Community Economic Summits - Welcomed
The Spencer Gulf Cities (SGC) Mayors welcome the visit from the Premier and key Cabinet Ministers to the region in late February.
The Mayors and CEOs of the Whyalla, Port Pirie and Port Augusta Councils meet on a quarterly basis with the Minister for Local Government, the CE of Premier and Cabinet other key Ministers and Senior Government officials. These arrangements were refined on the election of the Labor Government. Our group has been renamed the “Upper Spencer Gulf Government Intergovernmental Group” with the Minister and the Chair of the SGC, Port Pirie Mayor Leon Stephens, taking up a joint chairing role and the SGC managing the administration of the group.
These meetings receive updates on key infrastructure and energy projects in the area and topics currently on the agenda, which we expect will also be raised at the Summits by our communities are:
- Housing – plans for accommodating the influx of workers expected during construction of major projects in an already tight and challenging housing market
- Workforce & Skills – making sure that programs and training are offered locally for our young school leavers and current job seekers to benefit from new jobs and welcoming new skills to our region. We seek to reverse our long term unemployment trends that require unique an specialist responses.
- Social Support – ensuring that the social support and required services are adequate to respond to the peaks and troughs of our growing population
- Infrastructure – support for the various infrastructure challenges such as water security and augmentation of services necessary to support opening up new land for housing, power, roads, internet connectivity, recreation and health facilities
These intergovernmental discussions are supported by the Regional Partnership Priorities document adopted by the SGC in September 2022 following extensive consultation with key stakeholders in the region: https://upperspencergulf.com.au/download/125/key-documents/1629/spencer-gulf-cities-regional-partnership-priorities.pdf
The Mayor of Port Pirie, Leon Stephens, who is also Chair of the SGC said “our region is facing tremendous growth and the Councils, together, stand ready to work alongside developers, project proponents, governments and the community to ensure we have sustainable long term growth. From a Port Pirie specific perspective, we have been actively engaged in the Master Planning processes and TLAP arrangements to address led issues. We look forward to this continued engagement and our localized hydrogen project setting the scene for the many future projects in this area in our region”.
Port Augusta, Mayor Linley Shine, said “we welcome the growth in our region and have a keen line of sight on ensuring that social impacts are considered and strategically managed alongside achieving economic development targets. Our SGC are focused on a key project to ensure we have identified the social interfaces of this growth through an across government engagement process facilitated through the USG Intergovernmental Group”.
Mayor of Whyalla, Phill Stone, said “Whyalla is a strong focus for renewable energy and greensteel projects and we welcome this. Housing is a key challenge and we want to make sure that we have the solutions in place before the extensive activity really starts to occur. . With significant state owned land sitting dormant in our city, we have ample land to support both temporary and permanent housing development. We are well placed to demonstrate internationally how hydrogen and green energy projects can be rolled out to support the transition to a net zero future– we stand ready to support this economic growth and this transition”.