Fruit Fly

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (Leader of the Opposition) (15:19): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development regarding fruit fly.

The Hon. K.J. Maher: Yes! I was hoping for this.

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI: I'm glad you're excited, Leader.

Leave granted.

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI: In December 2021, the Morrison Coalition government announced the $30 million Building Resilience to Manage Fruit Fly funding package. In correspondence to you dated 4 August 2022, the federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry confirmed that $20 million of this package allocated to South Australia by the former government would be honoured by his government. My questions to the minister are:

1. When will payments to South Australia commence under this agreement?

2. Is this funding dependent on a co-funding model?

3. How much funding is the state government committing to projects under the federal Building Resilience to Manage Fruit Fly programs to ensure we receive the full $20 million?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (15:20): I thank the honourable member for her question. She is correct in that I wrote to the federal Minister for Agriculture, seeking to have confirmation—indeed, in conjunction with conversations that I had had with him, advocating for the importance of the fruit fly funding and our efforts in terms of eradicating fruit fly.

A process was established, through the federal government, to look at various options for projects that might be best placed to address the fruit fly issues, both here in South Australia as well as elsewhere. I am looking forward to having the outcomes of that process provided in the near future.