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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-05-09 Daily Xml
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Address in Reply

Address in Reply

Adjourned debate on motion for adoption.

(Continued from 8 May 2018.)

The SPEAKER: Before I call the member for Newland, I remind members that this is the member's first speech and accordingly I ask members to extend the traditional courtesies to the member. I also acknowledge the Hon. Dorothy Kotz, the former member for Newland, who is also present with us today. Member for Newland.

Dr HARVEY (Newland) (10:32): Mr Speaker, I rise today in support of this motion. Firstly, may I congratulate you on your election as Speaker. I am sure you will inject your customary energy and enthusiasm into this important role. As this is the Address in Reply to the Governor's speech, I would also like to acknowledge the wonderful work His Excellency performs in the service of the people of South Australia. I would also like to congratulate other members elected to this house for the first time and indeed those who have been re-elected for another term.

The opportunity to serve the people of Newland is a great honour and privilege. I am humbled by the trust placed in me by my community of Newland. I hope that one day I may be held in as high regard as my immediate predecessors, the Hon. Tom Kenyon and the Hon. Dorothy Kotz, who between them held Newland for almost 30 years.

Newland is blessed with strong communities across the north-eastern suburbs of Adelaide and the Adelaide Hills. The electorate covers the foothill suburbs of Fairview Park, Banksia Park, Tea Tree Gully, Vista, Ridgehaven, St Agnes, Hope Valley and part of Modbury. Community is very important to us in the north-east. There are so many very active community groups, charities, churches and sporting clubs, filled with volunteers who contribute so much to the livability and connectedness of our community. I have seen firsthand the tireless work of local organisations such as the Rotary Club of Tea Tree Gully, the Friends of Anstey Hill, Neighbourhood Watch, the Tea Tree Gully sub-branch of the RSL, and local schools and kindergartens.

Sport also reigns supreme in the north-east. Newland is home to some of the oldest and strongest football and cricket clubs in the state at Tea Tree Gully, Modbury and Hope Valley. Also, successful netball, tennis, soccer, athletics and bowls clubs, and the largest gymnastics club in the state, call Newland home. This sense of community in the north-east is the source of the attachment we have for local services that we consider to be our own, like the Modbury Hospital. The Modbury Hospital is our local hospital and the removal of services from there by the previous administration was a betrayal of our community. I look forward to assisting in the delivery of the government's plan to bring health services back to our hospital.

Newland also reaches up into the Adelaide Hills to Upper and Lower Hermitage and Paracombe, areas covered by vineyards, figs and pear orchards, and the beautiful townships of Houghton and Inglewood that sit amongst the Hills. Newland also heads further east through Millbrook and part of Cudlee Creek, and north to Humbug Scrub, Sampson Flat, Kersbrook and Forreston.

These communities have demonstrated extraordinary resilience in the face of the devastation of the Sampson Flat bushfire. The extraordinary work of local CFS brigades, businesses, service clubs, churches and other residents has brought the whole community together in a powerful way, continuing to support each other along the long road to recovery.

The people of Newland have brought me to this place. However, the fact that I am here is in no small part due to the extraordinary effort and support of so many others. I would like to thank my wonderful campaign team, volunteers, local Liberal Party members and others. I would like to thank my outstanding campaign manager, Courtney Morcombe, for her tireless efforts in directing our campaign and for keeping me calm and focused.

I would like to thank those campaign volunteers who gave up so much of their own time and energy, particularly Doreen Mason, Malcolm Dixon, Ben Freeman, Luke Vagenas, Jarryd Thiel and Maxine Francis. I am also extremely grateful for the incredible support of my local Newland SEC president, Clementina Maione, and previous president and former mayor of the City of Tea Tree Gully, Lesley Purdom.

As a candidate, I received enormous support from the Liberal parliamentary team. In particular, I would like to thank the member for Morialta; the President of the other place, the Hon. Andrew McLachlan; and the former member for Kavel, Mark Goldsworthy. I am very grateful for the support of the Premier during the campaign. It was thoroughly enjoyable to be out on the campaign trail armed with his vision for a better future for South Australia. I particularly enjoyed being out on the campaign trail with him at the shops and at the doorstep. He is very welcome in Newland any time.

I would also like to thank the Deputy Premier for being generous with her time throughout the campaign. I am also very grateful for the extraordinary support of the many members of the former shadow cabinet who came out to Newland over the course of the campaign. I would like to thank the federal members Senator Simon Birmingham, the Hon. Christopher Pyne and Senator David Fawcett for their support. I am also grateful for the support of the state director, Sascha Meldrum, and the rest of the team at Liberal HQ.

My completely non-political school and uni friends Stephen Warren-Smith, Adam Hennessy, Tristan Williamson, Brett Thredgold and Brock Herdman gave up so much of their time to support me during the campaign, and for that I am very grateful. Equally, my former work colleagues were an enormous support. I would especially like to thank my former supervisor, Professor James Paton, and Professor Adrienne Paton for not only their support of my scientific career that started more than 12 years ago now but also their blessing in this new endeavour. I would like to make special mention of former colleagues for their support and amazing patience in recent times, particularly Claudia Trappetti, Lauren McAllister, Vikrant Minhas, Danny Wilson and Erin Brazel.

I would like to thank my brother, James, and sister-in-law, Sheena, as well as my parents-in-law, Brian and Karen, for travelling across the country to help me on election day. I would also like to thank my sister, Alison, for all her help, too. I would like to thank my parents for all that they have done for me. I know that my brother, sister and I owe much of what we have achieved to the sacrifices they made for us to give us the best start.

I would like to thank my wife, Katie, for her love and support and for putting up with me through the ups and downs of the campaign. Katie has been more of a conscript than a volunteer to this new endeavour, as is the case for so many of us here. Lastly, I would like to thank my children Lilly, Lucas and Chloe, for putting up with my time away from home. My children are the source of my inspiration for becoming a member of this parliament. They have helped sharpen my focus beyond my time here on this earth. The responsibility for us here is to set them and their generation up with the best chance for a better life with greater opportunities than we had ourselves.

I will always strive to make decisions that do not disadvantage the next generation. While our hopes and dreams for the future will shape much of what I do here, the events that brought me here and the lives of my parents and grandparents have had a profound impact on the person that I have become.

My dad lost his father at the age of 15 before leaving school in Melbourne to join the Royal Australian Air Force as an aircraft technician working on aircraft such as DC3s, F1-11s and FA18s. A few years later, his mother was taken by the cruellest of diseases, multiple sclerosis, leaving him and his three older siblings to help put their younger brother through the rest of his schooling and university.

While I never met my paternal grandparents, I know that they had a strong entrepreneurial spirit as owners of a pharmacy in North Melbourne and a small recording studio that would press radio plays onto vinyl records for radio stations. They placed enormous importance on family and had a strong sense of community. These values live on through my dad and his siblings and, I believe, through me, too.

My mum migrated to Australia as a six year old in the sixties from Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles. My grandparents were of Portuguese heritage, and in the sixties, like so many others, took the extraordinary step of migrating to Australia in the hope of a better life for their children. Early life in Australia was tough for them. They came to Australia with very little and my grandfather's credentials as a fitter and turner were not recognised here, forcing him to work multiple jobs to put food on the table.

Moreover, Australia was not as diverse then as it is today, which was especially true of the country Victorian town of Benalla, where they lived. With no local Portuguese community there, they were forced to make their own way in this new home on the other side of the world. Despite that difficult environment, my grandparents never felt that they were owed something by someone else. It was no-one else's fault that at times life was hard. When he was still alive, my grandfather used to frequently talk to me about the importance of working hard, the importance of taking responsibility for your own destiny and the importance of doing what you believed to be right even when it would be much easier not to. I believe the fact that my grandparents succeeded in providing a better life for their children than they had themselves is a credit to them and to the great country that we live in.

My parents left Melbourne when my dad was posted to RAAF Base Edinburgh only a few years before I was born. Living north of Adelaide, I went to school in Gawler, first to St Brigid's Catholic Primary School and then Xavier College. The local community was an important part of my childhood. I volunteered at the local toy library, Catholic Church and the school. Music and football were also prominent. Though my football playing career was very short, I was fortunate to reach SANFL level as a field umpire. I also taught piano while I was studying at university.

During my childhood my entire extended family lived in Victoria, and my view of South Australia at this early age was very much influenced by the juxtaposition I saw of the difficult road to recovery in South Australia following the collapse of the State Bank and the sense of optimism and confidence that I saw interstate. In many ways this contrast still exists today.

While South Australia is a wonderful place to live and a great place to raise a family, our economy continues to underperform, and I refuse to accept, as the previous government wanted us to believe, that this is just as good as it gets in South Australia. Why should we not aspire to have the same kinds of opportunities available in the rest of the country?

Following school, I studied biomedical science at the University of Adelaide, followed by honours in microbiology and a PhD in the same field, before taking up a post-doc position in the Research Centre for Infectious Diseases at the University of Adelaide that I held until earlier this year. I worked on a bacterial pathogen pneumococcus. We were working to find new ways of treating and preventing disease caused by this bacterium.

Pneumococcus is responsible for more than one million deaths in children under the age of five worldwide and is the leading cause of pneumonia, invasive diseases like bacteraemia and meningitis and the leading cause of ear infections. In Australia, the pneumococcus is particularly problematic in our Indigenous communities. Putting aside for a moment the deadly afflictions caused by this pathogen, ear infections wreak havoc in remote Indigenous communities.

As many as 20 per cent of children in some communities suffer from chronic ear infections and hearing loss, having a devastating impact on their learning. This is only one of so many different factors that contribute to Indigenous disadvantage, but it is telling that rates of this disease in parts of our state are on par with nations of sub-Saharan Africa. In a place like South Australia, where the standard of living for most is amongst the highest on earth, it is simply unacceptable that there is a community within our own that is comparable with the worst.

I am honoured to have former colleagues in the gallery today. Like so many other scientists around the world, they work quietly and tirelessly in service to humanity, each day incrementally increasing our understanding of the world we live in and providing hope to so many in our community that one day there might be a cure for the many diseases for which there are no cures. They are motivated by curiosity, passion and an eagerness to improve the lives of others, all while under an almost constant cloud of uncertainty and insecurity.

I intend to be a champion for science as a means of strengthening our local economy. Through innovation, new opportunities for employment are created. We have great potential in areas like medical research and biotechnology, innovation in agriculture, fibre optics, mining, advanced manufacturing and, of course, upcoming defence industry projects. Our focus must be to create the right environment to see this potential realised, to increase employment opportunities and goods and services for export. Attention is needed to overcome the barriers that restrict the conversion of our discoveries into commercialised commodities. Importantly, though, this should not be pursued at the expense of discovery.

While on the topic of science, and as one of the very few scientists who pursue a career in politics, I also believe it is my duty to stand up for rational, evidence-based decision-making and against misinformation, pseudoscience and fearmongering that, at best, severely restricts our capacity to progress and effectively meet future challenges and, at worst, is dangerous to the health and safety of our community. I want to briefly touch on two important areas.

Immunisation is one of the most successful medical interventions in history. Globally, it is estimated that immunisation prevents three million deaths a year and many more from permanent disability. Through vaccination, smallpox has been eradicated, polio is almost gone and so many other deadly diseases have been dramatically reduced, meaning that so many more of our children now live past the age of four. Yet, despite this unequivocal success, there are those in our community who continue to spread misinformation and fear about the safety and importance of immunisation.

We are fortunate in South Australia, for the moment, that our vaccination rates are high. In fact, I believe that parts of Newland enjoy some of the highest rates in the nation. However, we cannot afford to be complacent. The herd immunity effect that prevents the spread of infection to those who cannot yet be vaccinated requires high rates of immunisation. Even a small drop in the immunisation rate has quickly seen outbreaks of preventable and deadly diseases, such as measles, in other jurisdictions. Whether or not to vaccinate is ultimately a choice for parents to make. While I support all measures that seek to make choosing not to vaccinate as hard as possible, there is nevertheless a choice. However, the fact remains that choosing not to vaccinate is akin to playing Russian roulette with not only the life of your own children but also the lives of other people's children.

Another area of concern is the impact of unfounded fears around the use of genetically modified crops in South Australia. For thousands of years, humans have genetically manipulated plants by crossbreeding different varieties to select for certain desirable traits like size, taste, resistance to pests and resistance to environmental challenges. In recent times, new tools have been developed that simply make this process much faster, much easier and much more targeted.

Bans on GM crops restrict the ability of farmers to choose for themselves whether or not they wish to access this new technology. Moreover, experience in other jurisdictions has demonstrated that GM crops deliver enormous economic and environmental benefits. These crops increase incomes for farmers, increase yields, dramatically reduce pesticide and herbicide use and even reduce fuel consumption in farming.

It is quite inconceivable that those who claim to care for the environment will be those most violently opposed to GM crops. Moreover, independent and government-commissioned reports have not found market benefits from GM-free status. Of course, whilst this issue attracts much debate—and there are passionate arguments from both sides—the debate needs to at least be based on evidence and reason and not emotion and fear. Therefore, I fully support the government's policy to review the ban.

I believe that South Australia is a great place to live. Our lifestyle is the envy of many interstate and overseas. I can recall a story from one of my close friends who had moved interstate and commuted from Sydney to the Central Coast. About an hour or an hour and half out of Sydney, billboards along the train line read: 'If you lived in Adelaide, you'd be home by now.' While that is certainly true for many, it is also true that my friend had left South Australia for work because of the limited opportunities here.

We should certainly applaud those who leave South Australia in search of new opportunities and experiences so that they may bring them back. Our state is richer for those who bring their experiences here from far and wide. However, once people leave it is often difficult to come back. It is frequently a choice between being near family in South Australia or pursuing greater opportunities elsewhere. It is beyond belief that there are fewer young people in South Australia now than there were 30 years ago. We continue to see more people streaming across our state's borders into other states than in return.

Under the previous administration, the apparent strategy to turn the state's fortune around was centred on government picking winners with wads of taxpayers' money, designed to convince businesses either to come here or stay here. Even worse, it was ultimately a strategy that appeared calibrated for maximum impact on the news cycle. Particularly galling was the description of some of the key opportunity creators in our economy as the 'employer class', as though somehow we are not all in this together. I completely reject this philosophy. It is not for us in this place to decide which businesses should succeed or fail or to seek to divide our community into different classes.

I believe that the key to future prosperity of our state lies with the enterprise and creativity of individuals. Individuals should be free to pursue whatever endeavour best suits their skills, interests and priorities. The role of the government is to create an environment that best allows creativity and entrepreneurial spirit to flourish, and an environment that caters for the diverse ways different people may contribute to our state, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach that attempts to drive everyone through the same sausage machine.

This means reducing the cost of doing business and removing unnecessary regulation that achieves no end other than to strangle any effort to make the state more prosperous. It also means providing an education and training system that is focused on excellence and choice through schooling and further education and training.

To make our state more competitive we must reduce payroll tax, land tax and the emergency services levy. Indeed, we must reduce any impost on households and businesses that is greater than the minimum necessary for the government to perform those duties that are absolutely necessary. Further to the need to reduce imposts on households and businesses is the need to keep energy prices on a sustainable footing. In recent conversations in my electorate, small business owners directly attribute laying off staff to their skyrocketing energy bills.

While our opponents try to frame the debate as between the future and the past, the reality is that the difference is not so much about where we end up but whether or not there is a practical and workable plan to reach that end, a plan which does not flatten the state and hurt its people in the process and which recognises that there are real consequences for policies that simply do not get that balance right.

The incredible hypocrisy of the previous administration was that, for all the talk about virtual power plants and a clean energy future, their plan was ultimately underwritten by good old-fashioned diesel. I am more interested in doing good than looking good. That is why I support our practical, considered solution to transitioning our energy system toward the same end we all know we must reach.

Finally, I would like to touch upon two areas where I believe more work is required to ensure that more people in our community are able to reach their full potential. Forty five per cent of Australians will suffer some kind of mental illness over their lifetime, and barely one-third will access treatment. Moreover, 20 per cent of adolescents experience depression before reaching the age of 18, and 75 per cent of health problems will first occur before the age of 25. It is also the case that the leading cause of death in young people is suicide.

Mental illness and suicide are a great tragedy for our community. While there is now greater acceptance of mental illness as a health issue in the same way as a physical illness, the stigma around the issue remains one of the greatest barriers to treatment and effective management of mental illness. I intend to be an advocate for greater openness, treatment prevention of mental illness and suicide and for community-based programs to identify and deal with these problems early.

The second issue I would like to touch on is that of domestic violence. One in three women will experience physical or sexual violence by someone known to them over their lifetime. One in four children is exposed to domestic violence and, on average, one woman is killed per week in Australia by a current or former partner. These statistics are truly terrifying. We should abhor violence, irrespective of the gender of the perpetrator, but it is an uncomfortable fact that more than 80 per cent of perpetrators are indeed male.

I support all measures that support women and children to escape from an unsafe home and provide a safe space and support and assistance with restoring their confidence and sense of control over their own lives. I would like to acknowledge the work the Eastern Adelaide Domestic Violence Service and all other organisations like it in providing that service to the community. Ultimately, though, this problem requires broader cultural change and changing the attitudes of some towards the roles of men and women in our community. There is a long road ahead in dealing with this issue, but in the end it is one that will only be addressed by the example of mutual respect we set for our sons and our daughters.

While I have the privilege of being in this place, I am determined to work with all my colleagues to ensure that positive changes are made to address the issues that I have outlined and the many more that time does not permit me to discuss. At every opportunity I have here, I will seek to make sure that my constituents in Newland are not overlooked and that the vibrant and active community we are fortunate to have is maintained and improved.

In closing, it is indeed an honour and a privilege to have a seat in this house. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve, and I will endeavour to do all that I can to ensure that this opportunity is used to maximum effect for the benefit of the people of Newland and the state. I thank the people of Newland for entrusting me with this opportunity.

Honourable members: Hear, hear!

The SPEAKER: The member for Reynell.

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (10:58): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and congratulations on your re-election and your appointment as Speaker. I have absolutely no doubt that you will execute this role with distinction. I rise to speak in response to His Excellency Hieu Van Le AC, Governor of South Australia. As a parliament and as a state, we are very fortunate to have such a warm, kind and inspiring Governor who, along with his wife, Mrs Van Le, is exemplary at welcoming, including and recognising people. Their passion and respect for South Australia and South Australians characterises everything they do.

I start this Address in Reply by acknowledging that the land we gather on is Kaurna land and by paying my deep respects to Kaurna elders past, present and future. As I did when delivering my inaugural speech in 2014, I acknowledge that South Australia's story is one of the richest in human history. It spans tens of thousands of years and at its heart is the oldest living culture on our planet. It is an inspiring and impressive history.

I also start by acknowledging the extraordinary people of Reynell, people who are unfailingly kind, resilient, creative and willing to connect and work with others to keep our community strong, kind and fair. I am truly humbled by their incredible support and by their faith in me, and I am inspired daily by their vision for their families and for our community. It is a deep honour and a remarkable privilege to have been elected again by them. It is an honour and a privilege for which I am so grateful, and I remain steadfastly committed to working with and for them, to standing up for them, to giving them a voice, to strengthening their collective voice on what matters to them and to ensuring that everyone in our beautiful community is included and able to live their best possible life.

I continue to be driven by my relentless passion for fairness and equality, and I will work hard and fight every single day for the people of Reynell, and indeed for the people of South Australia, to be treated fairly and to have equality of opportunity. It is a fight that I know every member of our Labor team is also deeply committed to. I congratulate every member on our team on their election, particularly our new members, and I look forward to working alongside them.

Our team is a team that is unified around a set of values that for almost 130 years has bound our party together to stand up for people, to achieve fairness and equality, to make progress for South Australia and South Australians and to never leave anyone behind. These values are at our party's heart. They drive what we do. I have a deep faith in the leadership of our opposition leader and deputy opposition leader, whose wisdom and shared passion for the wellbeing of South Australians will see us continue to stand up for people, for those values, in unity. I congratulate them both on their leadership and on their capacity to lead us as a strong, positive and constructive opposition.

I also pay tribute to the leadership of the former premier, the member for Cheltenham, a fine leader whom I have had the pleasure of working alongside for around 26 years. The member for Cheltenham has led work that has transformed our economy and our state through what could have been some of our most difficult times. When the federal Liberal government chased Holden out of town, our former premier stood up and attracted new and growing industries to our state, and arrested a decline in employment.

His vision and tenacity saw us becoming world leaders in renewable energy, and his commitment to advancing what matters to South Australian families resulted in an precedented investment in our schools and in our communities. Thank you to the member for Cheltenham for your passion for South Australia, for your courage, for your friendship and for your wise counsel, guidance and support over many years.

I also congratulate all members of this house and in the other place on their election. Campaigning to be elected to represent your community is an extraordinary journey. It takes courage to be vulnerable, to offer yourself up to your community as a person who could represent them and be their voice in our parliament. The member for Elder spoke beautifully yesterday about the drive, passion for your community, commitment and mental energy that it takes to campaign and put yourself forward. I agree.

I also believe that it takes an enormous heart, a heart that is open and full and that drives you to walk alongside the people you represent, to empathise, to put yourself in their shoes and to empower them, particularly when things are difficult. Congratulations to all who are here in this house and in the other place, and well done to all the candidates who are not here with us who courageously put themselves forward.

Whilst as a candidate you are the front person putting yourself forward to be elected, it takes a team of people to be successful. I was blessed with a brilliant campaign team who selflessly gave hours, days, weeks and months of their time. My heartfelt thanks to Nadia Clancy, who is a human dynamo and whose positivity, organisational skills and extraordinary intelligence kept our campaign running, and kept me running—literally, some days. As well as doing so much herself, Nadia managed to organise every single member of her very large, kind and generous family to letterbox, doorknock, fundraise and to pretty much do whatever was required around the clock.

Nadia can do anything: she can write; she can organise; she can deal with media; she can talk; she can develop policy; she can build the best of relationships; she can execute a plan. She is someone people want to be around, and I feel blessed and grateful to spend time with her, to have her wise counsel and be buoyed by her energy and her friendship. I cannot wait to see what she continues to do in our state, and I hope that our regular visits to CJ's Bakery, the ESPY, Dancing Room at Rotary Park, the beautiful beaches along our coast, to people's doors, to street corners, to Colonnades, Southgate and everywhere in between continue for a very long time.

To the brilliant team of community members who joined up to Team Katrine '18, some of whom were Labor party members and some of whom I was blessed just to have believe in me, thank you for being with me on this journey. Thank you for your countless volunteer hours, moral support, encouragement and belief in the fact that as a team, and indeed as a community, we are better and stronger when we are together.

My heartfelt thanks also to one of the cleverest, most strategic, intuitive, most hardworking men I have ever met, Tim Watts, who was my incredible chief of staff during my time as minister. Tim's work ethic and his commitment to the wellbeing of people is unprecedented. He is the embodiment of the values that we espouse and, as a minister, with his help, he enabled me to be my best. To the legendary Spiro Karanikos-Mimis, there is little that this man does not know about sport, and there is little that he will not do to make your life as a minister run well. He gives clear and clever advice, and he builds friendships wherever he goes.

Thank you to everyone whom I had the pleasure of working with in my ministerial office. Our state's Public Service is blessed with people who work so hard in the service of their fellow South Australians and, in my ministerial office, I found some of the best of them. An enormous thank you also to my electorate office staff for their work during our election campaign but also every week, day in and day out, to support me and the people of Reynell, with whom we have achieved so much over the past four years and with whom I look forward to achieving so much more.

Over the past four years, we have secured major upgrades to many local schools, including Christies Beach High School, Wirreanda Secondary School, Christie Downs Primary School, O'Sullivan Beach Primary School and Pimpala Primary School, to name a few. These improvements will mean that children in our southern community have access to the best possible education and facilities. Committed funding must be delivered in full to schools in the south. It will not be good enough for any of the funding set aside to build better schools to be subsumed into any plans for year 7 being co-located at high schools.

We have ensured funding for local sporting clubs, including the Christies Beach Football Club, the Christies Beach Surf Life Saving Club, the Morphett Vale Boxing Club, for parkrun, and for the South Adelaide Panthers Football Club, to name just a few. We have upgraded roads, made crossings safer, upgraded our beautiful Port Noarlunga jetty and we have developed and grown programs and initiatives that strengthen our community. We also fought for and secured $14 million towards a new multipurpose recreation centre that will become a hub for sports to be located next to the South Adelaide Football Club in Noarlunga.

Sport and recreation facilities are so important for people in our southern community, providing a place for people to be active and to connect with one another. That is why it will be so important for us to ensure that this fully funded project is not delayed by the new government. We have achieved so much but we have more to do together over the coming four years. I look forward to doing that with the people of Reynell and I look forward to what will achieve together.

As I said in my inaugural speech, my mum taught me the value of finding your voice and speaking up for what is important and what is fair, no matter how your voice may tremble to begin with. My work with our union movement, Together SA and our community has taught me that the best thing you can do as a leader is engender leadership in others. I look forward to continuing to support people in Reynell to speak up, stand up, find their voice and explore their leadership. I look forward to growing movements of people committed to working together for change and for progress. There are particular issues that, together with the people of Reynell, we found our voice on, fought hard for and that I will continue to campaign on, because our community must be supported.

Had Labor been re-elected, following consultation with our Kaurna community and broader community we would have completed the construction of the Witton Bluff Base track between Christies Beach and Port Noarlunga—the missing link in our local Coast Park. This commitment was made as a result of listening to many members of the community and working together. It will mean locals and visitors alike will be able to walk along our beautiful coastline without interruption. I urge, and will continue to urge, the government to go through with our community's plan for the Witton Bluff Base track.

My family and I, members of the Christies Beach Surf Life Saving Club that I am very proud to be a patrolling member of, Southport Surf Life Saving Club and Port Noarlunga Surf Life Saving Club, those who surf along our spectacular Mid Coast Surfing Reserve and so many others, love our beaches. I feel lucky every single day to live so close to Christies Beach and, like many others, I feel rejuvenated every time I go there and to other beaches along our coast.

During the election campaign, those opposite had various poles festooned with promises of stopping coastal erosion. I look forward very much to seeing their plans in relation to this. Labor committed $3.2 million towards the Morton Road sport and community hub. In partnership with the City of Onkaparinga and the Roger Rasheed Sports Foundation, we intend to create a vibrant sporting and community hub for our local community. Transforming this underutilised reserve into a space that deeply engages our fabulous young people in the south through sport is a plan that we must collaboratively continue with.

I have been dismayed by persistent recent negative reports about our young people. Our young people are wonderful contributors to our community and it is incumbent upon us all to do whatever we can to engage them and to empower them to be their best. This project will do that and I look forward to working with those opposite to bring it to life.

During the election, poles were also festooned by those opposite with promises about Noarlunga Hospital. A promise was given to establish a 12-bed acute medical ward at Noarlunga Hospital and to increase the time a patient can stay at Noarlunga Hospital from overnight to three days. I will be asking the government regularly about the rollout of those changes.

From September last year until the election, I had the absolute honour of being the minister for disabilities and the minister assisting the minister for sport and recreation. I was incredibly happy every single day to work in these spaces and to find many parts of the portfolios intertwining at different points as we worked to improve the lives of people with disability and to make sport more inclusive.

The disabilities portfolio is one in a huge state of change. Our Labor government was proud to be one of the first jurisdictions to sign up to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. This is the biggest reform Australia has seen since Medicare. There is no doubt there are challenges that come with that, but there are also incredible opportunities. Finally, people are able to choose the services they want. They are asked what their goals are and are empowered to make decisions about their future. But for people to get these benefits, we need adequate staffing, timely face-to-face and proper assessments, fair pricing systems and timely review processes.

Those opposite must continuously work with the outstanding people who work in the disability sector to relentlessly call on the federal government to bring these principles to life. These matters are particularly pressing for South Australians in regional and remote areas and for those with complex needs. I hope people are able to get the individual support they need from the new government, and I dearly hope that our fellow South Australians with debilitating mental illness can more readily and more effectively access the NDIS.

I will certainly continue to provide support wherever and however I can and will speak up with and for those South Australians with disability so that they can live a life with true choice, with dignity and with respect, a life in which they can actively and equally participate in every aspect of our community and of our economy. The disability sector is an incredibly hardworking and passionate one. I want to thank all the stakeholders who inspired me, who challenged me and who took the time to sit down and talk about how we can make this transition as smooth and successful as possible.

This reform is a lot of work for each and every one of their organisations and I hope they all know how much I and our community value them. I was proud to advocate for the disability sector in Canberra, ensuring that the challenges faced by organisations, as well as their suggestions, were listened to. I advocated for a return to face-to-face assessments and I am so glad we got there. It is not good enough to talk to someone over the phone when you are assessing the supports that they need every day.

In the sport portfolio, Labor made a record investment in infrastructure, with clubs across the state benefiting. The important role sport plays in our community cannot be underestimated. In every community in South Australia, it brings people together, it gives people a sense of belonging and it encourages a camaraderie amongst people. As such, our clubs must be exemplars of inclusion. Across our state, girls and women are taking to ovals, to pitches, to courts and to tracks in droves, and they are finally being celebrated and included, but we still have a way to go.

The gender pay gap in sport sits at around 50 per cent. The number of presidents and CEOs of sporting organisations is still way too low, as is the coverage of women's sport, and each of us I am sure could tell a story of discriminatory comments still being made about women in sport. But together we are beginning to make a difference, and make a difference we must because when we see women and girls play sport at a high level, particularly those sports that have previously been male dominated, and they are celebrated in doing so, the way we see the roles of girls and women is transformed.

This gives us a unique opportunity to advance discussions about the roles of men and women more broadly in our society, to collaboratively address some of the persistent issues of gender inequality inherent in our society and to start some extraordinary conversations about these through clubs and sporting organisations across our state. I am so proud to have worked collaboratively with so many of those sporting organisations and clubs across our state and with leading South Australians on our South Australian Women in Sport Taskforce to make this a reality. We were relentlessly focused on addressing gender inequality in sport, on changing the face of sport leadership, on attracting women's sporting events to South Australia, and on increasing spectatorship of women's sport.

Our government proudly invested $24.5 million into the Female Facilities Program, which enabled clubs to build or modify female change room facilities, and I absolutely pay tribute to the work of the previous minister, Leon Bignell, in this space. Ensuring girls and women have a place to change, to get together as a team pre game, sends a very clear message that they are welcome to equally and actively participate in the life of their club and of their sport. The Female Participation Grants were another way in which we were able to support clubs to become more inclusive, by providing money to help them establish new female teams, competitions and programs.

We have a moment to continue to seize the current momentum around women's sport and continue to position South Australia as a leader in this area. We cannot take any steps backward, and I look forward to these programs continuing to ensure that we do not. Labor also assisted so many clubs with upgrades, equipment and programs through the Active Club Grants. In fact, we had record investment in sporting grants and infrastructure with $146 million in additional funding. Our investment of $6 million over two years in racing prize money was unprecedented. If we truly believe in the difference that sport makes in the lives of people in our community, if we truly see it as a way to positively engage our young people and, indeed, all in our state, this must continue.

Sport, recreation and racing organisations employ thousands of people in our state and they are key drivers of our visitor economy. We must work closely with them to continue to bring events to every corner of our state, and we must fight on the national stage to have South Australia seen as the destination for the biggest events, those that are televised across the globe. Our day-night test is a perfect example of what we must relentlessly fight to hold on to. These events are not ones on which we can simply drop the ball.

Along with the honour of being the member for Reynell, I am so pleased that the opposition leader has given me the shadow portfolios of sport, recreation, racing, of status of women and multicultural affairs, all of which I have started to work on straightaway. These are areas I am incredibly passionate about. They are areas deeply focused on inclusion, and I am looking forward to working alongside stakeholders in our community across these portfolios to ensure we are getting the right things done.

As many of you in this chamber know, and as I spoke about in my inaugural speech and in many speeches since, domestic violence is an issue that is very close to my heart and one I have been working on, alongside some fantastic women, men and organisations, for many, many years. It is an issue that has shaped my journey to this place and one that I have a relentless passion to address. I know the impact that domestic violence has on families, on children and on communities from generation to generation.

We all know the shocking and unacceptable statistics around domestic violence. We all also know, however, what lies as its root cause. We know that gender inequality in our community and the way men's and women's roles are perceived strongly contributes to the fact that, sadly, some men sometimes think it is okay to control a woman they are in or have been in a relationship with through violence. Together, we must do whatever we can to teach our sons and our daughters that violence is never an option. We must do whatever we can together to demonstrate what loving and respectful relationships are.

Together, we must do whatever we can to ensure that not one more person in our community loses their life as a result of domestic violence. It is only together that we can make a difference, and I am heartened by the words of the member for Elder, by the ongoing willingness to collaborate of the member for Stuart and by the shared passion of so many members in this place, including the member for Elizabeth on this side of the house and many others.

I was pleased to read about the Liberals' promise of additional crisis accommodation and I look forward to seeing more about it. There are numerous other issues that we must also urgently progress, issues that I will bring to this house, but we must and we can work together with the remarkable people who work day in and day out in the domestic violence sector around a comprehensive plan of action for prevention.

South Australia has a rich culture and vibrancy that would not exist if not for people from all over the world choosing to call it home. Whether someone migrated from Europe 80 years ago or from the Middle East last year, they have brought with them culture, skills and traditions that contribute beautifully to our community and to our economy. I am very much looking forward to working with different communities and to supporting them however I can with their goals and with their aspirations.

I am focused and determined about the next four years and what we can achieve. On every one of the days over those four years, I will remain deeply grateful to the people of Reynell for their faith in me and will do everything I can to build their voice on what matters to them. I will also remain deeply grateful to my beautiful family and to the many others I am lucky to have supporting me. I mentioned some of those people earlier in this speech. I also place on record my thanks again to David Gray, David Di Troia and all at United Voice for their unwavering support. I thank our deputy opposition leader in this house and our Leader of the Opposition in the upper house for their support and, so importantly, for their friendship.

I thank my other friends, whom I am blessed to have, for always being with me on this journey, through the laughs, the tears, the cups of tea, the glasses of wine, the high kicks, the low kicks and everything in between. And, as I do in my heart every single day, I thank my husband, Charles, also known very widely as 'poor Charles', for always getting me, for always loving me at my very best and at my very worst, for being literally the king of corfluting, for making me know that I am never alone and for making me know that true love and true partnership is possible, and that it is precious and brilliant and to be grabbed with both hands.

I thank my son, Che, who is a remarkably clever, funny and kind young man, with wisdom and insight beyond his years that made him one of the best campaign strategists and, in those gruelling last few days, one of my biggest motivators and an inspiration. I thank my absolutely brilliant stepson, Liam, who is currently off on the trip of a lifetime, for the joy he brings to my life. Thanks also to my beautiful mum and my fabulous aunties, who arrived to letterbox constantly for the first two weeks of March. To my brother, Luke, my sister-in-law, Leanne, and my sisters Sally and Alison, thank you for all your help and for igniting in me, through our shared experiences and through being the courageous and compassionate people that you are, my relentless passion to make a difference.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:24): I rise to give my Address in Reply speech after the Governor's speech was delivered the other day in the other place. I acknowledge the member for Reynell, who has just completed her speech. In a bipartisan way, I appreciate that, as a minister, she made the time to participate in our yearly sporting event, the parliamentary bowls, which was hosted in Adelaide; I appreciate it.

Ms Hildyard: 'Participate' is a better word than 'compete' for me.

Mr PEDERICK: Excelled. It is so great to be here, and I commend the Premier and the team. I congratulate the 11 new members in this house on our team, and I congratulate the new members on the other side, on being elected to this place. The Premier is a man who stuck to his steely resolve when all sorts of advice was offered to him about how he should win an election, but he held out with the team, and everyone held out, and we won in our own right.

I was concerned when I saw in some media that we might have Stockholm syndrome, where everyone just votes in Labor, just votes in Labor and just votes in Labor, but that was not going to be any good for this state. I am glad the people of South Australia saw that it was time to change, to get on with the job of giving good governance for all citizens of this state, but also to get this state back on track, to get the cost of living under control, to get the price of electricity under control and to get us back on a competitive edge so that we are not seeing those thousands and thousands of young people exiting this state every year. It is an outrage, and we are going to turn that around. We have 297 election commitments, which we absolutely will follow through on, and we will get the job done for South Australia.

With regard to the seat of Hammond, we have commitments across the board. One major commitment is to upgrade the emergency department at the Murray Bridge Soldiers Memorial Hospital. This area has not had an upgrade for over 30 years, and with more challenging presentations that come over time, whether it be violence issues or people affected by drugs, there are rooms where you have to treat patients and everyone is just screened off with a curtain. I inspected a small room, which is probably 2½ metres long and about two metres wide, where at times five people have to work. That is a small, semi secure room in the area so that people could operate the emergency department. There is no real waiting room, unless you are out in another room used by friends of people coming to emergency.

Outside Mount Barker, Murray Bridge would probably have the highest regional growth rate of a town in South Australia. We have this huge growing population, and we need to be able to service it with the appropriate healthcare facilities that the community needs. I understand that is being looked into as I speak by the appropriate departments—the departments of health and transport—and I can only hope that that work starts on the actual construction sooner rather than later because it is really needed.

Another election commitment that I got through our system was about getting Metro ticketing to Murray Bridge. I got as far in the system as I could from opposition at the time, which was to commit to a full study on its viability once in government. Once we see that, I hope that we can get Metro ticketing into Murray Bridge to save all those people who are driving through to the city or coming from the city to Murray Bridge. Certainly, from the Murray Bridge end, for schoolchildren, people going to uni and people going to work, instead of using the Link bus, which is a good service but expensive (it is about $23 a ticket to get to Adelaide) school students especially often get their parents to take them to Mount Barker, they get on a Metro-ticketed bus and are taken into Adelaide. It is certainly my commitment to get that happening. I have had that on my radar since before I came into this place in 2006.

I must say that I am forever thankful to the constituency of Hammond for having their faith in me for a fourth time in getting into this place. I thank my staff for keeping the electorate office running and I thank them for their volunteer time, and all my volunteers for what they did to make sure that we had not just the win in Hammond but the win across the state for the Liberal Party.

In regard to other policy commitments we made coming into the election, we had eight highways which had been recently delisted from 110 km/h back to 100 km/h. I think that was an outrage when they did it around Murray Bridge five or six years ago where we had roads like the road connecting Murray Bridge to Mannum, Murray Bridge through to Wellington through to Langhorne Creek, and it was just an excuse not to spend road maintenance funding.

What I understand across the state between local government, state government and federal government roads is that there is a billion-dollar backlog in what needs to be spent to upgrade these roads across our state—and that is all roads across the state, I should say. In regard to these eight specific roads, there are two in my electorate which need attention, and they are the Browns Well Highway between Pinnaroo and Loxton, and the Ngarkat Highway between Pinnaroo and Bordertown.

It is interesting how roads get downgraded from 110 km/h to 100 km/h. I found out recently that when the Browns Well Highway was upgraded to road train status from B-double status—so, that applies to vehicles up to 36 metres—it was just a desktop study. I talked to one of the public servants involved (I managed to find him somehow before the election) and I said, 'This is ridiculous,' because the issue is that the Browns Well Highway is only just wide enough to have trucks on. By the time you get a second trailer, especially on a road train, and it starts waving about a bit, there is not a spare centimetre of bitumen. They can swing over the white line into the other lane, obviously with the inherent risks.

I have certainly been lobbied hard by people who use that road that work needs to be done. As I have acknowledged in this place for the whole time I have been in here, there is approximately a 20-kilometre section that needs a complete rebuild just to get this up to status, because that is major work that will cost many millions of dollars. When I say 'rebuild', it means digging out and doing it properly because it is just rough and it has bumps through it. It is just terrible. Essentially, that highway is 104 kilometres, so it will need 208 kilometres of shoulder sealing. I have already approached the transport minister about that and I think it needs to be done as soon as possible.

In regard to the Ngarkat Highway, that requires work as well. We have another road that I do not believe was on our list but it has been downgraded to 100 km/h—the Alawoona to Lameroo Highway. I would like to see common sense prevail over time, and it will take time. It will take time because of what has been the neglect of rural and regional South Australia, especially our road network.

What really breaks my heart is that there are some local government bodies that are forgetting some of their core issues around local roads. When you go out on a local road, it is a council responsibility. You get out there and there are major dips where it is down to sand, and they have forgotten how to construct a road properly, they have forgotten how to maintain a road, because they are diverting their money elsewhere. I think it is disgraceful. What is the old saying in local government? Roads, rates and rubbish.

When they neglect one of the core reasons they are there we need to urge all South Australians—especially those in regional South Australia, where we have many thousands of kilometres of rural roads—to look at who they want to represent them in the local government elections in November. Basically, they just need to get new people in so that we can focus those odd chief executive officers who have lost track of directing their councils on where they need to be. I firmly believe that, and if any council wants to have a conversation about it I am more than happy to do so.

When you find out that there are truck accidents, four-wheel drives with collapsed front ends, that is not what should be happening on our roads. I have certainly informed my local council that I will not drive my two-wheel drive vehicle on any of their roads. So we have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do on our state's roads, and we are committed to that.

Furthermore, we have commitments right across the state, massive health commitments, to bring health boards back on board. I was involved in the Social Development Committee inquiry into healthcare provision across the state and how the health advisory councils operated. I learnt there were seven layers of bureaucracy from where we were on the ground floor right through Health. What a waste of money, what a waste of time and what a disgrace of red tape. We will bring back boards so that decisions can be made on the ground, and we can get far better outcomes for people in their communities.

I think some of it, perhaps, was that the powers that be at that time wanted so much control from the top, by government order, and did not want people in the health advisory councils to know what their power was. I think that is exactly what was going on. There is so much to do in health. The previous government built a brand-new Royal Adelaide Hospital that, I gather, was planned as it was built because of all the chaos and many tens of thousands of faults that had to be remedied as they built it. I am told that it should have been 10 years of planning but that they planned it as they built it. It is already overflowing, and I happen to know that because, apart from media reports, one of my employees is there currently—and I wish her all the best. Cheyanne, get out soon.

They witness triage being done in the back of ambulances. It is happening; it is not just a media beat-up. That is disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful, and that is happening. To think that a hospital was built and we did not even have a discharge room—really? It is just out of control. How did this happen? Then we get to the catering at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. I am not trying to beat up the caterers, but what is going on? I understand it is catered off site, which I do not understand because there would be at least 3,000 or 4,000 meals that go through that place every day. I will reflect on one constituent's inquiry—and this is only one, but they come in daily about food alone at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, a place where you are supposed to get better.

A constituent recently underwent an operation at the Royal Adelaide Hospital on a cancer in her mouth. After the operation, she was served meals that were not suitable considering the nature of her operation. Day 1 breakfast was dry cornflakes, no milk, sugar or spoon (she was unable to even open her mouth at this stage). I think she missed lunch. The evening meal was chunky stew. Day 2 breakfast was semolina with no milk or sugar, and lunch was some chunky stew with no utensils. Day 3 breakfast was dry Weet-Bix, no sugar or spoon. Thankfully, for lunch the constituent's daughter saved the day and brought in some chicken soup, yoghurt and pureed fruit.

By day 3—the meal before the constituent left the hospital—the dietician had intervened and the quality and the appropriateness of the food improved. They still delivered the food with no utensils. A general commentary about the food included that the food is dry and bread rolls hard and inedible, and I had a video from my staffer that showed a plastic knife collapsing while trying to cut the bread roll. The food is cold and inappropriate for medical conditions, there is a lack of utensils, the food is mostly inedible, cooked protein is like leather, and the vegetables have no taste. This contract was put in place by the previous Labor government, and we need to fix it up. It is disgraceful if it is your business to supply food that it cannot happen in the appropriate way. I hope that there is some intervention. It would be so much better for our people of this state.

Getting back to other things that have happened in my community, one of the bigger ones is the Bend Motorsport Park. I acknowledge that about $8.5 million dollars of state money went towards it and $7.5 million dollars of federal money. Certainly, from our side of government, we have supported a couple of events there since it started running only a few weeks ago. I commend the Shahin family, the Peregrine Corporation, for their investment in my community. Well over $100 million is being invested, and a fantastic track is being set up. There are four different tracks. In fact, they are set up so that you can have two separate tracks running at once, or you can go on the big track, the 7.7 kilometre track.

I have only been around it slowly in a car and in a bus, but the 85 millimetres of bitumen is absolutely smooth with the bit that they put on top. I had a conversation with Sam Shahin. I would like to get my old V8 ute out there, and he assured me that I would have my opportunity. However, it has been challenging. I told the corporation that, when they started, they would be building on a rock—and it is one big rock. Quite a few tonnes of Nitropril were used. One thing that land at Tailem Bend is certainly helpful for is road base, because once you can break it up it is good road base. I think the contractors had plenty of issues with the earthmoving equipment, making these tracks and getting the facilities going.

Over time, we will have a V-max straight-line track. There will be an airstrip there, and the dragstrip will come back from 40 years ago, which I attended way back then. I was pretty young, obviously. The drift track will be reborn out there and there will be four-wheel drive tracks. Certainly, as we have seen, with different motorcycle events and the car events of recent days, there is plenty happening. However, they have also had their challenges with the weather, the lack of rain until recently and a bit of dust coming across the track.

There have been other things going on. Big River Pork have completed an expansion, and we have had Ingham's putting in layer sheds at Yumali, not far from my place at Coomandook. Costa mushrooms is going to double in size and spend $64 million. A lot is going on. A whole lot of other industries in the horticulture field are expanding and getting on with the job. The other one I want to take note of is the Bridgeport Hotel development, which, after six years, when the proponents first came to me, is going to go ahead. I think that will be a major boon for Murray Bridge and surrounding areas.

It was a long process because the original Bridgeport was built way back in the 1800s. It certainly was a beautiful heritage building, but the present building is nowhere near that. It was tarted up in about 1970 with some steelwork around the outside and a lot of brickwork. There are some limestone walls if you look closely, but one of the heritage architects had a good look at it and said, 'They won't support what you are going to do with the new build.' At the very least, I hope it matches the Port Lincoln Hotel in the member for Flinders' area because it will be a similar size: six storeys, 99 rooms, 4½-star convention facilities. It will be a great boon, offering other accommodation for things around Murray Bridge, for executives to come in from all the companies operating in the area and also for events that happen out at the Bend Motorsport Park.

I also want to talk about Murray Bridge Racing Club. This is another one that has been long going. I did joke once, early in the piece, that when they finally built the corporate facilities I would have my 50th there. Sadly, I hate to admit it to the house, but I am a little bit north of 50 at the minute.

Mr Ellis: Rubbish. You don't look it.

Mr PEDERICK: Thank you. That has been a bit of an ongoing joke as I have talked to various players in the field. Coming into the 2014 election, we put up $20 million from the Liberal Party. We had $5 million from the federal government, a $10 million grant from us and a $5 million loan from us, and all we had to do was win the election. Sadly, we missed by a ham and pineapple pizza, but that is life. We were devastated enough.

I will commend the team from that day, that Sunday when we realised what had happened. This team stuck together. This team absolutely stuck together. We could have fallen apart, could have collapsed, but everyone held. We managed to recruit some amazing candidates and get 11 into this place. I take my hat off to them, and I take my hat off to the unsuccessful candidates, who also put in so much hard work and sadly were not rewarded with a seat.

I remember one day having a conversation with the former minister, the member for Mawson. I do not know if this had any effect—he might tell me later—but I said, 'I know you're probably not going to grant them $5 million. Is there any chance you could lend the facility $5 million?' In the end, that did happen. Thoroughbred Racing SA got on board, and Burke Urban are involved and some other partners. It is not just the racing development out there. The racing track has been built for a long time. They will have a man-made track inside for those races that get too wet around the state.

The convention corporate racetrack facilities are being built as we speak. The million-dollar horse stables are there, ready to rock and roll. I believe it will become the racing centre in South Australia. I take my hat off to the racing club and all their partners for their patience. It has taken absolute patience to get this facility up and running. There are certainly people who have got going, but there has been so much more optimism since we gained the office of power. We can help deliver more outcomes not just across Hammond but across the state.

Hammond has certainly changed quite a bit since I was first elected in 2006. In the initial term, I represented way out to the Mallee, Strathalbyn and just north of Murray Bridge. That was the first term. In the second and third term, I had the great opportunity to be the representative of Goolwa and Currency Creek, which have recently gone into the electorate of the new member for Finniss. I commend him for his election. It is a beautiful place in the state, a tourism Mecca. It is with some sadness, I must say, that I am not representing that area anymore but, with the redistribution that was absolutely vital in helping us form government, it has gone into very good hands.

In saying that, they needed to find me 6½ thousand voters somewhere else. It is good. They have developed a seat that, after three terms where Hammond essentially shrunk, has just gone—bang! It now essentially goes from Petwood and Harrogate. Up near Mount Barker, I have addresses around Nairne. It goes through to Pinnaroo. Tungkillo comes in, almost to Mount Pleasant, and Cambrai, Walker Flat and Nildottie. As I said, it goes all the way out to the Mallee, which is great because my kids play footy in the Mallee when they do not have broken arms or are playing footy elsewhere.

It is great to have the boys out there playing footy in one of those great country leagues, the Mallee Football League. I believe Hammond has come back to a real Murraylands-Mallee electorate, and I will certainly do my best to represent that constituency as well as I can. I certainly applaud the work that my staff do in that constituency because without good staff, as all members in here know, it just does not happen.

As I said, we had firm policy commitments before the election and we will deliver on them. There is a need to accelerate growth in the South Australian economy as we transition from manufacturing to a high-skill base and we will get on and do that right across the board and right across the state, whether it is in the regions or in the city.

In my closing few minutes, I want to reflect on the regions and our commitment to them. We put up a 30 per cent mining royalty program, Royalties for Regions. At the time we wrote the policy that was $750 million and has since increased to $760 million over 10 years. We will be putting that into the road infrastructure I was talking about earlier, and it will also assist other infrastructure projects and bring our regions back on track. For too long, people who have always voted Liberal—and some have probably wavered at times—have been just hanging out to have what is needed for them. The 30 per cent of citizens who live in the regions, who have been forgotten by the previous Labor government, deserve their day in the sun and we will deliver it.

We will also be putting a $10 million program into mobile phone tower implementation across the state, which will combine with industry funds and federal funds to get that connectivity right. I remember it was only a couple of funding rounds ago when the Labor government put very little money in. It might have been $1 million, from memory. It was farcical compared to the tens and tens of millions of dollars that New South Wales alone put up for mobile phone coverage in their regions. In fact, I have driven through New South Wales. I have been north of Brewarrina on one of my trips one day, and it was just amazing to find out that I had phone service way out there. We will commit to that infrastructure spend.

We will commit to the $30 million of urgent work that needs to be done to our regional hospitals to get them up to speed. It will not just be the $30 million. Over time, it will be $150 million so that we do not always have to rely on the good constituents like one in the South-East recently, an anonymous donor who put the roof on the Kingston hospital. It is outrageous that a member of the community had to do that to make sure that there were decent health facilities in Kingston. It just should not happen and it should be funded.

We have seen what should have been a jewel in the crown for health in this state, the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, become a shemozzle. I think the total spend on the hospital went from about $1.8 billion to $2.2 billion, and there is another $300 million we have found in the books that is gone, and it still does not function. It is outrageous. It is outrageous that this is the case when we are trying to assist people at their most vulnerable times and their time of need.

In the last little bit of time, I would just like to thank my family, Sally, Mack and Angus, for their patience and support throughout the campaign. Also, to my ever-resolute staff, despite the times when we had the dark days and you witnessed the slander, the hate and the trolls, we prevailed and we will still have a positive future for Hammond.

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (11:55): I rise today to thank my bosses. I would name them all individually, but there are 24,000 of them. They are the voters of Mawson to whom I wrote a few weeks out before the election and applied for my job back in here for a further four years. I know there were just 50 per cent plus 115 of them who gave me the tick, but I want to promise all the 24,000 voters in the electorate of Mawson that I will work hard every day for you, for your communities, for your families, for your schools, for your businesses—for everything that makes our part of the world so special. I want to make sure that you have my full support and that we will make Mawson an even better place, if that indeed is possible.

We have had a few people get up in here and, I think, mislead the house over the past couple of days by saying that their electorate is the best. There is no comparison. Have a look at Mawson. I think it is probably the only place anywhere with two full tourism brochures on different parts of the electorate. You have the McLaren Vale wine region, and then you head down and you have Kangaroo Island, and in between. For anyone who has been to Rapid Bay, Second Valley and Cape Jervis and all those wonderful communities along there—Myponga Reservoir—it is just a stunning part of the world filled with some of the most resilient, resourceful and wonderful people that you could find anywhere on earth.

Elections are not won in the final four weeks or four months of an election campaign: they are won by doing the right thing for four years and by getting wins for the local community. It is something that I am very proud to have done. I have, I guess, nagged and annoyed a lot of my colleagues in government, and I will give a promise to those opposite that I will work with you, but we want to see some results as well. We have some unfinished business there. There are some commitments that our government made, and we would love to work with you to make sure those are carried out in the electorate of Mawson because the people of Mawson deserve those wonderful pieces of infrastructure and services down our way.

I want to pay tribute, too, to our former premier, the member for Cheltenham; our former treasurer, the member for West Torrens; former education minister, the member for Port Adelaide; and the member for Lee, who in his role as minister for transport and infrastructure delivered so much for our area. One of the good things about applying for the job was that I got to sit down, as you do when you apply for a job, put some of your results down, put little ticks next to them and just explain to people what you have achieved for the local area. The Southern Expressway, that duplication to fix the Liberal's one-way expressway, was a huge win for our local area.

There was $435 million to duplicate Main South Road from Seaford to Sellicks announced in last year's budget and in the Mid-Year Budget Review. I look forward to working with the new Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government to ensure that that is done and that we listen to the local people down there who have their own ideas about how that could work.

There is a bigger, better Tour Down Under. Haven't we seen that race grow from strength to strength? Of course this year we celebrated the 20th edition of the Santos Tour Down Under. There is the sports voucher system for primary school students—$50 for every primary school student. That was a pledge that we took to the 2014 election and one that I was really pleased to see implemented during my time as the sports minister.

We saved Bowering Hill from housing development. That was done back in my first term in in the lead-up to 2010. In this term most recently, we had a bit of a battle down there with some people who wanted to build a dam right next door to the Boyds. We stood up for them because that is what I like to do: to go out there, stand up for the community but also stand up for the individual when their neighbourhood is going to be changed irreparably.

We heard the member for Newland about keeping South Australia GM free. I respect his point of view from a scientific background, but I have been overseas on trade missions, and one of the great selling points we have is that South Australia is the only mainland jurisdiction in Australia that is GM free, phylloxera free and fruit fly free. They are really good selling points when you are going into markets like China and Japan, and particularly into the US, where the growth in terms of people seeking non-GM food is enormous.

So it is not about the science—well, it is: it is about the political science. It is about what the consumer wants. If the demand is there and people are willing to pay a premium for non-GM, then that is a market that we should be meeting. Once you let the genie out of the bottle and you become a jurisdiction that allows the growing of GM crops, you cannot put that genie back into the bottle, so we need to be very sure that it is the right thing to do. We did have some research done. We did not do it as a government because it would be a bit biased if I did it, so we went to the University of Adelaide. I think the University of Adelaide had their own preconceived ideas that there probably was not much of an advantage, but when they went out to market and did the analysis they found that there was, indeed, a benefit to South Australia and its marketing of premium food and wine, and to stick with that.

We built the Adelaide Oval, $535 million. I know that a lot of people in South Australia did not want that to happen and that the people opposite did not want that to happen. We have done it and it has been tremendous in terms of building visitation to South Australia, and then we have filled it with world-class events.

We built an overpass at McLaren Vale because there was a dangerous T-junction there and three elderly people were killed as they tried to cross over the Victor Harbor Road. We stopped urban sprawl on our local agricultural lands. This was Australia-first legislation to lock in the agricultural lands of McLaren Vale and the Barossa Valley to ensure that the urban sprawl that has been spreading out from the centre of the city since the early 1960s stops now and leaves our wonderful productive agricultural lands for those purposes.

We have put millions of dollars into local sports clubs. McLaren Vale and Willunga netball clubs both received grants and Dudley United received a grant for their women's change rooms. We opened those in September last year. In the next few weeks, they will be playing on a brand-new court that came about through a playing surfaces upgrade grant that the Dudley United Netball Club received—which, of course, is in Penneshaw.

We have been helping those sporting groups at grassroots level, not just in the electorate of Mawson but right across the state, with $146 million of additional funding, including $24 million for women's change rooms so that girls and women no longer have to get changed in their cars, behind trees, in offices or in other inappropriate places. It also means that when a women's footy team goes out to play they do not have to line up for the one toilet that is there. We can actually provide, through this funding, fit-for-purpose facilities that girls and women deserve.

We have extra money for the McLaren Vale hospital. We put in an extra $430,000 last year. I know that, during the campaign, the Liberals pledged an extra $500,000, which we welcome, for a hospital that provides not only wonderful service to those in need but also a lot of jobs for many local people. We put a bus service out to McLaren Flat, again in the first term.

We are building a new birth to year 12 school for the Sellicks-Aldinga area. That will house 1,500 students when it is open in 2022. I look forward to working with the new education minister to ensure that the community is listened to in the planning stages of that school, which will be a fantastic addition to our local area. Currently, Willunga High School is full, and this will help take some of that load to the new school, which will be a birth to year 12 school. Importantly, it will also keep people in Aldinga. Kids who are Aldinga residents currently go over to Willunga High School, and then they tend to play footy, netball and other sports for Willunga. If we can keep those kids in Aldinga and playing for the local clubs we will probably see the Sharks do a little bit better than they are doing now, and that is a good thing because it strengthens community. At the same time, it is important that we continue to have those wonderful small schools as well.

Myponga Primary School has a population of about 112 students and does a magnificent job. A lot of kids from Sellicks go there. We want to work with the new education minister to make sure that, while this new 1,500-student school is being built, with 100 places reserved for students with special needs, the parents of children in the Sellicks area have the choice of sending their kids to the big new school or continuing on at the wonderful Myponga Primary School.

We also have the Rapid Bay Primary School where Mark Shadiac is the principal. The slogan down there is, 'Big fish, small pond'. It is a beautiful little school that has 32 students. None of them actually lives in Rapid Bay. There are very few houses in Rapid Bay that you can live in because they are owned by Adelaide Brighton Cement and most of them are boarded up. Something I would like to address in the next four years is how we can breathe new life into Rapid Bay. It is one of the most stunning places on earth. It has a north-facing bay. It was one of Colonel Light's early drop-off points when he arrived in South Australia. His doctor spent several months there. The first Europeans in the colony were born in Rapid Bay, so it is an important historical place. At the moment, there is a lot of rusting old equipment up on a disused quarry, so we are keen to see something happen there.

These little schools do such a great job for our community—all the schools do. We want to make sure that the millions of extra dollars of funding that we have put into schools, not just throughout Mawson but right throughout the state, continues under the new government. We will be keeping an eye on them and working with them to make sure that happens. As I said, I wrote to all the new ministers and congratulated them on being elevated to the ministry. It is an important role. I want to work with them and not against them because we will achieve more by working together. I fight for people rather than fighting with people, and I think that is a good adage. It is certainly a good starting point in any relationship.

The Seaford rail line extension and electrification was a great win for our local area. We would like to see it go further. We would like to see it go to Aldinga. That is where most people in our community are at in their thinking. They are also aware of the financial restraints that our government and the new government is under as well. We will need some federal funding for that project to go ahead. We have paid for the new duplication of Main South Road from Seaford down to Sellicks and we are building the new school, so we have ticked two of the three big priorities for that part of the world, for the Aldinga/Sellicks/Myponga area. If we can get that rail line extended down to Aldinga, it will be a huge achievement and one that will be welcomed by our local community, as was the Seaford rail extension that was part funded by the federal government and the state government. We will watch this space. That is certainly a project that I have on my wish list for the next four years.

We have been helping to create jobs and business growth through tourism and export promotion. I know that we hear people on the other side say that the days of picking winners is over, and that is not something that the government has on its agenda, but please have a look at some of the results and talk to some of the people who have received government assistance over the years. I have spoken in here before about how the banks have turned their backs on regional South Australia. If the banks are not loaning the money, or think that country South Australia is too much of a risk, then there is a role for governments to step in and help out. That might be giving them money that is the seed money or the money that can help provide the deposit for someone to kick off a really big development.

If we look at Seppeltsfield, that has been a fantastic addition for the Barossa. They received two or three grants from the old federal T-QUAL tourism grants. The d'Arenberg Cube is an amazing piece of architecture at McLaren Vale. That is a 105-year-old business. The family, headed by d'Arry Osborn and his son, Chester, invested $13 million. They received $2 million in government money, but that was to ensure that 58 jobs were created there.

Chester tells me every time that they are watching the number of jobs they have—because that was what that $2 million was for. It was not a grant necessarily. While the cheque was written out to d'Arenberg to build the Cube, it was taxpayers' money that went to an entire region and to an entire industry. We have 18 wonderful wine regions throughout South Australia.

If we go to the member for Chaffey's electorate and look at the 23rd Street Distillery, they received some funding for their redevelopment of the old Renmano site. People can argue that they were always going to do that perhaps, but we gave them the money that allowed them, instead of bulldozing that important site, to keep it and improve it. That was so much part of Renmark's history and employment in that area. It gave new life to an old business site that had sat derelict for so many years. I congratulate all those people in the private sector who are out there doing such a good job of making sure that they are providing jobs for South Australia.

The member for Hammond spoke just before me and listed a whole range of things where it would not have been possible to get ahead without some government grants, whether that be Costa mushrooms or Ingham chickens and the horticultural expansions there. As he mentioned, the Murray Bridge race track received a $5 million loan from government and at the Bend Motorsport Park a family has invested $110 million, I think. With a bit of help from us ($8½ million) and a bit from the federal government to work on some infrastructure around the development, we have been able to make sure that these projects get off the ground and that we will be the centre of motorsport in Australia and attract major events from outside our country, throughout Asia and from around the world.

I want to thank all those members on my side who were in government and with whom we sat around the table in cabinet. I have to say that cabinet was a place where we thought of every South Australian every time we sat around that table. We took it upon ourselves, as a collective, to make the very best decisions we could on behalf of South Australians. As I said, it is a very big honour to be in cabinet, and I wish the Premier, the Deputy Premier and all the new cabinet ministers all the very best as they take the reins for the next four years.

I would like now to thank a few people who helped win what many said was the impossible electorate to win. If we look at Antony Green's pendulum, Mawson was No. 9 on the Liberal side, up the pendulum, so it was a tough ask. I had built it up over three elections, from a 3½ per cent Liberal seat to a 5½ per cent Labor seat. Then, with a few strokes of someone's pen, it went to a 4½ per cent Liberal seat, so it is a 10 per cent swing before you have even turned up for the contest.

I remember that we had just finished cabinet and were at the Marion Swimming Centre when the new boundaries came through. The member for Cheltenham, the then premier at the time, Jay Weatherill, showed me the results. He said, 'It looks pretty bad for you.' I looked at his phone and the details and said, 'It doesn't look that bad. I have picked up coastline for the first time, I have picked up an island, I have picked up three breweries and at least two distilleries, and I reckon there's probably about nine new pubs and about 20 new bakeries. Where is the downside of that?' He said, 'Well, just that little bit that says it is now in a 4½ per cent Liberal seat.'

If you have the right mindset and you take on the challenges and play the cards you are dealt in life, then anything is possible. We all know about the physical needs of an election campaign, but a lot of this is mental as well, and you have to have a winning mentality. You have to be able to visualise what you have to do to make sure that on election day you finish up with more votes than the other person. I am not about to give a lesson to the other side in all the things to do, but when you start from a deficit of 4½ per cent it is a pretty big handicap. When you can see the other fellows in the race further up the line than you and you have to make up that 4½ per cent before you draw even with them, let alone get ahead, you have to do some pretty special things.

The number one thing that you have to do as a local member of parliament or as a local candidate is to be present, it is to be a part of your community, it is to be of the people for the people. That means a seven-day week commitment. That means working nights. That means being out there being available to people. And when there is only one of you, you need to have a strong team around. I was very fortunate to have Jazz and Della and then Callum, who came on in February as trainee in my office, running a fantastic electorate office.

In the ministerial office, it was terrific to have people who were so professional and had the competence that they could distil down the information and advice I needed to ensure that the people in the portfolio areas of agriculture, food, fishery and forests, recreation, sport and racing and in tourism had my ear. To those advisers and chiefs of staff, who I had not just during this campaign but over the five years, I want to say a massive thank you as well. To Paul Flanagan, Lucy Anderson, Marg Ralston, Alice Fistr, Nikki Mott, Ruth Sibley, Cathy Parker, Kerry Treuel, George Georgianas and Alexandra Keen, you are all incredible workers. Thanks to Simone Reed as well, my media adviser for a long time. They were incredible workers who did so much and provided so much public service to the people of South Australia and in particular those portfolios that we represented.

To the other people who were non-political appointees in the ministerial office—Sophie, Kimberly, Tamara, Ajsa, Mark, Abby, Danny, Matthew, Mariah—thank you very much for your enormous dedication. I wish each and every one of you all the very best in your future employment. I could not have asked for anyone to work harder than you did. It was incredible the amount of work that you put in and, again, working well outside the nine to five hours that people think that people work in the Public Service.

Thanks to Jerry Morelli, who was the only guy who worked longer hours than me. I know that because he used to have to drive from his place to my place to pick me up, and then he would have to drop me off and drive back to his place. Thanks to Jerry and his wife, Amanda, and their three kids. I hope the family is enjoying seeing more of you, Jerry, because I know I saw a lot of you and you saw a lot of me—probably more than you needed to see sometimes as we got changed racing from one event to another. You do become very close to the ministerial chauffeurs because they are with you your whole working day, and in our line of work they are long, long days. Jerry, again, thank you very much for all the hard work that you put in.

When it came to the campaign, the party was busy looking after a lot of seats around the place, so when I went looking for a campaign manager I had to look no further than my own family and to my son Conor, who was 19 on the election campaign. He studied politics at school and he is doing economics and international studies at university (he is off to China again tonight for his third trip there) and studying Mandarin. He has been around election campaigns since he was six years old.

I remember driving along with him in that first campaign, the 2006 election. This was probably back in 2004. I said, 'Well, we should call in here to Old Noarlunga.' He said, 'But Old Noarlunga is not in the electorate, dad.' He was six and he was sitting next to me in the car. I said, 'Yes, of course it is—Woodcroft all the way down to McLaren Vale.' He said, 'No, the line on the map goes around.' I said, 'No, that would be silly for that to happen.' But, of course, logic and electoral boundaries—it does not always make sense. He said, 'Just pull over.' So here I am, listening to a six year old, and I pull over and he shows me the map and, sure enough, Old Noarlunga was not on there.

He had another gem in that first campaign. We had the roof sign on. Robert Brokenshire, was the sitting member and the opposition spokesperson on police. Conor suggested that I take my roof sign off my car and put it in the boot and that we then get Robert Brokenshire's roof sign, put it on my car and just do doughnuts all around Willunga and McLaren Vale and then police would get Mr Brokenshire in trouble instead. It was probably not the greatest move.

He is a student of politics and he loves it. He is a little Rain Man–ish when it comes to knowing all the stats of the electorate, and he was an absolute joy to hang out with. He always is, but to have Conor there with me side by side doing planning and organisational work and also doing that physical work of putting up election posters along with all our volunteers was something that I really enjoyed.

I thank my sisters, Toni and Jacinta, who have been so good during what has been a demanding past five years, looking after an electorate as well as three or four different ministerial portfolios. They have really taken the load with mum, and I appreciate Jacinta and Toni's great work. Now that I have a little more time on my hands, the first thing I did was take mum out to lunch, and we are spending a lot more time together. We will all be together on Sunday for Mother's Day, and I wish mum and all the mums out there, not just in my electorate but everywhere, a very happy Mother's Day for this coming Sunday.

We put mum to work as well. She was putting stamps on envelopes, and she was also handing out shopping bags to people in the shopping centre, whether they wanted them or not. Mum was very proud to give her son's bags out to those people in the shopping centre. To a long list of volunteers, thank you again from the bottom of my heart: people who are members of the Labor Party, people who do not even vote Labor but who have come to help me out. I want to thank all those people.

I thank Leo Sexton and his wife, Maria, over on Kangaroo Island. Graham Spry spent his 70th birthday sitting in my campaign office, taking queries from constituents. Gethin Creagh was probably the only Academy Award nominee who was handing out how-to-vote cards during the state election. He was on the Kingscote booth and does a great job of running the community radio station over there. Claudia Hanton also spent her birthday writing envelopes. Marion Ferguson worked so hard on the campaign. She wrote up I do not know how many thousands of envelopes, but also on election night she was on the biggest booth, the Aldinga booth. I do not think she got home until about 11 o'clock and did not make it to our election night party.

To all the volunteers who chipped in and helped, thank you so much. To Andy Gilfillan, his wife, Kate, and their three daughters, thank you for all the work you did in your efforts to win the seat of Mawson and to stand for your side of politics and for the people in the electorate. It was a close-run contest. There was never a cross word between us. In fact, when the polls closed on election night, Andy and I went over to the Alma pub and had a pint together before we went off to our respective election parties.

That is what it should be all about. We are not that far apart. We sit in here and physically we are close. We are not that far apart ideologically either. It gets down to management styles, and we should all be able to work together. I look at the member for Flinders and single him out amongst a few people on the other side who were absolutely excellent to work with when I was a minister. We got a lot of things done for the member for Flinders' constituents, and the same with the member for Stuart, the member for Hammond and so many over there. As an opposition MP, I want to be someone who can work with the government of the day.

I go back now to where I started, and that is to thank the people in the electorate of Mawson. I know a lot of you voted Labor for the first time in your lives. That has been happening to me over the past four elections and it proves that if you can do some good deeds for people they will repay you with their vote. We doubled our vote in Myponga. We lost that booth by one vote, which is incredible when you look at the demographic of Myponga. We tripled our vote down at Parawa. I know that is only coming off seven votes, but we got it to 21, out of 108 voters down there. You have to go out there and present yourself to communities and let them know what you have done in the past if they are new voters, and remind people if they have been with you for a while.

One of the things about this electoral boundary change was that I lost 20,000 voters, the people of Woodcroft, Onkaparinga Hills, Hackham, Huntfield Heights, Hackham West, Old Noarlunga and Noarlunga Downs. I lost 20,000 people and I had to go out and meet 20,000 new people. Luckily, I like making new friends, because that was a lot of doorknocking and a lot of phone calls. It was incredible to go into communities like Myponga, which is where we had the declaration of the poll. We had it there because I wanted to say thank you to the people of Myponga. When I walked in there, I said, 'I think you are the people that politicians from both sides have forgotten for 160 years, and that's going to change.' They did tell me what it was they wanted and we did look after a lot of the needs of the people down in Myponga.

We will continue to work with those people, just like we will work with the people in American River, Penneshaw, Parndana, Kingscote, Cape Jervis, Inman Valley, Parawa, Myponga, Yankalilla, Sellicks, Aldinga, McLaren Vale, McLaren Flat and Willunga, the only parts that I kept in the redistribution. I will continue to work hard for you because it is a great privilege to be here. Working hard on behalf of you, your families, your schools, your community groups and your businesses every single day of my life is what I love doing. Thank you again for putting your trust in me for the next four years. I will not let you down.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Pederick): I call on the Deputy Speaker, the member for Flinders.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (12:25): Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker—don't get too comfortable there. My congratulations to all who have taken their place in the House of Assembly and in the other place following the 17 March election. Congratulations to the member for Mawson on a hard-fought and close battle. It was one we were all watching very closely and I understand it was down to the wire in the end, with a couple of hundred votes—

Mr Bignell: 115.

Mr TRELOAR: 115 votes! My congratulations to you and commiserations to Andy Gilfillan and all the other candidates who were not successful. As has been mentioned earlier, it takes a fair bit of courage to put your hand up, throw your hat in the ring and stand for public office. It does not matter whether it is state, federal or even local government; it is really about putting yourself up for public scrutiny and public opinion. Congratulations again to all.

Three other candidates contested the electorate of Flinders: a Labor candidate, Julie Watson—the Labor Party found a candidate who lived in Flinders this time around, so well done to them and congratulations to her—Tony Parker, a member of the Australian Conservatives; and Ian Dudley, a schoolteacher from Elliston, stood for the Greens. It was a very civil campaign led by all.

We all came together on election day for the first time ever as candidates and were able to hand out election material. Given that the four biggest booths in the seat of Flinders are in Port Lincoln, I chose to remain in Port Lincoln for the day. I think there are over 20 polling booths in the seat of Flinders that extend from Port Lincoln all the way out to the remote booth that works its way around the far west of Penong, Yalata and that area.

My congratulations also to the Premier on being elected and also on the campaign that he led on behalf of the Liberal Party. If there is one comment I will make about the way that he managed the campaign and the way he presented himself, it is that he did not once blink, as far as I could tell, through all the challenges that were thrown at him and at us during the campaign. He did not once falter or blink. I have always said that one day the member for Dunstan would make a very good Premier, an excellent Premier. He has that opportunity now and I wish him well. The Deputy Premier, who has been in this place almost as long as anyone else, apart from perhaps the member for West Torrens, is now deservedly in the most senior role that any woman has held in the Parliament of South Australia. Congratulations to her.

To the cabinet members and the new members of this place, we are hearing your maiden speeches during this week and next week. We have 11 new members on this side and three on the opposition side in the Labor Party, so there are 14 in all. That is a significant cohort out of a relatively small parliament of just 47 people. These 14 new members come from a range of backgrounds and will add significantly to the depth and experience of this parliament. We have heard some excellent maiden speeches and we will hear more as this week unfolds.

As others have done, in this Address in Reply to the Governor's Speech at the opening of parliament last Thursday, I would like to thank a few people in relation to my re-election as the member for Flinders and for their support along the way. I was first elected in 2010, to much excitement. The former member for Flinders, Liz Penfold, had been representing the seat for 16 or 17 years, having won the seat off Peter Blacker of the National Party in 1993, who had held the seat since 1973.

There have been just three members for the seat of Flinders in over 40 years, so it was a great thrill to be first elected in 2010. Isobel Redmond was our leader, and we thought that we might win that election. We did not. We certainly felt that we should have won the 2014 election. We did not. After two terms in opposition, I find myself on the government benches and look forward very much to delivering not just to my electorate but also to the people of South Australia.

You cannot do all of this without great help from family and friends. My parents, Brian and Wendy, have supported me all the way through. I think my mother, Wendy, is still a little bit surprised that I am in politics. It is not something she brags about to her friends, but she remains supportive.

My two brothers, Michael and John, helped me all the way through. I farmed for 30 years as a wheat farmer before coming into this place in 2010 and we farmed together as a family business for most of that time. I am the eldest. My brother Michael is two years younger and John is two years younger than that. For most of that 30 years, we worked together, along with our father, and built our family farming business to a point where we could all separate and run our own businesses. I offered and they elected to share-farm my property now under a share-farming arrangement, so I have the privilege of still living on my farm at Edillilie but not having to worry about the day-to-day operations of the farming business.

We had about 30 millimetres of rain last week, Acting Speaker, which was very nice on top of the 20 millimetres the week before. Our season is underway, so tractors are going madly. I do not think it extended too far north. It was not much further north than Murdinga up through the middle, although I understand both Elliston and Streaky Bay had good rains.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Pederick): You are truly blessed.

Mr TRELOAR: We are truly blessed in the seat of Flinders, Acting Speaker. My wife, Annette, is a great support. She has worked all the way through our marriage and continues to work as well as support me. She does not always know where I am. This is not the way it should be done, new members. In fact, I went to one function and my wife came with me. She is often busy working and, with four children as well, she cannot always be with me. Somebody said to me, within earshot of my wife, 'I thought you were single.' I assured her that was because I went without her and not because of my behaviour.

She enjoys her work. She works in the health system and she is doing community nursing at Ceduna this week, last week and next week, which is something she really enjoys. Our four children, Thomas, Madeleine, Henry and Max, were all at school when I became a member of parliament in 2010. They have now all left school and are finishing their studies, embarking on careers of their own and making lives of their own, so it is an exciting time. They are all in their early to mid-20s. My youngest son, Max, will be 20 in a couple of months. They have enjoyed the journey, I have to say, as much as I have. It is a great experience to have them grow up with me in this place.

My thanks go to the helpers on election day, and everybody needs to recognise this, I am sure. The Liberal Party in the seat of Flinders still has a reasonably solid membership and certainly it is all hands on deck during an election, particularly in the days leading up to and on election day itself. As I said, there are over 20 booths in Flinders that we need to man, operate and provide scrutineers for and it is a big day. It is an incredible logistical exercise to manage an election day, as everybody in here knows, so my thanks to all those party members and other volunteers who helped me out on that day. I have recently written to all of them thanking them for their help and dedication.

We had an election night party in my new office, which is the old courthouse in Port Lincoln. The old courtroom was the setting for our post-election party and we had a television set up. It was a big enough room to fit everybody who wanted to be there. I must say everybody was surprised when the election was called by 10.30 that night. I do not think anybody realistically expected it to be so quick, but what a delightful result it was. By 10.30, we had a new government and a new Premier. Sixteen years is a long time. I really believe that South Australia voted for change, and our mandate now is to deliver change and reform to the South Australian economy and the people of South Australia.

I want to say a quick thankyou to my long-serving staff members, Jacqui Merchant and Aimee Pedler, who joined me prior to the 2010 election. Jacqui is a Port Lincoln local girl who came across to town on leaving school, as many do, and worked within government and ministerial offices before deciding it was time to come home. She has great experience within the political sphere, which is of great value to me. I am eternally indebted for her coming onboard so early, accepting a position with me and staying with me as office manager.

Aimee Pedler, a local Cummins girl (I am a Cummins boy originally) had an outstanding reference from the member for Hammond for whom she was working just prior to her and her husband returning to Cummins. They felt it was time for both of them to come home. She is also a journalist of some note, being the 2006 Rural Journalist of the Year, so it is has been great to have those two. Myriam Hyde and Aimee are both young mums and they now share days in the office. We have allocated portfolios and they both do an outstanding job.

Di Smith holds the fort in Ceduna. I have a second office in Ceduna. It is 400 kilometres from Port Lincoln to Ceduna. I try to get there every three weeks or so, but in my absence Di Smith runs that office on Thursdays and Fridays. Just very quickly on Di, she and her husband farm 150 kilometres west of Ceduna at a place called Nundroo in the Coorabie district. She drives in Thursday morning, works Thursday, stays overnight, works Friday, does the shopping and goes home—150 kilometres to come to work. I still do not believe that a lot of people in this place fully understand the concept of distance that we deal with out there.

We have also had a number of trainees over that eight years. At the moment, we do not have a trainee and we will be looking to get one at the close of the 2018 school year. In the meantime, Nicole Matthews has been taking a break from her teaching studies and working under the global allowance to hold the fort. It sounds like a lot of staff, I guess, but they mix and match and work on various days of the week. My thanks to them for making me look good. Ultimately, they understand that that is what they need to do for any of us, to support us and make us look good. They do remind me that they do that sometimes.

Before getting to the Governor's speech, I might talk about the electorate I represent, the seat of Flinders. As I said, it is 400 kilometres between our offices. It is almost 1,000 kilometres from Cape Donington, south of Port Lincoln, to the Border Village, and the electorate of Flinders extends all that way. It covers most of the agricultural areas of Eyre Peninsula, and is home to the second largest fishing fleet in the Southern Hemisphere as well as significant aquaculture. It contains 22 schools: three non-government (two Lutheran schools, one in Ceduna and one in Port Lincoln, and a Catholic school in Port Lincoln) and 19 government schools, which are mostly area schools but not all.

There are some primary schools in Port Lincoln. The largest school in the electorate is the high school at Port Lincoln, and we are about to embark on a significant spend, a significant upgrade. I would like to think that my lobbying of the previous government had some part to play in that, but we were at the point where there were temporary classrooms in place there 40 years ago that students were still using without any air conditioning, so it is money well overdue and the school is very much looking forward to that spend.

So we have 22 schools and eight hospitals. We have had significant spends in both Ceduna and Port Lincoln regional hospitals. A lot of our smaller country hospitals are in desperate need of funding input, and I think that is one of the things this new government will be addressing as the session unfolds. We also have a prison at Port Lincoln. I understand it is a prison of release. It is a little industry of its own, really, that provides employment for people in Port Lincoln.

I did actually lose the District Council of Franklin Harbour, centred on Cowell, in the redistribution, which I was disappointed about. I had come to know and love the Cowell district and its people, and they were great supporters of mine. However, as happens in redistributions, things come and go. My feeling is that perhaps the population of Whyalla had dropped a little, and for that reason they needed to push people out of Flinders and up into Giles to make up the quota.

In effect, that had a knock-on result right across the state that resulted in a long overdue redistribution that gave the party that won 50 per cent plus one of the vote the opportunity to form government, which is exactly what happened. We saw that redistribution really begin in the seat of Flinders in the west and knock on across the state. You never know what might happen in the future; Franklin Harbour might return to the seat of Flinders.

Interestingly, the seat of Flinders is the only electorate in this state that has retained its original name from the 1857 legislature. That is something we can be quite proud of. Of course, it was named after Matthew Flinders, who charted the coastline of much of South Australia and very accurately charted the bays and islands of Eyre Peninsula.

There are eight local government districts: the City of Port Lincoln; the District Council of Lower Eyre Peninsula, centred on Cummins, Coffin Bay and North Shields and the outskirts of Port Lincoln; and Tumby Bay, Cleve, Elliston, Wudinna, Streaky Bay and Ceduna all have their own councils. A lot of them are small country councils that are struggling with an issue that many councils have across the state: small populations and large areas to look after, particularly with roads that they need to service, which does not come cheaply.

No doubt there will be much discussion about that when the legislation for rate capping comes out, but it is a challenge for these geographically large councils with small populations. There is also what we call 'out-of areas'. Once we go west of Ceduna, out towards the Nullarbor, it is out of council districts and it is the responsibility of the state government under the Department of Transport. I will be talking to the member for Schubert, the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, about some issues relating to roads, not just in relation to out-of areas but on Eyre Peninsula as well.

We have a regional economy based on agriculture and seafood. Around one-third of the state's grain harvest each and every year is returned from Eyre Peninsula. That is no mean feat because it is not always easy farming on Eyre Peninsula, on the West Coast. There is a range of soil types across varying rainfall regimes. There is some well-watered country in the south but with poorer soils. Up through the middle, you get moderate rainfall with better soils, as well as a fair amount of sandy duplex soils, which is challenging for farmers. Then, from about Minnipa west, there are highly calcareous, sandy soils that do not give much back to those who are trying to make a living off them.

We have made extraordinary advances in our agricultural systems over the life of my farming career and even before that. What we have seen in South Australia is extraordinarily adaptive, responsive and creative farming systems develop to really farm on the edge of the desert. I mentioned Minnipa earlier, and of course the township of Minnipa is home to the Minnipa Agricultural Centre, which is over 100 years old now and has, for more than 100 years, provided valuable research to the farmers of South Australia. It has been cutting-edge research in many ways, particularly through the seventies and eighties, when we were very proudly exporting some of that technology to the Middle East.

Unfortunately, what we have seen over the last 16 years is less money being spent in R&D by consecutive Labor governments. Sadly, as a research centre, Minnipa has suffered as a result of that and is not reaching anywhere near its potential. One of my goals certainly is to reinvigorate the Minnipa research centre and have it gain its rightful place in R&D in South Australian agriculture. As I said, the farmers have seen significant increases in productivity, primarily due to their farming systems.

Eighty per cent of the state's seafood comes from the waters around Eyre Peninsula. Of course, Port Lincoln is most famous for its tuna. The majority of the southern bluefin tuna quota held in Australia is held in Port Lincoln. It is not always fished in Port Lincoln, but it is certainly held there. It is an interesting scenario, whereby it is not aquaculture and it is not wild catch fishing, but it is known as ranching. Come December, January and even into February a little bit, the tuna fishers head out from Port Lincoln to wherever the fish are swimming by at that time.

The tuna tend to aggregate in the Great Australian Bight. There is a unique situation there where the tuna aggregate to feed off the upwelling that occurs up over the continental shelf and into the Great Australian Bight. They are there over our summer and the tuna boats head out and capture them in a purse seine net. They transfer them into a carry bag and tow them—yes, tow them—back into the proximity of Port Lincoln, where they are fed on locally caught pilchards generally, not always, until they are fat enough to sell, which occurs through April, May and June. It is a combination of wild catch and aquaculture. It is a complex industry that has been pioneered by people and fishermen in Port Lincoln, so credit to them.

There are also significant wild catch fisheries based up and down the West Coast, around Eyre Peninsula. Abalone and crayfish are two that come to mind that have suffered considerably as sectors under the marine parks sanctuary zones, as their most productive fishing grounds have been removed from access. It is a paradigm, because they have fished the same quota in a smaller area, so what has actually happened is that greater pressure has come on a smaller fishing ground. Anyway, they soldier on. Abalone and crayfish predominantly are exported.

Pilchards and sardines are caught to feed the tuna, and much of that quota is owned in Port Lincoln. It is the largest quotaed tonnage fishery in Australia—I think it is about 42,000 tonne now—much of which is fished out of Port Lincoln as well. Famous for our aquaculture are oysters, mussels and kingfish. Oysters, of course, are the most famous, having had their share of problems in recent times with the discovery of the Pacific oyster mortality syndrome in Tasmania. That meant that we could no longer source spat, the juvenile oysters, from Tasmania, which is from where it was all coming, which caused significant upheaval in the oyster industry.

It has meant that there are now four hatcheries on Eyre Peninsula that are looking to grow their own spat, which they have been able to do, but with varying success, and they have not yet been able to grow enough to provide the industry in full. I think the oyster industry is in for a bit of a bumpy ride still for the next couple of years.

SARDI also came on board and was looking to grow spat out of the West Beach facility, which they did. Part of the problem, I think, was that all the hatcheries and all the growers were looking to source spat. The hatcheries were looking to deliver spat as quickly as they possibly could, and a lot of it was being delivered to growers at what they call a two-millimetre grade size. What would happen under normal circumstances was that that spat would be four millimetres before it went to the growers. Sadly, the growers faced high mortality rates in many instances, so they have really been hit a double whammy. Firstly, they were not able to source spat from their usual suppliers in Tasmania, and then those local hatcheries were not quite able to deliver what was required.

I may not even get to the Governor's speech the way I am going, but there will be another opportunity next week, I am sure. It is a really exciting time for aquaculture because one of the policies we have come out with is to allow aquaculture leases to be more secure in their tenure and to be better able to use security, so all those people will be better able to expand their business and raise capital and do all those things that businesses need to grow and expand.

I will touch on tourism quickly. I have mentioned agriculture, I have mentioned seafood and I will mention tourism because it is an important third spoke in the wheel of our regional economy. The member for Mawson—where is Kangaroo Island now? Is it in Finniss or Mawson?

Members interjecting:

Mr TRELOAR: It's Mawson, yes. The member for Mawson came in for some significant funding in the lead-up to the election, and I have to say that the tourism operators on Eyre Peninsula have almost come to the end of their tether in relation to the amount of funding that goes to Kangaroo Island. That is wonderful for Kangaroo Island, but other parts of the state would like a piece of the pie as well. We offer so much on Eyre Peninsula. We believe we offer all Kangaroo Island does and more. It is one of just two places in the world where you can dive with the sharks, the other being South Africa. I know for a fact that many international—

Mr Duluk: You can't in Poland.

Mr TRELOAR: You can't in Poland. No, that's right, member for Waite. How would you know that? There are no sharks in the Baltic, maybe. I do not know. I have lost my train of thought now—sharks, South Africa, Port Lincoln—yes, I have noticed that very often there are international tourists on the flights that I travel home on to Port Lincoln. They are very often visiting Port Lincoln for only one or two days. It would be lovely to keep them for longer. I think that is part of the hook we have to offer. It is internationally renowned for the opportunity it provides.

I have not done it; I must say that I have no real ambition to go diving with the sharks. One of my sons and his girlfriend went out about a year ago and on that particular day did not sight any sharks, so they did not have the opportunity to go down in the cage. They had a second attempt a few weeks ago, and after about five hours they went in the water and were lucky enough to see two sharks up close. Given my son's girlfriend is doing marine biology at the moment, it was a real treat and highlight for her.

Those are the sorts of things, along with our magnificent beaches, bays, recreational fishing opportunities and all those things, that continue to offer an outstanding tourism destination. There is room to grow. I have heard it said that there are up to a million grey nomads on the road in Australia at any one time. That is a lot of people. I have seen most of them, I think, travelling up and down the West Coast. I think the key for us on Eyre Peninsula is to get some of those 400,000 people who go through Ceduna every year to turn off, head south and go to Streaky Bay, Elliston and Coffin Bay and do the lap of the National Highway—alternative route 1, as it is known.

If we were able to get some of them to turn the corner and take the trip down onto Eyre Peninsula, it would be well worth their while. It does not take long for the word to get around. All these people are on Facebook, they are all on UHF radios, often with their UHF radio number written on the back of their caravan so that you can call them up if you need or want to. I never have, but that opportunity is there. I think it is as simple as putting up appropriate signage. I talked to the previous minister for transport and infrastructure about improving the signage. It is relatively simple and easy to do. It is something that our RDA Eyre Peninsula and Whyalla is looking into at the moment. For a relatively little spend, I think we can have a big impact.

I guess the other big employers on Eyre Peninsula are the service providers in health and education, as is the case in every electorate. Those primary government services are the core business of the state government, namely health and education—eight hospitals, 22 schools—and also the businesses that support the various aquaculture, fishing and agriculture sectors.

I did not actually get to the Governor's speech—I will do that next week in my contribution on the Supply Bill—but I congratulate His Excellency the Hon. Hieu Van Le on the wonderful speech he delivered. It set all of us a task, but it is a task we relish, and we look forward to serving and delivering to the people of South Australia for the next four years. I would also like to congratulate His Excellency and his wife on the wonderful manner in which they undertake their duties.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Cregan.

Sitting suspended from 12:56 to 14:00.

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