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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-09-25 Daily Xml
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Flinders Electorate

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (15:22): I rise today to talk about what is going on in the electorate of Flinders now that spring has sprung. Unfortunately, it has been quite a dry spring for our agricultural producers across Eyre Peninsula, but the season certainly began with good opening rains and a solid winter, but a dry spring, along with a bit of frost, has taken the shine off the season somewhat.

Of course, the football season, the netball season and the hockey season have drawn to a close and we are about to embark on cricket, but in the meantime it is also show time. We have had the Port Lincoln Show; the Wudinna Show was last weekend; the Kimba Show, which is slightly out of my area but in the member for Giles' area, is this weekend; the Yallunda Flat Show and Cummins Show are coming up; and of course, Lipson, which has been reinstated after a short recess. The Cleve Show was moved to the autumn period, so it is no longer a spring show, but they saw an opportunity there, and of course Cleve this year also hosted the Eyre Peninsula Field Days and began a novel event, known as the GrainsFest, which was to celebrate the grain industry on Eyre Peninsula.

The spring season also is the time for the long weekend and the Oysterfest at Ceduna in the far west of the state. It is a wonderful event and celebrates the oyster industry on the Far West Coast, but I suspect also right around Eyre Peninsula. It began way back in 1991 to showcase the best of Ceduna's oysters, and it is now in its 23rd year. In that time, the Oysterfest has grown into an innovative and outstanding grassroots festival that attracts between 6,000 and 8,000 visitors each year over a two-day event. It begins with a dinner on the Friday night, hosted in the Foreshore Hotel in Ceduna, and runs through Saturday and Sunday.

There are many attractions for the people who visit, not just the locals but people right around Eyre Peninsula, right around the state and, indeed, right around the country. They come to try the famous local oysters. These oysters are local to Ceduna. Pacific oysters are an introduced and farmed variety. They are grown at Denial Bay and Smoky Bay, adjacent to Ceduna, down at Haslam, Streaky Bay, Coffin Bay and around Cowell, which is on the Spencer Gulf. It provides an equally good oyster to the domestic market.

I understand that some water was tried in the Louth Bay area without as much success, but here we are, celebrating that aquaculture sector that has really gone from strength to strength. Most of them are small farming businesses, small family businesses, and they do an extraordinary amount of hard work and contribute to the local economy.

There will be lots of attractions in Ceduna over this coming long weekend. Chris Sperou, a 13 time national aerobatics champion, is coming to Ceduna yet again—he must be getting on a bit now because he has been around for a long time—and we look forward to his aerial display. There are all sorts of local productions from the local school and groups and, of course, there will be oyster tasting. There will be stein holding for the adults and ice-coffee holding for the kids and you can try your hand at oyster shucking.

I do not have this on my list in front of me, but I know that there is also a bag-sewing competition, which is a resurrected art, I guess, from days gone by, when wheat was bagged off from the harvester and carted to the port, Thevenard in this case. One of the tasks for the farmer and his men was to sew the bags and get them to a point where they were suitable to be shipped.

I guess it will be an exciting weekend, but there will be a couple of topics of conversation that will dominate. One will be the huge increase in the cost of the emergency services levy for all those landowners, business owners and homeowners on Eyre Peninsula, but also, just as important, the introduction of the sanctuary zones, which will be in place by then. They will come into place on 1 October. People will be considering how they will react, how their businesses will react. There will no doubt be a loss of jobs, there will be a financial cost to the regions and I fear that there may also be a significant personal cost as a result of this government's actions.

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