Country Cabinet

The Hon. M. EL DANNAWI (14:25): My question is to the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development. Will the minister update the council about the recent country cabinet in the Northern Adelaide Plains?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (14:25): I thank honourable member for her question. Members on this side of the council understand and appreciate the importance of country cabinet to regional communities, and that is why we hold them on a regular basis across regional South Australia.

Members may recall that I have previously updated this place about country cabinets we have had around this state, which have included Mount Gambier, Port Lincoln and the Yorke Peninsula, among others. This is, of course, in stark contrast to the approach the former Marshall Liberal government took to the idea of country cabinets when they decided to scrap country cabinet altogether. They refused to take cabinet out to the regions and presumably expected regional communities to make their way to North Terrace to engage with the state government instead. This certainly is not our approach.

Last week, the state government held country cabinet in the Northern Adelaide Plains, and it was particularly pleasing to see the warm reception that the hardworking Labor candidate for the new seat of Ngadjuri received while out and about across the region. I had the opportunity, first, to visit SA Mushrooms with the Deputy Premier—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN: —and was given a tour of their facility by Nick Femia, Daniel Murray and Jared Ahern. We were provided with an update on their plans to further expand their facility and understand in more detail the challenges and opportunities they face as an industry. I found particularly remarkable the swift rate at which the mushrooms can grow, which is in part the reason why their facility operates 365 days of the year.

I also had the opportunity to visit Virginia Horticulture Centre to host a roundtable meeting with local tomato growers and their industry representatives to discuss the ongoing response to the tomato brown rugose virus. Later in the day, I joined the Premier and the full cabinet to be briefed by the mayors and chief executive officers of the Adelaide Plains Council, the Wakefield Regional Council and the Light Regional Council on the important issues facing their communities.

The cabinet also received presentations from Regional Development Australia, Barossa, Gawler, Light, Adelaide Plains, along with the Coalition of Coastal Communities and the Adelaide Plains Ratepayers and Residents Association. These interactions are incredibly useful and provide regional communities and their representatives with a direct line to government, and I thank them for taking the time to present their ideas to cabinet.

I also thank Mitolo Family Farms and their chief executive officer, Ricardo Conti, and chief financial officer, Theo Sasopoulos, for taking time out of their day to take both the chief executive of PIRSA and myself on a tour of their facility. Mitolo Family Farms is one of the largest exporters of potatoes and onions in the state and provides employment for a large number of residents situated in the Northern Adelaide Plains.

Finally, I joined the Premier and members of cabinet once again for a community forum at the Two Wells Primary School. The forum was well attended, with hundreds of local residents packing the school gymnasium to ask questions of various members of cabinet. Members on this side know that regions matter, and I am pleased the Malinauskas Labor government continues to work with regional communities to deliver better outcomes.