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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-05-31 Daily Xml
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Supply Bill 2023

Supply Grievances

Adjourned debate on motion to note grievances.

(Continued from 30 May 2023.)

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay—Minister for Tourism, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (16:00): I rise to talk about some of the things that have been happening in my electorate of Ramsay. Just last year, I ticked over 10 years representing the fabulous area that I also live in and represent. We are looking at what we have done over the past year and what we look to do, particularly in reference to our commitments at the 2022 state election. I am happy to talk about some of those commitments that we are starting to roll out, and we are talking with people about the best way to do that as well.

Predominantly, one of the key commitments is the building of a new school hall at the Brahma Lodge Primary School. I am delighted to say that recently the Minister for Education and I went for a visit to the school. The commitment is now to build a gymnasium there as well. We are having a look at those schools in the north. Brahma Lodge is getting attention and we are looking at where it could go in the future. It is a very special school and very walkable for people around the area of Brahma Lodge. It has been one of those areas that has been in my electorate and then in the member for Wright's electorate, and now it has come back to me. I look forward to continuing to work with the school and the Department for Education to determine how that gymnasium will roll out.

There was a redistribution at the last election, and for the very first time I stepped into Elizabeth Vale, taking from the member for Elizabeth the area of Elizabeth Vale and part of Elizabeth South. What that means is that it encapsulates the Lyell McEwin Hospital. We are very proud of our hospital in the north. Over time, as it moved from a community hospital to be one of the primary hospitals in our healthcare system, it is incredibly important not just for the northern suburbs but often for our country and regional areas too. Those of us who represent the northern regions know that, if you have been to the hospital, you meet people who have come from all over South Australia.

One of the areas where we had an election commitment was to improve the safety at the John Rice Avenue-Haydown Road intersection. I recently met with the Department for Transport about how we are going to proceed with that. What that means is we are going to have some lights where people come out from that road, turning both left and right. There is also a pedestrian crossing further up, and that will continue. That will be a substantial investment. With all the additional funding by this government into not just the emergency area but the wider parts of the hospital and the growth that we are seeing in the northern suburbs, we expect to see demand for this hospital even higher. Therefore, getting the crossings right is incredibly important. That is going to be a crossing coming out from those roads.

We also made commitments to our Changing Places facility in the north. A Changing Places facility is a particular type for people of all abilities. It has the ability to lift people who are immobile to be changed appropriately. That means we increase the accessibility for people. We are just having some final conversations about where in the north that will go.

Other things include some areas where we support wellbeing in our community and we want to support our community sports facilities. We had unprecedented investment from the previous Labor government in women's change rooms, particularly at the Salisbury Football Club, and we continue to look at what works best there and we are investing at Salisbury Oval by building a new electronic scoreboard. That oval is used by the Salisbury Football Club, which I am pleased to be connected with because it is one of the greatest clubs in our area, along with Salisbury North Football Club.

On the weekend, Salisbury North Football Club had an amazing Indigenous round. I was so thrilled to have the Premier, the Minister for Sport, and the Attorney-General, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, come out for our Indigenous round. The member for Florey and the member for Playford were there as well. This happens every year, but to have the Premier come to Salisbury North to talk to the Aboriginal elders, giving back to them, the focus of being there for the lunch, was incredibly special. We had the Indigenous jumpers for the round and the Premier tossed the coin, which was fantastic.

Salisbury Oval will be utilised by the Salisbury Football Club and also the cricket association, which is a very well-respected cricket club. Brahma Lodge Sporting Club will also have the development of new cricket nets. Talking with the council that owns the oval and is responsible for it, that will be completed by September this year.

One other area I actually campaigned on quite a lot was the reality of not having proper disabled access to the maze way at the Nurlutta train station. Given that we have Bedford Industries in the same area and that we know in the north we have a high level of people with disability, this is a highly used area by people who have mobility constraints.

I raised this with the former Minister for Transport when one of my constituents was very badly injured when going through a maze way that did not meet disability requirements. In fact, she ended up being in hospital for six weeks. We did a bit of media on it at the time and raised this story, but the government refused to fix it, so I am thrilled that the Malinauskas Labor government will be fixing that maze way to make it disability compliant going forward.

We have some really exciting things happening out in the northern suburbs. I talked about the expansion of Lyell McEwin Hospital, the $47 million we are investing there. Of course, there are other issues such as the resurfacing of Commercial Road, a highly used road in our area, and that has been organised, I think, starting this week. We are seeing a lot of development in the northern suburbs.

The new factory outlet centre at Parafield Airport, called District, will be opened this year. It is slightly out of my electorate, but it will be highly used. We have been waiting for this for probably five years, but we will get there in the end. We have also seen the Epicurean Food Group transforming the former Holden's site into a mushroom production facility. It was announced recently that Bedford Industries are building a $45 million manufacturing hub in Salisbury South. With the investment in defence and the investment in mining, this will also be very beneficial for the northern area because a lot of maintenance for the equipment used and the services provided are actually utilised in those northern suburbs. This is a real time of growth for us.

As the member for Ramsay, I love engaging with my community. We are proactively out there looking for opportunities. The regular events I host include Welcome the Babies, which I held just recently. This is an opportunity to welcome young children between zero and three years into our northern Adelaide community. We host it at one of the local shopping centres and we have the local service providers, such as Australian Services, Centrelink, and the Breastfeeding Association come along. We have also had Multicultural Youth SA there doing some engagement and the police come along as well.

We have also had many other groups that come and interact. The Smith Family have come in the past and also the early readers who embrace this. I think it is part of the Dolly Parton reading project where people sign up and get those books every month for their children. We host at least two seniors' forums a year, always getting the concessions people in. We also had a very interesting conversation about scams.

Of course, let's not forget the street-corner meetings. As an active MP, you get out there on those street corners. It is great to spend some time with people, hearing about what is great in their lives and also how we could help them to go better.

I want to make recognition of our business association which is very active in our area. David Waylen is turning 60 this year. He has really made an imprint on making these community events, whether it be the superheroes day, the multicultural festival or getting out there, and he even does a Halloween event as well. What it does is see the community come out and enjoy their time together. My staff and I make sure that we are at most of those events to celebrate. Just recently we had the main street festival and it was fantastic to be there. We have a growing community and I am honoured to represent it.

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (16:11): I am very pleased to make a brief contribution to the grievance debate of the Supply Bill. During the main debate itself on the bill I talked about the commitments I was able to make thanks to the Malinauskas team in my own electorate. Just to recap, there was the toilet at California Reserve. I understand that that may well come in under budget and there may be money left over from that project with which we may be able to further enhance the playground. It is a very well patronised playground. It will be more so when the council has finished the refurbishments, including the toilet, and I am very much hoping that some of the funds left over from that commitment can be used to further enhance that particular project.

I talked about the one that was closest to my heart, as I said at the time, the Argana Park project. This is quite an extensive master plan built up by the Playford city council to enhance what really is the major sporting hub in my part of the world for Elizabeth Downs, Craigmore and Elizabeth North. I am very pleased that we could contribute to these very first stages of that master plan. That is an ongoing project and I really look forward to talking with the council more about how state government can contribute in the future.

One of the projects I was talking about was the roundabout at the corner of Yorktown Road and Adams Road, adjacent to Eastern Park Football Club. This might seem minor, as it is just a simple roundabout on a suburban street, but it is a major thoroughfare. It is the main feeder route out of that eastern part of Craigmore and then into either Elizabeth or the city itself. It is very difficult to turn right off of Adams Road, which is the main feeder road, and people are forced to either wait an extensive period before there is a break in the traffic on Yorktown Road or take an alternative route, and there is not much of an alternative route except for Uley Road which itself is very congested.

The roundabout was a commitment. There could have been, as I said in my response to the Supply Bill, a roundabout also at the corner Campbell Road and Yorktown Road, which I would have very much enjoyed, but I thought on balance and on talking to my community that the one on Adams Road is the more urgent of the two. I have had opportunities since I made my Supply Bill contribution to talk to the department, talk to the minister's office, about the progress of that particular project.

As you would know, Deputy Speaker, even small infrastructure projects like roundabouts take a fair amount of time to scope out and to realise ultimately. We are at the stage now where I have seen a penultimate design. It looks pretty good to me. The department is going to finalise that and then we are going to embark on a more extensive community consultation. I have told them that it is very much my expectation, and it has been my expectation from the start, that Eastern Park Football Club will be part of those negotiations.

I know that the department has spoken to council and through council to Eastern Park, but I think there should be more direct consultation with Eastern Park, because their current car parking situation, for example, feeds out onto the same stretch of road that the roundabout will impinge upon. I do not want to say too much about the design of the roundabout because the design has not been publicly released and it is not out for consultation yet, but there were designs discussed which probably would impinge unfairly, which I did not foresee at the time, on the entrance and exits from Eastern Park Football Club.

I am assured by the traffic people in DIT that the current design will ameliorate that particular problem of traffic passing from Adams Road turning right onto Yorktown Road and not impinge too much on the traffic that comes at a constant flow down Yorktown Road in the mornings. But getting back to Eastern Park, I expect that DIT will consult with Eastern Park Football Club when they come to the final design of the roundabout, and discuss with them their car parking needs. Not that DIT will resolve those car parking needs, but we want to make sure that the roundabout itself does not impinge on whatever those needs may be in the future.

I was very pleased to see on social media some reports out of Tuesday night's City of Playford council meeting that, if I have understood it correctly, unanimously the council has committed to $15,000 to look into ways that Eastern Park can solve both their parking problems and also their ongoing problem with change rooms. Like many of our sporting clubs in all of our communities, a lot of our changing rooms are simply not fit for purpose anymore. These are old clubs, owned generally by council. Perhaps 30 years ago they suited the purposes of sporting clubs; now they simply don't. They do not, in particular, cater for women and girls and their changing room needs, and in the case of Eastern Park they do not particularly cater well for the visiting clubs, of either gender, who are playing sports. So I really welcome this.

If I have understood the social media claims of local councillors correctly, I look forward to seeing this $15,000 on the table for a study. I cannot remember the term they use but it is some sort of scoping study to look at the needs of the parking and of the change rooms at Eastern Park. It is long overdue. I am really glad that there is this sudden attention to Eastern Park Football Club, or this renewed interest within the council to really get things done there. I hope that I will have a constant dialogue with those councillors and with the City of Playford council in terms of ways in which the state government can in the future support those projects in any way we can.

In any case, I look forward to seeing the study and seeing what the City of Playford comes up with in terms of what that club may need over the next five, 10 years or so, because the parking is inadequate, and particularly once the roundabout is built, and I think there is a renewed case for a solution to that parking. It is inadequate both in its size and in terms of where it comes in and out of the major roads around that area, and also of course there are the change rooms. As in many of our clubs in many of our communities, there is a desperate need for upgrades and extensions to those change rooms. So I look forward to seeing what the council comes up with. I look forward to seeing how we might be able to support them going forward.

In the time left available to me, as the member for Ramsay said, the Lyell McEwin Hospital is of course no longer within the boundaries of Elizabeth, but for all of us, including you, Mr Deputy Speaker, who represent constituencies in the north, the Lyell McEwin is really the heart of the community.

Like the member for Light, I have had many encounters with the Lyell McEwin Hospital over the years and particularly with my two young children being both born there six and seven years ago. I was really delighted to visit there recently with the Minister for Health and the member for King to celebrate 30 years of the birthing unit at the Lyell McEwin Hospital. They do an amazing job at the birthing unit and it was a real pleasure to catch up with the two midwives who delivered my two young sons at the Lyell McEwin Hospital.

Construction has begun—as I think the Minister for Health alluded to in his second reading speech, and as the member for Ramsey said—on a 48-bed expansion at the Lyell McEwin Hospital. The original commitment by this government was for 24 extra beds. The government has doubled this to 48 beds. This will be at what they call level 3, which to anyone living in Elizabeth knows is the level underneath the helipad.

The only plaque that exists with my name on it in the world is at level 2 of the Lyell McEwin Hospital when I was lucky enough to open that on behalf of the then Minister for Health, the Hon. Jack Snelling. I got to visit the magnificent helipad, and so I am really glad that the space that was left open in contingency between the helipad and level 2 is now going to be utilised for 48 extra beds. This reflects the Malinauskas government's commitment not only to health, but particularly to health care in the northern suburbs.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (16:21): It is a great pleasure to be able to bring to the attention of this parliament today a significant body of work by the African Communities Council of SA who have recently released the report of their 'Inquiry into youth violence and crime within African South Australian communities'.

This is a significant body of work that has been undertaken over the last year and some months by dedicated volunteers with some support from the government, which we are appreciative of. But, indeed, the leadership shown by the African Communities Council in enabling this work to be undertaken has been very exemplary and a privilege to witness.

The African Communities Council demonstrated leadership in identifying that this was a challenge for our community and one in which they could play a leadership role in addressing. The inquiry has been looking into the causes, challenges and potential solutions to violence and antisocial behaviours committed by African South Australian youth. The Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. David Speirs; the Hon. Jing Lee, shadow minister for multicultural affairs; and myself as the deputy leader were very pleased to meet with Mr Dennis Yengi, the chair of the African Communities Council; Dr Yilma Woldgabreal, a psychologist; and Mr Siegfried Mends, the legal adviser.

They were members of the working group from the African Communities Council who have been working on this report. They came into parliament house, presented the key findings to us and talked about the journey that they had been on with the community to come up with this set of recommendations to make their community safer and our South Australian community safer. We were very pleased to receive that report. I also acknowledge the other members of the working group: Ms Jane Nyaketcho, Mr Steve Millsteed KC, Ms Mary Ajang, Mr Mba Idikauduma, Mr Jur Deng, Mr Elias Kabura and Ms Amiok Wol.

One of the key insights that Dennis Yengi brought to our attention—and on reading the report; it is right at the front in his foreword—is, and I will quote:

'It takes a village to raise a child' is a proverb that embodies the spirit of African cultures, which refers to responsibilities of the entire communities to provide for and interact positively with children and young people, and help them grow in a safe and healthy environment. I continue to carry this core belief, despite being raised, educated and accultured here in South Australia. This proverb always reminds me of my communal values, to look beyond my own immediate kinship circles and pay particular attention to the welfare and wellbeing of my African South Australian communities.

It is to his credit that he says so.

The inquiry was prompted by several tragic incidents: the murder by stabbing of 25-year-old Ngor Bol, originally of South Sudanese origin here in Adelaide on 25 April last year; a mass brawl, including the use of knives and machetes, outside the Nairobi Affair Lounge on Grenfell Street on 13 March last year which resulted in six people sustaining injuries; and, at around that time, it was reported that 120 charges had been laid against several people of South Sudanese backgrounds.

As the report states, African South Australian communities were shocked by these heinous crimes committed by some of their young people and have called for law enforcement bodies to hold perpetrators to account. Meanwhile, the African South Australian communities remain concerned about the far-reaching consequences of crimes committed by a small number of young people on the vast majority who are law-abiding and not involved in violence or criminal behaviour. It is worth restating that point. We are talking abut crimes committed by a very small number of people, a number of people who are not representative of the broader community.

It would have been easy—and indeed many in their place would have swept that issue under the carpet because it is only a small number of people, as only a small number of people from other communities commit crimes, and their actions should not be seen as representative of those broader communities. But the African Communities Council has demonstrated leadership and courage. The working group conducted focus groups and surveys, and engaged with government, specialists and the broader community. Hundreds of people made contributions to this work through those focus groups and surveys.

Issues particularly identified by young people involved in the justice system, which were an important cohort to be interviewed, included stories of broken families and individuals with a low level of parental involvement, but not all of those cases had such. Some cited intergenerational conflict, the challenge posed in situations where young people retained fewer values from their native culture and more from mainstream culture, giving rise to arguments and disputes at home.

Some young people, as of course in any community, fell prey to negative peer influences, falling in with the wrong crowd and doing the wrong thing. Some—and this is a particularly pertinent set of findings which I found very interesting as the shadow education minister and a former education minister—were about young people in the juvenile justice system citing challenging classroom environments, students reporting that their journey off the rails may have begun with negative experiences within schools, bullying by other students or, concerningly, racial or cultural insensitivity from some teachers. Some students reported difficulties beginning with their limited language proficiency.

These experiences highlight the importance of our educational system, not just relying on parents to prepare their children for schools but for our schools and our systems to be prepared for the children whom they serve. We know that all of our schools and the overwhelming majority of our teachers absolutely dedicate their lives to serving students in the best way they can. Indeed, some schools have greater deals of complexity than others, some schools are harder environments for a teacher who might not have had experiences in the past in dealing with certain circumstances to do so.

It is incumbent upon us as a parliament and indeed on the government of the day—whoever that is—to do whatever they can to provide support for those schools to ensure that teachers, when confronted with complex situations, have every level of training to understand the needs of their students. Trauma-informed practice is increasingly dominant around our education system and, indeed, cultural engagement. I think the cultural engagement programs in place are very good but there is aways more work to be done and it has been highlighted by these young people in juvenile justice who have brought it to the attention of the reviewers.

I have particularly highlighted the insights from those youth involved in the criminal justice system, but the report also presents valuable and interesting insights from other cohorts, from government and non-government service providers, from families and community leaders. The work culminates in 39 recommendations dealing with preventative actions, individual and family actions and society-wide approaches.

Some actions should be relatively straightforward, and I hope the government will pick them up quickly. Some will require further work or potentially funding to deliver. Some may be contested. There are some that the government—and indeed some, potentially, that the parliament—might not agree with, but all are considered, have been considered and are worthy of further consideration by the government.

We urge the government, and we urge the cabinet in particular, to give them that consideration. This is not the responsibility of one minister alone; it is the responsibility of cabinet, as I will come to in a minute. Doing so gives due recognition to the work undertaken by the African Communities Council of South Australia (ACCSA), and in particular its working group, and it pays due respect to the hundreds of South Australians who have voluntarily contributed to this body of work.

A range of government departments and agencies will need to make a contribution to the government's response, including human services, police, courts, corrections, youth justice, education and, indeed, the early years section within education, as well as small business and industry and economic development. Some recommendations will also benefit from engagement with the commonwealth.

Once again, I commend the report to the house and urge all members of parliament to familiarise themselves with it. I thank once more the African Communities Council and the leadership of Denis Yengi and the team for doing this work, which hopefully will bring great benefits not just for the African community in South Australia and not just for young people in the African community in South Australia but, indeed, for our state as a whole.

As education minister, it was an absolute priority for me and the Marshall Liberal government to ensure standards in reading and early years literacy development were at the very forefront of our work. If as a young person you are unable to read effectively, you are unable to access the curriculum and the broad range of opportunities that provides for the student through their primary years.

If a student reaches high school without basic literacy skills, then their chances of succeeding in life are much less than a student who is capable of reading. Their chances of succeeding in society, of engaging in the economic state that we have, of getting a job, of being able to support a family, of having satisfaction in life, are much less. Teaching a kid to read is very important. Yet, unfortunately, in that period of 2015-17 South Australia languished at the back of the pack when it came to reading performances as measured by our NAPLAN results across Australia.

There are certain factors, a range of factors, that feed into those NAPLAN results. It would be an optimistic government that committed to our being top of the list, given some of the economic advantages and lack of regional diversity that some jurisdictions like the ACT or Victoria have, for example. But South Australia should be shooting not just to be at the national average but to be ahead of it, and we have been at that level in the past.

In 2015, 2016 and 2017, we were far from that. We were last or second last in almost all the categories, bumping along at the back of the pack. We thought that was a high priority to address and it was one of the areas that the Marshall Liberal government put significant focus on. We had a suite of measures, called the Literacy Guarantee, which we undertook to deliver, and we did deliver them over the four years that we were in government.

Indeed, we frontloaded our work and delivered many of them in 2018: the establishment of the Literacy Guarantee Unit and of coaches working with schools, focusing within our education department on the science of reading and understanding that measures to help our young people to read most effectively do rely on the science of reading. A system that includes synthetic phonics was an important part of that.

Many of our teachers across South Australia had undertaken their teacher training at a time when phonics was unfashionable or seen as unnecessary in teaching kids to read. What we now know for absolute certain—and this is a bipartisan understanding in South Australia now, which is to the benefit of our young people and children in this state—is that, while some children are able to learn to read without effective phonics instruction, students with learning difficulties (particularly dyslexia and learning difficulties of that nature) are very unlikely to learn to read successfully without being given the skills to decode those words, the construction of words and the letter formations that make the sounds of the words that then can be identified so that a child can get meaning out of a text.

The previously trendy whole-language approach, where kids are taught to remember enough words and they will pick up the rest by osmosis, works for some kids, but the kids that it does not work for are left condemned to not being able to successfully read or succeed in school. The former minister, Susan Close, now the Deputy Premier, instituted a trial of a phonics check in 2017, again to her credit. Indeed, it was part of the election policy that we had announced, to roll that out across all schools, which we did in 2018.

That phonics check was a measure, a marker, and an assistance to teachers who are on the journey of phonics, but the check was not the point. The point was to use phonics in the classroom to teach kids how to read. As part of our Literacy Guarantee measures, we put in place significant training. We spent $13 million, I think, in our first year on TRT relief, time and training for teachers who in many cases had not necessarily experienced the teaching of phonics and able to conduct a first phonics check.

Only just over 40 per cent of our South Australian students were able to get to the mark in the first year, in 2018. That increased dramatically in the second year. By the third year, we were over 60 per cent, which is a 20 per cent improvement in two years of how our year 1 students in term 3 of year 1 were going. Getting 28 out of 40 words correct in their phonics check was a dramatic improvement and shows what can be done by dedicated teachers when they are given the right support, resources and training.

What we have also seen in the last couple of years is some of the fastest improving NAPLAN results in Australia. Between 2017 and 2021, South Australia's NAPLAN results improved faster than those of any other state in the nation. We very much hope that that continues in the years ahead.

Those measures included the Literacy Guarantee, training for all teachers, the unambiguous drive of the department, advice for schools, Literacy Day in term 1 and the Literacy Guarantee conferences in the holidays. Literacy Day was attended by 1,700 principals and teachers a year, and the literacy conferences had hundreds of teachers attending through the school holidays. There were also phonics checks resourcing, literacy coaches, schools adopting goals in their site improvement plans to improve reading and writing, and whole-school approaches.

There was the adoption of decodable readers in schools. These are readers, books designed for teaching kids to read. They are books designed to understand the stage at which a child is at in their learning to read, and therefore they are constructed with language that includes words that are capable of being understood by a child who has a phonics understanding to the level of where they are supposed to be doing that reading.

This may sound like jargon to people in the chamber but, within education circles, another measure that was very important was replacing a program called Running Records, which was synonymous in many of our schools. Parents may well remember what level their child's Running Records was at. The problem with the Running Records program was that it was not aligned to the science of reading; it was aligned to a whole-language approach that did not take into account the levels at which children's capability of decoding words were relevant. Running Records was essentially setting targets for children to reach a certain level that was not related to that child's capacity to read and, I think, driving energy and work within our classrooms towards an end that was not actually the best practice in supporting children to read.

But education systems like to have a measure, and the way that schools are funded has classroom participation in reading taken into account, and so Running Records was removed completely for the first time in 2020 during the pandemic. A vacuum could not be left, so a new system, called DIBELS, has been put in place. I think the work to bring an American system into an Australian context effectively is continuing in the education department. I give the department and the minister credit for continuing that work. I give him and the government credit for continuing the phonics checks and the Literacy Guarantee Unit, but I do have some reservations about the way that the government is conducting its work.

I am concerned that literacy is not the priority that it was once was. The government is right to talk about wellbeing. We talked about wellbeing and we introduced new wellbeing resources. The government has continued to introduce those resources and extended them somewhat. Those new wellbeing resources provided to schools should not be seen as a signal that standards and basic literacy are not still incredibly important, because without those skills students are doomed to not succeed. The inability to read is pretty much a guarantee of poor wellbeing.

So the idea, as was sometimes presented, that the department or the former government were focusing too much on literacy, too much on those basic skills and not enough on wellbeing, I always thought was a false contest because they go hand in hand. Without basic skills, you might make a child feel better for a day, if they are not enjoying their focus on literacy that day, but they are not going to succeed later in their schooling. Their wellbeing is going to be shot later in their schooling if you have not succeeded in their literacy instruction.

It concerns me that, as I understand, Literacy Day this year has been cancelled. It concerns me when I hear reports from time to time of schools or teachers feeling that the focus on literacy has been withdrawn, and I urge the minister to do whatever it takes to ensure that literacy remains a consistent push for the education department. When those NAPLAN reports come in, the purpose of education is not to get good NAPLAN results. NAPLAN results are as useful an indicator as any of how our system is going compared with other systems around Australia.

There is every reason to think that we should continue to improve as a state in how our results are going in NAPLAN. What we saw was a dramatic improvement in the last couple of NAPLANs in our year 3s—those same year 3s who were the first couple of cohorts to go through their year 1 phonics check, to benefit in those early years from the improved instruction and the improved resources that our teachers had at their disposal in the first couple of years of primary school. As those year 3s are moving through the system, they become year 5s, and last year we saw year 5 reading results going up, for example, and it is not surprising: that was the first cohort that did the phonics check.

This year's year 5s will also have been an early cohort that did the phonics check. Those kids will be getting to year 7 and year 9 in due course. If they had been successful through their primary years as a result of a higher percentage being able to effectively understand what they are learning, a higher percentage being able to learn to read, there is every opportunity for this government to see those NAPLAN results improve. Indeed, I am sure they will claim the credit for it, and that will be great and we will be fine. We will be happy to give the credit because we are on Team South Australia and we want our kids to do well, and those NAPLAN results will be a sign of success for our state.

It is a long way to come from those results in 2016, and we want to see them improving, but I do say this to the government: they cannot just assume that, as a result of some reforms undertaken in 2018 with some extra wellbeing measures in place, everything is going to keep getting better. It requires a relentless pursuit of excellence, and standards are important in that. It requires a focus to be continued and I urge the minister to continue to do so.

A couple of weeks ago, the Minister for Arts and I were absolutely privileged to go to the Adelaide Festival Centre to celebrate the opening of the 2023 DreamBIG festival. It was a real joy. I want to take a moment to go through the history of the festival because this is a really important festival in the South Australian firmament. For many people who have been working in creative spaces in South Australia, and indeed for many people whose children have enjoyed their first potential exposure to theatre through the Come Out Festival or DreamBIG festival, this is an incredibly important festival and it is worth celebrating.

The festival has been going for about 50 years. In 1974, it was a subprogram of the Adelaide Festival, with workshops and performances labelled Come Out, and the first standalone festival was Come Out '75. Every workshop and performance was accessible, with maximum ticket prices of 50¢ and a strong foundation for the festival that was launched. It grew with innovations as it was repeated every two years. My first memory of the Come Out Festival was about 14 years later, in 1989. I was 10. The author Roald Dahl was attracted to participate in the festival. It was also the year the festival first incorporated a particular Aboriginal program. I think I remember that one piece was called The New Dreaming.

The name Come Out was dropped in 1997 and it became Take Over '97. That was clearly an error and seen as such. Come Out returned in 1999. In 2005, the festival had grown to encompass more than 60 events and 630 individual performances and sessions. We saw the introduction of the Mighty Choir of Small Voices in 2011, with children from around South Australia joining in, singing together, and that concept continues.

As I was saying, the minister and I were able to enjoy that just a couple of weeks ago. I particularly give credit to the Primary Schools' Music Festival team for their support of that Mighty Choir of Small Voices. Incorporating choral lessons across dozens if not hundreds of schools across South Australia is what you would call a specialised skill, and it is a specialised skill that the Primary Schools' Music Festival team has in abundance. Fifteen hundred small voices sounded anything but small in the Festival Theatre. They were greatly enthusiastic and, I thought, very high quality. To each of their parents who are watching this parliamentary broadcast, I say congratulations—all 1,500 of them.

In 2015, the festival attracted more than 100,000 attendances from around South Australia for the first time, with 25,000 attending the BIG Family Weekend at the Festival Centre, another innovation which continued in this year's festival. As my family and I took the opportunity to enjoy that BIG Family Weekend, I reflected on a few things: the power of a great festival, with great performances, well-run administration, the creation of an atmosphere and ambience that matches it to attract thousands and thousands of families, despite the inconvenience for many of them of coming into the city and dealing with traffic and parking and the fact that it was raining that weekend.

Many of the performances, many of the installations, were outdoors in the elements. People were still there in their thousands. It was absolutely palpable, the joy on the kids' faces, the joy on parents' faces, as their kids were absolutely happy to be there.

A special shout-out to all of the performers that my kids particularly enjoyed: Patch Theatre for their delightful installation Sea of Light and the puppetry installation called Characters by Elias Ppiros. Elias also created the puppets in Beep and Mort, the Windmill Pictures show that is on ABC Kids now. Twenty episodes of season 1 are streaming already. I recommend it for any parents of one to four-year-old children. It is a great production created here in South Australia, conceived here in South Australia and delivered by Windmill Theatre Company. I met the puppeteer. I think he is about 22 years old and an absolutely amazing talent. The show Characters of some of his own puppetry creations was fantastic. My kids loved the guys on hoverboards too.

In 2017 we saw the introduction of DreamBIG. Of course, it is now known as the DreamBIG Festival, and so far a more successful renaming than 1997's Take Over. Indeed, in years to come I even might stop thinking of it as the Come Out Festival. I would like to pay tribute to the performers, the artists and the administrators who have done such a great job. My kids loved Possum Magic. Indeed, it was an anniversary year for Possum Magic—I think it was written in about 1982—another South Australian classic and an absolute credit to the DreamBIG Festival.

Its co-creative producers are Susannah Sweeney and Georgi Paech. Susannah has done it for five festivals, and I believe this is her last one. She has done a terrific job, and it is important to credit her for not just the great work that she has done but also the fact that she has thought about succession planning, bringing Georgi in. Georgi was previously at Windmill and has had a terrific career up until now. I think Georgi is going to be doing a wonderful job in the years ahead in that festival. To Douglas Gautier, Christie Anthoney and all the team at the Festival Centre, I congratulate you on a terrific series of events as part of the DreamBIG Festival 2023. I look forward to the next one. I hope, given 50 years, the government will see fit to honour that 50th year with suitable funding at the next festival so that that can continue to grow and be outstanding for kids in the years ahead.

I would like to acknowledge a couple of events in my local community. In recent weeks, St Martin's Anglican Church in Campbelltown said farewell to their minister, Reverend Canon Mara Di Francesco. The member for Hartley, Vincent Tarzia, and the member for Sturt, James Stevens, and I were very privileged to be able to attend the final service. It was the morning after the coronation of His Majesty King Charles III.

It is fair to say that that weekend there were two significant Anglican services, which all of the congregation appreciated participating in. I think it is a sign of how highly regarded Reverend Canon Mara was that, despite the late night many of the congregation had had the night before, every single one of them was in attendance to recognise the long and worthy contribution that Mara has made to our local community. St Martin's Church, I am sure, will be served well by other ministers in the years ahead but it is to Reverend Canon Mara's credit the way in which her congregation will miss her.

Another local congregation that will miss their current minister when she conducts her last service in the weeks ahead is the Athelstone Uniting Church. Reverend Linda Driver has done a wonderful job in my local community. The establishment of Messy Church at the Athelstone Uniting Church every quarter is one of my kids' favourite things to do. When we go to Messy Church on a Sunday afternoon, they are always delighted by the stations that are set up by the volunteers, but Linda Driver, I think, is one of the most engaging ministers I have ever seen. We will miss her from our community. I am sure she will do tremendous work for the Uniting Church across South Australia in the years ahead and I look forward to the work that she will do in those other opportunities, but we also thank her for her service to the Athelstone Uniting Church community.

The last point that I would like to pay credit to is to recognise some terrific volunteers from the Magill Probus Club and the Campbelltown Home Support Program. In recent weeks, those two groups have appreciated the opportunity to bring their members into this very chamber in Parliament House, many of them for the first time, despite potentially having been active in our community for some decades. I thank the parliament staff and John Weste and the parliamentary library team in particular for their tremendous hospitality for the groups from the Morialta electorate who have come into Parliament House. I thank those volunteers for coordinating those visits over recent weeks.

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (16:51): I would like to take this opportunity to speak about something that I was not able to last sitting day and commend our government for the investments it is making into tackling what is fast becoming a huge problem. Today, 31 May, is World No Tobacco Day. I always remember this because it is also my birthday.

Because of that I have always felt that it was on me to encourage friends and family not to smoke given the impact it has on health, the health of not only the smoker themselves but those around them. For as long as I can remember, the messaging around smoking has been clear and it is the most preventable cause of death, so I have never understood the pull toward the habit, though I do know that addiction to nicotine is a tough one to try to kick and it is through public health messaging, investment, support and community care that opportunity exists to at least try.

In 2012, Australia introduced plain packaging laws. We were leading the world in the campaign against smoking and the ongoing efforts of cigarette companies trying to lure young people to the habit. Less than 40 years ago, smoking was a normal part of Aussie life and cigarette brands were freely advertised across the country. It was everywhere.

A few weeks back, when I was putting together my speech for the Tobacco and E-Cigarette Products (Tobacco Product Prohibitions) Amendment Bill that was debated on the last sitting day, my family was going through a tough time. My father was very unwell. In fact, so unwell we were very worried that he may not have pulled through. He is suffering from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). It is a common type of interstitial lung disease that causes thickening and scarring of the lung tissue. The scarring makes it difficult for the lungs to transfer oxygen into the bloodstream and deliver enough oxygen to the rest of the body.

Whilst idiopathic means that there is not clear evidence of where this disease came from, it is likely that smoking was a big contributing factor. I took the opportunity whilst I was on carer's duty to talk to my dad about his experience as a smoker and what he is now suffering because of it. My dad started smoking when he was 16, when advertising was everywhere, encouraging young people to take up the habit. It was cool. All the movie stars were doing it. Brands such as Marlboro, Peter Stuyvesant and John Player Special adorned billboards, shop windows and even Grand Prix cars.

My dad smoked until he was 60. He is now 80 and that is 44 years of damage. He made many attempts to quit. He promised my mum when my sister was born that he would give up, when I was born, and when my brother was born. It was difficult. I remember him using patches. He remembered that on one of his attempts to quit he asked my mum to get him some patches from the chemist and she came back with 16 milligram strength. They were slightly too strong for him and she was sent back to get two milligrams.

I remember him chewing gum. Like others, he tried everything in order to give up. When smokers started to really try to kick the habit, cigarette companies sensed the changing of the times and increased the number of cigarettes in a packet from 20 to 30. Suddenly a pack had 30 and my dad said that you would just smoke them because it was still just a pack a day. My dad suggests people use cigarettes to help with anxiety, stress, nervousness as a crux to have something in their hands, but they smoke them because they are addictive.

My dad used to work from seven in the morning until midnight when he was working on big projects like the Grand Prix—he is a senior electrical engineer—surrounded by cigarette advertising around the track, on the cars, on merchandise. It was difficult to avoid. He told me that movies constantly had people smoking in them, again encouraging kids to think it was cool. He also raised concerns that current trends to have flashbacks in movies we watch today where people are smoking is another opportunity for cigarette companies to have a free reign to smoke cigarettes.

Eventually after many attempts my father did give up smoking. I remember it was when my nephew was born. My father was outside having a ciggy and when he came inside and attempted to cuddle my new nephew, my brother-in-law, a first-time father and a doctor, was not having it. He told my dad to wash and change his top before he touched the baby. This really hit my dad hard, but it was the final push he needed.

I remember him using potato chips as his way out of his addiction. Whilst not the healthiest option, it worked and he finally kicked the habit. Smoking, though, would still rob my father and our family of his twilight years. He and my mum should be touring around the world, as they used to. They were big fans of going on holidays, a reward after so many years of incredibly hard and stressful work. The reward now, however, is my father being effectively homebound, plugged into an oxygen tank, finding it difficult to walk from room to room, struggling to take a breath.

When I asked him about the impact of plain packaging, he said that when packets started having pictures of cancers and diseased lungs, like my dad struggles with now, they did make a difference. Sadly, for my dad, the damage was already done. My dad said people should not be involved with cigarettes. He knows for some it is too hard to quit; for some it is too late, the damage is done. But for him, his wish is to stop young people from having access, stop making it cool to smoke and vape, and draw a hard line to say no more.

The bill we debated last week will help and our government has committed to other initiatives which will also help. We have committed $400,000 to the Cancer Council to fund a 'tackling tobacco' pilot program to help reduce smoking in at-risk communities. Recently, we outlined our plan in the South Australian Tobacco Control Strategy 2023-2027. We need to educate our young people and this strategy includes initiatives to drive down the prevalence of smoking in South Australians, aged as young as 15, to 6 per cent.

But these teens are now moving away from cigarettes and we are seeing a real problem with vaping. Schools are having to deal with this scourge and the kids think it is cool. A few weeks back I was on the train and a 12 year old took a drag. He saw me watching him and asked, 'You don't mind do you, miss?' Whilst I was flattered he called me miss, I think he was waiting for me to tell him off. I was so saddened that at his age, so little, all I could do was say, 'Mate, I only care about your lungs.' He looked at me in a way that makes me think he does not really think about that, and why would he? He is invincible and vapes are surely not as bad as ciggies.

Vapes are coloured. They smell sweet, they have fruity flavours, and they are marketed at our kids—unicorn flavour, bubblegum—just another new way cigarette and vape companies are preying on and harming a new generation. These companies do not care about anything other than profits, and it is disgusting. I am glad to have heard the new regulations our federal government has introduced around vaping, and SA Health will continue to work with the federal government and interstate jurisdictions to strengthen the e-cigarette laws and their enforcement.

Last Thursday, I was all ready to give this speech, as I am in full support of the bill that was being debated. However, at 3.30am my phone rang and it was my mother in sheer panic because my dad was practically unconscious and she had called an ambulance. I jumped from the bed and fled to my parents' house, arriving just as the ambos were. My dad was out for the count, unresponsive. I assisted SAAS with holding my father's head in my hands. His face was grey, his pupils unresponsive, and I was preparing myself to say goodbye.

Max and Rajan, the two initial paramedics were lovely and they attended to my father the best they could. My parents' house is on a hill, and so the CFS was also required to help carry him to the ambulance. I would like to give my thanks to the Blackwood CFS crew who came and helped. My son also arrived and carried his grandfather to the ambulance. I cannot thank them enough.

On the day I wanted to give my speech about what was slowly killing my father, my family were at his bedside praying for him to come back to us. I am glad to say that he did: he regained consciousness in the ambulance and, whilst his stats were poor, we had him back. The nurses and doctors at Flinders Medical Centre were brilliant, offering so much care and attention, and some of the nurses we had only just celebrated in parliament two days earlier for International Nurses Day.

So whilst the bill was being debated we were in the emergency department with my dad. In an attempt to stop him from talking too much so that he could recover, I let him know that I was due to give my speech, and instead of standing here I read my speech to him and my mum in the ED. Ironic, isn't it? Thankfully, he is home resting now, so it is my job now to try to do what I can to encourage others to give up—give up smoking, give up vaping—and advocate for any and every policy to stop the scourge. It is too late for my dad. Whilst he is home and better, his condition can only get worse.

Not only is today World No Tobacco Day but all of May is Lung Awareness Month. According to the Lung Foundation Australia, one in three Australians live with lung disease or a lung condition. The numbers are staggering. So those thinking about taking up smoking or vaping, those who have only just started, and those who still have time, I ask you to consider what it must be like for these people and for my dad. I ask you to stop. I ask you to take a big deep breath for him because he cannot.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Ms Stinson): Thank you, member for Waite. That was a very emotional contribution.

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (17:01): Can I also say at the outset, thank you to the member for Waite for that contribution. It is clearly a very difficult story to tell, but a really important one very eloquently made, so thank you.

I rise to speak on the supply grievance for the first time since being elected into this parliament, and I want to use it as an opportunity to provide a bit of a summary of some of the major local issues in my electorate that I have been fighting for in that first year of parliament. First and foremost, one of my key local priorities is getting heavy freight off our local roads, like Portrush Road and Glen Osmond Road in my electorate.

We know that over 650,000 heavy vehicles make their way down the South Eastern Freeway every year, and all those vehicles spew out onto one of three roads: Portrush Road in my electorate, Glen Osmond Road in my electorate or Cross Road, which of course runs through many of our electorates here in this house.

Most of those heavy vehicles choose Portrush Road. Over a thousand heavy vehicles per day go down Portrush Road and 80 per cent of B-doubles that make their way down the South Eastern Freeway come out onto Portrush Road. In fact, it is the way that the department has set it up—it is Highway 1—and I think that that is a bad set-up. I drive down this road and others like it every day, and it is lined with schools, nursing homes, shops and homes that are just not appropriate to be mixing with B-doubles.

What I think we need to do urgently is find a different solution. I have been advocating for a Greater Adelaide freight bypass, which is going to help take heavy vehicles off our local roads. What we now know as recently as a couple of weeks ago is that this project I have been advocating for actually stacks up. We had representatives from DIT attend a public forum in Glen Osmond in my electorate only a couple of weeks ago, and those representatives came bearing both good and bad news. They told us in one breath that the project is economically positive. They told us that there is actual demand in the freight industry for this project to go ahead.

Obviously we want to do everything we can to make sure our freight industry is running efficiently. We need our trucks to keep running to ensure our shelves are stocked and our parcels are delivered, but what we heard from DIT is that the freight industry actually wants this because, despite the route proposed by the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass being a little bit longer, it is faster. It is faster because you do not have to stop at a whole heap of traffic lights and you can, of course, travel a lot faster.

There is real demand in the industry, and that is before we even get to the very clear community benefits of reducing road congestion, the health benefits from getting heavy vehicles off our local roads and, of course, the road safety piece that I have spoken on in this house before. In one breath, they say the project stacks up; in the next breath, sadly, these representatives from DIT told us that the project is not funded. It is not funded by the Labor government and, in fact, they conceded there is not a lot of action happening on the ground on this project.

I am calling on the government once again to get on with the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass so we can get trucks off our local roads. Another key local issue in my electorate is safeguarding our homes and lives and livelihoods against the threat of bushfires, which is why I was very concerned last year when the Malinauskas Labor government slashed $1 million from the prescribed burning program. This is a program that is really important in reducing fuel hazards; ultimately, it is a program that saves property, it is a program that saves lives, it is a program that saves livelihoods.

I would like to see it restored so we can properly protect our homes and lives, and it turns out that many in my community agree. I have been circulating a petition over the past few months that has been signed by hundreds if not potentially thousands of members of my local community calling on the government to restore that vital bushfire funding.

At the same time, I am also calling on the government to back our local CFS in Bragg, the Burnside CFS, which is one of the very few metropolitan-based services and which also has responsibility for action at the South Eastern Freeway and the bottom of the freeway. There is some really critical work required at their shed; I am in some good correspondence with the minister on this issue and I hope that we can get something done.

Another key issue I have been fighting for over the past year and particularly recently is road safety around our schools. I have been calling on the government to undertake a review of road safety around all schools following what was a really devastating accident at the front of Marryatville High School earlier in the year. I have been consulting with many schools in my electorate, and what has become apparent is that there is a problem, and it is not confined just to Marryatville High School. We really do need a holistic review about whether we need any additional infrastructure around particular schools and whether we need to review speed limits around schools, particularly schools that are on main roads.

I have Kensington Road and Portrush Road in my electorate, which are home to schools like Loretto College and Seymour College and of course Marryatville as well. The speed limit on these roads is not changed around a school zone, and I think it is creating a really unsafe situation for schoolchildren, who deserve to be able to get to school safely. I would like to see a review into this matter to see what we can do.

In the meantime, at Marryatville I think there is some low-hanging fruit, and that comes in the form of a red-light camera at that intersection. We know that red-light cameras reduce the risk of injury crashes at pedestrian crossings by up to 21 per cent. It is a sensible solution that can be implemented in the short term, and I am really urging the government to install a red-light camera there in response to community demand to ensure that the students at Marryatville High School can get to school safely.

Finally, and while I am on the topic of education, I want to make a final comment about something I have been fighting for in my electorate, that is, the need for more schooling capacity. We have a problem in Bragg, but it is a good problem to have: we have really, really good schools, but they are so good that they are bursting at the seams. Every single school in Bragg continues to be at or over capacity. I have three primary schools—Linden Park Primary School, Rose Park Primary School and Burnside Primary School—and all three were in the top five in the state on rankings last year, I might add. They are very popular, but they all remain subject to capacity management plans.

While the move of year 7s to high school might have temporarily alleviated some of the pressure, all these schools are subject to capacity management plans and all these schools, because of their quality, are facing ever-increasing demand. The problem is no less at the high schools in my electorate. I have two—Marryatville High School and Glenunga International High School—both of which are already bursting at the seams. Indeed, Glenunga International High School is projected to go from already being 61 students over capacity in 2022 to 153 students over capacity by the beginning of 2024. Marryatville High School has a very similar problem and a very similarly sad story to tell, going from 94 students over capacity in 2022 to a projected 136 students over capacity in 2024.

I am urging the government to come up with a plan to alleviate this pressure and to seriously consider a new school in the eastern suburbs to cater for what is continual growth in the area and an ever-present demand for the schooling system there. They are just four fairly big picture items that I have been fighting for over this first year in parliament, and I will continue to advocate for these issues going forward.

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (17:11): I also rise to add a few words to the Supply Bill grievance. One of the challenges in a very large electorate is that you have communities that, although you could always argue that they have something in common, are all very different; in fact, I would go as far as to say that when it comes to some of the communities they are genuinely unique. There are not many Coober Pedys in the world and, when you look at the APY lands, at least in this state it is a fair distance with remote communities, and they are distant in more ways more than just the geographical spread from elsewhere in the state. Of course, in places like the APY lands, even though there is much that is positive, there are many challenges in those particular communities.

I want to touch on some of the commitments that we made to a number of our communities. In the Supply Bill debate I touched mainly on the things we have done when it comes to health commitments, both broadly and specifically, in some of the communities I represent. We are seeing unfold a whole series of initiatives to address some of the big issues that we face in health. I will say that, irrespective of what government is in power, health is always going to be a challenge for a whole range of reasons, not least of which is an ageing population and, I guess, a more complex range of chronic and often multiple chronic conditions that people are suffering from—partly as a result of age and partly as a result of other factors.

Many of us have touched on what is going on in health, but there are a few things about Port Augusta that I would like to mention. Of course, the western part of Port Augusta only came into the seat of Giles at the last election, so even though, as someone from Whyalla, I have had a fair bit to do with Port Augusta over the years, it was not in an intense way. So, as a candidate in the last election, I got to know Port Augusta more deeply. There was certainly some low-hanging fruit there that I was very surprised had not been picked up on.

Port Augusta has some real issues, and these are issues that should not be swept under the carpet. There are issues around antisocial behaviour. There are issues around crime—on a per capita basis as a regional community it probably has the highest crime rate in the state for major regional communities. So there are some real issues there.

For a time the Port Augusta council funded the City Safe program. One of the commitments I made, and we made in opposition, was that when the council pulled out of funding that particular program we would pick it up in one form or another. I had no issue with the Port Augusta council pulling funding, because they rightly believed that it was not predominantly an issue for the council. This was about community safety and, even though there was a community element and a community involvement, the responsibility lay more with the state government and, to a lesser degree, with the federal government. The council moved away from that and the previous government did not want to pick up the funding, so we did. We committed $1.2 million. We did not call it City Safe, but we mirrored some of the aspects of the City Safe program.

One of the positive things about the original City Safe program, even though it started off in a very controversial way, was the relationships that were developed with Aboriginal people who were visiting Port Augusta and the Aboriginal people in Port Augusta itself, or at least a section in Port Augusta itself. We knew that there was an issue in Port Augusta. There have always been visitors; there were a significant number. The issue was not people visiting, because people can visit for a whole range of reasons. It was with a section of the visitors acting in a way that the general community in Port Augusta, both European and Aboriginal, found disturbing. The level of violence in the streets, the brawling, and a whole range of other activities needed to be addressed.

We developed the Community Outreach program, which looked at the reasons why people were in Port Augusta. Like I said, that has been largely traditional, people coming to Port Augusta, but often people felt trapped there and they could not get back to country. There was a real effort put in to addressing some of the practical and often simple barriers to people returning to country. The program started in November. A significant number of people went back in the warmer months, and by 11 May 429 people had returned to country, predominantly the APY lands. Of that number, 94 were minors.

One of the things about people returning to country is that, in a way, it took some layers of behaviour away, especially combined with what the commissioner did with alcohol restrictions—both in Port Augusta and, not as strongly, in Whyalla, but there were impacts there. One of the things that it semi-unmasked was a longer standing issue in Port Augusta itself around a very disengaged youth and the level of antisocial behaviour and criminal activity amongst a number of people.

When we talk about people like this, we are going to always be very careful. We are actually talking about a very small number of children and youth in this category, but they clearly need assistance. Programs are needed. Community Outreach was not particularly designed to address that, but we have started pumping funding into youth services. There is a lot more to be done when it comes to short-term, medium-term and longer term strategies to address some of the issues in Port Augusta.

I want to say something about the opposition, because there might have been a temptation there to hold public meetings and do this and do that. I think they probably ended up thinking better of it because it is a dangerous thing in a setting like that: you could end up with an incredibly divided community without the positive engagement that is necessary to address some of the issues.

Irrespective of who is in government, we should—inasmuch as we can—be looking to assist communities like Port Augusta in a bipartisan fashion. We know that it would be very easy to go in in an opportunistic way. There might be some minor parties that occasionally do that: go in in an opportunistic way to drive some of the more negative stuff that is happening in the community when we want to address it. That does not mean we sweep the issues under the carpet, because these are real issues that affect a community and have an impact on the perception of a community by people from the outside.

I do not pretend: some of these issues that need to be addressed are going to take long-term strategies. A lot of that is about early intervention, more novel approaches and more activity for young people in Port Augusta—diversionary strategies. We often get the response that we should just lock people up. We know that when we lock our young people up—and there will be some whom we have to do that with—if kids get heavily involved in the criminal justice system at an early age, they are on track for a pretty hopeless life that is going to impose a lot of costs on the community in terms of the loss of safety, damage and a whole range of things. So we need to have a cohesive, long-term strategy to assist the community of Port Augusta.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (17:21): I would like to make a small contribution to this grievance debate in support of the Supply Bill. The reason I want to do so is that the Supply Bill, in some ways, is almost like a de facto budget: it actually gives the capacity to, or authorises, the government to spend moneys in a way that reflects its priorities. I think the budget and the Appropriation Bill are, in essence, a statement about values. How the government spends its moneys—and, on the reverse side, how it collects revenue to spend—is very much about the values you believe in and what priorities you have.

In terms of my electorate, some of the things that I hold important are, for example, community safety and community wellbeing. I think those two things are really important and cover quite a bit of the areas in which I believe governments have legitimate roles to play. In terms of the things that we are spending money on in my community—for example, on community safety—the government is investing $2 million on an additional SES unit in Willaston to cover the Gawler area and to support our volunteers in the SES (State Emergency Service). This has been very well received.

It is important, from a community safety point of view, in terms of ensuring that when things go wrong—whether it is floods, storms, etc.—we have the infrastructure in place to respond to those natural events. I call them natural events, even though they have become more prevalent these days.

We are also investing moneys into road safety. For pedestrian safety, we have invested $760,000-odd in building some additional crossings for students who go to Xavier College. This was a project which, when I raised it with the former government, was seen as unnecessary, but fortunately this government has invested $760,000 into a whole range of pedestrian safety measures to ensure that young people going to Xavier College, in the area of the town of Gawler, can do so in a much safer way, particularly when there is a major roundabout at this intersection that needs attention.

To the south, we have invested money to get a better understanding of the traffic issues along Curtis Road and Dalkeith Road. Curtis Road is a boundary road between my electorate and the member for Taylor's electorate, which carries quite a bit of traffic. That is no secret: you just have to drive down that way. It is my understanding that those traffic surveys indicate that there is some investment required in this road to bring it up to a standard that is safe for people to use.

Dalkeith Road is also a feeder road to Curtis Road. One difficulty is that when governments invest huge amounts of money in infrastructure like the Northern Expressway and the Northern Connector Road, which are really, really good, the roads that lead to them end up carrying more traffic as well. That is what we have here: the two roads that feed into that expressway are carrying traffic way beyond the capacity they were built for, and we are addressing those issues.

In terms of community safety, we are investing some money into sun safety in a number of playgrounds. There is one at Gawler West, one at Evanston and also one at Munno Para, which will make it safer for young people to use those playgrounds, and also for families to use playgrounds in a safe way.

In terms of wellbeing, sport is an important factor in community wellbeing from a health point of view—in other words, people being involved in sport and keeping active—but also from the point of view that healthy communities are communities that are well connected. Sporting activities, particularly in rural areas and country communities, are really essential because they do provide opportunities for communities to come together. It is not just the physical activity, such as sport, but also that social interaction that is really important.

This government is investing millions of dollars in netball, and in the Gawler Netball Association, and also in soccer, with the Gawler Eagles. We are going to improve facilities for those two—one is an association and the other is a club. Those supports have been well received by the community. With a top-up from the local council as well, we are investing some money in the wellbeing of people who actually have a lived experience of disability.

During this term of government, the appointment of the Assistant Minister for Autism has helped focus this government's attention on those issues that we need to address to help people with autism, particularly young people, to give them opportunities to have a dignified and meaningful life through improved education services and also through recreational activities. We are investing some money into improving a major playground in Gawler, in conjunction with the Gawler council, to make opportunities there for young people with autism to enjoy those recreational facilities.

One of the most important issues in my electorate is public transport. I am sad to say that since the return of the Adelaide to Gawler train service people have not been coming back to using those train services because the train service was down for so long during electrification, sadly—people found alternative ways—and to some extent the opening up of the Northern Expressway and Northern Connector has actually reduced the gap of time of getting from Gawler to the city.

I would have thought that the price gap is still quite large. Coming to Adelaide by train is a lot cheaper than coming to Adelaide by car. I would hope that particularly with the way prices are and also the wear and tear on a car, and the stress of having to drive, that would be reason to use a train. I would use a train any time I could. I try to use the train because it is cheaper, but it is also for your personal convenience: it is much more relaxing. You can actually do work on the train. It is also better for the environment. So we need to work out ways to get people back on the trains and increase public transport.

It is very important in that regard that, when we open up new communities and new areas, public transport is there from day one; if people do not see the public transport there from day one, they find alternative ways to get around and they build habits. Breaking those habits is incredibly difficult. For some reason, in South Australia—and this is a historical thing—we love our cars a lot more than people love their cars in other states. Partly it is because we are not a compact city anymore. I think that is part of it. In highly compact communities, towns and cities around the world, more people tend to use public transport, and so we have started off with the car and we do that.

We are improving public transport, and now we have better linked services. For instance, in Gawler we have a bus service that links to the train station, where can you go from the bus from the outer areas of Gawler into Gawler on a train into the city. For those people who are seniors, it is completely all free, and that is great.

We need to get more people back on our trains, and we made huge investments—both governments did. Both the Labor and the Liberal governments have made huge investments in rail infrastructure. We need to get more people back on the trains because it is very important. We need to better understand why people do not use public transport and address those issues. I think the cost differential in itself should be a good motivator for people to use public transport, but it does not seem to be enough. There are other factors at play, and we need to do that.

I think that this government's priorities are right. Certainly in my electorate the priorities are right. Across the state, we are doing it right. We are investing in a whole range of new energy measures, which not only create jobs but also help our environmental requirements. I think we are focusing on those key economic things which actually lead to economic wellbeing.

The only other thing I want to say is that I think it is important that over the next few years we actually do reinforce the message of this government and our priorities. Our priorities are investing in the future. We are investing in early childhood education; that is an investment in the future. This government understands that to get the returns for community wellbeing and prosperity we need to invest today for the benefits tomorrow, and I commend the government for that.

Motion carried.

Third Reading

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer) (17:32): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.


At 17:33 the house adjourned until Thursday 1 June 2023 at 11:00.


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