Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My electorate is renowned for its waterways—its rivers and its lakes and of course the Bass Strait. I want to congratulate a number of our councils on what I call restoring our waterways to the community and to the people. We have been able to work as a government with my local communities and the state government to open up the waterways for social amenity. I would like to congratulate the Wynyard-Waratah Council. For example, at Somerset near the Cam River they have enhanced the foreshore to the surf club plus introduced a shared pathway and recreational fitness equipment. Then at beautiful Wynyard itself the enhancement of the wharf precinct is absolutely superb and now there is a magnificent walking track all the way through the Gutteridge Gardens all the way round to Fossil Bluff.

In Burnie, for example, the Burnie City Council have had a major enhancement of the foreshore area, all the way from the Emu River right through to Cooee. I congratulate them very much. We were able to assist with a new rail bridge, shared pathways all the way through to Cooee, the Makers' Workshop, the West Park recreation centre and the surf club. The whole precinct itself is absolutely beautiful.

On the central coast, Ulverstone now has shared pathways all the way from Turners Beach right the way through to the centre of the town. Now the wharf area itself is being enhanced with a fantastic super community project on the wharf. That is to complement the rec centre, which we contributed $1.8 million to.

Another part of the central coast is the beautiful township of Penguin where they have a magnificent foreshore enhancement program and walkway development as well. Moving down the coast towards the east to Devonport, they have an extensive walkway now—which we contributed to—all the way from East Devonport to the west and into the Don River community and around through Sawdust Bridge back around to the city itself. There has been a major foreshore enhancement at the bluff—about $7 million worth. We contributed $1 million to develop the surf club area and the maritime museum. We also contributed $2 million to the Hornby Road shared pathway and $1.8 million to the Julie Burgess project to develop the maritime theme of the city.

King Island, Latrobe, Circular Head and West Coast have all got water community enhancement access service programs. I congratulate everyone of them. When people have access to water they have access to their livelihoods and their heritage. It is very, very important for the cohesion of a community, particularly in my electorate of Braddon.