LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ROAD CLOSURES—1934 ACT) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon) (10:33): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Local Government Act 1934. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon) (10:34): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The principle for which I have been arguing for so many years is that, if a local council seeks to close or impose traffic restrictions on a road leading from its territory into that of a neighbouring council, it should do so with the consent of the neighbouring council.

I persuaded the parliament to embrace this principle in debates over the City of Adelaide bill and the road traffic amendment bill in the late 1990s, and I achieved this from opposition, but the then Liberal government was careful to allow the Adelaide City Council to preserve its Barton Road temporary-closure resolution under section 359 of the old local government act by defeating my amendment to make the principle universal.

The usual provision for closing roads permanently is the Roads (Opening and Closing) Act. Under the act, a local government body may decide that it wants to close a road or part of a road permanently, and it then advertises its intention and gives notice to affected landholders. There is a period during which affected people can make submissions in writing to the council and lodge formal objections to the permanent closure of the road.

The council has to hear those objectors in person (if they wish to appear in person), and then after that natural justice procedure the council makes its decision on permanent closure. The council's decision under the Roads (Opening and Closing) Act is then referred to the Surveyor General, who in turn makes a recommendation to the minister on the question of whether the road should be closed permanently. The minister then either ratifies or does not ratify the council's decision.

In my opinion, that is a sensible procedure that balances the interests of residents with those of motorists and cyclists who wish to use the road. The mischief that this bill seeks to remedy is the use of section 359 of the 1934 Local Government Act by the Adelaide City Council to achieve the same effects as the Roads (Opening and Closing) Act provisions but without going through those procedures. The present wording of section—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Unanimously, the Labor Party supports this bill. The present wording of section 359 was introduced into the principal act in 1986, and at the time it was introduced it was represented by the government and the opposition as the temporary control of traffic or the temporary closure of a road. When the John Martin's Christmas pageant was due, the Adelaide City Council was able to pass a resolution providing for the streets along the path of the pageant to be closed for the duration of the pageant and a reasonable time before and afterwards.

If roadworks were to be done, then section 359 was used by a local council to close the road temporarily while the roadworks were completed. Most gazettals under section 359 provided that the road would close at such-and-such a date and reopen on another date, but there was no prediction about the duration of the Barton Road closure—no duration was placed on it.

That section of the 1934 Local Government Act was never intended to be used for permanent closures. The Beaumont Road closure is entirely different. At the time, section—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Well, I would welcome that. At the time section 359 was modified (that is, in 1986), the clause note stated:

Clause 27 amends section 359 of the principal Act so as to allow part only of a street, road or public place to be closed on a temporary basis.

Section 359 of the 1934 act, which my bill seeks to amend, was never designed for the permanent closure of roads. There was a good reason for that. Section 359 contains no procedure for giving notice to the public of the proposed closure and contains no provision for notice to affected landholders who might reside nearby and use the road. It contains no provision for the council to hear representations for or against its proposal to close the road.

Importantly, it does not go to the minister, and it is not considered by the public in general, as the minister would on the public's behalf. Barton Road is an important road for western suburbs residents to access Calvary Hospital and Mary Potter Hospice; St Dominic's Priory school; St Laurence's church; the Women's and Children's Hospital; Helping Hand Aged Care; the many doctors, dentists, and specialists in North Adelaide; and the O'Connell Street shops and cafes.

We are not asking for a highway or a route to the central business district. On any day at the Barton Road bus lane, one can watch the North Adelaide residents—some of whom support the closure—driving through it as their private road, some on their way to and from the airport. Just as they fenced off the Parklands for their private tennis courts, their council recently drafted a leaflet about the Adelaide Oval that asserted that the Parklands were the property of North Adelaide ratepayers, as distinct from the property of the people of South Australia. The leaflet was pulped when the audacious claim was noticed by the city council's public relations adviser.

The bill is short but complicated owing to the risk that the city council will do anything to wriggle out of reopening Barton Road, such as renaming the roads in the area, or configuring them so as to claim that Barton Road does not run into the Charles Sturt Council. The bill is explained in the clause notes.

My intention is simply to lift the traffic restrictions on the Barton Road bus lane, leaving it to the city council to decide how to regulate traffic there, such as traffic lights and alternate one-way movement. I do not think that a simple lifting of the restrictions will lead to much congestion. One would not use Barton Road if one were a Bowdenite wanting to travel to the CBD or the eastern suburbs.

After 3,500 new residents move into Bowden Village in the next few years, the city council will find it increasingly difficult to corral us. And what if the redistribution puts Bowden Village in the state district of Adelaide? Then the member for Adelaide will be singing a different tune. The Adelaide City Council ripped up Barton Road in 1987 without any legal authority and constructed in its place a one-lane-width chicane that would allow buses through in alternate one-way movements. In constructing the chicane, the Adelaide City Council annexed parkland to the road surface without going through the procedure of acquiring it lawfully.

I think there was a valid traffic management reason for putting restrictions on Barton Road in 1987, and that reason was that the north-west ring route around the city had not been completed at that time. Motorists driving from Port Road way, and wanting to go to the northern or north-eastern suburbs could not travel along Park Terrace because the bridge over the northern railway at Bowden had not yet been built.

Instead, they drove east over North Adelaide Station Road opposite Gerard Industries, travelled north along War Memorial Drive (or Mildred Road as it was known at that point) and then turned right up Barton Road. That reason for the restrictions was lost in 1990 when the Bannon Labor government completed the bridge. When the bridge was opened, North Adelaide Station Road was instantly closed. I know. I was there.

That the Adelaide City Council has not gone through the proper procedure for modifying the road was exposed in a Supreme Court case in the early 1990s, when police sought to recover a traffic fine issued at the Barton Road bus lane to road-traffic crusader, the late Gordon Howie. Gordon's vehicle and a bus had driven into the bus lane from opposite directions, and neither would back up to let the other through. The bus driver did not know with whom he was dealing and, when the police arrived, also unaware of Gordon's tenacity, several buses and many frustrated people were halted on both sides of the bus lane.

On that occasion, the police patrol recognised Gordon and the police were not sufficiently reckless to issue him with a traffic infringement notice but, later on, some poor unfortunate copper did. Gordon took the case to the Supreme Court and his challenge prevailed because the Adelaide City Council had gone through no lawful procedure to modify the road in the way it had.

The city council then sought to close the road under Roads (Opening and Closing) Act. The member for Adelaide, Dr Armitage, who lived in Molesworth Street, North Adelaide, was a militant supporter of total closure, and we went head to head in debates. Hundreds of my constituents, other western suburbanites and dozens of North Adelaide residents signed our petition against closure. We also staged a drive-through at the bus lane. Ours was the biggest objection to a road closure in the history of the act. We demonstrated to the Surveyor-General—

Ms Chapman: You did nothing for 10 years.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: No; two defeated cabinet submissions. We demonstrated to the Surveyor-General that Barton Road was reasonably required for use by the public. The Surveyor-General recommended to the minister for lands that he refuse the city council's application to close Barton Road under the act, and the minister accepted his recommendation.

The Surveyor-General's wicked sense of humour was revealed when, in the redistribution of electorates before the 2002 state election, the part of Ovingham most harmed by the closure was transferred from my electorate to the state district of Adelaide. After this, Dr Armitage, whose name was mud in that part of Ovingham for supporting total closure of Barton Road—and, yes, Armitage would have stopped even the buses—

Mr PENGILLY: Point of order. I am having trouble hearing the member for Croydon.

The SPEAKER: Generally, I would quieten down, with our new code of conduct; however, the member for Croydon is known to be quite vocal when other people are speaking so I thought I would wait for that to happen. Perhaps we had better quieten down, but it is certainly waking up the house, member for Croydon.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Dr Armitage did not seek preselection for Adelaide and instead claimed an affinity with Leabrook and sought preselection for Bragg. As one can see, Dr Armitage is not the member for Bragg in this house. Jane Lomax-Smith went on to win Adelaide at the 2002 election—as I always say, by the width of Ovingham—and her win, together with the defeat of Ralph Clarke in Enfield, the defeat of Murray De Laine in Cheltenham and the defection of Peter Lewis, enabled Mike Rann to form a government.

Returning to the 1990s, the city council then purported to close the road to motor vehicles and bicycles by passing a section 359 temporary closure resolution of the kind employed for street fairs and the Christmas pageant. Owing to a drafting flaw, this provision in the 1934 Local Government Act is not time limited. When the Liberal government recast the Local Government Act in 1999, it was careful to grandfather this provision to preserve the Barton Road closure.

The bill I present to you is designed to treat this closure in the same way as all other closures of roads running from the territory of one council to another council and to apply the principle that the first council should seek the consent of the other council to any traffic restrictions. Who knows? Possibly the new anti-Labor mayor of Charles Sturt, Kirsten Alexander, would arrange to give the city council permission to keep the restrictions on Barton Road. The mayor has already had a meeting with the member for Adelaide, who represents 300 Charles Sturt residents, but has not yet arranged a meeting with me, who represents 17,000. Rex Jory, in his Rex at Large column in The Advertiser last Monday, wrote:

North Adelaide residents may deny it, but the closure of Barton Road is a shameful piece of class discrimination. The upstairs and downstairs of the street directory. A case of money talking.

Rex finishes his column:

And what of those North Adelaide residents who oppose the opening of Barton Road? They can lobby MPs, particularly in the Legislative Council, they can lean on the city council not to bow to the wishes of the Charles Sturt council or, as a last resort, they can seek legal redress. In every case they will give the appearance of seeking to retain a privilege available to few other South Australians.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Madam Speaker—

The SPEAKER: Member for Waite, I hope you are adjourning the debate; the debate needs to be adjourned.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: No; I want to speak to it, and then we can adjourn it.

The SPEAKER: Our standing orders say that it needs to be adjourned. You can have first try next time.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Lord Atkinson of Upper Ovingham-upon-Brompton has spoken. I would love to reply, but I will accept your guidance and adjourn the debate.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Hamilton-Smith.