Thank you Steven Marshall

Today Steven Marshall announced that he will soon retire from South Australia's Parliament.

Steven is not just a colleague – he’s a great friend and a mentor. He has backed me at every step of my career – firstly as a newly elected 29-year-old MP, as a Shadow Minister, and then he then put great faith in me when he made me our state's Minister for Environment and Water. Finally he has supported me to the hilt ever since I announced my intention to run for the leadership of the Liberal Party. He's a great leader and I will miss him in our Parliament and our party room.

I believe history will be very kind to Steven and his government. I was able to watch closely as every single day, for many years, he dedicated every waking minute (and he doesn't sleep much, so that's a lot of minutes!) to making South Australia the very best it can be. His passion for creating opportunity through diversifying and strengthening our economy is second to none and his focus on areas such as defence, space, cyber and ag-tech will see tens of thousands of South Australians employed for years to come.

Of course one of Steven's most significant achievements was leading our state during the Covid-19 pandemic. It was a challenging and uncertain time, but I sat with Steven in the Cabinet as he calmly and diligently led our state through the most difficult of times. We did better than almost anywhere else in the world and he played a key role in that.

Steven’s announcement will allow the Liberal Party to endorse a new local candidate who will support our party’s renewal, work hard to deliver for the community and, importantly, hold Labor to account for their significant failures in particular on health and cost of living.

On behalf of the Liberal Party of South Australia, I want to thank Steven Marshall for his service and for his friendship.

I will greatly miss his support, but I wish him well, hope he has a well-deserved rest and I know that he will continue to contribute to our state in many varied ways.