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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-09-17 Daily Xml
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Balyana Supported Independent Living

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:28): My question is to the Premier. Will the government commit to retaining Bedford's Balyana site as supported independent living for its current and any future residents? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr TEAGUE: Balyana residents and their families are facing an uncertain future after being told by Bedford Industries that they will need to move from the place they have called home for decades. In a letter to the Bedford chair, Ms Janet Miller, on 22 May 2025, the Premier notes that, and I quote:

Bedford…will need to cease provision of SIL [supported independent living] services sooner than previously determined.

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr TEAGUE: Just the quote from that part of the Premier's letter; it's from the Premier to the Bedford chair, Ms Janet Miller, and that is dated 22 May.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:29): I thank the Deputy Leader for his question. This is an important question and something I know the Minister for Human Services has been working on as well in conjunction with my office, along with McGrathNicol, the commonwealth and Bedford themselves. Bedford obviously has a range of operations. The one that is best known to the people of South Australia is the supported wage operations or the employment services that are really important and touch hundreds and hundreds of families, if not over a thousand families. That's the bulk of the operation that people are most familiar with, but they also do provide supported accommodation services, principally at the Balyana site.

As part of our rescue package to buy time for Bedford, the state government has acquired the Balyana site and, over the medium to long term, there will need to be a transition of people who are at the Balyana site off it to other services. One of the reasons why we made the acquisition of the Balyana site wasn't just to provide cash to Bedford but also because there was a real risk that, given the state of Bedford's affairs—particularly financial affairs—the people living at the Balyana site could find themselves abruptly having to find alternatives. By us acquiring the Balyana site, it put the South Australian government in the box seat to provide greater control and security to the people who are there. Had Balyana gone into an unplanned immediate administration, the people living there, and their families, would have no certainty about a path forward.

What we are doing as a government is working in conjunction with Bedford, or a successor to Bedford, about a thoughtful transition off the site. We have made clear that that can't happen in the short term. I have made that clear directly through my office to Bedford and other related parties. I personally have kept abreast of this situation through my office, and intervene where necessary to make sure that there isn't any abrupt transition.

Bedford themselves had a meeting of families in the not too distant past, and we instructed them at that meeting—which happened, I have to recall the date but sometime in recent weeks—we specifically instructed Bedford to make clear the government's position in this regard. Whether or not that was done as effectively as it should have been is a matter of judgement, but I make clear that any transition for those individuals or those families off site, which will happen in due course and needs to happen at some point, has to be done in an orderly and smooth way. We are not seeking to bring that date forward; instead, we are acting to work to provide more time to allow for more certainty—certainly more certainty than otherwise would be the case if there was an unplanned administration.

I take this opportunity, given the Deputy Leader's thoughtful question, to make clear that, as the process has unfolded since the government's intervention, it had become increasingly clear to the government, to the commonwealth, through McGrathNicol, that the financial position of Bedford was even more dire than we first understood, and that was starting from a pretty low bar. So this remains an ongoing challenge. We made clear our plan through the rescue package was to buy time so that the federal government could intervene in the event that there was not a salvageable position, and that work remains ongoing.

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