Adelaide Beach Management

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (15:22): I rise today to discuss again the ongoing issue of coastal management and beach management on my stretch of coastline. It has been something that has been an issue for a considerable period of time. It is not anything new to this house.

This time a week or so ago, I was standing here pondering what would be included in the budget. I wanted to see whether there was going to be a clearer understanding for our local community of whether the government was going to prioritise fixing the issues that exist—what was originally, a couple of years ago, largely through West Beach, that in subsequent years has now traversed its way down through Henley Beach South and Henley Beach as well, to the extent that we have seen essentially the level of sand outside iconic venues such as Joe's kiosk literally drop a metre. It is getting to the point now where there are serious issues on our coastline, where significant infrastructure is at risk if the government does not get on and do something about it.

Instead of prioritising that in the budget last week, what we saw is a near 30 per cent reduction in budget measures funding for coastal management. That is not acceptable, by any stretch of the imagination, to see our beaches getting worse. Instead of responding in a way that logically would mean that you increase the funding towards that, or at the very least announce that you had found a new way to address this problem that was going to mean that the reduction in funding made sense, no, the text that was included through the budget measure pointed out that the government would continue with their program of delivering quarry sand into West Beach, as has been the case under this government from the very beginning.

What we have seen, unfortunately, over the last couple of months in particular is a huge reduction in the quality of the sand that is coming in to West Beach. We have had a couple of locals who are very well known to some people in this place, including a man named Alan Young, who does significant work in this area as well as the replanting of dunes through the West Beach area, identify that there has been a significant increase—in his mind and through his testing—of the clay content in the sand that is being delivered. So not only are we seeing sand continue to come in to West Beach but it is sand that is not of the same quality that was coming in just a couple of years ago.

I stand here again in a desperate plea on behalf of my community, asking the government to get on with making a decision on what they are going to do in the longer term in terms of coastal management along our section of coastline, because it is just not good enough to have torn up a contract and to have said, 'We don't like what you guys are doing,' and then do nothing. We are three-plus years into the term of this government. We have had a review. We have had a trial. We have had the results hidden from the community for now upwards of six or seven months.

We have obviously had significant events that have taken place along the coastline since, particularly over the last couple of weekends where we have seen significant erosion. We have seen infrastructure that has, to this point, not been uncovered for significant periods of time, such as large stormwater drain pipes, now significantly exposed along the Henley South section of beach. There are access issues again, not just at the point that we have had over a large period of time but there are now other access points to the beach that have been damaged and degraded: council infrastructure further impacted by the inaction of this government.

It is not good enough at the eleventh hour to turn around and say, 'We are going to do something.' What has happened for the last three-and-a-bit years? Why in the world has it taken this long to do anything? For every bit of hesitation, for every month that has passed by and for every year that has passed by, it takes more to rebuild that beach. It takes a larger effort and it costs more money to fix the problem. It is the delay, the inaction and the contempt with which they have treated my community that is the real crux of the issue here. Again: get on with it, release the results, tell us what you are doing and get on and do something.