HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Member Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-05-18 Daily Xml
Contents
Xml

Address in Reply

Address in Reply

Debate resumed.

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (11:10): Today, I rise to provide my Address in Reply to the Governor. This is my first week in the Fifty-Fifth Parliament. Like several of my colleagues, I unfortunately missed the first sitting week due to COVID isolation. I acknowledge the Governor, Her Excellency the Hon. Frances Adamson AC, for her address on the opening day of parliament and her welcome to new and continuing members.

I would like to extend my congratulations to all new and re-elected members in this house and in the other place. It is truly a humbling experience to be elected to represent our communities. I would also like to extend my congratulations to you, Mr Speaker, on your re-election to the position. I look forward to your continued fair and impartial treatment of all of us in this house.

I would like to express my profound thanks to the people of the MacKillop electorate for placing your trust in me to represent you in this place as the member for MacKillop. To be re-elected for the second time in the MacKillop electorate is something for which I am truly grateful and will honour with a firm commitment to continue to advocate for the betterment of MacKillop communities.

I look forward to representing the constituents in my electorate, who have placed faith in me to advocate on their behalf. I am wholeheartedly committed to continuing to advocate for the communities in this electorate. I remain passionate about advocating to ensure our regional communities can grow and thrive by ensuring living is affordable, quality health services are accessible, business is enabled and not obstructed, our community infrastructure is fit for purpose, quality education and training is available and accessible, and our communities are not disadvantaged by virtue of living regionally.

I never tire of speaking about the strengths of the electorate. It is an economic powerhouse for the state and is comprised of a diverse and dynamic community. The electorate is a truly magnificent and beautiful place to live, work and raise families. I have spoken before in this place about the beauty and vast natural assets of the region. From our south-eastern coastal shores, the Karst landscapes, peat swamps, wetlands, fertile soils, red gum country, the Mallee in the north and the Coorong, the MacKillop electorate is truly a magnificent and diverse location.

The redistribution of boundaries that came into effect on 19 March this year has made the MacKillop electorate all that much more diverse and dynamic and, I might add, geographically much larger. The MacKillop electorate extends across communities from Millicent, Tantanoola and Nangwarry in the south. These are relatively high rainfall areas dominated by intensive cropping, horticulture, livestock enterprises, forestry and forest product processing. The inclusion of significant coastline in the electorate also supports an important fishery sector.

The electorate now reaches from the former northern boundary, which lay just beyond Bordertown and Meningie, to now include the entire Coorong District Council and the entire area of the Southern Mallee District Council. The change brings the electorate's size to just more than 34,000 square kilometres. The expanded area includes the townships of Pinnaroo, Lameroo and Tailem Bend and smaller communities like Geranium, Peake and Sherlock, to name just a few, where the landscape is dominated by broadacre cropping and punctuated with more important horticulture and associated processing enterprises.

The electorate includes a diverse community, including farmers and farmhands, viticulturalists, vineyard workers and winemakers, commodity processing workers, allied businesses and workers who provide services and supplies and repairs, educators and health workers. The electorate is also called home by an important migrant population, including strong representation from individuals and families from Afghanistan and the Philippines who have been drawn to the electorate for work and as a safe place to raise a family.

The change to the electorate boundary has brought strong Mallee communities into the MacKillop electorate from the former Hammond electorate. I have been pleased to meet some really great community-minded, driven people from these communities, people who want to ensure they are well represented in this place. May I thank the member for Hammond for all the advocacy and work he has done in this part of what formerly was his electorate on the eastern side that is now part of MacKillop.

I look forward to seeing much more and learning more about the people of these communities across the electorate in the coming years and working hard for them. While today I wish to look forward, I would like also to acknowledge some important investments and gains that have been made in the past four years for the MacKillop electorate. We saw:

the completion of the Penola bypass, creating a safer environment for the main street of Penola and its community;

the ban on fracking in the South-East, a decision which is a testament to the role of our parliament and listening to the people;

the completion of roadworks that have allowed the reinstatement of speed limits on some key regional roads, including the Clay Wells Road and the Ngarkat Highway;

the delivery of long overdue resurfacing and upgrades to regional roads including the Dukes and Princes highways;

the delivery of much-needed support packages and grants for businesses impacted by COVID restrictions, and the investment in tourism facilities and vouchers to encourage more people to travel to the regions;

the construction of much-needed mobile phone towers at Keilira, Tower Road, Legges Lane and Avenue Range;

the delivery of much-needed upgrades to our hospital, including $3.1 million for the Naracoorte hospital to upgrade their surgical theatre and sterilising area, and $2 million for Bordertown's new community health building;

the delivery of the works to support the transition of year 7 students to high school, which included $5 million worth of works at Naracoorte High School and $4 million worth of works to the Kingston Area School;

schools across the electorate benefiting from the stimulus funding to a value of $100,000 each and $30,000 each to kindergartens;

the Balharry kindergarten at Lucindale receive $500,000 for infrastructure upgrades;

the upgrade to school buildings at Lucindale;

the revitalisation of the Kingston main streets;

the provision of opportunities for sporting infrastructure upgrades, which has seen the recent investment of more than $1.4 million for upgrades to the Naracoorte sports centre to upgrade courts, the Tintinara Oval and recreational area, the Kybybolite sports club, the Mundulla Football Club, the Bordertown Football Club, the Mount Burr Football Club;

sporting clubs in my electorate also benefiting from smaller grants for program funding and equipment;

recognition of the importance of our local fishing industry, with a much-needed injection of $5 million allocated to the Beachport jetty; and

our investment in CFS, with new upgraded CFS trucks and new sheds.

Looking forward, despite this investment and achievement, there is much more work to be done in this electorate. We need to address the shortage of affordable housing in the electorate. This is a foundational issue for our economy and communities and must be addressed. In recent years, we have been working with local and federal government representatives, businesses and Regional Development Australia Limestone Coast to quantify the problem in the electorate and seek solutions. We know there is a significant shortfall in affordable housing and very limited social housing opportunities. This is having a significant personal, financial and economic impact across the electorate.

I am just going to elaborate a little bit further on this area. One of the things that I am hoping for from this new Labor government is that there has been some commentary about the way that I won this electorate, even from the new Premier, where he said that Limestone Coast does not need Adelaide but Adelaide needs the Limestone Coast—and may I hold him to those words. This is one area I think that really not just affects MacKillop but probably affects all of regional South Australia.

We have a town called Bordertown. It has had a shortage of housing for nearly 10 years. It has some of the lowest unemployment rates in the state, if not across Australia regionally, and we have done nothing to address the worker shortage in this town for that long. It has now extended to every town in MacKillop where we have a shortage of affordable housing now, and we are seriously needing some sort of assistance, injection or impetus to actually fix this problem.

I want to just highlight some of the inequities so that everyone knows some of the reasons why this is happening. If there is going to be building development and urban sprawl or even affordable housing builds in the state it should be well recognised by this parliament, both sides of politics, that the best bang for dollar is in Adelaide, and the urban sprawl around Adelaide.

It means that what I am saying is that if you go to the financial sector to borrow money to build 50 new houses in Mount Barker, the Southern Vales area or the northern areas of Adelaide, you need only 10 per cent equity to seek finance for that build, whatever that may look like. If you want to go and build out in our regions you will require 60 per cent equity.

Just in that sense, even the finance sector recognises the risk and the extra finances and cost involved in trying to build in the regions, yet we have so many opportunities out there right now that are going begging—not only the fact that we are missing the workforce, but even if we found the workforce we have nowhere to house them. We seriously have nowhere to house them and we are seeing businesses that are going out in the regions, like Parilla potatoes with a massive investment out there in the Lameroo-Pinnaroo area, and building their own houses. You could say, 'Maybe they have to,' and they are.

But in that sense not every business, not every small business, not every builder, not every electrician, not every trade, not every grain business or trucking business can actually afford to go and build houses for their entire workforce. This business was very lucky; the Parilla potato processing factory is a major business. There is a major meat processor in Bordertown in Naracoorte and I know—and I have already seen this over the last 10 or 20 years—that sector is very competitive.

Even though it is very lucrative in the sense of what meat and protein is worth on the world market today, it has not always been like this; it has its ups and downs. If you say that they have to go and build houses for their workers, you are actually almost setting them up for failure perhaps if there is another downturn and they had to invest millions of dollars into housing in these towns where there is none available at the moment.

I will just give you an example is what has happened in Bordertown. JPS meatworks is there which processes mainly lamb and mutton. They actually bought an old motel that had become defunct and turned it into housing for the workers, just to find rooms so that they can get enough workers into the plant to keep the plant running. You can imagine what that is like when you put COVID on top of that and your workforce is locked down or restricted, plus you cannot find the workers and you do not have the housing. You can see how these businesses have their hands tied behind their backs before they have met their commitments in making a return for their investors or the owners of those businesses.

Another issue I will touch on again is affordable housing. You would not think it would be a problem in a little town like Robe, a wealthy, beautiful town with a lot of beach shacks that have all doubled if not tripled in value because of the way that regional housing—and probably Adelaide housing—has gone in the last two, three, five years.

Now Robe, which is a busy tourist hub that goes from around 1,000 people during the winter—but may have 500 to 1,000 tourists there—to 15,000 to 20,000 through the peak period of Christmas and new year, cannot find employees to service those tourists because there is nowhere to put them in housing. The housing is too expensive, so there was no-one to cook or clean or do the cafe jobs, coffees and the like, that tourists come to expect when they go to a tourist town like Robe. So there are two extremities.

One of the last towns I saw suffer the affordable housing issue was Millicent. As extrapolated across the regions, we always knew there was a problem in Bordertown, it certainly moved on very quickly down to Naracoorte, and one of the last towns was Millicent. Millicent now still has an affordable housing issue. There is a large social housing cohort, but some of the houses are condemned and not lived in because of the maintenance backlog over a number of years in terms of government, not just over the last previous government. But now there is a shortage of housing there as well. There is a major industry just south of Millicent, Kimberly-Clark, that needs workers and so forth. There are a number of other businesses in the region at Millicent, some are fishermen, some are forestry workers and others are in horticulture and so forth. It is hard to find workers if there is no housing available to them.

Businesses are crying out for workers. Worker shortages are hitting a range of sectors, including agriculture, agricultural processing and tourism. Geographically, nowhere is immune to the issue across the electorate from Tantanoola to Tailem Bend. We know a solution lies in training and attracting skilled workers to our region but to attract and keep workers we need housing, good services, health care and education. We need good partnerships with local and commonwealth governments to deliver this.

Roads: despite the investment in recent years the roads in the MacKillop electorate continue to require further investment. Our road infrastructure is aging and significant upgrades and resurfacing are needed and passing lanes and shoulder sealing are required. We were fortunate enough to have a major road seminar in November last year where we invited the hierarchy of the Department for Infrastructure and Transport, all local government, RDA and LGA from the Limestone Coast to Naracoorte.

It was a very interesting meeting. The outcomes of the meeting made its way all the way to my Premier at the time, Steven Marshall. There is one thing I want you to realise, and that is that we are not alone in this. It was recognised at that meeting that some of the roads in MacKillop are 17 years past their use-by date. What does this mean? It means that investment has been poured elsewhere in the state. It has not ended up in MacKillop—and probably other regions, not only MacKillop and the Limestone Coast.

Secondly, when these old roads are resurfaced, and they have fallen into such decay where they call it crocodile skin on the road, where the asphalt cracks open and looks like crocodile skin, you can no longer resurface these roads because that crocodile skin seeps up through the new surface and the new surface only lasts four years. Instead of it being a resurfacing job, a major road upgrade is required for these roads. There is no doubt that this would not just be in the Limestone Coast, but it is probably replicated all the way from Port MacDonnell to Ceduna.

The other thing with these roads, as we know, is that we have done a lot of shoulder work. We have brought in some new passing lanes, but there are a whole lot more other roads that do not have the shoulders, and I will just touch on this. When our government rolled out the upgrade to the Ngarkat Highway, it was meant to have shoulders and we were going to put new shoulders there as the government intended and raise the speed limit to 110. The previous government reduced it to 100. The road was in such a state of disrepair that it required a whole lot more than just the shoulders, and the cost of it was in the millions of dollars. It probably took six to 12 months longer than it should have. This will not be an unknown phenomenon. It will be like many roads.

All I can say is that I am hoping that this new government on the other side recognise they cannot turn a blind eye as they did when they were in government for 16 years, and I come back to the words of the Premier. He said that the Limestone Coast does not need Adelaide but Adelaide needs the Limestone Coast. He should probably say that it needs regional South Australia. We are hoping that you do not let us down, you actually recognise that the road infrastructure needs to continue on and you do work with the federal government to get as many funds as possible into our regional roads—and MacKillop is one of those.

Mobile phone blackspots: despite inroads made through investment in mobile phone towers in the last four years, there is still much to do. Too many people and businesses within the electorate are dealing with no or poor mobile phone coverage. We need investment to enable our businesses to grow, to ensure our community is connected in times of emergency, work and other reasons. I have a number of areas, such as Mayo, Sherwood, Meningie to Coonalpyn, with massive blackspots, including now the new Mallee area of Lameroo, Pinnaroo and other smaller areas up there.

It is well recognised, and we hear it all the time, that when tourists come into our region from Adelaide, they are used to a fast mobile network that works basically all the time. I will give you a little example: they rock on down to Beachport. Little Beachport is a town of around 500 during winter, which probably swells to 5,000 to 10,000 during the Christmas-new year period. The mobile telephone network cannot cope with that influx of tourism. You will be on the phone and dropping out. You will drop out all the time because of everyone else's phone, and their data is fighting to compete for the lack of infrastructure at Beachport.

Another point is that when they come into our region, they travel down the roads. Generally, our highways are well covered by the mobile network, but they only have to go back on some of the roads that are not well covered and they realise what it is like to be talking to their friends, their mates, texting or doing their Facebook/social media, and all of a sudden there is nothing. Adelaide people say, 'Well, jeez, how backward is this area? They don't even have mobile coverage out here.' It is something we have learned to live with, but we should not have to. We do hope that the new Labor government recognise they did not participate in the mobile network as they could have over the previous 16 years of their government. I hope they do not drop the ball, and I hope they realise and continue to advocate for more mobile phone coverage out into the regions.

The South-East drainage system: our drainage network remains underfunded. This drainage and associated bridge, culvert and regulating structures need ongoing maintenance and management. Work is needed to both service the needs of landholders for drainage and to retain water in the landscape. We need funding to ensure our transport network that crosses these drains is maintained and fit for purpose.

This network and drainage system has been living off a budget of around $2.75 million a year. It is looking after hundreds of kilometres of drains. The drainage network and the maintenance doubled on them through the early 2000s, when the northern drainage scheme was finished and completed and then was added to the South East Drainage Network that has to look after what was the southern part, and the funds have not been forthcoming to maintain.

There is one analogy I want the parliament to hear, and hopefully it will go beyond the walls of this parliament: what is the difference between a bridge going out of Burra, where the Department for Infrastructure and Transport will maintain that bridge, and a bridge that sits on a road going out of Millicent? Why is it that a small organisation, such as the south-eastern drainage board, has to look after hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of infrastructure on such a budget? Why is the Department for Infrastructure and Transport not responsible for all these bridges and infrastructure as it is throughout the rest of the state?

Yes, I know that this infrastructure was to drain the agricultural land, but it was actually to drain the land so we would get transport and network through to Melbourne and Adelaide first and foremost and then it was upgraded and approved for agricultural pursuits. I really hope this new Labor government recognises the budget and the work that is required. I hear that it is between $40 million and $50 million worth of works for new bridges and culverts that allow heavy transport to access striving, flourishing agricultural businesses. They are being inhibited because these bridges are 40 and 50 years old and they are too small or do not have the capacity to handle the 40 to 60-tonne truckloads these days.

Health care is an ongoing massive issue in MacKillop, which is probably no different from anywhere else in regional South Australia. The shortage of doctors, first and foremost, is known. We have been trying to work through the locum doctor model. In the last six months of government, we were going to roll out $184 million to engage local GPs in our hospitals. I am not sure what the new Labor government will do in this area, whether those funds are sitting there waiting to be used or it is already rolling.

I know there is hesitation around doctors fulfilling those roles in local hospitals, but can I say this: the local Millicent hospital back in the early 2000s used to have obstetrics, surgery, two anaesthetists and surgeons and used to outperform the Mount Gambier hospital. Now it is just a shadow of its former self. The local GP clinic used to be well engaged in the local hospital and they used to work collaboratively together to be a massive and successful medical precinct.

Today, the doctors are in the clinic. It is hard to get doctors into Millicent and probably every other clinic in regional South Australia. We have a locum doctor system in the Millicent hospital. We were not able to finish it or complete it or get it changed in the four years. As I say, nothing happens quickly in this area and that is a fait accompli. It is unfortunate that we could not address it and get it solved before we were no longer in government. But we do need to solve it and we do need to get medical specialists, like doctors and GPs, into our regions because it is going to be another reason why we will not get the population and populace into our regions.

The infrastructure in our region is certainly tired. I know that, before I was in government, the roof at the local Kingston hospital used to leak. They used to have buckets down the corridor. I can tell you that the Naracoorte hospital still has buckets in the corridors from the roof leaking. Even though we spent some money there in our previous government, there is more money required. Based on the promises that have been advocated by the new Labor government, I am hoping that their funds are forthcoming to address some of these infrastructure problems.

We have an aged-care facility in Kingston where the aged-care centre off the hospital has a fire hydrant sprinkler system for fire but the aged care within the hospital does not have a fire hydrant water sprinkler system in the hospital. We were getting on top of it and it needed to happen, but it has not happened and there is more money to be spent.

All I can say is that we must make sure that our medical facilities are at least comparable to city expectations. We may not have all the specialists. We may not have heart surgeries and the like in our regions: I fully get that. But we need the basics in place so that people can recover and have minor surgery and there is a hospital and health system that gives people confidence to live in our region.

Another one that comes to mind is palliative care in our region. As we live longer, as ailments come to bear like cancer, we do need good support for palliative care when people are in the last weeks and months of dying, where people choose and want to live at home. We do need community health nurses, with the care needed to look after these palliative care patients, to get around the regions and be able to make sure they do not have to die in a hospital if that is their choice and that comes from managing pain to the end-of-life experience to basic hygiene and cleanliness. That can all be done today, but if you do not have the resources, it does not happen and it makes that whole experience a lot worse.

With a view to looking forward, I would also like to highlight the issue of hospital ramping. The capacity of our hospital system is a major problem that is yet to be resolved and was a key election promise. A Legislative Review Committee inquiry was initiated after the receipt of a 44-signature petition on this matter. The inquiry shone a strong spotlight on the impacts of this issue on our communities. The Labor government needs to find answers to this problem for our healthcare system.

With this review, it was most interesting that we only heard from industry sectors on hospital ramping. It was done in much haste, but I can tell you this: there was no black-and-white answer to this problem by any sector. Can I say that it was handled very late, and I wish that it had been conducted earlier so that there was some resolve and some guidance for this new Labor government to run by. You are going to have to develop a system and solve this problem. It was a problem you left behind in 2018, and it is even a problem you created probably, or you took ownership of it—you should—because it started in 2010.

Some of the questions I asked of the witnesses were: does South Australia have the best ambulance model in Australia? Do we have enough ambulances in Adelaide, that is regionally, for the population? Is it commensurate with the rest of Australia with the number of ambulances, paramedics and the like to meet the needs and expectations of South Australians? Furthermore, another question was: if there is not a good model in Australia for ambulances, are there models out there in the wider world we should be watching, looking at and picking up for what an ambulance model should look like and how it should operate and function?

It is going to be very interesting for the Labor government to work through this and I wish them all the best. I hope they do not push it under the carpet. I hope they shine a light on the fact that just because you have got into government it does not suddenly evaporate and that it will be ongoing. I think one of the things that was probably also highlighted in the petition and by the witnesses—who did not come up with any solutions—is that maybe community expectations of what ambulances are for and how they can be used have changed and maybe that needs to be managed better so they are used for only real emergencies rather than for other purposes.

Before I close, I would like to briefly reflect on those who have assisted me here today and for this coming term. I would like to extend my thanks to my family, who have been a great support to me during my first term. From my youngest daughter, Annabel, to older brother, Philip and my wife, Katherine, they have been a tower of support not only during the last four years but prior to that, in my first year of trying to be re-elected as the member for MacKillop. I do sincerely thank them for their patience and the fact that they have probably come second to my political career.

I would also like to thank my electorate office staff for their efforts over the last four years, when at times they have had to operate under very trying circumstances. We have all been working through a period like no other. COVID border closures brought an unprecedented volume of inquiries and requests for assistance to my office. Amidst this, parts of our community were working to recover from the January 2018 Sherwood fire.

Our communities were further affected by the Keilira fire in 2020 and in Lucindale 2021 respectively, which devastated farming businesses. Most recently, on New Year's Eve the Wrattonbully fire started in the electorate and spread devastatingly into Victoria, impacting on our cross-border community.

I appreciate the resilience, professionalism, empathy, courtesy and assistance my staff have provided over the past four years to constituents and, more broadly, to members of the cross-border community. To Jennifer, Rosemary, Michelle and Sue and trainees, Lilli Mae, Tayla, Macaela and now Yahnika, our current trainee, I extend my sincere thanks and real appreciation for all your efforts.

I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to my election campaign team, who offered advice and delivered an enormous amount of assistance with my re-election. I specifically would like to thank David Hood, my campaign committee chairman; MacKillop SEC president, Sonia Winter; Tayla Standley; Jillian Andrews; David Malpas; and Robert Bull, who all offered their time and energy to coordinate the campaign on my behalf.

I also extend my gratitude to the Liberal branch presidents and other Liberal members who assisted with coordinating the significant logistical exercise of the campaign. Your efforts are much appreciated. I think we had 30 to 35 polling booths just in my state electorate that all had to be manned and at least represented for the Liberal cause.

With those remarks, I finish by saying that the next four years are going to be very interesting. We were very unfortunate that we were in government for only four years. We deserved and should have been in for another four years to at least see some of the advantages we were trying to roll out in the first four years, bearing in mind the COVID pandemic and those natural disasters such as fire.

I hope that after whatever it is, one term, two terms or three terms, whatever this new government sees itself serving, it does not treat the regions with discontent or disrespect and recognises that the regions are an important part of the South Australian economy. I wish them all the best in their endeavours—with all the factional warring that will take place between their own seats, winning as many as they did, and looking after the numbers, egos and personalities that will bring; I wish them all the best with that—and that they can take this state further forward so that we are a shining light in the Australian landscape rather than a backwater, that we continue on in that light and that we all end up prosperous for this. I wish everyone well in the Fifty-Fifth Parliament.

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay—Minister for Tourism, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (11:39): I rise today to give my Address in Reply. I would like to acknowledge Her Excellency the Hon. Frances Adamson AC, the Governor of South Australia, and thank her for her opening speech. I want to apologise because I was not there. Like many of us in the house at that time, I was home in isolation with COVID.

I have to tell you, I had a little bit of a rough time and I am very, very thankful for the three vaccinations that I had and encourage all South Australians to make sure that they are not just double-vaxxed but triple-vaxxed. We have an opportunity to keep ourselves as healthy as possible. The governments, both state and federal, moved quickly. Having gone through it, being vaccinated, it was difficult.

For those who are not vaccinated, or not fully vaccinated, I strongly encourage you. I have an 11-year-old child who is also vaccinated and I am delighted to see that we will be rolling this out to primary schools as key locations, as hubs, to encourage parents to bring along their children. I am very privileged to be here today to be re-elected as the member for Ramsay for the fourth time. This year, I celebrate my 10 years in office as an elected member. They have gone incredibly quickly and I still have so much to support with my electorate and to continue with as the member for Ramsay.

My electorate of Ramsay has changed quite significantly, and I was reaching out to about a third of people for the first time to ask them to vote for Labor and myself. I am now proud to represent for the first time the suburbs of Burton, Elizabeth Vale and part of Elizabeth South, and I have had returned to me Brahma Lodge and Salisbury South. I look forward to continuing to work with my current constituents who are new to me and those who I have represented during the time I have been in this place. To the areas I am leaving behind, such as Salisbury Downs and half of Paralowie, you are now in the safe hands of the member for Playford.

I was delighted to see the member for Playford give his first speech yesterday and his commitment to the community that we both live in. I would like to recognise my neighbouring MPs, particularly the member for Florey—and I congratulate him on his new role as the member for Florey—and the member for Elizabeth. We have known each other for a very long time and it is great to have you there.

I give a particularly warm welcome to the new member for Taylor. The member for Taylor and I went to high school together and he was the first person to suggest that perhaps Young Labor might be an area where I could voice my many opinions. That is nearly 30 years ago and I thank him for his great idea then and welcome him here to this parliament.

I commit to my electorate to continue with my ongoing engagements that I have had for the past 10 years, whether it be a seniors' forum, my Welcome to Babies events, and my very regular attendance at community events. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank the Salisbury Business Association—led by David Waylen and supported by the City of Salisbury, our local council—for their constant focus on activating our community with many free events, including May the Force Be with You. We did something for Halloween and we have a Salisbury Fringe market and a multicultural festival. At a time when we were very isolated and could not meet during COVID, these events became so much more important.

If one was cancelled we would make sure that we worked on the next one. This weekend there is going to be the main street festival, and David will be at the forefront. He has asked me to come with my badge making, but unfortunately I will be a little preoccupied handing out how-to-vote cards for the federal election. However, it really made me realise that when we could not catch up and when we could not be together as a community how much these events bring our families together. The majority of those events are free, supported by the council, directed by the Salisbury Business Association, and they mean a lot to where I live.

I would also like to take the time to congratulate and welcome our 14 new members on both sides of the house. It seems like just yesterday that the member for Port Adelaide and I were elected in a by-election in 2012. When we joined this parliament we joined many women from the class of '97, which was a watershed moment—particularly for Labor politics—to increase the level of representation. Of course, this does not take away from the enormous and fantastic outcome that happened on 19 March.

To the many women who are starting their journey as a politician, I want to be a mentor and a friend to you as others have been to me on the way. I can talk about Annette Hurley, who I worked for back in the 1990s but who has always remained someone I can go to, talk to and be guided by. What I can tell everyone is that the time here goes very, very fast. So, while I have been elected for 10 years, it feels like just a moment ago. Every day you will learn something new. You never know who is going to walk through your electorate office door asking you to advocate, asking for you to help, and you might be the one person who can make a difference.

I am very proud to be part of the Labor Malinauskas government, to be a part of the cabinet appointed role as Minister for Tourism and to return to my role as Minister for Multicultural Affairs. These are portfolios I am incredibly passionate about and contribute significantly both economically and socially to who we are in South Australia.

Let me take the time to thank our Premier and Deputy Premier for their leadership both in opposition and now in government—committed, robust, connected are the words that come to mind when I think about our leadership team. As I think the member for Playford said yesterday, they do not ask anything of you that they are not prepared to do themselves. It is incredibly important when you are building a team, a unified team, to lead for the future in South Australia to show by example, to show your own commitment and where you want to be.

I want to talk a little about the election commitments that we made. First and foremost what is important to me is my commitment to my electorate, to those areas. Our commitments include an upgrade to the Brahma Lodge Primary School hall. The current school hall at Brahma Lodge Primary School is not fit for purpose. It is a very small school in Brahma Lodge, which also includes a wing of the Elizabeth Special School.

As a result of its size, in the past it has often missed out on grants, and that is why it was important for me to commit to them to invest $1 million for a new school hall. I particularly want to thank the member for Wright, who previously covered Brahma Lodge in his electorate, for his advocacy for the area. We had a conversation about what we really needed to do. Brahma Lodge is a really special school. I was invited to its end-of-year concert. It is a school with high vulnerabilities and a school that has children of all abilities, but it is unique and it is special, and it plays a really important role in the electorate of Ramsay.

Brahma Lodge Football and Sports Club also spoke to me about recent upgrades they had had through the council, but we also need to look at the improvement of other facilities around that area. The Brahma Lodge Football and Sports Club includes netball, cricket and football clubs. I am pleased to say that their A and B teams were winners in their 2021 division grand finals. We have committed $50,000 to the redevelopment of the oval and the facilities.

In the electorate of Ramsay we have a higher level of disability than in your average regions, and because of this I am acutely aware of the increased needs when people are travelling. We are very, very much looking forward to the return of the train. It has been inadequate, the bus services that we have had in the north, and it was very much welcomed when this government gave free bus services to our community until the train comes back.

We will be supporting a changing place at the Salisbury Interchange, which incorporates both the train and buses. Currently it has a very old set of toilets that are not disability friendly and, in fact, are not particularly nice. We have committed $100,000 to new change facilities. What this means is that people of all abilities and needs can access this facility. It has a hook where people can be helped to get in and out of a wheelchair. Most importantly, it gives them dignity, and it gives true support to their carers who need to assist them to live.

Other areas of support include support to my beloved Salisbury Football Club. I am the patron, but it is also home to the Northern Districts Cricket Club—the Jets. It hosts many community events; that includes sports days and spring fairs. They are looking to upgrade their facilities. In the past, the women's changing facilities have had attention. They have incredible talent there at the Salisbury Football Club. I think we have got five women's teams that are competing. Their intention is to install an electronic scoreboard, and we will be supporting them with that.

Probably one of the most important issues that was raised with me as the local member—and I thank the member for Elizabeth and his staff, who are here today—is the issue about the Elizabeth Vale pedestrian crossing. There have been many instances of dangerous driving at the intersection of John Rice Avenue and Haydown Road, particularly when vehicles are attempting to turn right. This has led to frequent accidents, and given it is right next to the Lyell McEwin Hospital, you often have people in SA Ambulances there, people going to visit, people getting to the emergency section. So we will contribute $1.5 million to improving the safety of that intersection.

As the Minister for Multicultural Affairs and formerly the shadow minister, I had the opportunity to consider the election policy we would take. It involved lots of conversations with our community leaders about where we needed to focus. Let us remind ourselves about our diverse community, because half of South Australians have a parent who was born overseas. Our diversity is us: it is not 'them'. It is not a different group. With this in mind, that is why we committed an additional $16 million to the multicultural portfolio.

These additional funds are going to go to celebrate language and culture, build capacity, governance and economic engagement, build stronger families and stronger communities, identify and respond to racial and religious intolerance and invest in community infrastructure upgrades, including upgrading security and community transport.

One of the key areas that this policy will focus upon is, for the first time, such a significant investment into community languages. That is a committed $4 million investment over four years. I have had the opportunity to sit down with the Community Languages Association, the executive officer Darryl Buchanan and Binh Nguyen, who is their chair.

We have 94 community language schools here in South Australia, formerly known as ethnic language schools. Predominantly it's volunteers. It is volunteers who give up their Saturdays to make sure their children and their grandchildren understand their language and support their culture. But what is important about being bilingual is that it is an asset to South Australia. Whether you are going to go on to look at trade opportunities overseas, whether you are going to help be an interpreter or whether you are going to promote international education, having another language is incredibly useful.

What I see at the moment is that community languages are very grassroots and while there must be registration and there is training, it is the right time now for us to put a spotlight in lifting the standards and, more importantly, supporting those that give time to make this happen. There are a few different areas we need to look at: the amount of money given per student, some of the barriers to them finding host schools to hold their language school on a weekend and the barriers to people training to be registered to be language teachers.

A key area for me is also about the dropout, when young people between 12 and 17 get to high school they stop learning their language. The community languages schools have some involvement in running the SACE level language as well. So I am really looking forward to working with not just the current 94 schools but schools in the future who are looking to run this facility.

There are many other things within this comprehensive multicultural policy. We want to ensure the diversity of the South Australian Public Service, where we will collect and report on the data of employees who were born overseas or speak another language at home who work in the South Australian Public Service. I spoke about this in the debate when we introduced our new multicultural bill. We must be a model employer in the Public Service.

We have gone through this process with a gender lens and looked at people with disability or people who are Indigenous. Now is the time for us to see those areas of unconscious bias, where migrants to this country are not seen equally for those opportunities within the Public Service. The commonwealth do this, the Queensland government do this and now it is time for us to do this in South Australia.

We will produce and maintain an online South Australian Multicultural Resource Directory, listing organisations that offer information, advice, support and networking. We will pilot a multicultural women's microbusiness fund. We will be engaging with some new multicultural media grants to enable skills development in communication. That is an issue that has been raised with me many, many times.

We will be introducing a Multicultural South Australian Ambassador Program to activate the South Australian Multicultural Charter and to embed its principles within the workforce and business practices of South Australia's leading organisations. I am not just interested in reflecting on the Public Service and that it reflects our community, but what I am interested in doing is talking to business, to understand some of the barriers for some of our skilled migrants and people of our diverse community gaining work in all industries.

What I will be asking businesses to do is sign up to the charter, and that is a charter that we are going to be bringing here to the parliament that we will all agree upon, that will reflect a multicultural charter for South Australia. But a lovely piece of paper on a wall is just that. We must activate this charter and we must bring people with us to do so. We are going to be bringing back the Multicultural Women's Leadership Council, axed by the previous government, and the Labor government will be supporting the Multicultural Festival to be an annual event, beginning in 2023.

I am also delighted to be the Minister for Tourism. Having been the shadow minister for tourism for four years, it has been an incredible time of uncertainty. I set myself some KPIs as the shadow minister to reach out to people all over South Australia to understand what was working for them and areas where they needed advocacy. I worked incredibly hard doing that. I met some wonderful people, and I communicated with them regularly about what was being raised by me as the shadow, my concerns and where we were going.

As I have said many times in this house, I had some very difficult conversations when COVID hit, doors closed and overnight people's businesses disappeared. When JobKeeper came on, it was a great relief, but when JobKeeper came off, tourism and hospitality were still suffering. When we were drafting our election policy, we knew that this industry had taken an enormous hit and that they needed to know that we backed them up. They needed to know that we saw their potential and that, even though they nearly got to 50 per cent of the visitor economy under COVID, with support we could bounce back, build back and get back to where we were at $8 billion but, more that, continue the shared aspiration to get to a $12 billion visitor economy by 2030.

I know we can do it. We have fantastic operators throughout the whole of South Australia committed to this, and we have backed them up. We have backed them up by an additional $40 million over four years for major events. We know that major events are a catalyst for travellers to visit our state. Major events support hospitality, accommodation and tour groups, and we want to make sure that our reputation as a festival state continues throughout the year.

This has been a challenge for all governments in South Australia, but we are committed to making sure that a tourism platform is there throughout the year, not just for Mad March but for the Illuminate Adelaide festival in July to be a massive drawcard and, of course, the Adelaide 500 in early December. The $40 million fund will help grow new homegrown world-class events, be able to grow existing owned and managed events and also support new events and business events.

We know that there is an issue about skill shortages in the industry because many people left the industry. Someone well known to all of us is Phil Hoffmann, who has been running his business for more than 20 years. I think probably 40 per cent of his staff left to go to other industries. He is building back now, but this continues to be an area where support is needed and focused across the board.

To do this, we have committed to increase money to the Tourism Industry Council of South Australia, $1.6 million over four years, for capability building and one-to-one business coaching, as well as a program to encourage young people to consider a career in tourism. What I am most excited about is the boost to marketing funding, with a focus of an additional $20 million over the next two years. Every conversation I had with a tourism operator was 'increase the marketing budget'. Wherever I went in South Australia that is what they asked me to do, and we will deliver on that.

We have had some interesting times in tourism, with the regions being rediscovered by South Australians. Now that the borders are open, we are encouraging interstate travel from New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland—from all over the place. This is our time to shine, but I also want to be straightforward. Not all regions did well and, while six of the 11 regions have achieved their 2025 regional tourism goals already, there are regions that did not do well during this time. There are also parts of the industry that did not do well, particularly those focused on international tourists or those tour operators providing support for those interstate.

I recognise that the Limestone Coast and Yorke Peninsula had some really challenging times, as did the Flinders, and I will continue to work with them and advocate for them to be front of mind for me. Overall, we have had this enormous change. Now, 60 per cent of the visitor economy comes from the regions, whereas it used to be in the low forties. So it has been a great change and we want to make sure that it continues.

During the election campaign I received significant support from many volunteers. While there is always the risk of not naming someone, I will endeavour to do so. Thanks to Pastor Elysius and his team, Kolmar and Hannah; Pastor John Nkombera; Kamal Dahal; Munhemal Khan; Dr Joseph Masika, or 'Uncle' as I call him; Mohammad and Shah Safi; Esaq Farahmand; Trimann Gill, who is the third candidate on our Senate ticket and I wish him very well on the weekend; Constance and Prince Jones; Amarjit Grewal; Kudzai Nyamande; and Theophile. I thank them very much for their help.

Thanks also to Hannah Franklin, Councillor Dennis Ryan, Brenden McLean, Nasir Hussein, Deputy Mayor of Salisbury Chad Buchannan, who is here, Alex James, Janvier, Juma, George, David, Sallimata, Sidique, Kenneth, Michael, Muhama, NK, Michael Pratt and Albert Barrie, Akram, Brad, Dara, James Shaka, and to my dear friends Susie and Jess. Susie and I met at university, and we remain friends to this day. She comes out every time, and this time her daughter came out as well—my goddaughter, Jessica—to hand out how-to-vote cards, and I thank them very much. I would also like to acknowledge the personal support that I get from the Mayor of Salisbury, Gillian Aldridge. We have known each other for 10 years and have a great affection for each other.

The voting for this election ran for two long weeks, as every one of us knows in this house, and I spent lots of my time handing out how-to-vote and pre-poll cards in the sun, rain and wind, and I thank all the volunteers who kept me company. Campaigns are exciting and engaging, but they cannot be delivered without a team around you. I really would like to thank my campaign manager, Cathy Perry. Cathy, I cannot do it without you. You are my rock. I thank Tom and Rick for all their hard work. Christie-Ann, I have struck gold with you there, and I cannot wait for your continued support. I had great local video endorsements from Brenden, Coby, Maria, Van and Jo.

For each and every one of us in this house we cannot do it without the support of our family. Mum and dad played a slightly less active role—the first time, dad did not go up the poles to put up the corflutes; at 79 (and having beaten cancer) he did a much more stay-at-home role this time. To mum and dad, thank you always for your ongoing support. Thanks to my brother Kirby, who always helps out on election day. Mostly, I want to thank my husband and my son. You are truly dedicated to me being the member for Ramsay and in my ministerial role. Every weekend, when I am out of the house catching up with our fabulous community, you support me always and I thank you dearly.

It is my son's last year in primary school this year. He attends a local primary school in my area. It will be a big change when he is off to high school next year. I said to him, 'What would you like to do when you grow up?' 'Mum, I want to be a politician.' I am not sure whether I should be encouraging him or not, but there is a sense of pride that he sees me and my connection to my community and my advocacy and he sees that importance, and for that I am incredibly proud. Thank you to the constituents of Ramsay for giving your support and having faith in me for another term.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (12:10): I rise to contribute to the debate on the Address in Reply and I am grateful for having the opportunity to do so. First and most importantly, I thank the electors of Heysen, one and all, indeed the entire population of those communities of Heysen that I have been honoured to represent in the last parliament, for re-electing me to continue to serve.

As many members have reflected, particularly listening to those who are returning to this place, it is truly profoundly humbling to be entrusted with the trust of a community to speak up for them in this place. It is an honour that I hold dear. I am never more motivated to work for my communities of Heysen and I join with them in seeking to continue to improve the fabric of those communities and the lives of our great people in the Adelaide Hills as their voice in this state parliament, so thank you one and all.

I acknowledge and I thank with a sense of a deep debt of gratitude my colleagues in the Fifty-Fourth Parliament who were unsuccessful at the recent election. Theirs is a proud legacy of hard work and achievement, both individually and in their contribution to the Marshall Liberal government, one that has a proud record of achievement that I will reflect on momentarily.

Rachel Sanderson, the member for Adelaide; Steve Murray, the member for Davenport; Carolyn Power, the member for Elder; Corey Wingard, the member for Gibson; Richard Harvey, the member for Newland; and Dan van Holst Pellekaan, Deputy Premier and member for Stuart, all made tremendous contributions. They are missed daily by all of us.

That list is incomplete, and I wish to single out Paula Luethen, the former member for King. Paula was the one who, on the pendulum, going into 2018, was not odds-on to win. She needed to outperform to win, and she needed to outperform every day in terms of delivering for her community to continue in this place. Paula, I salute you. I think the fact that you are no longer here is a loss to this place and I hope that you are back. To one and all of you, we will miss you and I thank you for your work in the last parliament.

I also wish to congratulate those new members entering this place. As always is the case at this time, we have the opportunity to hear the motivations of those coming here who have been newly elected and, as has been reflected on just now, we sometimes in these early days learn many things on any given day. Certainly, we learn from those who come here and I wish them well in their future contributions to this place. I hope they contribute to the richness of this very important institution in our state.

I congratulate the government on its election, on its success in March, and I wish it well in its important work in the interests of all South Australians. Government is hard and achieving in government is important. It is a daily endeavour. The job of the opposition that we now have is to hold the government to account and I will endeavour to do that to the best of my ability every day.

I want to say thanks to so many who have helped me to continue in my representation of my communities of Heysen: to my family, to my colleagues, to my team of volunteers and to my dedicated staff in the Heysen team. This is in all sorts of ways a team effort and, once the contest of an election is past, the day-to-day work of being an effective local member is very much about our capacity as a team to assist our constituents day by day, and I cannot do that effectively without my great team, so thank you. I thank you for what you have done, and I know you will continue to work tirelessly for our communities.

Heysen, like so many districts, has changed its boundaries from 2018 to 2022. That is a process that is outside our control. As other members know, we become very parochial about those areas we represent and so when we lose areas that we have been speaking up for here it is felt very considerably. I observe that Heysen, from 2018 to 2022, changed as significantly and more significantly than many districts. In particular, the south-east part of Heysen moved to the east and moved into Hammond and Kavel—primarily those areas including Strathalbyn and the areas around Strathalbyn. They include Belvidere, as well as Bugle Ranges, Gemmells, Highland Valley, Red Creek, Salem, Sandergrove, Willyaroo, up to Wistow and Woodchester and key among them Strathalbyn itself.

I will say some more about it. Strathalbyn is very dear to me and the focus of achievements in government, policy commitments, that I think serve to illustrate the way in which the Marshall Liberal government went about delivering improvements to community, so I am sad to see Strathalbyn and surrounding areas leave Heysen. They are in good hands with the member for Hammond. As I have said to them, in many ways I hope they will expect to have the service of a member who is familiar with the communities there as well as one who has served them before. I wish the member for Hammond the very best in his work for those communities.

Heysen has also gained significant new parts of the Adelaide Hills and in many ways Heysen is now even more characterised as the Adelaide Hills district, and there are parts of the Hills that have been previously part of Heysen and I am so glad that they are now, in many ways, returning. They include those Playford areas, those Sir Thomas Playford home areas of Ashton and Basket Range, of Carey Gully and Cherryville, of Marble Hill, as well as other parts of the Hills: Castambul, Cherry Gardens, Coromandel East, Crafers West and areas also to the east, particularly Hahndorf, Mount George, Norton Summit, Paechtown, Piccadilly, Summertown, Uraidla, Verdun, and even the lower portion of Montacute.

Priorities for our Hills communities and those new areas of Heysen in particular are, as they were, many areas of keen priority and they include a still urgent need to continue to improve road infrastructure. I highlight in that regard and with a nod to the Ceravolo family, who have been moving their fresh produce through the winding roads of Ashton for many generations and calling for improvement to road infrastructure.

Along with the important priorities of health and education, those roads and communications infrastructure improvements continue to be pressing needs for those communities. Perhaps specially, although it is a priority that is now common to all of us, the appreciation for the need to preserve and enhance and protect our natural environment is one that is a primary concern of my Hills residents.

I single out today just one group in particular to highlight the nature of that engagement. It exemplifies the strength of local community that is present in the Hills and also a keenness to get to grips with the environmental challenges and opportunities that we have and that is the group Imagine Uraidla. Imagine Uraidla came together some years ago at a time when Uraidla itself as a town was at risk of disappearing altogether. It had a main street with very little going on and the real challenge was to work out ways that Uraidla could actually continue to exist. What we have seen over the last several years, although we remember it is only in recent times, Uraidla has returned to being a real jewel among Hills towns and that has been largely the result of the commitment of a group of locals and local businesses who call themselves Imagine Uraidla.

We now have one of the best hotels in the Hills, the Uraidla Hotel, which describes itself somewhat modestly as 'the worst hotel in Uraidla' and on the opposite corner, if you head around the other side of the beer garden, you will find out it is also 'the best hotel in Uraidla'. The investment that has gone into that hotel, including a microbrewery and the bakery and the various facilities that are associated with the hotel, is very much at the centre of bringing back the vitality to Uraidla.

I cannot talk about Uraidla without reflecting on the extraordinary work that has been done by the Uraidla Bowls Club during the same period of time, another community group that could well have struggled but for the commitment of those members to get it back and going. The facilities there are now tremendous, assisted with the generous support of the Marshall Liberal government, and particularly importantly the group of volunteers led by the president, Richard Crabb. His team has made sure that the Uraidla Bowls Club is part of what is vital and exciting about what is going on in Uraidla.

I mention Imagine Uraidla in the context of the environmental priorities in the Hills, and I am glad to say I have already worked to some extent with Imagine Uraidla on initiatives that the local community can take to lead the way in terms of community energy initiatives. Imagine Uraidla and the Uraidla community are very keen to demonstrate ways in which we can lead in terms of taking our chance with renewable energy and showing how a community, by taking initiatives together, can provide an example for the community more broadly. I look forward to working with the Uraidla community on that initiative in particular.

It is perhaps an important one to highlight because, in order for a community to want to participate in building for itself a sense of community around making the best of new energy technologies, you have got to have confidence in the system and what it is looking to deliver. One of the very important and fundamental contributions of the Marshall Liberal government, led by Minister van Holst Pellekaan, was to restore confidence in our statewide energy system.

We should not forget, and it is something that is close to the hearts of my electors in the Hills, that in 2016 we had a statewide blackout, and we suffered as well as that significant outages throughout the latter part of that year, including at Christmas time and into the new year. At that time, indeed in the lead-up to the election in 2018, over those summers we got to a stage where it was to be anticipated that there might be long blackouts whenever there was challenging weather, whether it be hot, stormy or whatever.

The sort of conversation that was going on in the Hills increasingly was, 'Well, what's the smart generator to have ready to go? What sort of money needs to be invested to be able to switch on so that you can be independently able to back-up your freezers and your other business infrastructure and maybe keep the lights on at home?' We should never forget that when we set out to achieve improvement we need to make sure first of all that we have reliable and cheap energy, and that is the sort of thing that engenders the confidence to then take initiatives in this space.

There have been considerable highlights over the course of the last four years in the Hills in terms of delivery of improvement, and I would just mention a few very briefly. I will say a bit more in a moment about the reservoirs, but the Hills is home to perhaps South Australia's most important dam at Mount Bold, and we are to see significant safety upgrade delivered at Mount Bold, which is a very important improvement for that important piece of infrastructure.

I am proud that the Woorabinda Bushland Reserve will now be protected in perpetuity. It is 34 hectares of bushland in the Stirling area, and the achievement of the heritage agreement between the government and the Hills council is an important one and makes clear our commitment to preserving the natural environment in the Hills.

I am very proud of the significant improvements that have been made at Heathfield High School. Our deputy leader, the member for Morialta, led a truly significant transition and improvement in South Australian education in moving year 7 to high school. He is to be congratulated on that. Heathfield High School was the beneficiary of initiatives not in only preparation for the move of year 7 to high school but also in much needed improvements to ensure that Heathfield High School is delivering the very best of education to our young people in the Hills.

There have been crossing upgrades that have occurred at Echunga, Meadows and Kangarilla—and a shout-out to each of those primary school students in particular. Many in Echunga had reached out to me as had those at the Kangarilla Primary School. I know, having been there for the opening of those emu crossings, how much they are appreciated and what a difference they make to calming traffic through those towns.

The South Eastern Freeway has seen very significant upgrades indeed in the course of the last four years, generational upgrades. For Heysen, they include the addition of the managed motorway—the third lane between Crafers and Stirling, which has made a real difference every day to those who use the freeway and in particular those who use that part of the freeway.

The work on the South Eastern Freeway extends all the way to the tollgate and to the Glen Osmond-Portrush Road crossing and all the way to Stirling, with more works that are ongoing. It is important work. It is our state's most important piece of road transport infrastructure, and it is the kind of work that ought to have been done in a more orderly way over an extended period of time. It has been done in a concentrated period of time, and I thank everybody in the Hills for their patience. The works were certainly worth the wait, and I am glad to see it completed.

There have been upgrades to Heathfield oval, just recently opened, that I am very proud to have advocated for. The addition of My Home Hospital has made a great difference to those elderly in the community.

In the course of the last four years Heysen saw, both within Heysen and immediately neighbouring Heysen, at the Cudlee Creek fire in 2019, significant—generational—bushfire emergencies. My communities suffered through those as well as making significant contributions to the response and to the support of those who suffered devastation through those fires. I applaud the government's commitments to bushfire response that have been well canvassed over that time. I hope in the years ahead we do not experience again such fire emergencies.

I will say a little bit more in a moment, too, but the opening up of reservoirs that occurred under the stewardship of the former Minister for Environment and Water, the now Leader of the Opposition, included Mount Bold Reservoir, and a significant initiative it was too.

I want to thank in particular Premier Marshall for his leadership over the last four years of the Fifty-Fourth Parliament and indeed his leadership of the Liberal Party going back over almost a decade. The Liberal Party is a great party with a proud record of achievement in government, and that is a record that speaks for itself over the course of the bulk of the last century. Premier Marshall's record of achievement stands out in this state and will be very well remembered in history. On a personal note, having worked with him as a member and then very briefly as a minister in his cabinet, it was an honour and privilege to serve with him, and I pay tribute to his great work as Premier of our state.

The Marshall Liberal government delivered real improvement and I really wish to highlight that in three ways. Firstly, it delivered practical cost-of-living reductions. It said it would and it did, but it did so by underpromising and overdelivering. We know that the Marshall Liberal government delivered cost savings of $1,092 each year for an average household. That included reducing the cost of water bills, ESL bills, electricity bills and car registration. We also took the policy decision to double the value of sports vouchers and expand their availability.

We have a budget that will come up shortly, a budget that will be delivered in the coming weeks by this new government, and the spotlight will shift to that of delivery by this new government. We will be watching closely. The Marshall Liberal government was indeed one that managed the hard business of government by delivering real outcomes. That is hard to do and we will be now holding this government to account as it endeavours to continue the momentum that the Marshall Liberal government built for this state.

Secondly, I wish to highlight that those achievements were made in the most extraordinary of circumstances of the pandemic, and I am glad that we are looking to emerge from that now. It has certainly been the greatest challenge that this state has faced since the Second World War, and it is one that the Marshall Liberal government's management response to ought to be most proud. In that regard I highlight and thank the leadership of the Minister for Health and Wellbeing, the Hon. Stephen Wade. I remember saying to the electors at the door at Strath on occasions in the lead-up to the election, 'Don't vote for me, vote so that Stephen Wade can be the Minister for Health and Wellbeing.' That is a decision that people should not and do not regret. We owe Minister Wade a great debt of gratitude for his leadership of the response to the pandemic.

A record of achievement in government leads and must be characterised by confidence. To reflect in another way perhaps on what that means, it comes back to the promotion of what is so dear to all Liberal governments, and that is the enhancement and growth of home in all three ways that Menzies referred to: homes material, homes human and homes spiritual.

The Marshall Liberal government did all of those things. It brought people back to the state. It promoted business confidence in the state. It left government with South Australia being the fastest growing state in the nation. It achieved where it counts. It achieved in terms of the direct impact it had on people's lives, in the reduction of the cost of living, and it achieved in terms of the business growth that that engendered.

Perhaps the best way that I can pay tribute is to highlight that sense of home. We must, as time goes forward, ensure that all that we do in this place builds and promotes the sense of home in South Australia: homes material, homes human and homes spiritual. I will continue to work to the best of my endeavours to ensure that we do that.

The Hon. A. MICHAELS (Enfield—Minister for Small and Family Business, Minister for Consumer and Business Affairs, Minister for Arts) (12:40): Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to commence by congratulating you on your appointment and also the Speaker on his appointment. I am sure you will both rise to the challenge. Today, I am speaking in response to the address by her Excellency the Governor of South Australia on the opening of the Fifty-Fifth Parliament of South Australia. I want to thank the Governor for her words and for her commitment to South Australia.

Unfortunately, in the last sitting week I was one of those at home with COVID, but I had the technological benefit of being able to watch the Governor's speech online and also the first speeches of many of our newest members and those this week, being here in the chamber. I want to extend a warm welcome to all those new members. I know they have acknowledged that they have been blessed to be chosen to represent their community in this place and I know they understand the privilege of being able to serve their community.

When I entered parliament, only three years ago, there were 12 of the 47 seats in this place occupied by women. I am now really proud to say that there are 17 of those seats with 14 being held by Labor women, for the first time outnumbering Labor men, not that we are competitive in any way. To those new members for Adelaide, Newland, King, Davenport, Elder, Gibson and Waite, my warm congratulations and welcome to this place. Our position in this chamber has been hard-fought for and my door is always open to new members on either side of the chamber if I can help in any way. I want all those new members to remember what is up on that tapestry which is 'A woman's place is in the house.' There are no truer words than those.

I also want to extend my congratulations to the new members for Taylor and Playford, and the members for Schubert, Frome and Flinders on the other side, and welcome them. To you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and my other colleagues who were here for the last session of parliament, congratulations on everyone's re-election, and to those who are no longer with us, I wish them all well in their future endeavours.

I also want to congratulate our Deputy Premier and Premier. I want to thank them for leading a team that had a clear vision for the future of South Australia, not only giving a plan for going into the election but actually a plan for the next generation. For too long we have been focused on electoral cycles to the detriment of our future generations, and that sort of short-sighted politics, I believe, ended on 19 March with the election of the Malinauskas Labor government. It was an honour to work with the now Premier as we developed the agenda that we took to the election, and I was incredibly pleased that it was so roundly supported by the South Australian community and that we are now hitting the ground running in implementing that policy agenda.

As part of that, I am very pleased and humbled to accept the portfolio responsibilities for small and family business, consumer and business affairs and the arts. Those portfolios I think are essential to the prosperity of South Australia. Small business is the engine room of South Australia's economy. It makes up 98 per cent of all businesses in South Australia. Small businesses contribute $40 billion to our state's economy and employ almost 40 per cent of our workforce. They play a critical role in South Australia's economy by improving productivity, creating jobs and unlocking economic growth.

As many people are aware, I ran my own business for seven years prior to this election and I am no stranger to the joys, the challenges and the sheer hard work that go into running a business. In opposition, I regularly spoke with small business owners and their advisers, and I heard a consistent message throughout my engagement that there needed to be a state government that focused on small business that had an interest in easing the pressure on the largest sector of our economy and, really importantly, understood how small businesses operate in this state.

I have the pleasure of being the minister and having a really strong focus on promoting the needs of small and family businesses in this government, and I am very pleased to be able to take that role. I know the last two years have been very difficult for small and family businesses across the state with COVID. Many of those impacts continue, with frequent staff absences due to illness. Obviously, there are extreme shortages in skills and labour, and disruptions in supply chains and increasing costs of doing business.

I genuinely feel for small business owners and operators who are trying to plan their staff rosters or order stock when members are suddenly not available or when basic stock items are suddenly unavailable. There is still a lot of pressure in the small and family business sectors. We are not out of the woods yet. During COVID, many of those small businesses had to spend their hard-earned savings, and some had to remortgage their homes, so there are some sectors of business in South Australia that still have a way to go to recover. What we plan to do as the Malinauskas Labor government is listen and focus on how we can help that sector. We want small and family businesses in South Australia to know that the Malinauskas Labor government has got their back.

We want to help small business and increase their opportunities and make it easier to do business with government. We will make sure that government services are simpler to navigate no matter where that business is located—in the city or in the regions—and no matter whether that business is a new business or a multigenerational family business. We want to be able to provide resources for whatever businesses actually need to help them access information on how to access financial support, take on new employees, upskill their staff and be there through the difficult times.

I am also really pleased to be able to deliver on the small and family business programs that we took to the election, none more so than the Women in Business program. It is high time that women in business are afforded the recognition they deserve in pursuing their entrepreneurial spirit without gender-related barriers. Women continue to fight to be represented in executive positions in the workplace.

Just over a third of business owners in Australia are women, but the number of female entrepreneurs is pleasingly growing. South Australian female entrepreneurs are taking leading roles and promoting innovation in areas such as space, professional services, technology, health and social enterprises. While these entrepreneurial women are creating jobs and growing our state's economy, women in business continue to face barriers in accessing support and accessing capital to get their ideas off the ground.

The Women in Business program is a $4 million support package to support female-owned businesses. It will help boost our economy, create jobs and support our local entrepreneurs. The package will provide a suite of programs that will be made available to South Australian female-owned businesses. Essentially, I see that as two streams, and we are working on a program at the moment. There is a stream that I anticipate will be for startup and microbusinesses to really give female entrepreneurs that business support in the early stages of their business to give them fundamental business skills and knowledge, which is crucial to being able to have a long-term sustainable business, to provide them with mentoring and opportunities to grow their networks and to see their businesses succeed.

Further to that, for established businesses with a high-growth agenda, I anticipate there will be a program to provide things such as group sessions to improve business skills, a growth program enabling those businesses to set up best practice in governance and strategic planning and gaining access to advisory board members and business mentors who would help them in growing their business. This I hope will lead to increased access to capital, growth and jobs for South Australia.

The Malinauskas government will also provide more opportunities for local businesses to tender for government work. We have a target to move spending away from interstate and overseas suppliers to the tune of 5 per cent, which will actually equate to $425 million per year going into the pockets of South Australian businesses. Part of that policy will include a mandated 90 per cent of labour hours on major infrastructure projects being delivered by South Australian workers. Government agencies will be required to buy locally manufactured uniforms and PPE wherever possible.

South Australian manufactured products will need to be used on public housing construction and maintenance programs where they are available. We will make sure government procurement opportunities are publicised three months in advance so local businesses can have adequate time to prepare their tenders and we will be looking at other ways to make it easier for small and family businesses to participate in government work.

While we are working to establish new industries through the creation of the hydrogen industry in our state, small business is a fertile ground to ensure a boom in employment. We have about 147,000 small businesses in this state and the provision of simple and effective training on business fundamentals—business management—will ensure those businesses grow.

We will see a growth by developing programs that help small businesses develop their interstate and international export markets. Just one new job being created by a fraction of those small businesses will see thousands of new jobs created in this state. As the Minister for Small and Family Business, I look forward to being able to help these businesses grow.

We have a very proud history in South Australia of developing large successful businesses, particularly in the family business sector. The member for MacKillop is well aware, with his own family business, but there are others, such as Coopers Brewery, Haigh's, Hills and Seeley International. There are many well-known South Australian family businesses and I hope that many more will fit into that category, whether it is a tech firm starting at Lot Fourteen, a building company operating out at Salisbury or a retail and hospitality venue coming out of Rundle Street. It is my hope that we will witness growth from each of those sectors and many more to help the growth of our state for our children.

I am also very pleased to have received the honour of becoming the Minister for the Arts. South Australia has a very proud history in the arts, largely stemming from Don Dunstan and his Labor government. This year, I have already celebrated the 50th anniversary of the State Theatre Company and the South Australian Film Corporation. Next year, we will also celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Adelaide Festival Centre, the first centre of its kind in Australia.

Arts and culture lie at the heart of our identity as individuals, as a community and as a state. It is central to who we are as South Australians: how we communicate and how we see ourselves as citizens and members of our community. While arts and culture play an important economic function through employment, tourism, exporting skills, training and liveability, its social and cultural values are much greater than that. Arts are a public good. Arts in South Australia tell a story of who we are, a story that started more than 60,000 years ago and it tells the story of how we got here today. It is a story of our future self.

The Malinauskas Labor government has ensured that there is a minister with specific responsibility for arts and culture and I look forward to being a strong voice at the cabinet table for that sector. It is a really key role in the cultural leadership of this state and our government will support it as such. The arts sector was one of the hardest hit during COVID and it is even more urgent now for us to work with that sector to continue its return and growth. I want to work with the sector on a strategy that will consider the conditions for our artists and how they live, work and create. The Malinauskas Labor government is committed to securing the prosperity of our cultural and creative system.

In opposition, we were committed to supporting live music. In government, we are fulfilling that promise. Our music industry has endured an incredibly tough time, seeing the cancellation of thousands of events and major job losses through COVID. We on this side of the chamber are committed to getting the live music industry back up and running. This will not only contribute to our state's economy but give Adelaide its groove back.

Getting music back into our venues, laneways and public spaces will enrich our state and attract visitors, boosting local businesses. We are determined to see this industry recover, rebuild and grow its multimillion dollar contribution to our economy. Past Labor governments have boosted our night-time economy with, for example, the implementation of small bar licences. That policy in itself proved a fundamental game changer to the Adelaide CBD.

We will implement our See It Live policy, which will provide 5,000 See It Live vouchers to get music acts back into pubs, clubs, small bars, cafes and restaurants. In addition, it will support performers in being able to boost the hospitality sector. While the See It Live medium and large event grants were made available to South Australian based promoters, organisations and businesses operating music venues, that will help fill a whole calendar of gigs and festivals through the upcoming financial year.

Further to that, we will commit to having the best Royal Adelaide Show that we have had. After the cancellations of the 2020 and 2021 Royal Shows, we have a plan to make this show bigger and better. The theme this year of the Royal Adelaide Show is reunion: a celebration of community coming back together again. Our government will partner with the Royal Adelaide Show to introduce live music as part of its program with a $500,000 grant.

Further to that, our commitment to reinvigorating the arts does not stop with live music. We have a plan for a stronger sector. We are the Festival State and our Adelaide Fringe Festival is the largest arts festival in the Southern Hemisphere, second only to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The Fringe attracts thousands of tourists from interstate and overseas. Its impact on our economy is in excess of $50 million, creating almost 4½ thousand jobs directly and indirectly.

Our Fringe has the capacity to be much bigger and raise the profile of our city and our state on a national and international stage. That is why we will invest an additional $8 million into the Adelaide Fringe. This funding will enable the Fringe to provide more grants to local working artists and to put on more performances. It will enable the Fringe to host a headline anchor event, as Sky Song was this year. It will provide the resources to effectively market the festival to interstate and overseas audiences, which I hope will attract more visitors to our city and our regions and have a flow-on effect through our restaurants, cafes and tourism operators.

We also have the Adelaide Film Festival. It is not just Mad March: we have festivals across the calendar year. We maintain a number of biennial festivals and until recently that included the Adelaide Film Festival. That was started almost 20 years ago with the establishment of the Adelaide Film Festival. We now celebrate half a century of filmmaking in South Australia. The film festival is now being funded to become an annual event and that will support the event, boost local independent filmmaking and showcase the best of international film here in our city. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 14:00.

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