Private Members' Statements

Private Members' Statements

Ms PRATT (Frome) (15:41): I rise to join in the contributions that have been given today. I thank the member for Adelaide, Lucy Hood, and my colleague the Hon. Heidi Girolamo in the other place for forming the Parliamentary Friends of Carers. We welcome you here today. It is lovely to see so many people fill the gallery and share our workplace alongside us.

In recognising National Carers Week, I also want to make mention that October is national Mental Health Month. I think there is a correlation between the role that carers often play, perhaps not in a formal role with a membership organisation or as a volunteer but actually walking alongside those we love who are experiencing mental distress. That mental distress might be as a result of some other things that are happening in someone's life.

To personalise my reflections on the role of carers and Mental Health Month, I draw the house's attention to my electorate of Frome, which is a farming community. I worry very much at the moment about farmers and primary producers who are experiencing that distress, whether they are tomato growers, grapegrowers, broadacre farmers or farmers with livestock. This is an opportunity to reflect on the support that they are going to need from all of us. Thank you for coming in. We hope you enjoy your afternoon tea.

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (15:43): I rise to bring to the house's attention a problem that I identified in question time, that being the shortage of water that we have to service a number of housing developments on Yorke Peninsula. Gosh knows we need the housing—there are that many people who live locally who are struggling to find a permanent rental or a place to buy. There are even difficulties for organisations like our local health network, which has put out a plea for houses to house medical professionals who they hope will live in our region. But thus far, we are finding that SA Water are unwilling to help developers who are trying to alleviate that problem.

The best example that I can provide to this house is the Metacap development at Port Hughes, the second stage of The Dunes development, which after much work with the developer and trying to find an agreeable solution with SA Water has not yet reached a conclusion. We have a letter from the former minister, Ian Hunter who still sits in the other place, from September 2016 that identified that there were $26 million worth of augmentation works that needed to be done and that they would be budgeted for. Those works never happened. Between 2004 and 2016, the government collected significant augmentation charges from our local community, which were then spent on maintenance.

I got the dictionary out: 'augmentation' is not maintenance. Maintenance is the preservation of something. Augmentation is the enlargement of it. We would like to know where that money was spent and we would like SA Water to come to the party and accept one of the generous offers from the developer about ways to move this project forward, so that we can have the housing that we need to house the population that wants to live on the Copper Coast and satisfy its significant growth.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (15:45): I would like to rise and acknowledge carers in the gallery today for the great work that they do to make our world a better place, so thank you. I am going to acknowledge the South Australian Business and Export Awards, which I attended last Friday night. Some great South Australian businesses and exporters were recognised, putting South Australia's premium goods and services on a global stage.

There were 26 winners: 14 exporters and 12 businesses. My portfolio responsibility is, of course, the export award winners. Fivecast won the Advanced Technologies Award, The Yoghurt Shop the Agribusiness Food and Beverages Award, Rising Sun Pictures the Creative Industries Award, SKDA Moto Creative the E-Commerce Award, MAXM the Emerging Exporter Award, Flinders University the International Education and Training Award, Avance Clinical the International Health Award, REDARC Electronics the Manufacturing and Advanced Materials Award, RDI Partners the Professional Services Award, Balco Australia the Regional Exporter Award, Green and Gold Energy the Resources and Energy Award, Wilco Technologies the Small Business Award, Balco Australia the Sustainability and Green Economy Award, and Treasury Wine Estates the South Australian Wine Exporter Award.

A big shout-out to Byrne Vineyards in my electorate of Chaffey, a finalist in the export awards. It is a family business. Rob Byrne, his daughter Petria and grandson Will run that business. They do an outstanding job. Congratulations to all 26 winners and finalists. It was a great night and they did South Australia proud.

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (15:46): Thank you very much. Deja vu, Mr Speaker; there we go. I would like to bring to the house's attention a busy long weekend we had in Narungga just a couple of weeks ago. It started with the opening of a new civic square in Port Broughton, and compliments to the council for organising and delivering that project. It was a $1.5 million project which was at least partially funded by the state government. Thank you very much to the appropriate ministers for contributing to that, including a significant amount from the planning fund.

That was wonderful. It features a new and reinvigorated war memorial, some Narungga Aboriginal artwork and totems and, to the great delight of my 18-month-old son, a water splash play feature. He took great delight in playing around in that. It will be a wonderful addition to the foreshore at Port Broughton for many years to come for locals and tourists alike.

After that, on Sunday we had the great privilege of being invited to the Maitland Pistol Club. They once again hosted the state championships and did a tremendous job. Congratulations to Dave Porter and the team, boasting almost 50 shooters over the course of the three-day event on the long weekend. They have a wonderful facility out there, with campsites for people who are visiting and power for people to plug in to. It really was a tremendously well-run event and it was wonderful to be there to help present the awards to the winners, to ensure that they were properly recognised. It was an excellent event to be a part of.

The Maitland Rifle Club has its prize shoot this weekend. I am hoping to get there on Sunday for a similar sort of treatment. Thank you for all that our gun clubs do in our region to provide good safe clean fun for everyone to partake in. I look forward to getting around to more.