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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-04-02 Daily Xml
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Bills

Planning, Development and Infrastructure (Environment and Food Production Areas) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 1 April 2025.)

The Hon. G.G. BROCK (Stuart) (15:50): As I left my contribution to this bill yesterday, I would like to continue the discussion today. As mentioned yesterday, there have been some public comments made by some members of the government that this bill will only impact 1 per cent of arable land when in actual fact the only suitable food production land that has been utilised in previous years are the areas just north of Adelaide, which include Two Wells, Virginia, Roseworthy and other close proximities. These areas had been suitable due to the availability of rainfall plus the opportunity to be able to access water from the nearby water treatment plants.

As I mentioned previously, we certainly urgently need affordable residential zoned locations not only for our current generation but very importantly for our future generations, including my own children, my grandchildren and my great-grandson.

I also notice that many local government locations like to have houses built on what we call infills, that is an area where there are already homes and there are vacant blocks. This is very fine and this helps reduce the cost of the infrastructure to the local council and also to the developer as just about every service is already in place and is therefore not a cost factor in that regard.

What I have seen recently, and especially in Adelaide, is that older homes on large allotments are being demolished and flats are being established or in some cases three or four different homes, homettes, are being established where previously there was one home. That one home had the space. As the Premier has indicated, children and families need to have some recreational space and they need to have that open area.

On Henley Beach Road especially and other locations, and I am seeing it in some regional areas, they are knocking down very good homes on fairly large blocks and putting two or three houses on there and basically they have no room for the young families to enjoy the outdoor areas. I hate to see that. This new process eliminates the opportunity for those in these units to enjoy a backyard and for the children to be able to play and enjoy activities in their homes.

Providing more affordable land opportunities is great but especially in regional locations the issue is the availability of the required tradespeople. Whilst that is great, it is really a challenge out there because in areas like Port Pirie and Port Augusta there are a lot of people who want to have the relevant tradespeople there but they are as busy as anything so we need to have more tradespeople out into the regional areas. Another influencing factor is for SA Water to be able to provide the necessary infrastructure and the potential for water to be supplied to these opportunities in regional locations.

During discussions with my council and other councils, they say they can put in some infrastructure but for some industrial opportunities in Port Pirie they do not really have enough water to be able to get there. My concern also is that we need to grow our population. We are a thriving state at the moment but we do need the water and we are reliant on the River Murray plus the desalination plant in Adelaide.

In my own community there are demands for affordable land to allow for future growth opportunities, especially where the council is looking at the growth of the city. Our city has great opportunities. As with the Copper Coast and other locations, they have great opportunities in regional areas to grow, but we do need those houses out there, not only for the ever-increasing number of people coming from interstate.

I have a neighbour up the road from me. A house was available there. He lived in Sydney, and he bought the house for just under $1.2 million—there are my rates going up, I think. I asked him a couple of weeks ago, 'What made you buy this particular house?' He said he looked at it on the internet. A lot of buyers are doing that on the internet. They are coming from the Eastern States and looking for a little more quietness and a bit more security and things like that. The lifestyle is far better, with all due respect, in regional areas in particular. I am speaking specifically now on regional areas.

Also, the fact is that our council is looking for growth of the city southwards towards the airport. However, these areas to the south are lower lying than the rest the city. Where I live on Senate Road by the golf course, the land goes downwards slightly. That is going to require the developers to provide the extra infrastructure to allow not only for the provision of getting rid of the stormwater but also for the provision of pumping facilities to enable the new homes to be connected to the sewer system and to be able to pump that into the current sewer system coming up onto Kingston Road and then going out. That is going to cost a developer around $2 million to $3 million. Again, that is a deterrent for developers to come out there. If developers are only putting 15 or 20 blocks in there, that is $3 million basically for 20 blocks.

The council has been discussing this issue with the relevant department for over two years now. Whilst these discussions have been ongoing and fruitful so far, the results so far are causing delays. These days, any delays with any development is an extra cost for the developers, and also it gets far more expensive for the people waiting to buy the land to establish a home on it.

I have worked with the council very intensely and suggested that we elevate these issues to the minister, but they are adamant that they have everything moving in the right direction. However, I will continue to work with the council. What I am looking for is some sort of assistance for the developer that he may be able to get, because there are zoned areas out there for about 600 homes. That is the way the council is going for the zoned locations.

Another developer has been working with the local council. These are issues that I would hope can be addressed going forward with this bill. This developer has been working with our council for over three years now. It has reached the point that the now increased costs have frustrated this developer so much that he is very reluctant to do any developments with our council in Port Pirie. This is frustrating, because at the end of the day we want affordable homes. The planned homes are in areas that have sewerage and electricity connections and roads going past and everything like that. It is nearly three years and he has not got approval at this particular time.

As the member for Narungga said yesterday, I am looking forward to the passage of this bill. I will also be looking very intently at any amendments coming through. I already have a couple of amendments which were given to me yesterday. I am certainly not against more affordable land. What I am concerned about is the long-term viability of our food production locations, so we do not have the situation that we are going to have to import from interstate or overseas our produce that we take for granted every day. We can just go down to the supermarket and can get that.

I am on the road a heck of a lot coming into Adelaide, the same as the member for Narungga. I am very sure others do the same thing, when they come along to Virginia and all of those locations. They see the market gardens there. That is in prime land. I know it is closer to Adelaide and the services, but with the transport system the way it is at the moment and the duplication of the highway right to Lochiel—and I think it is all back to 110 km/h now—it is only a short period of time. In actual fact, I can get from Lochiel to Adelaide quicker than I can get from my unit in Henley Beach to the city.

There is absolutely no reason why we cannot start to bring our planning and our future residential zoning opportunities further out towards Port Wakefield, even further north. I know the Copper Coast has plenty of land. The Upper Spencer Gulf has plenty of land. It is only a matter of trying to look at the long term.

I certainly do not want to see some of our prime market gardens—not grain growing land and things like that—and our food production lands be done away with so we have to import that from interstate or overseas. We have this philosophy 'Make Australia Grow' and 'Made in Australia', so therefore we should continue to have that philosophy. I am looking forward to the speedy passage of this bill and it will be interesting to see where it finishes up.

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay—Minister for Tourism, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (15:59): I rise today to add my support for this bill which makes sure that we are appropriately planning for our state's future so that we have an appropriate supply of housing and infrastructure to meet both the current and predicted housing demand in our state.

As an MP from the northern suburbs I have seen the growth of our community and the additional needs of the population of the last decade. As the mother of a teenage son, like many of you, I find myself wondering what my son's housing future looks like with so many young people now finding that the dream of home ownership seems further away from them than it did for me or our parents' generation. That is why this bill is so significant. The Greater Adelaide Regional Plan identifies land into the future and considers the next generation and the one after that. It considers infrastructure needs and green space. It considers community hubs and neighbourhood vibrancy.

We must be realistic. As my colleagues have already identified, there are limited options for where the greenfield growth can occur, and much of the land identified for medium to long-term growth is within the environment and food production areas. You have heard from the minister, as well as from many others in this place, the history of the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016, the issues and mechanics of that bill and the bill that is before us today.

Rather than me covering off on all that again, which has been spoken about by many people, I want to speak about other key announcements made in my electorate and the broader community, which give weight to why these areas have been identified in this amendment bill and why they are the right areas for growth. Key announcements in the north prove that this is a government with long-term plans. This government understands the need for the north and has taken a carefully considered approach when drafting this bill and identifying the areas for future growth.

Housing is not just about the buildings themselves or about access to water infrastructure, although that is incredibly important. We have talked at length in this house about the lack of planning of previous governments and the fact that we now need to stand up—and have done so—to make sure that when we are releasing these lands that we have adequate infrastructure.

We need well-planned communities and we need to consider the people who are going to live in those communities and their needs over their lifetime. It is about child care and schools, green and community spaces, health care, the transport mix and many more things. That is why I want to touch on some of these other announcements that have been made around the north in the last three budgets that we have had, which talk about the planning and the consideration of the communities and future residents of the north.

The new northern suburbs school, announced at Eyre, with capacity for 1,300 students from years 7 to 12 is part of this plan. Through the development of the Greater Adelaide Regional Plan, the government has worked closely with all government departments and utility providers to ensure suitable land within newly identified growth areas will be preserved for key infrastructure, not just education but health and transport too.

This is the planning that is going ahead and this is why, when we look ahead at that 30 years, we are securing these sites early in that planning process. That provides greater certainty to growing communities and is generally cheaper compared to when it is done after when people move into the area. What we have also seen before is that people move into an area and some of the infrastructure is sufficient for that first contingent, but when stages 2, 3, 4 and 5 go ahead, it simply is not going to be enough.

When it comes to transport and traffic needs for a growing population, we are very pleased to see the commitment from the federal government of $125 million for the Curtis Road level crossing removal. This is a significant change. It will make the community safer and keep traffic moving by eliminating the need for road traffic to interact with the Gawler passenger line. Further, a new roundabout will be created at the intersection of Curtis Road and Heaslip Road at Angle Vale, with these associated road upgrades to also improve safety and ease congestion.

This intersection in Adelaide's northern suburbs we fix thanks to a partnership between the Australian and South Australian governments. The Angle Vale upgrade will support the rapidly expanding nearby residential developments, improving access and road safety. Of course, this is also a government that believes in public transport, not selling off future rail corridors and adding pressure to our roadworks like those opposite tried to do. Two rail corridors from the city, one south towards Aldinga and Sellicks Beach and one north towards Roseworthy and Concordia, will be preserved by the South Australian government to cater for future housing development.

This is all part of the state government's 30-year vision for transport that supports the Greater Adelaide Regional Plan. The planning in the transport strategy guides the development of a transport network that will include safe, affordable and efficient options for the needs of future population growth and the transport corridors that it will require. But we did not do this alone, because this is a government that values the voices of our communities. More than 6,000 people participated in the community engagement for the strategy. This included virtual reality hubs across the state as well as an online survey and written submissions made to the plan.

The engagement in this process allowed South Australians to identify what is most important to them when it comes to transport as well as encouraging them to consider changing transport needs. I understand from this process that 10 per cent of the respondents are planning to use their cars less in the future, meaning that demand for options like rail will grow.

Let us talk a little bit more about the infrastructure that is so necessary for these developments but that often we do not think about or we do not see. Between March and December this year, we are seeing key infrastructure for water being delivered, with 4.4 kilometres of new water mains being installed between Blakeview and Munno Para West. We know that very little happened in the four years of the opposition in government. In fact, I think the north was incredibly ignored during that time.

The communities of the north have been let down because you cannot kick the can down the road with water infrastructure and then wonder why there is not enough housing development to go ahead. You can have all the greatest plans in the world, but you cannot move in if you do not have that water infrastructure there. This government makes things happen, and we are planning for the future. We want to make sure that action is taken now to ensure land for housing can be ready for development and, more importantly, be ready faster. There is an old quote saying that the best time to plant a tree was yesterday and the next best time is today, and that is what we are doing. Because the previous government did not get on with it yesterday, we are getting on with it today.

Of course, it is no big secret that this government is focused on growing our health system. The work that we have already completed in the north at the Lyell McEwin Hospital is already having a positive impact in our community. As well as the expansion of the emergency department, ward beds and dialysis clinic, the government has also acquired the vacant 1.79-hectare parcel of land at 471 Oldham Rd, Elizabeth South that was previously owned by the City of Playford. Acquiring the land keeps it out of the hands of commercial developers and leaves the door open for future expansion of this very important northern hospital.

Let us reflect back that only 10 or 15 years ago this was seen as a community hospital, but as we have seen growth and particularly urban infill in the northern suburbs and now we see the future going out even further, the focus has been on the Lyell McEwin becoming a tertiary hospital. We are very proud of that hospital in the north. It is really doing some great cutting-edge work, but it has to make sure that it is growing for the size of the population.

Of course, the Lyell Mac also supports a lot of our country South Australians who often come there for their hospital treatment. It adds also to the potential of the Playford health precinct, including a new Calvary private hospital and the $40 million Healthier Health in Education Hub developed by aged-care organisation ACH Group. I had the opportunity to be there with the federal member for Spence, Matt Burnell, and our health minister, Chris Picton, to have the opening of Healthier some time ago. It will play a really important role.

We do know that we have a challenge in our hospitals where people who are ready to leave hospital cannot find beds in the aged-care system and we know that we need to be able to support them. So Healthier being connected with or close by the Lyell McEwin gives an opportunity not just for people to sometimes have respite but also for recovery, for them to be able to take that time if they have broken their hip, their hip has been replaced or healed up, but to build back that strength to potentially go back to their own home, to build back that resilience that they need. So Healthier has been a great addition.

As well as this, we have seen planning work begin on the opening of a new long-term mental health accommodation site, the opening of two new Medicare Urgent Care Clinics in Elizabeth and Para Hills. I have to say as a resident I have had to use both of those facilities for older family members who needed support. We were able to walk in and see someone after a very, very short wait. There was reassurance for us that we got immediate medical attention and what we needed was right there and we did not need to go to the hospital because they were okay. Those Medicare Urgent Care Clinics have been incredibly warmly welcomed in our community and we thank the federal government for their support with that as well.

We have supported the opening of the Medicare Urgent Care Clinic in Elizabeth, with another clinic planned for the north-east, supporting the opening of the Northern Adelaide Medicare Mental Health Centre, supporting the Safe Haven cafe in Salisbury for people in need of mental health support. Sonder is running this one at the moment in John Street, Salisbury. It is a drop-in centre that is open from 3 o'clock every afternoon into the night. You do not need to make an appointment. You can come in and connect with people, talk to counsellors and have that opportunity to engage, particularly for people who are struggling with their mental health to have those people to talk to who know about the care that they need. I have had the opportunity to go in there and talk to the staff about who they are seeing, and it is really diverse, from younger people to older people, people from many walks of life.

Of course, we have also seen the building of two new ambulance stations at Golden Grove and Two Wells, and the upgrading of ambulance station at Elizabeth. The member for Elizabeth and I went along just recently and had a photo with the staff and got have a bit of a walk-through. It is quite an upgraded station, nice and modern that is there. We have been rebuilding the ambulance stations in Campbelltown and Gawler.

A very popular decision of this government was to support the opening of a 24/7 pharmacy at Salisbury Plain. The member for King and I have probably been inundated when we posted about this and told people about this to say thank you. How many times have people said, 'Why is it at 10 o'clock at night when I run out of Nurofen, or someone falls over?' or they have a burn and they are not sure what to do and now they have this 24/7 very safe, very secure, well-lit pharmacy that they can go to. We have had great feedback.

We are opening a new hospital avoidance hub in Elizabeth, supporting the Elizabeth and Para Hills West Priority Care Centres and opening 26 more beds at the Gawler Health Service. Because this is a government committed to the needs of a growing population, as well as the needs of communities of the north, we are doing things. We are making stuff happen. We are not just putting it in the too-hard basket which is what we saw before.

We know that for healthy populations we need to ensure there is not just access to health and housing but there is access to good jobs and green space. That is why I am very pleased to see, when it comes to jobs, that Renewal SA has announced Edinburgh Parks' 500 hectares, South Australia's largest master-planned industrial estate. This mix of industrial sectors across multiple industries will provide well paid and reliable work to residents close to their communities, providing long-term economic security for the north and economic growth for the state.

I have talked about education, health, transport, infrastructure and jobs, but the thing that I am incredibly proud of is to be part of a government that is going to be associated with the decision of significant investment in public open space. This is something that the minister has been promoting, and I have to say that I think we will look back in generations to come and say that the decision to begin the Northern Park Lands is incredibly significant for our state.

When it is completed, the Northern Park Lands will cover more space than our treasured Adelaide Parklands. It will have 1,000 hectares of land, but it is not just green space. It will feature natural open space, new sport and rec facilities, a new railway station, as well as three interconnected linear parks with shared use paths that will provide a continuous loop around Gawler. As someone who has the Little Para trails at her back doorstep, it makes a difference. Your accessibility to beautiful parklands and outdoor areas makes a difference.

This is somewhere you can take the dog for a walk or ride your bikes. We talk about liveability, and it is one of the things that we are known for in South Australia, but sometimes it is those simple things that we do together that are the best. That is why Linear Park and our Parklands are so popular, but of course people in the north deserve just as good investment in this area. I think the Northern Park Lands in particular, which is a significant part of the bill here today, is something that should be appreciated.

When we think about a growing population, we think of a plan for a thriving population and a healthy population because we want people to have the good life. We want these new communities to be connected communities, connected to the environment and sporting clubs, connected to great jobs and connected to each other. This is a fantastic plan not just for the north but for South Australia. We know that people are choosing South Australia. We know it is one of the best places to live.

South Australia is also one of the most welcoming places. Of course, in my role as Minister for Multicultural Affairs and Minister for Tourism, this is what I talk about all the time. People come here, they want to do well and they want to raise their family here, but we talk about how welcoming we are as well. Just recently, booking.com named South Australia in the top 10 most welcoming places in the world. It is an amazing achievement to get that. They came to see me to talk about it, and they said it just kept popping up in all their research how welcoming we are. However, we cannot take that for granted. We must continue to build a liveable place where we are happy to be and to continue to make it a welcoming place.

Of course, to achieve what we want to achieve, we must invest in our skills and training to have the trades available to construct the new houses, and we must coordinate and invest in infrastructure. We will also be delivering more public housing, which will be located across the state. We are also protecting rights for renters. This is really important: not just committing to build houses and communities but of course getting the mix right.

This is an important bill for our future. We have often talked about us not just thinking about the election cycle but looking at what this state needs for the future. We are ambitious. We are talking about the industries we need to invest in and the skills that we need to have as well. More importantly, we do not just talk about it, as a government we make it happen. That is why this bill is so important today, and I encourage you all to support the bill.

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (16:18): I note for the record that I am the lead speaker on behalf of the opposition on this bill, and I am pleased to get up and speak about the need for the changes in this space. Certainly, it is really important that we make sure we have future housing supply going forward, and planning is a really big part of making sure that we end up with a very good outcome in South Australia to make sure that South Australia prospers going forward. The whole process is very important to make sure that we understand the different needs of different parts of the community and that we have an overview of that.

Interestingly, in my previous roles I had the privilege of sitting on an advisory group that was looking at the new planning structure under the Weatherill government with former Minister Rau. Our group was reporting to him and I was there as a representative of Primary Producers SA. It was an interesting group of people: I felt like the lone regional voice around the table and I felt like I was sitting there with a dozen planners and one lawyer, and the lawyer was my friend in that environment, so it was really quite an interesting dynamic to go through. Trying to have the conversations from a regional perspective was quite interesting to feed that into that environment, so it has given me a good understanding of the things that are before us in this bill.

I reflect on some of the remarks from yesterday from some of the other speakers on this, particularly the member for Playford. It is important that we get this right, and I was pleased that he made the comment that it would be great if we could have a bipartisan approach to sorting out the future planning of South Australia. We are always going to have difficulties in decision-making and we are often going to have slight differences of opinion in relation to what should be developed, but I think it is really important that we try to work together.

One of the really challenging places in this piece of legislation is the existence of what was put in, I think, in 2015-16 with the environment and food production area, which was an overlay that was put over large parts of the Greater Adelaide area outside the metropolitan area that meant that development for residential purposes could not occur on the land that was under the EFPA zoning. The problem with that, at the time, was that it was put in place reasonably quickly and the boundaries, in our opinion, were not necessarily suited to protecting food production and the environment. It was much more slapdash than that.

In particular, in my patch it is quite evident that there are some areas of land that, in my lifetime, I can just remember them being dairy farms. The butter crisis occurred as the UK entered the EU, causing the dairy industry to go into a bit of a crisis, and death duties were in place and a few other things which led to an exit from dairying on very small holdings around the Victor Harbor through to Goolwa area. A lot of that land is the land that today we are envisaging in an amendment to add to land that will be removed from the EFPA. I note an interest I have in a piece of land there that my family has owned for a very long period of time and that my parents live on, and I note that I have spoken to the Clerk in relation to that piece of land which is one of the parcels that is mentioned in the amendment.

The other thing that is slightly disappointing in this process is that I know a couple of us on this side of the house, at the request of conversations between the shadow minister and the minister, submitted some proposals last July about possible land that we thought could come out of the EFPA because we did not think it was currently under food production or of any environmental significance that it needed to have that protection over it. We submitted those back in July last year, and it is only right now that we are starting to have a conversation, with our amendments, about the changing of those maps to include those parcels of land.

Very much in that way, if we can find parcels of land—and we have certainly identified some in Hammond and some in the seat of Finniss, but there may be other parcels that we have not investigated in seats like Mawson and Kavel. Parts of some of those other electorates maybe also need to be considered for being taken out of the protection of the EFPA.

The problem with the EFPA is that, if it sits there, the answer is no before you even start considering the piece of land. If it is taken out it does not mean that it will be developed: there are many other stages through the planning process that are required to be met before that parcel, or any parcel, can be considered for development. So just removing the EFPA does not open it up to development; it just indicates to the wider community and to the minister that that parcel of land could be considered for development in the future. To me, if we can make those changes to these boundaries we certainly will end up with a better future plan in being able to consider land that would be sensible to consider.

We would be very interested to understand, in the process of the selection of the current land, how the assessment was made around the food production capability of the land. To me, there are some interesting things that may be looked at, and I imagine the simple things of soil type and rainfall might be the obvious things to look at in relation to the suitability of agricultural land, but I do not think they should be the only things that are considered in that overlay.

Certainly in my patch there are some areas: for example, for those who understand the terrain, particularly between Victor Harbor and Port Elliot, there is a road called Waterport Road that runs parallel to the beach, between the outskirts of the two towns. Just to the north of that there are parcels of land that run from the road back to the bottom of the foothills. Those parcels are effectively cut off, just by the sheer hill face, from being connected to agricultural land up the hill. It is really quite obvious that the terrain actually limits their ability to be viable farmland going forward.

The other interesting thing is that the parcel that we are looking at, including from the seat of Finniss, is about 730 hectares, roughly. That is just my guesstimate through having a bit of a count of the size of the parcels, rather than going into full detail. Looking at that guesstimate and then looking at how many allotments there actually are, what we are proposing is that there are 182 allotments, which works out to be about four hectares per parcel, which is certainly not of a farming size, although some of them are significantly more in size than that.

This area of land was originally subdivided back in the UK, in the early days of South Australia. It was literally cut up into 40-acre allotments. Some of these allotments have changed and some are still 40-acre allotments, but that is the maximum size of any of the allotments that are actually in this zone. So they are smallish parcels and very difficult to farm going forward.

As I have pointed out before, I have an interest there and have tried to continue farming a section of that with my parents. It is an extremely challenging environment in which to do so. I did a count a few years ago of how many neighbours we had, and it was about 70. It is very hard to farm when you have about 70 neighbours to keep happy, particularly when notifying them that you are doing something that requires notifying your neighbours. It can be quite challenging. It is a challenging environment to operate in in the circumstances that we have. But the important bit is that we do actually make sure that we keep housing supply going and keep the ability to access land. I think the amendments that we are suggesting here, to actually open up more land for consideration, certainly will help make sure that we end up with the right choice.

Intriguingly, looking again in my patch, the land we are talking about is well serviced by SA Water mains in particular. Electricity is not a significant issue either. Some of it certainly has sewerage connections, others do not—so there is some work to be done there. The road network to and from Adelaide certainly needs improvement, but that needs improvement no matter where we see development occur in the Victor Harbor-to-Goolwa zone. So it is not a significant change in what needs to be addressed long term in actually getting better connection.

These challenges exist elsewhere as well in trying to get it alright. Certainly, it is a challenge. We do not want to see good farming land being built on. If we can stop that, it is well and good, but I certainly understand that at times that will need to be looked at. That is when we should actually be concentrating and looking at what is on the table, what are the options and what can we do.

I very much support the comments from the member for Narungga about what he said about making sure that arable land remains accessible. As I pointed out, I think it is important that we include in that assessment its viability within the landscape of where it sits. Certainly, the member for Stuart yesterday was talking about the homelessness that occurs around the state, both in metropolitan areas and also in regional areas. It is something I certainly very much personally reflect on.

Back in the early 2000s, I did an Australian Rural Leadership Program and as part of that I spent some time in Sydney. During that time I spent a couple of nights out working with the homeless in Sydney, and a couple of stories really stick in my mind after talking with some of the people who were homeless at the time in Sydney. Of real interest was one gentleman I spoke to who was an accountant. He was a working accountant and he had actually chosen to save money for a deposit to buy a home and so he was living in his car. He had installed a rail in the back seat and he had his shirts and his suits hanging up in the back seat. He slept on the passenger side. He would travel from shelter to shelter to have showers and he would go to all the food points to get food on different nights. That was his decision so he could save money for a house.

I also remember another gentleman when I was working on a coffee station and he wanted a dash of orange juice and 21 sugars in his coffee. I asked him, 'Does the sugar dissolve at that level?' He said, 'No. You get to this nice solid bit at the bottom.' I could not think of anything more sickly than a cupful of 21 sugars, but that stuck in my mind. It is certainly interesting.

It was a third story that really stuck in my mind, and it applies to Victor Harbor to a degree. This gentleman claimed to have been homeless in London, New York and other places around the world. He was now homeless in Sydney, and Sydney was by far the best place in the world to be homeless, as it had a lovely climate and wonderful services, and he was quite happy and content. But that is not where we should have our society: being content with that. We want them to actually have their own homes and their own ability to live in affordable housing and build what they need. I think it is important that we find a way to make sure that we achieve this going forward.

I think it is important that the amendments that the opposition is putting up around what is available to be considered is important, so I really encourage the government to consider our amendments in this space. I know it is a significantly larger proportion of land that will not be protected by the EFPA but, as I stated before, that does not mean it will be developed necessarily; it just means it can be considered. It means that developers could choose to investigate having that land developed, whereas at the moment, with an EFPA protection, it is a hardened rule that it is automatically a no.

I think that we need to make sure we keep working in this space to achieve a great outcome for our state, but I also think that we need to have a good understanding of what else we need to put in place as we develop these regions. We do need to have the infrastructure to get to and from these regions, particularly into the City of Adelaide, but we also need to have the ability to live and work in those communities themselves. We do not want every car leaving the town every day to come and work in the city. We want to have employment in these zones.

That also brings me to look at the Greater Adelaide Regional Plan and some of the things in the seat of Finniss that have been raised with me. One in particular is a challenge for me to even consider that this would be something that we would want in our community. Victor Harbor has just won, for the third year in a row, the tourist destination in South Australia, but to put an employment zone on the road into town seems like a strange thing to do: 'Welcome to our Tourist Town' but here is our industrial zone as we enter.

I do not want to see that. The owners of the land certainly do not want to see that. The challenge is they are not being removed in the EFPA changes because the EFPA changes only apply to residential developments, not to employment zones. So an employment zone can be put on farming land. To me, it is certainly a challenge through the GARP process that that land is being considered and certainly I have voiced my opinions both at the draft level and again recently to the minister in relation to that parcel in particular.

From here, I hope that we can continue now that we have good dialogue talking with the minister. I very much thank the minister and his staff for the briefings that he has personally given me as a local member as well as the opposition generally to actually have a conversation here. I think that with the good working understanding that we have in our own regional patches we can feed that through to the minister so that we can actually have a good outcome in relation to making sure that we do not put future removals from good viable farming land on the table, that we actually do have a really good look at what is actually out there and available.

Yes, maybe it does need a bit more development cost to choose that over some good farming land, but over the next 30 to 50 years that may change as well. We may see the infrastructure being planned and put in place to actually work towards these areas rather than good farming land. With those words, we will see where this bill lands. I think it is really important we continue to work with the government to achieve a great outcome.

Ms CLANCY (Elder) (16:39): I rise today in support of the Planning, Development and Infrastructure (Environment and Food Production Areas) Amendment Bill 2025. As we all know, Australia is in the grip of a housing crisis, and South Australia is not immune. Greater Adelaide's population is expected to grow by 670,000 people by 2050. As it stands, we are not able to reach the levels of new builds required using the current planning framework. Urban infill has successfully increased density within our established residential areas, though not without some challenges, but we need to do more to make sure our growing population is able to find housing suited to their lives and family situations.

As a government, we have reassessed new housing targets and removed the 85 per cent urban infill policy. While infill has served its purpose, increasing housing close to infrastructure and services, as a government we have also listened to our communities and acted. Infill is not always popular and can sometimes create unintended consequences, such as parking congestion and tree loss.

My electorate of Elder is home to multiple character suburbs, and I hear regularly from residents who are devastated by the loss of tree canopy due to the levelling of blocks for subdivision. Cumberland Park and Westbourne Park are established neighbourhoods with much intact pre-1940s housing stock. The setbacks or front yards in these suburbs are uniform, as is the side setback from each neighbour. All are single storey with the occasional two-storey art deco beauty located on a corner block. Garages and driveways are minor elements of the streetscape and almost always set back behind the building line. Roof forms are gabled, most have porches, and all have eaves.

These are the components that form what is colloquially referred to as 'leafy suburbs'. These attributes are not super-complicated: space in the front yard for trees, houses set back from the shared property line and footpath, porches and eaves to block our harsh summer sun, street trees planted on adequate verge space. In contrast, urban infill is often defined by a break in the setback pattern, meaning no space for a tree, a concrete double-car driveway and garage, which eats away the remaining green space, a long concrete wall sometimes along the shared property line with neighbours, and no porches or eaves to speak of.

This results in a loss of canopy on private land that leaves no space for replacement plantings, sometimes a loss of a street tree due to subdivision and substantially more stormwater run-off due to an increase in concrete and hardscaping. These losses compound, resulting in the need for air conditioning to run day and night in summer in the new builds, because they have no trees, no porches, no eaves and therefore no shade.

These issues may seem inconsequential when faced with the current housing crisis—any housing is good housing, right? But in parts of my electorate, people understand how fortunate they are to live in their leafy suburbs and are devastated when the character and liveability of their suburb is chipped away by developers. I was contacted literally on Tuesday by a resident in her late 70s who has endured 13 months of building next door to her home in Westbourne Park. The loss of a beloved tree whose roots were damaged by the demolition has been particularly hard. She wrote a letter to the developer and copied me in. She said:

Our 40+ year elm tree in the front yard which we and indeed many neighbours loved, fell over and died within weeks of the bulldozers' demolition, levelling the land to flat.

We received letters from nearby children and condolences from friends and neighbours who loved and missed this beautiful neighbourhood tree. It was cared for by an arborist and was as healthy and fine as a tree could be.

It housed dozens of birds, reduced heat inside and out of the house, providing beauty for everyone and peace and shade for us.

You lived elsewhere, but we lived here…and construction continued daily for 5 days, often 6, very occasionally 7 days a week, for more than a year with high pitched, physical and psychoacoustic construction noise. A cacophony of unnatural sounds…grinding, screaming, drilling into concrete, hammering, knocking, etc., made by Dump trucks, Excavators, Breakers, Loaders, Concrete pumps, Concrete vibrators, Angle grinders, Jackhammers, Electric drills…even a crane usually sited in larger construction in the city…The noise was shattering…We didn't complain, kept thinking it would be over soon…

There is nothing that can be done now but I hope the council reconsiders the balance between development, neighbours and neighbourhood…

As a government, we understand that it is essential to find the right balance between urban infill and greenfield development. We have listened to the community and we do not want to put additional infill pressure on already dense areas of our inner city. We have recalibrated our housing targets with this bill to ensure that everyone is able to choose the type of housing they would like to live in, be that within urban infill development with a mix of housing options or in a new suburb with space for a backyard.

We have removed the former objective of 85 per cent of future housing developments being urban infill projects and now look to both the north and the south for new housing opportunities. The Greater Adelaide Regional Plan (GARP), has identified where 315,000 new homes will be built over the next 30 years across Adelaide and preserves important land for future infrastructure requirements.

The growth areas to come out of the EFPA were determined following an extensive land assessment as part of the GARP process that considered many factors, including good quality agricultural land, land subject to natural hazards, environmentally sensitive land, land of cultural heritage value to Aboriginal people and locating lands near existing services and infrastructure.

The areas being removed from the environment and food protection areas still need to be rezoned before they are used primarily for residential development and this will occur in a staged manner over the next 30 years to ensure orderly development. Rezonings will occur based on demand and specifically take account of infrastructure provision and costs. The revision of the EFPA still ensures that the key agricultural lands surrounding Greater Adelaide are protected.

One of the misconceptions is that we are cutting away and removing highly productive agricultural lands or our food bowl. But this is not true. The changes to the EFPAs, that were based on a comprehensive analysis, represent a loss of less than 1 per cent of key agricultural lands in the GARP area. This, together with the current Character Preservation Districts and Hills Face Zone, ensure we retain a strong urban growth boundary.

We have learnt the lessons of Mount Barker and taken stock of the problems that have resulted from short-sighted urban planning and lack of green spaces in Greater Western Sydney. Areas identified for new homes are either already connected to infrastructure, have infrastructure commitments in place, or are located in areas where future investment in infrastructure is planned.

In 2020, Penrith was the hottest place on earth at 48.9°. In 2019, Parramatta sweltered through 47 days with temperatures over 35. These conditions are the result of planning mistakes, mistakes currently being replicated in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. In those developments in the Eastern States, and the West, features that exist in nature to naturally cool our environment, namely trees, have been removed and replaced with man-made surfaces and structures that magnify heat.

In some portions of western Sydney, buildings, roads and sealed surfaces, such as rubberised playgrounds and driveways, cover over 80 per cent of the surface area. These hard surfaces are like sponges, absorbing heat during the day and releasing this stored energy during the night. Adding to this the output of hot air from air-conditioning units running constantly to cool interiors means that entire suburbs are prevented from cooling down to safe, liveable temperatures overnight.

Temperatures can, however, be reduced at city scale with strategies that reduce the urban heat island effect, strategies such as using cool materials, increasing green cover and minimising hard surfaces. The Labor government has already implemented one of these strategies, announcing in early 2024 that the remaining dwellings in the Playford Alive housing development in Munno Para will be built with light-coloured roofs.

According to a 2018 heat-mapping report, light-roofed houses in the northern suburbs of Adelaide were 4.3° cooler than average during the day than those with dark roofs. Research shows light-coloured roofs reflect more sunlight and absorb less heat, resulting in cooler indoor temperatures and reduced energy consumption for cooling purposes. This is especially important in greenfield projects like Playford Alive, where the tree canopy is still developing.

Choosing the most energy-efficient roofing material can substantially reduce a building's heat island effect. Roofs are directly exposed to the sun and cover the entire building footprint. Traditional materials such as galvanised steel roofing, once used exclusively when character areas were built, reflect sunlight and rapidly radiate absorbed heat, therefore improving indoor temperatures overnight. Thermally massive materials like roof tiles and concrete, both commonly used today, absorb energy and release it slowly overnight, trapping heat and making it hotter for everyone.

New subdivisions in the north like Playford Alive are sold at a very competitive pricepoint and attract first-home buyers and families struggling to get onto the property ladder. We need to think about these people when it comes to cost-of-living pressures, and cooler homes mean smaller energy bills for the people who need it most. Thermally massive building walls are also huge contributors to the urban heat island effect, most significantly through heat absorption of afternoon sun but also through creating a need for interior air conditioning and cooling, making expelled hot air a secondary consequence that is contributing to the heat island effect. Walls that emit heat and hot air released from air conditioners make spending time in outdoor areas really uncomfortable.

A fundamental building strategy used to rectify this problem can once again be addressed by looking to the past and our beautiful leafy character areas. Wherever possible, we need to shade building walls. Porches and eaves are important. They are not cosmetic additions that can be scrapped for lower building costs. In our changing climate, and particularly in South Australia, we must recognise the benefits, both environmentally and economically, of adequate shading within new residential developments.

Residential outdoor spaces include courtyards, driveway crossovers and footpaths. These spaces need to function as usable places in hot and dry weather, and they need to function as cool spaces at a human scale because our climate is getting more and more extreme. Where paved surfaces are necessary, we need to maximise shade by increasing tree planting and prioritising canopy in places with high solar exposure, such as footpaths and roads.

Fortunately, state Labor announced a new policy package in 2024 to address tree loss and promote strategies to improve Adelaide's canopy. This is the result of a promise by state Labor before the last election to deliver best-practice tree laws for the benefit of all South Australians, and it will contribute to better outcomes for all new greenfield developments by ensuring minimum urban tree planning requirements for all new builds. Additionally, minimum tree planting and maintenance will be required for public areas in greenfield developments.

Our new regulations protect a greater number of trees, delivering on the government's commitment to implement Australia's best-practice tree protections. The new regulations protect trees with a smaller trunk circumference. The trunk size for regulated trees has been reduced from two metres to one metre, while for significant trees it has changed from three metres to two. Exemptions for trees based on distance from homes and pools have also been reduced. Now, only trees within three metres from a home or pool will be able to be removed without approval, whereas the old regulations allowed the removal of trees within 10 metres.

The new regulations place pruning limits on regulated and significant trees, allowing only 30 per cent of the trees' canopy to be removed every five years. Fees for destroying or removing protected trees have also increased, better reflecting the cost of replacement. Offset fees for a regulated tree increased from $326 to $1,000 and from $489 to $1,500 for a significant tree. The money collected from the removal of trees goes into either local councils' urban tree funds or into the state government's Planning and Development Fund. The money is used either to plant, establish and maintain trees or to purchase land to preserve or accommodate the planting of new trees.

These actions recognise the important role Adelaide's mature trees play in promoting community wellbeing, supporting biodiversity and reducing the urban heat effect. I would like to point out that these new laws strengthen planning rules to support design innovation and flexibility in order to hopefully retain more large trees. These urban tree canopy protections also extend to greenfield developments in master-planned neighbourhood zones and townships because we all want to avoid the mistakes made in Greater Western Sydney, where we see row after row of large houses on small blocks with no trees or green space to speak of.

This Labor government is making efforts to learn from the failures of the Eastern States and has the will to improve canopy outcomes for both infill and greenfield developments. Just a few weeks ago, the Malinauskas Labor government announced it will make the most significant investment in public open space in Greater Adelaide ever, creating the new Northern Parklands. At maturity, the parklands will cover almost 1,000 hectares of land, which is 39 per cent larger than the Adelaide Parklands.

Developed as part of the new Greater Adelaide Regional Plan, the Northern Parklands will feature natural open space, new sport and recreation facilities, a new railway station, as well as three interconnected linear parks with shared use paths that will promote provide a continuous loop around Gawler.

At the heart of the Northern Parklands is the proposed 70 hectare Village Green sport and recreation area, which will be the equivalent of 31 Adelaide Ovals in size. The playing fields will include ovals, courts and clubroom facilities and will be home to numerous local sporting clubs located along the electrified Gawler railway line. It will feature public transport connections as well as car parking.

The Malinauskas Labor government has committed $53 million towards the first stage of the Northern Parklands. Funds generated through future land developments as well as council contributions will help establish and maintain the Parklands. Legislation will be introduced to establish a new statutory authority, named the Northern Parklands Trust, which will establish the new Northern Parklands. Legislative change will enable the new authority to operate with a level of independence, with the Northern Parklands Trust to be responsible for the ongoing maintenance and management of the Northern Parklands once established, including oversight of any development or leases granted.

Our older, leafier character suburbs can teach us something when it comes to creating the suburbs of the future. It is not complicated: people need green spaces, canopy and sustainable buildings in order to thrive in our changing climate. We are doing everything we can to open up land and plan for positive outcomes in these new developments that will one day become places that communities love to live in. Our government is committed to addressing the housing crisis, and this bill is a big part of that. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (16:57): I rise to speak to the Planning, Development and Infrastructure (Environment and Food Production Areas) Amendment Bill 2025. This bill comes about because of the need for amendments to the planning bill and to make sure that we have the appropriate amount of housing for growth into the future. We are certainly supportive of this bill with some amendments.

In light of my area, we have had a lot of history with housing proposals down towards Murray Bridge and Monarto, so to give a little bit of history about how the environment and food production areas came about, I was one of the few who were here in 2016—there were a few of us, I guess—when the planning legislation went through the house under Minister John Rau at the time. Our shadow minister was the former member for Goyder, Steven Griffiths, and he did a great job from our side of the house in working through the complexities of a very complex piece of legislation; it went on for months and months and months because it had to be held up at times so that other legislation could be debated.

There were a lot of changes from the original bill as it came through. There were about 300 government amendments and about 300 of our amendments, and there were probably some amendments from the crossbenches, mainly in the other place. So there was a lot of debate and a lot of changes. One of those changes was about 50 clauses in to the committee stage, which was interesting, with the introduction of the environment and food production area. So that is where they came in. It is a bit interesting that they were not part of the original bill. Essentially—and I did ask the minister this three times until I got the answer at the time—what the environment food production areas do is basically have the same power as the Barossa protected area and the McLaren Vale protected area.

We are at a point in time now where obviously we have a housing crisis, and this bill has come into place to cater for those needs. As I said, my electorate has had a deep history going back to the late sixties, early seventies with the Monarto proposal. I have always said it was quite visionary of former Premier Don Dunstan to go down this path, but I think it may have worked if he had gone another 15 kilometres down the road and expanded Murray Bridge instead of trying to set up a satellite city.

There were some problems: public servants did not want to move out and a whole range of things. I am not having a crack at public servants, I am just recalling history as I see it from what happened at the time. It created a whole lot of interesting scenarios where a lot of farms obviously were sold up and people travelled further down the road to my area of Coomandook and Coonalpyn and bought properties down there.

What happened out of all that was the land ended up getting realised. A lot of it went in 100-acre or 40-hectare blocks as you would call them now, lifestyle blocks, and a lot of these blocks are on remote water supply. One thing we did get out of it was the Monarto Safari Park, which is absolutely world class, and going on to bigger and better things with the accommodation about to be opened up in the near future and the elephants arriving over time, in addition to the couple we have there now. We have that bit of history going back 50-odd years.

We have then been fortunate in a way with the vision of the Murray Bridge Racing Club, the horse racing club, to have a new facility out at Gifford Hill, out towards the lakes from Murray Bridge about three kilometres up Brinkley Road. That proposal came from Brenton Lewis, who was the mayor later on in Murray Bridge, and the team at the racing club to move out there to essentially a greenfield site and build the racing club facilities and also have room for housing.

I think there were originally 3,500 blocks on that site and they dealt with the local landholder, who I assume got a bit of uplift with this proposal, and he bought some property then at Langhorne Creek. Of course, this was not straightforward obviously with rezoning and that kind of thing. The proposal eventually got up, and over many years now we have the fantastic racing club at Murray Bridge, which is rated as a metropolitan track now. It does run some Morphettville meets there, and I am glad to be involved there and glad to be a sponsor, and we are hoping for bigger and better things over time.

Burke Urban was the developer in the initial stages of that plan. The old racing club site inside Murray Bridge's town boundaries has been opened up for housing development, as well as a couple of extra holes at the golf club. That process has been ongoing for many years. We have got the racing club there, we have got trainers' stalls that have gone in place, a big trainers' shed and stabling facilities there for race day events. The racing club is essentially an island looking for something to go around it, and this is the opportunity.

To be frank, Gifford Hill was kept outside of the environment and food production area because I think it was already rezoned and ready to go, so that was where we had a bit of a leg-up in regard to this sort of proposal. Recently, as time has gone on, we saw the announcement last August where we could have 17,100 homes built over the next 40 years. It may take a shorter time, but obviously that is a broader timeframe. I only recently met with the Grange developers last week and they are very keen to get on with the job, finalising their discussions with council on what they need to do. They are certainly very proactive on how to get in there and they want to get on with it and start building the first 1,500 homes as soon as possible.

Some of this obviously comes with getting land excised out of the environment and food production area. There are 1,243 hectares in the Murray Bridge area that are within the EFPA and 1,489 hectares outside the environment and food production area, which gives a total of 2,732 hectares or, in the old language, 6,830 acres. It is part of the Greater Adelaide Plan and certainly there is lots of opportunity for growth on the country between Murray Bridge and Callington, but it has to be done appropriately and we need to make sure that we have the issues of other land users front of mind. It is something I have dealt with over years with the interests of agricultural production and value-add production.

We have the chicken industry which does everything from go to whoa in the area, from raising the chickens until you get up through to Kanmantoo and the processing of the chicken manure at Neutrog into organic fertilisers. We have Thomas Foods who have now moved out on Mannum Road with their facility processing over 600 beasts of cattle a day at the moment, and there are about 400 people employed out there. There would be hundreds involved in the chicken industry overall because it is go to whoa: it is the feed mill, it is the growing, it is the catching, it is putting them on the trucks. There is a truck on the freeway every 20 minutes going up to the north of Adelaide near Burton, I think it is, to process them.

We have Big River Pork; I think they employ about 350 people. We have Costa Mushrooms who recently doubled their vertical growing facilities at Monarto, which is at the top Monarto end of this proposal. They employ 500 people who come from a fair range of areas, including locally and from Adelaide up through to Salisbury, to work on that facility. It is a great facility and they do great work, and they are looking into the future for more expansion.

Yes, we do need the housing growth and we are a very good place for it in the surrounding area. It is not like Mount Barker, which is essentially a dormitory suburb. There are not a lot of big operations there for jobs in Mount Barker. There are a lot of commuters: they go every which way from Mount Barker, whether it is to Adelaide, Murray Bridge or elsewhere for work in the main. Sure, there are service jobs and shops there and that kind of thing, but a lot of people travel out.

We do have the employment lands around Murray Bridge which are part of this process as well. When this process is all finalised, I think it takes the employment lands out to 1,389 hectares, so we have plenty of growth opportunities. It is not just those big food processing companies that are there. There is light engineering, medium engineering, a whole range of truck work operations that are done in Murray Bridge and a whole lot of different jobs that are done.

Certainly, in the food processing area, it is not just swinging knives anymore in a processing facility. There are a lot of technical jobs, such as in Thomas Foods where once the meat lands in a box, it does not need a human hand on it; it gets travelled through to the 10-storey chillers to be stored, whether it is in a few boxes at a time or pallet loads. It is quite tech-focused.

We do have to make sure we get things right, and we are certainly keen to see, as we open up the lands over time, that we get the right land being used for building on, because obviously we still have to produce food in this great state. I have said it in here before: the best land in South Australia is probably directly under this building, right along the River Torrens here; it is some of the best farmland in the state. But we cannot change that—and we will not be changing it.

There is something that I have looked at that has happened in Queensland over time. It is the Queensland Agricultural Land Audit, which:

…identifies land important to current and future production and the constraints to development, highlighting the diversity and importance of Queensland's agricultural industries.

In terms of what it covers, the audit includes:

maps showing current and potential agricultural land use

strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to agricultural development for each region across Queensland

information on land uses, infrastructure, biophysical conditions and constraints to agricultural development.

It is a key reference tool to help guide investment in the agricultural sector and inform decision-making to ensure the best future use of the state's agricultural land.

The use of this audit will assist land and resource managers, investors and government officers to:

inform strategic policy, planning and investment decisions. This may include the protection of locally important agricultural areas, investment in infrastructure which supports agriculture (e.g. roads, water supply) or natural disaster planning

assist in modelling the impact of certain developments on agricultural land. This may include biophysical information such as soil type, identification of suitable alternative development areas or co-location of compatible land uses

drive local and regional economic development opportunities such as increasing market access, demonstrating best management practice or providing certainty to different land use sectors within a region

conduct due diligence assessments.

As part of the Queensland process, they set up a land class framework, where the land and soil information has been classified using the agricultural land class (ALC) scheme:

Adapted from the Agricultural land evaluation guidelines for Queensland, the standard definitions of each class are:

Class A: Crop land that is suitable for a wide range of current and potential crops with nil to moderate limitations to production.

Class B: Limited crop land that is suitable for a narrow range of current and potential crops due to severe limitations, but is highly suitable for pastures. Land may be suitable for cropping with engineering or agronomic improvements.

Class C: Pasture land that is suitable only for improved or native pastures due to limitations which preclude continuous cultivation for crop production. Some areas may tolerate a short period of ground disturbance for pasture establishment.

Class D: Non-agricultural land and land not suitable for agricultural uses due to extreme limitations. This may be undisturbed land with significant conservation or catchment values, land that may be unsuitable because of very steep slopes, shallow soils, rock outcrop, poor drainage, salinity, acidic drainage, or is an urbanised area.

Current agricultural land use was mapped across the state, using data from the Queensland Land Use Mapping Program. They also looked at native forestry areas and grazing areas in regard to this matter.

Certainly in my area, as I have said, there has been a long history of proposals for urban development. Essentially, to Murray Bridge it is only three-quarters of an hour from the Glen Osmond lights. I think there certainly need to be improvements in public transport and metro ticketing with the growth of the area and the easy reach that people do need for going to the city.

Murray Bridge, apart from being somewhere that you can work, rest and play (and you can do all those things there), is ideal for the retirement sector and for a lot of farmers from not just South Australia—the South-East, the Mallee, Bordertown or towards Mount Gambier—but also the western districts of Victoria. I know we have people from those areas come to Murray Bridge because, like me, they are not entirely enthralled with being in the city, and they can be in Murray Bridge and surrounding areas and be within an hour of vital services.

What will happen in the future, and what I like about the Gifford Hill proposal—as I said, some of the land will have to come out of the environment and food production areas—is that this area is being master planned to have schools in place and health facilities, and we will need to look at a new hospital and all the other facilities that are needed, like a high street somewhere near the racing club. It is going to be something that, once it is full noise, will be triple the size that Murray Bridge is now. Murray Bridge has about 22,000 people now, and it will be at least triple the size when it is all done.

We will certainly need other upgrades like exits and access to the freeway; that is always something that needs to happen. Obviously, in the near future we do need that Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass in line with the duplication of the Swanport Bridge as well. So it certainly is an opportunity, and I hope it has a far better outcome than Monarto did. Everything is pointing that way, but nothing is there until it is there.

Obviously, in some parts there is rezoning to be done and that sort of thing. There is obviously this legislation around taking some land out of the environment and food production area. Certainly, for my end of the state, I think it is the right place with coordinating the use of agricultural land and also the ability to grow Murray Bridge and surrounding area as a great area that could eventually be something like Ballarat is to Melbourne. That is a long way off, and I will have to be very old if I am going to see it, but it is an opportunity and we just have to get it right.

One thing I stress is we need to make sure that we can coexist and have the right buffers in place for those agricultural industries, whether they are primary production or those processing industries like Costa mushrooms, to make sure that we can all coexist and move into the future, because if we are going to have these jobs and this employment land we need to make it work with the development. I commend the bill.

The SPEAKER: The member for Hammond mentioned his involvement with the Murray Bridge Racing Club. We have had a few big cup days down there, and I can attest to you being a sponsor because my horse had its first metro win, which was an Adelaide race being raced down there in January a couple of years ago—Water Into Wine. The second-best thing about that picture of the horse going across the finish line is the big picture of you saying that you are the local MP and a great sponsor of the racing club. So well done, and go the nags.

Ms PRATT (Frome) (17:17): I rise to speak to the Planning, Development and Infrastructure (Environment and Food Production Areas) Amendment Bill. Our farmers who feed us need us, and the bill before us is an opportunity for me, as the member for Frome representing over 170 localities in farming communities, to tell their story as we work our way through the opportunities that this bill presents us.

So what is the bill about? It does seem to be a strong feeling through my community that, as the bill has been presented in what would be described as a hasty way for some, it is a government that does not really want to have an honest conversation about its failure to deliver or plan for the essential infrastructure required to build houses on land that has already been cleared and released, sitting dormant for some years now without development.

If you go for a drive, you are going to see pretty quickly new estates that require trucks on a daily basis carting sewage out because the work has not been done. We are committed, as the opposition, to supporting more housing in country communities but with better planning.

Members interjecting:

Ms PRATT: Without interruption, I will state that again because it is an important point to make to my communities, and they are the ones that I am talking to. We are committed to seeing more houses, new homes, built in a timely fashion, developed and implemented in our country towns—in our country towns—and there are a lot of opportunities that I hope to expand on to make that point. But it is a fair argument to make that the groundwork has not been done. We committed to seeing housing projects developed in country towns, but with better planning.

It will not be lost on many people who are paying attention to current affairs that while we still are experiencing a drought, farmers are very much under pressure. They are facing the pressure of urban expansion, they are facing the pressure of a drought with no relief in sight—and we hope relief comes—they are facing the worst harvest they have experienced in many, many decades—

Mr Pederick: Ever.

Ms PRATT: Ever for some families. My family certainly had a shocker in 1967. Not only did we destock, but we lost all of our breeding lines. The reality hits home hard for our farming families. So they are experiencing a drought, harvest was a shocker, and we do not know when that relief is coming. We know that the urban expansion is putting pressure on their right to farm and their livelihoods. We are seeing rising council rates. Insurance premiums are rising and farmers are reporting the very difficult decision to underinsure or privately self-insure, but those costs are rising and that all impacts their bottom line.

To add to those imposts, the unique circumstances they find themselves in when older farmers particularly establish self-managed superannuation plans, self-managed funds, where, again in my family, farming land was the superannuation that my parents and my grandparents relied on, where tax implications complicate those arrangements. Farming is a modern industry, but it is a complex one. It is important that I rise on behalf of my community at least to tell their story, to have recorded forevermore and to share with those members who are in the house with me the difficulties that they are facing currently.

With all of that going on, and in fact a drought round table underway this afternoon with the Premier in some building in the city, why now would this Labor government target farmers yet again? The proposed changes have been described as urban encroachment without proper planning and the opposition is trying to ensure that the statutory review of the EFPA is robust and better considered than this desperate attempt by the government to distract the public from the truth that they are failing to deliver on any of their previous election commitments, including infrastructure before construction.

So I want to use this platform available to me to speak to those and for those who are living and working in my region to have their views represented to a government that is all sausage and no sizzle, especially when it comes to actively listening to primary producers and what they are asking for. They are asking to be seen, they are asking to be valued, they are asking to be met on their properties in their communities so that those complex solutions can be found.

With the time available to me, I intend to expand on formal submissions that have been made by peak bodies, industry leaders and farmers. The Primary Producers SA (PPSA) representing a number of members including the GPSA, Livestock SA, SA Dairy Farmers' Association, SA Forest Products Association, Horticulture Coalition and the Wine Grape Council of SA have made a very substantial and considered contribution in relation to the Greater Adelaide Regional Plan and the proposed boundary changes within the EFPA. I do not mean to misrepresent them, but I want to capture what I took away from their submission. It tells an important story of this very important industry, important to government, a lucrative industry, in fact.

PPSA is proud to champion the significant achievements of South Australian agriculture, a $17 billion sector that supports over 70,000 jobs and provides more than half of the state's export earnings. They believe that food, wine and fibre value chains in South Australia form the social economic fabric of the state, supporting our tourism sector.

A significant proportion of the Greater Adelaide area encompasses important rural production areas which are inherently fertile and close to markets and services for key horticultural, dairy, livestock, seed, fodder and cropping industries that generate significant earnings for the state. At the 2020-21 ABS Agricultural Census, the Greater Adelaide region generated almost 20 per cent of the state's total gross value of agricultural production. Of importance, the PPSA write in their submission to the Planning Commission:

The discussion paper fails to recognise the scarcity of arable land and water resources in South Australia. There is an inherent bias in framing agricultural land as 'greenfield sites' for housing development. Farming land is often the easiest to source and cheapest to develop but this comes at an enormous cost to the wider agricultural industry and Australia's capacity to produce food.

Membership feedback to the PPSA has been consistent on the following points: interface conflicts and the role of buffer zones, complaints about farming practices within rural zones, preserving arable land, and planning system complexity. I thank them for the work they put into that submission.

Livestock SA, chaired by Gillian Fennell, has also made its observations on the process that is before us, suggesting that government is prioritising urban expansion at the expense of prime agricultural land. We see a theme building. Livestock SA would welcome a future-focused discussion about how we can provide greater opportunities and supporting policies, including housing affordability, to encourage population growth in regional towns rather than further sprawl into prime agricultural land. At the time of the drought—currently—the Chair has challenged the Premier, politely invited him, strongly encouraged him, to reset his priorities and accept her offer to visit farmers but without the press pack in tow.

The government's own policy previously recognised the importance of protecting food producing regions, stating that these areas must be preserved to support food security, economic growth and South Australia's global reputation as a premium producer of food and fibre. Well-planned regional development can provide economic benefits, ease housing pressure in the city and strengthen rural communities.

A contribution from Livestock SA: they urge the government to halt proposed changes until the 2027 EFPA review can be completed with full consultation, ensuring agriculture has a permanent voice in planning decisions that impacts its future. South Australia needs a balanced plan that protects both housing needs and vital farmland to safeguard food security, economic sustainability and climate resilience.

The SA Wine Industry Association, to capture very briefly a contribution by them, are aware of the high demand for housing that is already impacting on the grape and wine production sector in terms of housing its workforce. However, it is important that planning should actively discourage any such growth that results in further encroachment on productive, high-value farming land, especially vineyards.

On behalf of all farmers, I thought I would share quite a sentimental and poignant email that was sent to me by a lovely farmer, a lady called Elizabeth from Owen, who has captured the consternation that many farming families feel about the state government's decision to deliberately target prime farming land for housing. It reads:

We appreciate what we have. We feel for those farmers who could lose their land to housing development. We know the population is increasing, we know people need somewhere to live. We know we need to feed people. We know we need rain to do this. Good soil, rain and grower diligence help produce this. Once the good land is gone, we cannot produce in the same way. There must be an alternative.

I do not want the house to be fooled into thinking that farmers are merely reacting to this particular amendment bill. This has been a long-held concern that Labor governments dictate to them how they should run their business. Printed in last year's Grain Producer Magazine, a question was put to Ben of Roseworthy: 'What's the biggest challenge farming where you are?' and his answer was: 'Urban sprawl.'

Jumping to the State Planning Commission, which presented to the parliamentary Environment, Resources and Development Committee, there are some contributions that I want to share, made by either Craig Holden, the chair of the commission, or Brett Steiner, the Acting Director of Growth, Management, Planning and Land Use Services. Brett kicked off by saying, to explain the EFPA:

We do know that not all land is equal within the EFPA. It does a couple of things though: (1) connect primary production, (2) land that's got environmental value, and (3) essentially tries to make the urban form of Adelaide more efficient by utilising land within that existing urban boundary before looking further afield at other areas.

When the Hon. Michelle Lensink of the other place asked if the State Planning Commission had done a really good assessment of land productivity to prioritise the development of less productive land before pursuing better farming land, this was the answer given:

…we are very familiar with the land north from Roseworthy—that the minister says is the golden mile. That's where the cereal farmers [have] very productive land. We want to hear from the community and from the farmers to say [to them]…'This land north of Roseworthy is highly valued productive land and we should think long and hard before that becomes any future housing.' Equally…the trunk road up through Dublin and the like is lower value productive land, and so we need to think about where we actually plan for growth.

In relation to the actual job ahead of the government to build houses on the land, they have already released this and this is what the commission had to say:

…Everyone is being tested at the moment because build costs are making some feasibilities not stack up, whether it's infill housing, whether it's apartments…

The industry says that we are slowly coming to terms with the trades coming back but, of course, the trades now have a lot of choices. Infrastructure is huge across the country, run by governments, and major infrastructure works. We are about to build the Torrens to Torrens—wherever you turn...

There's a shortage of planners in South Australia, there's a shortage of conveyancers and there's a shortage of surveyors. Right across the built environment, a lot of young ones are not choosing these as careers.

That was a submission, made in person, from the State Planning Commission to a parliamentary committee.

Feedback from the Adelaide Plains Council in reflection and review of the GARP that has been released speaks very positively about opportunities they see in their patch around developing that Port Wakefield corridor, the dual carriageway that runs from Riverlea to Port Wakefield.

I will note in summary some feedback from the Adelaide Plains Council in—I guess it is my interpretation that there is some disappointment that submissions made to the Greater Adelaide Regional Plan and process were not picked up. Where there is an opportunity, it says:

Council's submission requesting GARP include the opening up of development potential in Lewiston/parts of Two Wells through Gawler River flood infrastructure investment (raising the height of the Bruce Eastick Dam wall), as an area of investigation to be undertaken has not been identified in the GARP specifically.

As I reflect on these opportunities to add value to this bill, to seek some amendments, or to provide in good faith feedback from what the communities are saying, there would be those who were unaware of the consultation process being undertaken and have been caught surprised by some of these propositions in the amendment bill.

I am proud of the work that I have been doing supporting the township of Two Wells and my own advocacy on serious issues of safety around the primary school and the lack of services and infrastructure within the town. There is more to come, of course. The primary school will finally get a fence to keep the students safe and I am thrilled that that means the government will be spending $10 million investing in families who live within the Two Wells township. That is a significant amount of money.

The social infrastructure and advancement that has been thoroughly planned and delivered in the estates of Liberty and Eden means a brand-new campus for Xavier College, a brand-new dog park and a brand-new playground. All of that aligns with the council's vision for a new shopping precinct that the community are excited about. That is set to cater for thousands of people who do and will call Two Wells home.

There is a national train line running through the town of Two Wells, so we have a freight corridor already established. The fact that the government is spending millions of dollars in Two Wells would suggest that there is an opportunity to look a little bit closer, to lean into the opportunity to continue to develop that corridor before we go after prime farming land.

So why not consider the Two Wells corridor, the Port Wakefield corridor, the less productive land extending north of Riverlea all the way through to Port Wakefield, where I understand the Adelaide Plains Council and the Wakefield council are supportive of that level of investment? Why not adjust the ratio of housing delineated within this legislation and fully commit to developing that corridor along Port Wakefield Highway that captures those towns that I have mentioned? I just do not think the arguments stack up at this point.

To my country farmers, I say: as we lead up in the next two years to the review of the EFPA, from opposition, we will be doing this properly. We will map this with you. No-one knows this territory better than the farmers that live on this land. They know the fall of the land, they know the back roads, they know the opportunities. Instead of an arbitrary line that has been drawn on a map with a Sharpie, we will stand in your paddock, we will walk the river flats, we will inspect local infrastructure and consult people in the nearest towns and map it with you.

More than anything, I want to see homes built within country towns. I want to see families choose to live further away from the city and commit themselves to rural living. We have developed amended maps in good faith that, through the committee process, might unlock those opportunities. I want to see enrolments in state schools in country towns grow. I want teachers to be enticed to have the experience that I did working in country schools.

I want those teachers joining clubs, I want them playing sport, I want them volunteering, and this is possible now. It is possible in Riverton, in Mallala, in Balaklava, in Watervale, in Clare. In Hamley Bridge, there are 900 allotments allocated for this town to thrive and flourish. It should be possible in Freeling, but it is not. So why are we seeing this razzle-dazzle routine from the government? Because they have not done the groundwork. The infrastructure is not there. There is no water. They are avoiding the truth of the fact that infrastructure is the impediment to these advancements.

Led by the Premier, two weeks ago the government dropped seven media releases in the hope that they could fool everyone into believing this mirage that they have put up. I have had many developers talk to me about their concern that government cannot deliver houses on this scale because they have not done the groundwork. I have driven along Kemp Road to find the pet cemetery where Abdul the pug is buried. I have been exploring this territory with my community, and I would say to the government, as we progress this bill: do not bite the hand that feeds you.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Odenwalder.

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