Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-05-10 Daily Xml

Contents

Northern Entrepreneur Growth Scheme

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS (15:13): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation a question about the Northern Entrepreneur Scheme.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: On 28 March this year, the minister announced to this chamber the Northern Entrepreneur Scheme, designed to 'accelerate the growth in entrepreneurs, businesses and jobs in the Gawler region'. This announcement came after I asked the minister a number of questions over several months regarding the exclusion of Gawler from the Northern Economic Plan despite the town having equal numbers of Holden workers to the City of Port Adelaide Enfield. My question to the minister is: why is the Northern Entrepreneur Scheme located at the Stretton Centre in Munno Para instead of within the Town of Gawler, which is where both council and the community were expecting it would be located?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Employment, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation, Minister for Automotive Transformation, Minister for Science and Information Economy) (15:14): I thank the honourable member for his question and his interest in matters that are to do with this area and particularly the Northern Entrepreneurs Scheme. I know there was a lot of discussion that happened at a departmental-to-council level about this scheme. The Stretton Centre in Munno Para has programs that are already established that were able to be rolled out very quickly.

We want to make sure that we could get these started as quickly as possible. I know there is an intention to look to see if they can be physically located in or around Gawler, but to get them started, to get them started as quickly as possible, a location that was in reasonable proximity to Gawler was chosen for the initial programs to be started to benefit Gawler.