Crown Land

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (15:31): I draw the house's attention to yet another debacle that the Minister for Environment, minister Hunter, in another place seems to have become involved in. Some months ago, I wrote to the minister and subsequently have sent reams of material that have been coming through my office in relation to a property at 74 Hindmarsh Road, Victor Harbor.

The owners of the property, Mr and Mrs Bradford, have found themselves in the middle of some sort of storm over their proposal to further add to some building on a parcel of land there that is owned by the Crown. They have built a retaining wall and a substantial staircase. My investigations have informed me that this has not gone through and it has not been sold by the Crown. On inquiry to the City of Victor Harbor council, they have given approval for part of this process (the retaining wall and then later for the staircase), but according to the minister's office they have done that without checking on the ownership of the land.

My advice is that they do not have to check on the ownership of the land. The local government authority receive an application for a building or structure and approve that, as opposed to the ownership of the land. I am having some trouble getting a straight answer on that from various quarters, and I am still not convinced about where things are at. However, of interest to the house is the fact that this retaining wall is enormous, but more so that the staircase, which leads down onto the crown land, blocks the bike track and is adjacent to the railway that comes through from Goolwa to Victor Harbor.

There is something rotten in the state of Denmark—something very rotten. My view is that somebody in the department has given tacit approval for some of this to take place and that the landholder believes (and I am only assuming this) that the tacit approval allows them to go ahead and build. About a fortnight ago, I rang the minister's office to speak to the chief of staff. I was dealing with Mr Tom Mooney, but he has gone and the minister has a new chief of staff. I asked the minister's office to get the chief of staff to contact me, as it was something of an urgent matter. I am still waiting a fortnight later to hear from the chief of staff. It is simply not good enough.

This has become a huge public furore. It is filling up the local paper and it has residents up in arms. It has adjoining residents up in arms, and in my view it is a complete debacle. I have not brought it into the house before this time because I thought some sort of sensible outcome might have been arrived at. My question to the government is: what is going on with this piece of crown land? Has it been sold? If it has been sold, how much has it been sold for?

It seems to be some sort of conspiratorial deal, and I am perplexed over the whole thing. I am even more disgusted that the Minister for Environment chooses not to return correspondence to me to tell me what is going on. I have said to adjoining residents that if they are feeling so strongly about it there is not much I can do apart from advise them to take out some sort of legal action to stop the thing. The retaining wall has gone up and it is enormous—it is absolutely enormous. A tree was removed, according to the information that I have, in consultation with Victor Harbor Coast Care; I am not sure that took place. The retaining wall was built at a cost of in excess of $200,000, and this is onto a piece of land the residents do not even own.

What is going on in this socialist utopia of South Australia? Are public servants giving the go-ahead to people to build on crown land, not to sign off on it, not to have some sort of title on it? Are the local councils being confused by what is or what is not going on? I ask the house to consider these matters because it is a microcosm of what may be going on in other parts of South Australia. Simply speaking, it is not good enough, and the Minister for Environment needs to come clean and state exactly what is going on in this particular issue and clear the air on it for the sake of everyone.

Time expired.