Grievance Debate

Glenelg Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Centre

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (15:04): Today in parliament I tabled a petition—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr PATTERSON: —from 1,015 people that urged the government to reject Maturin Road, Glenelg, as the proposed location for a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre that the Malinauskas government has provided funding for. The primary reasons laid out in the petition were to ensure the wellbeing of local primary school students and to provide clients of the proposed facility greater prospects of a successful treatment.

Maturin House is on the same street as the local primary school, St Peter's Woodlands, which has an entrance 200 metres away from the proposed drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility. The only outdoor location for the recovering drug and alcohol addicts is the front of the property in close proximity to the footpath students and residents use.

Concerned residents and parents first found out about the drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility by accident from a worker renovating the unused Maturin House. Not even the local Holdfast Bay council was aware that the government had run a tender and selected Uniting Communities to run the service in Glenelg. The government initially told residents that Maturin House had planning approval to operate as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility. This was soon disproved when the Holdfast Bay council confirmed there was no such planning approval.

It was also revealed that the Labor government's tender documents specified that the service had to be located at specific complying suburbs from the outer northern, the north-west or outer southern suburbs—presumably based on health advice and also need. But instead the successful tender went to Uniting Communities, who had an empty, unused building in Glenelg, which was not in the list of complying locations originally nominated by the government. The tender also stated:

These facilities need to deal with clients who may present with complex and diverse needs. These may include people who are a risk to others.

I make it clear that all the petitioners and I understand the need for these rehabilitation facilities to be situated throughout metropolitan Adelaide, as alcohol and drugs affect many families. However, the location needs to be in an appropriate location that complies with the local council's development plan and certainly is not so close to primary schools and early learning centres.

Uniting Communities—not the government, mind you—were forced to conduct community sessions to try to reactively engage with the community and give assurances about potential risks. One of those assurances was that a development application would be submitted with the Holdfast Bay council for a change of use. This would at least give the community and individuals the opportunity to be consulted and for public scrutiny.

Instead, after the community waited many weeks, the Minister for Health declared it essential infrastructure and sponsored a change of use application as a Crown development, which meant only the Department for Health and Holdfast Bay council could be consulted. Shockingly, no individuals are able to be consulted, nor the local primary school community, nor the residents, with ultimately his mate the Minister for Planning to decide whether to approve the change of use.

Essential infrastructure is for large-scale capital works, and you would think hospitals, roads and major infrastructure, not just for a change of use application. This is an outrageous attempt by an arrogant Labor government to manipulate the planning laws to avoid public engagement and scrutiny. We should expect nothing less, however, because in parliament, when the Minister for Health was asked if he was aware of any concerns regarding this facility, in a totally disrespectful performance he lashed out at the concerns of parents and residents, labelling them 'shameful' and 'blatant nimbyism' just for daring to ask about these potential risks.

While the Holdfast Bay council could and did provide a submission to the government's Crown development application, it objected to the proposals, stating:

There are insufficient safeguards…that the acknowledged 'unexpected events' and 'potential risks' associated with the proposal will be appropriately managed and mitigated.

The Labor government has left my local community with no other way to have their concerns heard than to sign a position urging the government to start the process again and to follow a respectful, normal process, rather than have the Minister for Health get his mate the planning minister to cover up his poor process and procedure.

I am calling on the health minister to cease his Crown development application and ask Uniting Communities to respect the concerns of the community and submit their change of use application with the Holdfast Bay council, a process that would give people in my community the opportunity to be consulted and respected, bringing with it the proper public scrutiny that has been missing in a process that has been botched right from the start.