Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to congratulate the Treasurer on an excellent budget and comment about its effects on the electorate of Wakefield. Interestingly, the headline in the Advertiser today was ‘Working class man’ and it showed a picture of the Treasurer. So the budget has certainly been well received in South Australia. It is an important budget and meets the challenges of the future. It fights inflation and delivers to working families. It is a budget that is a true reflection of the issues and priorities that the Labor Party campaigned on during 2007. Importantly, it follows the principle of keeping faith with the Australian people—that is, we are committed to following through on what we promised in opposition. I think it is tremendously important. All politics are local, and this budget delivers on Labor’s local election commitments in Wakefield. In particular, it provides funding for a GP superclinic in the area now called Playford North, which takes in the suburbs of Smithfield Plains and Davoren Park, which is the old Elizabeth Field. This will be an important primary healthcare resource for this area, which has significant social disadvantage affecting it. I think it will complement the Playford North redevelopment project, which is about urban renewal in the area, and become an important symbol of the national government’s commitment to the local area.

I know the Peachey Belt Residents Association, one of the local groups which takes a great interest in the area, is interested in the provision of mental health facilities because that is a particularly big issue. That is held up by both statistical evidence and anecdotal evidence. Labor’s Better Regions program will also deliver on our election commitments in the area. The projects that we are committed to delivering include $100,000 for a cultural centre for the Vietnamese Farmers Association in Virginia. Most of the Vietnamese farmers in the area are veterans of the conflict in Vietnam or their descendants are. They came over here with very little and have remained a remarkably hearty and hard-working community. They have weathered all sorts of challenges, being small business people, and were also subject to floods some two years ago.

The program also provides $200,000 for playground equipment in Playford North and that is likely to be in the Stebonheath Flow Control Park, which will be one of the largest aquifer storage recharge projects in the world by the time it is finished. There is $3 million for a multi-use recreation and community facility in Angle Vale—a significant community that is growing at a very great rate with many young families moving there. At the moment, there is a very limited or non-existent sport, recreation and community facility there. That will be a tremendous project that will be done in partnership with Playford council.

We will also be funding $3 million to build the Gawler River Junction project, an important project which has huge community support and a strong and active volunteer base already in place. Finally, there is $2 million for the City of Playford’s Building Healthy Communities project, which will rebuild the Elizabeth Aquadome—a project which was promised by the previous government but that will be delivered by the Rudd Labor government.

There are community safety grants which cover the Elizabeth, Gawler and Salisbury train stations. The Australian government will make a contribution to better TV reception in the northern suburbs in areas on the Para Escarpment, which runs from Ingle Farm in the member for Makin’s electorate to Craigmore in my electorate—an area which has had very poor TV reception for a decade or more. We have an allocation of money to assist in getting better TV reception but we know we need the commercial TV stations to come on board. That is a particularly big issue because people in Craigmore often cannot get the tennis or the cricket on their free-to-air TVs. I think it is a right of every Australian family to be able to watch the tennis or the cricket.

Roads have also been an area where there has been great support in Wakefield. The Northern Expressway and the Port Wakefield roads will receive $118 million in 2008-09. I live right next door to both these projects and drive on Port Wakefield Road on most days, so that is particularly important. The Sturt Highway will get $15 million. The Bowman’s intermodal expansion out at Balaclava will receive $600,000. It is a particularly important project. (Time expired)