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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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CHARACTER PRESERVATION (MCLAREN VALE) BILL

Final Stages

Consideration in committee of the Legislative Council's amendments (resumed on motion).

Amendment No. 1:

Mr BIGNELL: It is great to rise this week to discuss this bill as we inch closer to locking in forever the agricultural regions of McLaren Vale and the Barossa Valley. It is timely to stand here today and give thanks to many people who have made this possible. In both McLaren Vale and the Barossa Valley, we grow things very well, and this legislation is something that grew out of the ideas of many people in both those areas over many years.

We can look back to the great Greg Trott, who was always out there advocating the preservation of McLaren Vale as a region. He lamented the loss of so many vineyards and agricultural land up in the northern part of the McLaren Vale GI when he was running Wirra Wirra when he was alive. He was very much the conscience of the area and even in death people in the area still ask, 'What would Trotty do? What would Trotty think?'

We actually owe it to those who have gone before us and implored people over the years to look after what we have in these two very special regions. However, there are many people around today who have fought for a large part of their lives to preserve what it is that we have in these special places.

If you go back to the early sixties, when people started moving out of the centre of Adelaide and moving to the newly-created suburbs to the north and the south of Adelaide, it really has not stopped in those almost 50 years of urban sprawl. We have lost so much valuable agricultural land in and around the western, eastern and north-eastern suburbs—places like Campbelltown, Fulham Gardens, around Marion. We have lost all those places where we used to grow so much produce, and people at the fringes over the last few years have been saying, 'Enough is enough.'

We have had some victories along the way, and Bowering Hill was one of those. Bowering Hill is a very special part of the southern part of Adelaide that sits to the west of the township of McLaren Vale in between Port Willunga and Maslin Beach. It is the last piece of open space where the vines meet the sea. There was a proposal from what was then called the Land Management Corporation (LMC), which is a government entity now called the Urban Renewal Authority.

They own that land on behalf of the government and there was a proposal a few years ago to build 8,000 houses on that property which got everyone pretty upset down in McLaren Vale because our motto in McLaren Vale is, 'McLaren Vale: where the vines meet the sea.' If we had built 8,000 houses at Bowering Hill, the vines would no longer meet the sea and all you would see would be the glint off the rooftops of the Bowering Hill subdivision, had it been allowed to go ahead.

I commend everyone who fought hard on that. I also commend the ministers who were involved at that time: Patrick Conlon as infrastructure minister and the minister responsible for the Land Management Corporation and also Paul Holloway, who was the minister for planning. We have had many battles, and that was one of them. I think the turning point might have been when I took Patrick on a bike ride and we stopped on the top of Bowering Hill. I wanted to rest and Patrick was keen to keep going, but I had another motive. Apart from having a rest I pointed out what a beautiful vista it was as you look back from Bowering Hill across the valley into those lovely rolling hills above Willunga.

When we announced that Bowering Hill would not go ahead I expected that a lot of people in the area would say it was fantastic, but they were not convinced that that would be the end of it. They wanted some security that some future government, a future planning minister, or a future infrastructure minister would not just come in and change the lines on a map. Even with the 30-year plan people were still worried. We fought really hard to get the boundaries around those townships locked in and to agree that certain parcels of land could be developed in the next 30 years but others would be kept aside for agriculture and tourism purposes. Still, people were not convinced, because governments change, local members change, councils change, and so lines can be easily changed on maps. People wanted something more than that, and it was legislation that they were after.

I remember Dudley Brown, who was then head of the McLaren Vale Grape, Wine and Tourism Association and an American, telling us to have a look at the Napa Valley to see how successful it has been since 1968 when the agricultural preserve legislation came in in Napa when that part of the world was under threat from development; it has worked very well. I want to congratulate Dudley, who planted the seed, and everyone else who came onboard. It was not just the McLaren Vale Grape, Wine and Tourism Association, it was also the Friends of Willunga Basin, the Southern Community Coalition and many other community groups and individuals in McLaren Vale.

In 2009 I was in the Barossa Valley and bumped into Margaret Lehmann, when we were at Peter Lehmann's winery for a function, and she said she really liked what was happening down in McLaren Vale and that they were also worried in the Barossa that the Barossa was under threat from urban sprawl. She said, 'I wish we had that same sort of motivation that you've have got down in McLaren Vale.' I said, 'Well, why don't we join forces?' When I suggested this at a community meeting back in 2009, that McLaren Vale and Barossa get together, Mayor Lorraine Rosenberg said that she could not see any added value in teaming up with the Barossa. She said, 'Why would we want to link ourselves up with that area that is flagged for huge growth and pressure over the next 30 years?'

Well, that's exactly why you do it. We have already had the growth in our part of the world through Woodcroft and Reynella where there were once vineyards and now they are under housing and shopping centres. The Barossa could see they faced that threat as well, but because they are further away from the CBD that was going to be a little bit prolonged for them, but they wanted to join forces; and why wouldn't we? Why wouldn't Australia's two premium wine regions, that often see each other as opposition when it comes to winning wine trophies and wine show awards, get together? There was no way that anyone could argue with the united front of the McLaren Vale and Barossa regions coming together.

We had our first meeting in late 2009 here in Parliament House. Paul Holloway attended that and was fantastic in the advice that he put forward for us. Through 2010 we had a lot of meetings, but we found that the Public Service was not always as keen on the ideas. They wanted to have what we would call talkfests and discussions. We pretty much knew what we wanted as a group of locals from both regions, but they were keen on having these discussions.

I must admit, and the current minister for planning mentioned this before, that I put a bit of pressure on them. I apologise for sometimes being a little bit grouchy to all the ministers and public servants that I have had to deal with, but it was almost a life-and-death situation for these two regions. I apologise that I might have been a bit grouchy, but I do not apologise for the passion that I have and the passion that other people have for these two regions.

Present at that first meeting that we had in Parliament House were Jim Hullick, the chair of the Southern Community Coalition; Jude McBain, the chair of Willunga Farmers' Market; David Gill, secretary of the Friends of Willunga Basin; Dudley Brown, who I have mentioned before was the chair of McLaren Vale Grape Wine and Tourism Association; Sam Holmes, the chief executive officer of Barossa Grape and Wine Association; Robert Edwards, a director at Peter Lehmann Wines; Anne Moroney, the chief executive officer of Barossa and Light Regional Development Board; and Phil Lehmann, a winemaker at Peter Lehmann Wines.

We started working through the process. Some of the personnel changed. Margaret Lehmann came in and was a very powerful voice on our group, and I really want to pay tribute to Margaret. She was in there and she is a great campaigner. She was often ringing me up to see where we were at and everything else. We had the meetings and it was at one of those stages where I was a little frustrated, so I went and saw then premier Mike Rann, who suggested I do a private member's bill to try to lock this legislation in. He knew that I had been banging on to him about it since 2007. He thought things in the 30-year plan might resolve the issues for members of the community, but he understood that they did want greater security and certainty around the future use of the land down there.

I worked up the private member's bill and then it was decided that we would take it on as a government bill, which I must say was probably the best way to go. It is hard as a backbencher, without the resources of a ministerial office and the Public Service, to get it exactly right. While we have come to this stage where the bill is just moments away from going through, everyone is pretty happy with what we have.

There is one area that I would like to see added, which is something that I have been going on about since the very beginning. I would like to see Glenthorne Farm and the old Hardys Reynella site, which is now owned by Accolade, placed within the preserved area, and that is something that I will keep working away at. If you look at what happened across the road from the Hardys site a couple of years ago when Constellation, another multinational company, bought the site, they went around through the back door and had the land rezoned so that they could sell that off for housing. That is exactly what we do not want to see happen on the Hardys site.

That site is now owned by a finance company which I do not think really has a great love of the wine industry. They see it as a business. They just sacked 175 staff up there a couple of months ago. Those people all finished up last week and the week before. I understand that Accolade is out there to make money and everything else, but that is why we need to move those areas into the agricultural reserve and lock it in forever. I know that the company has already mentioned the fact that they would not mind seeing a Bunnings on that site.

That is the site where John Reynell planted the very first grapes in our part of the world back in 1838. Those vines were planted very soon after white settlement in South Australia. The Stony Hill Vineyard where he planted those vines is now under houses. The old chateau and the vineyards around that chateau, which provide the grapes for the Eileen Hardy and many other signature wines that are renowned around the world could be the next cab off the rank in the eyes of a company based on just making money, and I think we have seen that.

Tomorrow we will be having a lunch in Parliament House to celebrate the fact that this bill is almost through and that we have managed to protect the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale. It is not just the people in this chamber and in the upper house who have made those changes, it is all those people in both the regions who I have mentioned before, those who are with us now and those who have gone before us, that we are going to pay tribute to and have a few toasts tomorrow.

Unfortunately, Sam Holmes and Jan Angus from the Barossa will not be able to make it, but Margaret Lehmann and Anne Moroney will be there, as will Jim Hullick, David Gill and Dudley Brown from McLaren Vale. We will be having three toasts from three bottles tomorrow. One glass will be from a special bottle that Margaret Lehmann is going to bring down to represent the Barossa, and we will be toasting the Barossa's past and its future. We will be toasting McLaren Vale's past and future with a very special wine made from the grapes that were being brought in to be crushed at the time the bells rang out at Wirra Wirra to signal the fact that Greg Trott had lost his battle and had died.

There will be a third bottle, which is from the Napa Valley. It is a 2006 cab sav by Michael Mondavi, which was given to me in 2010 by a gentleman called Mark Willey, who is the chief executive officer of Bridgeford Flying Services at the Napa Valley Airport. Mark arranged for me to be taken up in a small Cessna to fly over the Napa Valley. It was remarkable just how much it reminded me of McLaren Vale with its valley and the grapes along the valley floor.

You could see that what they had fought about in 1968 in Napa, which caused so many problems then, was probably a lot more divisive than what we have seen in McLaren Vale and the Barossa. There are families who, all these years later, still do not talk to other members of their family such was the bitterness and division in the community. No-one is lamenting the fact now that it was not the right decision.

In my travels I met Jack Cakebread from Cakebread Cellars. Jack was 80 at the time and has fought very hard for the preservation of the Napa Valley. When he and his wife Dolores moved there in 1978 they had 22 acres and now they have 450 acres. He said, 'When the agricultural preserve bill was discussed and introduced we weren't sure just what was going to happen but we didn't want strip malls and housing. We needed to keep Napa Valley the top destination in California so when people go home and see wine on the shelves they pick the Napa Valley over everywhere else.'

That is what we want to see too. When tourists come to McLaren Vale or the Barossa Valley, not only do they spend money when they are in that region, when they go home to Sydney, Melbourne, other parts of South Australia or, indeed, other parts of the world and they see the McLaren Vale or Barossa branding on a bottle then that is the region they will go for because it will reconnect them with the wonderful time they had when they were in South Australia in our premier wine regions.

There have been people who have suggested that this legislation could de-value the price of land in McLaren Vale and the Barossa. I point to Mr Cakebread's example: he said, 'Thirty-seven years ago I bought my land at $800 an acre, and 10 years ago my neighbour sold his vineyard for $350,000 an acre and pulled out all the vines and re-planted.' That is not a misprint in Hansard: 37 years ago he bought his land at $800 an acre and 10 years ago his neighbour sold his vineyard for $350,000 an acre. That is what can happen when you put a value on land.

I was talking to a Financial Review journalist a couple of weeks ago, who rang up about the bill, and I said: this isn't an anti-development bill. We would love someone to come and build a five-star hotel in the McLaren Vale region. What this will do is give some security to those investors who will need to put a lot of money in to build that sort of accommodation. It will give them some certainty that by building a top rate hotel in the middle of McLaren Vale, surrounded by all the wonderful things that it is surrounded by now, it will still be surrounded by those wonderful things in 10 years, 20 years and 50 years time. If we did not have the security of this legislation, with the approval of both houses of parliament to change it, then someone could invest in a wonderful hotel and in 10 years time find it surrounded by suburbs, and we all know that people do not travel to the suburbs for their holidays.

When we toast the Napa Valley tomorrow it will be in thanks for all of the advice and the way they went about it. They were, I guess, the guinea pigs in land preservation. I want to pay particular tribute to Bill Dodd, who is the supervisor of the Fourth District in the Napa Valley. He has been out to the Barossa Valley and has spent time in McLaren Vale. I met him a few years ago when he was in Adelaide. When I contacted him, back in 2010, and said that I was coming over to Napa for three or four days he arranged the most outstanding itinerary. He had people pick me up from the hotel and take me to a winery, then someone else would pick me up from that winery and take me to something else, and I was busy for the whole day each and every day that I was there. At the end of it, Bill and his wife opened up their house and had me and everyone who had helped me over for dinner in their home. It was unbelievable hospitality that I want to thank Bill for but, also, because he put me in touch with many people.

It was Bill who organised my meeting with Jack Cakebread and who organised my visit to Tom Gamble's house at the Gamble Family Vineyards to talk about local farmers and wine growers. He organised for me to meet with Dave Whitmer, the Agricultural Commissioner, and Dave gave me a great insight into the sorts of protections they have, not just against urban encroachment but also things like the European moth and other threats to the wine industry in Napa Valley.

Bill also arranged for the Mayor of the City of Napa, Jill Techel, to pick me up and take me on a tour of downtown Napa to explain to me what they have done there on flood control, tourism and expansion to the urban area within the City of Napa. That was a wonderful insight. The mayor took me to the local Napa Chamber of Commerce, and I sat through their meetings as they discussed what their reactions were going to be to a number of referenda that were coming up in the state of California.

That is one thing that was interesting about their legislation and why we could not copy exactly the Napa Valley act. They can have referenda at various times throughout the year when they will bundle all these different motions together and people get to go along and vote on whether they want to see things continue. We could not do this here in South Australia, so what the people of McLaren Vale and the Barossa thought was the best idea was to hand that responsibility to the elected members of this place so that people would have plenty of time to come and lobby them if anyone ever put up a proposal that these rules be changed in the future.

I notice that the opposition was very keen to see a lot of control retained with council. They kept arguing for more and more control by council but it misses the point of where this legislation grew from. People were happy with decisions that were made but were worried about decisions that could be made further down the track, so they really wanted those protections locked in place.

We had the member for Bragg get up earlier and say that we did not care, and she was being quite insulting to the government over this legislation. That is actually a slap in the face of the very people who worked so hard to get this legislation to this point. I am not talking about the minister, public servants or any other members of parliament: I am actually talking about the people who come from the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale who really wanted this legislation. For the member for Bragg to come in here and say that shows a lack of knowledge of where this has all come from.

I also want to put on the record my thanks to other people I met in Napa Valley because they all helped in some way to frame what we are about to celebrate here with the passing of this bill. Rex Stults, the Industry Relations Director at Napa Valley Vintners, was tremendous in showing me around and letting me know how they have done things in Napa. Also, Emilie Wyrick from Napa Valley Vintners was extremely helpful. From the Napa County, I met Patrick Lowe, the Deputy Director of the Conservation, Development and Planning Department; and Keith Caldwell, who was also great with the knowledge he passed on. He is from the Board of Supervisors and Supervisor of District 5.

I had a wonderful afternoon with Michael Baldini from Napa Valley College, and I thank him, on behalf of everyone in both of our wine regions, for the help he gave us. Joel Tranmer is the Chief Executive Officer of the Land Trust of Napa County, and John Tuteur is the Recorder-County Clerk of Napa County. I met up with Bernard Krevet, who is the President of Friends of the Napa River. It is interesting to see that the Friends of the Napa River have a lot in common with the people at Friends of Willunga Basin. It was also great to talk to Clay Gregory, who is the President and CEO of the Napa Valley Destination Council. We think that we have got some good ideas here, but we do not know everything. It is great to travel. I remember that the former member for Stuart agreed as well that you travel so that you can be reassured that what you are doing here is good and then to pick up other ideas as well. Getting around the Napa Valley and to have so many great contacts organised for me by Bill Dodd was unbelievable. As I said, tomorrow we will be having a lunch in here—

Mr Williams interjecting:

Mr BIGNELL: No; sorry. The member for MacKillop asked whether I have pulled a cork out of a certain bottle of Napa Valley cab sav. We will be opening it tomorrow at the celebration for those people who have been the grassroots of this legislation, and I will invite the member for MacKillop to come in and have a try, and also the minister.

Talking about the minister, I would really like to thank the minister for his patience. I know that I have been a bit fiery at times, but sometimes that is what happens when you get passionate about an issue. Also, I thank Daniel Romeo, the minister's chief of staff, and, in particular, Liam Golding who I have been able to ring any time of the day or night; and, in his very calm and collected way, he has always taken all my thoughts on board and we have got most of them up.

As mentioned before, with respect to Glenthorne Farm and that Hardy's Reynella site we can still continue to work at that. When a review is done in a few years time that will still be an issue, and we all need to be vigilant that the Accolade-owned site of the old Hardy's winery at Reynella is not rezoned in any way because it is too important to lose.

To everyone who has been involved in this bill, not only in terms of the political side of it but also at the grassroots level, I offer my thanks. I am sure that there will be people in 175 years time looking back at the people who have done all this and they will have the same appreciation for the people who have done this as people have now for Colonel Light and how he locked our Parklands into place when Adelaide was laid out 175 years ago.

The ACTING CHAIR (Hon. M.J. Wright): Minister, it is my understanding that, at this stage, we are dealing with amendment No. 1?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes, that is right, Mr Acting Chairman. Can I thank all the members who have made contributions. I think that I acknowledged before that the member for Mawson really has been involved in this for a very long time and he has done great work. I have not yet mentioned the people from the Barossa Valley in relation to the work there; but, when we get to that bill, there are a number of people I would also like to acknowledge, and many of them were referred to by the member for Mawson in his remarks.

I think that now we are at a point where we can go through the committee stage. The idea was that we would have a bit of general discussion first so that we could get into this fairly briefly.

Motion carried.

Amendments Nos 2 to 10:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I move:

That the Legislative Council's amendments Nos 2 to 10 be agreed to.

Motion carried.

Amendment No. 11:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I move:

That the Legislative Council's amendment No. 11 be disagreed to.

I just want to say a few words about amendment No. 11 just so I can place on the record the position about this. During the debate on this bill in the other place, the government had concerns with amendments moved by the Hon. David Ridgway and the Hon. Mr Mark Parnell. Both amendments in the government's view would be problematic and are therefore unacceptable to the government.

By removing the ability for the minister of the day to initiate a rezoning, they would have the effect of setting up special enclaves within two districts where the ordinary rules of the planning system do not apply. This would be unprecedented within our state planning system and nationally and run counter to the leading practices recommended by the Productivity Commission.

The government likened the amendments moved by the Hon. Mr Ridgway to setting up South Australia's version of Hutt River Province. I guess that it might be fair to say that the Hon. Mr Parnell's amendments could be said to be more like setting up a Vatican City state—smaller in scale at the end of the day but still effectively free of the rules that apply everywhere else.

The government's view is that, even though the Hon. Mr Parnell's amendment is more limited in its effect than the altogether much more mischievous amendments moved by the Hon. Mr Ridgway, they would still set an unfortunate precedent that should be avoided; because of this, we will be opposing them.

However, the government acknowledges that, in putting forward his amendment, Mr Parnell was attempting to be an honest broker and to put forward issues that he, as a member with considerable experience in planning law, has observed in the planning system for some time, particularly the processes around DPAs and the appropriate balance between state government, council, and community interests and responsibilities in the planning system.

As Minister for Planning, I take these matters seriously and would like to discuss them further with the honourable member and, indeed, any members who have an interest in how our planning system can be further reformed and enhanced, and I note that Mr Parnell, in his remarks, offered to sit down and work with all members to develop appropriate reforms to the system that would apply across the whole state. That is certainly our preferred option rather than these, I think the words used these days is 'bespoke', amendments, which will create an administrative burden on the department to manage.

Land use planning is a core policy concern of this government, as members would know. For several years we have driven an agenda of reform and change to our planning system that has earned this state respect and acknowledgement across the country, and we are absolutely open to continuing that process in consultation and partnership with members in this place and, indeed, the other place.

Indeed, as members will know, the government yesterday announced we will be bringing forward planning reform legislation to address issues in relation to housing approvals, enabling a more streamlined assessment process for low risk, low impact residential development, a very important reform, and one that has been welcomed by the housing industry at an industry round table hosted by the Premier.

As I have already said, I am prepared to sit down with Mr Parnell and other members to talk about potential system-wide reforms to the planning system that could be pursued and, should discussions with members bear fruit with proposals acceptable to the government with broad, cross-party support, I am prepared to bring forward further legislation in due course.

However, the government cannot support an amendment at this stage which would effectively put in place an administratively burdensome, unique amendment, and it will be opposed by the government. This amendment, as the Hon. Mr Parnell himself observed in debate the other day, is not the ideal way to address the system-wide issues that he has raised.

Indeed, Mr Parnell acknowledged that the amendment would not resolve the fundamental problem raised, which is that it would result in a Mexican stand-off. While it limits the potential for that, relative to the amendments moved by Mr Ridgway, it would still represent a suboptimal outcome for planning in this state. Accordingly, amendment No.11 is opposed.

Motion carried.

Amendments Nos 12 to 19:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I move:

That the Legislative Council's amendments Nos 12 to 19 be agreed to.

Motion carried.

Amendment No.20:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I move:

That the Legislative Council's amendment No. 20 be disagreed to.

This should not perturb, hopefully, my friends, but we are simply trying to bring both bills into conformity. This is now an anomaly between both bills and we will be seeking to withdraw this amendment. As indicated on this bill and in the other place, the amendment was included in response to concerns raised by the Barossa Council about potential of township growth within the boundaries established by the bill. As I indicated in debate, we believe these boundaries, which reflect those in the 30 year plan, are more than adequate to cater for likely growth over the next 30 years and, indeed, some townships have enough land to grow for over 70 years, based on historic growth trends.

However, it became apparent in debate that there was some concern that this provision would invite the boundaries to be reviewed routinely and implied that there would be a more fluid movement of those boundaries than the government intends. In reality, this five-yearly review would mirror the five-yearly review of the act set out in clause 11 and the five-yearly review of the planning strategy required under the Development Act. In that sense, the new clause was intended to clarify the township boundaries, and it could be reviewed as part of those processes.

I reflected on these concerns and decided, notwithstanding that this was a matter requested by Barossa Council, it is not needed to achieve the objectives of the bill and that the matter of township boundaries is sufficiently addressed through this other processes. Accordingly, the government will seek to disagree with the amendment and will be withdrawing the cognate amendment to the Barossa bill in the other place, and I believe that that may have already occurred.

I want to emphasise, however, that there is no ambiguity. The issue of reviewing is not the same as the issue of approving a change. This bill makes it clear: no change to these boundaries can occur without parliamentary consent through legislative amendment. The new clause 10A, which would have been inserted by the amendment, I now seek this committee to disagree with, but it would not have altered in any way this fundamental proposition.

Motion carried.

Amendments Nos 21 to 34:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I move:

That the Legislative Council's amendments Nos 21 to 34 be agreed to.

Motion carried.

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