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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-10-19 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Jetties

Mr TELFER (Flinders) (15:10): I rise today to speak about the incredibly important community assets of the more than 70 public jetties and wharves dispersed along the South Australian coastline. In my electorate of Flinders, there are much-valued jetties all around my coastline, including Cowell, Arno Bay, Port Neill, Tumby Bay, Louth Bay, North Shields, Port Lincoln, Coffin Bay, Dutton Bay, Elliston, Venus Bay, Port Kenny, Haslam, Streaky Bay, Smoky Bay, Ceduna, Denial Bay, Point Sinclair and Fowlers Bay.

These are the central pieces of infrastructure that many of our coastal communities are built around. Whilst many of these were originally used as export facilities, most are now incredibly popular tourism drawcards used by visitors and locals to access our unique marine environment. One jetty in particular that is close to my heart is at Tumby Bay. It was built in the early 1900s and throughout the years has seen generations of locals and visitors all enjoying the ability to go swimming, fishing, diving and walking in our beautiful environment.

The Tumby Bay jetty has also seen its share of fix-up jobs from its community, council and government. If you take the time to look closely at the physical construction of the jetty at Tumby Bay, you will find the original timber piles and framework, more recent timber construction, some concrete piles that have been put in place to replace some of that timber and, most recently, some steel components added to strengthen the construction.

Unfortunately, in recent weeks, there has been storm damage to the Tumby Bay jetty, which means that it is temporarily closed at the moment. This is a terribly disappointing outcome and one which must see a concerted effort to find a solution for. There has been much time, effort and funding put in over the many years of the life of this jetty. In the 1970s there was the very real threat that the government would come in and demolish it.

The community rallied together against that and, whenever the word was spread around town that the government department was coming towards the jetty, the whole township, at the calling of the late Laurie Curtis, would come together and gather on the jetty. Hundreds of people coming together to protect their jetty and ensure that future generations had the same opportunity to experience the marine nature that they did. I am so very happy that they stood up for their jetty, and the current population is too. I will do all I can to stand up for the locals and visitors to Tumby Bay to make sure we do not lose our jetty.

Jetties all around the state are owned by the state government, with around half of them leased to the local councils for their ongoing maintenance. Councils all around the state have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars over recent years to keep their jetties to a point of being able to be used. Many of these leases are expiring over coming years, and there is currently no certainty for those communities about what the future of their jetty looks like.

We need a sustainable governance structure for the future of our jetties. The state government needs to play a significant leadership role in funding the long-term solution for jetties around our state. We need strategy, we need a plan, we need to recognise the important social, recreational and tourism role that jetties play in South Australia and we need to fund them appropriately.

Each jetty is so important for each one of these individual communities. I know the people at Ceduna have significant concerns about their jetty. Port Lincoln jetty, too, will need significant investment in the near future. I know the Yorke Peninsula council worries about the future of the 12 jetties they are responsible for. This feeling is replicated across our state, especially in our regional communities, where jetties contribute immeasurable social and community value.

The community consultation work was done by the Department of Infrastructure under the previous Liberal government to understand the importance of jetties to the communities of South Australia. It is now time for concerted effort across levels of government to provide direction and certainty. Government funding allocation generally requires an economic justification, and it really is that immeasurable social and community value that means that that the decision-making systems that allocate funding should not rely solely on the economic contribution of the assets.

During its election campaign, the government promised to identify key infrastructure projects like boat ramps, jetties and wharves to encourage the important recreational fishing sector which brings families together and contributes to the health and wellbeing of our community. It is time for positive action on the future of our jetties, as we cannot afford as a community to lose these incredibly valuable pieces of community infrastructure.

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