Charlotte Varcoe
ONE Nation member and Member of the Legislative Council Sarah Game made a quick trip to the Limestone Coast recently.
Ms Game visited a range of community not-for-profit organisations and discussed a range of issues with locals including a lack of health services in Penola and the state of South East roads.
Speaking with SA Today, Ms Game said she first travelled to the Millicent Men’s Shed where she would continue to advocate for men’s mental health.
“This is the first men’s shed where they have had a regular, organised program with the local primary school with Year Six students and I think primarily they do it for kids who are finding it difficult or maybe not engaging or becoming disruptive or come from a disadvantaged home,” Ms Game said.
“They reported to me they have had enormous success with that and I thought it was really interesting to see a men’s shed working with a local primary school so successfully and that is something they have run out of room for, they need more funding.”
She said she was told the men’s shed had more people wanting to join the program and schools wanting that further educational support.
“I am really interested to go back to the premier directly and see whether I can give them that funding to enhance the program and whether we can expand that program out across more men’s sheds,” Ms Game said.
During her visit, Ms Game said she was also made aware of the state of South East roads, labelling the Princes Highway “dangerous”.
“It was raining quite heavily and I was going slowly and we just bumped along the whole way,” she said.
“We are going to write to the federal minister about that.”
Other issues covered during Ms Game’s trip included speaking with agricultural leaders in the potato industry, wine industry and crayfishing industry.
She said issues around trade restrictions were brought to her attention and concerns about vessel monitoring systems.
“The general issue with the farmers is the mobile black spots and when people have injuries on farms and fires but also labor shortages, power prices were issues for businesses and there was a discussion about water allocation and equity of water allocation transparency,” she said.
“One thing that was interesting was we stopped in at the Penola Returned Services League and spoke to a group of veterans there and they told me the same story about health and it is really interesting because we read about the general practitioner shortage but it is a completely different experience when you sit around the table with a group of older people who have all got their own health concerns.”
Ms Game said she asked members when the last time Penola had a permanent general practitioner in the town and was surprised to find the answer was more than a decade ago.
“That just gives a different level of authenticity to the problem we have got,” she said.
“It is just impossible to provide the same level of healthcare if you are always seeing a different general practitioner.”
Ms Game said she hoped she would come back to the region in the near future with progress on the issues highlighted.
