Mike Elliott: West Beach Recreation Reserve Bill

Extract from Hansard

Legislative Council
4 October 2001

Mike Elliott
Leader Australian Democrats
Member of the Legislative Council

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The Hon. M.J. ELLIOTT: I support the report that has been put before the Council. At the outset I must say that I am not sure that much of the original bill that came in was really horribly necessary but, nevertheless, we were required to look at it all since it was before us. It is fair to say that probably no one member got everything they wanted. This, as so often happens in these committees, is a matter of compromise. I will comment on some things that I still have some lingering doubts about but acknowledge that many other things of those sorts were also achieved. Other members will be in an identical position: all done in seeking consensus.

The Hon. M.J. ELLIOTT: Yes, I thought the chair was extremely accommodating. The first issue I want to address is the role of local government. As the minister noted, there were not an awful lot of submissions in support of changing the role of local government in the way the bill proposed. When I say `not an awful lot' I mean none, to be precise. There were previously four members of local government, one from each of the three abutting local government areas and one floating member. I understand that it was on a rotational basis: each time there was a vacancy it rotated to the next of the three councils.

The practice most often seemed to be that elected members took the council positions and the floating member was often an officer of council. That appeared to be the practice, although I may stand corrected. There really was not a great deal of evidence that the composition of the trust was causing a great deal of difficulty. The trust appears to have been functioning well in recent years with four representatives of local government. I, for one, was very keen to see not only that there be local government representation but that it actually be from adjoining councils, for a couple of reasons.

First, while this area is important as a tourism resource that attracts people both from interstate and from overseas, it is also an extremely important local resource. Probably the heaviest users of the recreational facilities will be people who live in the nearer vicinity, as one would expect and, as I understand it, an amazing number of locals actually use the camping grounds and cabins. They have a holiday away from home not very far from home at all. I guess that at least the number of square metres of floor that has to be swept and mopped goes down and a bit of sand that comes off the beach is acceptable when you are on holidays. So, it is heavily used by locals even though it is also a state resource.

Even in terms of caring for a state resource there are enormous advantages in having people who live next door to something looking after a property, rather than people who live somewhere else. Certainly, if you want your house looked after, there are some advantages (if you trust your neighbour) to asking your neighbour to do it rather than asking someone else, with the best will in the world, who lives in the next town. They know and understand the sorts of problems and they often share the problems. The waterways that run through these other council areas eventually run into this area, as one example.

Two of the councils share the beaches, so they bring a lot of local knowledge and understanding, which is very useful when you are seeking to manage something. For many reasons, I think it is important that local government representation be there. Also, with local government being just a bit closer to the people, the chances of the interests of the little people, if you like, being cared for are a little greater. They are not guaranteed but they are a little greater.

Where I disagreed with the proposal was that, rather than each council nominating a single person, there is to be a panel of three nominated from each council and the minister will choose which of the three from each of those councils is the actual representative. I have opposed that in other pieces of legislation and I think that, if the nominee is to represent a particular area, then that area should be doing the choosing. That is an area where I have some disagreement but, in terms of the compromise reached all round, I accepted the report as it was.

Perhaps some gain picked up along the way was that there were a number of different skills hoped for among the nominees. I am pleased to say that, along with the business, tourism and accounting sorts of skills that were already present in the bill, environmental protection and/or management have also been included. If you are to talk about the care of waterways which are running through the area- the beaches, the sand dunes and so on-then having someone with those sorts of skills within the trust will be very important.

We also recommended that the nominees need not be councillors or staff. In fact, the council could choose someone else-it is almost certain to be a local-who they believe has skills and local knowledge which would be of benefit to the trust. We thought that it was important that that option was spelt out. There were some other minor changes in relation to the schedule. The schedule was referred to in clause 8 at one stage, and it was described as the area marked in black. Of course, anyone looking at the schedule would see that there were many black lines. However, it was the bold black lines that were referred to, so that change has been made to remove any confusion. It was only a technical change but worth doing.

There were proposals earlier about the establishment of subcommittees. The changes we made reflected the changes which were made in the composition of the trust, or a reversion to something similar to the original trust and, as such, the amendments originally proposed in the bill were seen as being redundant. We have also tried to ensure that it was clear that sale of property was not possible within the designated area, but we have also gone further in looking at leasing. We all know that a lease when long enough is a de facto sale, and we have had examples of that. If it is the view of this place that it should not be possible to sell land without the approval of parliament, because the act prohibits sale and you have to come to parliament to carry out a sale, then it would be a nonsense to allow a long-term lease which was a de facto sale.

There are a couple of amendments. One notes that, if a lease or licence is to exceed 10 years, it would require ministerial approval and, if it goes beyond 20 years, it will require the approval of both houses of parliament. To some extent, it mimics the National Parks Act in that, if you want to make substantial changes to the boundaries of national parks, you need the approval of both houses of parliament. It has been given some protection in terms of leasing which might be even stronger than what is provided for national parks and which is also certainly every bit as strong in terms of sale.

I believe that I have covered all the important areas. I make one final comment in relation to the West Beach Trust as a whole. If one looks at the accommodation offered at present it is very diverse, ranging from camping-where people sleep in pup tents, or whatever you want to call them, very small one person tents-to cabins of various levels of luxury. It is a place where almost anyone could find accommodation which they could afford and which they would enjoy. We have on the land a public golf course which is readily accessible to anyone in Adelaide who decides they just want to have a hit.

There are a few other public golf courses around Adelaide. I have one near me in the Belair National Park. It should never have been allowed in the national park, but at least it is fully public. As with the Belair National Park, the golf course also has a club attached to it, but that club has right of use for only a relatively short period. What I would be afraid of is if, over time, there is a gradual alienation from something which is genuinely public to something which becomes private. There is now a proposal for building what is pretty close to resort accommodation, quality accommodation, on the golf course site.

No-one will stay in that sort of accommodation on a golf course unless their use of the golf course is guaranteed. It is not just the rich people who can afford to stay in this place during holidays who will use the golf course, but perhaps the lower income people from the western suburbs who are also on holidays. During holiday times the golf course will be in maximum demand and the danger would be that the people staying in the resort type accommodation on the golf course will get first call on the site. I believe that it would be an outrage if anything such as that was allowed to develop.

As I said, these things can happen gradually. If we are not very careful what is a genuine public asset, available to everyone regardless of income and means, by gradual creep and upgrade could slip away before people notice. It is similar to the analogy so often given of the frog being put in cold water which is gradually heated. It never notices the rise in temperature and eventually it boils to death. If we are not forever vigilant there is a danger that the golf course, the accommodation areas and so on will be slowly, almost imperceptibly, upgraded to the extent that it becomes less accessible to some parts of our community. If that ever happened, it would be an enormous shame. It is one thing about which I will certainly be very vigilant.