Regional Services

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (15:33): I rise today to bemoan the fact that in 2024 we still experience difficulties in regional and remote areas accessing the basic services that those people in the city take for granted. I would like to highlight the example of Wool Bay as a means to illustrate that point. Wool Bay has been experiencing intermittent power outages over the past couple of weeks. For about two weeks, residents have had power switching on and off throughout the day, and it is causing tremendous headaches for the people who live in that wonderful coastal community. And it is not just headaches; it is putting lives at risk. There are people there who rely on different medical machines and devices to sustain their life that are having to put that faith in a power system that is not delivering reliable outcomes.

Mary Talent lives in Wool Bay. Her daughter came to visit recently with her husband, who requires an oxygen machine, and found that the oxygen machine was switching on and off as the power switched on and off, thus putting his life and access to that oxygen at significant risk. That is tremendously dangerous. Similarly, David Norton uses a CPAP machine, which obviously requires electricity to run, and puts himself at significant peril without reliable power. As an aside, David Norton—not so life-threatening but just as inconvenient—has had a number of appliances that have fallen by the wayside as that power is switched on and off. The surges have resulted in his aircon going on the fritz, which has cost $2,900 to replace. His printer has needed to be replaced at $500, his bread machine at $400 and a pool pump at $1,900; all had to be replaced as a result of those power surges.

We have had other people in the community just as frustrated as well. I know that Karen Nixon has contacted our office with some significant concerns about how her community is suffering. Just up the road, suffering from similar issues, Rob Rankine at the Dalrymple Hotel has been the victim of a number of power outages at Stansbury. On the long weekend recently, on the Saturday night, with a full hotel, he suffered from an extended power outage that lasted for the entirety of the night. I called Rob the next day, and he told me that it was about 25,000 bucks worth that he was out of pocket. That is an extraordinary amount for a small business to bear.

He got through that, furious no doubt, mad about the situation, but then two days later, 48 hours later, he experienced another extended power outage, with a full dining room. On that Monday night, he was again in the situation where he could not provide food or drink for the patrons that came to visit. If you add on top of that the fact that the Stansbury Cricket Club won the flag that weekend, and he might have expected to see them for three consecutive days, he missed out on that patronage as well. Congratulations to the cricket club nonetheless.

Those service outages on the southern Yorke Peninsula, which might be a long way by road but is not that remote compared to other parts of our state, highlight the fact that we need access to more reliable services in regional and remote areas. We constantly get complaints from people who suffer from Telstra outages and do not have adequate phone service. We often get complaints about Service SA and the tyranny of distance in accessing their nearest Service SA centre, having to drive their cars or trucks all the way up to Kadina from Yorketown, Corny Point, or thereabouts, to get their registering done. Also, of course, the health system; the further you get away from Adelaide, the more perilous it gets.

I would just like to make this point as powerfully as I can, that in 2024 we need to redouble our efforts to provide reliable services to regional communities that need them so much. As I have tried to articulate, there are life-changing situations that require consistent power. Hopefully, we can make inroads into that soon so that the people like David Norton and Mary Talent's son-in-law can access that power.

I also rise today to celebrate something, and that is the fact that the Upper Yorke Road will now benefit from significant road funding. A couple of weeks ago, we had the announcement that there would be $600,000 committed to patchwork on the Bute to Port Broughton stretch of Upper Yorke Road. The community and I said that that is not enough, that it is not sufficient for the works that are required on that stretch of road and that we need to go back to government to get more. Thankfully, government have listened. It's been a long road.

There have been many, many years of advocacy by the people that live and work on that road. Sunny Hill Distillery I know have been advocating for a long time to try and get that road fixed. All the farmers that use it to deliver their grain to port have been advocating for a long time and, more recently, over the last year or two we have had GPSA come on board and lend their support to that advocacy. Finally, we have had a result. I look forward to seeing that work take place.

The government has been a little bit cagey about the nature of the works that will occur, but I am led to believe that it is a significant investment, with tens of millions of dollars. I hope that they do us a proper rebuild from the base up to make sure that that road will last for many generations. My understanding is, based on the feedback from the community, it was built around 1950 and has not been touched since, so hopefully they will build a road that will last for another 50 years.