Kangaroo Island Abalone Industry

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (15:38): The abalone industry on Kangaroo Island has been around for some 15 or 20 years. After a rather shaky start, it has developed into a mainstay of employment and investment and an extremely important part of the economy. It employs around 25 to 30 people, and the wider employment factor is around about 100 people. This has all been put at risk by KI Plantation Timbers' proposal to put in a port at Smith Bay on the north coast. It is totally and absolutely incorrect to put it there. I am all in favour of a port, and all in favour of harvesting the timbers and getting rid of them, but to put a large port in place immediately adjacent to an onshore abalone farm is a particularly stupid activity.

I am rather concerned at the amount of spin that has been generated by this activity, and I think it needs knocking off. I understand that tomorrow will be gazetted an application by the company to get major project status. It should not proceed there on that spot. It should not proceed, as it is the wrong place. They have fed out a fair degree of spin and rubbish, and I am most concerned about some who are involved with this. However, the fact is that some information on the opening page of their submission states:

Preliminary discussions with Kangaroo Island Council indicate broad support for the proposal development of a port.

I have spoken to a couple of councillors and they have had no discussions whatsoever. They are not privy to it, there has been nothing in the council meetings and there is no motion, nothing. That is one point. Also, they claim that there is only one house overlooking Smith Bay in a sparsely populated rural area. Off the top of my head I know of about five, and I might point out that I have a property about five kilometres away. I cannot see the place, I might add, just for the record.

However, this concerns me. I think that members opposite ought to pick this up with the planning minister. Members of the environment committee ought to be having a look at this. I think that I will invite the Natural Resources Committee to go over and have a look. They need to look at this. It is going to be a long fight, as the local people will simply not tolerate that. They are out of touch with reality.

The proponents this morning told me the roads they wished to use and said that nothing much needed to be done to them. That is a load of nonsense. There is an alternative port at Ballast Head, which they say is not the right place for securing. They stated in the paper that they had acquired the trees and acquired the Ballast Head port site. When I asked some questions this morning and did some more research, they have not acquired it at all: they have a contract to purchase it and they need to get $50 million worth of investment.

I am all in favour of getting $50 million worth of investment and getting rid of the trees, but the port must not, should not and cannot be at Smith Bay because it puts that whole situation with the abalone farm there in jeopardy. They are talking about six to nine months of heavy construction phase, with 51,000 cubic metres of fill and 57,000 cubic metres of dredging required—dust, noise and light pollution. They claim that they can work adjacent to an abalone farm and that that happens elsewhere.

Let me point out that in Portland the nearest aquaculture is some 12 to 15 kilometres away and that at Port Lincoln it is up to 27 to 30 kilometres away and not immediately adjacent to the port. There are all sorts of possibilities of introduced species. Seafloor destruction and major disturbances are likely to happen, including dust and silt. Abalone are extremely sensitive shellfish and they simply could not survive. They claim that they can keep the dust down, but I do not believe that is right.

On top of that, some months ago a drilling company came in and drilled holes along the foreshore and the coastal lease with no permit and no licences. They were caught out. One of the managing directors said this morning that they had had discussions in the last six months with the immediately adjacent landholder. I contacted him and he has not spoken to them for well over a year, perhaps a year and half. He has a property there with a licensed aquaculture operation (which at this stage someone is showing a lot of interest in) adjacent to the existing abalone farm. That is licensed, and it has a pumping station, it has tanks, it has hatcheries—it has the whole lot.

It is blatantly absurd for this port to go in this place. I hope that members of the government are listening, and I will be following it through with parliamentary committees and doing all I can to make sure that we get some common sense about it.