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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-05-20 Daily Xml
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Address in Reply

Address in Reply

Adjourned debate on motion for adoption resumed.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport, Minister for Racing) (12:38): Thank you, Deputy Speaker, and I would like to begin by congratulating you on your election to this high office that you have achieved. Well done, indeed. I would like to begin today by thanking my 22,000 bosses, the people of Mawson, who every four years get to decide who it is they want to employ to come into this place and work hard for them. It was a very interesting election. There were a lot of people once again who voted Labor for the first time in their lives, and these are not 18 and 20 year olds. These are people in their 50s, 60s and 70s who told me in the lead-up to the election, and then after the election, that they had given me their vote and it was the first time in their lives they had voted Labor.

It is a tremendous thing to go out and continue to work hard for everyone and prove to people that you will go in to bat for your local area and for the individuals, companies and sporting organisations in that area. To those who did not vote for me, I will be working just as hard for you as I work for everyone else, but to those who did vote for me, thank you for putting your faith in me for a further four years and I give you this promise that I will not let you down. I will be out there working just as hard for the next four years as I have for the past eight years.

Of course, individuals do not win elections; they need mighty teams behind them. To everyone who volunteered to hand out on the day, to put up posters and to help in other ways so that we could have a victory in Mawson, I say thank you and extend my deepest gratitude—in particular, to Kerry Treuel and Katherine Baldock who did so much, not just in the few weeks of the campaign, but over several years to work with the people of Mawson and to help me spread myself as widely as I have across the 249 square kilometres of the electorate.

To Ruth, to Marg, to Pauline, to Lee, to David and to other people who helped out from a work point of view, my sincere thanks, and to my sisters, Jacinta and Toni, who came from interstate on election day with their husbands to help hand out. It was a great family involvement, and family is one of the areas where I guess all of us make sacrifices. We sacrifice time with them to be with our electorates and to carry out our responsibilities as members of this place, so it was tremendous to spend some time with them after not catching up for so long.

My son, Conor, who is a keen follower of politics (he has just turned 16), right from when he was five or six he was always out there coming up with good ideas on how you would win elections. I remember in that first campaign (he was about six back in 2004), he thought it would be a good idea if I swapped my roof sign for Robert Brokenshire's roof sign and then did some hoon driving so that Robert would get the blame—he was always very imaginative, right from the age of six. Conor is a great kid, and you can just see the passion he puts into it and the feeling he has not just for the political contest but for the idea of doing the right thing by people wherever they are and whatever their circumstances. I am a very proud father of a son who cares so much for others.

I have some additional responsibilities now. Last year, I was Minister for Tourism and Minister for Recreation And Sport; now I add to that the ministries of agriculture, food and fisheries; forests; and also racing, and I will be giving every ounce of my time and energy to all those portfolios. I want to let the other 46 members of this place know that I am there to work side by side with each and every one of you. It does not matter what political party you are from, we will work closely together because working together is how we achieve great things for all our regions.

I have already caught up with the member for Chaffey in the Riverland. We talked about fruit fly and biosecurity and what we need to do to protect the region up there. Tomorrow we will be launching the citrus campaign, encouraging all South Australians to buy South Australian oranges. Again, it is very important that we not only protect the industries but also promote them. I have always had a good working relationship with the member for Chaffey. We were on the grain handling committee together, and I think we can get a lot more done working together than necessarily being in conflict. There will be times when we obviously have disagreements, but by and large if we can work together that would be a great thing.

The member for Mount Gambier has proved to be a very good person to work with. I spent six or seven days down in the South-East about two weeks after I was elected. I rang the member for Mount Gambier; we had about 45 minutes on the phone and discussed a whole range of issues. When I got down there, we had a one hour one-on-one meeting. I had asked him to get a group of people together who might be able to work on major events for the South-East, so we had a group of businesspeople around the table and we spent an hour together. I think that is what we need to do: wherever possible, we all need to put our political differences aside and just work together for the common good.

Tourism, agriculture, forestry—they are all really important industries for South Australia. Certainly, my ambition is to be out and about in the regions as much as possible, and already I have spent time around the Wirrabara forests where they were devastated with the bushfires and subsequent floods earlier this year.

We need to look at what is happening in the future up there. The member for Stuart has been very good in his discussions with me. On Friday we will be going up together and touring the forest, talking to the beekeepers and the people who run the mill up there about what they would like to see in future for their area after circumstances beyond anyone's control have been thrust upon them. The member for Stuart and I hope also to head up into the pastoral country later in June to talk with farmers up there who have been afflicted by drought, to see what it is that we as the government could be doing.

I also want to work cooperatively with the federal government. I attended my first agriculture ministers meeting about three weeks ago and was pleased with my discussions with the federal minister, Barnaby Joyce, and his willingness to work with South Australia across a range of different issues. Of course, we are trying to work together with the federal government to get more money for drought assistance. We have probably between a dozen and 15 farmers up in the pastoral country who need some assistance. I have spoken with a few of them, and we will work with the federal government on getting some relief for them.

We also talked about biosecurity, because biosecurity is something that is so vital for South Australia. We have some of the oldest grapevines in the world, thanks to politicians and people involved in the wine industry going back to the mid to late 1800s. They showed foresight in setting up the phylloxera board to bring an act of parliament in to make sure that we are vigilant on what comes into our state from other states and other countries.

I pay tribute to those who went before us 150 years ago and had that foresight, but I also pay tribute to each and every person who is involved in the wine industry—they know just how devastating phylloxera would be to this state—for their vigilance and to people who are moving machinery backwards and forwards across the border, whether it be down on the Limestone Coast or up in the Riverland area, for maintaining that vigilance and keeping South Australia phylloxera free, because it is worth so much. I am not sure that many South Australians have an idea of just how devastating it would be if phylloxera made it into South Australia.

Fruit fly is another area. South Australia is the only mainland state to be free of fruit fly. We are putting millions of dollars into making sure that happens, but we also need to work with our neighbours. I had a very good meeting with the Victorian minister for agriculture ahead of the federal agricultural meeting and when we discussed it and went around the table, it was really heartening to hear that most agriculture ministers put biosecurity at the very top of their priorities.

Things that we should be grateful that we do not have here, but for which we make a financial contribution on behalf of the taxpayers, are things like the imported fire ant. They have wreaked devastation in the USA, where people cannot have picnics any more and sporting clubs have to close down because of infestations. They have been in Brisbane and other parts of Queensland for about a decade, but they have been largely contained to there. It would be easy for states to sit back and say, 'Well, why should we contribute money into someone else's problem?' The reason we do that is that while it is someone else's problem, we do not want it to be our problem, so we all need to work together. I congratulate the Queensland government for the enormous effort that they have put into that.

Last week I was in Shanghai at a big food conference, and it was terrific to have South Australian companies there, such as Bickford's, Tucker's and some of the tuna and seafood providers from over on the West Coast, from Port Lincoln. They are selling their fine food products. Food manufacturing is an area that has been growing year on year for the past 17 years and it is something that is extremely important to our economy. The interesting thing was that 50,000 people came through the SIAL food expo last week and with everyone that we spoke to then, and at the dinner that night with the Shanghai government officials and other food buyers, we talked about the premium food from our clean environment.

It is easy for certain people to mock that, but it is a major selling point for us. To be able to stand there and talk about 18 months ago, when the new government came in in China and named food safety as one of its main priorities—a year after we had declared it as one of our top priorities—is actually a very nice coincidence. This massive Chinese market is after food that is safe. What South Australia does best is provide safe food. So, that is a great selling point for us and one that went down very well.

The other thing the Chinese were very keen and happy to hear about was the fact that South Australia is the only mainland state where it is prohibited to grow GM crops. They see that as additional back-up to our claim of having the cleanest sea, the cleanest soils and cleanest air anywhere in the world. They see that that political involvement by our government is extremely valuable.

The food, wine and forestry industries—agribusiness—generates approximately $18.8 billion for our economy, and about one in five people throughout the state are employed in it. It is vitally important that the government gives every bit of support it can right around this great state for people who are in this sector, because it is the main constant we have had in our economy and in our society for so many years.

When we look at the carpet in this place we see the bunches of grapes and the wheat; we do not see other sectors of our economy represented in that carpet. It is a lovely reminder for everyone in this place, from whichever electorate they come and whoever they represent, that we all depend on the things we grow and the things to which we value add, just as do these companies I saw in China last week.

It is important for these primary producers to be out there doing their thing, but also important for us to be there side by side with them in marketing and implementing government policies that will benefit them and benefit our marketing of their products, along with research and development as well. The member for Heysen mentioned the research into cherries and how we need to be competing with Chile. We are trying to get away from competing with other states in research because the member for Heysen is correct: we are indeed competing with other countries.

There are some areas in which we are doing the research—in fisheries, for example—and helping out the Victorians and they are doing research in other areas, because together as 'team Australia' we will have a much better chance of competing against the rest of the world than having five or six competitions going on within our country.

South Australia's wine industry generated $1.8 billion in revenue last year—again a very important sector. It is good to have the members for Schubert and Chaffey here, both of whom represent some very fine wine making and wine growing areas, along with the member for Heysen.

On Saturday I was in Hong Kong talking with a businessman who has paid $70 million to buy into a milk company in Australia. They have their headquarters in Victoria, but they employ 100 people in Jervois and Murray Bridge, manufacturing milk products, mainly cheese, for export and also for the domestic market. It was terrific to be able to pick up the phone and talk to the member for Hammond ahead of that meeting to get an on-the-ground view of how he saw the situation. It was very reassuring to speak to this businessman. Instead of cutting jobs they actually think they can drive more growth in their plants at Jervois and Murray Bridge and can increase the number of jobs. Again that is something that is very important to us as a government, to create more jobs right throughout the million square kilometres of this great state.

In terms of tourism, I was at Cairns last Wednesday at the Australian Tourism Exchange, and was really interested to hear that all these buyers from right around the world were here to talk to South Australian tourism operators about bringing more tourists to South Australia, and the feedback was terrific.

Two years ago, everyone was sort of a bit down in the dumps because the global economic crisis had really taken its toll, but we saw last year, with 13.1 per cent more international visitors coming into Adelaide, that the tide is turning. We have been working extremely hard as a government with the private sector and with the Adelaide Airport. We now have 14,500 international airline seats coming into Adelaide each week—

Ms Redmond: Empty, but they are coming in.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: —which is 3,000 more than our target for 2020 was.

Ms Redmond: Always refer to seats, not bums on seats.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: The member for Heysen interjects from out of her place. I just heard her speech and it was so full of negativity. I actually think that this is a place where we should be talking up South Australia. There are so many good things happening. You want to shake your head and guffaw at the claims that 13.1 per cent more international visitors came to Adelaide last year than did the year before.

Ms Redmond: Yes, because we started from the lowest base.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Heysen!

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: They are ABS stats. We have 80 per cent more international airline seats coming into Adelaide than we had just two years ago.

Ms Redmond: Empty seats.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Back to your spot.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: We have actually worked extremely hard to do that and for you to talk down the tourism industry is actually a disservice to the people who do a lot of hard work, both in the government sector and in the private sector. The tourism sector is worth $5 billion a year to us in South Australia. We want to grow that to $8 billion by 2020, and we will do that by working together, shoulder to shoulder, with the private sector.

Ms Redmond interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I just remind the member for Heysen: you have had a ruling on audible sighs, and I don't want to have to refer you to the Speaker.

An honourable member: I am sure her eyebrows were raised too.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, it's the laugh.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: If only it were sighs, Deputy Speaker; it is actually worse than that. It is actually someone who just wants to be the glass half empty person attacking an industry. I just spoke to 100—

Ms Redmond interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Heysen! And I ask the minister to refer to his debate.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: The member for Heysen might do well to get out and talk to people in the tourism industry. This morning, I addressed 100 tourism operators across the road at a meeting where they were sitting down with our tourism representatives from Europe, from North America and from throughout Asia and actually working on ways that we can sell South Australia even further into other parts of the world. There were 100 people there, and they were optimistic about where we are headed. They have had a great past 12 months, and we are looking to grow the sector with them.

In terms of recreation and sport and racing, last night, I was with the peak bodies of about 70 sports from across South Australia, talking about the $10 million that we have put into recreation and sport already this year and talking about the $50 vouchers that we will be giving to primary school children so that their parents and their families can better afford to have their children participate in club sport. So, as a government, we are doing a tremendous amount in the recreation and sport sector.

We are putting $7.5 million into a motorsport complex at Tailem Bend. We are working with the grassroots sports right through to the elite sports. If you look at the Adelaide Oval, $0.5 billion was spent but we are seeing that being repaid already with increased tourist numbers to South Australia, with people who support AFL clubs from other states coming here to watch their team play against Port Adelaide or the Adelaide Crows. There is some very well-placed government assistance being provided right across the board from small bowls clubs, hockey clubs and netball clubs right through to the elite level.

I think we have got the balance right, but we will continue to work with the recreation, sport and racing sectors to make sure that everyone in South Australia is a winner across all these sectors. We do not want to leave anyone behind, so, if it is agriculture, food, fisheries, forestry, tourism, recreation and sport or racing, I give this pledge: we will be travelling throughout the state as much as possible in the next four years to listen to what it is that people want, to help work with them to grow their industries and their community groups and, where needed, to come in here and change the rules to give them added assistance.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. T.R. Kenyon.

[Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00]

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