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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-04-03 Daily Xml
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McSEVENEY, ELAINE

Ms BREUER (Giles) (15:27): I rise today, in the first instance, to pay tribute to a very dear friend of mine, and the former secretary of the Whyalla Sub-Branch of the Labor Party, Elaine McSeveney. I have had the unfortunate news this morning that she has passed away. Elaine has been a friend of mine for many years and for many years she was the secretary to the mayor in Whyalla, worked for the Whyalla council, and was a very valuable member of their staff.

I remember when I first went on council how much assistance Elaine gave to me, and to other new members on council, including Eddie Hughes, who is now the deputy mayor and is also part of my staff. She was a great asset to the Whyalla council. After her retirement she joined the ALP in Whyalla and for many years was a very valuable secretary to our sub-branch.

In a small community such as Whyalla we find that there is much work done by a few people, as in any small community, and Elaine was a particularly hard worker in the Whyalla community and a valuable member of our community. She was part of that group of migrants who came out to Australia in the sixties and seventies who became part of Whyalla.

We were very lucky, we had people from the UK, Europe and Australia, and always about a third proportion of those. Elaine was one of those who came out from the UK, settled in our community, raised her family there and worked very hard for the community over the years. I know she was associated with many local groups in Whyalla and helped in fundraising and supporting those groups, etc., particularly the Presbyterian Church in Whyalla, and I know she was a very much valued person there—she was a wonderful cook.

I will really miss Elaine. She was a wonderful worker for our community. I wanted to pay tribute to her because often these people do go unrecognised and it is not appreciated just how much work people like her do for their communities, unrecognised, sometimes unknown, although Elaine was very well known.

So, I wanted to particularly pay tribute to her and I certainly send my deepest sympathy to her husband Tom and her family and just say how much we appreciated Elaine and how much we will miss her. She was a wonderful woman.

I also want to talk today about my community and put the record straight. Yesterday I met with Eddie Hughes, the deputy mayor, with representatives from the DPC and also the Department of Defence about the future development of the Whyalla area, and particularly the Lowly Peninsula and the land around the Lowly Peninsula and Whyalla.

I want to repeat on record what I have said consistently all the way through in these discussions with DPC and the Department of Defence: we in Whyalla do not oppose development in our area. We have been through some very hard times. We are on the rise again now and we are very happy about that. But we are asking—and we did ask yesterday—that they listen to what our community is saying, particularly the Whyalla council, myself, and the Economic Development Board. The Army is taking over a huge amount of land around Whyalla. The amount is really unbelievable and it will be training people there.

This is very much tied in with the other issue about the Lowly Peninsula. The Army is not taking over the Lowly Peninsula, but we believe that developments are being proposed for that area which we know nothing about. We are losing this vast tract around Whyalla, which will take away virtually all the recreational land around Whyalla. We do not want to lose our peninsula as well. We do not want it industrialised. It is a very beautiful spot in South Australia. You can sit out at the Lowly Peninsula and look across at the Flinders Ranges, across the top of Spencer Gulf, and it is unbelievably beautiful. We do not want to lose that particular asset. We believe that, if we can get a compromise with the Army, if it can release some of the land it is proposing to take over, development can go on there. Industrialisation can happen there, it does not have to happen on the Lowly Peninsula, and that is what we are asking for.

So, we do not oppose development in our area; we fully support it. We know that that is our future, but we want it to be done carefully. We have just got over a huge environmental disaster in Whyalla. When people talk about Whyalla, they talk about red dust. We are now resolving that issue thanks to the efforts of OneSteel. That is being resolved, and people are already starting to notice the difference. We do not want a similar disaster to happen on our Lowly Peninsula. We have cuttlefish on one side, which we are world famous for, and, on the other side we have fish farms. We want to leave that amenity as it is.

I want to put on the record that we do not oppose development. I am fully behind the Whyalla council and I am fully behind the Whyalla Economic Development Board, and we will stand together on this.

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