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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-06-05 Daily Xml
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Gladstone Gaol

The Hon. G.G. BROCK (Stuart) (14:43): My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Deputy Premier. Can the minister update the community of Gladstone and the Gladstone Community Development and Tourism Association of the progress of the works that have been undertaken since late 2022 at the Gladstone Gaol to enable the facility to be opened to the public? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain further.

Leave granted.

The Hon. G.G. BROCK: This facility has been non-accessible to the general public for many years. It is a great tourism opportunity, with priority works advised to me back in May 2023 and negotiation being finalised with a contract to ensure further priority works to commence early in the 2022-24 budget and completed as soon as possible. However, the site is still currently closed to the general public.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Workforce and Population Strategy) (14:44): I am very pleased to speak about the Gladstone Gaol. I know there was an open day in March, I think, almost three months ago, with some 1,500 people attending, including the honourable member. What a terrific day that was. I myself went there a couple of years ago and had a tour with the people who had been the caretakers and were on their way out. They were mediums, so it was quite an interesting experience because at times the two women showing us around were talking to people whom I could not see. It was a very interesting experience and no doubt when the tours were officially occurring it would have added a degree of interest for many people.

The honourable member will be well aware, but to bring the chamber up to date, the completion of the building was in something like 1881 and it functioned as a jail for both men and women and was regarded as a fairly light-touch jail with not very heavy sentences. It was closed as a jail in 1939, turned into an internment camp for a little while, then into military storage and military barracks, and then in about 1952 became a jail again, where it was used in a much, I think, tougher way with male-only prisoners and it was a pretty harsh existence. Then it was closed as a jail altogether in the 1970s.

The jail itself is, of course, a heritage place but has fallen into a state of disrepair in parts and I saw that when I went on the tour. The member, although very politely, rightly expresses a degree of frustration that since 2022 it has been closed in part in order to do the repairs, and they are still in progress. I understand they are almost complete or at least substantially they are. There are just some small amounts still to be done and there has been a bit of a delay, partly around the availability of contractors, but that is almost done.

The other reason it closed, of course, is trying to make a business proposition out of the jail. The fact that 1,500 people showed up to the open day indicates a degree of interest and enthusiasm even for the jail, but we do need to have someone come in and operate it. The department is working right now on an expression of interest process and I must say I share a little bit of the, perhaps, frustration that is expressed by the member that really this should be going out to see what kinds of operators are available. So I will take this question as a mark that we need to really accelerate that process, get an expression of interest out and really find out whether there are some operators who would be prepared to come in and run it and what it would take for that to work.

I think we all would like to see this jail be a successful tourism destination. Certainly, the local community would, but actually it is one of those little hidden assets in South Australia that I think would really benefit from being available for people to come in and have a look, so I will commit to escalating getting that out very soon.

The other element, of course, is there is a community garden and I believe there are some final steps being undertaken right now to make sure that that is appropriately licensed and able to be used freely by the community. So, again, I will take this as a mark that I really need to make sure that the department is paying attention. It is an excellent department, there is just a lot going on, but let's make sure that that becomes more of a priority.

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