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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-08-20 Daily Xml
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Great State Voucher Scheme

Ms PRATT (Frome) (14:37): My question is to the Minister for Tourism. When will the government launch the Great State Voucher scheme for all coastal communities? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Ms PRATT: In a press conference this week, the Premier declared that the vouchers are being considered as part of his summer plan.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:38): I thank the member for her question. We have made it clear that, as a government, we are developing a summer plan. That needs to be comprehensive in its scope. It needs to contemplate the environmental—because ultimately this is the environment we are talking about—and the economic, as well as the public health and social considerations. There are a number of different themes of public policy areas that the summer plan is seeking to address.

With respect to the economic, we have made clear that we believe the Great State Voucher program or the Riverland recovery-type voucher program that we had have proven to be effective in a number of different contexts. We called for it when we were in opposition, in COVID. We did it in the Riverland, and it works. We have made it clear that we are open to doing that and that we are turning our minds to it. We are more than turning our minds to it, we are planning for it.

The one thing I would say, though, and this goes back to a point I was making earlier, is we have a duty and a responsibility on behalf of communities—let's take the tourism sector, for instance, which has been affected by the algal bloom—to not just look after them but also think about those who are unaffected by the algal bloom.

Getting that balance right is something we owe to taxpayers because it would end up being a perverse set of circumstances where the South Australian taxpayer were having their funds going to the subsidisation of holidays, for instance for tourism operators in the name of the algal bloom where the algal bloom doesn't exist. Just think about that for a moment.

Imagine if we found ourselves where in a part of the state, say, in the Far West Coast or in the South-East, where there is no algal bloom, we found ourselves having to support those communities for the algal bloom where the algal bloom didn't exist. It would be like using flood funding to support places that weren't flooded or bushfire funding for places that were nowhere near the bushfire. That would be perverse.

We don't want to find ourselves in that situation which is why we have got to do a little bit of work in making sure that we all accept the responsibility, if you are serious about caring for taxpayers' interests, in making sure that we bridge the delta between the real and the perceived in terms of where the algal bloom is having a bit of an effect. So that is what we are working on as a government.

We have demonstrated how serious we are about supporting the tourism part of our economy. The Minister for Tourism hasn't just worked on events programs or direct flights or the creation of new accommodation services or new marketing campaigns—all of these things we have done—but on top of that we are also making sure that as part of the summer plan and the preparations of it that we turn our mind to the way we get people into accommodation places where the algal bloom exists.

We are going to do it in such a way that makes sure we are not just giving due consideration to those extraordinary men and women and businesses that work in these areas but that we also do it in a way that is appropriate when it comes to the expenditure of taxpayer funds. We see an opportunity here to get that balance right and that is what we are working to achieve.

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