Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to welcome the announcement this morning from the transport minister on the bridges renewal funding made available to the Northern Areas Council in South Australia for the Broughton Valley Road bridge replacement. I visited this site a few weeks ago with the chief users of the bridge, Clare Quarry. It is a wonderful business, employing about 30 people. This bridge is their only viable link with the outside world. It has been a culvert for many years and it washed away in the floods about eight months ago, and the company has spent a considerable amount of money bringing an older bridge up to the speed where it could be used, just, for their trucks. Around $240,000 in total needs to be spent on the bridge. The Bridges Renewal Program goes about half way towards that. The company itself is tipping in the major amount of money.

Clare Quarry is a very dynamic business—I was informed that they are supplying aggregate as far west as Ceduna, about 700 kilometres away to the west, in my electorate also. It's wonderful to see a family business like this. I met with Russell Schmidt and his sister Deb Sims, who are the family owners; with John Builder, who is the site manager; and with Ian McGuinness, a local mechanic from the Hawker area. I know his family, and let me say he is a very valued resource in the company. They're all pulling together to make this business viable. They have a mining plan for the next 200 years on properties they bought in this area that have a certain type of makeup that provides gravel and then a clay mix for road topping, if you like. They can utilise the whole product stream. It's really uplifting when, as members of parliament, we visit businesses within our electorates that are kicking goals, that have great enthusiasm and that believe in their future.

This bridge is so important to Clare Quarry. In fact, when the bridge is out, as it was, it adds 30 or 40 kilometres onto their delivery distances. Road transport is expensive, so this is a very important economic investment by the government in a very important local employer, who has a long-term plan and goals for their company and for their workers, and it was great to see the relationship that this particular company had with their workers. I congratulate them for that. I congratulate them for making a contribution to fixing up this bridge and I am very appreciative of the fact that this project has been awarded the money.

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