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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-06-04 Daily Xml
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Coastline Protection

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (14:18): My question is to the Minister for Environment and Water. Can the minister please provide further information on how the Marshall Liberal government is working to protect and secure our metropolitan and regional coastlines for future generations?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (14:18): I thank the member for Colton not only for his question but for his substantial advocacy, some might say pestering, over a lengthy period of time. He has fought so hard to be an advocate for the community that he represents, in particular the suburb of West Beach but also the adjacent suburbs of Glenelg North, Henley Beach South and Henley Beach, coastal suburbs that rely so much on having healthy, thriving, robust, resilient coastlines.

We know that our coastlines are a front line in the defence against climate change, increasing storm events, rising sea levels and challenges from increasing use and population. We need to strengthen the resilience of our coastline and not just in metropolitan Adelaide. Obviously, metropolitan Adelaide has a particular amount of pressure placed on it as a result of the population and human-made interference along the coastline, but we have another 5,000 or so kilometres of coastline outside of metropolitan Adelaide.

All of it is so important to invest in and to care for and to make sure that it has resilience in the face of that changing climate so that it is there to protect our assets on land, continues to provide critical habitat for native species and also plays a role as a carbon sequestration device, in terms of blue carbon, through seagrasses, mangroves and other elements of our marine system.

It has been great to work alongside not only the member for Colton but other members of this place who have substantial coastlines within their electorates. I visited Yorke Peninsula only last week with the member for Narungga and had a conversation with him—

Ms Bedford: Clock.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: You don't want to hear about this for too long, member for Florey?

The Hon. S.K. Knoll: There's no coastline.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: There is no coastline in Florey. However, it was great to visit Narungga. It has been great to have conversations with the member for Finniss, the member for Flinders and the member for MacKillop, in particular about the coastal challenges facing their electorates.

The Marshall Liberal government has made a very substantial investment in the 2019-20 budget in coastal protection, recognising these challenges and making a very clear commitment that we will spend $52.4 million: $4 million through our regional coast restoration fund and $48.4 million in devices and strategies to protect and sustain the West Beach area and those surrounding beaches.

This will involve the completion of the much-needed pipeline. The previous government failed to do this. It created a significant weakness in our metropolitan coastline. We will do it. We will combine that with a significant investment and injection of sand into the West Beach cell. We will also look at a whole range of dune restoration projects, which will ensure that local communities are partnering with government and councils to get plants into our sand dunes to increase the resilience of those sand dunes because, of course, they are the final piece of the puzzle that will hold this project together.

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