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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-02-05 Daily Xml
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Narungga Electorate

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (15:20): There are a few community events about which I feel compelled to inform the house. These start with the wonderful initiative undertaken by the Bute Men's Shed to restore an old train. They have gone out and procured a 400-series Redhen and stored it at the Men's Shed and are now in the throes of trying to reinvigorate it and restore it to its former glory. They managed to pick up this Redhen train carriage from Berri on a handshake agreement and a deposit. They have managed to get it back to Bute with the generosity of the local community assisting with the transport costs, and now have a bit of a five-year plan to try to restore that train carriage.

The train worked extensively on the Adelaide metro network initially and then came to the Copper Coast to serve the Bute to Wallaroo tourism route for quite some years. It is still painted in those blue, red and white colours of the tourism train and it now sits proudly at Bute where the crew will get together. They have started stripping it and then in 2026 they will start prepping it. In 2027 they intend to reline the inside and out, and in 2028 and 2029 they intend to move it to a prominent spot within the town so that it can be shown off in all its glory.

This is a mammoth task for a small Men's Shed to undertake, but they must be commended for giving their members something to strive toward and something to achieve. I popped out there the other day and caught up with Bevan Rose, the president, and treasurer, Greg Dermody, who I must say has been a bit of a driving force in this train initiative, and I look forward to seeing it take shape as I drive past the Men's Shed over the coming years.

Another community initiative that I want to inform the house about is the Fisherman Bay AGM. This house would be well aware that there is plenty going on at Fisherman Bay, with the freeholding of shacks and the investment going on in that community now that the owners of those shacks have freehold title, and it is wonderful to see all the progress being made out there. That means that there is a lot more for the progress association to do, and a lot more complaints coming toward it.

It was wonderful to get there in the first week of January for their AGM when all the shack-holders were there, and to listen to the issues. One of the big issues coming out, which maybe I had not appreciated properly at the start of my tenure in this wonderful position, was the issue of mosquitoes. Barunga West Council have something like 80 baiting stations around their council area to try to keep the mosquito population under control—there is quite a bit of stagnant water at Fisherman Bay that can lend itself well to a mosquito-breeding ground—and it just happens that this year has been a tremendously perfect year for mosquito breeding.

Those who have visited Fisherman Bay this year have found an almost unbearable number of mosquitoes getting around, and it is quite clear that the council's 80 baiting stations have not quite cut the mustard this season. Hopefully, that gets back under control in due course but we are aware, or at least the progress association is aware, that in 2016 and 2020 there was some quite extensive work done on alternative larval treatments that might help solve this problem in more busy years.

I have written to the Minister for Health, who was a part funder in those studies, to see whether they might well be rolled out in years like this, because it is a tremendously popular destination. Whilst we recognise that mosquitoes are part of the ecosystem, it would be wonderful for those people who own shacks there to enjoy them fulsomely. So I hope that we will be able to ramp up that treatment in years that require it. It would have been nice to have it rolled out this year when we had seen the conditions incoming, but hopefully in the future we can be ready and able to react to these bumper mosquito years more quickly.

I would like to congratulate Robyn Lyons—a new committee member at Fisherman Bay who has taken up this issue with gusto—on the work that she is doing, and I look forward to getting a response from the minister in due course. I would also like to congratulate George Blair-Nicholas. He has stepped down as chair of the Fisherman Bay Progress Association after quite some years running it, and is looking forward to travelling a bit more with his wife in their caravan. So congratulations and thank you to George for his longstanding service.

The final thing I would like to bring to this house's attention is the upcoming, on 6 to 9 March next year, Port Victoria Wauraltree and districts 150th celebrations. This is a massive milestone. The progress association formed a subcommittee way back in August a couple of years ago to get ready for it and gosh, they have done a good job. They managed to secure the attendance of two tall ships, the One and All and the Soren Larsen, to come out and tie up to the Port Victoria jetty on that occasion. That is a wonderful thing. It used to be a rather prominent port, and having those tall ships there will be a wonderful commemoration of the 150 years that that town and district has been present.

To make that happen, there has been a tremendously generous community who have donated a number of piles to be planted adjacent to the jetty so that those tall ships can tie up to them rather than the jetty, which might not withstand that. So that is a really significant cost for the community to bear. Congratulations to all who have fundraised. I look forward to seeing the piles go in by Mr Ken Davey, and well done to Greg Twelftree and that subcommittee for all their work.

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