Forestry Industry

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:53): My question is to the Treasurer. Could the Treasurer inform the house why the strong South Australian economy is not affecting the forestry sector in the Limestone Coast? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: At last week's disaster management meeting in Mount Gambier, the forestry sector informed me there was a downturn in the movement of timber when there is a housing shortage in SA and Australia-wide.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer) (14:53): I thank the member for MacKillop for his question because I know that he not only takes a strong interest in the forestry sector but has been a champion in this place for them to continue growing and expanding their operations here in South Australia.

Members would be aware, particularly over the last five years, of the pressures that the housing industry has been under here in South Australia. Part of that pressure has been exacerbated by the lack of building materials that were available for the building industry to enable them to deliver on the contracts that had been written by many home builders.

In fact, the Minister for Planning was just making reference to the fact that many builders called this 'the profitless boom' in South Australia. As the price of building materials and the scarcity of labour continued to put great strain on the contracts that they had signed, they were delivering homes at much higher prices than what had been contracted. So the question, quite rightly, was asked, 'Well, we've got a huge timber industry here in South Australia who are highly productive and skilled at what they do, growing and harvesting timber, in particular, so why isn't there more domestic manufacturing of timber products that could be made available for the housing industry?'

In recent years, particularly in a time when these pressures were being most acutely felt in the building industry, I recall receiving representations—as did the then Leader of the Opposition, our Premier, as did the now Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and many other now ministers—as to why on earth wasn't the state doing more to support domestic manufacturing. Unfortunately, there were a number of proposals which had been put to the previous government about how domestic manufacturing could be expanded.

That, of course, was enough of an incentive for the Malinauskas Labor government to make good on its commitments to start investing significant resources into the South-East to try to give the forestry industry more of an opportunity to meet some of these demands, particularly in home building but also for other products: a significant investment in the Mount Gambier TAFE, including a very specific commitment to do what we could to try to return the skills and trades training courses for saw doctoring; making resources available for a review of the natural resources down in the South-East, including water, which are important to the timber industry; and directly investing in those opportunities to allow the timber industry to increase its supply into the domestic market.

I don't pretend to say that the job is anywhere near done, taking full advantage of the extraordinary natural resource we have which is being provided to our state and our country by the member for MacKillop's constituents. But we are committed to taking those actions. We have started that important work. We are putting more resources in. We feel, as a government, that we benefit from direct engagement with people who know what they are talking about, like the member for MacKillop, to understand what further options we've got to deliver on this extraordinary opportunity for our state and for that industry.