Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (19:31): I rise to make a brief contribution regarding the budget and Appropriation Bill. I would have to say that, over the journey of the last budget and this budget, Mount Gambier and particularly the Lower South-East have received considerable funding and considerable attention from the government. I really do acknowledge and appreciate that type of support because we are the state's second largest city and, quite honestly, one of the economic powerhouses of the state in terms of not only gross domestic product but also possibilities going forward.

With some support and attention, I am very confident that the entire Limestone Coast, but of course my patch, the seat of Mount Gambier, will contribute to this wonderful state and contribute to prosperity, to jobs and, of course, to a better future for all South Australians. That is a thing to keep in mind, that if everybody and every region does their part the state as a whole will grow and prosper. I certainly see our region batting above its weight, but with support it can certainly be doing a hell of a lot more.

There are a couple of topics that I will talk about tonight. If I break them down, they include hydrogen and the opportunities for hydrogen in the Lower South-East; midwifery and nursing, and attraction and retention of that vital industry and skill; tourism opportunities, particularly around the Gather Round; a Telstra proposal, which I think is very exciting and something for which a modest input from a state government will give complete coverage; medical cannabis, and people have heard me talk about this for a long time; palliative care, which I spoke about today, so I will not go into great detail about that; some initiatives around roads and infrastructure; and the Patient Assisted Transport Scheme. When I first got into government—actually, I was campaigning in 2013, which seems like a lifetime ago—we were able to negotiate with both sides of parliament, making a significant contribution to patient assisted transport.

If I start with hydrogen, some work has been done by Iris Engineering. This is in collaboration with my good friend and political neighbour of MacKillop Nick McBride. He has a copy of this report that shows that the seat of Mount Gambier and the seat of MacKillop are ideally located to further hydrogen production and also the research and development of that. I sometimes look with envy at some of the technical colleges being built in the CBD and regions here, because the defence industry is a natural employer.

I heard the Premier today talk about pathways for kids into that industry, and I am sure the technical college based in the education precinct located in Mount Gambier will play into that, and we need to make sure it does because the number of jobs that are being talked about are actually mind-boggling when you sit down and think about it. It is not in the tens, it is not in the hundreds—it is in the thousands.

I was a schoolteacher for a long time, probably over 20 years. I may not have taught that number of kids, but if you start adding up you think that this is a very significant development for our state and obviously brilliant for our kids coming through and also those who are going to repurpose and retool to enjoy that pathway going forward.

Iris have put together a document that both the member for MacKillop and I have and I will be talking to the Treasurer as soon as he gets through estimates and can focus on our region versus perhaps the tricky questions coming and the broader aspects.

What really struck me about this proposal were the competitive advantages that the South-East possesses, and I will read them out. I will not go into the business case per se, but water availability is number one. Limestone Coast water run-off has been identified as vast in quantity and outstanding in quality in terms of its purity, being fresh water pretty much running out to the sea and being collected. If you are in the South-East at this time of year, you will see more water than you think is possible.

The Wattle Range region has excellent wind resources, with existing wind farms already in establishment. Most of the sites are only about two-thirds to two-fifths capacity (i.e. it has been scoped already for additional wind turbines). While the need is not there yet, they have the approvals and the capability to increase the number of wind turbines considerably, particularly in the Wattle Range area. In terms of solar and wind opportunities, the potential, as I said, is great. Approvals have already been done and they have obviously been built.

In terms of offtake agreements, we have Kimberly-Clark. During the pandemic, who would have thought that the most prized possession in your pantry would have been a roll of toilet paper, but that is what we produce in the seat of MacKillop in the South-East. We also have our coal, which is an aluminium smelter that will take every bit of green energy that we will be able to produce. How good would it be to be producing green hydrogen and then exporting it over the border to Victoria for use.

What I am really impressed with is the establishment of a world-class educational hub and this comes back to the education precinct that I was talking about. The University of South Australia has an existing facility and programs in Mount Gambier, in addition to the considerable investment that the state government is making into our education precinct. This can be expanded to develop further research opportunities within the university to make sure that the hydrogen journey we are on continues to expand beyond the building of one site.

I do want to put on the record that I really wish Whyalla all the best. I hope that that project gets off the ground. I am talking about a subsequent project after Whyalla or at the same time—it does not really matter. I fully support the Whyalla proposal. It is a great region and certainly a part of the state I have spent a lot of time in.

Of course, its location in the South-East is strategically important, being located between Adelaide and Victoria, in becoming a hub for education, hydrogen development, distribution and power supplies. I think hydrogen has a very bright future. I would like to see it expanded into the South-East and I think we can play a part in exporting green hydrogen over the border into Alcoa.

In terms of midwifery and university courses, I need to put on the record that my daughter is doing the midwifery course so when I talk about subsidies for midwives and nurses having to do their placement in Adelaide it will not necessarily affect us, but I have firsthand experience on the difficulty. In fact, I will be honest: I think the course needs to be seriously looked at by the government because it almost seems to do everything it can to disincentivise regional nurses and regional midwives from doing their course in a regional area and this is of great concern to me.

I think one of the reasons that some students in regional areas are not completing their courses is not because of their skill level, it is because of the university making it so difficult that it borders on the absurd. That is something that we should take very seriously in here. When I talk about subsidies, it is not for my daughter or anything like that. We have a rental unit in Adelaide, so she would not be part of that. But the number of people in her course who have dropped out because of the onerous and restrictive conditions that are put on them is something that we seriously need to address.

I want to talk about a couple of people who are in her course and their experiences. They sent my daughter emails and texts because they knew that I was talking about this tonight, and it is quite unbelievable. I will talk about Sophie. Sophie has been required to travel to Adelaide three times already this year. She has six children in Kangaroo Island and cannot get suitable accommodation to do her midwifery placement here in Adelaide. She has also had to add an extra year to her studies, since Kangaroo Island would not take her placement, and she was only given three weeks' notice of needing to do that placement in Adelaide.

Here you have a person who has children and is given three weeks' notice: 'You need to be in Adelaide and you need to do your placement here; otherwise, you need to tack another year onto your course.' That type of stuff is ridiculous. Another student, Georgie, is also required to add an extra year onto her studies because she was going to be required to fly over to Adelaide—this student comes from Port Lincoln—and she needed to fly, get accommodation and do a 30-minute face-to-face assessment that the university claimed could not be done over Zoom. Obviously she could not do that, so she has added another year onto her course because of it.

That is four weeks of uni placement in Adelaide during the first year, over seven hours from home, with no subsidies and no help. Sometimes we think of students as being 19 or 20, but in actual fact many of the students in the same course that my daughter is doing—and my daughter is 20 but she lives at home—are in their 30s, or their late 20s, and have to drop everything at a minute's notice. It seems the assistance from the university is minimal—and I am trying to be kind—bordering on the fact of not caring that they are adding extra time.

Another student in my daughter's class has a six week old at home and is on placement next week. This placement is, of course, in Adelaide. Her shift ends at 9.30 at night and starts at 7 o'clock in the morning. Her partner now has to take care of the child—again, this person is in Port Lincoln—and my daughter says this is the situation that a lot of mums are facing doing the course.

We have some pretty vigorous debates in our house and I welcome them. I often lose, so I am obviously not the greatest politician going around. One of the debates that we do have, and my daughter did the research on this, was that for a lot of male-dominated degrees you are not required to attend this type of placement, or if you are, you get paid, it is part of your apprenticeship, or the course does not require that level of placement outside of where you are doing the course.

It really got me thinking about the divide between male and female-dominated courses, and I suppose midwifery is one of those, versus let's say a carpenter who is doing a four-year apprenticeship on site, where most of it is on site, and when they are required to travel to Adelaide they are paid, there are subsidies often applied and they can do that as part of their normal course.

The placements are really hurting these courses, particularly female-orientated courses, and no surprise, a lot of them are in Mount Gambier. I wish there were more males doing primary school teaching, but they are required to do placements unpaid; social work, placements unpaid; midwifery and nursing, placements unpaid. If you are not a 20 year old living at home with mum and dad picking up all the bills and you are trying to upskill yourself and better your life, as a female you are incredibly disadvantaged by the requirements of these courses and the unpaid placement.

It is bad enough if you have to do the unpaid placement in your home town but you put on top of that country students, and when I say students let's say 30 year olds, who have to travel to Adelaide, get accommodation, do unpaid placements for up to 10 weeks, particularly for teaching and social work, you can see how disadvantaged our young people are and it is something that I think needs to be addressed.

As a state that wants to attract more people to the health sector, there has to be support for regional students doing placements in Adelaide in particular. I give my daughter credit. She has raised a number of times the unfairness of female-dominated industries, if I can say that, versus male-dominated industries and the different criteria and the different supports that are available for them.

In terms of Telstra, we have an amazing opportunity. I have already spoken to the Treasurer briefly about this. Basically, for $5.5 million from the state government we could see complete mobile coverage in the Limestone Coast region. It is a proposal that has been put to us: $5.5 million from the state government, and around $11 million from the federal government, and Telstra will do that lobbying and that work. The rest, about $28 million in total cost, will be made up by Telstra and there will be a 5 per cent contribution from the local councils.

To be able to pull this off and say that in my time at parliament, and I am sure the member for MacKillop's time in parliament, we were able to get full coverage for the entire Limestone Coast would be an amazing achievement. Really, for $5.5 million from a state government point of view—which is not needed in 12 months' time, it is over a two-year period—it would be an amazing outcome for this state government as well.

Tourism I see as an amazing opportunity. We will not get an AFL game during Gather Round. We accept that, but how we attract the most Victorians to come through the Limestone Coast on their way to Adelaide for the Gather Round is really a tourism opportunity. I think we need to put on a major event like a Tasting Australia around that time of year, which gives people from Victoria a reason not to go the short way between Melbourne and Adelaide but to go the long way, through Mount Gambier, up through the Coonawarra or through Robe on the journey into Adelaide for the Gather Round. These are things I will be talking a lot more about.

Medical cannabis I have spoken a lot about. I spoke about palliative care today. In regard to roads and infrastructure, the minister already knows what my thoughts are around having a depot privately funded in Naracoorte versus locals looking after local roads. That is a theme they are going to hear a lot more about.