Kaurna Electorate

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (15:25): It has occurred to me that next Tuesday is the second anniversary of the last state election and the second anniversary of my election to this place, representing the good people of the electorate of Kaurna. I thought it was a good time to give my constituents an update halfway through the term on what has been happening in our area and what I have been working on. I have produced a mid-term report card on everything that is happening in the Kaurna electorate.

It has been a very busy two years with all of the activity that we have been doing from our office in helping hundreds if not thousands of constituents over that time. We have held dozens of street corner meetings, shopping centre visits and train station visits. I was even at the train station this morning visiting people. I have attended hundreds of community events, door knocked on thousands of homes and also held lots of forums, including budget forums and seniors forums.

We have been working on some very important improvements for the good people of the southern suburbs. As people would know, this is a growing area, there are significant numbers of new houses being built every day in my electorate, hence there are new needs happening all the time for extra resources and services in the area.

Some of the things that I have been working on which have been very important have included health care. We know that Noarlunga Hospital is getting a $10 million upgrade at the moment, it has two new operating theatres going in, the emergency department is staying, and it is also having a new paediatric treatment area installed. There will be a new dialysis service.

We also have a new ambulance station being built at Noarlunga, which is a $4.5 million investment, which is going to be much bigger than the current Christie Downs-Morphett Vale station. There is also going to be a new ambulance station built at Seaford for the first time which will fix a problem for a lot of my constituents where ambulances take too long to travel to that area. We have also had extra mental health support brought into the Noarlunga Hospital where there is a new $2.8 million mental health centre.

In terms of education, we have had some big successes in education. Over the past two years we have had two great new facilities open, firstly at Port Noarlunga Primary School. We have had a big upgrade of a lot of their facilities and classrooms. Secondly, we have had the new Aldinga Beach Children's Centre opened by the Minister for Education who came to open that last year. That is a tremendous new facility providing a whole range of education and health facilities for people in Aldinga.

We also have new upgrades happening for students with disabilities, particularly at Seaford Secondary College and Seaford Rise Primary School. There are upgraded facilities there and there are also soon-to-be upgrades at Christies Beach High School and Christie Downs Primary School where a lot of students with disabilities in the south go for their schooling. That is very exciting news as well.

In terms of transport, we have had over the past couple of years the opening of the two-way Southern Expressway which is always a delight to drive on. I feel sad for the previous member for Kaurna who served the electorate since 1997 and fought for this upgrade that was only after he finished that it was completed and, as the local member, I am able to travel on it both ways which I am very thankful for. We also have the electrified railway to Seaford which is getting more popular all the time for people in the south.

We have upgrades happening soon on Main South Road at Aldinga, which is a significant safety issue for people in the southern suburbs. There is going to be a new roundabout installed, wider lanes installed in the overtaking area, and crash barriers installed to make that safer for people because, unfortunately, there have been too many crashes down there. There have also been some other improvements, including a daily express bus between Aldinga and Seaford to help people get to the new train services. We have also had road resurfacing on Main South Road with investment to the tune of about $1 million.

A small thing recently that we were able to fight for was getting access opened to the western side of the Seaford-Meadows train station, which has enabled better access for people to get the train and encourage more people to do that. I have also outlined in my report a whole range of different community grants going to different sporting groups—different surf lifesaving clubs across the electorate—and I am continuing to advocate for them as well. There is lots more to do over coming years. I think we have had a good record of achievement over the last two years, and I am looking forward to fighting more for the people of Kaurna.