Grievance Debate

State Budget

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (15:07): Yesterday, the Minister for Transport boasted that this budget was the Oprah Winfrey budget for electorates. I am not sure which Oprah Winfrey he is familiar with, but the one I have come to see on television screens is respected, experienced, socially progressive and treats everyone equally.

You could not think of attributes further from this government, this state budget and even, given the decisions he has made in this budget, this minister's decision-making. It was extraordinary how the western suburbs were treated in this budget, particularly Labor-held electorates in the western suburbs, compared with the largesse foisted on Liberal marginal seats in the eastern suburbs. It was extraordinary.

I had the great pleasure to work with the member for West Torrens, when I was the former transport minister and he was the treasurer, to secure funding for the upgrade of the Cheltenham Parade/West Lakes Boulevard/Port Road intersection, a project fully funded, with funding placed in the budget across the forward estimates. In fact, that project was to start more than 12 months ago, just after the state election, and be delivered in only two months' time. Where is that project? It has vanished—absolutely vanished.

We also saw the treatment by the transport minister of commuters in the western suburbs, removing security guards from trains on the Grange line after 6pm. This was an important initiative of the former Labor government to place security guards on the trains to keep people safe and to encourage more young people, more women and more vulnerable public transport patrons to use public transport after dark. That has been removed.

Bus services in my electorate have been removed, including the 350 bus service, and there have been massive cuts to the 333 bus service, which took elderly people from communities along the Lefevre Peninsula to do their shopping at the West Lakes regional shopping centre. That has been slashed. There is now no longer one bus service on the whole community of Delfin Island in West Lakes—one ageing community now left without transport options when it comes to public transport.

We also saw the treatment of The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, with the slashing of free parking for visitors for the first two hours and the imposition of an extra $725 per year in car parking fees for nurses, cleaners and other workers at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital. It is not only cruel and heartless but it is completely out of touch. Of course, we still have not seen any progress on the Coast Park project, and that is probably because we were told by the now Minister for Environment that he would do what he could to oppose me, as the member for Lee, in my desire to see that path completed—a further outrage.

The worst has come today, with the cancellation of a major public transport project in the western suburbs. The Port rail extension, the first extension of Port train services into the heart of Port Adelaide for more than 35 years—once again, fully funded, fully costed and fully factored into the state budget—has been scrapped. In fact, not only was money provided but the tender was awarded more than 12 months ago. In January 2018, a tender was provided. The work should have been nearly completed by now, but it has been cancelled.

What else happened earlier this year? In mid-March, we had a community information session—this year, not three months ago—to tell people about how the project was going to be delivered. What has happened since then? What happened in between that community information session and today? The state budget process. It is clear that the most junior minister of this government was rolled by the Treasurer and a project that would service a Labor electorate was taken away from the people of South Australia. It is an absolute outrage.

One of the biggest public transport improvements that the Port would have seen for decades has been scrapped by a Liberal minister in a Liberal government solely because it serves a Labor electorate. Meanwhile, $300 million is being spent on upgrades in Liberal marginal electorates—Liberal marginal state electorates and Liberal marginal federal electorates. It is an outrage. Their priorities could not be further from those of the South Australian people. It is an outrage.