The Southern Barossa Alliance is an important voice for the Barossa, particularly the southern parts. It encompasses the area of the old District Council of Barossa before the mergers took place, I think in about 1999, to form the new Barossa Council.

The Southern Barossa Alliance provides a voice for that part of the region. It also ensures that people understand that the southern Barossa is still part of the Barossa, trying to educate the community about the important role the southern Barossa area plays. The alliance is quite a unique organisation and is an umbrella group, if you like, for a number of community and business organisations. It provides leadership to those organisations and has a very important role in facilitating ongoing dialogue between them. More importantly, it advocates on their behalf.

I was very pleased to be able to attend recently a business networking function at Barossa Helicopters, which is owned by the Kies family, and a number of local small businesses networked to promote the importance of businesses in the southern Barossa area. One of the issues that has been outlined is that, since the opening of Gomersal Road and the upgrade of Sturt Highway, the number of tourists going to the southern Barossa area has reduced, and they are trying to rectify that. That is an important matter that I think needs attention.

One of the other groups that made a presentation to the shadow cabinet was the Tanunda Business Group, with the chair, Shelley Cox, and Tania Shirgwin. This newly formed Tanunda Business Group aims to support the 'brand Barossa' vision and act as a facilitator and lobbying group to help grow businesses in the town of Tanunda.

They have put together a listing of every business in Tanunda—there are approximately 235 businesses at this time—and they undertake ongoing surveys with the business community to make sure that they have a full understanding of how they can support the small business community in Tanunda.

One of the findings of their recent survey is very interesting: they found that around 75 per cent of small businesses in Tanunda did not receive any rent relief from their landlords during the first COVID-19 shutdown period. You may recall that the Barossa was also a hotspot for a little period of time, so those businesses in that area were particularly heavily hit, particularly around hospitality and retail generally. That is an interesting fact: even though the provision was made for rent relief, it did not always occur.

Business owners have also indicated they would like to see improvements to the main street, including street signage, car parking, more planter boxes and benches. Tanunda is a very attractive town with a very attractive main street, but what the businesses are trying to do is just improve it a bit more and attract more tourists and visitors to the area.

We also had presentations from Mr Neil Retallick, the Managing Director of the Barossa Co-op. He proposed that there should be a Barossa Valley exhibition to celebrate the history of the Barossa Valley from the time before European settlement and to learn about the Indigenous people, the arrival of the first settlers from England, Scotland and Germany, and to also get a better understanding of their farming techniques and how they came to grow grapes in the region, which is now the leading producer of shiraz in the world. The idea of this exhibition would be to reinforce the brand of the Barossa.

Just as an aside, the Barossa Co-op is Australia's largest and longest standing retail cooperative. It started in 1944 as a general store, selling a range of goods and services from a single store in the main street of Nuriootpa. It is now a hub of nine retail businesses, including food, home retailing, Mitre 10, Foodland, Betta Home Living, Toyworld, Sportspower, etc. It employs over 300 people and makes a contribution of $16 million to wages in the region.

At 30 June 2020, it had 21,181 members, with a total share capital of more than $4 million. It is also a very community-minded group, and in the past 12 months it has handed out over $108,000 to local community organisations. One of the good things about the cooperatives and a number of community clubs in the Barossa is that they actually reinvest a lot of the profits they make into those communities.

Neil is also a board member of Foundation Barossa. Since 2002, Foundation Barossa has informed and engaged the broader community about the benefits of community giving. The foundation supports young Barossans who have a barrier, whether it be physical, financial, cultural or any other sort of barrier, to access education. They value the importance of education by supporting these young people through secondary and tertiary education.

They also support arts, cultural and educational pursuits, contributing to a healthy community. The total funds invested are just under $2 million. One of the tasks they have now taken upon themselves is to support families and people who are homeless and sleeping rough in the community. They are now undertaking quite a bit of fundraising to assist with that program.

One of the last presentations was by Mr Lyndon Stoll, the chair, and Councillor Kathryn Schilling, board member of Nuri Futures. Nuri Futures is actually the business and town committee for Nuriootpa, and it works in partnership with business, community and government for the long-term economic and community development of the Nuriootpa town centre.

The group has done a tremendous job managing the historic property Coulthard House, which now hosts community events in the grounds of the home built in 1854 by William Coulthard, who tragically died before it was completed. While Coulthard House and its surrounds are owned by the committee, it is designed to be a community space. People can hold conferences there and use the gardens for weddings and other functions, and it is a major asset for the Nuriootpa community.

One thing I have noticed is that residents of the Barossa are very keen to be an inclusive society, so we need to make sure that government policies support inclusion and do not exclude people by having policies that act against people being able to participate in society.

Time expired.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (16:15): With the passage of this year's budget, and given that last week was NAIDOC Week, I thought that this would be a useful time to reflect on the Marshall Liberal government's Aboriginal Education Strategy, which of course attracts significant investment out of our annual budget, and give the house an update on some of the matters within the Aboriginal Education Strategy.

There have been some very special events in the past few days which I have been pleased to participate in or at which I have been represented by other members of the government. These have reflected on achievements of some of our Aboriginal learners and the opportunities now available to them. I also want to touch base on those matters.

We launched the Aboriginal Education Strategy in December 2018 at Le Fevre High School, if memory serves me well. Professor Peter Buckskin, who was one of the co-chairs, along with the department's chief executive, Mr Rick Persse, and the advisory committee put together this strategy. They were supported by a range of Aboriginal educational leaders, such as Professor Lester-Irabinna Rigney, April Lawrie (now Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People) and a number of others—Chris Matthews jumps out at me.

Professor Peter Buckskin described one of the key challenges we have as a state and as a community as not just preparing our children for school, as we have always put some effort into, but preparing our schools for the children coming in. It is particularly important for our Aboriginal learners that we have an understanding of their cultural needs and an understanding of some of the reasons we see a disparity in outcome in educational achievement.

Our ambition is intentionally very bold here. We have an ambition to lift educational achievement so that there is no deficit in this space and that we close that gap. It is a bold ambition. I honestly think that we are making great strides forward. There is a long way to go, but I know that every member of this house will support the ambition being put here. We will also work not just on that large vision and ambition but on achievable policies, which we are undertaking every day, every week and every month of every year.

The Aboriginal Education Strategy has three particular aspects: firstly, Aboriginal children developing foundations for success in the early years; secondly, Aboriginal children and young people excelling at school; and, thirdly, Aboriginal young people being on pathways to success. On the third aspect in particular, I will probably spend a bit more time also reflecting on the connection between our strategy for connecting students across our school system into pathways through reforms to vocational education and training.

We are making sure that we are setting young people up for success and giving them the skills and opportunities they need, whether it is a contract of training or a VET pathway into an area where there is definitely going to be a job at the end of it. This is supported by strong career counselling that will ensure that they go into any of these VET pathways or VET programs with a strong understanding of what job opportunities there are at the end of it.

It is worth noting that in this year's budget there is an $86 million commitment to a new storage facility for our cultural collections. An enormous part of that is Aboriginal cultural heritage that has been bequeathed to or collected by the South Australian Museum and the Art Gallery. The current storage facility is such that four years ago we saw rain damage to priceless Aboriginal artefacts. We saw damage when there was a break-in at the storage facility, the temporary storage facility that we have had for decades. We saw damage when there was a break-in that set off the sprinkler system.

Our Aboriginal South Australians deserved much better then and they have deserved much better for a long time. In this budget, we have an $86 million commitment to build a purpose-built, world-class facility to support that and the new Aboriginal cultures gallery. All of these cultural facilities will, of course, benefit from an enhanced Aboriginal workforce.

It was a great pleasure yesterday to be able to join Douglas Gautier from the Festival Centre at the South Australian Museum, led of course by Brian Oldman, and Richard Ryan from the Bridging the Gap Foundation to launch a new traineeship for Aboriginal young learners to get a two-year traineeship in cultural work. The Festival Centre and the Museum are going to be taking on trainees. The point I made then is that I hope this program will expand because there are going to be many jobs for Aboriginal young South Australians in these cultural areas.

But I digress. I want to start with the literacy and numeracy aspect, which is so important for all learners. We have departmental project officers working directly with leaders and staff in 372 schools and preschools, which is particularly important for Aboriginal students with regard to the Aboriginal team in learning improvement.

Yesterday, I was told about the sort of work project officers are doing with the Port Augusta West Primary School, where they are working intensely with the Aboriginal education teacher to co-plan and co-design whole school staff development in reading based on the school assessment data. It is worth noting that the percentage of Aboriginal year 1 students who met or exceeded the expected phonics check achievement increased by 11 percentage points this year, which is great news. There is still more to go, but it is great to see that achievement. Across the two years of the check, Aboriginal learners have increased their outcomes by greater than the state average.

The Aboriginal Learner Achievement Resource has been developed to support school leaders in raising achievement in literacy and numeracy for all Aboriginal learners. A key focus of the implementation has been upskilling the Aboriginal workforce to engage families in the literacy and numeracy learning of their child to better understand their role in literacy and numeracy improvement. For example, schools within the Berri portfolio are actively working to improve learner achievement by tracking and monitoring student progress and improving the collection and use of data to inform planning and learning.

In regard to strengthening language and literacy, online personalised learning plans for Aboriginal students were launched in June this year. Staff have worked with schools to develop culturally responsive resources and promote the importance of the plan to support ongoing growth and achievement. More than two-thirds—indeed 70 per cent—of our Aboriginal learners now have an online learning plan.

Aboriginal community language and cultural partnerships have resulted in funds being distributed to five Aboriginal language organisations and an Aboriginal RTO to support continued community-led work in the Adnyamathanha, Bunganditj, Kaurna, Narungga and Ngarrindjeri languages, including developing language-specific content for the framework for Aboriginal languages and Torres Strait Islander languages and certificate courses in Aboriginal languages.

Aboriginal languages program initiatives have resulted in a steady growth in numbers of students studying Aboriginal languages in South Australian government schools since the implementation of the strategy. It increased to 4,700 students in 2019, 5,100 students in 2020 and we are on track for 5,900 students next year, which is great news.

In relation to science, the rollout of the Aboriginal Contexts in Science initiative has meant that the scientific practices of South Australian Aboriginal nations are being brought into the classroom for the first time. Starting with the Kaurna, Ngarrindjeri and Narungga nations, local science teachers are working with Aboriginal communities, the department, the South Australian Museum and ACARA to demonstrate the connections between Aboriginal science knowledge and ways of knowing with core science concepts in the Australian Curriculum. Currently, 17 teachers from 11 schools are working and focused on delivering this.

The Dame Roma Mitchell Scholarships continue and have been underway for a number of years. I commend the work that the former government did prior to our original learning strategy, but it continues to grow to 393 across all schools in the state. I congratulate two students who graduated in 2019. In May this year, they were recipients of the Dame Roma Mitchell Scholarship and received the Chief Executive's Reconciliation Award for achieving the highest ATAR among the state's Aboriginal students. They are Rachel Greenwood from Seaview High School and Akaysha Hill from Adelaide High School and I cannot wait to see what they achieve in the years ahead.

The Workabout program has been expanded to ensure that Aboriginal students can utilise their skills to successfully move from study to employment, training and further education. In Port Lincoln, for example, Workabout now has 10 Aboriginal students who have gained employment this year.

The South Australian Aboriginal Secondary Training Academy (SAASTA) has been expanded, and on Friday it was great to do the first graduation of the partnership between SAASTA and Carey Training. About a dozen students have done that cert II in building. Some of them now have an apprenticeship, some of them are about to get tapped on the shoulder to start an apprenticeship and all of them will have a head start in the building industry.

The Clontarf Foundation is a program that has been introduced by this government in Port Lincoln, Whyalla, Port Augusta and at Ocean View College, and indeed it has seen significant and dramatic improvements in attendance at all those sites. All the principals, even those who were not completely sold on the concept to start with, love it, because they are seeing improved attendance and genuine job outcomes.

I also want to commend the team and the department for their work to build an Aboriginal workforce plan and culturally responsive framework that is responding to the needs of our Aboriginal staff and looking to grow it and value their efforts and value their knowledge, and we will continue to support the Aboriginal learning strategy. Our Aboriginal learners deserve nothing but the best opportunities to succeed in life, and I know that every member of this parliament would support that goal.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (16:25): The budget came out last week, and while a massive debt was announced unfortunately there were very few job opportunities in the local area that I represent, particularly jobs that are ready to go right now. The fault there has to be sheeted home to this government because there are projects like the duplication of Main South Road from Sellicks through to Seaford that were announced as far back as 2017 in our final Labor budget.

The duplication was funded to go ahead, and here we are more than three years later and still no work has begun. In fact, the land has not even been bought for this project to go ahead. When we have Premier Marshall out there saying, 'This is all about jobs, jobs, jobs,' what have these people been doing for the past two almost three years they have been in government? Absolutely zilch!

The people of South Australia deserve better, because we are facing some extraordinarily hard times at the moment with the job losses and the business losses that we have seen since COVID-19 hit South Australia and the world earlier this year. At the moment, of course, we have a new cluster—the Parafield Gardens cluster—and I wish everyone all the very best in terms of fast action, quick action, to close down this cluster.

I want to commend the people of South Australia who have done a terrific job, being tested in record numbers, Professor Spurrier, the police commissioner, the government and the opposition. I think that everyone has got in and worked really hard to make sure that, if there is any possibility of minimising the spread of this latest cluster, no stone will be left unturned.

There are many things that we as a community can do to stop the spread of COVID-19. It has been a little bit disturbing in recent months to see the complacency that has crept into our community. One of the areas that makes it really easy for the transmission of this COVID-19—and let's remember it does not get around on its own: it can be spread only by human beings—is by people shaking hands and hugging.

Since March this year I have not shaken anyone's hand. That goes against every instinct in my body. I love shaking hands normally, but do you know what I love more than shaking hands? I love my 79-year-old mother who is in a nursing home. I have not hugged my mother since March this year because we have to do the right thing and protect those vulnerable people in our community.

You know what else I love more than shaking hands? I love the people I represent, particularly those vulnerable people. One thing that makes it hard to continue to not shake hands is not just the instinct that that is what we have done all our lives, but it is the ridicule that you get when you do not do it. It is the laughter. It is sometimes the anger. I had a woman in my electorate office last week really have a crack at me because I would not shake her hand. She said, 'COVID doesn't exist. We don't have any COVID here.' I said, 'Well, we do. It's in our hotels.'

It could get out. We hope it does not, but it could get out, and if we minimise the risk and change our behaviours accordingly it means that our friends and our family members who have jobs, particularly in the hospitality industry—the hotels, the restaurants and the cafes—have a better chance of staying open if we all take actions that will help prevent the spread of COVID-19. There are some things that inexplicably we cannot stop, but there are behaviours that we can modify and change to better the opportunities.

I apologise to those people who are upset with me that I have not shaken their hands since March. On Friday night, when I was on the island, the Mayor of Kangaroo Island said, 'We shake hands here on Kangaroo Island.' Well, you know what happened on Kangaroo Island before Easter? We were trying to close Kangaroo Island down because it has one ventilator on the island, it has a really vulnerable population and I could not go there for seven or eight weeks as the local MP because I did not want to risk taking COVID-19 over there.

We all have to be a little bit sensible. This is not some sort of macho, 'I'm going to go around and shake everyone's hand really hard,' type of thing. This is something we need to do to make sure that we can try to keep our fellow South Australians safe. I hope that we can get on top of this latest outbreak. I think we all have to follow the advice of the police commissioner, of Professor Spurrier and of the government because everyone is working as hard as they possibly can.

There are things that need to be done at the level of the authorities and the government, but there are other things that we can all do as community members to keep our community safe and to keep our loved ones safe so that we can continue to go to cafes and restaurants, we can continue to go and visit our loved ones in nursing homes and we can get back to going to funerals, weddings and church services because these are important things. We just need to work out how we go about it.

There are some other measures that possibly could be taken, too, if we look interstate at things they have done there. We have been exemplars in South Australia in many ways, but I was in Queensland a month ago and at every cafe and every bar I went into I had to scan a QR code, my phone automatically filled in my details—it took only a few seconds—and then when I left I checked out. It makes it really easy to trace who has been in a certain place at a certain time. I am not sure whether that could be looked at here as well, but we probably need to be looking at every other jurisdiction to ensure that we have the best possible things.

I know there are some people on talkback radio who are worried that the QR code is going to give away all their secrets and stuff like that. I do not think it is a great secret if you go to the pub on a Thursday night, or a cafe on a Tuesday morning, or a restaurant over the weekend. We have to get serious about this, don't we, and say that for the greater good we sometimes have to give away information that really is not exactly classified. I hope that we can take on some of these measures.

For example, I went to The Triffid concert venue to see Ball Park Music. Not only did they have the QR code you scanned to go in but they had cabaret-style seating as well. You sat around tables of four, six or eight and you had to make a booking, and I was there with family members. Not only did the QR code get you into The Triffid but there were two QR codes on the table, and one was for your drinks. You scanned your QR code and on you phone came up Shaw and Smith savvy blanc, a jug of beer, some Pirate Life cans of beer. You ordered all your drinks on your phone and they brought a tray over to your table so there was no gathering around the bar, being in lines, touching strangers; it was all brought to you.

There was another QR code to buy your merch, so at Ball Park Music I bought a yo-yo, a couple of caps and a couple of T-shirts for Christmas presents. I hope none of the rellies are watching because they might be getting a bit of Ball Park Music merch for Christmas. This is the sort of innovation we have seen come out of this pandemic. It is well worth our having a look at that—whether it is as a whole, as a government, or just as individual cafes, restaurants and pubs—because we need to do everything we possibly can to keep businesses going, to keep people employed and to keep people safe.

I congratulate Professor Spurrier, the police commissioner and all those hardworking health professionals who are out there doing all this testing, around the clock almost, and those in the labs who are analysing those tests. I also congratulate and thank those security guards and everyone else working in these quarantine hotels. They have been under an enormous amount of stress. Their families have had their lives turned upside down by all of this as well, and we wish them all the very best.

I hope that we can shut down this latest cluster as soon as possible so that we can get back to where we were just over a week ago here in South Australia, enjoying some of the best lifestyle of anywhere in the world. We have done a really good job here since the beginning of the year when COVID first appeared in South Australia, and it would be nice to get this under control so that we can get back to the lifestyle we were enjoying up until a week or so ago.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm pleased to hear that yo-yos are back, member for Mawson.

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (16:35): There is no doubt that the Marshall Liberal government's 2020 state budget is one of the most important budgets in our state's history. We are living through what we hope is a once in a generation pandemic, and it has been a challenge for all South Australians. This budget shows that the Marshall Liberal government is acting and that we are creating jobs, backing business and building what matters through a record $16.7 billion infrastructure spend and $4 billion in stimulus.

While COVID has challenged us, it has not beaten us. We have together stared down the greatest health and economic challenge of our time, and we are tackling it and getting through it in true South Australian spirit. The government has acted swiftly and decisively to keep South Australians safe and our economy strong. We are doing everything in our power to ensure as many local jobs as possible survive through this economic challenge, and that is exactly what this budget aims to address.

On the creating jobs front, one of the things that stood out for me from this budget is the investment in significant job-creating stimulus programs. We will see steelcaps, hard hats, high-vis and overalls sported all over the state thanks to $4 billion in economic stimulus with programs that include job-creating infrastructure, business tax relief and up-front cash payments. The $851 million tradies package is a pipeline of work for tradies over the next two years. The $88 million skills package is focused on reskilling, upskilling, jobs for school leavers and skilling workers with businesses, all done in partnership with the federal government.

We are backing business to sustain employment, our government is backing local businesses and we are continuing to deliver significant cost-of-living relief for many hardworking families and businesses. There are many things that we are doing in this regard: firstly, delivering a second round of $10,000 cash grants helping businesses to keep the lights on, the doors open and people in jobs. We are lowering costs through payroll and land tax relief to ease the cash flow burden and provide incentives to hire more staff. We are providing tourism and event support and funding to help secure new and additional events, building better parks and supporting sports infrastructure.

Locally, we are doing a lot of work in my electorate to entice people to shop local, to help keep doors and small businesses open, through our Colton Business Directory initiative. We have some incredible businesses right on our doorstep, and it is just a matter of connecting people to those businesses. This support in this budget will go a long way for many of those businesses in my local area, and I look forward to chatting to them and sharing the many fantastic incentives and programs available to them through this budget.

We are also building what matters. This government is most certainly doing that. We will see incredible investment and the most investment we have seen in our state's history. I know you have already heard it a lot, but it is an incredible number—$16.7 billion. We have over four years 19,000 jobs, and we will be upgrading roads, major sporting facilities, schools and hospitals. We will be completing the north-south corridor with two tunnels and creating upwards of 4,000 jobs, saving many people 24 minutes a trip on their north-south journey. More importantly for my local community, it will ease congestion from west to east, making it easier and quicker for my community to commute in and out of the city.

Sports infrastructure upgrades include the Memorial Drive tennis centre, Hindmarsh Stadium and, importantly, Priceline Stadium for our young and aspiring netballers, and also many grassroots facilities. These investments will turbocharge our post COVID-19 economic recovery in the short and medium term. I am sure they will be well received by many South Australians.

On a local level, this budget is also jam packed with many great programs and incentives that will benefit my local area, something I know will be well received. Many of our coastal communities will be excited by the $20 million allocated over the next three years to deliver marine infrastructure upgrades, including $10 million for jetties and $10 million towards boating facilities and ramps, including the West Beach boat ramp.

Another significant commitment was to the SA Aquatic Sciences Centre, located in West Beach. This initiative provides $16 million over two years for critical upgrades. The facility was built in 1985 and is home to the Aquatic Sciences Research Division of the South Australian Research and Development Institute. The upgrade will replace ageing infrastructure at the site, including seawater intake pipes in the local area.

Another local coup from this budget is for the historic Vickers Vimy aircraft relocation, something I have spoken about on a number of occasions in this place. The Marshall Liberal government has provided a $2 million grant to the Adelaide Airport to fund the relocation of the historic Vickers Vimy aircraft to the new terminal extension next year. This grant matches the $2 million commonwealth government grant, and it is a major win for South Australia's cultural heritage and tourism and will serve to educate generations to come of our state's pioneering and aviation history.

Another important area this budget addresses is education. Funding for education continues to grow under this government, with the 2020-21 budget delivering another massive boost for our schools and preschools. Key investments in education include $37 million over two years for school and preschool priority maintenance works, providing grants of at least $20,000 for government schools and grants of $30,000 for every preschool to engage local businesses and tradies.

Locally, I will be glad to see the preschools in my electorate—Baden Pattinson, Barbara Kiker, Fulham Park, Henley Community and West Beach—all receive $30,000 to go along with the $20,000 grant that was received and spent last financial year. I have been out to many of those preschools and seen the works that they were able to undertake to refurbish many ageing assets, and it will be fantastic to see them added to.

The schools in the area—Fulham Gardens, Fulham North, Henley Beach Primary, Henley High, Kidman Park, St Leonards and West Beach—will also be receiving maintenance funding. I know a number of those schools have projects already earmarked for that money. I am certain this funding will be greatly appreciated and will allow each of them to prioritise maintenance work and provide many local businesses and tradies with work. But it does not stop there.

We also have an additional $11 million for the non-government school sector to improve school facilities, doubling the infrastructure funding previously made available to this sector. We are also continuing funding to be delivered for key school improvement measures, including the government's Literacy Guarantee, languages in schools initiatives and entrepreneurial specialist programs.

We are incredibly proud to be investing record funding in education, as we continue to do the job of improving educational outcomes for students transitioning from year 7 into high school and delivering a generational upgrade of schools across the state. With a young child of my own soon to start his education journey, I am proud to know that we are investing in necessary upgrades to improve schooling and pre-schooling for children right across South Australia.

Another area of investment is The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where we saw an increased investment and scope for the stage 3 project, which is already underway. Increased scope includes the ICU, emergency beds and surgery capacity across those areas. The preliminary works are already underway. The car parking and the cath lab refurbishment has already been completed and the main building will see work begin next year.

This really does underline the Marshall Liberal government's commitment to health services in the western suburbs and is a stark contrast with what we would have seen The QEH look like under Transforming Health, where services were ripped out of that hospital and a downgrade was on the plans.

This budget is one that we can all get behind. There is something in this budget for all South Australians. We are facing the greatest health and economic challenge of our time and we are getting through it. I support this budget wholeheartedly. I believe that it will create jobs, that it will back business and is most certainly going to build what matters for all South Australians now and into the future.

Mr SZAKACS (Cheltenham) (16:45): I rise in this contribution to pose a question on where the jobs are in this budget—jobs now and jobs in the future—and where the plan is for future industry.

As the member for Croydon, the opposition leader, mentioned in his budget reply, it is quite extraordinary that with $2.6 billion of deficit this year this budget delivers exactly zero new jobs this financial year, zero net growth. That is a stark contrast with the rest of the country—2.75 per cent projected growth—even including states that have been hit terribly hard by the COVID pandemic, including Victoria. How on earth will this budget help our economy grow?

There is no doubt that we as a state and as a community, as we stand here today, face enormous economic and social challenges. What we need is a plan for jobs growth, not just jobs maintenance. The most recent South Australian Centre for Economic Studies report released recently made a series of quite stark predictions for South Australia. Amongst them was that SA unemployment will rise by 10 per cent by June 2021 and remain high into 2022. Coupled with that, economic output would not recover for another year, high household debt would continue and, whilst mining activity has remained resilient, workforce pressures continue.

Beyond the direct impact of these lockdown measures, of course, we are at times flapping in the breeze of international economic headwinds. However, the negative outlook for businesses here in this state, as the Centre for Economic Studies put it, is stark. They state:

The sharp contraction in output and incomes in the June quarter will not be entirely reversed for several quarters at least. This means that some parts of the community will have to adjust to lower incomes for an extended period of time and governments will need to ensure that the burden is shared as equitably as possible.

They say that some economic activities will never resume. Of course, high debt levels mean that households have limited and diminishing capacity to spend in our local economy at a time when buying local and supporting local has never been so important.

The centre also goes on to say that employment is and is likely to be one of the last things to recover in a recession. The unemployment rate is expected to climb to 10 per cent in June 2021 before easing only slightly to 9½ per cent in June 2022. We know this, the Centre for Economic Studies knows this, Treasury certainly know this, as evidenced in their projections across forward estimates, the Treasurer knows this and the Premier knows this.

But what does this budget deliver? It delivers zero jobs growth in 2021. That should alarm us all, but as a state that manufactures and as a state that makes things we should be deeply concerned. When I say we are a state that makes things, I do not reflect just on our proud history of manufacturing but on the 64,000 people who work in manufacturing today. My own electorate of Cheltenham, of course, has played a critical and proud role in this state's manufacturing past.

General Motors Holden operated first in Woodville, where operations began in 1924. The Philips factory in Hendon opened in 1947. Pope Products, incorporating Simpson and Electrolux, were in Beverley from as early as 1935. It is not just the tens of thousands of jobs and people, western suburbs residents, who worked in these industries, but it would be pretty hard to find a migrant in the western suburbs who does not have a first or second-hand connection with these industries. They were great nation builders, and they created great jobs for our community.

My concern, my worry, is not only as the local member for Cheltenham but as a father, as a number of members have reflected in this place, as they do amongst their own families. I am the father of a five year old and a six-month-old baby. Where are their jobs going to be? What industries, what careers, what professions? There is every chance that the jobs they may find one day do not yet exist. They may not have been created or the innovation has not yet taken place, but one thing is for sure: there is nothing in this budget that will get us onto the path of innovating, creating and finding those new industries.

This budget lacks industry policy. It does not even talk about industry policy. I am not sure from recollection if the Treasurer from the other place even spoke of industry policy in his budget speech delivered to this place. Where are those jobs, and where are those industries of the future? Where is the Holden, where is the Philips, where is the Pope, where people can look forward to carving out a career in an industry with not just a job but, what has historically been the case in these manufacturing industries, a good job? They are safe jobs, secure jobs, not casual, not part-time and certainly not exposed to some of the risks of labour hire. They are secure jobs that someone can look forward to carving out and relying upon to start a family, buy a house and contribute back to our community.

Another disturbing and worrying aspect of this budget is that we are no closer to major infrastructure projects in my electorate of Cheltenham starting any time soon. There has been a litany of delays across major projects, not just in my electorate of Cheltenham but in the member for Port Adelaide's electorate and also in the member for Lee's electorate. Two of the state's biggest infrastructure projects that have been discussed somewhat, not only by the members of this place but certainly in the budget itself, are the completion of the north-south corridor as well as the Women's and Children's Hospital.

To be frank, these projects will be no more than ideas on these pages for the remainder of the term of this government. There are no major works on these two projects. As the Leader of the Opposition has pointed out, if the government had not wasted its first 2½ years, failing and taking no action on these major infrastructure projects, then we would not be facing the call right now to fast-track these shovel-ready projects to invest in jobs in our community, in our state and certainly in the western suburbs.

The $250 million for the stage 3 development of The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the hospital that I was born at many years ago and which sits right in the heart of my electorate and in the hearts of many others in my electorate, has now been delayed by over two years. This funding was secured, provided by the then Labor government back in 2017. According to SA Health's own publications, when this project will start we simply do not know. We have heard 2021, but we also heard mid-2019; we also heard 2020 and now we are hearing 2021.

We should not be here speaking about fast-tracking. We should be here seeing the next project—those that have been thought through and those that are being innovated in this budget. Sadly, what we are seeing in this budget is more of the status quo and a lack of big thinking.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services) (16:55): Until there are effective vaccinations available and there is widespread immunity, we will continue to deal with a situation that can certainly change rapidly. This fact makes responding to this pandemic particularly difficult. Although we have and will continue to implement measures to support individuals, businesses and communities to stay afloat in particular circumstances, the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic makes the job of government somewhat challenging at the moment.

Whilst I believe that there is always something to be learned from looking back at our history, the combined health and economic impact of this crisis certainly has no equal. For example, there have previously been V-shaped, W-shaped and U-shaped economies and recessions; however, the current crisis certainly does not align with any of them. A paper by the IMF identified three phases of the economic aspect of the pandemic:

1. Widespread lockdowns, where the focus of the response is devoted to the health and emergency services response to the pandemic and providing lifelines for the most affected people and businesses.

2. A gradual reopening—the phase we are currently in—where public health certainly remains the priority; however, with restrictions easing, we are also taking steps to do what we can to kickstart our economic recovery.

3. The post-COVID recovery, when vaccines are widely accessible and uncertainty begins to fade.

As much as we hope for the swift development of a vaccination—I am sure it is coming, and there has certainly been encouraging news in recent weeks—the reality is that we still remain in the second phase for the foreseeable future.

I have heard it suggested that the current situation is something like the shape of a square root symbol at the moment, where there was a sharp decline as the impact of the pandemic was most severely felt, followed by an initial boost as restrictions initially eased, which may then give way to a prolonged period of modest growth. It is during this period that governments certainly have to establish the foundations for economic recovery. To encourage growth, governments should be implementing targeted stimulus measures that will encourage a resumption of activity.

As the Treasurer noted in his address last week, Reserve Bank Governor Dr Phillip Lowe has urged all governments to provide massive financial stimulus through investment in publicly funded infrastructure, which is what we are doing. The IMF similarly encourages governments to invest in public infrastructure works, which is what we have done. Just as we have followed the advice of our health experts through this period, our economic recovery will be targeted and designed to create more jobs and confidence.

The budget includes the single biggest stimulus package by a state government in our history. We are more than doubling our initial stimulus spend and leveraging a further $1 billion in commonwealth, local government and business funding. Our measures are targeted to keep people in work and create new jobs for South Australians, whether it is the $10,000 grants for small businesses and not-for-profits or $233 million in payroll tax relief and $16.7 billion in infrastructure investment. The measures in the budget are designed to support jobs growth in a productive and meaningful way—take the $268 million worth of immediate road maintenance and upgrade works.

Speaking of road upgrades, one that is dear to my heart and certainly to my community is the $3.6 million upgrade of the intersection of Silkes Road and Gorge Road, ignored by the former Labor government for 16 years. We are getting on with it and we are going to get it done. My community has been calling for that for a long time.

There are also many more features of this budget I would love to speak about, particularly those around my ministerial responsibility. We know that our police men and women do a range of amazing work day in, day out, 24/7, 365 days a year. This pandemic has really emphasised how much they do for us. We know that every single day up to 600 (and sometimes even more) sworn and non-sworn police across South Australia are at the moment working on Operation COVID-19. They are helping to control this pandemic, whether it is at the border, at Airport operations and processing travel applications, or running compliance checks on individuals and businesses.

These officers are undertaking an array of duties and the diversion of personnel and resources has been significant. The state budget includes more than $21 million to increase police resources so that SAPOL can continue to respond to COVID-19. This funding boost will support SAPOL to accelerate the recruitment of 72 cadets and recruit 54 protective security officers and employ SES and CFS volunteers on a temporary basis to assist with COVID-19 operations.

We are also making sure that those who protect us are themselves protected by investing in new high-tech vests that are stab and bullet resistant. This follows on from our successful trial. We are also spending $34.9 million to transform SAPOL's remote connectivity capabilities and upgrade key operational systems. We are going to give the police the best technology possible to keep themselves safe and agile and also keep the people of South Australia safe as well.

We are certainly supporting the adoption of new deterrents to make sure South Australians are safe and responsible on our roads. We saw the announcement about the $19.4 million allocated to install fixed mobile phone detection cameras. I am proud to say we are the first South Australian government in history to provide direct funding to Crime Stoppers SA, with more than $800,000 over the next four years for the organisation. We know they have helped to resolve over tens of thousands of crimes throughout their history.

In Corrections, we are proud that South Australia has the lowest recidivism rate of the nation, but we are not content to pat ourselves on the back; we want to do even more. We are committed to continuing to improve our correctional services system, making sure that people return to the community as productive members of society where they can and that they can become better people with better skills when they leave our prison system. To that end, we are funding a $2.8 million pilot of a high-intensity treatment program, and we hope that will deliver specialist case management and treatment to offenders who are subject to ESOs.

Those involved will receive specialist mental health support, housing assistance and also drug and alcohol rehabilitation where appropriate. We have also committed $500,000 to develop a business case for a new rehabilitation prison in South Australia. It will be an absolute game changer if one day we can build that rehabilitation prison as well. We obviously have a duty to rehabilitate prisoners wherever we can so that they can make their way back into society when it is safe for the community for them to do so and also in their best interests.

Of course, I could not discuss the budget without speaking about our amazing emergency services volunteers and staff. I touched on the massive $97.5 million investment we are making in response to our independent bushfire review. We are the first jurisdiction in Australia to undertake that review, and we are proud of our response to protect lives and property—whether it is the allocation of funds to help with automatic vehicle location so that we can see where our trucks are, $7.2 million to replace heavy firefighting appliances or helping to deliver $11.5 million for new MFS trucks. They have 12 new trucks on order and there are certainly more to come. Obviously there have been some delays due to COVID, but that is unfortunately where we are at the moment.

We are doing everything we can to ensure that we help the MFS and give them the tools they need to keep South Australians safe. We are employing additional full-time CFS staff members to help volunteers, and for the first time ever we are going to see a dedicated full-time CFS staffing presence on Kangaroo Island, which is going to be absolutely massive and also a game changer. There will also be an additional counsellor employed to ensure that staff and volunteers receive the care and support they need. We do appreciate all they have been through and we wish them well before the bushfire season. Hopefully, it does not look anything like it did last summer.

In road safety, as I mentioned earlier, the budget includes more than $268 million of funding for shovel-ready road maintenance and upgrade projects. It is no secret that well-maintained and modern roads lead to better road safety outcomes for road users. Our package includes $10 million for audio tactile line marking, which is proven to alert drivers that they are drifting out of their lane, and there is also money for road safety barrier works. Obviously, these can prevent vehicles from colliding with roadside hazards, such as trees and Stobie poles and other hazards.

I will take the opportunity in the remaining 30 seconds I have to talk about some of the projects we have delivered in my own electorate. I have already mentioned that we have been able to deliver on funding to fix the Silkes Road-Gorge Road intersection. This builds on the Newton Road-Graves Street intersection that we also completed in March this year.

The Campbelltown City Soccer Club have their new synthetic pitch, the Hectorville Sports and Community Club have money for their female change rooms, the Max Amber Sportsfield have their lighting upgrade, the Paradise park-and-ride has also been built and of course we fixed the planning residential flat size allocation in the Campbelltown Development Plan, so we are getting on and we are doing lots in our local electorate as well.

Time expired.

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (17:06): I rise to add to my contribution to the Appropriation Bill debate about the needs of the north-east community. When I was first elected as an Independent member in the new seat of Florey, it included suburbs I had not previously represented. I recall vividly the words of one constituent at the local shopping centre who told me that he was voting for me, but urged me not to forget Ingle Farm and Pooraka. This heartfelt plea really made an impact.

These are two of the largest of the new suburbs I now represent, along with the suburb of Walkley Heights, in addition to all parts now of Valley View and Para Vista and a small part of Northfield. These, along with the parts of Modbury and Modbury North I still represent, are all suburbs that have not been getting a fair go for far too long. While these boundaries once again are likely to change, I have always seen electorate boundaries as only lines on a map, and I have always advocated for all people in the north-east and I always will.

Recently, I have been pleased to work with my community on what is called the Better North East project, with the support of residents of the Salisbury, Tea Tree Gully and Port Adelaide Enfield councils. I acknowledge the councils for their preparedness to engage and explore shared interests and opportunities. I also thank the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition for their support for this project and the commitment of in-kind support from the government through Renewal SA.

The Better North East project which, because of his expert experience in this area, is being coordinated by Matt Loader from my office, aims to engage with residents, businesses and communities to develop a vision of priorities for the future growth of these and other neighbourhoods in the north-east.

The north-east is a big area but, for ease and as a starting point, we are looking at the area bounded by Main North Road, Grand Junction, North East and McIntyre roads and includes suburbs already experiencing substantial infill development and population growth. This is no surprise. Land values here are more affordable than in many other suburbs closer to the city and suburbs like Para Hills, Pooraka and Ingle Farm are all close to existing and new employment hubs and have existing infrastructure and facilities with the capacity to cater for future population growth.

This is an area ripe for growth and ready for renewal, but it has been left out for far too long. The significant public land and public housing stock in this area or close by may also offer opportunities to improve housing supply through master-planned infill growth. I note the recent release of a plan for development of the Strathmont land.

I believe the work we are doing will be able to be translated to other communities—for example, the benefits from the all important work of Professor Fran Baum and the Southgate Institute at Flinders University, whose work centres on the relationship between future health outcomes and the quality of urban neighbourhoods, retrofitting into existing suburbs all the best aspects of new developments, so watch this exciting space. At a workshop I recently hosted, community members have already identified a number of areas I will be presenting to all sides and all levels of politics to stimulate debate and explore how the project outcomes can be delivered.

I want to talk about two important initiatives that have emerged from our engagement so far with the north-eastern communities. The first is the opportunity for a new bus rapid transport route between Mawson Lakes and the O-Bahn at Modbury's Tea Tree Plaza Interchange or perhaps even Paradise or Klemzig via an Ingle Farm hub, which would also service Pooraka. Using generous road corridors along Walkley and Montague roads and potentially providing bus connections for new communities at Oakden, Northgate, Lightsview and soon Strathmont, such a link would augment existing collector routes and help connect locals to jobs, study opportunities and visitor destinations, while supporting urban regeneration at an Ingle Farm hub.

At 15-minute intervals over 10 kilometres from Mawson Lakes to Modbury Tea Tree Plaza, an estimate provided to my office suggests operating costs would be around $4 million a year. However, this does not include fare or other revenue offsets, or the modest one-off up-front investment for dedicated bus lanes, bus shelters, street furniture and signage.

While the undeveloped old MATS corridor reserve to the north of Walkleys Road is no longer required for an arterial road, a rapid bus route could use this land to provide a fast and frequent service to the Gawler line at Mawson Lakes, giving travellers access to the city and other destinations and providing a green linear park on both sides. The lion's share of new transport dollars in the budget are targeted to roads, including a whopping $8 billion for the north-south corridor.

We seem to be stuck in an endless cycle of building more and more roads, but I am reliably advised there is a significant body of academic evidence which suggests that simply building more roads promotes more car use and paradoxically leads to more congestion. This makes the lack of new investment in public transport an obvious missed opportunity in this budget.

Given this, I hope this modest proposal will be given due consideration and find favour with the new minister. Certainly, my community is pleased the government abandoned proposed service cuts to buses earlier this year, but they want to see more public transport, and this proposal could be the start.

Another initiative that has been identified and enthusiastically supported by community members and local councils is the development of a master plan for the Dry Creek linear park along Grand Junction Road. Dry Creek is an outstanding landscape asset for the north-east, stretching 20 kilometres across three local councils from Wynn Vale, through Modbury, Walkley Heights and Pooraka to Mawson Lakes. However, much of the corridor is fragmented, underutilised and in need of significant rejuvenation and development.

The Walkley Heights section running behind the prison lands, for example, is a spectacular gorge that could be a wonderful drawcard for the north-east. However, a short walk along this section reveals the need for new investment, building on work already commenced. Not only does this section have outstanding landscape values but also it has considerable historical significance, including associations with the former homestead and rodeo grounds of R.M. Williams, the historic prison quarries and the heritage-listed powder magazine and guard towers, and the Stockade Botanical Park.

There are many other opportunities I am sure will emerge from the community engagement process: bike tracks, rock climbing on the old quarry face, all-weather and all-ability paths, and a native garden area with bush tucker and performance space where Indigenous culture can be shared by all. With coordinated investment in future years, the Dry Creek linear park could be a wonderful asset to the people of the north-east, just as the new Glenthorne National Park will be for the south and Coast Park has become for Adelaide's beachside communities. I look forward to walking through this area with the environment minister tomorrow.

Throughout the north-east there are many sporting grounds and facilities in need of new investment, and one site will serve as an example. Lindblom Park is a significant area of open space in Pooraka, traversed by Dry Creek and its walking trails. Home to football, soccer, cricket and netball, it is in constant use throughout the year.

Having undertaken a tour of the facilities, it is evident there has not been a substantial upgrade for decades, despite the advocacy of the head lessor, the Pooraka sporting club, for many years. Issues identified include inadequate lighting, small change rooms no longer fit for purpose, lack of female facilities, lack of storage, substandard clubrooms and kitchens, and parking and traffic congestion.

With a growing local population, there is also an opportunity for other upgrades to promote the attractiveness and usability of the park's facilities for local residents. This could include upgrades to playgrounds, picnic areas and pathways, and new equipment, such as a fitness circuit, dog run or bocce grounds, for example.

However, the upgrade of the park is beyond the ability of the Salisbury council in the near-term future without the support from the state government. This is but one neglected location in the Florey electorate, which has been brought to my attention since inheriting the suburbs of Pooraka and Ingle Farm, and is a good example of why the Better North East project has been initiated. Some other ideas I would like to quickly highlight include:

improving westerly road links to connect workers to jobs in industrial areas at Port Adelaide and on Lefevre Peninsula;

the need to invest in and help lift the education outcomes at major schools, such as Valley View Secondary and Para Hills High, and link students to jobs of the future;

using the waterways and gullies throughout the north-east for linear parks, wetlands and recreational opportunities;

improving walking and cycling networks and tackling barriers created by main roads cutting communities in half; and

the potential repurposing of vacant or underutilised government land, such as the Walkley Heights transport depot, for community enhancement and housing choice.

These are just some of the shovel-ready projects my community hopes could benefit from the grant programs available in this state budget. So I say to the responsible ministers: be ready for my call and visits.

More than a few people have been an inspiration to me in public life and in continuing the struggle to advocate for good government and the public good, and I would like to mention just a couple of examples. It is with a great sense of loss to the extended Florey community that we recently heard of the passing of June Chaney, a local community volunteer and long-term member of the Modbury Hospital Local Action Group, who was so well known to many of us in the north-east. She was an absolute champion and leader in her community.

I would also like to mention the recent retirement of Rosa Colanero, who was a champion in the Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs Commission, but also through her voluntary work for the Migrant Women's Lobby Group, a group that I came to know when I was first elected. She and her husband, Roger Lean, were outstanding public servants and have both contributed an awful lot to this state, and I would like to acknowledge their work. These amazing people are just a couple of the extraordinary community activists who will be missed.

At the moment, their work is no longer continuing because of either retirement or their recent passing, but I know they will inspire others in the community and more broadly to advocate for the things that will make their lives and communities better. That is why the north-east is rallying around the Better North East project. It is going to see great changes in our area, and I look forward to reporting to the house on future developments.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (17:15): I rise to make a further contribution on the Appropriation Bill. My grievance contribution today relates to what has unfolded here in South Australia over the last 36 to 48 hours. I am sure that, like me, other MPs have had a deluge of contact and correspondence from their constituents, and also from those people whom they know in other capacities throughout the community. People are very concerned and very worried about what this current cluster means for them and for their communities. They want to know information about the new restrictions and how it impacts on them.

Perhaps because of my additional capacity as shadow treasurer, I have also been contacted by many small businesses, particularly over the last 24 hours, that are feeling very uncertain as to what the future holds for them and their operations given the restrictions that have been put in place on the community. Of course, we know that after the first round of restrictions was imposed on the community back in March one of the industry sectors that bore the brunt of these was the tourism and hospitality sector. They were amongst those industries that lost the most amount of jobs in South Australia in a very short period of time.

Not all hospitality venues or tourism venues were eligible to access the federal government's JobKeeper payments, and it placed those venues into what I guess you could call a phantom zone of falling in between the cracks of the different federal and state government support programs. Deputy Speaker, you would be aware that we on this side of the chamber called on the government, even before they announced their initial stimulus packages, to make financial assistance available, particularly to those small businesses that faced losing their livelihoods, both as a direct result of the restrictions on their capacity to operate and I guess indirectly because of the community's concern about perhaps leaving their houses and going out and frequenting or patronising their businesses.

It is these sorts of concerns that are now re-emerging. The restrictions that are being reimposed on the hospitality industry, we understand, are designed to protect the community and to limit the spread of this latest outbreak, but it comes after many venue managers and owners have spent many months struggling their way through to try to keep their businesses alive during what were some pretty bleak winter months.

It has been reported to me that many venues have taken on tens of thousands of dollars in additional debt themselves in an effort to pay their outstanding supplier bills, but also to pay wages, in an effort to try to keep staff employed, particularly in the case where they were not eligible for JobKeeper payments.

Many were hoping that they could go through that period of restricted trading with that additional debt burden on the basis that they can get to the pre-Christmas and festive season periods and generate more income, and start reducing that additional debt burden. They can try to get back on their feet and get their businesses operating sustainably again. This is particularly the case as those other supports start to phase out.

There are thousands of South Australian businesses that are facing the prospect now of letting go staff. You only needed to listen to ABC radio yesterday afternoon to hear hospitality venue operators recall, with an audible tremor in their voice, what it was like having to inform staff that they were losing shifts or perhaps that they were no longer required until the restrictions changed.

We know there are thousands of venues that are having to have those conversations, but there are also venues that have been waiting until this period of this year to try to hold all those functions that they have been forced to cancel. I am thinking particularly of those special events, such as weddings and so on, that have not been able to be held. While technically you could hold an indoor celebration, and perhaps celebrate in some form that a wedding was occurring, as we heard time and time again, there is not much point in holding a wedding if there cannot be a traditional wedding dance or if, after the ceremony, a bride cannot dance with her father at the reception, such were the restrictions put in place.

The good news over the previous few weeks was that many hundreds of those postponed weddings had been scheduled to occur in these weeks around us now—this week, next week, the following weeks—to try to catch up on what had been lost as a very long wedding season. It is not just the impact on those venues and the cost of renting those venues out that is lost. It is the often tens of thousands of dollars that go with a wedding reception in terms of food and beverage, not to mention the wedding celebrant, the DJ, the florist, the cake decorator, the wait staff, the cleaning staff, and so on.

The average wedding supports, for the period in which they are conducted, hundreds of jobs each, and we have hundreds, if not thousands of weddings, in a wedding season here in South Australia, and they are spread across all of South Australia as well. Some people have said to me, 'You can imagine the frustration of a bride, her groom and their families when they have been forced to put off a wedding, perhaps to be held down in the South-East or over in Port Lincoln, or in some other regional part of South Australia,' and those plans have had to be shelved yet again because of the latest cluster.

I raise all these concerns not because we question the need to have these restrictions. We will continue to do what we have done during the course of this year, and we will provide support to the government and to the Chief Public Health Officer and the State Controller (the police commissioner) in the decisions and the directions that they make to the public. But if these decisions are going to be made, and these directions and restrictions are put in place, then the government needs to do its part and support those South Australians, particularly those who are acutely financially affected.

In the recent state budget handed down only a week ago, we heard that there is billions of dollars of economic stimulus money available. Unfortunately, that money is due to be spent over the course of years—not months or weeks. Now is the time that the state government needs to show some agility and some flexibility, and make some money available for these struggling businesses. Blithely saying that a decision had been made some weeks ago in cabinet for another smaller round of $10,000 small business grants or $3,000 grants to sole traders will not address the community need that exists.

There are industry groups that are terrified for the future of their members. It is not just the financial imposts of these restrictions: we have all become increasingly aware, over the last year, of the family impacts, the mental health impacts, that this coronavirus pandemic is having throughout the community. There are few things worse than the mental anguish that a family has when they know they are not able to make ends meet for reasons completely beyond their control. I ask the government again to make more money available.

We know that more than $120 million has not yet been allocated let alone spent out in the community in the government's Economic and Business Growth Fund. Now is the time to make some or all of that money available for those members in the community who desperately need it as a result of this latest wave of restrictions. Without their support, we will lose more businesses and we will lose more jobs in South Australia, and that is something that none of us should countenance in the current economic environment.

Dr HARVEY (Newland) (17:25): The year 2020 has been an incredibly tough year, with the COVID-19 pandemic presenting the greatest health and economic challenge our state has seen in certainly in our lifetime and probably since the Second World War. The Marshall Liberal government's 2020-21 budget is therefore one of the most significant and important budgets in our state's history.

Despite the difficult circumstances we face, this budget will support our economy by creating jobs, backing businesses and building what matters through a record $16.7 billion infrastructure spend and $4 billion in economic stimulus. The $4 billion stimulus—another way of putting it is an adrenaline hit to South Australia's economy—is the largest stimulus package in the state's history and one that is vital to driving South Australia's ongoing economic recovery. Measures such as the second round of $10,000 cash grants for small businesses and not-for-profit organisations will help support the ongoing operating costs of businesses and improve their cash flow.

Small business plays such an important role through our economy, and I know many in the north-east were part of the 18,700 businesses that benefited from the first round of grants. Not only does the budget offer cash grants for businesses but initiatives such as the $233 million payroll tax relief will further help businesses navigate through this coronavirus pandemic environment and keep hardworking people in jobs.

This budget is delivering for education. We know how important it is for our children have access to state-of-the-art learning facilities, and this is what exactly what the Marshall Liberal government is doing through our record $1.3 billion education build. We are building what matters, with a significant investment in our children's future. In fact, in recent weeks it has been great to visit some local schools in the north-east with the Minister for Education, schools like Banksia Park International High School, which is currently undergoing a $9 million upgrade that includes the creation of a brand-new 200-seat performing arts centre, new heating and cooling systems and upgraded disability access areas among increased learning spaces.

Modbury High School, another local school, is receiving a $7 million upgrade that is going towards the creation of a new year 7 hub and landscaped area along with refurbishments to a courtyard and new outdoor learning area. Can I say that there was incredible excitement and happiness across the school when the very, very old transportable buildings on the site were finally removed. They are certainly buildings that had been raised with me pretty much every time I visited in the short time that I have been a member.

A further investment in the local area is the Ardtornish Primary School, which is about to receive a $5 million upgrade that will include new general learning areas, new breakout space, new teacher preparation and withdrawal areas and a number of other things. Our visit there was quite interesting in that the construction of the new building had not yet started but they were assembling a whole bunch—I think about 10—of modular classrooms built by the company CENTINA, which is a local company. In fact, they are using the old Holden site to build these modular classrooms and bringing them on site as a temporary solution whilst the old buildings that are well past their use-by-date are demolished and the new facility is being created. Enormous numbers of jobs are being created on that site in anticipation of the upgrade works that are still yet to come.

Further investment into education is set to take place in this budget containing $37 million for school and preschool priority maintenance works. Every government school in the electorate will receive between $20,000 and $100,000 and every preschool will receive $30,000 and encouraged to engage directly with local businesses and tradies. This funding in education is not only increasing the standard of education facilities, and supporting the wonderful education and learning already going on in our schools, but will also deliver thousands of jobs right across the state at a time when this is sorely needed.

The Marshall Liberal government is delivering a record $16.7 billion infrastructure works over the next four years, and in this budget a whole host of shovel-ready projects have been announced, helping to create jobs and build what matters to South Australians, such as improving the roads that thousands of people use daily going to and from work, which is very much a focus of this government. We know that the former Labor government left us $750 million worth of road maintenance backlog, so there is plenty of work to be done and we are certainly getting stuck into that work.

They allowed these roads in my community to deteriorate, and this is certainly a major source of frustration for many constituents. This is why I am thrilled that we have commenced the $30 million stage 2 upgrade to Golden Grove Road. The stage 1 upgrade was incredibly popular and a fantastic improvement. We have gone straight on to stage 2, which will see Golden Grove Road upgraded from where stage 1 was completed down to Park Lake Drive.

I know that my colleague the member for King is particularly thrilled and excited about this project, as am I, which will see improved road safety and reduced travel times for our constituents with intersection upgrades, upgraded road lighting, improved pedestrian facilities and indented bus bays as part of the project. Stage 2 will support around 70 full-time equivalent jobs whilst also providing security and certainty for the jobs created in stage 1.

I would also like to mention the additional $6 million that will be going to resurfacing Golden Grove Road between Park Lake Drive and North East Road. As part of the upgrade, bus travel times will reduce as part of the Golden Grove Road project and will improve access to the O-Bahn for people in the north east. The O-Bahn is an important popular service for people and identifying the most appropriate solution for upgrading the O-Bahn was crucial.

The North East Public Transport Study that explored options to upgrade the O-Bahn to Golden Grove found that a series of intersection upgrades was a much more cost-effective and superior option. Labor has been quite vocal about the O-Bahn upgrade, but we certainly think that other options that include ripping up hundreds of trees and bulldozing dozens of homes at a cost of approaching a quarter of a billion dollars for very little improvement in time would not be a good outcome for our community. Instead, our government is building improved intersections along that route that will help improve the travel time for buses between Tea Tree Plaza and Golden Grove.

South Australia's sports infrastructure is also set to receive a significant boost with new funding for sports facilities, such as Memorial Drive Tennis Centre and the Hindmarsh Stadium redevelopment. The Grassroots Football, Cricket and Netball Facility Program has also been quite successful for my community. Just last week we attended the official opening of the new change rooms at the Hope Valley Sporting Club. Houghton Oval is getting an upgrade, the South Australian Districts Netball Association is getting their courts resurfaced and the Tea Tree Gully Sportsman's Club is getting additional change rooms, so we are investing very much into our local sports facilities.

I can never talk about a budget or projects within my electorate without mentioning the $96 million upgrade to Modbury Hospital, one of the most important projects in my community. This upgrade is increasing surgical capabilities and improving facilities for both staff and patients, and in this budget there is an additional $1.5 million for upgrading the lifts. These upgrades to Modbury are important as part of our reversal of the disastrous Transforming Health experiment inflicted on the people of the north-east by the former Labor government. I am proud to be part of a government that is returning key services to the north-east, where constituents in my community will be closer to those health services they need.

Another very important project is the significant investment to transfer households in the Tea Tree Gully council's septic system across to SA Water sewerage. This very important and significant project will save households up to $400 a year and provide them with a modern, reliable sewerage service. Importantly, the transition of these properties will occur at no cost to households.

This is a budget in difficult circumstances. It builds up our state and prepares our state for the future. We know there is much more work to be done, but we will continue to work on this to best support jobs within our community and to protect the health and safety of all people right across this state.

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (17:35): Before I highlight some concerns with the government's 2020-21 budget, I again deeply acknowledge and wholeheartedly thank the many health workers, emergency services workers, SA Pathology staff and numerous others who are undertaking extraordinary work as we deal with the current COVID-19 situation.

I also offer my best wishes to all who are facing health challenges and worries at this really difficult time and thank the many people who are impacted for their cooperation and goodwill. We know that many people have struggled this year in different ways as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also know that many people have exhibited exemplary kindness, reaching out to others and helping them wherever they can. I have no doubt that this kindness will continue and strengthen our community's ongoing collective efforts as we continue to combat COVID-19.

Today, I draw further attention to the lack of budget measures directly aimed at supporting South Australian women. It was a budget from a government with a lack of female representation amongst its parliamentary ranks, a government that fundamentally does not seem to understand what women need to fully and equally participate in the economy. This was a budget from a government that demonstrates no desire to achieve gender equality because it does not recognise the existence and the extent of the inequality experienced by women in this state.

We know that industries that rely on female workers were hardest hit by the pandemic. We know that domestic violence is on the rise. We know that the gender wage gap remains stubbornly high. We know that women retire with much less superannuation than men, and we know that older women are increasingly struggling to access affordable housing. Despite all these social and economic challenges facing South Australian women, not a single new initiative aimed at supporting women through this crisis is in the budget.

Overwhelmingly, women are on the frontline of our response to the coronavirus pandemic. Nationally, nearly four in five healthcare workers are women. They include cleaners, nurses, midwives, pharmacists and allied health and aged-care workers. Outside health care and essential services, other female-dominated industries have borne the brunt of job losses across hospitality, tourism, retail, the arts and other sectors, yet both state and federal governments have purported to focus all the stimulus activity on male-dominated industries.

Of course jobs in these industries are incredibly important for our economy, for so many people and families, and must be supported. I say 'purported', however, because sadly not one job is being created in this financial year, and it is questionable when others will be. Jobs in female-dominated industries now and into the future must also be supported, as should programs to facilitate more women working in male-dominated industries. If our restaurant and catering, retail, tourism, major events and arts sectors were supported, we would not have witnessed the exodus of women leaving the workforce.

The budget seems to completely ignore the disproportionate impact of the health crisis on women. Women make up almost 69 per cent of those engaged in all part-time employment and are twice as likely to be engaged in insecure work than their male counterparts. As I mentioned last week, recent data showed that 22 per cent of women work less than 20 hours a week compared with just 10.6 per cent of men.

On top of this, there is overwhelming evidence that women have taken on a large amount of work at home, including coordinating their children's education. The state government does not seem to understand the pressures facing working women and continues not to support parliamentary inquiries into insecure work and modern slavery, both of which overwhelmingly impact women. I implore those opposite to support those inquiries.

It is of the utmost concern that across the country we have seen and heard reports of increases in domestic violence. For too many women and their children, the pandemic has forced them to spend more time with their abusers, with limited ability to reach for help. In our southern community, women experiencing or at risk of experiencing domestic violence and those who support them are desperate for preventative programs, therapy and support, and a clear supported pathway of referral to appropriate services.

We have been calling on the government to fund a southern domestic violence hub to provide an informed first point of contact and sustained support through a woman's journey to safety and to recovery. It needs specialised workers providing community awareness, case management, trauma counselling and referral to appropriate health, community and legal support and acute crisis services. As yet, no commitment has been made. It is incredibly disappointing that no funds for new prevention hubs were provided in the budget and that this follows such an appalling lack of investment in any prevention measures in this government's first two budgets.

The gender pay gap relentlessly persists, and if we do not move faster to arrest it equal pay will not be achieved for decades. Yet again, we see nothing from this government that even looks remotely like they are considering this issue, let alone providing a solution. Earlier this year, the government bizarrely claimed it was 'increasing the participation of women in leadership and decision-making roles' by abolishing the Premier's Women's Directory. The government claimed this would 'assist the government to achieve gender equality on state government boards and committees'.

The perplexing decision to abolish the directory undermines the huge amount of work done in South Australia over recent years to increase female participation in leadership roles. The Premier's Women's Directory was established by Labor as a resource for government, community, sporting and private sector organisations wanting to increase female participation on their respective boards. Abolishing the directory is short-sighted and utterly baffling and makes no sense whatsoever. It is further evidence the government does not understand what it takes to achieve gender equity.

As I have said many times before, to achieve equity you have to focus on those who are behind in some way and specifically target strategies that enable them to equally participate or equally have access to a position, a facility or similar. Cutting the directory sends a poor message to women and girls who aspire to leadership roles and it reinforces to our community this government's lack of commitment to gender equality. Without women's voices, our institutions risk failing to represent the needs, values and aspirations of South Australian women, and without targeted support girls and women fall further behind.

Along with young people, older women are the fastest growing cohort of people who are at risk of experiencing homelessness. I applaud Premier Daniel Andrews and the Victorian government for its announcement that they will spend $5.3 billion to build more than 12,000 public housing homes over the next four years.

That is less than one-sixth of the total debt our Treasurer has plunged this state into, yet we do not get a single extra affordable home. Of course, this is the Treasurer who sold swathes of affordable public housing when Treasurer in the Olsen and Kerin governments. Older South Australian women deserve better than to live their later years with housing insecurity and the indignity, worry and despair that that brings.

Despite the pressing need for our economic recovery to clearly consider the situation of women, no plan of action or economic stimulus or any other budget measure is focused on women. The government's budget fails to specifically fund and target programs that could make a difference to South Australian women at a time when they most need that targeted support. It contains no specific job creation strategy for women; no strategy to address insecure work, modern slavery or the gender pay gap; no dedicated program for women's sporting facilities or housing; and an absolutely minimal state government investment in domestic violence prevention.

In an environment where the appalling statistics on domestic violence continue to worsen, the lack of serious, plentiful investment in what is needed to prevent and end its prevalence is unconscionable. Violence against women is one of the most pressing challenges of our time. As many in this house have said previously, it is incumbent on every single one of us in this place to take real action to arrest that prevalence. Sadly, this budget has failed to take that real action. This budget lets down half of our population. South Australian girls and women deserve so much better.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr McBride.