Felmeri Group O'Halloran Hill Development

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (14:51): My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. Is the government pursuing the City of Marion for costs related to the infrastructure that has been provided by the state at Felmeri Group's O'Halloran Hill development, which Consumer and Business Services referred to? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr TEAGUE: On 5 September the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport said that the City of Marion's planning process had allowed builds to begin before infrastructure was completed. The minister went on to say, and I quote:

That leads us to where we are now, that leaves us with work unfinished, that leaves us with people who've got their lives in chaos.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:51): That is an excellent bipartisan question. I think every member of this house should be worried about the way some councils conduct themselves.

What occurred here was that there were applications by Felmeri to the council to alter by-laws to allow them a two-year window to build the appropriate trunk infrastructure that was needed before those titles would be issued. It is pretty clear that the titles would not have been issued had not the original by-laws been in place. But subsequent to the titles being issued the by-laws were subsequently changed, probably at the request of Felmeri, which meant that the titles were issued, people engaged builders and the trunk infrastructure was not being built, and this is a problem.

Alarm bells should have gone off in Marion council. What we can't have happen is for councils to wash their hands of their obligations but to make sure that these things are done in an orderly way, and I am glad the member has raised this as a point. The state government has no recourse here with council, so we are left with the bill. Council should do the right thing and waive rates for these residents. They are refusing to. They are refusing to waive those rates.

These residents of Felmeri not only now have a situation where their builder has left their buildings in a substandard capability but we are left with—and the taxpayer generally—a level of infrastructure that is substandard, and we are not sure even complying with regulations and laws, which should have been inspected as they were going along by council. I am very disappointed with the way Marion council conducted themselves over this.

We reached out to the Marion council and asked them to support the South Australian government in this approach. They refused. That's their right. But I do think this is something that the government and the parliament need to contemplate going forward about how council development approvals are approached, how they are looked at. I can see the planning minister nodding his head sagely and wisely. He knows what I am talking about.

I think this is a textbook example of things going horribly wrong that could have been avoided, because think of the counterfactual. Had that by-law not been changed, that application not been accepted, and council said, 'We won't make the application to have the titles issued until you agree to build the trunk infrastructure first,' those roads and infrastructure and stormwater would have been built first and there would have been no impediment to any new builder coming in to complete the works if that builder had fallen over.

The Hon. V.A. Tarzia: Are you pursuing costs?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The shadow minister interjects, 'Are you pursuing costs?' The advice I have is we have no recourse, and this is something that the state government is wearing.