AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

The Hon. J.S. LEE (15:23): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries a question about agricultural research and development.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: According to ABS statistics released on 3 October, South Australia's export performance fell by 9.1 per cent in the three months to August. In the last 12 months, South Australian export growth was also the worst in the nation. South Australia was the only state to record a decrease while the national trend shows a 1.1 per cent increase.

I met a number of exporters and farmers at the Business SA Export Awards and the Advantage SA Regional Awards on Friday last week. They expressed that they are struggling to compete internationally due to the lack of government funding for research and development. The President of the South Australian Farmers Federation, Mr Roger Farley, stated in a press released on 4 October:

It's time to draw a line in the sand. South Australian agriculture cannot afford any more cuts to its research and development capabilities.

He continues to say:

The continual downgrading of the few remaining agricultural resources such as Struan, shows that the state government has very little understanding of what is required for a sustainable farming sector.

My questions to the minister are:

1. The government has substantially cut the funding for SARDI and PIRSA. Can the minister outline what is the future for both the Struan Agricultural Centre and the Jamestown office of PIRSA?

2. Can the minister provide any assurance to farmers that there will be no further downgrade or funding cut for R&D facilities in the South Australian agricultural sector?

3. What assistance will the government provide to help farmers develop sustainable export capabilities in the highly competitive international market?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Tourism, Minister for the Status of Women) (15:26): I thank the honourable member for her most important question and, indeed, this government is very committed to sustainable and socially responsible economic development in agriculture, food and fisheries. The approach is one of robust flexible and adaptive policy to address global market volatility, food security and also things like climate change.

The role of the South Australian government through PIRSA is to develop and implement policies and programs that ensure that this state remains competitive, profitable and sustainable. The government has recently announced our seven key priority areas that are the focus of government policy and activity going forward, and premium food coming from a clean environment is one of those priority areas.

The details supporting the development of this theme are currently being developed by a cabinet taskforce chaired by the Premier which is supported by a high-level, whole of government senior officer group. I come into this place time and time again and complain that all we hear is the opposition talking down our state. They talk down our tourism sector, and they talk down our agriculture sector.

All they spruik is gloom and doom, and it is irresponsible and disgraceful. We have seen a wide number of achievements in our agriculture sector: significant increases in the production and processing of chicken meat; record levels of grain exports and shipping from South Australian ports; record exports of red meat from South Australia; and the list goes on. As I said, we do a great deal.

In terms of research and development I will not insult the chamber by going over this. I spoke at length during a reply to a government member on the work that we are doing with SARDI and how we will end up with one of the best R&D facilities in the Southern Hemisphere, so I am not going to insult everyone by going through that again. To suggest that we are not committed to research and development is an absolute nonsense and, as I said, I am not going to insult the chamber by repeating all the good work that we are doing on research and development.