Grievance Debate

ADELAIDE CAR PARKING

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (15:06): I rise today to talk about an important issue to the people of regional South Australia. I firstly refer to an article from The Advertiser from 14 September this year, titled 'Too many carparks'. I will just quote a little bit from the beginning of it:

The state's chief transport official wants Adelaide City Council to reduce car parking places and increase prices to ease city traffic congestion.

Transport Department chief executive Rod Hook said Adelaide commuters had become too used to driving their cars into the city because of the cheap and large number of public parking spaces available.

Now, it is fair to say that Rod Hook is a public servant who is held in high regard by both sides of politics, but I would like to caution him, the transport department and certainly the government and transport minister about the very detrimental effect that this would have on country South Australians.

I certainly understand the benefits of trying to ease people onto public transport and away from driving themselves. I certainly understand that one car with one person clogging up all the roadways heading in and out of Adelaide every day is not ideal, but to take a measure that would make it exceptionally difficult for country people to then come into the CBD would be dreadfully unfair—terribly unfair on people not that far away from Adelaide, I have to say.

People visit Adelaide from country areas for shopping, for visiting friends and relatives, for medical attention and many other reasons and very often have to go into the CBD. Country people certainly do as much of their shopping as possible in their local areas, but a lot of country people are not from large towns like Port Augusta, Whyalla, Port Lincoln or Mount Gambier and do have to come to Adelaide, for a range of reasons.

Essentially, if they are locked out of travelling easily into the Adelaide CBD, not only they but also the CBD will miss out on the very positive economic impact from country people and, in fact, city commuters who do a lot of shopping in the city, if they are not able to do that. If they are onto buses and trams, they are far less likely to take a bit of extra time to get a bundle of goods and take them home.

Adelaide has many natural advantages, compared to other capital cities in Australia. I quote again from that same article:

Adelaide [has] twice as many car parking places as it [needs], when compared [to] other Australian [capital cities].

...we are literally the car parking capital of the nation.

When that article says 'as it [needs]', I think it is very important to put into context the fact that we have some natural advantages in Adelaide and I would say that this is one of them. The fact that people can get into their car, get around the city and, very importantly, come from country areas into the CBD is a natural advantage that should not be taken away.

We have beautiful parklands. They are a wonderful natural advantage compared to other capital cities but, if they were to be taken away because there was some economic imperative that says the land could be better used, we would be cutting off our nose to spite our face. Adelaide is a very, very liveable city. All South Australians, whether they live in metropolitan Adelaide, country or even remote outback areas, benefit from the liveability that Adelaide offers. One important aspect of that liveability is very easy access around in your private car. To take advantage of an artificial economic lever to make life easier for the transport department I think will make a great number of South Australians suffer unnecessarily.

I ask the transport minister very genuinely: please, do not squander one of our greatest advantages. Please do not lock country people out of our city. Country people do not have the chance to come down to the urban fringe, jump onto a park-and-ride type of outfit, then go into the city and do all their shopping. Country people will not be familiar with all of the public transport options. Given that they do far more of their shopping and naturally have to carry far more on public transport back to their cars when they do that shopping, it would be a great shame for them to be locked out. They will miss out, CBD traders will miss out, and I think our state and our city will be far worse off for that move.