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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-07-23 Daily Xml
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COOPER, MS N.

Ms BREUER (Giles) (16:04): I am not sure what is happening here this afternoon. It is quite amazing—it must be a full moon. I have matters of great importance to me and my electorate I want to talk about today. I am somewhat upset that I have had to wait so long to get the opportunity to do so.

First, I pay tribute to one of Whyalla's citizens who passed away last week. Nancy Cooper lived in our city for around 30 years. I had known her since she first arrived in Whyalla. She worked extremely hard in our community. She was a social worker when she first came to Whyalla, then she became a lecturer at the University of South Australia where she trained and taught many social workers who are now working in many parts of the state, particularly country South Australia. She was a shining example.

I really liked Nancy. She never ever sought recognition for anything she did. She was a quiet worker who did not appreciate how valuable she was to our community. I pay tribute to her for her work with women in the community, as a result of her work at the women's shelter and other associated women's organisations, and her work with refugees at Baxter and Woomera. Her efforts were unsurpassed. She looked after and visited those people regularly, took things to them and worked with them in relation to their problems. She was a mentor and advocate. She did an incredible amount of work for the people at Baxter Detention Centre. I say farewell to Nancy, but to her family I pass on my sincerest sympathy. I want them to know how much the community of Whyalla appreciated her work over the years.

I also want to comment today about the proposed Point Lowly jetty, which is a huge issue for people in my community. Today when I asked the Minister for Tourism a question, I was interested to hear her mention the cuttlefish that aggregates at Point Lowly. They have become a unique worldwide tourism attraction. Film crews from all over the world visit the area. I was pleased to hear that the Minister for Tourism said it was the most exciting place she has ever visited in South Australia when she went there to dive and watch the cuttlefish.

My community and I are concerned about the proposal to build a jetty over the cuttlefish aggregation. As a community we believe other places are more appropriate for this facility. We do not want to hold back the mining industry. We believe it is important and we want to be part of it, but we do not particularly want that area to be decimated. We are at looking at shipping out copper, sulphur, iron ore and, potentially, uranium, and it seems to me to be totally inappropriate to be looking at working in an area such as the cuttlefish area and, certainly, my community and I will be following it up with the state government.

The other issue I want to discuss today is country health. I have been to a couple of country health meetings in my electorate, and I have also been following very closely on the radio the debate that is going on in the community. I am amazed at the amount of misinformation that is being peddled by people, as well as the falsehoods being put out by people in various communities in South Australia. I am very concerned about the level of concern people have about this issue, when it is totally unnecessary.

Last week, I had a phone call from a very concerned old lady from Cowell. For many, many years she has worked for the hospital auxiliary raising money, and she and the other women in the hospital auxiliary have decided that they will not raise any more money because they believe they would have to give the money to the Whyalla Hospital. What absolute nonsense! There is no proposal to take money raised in that way and give it to the Whyalla Hospital and there is no proposal to close any hospital.

People should sit back and look at the reality of the situation, such as where we are going to get the staff in the future to run the same sort of system we are running now. We know the system is not working terribly well any more, and that improvements have to be made to it. If people sat back, looked at the Country Health Care Plan and listened to what the professionals and the minister are saying, we might get rid of the perception that is causing upset and grief to country people, and we would have a much better system. I think people opposite should be ashamed of themselves for the carry-on that has been occurring. I fully support the health plan, and I think it will work extremely well.

Time expired.

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