Question Time

Port Augusta Community Safety

The Hon. G.G. BROCK (Stuart) (14:42): My question is to the Minister for Human Services. Can the minister please update the community of Port Augusta regarding the progress of the funding for the new community partnership for a safer, stronger Port Augusta that was announced on 17 July with a partnership between the South Australian government and the federal government of $12 million? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain a bit further.

Leave granted.

The Hon. G.G. BROCK: This program, which our community at Port Augusta greatly appreciate, was to form a leadership group with community involvement, finalise the Port Augusta Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan and get the community really involved with improving the safety issues currently being experienced across Port Augusta. Minister, it has been nearly 13 weeks since that was announced. Has the community leadership group been established, who may be on it and when can we get some communication out to the community of Port Augusta?

The SPEAKER: I think there were a few questions in that question and a statement as well.

The Hon. N.F. COOK (Hurtle Vale—Minister for Human Services, Minister for Seniors and Ageing Well) (14:43): Thank you very much to the member for the question. I will endeavour to get to as much of that as I can but also commit to having further conversation as well. Thank you so much to the member for the decades of commitment to the Upper Spencer Gulf. We have been focusing for more than 2½ years now on Port Augusta and its young people particularly as well as Aboriginal people who move between remote, regional and metropolitan areas.

The former Liberal government let the Port Augusta City Safe program disappear in 2020, but at the 2022 election we committed $1.2 million for community safety in Port Augusta. We delivered this in our 2022 budget and established the Port Augusta Community Outreach program that got multiple agencies out on the street delivering help where it is needed. This has since been expanded, delivering standalone youth outreach services, and in early 2023 the Port Augusta council also secured $1 million of funding for youth programs through The Benevolent Society under Mayor Linley Shine's leadership. We are very pleased to work with them on some of these pieces of important work.

Our 2023 budget included $1.6 million to support people from remote communities, including more help to return to community from Port Augusta, Adelaide, Coober Pedy and Ceduna. In 2023 we established a safer place to gather in the CBD, which also has those flow-on effects; that was in partnership with the City of Adelaide. In our 2024 budget we have included $11 million for health and community supports focused on people travelling between remote, regional and metropolitan areas, and we went out and announced the $12 million partnership with the commonwealth focused on Port Augusta.

Together, these tripartite arrangements total around $27 million over several years, with more than half of this specifically for Port Augusta and the majority of it targeting youth and the pathways. It is a huge turnaround from that time in 2020 when there was a cut to the safety program, let alone making any new investments. All this work is happening alongside other major investments like the technical college with the Department for Education, the investment which is going to be across the road from the youth centre, supporting young people in the Upper Spencer Gulf and their future.

This $12 million partnership with the commonwealth is fundamentally linked to doing things in a new way with community leadership at its heart. It is funding projects that address entrenched disadvantage and ensure that those activities are wanted and led by the community. Since the announcement, our dedicated team has engaged in more than 50 consultations with individuals, elected representatives, local councils, businesses, Aboriginal organisations, and community groups on the approach that will roll out over the following three years.

We have now finalised a draft of the Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan. Currently, for the leadership group that you referred to, the membership is being finalised, so that leadership group will play a role in completing the safety and wellbeing plan. It would be inappropriate to complete it without the tick-off and the final consultation with that leadership group. We will also make sure new initiatives are community-led, monitored and evaluated. The first formal meeting is due in the next couple of weeks. I look forward to having more to say after that happens.

We can't fix entrenched disadvantage overnight; this will take some time, but with the community owning and leading the path forward, and with sufficient investment—financial and human—in the program, I feel that we can definitely make some progress.