Motions

Friends of Parks Groups

Debate resumed.

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (12:14): Whilst those opposite are here to celebrate themselves, I am here to celebrate our volunteers. To those who do take the time to get out in nature and look after our parks, I want to thank you for all of the work that you do.

As the member for Waite I have quite a number of friends of groups, and I will just quickly list them: the Friends of Belair National Park, the Friends of Sturt Gorge, the Friends of Shepherds Hill Recreation Park, the Friends of Waite Conservation Reserve, the Friends of Brownhill Creek Recreation Park, the Friends of Old Government House, the Friends of Blackwood Forest and the Friends of Waite Arboretum—whilst not required in my electorate I tend to spend a bit of time with them too. I know all of the work they do is absolutely incredible, and we thank them.

I am very proud, actually, to be the member for Waite, having so many—to be shrouded by incredible national and also significant parks which are full of native vegetation. They take a lot of work to maintain, through both extensive weeding but also replanting and then infrastructure renewal as well, and I am super thankful for the volunteers who give so freely of their time and efforts to conserve and improve our parks.

The Friends of Belair National Park, for example, under the leadership of David French, and one of our bigger groups, not only work on sections of the park, battling olives, broom and other noxious weeds, but also work to educate our young people. With bush buddies, we see environmentalists born and that is something that we can all celebrate.

At their recent AGM we heard that the friends contributed 5,000 volunteer hours done by 250 members, with 3,338 of those hours having been straight bush care. That is hard manual labour, especially in the Belair National Park. They have 135 active members, and the hours they contribute equate to 2.7 FTE. I know that our rangers in our park and our community are very thankful.

The Friends of Sturt Gorge, who have their 25^th anniversary coming up in May, scale the very steep terrain of the gorge, working to eradicate the weeds in there. With 44 members, the volunteers contribute time to patches of the park that they have real connection with. They racked up 3,587 hours in the past year under the leadership of Amy Blaylock.

The Friends of Brownhill Creek Recreation Park and the Brownhill Creek Association have worked hard to regenerate whilst respecting the Indigenous heritage of that area. Earlier this year I attended and celebrated the success of the Kaurna Shelter Tree Project, a project that was brought together, including local elders, where we planted all sorts of grasses and shrubs and rushes that were in tune with what it was previously. We also built a bridge to get over the beautiful creek that had been regenerated. It was just a wonderful opportunity to show our respect to this area.

Whilst not operating in a park necessarily, the Friends of Old Government House also are a very special group of volunteers, lovingly caring for our state's heritage and ensuring the gardens that surround Old Government House are looked after and kept in a beautiful condition. Even better, you are always guaranteed a delicious scone and a cup of tea when you go there when they have their open days.

I took a tour not last year but the year before. I remember as a child going there. I remember this massive swimming pool inside Old Government House. It was huge. When I went there for my tour, and I saw it, I said, 'Where's the swimming pool?' and it was this tiny little plunge pool. It is amazing how your perspectives change as you grow up. But it is an incredible place, and if you have not been there, and if you have not been on a tour through there, I encourage you to do so.

Our Friends of Blackwood Forest look after not only the forest but also the grasslands and the manager's office that is there. They care for it and, recently having started to regenerate and refurbish the manager's office, the termites took over and took away the floor, and I was really glad to be able to help them to secure the funds they needed to get a new floor put in and deal with the termites that, given they live so close to the creek, are a real problem.

They also care for the grass and the forest and also the beautiful walk that goes through there, with fruit trees all the way along the side, that celebrates one of their members who has passed. Dog walkers are kept safe by keeping the grasses down, although I know the group now are currently in desperate need of a ride-on lawnmower, and they are doing all they can to find a grant to help them to be able to get that.

The Friends of Shepherds Hill Recreation Park was established in 1999, and they work in collaboration with the Department of Environment and Water and national parks. Having had a fire recently break out there they know too well the importance of keeping down the weeds and keeping down the grasses. They are especially passionate about the area, because it has heritage-listed grey box grassy woodland that skirts the Hills face.

Finally, our Friends of Waite Conservation Reserve battle it out with the feral deer. Running up the back of the Waite Research Institute, they have all sorts of trouble with the deer and they work very hard to not only try to control that but also all the weeds in the area, including the broom and the olives. The olives are a particular problem for them, as well as for the Brownhill Creek group.

The grey box throughout my area is incredibly important to my community and it is heart warming to see so many volunteers doing all they can to regenerate and look after it. I am pleased to support these friends of groups in their work, and I am so proud that our government extended the grants to help them continue their work whilst we improve and support biodiversity in our parks. It is not just about weed removal.

At a recent trip to the park with the Natural Resources Committee we heard that it would be easy to just drive in the bulldozers and pull out the olives, but that would cause environmental carnage to the biodiversity that is underneath. Hence, drilling and poisoning and allowing the plants to die in situ allows the undergrowth to flourish. It also protects the biodiversity of the soil and the structure and allows native plans to flourish.

Finally, and not quite in my electorate, how can I leave out the Friends of Waite Arboretum, who take such great care of it, hosting tours, events and lectures so that our community can learn about the beauty, history and significance of this area. It is such a beautiful, well-maintained asset, and I thank the volunteers for always being so welcoming when I attend their events. It is also a living tree museum, and the volunteers work hard, grow their own trees and plants by capturing seeds and protect the native stock.

I was pleased recently to see how far the resurrection of the gatehouse is going. It looks fabulous and it will be a welcome home for the friends of group and I know they are very excited for it to be finalised so that they can move in. Our friends of groups battle with weed mitigation every day, and I thank them so much for their commitment to our parks and community. I encourage anyone who likes to get out into nature to consider joining a friends of group. You will only be supported, welcomed and feel and the benefit of being in nature and being with others.

Thanks again to all our friends of groups and to our national park rangers who work so closely with the groups to make sure that their dreams and what they see as being important is realised. I know the rangers are forever grateful; so are we and all of our community. I thank the member for her motion and commend it to the house.

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (12:22): I also rise to add a few words in support of this motion. Obviously I have a vast electorate and a number of conservation parks in that electorate, not all of which I have been to at this stage. The one I have been most heavily involved with over many years has been the Wild Dog Hill conservation park just outside Whyalla. If you have not been there, I would encourage you to take that short drive out of Whyalla to go to the Wild Dog Hill conservation park. The most prominent feature of the park is the sandstone outcrop. You go to the top of that and the views are absolutely amazing. You can see for many, many kilometres. The park itself is a good example of what the semi-arid lands have to offer.

The dominant tree species is the myall tree, a very long-lived tree. There are also sheoaks, some sugar gums (far fewer in number) and quandongs, which are always good. It is saltbush and bluebush country, with a fair amount of eremophila as well, especially in the parks. It is well worth a visit.

I want to talk about the sheer voluntary effort that has been around that park now since it was gazetted. It was gazetted back in 1971 and was nearly degazetted because of the amount of vandalism occurring. Some people in Whyalla stepped in. Clinton and Marg Garrett—Marg Garrett had the great misfortune of being one of my teachers—were incredibly committed to a conservation effort. They stepped in, got other people involved and as an adult I ended up being involved as well in looking after the park not far from Whyalla.

It is interesting that Clinton moved to Adelaide and now the amount of work he does at the Waite conservation park is absolutely amazing. He is a man now in his early 70s, and the physical work he does in terms of building trails, building flying foxes to get gravel and other stuff down to lower-lying areas that you cannot access with a car, building steps, doing furniture and undertaking feral control is testimony to Clinton and all the years he has put in when it comes to looking after the park.

When it was originally gazetted, the park was 1,011 hectares. Back in 2003, a further area, I think it was about 900 hectares, was added after BHP left Whyalla. They had a lot of indenture land. Some of that indenture land was gifted to the park. Volunteers still look after the park outside of Whyalla. I have some personal very pleasant memories of going out on patrol to see if everything was going okay. It is one of those parks that you were not allowed in after sunset. In those days, you still had to empty the bins. You no longer have bins. It is all done on the basis of whatever you take in you take out.

Some of the work that had to be done was around rabbit control. I got to learn a few things. We did not go in and rip the warrens, but we did cover the warrens, put in a bit of PVC tubing and used gas that was used in World War I. It was a tablet that you put down the PVC tubing, followed by water to create the reaction. It is not very good for the rabbits, but given the damage that the rabbits were doing in the park, it was something that needed to be done.

Of course, it is always a constant to try to keep on top of invasive plants and feral animals in order to prevent the damage that they do. At the end of the day, in our conservation parks, without the volunteer effort that goes in, irrespective of the government and the numbers of rangers, the rangers would not be able to do all the work that is required, so we need rangers working in conjunction with our volunteers.

One of the other great conservation parks in my electorate—technically it might not be—is just outside of Quorn. It is something that I would advise people to go to. It is Dutchmans Stern. The Heysen Trail goes through that area, but there is a loop that goes up Dutchmans Stern. It is one of those gentle zigzag loops to the top. Once again, the views from the top are fantastic. The flora and fauna that exist within that park and the wider area are always worth checking out. I commend the work of the volunteers and all that effort that is put in by a lot of people over the years. Without you, our conservation parks would not have the quality that they have.

S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (12:28): I would like to thank members who have spoken on this motion this morning: the members for Bragg, Waite and Giles. It really is fabulous to hear how much you value and appreciate our volunteers. But of course I would like to give my biggest thanks to the volunteers in our Friends of Parks, who make a real and enduring difference to our environment. I look forward to the biodiversity act coming before this place, another first by this Labor government. I commend this motion to the house.

Amendment negatived; motion carried.