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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-09-16 Daily Xml
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HIGHBURY AQUEDUCT LAND

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS (14:54): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Urban Development and Planning a question in relation to the government-owned Highbury aqueduct land.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: In November 2009 the minister was made aware of the significant bushfire risk posed by the Highbury aqueduct land. In response, the minister sent out some staff to do some minor works and rectify the danger. On 22 February this year the minister came under fire (pardon the pun) for not clearing the Highbury aqueduct land adequately. In fact, Leon Byner called the land a disgrace and had to resort to putting photos on the FIVEaa website depicting the risk to local residents. On 24 February the minister told FIVEaa listeners:

I don't want to pass the buck. It's my responsibility now. I accept it. I'm doing what I can. I can't order anyone to do anything now as we're in election caretaker period.

On 26 February 2010 the minister told South Australians:

Well, of course, the state should be a model citizen and, look, if the CFS came to a government department and said, 'Look, we believe there's a fire risk in our area,' then I'm sure that that would be taken care of. Look, if anyone comes to me and says, '…under my department, if there is a risk they'll do something about it,' that's exactly what happened in relation to this.

On 15 March 2010 the minister said:

I can commit this government—I can't commit another government—that we accept responsibility for bringing this park up to the standard of the rest of the Linear Park. It's our land. We'll take responsibility for it.

Yesterday, the MFS and Tea Tree Gully council again raised concerns about the fire risk posed by the Highbury aqueduct land and called on the government to have it cleared by 1 December this year. In response, a spokesman for the Department of Planning and Local Government was quoted by the Leader Messenger as saying there was no bushfire management plan for the Highbury aqueduct land. Anyone wanting to have this fire risk emphasised to them would only need to have a look at the photograph on page 3 of this week's Leader Messenger. My questions are:

1. Will the minister commit to appropriately clearing the land by 1 December 2010?

2. Will the minister guarantee that the government will not seek a contribution from the ratepayers of the City of Tea Tree Gully for what is state government owned land?

3. Why, given the publicity surrounding this piece of land last summer, does the state government still not have a bushfire management plan for this piece of land?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister Assisting the Premier in Public Sector Management) (14:57): The Highbury aqueduct, of course, has been under state government control for a long time. It was formerly under the control of SA Water. It was constructed back in the 1870s, and in May 2009 that 50-hectare area was purchased, in effect, by the Department of Planning and Local Government to ensure its protection.

Anyone who knows that aqueduct area would know that there is a considerable number of significant trees, most of which I think are Mediterranean pines, which are a particularly vigorous growing variety. Arguably, they present a fire risk but, of course, I am sure that, if one were to remove them all, the neighbouring people who were concerned about the undergrowth would also be concerned about that.

The honourable member referred to the period of February this year. The department (I think using the department of environment's contractors) was able to remove a significant amount of deadwood, some of which had obviously been there for a very long time although, of course, the drought had undoubtedly added to the problem. So, there was a significant clear-up and slashing and, obviously, that will be conducted again this year. I think it is a little premature to expect that slashing to have taken place, given the weather we have had. Anyone who knows anything about these issues knows that if you slash grass before it is cured then, of course—

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: Are you going to leave it until it all dries out?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: No, we will slash at the appropriate time, Mr President. Surely the honourable member is not really suggesting that it is posing a fire risk right now. It certainly has the potential to do so, and we will address it as we did last year. Given that we are in the wettest year we have had for many years, clearly that area will still grow.

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: It's incredible, isn't it? Here a government takes action to preserve for the residents and spend a lot of taxpayers' money. At the moment we are undertaking a plan, on which the taxpayers, through the Planning and Development Fund, will spend a significant amount of money to upgrade the whole Highbury aqueduct area. We will have to do it in stages, but it will require millions of dollars spent on it over the next few years to try to bring it up so that it is a reserve that is comparable with the Torrens Linear Park, to which it is adjacent.

There is the considerable threshold issue—and the residents ought to be consulted and it should not just be my decision—of what to do with these Mediterranean pine trees. If they were in a national park they would probably be cut down almost as a weed species, but they have been in this area for a long time. Where they have dead branches and the like they need to be cleaned up, and that was the exercise we did with the more urgent cases earlier this year, but what we do where there should be some thinning is something on which we would like to consult with the people of the area.

In the past few days I have had some preliminary plans for the future of this aqueduct land. I established a committee, and one of the members of it was the mayor of Tea Tree Gully, along with the local member of parliament for the area, Tom Kenyon. Other members have been looking at the future of this, and over time we hope to upgrade the quality of this park so we do not have the level of weeds we do now and so that it is accessible to people. There is no point having a multi-million dollar reserve fenced off as it is at present from people because of the risks. We would like to open up this whole area to the community, but to do so it will need significant upgrading at significant cost.

We are happy to undertake that, but certainly the advice I have is that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, between November and March last year, conducted a program of fuel reduction work based on an assessment of bushfire risk for the reserve. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has advised that the work carried out provides a very good level of bushfire protection for neighbouring properties. My advice is that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources is currently preparing a comprehensive fire management plan with on-ground fire prevention works for the 2010-11 fire season, commencing in September 2010. That is the information I have.

The Highbury Aqueduct Land Consultative Committee has been established to consider the future management options, and it has currently been working with the Land Management Corporation, which has engaged Outer Space Landscape Architect consultants, who are in the process of finalising this concept plan and arranging an arborist's report for the reserve. I have seen the preliminary version of that in the past few days. It is important that we get an arborist's report, because we have to know which of these trees are healthy and should be retained and so on, as it is a significant issue. We would like to talk to the community about that.

Finally, there is some council land adjacent to some of the gullies along the aqueduct land. When I was out there last year I could not help noticing that for some of the properties adjoining the gullies where there are council reserves there is significant fire risk. In fact, one house had at least 20 centimetres of pine needles piled up on a large section of its roof because of some of the trees on the council reserve next to it.

It is not just the aqueduct land. I think we are being reasonably responsible in trying to reduce that risk, particularly given the size of the area, but there is also risk from some of the council land and private landowners because it is a very steep area and therefore poses a higher fire risk than it might elsewhere.

While the Department of Planning and Local Government will be good tenants, as the honourable member mentioned in his introductory comments, other landholders in the area will also need to be responsible. We are well aware of the need for fire prevention for this season. We will do so but ultimately it will be our goal to upgrade this whole reserve so that it not only poses a much lower fire risk but also is much more accessible to the people of Highbury.

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