Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want honourable senators to try to imagine a coastline of breathtaking beauty. I'm fortunate enough to not have to imagine such a place; I know of such a place. It goes by the name of Port Noarlunga. It saddens me to inform the chamber that a section of this beautiful and unique part of South Australia's coastline could have been put at risk if not for a community uprising. A parcel of untouched sand dunes which is owned by the South Australian government is being considered for sale. The land, described by the bureaucrats as lot 108, is zoned for residential housing. It sits alongside a magnificent conservation reserve, which, like lot 108 itself, contains pristine sand dunes that have miraculously survived the aggressive urbanisation that has marked our recent history.

The dunes are an oasis of biodiversity, a redoubt pushing back on the relentless attacks from our modern way of living, a way of living that fails to properly value nature in all its magnificence but instead takes the easy path and worships the false gods of consumption. Yet the dunes hold out against all odds. The Port Noarlunga community all rightly want their precious sand dunes to remain untouched. The wider mid coast want their natural inheritance, their beautiful environment, to be valued as a community asset and to be passed on to the next generation. Lot 108 must be protected and kept safe from being ravaged by the developers' bulldozers. How can a price be put on lot 108? It has immeasurable value. It has stood silently as the world around it has been scarred. Why must the priceless be priced? In recent weeks, a community led petition was launched to prevent the sale of this land. The petition has attracted incredible support. There is also an electronic petition, which I hope to table in this place.

I'm very pleased to declare to the Senate that the coastal community of the south has secured a great victory. I have this week received strong assurances from the state Minister for Planning that the lot will not be sold for the purposes of development. I thank the minister for listening to the loud and passionate voices of the mid coast. But we must not rest until the land has been rezoned or other necessary legal protections are put in place that make it impossible for this beautiful oasis to ever be touched by development. I ask all those in South Australia who value their natural inheritance to join this fight and maintain their vigilance over all the sacred places that have been handed down to us.