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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-04-12 Daily Xml
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Matters of Interest

Yorke Peninsula Country Times

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (15:25): I do not mind political parties campaigning—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: —in fact, I applaud political parties campaigning. I campaign hard for Family First, but with money that is not taxpayers' money—that is the difference. This is clear political campaigning with taxpayer funding.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Point of order: I am having trouble hearing the honourable member speak.

The PRESIDENT: I agree with you. I am having trouble as well. Allow Mr Brokenshire to give his five minutes of matters of interest in silence.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Mr President, can I suggest that the clock be reset to give the member the full opportunity to make his point.

The PRESIDENT: Do you need five minutes, the Hon. Mr Brokenshire?

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: I will probably slip through with what we have got, but I thank my honourable colleague for his assistance. After having had to explain to the council about wasting taxpayers' money, I am pleased to now support a very vibrant and successful private business that is out there creating real jobs. On this occasion, for this year, that is the Yorke Peninsula Country Times, which was very successful in winning the award of being the number one rural paper in South Australia.

The editor, I declare, is my daughter, and I am very proud of that fact. The Yorke Peninsula Country Times has a team approach. It is one of the few country papers that is owned by a country family that is actively and diligently involved in the production of that paper. This paper is a growing paper at a time when, unfortunately, in the city, the major papers are having a challenge when it comes to hard copy distribution sales. That is not the case with the Yorke Peninsula Country Times.

It was fitting that the country cabinet were there at the time when the Country Times achieved this success. I notice that the front page of the Country Times last week showed a big picture of the Premier opening Wateroo, with Mayor Paul Thomas, who is the mayor of the council. Wateroo is the area that has been fixed by council to allow locals and tourists safe swimming.

The Ellis family is a family which now has a third generation working on this paper. It is an absolute credit to Michael Ellis, who is the managing editor, the way he obtains the enthusiasm and quality of staff members. The other big thing with the Country Times is that it does actually print its own paper, and it prints a lot of other material as well.

For country people, country papers are very important because they generally have a good range of material in them. There is a lot of positiveness and proactivity and a lot of stories about local success and around people who are volunteers who do a lot for the region and get some recognition through the paper. The Country Times, like most other country papers, always has a large section on sport. That is one thing that we like to see when we get home and pick up our local papers: the achievements of all the sporting codes within the area in which we live.

I know that putting out a paper every week is a fairly stressful job and a fairly demanding job for all of those involved. This paper normally sits somewhere between 65 and 70 pages. Any of us who put out a newsletter now and again know what an effort it takes to put a four-page newsletter together a couple of times a year, so we can imagine what it is like to have to travel a whole peninsula. The distance from the north to the bottom of the foot of Yorke Peninsula is about two hours' driving time so a lot of effort goes into that as well.

At the moment in the chair, the Hon. John Dawkins is the acting president, and the Hon. John Dawkins was very pleased and proud to tell me that he was at the awards night when he saw the Yorke Peninsula Country Times win that award for the best paper, and he attends every year to support all of the rural papers.

Those of us who have responsibilities to the country—and that is, of course, everyone in the Legislative Council, the 22 members—can learn a lot about the regions that we represent by having a good read every week of as many rural papers as we can. I also note in the Country Times that the Hon. Stephen Wade, the member for Goyder, myself and others will be at Yorketown soon. That is in the paper, letting people know that a public meeting is being organised by the local member—

The Hon. S.G. Wade: They've been covering the issue for weeks.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE:—and it has been covered week-in week-out because issues like the loss of services and doctors to a town like Yorketown are huge issues. If it were not for papers like the Yorke Peninsula Country Times putting those facts on the table, then people in rural and regional areas would be even more disadvantaged. With those few words, again I congratulate the Ellis family, I congratulate all of the staff involved, and I wish them well into the future for an ever-increasing circulation and more awards and rural recognition.

Time expired.

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