Southern Expressway

Mr KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (14:37): My question is to the Premier. Why is the government able to build fences at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in a day but is not able to prevent rock-throwing attacks on the Southern Expressway, when they promised to give immediate action after being elected?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:37): I thank the member for West Torrens for his question. There are two parts to it, of course. One is with regard to the new 'dignity screens', as they have been called, that were the recommendation of the Central Adelaide Local Health Network due to the overcrowding or ramping, as it is called, that was occurring for the emergency department at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.

This is a completely unacceptable situation, but let's be quite clear: we are dealing with a temporary problem at that hospital while we fix up the mess we inherited from the previous government. That is not a fence that is going to be there permanently; in fact, I can't wait for it to be taken down because when it is taken down we will know that we have solved the problem that was created by the former government, and that is a high priority for us.

With regard to the other part of the question, which is in relation to screens—I think that was the way he referred to it—on the Southern Expressway, I think the ministers who have already spoken on this matter have adequately canvassed the reason for the delay, that it was because very little work whatsoever had been done on this by the previous government. I'm very satisfied with the ministers on this side of the house that they have acted, working together, multiple ministers, to try to address a problem that has not existed for the last couple of weeks or for the last couple of months but that has, in fact, existed for a very long period of time.

The installation of CCTV, which is being advanced at the moment, will give us a greater opportunity to collect evidence which will allow us to escalate the charges against perpetrators. I want to make it very clear that we want to gather as much evidence as possible so that we can have the harshest charges, and ultimately the harshest penalties, for those people who are doing the wrong thing. This is an area we are acting on as quickly as possible.

The other areas are regarding the securing of the rocks adjacent to those flyovers. That is something we are advancing, as are the screens themselves. I am satisfied that we are working as quickly as possible. Again, I just ask those opposite to reflect on the fact that they were in government for a very long period of time—in fact, 16 years. They need to look at themselves and try to determine whether or not they took every single action. I am not 100 per cent sure—

The Hon. V.A. Chapman: Especially the member for Kaurna.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: Some of the members whose electorate these pass through were cabinet ministers. I would like them to maybe make a personal explanation, if they would like to, to perhaps tell this parliament exactly and precisely what they were arguing for in cabinet, meeting after meeting after meeting, calling upon the government to actually take action. I doubt any of them would have the courage to do so because I doubt any of them were taking any action whatsoever.