Healthy Workplaces Service

Ms CLANCY (Elder) (14:36): My question is to the Minister for Small and Family Business. How is the state government supporting business owners to create healthy workplaces?

The Hon. A. MICHAELS (Enfield—Minister for Small and Family Business, Minister for Consumer and Business Affairs, Minister for Arts) (14:36): I want to thank the member for Elder for her interest in mentally healthy workplaces, particularly as the Premier's Advocate for Suicide Prevention, which is a critical role. The Malinauskas government is committed to improving the health of all South Australians, with a focus on wellbeing and early prevention, particularly in the area of mental health. I want to acknowledge my cabinet colleague and friend the Minister for Health and Wellbeing for his fantastic work in this space.

We do know that mental health is a key concern for South Australians, and we know that this also includes small business owners and their teams. Over the last 2½ months, we have undertaken extensive consultation through the Office for Small and Family Business. We know that about two-thirds of small business owners have identified that their mental health has been significantly impacted by the last couple of years of fires, floods and the COVID pandemic. Two-thirds have said their mental health has been impacted.

There has also been other consultation recently with 250 workplaces about proactive steps that can be taken to build a positive and safe workplace culture. Business owners recognise the connection between happy, healthy employees and productive workplaces, but often they actually don't know the practical steps to undertake to improve their workplaces and make them more mentally healthy. So we have now launched the Healthy Workplaces Service to do just that.

It's designed to boost the mental and physical health of employees. It provides free information, resources and support to all South Australian businesses to help them build safe and healthy workplaces. The Healthy Workplaces Service can support businesses large or small to create health and wellbeing programs, address specific health and wellbeing issues and link businesses into resources and supports that promote healthy workplaces. Any businesses that are interested can sign up to healthyworkplaces.sa.gov.au.

I want to acknowledge multiple government agencies that have been involved in rolling out this program, including Wellbeing SA; the Department for Industry, Innovation and Science; and, in particular, the Office for Small and Family Business; SafeWork SA; ReturnToWorkSA; and the Office of the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment.

It was a pleasure last week to attend with the Minister for Health and Wellbeing the Biggest Mentally Healthy Business Breakfast that was put on by Business SA where we announced this new service. I want to acknowledge the CEO of Business SA, Andrew Kay, and his team for staging such an important event last week. I also want to acknowledge the MC that morning, Mark Soderstrom, who himself has been a vocal advocate for mental health. He shared his own challenges during the breakfast and it was a very useful and important conversation to have.

It's also important that we note the federal government last week announced $15 million to allow the free mental health and financial counselling support for small business owners to continue. This will allow Beyond Blue's NewAccess for Small Business Owners program to continue and also the Small Business Debt Helpline, operated by Financial Counselling Australia, to continue. Business owners can find a link to that on the Office of Small and Family Business website as well, which is business.sa.gov.au.

Mental health and wellbeing is a priority for this government. We are going to continue to work side by side with South Australians to improve mental health. It's particularly important for small business owners for themselves and their teams to build resilience around this and to build awareness around this and have those very important conversations. We can all make a difference, including in our small business community.