Paradise Interchange

Mr TARZIA (Hartley) (15:10): My question is to the Minister for Transport. Can the minister inform the house on whether the additional parking spaces currently being leased by the government across Darley Road will continue to be leased for overflow parking from Paradise Interchange for the forseeable future?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (15:10): I thank the member for Hartley for his question. It is an important question because parking arrangements at the Paradise Interchange have been of concern to the community, and indeed of concern to the government, for some time. To provide a bit of context to this, such was the level of concern from the government that we took a particular policy to the last election to develop a new funding stream for public transport improvements. It was a small, imminently affordable levy on the price of parking in the CBD, which would have enabled us to spend millions of dollars upgrading the car parking facilities at Paradise Interchange. It would have been a terrific upgrade—

Mr Duluk interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Davenport is called to order.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: It would have been a terrific upgrade for those communities that live on either section of Darley Road, in the vicinity of the Paradise Interchange. The situation that we are now forced to continue contending with, where often hundreds of cars are parking on the kerbside lanes of Darley Road, creates not just an inconvenience and a frustration for commuters catching O-Bahn services—which is of course a service that we continue to invest heavily in, and in which we want to encourage increases in patronage—but we want to make sure that the facilities we have at places like Paradise give the best opportunity to encourage patronage.

We took this policy to the election and, to the surprise of those opposite, we were able to form government again. so we went to implement our mandate from the people of South Australia—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Adelaide is called to order.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: We were able to implement our mandate from the people of South Australia, and set about doing what was necessary to deliver car parking upgrades at the Paradise Interchange. However, the member for Hartley—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Treasurer is warned for the second and final time.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: —took a very deliberate and considered decision to vote against the interests of those in his electorate who use O-Bahn services at the Paradise Interchange, and he denied the constituents of Hartley improved car parking facilities at the Paradise Interchange. You couldn't argue that he wasn't warned—because he was warned. He was specifically warned by me as Minister for Transport, and the member for West Torrens as the Treasurer, of what would be the outcome of voting against that revenue measure in the budget that was presented before this house in 2014. Yet he took the deliberate decision to vote against that budget measure, and he has denied his constituents improved car parking facilities in his electorate.

To think that he has the gall to come into this chamber and question this government, which had millions of dollars of funding on the table for improvements to car parking facilities at the Paradise Interchange, whether we can keep open an unsealed patch of dirt which he obviously regards as being good enough for his constituents—good enough for those people who choose to take public transport and decrease the burden on our main arterial roads—for him to come in here and ask us could we please continue this suboptimal outcome for his constituents—well, I'll take that on notice.