Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2021-2022 and wish to take the opportunity to speak to a range of community priorities and concerns across my electorate of Mayo. I was pleased to see the government allocate funding to a number of projects I have strongly advocated for, including $5 million to finish upgrading the emergency department and renal dialysis unit at Victor Harbour hospital and the $5.4 million for the Southern Materials Recovery Facility recycling plant at McLaren Vale.

Victor Harbour hospital serves a growing population of more than 37,000 people. We have a significantly higher proportion of older people living on the south coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula when compared to South Australia's average. More than a third of our residents aged over 65 years. The south coast is growing rapidly, with a projected population increase of 18 per cent over the next 15 years. This funding will allow the expansion of the renal dialysis unit to meet the projected renal dialysis demand by 2030.

The southern materials recovery facility, when completed, will process 31,000 tonnes of recycling a year. The additional federal funding will enable the facility to escalate recovery to 62,000 tonnes a year to service more regional councils and nearby commercial businesses. This is really exciting news. This facility is so much more than a recycling depot. It's an engine for an exciting new circular economy in our community and will create over 80 full-time jobs during construction and approximately 20 ongoing full-time jobs. It's those ongoing jobs that are just so critical for our community, and I commend the government for providing national leadership on this important issue.

I would like to talk about child care. I welcome the budget announcement of childcare fee relief for larger families, making child care more affordable for second and subsequent children attending child care at the same time. I recently spoke in this place on the high cost of child care in my community and in particular highlighted the need to remove the cap, which families in my electorate reaching well before the end of the financial year, resulting in families having to pay unsubsidised, full-cost child care for a significant proportion of the year. I asked for this serious issue to be addressed and I'm grateful the government has listened to many people in this chamber and removed the cap altogether.

Often what happens with the second or perhaps even third child is that one of the parents says, 'It's just not affordable for me to keep working at all,' and we are taking away choice from a person simply because of cost. I do, however, have concerns about the estimated rollout date of July 2022 with the announcement that's in the budget. I stress to the government that we need to implement these changes sooner. 2022 is well over a year away, and I can't see why, with the powers of government and with the Public Service, we can't get this happening by the end of the year, if not sooner.

I'm pleased to see that the budget has allocated $40 million for supplementary road funding over two years for South Australia. I've continually advocated for this since it was cut in 2014. When I was first elected with Nick Xenophon and our whole Nick Xenophon Team, now known as Centre Alliance, we lobbied hard for this money to be reinstated for South Australia. This funding would provide more than $4 million to councils for local roads across Mayo and addresses the inequity that we experience in South Australia, where we receive only five per cent of the nation's share of road funding despite our state having more than 11 per cent of the nation's local road network. While this funding is welcome, I call on the government to permanently fix this anomaly by addressing the inherent inequity in this funding. South Australia should receive a share that is commensurate with our share of the local road network.

There was some really exciting news in the budget for our planning study for the Greater Adelaide freight bypass. It's an important first step in addressing the increased congestion and dangerous freight and commuter interaction that happens on the South Eastern Freeway. We have too many accidents on our freeway, and heavy vehicle breakdowns cause significant and prolonged traffic delays, prompting serious safety concerns. This is in a high-risk bushfire area where this is really our only corridor out. Diverting heavy freight off the freeway is critical in the future for South Australia. It will improve safety, reduce congestion and ease local concerns. This $5 million is very welcome. We need to make sure that we get the planning right. I look forward to the opportunity of a briefing on this initiative to better comprehend the finer details of the planning study.

I urge the government, in undertaking the study, to commit to preserving the existing rail infrastructure. I think disposing of land corridors, whether it be federal or state governments doing so, is a very short-sighted decision. We need to make sure that we keep these corridors open so that future governments can use these important transport corridors. We are a growing region. We have a great need for public transport today and will have in the future.

Another exciting part of the budget was the funding for craft distillers. I have a number of craft distillers in my electorate, and I think this is really important. It is all about supporting small business. The lifting of the threshold for receiving full remission of excise from $100,000 to $350,000 is a real boon. It will return $225 million to distillers, and I know that the distillers in my community are going to be reinvesting that money in their businesses and expanding their businesses. It's incredibly exciting news and a really good first step, but there's more that needs to be done. We need a freeze on the CPI indexing and no excise applied to tastings, just like we have in the wine sector. For me, this is all about the same set of rules applying to all related industries.

Disappointingly, the budget failed to deliver on some of the most important and immediate concerns of everyday Australians. We need to end the climate policy deadlock that we have in this nation, and particularly in this place. I was particularly disappointed that there was no funding set aside for the member for Indi's proposal for a new Commonwealth corporate entity, the Australian Local Power Agency. Regional communities are not always seeing the full benefit of the community energy projects being built in regional Australia. The establishment of the Australian Local Power Agency would address this by providing a dedicated focus on developing community energy projects and ensuring that regional communities share in the benefits of renewable energy. It would sit alongside ARENA and the CEFC to administer direct financial, technical and investment support. I think this is an opportunity lost and I would urge the government to look at it again. I wrote a letter to the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction supporting the budget request for $54 million, in underlying cash balance terms, to establish the Australian Local Power Agency. Unfortunately, that money was not in the budget, but I will continue my lobbying, as, I am sure, the member for Indi will, for this to be considered in the future.

Another omission from the budget was electric vehicles. There was nothing in the budget to accelerate the rollout of charging infrastructure and there were no incentives for consumers to adopt more environmentally friendly transport options. At present, we have a mismatch of state and territory arrangements for electric vehicles and infrastructure. The federal government, I believe, has a pivotal role in setting a national approach and facilitating electric vehicle ownership. One simple measure would be to remove the luxury car tax from electric vehicles. We should also be investigating how we can create an electric vehicle parts and manufacturing sector. Until recently, Australia had a strong and proud tradition of automotive manufacturing, especially in my home state of South Australia—we made Holden cars; we made Mitsubishi cars—and we have the opportunity to do this again with electric vehicles. They could be the renaissance of car manufacturing. We should not accept that car manufacturing in Australia must end. As I said, we could build electric vehicles in this nation. We have most of the base metals that go into electric cars, so why are we not building them? What an opportunity lost!

My electorate is home to the Amy Gillett Bikeway in the Adelaide Hills. I have previously secured government funding for sections of this wonderful trail, and I recently wrote to the Treasurer seeking funding to connect the trail to the proposed Adelaide wine capital cycle trail, which seeks to deliver an iconic cycling pilgrimage of 250 kilometres, spanning four distinct wine regions: Clare Valley, Barossa Valley, Adelaide Hills and McLaren Vale. The trail would provide much needed support to communities looking to rebuild and diversify their local economies after the Black Summer bushfires. It will assist our wine region, particularly with respect to tourism. We are having a number of challenges in respect of tariffs and China, and we need to support our wine regions to encourage more visitors and more people purchasing home-grown stock. Speaking of the Australian wine industry, it is currently experiencing considerable financial pain, and I encourage the government to work more closely with the industry and fund future initiatives to grow exports and diversify our international markets.

Another fight we have on our agricultural battlefront is in our fruit growing regions in the Adelaide Hills and Riverland, which are currently under siege from serious Mediterranean fruit fly outbreaks. I urge the federal government to work with states to develop a national eradication strategy and to fund a food irradiation plant in Adelaide. We need this in South Australia. This will control our insects and invasive pests. Ultimately it would be an opportunity—an insurance policy, if you like—for us to be able to continue to export, to diversify our exports and to ensure that our produce is seen as safe, particularly in new countries. I am really encouraged by the great work that so many of my producers do, off their own back, out of their own pocket, to build their export networks. We need to ensure that the federal government and the state government are behind them. I'm really keen to continue lobbying for an irradiation plant in South Australia. We need to be able to export directly out of South Australia, and we can't do that without it.

I'm very pleased to see the six-month extension of the Small Business Financial Counselling service for small regional businesses experiencing or at risk of financial hardship due to the impacts of drought, bushfire and COVID-19. The program has assisted so many businesses in my community through a very difficult period, and many of them are now once again thriving. It's very exciting news. I'm pleased to see the extension, but I like to think we can continue further. I think that six months is a little bit short-sighted and I would urge government to continue that program because it really is helping regional businesses so much.

I think overall I give the budget a B-plus. There were parts missing, but there are many, many good parts to the budget, particularly for my electorate. I'm pleased to commend this bill to the Chamber.

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