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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-11-26 Daily Xml
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Yorke Peninsula Health Advisory Council

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (16:08): I would like to bring to this house's attention a couple of significant local community events that have occurred in recent days and weeks and start by bringing to this house's attention a wonderful forum that was put together by a local nurse. I have the great honour of chairing the Yorke Peninsula HAC and have done for a little while.

We were recently approached by Brooke Bellchambers, a nurse at Maitland Hospital, who was concerned that the greater population had a bit of difficulty understanding the aged care scheme and environment and who thought it would be beneficial to put on a forum with a lot of service providers all in the one room so that people could come in, they could pick the brains of the experts and access the materials and services that they needed all in one place.

She did a tremendous job organising it. All credit must go to Brooke and the work she did. She had a helpful subcommittee and feelgood people from the Star of the Sea nursing home. We had people from Eldercare, other members of the health profession from Yorketown and Maitland hospitals and a member of the HAC, Ashlynne Pointon. They all did a wonderful job of organising it. It was a tremendous day, and there was some really useful information for the people who made the time to pop in and make the most of it. Brooke should be commended. It really was a big effort to get everything together at the Minlaton Town Hall. We held our HAC AGM at the same time, so it was a pleasure for us to have that drawcard to drag a few more people in so that we could achieve quorum and conduct a proper meeting. It was a wonderful effort.

It is not an easy thing to put on a forum, in the country even more so, where we have the tyranny of distance and it is difficult to know exactly where to host a forum to maximise attendance. They chose to host it at the Minlaton Town Hall, which I believe was the right decision. We did get a few people turn up and make the most of it. Once more, thank you very much to Brooke for the work that she did. If anyone would like some more information about aged care or aged-care packages, please get in touch with my office. We can put you in touch with people who were at that forum and offered that advice, because it is a complex area and sometimes help is needed. That was a wonderful service.

Another really important community event that occurred recently is we were pleased to host the Deputy Premier in our patch to celebrate the tentative World Heritage listing of the Moonta Mines precinct. This has been a project for literally decades. The World Heritage consultant, Mr Barry Gamble, graced us with his presence all the way from the UK. He came down and advised the crowd that had gathered that it was some 20 years since he first visited Moonta Mines to make an assessment about its World Heritage suitability.

This has been a project that has been going on for a long, long time. Credit must go to both the Copper Coast Council and to the Regional Council of Goyder for their sustained efforts in bringing this to the front of the queue. We thank the government for progressing its tentative listing. It is now right near the front of the queue and right on the doorstep of being a fully fledged World Heritage listed site, which will be a tremendous boon for our local area. It is going to quite literally put Moonta and Burra on the map. It will quite literally attract people from around the world who are interested in heritage tourism to our part of the world, and hopefully it will bring about a significant increase to our tourism dollar. It will be a wonderful addition to our local economy. It will be a diversified income for our local businesses, and it will be an excellent thing.

That was a wonderful event. As I said, it was wonderful to host the Deputy Premier to mark the occasion. After a couple of false starts, we finally got everyone there in the same place. We had, as I said, Mr Barry Gamble there, who is the expert consultant who has been assisting the councils with that initiative. While I want to offer congratulations to the council as a whole, also special congratulations go to Ms Holly Cowan, who has done a wonderful job on behalf of the Copper Coast Council in driving their part of the bid. She played a strong role in organising that day as well, so thank you very much to Holly for the work she has done.

Thank you very much to the local National Trust branch. There were some volunteers there on the day. A group of us arrived at the site of the presentation on board the roadworthy trams that the volunteers drive around town. As an interesting sidenote, those trams do a Christmas lights tour every summer. It starts on 9 December this year and runs through Christmas. I am led to believe the two trams are fully booked out already, so they are going to be busy doing that. I am sure they will have the usual carriage of cars trailing along behind those trams to see the best lights that are available.

Well done to the National Trust and their local president, Graham Hancock, who is the current president there. He is doing a wonderful job, and it was a really excellent day. We look forward to seeing that bid progress. Barry told the crowd that he has a perfect strike rate once he gets sites on the tentative World Heritage List, so we think it will only be a matter of time until the Moonta Mines and Burra copper mining sites are World Heritage listed to put our region on the world map.

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