Frome Electorate

Ms PRATT (Frome) (15:47): There is a stark contrast in the grieves today, where we hear from our city MP colleagues on the other side of the house about the fun and the frivolity of Fringe and—

Members interjecting:

Ms PRATT: Mr Speaker, I am going to speak directly to you because I did not get to conclude my sentence and that is we absolutely welcome and love activities such as the Fringe. While I was not going to make this point, in the electorate of Frome I have been told by those who want to promote art festivals that we are sad that we are not getting as many.

The member for Hurtle Vale interjects because she thinks I am going to speak about the Fringe Festival. I am going to speak about the drought. I am going to speak about the drought because the beginning of my speech was the contrast that city MPs are in a position to celebrate all the things that are wonderful that are happening in this city.

WOMADelaide is about to kick off. We have the Gather Round coming. We have seen LIV Golf and the Fringe is abuzz. I enjoyed going to the Tour Down Under, but in regional South Australia we are in a drought. The member for Heysen has explained fully the pressures of a lack of water that are being experienced by the residents he represents in the Hills. While I will touch on water today, my farmers need to know that their views, their issues, their concerns are being represented in this house, ventilated in the same way that the member for Gibson is entitled to speak about what is happening in her electorate.

We are not having fun. We are not having fun in Frome. We are in drought and we are in drought in a serious way. We have a primary school, a government asset at which, should there be a brownout—a loss of power—and the bore is dry, these students cannot flush their toilets. That is still not the point of my grieve today, but it is an interruption that is unwelcome in a grieve that has been delayed on a topic that is of great concern.

What I have been doing as I move around the electorate is spending time visiting my ag bureaus. I want to give a shout-out to the 30 young farmers, a new generation of farmers, who came along to the Mallala ag bureau and allowed me to spend time with them. While last year's harvest really was devastating, what I see is a new generation of farmers fully committed to data, to ag tech, to science, to analytics, to the agronomy of their soil and their crops.

This is what they were asked to reflect on: 'Give us a positive and a negative from your harvest.' They thought deeply about reduced yield and overdrafts with banks—there are pressures on them that are not insignificant—but they still came up with the positives; for example, a comparison of who grew canola and who had success with it. Some, Mr Speaker, had grown a GMO version, which I am sure is familiar to you. Dry seeding deeper did contribute to a germination that gave farmers a yield in 2024-25 that they would not have seen 10 or 15 years ago.

Talkback is lighting up; chat rooms on Facebook and social media are lighting up. It is important that I reflect some of those views that have been shared by those who are living this. We are seeing water being carted. We know that dams are dry. There is not enough water storage in the tanks that people have: there are reports that they are down to their last tank or that their bores are salty. That is for communities that are not on the mains.

A shout-out to a fantastic advocate in mental health, Steph Schmidt, who is the Farm Life Psychologist. She is connecting with farmers who are listening to her, making the point that the government has an opportunity to do more to support them. The time that I have been given, while reduced, is not enough. I merely want to say to the farmers who are working in districts like Balaklava, Mallala and all the way up to Jamestown: the Liberal Party are with you and we know you are doing it tough, but keep going.