Distilled Spirits Industry

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (15:37): I rise today to speak about an important industry, the distilled spirits industry. Last sitting week, I had the great privilege, pleasure and honour to be at a dinner hosted by the Hon. Josh Teague, Speaker of the House of Assembly, and the Hon. David Basham, the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, in the Speaker's dining room, where they hosted a number of prominent members of the South Australian Spirit Producers Association (SASPA).

It made me cast my mind back some five years, almost to the day, when I was the shadow minister. We had a very small industry back then. We had, I think, about six distilleries employing about 30 people. It made me cast my mind back to a forum that I hosted, a distilled industries forum, here in Parliament House during the winter break, when the Premier and other ministers from the Labor Party had travelled overseas. I think most of them had gone to China for a big trade mission. We wanted to look at developing new industries in South Australia.

This particular forum received some favourable comment from The Advertiser, from Cameron England and also from Sheridan Holderhead. It also received comment from Tom Richardson, and I spoke to Tom this morning. I will not read out his contribution, but he took a satirical view of the forum that I might be holding, and his description of it was just a commentary of now Premier Marshall and I opening a bottle of whisky, which is one barrier to the industry, and the other barrier to fill was the supply gap and drinking it would fill the supply gap. Nonetheless, that satirical view, I think a somewhat tongue-in-cheek view, taken by Mr Tom Richardson was a little disappointing, given where the industry is today.

We released a findings paper, which discussed a number of areas, including approvals and planning, liquor licensing, excise and tax arrangements, appellation and branding, product standards and supply chains. We listed a key bunch of actions to be followed. It is quite interesting that from those actions a lot of work was done. Clearly, we could all tell there was a tremendous amount of potential for an industry that was only employing about 30 people. One of the whisky producers said to me that the greatest value-adding you can do is turn a tonne of barley that is, say, valued at $400 into whisky, and there is some $22,000 of tax that comes to various levels of government from that. So there were some good opportunities to grow that sector.

I am really pleased to see that from those small beginnings and those findings—and we wrote to a number of government officials both here and in Canberra—I was very pleased to see back in January this year the Minister for Primary Industry and Regions, the Hon. David Basham, funded the formation of an industry blueprint, which the South Australian Spirit Producers Association is now working on, which will be a wonderful foundation for that industry to grow forward. Also, we saw in the recent federal budget the wonderful news that, and I quote:

A new federal government package aims to turbocharge the nation's craft beer brewers and boutique spirit distillers by freeing up cash to employ new workers, expand on cellar door facilities or explore new export markets.

So I really appreciate the recognition that the federal government has given this particularly important industry because that was one of the concerns around the industry back at the forum, that we were not able to get that growth because of the high levels of taxation.

Of course, we had our members of academia at that forum. They were from the University of Adelaide and Waite, and I know that they have developed their national collaboration hub for agriculture, food and wine innovation—a project that they have been pursuing, something that the current member for Boothby, Nicolle Flint, supports, and I know the new candidate for Boothby, Dr Rachel Swift, supports.

This collaboration centre for agriculture, food and wine will include a research distillery. It is important that as this industry continues to grow we look to support it with the academic rigour, the research and the testing and the standards. As I said, one of the areas we were concerned about in the findings was product testing and product standards, so by having the university behind this industry I am sure we will see it continue to grow.

It is interesting that the industry has gone from six producers and 30 employees five years ago to now some 60 producers and over 1,000 employees—a truly remarkable growth. I urge everybody to play their role and continue to consume South Australia's fine spirits.