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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-10-20 Daily Xml
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RIVERLAND SUSTAINABLE FUTURES FUND

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:39): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Regional Development a question about the Riverland Sustainable Futures Fund.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: According to the assessment criteria for the Riverland Sustainable Futures Fund, all applicants must be able to demonstrate that the project will have a positive and sustainable impact on economic activity in the Riverland through either diversifying the economy or building on existing competitive advantages.

Another essential criterion is that the project have strategic importance demonstrated by one of the following, including 'to contribute to the achievement of the targets associated with the five core strategies contained in the Riverland Regional Prospectus'. Minister O'Brien's ministerial foreword to the Riverland Regional Prospectus states:

This Riverland Regional Prospectus recognises that whilst irrigated horticulture and agricultural production will continue to underpin the long term viability of the Riverland, the region's economic base must also evolve and diversify, building upon its strengths and competitive advantages.

In order to achieve diversification, the Prospectus sets investment targets of an additional $500m and an increase in population of 7000 people over a 20 year period.

Key objectives have been identified to achieve these targets in the areas of:

Pre-retirement, Retirement and Immigration;

Additional New Food/Beverage Manufacturing;

Tourism;

Education; and

Local Business Development

Yet, all of the money distributed to date from the Riverland Sustainable Futures Fund, in fact, has gone to projects that rely on irrigated horticulture. I understand that all of the grants, other than the one to JMA Engineering, have been to businesses relying directly or indirectly on irrigation. My questions are:

1. How is the minister's management of the Riverland Sustainable Futures Fund supporting diversification away from irrigated agriculture?

2. Will the minister reassess the criteria to ensure that diversification opportunities in key prospectus sectors including retirement and tourism are not inhibiting viable diversification opportunities?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Public Sector Management, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises, Minister for Gambling) (14:41): I thank the honourable member for his important question and, again, the opportunity to talk further about this very important government initiative and support for the Riverland area. After all, let us get back to the bottom line: this is about helping a community, helping a region, get back on its feet and that is exactly what this fund is doing.

Indeed, the prospectus for which the South Australian government provided funding did identify five key potential growth areas as the member outlined: pre-retirement and retirement living, value-added food and beverage processing, tourism, education and local business development. Indeed, additionally, there were a number of reports that fed into this and helped inform the prospectus including a Scholefield report that listed and outlined the opportunities around horticulture in the area. I suggest that the honourable member read that because he clearly has not. It talks about enormous opportunities in the Riverland area particularly for protected horticulture and it actually identifies a range of different crops and flowers, etc., as well that they analyse as having potential and opportunity.

Diversification is not just about the diversifying out of horticulture. It is a horticulture centre. Water is their lifeline and it is important that we are able to develop an industry there that takes full use of the water that is available there, albeit that we need to be able to reduce reliance on water.

That is one of the reasons why we have invested money from these funds in the project, for instance, that the Hon. Michelle Lensink referred to which is about improving irrigation to a particular crop—the seedless watermelon—which is, in turn, produce that is in itself helping to diversify horticulture in that region so that it no longer becomes reliant on just a narrow range of produce such as citrus and grapes, but a far broader base in horticulture, such as seedless watermelons, feijoas and wholesale nursery plants. So, biological control agents was another. Also, the increasing of packing sheds and looking at strategies to market out into fresh and dried apricot industries. The honourable member does not have a clue when he refers to diversification. It is not just diversifying out of horticulture—obviously that is one part of the strategy—but diversifying within horticulture as well.

The other point is that it is not surprising, given the dominance of horticulture in that region, that most of the applications that have come in are around horticulture. Basically, the number of applications that I have received that look beyond that have been limited or are applications that have not been able to fulfil the criteria. Where they have failed to do that, we have attempted, where we can, to assist that applicant to go away and revisit and attempt to address those issues of concern to bring their proposal up to scratch or to meet the eligibility criteria of the fund.

The RDAs also play a critical role. These are local people from the Riverland who live, work and breathe the Riverland. They have a breadth of knowledge and a wealth of experience and are involved across a wide range of sectors. As I said, their role is to work with and identify local businesses and organisations on the ground, to inform people about the sorts of opportunities and to promote their prospectus and also their roadmap for the area so that we can generate a greater breadth of interest in this grant.

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