Planning for the future

Once Member for Mount Gambier Troy Bell has had some down time over the festive season, spending time with family and friends, he will be completely focussed on Future Mount Gambier 2.0, finetuning the document ready to present to the government and opposition as they formulate their policies and promises ahead of the 2026 State election.

“It’s a very important piece of work, laying the foundation for significant investment in our region,” Mr Bell said.

It was the original Future Mount Gambier blueprint, unveiled before the 2022 election that yielded significant investment into the region – critically based on a document that was a collaborative project with the community and key stakeholders.

And that promised investment is starting to appear across the region in bricks and mortar projects.

“What we are seeing at the moment are the results of the State election promises – things are finally starting to be built,” he said.

“If you drive past the hospital you’ll see the emergency department upgrade underway – a $24million total investment.

“If you drive past TAFE, which we are now calling the Educational and Training Precinct, you’ll see the start of the $35million Technical College being built and the $15million Centre of Forestry Excellence and another $5million for TAFE upgrades.

“And there’s Yahl primary School’s $3million upgrade – we have never seen money like this being attracted to our region and it’s all on the back of the Future Mount Gambier document.”

The key to that document and the 2.0 version which will be ready for unveiling early next year is it sees this region taking ownership of its future and just what the community needs and wants.

“Prior to this we had never really put forward what we want, what is our vision, what could a State Government invest in our region and so we put together a road map,” Mr Bell said.

When the Member for Mount Gambier unveiled the original blueprint he invited then premier Steven Marhsall, then Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas, SA Best’s Frank Pangallo and the Greens – only the now Premier Mr Malinauskas attended.

“And now he is the Premier of South Australia,” Mr Bell said. “Labor has so many seats now and so many mouths to feed that we will need to be better than ever to attract investment into our region. The budget is only $22billion and I have spoken to councils about this and that we have to be united and singing from the same hymn sheet about what investment we want to see.”

Future Mount Gambier 2.0 will again be presented to all sides of politics, focussing on the region’s current and future needs.

“We’ve got to get past whinging about lack of service,” Mr Bell said. “We have to provide a solution and when the solution is not acted upon then we can be ultra critical of the State Government and that’s what Future Mount Gambier 2.0 really is.”

Public schools, regional roads and SA Water head the list of areas in desperate need for investment.

“If you compare our public schools and our Catholic and Independent Schools, they are starting to look tired,” Mr Bell said. “There has been significant investment in the city and we struggle to attract $1-2million for maintenance.”

A recent $50million investment in Norwood Morialta School a case in point and Mr Bell has used his platform in parliament on numerous occasions to raise the issue of the school maintenance and costings through the current contractor.

“A student in Mount Gambier is just as valuable to our State as a student from Norwood Morialta.”

The current road maintenance contract is also inadequate, according to Mr Bell and SA Water infrastructure is in dire need of upgrade.

“If we don’t have significant investment, we can’t grow, we can’t develop,” he said. “SA Water infrastructure is not as sexy as some other projects but it’s critical for future development.”

While on a personal note, 2024 has been one of Mr Bell’s toughest, on a political front, it has been another year of hard work producing great results for this community.

“It’s been a tough year,” he said. “The result (of his court case) caught me completely off guard and we’ll be dealing with that legally with the appeal. Until the appeal has been heard, I’ll continue to advocate and get us as a region ready for the next State election.

“We see over 250 people a month in our office – that’s a huge number of people that come in here for assistance and support.

“It’s a credit to my team who are able to support so many people – it really is a team effort.”