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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-07-23 Daily Xml
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OODNADATTA AERODROME

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:00): I seek leave to make a brief explanation.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY: As all the members in this chamber realise, this government takes a lot of time and effort to ensure that rural and outback Australia feel part of the South Australian community. In doing so, many of the members and the minister in particular, the Hon. Ms Gago in her capacity as state/local government relations minister, spend a lot of time out there talking with those communities in the outback. We are all probably sad to hear that Mr Adam Plate, who was an identity up there at Oodnadatta, unfortunately was killed in a rally in the Adelaide Hills not too long ago. Can the minister advise us of the recent naming ceremony that took place at the Oodnadatta aerodrome?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for State/Local Government Relations) (15:01): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. The Hon. Russell Wortley spent a great deal of time also in regional and outback South Australia. On Friday 24 August, a very well-known and highly respected outback resident, Adam Plate, was tragically killed while participating in a Targa car racing rally. I guess we can take some comfort in the fact that he died doing something that he was extremely passionate about—he loved racing cars—but nevertheless it was a very sad loss indeed.

Many of you here in this chamber, and I know those in another place, would be well aware of the significant role that Adam Plate played in the Oodnadatta community, not just through the operation of the Pink Roadhouse with his wife Lynnie and his daughters Alice, Tilly and Ruby, but also through his very determined and persistent advocacy for Oodnadatta and the outback areas. In fact, many of us received emails from Adam Plate, and they were always very demanding. He was certainly not shy about coming forward and outlining what he thought the problems were and what he believed needed to be done to fix those problems. He was extremely persistent; he was a ferocious advocate for the outback.

Over the four decades that both Adam and Lynnie resided in Oodnadatta, they earned a reputation as passionate advocates for tourism development and also improvement of services and amenities across outback Australia. I know that I and other honourable members received numerous communications from him wanting improvement either for Oodnadatta or the surrounding region. He was a dogged campaigner, and when Adam had an idea for improvements in Oodnadatta, he certainly was not shy in letting everyone know about that.

There was never any ambiguity as to where Adam stood on an issue or his determination to get the best out of his community. He was certainly a legend in his own lifetime. As I said, he and Lynnie were renowned for their Pink Roadhouse and also the pink Volvo that he painted that he would use to collect people from the airstrip and give them a personal tour around his town of Oodnadatta. He was very proud to show it off. He wanted people to better understand what it was like to live in the outback and he also wanted more people to engage with people from the outback so that they knew and understood the characters that lived there.

He also was quite famous in having the road from Marla to Marree named as the Oodnadatta Track and, with the help of community members, he established potentially lifesaving UHF radio towers through the region.

Adam maintained and managed the Oodnadatta aerodrome for over 20 years, helping to guarantee that it remained open and provided access for emergency services, locals and visitors. He was singlehandedly responsible for preparing the gravel strip of the aerodrome for its annual Air Services inspection and for maintaining its basic infrastructure, such as its lights, cones, drainage, and suchlike. If the airstrip lights were to fail, it was always Adam who everyone called on and he would go out and do whatever it took to resolve the issue and ensure that incoming traffic were able to land safely.

He dedicated endless hours working and caring for that airstrip and he was very proud of it. He was proud of it because he understood what an airstrip like that meant to an outback community, how it was a lifeline not only for visitors and tourists but also for essential and emergency services.

The aerodrome is an important transit stop for private and commercial light aircraft and it is a centre for scenic flights, particularly over Lake Eyre and surrounding areas. It is used, obviously, by the Royal Flying Doctor Service for medical clinics and patient transfers, as well as medical emergency evacuations and, of course, that is important for a township that does not have a local doctor. It has about 50 stops at the airstrip each year.

It was significantly refurbished in 2012. It was sealed under the Australian government's Remote Aerodrome Safety Program, with the project jointly funded by the federal Department of Infrastructure and Transport and the South Australian Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure. The sealed airstrip now provides for 24-hour, almost all-weather, access and, as I said, it is a critical lifeline to the community and for other people in that region.

For these reasons it was, indeed, considered most fitting and proper that the aerodrome be dedicated to his memory, and I was very pleased to have been invited to speak at the naming ceremony at the Oodnadatta aerodrome, which we named after Adam Plate, on Friday 12 July. The naming ceremony was just a wonderful event for the Plate family, friends and the Oodnadatta community and outback residents to come together to pay tribute to the enormous legacy that Adam has left behind. I would advise that there were hundreds of people there in attendance. I could not believe it; they just really came out of the desert. It was quite remarkable and they came out there to mark the occasion, albeit in somewhat windy conditions.

It was a wonderful community celebration with memories and stories of Adam being shared amongst those who knew him best. The contributions that Adam made to the Oodnadatta community will continue to be remembered well into the future and he has already become an important part of the history of that town and that area and the South Australian outback.

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