City Connector Bus

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (15:26): The hum of the 98A and 98C free City Connector buses has been missing from our streets; a hum associated with connecting residents, workers and visitors to medical appointments on Melbourne Street and popular city shops like Rundle Mall, and also the Royal Adelaide Hospital. But the hum of those buses was replaced by the sound of footsteps by Yvonne, Peter, Sally and Lian from the Helping Hand Residents' Association, pounding the pavement to chat to fellow Buxton Street residents about their freedom being taken away by this government.

Within a short space of time, a petition had close to 100 signatures—from just a small area in the community—to bring back their free City Connector bus. Over the last couple of weeks, I have had the absolute pleasure of working with Yvonne and Peter, along with many other local residents, not just from North Adelaide but from the CBD. The community shared its frustration about why, unlike other bus services, the free City Connector had not yet been given the green light to recommence its service. The community has been waiting and waiting and waiting to be reconnected to the essential services that have been off the road since 4 April.

There are people such as Yvonne, who relies on the service to get to medical appointments in Melbourne Street, to her church every Sunday, and to connect to the train station so she can visit her family and friends. This was taken away from her. When the 98 is running, Anita uses the bus four to five times per week to get to Melbourne Street, and to do her grocery shopping in the city.

What the free City Connector bus does is in its very name, and that is what has been overlooked by this government. It is a connector: a connector between the city and North Adelaide, a connector between the community and medical services, and a connector between friends and family. The list could go on.

The SA Labor Leader and member for Croydon, Peter Malinauskas, and his team have listened to Yvonne and Anita's stories and hundreds, if not thousands, of residents who have contacted our offices. We stood with local residents to call for the government to backflip on this out-of-touch policy, a policy that should never have progressed from the thought bubble of a pink cabinet paper that appeared before every member of this Liberal Party.

Today, I again joined North Adelaide residents Yvonne, Peter, Leanne and Betty to celebrate their incredible effort. The free City Connector bus is coming back. The government may have come out saying, 'This was not a backflip; we listened to the community,' but their comments are nothing other than insulting to the very people whose freedom they have taken away. It was made very clear that the prolonged cancellation of the City Free bus connector had nothing to do with COVID restrictions.

If every other bus service was safe to run, why wasn't the City Free bus? The communities' fear of the free city bus connector not returning to its full service was highlighted when the Marshall Liberal government released their proposed changes to cut—was it—500 and then 1,000 bus stops across metro Adelaide. The fact that the government proposed the changes highlighted the fear that the users of the City Free bus service had that their service was under threat. The proposed changes would have meant that residents of North Adelaide and the city could no longer easily get to their health appointments, to Rundle Mall or to places like the Royal Adelaide Hospital or to TAFE SA in the city.

There is not one Liberal MP that was not a part of this discussion. We call it a caucus; those opposite call it the party room. All Liberal members, both from this house and the other place, allowed this to go through the party room. The local member for Adelaide, Rachel Sanderson, sat not only at the party room table but at the cabinet table and was unable to stop this from progressing.

It was the community and Labor who worked together to stop this out-of-touch government from taking yet another service away from taxpayers and the very residents who rely on this service the most—people like Betty who need this to be independent. She is bound to her walking frame and cannot just trot up the road to catch the next bus from a stop that is 800 metres away.

As local residents have pointed out time and time again, this is not a service that should be cut; it is a service that should be promoted; it is a service that should be invested in.