Narungga Electorate

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (16:05): I rise today fully aware that in less than a month the next state budget will be handed down and I would like to take this opportunity to put on the record some of the desires and wishes of the good people of Narungga that they would like to see funded, not only next month but going forward as we continue to progress through the years.

As has already been alluded to in question time today, we, the government and the parliament, have made terrific progress in getting stuck into fixing a number of roads in Narungga that have been in desperate need of repair. Some of these roads we have got around to fixing have been waiting some decades for meaningful repair.

The greatest example of that is the Arthurton to Maitland road which has been too skinny, too narrow and too undulating for quite some time and was easily the road on which I have got the most correspondence about throughout my time in parliament. Thankfully that road is well underway and there are now cones and road work signs out there. Works should start soon and hopefully that road will be fixed and widened and smoothed out, not too long from now.

Crash Corner is well underway with a significant amount of dirt being moved around out there to build the overpass so that Crash Corner itself becomes safer. Work is well underway for the duplication of the road through the town to help traffic flow and to make sure that that trip west is a smoother one.

There are a great deal many others. Shoulder sealing is being done between Moonta and Maitland, also between Stansbury and Minlaton. I want to report a story from a constituent who called me to say she is incredibly grateful because she had been concerned for quite some time that that road was too dangerous and very concerned about her sons driving their grain trucks to silo along that road. She was thankful that that road was finally getting its shoulder sealing to become that little bit safer.

As I said, there are a great many roads. We have made a tremendous start on fixing up the roads in Narungga. I totalled it up the other day and we are approaching some $200 million worth of roadworks that have been assigned for our electorate. It is an extraordinary investment, the likes of which have probably not been seen before. But there is always work to do.

As I have said in this place before, I have a petition circulating to demonstrate the community support for a fix for the Wallaroo entrance road when you are travelling from Wallaroo to Kadina. I know that the council is desperately keen to see that road fixed, I know the community are desperately keen to see that road fixed and I hope that that is well on the way to being funded, if not in this budget next month then one soon thereafter.

I have also been fighting since the time I was a candidate to see a fund to help entry roads into our wonderful coastal communities on Yorke Peninsula. I am thinking particularly about communities like Hardwicke Bay and Port Vincent. I visited both as a candidate and talked to progress associations and local residents about how many near misses they have seen out in those entry lanes out the front of their communities and the sheer number of cars, the increasing numbers of cars and trucks that drive down those roads.

I have done some work gathering some statistics and I have made repeated efforts to have those improvements made, those relatively cheap improvements, that will make a significant difference to road safety. I hope sincerely that they are not too far away from being funded as well.

I would also like to see investment in jetties soon. I know the previous minister did some significant work on jetties. We know that in 1996 some 35 jetties were divested from the state government to local councils. I know that Yorke Peninsula Council had 12 divested. Those repair bills are starting to mount up. It costs a significant amount to fix jetties. For example, the Ardrossan jetty in 2019 was quoted at $670,000 to replace some 120 piles. It is becoming a significant burden on councils. They cannot, in my view, fund those repairs to all 35 jetties themselves and I hope that the state government can step in and put forward a jetty remediation fund to help solve that problem.

I am running out of time but we need to continue to invest in health in Narungga. We have made a tremendous start there as well. Local health networks and, of course, the return of surgical services at Yorketown have been welcomed so wonderfully by the local community who are thankful to have services returned rather than taken away. We need to continue to invest at Wallaroo and we need to continue to invest at hospitals like Maitland which need a revamp of their A&E facilities.

Just quickly, in wrapping up, we need more funding for phone towers, particularly at communities like Tickera and Corny Point. A new sea rescue vessel at Point Turton is now desperately overdue, and there are many other things that I have written to various ministers about over the course of my three-and-a-bit years here. I am looking forward to the budget next month.

To my constituents, I would like to say: please keep getting in touch with me and my office to put forward your ideas and your concerns. We have made tremendous headway working together and securing these improvements that our electorate so desperately needs, but we have only been able to do that together. If we continue working together, I am sure there are many more great things in store for the people of Narungga.