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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-11-07 Daily Xml
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Glenthorne National Park

Mr MURRAY (Davenport) (14:29): My question is to the Minister for Environment and Water.

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan: Don't forget to shut this Murray inquiry down as well, Vickie.

The SPEAKER: The member for Lee is called to order and warned.

Mr MURRAY: Can the minister update the house on the establishment of the Glenthorne Partnership and the progress of early works in the creation of a new national park for South Australians?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (14:30): I thank the member for Davenport for his interest in this subject. Of course, a large part of the proposed new national park falls within his electorate and is of particular interest to him and also to the residents he represents down there in the southern suburbs of Adelaide.

The creation of Glenthorne national park is a topic that I am always keen to update the house and my colleagues on because it is a particularly exciting environmental initiative for our state. It has the opportunity to connect so many people who live not only in the southern suburbs but more broadly across Adelaide and South Australia with our natural environment by embedding a national park—a vast area, some 1,500 hectares of open space—in a protected way and embedding this into the suburbs so that people have an opportunity to connect with the natural environment in a way that they might not necessarily get to on a day-to-day basis at the moment.

In order to shape Glenthorne national park, we have come up with a body called the Glenthorne Partnership, a community engagement model that puts people who live in the local community and who have a particular interest, more broadly, in environmental protection at the heart of the decision-making and the casting of the vision for Glenthorne national park. The Glenthorne Partnership is made up of local representatives from environmental groups, some of which have had a history of working on the Glenthorne site, such as Friends of Glenthorne Inc., through to some who have involvement in other environmental organisations in the area, such as Friends of O'Halloran Hill Recreation Park and Friends of Marino Conservation Park.

We also have representation from local schools and people with an interest in Nature Play. We have local business involved through the local business association, and we also have Heritage and people who have an interest and passion and academic experience in heritage protection involved because we know that the site has such an important role to play in explaining early European colonisation within the Adelaide area and the connection it has to agriculture in our state. That includes the preservation of heritage listed buildings on that site, which are not in the condition that they should be after many years of neglect, so having Heritage represented on the Glenthorne Partnership has been very important.

We are also involving traditional owners in that body because of the unique connections that that site has with the Tjilbruke Trail, which stretches from Kingston Park down towards to Yankalilla. Obviously, the Glenthorne site has a particular connection to traditional owners, who ought to have their say in the future of that site as well. The opportunity to create this new environmental precinct, stretching from Happy Valley Reservoir through to the beach around Hallett Cove and Marino, presents a really unique opportunity for not only the government but the community to drive forward a vision for this project.

That is what we are really keen to see: engaging the community, finding out how they want to shape this site and having key community representatives shaping the policy, creating this new national park and bringing their neighbours, their friends and their existing communities along on that journey as well. There is a long way to go with the creation of Glenthorne, but we are well on our way and I will continue to update the house on our progress.

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