Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-10-28 Daily Xml

Contents

TORRENS AQUEDUCT

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (14:28): I have a supplementary question. Does the minister have a time frame for when the committee is expected to report to him?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Small Business) (14:28): I expect it to be ongoing. The committee has already met, and we have had some discussions. I believe there was an inspection of the area. As I indicated to the honourable member, one of the things that has been reported to me is that some of the Mediterranean pine trees growing there have falling branches and so on which will require attention before access is granted to the area, and that will take some time.

I believe that the committee has been looking at some interim measures it can take to try to make, at least for a start, some of the area available to the public. It is a very large piece of land. From memory, it is a significant proportion of the entire area in the River Torrens Linear Park. It is quite a large area and so, to make it safe to enable people to access it, it will take some time.

The government is hoping to hear some initial proposals, and we have to discuss that with the Tea Tree Gully council. As I said, the mayor, Miriam Smith, is a member of the committee. As soon as we get some specific proposals, the government will be happy to look at them.

As I have said, our intention is to at least have some of those areas opened up for public open space as soon as possible. However, for the rest of it, we will have to look at some of the security issues because the land has never really been maintained to the extent that it was meant to be opened to the public: because it was carrying mains water, it was obviously fenced off. However, they are issues I would expect the committee to look at. I do not think it is just a matter of it providing one report. I suspect the committee will be providing me with a range of advice over the coming months.