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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-05-31 Daily Xml
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Address in Reply

Address in Reply

Adjourned debate on motion for adoption.

(Continued from 19 May 2022.)

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (11:01): I am pleased to have the opportunity to continue my Address in Reply to the opening of parliament speech given by Her Excellency the Hon. Frances Adamson AC, and I again thank her for her service to the people of South Australia.

Morialta is so much more than an electorate: it is a community. It is a community where I am proud to have been elected as the local member four times. It is the community where I grew up. It is the community that I love and that I look forward to my children growing up in and being part of for not just decades to come but potentially generations to come. Others have laid claim to their part of the world being the best part of South Australia; I lay claim to Morialta being the best part of Australia.

The election just past was certainly a disappointing outcome for the Liberal Party, with the messages that were conveyed by voters who, some for the first time and some who go back and forth, chose not to support me or the Liberal Party at the last election. I want to pledge to you that I will give my utmost during this term of parliament and any others in which I am lucky enough to be the local member for Morialta. I will be there to support you as I do all those voters who did support the Liberal Party and me in Morialta.

I think the last term of parliament was an unusual one in many ways. Certainly, the challenges posed by the pandemic were profound. After two years of the pandemic, the situation was felt by most first-term governments, where they had done their work to address the ills and wrongs of their predecessors and it is more often than not the case that the voters will give them an opportunity to continue that work. It certainly did not feel like a one-term government for anyone who lived through the years of 2020 and 2021. They felt like a very long time indeed.

The government was forced to take extraordinary measures. It did not occur to me in my wildest dreams that I would have ever been part of a government that had to enforce state borders and checkpoints and that freedoms and liberties would have been restricted in a way that is anathema to anybody who has Liberal values as I do, yet the circumstances, the danger and the risk to the health and safety of our community were so profound that these extraordinary steps had to be taken.

I was never enthusiastic about mandates for vaccinations, for example, yet as education minister I stood next to the police commissioner and endorsed their introduction when that had to happen. Again, it was the very strong health advice that it was utterly necessary for the health and safety of our community, and it saved lives. I believe that it did. I am very pleased that we are now in a situation where those mandates have been able to be relaxed. This week, for the first time since probably the third term of last year, we no longer have the requirement that masks be worn in high schools, for example.

I understand that all of these measures upset, disappointed, aggravated and infuriated, in some cases, many people who have traditionally supported the Liberal Party. To those members I say, I understand that disappointment. As I said last year when we were implementing them and indeed on polling day when I had many discussions with people who were putting forward these points of view, I understand that frustration. Those measures were taken to save lives and they were necessary and I stand by them, but I am very pleased that we are now in a situation where Professor Spurrier and the other health advisers have clearly provided information that the stage of the pandemic we are at, the rate of vaccination in our community, has meant that many of those measures can be relieved.

It is really important, however, that as we move through any part of the pandemic the discussion is respectful, because I fear that sometimes what has been lost is respect. I see some elements of it even now as people are unfortunately taking measures outside vaccination hubs to discourage people from getting vaccinated. Respect is tremendously important. We need to respect the freedom of people to express their point of view, and people need to respect that governments and public officers are doing their best to protect health and to protect lives.

There were many messages that were given to me on election day. Some of them were in relation to votes on certain measures. Many were in relation to measures taken during the pandemic, and indeed some people were disappointed by the way the government interacted in particular in relation to hospitality restrictions during the pandemic.

There is never one reason that an election is won or lost; there is always a multitude of reasons that inform every vote. Every constituent has this important, God-given right that we protect fiercely—to choose the basis on which they elect their governments. I have certainly heard a lot of messages. To all of those people in my community, whether they voted for me or not, whether they are enthusiastic or disappointed, I promise you I have read every piece of correspondence. I have had many conversations and I am grateful for the feedback that I have had as the member for Morialta.

I am even more grateful for the trust that has been given to me as your local MP now for the fourth time. When I first put my hand up to run for Morialta it was 2008. It was an 8 per cent Labor seat at that time. Lindsay Simmons had won the 2006 election comfortably. A redistribution improved the margin to 6.7 per cent when I was the Liberal candidate, and I was pleased to get a 12 per cent swing at the 2010 election.

Since becoming the candidate for Morialta, there have been redistributions that have improved the margin and reduced it. I started with Newton and the south-eastern side of Magill and Auldana in my electorate. I now have them back, after their being with the members for Hartley and Bragg for eight years. Redistributions come and go, but broadly we are a very similar seat now to that which Lindsay Simmons won with a margin of 8 per cent for the Labor Party in 2006.

I am very encouraged by the fact that 10 per cent more people now vote for the Liberal Party than did in 2006. It is a significant improvement and I certainly put it down to the wisdom of the people of Morialta. We had some very good results in 2014 and 2018 when the margin approached 10 per cent. The margin is narrowed now. I certainly take on board the criticisms that I have heard, and I think that in the years ahead the work that was done between 2018 and 2022 will be appreciated, but I certainly will never take for granted those who were disappointed.

It is important, though, especially given that it has been such an extraordinary time, to place on the record some of those things that were achieved in my community between 2018 and 2022. I would like to take this opportunity also to thank our former Premier, Steven Marshall, for his extraordinary endeavours not only through the pandemic, which has had much commentary during this Address in Reply debate, and the extraordinary work that he did. I know he was working seven days a week for every waking hour, and he was not sleeping too many. He put his heart and soul into protecting lives and protecting jobs in South Australia, and he succeeded better than any other Premier in the nation.

However, through that term of government he was also assiduous in ensuring that each and every one of our election commitments was able to be met. There were a couple of examples where that was not the case, and a couple of people have mentioned those during the course of the debate, but we had more than 400 commitments to the people of South Australia and we delivered more than 400 commitments to the people of South Australia over the last term.

In Morialta, that was very important. When people in Morialta put their faith in me and the Liberal government in 2018, I sought to work hard and represent them, and I am very pleased to be able to advise that our team delivered for them. We delivered lower costs, we delivered more jobs, we delivered better services and we delivered important infrastructure projects for the people of Morialta.

They were across a range of areas: in terms of road safety; in terms of schooling and educational opportunities; in terms of health and hospital services; and, importantly, in terms of local sport, environmental, recreational and community facilities. In the area of road safety, a very important project was the Paradise Interchange, an $18 million project that improved the parking arrangements at the Paradise Interchange out of sight.

There are members of this parliament who have heard me say for years and years that in previous generations, in previous situations I have been parking at Paradise Interchange; if you got there after 8am you had to park across the road in the field next to the Paradise Influencers Church. If it was raining, you would get muddy feet, you would be in danger as you were crossing six lanes of Darley Road, and potentially be late for your bus.

There are challenges at the interchange, to be sure, but they have been massively alleviated by the $18 million build that has put an extra nearly 400 parks in the immediate vicinity of the platforms. Some of those were still available whenever I arrived there sometimes as late as 8.30, and even as late as 9 o'clock on occasion. That is such a dramatic improvement to the life of the everyday traveller and commuter in the Morialta electorate. People living in Athelstone and Newton who use the interchange; people living in Paradise and Dernancourt, in the member for Hartley's electorate; people living in Highbury, in my electorate; and people living in Hope Valley, in the member for Newland's electorate, all come together at the Paradise Interchange, and I know that they very much appreciate that improvement.

We also had some significant safety upgrades at intersections. There are traffic lights now, a pedestrian-activated crossing outside Thorndon Park Primary School, something for which the school community fought for years. There are traffic lights outside the Dernancourt shopping centre, something incredibly important for anybody who has ever tried to park in the shopping centre and then turn right onto Lower North East Road. I took the now Treasurer, then transport minister, with me on a visit to my electorate when he was first made the minister in 2014. I remember that we were sitting at that intersection trying to get out at the traffic lights and I said, 'No, you have to turn right here,' and we were waiting for five minutes for the opportunity to do so.

The former government put in place an improved entry to the centre which was a modest improvement. The Marshall Liberal government delivered a much increased right-turn lane and those traffic lights, and the positive feedback I have had from Highbury and Vista residents in my electorate and from Dernancourt residents and Hope Valley residents and other members of the community has been overwhelming positive. I am very grateful to people like Joy Ritchie, former councillor and to the member for Morphett's father, Professor John Patterson, a community member who was also involved in that campaign along with me and other members of the community. It is thanks to all of them that it has been done now.

Traffic lights at Graves Street and Newton Road were being sought there since before I was a member of parliament. It was something that the former member for Morialta Lindsay Simmons campaigned for in the 2006-2010 period but the former government never delivered. They always said it was too hard and too expensive, but it was delivered. Along with my colleague Vincent Tarzia, I thank Stephan Knoll and Corey Wingard, the former transport ministers who delivered that upgrade. Most recently was the upgraded intersection at Silkes Road and Gorge Road, which has made a dramatic improvement to safety.

Gorge Road has been resealed. There is a new pedestrian refuge on Lower North East Road at Highbury for people who are walking to the Highbury Primary School with their kids. That has sorely been sought and gratefully received. A major project, criticised viciously by the Labor Party on many occasions but much appreciated by anybody who has seen the dramatic improvements in commuter time, was the upgrade at the Magill Road and Portrush Road intersection. That is so much smoother now. The work is nearly complete on the beautification, but the improved lane infrastructure has made a massive difference to people living in my electorate and electorates across the eastern and north-eastern suburbs. The extraordinary delays in the previous operation of that intersection caused big flow-on effects right across those routes.

As the Minister for Education, I had the honour of presiding over one of the most significant sets of reforms. Indeed, it is hard to argue that there has been a more significant set of reforms, ever since Mr Hartley was the director of schooling in the late 19th century in South Australia, with a $1.5 billion set of upgrades to our school infrastructure and a massive expansion of our public education system.

This included a series of five new public schools—indeed the completion of Adelaide Botanic High School, which was certainly a result of Rachel Sanderson's hard work, commissioned under the former government and well under way when we got in—at Angle Vale, Aldinga, Whyalla and Goolwa, which are all already open, and now the Morialta Secondary College is due to open for year 7s next year.

The transition of year 7 into high school; radical upgrades to more than 100 of our public schools across South Australia; the introduction of infrastructure grants for non-government schools, which started in 2018 and which the new government has committed to keeping, going forward: all of these were massive improvements in the infrastructure of our education system.

At the same time, we also delivered on signing the National School Reform Agreement in 2018, which was first signed at the East Adelaide primary school in the member for Dunstan's electorate when Dan Tehan, the federal education minister as he was then, came to South Australia to sign that agreement, which unlocked billions of dollars in increased recurrent funding from the federal government to South Australian schools. But critically—and the Labor Party never talked about this when they were in government before—it required a dramatic uplift in the state government's expenditure in school education in public schools in South Australia.

To get the federal government to sign that document, we had to commit—and I had to convince Rob Lucas and the members of cabinet that we needed to commit—an extra $700 million of state taxpayer funds to our public education system over the decade to follow, over and above the settings left by our predecessors. In addition to that, we also had the increased expenditure of about $40 million a year of year 7s being in high school and funded at the high school rate. The dramatic increase in investment into education was matched by a reforming agenda focused on things that were going to really shift the dial and make a difference in outcomes for children and young people, and I am very proud of that.

In the Morialta electorate, which my comments will be mostly focused on today, that also had some pretty profound impacts. I already mentioned the new Morialta Secondary College, and I am grateful to the new Minister for Education, who kindly invited me to join him in turning the first sod on that development. I am very grateful that the new government is continuing with that work; it would have been a very foolish decision not to. I suspect that it was probably legally too far along the way, and of course that work is there because there is an urgent need for more capacity in our public schooling system in high schools in the eastern and north-eastern suburbs.

But I do not want to be churlish about this. The new minister has absolutely done the right thing on this in continuing the work and I look forward to seeing him. I hope he comes back to Rostrevor next year to welcome the year 7s as they start and then at the end of next year when all of the building works are complete. Indeed, that will be a beautiful new school. I look forward to being the local member, along with the member for Hartley who is across the road, in thanking the new minister for continuing that work. It is an $84 million project, which will serve 1,200 students when full in about six years' time, and it will give them many opportunities.

It will ensure that the dramatic capacity challenges at Norwood International High School, as it is now, and Modbury High School, Charles Campbell College and Marryatville High School—all of those schools are interconnected. Of course, when one school starts having to enforce a capacity management plan, the school next to it starts having to enforce its zone or potentially have a capacity management plan, and it has these flow-on effects. It reduces choice and creates anxiety for families. So the introduction of this new school will provide a relaxation of that urgent capacity challenge in the eastern and north-eastern suburbs. It will be of massive benefit for those communities.

Of course, Norwood International High School has also benefited from what was a $52 million commitment by the Marshall Liberal government. Under Labor, there was $30 million put on the table for an upgrade of what was then Norwood Morialta High School. What the Labor Party did not say before the 2018 election was that $15 million of that was predicated on the sale of the land at Rostrevor and flogging it off for housing. We reversed that decision and, as I said, built the new school.

We also found that to move that middle campus on to the Norwood site on The Parade at Magill, we had to put in not $15 million of new money but indeed $50 million of new money. But my goodness, what an extraordinary improvement it is there. That school, which had 600 students, now has 1,900 students—a massive increase—effectively a 1,300 new student capacity at that school for that $50 million investment.

The facilities there are tremendous, world class, and I think they will be of benefit to those students for many years to come. These projects will also ensure that where Norwood Morialta High School had been rigorously enforcing its zone for some time, in the years ahead I look forward to students who are interested in those specialty programs that Norwood International has to offer being able to access them.

Charles Campbell College, Modbury High School, these high schools benefited from significant upgrades in recent years, and the Liberal Party had committed an extra $2 million to improve the toilets at Modbury High School if we were re-elected. I am hopeful that in Thursday's budget we will see the Labor Party follow through on that. I think in the last week we have seen how sorely that extra investment was needed.

The new middle school at Modbury High School is an absolute generational leap forward, and not just one generation, as anyone who remembers those old transportables looking out over the courtyard at Modbury High School would know: indeed, multiple generations of families have potentially been through those old transportables from the 1950s. The school celebrated when they were knocked down and celebrated even more when that world-class new year 7 centre was completed. Stradbroke School and Magill Primary School currently have upgrades underway, and I look forward to their completion along with those in other schools in the broader area.

Modbury Hospital was a very important body of work under the former Liberal government. It has benefited from a $98 million investment. There is more work to be done, and I look forward to seeing that work being completed. It was tremendously important for our government, and the health minister during the Marshall Liberal government, Stephen Wade, would often talk about the need to have more opportunities for people to get their healthcare services closer to home—more convenient for them where they live and more convenient for their families. Certainly, I know that I have always appreciated the outstanding staff at Modbury Hospital, who have always looked after my family when we have been in need.

In terms of community and environmental infrastructure, there have been significant benefits to my community through the work of the Marshall Liberal government. There have been the dramatic upgrades to the playing fields, the synthetic pitch and, indeed, lights at Campbelltown City Soccer Club, the home of the Red Devils. There have been other upgrades, particularly to change rooms so that more women players could be involved, whether it is in the women's team at the Athelstone Raggies, using their Foxfield Oval upgraded facilities; the Hope Valley Sporting Club, where $265,000 was invested under the Marshall Liberal government to upgrade those change rooms; to a wide range of other sporting and community infrastructure projects in the Morialta electorate.

Environmental projects: the Friends of Black Hill & Morialta, Dry Creek, the Lobethal Bushland Park, which, of course, was an important grant after the bushfires. Before I conclude these comments, I will come to some words about those parts of Morialta that are no longer in my electorate.

The $1 million commitment to further works at Hope Valley was an important measure of the Marshall Liberal government, had it been elected, and I encourage the new Labor government to look at those reservoir openings. It was a wonderful day when Hope Valley Reservoir was opened to the public. There are facilities there that are used, and people can access that reservoir in a way that they could not before. But we would like, ideally, to have people be able to walk around the reservoir without having to go back out on the road, and I hope the new government will deliver on that. Certainly, it would have been a priority for us had we been re-elected.

I think it is as true now as it ever has been that the state of South Australia is the best place to live in the world. It is the best place to work, to play, to raise a family. As the new government comes to office, with the endorsement of the South Australian people, we genuinely wish them well. This is our state and this is our community. We want the new government to succeed in making our state stronger.

We took to the election a set of value propositions that we believed were in the state's best interests, and some of them were disagreed with by the now government. They characterised them in a different way, and I do not think always in a fair way, but nevertheless they convinced enough people to vote for them to have the reins of power. We will hold them to account in delivering on those things the new government promised the people of South Australia.

I do not think there is any question when it comes to health services that the new government have set the bar high on what they have promised they will deliver: fixing ramping, delivering on health outcomes for South Australia's people. In early childhood, the new government promised to deliver universal preschool for all South Australian three year olds in addition to all South Australian four year olds.

They made some bold claims about what they would deliver in the early childhood space and, as shadow education minister, I will be holding them to account thereto. We want them to succeed in making our state strong and keeping our state safe and, indeed, in ensuring that all South Australians have access for generations to come, our children particularly, to this continuing to be the best place to live, work and play in the world, and the best place to raise a family.

Sometimes in this state we are confronted, as is the rest of the world, by economic challenges and headwinds. Sometimes we face a pandemic, and some parts of our community face natural disaster and challenges. Sir, you and I spent a great deal of time together in the summer of 2019-20, and in the subsequent months after, in our communities—areas that are largely now in Kavel, some of which are in Schubert and Heysen, but at the time were half in Morialta and half in Kavel until the redistribution removed from Morialta all of our Hills areas.

This is a community that has suffered extraordinary property damage, livestock damage, lifestyle damage and loss of life and injury. That the loss of life was not greater should not diminish in anyone's mind the extraordinary trauma of the Cudlee Creek fires upon that community. Also, in my mind I will never forget the extraordinary resilience and strength in the face of desperately difficult times demonstrated by those communities in the wake of those bushfires.

This is a community that does not ask much of government; it is a community that supports its neighbour. When entire swathes of the community were burnt, damaged, trauma was suffered, people were in hospital, people were dying, the community still found strength to rally around. It is a community that the Marshall Liberal government was there to support.

I stood with Steven Marshall, former Governor, Hieu Van Le, and former Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, as they were warmly received in the Lobethal Recovery Centre and the Lobethal sporting ground for Christmas Eve. An enormous number of engagements occurred between us as local members, the federal member, Rebekha Sharkie, and other community leaders. The Leader of the Opposition, as he was then—now the Premier—came out on one or two occasions as well. They were received warmly by the community, but the community needed our help.

I am pleased there were new measures put in place by our government to support those communities, which had never been put in place after previous disasters. They were measures that, as local members, you and I sought from our government. We worked very well with Alex Zimmerman, who was the recovery coordinator, to ensure that those measures were delivered. I am very sad that these areas are no longer in the Morialta electorate, but they will always be in my life and the life of my family. Certainly, when I have days with the children on the weekends, our family still enjoys sharing time in those communities when we can and will for years to come.

To the people of Morialta whom I served for that term and previous terms, and to those who have now given me the greatest honour of my life—indeed, my professional life—to continue to serve as their local member in the years to come, I dedicate my support and I will faithfully serve you in the years to come.

The SPEAKER: Thank you, member for Morialta. I acknowledge, too, your extraordinary support to me following the Cudlee Creek bushfire, for which I was very grateful.

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (11:28): Firstly, I would like to welcome the new members of parliament. There are many from the class of 2022 who I think are going to be here for a very long time. In the years to come, their photos on the wall in the members' area may actually look like Tom Koutsantonis's photo, which is almost unrecognisable today. I thoroughly enjoy the energy and the sheer joy the new members bring to this parliament. When you have been beaten around a little bit, and get a little bit cynical, new members really do bring vigour, life and renewal to these chambers. It is a real joy to be part of that and see their progression over the next four years.

The tradition of maiden speeches is really important. It gives everyone a chance to get to know the new members a little bit better. I have listened to every maiden speech. It is good to get to know people's backgrounds and the people who have helped, and for those members to thank those who have helped get them to this place. No matter what someone's political persuasion, nearly everyone I have met who comes into this place does so with the intent of trying to make the lives of South Australians better and the future brighter for those who come after us.

Mr Speaker, I would also like to congratulate you on your reappointment, and I want to reaffirm the importance of the independence of the Speaker—an important change that was made last year—and upholding the Westminster tradition. I would like to reflect very briefly and give thought to the members who are no longer here and the contribution they have made over their years of service, particularly, as an Independent, the members for Florey and Waite, who contested the last election but were unsuccessful.

The member for Florey obviously had a distinguished career in this house. From my point of view, having recently worked with the member for Florey, she had a real commitment to her community. Many times, we were right next to each other sharing an office and I would hear her talking to constituents on issues that mattered to them. She fought for Modbury Hospital and made vigorous efforts to bring in real-time pricing, trying to get the government to commit to that not in a superficial way but in a way that would actually reduce the price of petrol for consumers and put downward pressure on costs of living. I was very impressed with her efforts around that. Of course, her Muriel Matters women's suffrage efforts kept a torch burning on that important part of our history.

Sam, the member for Waite, had a lot of involvement around health-related issues but, in particular, kids with epilepsy. He tried to get the government to look at medical cannabis, or CBD, oil to help families whose kids suffer juvenile epilepsy. He was also a great supporter of mine, as I was of him, around the lymphoedema garment subsidy that ended up with the state government committing $4 million to the subsidy of those garments for many people in South Australia who suffer from lymphoedema. There was also, of course, his vigorous defence of the gatehouse in his electorate of Waite. I wanted to mention those things because the wheel keeps turning and if we do not reflect back, even just briefly, they do not go unrecognised, but it is good to reflect on them in an Address in Reply speech.

I want to thank the candidates who contested the seat of Mount Gambier. I honestly believe that our community had a wonderful choice going into this election. Ben Hood worked tirelessly for the Liberal Party. He would knock on doors and spent a solid nine months campaigning very, very strongly. I know this because I would get phone calls day and night from people saying that Ben had knocked on the door and where was I?

It is a bit harder when you are still doing your day job and working with lots of constituents coming in the door, but it is a real credit to Ben. He put in a superb effort and campaigned really hard. He has an IT background. His social media was excellent. I know this because he was on my campaign team for the last election in 2018. He has a very bright future. If he chooses to continue following a political path, I am sure he will end up, in some form, contributing to this great state.

Katherine Davies, the Labor candidate, was an unbelievably tireless worker. She has real compassion and care for our community and was backed up superbly with very good policies so she could go out and communicate with our electorate on what state Labor was offering to the people in the seat of Mount Gambier. She really showed great commitment to the cause, and it is the first time in my living memory when the number of people taking Labor how-to-vote cards was on par with the rest of the candidates, myself included, so it is a real credit to Katherine and the effort she put in.

Sometimes these public debates and community forums are quite daunting, particularly when you still have your day job and you have to get your head around policies and tricky questions coming from the crowd. I thought both Ben and Katherine did a wonderful job of communicating with our community and, as I said, I think we were blessed with great candidates. No matter which way people wanted to vote, they had a very good candidate to represent their views at the 2022 state election.

Peter Heaven was the other candidate. He came on the scene very late, and I did not get to know Peter very well, but I thank him for putting his hand up too. Of course, it was not just doorknocking, it was giving up your weekends and your mobile number going out to a whole range of people who would ring on it with myriads of issues. I used to see Katherine and Ben doing street-corner conversations out the front of shopping centres. They both worked very hard. I also want to thank their supporters, those people who give up hundreds of hours to support the candidate or the party they believe in.

Obviously, families get dragged in, whether willingly or reluctantly, and it was a real pleasure to get to know the candidates' families as well. Many mornings, Katherine's partner, James, and I would set up the pre-poll booth with Katherine. Jenny, who is James's mother, was there most of the day and also helped out on a forum around housing that we convened—because our issues are not political issues: they are community issues. I wanted to make sure that all the candidates were involved in addressing the issues our community faces.

Rick, Katherine's dad, was there, as was Julian Scriven—this young bloke, I tell you, is the hardest worker I have ever met. He had the Labor shirt on and he was there from the opening of pre-poll to the closing of pre-poll most of the days. He is a really engaging individual and I wish him all the best for his future too.

Mark Pretlove is one of our favourites and my team supplied cans of Solo to Mark. Mark has been there through thick and thin, through the dark days and the good days, but he is always handing out how-to-votes. For the Liberals, and I know most of them personally, Barney McCusker, Dianna Wiseman, Mark and Julie Peucker, Neil and Kris Howard and many more are just stalwarts of the Liberal Party.

To my own helpers I wrote thankyou letters—and there were 95 thankyou letters, so if I start mentioning individuals we will probably be here for the rest of the day. I wrote to each and every one of them to sincerely thank them. We had an amazing pre-poll and we would have three or four people for every two-hour slot. Most of the time, we were not turning people away but trying to reconfigure when they might want to come.

It was a really incredible effort, and when you have people there like Margie Winterfield or my mum, who knows every second person in town, you have to have two or three extras because they start talking and everyone slips past them, so you need to have someone mopping up behind to make sure that they get a how-to-vote card.

As a family, we have tried really hard to keep separation between politics and our family. It is a personal decision that we have made, but of course that gets thrown out the window when elections come around and the dining room table becomes campaign headquarters. I really do not want any of my kids to come into politics. They will obviously do what they want to do, and if I say one thing they will do the complete opposite anyway, but to have four expert advisers around the dining room table can be challenging.

My eldest daughter, Jordan, and her mother, Michaela, my wife, normally argue with each other about the correct course of action. Bridie, our youngest, wants to go for the kill every second she can, and then Jackson, my son, and I just look at each other and say, 'What the hell do we do here?' It was pretty nice when all the views lined up, but that was not always the case. Jackson and I are a little bit more laid back and just let it flow, whereas the females in our house certainly are more combative. Watch out if any of the Bells come in here, particularly Bridie because, I will tell you what, they will be interesting times.

In terms of our campaign, the really disappointing thing for me was about 12 months ago, when the state budget was handed down. The entire Limestone Coast got $2.3 million, and that is from Keith and Bordertown right down to Port MacDonnell. I decided that, instead of sitting there and whinging about it, we would do something about it, and we put together a document called the Future Mount Gambier and District Plan. It is about a $100 million plan or road map going forward and it really spelt out what type of investment our community was looking for.

It was developed in consultation with stakeholders. Obviously, our two councils are our major stakeholders, and they had a fair bit of input and I thank them for that. It really tried to address the issues that we were looking at—that is, health, including ambulance; housing; and investment in trades, particularly our TAFE, which has seen a lack of real investment. We launched this document in August last year. I invited the Premier, the Leader of the Opposition and SA-Best to come to the launch.

It probably surprised a fair few that the Leader of the Opposition made the effort to come down. He heard firsthand what the community wanted and that it was a united plan and not just a Troy Bell wish list. I made sure that I shared it with all the candidates so that, if I was unsuccessful and they were successful, they had not only a road map to go forward but also a road map to campaign on because this is bigger than just one person holding a seat: this is for the community's future. We had over 100 people. We were capped at 100, so I was quite nervous that over 100 people turned out on a pretty wintry night in August last year to launch the plan and also look at ways going forward.

What I was really pleased about were the election commitments from the Labor team, undoubtedly fuelled by Katherine and her hard work with the then opposition. They really sought to address many of the priorities that we had put down. I put in $20 million over the next four years for forestry, with well spelled-out initiatives around fire protection for our community, water initiatives and growing manufacturing. I put in $20 million and state Labor committed $25 million to our Forestry Future Initiatives. There is the Housing For All Initiative, with 400 homes being built in South Australia, 150 in regional South Australia, for our most disadvantaged social housing program. We expect a fair chunk of that in Mount Gambier.

The government has committed $5 million to our TAFE, $35 million for a technical college to be built in Mount Gambier and $35 million for health and our hospital, and that includes mental health. All of this is addressed in the Mount Gambier and district future plan. I do thank them for that commitment and look forward to the state budget this week.

There was one issue that did surprise me that I did not pick out, and that was the Adelaide 500. I did not think that issue would affect the community of Mount Gambier the way that it did, but I am still staggered at the number of people—and I would have to say the majority were Liberals—who would come up to me and speak passionately about the reinstatement of the Adelaide 500 and what it actually meant to them as people living in Mount Gambier.

Many tradies would come up and say that was the one weekend they would get away with work colleagues—there would be corporate support for them to get up to Adelaide, whether a big building company or a supplying company—and just how passionate they were about making sure the Adelaide 500 was reinstated. I will not go into many of the comments, but it is fair to say that was an issue that surprised me. The rest pretty much fell out of the future Mount Gambier and district document.

We are very keen to work with the current government over the next four years to make sure that this plan is implemented in full, and so far there is no reason to give any doubt that it will not be. I think the future for Mount Gambier and the district is very bright. With those words, I will conclude.

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD (Reynell—Minister for Child Protection, Minister for Women and the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (11:46): Mr Speaker, I offer you my warm congratulations on your re-election and look forward to your wise guidance as Speaker of this house. In providing my Address in Reply, I acknowledge Her Excellency the Governor of South Australia and thank her for outlining our government's vision and for the thought and care with which she did so. I also thank her for her deep care for the people of South Australia, her authentic and wise leadership, and her steadfast acknowledgement of and willingness to learn from the Aboriginal people who have lived on this land for more than 60,000 years.

I also acknowledge that we gather in this parliament on land that is Kaurna land and always will be. I pay my respects to Kaurna elders past and present, to Kaurna future leaders and to elders of other Aboriginal nations. I thank those leaders for their generous sharing of wisdom and culture with us in this place and our communities. I look forward to continuing to learn from them and I am so proud that the Malinauskas Labor government will fulfil its commitment to work with Aboriginal people toward Voice, Treaty, Truth. This is a process that our Attorney-General, the Hon. Kyam Maher, South Australia's first ever Aboriginal Attorney-General, will lead our government's work on—a step that, as a state, we can be proud of.

I place on record my love and immense gratitude for the people of Reynell. I thank them for returning me to represent them in this place. I remain absolutely steadfast in my commitment to listening to them, acting with and for them, and for empowering their voices on what really makes a difference in their lives. I will return to speak at length about the beautiful community family that they are and how integral they are to all that I do and stand for.

Labor's campaign set out a positive and progressive vision—a vision not just for the next four years or even the next decade but for the next generation. We can all be proud of this vision as our Malinauskas government drives it. At the heart of our vision are the hopes and aspirations of communities across South Australia and an abiding commitment to the people of South Australia. Deeply embedded in every aspect of that rigorously thought through vision for our state's future is a desire to ensure that every South Australian experiences equality of opportunity.

We know that without your health nothing else matters. We are committed to fixing the ramping crisis and the health system. We are focused on creating the jobs of the future and an education system that will enable children and young people to thrive. We will work to ensure that our precious environment is protected now and into the future. These and our other aspirations will be realised by our government, led by our Premier, Peter, a leader of substance, vision, determination and energy, a leader, average footy player or not, whose team I am so proud to be part of.

Our Premier leads with empathy, conviction and a visceral desire to ensure that no-one is left behind. He listens to people, he walks with them and above all he puts their future and the future of our state at the centre of every decision he makes. He is a generous leader who engenders the leadership of others. He listens to people to understand, honours their voice, experience and ideas, and works tirelessly to empower them to live their best possible lives.

Our Deputy Premier, my friend Susan, is so very clever, so very kind and so very determined. She knows why she is here, she knows what we must do together and she provides support to every member of our team to make sure that they can. Thank you, Deputy Premier, for your friendship and wisdom, and the incredible hard and insightful work that you undertook to help develop our vision.

A core part of our vision is our plan to achieve gender equality. Not long after the polls closed on 19 March, a key element of that plan came to fruition as we saw outstanding woman after outstanding woman declared elected. Fourteen women members on this side of the house were sworn in on 3 May, a day that made history—or herstory—and a day that fulfilled our commitment to bring gender equality in decision-making to life, a step forward that will make our parliament and our state a better place.

These are extraordinary women, whom I love calling friends and am committed to being there for. Congratulations, Lucy, Rhiannon, Erin, Nadia, Olivia, Sarah and Catherine. Thank you to each of you for your courage, your resilience and your work ethic, for growing our circle of women in this place, for always advocating for your communities and for people's lives to be better, and for always choosing to support other women. Your presence, shared wisdom, collective strength and camaraderie are transformative. It feels different in here already. Your presence here makes our state stronger and will inspire South Australian girls to absolutely know that their place is in this house, or wherever else they wish it to be.

I am so honoured to have been sworn in as the Minister for Child Protection; the Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing; and the Minister for Women and the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence. Together with these women, and indeed every member of our government, I am profoundly committed to creating a state in which your gender has no bearing on the opportunities available to you, a state which is renowned for equal opportunity for girls and women, that empowers girls and women to live their best possible lives, and that realises the benefits for all that an equal future creates.

I am driven to address inequality and ensure that women and girls can equally and actively participate in our economy and in every aspect of community life. Women are increasingly taking their rightful places in spaces traditionally dominated by men, including here in this house, as well as workers and employers across our state. We are progressing change. Our rights were hard-won, but we are not done.

Further and disproportionate pressure was put on women's employment and economic participation throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Our government's commitment to addressing economic equality includes investment in industries which predominantly employ women, including the arts, major events and tourism. We will address women's economic equality through criminalising wage theft and strengthening our labour hire laws, and we will explore portable long service leave for the community sector and other industries.

I look forward to continuing to speak with representatives in many industries and across our community to progress economic equality, including with the finance and real estate industries, to explore ways to address the ongoing trend of women bearing the brunt of mortgages, loans and rent that go unpaid as a result of domestic violence.

We often hear that stopping violence before it starts is up to all of us. It is; it has to be. I will continue to relentlessly speak up and act to prevent and end domestic violence. I must, but we all must. I have determined that there are more voices, more actions from more people, especially from those who have been too quiet for too long. Enough is indeed enough. Change must be made because, like every woman, I am utterly sick of not always feeling safe when we walk to our cars through a park, home from the train station, and I am utterly sick of too many women not being safe at home.

I will be calling on everyone in this place not just to speak of their support for change but to be active in achieving it. It has been appalling to hear some of the commentary and actions toward women over the past year and half, including from those who occupied some of the highest offices in this land. This must change. Our government will tackle the gender inequality that lies as the root cause of violence and disrespect toward women, and we are committed to fast and holistic legislative reform to prevent and end domestic violence and to hold perpetrators to account.

We intend to move legislation to criminalise coercive control, to include the experience of domestic violence as a ground of discrimination in the Equal Opportunity Act and to include both mental health first aid training and an understanding of domestic violence in work health and safety education. We also intend to move legislation to investigate progressing paid domestic violence leave of workers engaged pursuant to the Fair Work Act of South Australia, to require those who were granted bail who have been charged with serious domestic violence offences to be electronically monitored as a condition of bail, and review legislation pertaining to consent to sexual activity.

Many of these bills were moved from opposition, but, sadly, in relation to a number of them, the former government simply refused to act. While it is crucial to utilise every available legal measure, prevention must be at the heart of our response to domestic violence. Our government will provide $1 million in funding to establish southern and northern domestic violence prevention and recovery hubs to undertake work to support and empower women and raise community awareness around domestic and family violence.

We have committed to providing $4 million to support women to start and grow their businesses. We will reinvigorate work abandoned over the last four years to support girls and women in sport. Sport is so powerful. It keeps people active and improves physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. It gives many a wonderful sense of belonging, an opportunity to connect and form friendships, and enables communities to explore issues that our communities and world confront. It must be an exemplar of inclusion.

Our government is committed to growing participation, including of women and girls, people from diverse multicultural communities and of differing abilities, ensuring clubs and groups have access to the facilities and equipment they need to ensure everybody can participate. I will certainly keep this house abreast of developments in this area.

We are also committed to establishing policies and systems that focus on achieving equality in sport and enable codes, clubs and groups to positively welcome all and support volunteers and on ensuring South Australia embraces the opportunities that come through sport and recreation to bring people to our state and to bring people in our state together. I am energised to work alongside codes, clubs, players, volunteers and all who make up our sport, recreation and racing communities to ensure South Australians can participate in the sport, recreation and racing they love, compete and connect and enjoy community life through recreation and sport.

When we see women and girls being celebrated for being strong, skilful and physical, perceptions about the role of women in our community change. I am so proud to be part of a government that is serious about backing women in sport and will work to ensure girls and women can equally participate in the sport they love. This represents vast improvement from the previous government's cruel cut to the dedicated $24 million Female Facilities Program and the Women in Sport Taskforce as well as their initial refusal to participate in the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup bid until our community campaigned to reverse that shameful decision.

Adelaide's hosting of 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup matches will provide our government and Football SA a significant opportunity to provide a lasting legacy, to grow the game and to encourage young women and young men to pursue playing football, including at the highest level. I look forward to our re-establishment of the Women in Sport Taskforce that will advise government on issues preventing women and girls from fully participating in their sport in the way they choose. Sport is where people engage and it is, even more so than ever over the past two years, a lifeline for many.

The people of Reynell connect with one another through wonderful local sporting clubs, as do hundreds of thousands of people in communities right across our state. They are clubs that give them that sense of belonging, that enable them to do and be their best on and off their particular playing field, that include people in a community family that supports them when times are tough and that are filled with volunteers who work tirelessly to make matches, games and events seamlessly run week after week, year after year. I thank every one of them and look forward to working with and for them in Reynell and beyond.

Every South Australian child should be enabled to mentally, physically and emotionally thrive. I have a visceral determination to improve the systems, processes and procedures in the child protection space so that they can and to improve how we work with families to strengthen and support them before breakdown. Our vision is for all South Australian children and young people to grow up safe, loved and cared for.

To achieve that vision means tackling some of the most complex and difficult social issues and recognising the impact of intergenerational disadvantage and poverty. It means putting the welfare of children and young people at the centre of decision-making and actions. It means actively listening and genuinely hearing the voices of children, young people, their families, their carers and their communities as well as staff and providers. It means making active efforts to reduce the over-representation of Aboriginal children and young people in care, a situation that is paramount for me as minister to address.

Our government is resolutely committed to the Closing the Gap targets and in particular to working towards reaching target 12 by having a dedicated plan with Aboriginal people, a plan that includes empowering the Aboriginal children's commissioner to create an Aboriginal-led group to ensure Aboriginal voices are heard within the system, a plan that includes active efforts to ensure Aboriginal governance is embedded in legislation and to ensure Aboriginal families and communities lead decision-making processes rather than only being enabled to participate in them, a plan that is about not just listening but also acting on what we hear to build a better, more cohesive, transparent system for all.

To build a child protection system for the future requires ensuring the system is joined up, responsive, transparent and accountable and that it nurtures learning and working together and engenders participation, empowerment and collective effort. Alongside those efforts, I am also determined to do what I can to change the discourse and community perception about child protection in a way that enables open dialogue and genuine, shared, honest exploration of the complex problems that we contemplate.

With a shocking one in three South Australian children coming to the attention of the Department for Child Protection at some point, a better way, with prevention and early intervention at the core of that way, must be found. We must strike the right balance between doing everything we possibly can to keep children safe always, which of course we must, and directing resources into strengthening vulnerable families.

Being able to achieve the vision in each of my portfolios and with my community would not be possible without a number of people who have supported and continue to support me, including at the recent election. I wholeheartedly thank volunteers, all of whom I am proud to call friends: the Uppill family, the Schirmer family, Katrina Bean, the Rootsey family, Bill Jamieson, Callum Barrott-Walsh, Cody Hastings and Jas, Renee Freeman, Di Newton, the Schultz family, Graeme Morgan, Harry Early, Hartley Abbott, John and Marisa Eitel, Johno Gauci, Julie Copley, Llew Jones, Shayne Glasgow, Ed Gower, Tom Gower, Millsy and Simone, Luke Wagner, Mark Dibdin, the Howden family, Rex Moulds, the Wiese family, the Stead family, the Turner family and Ivy Aspinall, William Short, Andrew and Narelle Brown and family, Brendan Pyne, Robert Habel and Dallas, Don Hopgood, Gail Wakelin, Iris Leeson, Graham Lane, Sarah Lane, the Top Women Hiking Group (and during February the Top Women Letterboxing Group), Emma Little, Phoebe Hunter, Morgan Davis, Peter Jolly, Peter Hilhorst and many others.

I thank my absolutely incredible staff, all of whom are also friends. This group of young women are changing the world. They are strong, clever, organised, compassionate and brave. They inspire me every single day with their values, deep care for people and the world in which we live, their relentless passion for equality and fairness, and I could not do what I do without them.

Thank you so much to Hilsy (Hilary Wigg), Vixen (Victoria Clark) and more recently Lucy Ormsby, Kendra Clancy, Gaby Hummel and all in the ministerial office. My very special friends who are always with me traversing all our ups and downs together, thank you and so much love to you, Mary Hajistassi, John Iannou, Belinda Uppill, Katrina Bean, Katrina Schirmer, Bec, Kylie Heneker and Ilka Walkley from afar.

As always in this place, I act today with the people of Reynell in my heart and in my thoughts. I now bring them here with me through words. I wholeheartedly thank the extraordinary people of Reynell who on a daily basis inspire, motivate and support me to continue to work with and for them, to represent them to make sure their voices are heard. I am so pleased that we will be able to progress a number of the matters for which they have campaigned so long and hard.

Our community is one that cares about our beautiful coastline, one that knows the true meaning of equality, of fairness and inclusion, of what it takes to support people to access secure and decent jobs that enable them to meet the cost of living and live a decent life and why employment is so important. It is a community that loyally supports local business and wants to see them grow and that values quality and accessible health services, education, public transport and community services being there when they are needed.

Many in our community have a strong vision of what they want for their lives, the lives of their children and all children and families in the south and beyond, how they see our state thriving and surviving into the future and their vision, hopes and aspirations. I am humbled by our community's focus on doing the best for their families, for our community and our state. Ours is a community characterised by strength, kindness, resilience and compassion, an ocean loving, tight-knit community always willing to open its arms to those in need and to speak up and fight for what is fair.

Above all, we are a community that cares about each other. This characteristic of our community family is one that my own family felt so strongly eight months ago and in the months leading up to the election. Our community family was absolutely there for me and mine. Everyone who knows me knows how much I, our boys and our wider family absolutely love my husband, Charles—and why wouldn't everyone love him—even the member for Morialta's mum loves him. Before I tell this story, I reassure the house that it ends well and that Charles is still with us.

At the end of August, Charles ran in the Adelaide Marathon Festival. A couple of hours after he left, early on a Sunday morning to do so, I had calls repeatedly and rapidly from a private number. When I listened to the messages it was an emergency doctor from the RAH asking me to call as quickly as possible. I did and discovered that my beautiful Charles had experienced sudden and extremely serious cardiac arrest and that his heart and his breathing had simply stopped. It was a devastating moment when my family and I faced the possibility of losing him. Thank God we did not.

In his call, the doctor asked who was home with me. One of our beautiful sons was. The doctor asked us to come as quickly as we could, and I remember him asking who was the better driver. Amid my horror, I remember saying that both of us were actually pretty bad drivers but that we would get there somehow.

To cut a very long story short, Charles stayed with us because of the immediate action of an extraordinary young intern doctor, Jennifer Chataway, a brilliant nurse, Alison Cook, a team of off-duty medical professionals, and even a few veterinary nurses who immediately gathered around him as he lay on the road on the Morphett Street Bridge. They commenced CPR in shifts until an incredible team of ambos arrived and restarted his heart on the second defibrillation.

We met Jennifer and Alison a week later in the hospital and it was one of the most special moments of our lives. We will forever be grateful to them and all who immediately and without hesitation assisted. They literally brought Charles back to life. They are beautiful, generous and skilful and it has been amazing to get to know them. Again, forever we will be grateful to them.

I will also forever be grateful to our Reynell community family. As an MP, you always want to be there for your community. During those awful weeks last August and beyond, and indeed always, our Reynell community family has also absolutely been there for us. The many messages, calls, cards and to this day checking in on how Charles is going, speaks to who the people of Reynell are, to their enormous collective heart and to the deep connection between one another that we all have. I thank them for their incredible kindness and for the incredible support they have vested in me to continue as their member for Reynell.

Finally, I thank my family: my mum; my sisters, Alison and Sally; my brother Luke and his family; my husband, Charles; our beautiful boys, Che and Liam; and their partners, Megsy and Amy. There is a certain moment of relief as a parent with teenage boys when they somehow make it through some of the trickier years without their exploits leading to too much trouble. They make me so happy, they hold me at the best and worst moments, they love me and I love them, and they make my life. I am so proud of the young men that our sons have become. They are engaged, focused and kind, they have strongly held views, they are clever and resourceful. I am so happy because it is lovely to see when your sons meet excellent women and you see their relationships grow and you see them both being loved well and also loving those women well.

Again, thank you to my beautiful husband, Charles; thank you so much for coming back. I will leave it there.

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (12:14): I will start my Address in Reply speech by acknowledging the Governor and the manner in which she laid out the agenda of the Malinauskas government. The Governor made a special effort to meet with all of us individually, which is something that I very much appreciated. She has also made an effort to get out to regional communities. She has been to Whyalla and other communities, and it was great to see the way that she hit the ground running. The speech contained a number of commitments that we made during the election and in the lead-up to the election. It is going to be a real privilege to see those commitments delivered over the next four years.

I want to acknowledge the electorate of Giles, a vast electorate with so many communities which have given me the privilege and honour to be re-elected—and it was a very handy swing. I would like to put all that down to my charm and wit, but, alas, we know that it is always far more than that. As a local member you do what you can, but I believe that we went to the people with a powerful policy framework.

Not only did we go to the people with a powerful policy framework but we also went to the people with an amazing leadership team in both our Premier and our Deputy Premier and the other people who form our cabinet. It was a very unified team, a very focused team, and we did hammer a number of incredibly important issues which resonated in the communities I represent. Of course, one of the biggest of those issues was health.

The contrast was stark, between funding nearly $700 million for a basketball stadium in the centre of Adelaide compared to eventually using that money to enhance our health system, and for those of us from regional communities we always have challenges when it comes to the delivery of health services. I am sure that there are many of us here from regional communities who have seen in some ways the decline of the services in regional communities, and there is a whole range of factors involved in that.

I could give some very personal stories when it comes to health services in regional communities. I was incredibly fortunate to have twins with my then partner, Kathryn, in Whyalla. Those twins were born prematurely, about five weeks prematurely. It required a caesarean birth. At that time, we had two resident obstetricians living in Whyalla who provided 24-hour care. They were on call 24 hours a day. So my twins, Liam and Sinead, were able to be born in Whyalla. That would not happen now. They would either have to go to Port Augusta or to Adelaide.

One of the obstetricians was somewhat famous—he had a whole documentary made about him by his daughter Heather Croall—and that obstetrician was John Croall. So not only did you have a professional like that who lived in your community and did not fly in-fly out on a Friday; he actually lived in and committed to the community. He was part of our community and made a contribution in a whole range of ways. His kids went to school in Whyalla.

We are seeing less and less of that in regional communities, in the health system and also across a whole range of professional spheres, and this is to the disadvantage of regional communities. It can mean the difference between life and death. The doctor who served Wudinna for so many years recently left, exasperated, had had enough—a very hard gig for a lone GP in a community.

But I remember Wudinna incredibly well. It was on one long weekend when we had gone fishing and camping down to the West Coast, and about 13 kilometres outside of Wudinna we were involved in a horrific car crash. There were four of us in the car, and the woman I was going out with at the time who was driving that car was incredibly seriously injured.

We had the volunteers turn up, the volunteer ambulance, the SES, the CFS, all doing their bit, but the crucial element was that there was a doctor in Wudinna. There was a doctor there to stabilise Veronica. If that doctor had not been there, the odds are she would have died. Now there is no doctor in Wudinna.

Regional communities are experiencing this loss of GPs. We saw the other day the stories that the backbone of primary care in regional communities, not just in this state but in other states, is at risk, with far more young people who are graduating with medical degrees not willing, for a whole range of reasons, to become GPs and not willing, for a whole range of reasons, to base themselves in the country. This is primarily a federal issue. The state can play a role, but it is primarily a federal issue. If it is not addressed or not fully addressed, the impact on regional communities is going to be detrimental.

We made a number of commitments in regard to health. There were the broader, system-wide commitments when it came to extra doctors, extra nurses, extra beds—and especially mental health beds—and they were all fantastic commitments. We also made a number of local commitments when it came to the electorate of Giles, and both Port Augusta and Whyalla are going to benefit from extra ambulance crews and they are going to benefit from transfer crews.

As a member, people were coming to see me about the incredibly long waits people were experiencing for an ambulance to turn up. This, once again, can put life at risk. So by 2024 there is going to be a completely brand-new 24/7 ambulance service based in Whyalla. There is going to be a transfer crew; there is going to be a transfer crew in Port Augusta. In the Upper Spencer Gulf area, there are going to be 33 additional paramedics and ambulance officers. That is a really positive thing.

There is going to be some investment in Port Augusta Hospital, but clearly that hospital needs far greater investment than has been committed to date. There is going to be an ongoing range of issues when it comes to the provision of health services in our country areas and to people's access, when needed, to the specialist services and other services in Adelaide.

The Patient Assistance Transport Scheme (PATS) has been a perennial issue. When we were last in government, we increased funding by 33 per cent. That was a good initiative, but more needs to be done. We need to seriously look at PATS and see where else we can reform the system so that people from country electorates are not disadvantaged. They are always out of pocket when they come to Adelaide. What has not been reflected is the very large increases in fuel prices if people are driving. That is one issue.

There is also the issue about accommodation. People are nearly always out of pocket. If you do not have family members living in Adelaide, and you have to find hotel-type accommodation, despite some of the places you can go that are not within the hotel system, such as Greenhill Lodge and others—if you have to have a hotel room, you are going to be out of pocket. This all represents a barrier to country people accessing health.

One of the things that always stuck in my mind was a patient from Whyalla who was knocked back four times for PATS during the term of the last government. I am not having a go at the last government, by the way, because it had something of a happy ending, if you can call it that. This patient was knocked back four times for PATS, yet he had a terminal illness and needed to go to Adelaide because he could access two specialists there who would actually communicate, given a litany of things that had happened at the hospital in Whyalla.

Like I said, he was knocked back four times. I wrote to the then Minister Wade. I am not sure if it was part of the detail I sent him or the collective activity by a whole range of country members over time, but he had the decency to reform the PATS area so that when you do have a terminal illness you do not get knocked back.

Many country members are approached by people who have turned up to Adelaide and, at the last minute, their surgery or their visit has been cancelled. For some people from country areas that is incredibly difficult. One patient who has a profound disability had to go to Adelaide. They are totally reliant upon a carer, they are wheelchair-bound and the planning for that person to get to Adelaide is very significant. They turned up in Adelaide and at the last minute the appointment was cancelled. This has happened to a number of people.

Sometimes that cannot be helped—things do happen—but at other times a warning can be given. We need to flag when people are from country communities so that if surgery or other interventions are going to be cancelled, they get prior warning. You are dealing with a big system and it is assumed that you just live a suburb or two over, so we need to address some of those issues.

One of the big commitments made prior to the election, but the location was given during the election, was our commitment to building a hydrogen power plant in Whyalla. It is a 200-megawatt power plant, with a 250-megawatt equivalent set of electrolysers and very significant storage. I was obviously very keen to secure that for Whyalla for a range of reasons.

I reflect on the fact that back in 2014-15 I did some work with the Melbourne Institute to see if we could get some funding from the private sector. I could secure local money—and I am not talking about state money but local money—to fund a study looking at Whyalla becoming a hydrogen hub. We wrote to 50 different companies. They thought it was an interesting idea, and all the rest of it, but there was no tangible commitment. We are talking about 2014-15. Here we are, some years later, and hydrogen is clearly the flavour of the year, and justifiably so, because the potential could be huge.

I was very keen to see the hydrogen power plant secured for Whyalla. The power plant element in itself is good: it is green, dispatchable power, utilising the massive renewable energy resources in this state. The thing that excited me were the 250 megawatts of electrolysers in Whyalla as a first major step into the hydrogen industry. I am sure you all know in this room that if you are using renewable energy to generate electricity, split the water, create the hydrogen, create the oxygen, you then have something you can play with in a really serious way.

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr HUGHES: Yes. Anyway, you have something that you can play with in a serious way. Not only can you then burn the hydrogen in the peaking plant to provide electricity, but the thing I am really interested in is that you have an electrolyser producing hydrogen that then has the potential, once we build upon this technology, to green the steel industry. This is an incredibly big deal. South Australia is incredibly fortunate in having global quality solar and wind.

We are also incredibly fortunate, in Whyalla specifically, where we have anywhere between 650 million and over a billion tonnes of magnetite on our doorstep. Magnetite just happens to be more suited for use with hydrogen than haematite, which we currently export. The potential is huge, but it is going to be a step at a time. Currently, the country that leads when it comes to the use of hydrogen for the production of green steel is Sweden.

The hydrogen in steelmaking, in the metallic iron-making process, is a substitute for coking coal, and that is why we talk about it as green steel, which gives us that capacity to move away from the use of coking coal. This is not going to happen overnight, but it certainly can happen. We need to start small, we need to be doing those trials using hydrogen and using magnetite to get that real-world experience before ultimate expansion. That, of course, is all linked into the investment dollars that are going to be available hopefully—and I say hopefully—to modernise the steelworks.

I used to work in that industry, I know the people in that industry, and the workers express their frustration to me—especially if you are a fitter—about constantly having to patch up to keep the plant running. That said, though, the order books are full and they are cranking out the steel. They have been making a lot of money from the iron ore exports. However, irrespective of the ownership the fundamentals in this state are there: the renewable energy resources and the magnetite.

As I said, there is potentially up to one billion tonnes of magnetite on Whyalla's doorstep, but in this state the JORC reserve when it comes to magnetite is in excess of 10 billion tonnes. So we have the resources but we just need an almost Playfordesque-type vision, which could be delivered with strong bipartisan support. The integrated steelworks in Whyalla were commissioned back in 1965, so it is a dated plant.

Hydrogen is going to be good. We see there is a major conference in Adelaide over the next couple of days with respect to hydrogen. There will be a lot of international players there, because of course there is not just the power plant the government has committed to but also the potential for a whole range of other private sector projects in Whyalla and elsewhere in the state, such as over in Port Pirie. We need to grab the bull by both horns and go with this because the potential is huge.

A number of other commitments were made. One of the commitments in dollar terms is relatively small—and I want to see us lobby the new federal government to see whether they will match our funding—and that is the City Safe program in Port Augusta. The electoral boundaries decision in relation to Port Augusta was somewhat controversial given that it split the community in two. I get the western part and the member for Stuart, the Hon. Geoff Brock, gets the eastern part, but we will effectively work together.

The City Safe program was a small program. It is not a panacea: it is just part of what has to be a layered approach. When you speak to the community of Port Augusta, the issues about community safety, antisocial behaviour and crime figure very prominently indeed, and we do need to address that. Everyone has a right to live and prosper in a community where they feel safe.

I was speaking to some of the businesses in the main street of Port Augusta, and they have experienced a decline in business of around about 40 per cent, which is clearly not sustainable. So there needs to be a real cross-department effort, and an effort that also involves the federal government and local government in addressing some of the challenges that Port Augusta faces.

On the positive side, Port Augusta is going to get a $30 million tech college. We all know that in the regions—and also in the city—there are massive skill shortages across all sorts of industry sectors, so a tech college is partly a way of addressing that, and especially a tech college linked to a high school. Whyalla is already in a good position, given our high school's co-location with the TAFE and also the university in Whyalla, to create an education precinct.

I will just touch on the school because that was a commitment we made when we were last in government. Given the timing of that commitment, it could have been cut off at the knees and the incoming Liberal government did not do that, so I have always acknowledged that. The school has some teething problems and other problems, and we will address those as time goes on, but that was a great initiative.

One of the other things we are going to deliver for Port Augusta—in fact, we have already indicated they will get $750,000 this year and $750,000 in the following three years—is $3 million for the Arid Lands Botanic Garden. The argument I put to our people was that we fund botanic gardens in Adelaide, so why not Port Augusta with its very unique and very important offering when it comes to the arid lands?

It all has to be sustained by local ratepayers, and there have been issues around rates in Port Augusta, so this will help address that deficit the Arid Lands Botanic Garden was operating under. Hopefully, we can get to a point where some of that money will also go into improving the offering at the Arid Lands Botanic Garden. If you have never been there, it is well worth the visit. It is an exceptional place.

One of the other things I would like to mention is that one of the first things the incoming Liberal government did on getting into government—it was always #RegionsMatter—was to get rid of the longstanding registration concession for the unincorporated areas of our state, plus Kangaroo Island, Roxby Downs and Coober Pedy. Whether it was past Liberal governments going way back—not the latest one—or the Labor government, none of them thought to get rid of this registration concession because they all recognised that those people living in those communities, when it came to the cost of transport, faced costs that were way above those experienced in the city.

It was the distances travelled, the cost of fuel, which was always higher, the cost of servicing, which was higher, and overwhelmingly and exclusively, when you talk about the unincorporated areas and some of those other communities, the lack of public transport. You are incredibly reliant upon private vehicles. I was very proud that we have reintroduced that concession for those communities that do it hard when it comes to transport costs.

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of having Clare Scriven in Whyalla in her capacity as the primary industries minister. It was about an issue that I was going on about for a long time, organising the petitions during the term of the last government, asking questions in estimates and writing to the two ministers who had that portfolio responsibility during the Marshall government, because this was a government that diluted the protection for the giant Australian cuttlefish. They diluted the protection, and for a period they even opened up the breeding aggregation itself to commercial exploitation.

Here you had something of global significance, and it was treated in a very simplistic manner as just a straightforward fishery issue. It was not a straightforward fishery issue. I thought it was disgraceful to dilute that protection, so it is one of the things that we have already delivered on. We have returned to the full protection that existed under the Weatherill government. That full protection was brought in in 2013 because of the collapse of the population.

We know that, of the commercial sector that exploited the cuttlefish when the aggregation was partly opened up, only two or three in the sector took out tonnes and tonnes of cuttlefish while tourists from around the world were diving just around the corner. The message that it sent was a really bizarre one.

Full protection has been reintroduced, so I would encourage you all to get up to Whyalla during these very cold months and go and hire a very thick wetsuit and dive in with the cuttlefish. If you do not want to get a very thick wetsuit, go on Cuttys boat tours. They now have a glass bottom boat, and they do a fantastic job in describing the life cycle of the cuttlefish and you get to see the cuttlefish from the comfort of a glass bottom boat.

There are some big issues apart from health that we face in regional communities, and one of them is housing. We made some commitments in the lead-up to and during the campaign to a new build and an increase in maintenance. I know that when we put in a freedom of information request to see how many empty houses there were in Whyalla Housing Trust houses, there were 126 at a time when people desperately needed accommodation.

The housing issue is profound, and I will be the first to say that what we are proposing within government barely touches the surface. This is not just a state issue: this is also a national issue. I do not have to tell you that in every state, in the nation as a whole, significant sections of our population face a housing crisis. If anything, I would say in this state that we need in some ways a reinvention of a 21st century form of the Housing Trust so that the Housing Trust is not just aimed at people in category 1 but has a broader remit.

I am probably not going to get any satisfaction in that particular area, but in the communities I represent, especially when you look at Whyalla, when you look at Port Augusta, nearly a quarter of the housing stock in Whyalla is the old Housing Trust stock. The average age of that stock would now be 50 or 60 years old, so there is a real issue about refurbishment, about maintenance, about more appropriate new build and also about assisting people to get on the road to home ownership.

When I worked in the steel industry in Whyalla, I had a Housing Trust house. I was not excluded because I was working. Some of the big projects that are planned will have impacts on the housing market in the regions. If you look at these big hydrogen projects, and I will use the federal government's figure, the previous federal government said that there was potentially $13 billion worth of investment in Whyalla.

We have had market failure in our regional communities when it comes to the provision of housing, so it is going to take a housing vision to deliver not just for those people who are in category 1, which is incredibly important, but also for a range of other people. Once again, it was that vision about the Housing Trust—the Housing Trust was originally part of industry policy—and I think we should look at this and what sort of 21st century version it is possible to deliver on. That is going to require changes at a federal level as well because once upon a time, at a federal level, there was a commitment to public housing.

When you look at how the investment in public housing has collapsed nationally over the last two decades or so, and part of it was triggered by the changes with the federal state housing agreements during the Howard period, we are now left with the situation where it is a real struggle for people who work on low incomes and all those people on low incomes to find accommodation. That should be a basic right—the right to decent accommodation—because if you have that it means so much else.

I just want to conclude on one point. Still the most profound issue in my electorate is the need to close the gap. I look at the average life expectancy of people in the APY lands compared with that in Unley or Mitcham and it is absolutely huge. We are talking about a difference of 20 or 30 years. As a state, as a nation, this is totally unacceptable. It is a profound issue, and there are other profound issues there, and just because it is a long way away, we should not forget about it. It should not be out of sight, out of mind. In cooperation with the federal government, we need to address some of those profound issues that exist in some of our more remote Aboriginal communities.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (12:44): Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Address in Reply. First of all, I would like to thank the Governor, the Hon. Frances Jennifer Adamson AC, for her speech opening the First Session of the Fifty-Fifth Parliament. I would also take this opportunity to acknowledge her service to both the state and our nation over many years and look forward to working with her over the coming years. I would also like to acknowledge the Kaurna people as the traditional owners of the land that this parliament is built and deliberates upon.

Mr Speaker, I would like to congratulate you on your re-election as Speaker. I would like to take this opportunity to also congratulate other members who were elected at the recent election, in particular those who were elected for the first time. I look forward to seeing you progress and grow as members of parliament.

I would also like to acknowledge the contribution made by those members who are no longer in this chamber. Political life can sometimes be very unpredictable and unforgiving and at each election sitting members are never assured of returning to this place after the election, so I would particularly like to acknowledge the contribution made by those members on both my side of politics and also the Liberal Party side of politics who did not make it back to this place.

This is my fifth election and my fourth re-election and on every occasion I never entered a campaign thinking that my re-election was a certainty. In fact, I can still recall members—I should say opposite, but they are alongside me—who, when I was in my first term, often would call me a 'oncer'. I remember reading in Hansard on a number of occasions that I was a 'oncer', so I have certainly proved those members wrong. The other thing is that I am still here and they are not.

Each election is different. There are different electoral boundaries. I do not have to tell some members in this chamber about the impact of different electoral boundaries. There are different electoral boundaries, different issues, different circumstances, different party leaders and different dynamics. All those things work together to bring different responses and different results at different elections. While I was hopeful of re-election at the recent election, I was surprised at both my personal and the party result we received. From a party position, while the result was very pleasing it did go a bit beyond what I expected, and that is a testament to the leadership of our party.

As I said, the statewide result is a testament to the great leadership of the state ALP at both the parliamentary and organisational levels and it is no secret that our party leader, the Hon. Peter Malinauskas, our Premier, is a person who is highly regarded in our community. He certainly was a person I was more than happy to have in my electorate at any time because I knew that every time he came to visit my electorate my vote would go up in my electorate. I am not sure that all MPs can say that about their party leaders—just ask some of the federal Liberal members.

Before I return to the Governor's thoughtful speech, I would like to take this opportunity to thank a number of people who made my re-election possible. The reality is that none of us in this place are elected on our own basis; we have a number of people who support us, either as party members or volunteers or who believe in us at a personal level.

First of all, I must thank the people of the Light electorate for placing their trust in me once again, and in record numbers. My last result was my best result in an electoral sense, and I thank those people who voted for me in what is, if I am completely honest about it, not a natural Labor seat, so I am very appreciative of the people who were prepared to cross party lines and support me.

I would like to acknowledge the contribution made to my re-election by my campaign team. I would like to acknowledge Isaac, Pat, Max, Rebecca, Cody and Stefan, who sat on my campaign committee and worked many endless hours on weekends and nights to meet and discuss what needed to be done. I would also like to thank a number of volunteers in addition to my campaign committee, who made hundreds of phone calls, stuffed thousands of envelopes and at all times did it with a smile and did it for the cause. I would like to thank Joan, Maureen, Charles, Mary, Denise, Trevor and Terry, who amongst them have probably stuffed tens of thousands of envelopes and made thousands of phone calls to make sure the message from the Labor Party and me as a local member got out to the community.

I would also like to acknowledge my previous staff, because all of them have deserted me now to go into higher positions. I would like to thank my previous staff: Akram Arifi, who is now working for ministers in some capacity; my previous trainee, Ben, who was there for part of the time; and my new trainee, Hayden, who started in January. They worked in their own time to support me in the campaign—and on a trainee's wage, which is interesting, because they gave up a lot of their personal time to work on the campaign.

There are over 100 other volunteers whom I will not mention by name because I just do not have time, but I would like to acknowledge them for handing out how-to-vote cards, letterboxing, making phone calls, putting up corflutes, etc. to make sure the message got across. I would also like to acknowledge those people who were not members of the party or volunteers who took some of my corflutes down and souvenired them. In fact, knowing that would happen I actually had a competition to see who could make the best re-use of my corflutes in an environmentally sustainable way. I have picked a family who have now won a prize and will have dinner at Parliament House. They have turned my corflutes into jigsaw puzzles—I am not sure if that is a message that I am a bit of a puzzle or whatever, but their kids do actually put me together from time to time.

I would also like to thank a number of people—and this is a big thank you, because often in communities it is one thing for people who are committed to the party to stick their necks out and support you, but it is something else for people in business, community life or sport to actually support a particular candidate, and at election time it comes with its dangers. I would like to thank all those people in small business in my community, those people who work in various community organisations, and those people involved in various sporting organisations who were prepared to personally endorse me as a candidate worthy of their support and election.

One of the first things I look forward to doing in this term of parliament is ensuring that all pre-election commitments made on behalf of the party are delivered to the people of the electorate of Light. I am reassured both by the Treasurer and other ministers that those things will be delivered. I look forward to receiving the budget on Thursday with these items listed in the budget, to make sure we deliver to those communities those valuable social infrastructure projects that are so important to so many in our community.

As one of the earlier speakers mentioned, election outcomes bring with them certain messages. It is certainly true that no election is won on one single issue, but there are a number of issues that actually influence electoral results. On my side of politics, I think our leader, Peter Malinauskas, was able to communicate a bold vision for the state—a vision which people clearly agreed with. I look forward to working with him and other members of my party to ensure that that vision is realised for the benefit of our community.

We had strong policies right across the board, whether it was creating jobs through the hydrogen plan, which actually not only delivers jobs but also creates a greener environment, which is very important, or in the regions. I look forward to that taking place. We have a range of policies that will modernise not only our economy but our education system and our health system and also make sure, as part of our role on this planet, that we leave this planet in a better, healthier position for the generations to come. The message from both our election in this state and the election at the federal level is that people do want action on climate change.

This is not just inner-city trendies, whom personally I do not have a huge affiliation with. These are people I spoke to in my community, not only young people but even people on the land. Farmers understand the environment, farmers understand why the environment is important to their livelihood and they understand that, whatever you call it, things are different and we need to address the contribution that people have made to our environment, to our climate. That was quite clear. Only those people who have no vision do not understand that message now.

I would just like to touch upon one thing that I think is very important. It is not only important for both the Liberal Party here who lost and the Liberal Party federally who lost at the last election recently but is true of all governments: you have to be careful of making sure that you do not start getting involved in hubris. Hubris is like a cancer in the political system, which people at the grassroots level understand. They understand when governments are not telling them the truth. They understand when governments are misleading them.

People understand that they want their governments to do the right thing by them and to be honest with them. They do understand that sometimes governments have to give bad news to the community. They respect you when you are honest with them, and they punish you when you treat them like mugs. When you behave with hubris, you treat them like mugs. Standing up at news conferences and saying repeatedly, 'Well, I know nothing about that,' may be smart politics, or may be seen to be smart politics, but I can tell you that to the person in the street it is not. People see, particularly amongst leaders, that is not a trait that is worthy of support.

While this message is initially for those parties who have lost government, I think it is also important to my government and my party—to make sure that we do not get involved in that sort of politics. That is quite clear. I will come back to that because the Governor's speech touches upon our adversarial system, how we need to work better together and what our community expects from us.

I will now turn to some of the specifics in the Governor's speech. I thought that the Governor's speech was very thoughtful and that some parts of it are worthy of being repeated here, to explain what they actually mean in terms of policies in this term of government. One I will just touch on very quickly is the first point she made. I will quote the Governor. In her speech, she said, when referring to us:

You each have your own loyalties, your own priorities, and your own areas of personal interest. But the necessarily adversarial nature of Parliament should not overshadow the far greater qualities that unite you all, most significantly your desire to make a meaningful difference in the lives of South Australians as evidenced by your embrace of Parliamentary service.

What the Governor was asking us to do is go beyond party politics and put our community first on every occasion. That is very important. What I would like to finish on in a second, when I will ask leave to continue my comments, is that democracy has to be more than just the elections every three or four years. People demand a greater say in their communities. We need to work through that and we need to develop a much more participatory democracy. I now seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 14:00

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