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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-05-13 Daily Xml
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Solid Waste Levy

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (15:01): My question is to the Treasurer. Could the Treasurer explain to the house what has happened to the Marshall Liberal government bin tax, and how are these funds being spent? Mr Speaker, with your leave and the leave of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: This bin tax was reported to bring in around $52 million a year. Of this, $48 million was sand replenishment for Henley Beach and other Adelaide beaches. This left $4 million for regional beaches, which means from Ceduna to Port MacDonnell. My councils in MacKillop—Wattle Range, Robe and Kingston councils—are desperate for funds for erosion and sand issues.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Police) (15:02): Yes, I remember the former Premier and one of the former leaders of the opposition and their involvement in rolling out a huge increase to the solid waste levy, on the basis that a significant portion of that funding would be invested in a sand pumping pipeline in metropolitan Adelaide. The member is right in his question that the bulk of those funds was to go into sand replenishment for areas like Henley Beach, West Beach and other beaches in the middle of the metropolitan area.

What we have continued to do is to ensure that budget after budget we have made more money available for sand replenishment for beaches in those areas, which are not only used recreationally, of course, but are also the interface between the Gulf St Vincent and many thousands of residential properties, and businesses for that matter, located in that part of metropolitan Adelaide.

We took a very honest approach with the people of South Australia at the last election. We absolutely recognise that the sand replenishment tasks are required and are necessary, not just to ensure the amenity of these areas but to ensure that we have that buffer or that interface between the gulf and the built-up parts of the western suburbs in that part of metropolitan Adelaide. We sought to have a scientific evidence-based review of what the options were for replenishment. That review has recommended the trialling of a dredging solution in order to take some of the sands that drift north along the coastline of metropolitan Adelaide and, rather than scrape them off the beaches of Largs Bay, Semaphore and Semaphore Park, take them from those available offshore deposits and replenish the beaches in the member for Colton's electorate, for example—and those efforts continue.

That is what has happened. It's something that I made reference to, I think, in my last two budgets and budget speeches to this place—that the government recognises the importance of this effort and the high expense of this effort. We are trying to make sure that we have a solution which protects these beaches appropriately into the future.

That is not to say that we are not, as a government, up to supporting regional beaches. The Minister for Infrastructure and Transport has committed many millions of dollars partnering with local councils for seaside infrastructure, in particular jetties, to try to make sure that those councils that cannot afford to maintain them, can afford to maintain them. The minister has made a whole range of different offers to regional councils across the state to help them with that task.

We realise that these are expensive endeavours. We are committed to working with communities, whether they be metropolitan in the member for Colton's electorate or whether they be regional in the member for MacKillop's electorate or even the member for Flinders and the member for Narungga's electorates, for example—not to exclude anyone else, of course, but we will continue doing what is necessary to look after our regional communities in this way.

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