Defence Shipbuilding

S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (14:25): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier inform the house of any updates regarding shipbuilding in South Australia?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:25): I thank the member for Gibson—

The Hon. V.A. Tarzia interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Hartley, order!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: I thank the member for Gibson for her question. On Friday of last week, I had the opportunity to be with the Deputy Prime Minister of the country who was Acting Prime Minister at the time, Mr Richard Marles, who is also the defence minister. We were able to make a very significant announcement that really is a coup for the state of South Australia. We were able to formally advise the state that a land-swap agreement had been signed and actioned, a land-swap agreement that would see a bit over 60 hectares of land be transferred from the state at Osborne in exchange for 15,000 hectares of land from the commonwealth.

As part of what has been an exhaustive negotiation that has lasted a lengthy period of time, the state has been able to get our hands on three separate parcels of land that have been actively pursued, or have certainly been on the radar of government for an exceedingly long period of time. The first of which I would refer to is at Cultana. The state government, as I think has been well documented, has significant ambitions for the Upper Spencer Gulf of our state, particularly in and around Whyalla and Port Bonython.

The member for Giles has long been an advocate for the hydrogen industry in South Australia and what it can bring, and early into the life of the government, the Minister for Energy and Mining put on my radar that we would love to get access to that Cultana land off the Army. Multiple approaches were made, and we weren't able to get very far until it became clear that the commonwealth needed land from us, and we were able to start having a more serious negotiation. We've now got that massive parcel of land at Cultana which will better facilitate the integration between our hydrogen policy in and around Whyalla and Port Bonython itself. It is an extraordinary acquisition on behalf of the state that sets us up into the long term.

At Smithfield, immediately behind or adjacent to the Munno Para Shopping Centre is a very large piece of land that the Defence Force has had for some time. That represents a big opportunity for an urban renewal project adjacent to the Smithfield—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Taylor, order! Member for Morialta!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —sorry, adjacent to the Munno Para Shopping Centre and we look forward to developing that in due course. Finally is the Keswick Barracks. This has been talked about forever more as being a potential urban renewal project but we have never had the ability to be able to get our hands on that land. However, through this negotiation we have finally done it.

The member for Badcoe has certainly been a powerful advocate about what happens on the parcel of land immediately adjacent to the Keswick Barracks site, at the old Le Cornu site, and we see a project now in train there, but now the Keswick Barracks site comes into the hands of the state government, and we lease it back to the ADF for a period of three years to give them time to move off.

That gives us three years to do the master planning, the infrastructure work, the rezoning to come up with a project that provides a lot of affordable housing—I should have mentioned 40 per cent at Smithfield and no less than 15 per cent at Keswick Barracks while adopting the heritage nature of the site, which is substantial. But close to public transport and immediately adjacent to the city—this is a serious project for a serious government that is addressing the housing crisis and, most importantly, working collaboratively with the commonwealth to make sure that we can build the nuclear submarines here at Osborne.