Algal Bloom

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (17:19): I have a question for the Premier, but perhaps the Deputy Premier in his absence. Can pubs and hospitality businesses affected by the tourism side effects of the algal bloom be included in the business support grants immediately? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr ELLIS: At Port Vincent, where the impact of the bloom is probably being felt most acutely currently, there is a kiosk that serves food and drink on one side of the road that is eligible for the grant. On the other side of the road, there is a pub—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hold on a sec. You can start again. That's three, I think, member for Florey, and the member for Hammond is on three, too, for helping me out. Member for Narungga, you can actually have your question unimpeded now because the next member who speaks out will leave the chamber.

Mr ELLIS: Famous last words, Deputy Speaker. I have a question for the Deputy Premier. Can pubs and hospitality businesses that have been affected by the tourism side effects of the algal bloom be included in the business support grants immediately? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr ELLIS: At Port Vincent, where the impact of the bloom is perhaps being felt most acutely, there is a kiosk that serves food and drink that is eligible for the grant on one side of the road. On the other side of that same road there is a pub which also serves food and drink but isn't eligible for the grant.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Police) (17:20): I thank the member for Narungga for his question. As always, I think it's important that he continues to raise the issues that are front of mind for his electorate. The government has been very aware over the course of recent months, as we have been discussing during question time today, that there has been not only significant concern about what the algal bloom means but also the business impacts of the algal bloom, whether it's on the fishing industries and the participants within them or the broader impacts in communities which are either being directly impacted by the algal bloom or that there is some spillover effect.

Just yesterday, the government made its most recent changes to the industry support package focused on fisheries and the industry participants within them to make sure that we were relaxing some of the criteria to make it easier for some of those businesses to access financial support. The way in which this government has continued to try to make funding assistance available for affected businesses is to make it relatively easy for them to apply through the Department of State Development and they can show essentially two very simple bits of information. One is what the most recent three months of trading activity has looked like and compare it back to the same period of time 12 months earlier. If there has been a decline in turnover of 30 per cent then they would be able to access those funds.

We have, to date, tried to focus our efforts on providing direct financial advice to those small businesses that we understand are most immediately most likely to be affected by any reduction in activity along the coastline. For example, we have identified kiosks alongside beaches as a category of business that would readily fall within that category.

But I am aware that there has been some concern from some pubs and hotels which, of course, attract perhaps a broader part of the community to their operations, not necessarily just relying on the daytime trade that the beachside locations will attract to their premises, that they haven't been included to date in the same way. In fact, I was listening to talkback radio this morning when I think the proprietor of the Stansbury hotel was raising this issue as well.

I think that, while some of those pubs and hotels are not currently eligible for those financial assistance grants that we have made available to other businesses, which are, as far as we can tell, ostensibly more impacted by a decline in trading conditions, I think what we have done to date is demonstrate that we are willing to be flexible and revisit those terms should it become required in the future.

As the Premier was at pains to highlight earlier, what we are concerned about is not just the impact on those communities that are affected directly but the perception more broadly into other communities which actually aren't affected by the algal bloom but where South Australians or, indeed, others might think that they are affected and hence there's a downturn in trade. That is something that we are continuing to monitor. We have made it clear from day one that we are prepared to be flexible and continue considering how we might be able to help, and that might be an avenue in the future.