Thursday, 4 August 2022

Rosemaur Gallery

Mr BATTIN (Gembrook) (17:18): (6470) I rise with my adjournment matter for the Minister for Planning, and the action I seek is for the Minister for Planning to travel down to Harkaway, a beautiful part of the world, and meet with the residents out there in relation to the new gallery which has been approved, the Rosemaur Gallery. There was a committee put forward in relation to this gallery application. It went through the former minister, and the former minister signed off on this in the minutes before he resigned, or retired, from the role of planning. The new minister should be coming down now and speaking to my residents down there.

This weekend we met with many residents. We have also had many speak up, including Shaun Williams, Melanie Harley, Bruce Wood, Helen and Geordie Fyfe, Brittany Van Steensel, John Fletcher, Roland Crantock, Alicia Hansford and Jeanette Hird. We have had many kids that have come along as well to some of these events to talk about the impact of what would happen with this gallery that is going to be put in on King Road in Harkaway.

The proposal put forward is not just a gallery, it is also a convention centre or function centre that will hold 150 in one section and 100 people in another. So it could hold up to 250 people at a time. For those who know Harkaway, know the area and know King Road, it is a dirt road on which you cannot get two cars to go past each other. It is a very, very narrow road. We have got memories of the road because back on Ash Wednesday my father crashed his car whilst trying to get out of the Ash Wednesday fires at the bottom end of that hill, because the road was not wide enough when the flames were around that area. Obviously, luckily, he was fine, but that is the style of road. It is one of those really big country roads that the residents have loved for a long period of time. The people living on there are all on broadacreage and they are quite proud of the area they live in. Their concern is in relation to fire danger and cars getting in and out if there is a fire through there, which we have had in the past. Their concern is around the traffic movement going past the primary school through the little town of Harkaway—which has one shop, so we are not talking a big town. We have got a shop. If you go down the other end to get out in the other direction, you have to go down a fire track, which is currently mud, but they have been told they will have to turn that into a tar track. Whilst that would be common sense and safe, that will go out to Beaumont Road, and no-one will rule out that that will then become a thoroughfare. So residents on Beaumont Road in Berwick are also concerned with traffic movement coming through after functions at 11 and 12 o’clock at night if you have got 300 cars going from the gallery.

The one thing from the community that they will say is they do support the idea of a gallery. It is the location which is the biggest issue. It is in the middle of a green wedge zone, which means the function centre would not be allowed if it was just a function centre, but because it has got the art gallery it gets around the conditions and finds that loophole. But I say to the minister: come out and hear from the families, the kids, the school and the local community, because of the 521 submissions put forward, 83 per cent opposed, and yet it was still supported by the government. The minister needs to come out and listen to my community.