CITY OF ADELAIDE (CAPITAL CITY COMMITTEE) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 16 May 2012.)

The Hon. A. BRESSINGTON (16:34): I rise to indicate my support for the City of Adelaide (Capital City Committee) Amendment Bill, first introduced in the other place by the member for Adelaide, Rachel Sanderson MP. The bill quite simply provides that the member for Adelaide must be on the Capital City Committee established under the City of Adelaide Act 1998 to improve cooperation between the state and City of Adelaide, particularly in relation to planning decisions. Our constituents in Adelaide deserve, and I am sure if given the opportunity would demand, that their chosen representative in the House of Assembly, regardless of whether their vote in parliament contributes towards the formation of government, be a member of the Capital City Committee.

For while the City of Adelaide is our state capital, and as such must be governed and planned for in the interests of all South Australians, for these constituents it is also their home town, and they must not be forgotten nor their voices silenced in the planning debate. However, in supporting this bill I do not subscribe to the partisan attack on the government that has accompanied it.

The reality is that since the Capital City Committee's inception in 1998 the state seat of Adelaide has not been held by a member who is not a member of the governing party. There has literally been no opportunity for a precedent to be set, and one wonders whether the Liberal governments, led by either John Olsen, MP, or Rob Kerin, MP, would have included the member for Adelaide had it been held by Labor. Given the rhetoric in establishing the committee, specifically that it was intended to improve relations, cooperation and coordination between the state government and the City of Adelaide, I very much doubt it.

I am sure that if that had been the case this parliament would have seen a private member's bill no different from this originating from the Labor opposition bench, with the same attempt to score political points as the current opposition is doing. Removing the politics, the question is simply whether the member for Adelaide on behalf of constituents they represent, and regardless of from which party they hail, should be on the Capital City Committee. Clearly, I believe they should be and the bill has my support.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. T.J. Stephens.