PERSONAL CREDIT RATING

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (15:52): I want to raise a personal matter. It is something that I was not going to raise but I am now going to. A few days ago it was brought to my attention that I had a mark against my credit rating.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Surely not—you're a plutocrat.

Mr VENNING: That was my response, too. I thought: how can this be? I tried to make some inquiries and the person told me (and probably was not supposed to tell me because of the so-called Privacy Act) that it was an outstanding amount of $136 right back from 2005. I went on the hunt trying to work this out and I offered to pay it straightaway.

Guess what? It was a Telstra account in the name of the Department of Treasury and Finance that had never been paid. Why was I not told? Why was it left there and handed to a debt collector without telling me? I think it is absolutely disgusting. This has been on my record since 2005 and nobody was going to tell me. To make it worse, I find looking at this week's Telstra account there is an overdue amount there—'Please pay immediately'—of $479.44 which has been there since 2010.

What the hell is going on here? Why can't we pay our phone bills? It is ridiculous. We are not informed of these matters. I paid the amount immediately and I am seeking legal advice because that is an aspersion on my character. To say that I cannot pay my bills I take very seriously, because I have always paid my bills. How was I going to find this out except when trying to do some transactions for my children and being told, 'Your credit rating is less than perfect'? I think that is an absolute disgrace.

Another little issue—not as serious as that one, I do not think—is about a bridge in the Barossa Valley between Nuriootpa and Tanunda. It is called the Robin Bridge, after the family who donated the land to build that bridge there right back in the 1960s. It has not been painted since 1960. Three, maybe four, years ago I wrote a letter to the minister asking that they paint this bridge as it is extremely drab and is right in the middle of the beautiful pristine parkland area on the outskirts of Nuriootpa—a beautiful area. This scungy bridge is crying out for a bit of attention. It is a steel bridge in good mechanical order but crying out for a coat of paint. The minister said that there was nothing in the pipeline and, 'We'll have a look at it.'

We then had the local APEX and Rotary Clubs offering to paint it for nothing. I wrote to the minister and asked permission to do this and was told that, no, permission would not be granted, that we cannot justify the cost of removing the bridge, taking it to Adelaide, sandblasting it and reinstalling it at Nuriootpa because of the so-called lead in the paint that would fall into the river underneath. Well, God, help us all! I could not believe it: there must be a thousand ways—there is not much paint left on it anyway—that you could pick up what is left of the paint you would scrape off. To knock back the local service clubs that will do the for nothing is an outrage.

I wrote again to the minister and he said no, but that it was included in a list of candidate projects for future funding. I have had a quick look at today's budget and there is nothing in there that even looks like paint for the Robin Bridge. I have said on the front page of the Leader paper, in which it appeared, that I would paint that bridge, and if I go to gaol so be it. I am just sick of the bureaucracy of this. What is the cost of painting that bridge? Probably about $1,500 at the most, yet you can spend $41 million on a new bridge over the Torrens. It is pretty hard to spin that yarn to the people in the Barossa. It is a little project but it means a lot. It is just an indication of what the government thinks about the Barossa Valley: it does not give it any credence, any credibility or any priority at all.

Members interjecting:

Mr VENNING: If I paint the bridge, okay. I made the comment here three or four weeks ago. I did nothing more about it. The local paper read the Hansard and saw this bit and said, 'What are you going to do?' I said, 'I'll paint it,' and they said, 'Well, you had better come up for a photo.' So I went up there, stood by the bridge, and they took the photo. I thought that it would be down by the classified ads, but, no, front page! Now, I really have to paint the bridge, and I will, because I can, but the problem is that I do not know what the law will say about me. It is fairly safe; there is a six-foot path on both sides of the roadway, so I think I can do it safely.

I still challenge the minister, as there is time for him to come out and say, 'Look this a project we will deal with in the next six months'. If you do it in the next six months, I will leave it, but if not I will do it myself, and I will make provisions to make sure that the few fragments of leaded paint do not go into the river underneath. There are a dozen ways to stop that, particularly a vacuum cleaner and some covers, or make up a bracket that holds it. I am sure when I start this little project I will have plenty of observers and plenty of helpers to help me do it. It is a disgrace when you have to come to this; it is just not reasonable. There are interesting times ahead. I hope that the minister will here this and say, 'Look, for Pete's sake, shut him up and paint the bloody bridge.'

The SPEAKER: I don't know, member for Schubert: not paying your bills, an act of vandalism, destroying the environment—a bit of a worry there.