Adelaide Festival Centre Car Park

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:31): A question to the Treasurer again. Prior to announcing the Festival Plaza car park deal with the Walker Corporation in February 2014, had the state government obtained legal advice regarding the risk of a compensation claim by Walker Corporation if the government did not proceed with the Walker-led development in that area?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform) (14:32): The period that the deputy leader is asking about is obviously back some 18 months ago, and I will have to double-check to be able to provide information to the house about this. I do recall, however, that obviously it was necessary to understand the nature and extent of obligations existing between the state government and Walker Corporation in the context of negotiations that were occurring at that time.

It was necessary to understand the process which had been gone through to arrive at that point in time and, if I can just explain that a little. The original Walker Corporation agreement, and I use the word 'agreement' in inverted commas, arose from an expression of interest, if I remember the process correctly, which was initiated by the former minister for transport and infrastructure (Hon. Patrick Conlon), who was made aware of the fact that the car park immediately to the north of this building is slowly crumbling into dust because it has concrete cancer or some other terrible failing in it, and that doing nothing was not an option.

The only question was, what were we going to do and how quickly were we going to get on with it? So there was at that point a commissioning of a—I think it was a request for a proposal process if I remember correctly or an expression of interest. In any event, a number of people came forward and from that process there was a sifting and ultimately the preferred candidate turned out to be Walker Corporation. At that stage, there was an agreement that if we were going forward with the car park, the preferred person or group or entity to deal with would be the Walker Corporation.

From that point, there were ongoing discussions with Walker Corporation about moving from that point to the point where there would be a finalisation of the matter. Of course, I personally was not involved in the early part of that process, as that was if I remember correctly, a process that was initiated by the Hon. Pat Conlon. I do know that I sought advice as to the nature of the relationship existing in law—the contractual relationship existing in law—between the government and Walker Corporation so that I could understand what the parameters of any contractual negotiations between the government and Walker might be.

So, the short answer, I guess—because that was the long answer—is I have a recollection of seeking information about the nature and boundaries of the contractual nature of the agreement between Walker Corporation and the government in order to understand how the negotiations would proceed. I do not recall there being, as far as I am concerned, a question specifically in terms of that—

The SPEAKER: The member's time has expired.