Brownhill Creek

Mr DULUK (Waite) (15:16): My question is to the Minister for Environment and Water. Can the minister please update the house on some of the investments occurring at Brownhill Creek and explain what measures are being undertaken to protect this important ecological open space, including the Kaurna Shelter Tree Project?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (15:16): I thank the member for Waite for his important question about the Brownhill Creek part of our city. That area forms an important link from what is essentially metropolitan suburbia up into the Hills, connecting a whole range of corridors of open space, which, as we know, provide the space for biodiversity to survive and thrive. It has been really good, over an extended period of time, to work alongside the member for Waite since the 2015 by-election, when he first came into this place, to look at opportunities to enhance that environment. I know it is an area that he has had a long interest in.

We went to the 2018 state election making a commitment that we would partner with the Brownhill Creek Association, which is a friends group, a community group, that works exceptionally hard not only to look after the conservation value of that area but also to tell the Kaurna story and the more modern heritage of that community as well. We partnered with the Brownhill Creek Association to provide a $100,000 grant and that was to extend over a five-year period. They have now worked through that grant for three financial years and have been able to get some really exceptional outcomes for the environment, for accessibility through that area and also in the area of telling the Kaurna heritage and the cultural story of that place.

Much of the work has gone to removing woody weeds, particularly through the creek lines and through the surrounding environs, which stretch up the Hills on both sides of the creek, and getting rid of the olives, the ash trees, the castor oil plants and the various other invasive weeds that have been choking out the native vegetation. We have then been able to institute a revegetation program with the Brownhill Creek Association and involve a whole range of other community groups working alongside the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the local rangers, to be able to achieve some really good outcomes for the environment there.

This area, as well, is known not just for being significant woodland bird habitat but also as a connection where the southern bandicoots are seen. They travel from Brownhill Creek through those corridors up into the Hills and are really becoming something of an iconic species towards environmental restoration through that district.

I am very heartened by the way that this organisation, the Brownhill Creek Association, has really been able to expand the money and multiply it many times over. Through their three financial years of spending around $20,000 each year, they have actually been able to leverage in excess of $100,000 each year in in-kind support, additional donations and so forth, connecting together the local council, other not-for-profits and organisations like Trees For Life.

Much of this is down to the work of one person in particular, and that is Ron Bellchambers. He is a very significant mover and shaker in that community and has connections across so many different groups and is passionate for environmental restoration and telling the Kaurna story. He is particularly driving the Kaurna shelter project at the moment. I want to take the opportunity today to thank Ron for his longstanding and enduring commitment to that site. The natural environment is far better off for his work.