James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was a great pleasure to welcome the Treasurer to my electorate of Sturt last week, on Monday. Obviously, he is travelling the length and breadth of the country talking about the budget and what it means for real Australians—real people, real families and real business operators. We had two excellent visits in my seat.

The first was to an iconic local business, La Casa Del Formaggio—the house of cheese—in Glynde, just next to Firle in my electorate. It is a great second-generation family business, employing over 100 South Australians and making beautiful cheeses in the Italian style: mozzarella, bocconcini et cetera. The Treasurer enjoyed doing some tasting. He got a bit of coverage on The Project for that, in fact; all publicity is good publicity. They're a great business and are really looking forward to taking advantage of the instant asset write-off. They are expanding. It's a great story. They sell right across the country and want to export overseas, and thanks to measures in the budget, particularly the instant asset write-off, they're going to be investing in new plant and equipment, upgrading their facility and expanding their capacity to produce. That's going to mean employing more South Australians and making more money in the South Australian economy. So it was really exciting to go to that business, talk to them about what they're doing, take the Treasurer there and hear those stories about the practical impact of some of these important budget decisions that we have made for businesses in my electorate of Sturt.

Then we were able to go to the Kensington Gardens Reserve and inspect what is probably about the halfway mark of a project there that we're working on with the state government and the local Burnside council. It's an excellent upgrade of local recreational amenity and an excellent environment outcome. We have invested $3 million, the council have put $3 million in, and the state government, in their recent COVID stimulus round, added some more to round that project out. So it's a little over $7 million, right in the heart of my seat. It's going to be a great enhanced local asset, particularly for families in the area. Kensington Gardens Reserve is already an excellent local asset for sporting groups, to walk the dog, to do a park run or whatever it might be. But this investment is going to see that asset become even better for the local community and the surrounding areas. We are, of course, also achieving significant environmental outcomes from this investment thanks to the wetlands that are going to be installed there to replace the old static pond. The Treasurer really enjoyed his time there and all of his time in South Australia, and we are really appreciative of him for coming and also for the work he's done in this budget, which is making such a positive impact on businesses and local communities across the country, including in my electorate of Sturt.