Upper Spencer Gulf

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (15:44): Today, I would like to talk about a five-day trip I did last week to the regions—to the Upper Spencer Gulf. It was an extraordinary visit, and one of several regional trips I have done. This one was made all the better because of the amazing staff in some of the electorate offices in the area. We had great support from Caitlin and Tracy from the member for Giles' office, and also Angela, Jeni and Yvonne from the member for Frome's office. All of them did a wonderful job helping to connect us with community services, local members of the community and a range of other locations for us to visit, meet and look around.

We started our trip in Whyalla, which has a very proud history, an industrial history and a manufacturing industry with support from its steel industry. It has had some rocky times in recent years, but it was evident driving around that it is built on the foundation of the provision of public housing and really good, solid, working-class South Australians.

Sadly, the public housing in the town of Whyalla leaves a bit to be desired. We had a look around and spoke to a number of residents to see what was going on, the difficulties they were having addressing maintenance issues and difficulties they were having mediating neighbourhood disputes. We have a bit of work to go on with supporting the member for Giles in achieving some good results there.

We were able to have some community forums. I would like to shout out to some of the really awesome volunteering groups that really do beat the heart of Whyalla: the Heartbeat SA volunteers, funnily enough; the Meals on Wheels volunteers; the Whyalla Men's Shed; and the Whyalla Hospital Ladies Auxiliary. We also met with the Probus ladies, the Whyalla Pink Spirits Breast Cancer Support Group, Neighbourhood Watch and the Parkinson's SA Support Group.

All of them had a lot to say about their communities and how proud they were to be supporting so many great organisations. Thank you for sharing with us the challenges and the joys of volunteering in regional South Australia. We also visited the Foodbank in Whyalla, which has a fantastic distribution centre and shopfront where they do meals and frozen goods, as well as fresh produce they give out. They also distribute to regional centres, and Jody and her team do a fantastic job up there.

It was a real pleasure to catch up with Mayor Clare McLaughlin and her team and to talk about the plans for the future from a City of Whyalla point of view and really listen to what they wanted to achieve in order to assist attracting people and families to the area with the promise of jobs and investment in the future. There is a really positive outlook, but something has to be done in terms of raising the standard of housing in the city, and we were keen to listen to what their views were around that.

The Plaza Youth Centre is a real joy in Whyalla. We spoke to Joe. The youth centres are under enormous stress in the regions. We travelled from Whyalla over to Port Augusta and, funnily enough, we went to another centre there where the manager, David, is actually on the board of the Whyalla one and the Whyalla manager is on the board of the Port Augusta one, so there is some really great interaction there, and we will help to leverage some improvements—I hope—in that area.

We visited Common Ground, which is a great initiative that has been around for 10 years now, and there are two in Port Augusta. It is not the first time I have been there. Lana Johnson from housing services within Community Housing did a great job showing us around. We attended their barbecue. It was great hospitality. At the Standpipe, thanks to Mahanbir Grewal and family we had a great time up there and, funnily enough, bumped into two Legislative Councillors, the Hon. Justin Hanson and the Hon. Clare Scriven. They were there by coincidence: it was not set up.

We visited Port Pirie with its wonderful local member. Honestly, if you are coming up against him, good luck, because everybody in the town knows Geoff Brock. You could not walk past anyone without them knowing Geoff and his story. We bumped into Kellie Martlew, who is a local superstar. We had a local community forum with Mayor Leon Stephens, and Uni Hub, Uniting Country, Red Cross, St Mark's, Orana, Business Port Pirie, the Australian Education Union, disability advocates, the autism support group and the dementia support group. We look forward to helping to connect them and really achieving great things in the region. Thank you to everyone who was so welcoming.

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