Dan Van Holst Pellekaan MP - Member for Stuart

There is $4.5 million for the Accelerated Discovery Initiative. This is a wonderful time to be investing in the mining sector, and so we are coinvesting with private industry so that we can get the jobs and the royalties and all of the important benefits that are responsible and safe and productive that the mining sector brings into our state. But a very exciting new initiative announced by the Treasurer in this budget is the Arkani Ngura National Test Mine. It is an $8 million partnership with OZ Minerals at a section of its ongoing Prominent Hill mine, but a section of that mine underground that is actually closed. There is one such facility in the Northern Hemisphere, in Canada. This will be the second one in the world and the only one in the Southern Hemisphere.

All members of this house would be aware of the very important role the lead smelter plays in Port Pirie. The lead smelter is an outstanding employer.

I rise today on a very sad issue from a Port Augusta community perspective, from a Flinders Ranges perspective and from my own perspective. I rise to talk about a friend who died recently and whose funeral I attended.