Cooper Creek Barge

The Hon. G.G. BROCK (Stuart) (14:22): My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. Can the minister please update my outback communities on a new barge for Cooper Creek on the Birdsville Track and the benefits that will eventuate from the establishment of this new barge? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain a bit further.

Leave granted.

The Hon. G.G. BROCK: For some considerable time now, I and other community members in the area have been lobbying for a replacement barge for the previous barge, which, to my information, is over 50 years old and has very small capacity.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:23): The member has been on at me about this for a while, and he has been one of the champions for regional communities on this. As he would be aware, and as the house might be aware, the heavy rainfall in south-west Queensland caused water to enter South Australia's Far North via the Thomson, Barcoo, Warburton and Cooper Creek catchments. It has caused widespread localised flooding and has made transiting the flood zone particularly difficult, impacting the Cooper Creek crossing of the Birdsville Track. I am advised that, depending on further rains, the flows in Cooper Creek could restrict access for between six to nine months.

For previous flood events at Cooper Creek crossing, a ferry service has traditionally been deployed to support access for light vehicles weighing less than 10 tonnes. The department has been actively exploring more robust solutions, including the feasibility of a modular barge capable of transporting heavier vehicles, including those that transport livestock. The member has certainly not allowed me to forget how important the free flow of these is to remote communities. He has been a voice, along with the member for Giles and members of the upper house, and we have listened.

On 16 July, the Australian and South Australian governments announced a joint commitment of $27.4 million to construct and deploy a barge at Cooper Creek crossing under disaster recovery funding arrangements. This barge will incorporate modular pontoons designed to accommodate a range of vehicle types to maintain essential supply routes, community connectivity, livestock transportation and support tourism. That is not an invitation for a flood of tourists to go catch the barge.

I am pleased to inform the house that all critical components required to construct the Cooper Creek barge crossing barge have arrived in Adelaide and are currently undergoing essential upgrades in preparation for the installation at Cooper Creek. The onsite works, including piling and road remediation to prepare the crossing site, are also underway. These are very, very expensive works to do, indeed.

Following completion of the barge upgrades in Adelaide, the barge will be transported to the Cooper Creek crossing site in 12 modules, which will then be assembled on site. Two modules have already been transported to the site. Again, this is different from what we have done traditionally about moving small vehicles and caravans: this is about moving large, heavy vehicles with livestock onboard, so it is a much larger operation than we have done previously. We are currently finalising operation hours through the remote area. We need to make sure we can have people up there, with redundancy in place, and capacity and an online booking service for heavy vehicles to make sure we can provide information to the community as soon as possible.

We are aware that the flood in Cooper Creek can occur in successive years due to the catchment already being full and, following this event, the barge will be retained and will be able to be quickly reassembled and launched in subsequent events. As such, the benefits of this investment will continue to flow to the member's constituents during floods and flood events.

I want to make it clear that the South Australian government is not interested in people using this as an opportunity for tourism. I understand people will be curious, and it is going to be a remarkable and beautiful event, but we have people whose livelihoods are on the line up there who need to use this barge to move cattle and livestock out, and they are our priority.

We need to keep the abattoirs in South Australia working. Those workers depend on feedstock, and we need to make sure we can keep them supplied. Yes, it is nice to go out and visit and, yes, it is nice to give the local economy a nudge, but the work we are doing here is not for the outback nomads, although they can facilitate and use it, it is mainly for people to move livestock and to make sure we can get that livestock where it needs to go quickly for their own benefit and their own good.