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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-04-02 Daily Xml
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COOPER DISCOVERER CRUISES

The Hon. G.M. GUNN (Stuart) (15:41): I wish to draw to the attention of the house, the Minister for Environment and Conservation, and others, a copy of a letter I received from Peter Ware, Cooper Discoverer Cruises, which states:

Dear Sir

It is with sincere apologies and deep regret that I am writing to you on this occasion to inform you that I have been forced to cease my cruise boat operation on Cooper Creek at Innamincka.

The constant financial harassment from National Parks and their continual demand of 10 per cent of my turnover—which is far greater than the percentage incurred by the majority of operators.

This, combined with a lack of help with this situation from Tourism SA over the past six years, has forced me into this position of having to cease operation.

Unfortunately, there seems to be no incentives to operate in these harsh, remote environments—just very large disincentives.

I take this opportunity to sincerely thank you for your business and support in past years and apologise profusely to those operators with tentative bookings for the 2008 season. I hope this still allows you enough time to alter your itinerary destinations if so desired.

Following my attempts to negotiate with National Parks all have failed. If you wish to pen a letter in support of my situation, please send direct to federal counterparts, i.e. the federal Minister for Tourism or the federal Minister for Environment, as I have found over the last six years on state level that you will only get a 'Yes minister' response, if any at all.

He also, of course, had terrible difficulties with trying to get a decent lease over the depot he had at Innamincka. I have two letters here, one dated 7 March 2008 and the other dated January. The second letter states:

Again I remind you that you are required to pay the visitor use fees in accordance with your licence...Please note the final date for payment is 30 April 2008. If payment is not received by this date, DEH will take further action to recover the invoiced amount through its normal debt recovery process. Future Commercial Tour Operator licence applications will only be considered once the payment is received.

Regarding your inquiry about the three year-plus lease on your land, at this point DEH is only able to issue such licences on an annual basis.

Well, that's nonsense. It continues:

DEH trusts this matter can be resolved in the very near future.

They have had years to try and do something about it. They are more intent on dipping their hands in this poor fellow's pocket. There are lots of people who want to go down this path. It will be a crying shame if this person is continually put out of business. It is not in the interests of tourism and not in the interests of the people of Innamincka. I tried to ring on about three occasions the manager at the Department for Environment and Heritage and just got a recorded message. So, the only alternative for me was to raise the matter in this house, and I call upon the minister to act immediately and deal with this situation, because it is a bureaucratic nonsense that should not be occurring.

The second issue I want to raise is this. When I went to Oodnadatta last week with the leader and some of my colleagues, I was given the following statement by a concerned resident, and it says:

Problems in Oodnadatta.

Inadequate and insufficient housing.

Lack of regular maintenance, air conditioners, septic tank repairs.

Contaminated water from the salt drain-off from air cons.

Public toilets not open, ?? Cause, lack of funding ??

Oodnadatta Hospital & Health Service...

Apart from the Progress Association little work is seen to be done as far as maintaining a clean, healthy community is concerned.

Aged care units either have no hot water or water at all. Holes are dug and left open and debris not cleared away, the area is more of a health hazard than a safe haven for elderly people. Condemned buildings are a hazard, the debate arises as to who is responsible, Aboriginal Housing Trust or Bungala.

Bad skin infections are common in the community, primary health care is nonexistent. If there is genuine concern regarding Aboriginal health, I can say from experience that some more remote areas, Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands for example have a good standard of care, administered by the Nganampa Health Council, care which would surpass some non-indigenous centres. Communication regarding history and care of indigenous people would benefit if all health services dealing with indigenous health were linked into Communicare. Currently a great deal of difficulty is encountered trying to find out the medication, and chronic disease status of a client in order to treat efficiently or provide any ongoing, sustainable care.

Time expired.

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