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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-06-18 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Phillips Family Land

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (15:10): Mr Speaker, I long for the day when we get 50 answers to 50 questions, but we will wait and see. I rise to speak today about a family that has come to see me about a land issue. This is quite a complex and drawn out issue and the further I delve into it, the more I realise that this is a landowner who has been nothing but cooperative yet stuck in the middle of a bureaucracy that has caused him and his family significant hardship. The failure to find a solution to this issue—and it is unfortunate that the Minister for Planning has left the chamber—has caused a lot of grief and hardship to this family, and I implore him to intervene on this.

John Phillips acts on behalf of his sister and late mother and owns a parcel of land in Hewett and has done so for a large number of years. This land has had many restrictions placed on it. Land-use restrictions are in place to stop the contamination of the water that flows through the adjacent North Para River; he has had land compulsorily acquired for the widening of the Sturt Highway; and, more recently, his land has been needed for flood mitigation purposes by the Gawler River Floodplain Management Authority in relation to industrial development and industrial sheds that are on the opposite side of the highway.

My purpose today is to highlight this issue to the house and to highlight the unfinished business of the land swap needed to put a flow metering weir on the Phillips's property, and also to show the outrageous timeline and the purgatory of where the Phillips family now sits in relation to this issue. We need intervention, and we need the government to get on and fix this issue on behalf of the family.

On 15 October 2004, the Phillips family partnership were advised in writing by Maloney Field Services, who were at that stage acting on behalf of the Gawler River Floodplain Management Authority, that some land would be acquired for the construction of a flood mitigation dam. On 14 November 2005 some land was acquired for a flow metering weir below the flood mitigation dam but, because the size of the land required was not yet surveyed, the Phillips partners agreed to a land swap for the existing metering weir spot and easements above the position of the new dam.

On 9 May 2008, a copy of the plan was submitted to the Land Titles Office and that was received. This plan only showed changes in relation to the land required for the flood mitigation dam and not for the flow metering weir. On 30 March 2009, final compensation for the dam site was finalised but the land swap had yet to be finalised.

On 16 November 2009—so we are now talking five years later—the land required for the flow metering weir was surveyed by SA Water. On 17 November (a day later) a letter from the Phillips's family lawyer to the executive officer of the Gawler River Floodplain Management Authority complained about the delay in finalising the land swap agreement and the extinguishing easements that was agreed to in 2005. So at that stage we are talking four years to try and get this issue resolved.

On 15 December 2009, correspondence was received from the executive officer of the Gawler River Floodplains Management Authority, with an attached plan for the land swap for the Phillips's approval. That plan was completed on 1 December 2009 showing a new weir allotment of 1,788 square metres. On 22 December, a certificate of title was received showing the new dam, but not the position of the proposed weir and still showing the old weir and associated easements. That all happened and a title for this property was unresolved, yet in 2010 the flow metering weir on the Phillips's land was constructed.

On 18 July 2011 another survey was completed by Alserv Engineering Surveys. This appeared identical to the plan that was surveyed in December 2009 by the same company. From that date until now, numerous letters and phone calls have been made to Malony Field Services, Fred Pedlar and Bruce Eastick from the Gawler River Floodplain Management Authority, the Land Titles Office, and as I understand it at least three meetings have occurred with the member for Light in an effort to gain a new title to finalise the acquisition which commenced in 2006.

All the Phillips family is asking for is for their land title to be returned to them, because on 15 May 2012 John Phillips's mother died, and probate was granted in January 2013, but here we sit 10 years after the initial issue was raised and the family cannot effect probate because the Land Titles Office will not return the title to the family.

Time expired.

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