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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-02-08 Daily Xml
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Beach Camping

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (15:19): We have all returned to parliament after the summer break. It signifies a return to work for us; therefore, the rest of the population must well be back at work, too, so I thought I would provide an update to this house about the increasing propensity for visitors to our region to camp on our wonderful beaches.

Locally, I think we all accept COVID to be the starting point for this phenomenon. We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of cars and caravans accessing our wonderful beaches on the Yorke Peninsula and staying over public holidays and long weekends. That increasing propensity was on full display over the Christmas and new year break, when a plane was put into the sky, a video taken and a count done of the number of caravans on Wauraltee Beach alone, and that number amounted to 470. There were 470 cars and caravans on this particular stretch of beach, and that is just to name one stretch of beach—a truly extraordinary quantum of people who have come to our region. For that, we are tremendously grateful. It is wonderful to host people in our part of the world, as we have a great deal to offer, and long may they continue to come and grace us with their tourism presence.

However, there are some inevitable side effects which need to be dealt with from having that many people and that many caravans on our beaches, not least of which is rubbish disposal. There are no bins or waste disposal services provided on beaches, so we put our faith in those people who are visiting to take their rubbish with them. The vast majority do, but unfortunately there is that minority who decide to leave their rubbish on our beaches and cause a mess on the wonderful pristine natural environment. In addition to that, and without getting too deep into it, there is obviously the problem of human waste. There are no facilities provided on those beaches all the way along them, and people who do not have self-sustaining caravans would clearly benefit from the use of those facilities.

In addition to that—and perhaps most importantly—is the damage they can cause, if they are not careful, to the natural environment. We know that there are hooded plovers on Wauraltee Beach. We love the hooded plover, but visitors might not always be aware of where they are nesting and where they are developing.

There are all these unintended consequences from hosting these wonderful tourists in our region, and we need to start to think about how we might mitigate those consequences. I know that the people who own land behind the sand dunes are getting fed up with having so many people out the front, encroaching on their land and leaving rubbish and mess on their land. I know that Robert Patterson, who has been a frequent contributor to our office deliberations, is fed up and has quit the local action groups in frustration at the lack of action and development. He is crying out to ensure that something happens.

I do not want to sound like the fun police and tell people not to come and camp on our beaches, but we need to find some way to mitigate the damage. There is a bit of a hodgepodge of ownership and management of those beaches: some are under the care, control and maintenance of council, others are on unalienated Crown land and others are held by private owners. That makes the management of these beaches all the more difficult. I quote from council minutes an example of why that management might be slightly more difficult:

This particular parcel of land at Cape Elizabeth has had vehicle users entering one of the council land parcels in breach of council's by-law no. 2 of 2020. However, access to that particular parcel is via a track of unalienated Crown land. Therefore, council cannot close this track as it has no authority to do so, and if it did it would be in breach of the Crown law act.

Here we have an example where they would like to be more involved in the management of that particular bit of land, but are prevented from doing so because of the hodgepodge of management schemes.

In my view, we need consistency across beaches, not just in Narungga but across regional South Australia, so that we can impose a consistent and thoughtful process to mitigate some of those unintended consequences. Unfortunately, she is ill today, but I did ask the Minister for Environment late last year whether there was any news about developments that might be upcoming with regard to that. She said that there would be more information sooner rather than later. I look forward to taking up that issue with her before the next sitting week.

The other issue I look forward to taking up with the minister is regarding Cape Elizabeth. I read out that example where council had such a terror of a time trying to manage it that they have resolved at council to apply to the minister to have their care, control and maintenance revoked, and that land returned to unalienated Crown land to try to give it a better chance of being managed responsibly. So I will be interested to hear the government and the minister's thoughts on whether that proposal will be accepted by the government and, if so, what they plan to do to provide a consistent, thoughtful means of mitigating the damage that has been done by these wonderful tourists visiting our region.

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