Mr Ellis to move – That this House –  

(a) recognises the dire impact that the unfortunate reduction of health services in  

Ardrossan will have on the town and surrounding community;  

(b) congratulates the hard-working staff and volunteer board on their perseverance  

in keeping the community hospital as long as they have;  

(c) note that this comes as part of a wider degradation in regional health services;  

and  

(d) implores the State Government to do all that they can to address the reduction  

of health services in regional South Australia, including but not limited to:  

i. installing a triage service in Ardrossan imitation the template provided after 

the closure of the Keith and Districts Community Hospital;  

ii. committing to a significant upgrade of the woefully undersized Wallaroo 

Hospital; and  

iii. guaranteeing the equitable distribution of health professionals across the  

entirety of the State. 

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (16:18): I rise to make a contribution to the Appropriation Bill. Budget estimates are always an interesting time. Sometimes you get some reasonable answers and sometimes you do not, but it is a process that we go through in the parliament. I commend all the public servants who do the research in the background to make sure that the ministers can at least be informed.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (15:53): I rise to pay my respects to Bill Nankivell who was the member, essentially, for the seat that I now hold, the seat of Hammond. As has been stated, Bill was born in Mount Gambier in 1923 and held land at Willalooka, but he also had land at Geranium up in the Mallee, which is quite fitting for the name of his seat later on.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:47): I rise to make a few brief comments supporting this build of the Gawler State Emergency Service unit. Gawler has certainly grown massively, and the surrounding districts have certainly grown, since the settlement of this state. In fact, at one time Gawler was quite the regional area. Certainly, it is a place close to my heart. Both sets of grandparents lived up there. In fact, my great-great-grandparents moved out there in the mid to late 1800s from a little farm at Plympton.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:32): I just want to make a few brief comments on the Flood Recovery Projects—Northern Areas project. Certainly, we saw the need for a great deal of work to be done on the Stuart Highway, especially in regard to flood damage. There were scenes at Glendambo of that A-triple road train bogged at the side of the road on the bitumen, which was a bit interesting. There was certainly some extreme weather that went through that area.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:10): I rise to support this Public Works Committee reference into the Monarto augmentation pump stations upgrade project. This is a much-needed project that has been going for several weeks now in the Murray Bridge-Monarto area. I have certainly noticed the works being done and, I think, generally completed next to the main SA Water tank adjacent the access to the freeway at White Hill.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (15:09): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I rise to support this motion in memory of the great man Steele Hall and acknowledging Joan and her extended family. Steele's service has been well put to the chamber. His sense of getting things right was essentially lost in the premiership here in South Australia. He did the electoral reform process that he thought was the right thing to do, and the Chowilla dam process. He looked at everything and weighed it up as, 'What is the right thing to do here?' He was a man of true conviction who served not only this state but this nation for decades, and I doubt whether the service will ever be equalled in this country.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (12:35): I rise to support the leader's original motion:

That this house—

(a) acknowledges that South Australia is where 25 per cent of the world's uranium is found, and that our state holds 80 per cent of Australia's known uranium reserves;

(b) acknowledges the groundbreaking AUKUS agreement which will see the construction of nuclear-powered submarines at the Osborne shipyards, noting that this will see the development of nuclear skills which could in turn leverage a civil nuclear industry;

(c) acknowledges that base load zero emissions nuclear power is critical to decarbonise globally and that many countries around the world are already using base load zero emissions nuclear power;

(d) acknowledges that inherent grid stability which is provided by base load zero emissions nuclear power;

(e) notes that Australia is the only G20 country with a blanket ban on base load zero emissions nuclear power and that this poses a risk to decarbonisation targets at state and federal level;

(f) notes that active participation in various stages of the nuclear fuel cycle could present multiple economic opportunities for South Australia;

(g) supports base load zero emissions nuclear power being considered as part of a source-agnostic pathway to clear, zero emissions energy production; and

(h) supports a non-ideological, open-minded investigation into the potential for a civil nuclear industry, including energy generation, in South Australia.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (10:33): I rise to make a contribution to the Criminal Law Consolidation (Sexual Predation Offences) Amendment Bill brought in by the shadow attorney-general, the member for Heysen.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (19:36): I rise to make a contribution about the Appropriation Bill, or the budget bill, for 2024. I note that the total budget when you add in the Supply Bill is around $28.5 billion, which is a significant amount of money to resource the state—noting, I think, somewhere around $9 billion of that goes into health.