Public Works Committee: South Australia Police Barracks Relocation Project Gepps Cross—Band

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (11:17): By leave, on behalf of the member for Florey, I move:

That the 107^th report of the committee, entitled South Australia Police Barracks Relocation Project Gepps Cross—Band, be noted.

The submission from South Australia Police (SAPOL) proposes to construct a police band facility at the new Gepps Cross police complex. The new facility is part of the broader relocation of the Thebarton Police Barracks in order to make way for the construction of the new Women's and Children's Hospital at this Port Road location. The relocation project requires moving a range of specialist police functions that are not easily accommodated at existing SAPOL locations. It is critical that they are replaced with the new facilities at the earliest opportunity to ensure continuing service provision for the South Australian public.

Founded in 1884, the South Australia Police band is the oldest police band in Australia and is recognised as a state cultural heritage icon. It is an important part of SAPOL's operational services, with demand for its presence continuing to remain strong. Its main role is to support SAPOL's community programs and crime prevention initiatives. Currently consisting of 32 multi-instrumentalists that can form up to 17 different musical ensembles, it performs hundreds of shows annually, varying from ceremonial functions through to community and charity events.

This initiative will continue to build trust and confidence through positive community engagement and partnerships with other government and non-government agencies, schools, local businesses and the public, supporting the SAPOL Safer Communities strategy.

The project will enable the permanent relocation of the band to the Gepps Cross police complex where it will be co-located with the Mounted Operations Unit and Dog Operations Unit. The new facility will provide acoustically treated rehearsal spaces, functional work areas and a band hall appropriate for larger ensembles. The design includes accessible storage solutions that consider the work health and safety of staff when manually handling musical instruments and equipment, as well as a dedicated music library for storing sheet music and instrument consumables.

The project will also build vehicle parking that is configured to ensure equipment can be safely loaded and unloaded. The band has been temporarily relocated to an existing SAPOL facility during construction to expedite relocation from the Thebarton barracks, minimising interruption to the new Women's and Children's Hospital completion timeline.

Working in conjunction with Renewal SA and the Department for Infrastructure and Transport, SAPOL investigated several sites for the new facility. The assessment considered the best match to accommodation requirements, the adaptability of layout for operational fit-outs and the quality of existing infrastructure. Key criteria for shortlisting included:

the ability to achieve appropriate acoustic specifications for music rehearsals;

site security due to the high value of musical instruments and sheet music;

options to co-locate band staff with SAPOL employees; and

parking for the band's vehicles, including two buses, an 11-tonne truck, two vans and two trailers.

The investigation concluded that the Gepps Cross police complex was best suited to meet these criteria, and SAPOL's internal Security Advice Section has cleared the option as an acceptable premise for police operations.

The Gepps Cross facility will be built at 10 Sports Park Drive, on government land that will be transferred to the ministers for police, emergency services and correctional services. SAPOL has undertaken geotechnical and environmental investigations at the site, and conditions are confirmed to be suitable for construction and free from contamination.

The SAPOL relocation project team has conducted a search of the central archives, which identified no record of Aboriginal items or sites at the Gepps Cross location. The team will engage Aboriginal groups as necessary regarding design progression and will manage Aboriginal heritage in accordance with its standard practices, should discoveries be made. Separate investigations with Heritage South Australia and the Department for Environment and Water advise that there are no local heritage places within the project site.

Project delivery will follow procurement and management processes as advocated by the state government and industry authorities, and construction tenders will be sought from contractors registered with the Department for Infrastructure and Transport. Project management will follow a construction procurement policy, with the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport acting as principal.

Both a project control group and a steering committee have been established, including representatives from SAPOL, impacted units, the professional services team and government departments. Early works procurement has commenced, with practical completion of the entire project anticipated in July of this year. SAPOL has identified key project risks, including:

the potential for the project to impair SAPOL's operational capability;

the need for temporary accommodation of the band during construction;

an accelerated delivery incurring cost overruns, for which a multi-agency governance framework is in place to ensure value for money, and

that the program includes minimal contingency.

SAPOL ensuring the establishment of project governance structures will guarantee appropriate oversight and risk management throughout the planning and delivery phases of the project to identify risks early and to facilitate mitigation measures to prevent risks occurring.

SAPOL has noted that sustainability principles are considered throughout the facilities design and development processes, and the Department for Environment and Water's climate change unit has acquitted that the appropriate framework has been developed to ensure these principles are integrated into the project's planning, design and delivery. These initiatives include:

incorporating passive design principles to reduce the facility's energy and water usage, including window orientation and shading, access points, natural lighting, natural ventilation, and low maintenance and emission-friendly materials selection;

planting vegetation, surrounding the building, to create cooling;

installing high levels of insulation;

deploying solar power, efficient LED lighting and heat-recovery systems; and

considering water-efficient fittings and installing a 350-kilolitre rainwater harvesting and re-use system.

There has been ongoing consultation with various stakeholder groups throughout the design and construction process regarding the relocation project, and SAPOL will manage internal communication regarding the planning and logistics phase of this project to ensure all end users are appropriately informed of the progress.

The committee examined written and oral evidence in relation to the Thebarton barracks relocation project Gepps Cross—band. Witnesses who appeared before the committee included John De Candia, Chief Superintendent, South Australia Police; Scott Bayliss, Chief Services Officer, Department of Treasury and Finance; and Aislinn Morris, Senior Project Manager, Department for Infrastructure and Transport. I thank the witnesses for their time.

Based upon the evidence considered, and pursuant to section 12C of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991, the Public Works Committee reports to parliament that it recommends the proposed public work.

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (11:24): I rise to just make a brief contribution on this report from the Public Works Committee into the South Australia Police Barracks Relocation Project Gepps Cross—Band. I congratulate the member for Adelaide on her ascension to Chair of this important committee and delivering this first report, which of course all stems from the destruction of a state heritage-listed building in her own electorate.

This is the latest in a string of reports from the Public Works Committee that comes from that decision to put the bulldozer through the Thebarton barracks a couple of years ago, despite promising before the state election that no state heritage buildings would be demolished under this government. It has been a debacle ever since.

I think this whole process has given a little bit of insight into how the new police minister might approach the portfolio, because a lot of this landed on his plate as Treasurer when it all got too hard for everyone else. I think everyone from the Premier to the health minister to the police minister to the planning minister to the environment minister had a go at trying to relocate various business units from the Thebarton barracks site. No-one could do it, so step in the Treasurer to save the day.

The approach throughout this whole process has been to put the police last, to think of them as an afterthought. As the Public Works Committee notes, there are various business units that were located at the Thebarton barracks. As the report notes:

These functions are specialist in nature and not replicated or accommodated at any other existing SAPOL locations.

It notes that:

It is critical that the new facilities are strategically relocated at the earliest opportunity to ensure continuing service provision for the South Australian public.

Well, that just has not happened. It has not happened because the police were an absolute afterthought in this whole relocation. We saw it from the very moment they tried to move the Mounted Operations Unit in particular—a lesson in incompetence to try to move some horses, where for many months we went through this bizarre 'announce, defend, capitulate' strategy from the government.

They had a plan A, which was to move the horses to Park 21 West in the Adelaide Parklands in the member for Adelaide's electorate. This was a Parklands pillage at its very worst that was proposed by this government despite, again, promising before the last election to protect the Adelaide Parklands and despite promising before the last election not to put the bulldozer through any heritage-listed buildings.

There was enormous community backlash to that announcement from the Malinauskas Labor government that they were going to pillage the Parklands in this way. The opposition stood side-by-side with the community at that time, pushed back on it and put a stop to the latest Parklands land grab that was being proposed by those opposite.

So we switched to a plan B—I cannot remember whether the Treasurer was involved with plan B or not; I think he might have been, at that point, coming in to try to sort things out—which was a proposal to move the Mounted Operations Unit to a parcel of land near the Airport. It turned out that the government did not even have access to that land, it did not own the land, and that there were a number of concerns around PFAS contamination at the land. Again: announced, defended for a little while, and then totally capitulated before landing on plan C, which is the subject of this Public Works Committee report from the member for Adelaide, which is to relocate not only the Mounted Operations Unit but some of the other business units, including the band, to Gepps Cross.

The original budget that the Treasurer had at that time for the relocation project was $90 million, and I think by the time we were done that had ballooned out to about $162 million to move some horses and some musicians to Gepps Cross. India can land a rover on the moon for $75 million. This Treasurer and part-time police minister cannot move some horses and musicians to Gepps Cross without spending nearly $200 million.

The cost blowout alone, which would be about an extra $70 million on top of the $90 million previously budgeted, could have funded over a thousand new police cadets, which we know are desperately needed, because this Treasurer and part-time police minister has hopelessly under-resourced South Australia Police, with a shortfall of nearly 200 police on the beat, a dramatic decrease per capita in police over the last five years, over the term of the Malinauskas Labor government.

We have 10 per cent fewer police per capita—just over, I think, 10 per cent fewer police per capita—today than we did five years ago. This is data from the Report on Government Services released only a day or so ago, which shows police per 100,000 falling over recent times, which means, of course, that we have fewer police to respond to the needs of the community.

I think this whole string of reports from the Public Works Committee has set out this debacle right from the very beginning, which started when we saw from the Malinauskas Labor government the decision to put the bulldozer through the state heritage-listed Thebarton barracks, despite promising not to do so. This decision was followed by the fiasco touched by many, many ministers but ultimately at the end the Treasurer and now police minister, who has spent nearly $200 million relocating some horses and some musicians to Gepps Cross.

There has also been a number of concerns raised about what the relocation is going to mean for operational purposes and for the workforce as well. We know there have been some concerns raised by officers about the move. We cannot afford to lose any more police under this government, so I hope it does not lead to that either.

The police band is an amazing benefit to our community. We see them at community events. We see them holding an important crime prevention function. It is the oldest police band in Australia. I am proud to support them. I think they deserved a whole lot better from the Malinauskas Labor government throughout this whole process.

Motion carried.