Grievance Debate

Lewis, Mr B.J.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (15:13): I rise to speak about a great man in our community, Brenton John Lewis, who sadly passed away last year. It is not just Brenton John Lewis but Brenton John Lewis OAM. I knew Brenton for many decades. I dealt with him when we were farming. He was a great manager of farm tech and IAMA, selling chemicals and farm supplies to people in the Murraylands region. He was a very fair businessman and did a great, great job.

Going on from that, Brenton got involved in regional development and was the chief executive officer of the local regional development board. He did an amazing job developing projects right across the Murraylands and Riverland, and really excelled at his work. I was on that board previous to entering this place. After that, he became Mayor of the Rural City of Murray Bridge, served for two terms and did great work brightening up Murray Bridge. He had a motto, 'Proud, safe and progressive'. I want to just acknowledge the entrance statements that he made—and we assisted with funding in the Marshall Liberal government—through Swanport Road into Murray Bridge, and down Adelaide Road as well.

Certainly, one of his biggest passions was the Murray Bridge Racing Club relocation out to Gifford Hill. This was something that he and the racing club had on the agenda from 2003. It has had its issues along the way. I know we had about $20 million in grant funding between federal and state Liberal parties going into the 2014 election, but eventually that project got up and running. The sad thing is that one component of that project did not happen because one person interfered. There was the Johnstone Park proposal to sell that land where the Imperial footy club is to get $5 million to go into where the old racing club was to develop a sports precinct. One person caused that to fall over, so we were at real risk of the project not going ahead at all. Thankfully, it went ahead and then money was found, and we invested as a government $7.5 million to assist in getting that racing club moved out to Gifford Hill.

In the latest iteration, the Murray Bridge council were giving rate relief, and they took that rate relief away for about four or five months. That meant a cost to the racing club of $64,000, which was just untenable. Thankfully, after many months of pain and my interference with the process, that has been overturned and the racing club can be set on its way again, as was the vision of Brenton Lewis.

Sadly, we see some other interesting discussions around what the Rural City of Murray Bridge have done recently with the decision to sell Lerwin, an aged-care facility in Murray Bridge. I understand the financial considerations, but the thing is that this was built by bequests and fundraising since the early eighties, and we need to know that those people who made those huge bequests, especially on their passing, are recognised and that the funding goes to set projects in the Murray Bridge region.

In finalising, we have a huge opportunity here to get 17,000 homes built out there at Gifford Hill but sadly Nick Champion, the super minister, has put a spanner in the works. Grange Development are quite happy to go ahead and use private suppliers to install the water and sewer to get going on the first thousand homes but, no, Minister Champion has insisted that SA Water be used instead of a private supplier. On my last reading of the act, you can use a private supplier and I think Grange will prevail. This government needs to wake up and not use Grange as a financial lever to pay for water connections in the northern areas around Concordia and Roseworthy. It must get on with the job of allowing Grange to develop this $2 billion proposal at Gifford Hill.