Regional South Australia

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (12:14): I move:

That this house—

(a) recognises the importance of South Australia's regions to the state's economy; and

(b) recognises the opportunity presented by the COVID-19 pandemic to shift workforces outside capital cities.

Over the last two years, Australia has experienced a monumental shift in the way we live and work because of the pandemic. For many of us it is the first time that people have worked from home when centralised offices closed down. It has obviously spawned the advancement of technologies that were probably already there, but the adoption had a much greater uptake through the pandemic period. Now we are looking at a post-pandemic era and there is a vast opportunity to change traditional work practices, to rethink the way that we operate.

One of the most frequently heard sentences during my eight years as the member for Mount Gambier has been that 'the government stops at the tollgate', and I am thankful to see that there is a change in attitude and a change of focus.

One of the great premiers of South Australia, Sir Thomas Playford, understood the concept of building the state through building the regions with investments like the Whyalla pipeline, Kimberly-Clark in Millicent, woods and forests in Mount Gambier, and major economic drivers like the Port Augusta power station. They all fuelled massive investment in regional areas, which led to jobs, population growth and the services that come along with that. It is time to try to take that philosophy and continue growing our regions through investment in regional South Australia, which again has the flow-on effect of population increase, because that is where the jobs are, and fuelling the state's economic prosperity through growing our regions.

I think it is a really wonderful time to look at those opportunities, and I am excited by the investment that this state government is making, not necessarily just in my area—for example, the hydrogen project when you fully understand what that is aiming to achieve. It will be a very important piece of government stimulus, government injection of funds, into the Whyalla and Upper Spencer Gulf communities, and that will see jobs being created and investment from outside. Countries like Germany that want to look at getting off Russian oil and gas are looking at hydrogen as a sustainable fuel for their country going forward. South Australia will pay an incredibly important role around that progress going forward.

In terms of the Limestone Coast, obviously forestry is one of our major employers and something where, again, I have seen substantial investment going forward in this state budget towards not just the forestry of today but the forestry of the future. Investment in innovation, training and skills is greatly welcomed in my electorate because that is where the jobs are going to be, which then leads to population growth and then leads to additional services being put on.

I also challenge that in terms of industries. We have an ability with modern technology to really promote our regions as a great place to work and a great place to raise kids and to enjoy a lifestyle here in South Australia. I think that the state government could do more in terms of promoting our regions as a place not just to visit but to relocate and to enjoy the benefits that regional life offers for many people.

The Minister for Health was talking in here in answer to a question I posed a couple of weeks ago that, at home, we are 70 full-time equivalent nurses short in our hospital system. That is 70 full-time jobs ready to go. I talk to teachers and principals, and there are good job opportunities in the Limestone Coast region. In fact, some principal positions are getting paid up to $160,000 a year to attract that type of talent to our region. Also, police always have an issue and are continually recruiting. The jobs are there.

What I would like to see is a concerted effort, not just for my region but for all regions, and a working together of state government, local council and these agencies promoting the benefits of working and living in regional South Australia. Whilst we are making good headway, I think that investments like the hydrogen project and investments in forestry in the South-East are certainly steps in the right direction as a way of promoting and encouraging people not just from within the City of Adelaide and South Australia but from all around Australia—and potentially the world—to come to our regions and enjoy the benefits.

I think we have an amazing opportunity in a post-pandemic world to really grow our state through growing the regions.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (12:22): I rise in support of this motion by the member for Mount Gambier:

That this house:

(a) recognises the importance of South Australia's regions to the state's economy; and

(b) recognises the opportunity presented by the COVID-19 pandemic to shift workforces outside capital cities.

The regions are the powerhouse of this state's economy, generating many tens of thousands of jobs. A lot of it was due to the impost of the COVID-19 pandemic, but I think we have run out of housing in the regions, right across the board, from the west of the state right through to the east of the state. We will hear from other members soon in their contributions about how hard it is to get housing in regional areas.

We see communities right across the board working with builders, home owners and investors trying to get as many houses built as fast as possible, notwithstanding some of the interesting times people have with councils and getting approvals. A lot of the impacts are caused by supplies being hard to get, with a lot of inputs at least doubling in price—and some more—and supplies being scarce. For instance, someone locally was just trying to get hold of gyprock for a couple of projects.

The regions are booming, and I think a lot of it—apart from people wanting to come to the regions from bigger settled areas in the cities—was not just because of COVID-19 but because of the opportunities the former Marshall Liberal government gave to the regions as part of its close to $18 billion worth of investment. It was investment in emergency departments, like my hospital in Murray Bridge with a new $7 million emergency department built alongside a $3 million upgrade to the operating theatres, or alongside the work we did in Strathalbyn with around $20 million of projects towards aged care. The 36-bed memory unit for aged care at Strathalbyn is just world class, and we are still waiting as part of that commitment to see what the new government does with the Kalimna site.

There was also the $30 million, in round numbers, that we put into education facilities in my electorate. This included a $20 million upgrade at the high school in Murray Bridge, $5 million that was allocated by us and is about to be invested at North School just opposite my office in Murray Bridge, $3 million to upgrade classrooms at Langhorne Creek, $2 million invested in the main Strathalbyn campus of Eastern Fleurieu School, and somewhere around $3½ million at Mannum Community College to upgrade STEM facilities and other buildings.

The investments were massive across the board. Look at what we did in some of the bigger projects like the duplication of the Joy Baluch Bridge, which was a massive project that made our connection through to the north and west so much better on a vital arterial freight route, and not just for freight but for locals commuting around Port Augusta. The Port Wakefield overpass was about a $120 million project. I think there is still a bit of tidying up happening over there at the moment.

It is interesting when you drive through Port Wakefield if you have not done it for a while. I did a few weeks ago and there is a bit of navigation about which bit is one way, how you duck into the back of the BP and how you get out again. It is a vast improvement as not just a freight route but obviously to connect people through to the regions such as Yorke Peninsula, whether it is people who live there and farm there and work there or the many people who go over there to holiday or travel through.

We have made many upgrades, as I was speaking about here only yesterday. We committed $215 million to do up a 472-kilometre section of the Strzelecki Track to make it far easier for people, whether they be pastoralists in the region or whether it be the oil and gas industry, or whether it be tourists like myself. I am very keen to get up there very shortly to see it before we do bituminise it completely, because it will change the nature of driving up there. This is a great project, opening up the state.

There were also the many road projects right across the board, whether they be for roads on Eyre Peninsula, Yorke Peninsula, the Mid and Upper North, the South-East, or the east of the state. There were those eight roads that we committed to, and I have mentioned here long and loud about the Browns Well Highway and Ngarkat Highway. We spent $42 million on getting them back to 110 km/h: a road train route. This is a vital route running down the eastern border of South Australia, linking up our Riverland and Mallee and South-East to get that vital production interstate and intrastate. This route is 200 kilometres of road length linking three electorates—well, at the time it was three electorates: Chaffey, Hammond and MacKillop.

The regions are a powerhouse of the community. Certainly, in the previous four years in government I saw at least $215 million of state government money invested into my region in projects. Some of those projects are ongoing, like the Old Murray Bridge refurbishment I spoke about, and $36 million is going into that project, which will be completed in about 18 months to two years. This is a vital project to keep up that connection in Murray Bridge.

There is $5 million for the investigation into the duplication of the Swanport Bridge and the South-East links business case and there is $10 million to look into the Greater Adelaide bypass and how we would get freight into Adelaide, notwithstanding that we have the northern freight route, which is operating and taking thousands of tonnes a week off the freeway. As I have said before, anything bigger than a B-double cannot come down the freeway anymore. Many freight companies are getting those efficiencies by hauling those bigger loads, sometimes notwithstanding a lot of extra kilometres at times. I fully support efficiencies so long as we have the roads to match it.

With some of the private investment that has come into the regions, we have seen Parilla potatoes under the Pye family invest about $50 million on top of the many millions that they have invested at Parilla in the 20-plus years that they have been there. They invested in the horticultural industry, taking off a lot of freight that was going to Virginia and back to Parilla and then heading east mainly, or back into Adelaide and the rest of South Australia, with that produce.

Thomas Foods are at the start of a multimillion-dollar build at Murray Bridge, where the beef plant will be completed by the end of the year to get beef processing back underway in Murray Bridge after that terrible fire in early January 2018. I note alongside of that, in the member for MacKillop's electorate, that the feedlot is being doubled at Tintinara.

Just on that, there is another small community alongside communities like Pinnaroo and Lameroo that is benefiting from local industry investing in houses being built and rented by these business owners. It is very hard to find a house in Tintinara and Coonalpyn now because they need so many workers to work the feedlot. I note the utilisation of the Tintinara silos by Thomas Foods to put grain in, and also sourcing hay from local growers. It is a great boom for local communities. When you come from a small community yourself, seeing that influx of people really changes the face of the region.

I fully concur with the member for Mount Gambier's motion. A lot of people, through COVID, have only just found out about the regions and, do you know what? They found out that it is a very good place to be, and it is a great place to live, work and have fun.

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (12:32): I also rise to express my strong support for this motion. As somebody who has lived in regional South Australia for most of my life, like all other regional members, I am deeply committed to the place that I live in and to the electorate that I serve. We all want to see the benefits of being in the region recognised, and we all want to see all that can be done to ensure that we do get growth in our regions.

We stand in a chamber that is, in a sense, a reflection of the historical and current strength of our regions—look at our floor. The grain industry is still the most powerful industry in this state when it comes to producing export revenue. We have the grape and wine industry that, up until today, is still an incredibly strong contributor to our state. When we look at this chamber and how ostentatious it is, it is the result of a copper boom in the 19^th century. When that boom ended we got the upper house, which is nowhere near as ostentatious, so they missed out. The regions have been contributing to this state from the very beginning of the formation of South Australia.

We know that regional South Australia contains about 29 per cent of the population and it makes a $31 billion, or thereabouts, contribution to our state, so its importance cannot be understated. Our government recognises the potential for economic and population growth across regional South Australia, and we are backing them strongly in the 2022-23 budget, delivering $1.5 billion in new measures directly related to the regions over the forward estimates.

I come from the seat of Giles. A lot has been said about the future of hydrogen in our state, and it is going to be an incredibly strong future. I have been an advocate for hydrogen in South Australia going back to 2014-15, especially in Whyalla with its very significant comparative advantages of not just the presence of export facilities at Port Bonython but also the presence of the steelworks, which I would love to see green in the future—and green through hydrogen—replacing coking coal.

Indeed, the coke ovens in Whyalla were where my mother used to work. Occasionally I would pick her up, and she would be blackened by that place. To see hydrogen replace coking coal would be a massive step forward, both for the environment and also for the people who work at the steelworks—especially at the coke ovens—as long as we can transition them to the improved, refurbished plant.

If we are to realise the potential of regional South Australia, we need to invest in the people and in the communities of regional South Australia. Far too often services that are taken for granted in metropolitan Adelaide are simply not available or not up to the same standard in rural and regional areas, and there are lots of examples of this. Irrespective of the government that is in power, when you look at the history of South Australia, especially the more recent history, there has been a very strong metrocentric culture.

It is a culture that we in regional South Australia face. The default option is often Adelaide, and that is not a full recognition of what can be done and what the potential is of regional South Australia. I think that is changing, and changing rapidly, and I can name hydrogen as one element. It is incredibly important.

Something I have observed over the years is about having a strong economic base in your community and potentially, hopefully, a diversified economic base. If you have that, a lot of other good stuff flows: if you do not have that, a lot of problems come in its wake.

We are making very significant investments in health in regional South Australia, with $305.7 million in new health care and $58.6 million in new ambulance services. That is exclusively for regional South Australia. That is not to say that more does not need to be done, because obviously a lot more does need to be done when it comes to health in regional South Australia, especially when you look at the morbidity and mortality gap that exists between the metropolitan and regional areas. That needs to be broken down still further into different parts of the metropolitan area and different parts of regional South Australia. There are a lot of people in regional communities who get by on low incomes, and that has a whole range of other consequences, especially when it comes to health.

There are going to be hospital upgrades in Gawler—I am sorry, but I do not call Gawler part of regional South Australia—Kingscote, Mount Gambier, Port Pirie, Naracoorte, Port Augusta, Whyalla and Mount Barker, and you could question whether the Mount Barker is as well.

An honourable member: The Barossa.

Mr HUGHES: The Barossa obviously needs some assistance as well—but you are all close to Adelaide.

It is important we make those regional investments in regional roads. The bridge at Port Augusta was mentioned, but what is forgotten is that it was the Weatherill government that committed the funding at a state level to that particular bridge. They did it too late in the piece, in my opinion, but at least they made that commitment.

We need that investment in transport, education, training and skills, and primary industries needs more assistance. One of the things I really enjoyed about being the shadow minister for primary industries was getting out and meeting a lot of people in the aquaculture and fishing industries, in the pastoral industry and the grain industry. We should be doing more.

If I were to focus on what we should be doing, especially when it comes to agriculture and horticulture, government has an incredibly important role when it comes to funding research and development, especially with the challenges that are going to be faced over coming years with climate change. It is going to be a race between adaption and the rate of climate change.

Housing has been mentioned, and it is clearly one of the big issues in regional South Australia, and indeed the metropolitan area. We are getting on with the job. We are committing 150 of the 400 new homes being built by government to be in regional areas, bringing many more houses back online and able to be occupied once again. In my community there were 126 empty Housing Trust houses that could have been put to use, and that would be replicated in other regional communities. In my community in particular a quarter of the housing stock in Whyalla is Housing Trust stock, so it is important.

I would be the first to say that the housing policy we delivered in the budget, the funding we committed, will not go far enough. When it comes to housing we face major challenges. We need to be doing more, and we need essentially a 21^st century version of the Housing Trust, one that can accommodate some of the most vulnerable in our community, but we should also turn our minds to having housing once again as it was during the Playford era, as it was during the Dunstan era, as part of industry policy, because there is market failure. So we do need to have far more innovative partnerships with both the non-government sector and the private sector when it comes to delivering housing, but there is also a role for government to do significant heavy lifting when we cannot bring together the partnerships needed in some areas to do the job that is needed to be done.

We all know that there are skill shortages across the board in regional South Australia. We still have people who are unemployed who need to be skilled up in some communities. We are making a commitment to invest in technical colleges in two of our regional communities. Another of our high schools have not just that potential but are working on school-based apprenticeships and other approaches. But there is a lot to be done. The regions are a great place to live and I am sure that all of us agree, especially those of us from regional South Australia.

Ms PRATT (Frome) (12:42): I rise to support this motion and I thank the member for Mount Gambier for giving the house the opportunity to elaborate. Representing the electorate of Frome, the population at Frome at the most recent 2021 Census was 38,000 people, a mere 2.13 per cent of the state's total population, but I note that from an economic viewpoint we do a lot of the heavy lifting.

The member's motion has given me the opportunity to tell a story through statistics. When I look at the economic drivers of regional South Australia, I note that industries that form the backbone of our regional economy include primary industries, energy and mining and, of course, tourism, of which Frome is again a significant contributor.

If I expand that out to agriculture, aquaculture—we have talked about horticulture, fisheries, food, wine and forestry—there are significant families and businesses that make their contributions to our state economy. Moreover, where families and businesses are involved, they become major employers for regional towns. So I reflect that our primary industry and agribusiness supported up to 74,000 full-time equivalents for the last financial year.

The regional visitor expenditure did decline from $3.5 billion in 2019 to $2.6 billion in 2022, and we note the significant impact of COVID-19 on the visitor economy, but I am happy to note that we are seeing a rebound in latest results back to $3.6 billion. Parts of regional South Australia have seen periods of significant growth, as shown through monthly visitor expenditure.

I note that, through the local Yorke and Mid North RDA, Clare Valley has established its own targets and exceeded tourism targets well ahead of the 2025 year, which is significant. I think members have reflected that COVID has allowed South Australians to rediscover, or discover for the first time, a domestic tourist opportunity in their backyard.

This motion also gives me an opportunity to reflect on the Marshall Liberal government legacy and its commitment, as a party for the regions, through the significant investment it made, namely, $3 billion worth across more than a thousand regional projects and certainly over $100 million into the new electorate of Frome, which I have spoken about before in this place.

We were busy upgrading local country hospitals, doubling country cancer services and upgrading around 4,800 kilometres of regional roads. We were also building new and upgraded schools, improving local sports clubs and delivering new mobile phone towers to fix those wretched blackspots. After wide consultation with regional South Australians, we developed a first comprehensive regional development strategy to drive economic growth, to create jobs and to ensure that people have the services they need closer to home.

When it comes to regional health care, we invested in upgraded facilities and expanded services at regional hospitals, including Murray Bridge, Victor Harbor and Yorketown in Narungga. This work included a new emergency department at the Mount Barker hospital, a massive expansion of the Gawler hospital emergency department—although I note that the member for Giles does not recognise Gawler as regional—and progressing a new Barossa hospital, to the delight of the new member for Schubert.

We expanded renal dialysis services at the Mount Gambier and Ceduna hospitals. We doubled the number of medium-complexity country chemotherapy units, with expanded units in Victor Harbor, the Riverland and Port Lincoln. We introduced more flexible arrangements through the very essential Patient Assistance Transport Scheme for people who need to travel long distances for special medical treatment, and we invested $20 million in the Rural Health Workforce Strategy to strengthen our rural health workforce.

When it comes to road infrastructure, we inherited a $750 million backlog of road maintenance and took every day of the four years we had in government to make a difference. We were investing close to $3 billion to build new roads in our regions and to improve the maintenance of the existing ones with upgrades, as I said, to around 4,800 kilometres of regional roads stretching around South Australia. We did this by sealing road shoulders, widening lanes, installing guard posts and resurfacing. As the former member for Flinders often reflected, wider roads are safer roads.

The litany of investment that we made in regional roads continues all the way around South Australia. I will pick up some highlights by starting with the bypass at Truro—the upgrade to the Sturt Highway. We upgraded and sealed the Strzelecki Track, and that allowed us to further open an important freight route. We built the overpass at the intersection of the Copper Coast Highway and the Augusta Highway at Port Wakefield, which was well overdue. In duplicating the Augusta Highway, we have seen that funding extended to Lochiel, with its beautiful bubblegum shores at Lake Bumbunga and the Lochiel monster—another great tourist destination.

We invested in the Penola Northern Bypass. We had a very overdue upgrade to the Horrocks Highway, from Wilmington to Gawler, and of course we saw investment in Kangaroo Island road upgrades. I make particular mention of the completion of the $11 million Dublin saleyard upgrade project that supports the livestock industry in my electorate of Frome; a $62.5 million upgrade of the Barrier Highway between Cockburn and Burra; and 300 kilometres of highway passing between the northern townships of Olary, Yunta, Hallett and Mount Bryan. I make reference to these to validate the member's motion that investment in the regions sees returns to state coffers. Finally, in referencing regional roads, I want to pick up previous references to the final completion and duplication of the Joy Baluch AM Bridge in Port Augusta, something that was much needed for that township.

In regard to the economic profile of South Australia's regions I note that the contribution from the non-metropolitan region, or should I say regional SA, was around $31.2 billion for the last financial year. The largest non-metropolitan regions in South Australia by gross regional product—so the really heavy lifters—were the Limestone Coast and the Murray Mallee, both contributing $4.7 billion. By no mean feat, coming in second, was my own region, the Mid North, contributing $4.5 billion. I repeat my earlier point that the hardworking families of Frome are certainly doing the heavy lifting.

The member for Mount Gambier will, I am sure, allow my indulgence for all things education. I know he shares that passion. I am proud of the investment the Marshall Liberal government made into education and therefore into building our future workforce. In the electorate of Frome, we saw millions and millions of dollars in total invested across the Balaklava High School, Clare preschool and high school, Eudunda Area School, Jamestown Community School, Tarlee Primary School and, significantly, the Kapunda High School, where we know, sadly, the original homestead of Sir Sidney Kidman, named Eringa, experienced a fire most recently.

The member for Mount Gambier made reference to the importance of the teaching workforce and the opportunity and the benefit that come from regions having solid infrastructure and therefore attracting a workforce. Certainly, teachers are naturally drawn to work in country SA. My own experience of working in Mount Gambier was a delightful decade spent in the South-East, but housing at the time was not an issue. It certainly is now.

In my own electorate of Frome, I know that Simon Rowe of Princess Royal Station, Warrick Duthy of the Watervale pub and other proprietors in hospitality and accommodation through the electorate find that in order to grow their business where they are ready to recruit they are having to combine it with almost a house and land package: they have to supply housing at the same time to secure the staffing, which requires urgent attention from this government.

I agree that good education supports the workforce shifting to the regions, but we need to address the housing shortfall to continue that retention and attraction. Regional SA certainly is a great place to work and live—the member for Hammond and I concur there—and it certainly contributes much to the economy from a much smaller population. I commend the motion to the house and note that, from a regional SA point of view, we are just getting started.

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (12:52): I, too, rise to support the motion of the member for Mount Gambier. I think it is always important that we acknowledge and recognise the significant contribution that regional South Australia makes to our economy. In fact, there are lots of people in my community of Schubert who often say to me that, without our farmers and without regional South Australia, we would be hungry, naked and sober. That is certainly a very sobering thought indeed.

I think that the regions epitomise the very best of our state. The amount of $31.2 billion is the contribution that South Australian regions made in 2020-21. I would like to touch on two industries in particular: food and wine. They are two very prominent industries in my electorate of Schubert, and Schubert encapsulates, if I don't say so myself, the very best of the best when it comes to food and wine: the beautiful Barossa Valley and, of course, we have the northern part of the Adelaide Hills.

I would like to quickly reflect on the Barossa, for instance: a population of around 35,000 people, with wine grapes approximately $140 million in value in the Barossa Valley and $21 million in the Eden Valley. We have 14,000 hectares of viticulture and approximately $941 million worth of value of output from the wine industry activities in 2019-20. We have agriculture and grazing of around $20 million in production value and over 100 sheep, cattle and dairy farming businesses, my family included.

That is just a quick snapshot, and it does not take in the enormous contribution of the food bowl of the northern Adelaide Hills or the south-west of my electorate. This economic contribution is really underpinned by the people who make up our regions. We are full of frugality and passion and resilience and a sense of get-up-and-go that is unparalleled anywhere else in the nation.

Their hard work, their passion and their sense of community are what pull people to the region, with a regional visitor expenditure result of around $3.6 billion across regional South Australia, bouncing back to where we were from a pre-COVID perspective. I think we can all acknowledge—and indeed most members who have made contributions to this motion have acknowledged—the significant impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on our regional communities. It is so fantastic to be able to see that bounce back.

The former Marshall government had a really proud record of investing in regional communities, from infrastructure to health, to community infrastructure as well as to our sporting clubs. The member for Frome, who is my electorate neighbour, really touched on that in detail. Regional communities do not expect handouts from government. They have made a living off their own grit and determination and their stewardship of the land for decades and decades and decades. But they do want government to get out of the way and let them get on with what they do best, and that is producing food for South Australia.

But they do expect investments that reflect the serious heavy lifting they do for our economy. I am committed, like all those on this side of the house, to being a fighter for regional communities for as long as I am afforded the privilege of being in this place. I will of course unashamedly advocate for my community. It epitomises the very best of South Australia and has a country spirit like no other place. South Australia's future success and prosperity depend in large part on a strong and vibrant regional community, and I again voice my support for the member for Mount Gambier's motion.

Mr TELFER (Flinders) (12:57): May I speak in favour of this great motion from the member for Mount Gambier and appreciate the sentiment that has been shared around this chamber. There are so many opportunities for our state that can be driven by our regions. We need to get the policy decisions right from state government to maximise those opportunities.

I have already shown in this place that I am a strong advocate for our regions in South Australia, regions that contribute so much. I have already put out the number a few times in this place: $29 billion to the state's economy, and I think that number has now surpassed $30 billion. These are incredible numbers when you compare them to the population that actually lives within our regions. In my region in particular, we have a broad range of production areas.

I want to highlight the agricultural sector to the state's economy: $4 billion it puts in. In my electorate, it is 40 per cent of the state's wheat, 24 per cent of the state's barley and 22 per cent of the state's canola. There are opportunities for us as a state to invest back into our industries to maximise the opportunities. Our farmers, our primary producers, are always at the cutting edge of technology, and they are always willing to do what they can to maximise their production.

It is the same in the mining industry. The mining industry puts billions of dollars into our state's economy and provides thousands of jobs for South Australians. We need to make sure that we are investing those dollars back into our regions so that we support not only the industry we have now but the potential industry we could have. Aquaculture and fishing is exactly the same, and it is very prominent in my electorate of Flinders.

We see the horticultural sector going from strength to strength across our state, providing food on the table not just for us as South Australians but for Australia as a whole and the many export opportunities that there are. Primary production is all about producing export products, and the difference with export products is that it is actually bringing new money into our state's economy. It is not just churning the same money around and around, like some sectors; it is new money coming in.

I was interested to see a new report from the Commonwealth Bank and the Regional Australia Institute, which showed that regional migration is at a five-year high across Australia. The lifestyle and opportunities that are there in our regions are being recognised. It is wonderful to see so many young families choosing to make regional South Australia their home, and there is no doubt that this influx creates added strain on infrastructure and services. We cannot have those living in our regions being at a disadvantage—

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Loath as I am to interrupt the member, he might wish to seek leave to continue his remarks.

Mr TELFER: I seek leave to continue my remarks after the break.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13:01 to 14:00.