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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-06-20 Daily Xml
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AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:33): As a supplementary question, in the answer the minister says, 'Why don't I ask for a briefing?' Will she, following the letter I wrote to her on 5 April requesting a briefing from the South Australian Research and Development Institute, facilitate that as soon as possible? You asked me why I haven't asked for a briefing. My supplementary question is: will you facilitate—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I would be happy to. It happens to be a copy of an email, the document, but I am happy to provide a copy of that document.

The Hon. S.G. Wade: Table it.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I don't want to table my phone. I will table the document.

The PRESIDENT: You can pass it over to me. The Hon. Mr Ridgway.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I will bring it up to you for your verification. Will the minister facilitate the briefing I asked for in a letter to her on 5 April this year, a briefing with the South Australian Research and Development Institute?

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Ridgway, you have asked your supplementary question and I ask you not to answer your own question.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for State/Local Government Relations) (14:34): We seek to assist the opposition, minor parties and smaller parties wherever we can. I don't necessarily trust the assertion that the Hon. David Ridgway is saying. I am happy to check that out, but wherever possible, we give briefings, and honourable members know this. They know that whenever they ask for briefings, they get it. We are happy to do that.

What I can say, though, is that the Hon. David Ridgway, in relation to comments that he made about this budget, failed to verify or check—

The Hon. S.G. Wade: Give him a briefing then.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: Last time we didn't get a briefing. I asked for one.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: Why didn't he ask for a briefing for this budget? It's as simple as that. He didn't ask for a briefing for this budget. He did not ask for a briefing for this budget, and he has gone out there with incorrect information and now he is embarrassed. He knows he has made a fool of himself, yet again, because he is so lazy. He is so lazy—he shoots off at the mouth without engaging his brain (and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt), he doesn't research his work, he doesn't verify his facts and he doesn't even bother to ask for briefings. We would have gladly provided him with a briefing. In relation to the figures that the Hon. Robert Brokenshire has raised, again, his figures are quite misleading as well.

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire: No.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: Well, just listen then. PIRSA in 2002 included the minerals, energy and resources division machinery of government. Changes occurred in 2010-11, and it shifted those responsibilities, so it had a whole division that shifted out to DMITRE, reducing PIRSA's—

The Hon. S.G. Wade: More Labor dodgy accounting.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: No, listen, the truth hurts. These are the cuts he's talking about—the cuts, all these big cuts. They moved to another department, for God's sake. They moved to another department. A whole big division up and moved to DMITRE, reducing PIRSA's FTE by around 217. Moving 225.8 FTEs from PIRSA and adding eight back is what my advice says here. That reduces the budget by about $26 million net.

The important staff and financial commitment needed to help our community deal with drought has also changed. The honourable member should know this—he is supposed to be a farmer—so he knows that the budget had exceptional circumstances money in it. He knows that some of those—

The Hon. S.G. Wade interjecting:

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: They don't want to hear the truth, but I will finish this.

The PRESIDENT: I'm listening, minister.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: Mr President, they mislead this place and they mislead the public. Earlier PIRSA budgets had exceptional circumstances money in them, which added significantly to the budget and funds coming from both commonwealth and state. The drought has ended. That money is no longer needed. We don't have exceptional circumstances money in our budget anymore.

Similarly, branched broomrape—and again, he should know this—has moved, as I have reported in this place on a number of occasions, from an eradication to a management plan. That has also changed the budget significantly. These aren't budget cuts, these are changes in our budget. In 2002, obviously, fewer people used the internet as a tool and, of course, now they are using many more online services. Services are delivered more efficiently using the internet and email.

PIRSA has, over time, improved delivery mechanisms to best use resources and deliver best bang for buck. For example, seven new agribusiness account manager roles have been created focusing on the key areas of horticulture, seafood, grape and wine, meat and livestock, grains, food and beverage processing, and forestry. Also five new regional manager roles have been established, based in the Eyre and Western, the Limestone Coast, the Murraylands and Riverland, and the Yorke and Mid North regions in PIRSA's regional offices, and a regional manager for outer Adelaide will be based in Adelaide.

Regional services across each region will be coordinated from a regional hub. Each of the hubs will maintain a front counter service providing licensing transactions, providing facilities for meetings and videoconferencing and such like, and other general administrative services. These are the changes that have been made inside PIRSA and these programs are not included in this budget because the programs have been completed, or are finished, or are obsolete, but he has lumped them all into one and called them budget cuts, which is incredibly misleading and very lazy.

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