Matters of Interest

North-East Area

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (15:18): Many in this place would be aware that I am more than familiar with an area of our state that is generally known as the north-east. Anyone from the north-east usually has a story about how they came to be there and for me it is no different: from visiting the area over many years to see friends I then came to work there, live there and indeed first get elected to office there.

The north-east in so many ways represents a microcosm of the City of Adelaide. Education facilities, health facilities, transport facilities, commercial precincts and job opportunities all form part of what in so many ways is a modern-day village. So I have viewed with increasing concern the growing list of cuts that the north-east seems to be expected to endure.

Late last year, I remember having a beer in the north-east with a non-political family friend who lives near the park-and-ride. She wondered why the Liberal member could not see how cancelling expansions of it would be a disaster for both local streets and public transport users. Earlier this year, I remember a good mate of mine from Modbury—who is in no way political either—wondered how he would get his daughter to school if the bus he used to get there was going to be cut.

After the budget this year, I remember receiving a lot of phone calls from more elderly friends in the north-east about the proposed closure of their local Service SA. Many wondered how it can be an alleged saving if, to put it simply, it makes it harder for people to pay money to the government. I found this feedback very much at odds with the speeches given by some of the government's members for the north-east in the other place, who talk about increasing services and listening to residents.

On voicing these concerns to colleagues, including the Hon. Russell Wortley and the Hon. Tung Ngo from this place, they echoed that they had also heard such concerns from their friends and family in the north-east, too; so we decided to spend a few weeks together meeting directly with residents from the north-east, and the result has left us in no doubt.

For a government that promised better services, lower costs and more jobs, they are zero for three in the north-east—from the bus services that have been cut, to the park-and-rides that have been cancelled, to the TAFE that has been closed, to the Service SAs that will be closed or privatised, to the hikes in fees and charges, some by as much as 40 per cent, to the doubling—

The Hon. C.M. Scriven: Forty?

The Hon. J.E. HANSON: Forty per cent—and to the doubling of net debt of our state to $21 billion by 2022. The key things that allegedly were at the heart of the Liberal Party's reason for governing have not been delivered.

The way of life of many is being made harder as costs rise and the services that many rely on are being cut and cancelled. Indeed, to use the words of the member for Newland in the other place:

Nothing was actually ever delivered. The only thing that was delivered was taxpayer-funded advertising: shiny brochures that were stuffed into letterboxes, including mine, the plastic wrap on the Messenger newspaper and various digital displays, whether it was in Tea Tree Plaza or on bus stops.

He could have been describing the current Liberal Marshall government. If he was, I could find myself agreeing with the member for Newland. But the key point here is: like any sales job for a product that no-one wants to buy, you make it about something else. It is about selling something.

The Liberals' core promises were about selling an idea that they had changed, that they no longer believed in cutting services, that they no longer believed in levying taxes on those who could least afford it, that they did not have a privatisation agenda. But people have found out that this sales job was nothing more than that. People have found out that a leopard does not change its spots.

People have found out what the Liberal Party was really saying at the last election, which was this: 'We don't want scrutiny of our real agenda, we don't want to tell people that we don't have any new ideas and we don't want to tell people that we haven't changed from almost two decades ago.' That is what this government is really saying. That is the product they are really selling and the people of South Australia, including those in the north-east, are seeing through it.

However, they are tragically seeing through it too late. The sales job is complete. This sales job is a tragedy, not only for the new member for Newland from the other place, who probably legitimately thought that by getting elected he might not have to explain to everyone who elected him that he would close their TAFE, cut their transport, cancel their infrastructure—like park-and-rides—and close their Service SA.

This is also a tragedy for all people who live in the village that is the north-east of our city and who are subject to all these cuts, for those who believed that their services were safe from cuts, that their jobs would remain secure and that their children would not have to face the highest unemployment in the nation. But the people of the north-east are not fools. They will deal with this government in due course.

Time expired.