Economic and Business Growth Fund

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (14:24): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment regarding the Economic and Business Growth Fund.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN: According to the Department for Trade, Tourism and Investment website, the government has developed a framework to provide financial assistance to private sector entities to be delivered through three new designated funds. This framework includes the $100 million Economic and Business Growth Fund, a fund which the minister claimed during estimates last year that he is the lead minister for.

There are three publicly known initiatives from this fund: $2 million for a new head office for Mitsubishi Motors; $4 million to the Department for Trade, Tourism and Investment for the South Australian Landing Pad; and $3 million to the South Australian Tourism Commission for a winter tourism campaign. My question to the minister is: are his agencies so cash-strapped that they have now decided to raid industry assistance funding?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) (14:25): I thank the honourable member for her question. The Economic and Business Growth Fund is designed to support our sector approach to growing the state's economy. As we know, as we have said in this place, we will occasionally reserve the right to invest in individual businesses when we think it is sensible and prudent, and we did that with Mitsubishi Motors. The good friends of the members opposite, the Victorian government, were trying to steal that from us. In fact, I think we probably managed to retain Mitsubishi for a fraction of the cost that the Victorian Labor Party were trying to drag them away for.

We look at a sector approach. The Landing Pad is for all sectors—any business; new ones, as long as they have traded for 12 months in any particular area. We were happy to fund that Landing Pad through the Economic and Business Growth Fund. The former government might have just had a few million dollars sitting round in small change; we don't. We are prudent. We manage our money.

The Hon. I.K. Hunter: How do you explain that to industry? You are taking their money for your own internal programs.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Hunter, you are not answering a question; the minister is.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: We went to the election saying we would have a sector approach. That's what we are doing. If that is not a sector, I'll go he for chasey. It's a sector that employs thousands—I think it is nearly 36,000 people across South Australia. It is the only labour-intensive industry left in regional South Australia, and the members opposite don't think that we should be actually investing in marketing and promoting it. We are about supporting sectors, and that's what we are going to do.