HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-05-09 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

Address in Reply

Address in Reply

Adjourned debate on motion for adoption (resumed on motion).

Mr MULLIGHAN (Lee) (15:40): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Can I rise to properly congratulate you. I did so very briefly late last week when we resumed as a house for the first time in this session. It is a great privilege, but a heavy responsibility, being the Speaker. No doubt you will be chastised by the government for being too firm in keeping them on track and you will be chastised by us for not keeping the government on track enough. I wish you all the best with it. I know there were some significant changes, particularly in the last session of the parliament, in which you and I were serving our first term under the former Speaker. I hope that we enjoy as good a relationship and as respectful a relationship as a parliament with you as Speaker as we did collectively as a parliament with the former Speaker.

I also congratulate the Chairman of Committees, or the Deputy Speaker. He has just departed after delivering his comments to the chamber. I congratulate all new members of the house. It is a great time for members generally to hear the contributions of new members, to hear how they tell their stories about themselves and how they tell their stories about how they came to be members of parliament, what they bring to the role and what is important to them. Just as importantly as both of those things is the acknowledgement of those people who have supported them, not just their constituencies but their family and friends who assisted them. I look forward to hearing many more to come over the coming days.

There are some new members I would like to congratulate on our side: the member for Playford, the member for Badcoe, the member for Wright, in particular, who are all good friends of mine. I congratulate all the re-elected members. Going through an election, regardless of margin, is no mean feat. There have perhaps been some easier travels on the path to re-election. It is perhaps timely that we were talking about the Chairman of Committees, the Deputy Speaker, and also some more difficult ones. I would not be the first to acknowledge the member for Mawson in that regard.

I commiserate with those former members who were unfortunately not re-elected; only to name two: Tom Kenyon, as the former member for Newland, and Annabel Digance, as the former member for Elder. Of course, on both sides, there were a large number of candidates who sought election and, unfortunately, were unsuccessful in doing so.

I know that I will miss people out and perhaps offend many, but while risking that can I draw attention to a close friend of mine, Rik Morris in Florey, Jo Chapley in Adelaide, Matt Loader in Dunstan, Julie Duncan in King, Angela Vaughan in Colton, Grace Portolesi in Hartley, as well as the many people who put their hands up for seats which are always harder for the Labor Party to win, particularly in regional and rural constituencies. I think it was terrific and perhaps more a privilege for us than it was for her to have Khatija Thomas running for the seat of Stuart. There was Sim Singh-Mahli in Chaffey, Julie Watson in Flinders, Mat O'Brien in Hammond, Douglas Milera in Narrunga, and there were the many others who flew the Labor banner out in those parts of the state where perhaps traditionally we do not poll quite as well. There were a large number of retiring MPs on both sides at the last election, and I know that they have been more fulsomely acknowledged in the final sittings of the last session of the parliament.

I would like to acknowledge a couple of people I worked more closely with than others: Paul Caica, who was the member for Colton for many years and part of whose former electorate now comprises my electorate of Lee; the former Speaker, whom I mentioned briefly earlier; and perhaps a couple of others from across the chamber. I also acknowledge the former member for Waite, Martin Hamilton-Smith, who was more recently on our side of the chamber; and somebody I always got along quite well with, the former member for Goyder, Steven Griffiths. I wish all of them, not just those I have named, all the best in the future.

It was a very different and very strange election from ones we have seen previously, driven really, I think, by two main factors: a very significant redraw of the state's electoral boundaries and also, perhaps, the emergence, so we thought, of a third political force running across the majority of seats. The redistribution was extraordinary. I do not know if there has ever been one that was so extensive. A shade under 400,000 electors moved from one electorate to another, and seven new electorates were created or, mostly, renamed.

The redraw was, of course, drawn in a manner to heavily favour the Liberal Party of South Australia at the expense of the sitting government. Notionally, 27 of the 47 seats were drawn in that way, with 20 notionally drawn in Labor's favour. The election result pretty much delivered bang on what the commission had set out to do: a change of government, with the Liberals winning 25 of 47 seats; two notionally Liberal electorates being won by Independents; and the Labor Party winning 19 seats, with one notionally Labor electorate being held by an Independent.

Despite being in for almost a record period of time in South Australia's political history, and also in Australian political history, where all orthodox political commentary would have perhaps supported the view that the Labor government would be thrown out at the recent state election, it was a remarkable result for Labor to lose government. As the member for Croydon and the leader has outlined to the house already, we enjoyed a swing towards us. It was a remarkable result that the vast majority of Labor and Liberal candidates, in the two-party preferred sense, enjoyed swings towards them. I am not sure that we will see an election result quite like that again.

Speaking more specifically about my own electorate, there was a very significant change there as well, with more than 10,000 electors being moved into my seat and losing over 11,000 electors to other adjacent seats. There are large new constituencies in the suburbs of Grange, the remainder of Seaton and Royal Park. Of course, with great sadness, I farewelled the former part of my electorate: the bottom half of the Lefevre Peninsula, including where I live with my family at Largs Bay, also Semaphore, Birkenhead, Peterhead, Ethelton, Exeter, Glanville and Semaphore South. These are tremendous parts of the western suburbs that I have been very privileged to represent in the past. It was a great shame to lose them in the redraw, but a great privilege to gain those other 10,000 new electors in the areas I mentioned earlier.

It was also a challenging election from my perspective, with the commission redrawing boundaries in a way that shaved the notional swing to lose margin quite significantly. While the commission came up with a notional swing to lose figure of 2.6 per cent, the parliamentary library here, as well as Antony Green, more accurately identified that as about 1½ per cent. Without going into the questions that raises about how well the Boundaries Commission had done its job in the first place in identifying demographic data and voter intentions in redrawing the boundaries, it did, suffice to say, set me quite a task in trying to hold onto my seat, but I was very, very lucky to do so.

I should count myself very lucky that I did not have the task ahead of me that several other MPs did, including the former members for Elder, Colton, the current member for Mawson and also the former member for Newland, as well as the Labor candidate for King, notionally redrawn from the seat of Napier.

In my seat, as it was in yours, Mr Speaker, there was a predominant three-way contest. I felt like I had a bout of this previously at the 2014 election, with the perennial candidate Gary Johansson running for the seat of Lee in 2014. I am trying to think of an acceptable analogy to put on the record about how many runs Mr Johansson has had and I fail to be able to come up with one. Of course, he ran yet again for the seat of Port Adelaide in the most recent election. I think it is accurate to say that the electorate got it very right in the decision they made to return the member for Port Adelaide, a close friend of mine and a nearby resident in the adjacent seat of Port Adelaide.

I do extend my regards and, in a desperately pleading way—not to be patronising—my commiserations with the other candidates who ran in the seat of Lee because there were many of them, including Steven Rypp from the Liberal Party, Andy Legrand from SA-Best, Patrick O'Sullivan from the Greens Party, Vicki Jessop from the Australian Conservatives, Tiffany Littler from Dignity for Disability and Aristidis Kerpelis, who ran as an Independent.

I thank the electors of Lee for the judgement they made in the lead-up to and on the day of the election. I regard it a tremendous honour and privilege to be a member of parliament and to represent them in this place. Like all western suburbs communities, ours is a diverse, hardworking and neighbourly community and, I think quite rightly, very proud of where they live, very proud of the lives they have established for themselves in the western suburbs. Bear in mind that my electorate, like many other parts of the western suburbs, was settled mostly, in comparison with the rest of the state, reasonably recently, usually from the 1940s, fifties, sixties and seventies, particularly as we saw large new subdivisions of suburbs, including the large master plan development of West Lakes and also tracts of Grange, Seaton and Royal Park be developed.

You do not have to knock on too many doors to find somebody who has lived in the community in their house for more than 50 years who can remember what it used to be like with the dirt roads and the swamps before housing development took hold in that area. It is a great place to live. I think that part of the coastal suburbs contains not just a great community but the best beaches. I do not know why people bang on about the beaches of Brighton and Glenelg when, if you head a little farther north you can get a much better beach and much more room while you are at it.

I worked very hard, as I must say at least one of my opponents did, in speaking to as many people as possible and finding out what was important to them. As I mentioned earlier, it would be orthodox thinking that after 16 years of government there would be a strong mood for change, that there would be an eagerness to move to another option, but I was at first surprised, pleasantly so I should say, that that was not generally the mood in my electorate.

I think that was the experience of many sitting Labor MPs in particular, that they felt the state had gone through some difficult times, particularly with the closure of automotive manufacturing industries, including Holden and component makers, that there had been some global and national economic headwinds which were strongly making their presence felt in South Australia, but as a state we were taking the right steps to weather those difficulties and continue growing the economy, growing jobs and improving services.

I think that it is timely to acknowledge the extraordinary contribution that the two premiers who served in the former Labor administration made to South Australia—firstly, the former member for Ramsay, Mike Rann, and, more recently the current member for Cheltenham. I was going to say that it is an extraordinarily difficult job. I do not know quite how difficult it is. I suspect how difficult it may be. It is an extraordinary commitment, and much more so than being a mere minister of the Crown.

I do not think that we could nominate two other relatively recent premiers of South Australia who have confronted the challenges that they did. You would have to cast your mind back a number of generations, I think, to find two premiers who deliberately sought to set out and change the economic and social fortunes of the South Australian community. First, under premier Rann, was the deliberate strategy to diversify the economy, to identify those future growth opportunities and to heavily invest in those opportunities. I think this was done in a manner that was continued right through the 16 years of government.

More recently, the member for Cheltenham in his time as premier weathered, especially in recent years, a federal government that started out with a particular ideology that Australian manufacturing was not important enough to protect, that was not fussed about keeping automotive manufacturing industries going in South Australia and Victoria, and that came within a hair's breath of sending a future submarine contract overseas, for overseas workers to build those platforms which would defend our nation.

I think it is incredibly important that we reflect on those two different contributions by those two former premiers and what it says about the sort of political leadership that this state requires. We are a smaller state and we do have to make sure that we take advantage of every economic opportunity that we are well placed to take advantage of.

Certainly, in the early part of the 2000s, we identified firing up again our naval shipbuilding industry. As a government, we invested well over $300 million in a company, in the ASC, and built it a common user facility at Techport, now the most advanced shipbuilding facility in Australia. We also co-invested very heavily with mining companies to try to exploit the state's natural resources. Since that time, we have sought out those sectors of the economy and supported microeconomic reform in those industries or we have supported companies very directly to drive growth in their output and growth in the number of South Australians that they employ so we can continue to reap the benefits as a community.

I think that is a salutary lesson about what we are seeing right now in western democracies across the globe. We are seeing a wholesale rejection of the economic experiment of the 1990s and the early 2000s of neoliberalism and economic rationalism. There is a strong desire amongst western democracies now for governments to take tighter control of how public revenues are used to provide economic opportunity and social benefits for their constituencies, and it is manifesting itself in very different ways across the globe.

We have seen political upheavals in terms of election results both in the United Kingdom and in the United States in recent times. We have also seen very interesting election results in European countries, particularly given that they tend to be multiparty countries, where voters are taking the opportunity to express themselves away from the thinking that has dominated the last 20  years of democratic governance. That was also the case with the President of France, who was a recent visitor to Australia. I think it speaks volumes about what we as a state need to seek and to continue to demand from our political leadership, from all of us as members of parliament and from the new government that has been formed.

That is perhaps a nice opportunity to segue into a genuine warm congratulations to the Premier, his team and members opposite for what they have achieved, both individually on their election but collectively on their achievement in forming government. As they are fast coming to grips with, particularly over the last couple of days of sittings, it is a heavy responsibility and sometimes one a little more difficult to execute than issuing a warm press release and basking in the warm glow of media attention afterwards.

It is incredibly difficult to ensure that every decision that is made—and ministers are confronted sometimes with hundreds of them per day—is reflective of the needs of the South Australian community in pursuing those parallel objectives of improvement in citizens' economic opportunity, as well as improving social services and people's access to those services. I think they have inherited a state that is in pretty good shape. There will always be things that need to be improved, and that will always be the case in any state around the country and, indeed, in any democracy around the world.

The fundamentals are there for a state on the upswing. We have seen the state's economy outperform the national economy in the last financial year, and the predictions from Deloitte Access Economics are that we are well placed to grow strongly again, and more strongly than other states, in the current financial year. We have a decent set of employment data, with nearly three years consistently of thousands of jobs growth each month, and we have strong levels of business confidence and strong levels of business conditions. This is a terrific platform for the new government to leap into South Australia's future and continue delivering on those two parallel objectives I mentioned earlier.

There has been a great deal of reform in the South Australian economy as well. We have seen changes in which industry sectors have become dominant and the business conditions under which they do their work. We have each year delivered nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars of tax relief during our time in government: payroll tax relief of well over $200 million each and every year, land tax reform of more than $100 million of relief for private land taxpayers each and every year, stamp duty relief for businesses and other stamp duty payers of more than a quarter of a billion dollars a year and, even though it can be a sensitive subject on our side of the chamber, WorkCover reform to deliver cumulative relief for the South Australian business community of nearly $200 million each and every year. That is an extraordinary easing of the burden on the South Australian business community.

I note that the new Premier has made commitments about further tax relief and I am very pleased that our new leader, the member for Croydon, has committed to supporting some of those initiatives, most notably in payroll tax, and that it is the intention of the Labor opposition to keep an open mind when it comes to assessing the various policies that the new Liberal government puts forward.

It is not the only policy that the new government has articulated via the Governor's speech. Of course, there are other policies upon which the Premier and his government are looking to hang their hat. There is shop trading hours reform and also council rate capping. There is also the commitment to reopen the Repatriation General Hospital and, of course, many other commitments that the Premier has told the house he, all of his cabinet and his cabinet office are keeping a direct and close eye on with their implementation.

I will not go into too much detail about budget matters. We have a Supply Bill that we will be considering in the coming days. I will make my contribution about Treasury and financial matters when speaking on that, but it is important to bear in mind those comments I made earlier about the move away from the constituencies in western democracies and their desire for free marketeering and neoliberalism.

There seems to be an ideological bent with this new government very much in that manner. The language around shop trading hours is about deregulation, as if that is an end in itself. I appreciate the fundamental difference between Labor and Liberal Party philosophies. Liberal MPs perhaps might express it as the right of the individual as being prime. We might perhaps express it as, 'I'm all right thanks, Jack, so bugger the rest of you.'

But when it comes to shop trading hours this desire for deregulation has already hit snags even within its own policy settings. Public holidays apparently are not important enough to enshrine no shopping hours. We see that the claim of the right of the individual to be able to shop when they see fit is more important than the collective public's opportunity to be able to take a break, to be able to take a breather, to spend time either by themselves or with their families or loved ones and perhaps reflect on the day which is being commemorated, whether it is ANZAC Day or whether it is more predominantly a religious holiday.

The inconsistencies that we are starting to see with this policy I think show how there is a break between this staunch commitment to deregulation and the political realities of what the Liberal Party is trying to achieve. They do not think public holidays are important enough to respect, yet we see Christmas Day being exempt from their deregulation, we see ANZAC Day being partially exempt from their deregulation and we also see one or two other part days.

Since the election, I have reflected on that and on what the Liberal Party is trying to achieve. How can we tell the public of South Australia that the public holiday of Christmas Day is important enough to down tools on—that we should be reflecting and spending time with our family on that day —but not Easter Sunday? Is the Premier telling us that the birth of Christ is important enough to reflect on but not the resurrection?

If you think of how these public holidays have come about, and if you think of what we are trying to give the public the opportunity to do on these public holidays, it quickly unravels for the opposition in terms of why some days are a free-for-all for shop trading but other days should remain exempt. ANZAC Day, given we have all just spent time with our local Returned and Services League organisations, is another one. It is important enough to remember the diggers for a couple hours of the morning but not for the whole day. Quite frankly, how culturally offensive is that position?

I also find it interesting that in the first days of this government we had a pronouncement, which I thought was reasonable, from the Premier that he would honour all contracts the former government had entered into. Then the very next day we had the Treasurer come out and say, 'We've got to get away from this cherrypicking, this picking winners, this direct financial assistance to companies in an effort to assist economic growth,' in direct contrast to the comments the Premier had made the day before.

We had the Tourism Commission debacle where ministers did or did not know or were or were not aware of a contract that had been awarded interstate, and the Premier came out and said, 'Well, we can't do anything about that contract because that would send a bad message to the business community.' Then the very next day the health minister comes out and tears up the contract for the site of the Repatriation Hospital, another example of inconsistency. I hope this improves on the part of the government because it is not a good start when ministers are out there running their own race in direct defiance of the government. Or maybe these things have gone to cabinet, and maybe they just cannot quite get their story straight on how they line up with this.

South Australia's economic history is one in which SA proudly invests in organisations specifically to grow economic opportunities. I have to say that one benefit of sitting on this side of the chamber is being able to look at that portrait over there of former premier Playford, somebody who almost wrote the playbook for South Australia with his investing heavily in nationalising electricity assets, something which the current member for Cheltenham and former premier also engaged in and for the benefit of the community, investing heavily in the Housing Trust, creating new suburbs attracting manufacturing industries here and directly subsidising their operations. This is how economic growth has been achieved in a small state within this federation.

If this government think that it is going to be acceptable to walk away from assisting businesses, whether metropolitan or regional, and think that there will not be negative economic consequences from that, then they are in for a nasty shock. Not only are they in for a nasty shock but South Australians, particularly in those communities around those businesses and particularly in regional areas, are going to be in for a nasty shock.

I am looking forward to seeing how the Treasurer is going to spend his Regional Growth Fund to grow jobs in the regions. Do we honestly believe that he is not going to give grants to individual regional businesses to grow jobs? This is one of the many things, Deputy Speaker, that we will be looking at—we will be looking closely even in your electorate—and I look forward to continuing my remarks in this vein when the Supply Bill is considered.

Mr BROWN (Playford) (16:10): I rise to support the Address in Reply. I would like to start by congratulating the Speaker on his appointment to high office. I know that he has a high regard for the rule of law and an appreciation of the importance of impartiality and consistency. I would like to place on record my intention to cooperate fully with the proper dispatch of the business of this house. The people of South Australia demand that we do our best to make this place deliver for them, and I intend to do so.

I would like to place on record my thanks to the Australian Labor Party for selecting me as its candidate for Playford and the people of Parafield Gardens, Mawson Lakes and Para Hills for electing me as their local member. I decided to nominate for endorsement for Playford because I want to be part of the bright future that we can have in the northern suburbs, and it is truly a privilege to represent the people of Playford in this place. I will do my best to advance their interests here.

I would also like to thank the three previous members for the areas that Playford covers—the members for Ramsay and Port Adelaide, and the previous member for Playford, Jack Snelling—for their valuable assistance and advice during the campaign. I would like to thank the Labor caucus, not only for the friendship of many of its members over the years but also for its confidence in electing me to the position of Opposition Whip.

In acknowledging the contribution that my parents have made in my life, I must quickly recount the circumstances of my birth. I was born at a recently opened Modbury Hospital and then placed into the care of the state by biological parents I have never known. Ron Payne, then the minister of social welfare, was my legal guardian until I was adopted by Dennis and Lois Brown whose love I came to know while always being aware that I was not their biological child. My love and affection for them and their children is different from that one has for one's biological relations, but it is just as deep and real. Words cannot express the gratitude that I have for the life that my mum and dad have given me, but I will say thank you just the same.

Growing up, my dad and I would talk about politics all the time. Watching the news together was one of our favourite things, and I remember as an 11 year old being disappointed in my mum for considering a vote for the Australian Democrats. Luckily, she did not. When I was a teenager, my school had a program for students to take a tour and learn more about parliament. A teacher suggested I might find it interesting, and so it was that on a cold day in mid-1991 I came to this place and was introduced to two people who would have an enormous impact on my life.

Michael Atkinson and Paul Holloway were both then new members of the House of Assembly. Talking with them that day about their values and philosophy not only inspired me to join the great Australian Labor Party but to learn from them both about how one can actually achieve change to make people's lives better and not just talk about it. Along with Senator Don Farrell, they have taught me the values of honour and loyalty in politics that I try to live by today, and I would like to thank them all for their inspiration and encouragement.

I would like also to acknowledge the many sacrifices made by my wife, Victoria, and our children, Elizabeth, Alice and Holly. Someone once said that we are all volunteers in politics, that there are no conscripts here. While I think that is true about those of us who are candidates, our families do not have a choice. I try to be the best father that I can to my daughters but, luckily for them, they have a mother who is one in a million. I would also like to thank my family for all their hard work on polling day, and I have no doubt that I would not have got as good a result in Mawson Lakes without their efforts at the polling booth.

I would also like to acknowledge the campaign run by Reggie Martin and his team. I have watched him grow from a wide-eyed, white-belted, clean-shaven kid to be one of the most respected and hairiest political strategists in the country. Thank you for all your support. One person who needs particular thanks is my campaign manager, Caleb Flight. He is a young man with a very bright future. Wise beyond his years, he is also calm under fire, and I predict that he will go on to much bigger and better things.

Before I address His Excellency's speech, I would like also to thank my union, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association, of which I have proudly been a member since beginning work as a busboy at Sizzler when I was 15 years old. Sonia Romeo and Josh Peak have both been very supportive, and I look forward to working with them to promote the interests of workers in the retail, fast-food and warehousing sectors.

His Excellency's speech talks about a desire to support an economy that is diverse, thriving and fully internationally engaged. In my opinion, one important part of this is industry assistance and the bringing of new industries and companies to South Australia. Mr Deputy Speaker, as a member of the Liberal Party, I am sure you are aware that my electorate is named after former premier Tom Playford. Although we do not have much in common, given that Tom Playford was a Lutheran orchardist from the Adelaide Hills after all, I would like to think that there are some things that he and I would agree on if he were personally here in the chamber and not just gazing down at us from a portrait.

Most importantly, that would be a recognition that our state needs to actively get the attention of industry and then work to bring them here to South Australia to establish. Simply tinkering with policy settings and then sitting back to wait for it to happen is not enough. It is always easier for them to be in the Eastern States, and we need to be prepared to get involved to create new capability in our state by attracting international leaders in different sectors and bringing them together with local talent. For example, just as Tom Playford was prepared to work with Holden, Hills and other manufacturers to create our heavy manufacturing base, the former government, led ably by the member for Cheltenham, worked with Tesla, Tindo and Sonnen to make our state a leader in renewable energy technology.

He also saw how you can use a project that helps citizens to create new business, such as the previous government was doing with its plan to install solar panels and batteries on social housing. I urge the state government not only to see the pilot project through to completion but to continue Labor's plans for a complete rollout. I believe it is what Playford, the man who created the electricity trust to address market failure, would have done.

When one is talking about efforts to attract investment in South Australia, one must acknowledge the good work done by Investment Attraction SA, a dedicated agency established to do just that. Over the last 18 months of the previous government, it created more than 9,000 jobs and injected $2.5 billion into the economy, attracting the likes of Boeing, Technicolor, Datacom and cybersecurity giant VeroGuard, who are based in the member for Taylor's electorate.

During the last few days of the campaign, it was announced that over 500 jobs will be created in my electorate by the expansion of Saab and Raytheon, expansions that were facilitated by the Investment Attraction agency. I was disappointed to hear the new Treasurer say that perhaps these contracts would not be honoured, and I have written to him urging him to honour these arrangements. I reiterate that call today. The attraction of this new investment will not only bring direct employment to my electorate but create opportunities for our local businesses to benefit from supply chain contracts and the provision of services.

Another important area to concentrate on, I believe, is the space sector. As a parliament and as a state, we must also build on our existing advantages to provide future employment opportunities. In my electorate, that means more research and development, a key driver of which will be the Australian space industry. It already generates revenues of around $4 billion annually and employs an estimated 11,500 people, with these numbers consistently growing by around 10 per cent a year.

Just as Tom Playford worked with the commonwealth government to build the DSTO and other research capabilities in the north to drive the government's space sector, so we must expand the involvement of our local companies and universities to provide jobs in the expanding commercial space sector. The Salisbury region has always been a leader in defence in space innovation, and when Australia launched its first-ever satellite from Woomera in 1967 it was developed by the weapons research establishment at Salisbury. Fifty years on, and the northern suburbs are again home to a thriving defence and space ecosystem that is building momentum, momentum that I hope the government assists.

Beyond exploring new frontiers and colonising Mars, the global space community is preparing to transform how we live. It will improve service delivery and productivity in the workplace—from communications to medical science, mining and agriculture. Data capture and collection and data processing and analysis will form the foundation of an industrial revolution that will fundamentally alter the way that we live, work and relate to one another. Space technologies will help us bridge the gap of distance, connecting people more closely than ever.

These possibilities will be multiplied by emerging technology breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence and robotics, the so-called Internet of Things—the interconnection via the internet of devices embedded in everyday objects, which enables them to send and receive data. This is already being used to improve crops and harvests on South Australian farms. Material science and renewable energy are driving changes to our everyday lives. Autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology and quantum computing are all fields that were relatively obscure only five to 10 years ago, but they are now things that we either use regularly or are just around the corner.

In yesterday's federal budget, funding was allocated for the establishment of an Australian space agency. I believe that Technology Park at Mawson Lakes, in my electorate, is perfectly positioned to be the industrial hub for our nation's new space agency, and I call on the state government to do everything it can to make that happen. South Australia is home to a concentration of national defence and space assets and research organisations. Our state's thriving space ecosystem is growing in strength, with around 60 organisations already working in the space sector in South Australia.

Mawson Lakes and Technology Park are already well connected to high-tech industry, universities, research centres and government. My electorate is home to some of the most technologically advanced and innovative companies in the world, including Codan, Topcon, Speedcast, CA Technologies, Airbus Defence, Lockheed Martin and Saab Technologies, along with more than 100 businesses in Innovation House and Endeavour House. Playford recognised that for new business to thrive, it needed a competitive price access to land and power. Even more important than this in the 21st century is fast access to the internet. I believe that the northern suburbs can be a leader in innovation and research, but this is impossible without world-class connectivity.

Many of my constituents have told me how disappointing their experience has been with the NBN, particularly since the current mixed technology model was introduced. The previous government had introduced a program known as Gig City, based on a model from the United States. By engaging at the wholesale level, the private sector was assisted in the provision of very high-speed internet access at prices significantly lower even than the slower product provided by the NBN. For example, where the high-speed network has been rolled out, it has delivered speeds 50 to 100 times faster than previously available at these sites for around half the price.

Around a dozen innovation precincts, including Technology Park in my electorate, are currently connected. Over 100 businesses use this service. Had it been successful in re-election, the previous government intended to extend the program to business and residential customers outside the current precincts. This new internet access model was to be known as Fishbone and had the capacity to be a game-changer for information-based industries in our state.

The leveraging of the existing state-owned fibre network to create new capacity for the private sector to deliver better access across the metropolitan area would be a great leap forward for our start-ups and other businesses. I do not just say that because my electorate has most of the backbone infrastructure already in place but because, if the government is serious about creating the right environment for business, this is an example of the sort of infrastructure that needs to be invested in.

Finally, I would like to address the issue of urban planning. I have spoken about the changing nature of our economy, but what about the changing nature of our suburbs? I have spoken about the need for investment to drive jobs growth, but what about when that investment is in the form of new development? All of us in this chamber have come across constituents with different views on planning. I have encountered people from Parafield Gardens who are concerned about the extra pressure that new estates are placing on local infrastructure. I have met people from Para Hills who are very concerned about the extra traffic and lack of car parking in their street because of the subdivision of blocks, and I have learned that living in Mawson Lakes means always being conscious of where you can find an empty car park.

These issues come to the fore when another development is proposed that local residents feel is only going to make their current issues worse. Objections get lodged and lawyers engaged, then deliberations occur, often behind closed doors. After the smoke has cleared, the development is either going ahead or it is not. If it is, then the process and the delay have probably cost considerable money, which is often recouped by scaling back on public amenities. If it has been refused, then there will probably be an appeal on a technical issue.

Planning is one of the most contentious things that governments can be involved in, and all of us in this place have a responsibility to keep trying until we get it right. I know the previous government introduced reforms that should come into effect next year, and I am optimistic about them. However, we must continue to find a way to properly balance the rights and needs of local residents with our state's need for further development.

I look forward to making a contribution to the deliberations of this house and the betterment of the lives of not only the good people of Parafield Gardens, Mawson Lakes and Para Hills but of all South Australians. I thank members for their indulgence.

Honourable members: Hear! Hear!

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (16:26): Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I, too, congratulate you on your appointment, as I have also congratulated the Speaker. You hold important positions in our democracy and I am sure you will discharge them with honour and distinction, with the assistance of table and chamber staff. I particularly want to thank them for their assistance during my time as Deputy Speaker. Thanks also to the Serjeant-at-Arms for her work in the mammoth transition of office accommodation following the election.

Thanks also to our Governor for delivering the opening address last Thursday and to His Excellency and Mrs Le for their unstinting service to the people and the State of South Australia. Congratulations to all new and returning MPs in this place and the other place. I acknowledge all the retiring MPs and those defeated at the election, along with election candidates who were not successful. Public triumph and public defeat are two sides of the same coin that is tossed into the air at every election.

Politics can be, and in fact should be, a robust exercise. It is not for the faint-hearted, but I would like to think at the start of a new parliament that we see each other as colleagues—colleagues with genuinely held principles, values and aspirations, perhaps different from our own, but principles, values and aspirations nonetheless. At the beginning of this 54th parliament, I thank the electors of Florey for their support at the recent poll on 17 March and everyone who helped me achieve this result.

To all the people of Florey, my promise is this: I will serve you to the best of my ability. I will do this by working with all members in this place and the other place, regardless of political persuasion. We all have a duty to strive towards a better South Australia and we have a duty to work together whenever we can.

My electorate, the new Florey, is actually much like the original Florey first created in 1970. I take my seat in this place on behalf of the people of Pooraka, Ingle Farm, Walkley Heights, Valley View, Para Vista and Modbury North, as well as parts of Modbury and Northfield. The electorate goes from Hungry Jack's at Golden Grove Road in the east to the Pooraka fruit markets in the west. Where I come from, we are good, decent, hardworking people, some of whom are finding it harder to make ends meet and really only want a fair go. When I stand in this place, I stand for all of us.

My political circumstances have changed and this is a matter of common knowledge. George Bernard Shaw said, 'Progress is impossible without change and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.' I am here to help change things for the better. The change I made was difficult. I thank the hundreds and hundreds of people who sent me messages of support and encouragement over the past 12 months.

These last months have forced me to look at politics through a different prism. I was and remain determined to stand up for the people I represent in this place to ensure that they have access to the best possible opportunities and the best possible services, particularly in the area of health. The people in my electorate are entitled to higher care options at the Modbury Hospital. Selective quoting of reports from eight years ago, factional manoeuvring and all the clever spin doctoring in the world will not change that.

I am immensely grateful to the people who fought alongside me during the election to secure this result, and I am grateful to the new government for making this a major election policy. We all acknowledge that there will be challenges involved in delivering this commitment, but I look forward to working with the new government to deliver its promise sooner rather than later.

There is much to be done in other important areas of human need. Good child care and decent aged care, among other critical policy areas, should not be held hostage to reviews, ICACs and whistleblower legislation. Our society should be judged by the way we care for our vulnerable: the young, the disadvantaged and our elderly. What sort of society spends millions of dollars on a footbridge to connect a casino and a football oval while our elderly citizens sit around in soiled pants, all because we have allowed our aged-care institutions to be driven by profit rather than care? I am reminded of Henry Lawson's great poem, Faces in the Street:

They lie, the men who tell us in a loud decisive tone

That want is here a stranger, and that misery's unknown;

If we are to eradicate want and misery, we have to start seeing ourselves as Australians, not just South Australians, Victorians or Tasmanians. We have to see ourselves as Australians, and we need our federation to work better. It took years to build the original federation, and we cannot shirk the responsibility of overhauling it to be match fit for the 21st century. We need to have a good hard look at how we integrate the three tiers of government. The administration of our national affairs should be an exercise in intelligence, generosity and cooperation, not a turf war predicated on cost shifting. We cannot use jurisdictional differences as an excuse to harbour Henry Lawson's want and misery.

Almost all of us here know that want and misery exist in our own constituencies. It is not good enough to say, 'That's a local government issue,' or, 'That's not us, that's the commonwealth's responsibility.' We are all Australians and it is our responsibility. This brings me to Newstart. I am not given to quoting Americans, particularly these days, but Teddy Roosevelt's observation that 'far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing' deserves some reflection.

Those politicians who pay more attention to the problems of their constituents than to factional turf wars know that every day an ever-growing number of our constituents bring us problems not of their making, problems flowing from cost-of-living expenses, homelessness, poverty and unemployment. They cannot get financial counselling because it has been cut in state and federal budgets. Without financial counselling, they cannot even start to try to get the help they need to get by. It is hard to ask for help and worse to wait weeks to maybe begin getting it.

We know that one of the biggest issues confronting South Australians is unemployment and, as well as that, underemployment. Data shows that there are 770,000 unemployed people in Australia, with only 200,000 job vacancies nationwide. Those of us who actually listened to the people we represent during the election know that secure, fairly remunerated employment was foremost in their minds. Most people want to work. Most people want to achieve to reach their full potential. Nobody wants to send their kids to school poorly clothed and hungry. Most people want to work so their children do not grow up in self-perpetuating poverty.

Starting each week having to live on $273, which is $160 below the poverty line, is not Newstart: it is a no start. Earlier this month, we were all lost in admiration for a federal MP when she declared that she could live on Newstart. I have served in this place for over 21 years, but I know that a dollar is a lot of money if you do not have it. In my time here, I have seen dramatic increases in the cost of food, petrol (do not start me on petrol this week), housing, health insurance, water and energy—pretty much everything—but I have not seen a dramatic rise in Newstart.

Most of the people who do not have work want to work. We have to face the fact that, in 2018, Newstart is little more than a dirty spark plug and a blocked carburettor. We should be calling it 'no start', not Newstart. It is not good enough to say, 'Newstart is a commonwealth responsibility.' A 2015 survey by ACOSS should make all of us hang our heads. The report declared that 20 per cent of Newstart recipients do not have enough money to pay for food and electricity, 40 per cent cannot afford to see a dentist, 44 per cent are living with crippling levels of debt and 25 per cent are deemed to be in a housing crisis—all this in a supposedly First World country.

Ten of our local councils here have raised their voices calling for a rise in Newstart: Port Adelaide Enfield, Streaky Bay, Salisbury, Playford, Onkaparinga, Mount Gambier, Kangaroo Island, and Copper Coast, Clare Valley and the Adelaide city council. Newstart is not within their jurisdiction, but they have the courage to argue responsibly for a rise in Newstart. These local councils acknowledge that it is not just a federal issue: it is an Australian issue. These councils are in seats held by Independents, Liberal and Labor members. I am very proud that a council looking after part of my electorate, Port Adelaide Enfield, became the very first to advocate for an increase in Newstart, and I commend them on the call.

And it is not just councils calling for a Newstart rise. ACOSS, Uniting Communities, Anglicare, St Vincent de Paul and the Salvation Army also support a rise. Yes, well, a pack of do-gooder NGO charities would say that, wouldn't they? But what about the key members of the economic community—Deloitte Access Economics and the multinational accounting firm of KMPG? Putting aside for a moment the possibility that these organisations might want to bring humanity and compassion to the argument, I think we can rest assured in the knowledge their argument for a rise in Newstart is based on sound economics, the fact that leaving Newstart at its current level will cost the economy much, much more than increasing it. It is a no-brainer.

As we start this new parliamentary cycle, I call on my colleagues from all points of the political compass to work together to ensure a rise in Newstart. Yes, Newstart is ostensibly not in our jurisdiction, but unless people in our position raise our voices and demand justice for the least advantaged in our community what are we doing here? Leaving Newstart where it is, $160 a week below the poverty line, is neither humane nor compassionate, nor does it make the slightest bit of economic sense. There is momentum for this change elsewhere on the political landscape, especially interstate.

Let us add to this momentum. Let us raise our voices. Let us advocate and let us work together for a new Newstart, one marked by justice, decency and the Australian fair go. Let us add our power and influence to providing better basics in health and aged-care services. That means an increase in real help for the staff ratio for elderly reliant on nursing home care, not just an increase to put a dent in the number of people on waiting lists for in-home packages and a better reporting mechanism for a new aged-care authority or for those on operating lists, where the increase in funding allocation will help with the backlog of elective surgery, or for those for whom denial of mental health services means real life-threatening crises.

While welcome, these tinkerings on the edges do not address the everyday living conditions of those in nursing homes waiting to be changed or those unable to get about while waiting for a cataract or hip operation. The time to act is now. The time to make a difference is now. Let us unite and make better basics a priority. We know what needs to be done. Let's just do it.

Mr DULUK (Waite) (16:37): Thank you very much, Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your appointment as Chairman of Committees, sir. It is an honour to serve in this parliament as the new Liberal member for Waite and only the third person to represent this seat in this parliament. I come here today encouraged by the support from my electorate and determined to represent the interests of my community with integrity, energy and renewed optimism for our state's future. I thank the large number of volunteers who supported my campaign over many months of grassroots campaigning and community engagement, giving their time and effort to a range of activities that underpinned our ultimate success on election day.

From the outset, I give my personal commitment to serving my electorate as a member of the Liberal Party as a mark of respect for both my constituents who voted for me and the party membership who afforded me the opportunity to serve. It is a privilege that I will not cast aside for personal gain or political opportunism. I also must acknowledge the mandate that has been given to the new Liberal government to serve the people of South Australia in a new era, with a new direction and with renewed energy and vigour.

My late grandma, Halina Konieczny, was an avid reader of Polish literature. One of her favourite books was Quo Vadis by the Polish author and 1905 Nobel Laureate for literature Henryk Sienkiewicz. Quo vadis means, 'Where are you going?' This is a question that babcia often posed to me over many of our long discussions about life. She would invariably ask, 'Sam, where are you going?' Indeed, in a political context we must always ask ourselves: where are we going? What is our purpose and what are we trying to achieve as individuals, families, communities and as a parliament, government and a state?

Before we know where we are going, we need to know where we have come from. Our founding fathers, like Wakefield and Angas, were radicals for their time. They had a vision for a new colony, a new system and a new democracy. George Fife Angas wanted the new colony of South Australia to be driven by individuals who believed in free trade, free government and the freedom of religion. The vision and drive of people like Angas saw South Australia become a self-governing colony in 1856 with the ratification of a new constitution by the British parliament.

Our democratic institutions that underpin our democracy and safeguard our property rights, liberty and freedoms are drawn out of the values of the British Westminster system. The fledgling experiment that was the colony of South Australia further enhanced the Westminster tradition of democracy and political liberty by enacting legislation that created the secret ballot in 1856 and the universal franchise in 1894.

Today, we as members of the 54th parliament are custodians of those political freedoms and those that we enjoy today as well: the rule of law, our constitutional monarchy, an independent judiciary, an impartial Public Service and free speech. Unfortunately, over the past few years and decades, we have slowly seen the erosion of many long-held freedoms and traditions in our society. In recent years, we have dangerously eroded the value of free speech in this nation. Surely, I ask, in this wonderful, modern, pluralistic society that Australia is today, individuals and organisations have the right to publicly debate matters of importance.

It has been free speech, and open debate on contentious issues, that has for hundreds of years safeguarded the rights of individuals in the public square. As members of parliament, we must do all that we can to protect the value of free speech, ensure that parliament remains sovereign and ceases handing power to unelected and unaccountable institutions that, whilst well intended, have created detrimental consequences for the value and fabric of our society.

The South Australian colony was an experiment. It was an idea, a colony of independent, property-owning individuals who saw rights as universal, a colony built on free enterprise not convict labour. Since self-governance, our colony and state has seen boom and bust, depression, recession and drought. However, we know that our best days are always in front of us. My vision for South Australia is to see free enterprise as the foundation of economic prosperity.

Over the last 16 years, we have seen the state government become the number one company in town, the number one employer, the number one provider of services and the number one provider of corporate welfare. None of this is sustainable, as is evident by our current budget position, low population growth and underperforming vocational and educational sectors. This can no longer be the case. It was never the ideal for our founding fathers and it is not sustainable for a modern and prosperous South Australia.

We have much to be proud of, and, as a younger parliamentarian, I am driven by the need to retain young people in our state for employment opportunities and genuine career pathways. We need to match the quality of our enviable lifestyle with economic outcomes to avoid the loss of young professionals and families who are forced to relocate interstate to pursue job prospects. The role of the state government is in supporting private enterprise, and therefore we must recast this definition and our role.

His Excellency the Governor in his speech to the 54th parliament last week highlighted that this Liberal government will be a government focused on small business as the driver of our economic prosperity, focused on removing taxation that is an impediment to economic growth, and a government focused on its people throughout the entire state, not just the CBD. I am excited to be part of a Liberal government that will restore confidence in our state's future. South Australians have voted for change and have given a mandate to our economic agenda and our value in this parliament.

Our legislative priorities include lowering the cost of doing business through regulatory reform and cutting tax while developing new policy settings to attract investment. That will be our legacy over the next four years. I would like to briefly touch on four important policy directions that I believe we should take in this state and become our quo vadis to ensure our future economic and intellectual prosperity: small business, infrastructure, education, and the arts.

Just as a South Australian company drove private investment growth, infrastructure spending and development in the early South Australian colony, we in the 21st century must once again look to the private sector to drive and develop South Australia into a hub of economic activity. Private capital will flow back into this state if we aim to become a low-cost jurisdiction with sensible regulation that is not a handbrake on economic activity. Reforming and reducing payroll tax, stamp duties and land tax are the first steps to becoming a low-cost jurisdiction and investing new capital into South Australia. Failure to achieve these reforms will continue to see South Australia lag behind our Eastern States and Tasmania.

Investment attraction is not about picking winners. It is about providing opportunity—opportunities in the secondary financial services and advisory sector, new technologies and start-ups and in biotech and opportunities to value-add in the agricultural and horticultural sectors. To drive this growth agenda, it is imperative that this Liberal government invests in its people to build the capacity and skills required to support business growth, as well as continuing to invest in critical infrastructure. Continued investment in infrastructure is an imperative for any state government.

Adelaide has been known for many years as the 20-minute city with affordable residential housing. Ensuring that we remain the 20-minute city, the envy of the nation, whilst also ensuring that we have population growth, means that we need to seriously look at the planning of our city to encourage density of living in our suburbs whilst at the same time maintaining our sense of open space, natural environment and suburban community. Infrastructure spending needs to look beyond the four-year political cycle and focus on the long term, long-term sustainable infrastructure growth.

Our commitment to Globe Link, for example, by creating a long-term freight solution for this state, is the forward-thinking planning that is required. Short-term vanity projects are not the solution. Infrastructure building in this state also needs its quo vadis moment. Benjamin Franklin said that an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. Correctly and positively investing in our schools, both public and private, our institutions, technical colleges and research institutions, such as SAHMRI and the Waite Institute in my electorate, will ensure that South Australians have the skills, knowledge and tenacity to make a positive contribution to our state, nation and international community.

South Australia produces some of the best university graduates in all academic pursuits in the nation. It is our obligation that these bright minds have a home and career here in South Australia if they choose. It is no longer acceptable simply to talk about the brain drain and bemoan the exodus of young South Australians from this state. This government's policies, investments in education, skills and new industries will ensure that South Australians have genuine choice and opportunities.

I am a great supporter of the liberal arts and the role that art and creative minds play in our society. In my maiden speech to this house, I spoke about how the value of the arts needs to be recognised not only for the intrinsic value of both enhancing and enriching our emotional lives but also for the far-reaching effects on the economy, health, wellbeing and education. In recent years, we have rightly seen our primary and high schools focus on the benefit of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), but the teaching of STEM should not be at the expense of the teaching of history, music, the classics, art and design. Successive budgets have failed to invest in a liberal arts education. Some of our most disadvantaged students in the classroom greatly benefit from music therapy and the sanctuary that the great composers provide to mind and soul. An investment in the liberal arts is an investment in our community and our society.

As the local member for Waite and as a member of a Marshall Liberal government, I know that our reform agenda will directly benefit my community with our values and policies. It was recently said in this house by my predecessor that a Liberal government could not deliver for the people of my community. I am very proud to say that a Liberal government will deliver for my beautiful and diverse community. We have a plan to invest in our local roads through our Mitcham Hills road corridor funding announcements.

Our investments in the environment with Glenthorne Farm and Brownhill Creek, as well as in local sporting clubs from the user groups of Hewett Reserve (the Unley Jets Football Club, Unley Cricket Club, Blackwood Bowling Club and Coromandel Valley Ramblers Cricket Club) will ensure that my local community receives much-required grassroots rejuvenation via a Liberal government—rejuvenation and investment that can be delivered only by a Liberal government, a government that is committed to investment that will drive jobs, export and infrastructure growth, community and participation. This is investment that will grow our state and that will be our local quo vadis.

As I draw my remarks to a close, I would like to briefly say a few words about our local election campaign in Waite. Firstly, it has been an honour to be the former member for Davenport since 2015, and I wish the new member for Davenport all the best. I am very sad to be no longer representing the wonderful people of Flagstaff Hill, Bellevue Heights and Bedford Park; however, I know that the new member for Davenport will not let his constituents down.

The 2016 Electoral Commission of South Australia boundary redistribution saw my seat of Davenport significantly altered, with the majority of my constituents finding themselves in the new electorate of Waite, together with my electorate office and home. It was on this basis that I stood as the Liberal candidate for the newly redrawn electorate of Waite at the March 2018 election. As the endorsed Liberal candidate for Waite, my attention was immediately focused on two electoral outcomes: regaining the seat of Waite for the Liberal Party and ensuring that on 17 March 2018 we ended 16 years of failed Labor administration.

The challenge in front of us was not always easy. In Waite, we initially faced off against the incumbent and long-serving member and then, increasingly, the popular and populist Nick Xenophon and his SA-Best party. Mr Speaker, personally, congratulations on becoming truly the lion of Hartley in defeating the Xenophon threat in your seat. Statewide, as always, we have had to battle against the Labor Party and their shameless campaign and trade union machine. I am so proud and happy that together we achieved both electoral outcomes.

This was due to the extraordinary efforts of my dedicated campaign team led by Malcolm Post and Travis Monckton, together with Jenny Hembrow, Ross Mullan and John Hepworth; hundreds of grassroots Liberal Party members; my colleagues, in particular the Hon. Terry Stephens in the other place and the President of the Legislative Council, the members for Schubert, Boothby and Barker; members of our state executive who worked so hard behind the scenes including Alex Antic, Caroline Rhodes and Nicola Centofanti; former members for Davenport, Iain and Stan Evans; the fantastic and incredibly hardworking Young Liberals, led by their president, Jocelyn Sutcliffe; Brendan Clark, Charlotte Edmonds, Tut Tut and Heidi Gerolamo, who took two weeks of annual leave in the lead-up to the election; my family, especially my brother who I love dearly and who is a great campaign asset; and my dedicated staff, office volunteers and supporters.

Waite is back in Liberal hands and South Australia has a majority Liberal government with a mandate to reform. Whether it was letterboxing, doorknocking, stuffing envelopes, handing out how-to-vote cards or simply making a small donation, the work undertaken by volunteers was extraordinary. Without your tireless support and encouragement, we would not have been able to win the seat of Waite. I cannot express my gratitude enough to those who supported me and the Liberal Party throughout this campaign. I trust you are proud of our efforts and this Liberal government does not let you down.

In conclusion, South Australia has a chance to reshape its future under a Liberal government, a government that stems its policy settings from the Liberal conservative tradition, a government that supports small business and our regions, a government that supports families and their communities and a government that co-invests with business as the generators of jobs and prosperity for our state. I thank the people of Waite for the opportunity to be part of this future.

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (16:52): Thank you to the Governor for his speech. Of course, it was great to have him come to the parliament in the other place. He does a fantastic job in carrying out that role for South Australia. I probably do not agree with everything he said in his speech, which is to be understood, of course. However, I do not think that is a reflection upon him at all, but more a reflection on the advisers who sit opposite. I think that he was getting much better advice a few months ago, but he does a tremendous job.

I congratulate the Speaker on his ascension. Congratulations also to the Deputy Speaker on taking that role. It has been great to work with you over the past four years, particularly when we were on the Natural Resources Committee together. I think many people on this side in particular have affection for the great role you play in your community, and I am sure that you will take that on as Deputy Speaker. From my four years in the parliament, it seems that the Deputy Speaker has to do quite a lot of work in the house, and I am sure that you will take on that role with relish.

Essentially, all of us are in this house first and foremost as local representatives. That is a role that I undertake with great honour. There is a lot of work, in particular helping constituents, helping the local community, attending events and functions and really trying to work with your community to achieve the best possible outcomes. These are our first and foremost jobs. It is a job that I have really enjoyed over the past four years, and I am delighted that I have been able to return here as the member for Kaurna, representing what is an amazing part of the world.

The area stretching from Seaford up to Hackham is now the electorate that I represent. As other members have noted, we had quite a dramatic redraw of the boundaries during the last parliament, so I have sadly lost quite a bit of the electorate that I represented previously, namely, Port Noarlunga and Christies, which have transferred to the member for Reynell but, probably most notably, the areas of Aldinga, Aldinga Beach and Port Willunga, which have transferred to the Mawson electorate.

When most people looked at that transfer, I think they thought, 'This has basically been done to ensure that Leon would not be able to win the Mawson electorate,' but those people do not know the current member for Mawson, Leon Bignell, and the tremendous amount of work that he puts in. He took what I thought was a good result in the Aldinga area in the 2014 election and turned it into a remarkable result, as well as going out into those communities down the Fleurieu and on Kangaroo Island, working door to door and working issue to issue to address the concerns, which I think, sadly, have been neglected in the previous decade of representation down in those areas. He got some amazing swings to him and ended up achieving a great result in that area, so amazing credit to him.

We have worked together on a great number of projects down in the area that will have a great impact on my electorate as well, which I think are really important, namely, first and foremost, the duplication of Main South Road between Seaford and Sellicks. This is something the local community has identified time and again, since well before I was a candidate in the area, as a dangerous and congested road, and only becoming more dangerous and more congested as time goes on. That is something about which the member for Mawson and I listened to the people in the community and took action. Particular thanks to the member for West Torrens, the previous Treasurer, who listened to those concerns and was able to ensure that we were able to get funding in the budget to ensure that we will have a dual expressway between Seaford and Sellicks. That is a great result that Leon has been able to achieve.

Another excellent thing will be a new school for the Aldinga area. Aldinga does not have a high school, which obviously impacts on my current electorate, in that a lot of kids from the Aldinga area cannot go to school locally so they will come up to the Seaford primary schools and high school. To have a school down in that growing community is absolutely essential. I think that people will know that Leon is a very hard worker and is achieving great things in that community, but we work together very well, as do all MPs in the southern suburbs, to achieve great things for our southern community.

One really important thing we were able to achieve in the past year for the state was a very significant amount of money to upgrade schools, with both the STEM program and the Building Better Schools program. This was very well received in my community. All the high schools in the south are due to receive substantial upgrades out of those programs, and this is absolutely essential. Going back to my first speech in the parliament, I know how important education is, and that will always be a high priority of mine for as long as I am in the parliament, to defend and try to improve our education system as much as possible. We know that a lot of these schools' facilities have not been up to scratch. A lot have not had upgrades for many decades; some have not had a substantial upgrade for more than 50 years.

These upgrades around the whole state will significantly improve our education system. The government has now made some commitments in terms of not changing those funding allocations, and I hope it does that. We will certainly be keeping it to those pledges, because those upgrades are very important. In particular, in my electorate and in neighbouring schools around my electorate, over $40 million in infrastructure is going into our local schools, and that is something we talked about a lot in our election campaign as one of the very important things that we want to deliver, and I will continue to fight for that in the electorate.

We also want to make sure that our health services are excellent in the south. Certainly, over the previous term of government we saw two new ambulance stations being built in my electorate or thereabouts, one at Seaford for the first time and another at Noarlunga, replacing an ageing station. So we have more services and more ambulances being able to respond to people in times of need. We also were able to upgrade the Noarlunga Hospital so that we can get more operations happening there. Two additional operating theatres have now been built at that hospital so that we can get more elective surgery happening in the local community. That is a very important priority as well.

Nearby to Noarlunga Hospital, the government had plans to build a new Metropolitan Fire Service command centre adjoining where the ambulance station is. This is something that I know, from my previous ministerial role, the MFS saw as a key priority, so we will certainly be keeping the pressure on the government to make sure that that is delivered in the future as well.

There were also a number of very important community assets that were improved in our area, one of the most important ones being the Seaford Soccer Club in my electorate. The Seaford Rangers had been seeking upgrades for their facilities for many, many years, perhaps decades, and had been unable to get anywhere with the council. The council, I have to be frank, put every possible roadblock up to try to stop upgrades happening there, even to stop them being able to apply for upgrades through state government grants.

This was an area where the previous government was able to step in with upgrades for soccer clubs across the state. I am lucky that Seaford, as well as South Adelaide Panthers, were recipients of that funding. So we now have a new synthetic pitch at the Seaford Rangers' club. The really important thing about this is that we are going to get more kids playing sport and more kids being active, and it is going to enable Seaford in the next year or so to have women's teams, which will be great for the local community as well.

Another commitment that we put in the Mid-Year Budget Review was funding for a new recreation centre at Noarlunga. I know this is something that the member for Reynell was very keen about as well. We have very ageing recreation facilities and indoor sports facilities in the Noarlunga area. We want to make sure that that funding goes to fruition. The council is very keen on seeing that happen, and we will be keeping pressure on the new government to make sure that that happens as well.

Surf lifesaving is another very important area in my electorate, not only in terms of community and recreation but also as an emergency service. Most recently, we were able to get $150,000 for some upgrades at Moana Surf Life Saving Club. To explain my bias, I am a member at Moana Surf Life Saving Club. I have previously said that I am the worst patrolling member at Moana; other people assure me that that is not the case. We have also seen, in previous years, upgrades to Southport Surf Life Saving Club. Upgrades are about to begin at Aldinga Bay Surf Life Saving Club. We want to make sure those upgrades continue to happen and that there is additional support for our surf lifesavers in the south, who do such a remarkable job.

Last but not least, we also saw some beautiful and really enriching upgrades to the Onkaparinga River Recreation Park and Onkaparinga River National Park in my electorate and nearby. These facilities are now getting new walking tracks, new canoe ramps and new campgrounds due to that investment from the state government. That investment will be welcomed by not only local people but people across the Adelaide metropolitan area.

We also had plans to invest significantly in the coast park, not just in relation to an issue that the member for Reynell and I have been working on where there is a gap in the coast park at Witton Bluff but also further down in my electorate between Moana and Port Willunga, where there is another significant gap. We had a plan to make sure that we could address all those gaps and complete the coast path. Unfortunately, we have not heard anything from the government on that, and we will be keeping pressure on them to make sure that that is delivered in the future.

Every campaign is a huge amount of work. It is a huge amount of work to go out and talk to a wide range of people. Essentially, you want to try to talk to as many people as possible before an election campaign, help them with their issues, letterbox, doorknock, make phone calls—whatever you can do to connect with people.

You cannot do all that by yourself. I rely upon great support from volunteers who have helped my campaign over the years. In particular, I pay special tribute to the Douglas and Byrne families who gave above and beyond the call of duty in support of my campaign, in particular Kylie Douglas, Alastair Douglas, Laura Byrne and their extended families. They gave such amazing logistical support in getting us out there, connecting with people in the area.

I also want to thank some up and coming people who have recently graduated from high school who are very keen to be involved in politics, which is great to see young people doing. Josh Yeend and Nathan Fiedler have given a huge amount of effort in terms of my campaign, and I am sure we will see great things from them in the future. I also want to thank my electorate office staff who have done a huge amount of work, in particular Jason Byrne and Lucy Fordham, as well as trainee Ellie Stenner and my previous trainee, Jasmin Webster, both of whom will do great things in the future. I think they are a credit to that trainee program in the work that they have done and the skills that they have.

We had a good result in the seat of Kaurna, and I am very pleased with that. I would like to thank all the people who did not just vote for us but also lent support by giving an endorsement or telling their friends or being public about the reasons why they were supporting me and my campaign. Thanks to each and every one of them.

There are a number of issues that still remain unresolved in my electorate that I will continue the case for in this parliament. I think one significant issue that people have concerns about is the Onkaparinga council. The City of Onkaparinga was raised very regularly with me by people across my electorate. People feel that the council has lost touch. They feel that the spending is out of control. They feel that the leadership has the wrong priorities. They feel that it is disconnected from the role it should be playing as a council, and that is something I will continue to speak about as those issues emerge and as we lead into the council election that is happening this year. I think that we will see a significant increase in the number of people voting in the Onkaparinga council election, given what has come out over the past four years in that area.

One issue that has been raised with me by many hundreds of constituents is the discrepancy in collection of green waste, and that is something we ran a petition on in recent months. We have presented that to the council. To be honest, I am expecting them to ignore that as they have ignored every other call for this to happen over the past decades. This is an issue where residents in Onkaparinga are getting fewer services than every other metropolitan Adelaide council, yet they are paying no less in rates. So we are calling on them to reduce their own wasteful spending and to bring in green waste spending to fund fortnightly collections like every other council. We will keep the fight up to them and the pace on that.

Another issue that has been of significant concern to a lot of residents in my community has been the sale and then the subsequent proposals for development of a paddock of land on Commercial Road at Seaford Meadows. This is something that was owned by the Housing Trust, and the Housing Trust Board decided to sell that property. They have sold it to Hickinbotham Homes which is proposing a development on that area. It is going before the state Planning Commission as we speak.

I hope that the Planning Commission listens to the concerns of the community about that and listens to the concerns where people specifically want to make sure that there is as much open space preserved as possible and also to make sure that we are caring for the environment in terms of the marine park that is adjacent to that area, the recreation park that is adjacent to that area and also the significant number of kangaroos that live in that paddock as well. Also, they want the serious recurrent planning issues addressed, in particular about traffic but also about the design of the development to make sure we get that right and that the infrastructure is there to support that. That is something I will continue to advocate for on behalf of the community about their concerns.

I think it is worth reflecting for a bit on the Weatherill government and, I think, the significant achievements of that government. Sadly, it has, of course, come to an end. The Rann-Weatherill government lasted for 16 years, which is a very significant period to be in government. I am sure that back in 2002 not many people expected us to be in government for that long. I think it is a credit to a number of things: firstly, the commitment to the state that that government displayed over that period of time, and secondly, the renewal that happened within that government over that period of time. It continually brought in new people to refresh it while it was still moving, to make sure that we were continually updated and new perspectives were brought in at every turn.

It really did achieve a huge number of significant things for this state. We only have to look at the transformation in terms of infrastructure in South Australia, the vast number of significant road projects that have been delivered, the number of very significant rail and tram projects, the upgrade to our riverfront that has been delivered, with the Adelaide Oval, stretching down to the new hospital, and particularly including things like the SAHMRI, which is now a hallmark of international medical research. Significant reforms happened over that 16 years. I give particular credit to the member for Cheltenham for his leadership of the government over the 6½ years that he was premier and thank him for his service there.

I was lucky enough to serve in two roles in the last two years of the government. Firstly, I became the assistant minister to the treasurer, which was a role that I took on a bit over two years ago. I really enjoyed that role. It was a great opportunity to get up to speed in terms of being involved in the running of the government. I give particular credit and thanks to the member for West Torrens for his support and guidance during that process and thank him for the opportunity that he gave to me to be involved in so many of his discussions and deliberations leading up to the two budgets that I got to be involved in. I had never been involved in that side of things from a budget perspective before. It really showed me what difficult decisions have to be made and what a professional process leads up to them. I give credit as well to the Department of Treasury and Finance, which I think gave excellent service to the government. I really relished that opportunity; it has given me excellent experience.

I also had the opportunity to lead a number of projects, one in particular being involved in the work of the Industry Advocate. We made that position permanent through some legislation through this house. I give credit to Mr Ian Nightingale, who I think gives the state tremendous service in that role as the Industry Advocate. I hope that we will see that role continue to prosper and increase over time to make sure that our state is getting the full economic benefit it can out of every dollar of state government spending, particularly on those significant infrastructure projects.

I also got to be involved in a number of the government red tape reductions and business transformation projects that were underway, which are not necessarily the newsworthy projects but which I think are very important. I absolutely think that it is part of Labor's mission to make sure that we make government as efficient as possible, so that we can deliver as many services as possible for the people that we are concerned about and we are here to represent. I was glad to be involved in that, in getting rid of a number of acts of parliament and making things easier for business in a number of different ways.

The other area that I had some involvement in during that period was the lead-up to Our Energy Plan and its development, which I think will be seen as a landmark piece of public policy achievement. I think already around the world it is being noticed in terms of the leadership role that we are playing on energy policy in South Australia. I congratulate the members for Cheltenham and West Torrens on their roles there.

A bit over six months ago, maybe eight months ago now, I got the opportunity to become a minister, which is a very humbling experience. I became the minister for police, emergency services, correctional services and road safety, which are very important portfolios. I absolutely loved every day working in those portfolios, trying to make sure that we improved services for the community as best as possible. They are areas where we are very well served as a state by very professional police officers, firefighters, emergency workers and corrections officers. I found it thoroughly enjoyable getting to meet as many of them as possible, both across the metro and regional areas.

Keeping our community safe always has to be one of the top priorities of government. During the time I was minister, we increased that goal in a number of ways, through completing the recruitment of our R313 project for the police, getting an extra 300 police into our service across the state; starting the process in terms of getting a new control centre for the CFS and SES, which is a very important role, as well as more equipment such as trucks rolling out for the CFS and starting the plans for more aerial bombers for the CFS; developing a counterterrorism plan for South Australia with the police and other services; and developing the Road Safety Action Plan.

In addition, we announced a ban on smoking in prisons, to be implemented by the end of next year; opened a new unit at Port Augusta Prison; expanded the prison greyhound program and rolled out a number of projects being delivered in the area of making sure that can we reduce recidivism in our corrections system, which is a project that was started under my predecessor in the role, the member for Croydon. I think it is an excellent piece of public policy and something that I hope the new government continues with much gusto.

In that role, you have a heavy responsibility in terms of what is required and the risk that South Australia faces. That was certainly foremost in my mind, particularly when it comes to things such as bushfires or other major emergencies we might come across in the state. During my time in the role, we had the Sherwood bushfire, which was quite a devastating fire in that area of the state. If that had been in a more densely populated area of our state, I think we would have seen, sadly, much worse outcomes for people in terms of potential casualties happening from that fire.

Getting the opportunity to visit that fireground and meet a number of the volunteers and a number of the people affected was certainly something that I saw as a very important part of my role, as was visiting Murray Bridge after we had had the Thomas Foods fire, which was one of the most significant fires that the MFS and CFS jointly have had to face in an industrial context in a number of years. Working with the member for Hammond in that area, and then leading on to the recovery, I think was a very important thing to do.

The other thing that continually weighs on your mind in that portfolio is the road toll. Sadly, last year we saw an increase in the road toll, and I think that forces us to consider what additional measures we can employ to try and make sure that does not happen again. One of the things that I kickstarted was a review of motorcycle laws, and implementing that, and we re-established the motorcycle reference group to start consideration of a report that we received. I hope that the new government takes that and runs with it because I think that there are a number of very important ways that we can improve our laws in terms of motorcycle riders to improve safety and to avoid what we saw last year in relation to the very significant increase.

I would particularly like to thank the staff I had working in my office at the time, in particular Julia Sumner, Jo Wilkins, Gerda Jezuchovski, Gemma Paech and Aaron McDonald. I would particularly like to single out Julia Sumner, who was my chief of staff. I used to work with Julia back when we were both chiefs of staff in the Rann government, and I was delighted that she was able to come back and be my chief of staff in government.

The one piece of advice I will give to ministers is that you really want to make sure that you have a good chief of staff because in that role, where you are so busy dealing with so many things, you need somebody you can rely upon and you know is going to be able to make a number of important calls and give good advice to you at every turn. I thank Julia for her service in coming back to provide that to me.

I would also like to thank Gemma Paech, who has worked with me in the electorate office right from the beginning when I became a member of parliament. She became my researcher and adviser when I was assistant minister. She then became adviser when I was minister in the corrections area, and she has now continued with me as an adviser in opposition. I have always relied upon her in terms of her expert advice and also her incredible work ethic, which is so important as well. In addition, I would like to thank all the chief executives, commissioners and chief officers with whom I worked in that portfolio and who I think have always given very good advice to the minister. I am sure they will continue to do so in the new government.

In closing, I would like to say a number of things about where we are now in terms of the new parliament. In particular, I would like to congratulate the member for Croydon on becoming the Leader of the Opposition. I have no doubt that he is going to do an incredible job as Leader of the Opposition and Labor leader and, one day, make an incredible premier of South Australia—hopefully, before too long. I think that he has not only a great leadership perspective and a great ability to connect with people but a great mind for public policy, using that to better the outcomes for the people of South Australia. I have seen that in the work he has done as a minister, and I am sure he is going to carry that through.

I would like to congratulate the new members of parliament in this chamber and, in particular, the people on our side: the member for Playford, who I think gave a fantastic first speech just before, as well as the members for Badcoe and Wright and, in the other place, the Hons Emily Bourke, Clare Scriven and Irene Pnevmatikos. I think they are all going to play an excellent role in our parliament.

In the last minute, I would like to thank for their service a number of members who lost their seats, in particular Tom Kenyon and Annabel Digance, who gave great service to this parliament and to the party in advancing the interests of the people of their electorates. In particular, I think that over a long period of time Tom showed what an amazing impact he had on this parliament. He was a fantastic whip for our side of the house and gave us great leadership and great organisation. He is a wonderful person and wonderful family member, and he also cares deeply about people and improving our state.

I would like to say a number of things about the portfolio that I am going into now in health, and I will save that for when we launch into the budget discussion.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. Member for Unley.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley—Minister for Industry and Skills) (17:22): Thank you very much, sir. Before I start, may I congratulate you on your new position as the Deputy Speaker in the South Australian House of Assembly and, of course, on your return for your third term. I rise to support the address of the Governor, Hieu Van Le, to the joint sitting of parliament last Thursday. I will also take this opportunity to thank Mr Le more broadly for the work he does as Governor in South Australia. I think we are all very pleased with the work he has been doing since he was appointed Governor, close on four years ago now, and how he opened up the services of the Governor and Government House to so many more South Australians than previously.

Certainly, he and his wife, Lan, are a man and woman of the people. I have been to many occasions at Government House when a local Scout group would be there, having been invited for the very first time to experience hors d'oeuvres and drinks at Government House. The Governor is just as enthusiastic in making them feel welcome as he is with business leaders, community leaders or even members of the royal family. He is an extraordinary Governor, and I thank both him and Lan for their work in representing the monarch here in South Australia and for being so accessible to South Australians as a whole.

It is a completely different Address in Reply speech from those I have given previously on three other occasions coming back after an election. They were speeches about being in opposition and about the wasted and missed opportunities with that position. I think those who have been close to me over the last seven or so weeks would know that it has been difficult for me to hide my enthusiasm about my new job because I actually have a chance to do something about all those things I have been whingeing about over the last 12 years.

I was very pleased to be approached by the Premier after the election with the opportunity to get back to my roots. Those of you who may at some time—when you felt the need to torture yourself—read several other members' maiden speeches may have come across mine. In it, I went into some detail about my start in life as an apprentice and about how it was a process of nine months for me to get that apprenticeship, from starting to look for a job when I was a student at Salisbury High School.

I think it is fair to say, not only for me but for many other South Australians who have gone on to careers in broad areas, whether they be managers or whether they have gone on to university or have run their own businesses, that the apprenticeships they did as teenagers were a very good start for them and gave them the tools and the life skills they needed to move on to wherever they wanted to go. I think it says a lot about the opportunities we have here in South Australia and about how we need to ensure that those opportunities are available for as many South Australians as possible.

As the Minister for Industry and Skills, I am very pleased that I am responsible not only for reinvigorating the apprenticeship system here in South Australia, bringing more apprenticeship opportunities to South Australia, but also for lifting the profile of apprenticeships in the state. For years, we have seen the education sector talk down a vocational entry into the workforce, encouraging people to go to university. At the same time, we have seen much higher dropout rates at university, and we have seen people with university degrees who cannot use those degrees in South Australia.

We also have skills shortages in very crucial areas and those skills shortages are going to be even more prominent as we start to see the work rolling out from the massive investment that the Turnbull government has made here in South Australia with the defence contracts—the submarines, the air warfare destroyers, the offshore vessels. Work will be starting before the end of the year on those. They are what I like to call updated traditional skills that are needed on those projects. We need people who can weld and people who can put electric cables together. We need people who can run radio technology, people who can manage air conditioning and people who can offer all sorts of the skills that were around when I was doing my apprenticeship back in 1980, the same sorts of apprenticeships.

Of course, those apprenticeships have changed, and how those jobs are done has changed enormously over the last, I am sad to say, 38 years. However, it has been a very pleasant 38 years. I have certainly enjoyed getting to this stately part of my life. There are massive opportunities, and it is the responsibility of this government to make sure that as many South Australians as possible have the skills they need to deliver these projects for the federal government.

We do not want to be in a situation where South Australians are applying for jobs and they are told they do not have the skill level needed for those jobs. There is an enormous risk that that will happen because we have seen a shocking management of vocational education in South Australia, over the last five years in particular. In 2012, around about 25,200 or so apprentices and trainees started in South Australia. Just five years later, those commencements dropped to just over 15,000—a shocking drop in apprenticeship numbers. You have to ask: why is that happening? There are several reasons.

Of course, we are working busily in my department to identify those reasons and remove them if we can, or at least minimise them, and then make apprenticeships much easier for employers to commit to. Group training is a terrific mechanism. It removes a lot of risk for small employers in particular to take on an apprentice. They were unheard of in my day. I was indentured to one employer for four years, and that employer needed to have in the back of their mind that they would be able to commit to the completion of that apprenticeship.

We heard stories of apprentices who were made redundant halfway through their apprenticeships, and then they had a very difficult situation because they had invested two years in learning a trade. Obviously, their first preference would have been to be transferred to another trade, or they had written off those two years in that particular area and had moved on to do something else. The beauty of group training is that that is all managed by the organisation, which is usually a trade base or a combination of industry, mainly not-for-profit. They have an independent board in many cases. For example, the Motor Trade Association has a very successful group training organisation.

As a small proprietor, if you are someone like I was and you start your own business at the age of 21 and you think that maybe you might give an apprentice a go but you are a bit nervous about a four-year commitment, it does not matter. You ring a group training provider and they will provide you with the person with the right skills who has gone through a six-week intensive course to make sure they understand the requirements that somebody in that area needs. It may be a mechanic, for example.

They make sure they understand the mathematics that are needed in that area. They make sure they have had hands-on tool use. They understand what the tools are and what they do. They have a strong interest in what they do. They will move into your business and, if at some stage you cannot continue to make those payments, that apprentice will then be moved on to another group employer. So they do not lose their job. You are able to continue managing your business without a burden, if you like, that has been created because of a change in circumstances, and it does not put you off having another go when you have recovered, perhaps 12 months down the track.

What you have done is to start a kid off in an apprenticeship, they are now in the system and they could be in two or three others. There are advantages in modern workshops because some workshops specialise in a narrow field. So, if you are an apprentice, you can move to several different workshops and have a much broader experience. I see the member for Morphett nodding. As an engineer, he would understand how important that broad experience is.

It is on this basis that we announced, in the lead-up to the election, the flexible apprenticeship program that we will be rolling out into schools, which will deliver an alternative pathway into the workforce for school leavers. In year 10 and 11, it will be identified whether they want to move into a university path or into a vocational or technical education path. Once they have made that decision, if it is a technical education or a trade path, their year 10 and 11 subjects will be tailored towards preparing them to start that. Then, in year 12, they will be on the job, full-time, earning a salary in a workshop—a full, on-the-job apprenticeship. Their off-the-job training will give them the SACE points they need to get their high school education.

This is something that was not available to me. When I left school before finishing high school, it was the done thing to usually start an apprenticeship after year 11. There was not the option of getting a high school certificate without going back to school full-time, which was never going to happen. Once you are in the workforce you might consider some part-time study, but you certainly would not consider going back to no salary and going back to school. What our flexible apprenticeship program will do is give those students the best of both worlds. It will get them started on their career and give them their high school certificate.

So, if by the time they finish their apprenticeship they wish to go on to university, they have the piece of paper in their hand that gets them in the door. I think I could name about six mechanical or electrical engineers who started off as fitters or electricians or toolmakers who have gone on to further study and have become engineers in those particular fields. It is another entry point into engineering, but at the same time it is another entry point into the workforce.

Many people would argue that they would prefer to have an engineer that has that practical experience, who not only knows how it works on paper but how it works on the factory floor and how it works on the building site—a very handy skill. For some reason, I think over the years we have discounted that on-the-job training, which not only sets up a very strong work environment but also introduces the apprentice to the culture of the industry.

Different industries work in different ways. For example, in the building industry, many small contractors will work, particularly during the summer, a 12-hour day for three days a week and have a four-day weekend. They are in control of their own lives and they can do that. So if that is the culture, it is important that the apprentice is introduced to that because they will do that as contractors as they move on. On-the-job training is very valuable. Our flexible apprenticeships will give those young South Australians who want to take on that technical path the opportunity to do so and to get started early.

I want people to think about what a good deal an apprenticeship is. You are paid to learn. In many cases, particularly if you end up being an electrician or a plumber, by the time you are 20 or 21 years of age, you are earning $60,000 to $80,000, even before overtime; whereas someone who may be one of the 700 law graduates every year may have to start on $45,000 a year with a $50,000 HECS debt. So the apprenticeship system is a pretty good deal. I know that a lot of kids may be put off by the fact that it is a lower salary, but you are being paid to learn, the boss is picking up your VET fees, you are getting a salary, and, if you are smart, you are putting some money in the bank, and you end up having the skills to be ready to start your own business in your early 20s.

This is where South Australians are going. They are becoming more independent. They are prepared to go out on their own. That is why we are so focused on delivering at the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site Australia's largest entrepreneurial innovation centre. When people talk about innovation, when they talk about start-ups, when they talk about hubs, most people talk about tech. Yes, a lot of it comes from tech, a lot of it is connecting research with industry, connecting research with venture capital, identifying markets and commercialising that research, but also a large proportion of entrepreneurs will design or come up with a new system of delivering pizza, for example. I remember that in the 1980s.

I do not know whether anyone in this chamber would remember, but Steve would be old enough to remember Domino's Pizza when it first came to South Australia and the controversy on talkback radio. It was the first time that pizzas were delivered in Adelaide and people would ring up the ABC and they would say that that they did not like those illuminated phones on the top of the cars because they could confuse them with ambulances. Extraordinary!

Mr Mullighan: Dial-A-Dino's.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Dial-A-Dino's, was it? That was it. It was new to Adelaide. This is the sort of innovation that we want to encourage, that we want to back through our innovation centre at the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site. Work has already started on that site. They are beautiful buildings. If you ever get a chance to visit them, they will remind you of places like Carpet & Home in New York. You have the pillars, the timber floors, the cornicing. It is a great atmosphere for being creative and innovative and it is going to be a huge success. It will generate a lot of interest, a lot of business and a lot of opportunity here in South Australia.

We are a small business state. We are a small enterprise state. There are 147,000 small businesses here in South Australia. Many of them do not employ anybody, and we would like to change that. Just recently at the last COAG meeting of industry and skills ministers, we agreed to participate in a pilot to be the lead state to encourage businesses that have never employed anyone before to take on their first employee.

I can remember when I was in that position. My first employee was actually an apprentice. It is a big jump from being responsible just for yourself and not necessarily having to worry about a number of regulatory requirements of having staff. A big jump for so many people when they run their own business is employing their first employee, so we want to analyse what the barriers are to doing that here in South Australia and then we want to remove as many of those barriers that we can.

We also want to give those potential employers, those businesses that currently do not employ staff, the confidence and the help that they need to employ their first staff member. We know through our own experience, because on this side of the house we know about business. We are all from business. We have either worked in business or we have started businesses. We have put our own money on the line. People say to me that this job must get very stressful, to which I reply, 'It's nowhere near as stressful as a small business.'

One of the things that I looked forward to, that I rejoiced in the most when I was elected into the parliament—and I closed my business as a consequence of that—was that I no longer felt that what I was doing was connected to a risk on my house. All of us on this side of the chamber understand what that is like. You never knock off. When your house is providing the security for your overdraft, you never knock off.

I can remember that when we had a shop in Sydney I used to get calls—Sydney people are quite brash compared with Adelaide people—at 7.30pm because I had the shop phone diverted to my mobile. Someone in Sydney said, 'We went into your shop today and we saw a dining room suite. We want to order one of those.' So I would always have a pad and pen and ask for their credit card number, and then I would stop what I was doing and go and process it in the shop just in case they changed their mind the next day.

Mr Mullighan interjecting:

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: You get the authorisation, member for Lee. You get on the phone and get the authorisation. It is a bit like when people pledge to give you money for your campaign and when they actually hand over the cheque; they are two different things. We are very excited about this project because we think that this will encourage businesses to grow in South Australia as more people who have had enormous business experience but have never taken that next step of employing their first employee will be given that opportunity or encouraged to do so. This will see more growth in South Australia.

The government has made a very bold and measurable promise, I would argue, for delivering on traineeships and apprenticeships—20,800 over a four-year period. It is from a low base. I explained earlier in my contribution in this place that we saw a massive drop-off, from approximately 25,000-odd in 2012 to just 15,500 in 2017, and we have seen the consequences of that. We have seen that people cannot get tradespeople in the building industry and, even though we are not in a boom—things are getting better, but we are not in a boom—it is still difficult to get tradespeople.

Of course, that pushes up the cost of doing business here in South Australia. I do not know whether you have called a plumber recently, member for Lee. Our hot water system went the other day—$2,500. The hot water system itself was about $900 and the plumber was there for about three hours. I thought, 'I spent four years doing a cabinet-making apprenticeship. I reckon plumbing could have been a good one for me.' And he was my regular, I knew him. But I say good luck to my plumber, who does a great job. These things happen, that is, once every 10 years or so, you jump in the shower and wonder why it is not getting hot, so you go outside and see that there is a big pool of water.

I would like to close my remarks by speaking about a local issue I dealt with or I have been involved with over the last few weeks. We all understand that, if we are sitting on this side of the chamber and we are members of the executive, we still of course have very responsible jobs representing our constituents. There is an issue on the corner of Duthy Street and Edmund Avenue in Unley, where the old MotorLab Mechanics was. It had a single fuel pump, and I used to have my car serviced there many years ago, but it has been closed for six, seven, or eight years. The old house next door has been purchased, and now there is an application in for about an eight-pump or even a 10-pump United fuel stop.

Of course, Duthy Street is a feeder street. It is not a main street. It is not like Fullarton Road, it is not like Unley Road, it is not like Goodwood Road. The residents see this as a threat to the amenity of the local area because we know that discount fuel businesses operate by bringing people in from miles away. People forget that they have to spend a few dollars in petrol to get to the destination to get the discount petrol. That is the model that works. Of course, they also know that with the mixed model, the modern service station, there is a lot of other retail activity as well.

This is causing enormous concern. It is noncompliant. Fifty people turned up at the Duthy Street deli last night and I popped in to hear their concerns. There is one thing that is certain if that development does go ahead: it will not sell anything to anyone within a couple of kilometres of that petrol station. They simply will not support that business. If part of the business plan of that developer is to pick up local business, it ain't gonna happen. My advice to that business is perhaps to take that element out of your business plan and see if it still works. I do not think it will because you are not going to get those people of Unley using your product.

Finally, I would like to thank very much Mr Rob Fitzgerald and his wife, Anne Fitzgerald. Rob is a very longstanding member of the Liberal Party. He has worked on every campaign of mine as the campaign manager from 2006. I do not know how he has done it. It is incredible really. The 2006 election was a very difficult election. I have to say that the other elections have been slightly easier. It is much better to win by 5,300 votes, as I did in this election, compared with 437 in my first election.

Rob has been a pillar of strength as the campaign manager and also for that time as the State Electoral Commission (SEC) president in Unley. He has now decided that he is going to hang up his doorknocking boots and retire from that role. I put on Hansard my tremendous appreciation of the work he has done not just in Unley but also for the campaigns for the federal seat of Adelaide. He and his wife have been terrific. Thank you so much, Rob and Anne Fitzgerald.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Gee.


At 17:53 the house adjourned until Thursday 10 May 2018 at 11:00.


PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT