Grievance Debate

SOMERTON PARK MINI WIND TURBINE TRIAL

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (16:49): Good news has just arrived on my desk with a press release from the Department of the Premier and Cabinet saying that the proposed mini wind turbine trial at Somerton Park has been pulled. Over the last few weeks there has been quite a bit of distress caused in the local community at Somerton Park over a proposal to place four mini wind turbines on top of the Somerton surf lifesaving club.

I declare that I live about a hundred metres from that surf club and if I stood on my front balcony I would be looking at the roof of that surf club. I have no hesitation in acknowledging that. I, for one, was concerned about the surf club turning from a beautiful building into something that was going to look like a fortress out of Mad Max with four wind turbines on the roof of it.

This proposal has not gone away. I understand that the government has bought these four wind turbines already. It purchased them before any public consultation on where they were going to go, particularly, on top of the Somerton surf club. When the member for Bright was asked on 891 ABC Radio about the proposal to place these wind turbines on the Somerton surf club she had no idea about it. So, not only were the local residents not consulted about these mini wind turbines but neither was the member for Bright (into whose electorate the Somerton surf club is going; it is leaving my electorate, unfortunately.) The local member had no idea about these mini wind turbines. Not for one minute should anybody think that the residents in Somerton Park and I, for one, are not in favour of using alternative forms of renewable energy to produce power.

The Hon. R.J. McEwen interjecting:

Dr McFETRIDGE: If the member for Mount Gambier wants to have these on top of any building in Mount Gambier, I suggest he consult with the local residents first because 91 per cent of local residents—not just me as a resident there or me as the local member but 91 per cent of the local residents in the area—rejected overwhelmingly this proposal. Can I just say that in the first letter she put out, the member for Bright stated:

Your local council, the City of Holdfast Bay, recently voted to allow the installation and trial of four mini-wind turbines on the roof of the Somerton Surf Life Saving Club.

Now, they did not vote to allow that; they gave in-principle support for them provided there was positive community feedback and, if the surf club agreed, then the council would look at that.

I should say that that was actually moved in confidence after the former Labor candidate for Morphett, councillor Rosemary Clancy, moved that the council discuss this in confidence and then even the in-principle support for it was moved by the current Labor candidate for Morphett, councillor Tim Looker. So, whether there was any discussion about the strategy, I do not know, but it is just a coincidence. This whole issue was put up in secret, discussed by the council in secret, and then, when it really hit the fan, it was overwhelmingly rejected by the citizens of Somerton Park.

A letter that has been circulated today by the member for Bright indicates that the council will still need to make its own decision about what it does, but, as far as she is concerned the Rann government no longer supports the project. Well, this was a state government project, and the president of the Somerton Surf Club said this on two occasions on 891. On 1 September, Steve Cornish said, 'The proposal for the club is a state government project.' Later on, he said again, 'This is a project of the state government.' It was not a council project, it was not a surf club project, it was a state government project.

The soon-to-be local candidate for the Labor Party—because she will be the candidate in the new part of the electorate—had no idea about it. Perhaps it was payback for raising the issue of nuclear power, I do not know, but she had no idea about it. She went into panic mode because she realised that local residents did not know anything about it. Maria Kourtesis, the candidate for the Liberal Party in Bright, went out there. She door knocked, and she alerted the candidates with some of the local councillors, and 91 per cent of the residents overwhelmingly rejected this proposal, on which the government has already spent $295,000 to buy four mini wind turbines.

There was no engineering study, no wind studies, no real case studies, but, 'We'll buy them; we'll stick them on the building, and the residents down there can suck it and see.' Well, that does not happen, not down in Somerton Park, not when you have Maria Kourtesis out there working hard and not when I am out there as a resident and also as the local member getting grief from the local residents about not being spoken to, not being consulted. The government goes out there, spends the money, acts first and thinks later.