Wine Industry

The Hon. D.R. CREGAN (Kavel) (15:11): My question is to the Minister for Trade and Investment. Can the minister please provide an update to the house on the export performance of the South Australian wine industry, and particularly the Adelaide Hills wine region?

The SPEAKER: The equal second-best wine region in South Australia.

The Hon. J.K. SZAKACS (Cheltenham—Minister for Trade and Investment, Minister for Veterans Affairs, Minister for Local Government, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (15:11): I certainly thank the member for his question and his advocacy for his Adelaide Hills. Mr Speaker, as you have touched on, it's a dangerous position to pick a favourite wine region in a chamber full of very keen advocates for their region: McLaren Vale, Adelaide Hills, Limestone Coast, Coonawarra, Clare Valley, Riverland—

Mr Pederick: Langhorne Creek.

The Hon. J.K. SZAKACS: —Langhorne Creek and—the member for Flinders is not here, but to his credit—Lower Eyre Peninsula as well. The wine industry has certainly had a number of tough years and within that there has been a degree of resilience from winemakers and wine exporters that has been extraordinarily important to their recovery. We know that through the former Morrison government relations with our major trading partners played second fiddle to the politics. The need for open dialogue with all of the $17 billion worth of export partners that we have in South Australia is critically important.

The wine industry itself, particularly with respect to the Adelaide Hills, has been well supported by its peak associations, by Wine Australia, but also—with the direct support of our government since the reopening of trade with China—it has seen significant and material improvement. In fact, in the 10 months since the tariffs were lifted and the effective ban of wine into China was lifted from March of last year, $760 million worth of South Australian wine has now been exported to China. It is a great outcome for South Australian wineries, but also more important is the important outcome for regional communities, just like the member for Kavel's up in the Hills.

With data just to hand, as I have been sitting in the chamber today, in the last 12 months over $1.8 billion worth of South Australian wines have been exported from South Australia to the world. It is that premium offering which is getting us into these jurisdictions. It is the continual effort from wineries, from associations and from government to kick down doors, to diversify and to open new markets that are seeing this particular improvement.

One of the particular programs of which the member for Kavel and his constituent wineries will be particularly interested in knowing is the Department for State Development's recovery program, which has seen wineries like Shaw and Smith, Tapanappa, Bird in Hand and Tomich continue their success. That has been as a direct result of the announcement, implementation and execution of our government's re-engagement workshops and package which have seen this occur.

In fact, we held recently a major workshop in the Adelaide Hills which not only saw the Adelaide Hills wine region showcased but brought together all of South Australia's great wine regions, including McLaren Vale, to devote attention to and open new markets across Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, just to name a few. The reason that this is important is that, notwithstanding the member's interest in the recovery post-China, the first and foremost priority of our government is diversification, and we have seen some fantastic results that are backing that in.