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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-05-17 Daily Xml
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HERITAGE FESTIVAL

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (15:22): I, too, would like to talk today about a community event, one that is actually going on from the middle of April right through to 31 May. The National Trust of South Australia is currently holding its Heritage Festival. That festival fortunately coincides with the South Australian History Festival, and there are events right across the state going on at this very moment. The Heritage Festival is celebrating the places and stories that make Australia and Australians special.

Today I would particularly like to talk about those regional South Australians who feature as part of this festival. I noted that there are a number of festival entries from Eyre Peninsula, and a couple in particular caught my eye. The first one to jump out at me was the recognition given to Birdseye's Bus Service, which began linking the Adelaide metropolitan area to the Eyre Peninsula—those far flung regions of the state on Eyre Peninsula, on the West Coast—way back in 1926. It was owned and operated for many years by Mrs Sylvia Birdseye.

I know the member for Stuart has said in this place that he drives many thousands of kilometres a year. I can tell members that Sylvia Birdseye drove 3,000 kilometres a week for 50 years—it might have been 40, but it was a long time, anyway. In fact, 'send it by Birdseye' was the catchcry if you wanted anything to get to Adelaide or back from Adelaide reliably and on time. It was a bus service that transported passengers and goods. In fact, I am old enough to remember travelling home by bus from Adelaide to Cummins, and even though by that stage (in the 1970s) it was owned and operated by Stateliner it was still known colloquially as 'the Birdseye'. Mrs Birdseye has been honoured by having the Cowell to Elliston road named after her.

The Brattenising plough is also recognised. Robert Bratten was the district clerk at Tumby Bay and he developed—in the throes of building roads in some very difficult terrain—a plough that would pull out large rocks and manage those rocks in the road building process. He too has had a road named after him, the Tumby Bay to Mount Hope road is named after Mr Robert Bratten.

Kelsh's Pug and Pine Cottage at Streaky Bay, sometimes known as 'Wattle and Daub'. One of the first things the early settlers had to do, of course, was build shelter and accommodation and they used whatever timber (often light timber) they could cut locally and pug it up with a mixture of hay, straw and mud. That cottage was built way back in 1886. The Kelsh family were one of the very early settlers in the Streaky Bay district, and the family continues on in that district. The cottage itself was relocated to Streaky Bay in 1982.

Bob Dobbin's barbed wire collection gets a mention. Bob began collecting barbed wire from all over Australia and all around the world in 1984. In fact, his collection is so famous that he has been inducted into the USA Barbed Wire Hall of Fame—can you imagine that? Congratulations to Mr Dobbins. That collection and exhibition is now held in the Koppio Museum, which is my local branch of the National Trust, of which I am a very proud member. Unfortunately, I am not able to get there to volunteer my time very often, but I look forward to doing that at some time in the future. It is an excellent museum, which is always looking for volunteers as are all museums around the state and on the Eyre Peninsula.

I have mentioned the Koppio Museum, which celebrates and commemorates our farming heritage. There is the Railway Preservation Society in Port Lincoln, which also does a marvellous job, the Axel Stenross Museum in Port Lincoln, which celebrates the maritime history of the Eyre Peninsula and West Coast, and one I visited recently was the Excell Blacksmith Shop in Tumby Bay, which is undertaking some negotiations at the moment about their demonstrations, they need to address some occupational health and safety issues but hopefully they will be able to work their way through that. In fact, Robert Bratten, who developed the Brattenising plough, had his prototypes built by the Excell Blacksmith Shop in Tumby Bay.

Other South Australian members of that hall of fame were the Smith brothers from Yorke Peninsula, who developed the stump jump plough, and one time treasurer and premier of this state, Richard Torrens, who developed a centralised system of land title that is used around the world. So, congratulations to all those who have been recognised and the National Trust itself and its good work.

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