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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-04-03 Daily Xml
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RAU, Hon. J.R.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:27): I rise today to pay tribute to a former colleague of ours who left this place in December, a week after the last sitting. We never really got to say goodbye to John Rau, the former member for Enfield and former deputy premier and attorney-general, and I want to put on the record my thanks for the work he did in the electorate of Mawson as planning minister, in particular.

He came up with some great, very practical solutions for Kangaroo Island, in particular, with the development of the Commissioner for Kangaroo Island. He took a great interest in how a place with 4½ thousand square kilometres and a population of just 4½ thousand people could get the sort of representation it needed within government, within all three spheres of government. He had great foresight there and got a great group of people together who worked for quite some time to come up with the model which was the Commissioner for Kangaroo Island.

He also fought really hard to get the Kangaroo Island airport upgrade, which was jointly funded by the federal and state governments for a combined $20 million contribution. I want to thank him for those things, but as planning minister he also took an idea we came up with in the local McLaren Vale area to bring in Australia-first legislation to protect the agricultural lands around McLaren Vale and the Barossa Valley.

It was really important, as the march of urban sprawl rattled towards McLaren Vale and the wonderful agricultural lands we have there, that John, as planning minister, took a real interest in this matter. He jumped in and put lines around the towns of McLaren Vale, McLaren Flat, Kangarilla and Willunga so that there could be no subdivision and gutter-to-gutter housing between the towns. That is something that the people of Mawson, particularly around the McLaren Vale wine region, will be forever grateful for.

As Attorney-General, John took a tough line on bikies. He helped make South Australia a safer place with his pursuit of good legislation. He was the busiest person in our government by a country mile when it came to bringing legislation through this place, and as Attorney-General he oversaw many reforms. He reformed the return-to-work laws in South Australia and made them fairer for workers and better for workers, while also taking on board the views of employers.

John was in this place from 2002 through to December 2018. Before he made it onto the front bench, he was busy working on reform in the real estate industry in South Australia. From 2004 until 2010, he was Chair of the Natural Resources Committee. Whenever these committees hand down their findings, they always have a title, which are usually fairly boring—for example, 'The 23rd report of the committee'. John Rau thought it was a good idea to come up with some memorable names that might help people searching for relevant information on certain titles.

The Marine Scalefish Fishery Summary of Evidence 2014-17 did not just become 'The 125th report of the Natural Resources Committee'. It was titled 'Good things come to those who bait'. An inquiry into prawn fisheries management became 'Trawling through the evidence', and a report into foxes was 'Hunting for the right solutions'. The first inquiry on Deep Creek was called 'Deep Creek: a search for water', but when the public servants were not giving them the right answers they did a supplementary report: 'Deep Creek revisited: a search for straight answers'. There is a trilogy that might look a little familiar on water resources management in the Murray-Darling Basin. Volume 1 was called 'The fellowship of the river'; the second edition was 'The two rivers'; and the third instalment was 'The return of the water'.

I want to thank John for all his efforts in here, but I also pay tribute to him as a great father to Jack, Olivia and Stella. As we all know, our time in parliament is very important, but our time with our family is even more important, and they are with us forever. So thank you, John, for all your efforts.

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