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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
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Address in Reply

Address in Reply

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

The Hon. T.J. WHETSTONE (Chaffey—Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development) (16:59): I rise to make a contribution to the Address in Reply. Very proudly coming into government, I was able to give some election commitments to the great electorate of Chaffey. I am very proud that some of those initiatives were newly developed initiatives and that some were reinstating what a cruel previous Labor government took away from a regional centre that had relied on some of those services and policies for many years. To the detriment of those services, they cruelly had the rug pulled out from underneath them.

One of the first to be reinstated was the community legal service in the Riverland and Mallee. It was not just about providing a legal service for the good people; it was providing a service for those who were less privileged. It was also an outreach service for those less fortunate. In December 2018, the Riverland community legal service was reinstated, and it is now the Riverland Community Justice Centre. That came about with a $600,000 commitment from the Marshall government that allowed for the reinstatement of those services.

To show the importance of that service, particularly in the Riverland and Mallee area, we have seen more than 230 separate pieces of legal advice given since the opening in December 2018. It was a great initiative to bring that service back into play so that people did not have to go south of Adelaide. To give some clarity, the previous Labor government had taken away the service and reinstated it at Christies Beach, which is a long way from the Riverland. Those people either had to travel or try to get that legal service over the phone.

For those of you who have had to get legal support, doing it over the phone is not an option. Having a person come into the Riverland for a very limited time was just outrageous. As I said, the rug was pulled out from underneath the good people of the Riverland and Mallee for the betterment of those areas within South Australia that seemed to fit underneath the Labor banner. They were Labor seats and Labor people, and it gave them the advantage that it had taken away from people in the seat of Chaffey.

Moving along, we also saw the sad cases caused by the scourge of ice in many regional centres, as well as in metropolitan Adelaide. What we have seen over a long period of time is that crystal methamphetamine is one of the great scourges of modern-day society. It continues to come into society, and it is having a huge impact particularly in small regional communities, where we see the vulnerability of those small country towns.

Over a long period of time, I have witnessed increased traffic into my office of families who had been impacted and by friends who had been impacted by ice. It was evident that we needed to have a very good and robust supportive rehab facility. In my travels along the way, I have spoken to many organisations that claim they had the answer, that they had the services and the rehab facilities. I went out far and wide to look at those services.

Along the way, I was at the Karoonda field day and ran into Dr Quentin Black. He heads up PsychMed. PsychMed has the runs on the board and had been running some pilot programs in the south and north of Adelaide. When I did my research, I found that the programs were proving very successful. Under the great leadership of Dr Quentin Black, the MATRIX drug rehabilitation program is what I consider to be a very good option.

Working with minister Stephen Wade in another place, we met with Dr Quentin Black. We looked at and assessed the rehab facility. We were able to fund a two-year program in the Riverland, and this rehabilitation program was the first of its kind in regional South Australia. I know that many other regional MPs in this chamber and in the other place are watching very carefully how successful this rehab program can be, could be, will be and is being.

The first program has now rolled out. Clients have 16 weeks of mentoring sessions to help them recover from crystal methamphetamine addiction. I have been to the facility in Berri, and we have presented awards and certificates, as well as the teddy bear reward program, to those who have been through the program and have been successful. It is life changing, not only for those who have been directly impacted by the scourge of ice but also for their family and friends because of the complete disarray that comes with addiction to ice, what that means not only to friends and family but also to small regional communities.

It is far reaching. It digs deep, and it digs very, very deep into those small communities. When addicts run out of money and steal from not only their family and friends. They have to find money for their addiction, and that impacts on all those they thieve, steal, beg or borrow from to keep their habit going. It is a great initiative, and the Riverland is very proud of the PsychMed facility in Berri. I am very proud that I was able to work with the then shadow health minister, the now very worthy health minister here in South Australia to have this MATRIX drug rehabilitation program implemented in the Riverland. I hope we see more and more of this PsychMed program.

Moving on to some of the other promises we made up in the Riverland, there is nothing more important in horticulture than biosecurity. There were some questions asked earlier today in question time about fines that have been imposed on people bringing fruit and vegetables into the Riverland area, a fruit fly free area, and South Australia stands proud to be one of the last remaining mainland states to be fruit fly free.

The promise was that we would install extra bins on those arterial roads coming into the Riverland so that people could declare their fruit and vegetables, put them into those bins to reduce the risk of fruit fly. What we had seen previously was a build-up of fruit fly detections in the Riverland through the previous government, and I guess that happened through lack of action. Yes, they were reactive—when there was a fruit fly outbreak they went out and cleaned it up—but we continue to see an increase in detections. There were more than 70, when we came into government, experienced in the Riverland.

There was nothing surer than that we were going to have more outbreaks, and that happened. We saw the outbreak of 5 December in Loxton, and we saw another huge clean-up. However, what comes with a clean-up is that we have to have declarations, and that impacts on our markets, on those growers and on the taxpayer to clean up the Queensland fruit fly detected. That really was the straw that broke the camel's back.

During my time as a citrus grower, horticulturalist and irrigator in a previous life, I had experienced a Queensland fruit fly outbreak, and I thought there was no point in kicking the can down the road and continuing to do more of the same. We had to implement a zero tolerance. We have done that. It had some growing pains, but it is now going along. We are seeing far, far fewer detections of Queensland fruit fly. We are seeing now that we have had two outbreaks: one, as I said, at Loxton but also one at Lizzie Point, which is in Victoria. However, with the exclusion zones, it impacted on Riverland horticulturalists, it impacted on the outer skirts of Renmark—the Murtho area—and it impacted on the Pike River area, so this zero tolerance approach is having a working impact on horticulture.

We are now giving on-the-spot fines. We are issuing those fines, and to do that we have had to not only make significant investment at the Yamba roadblock but also implement more random roadblocks—any roads coming into South Australia and roads coming into the Riverland—and I can proudly say that this is having an absolute impact on the amount of fruit being confiscated. There is more fruit being put into bins, but I would hope that what we will see is less fruit put into bins and less fruit being taken at the random roadblocks at Yamba, at Ceduna, out at Oodla Wirra and out at Pinnaroo, which would mean that the message is getting through.

We are putting more resources into education. We are making people aware. We are putting extra signage right around the country so that people are aware that, if they are coming into South Australia, they will do the right thing and they will abide by the new zero tolerance approach. The signage has been significant. The presence of our biosecurity officers has been significant with the introduction of zero tolerance. We are continuing to monitor. We have trained up an extra 14 staff for the Yamba roadblock. I think that is a successful eradication program, and it is in collaboration. It is not only done by the government but we are working with industry and we are working with the communities so that we are all beneficiaries and taxpayers' money is best spent.

What we now see is that those fines that are being collected through people doing the wrong thing is being reinvested back into that zero tolerance approach, and I think that is a great thing. We are also utilising the SIT (sterile insect technology) facility at Port Augusta. When we have had the outbreaks we are releasing the sterile flies. That, again, is breaking the life cycle of the fly, and that is very important in combating the fly.

We have increased pressure on our borders, and that increased pressure on our borders continues to flow. It has flowed into the Riverland, it has flowed into Ceduna, it has flowed into Thevenard with Medfly and Qfly detections and declared outbreaks, and we will break that cycle. We are committed as a government to breaking that cycle, to support our horticulturalists, to support our irrigators so that we can export more, and we can have that clean, green safe image, and we move forward. What I also must say is that the upgrades at Yamba, the extra staff, the training of staff and the extra entry and exit lanes are having an impact. Yes, those who are doing the wrong thing are paying the price, but it is there to safeguard a very valuable horticulture sector.

If we talk about blackspots, and if we talk about digital connection in regional South Australia, sadly the previous Labor government ignored the call-out for digital connection, the call-out for mobile phone coverage in our regions. It is an absolute crime that that government continued to never represent regional South Australia in any way shape or form when it came to blackspot towers. We saw the first two rounds of commonwealth funding looking for the states to be engaged, and we saw every other state bar South Australia being engaged, and sadly we are paying the price now. There are over 500 blackspots in South Australia, and we are looking to remedy that.

We have taken advantage of the further rounds 4 and 5 to install small cell and large macro cell towers, making sure that we can utilise some of the NBN. We want to make sure that we can have that connection to put us on a level footing with other regional centres around the nation so that we can be just as competitive when we are dealing with our markets, our salespeople and the logistics chain: ordering trucks, whether you are carting a truckload of grain or whether you are teeing up a load of bins in the horticulture sector or a load of wine grapes.

These are our major exporters and our major economic drivers whether it be grain, wine grapes, a load of citrus, a load of horticulture or a load of cattle or sheep. These are our main drivers and to be more globally competitive we have to have that digital connection. The $10 million commitment coming into government is now being rolled out in collaboration with the commonwealth government and our telcos so that we can give that competitive nature to our regions in South Australia, making sure that we can harness an opportunity that has been long ignored by a previous government and is now being adopted and supported by the Marshall government.

The five towers in my electorate—Murtho, Murtho South, Mount Mary, Bower and Wunkar—will soon be switched on. Today, Murtho South and Wunkar towers were switched on. Hip, hip hooray! They are screaming for joy in those areas, but there are more. As I have said, the Murtho North tower adjacent to the Woolshed Brewery is also adjacent to the ancient forest at Chowilla, which means it is good news not only for the local horticulturalists, those landowners, but good news for tourism.

It is good news for the safety of those people traversing those roads, the river, out there camping in the ancient forest or on a houseboat, or for those looking to use the telemetry or to ring for an ambulance if there has been an accident on farm. These are the sorts of initiatives that this government is putting in place to support regions particularly in Chaffey.

If we look at the GM moratorium, that was also a commitment given to our grain growing sector. We have headwinds from a Labor opposition in disarray. No-one over there can make a decision. We have the spokesperson for agriculture wanting to lift the moratorium and yet we have a few other troublemakers in the opposition who will not allow that to happen, and so the spokesperson is beside himself trying to get the moratorium lifted and unable get any consensus in his party.

Yet we have people who have opinions, who live in the city, who have no qualifications when it comes to putting a credible argument as to why the moratorium should be lifted. The moratorium should be lifted so that we are in line with every other mainland state in Australia. There is no economic benefit in having the moratorium here in South Australia. That has been proven. An independent audit done in South Australia showed that the South Australian grain industry is losing money while this moratorium is in place.

There is no economic advantage or benefit in having a GM moratorium in South Australia. The industry is screaming out for the moratorium to be lifted, the grain growers are screaming out for it to be lifted, the regional communities want it lifted and yet we have these obstructionists who have no interest in regional South Australia—none at all—bar the spokesperson for agriculture, who tells me that he categorically wants the moratorium lifted, yet he cannot get consensus within his rabble opposition party.

We have had regulations disallowed by the Greens. They are no friends of the farmer. We had a bill defeated in the other place. We hear that SA-Best want to be friends of the farmers yet they are not prepared to lift the moratorium. We have the Labor opposition. They are no friends of the farmer, never have been and never will be. They do not want the moratorium lifted either, because they cannot decide which way to go. It really does beggar belief.

If we as a state are going to have the economic advantage of having that moratorium lifted, we need to support our grain industry. We need to support the largest export commodity in South Australia: the grain industry. We need to support the grain sector. It really does beggar belief. There has been a bill introduced in this place and I look forward to seeing if we can have some constructive debate and have the moratorium lifted in the very near future. I hope that all the crossbenchers are listening. I hope that all the Labor members are listening. If they are listening to their constituency in the regions of South Australia, then they will support the lifting of the moratorium.

I will now move on to education. We all know how important education is, and no more important than in the regions of South Australia. I commend the education minister who has now moved to amalgamate the middle campus and the senior campus at Glossop. It is a great initiative. Bringing those two campuses together, bringing year 7 eventually into high school in our regions, is a critical part of making sure that we offer the best education program and good education facilities and that is exactly what the Glossop community is looking for.

The wider Glossop community is supported by many of the small Riverland towns and the main towns where it will be located in Berri. It is supported by Glossop, it is supported by Barmera and it is supported by a number of other towns that bring their children into this great facility, soon to be a greater facility with a $17.2 million investment. This is great news. The capacity will house up to 800 students from year 7 to year 12 and I think that it is a great initiative. I have worked with three principals through lobbying to have these campuses amalgamated. I have also been working with Sue Schultz, the governing council chair. I know that she has been a long-suffering governing council chair in making sure that this amalgamation comes through.

We talk about investing in infrastructure, in roads. For 16 long years, regional South Australia never really got much of a go with regional infrastructure, road infrastructure. We saw instead that they reduced the speed limits. Rather than fix the roads, they just reduced the speed limits because that is the cheap way. It is much cheaper to change a sign than it is to fix a road.

At the same time, we saw the cessation of rail, particularly in the Mallee. Closing the two lines, Pinnaroo to Tailem Bend and Loxton to Tailem Bend, put more trucks on the road. Rather than fix the roads, they just reduced the speed limit. That makes economical sense—not. It does not improve safety on our roads. All it shows is the ignorance and arrogance of the previous Labor government and the contempt they showed for regional South Australia.

Again, we are now seeing the cessation of rail—it was coming a long, long time ago—on Eyre Peninsula. The member for Flinders is absolutely beside himself that this has been allowed to happen. While this is happening, it puts more pressure on our roads and that is why this government is putting a record amount of support and expenditure into maintaining and improving regional roads here in South Australia.

The Marshall government will continue to work with the commonwealth government, the Morrison Coalition, to make sure that we put a satisfactory amount of budgetary expenditure into regional roads to make them safer and more productive so that we can get our exports to port and to the airports and making sure that we are looking after our primary producers—the engine room of this state's economy.

While I am talking about the engine room of the state's economy, I want to talk about health. We need to keep health services, particularly in Chaffey, so that people do not have to travel a six-hour round trip for a doctor's appointment or for cancer treatment, chemotherapy treatment. They can now have much more of that service undertaken, particularly with a $6.9 million state government health expansion.

We now have a licence for an MRI machine. The MRI machine will be installed in the Riverland very soon. We are now seeing that we can have lower level cancer treatment undertaken in the Riverland. That is saving people many, many hours by not having to travel to Adelaide or to major centres to have that treatment. It is not just about the cost and it is not just about the level of stress in having to do that, but it does come at a great cost of being away from your family and loved ones, in many instances having to stay down in Adelaide, and of being away from work.

We have seen fit to work with the health minister so we can have better health outcomes, better hospital services, making sure that the complexity will be narrowed down so that we can actually support people who are in medical need, people who are in dire situations. Having cancer treatment, particularly, can have much more scope—having that undertaken in the Riverland. That is great news. Patients now will have reduced travel time, no longer having to deal with the inconvenience, and I think it is great news. It has been widely applauded by everyone in the Riverland and Mallee.

As I say, the Marshall Liberal government is doing the best it can at this very moment. We have picked up the biggest sandwich in the health system that this state has ever experienced. We have had to fix up Transforming Health, we have had to reopen hospitals that had been closed and we have had to reinstate services that had been taken away from regional hospitals. It was a disgrace. The health system here was an absolute disgrace under the now Leader of the Opposition and the member for Kaurna, who were overseeing Transforming Health, overseeing hospital closures and reduced health services. It was an absolute dog's breakfast, and it is something that South Australians should long remember—what 16 years of a Labor government did to this state.

We also look at the $3.6 million in annual funding for governing boards to allow decision-making closer to the regions. That has been a huge success and widely applauded in the Riverland and Mallee. What we are seeing now is some grassroots decisions being made. They are decisions that are not being made in a glass tower in Adelaide by a government that really did not care and was looking to save budget money rather than provide service. What we are seeing now is that we have a government that cares—that cares for the country, cares for the city. But we are having to fix up the mess that we were left with.

Again, there are the weather stations that have been promised and are about to be installed, the state-of-the-art localised automatic weather stations in the Riverland. At some point in time the Ag Excellence Alliance, which is now installing these weather stations in the Riverland, will be linked up with the Mid North, and eventually we will have a set of weather stations statewide that will talk to one another, aid our farmers, aid those farmers who are out there spraying, making sure that we can understand what the wind shifts mean so that we do not have the issues of spray drift and so that we can have a more harmonious farming community, particularly with dryland farmers looking to spray out summer weeds while we have vineyards in the neighbouring paddocks. It will be making sure that horticulture and the dryland sector work better together, more harmoniously, through the use of these weather stations.

We have also seen the expansion of Almondco, a great, great South Australian business. It is a cooperative, and as the minister proudly working under the Marshall Liberal government, we have given them a cooperative loan, $28½ million dollars, to double the capacity of one of the highest value commodities here in South Australia when it comes to horticulture. It is a great initiative, and I think it is going to employ 170 people—an extra 50 new jobs up at Renmark. Not only do they have their processing plant there but they also have their cracking plant across the river from where I live. It is a great South Australian cooperative business. It has been running for many years, and it is growing with the need of that industry. It is just a shining light in terms of what can be achieved within horticulture here in South Australia.

Chaffey has benefited under the government's regional focus: 20,800 new apprentices and trainees, and just recently we had our regional apprentice and trainee awards. They are the largest regional apprentice and trainee awards in the nation. I think it is an outstanding achievement by the Riverland. I think the Riverland stands proud because it has over 800 apprentices and trainees that currently come under minister Pisoni's portfolio. But we continue to be leaders in regional South Australia.

Increasing sports vouchers has been a huge success. We have the reform of PATS and the Rural Medical Workforce Plan has been outstanding. We are listening to the regions. We are supporting South Australians, because we are a government that care.

Ms STINSON (Badcoe) (17:29): I rise to respond to the Governor's address. Certainly the highlight of that address was the man giving it, the Governor, who does some absolutely magnificent work right across our community, including in my own electorate. I take this opportunity to thank him and Lan for the magnificent job they do of representing our community and also reflecting its values back to our community. The reason the Governor presented a speech earlier this month was because of the proroguing of parliament.

We were told by the government that the prorogation was necessary because of the government's need to hit the reset button. Not even two years in and the government is having to restart to attempt to wipe the slate clean and start again, to reboot the whole shebang. It is not a great reflection on its achievements or indeed its lack of achievement over the first half of its term if it wants us all to forget what it has or has not been doing and start afresh. It is possibly sadder that this grand reset we have been hearing about for month after month now is actually nowhere to be seen. It simply has not materialised. Maybe instead of hitting the start button someone sat on the pause button by mistake. Who knows? Probably not even the government itself.

The Governor's address barely touched on the electorate of Badcoe and there was pretty scant mention of anything new for the portfolio of child protection and little detail on the arts. It is of little surprise that this government has no agenda for this inner southern seat of Badcoe. But delivering nothing is actually an improvement on the damage this government is usually inflicting on people in my area. In almost two years, this government has clearly spelt out not just a disregard but a contempt for the people of Badcoe, the people I feel so lucky to represent.

When this government very suddenly announced it was reneging on its promise of the new city school zone boundaries, that showed a complete ignorance of local people's situations: their sacrifices, their investments and their life decisions. It was not just an ignorance. Once the impact of this decision was quickly, loudly and clearly articulated by people to the government, it did not express any understanding: it actually attacked them, painting them as elitist or entitled for simply wanting this government to stick to its promises.

The Liberals went to the last election with a few pretty clear education policies, and one of them of course was moving year 7 into high school. Not once did it tell parents that their support for that policy would mean crowding in their locally zoned schools and that they would be kicked out of their local school. It is a shocking way to treat people. Families in Black Forest, Kurralta Park, Glandore and Clarence Park have not forgotten how cruelly this government treated them. I hear it at the school gates every time I visit my local schools.

The decision on school zones also sent a wider message. It sent a clear message to the broader community of Badcoe, and indeed the inner southern suburbs, that this government's promises simply are not worth anything. They do not care about our area, which brings us to another failure of this government in the electorate of Badcoe: the use of Building Better Schools funding. This program was the brainchild of our excellent deputy leader and saw funding boosted for schools that are most in need to bring their facilities up to modern educational standards.

Shamefully, almost two years into this Liberal government's tenure, the Building Better Schools funding, totalling $18 million for schools in my area, has barely been touched. Quite aside from failing to implement its own ideas, this government cannot even put into practice the ideas of the former government that were already fully funded. An amount of $10 million was allocated for Springbank Secondary College. Appallingly, I understand that this government told that school that it would have to chip into that funding for maintenance, thus depriving it of being able to fully use the money for its intended purpose, which was to improve educational facilities for its students to take them to a new level.

Then there is $3 million for Plympton International College. That money is yet to be spent. It was allocated for a performing arts centre with drama and visual art spaces, which are desperately needed, as well as additional general classrooms. The school has already chipped into its own funds to upgrade its previously parlous toilet facilities. I commend the school community for investing those funds. That school is in need of further funds for landscaping of its very dominant concrete spaces and other facilities. I am proud that this school, under the previous government, received a quite magnificent STEM centre, but further investment will be required as the school hits capacity next year.

Then there is $5 million that was allocated to Black Forest Primary School, just around the corner from my house. Its well-developed plans were halted under this government pending the year 7 to high school plan. Why those students have to miss out on better quality educational resources because the Liberal government fails to properly fund its own policies is completely beyond me, and it is beyond the parents at Black Forest Primary School as well. According to the budget papers, this school will be waiting until after the next election for construction to start in earnest, and that is a terrible shame.

I want to see all children in our community receive top quality education. I do not want to see a system of haves and have-nots when it comes to public schooling—or any schooling, for that matter. I would warmly welcome this government ensuring that funding already owed to our local schools is spent, and spent promptly. I would also welcome this government building on Labor's infrastructure investments in our schools. Sadly, there was no mention of such investment in the Governor's speech.

Failing to deliver and breaking promises is something my constituents are fast becoming accustomed to from this Liberal government. We have also recently seen the GlobeLink election promise broken. The Liberal candidate for the 2018 election for the seat of Badcoe was, I have to say, pretty persuasive in our area, telling a lot of people—hundreds of people—on Cross Road in particular that GlobeLink would remove heavy trucks from Cross Road and that it would improve their property values and their quality of life.

I know that a lot of people took this promise very seriously, because when I doorknocked those homes and when I called people in the election campaign that commitment was raised with me, and it has been raised with me since. Who would not want heavy transport removed from their street? Who would not want noise reduced? Who would not want to live on a safer and calmer road and, of course, who would not want the value of their property increased?

There was already a lot of evidence at the time that GlobeLink was never going to happen. It was panned by key industry groups, and there was no serious planning or costings ever devised. Despite that, I am confident that the Liberals picked up a few votes in Badcoe for this policy. Those voters have told me they have now been left with a really sour taste in their mouths, to discover that GlobeLink, which they invested their faith in, was all a myth.

My community has also been impacted more than most by the broken promise about privatisation. 'We don't have a privatisation agenda,' the now Premier claimed before the lead-up to the election, but that was clearly false. With the tramline and the train line crossing through the middle of the electorate of Badcoe, public transport is a key issue for local people. They want a safe, accessible and affordable public transport service, and it is indeed a big drawcard for people living, investing and setting up businesses in our area that there is a wealth of public transport options.

People did believe the no privatisation guarantee that the Premier gave, and they are now furious that their services will be privatised without them even having the opportunity to cast their vote on such a huge decision. One would think that any government that is interested in the views of its citizens would take such a critical policy decision to an election but, sadly, not this government, and we know why.

We have also seen the government's pledge of better services spectacularly broken, with the news that the ultimate place for constituents to access government services—the Service SA offices—will be closed. Not only is the Mitcham office closing down but we have seen the city office diminished. Those are two Service SA centres that look after a large number of residents of Badcoe.

Even though the government may not take their promises to the people of the inner south seriously, Labor certainly does. As the local MP, I have done my best over these nearly two years to ensure that the things Labor committed to prior to the election are delivered. I am pleased to report not only that Badcoe benefited in many ways from the work and decisions of the former government but that much of the investment the former government decided on has come to fruition since the election.

The old clubhouse at Goodwood Oval is now no more. The new one will be delivered by the end of this year. This is a project that our community started agitating for many years ago, but they got no love from the then mayor. I am pleased that my campaign for $2.5 million for the new clubhouse was answered by our former premier, Jay Weatherill, and that the money was committed under the former Labor government. That initial investment enabled me, with strong community support, to persuade the local council to chip in and also the Goodwood Saints Football Club and the Goodwood Cricket Club to invest in the project as well.

It is now underway, and I absolutely could not be more delighted that this fantastic facility is going to be provided to our community. When it is completed, women and girls for the first time at that oval will have their own dedicated change rooms. The facility will be brought into the modern age, including having disability access. It will provide a fantastic sporting resource but also a great venue for the community too.

The other major developments under construction in Badcoe right now are the second and third phases of the Weigall Oval redevelopment at Plympton. I have already been really pleased to unveil the plaque on the first stage, which saw an amazing Nature Play playground built at the site. It is already wildly popular. The next stage sees the playing ovals upgraded to avoid flooding, the tennis courts completed and a new clubhouse for the use of the Adelaide Angels Baseball Club—of which I am very proudly the number one ticket holder—and the Cobras Omonia soccer club as well as our broader community.

The City of West Torrens has co-funded and shepherded that work, and I applaud their investment in this project and the work of their council officers in guiding this project so smoothly. Labor's investment in sport has also been realised by another soccer club, the mighty Cumberland Park football club, with a synthetic pitch installed at AA Bailey reserve at Clarence Gardens. That was opened in May last year. It was a pleasure to be there to open that, where $1.2 million was invested to ensure a more consistent and reliable playing surface but also to save ratepayers some serious coin on water bills at the site.

I am also looking forward to seeing the realisation of the plans for the Women's Memorial Playing Fields. That facility is not in my electorate, but I was part of the campaign to get Labor to commit funds to that project. I know that the Liberals also joined us on that pledge, which was very welcome. That facility will become the new home for the Forestville Hockey Club, among other clubs. That club has existed in my electorate for 100 years. It is a real shame to see the Forestville Hockey Club leave, but it is wonderful that they will have more expansive and tailored facilities in partnership with other clubs that will use that site. About $9 million is being invested in that site. I wish the local members for Elder and, I think, Davenport all the best for delivering that project.

I have also been lucky to be able to deliver on the former Labor government's investment of new women's change rooms at the Millswood Bowling Club. Investing in women's change rooms was a cornerstone of the former Labor government's community infrastructure investment and one that very sadly has not been continued under this Liberal government. Those facilities are used by both the pennants teams and also the ever-growing night owls competition, of which I am an occasional participant, though I have to say that, on my first visit to the Millswood Bowling Club, I managed to miraculously score a resting toucher, but it has been all downhill since then.

One thing I was hoping to hear in His Excellency's speech earlier this month was that this government had reinstated the very popular and completely worthwhile Fund My Neighbourhood initiative. Sadly, there was no funding for community infrastructure through a democratised approach like Fund My Neighbourhood. My electorate of Badcoe, as did all others across the state, received funding through that program and it has been a delight to see those projects built. These are projects that members of the community thought up themselves, invested their time and effort in devising, went and spoke to their friends, neighbours and local businesses about, got people to vote for and really did all the hard yards to get their ideas and projects up off the ground for the benefit of their neighbourhoods.

It was an absolute joy to attend the Ascot Park Primary School and open its two Fund My Neighbourhood projects last year: a multicultural community garden, which was very generously also supported by Bunnings, so the school got even more bang for its buck; and their new Nature Play playground, which has some very important and moving Indigenous elements to pay respect to our First Nations people, to celebrate Aboriginal students at the school and to encourage learning among the school community about Indigenous culture.

Parents, teachers and students went door to door, getting people to vote for their projects, and I was with them knocking on the doors. Ultimately, they were very successful in getting the support of their local community and they won the funds for both of those projects. I think that school deserves more attention from this government and I would like to see this government build on the Fund My Neighbourhood investments and other investments by the former Labor government, including new flagpoles, which have also enabled the school to acknowledge the diverse cultural backgrounds of its students.

Edwardstown Primary School has also seen a new Nature Play playground unveiled under Fund My Neighbourhood. Again, that school is just outside my electorate—just a block outside—but it is the local school for many Badcoe families. The Edwardstown school community staged a very sophisticated campaign to seek community votes to win their funding under Fund My Neighbourhood. The school was plastered in very colourful chalk messages and drawings, encouraging people to vote in the lead-up, and at the annual Strawberry Fair, which is a fantastic event, you could not escape the chance to vote, with people coming around with iPads and encouraging everyone to vote for the Edwardstown Primary School project.

They won their money and the Nature Play playground that has since been built is, I think, one of the best I have seen. It is very well utilised by students but is also accessible to local families on the weekends, even if their children do not go to Edwardstown Primary. That has been a great investment. At Goodwood Oval, the Fund My Neighbourhood project delivered new cricket sightscreens, a barbecue and a new electronic scoreboard after the cricket and footy clubs banded together with their very strong membership and with the communities of Millswood, Clarence Park, Black Forest and Forestville to get the votes to win funding for those new facilities. That was a very successful community-led campaign as well.

Lastly from the Fund My Neighbourhood fund for Badcoe is the soon to be opened Nature Play playground at AA Bailey reserve. This project came about when local mums in Clarence Gardens, including the irrepressible Dana Bell, banded together to secure this funding. I was doorknocking in the area in the weeks and months beforehand and local parents raised with me the condition of the play facilities in the area and the kinds of things that they would like to see.

I suppose it was only natural that someone would come up with an idea as part of the Fund My Neighbourhood round to put forward a proposal for a Nature Play playground, but there was no sort of club or organisation that they linked with; they just did it themselves as local neighbourhood residents. They did all the hard yards to put together a proposal, to go and doorknock and to persuade people in the community that this was worth support. They did such a fantastic job that they managed to secure the funding. That is what the Clarence Gardens mums did and, for their effort, they now have a beautiful new Nature Play playground for themselves, for their children and for families throughout our area.

In the time remaining, I would just like to make mention of a few more little projects—not a lot of dollars in these ones, but they made a lot of difference to the people who were involved. I worked with the Army Museum of South Australia, based at the Keswick Barracks, to secure $8,000 for the restoration of a World War I 18-pounder gun. I am certainly no military boffin, but this piece of kit is a beauty. Best of all, it gives us all, including the little ones who visit the museum, an idea of the trials of World War I. It is a huge gun that would have been pulled along by a number of horses in a war.

If you think about the World War I conditions—the mud and the weather that the gun would have been pulled through, and the effort that goes into loading and firing it—I think it gives you a really good insight into the difficulty of warfare at that time and place and what our fellow Australians went through in the early part of the century in order to defend our nation, our values and our way of life, all the way over in Europe. It now sits in pride of place at the entry of the museum. I really encourage members to visit it themselves, or indeed to encourage their schools or local communities to visit, because it is well worth a trip there. There is also a new display about Peter Badcoe VC, after whom my seat is named, and that is well worth a look as well.

Another small but worthwhile project was getting two air conditioners for the Ascot Park Active Elders group. That may not sound like much, but the shed where the op shop is (it is filled with some amazing second-hand goodies) is boiling hot in summer. Volunteers, some of whom are quite elderly, were working in those conditions in order to sell a few trinkets and make sure that they can run their club, which provides recreational and social opportunities for older people in our community.

I was delighted that the former Labor government, Jay Weatherill in particular, contributed those two air conditioners that enable this group to fund its great work with local people in our community. That investment came after an earlier investment in solar panels for that organisation, which was awarded before I came on the scene. Those panels make the supply of electricity and the running of the air conditioners so much more affordable for them.

As this government plainly has no ideas for the state, let alone Badcoe, I hope that my detailing of the variety of great work in our area that has been delivered over the past two years due to the investment decisions of the former Labor government provides some instruction and even inspiration to those opposite about what can be achieved. It simply is not good enough to take office and then fail to deliver. It is not good enough to stand still, and it certainly is not good enough to break the promises that you have made to South Australians, no matter which electorate they live in.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: Deputy Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

Debate adjourned on motion of Dr Harvey.

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