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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-11-14 Daily Xml
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RIVERBANK FOOTBRIDGE

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (11:04): I move:

That the regulation made under the Development Act 1993, entitled Riverbank Footbridge, made on 12 July 2012 and laid on the table of this house on 4 September, be disallowed.

This regulation is in addition to schedule 1A of the Development Regulations 2008 where 'development that does not require development plan consent' are listed. Detailed in this section are a number of residential improvement items, for example, brush fences, garden sheds, carports, verandahs, swimming pools, shade sails, rainwater tanks, bushfire shelters and solar panels. However, tacked on at the bottom at No. 16 is the Riverbank footbridge and it states:

The construction of a bridge over the River Torrens, and any excavation, filling, or other works incidental to such construction, for use by pedestrians connecting the Institutional (Riverbank) Zone with the land in the Park Lands Zone of the Corporation of the City of Adelaide that falls in, or within 500 metres, of the Adelaide Oval Core Area within the meaning of the Adelaide Oval Redevelopment and Management Act 2011.

This is quite a contrast to your humble backyard veranda, as the bridge is estimated to cost $40 million and is built on Parklands. This regulation has been used as a loophole to avoid a very specific clause in the Development Act 1993 that states that capital works on Parklands are subject to assessment.

Given the current level of state debt and the loss of our AAA credit rating, I think it is imperative that any project, especially one that costs $40 million, should be exposed to some level of scrutiny, yet we see this government using somewhat of a loophole to avoid any form of scrutiny. There is no chance for parliament to have input over what is a considerable spend and what will also have a considerable impact on an area that has become an iconic vista associated with the City of Adelaide.

When the Adelaide Oval legislation was passed last year, the Liberal opposition passed an amendment to cap the costs of the entire project at $535 million. We did this because we just could not trust Labor to stick to their word. Lo and behold, Labor has found a way to spend more of our money. Mike Rann is quoted as stating:

It's $450 million and not a bottomless pit. There are other partners, football and cricket. We, the government, are prepared to put in $450 million but they, the sporting codes, have to kick into the tin as well, after all, it is for their benefit.

The original plan was to include parking and a footbridge, but since that famous $450 million promise, we have seen $85 million added to pay off SACA debt, a $30 million grant from the commonwealth government—more taxpayers' money—and now, $40 million for a footbridge. A total cost of over $600 million to taxpayers.

We have seen very little tin-kicking from football and cricket. The AFL has promised $5 million which will all go into retrofitting the newly built western grandstand to meet their own requirements, such as a media area, as filming must be done from the western side of the grandstand to avoid filming into the afternoon sun.

We see this government handing out huge infrastructure projects with one hand and penny pinching from essential services with the other. Just this year we have seen attempted cuts of $400,000 for the Cadell Ferry, $100,000 for St John Ambulance service and $43,000 for the Breastfeeding Association. All of these ill-advised moves from the government were met with extreme outcry and were all reversed. I am sure the latest cut of $60,000 for the emergency on-call services for the Snowtown hospital and the Snowtown clinic will be met with the same public outcry.

An issue that worries me almost as much as the cost and the questionable way in which this project was approved is whether there is a definite need for it. The Adelaide Bridge on King William Street, when constructed in 1931, was designed to accommodate crowds of in excess of 50,000 spectators and has done so on many occasions since. In 1946, the SANFL grand final between Norwood and Port Adelaide drew a crowd of 53,473; 50,480 people watched the 1950 SANFL grand final; and in 1953, 52,632 people unfortunately saw Victoria defeat South Australia by 99 points in the Australian National Football Carnival.

However, all of these people managed to go to and from the game without any trouble. It seems funny now that all of a sudden we need a footbridge. Does this government believe that people have changed so much that the Adelaide Bridge is no longer sufficient? Maybe they believe South Australians have become lazy. If so, that may be another case to not build the footbridge. It is just over 200 steps to King William Street from the train station, not to mention the five bridges, including the weir, the Morphett Street bridge, the King William Street bridge, the university footbridge and the Frome Road bridge that are all within one kilometre of the proposed new footbridge.

The government commissioned a report by the construction consultancy firm Atkins to produce some pedestrian modelling for a potential footbridge. The report recommends that a 14-metre wide bridge would provide optimal dissipation of peak crowds so, naturally, the government ignored the report and committed to an eight to 10-metre wide bridge. According to the Atkins report, with an eight-metre wide bridge, some spectators would spend as long as 36 minutes queueing after the game. Atkins says that 'the reality would be a potentially dangerous situation that would require management on large event days'.

Atkins goes on to make suggestions as to what this management could be, suggesting the following: lane closures of King William Road and relaxation of on-street parking restrictions in North Adelaide, which will have a very negative effect on residents and businesses in North Adelaide. Let's not forget that War Memorial Drive will also have to be closed for every major event because the proposed bridge was not able to be engineered across the road as we were first promised.

This is also the major access road to the Women's and Children's Hospital from the western suburbs. Not only will the road be blocked but also one lane of King William Street will need to be closed off. Why not just block off two lanes of King William Street, as we do now, and save $40 million? It seems ridiculous that you would build a bridge at a huge cost and, after building it, you would have to implement other measures to ensure that not too many people use it.

The report also highlights some other areas of concern with the south landing in the Riverbank Precinct. Accessibility was earmarked as a key issue, as the current design lacks width from the surrounding roadways and also has numerous steps, ramps and barriers that drastically limit access. Atkins also flags a number of amendments that would need to be made to the existing area to allow for effective flow of pedestrians from the footbridge, the most notable of which was the existing 2.9-metre wide glass footbridge across Festival Drive. This would need to be widened to eight metres to effectively disperse the crowds. There has been no mention of this reconfiguration from the government, so one can only assume that it is not yet costed or included.

Another suggestion from Atkins was to remove temporary obstructions such as cafe seating along Station Road, so now we are invigorating our city by removing alfresco dining. Remember that we were sold football at Adelaide Oval as a way to invigorate the city, with people heading to the mall to shop or going out to restaurants, cafes and bars before and after the game to stimulate the economy that desperately needs help. This bridge seeks to get people directly from the Oval and straight into the train station, Casino or InterContinental. How does that help our struggling businesses in the city?

This regulation should be disallowed, as it has been implemented to avoid necessary scrutiny for a project that is expensive, ineffective, poorly thought out and we cannot afford. It shows just how out of touch this Labor government really is with what the public want. Let's first build a strong economy so that we can afford such luxuries. I urge members to support this motion.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:13): I rise to support the member for Adelaide in her quest to see that the regulation made under the Development Act 1993, entitled Riverbank Footbridge, be disallowed. She has given an excellent overview of how foot traffic can be managed and also how the finances of this state just cannot stand it. We have recently seen the discussion culminate in the forward sale of three rotations of the state's forests. It is interesting that those three rotations will, essentially, pay for the Adelaide Oval upgrade.

Ms Sanderson: Shame!

Mr PEDERICK: It is a shame. It is a real shame for this state and for the many hundreds of homes—in fact, some people have said well over a thousand homes—that are on the market in the region of Mount Gambier and the surrounding towns. It is a bloody disaster, quite frankly. Here we go, building monuments in the city and killing our regions. That is exactly what has happened here. This proposed footbridge is just the icing on the cake—

An honourable member: That we can't even afford to pay for.

Mr PEDERICK: That's it—that is proposed to cost $40 million. The bridge that is being built at McLaren Vale in the seat of Mawson will cost $18 million, and that is quite a construction. It is a road bridge. It has some entrance roadways—half cloverleaf, I think is the term—to access that bridge, and that is well on the way to being finalised. I cannot even think how a bridge like that, that will support heavy trucks, many vehicles a day, many hundreds of vehicles, if not thousands, can cost $18 million, yet something as simple as a footbridge will cost $40 million. I will tell you what: whoever is in the footbridge building industry, good luck to you. I think it would be a great job to have, whenever I leave this place, because it sounds very profitable. In fact, it would be handy as a sideline. But it just does not add up when you see a road bridge being built for $18 million, which is still a large sum of money, and then you compare it to what looks like the proposal of an eight metre footbridge across the Torrens to the oval.

Getting back to the constituents of this state and of the regions, and I have mentioned the people in the South-East, we have seen funding cut from private hospitals, we have seen the Cadell ferry debacle, where the proposal to save $400,000 is such a flawed proposal, and then the government doing backflips on that. We now see funding for the Snowtown hospital being cut. Where does it end with this lot? Where does it end with the Labor Party, the Jay Weatherill government of this state, in how they run this state? They do not see very far outside the central part of Adelaide, I can assure you, because that is where all the cuts are and that is where all the large economic effect is in this state as far as these bad decisions go and the impact they have on regional communities.

But it also has an impact on our urban community. The urban community pay taxes as well and not only that, the urban community rely on a thriving regional economy to make sure we do have that thriving economy, that there is money generated throughout the state, because I can tell you that the more money generated in the regions, it will get spent. I come from a farming background, as people know, and if farmers make money, in particular, they will spend it and that money will flow right through to the central business district in the middle of Adelaide.

Then there are the logistics of moving people away from Adelaide Oval after a big event. I had a great time attending the AC/DC concert on 3 March 2010, and 43,000 fans had a great night at that concert—apart from the ones sitting out in the parklands taking it in. It was interesting how everyone quite easily got back to the city when they closed off a few lanes on King William Road. It was a very simple procedure, and there is no reason that that could not happen into the future with football played at Adelaide Oval.

I am sure when we get a huge crowd there for the Port games there might be a struggle, but we will just close off another lane on King William Road. That is easy. We can cope with that when the Port Adelaide games are on there. Absolutely. We can make it work and Port Adelaide supporters will not mind walking those few extra steps—

Mr van Holst Pellekaan interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: Yes, we are loyal. But let me not be too focused on the team I support. I am sure that Crows supporters, just as well, in a sporting fashion, can also walk those couple of hundred steps and get back into the city, because the simple thing with this is that not everyone is going to commute by public transport into the oval as well. So there will be people seeking parking spots. Certainly many regional people from right throughout the state come up to football games, or cricket games, or whatever event will be at the new Adelaide Oval. There has to be access made for them anyway, so in no way, shape or form will the whole 40,000 or 50,000 people be seeking to walk their way back into the city.

I think this is a flawed proposal. I fully support the member for Adelaide. Everything is put in place: the police cooperate, everyone cooperates so that people can enter Adelaide Oval as it is and leave it as it is, especially for the big functions as I indicated—the AC/DC concert—and it can happen. Let's get the financial focus in this state in the right places.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (11:20): I rise to support the motion as moved by the member for Adelaide, and the member for Adelaide is obviously very concerned about her electorate and what is going on.

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: The city does indeed belong to us all. The Government Whip makes a very good point: the city, indeed, does belong to us all, and that is why it is important that we adhere to the processes. That is why it is important that the people South Australia, through the processes as per the Development Act, are allowed to have some input into this, are allowed to understand what is being developed here, are allowed to enter the debate.

The reality is that this government is the most secretive government this state has ever seen, and it wants to push ahead with this matter in a very secretive way. It wants to circumvent the normal development processes so that the people of South Australia are kept in the dark. It wants to hand us a fait accompli. We are reading day by day the changes. Some of my colleagues have already pointed out the amazing amount of money—$40 million to build a footbridge across the River Torrens, when the state is broke.

There are two issues here; one is the fact that the state is broke and we are going to spend $40 million on a footbridge whilst we are withdrawing services from people all over the state, and some of those have been alluded to. I have been through that in my electorate with the episode with this government and the Keith hospital, which is an essential service in an important part of the state, and the government cannot afford a few hundred thousand dollars but wants to spend $40 million on a footbridge.

Now we are learning that the government cannot even deliver the footbridge the report suggests should be delivered (if we are going to go down that path) with the $40 million. The government continues to compromise because the $40 million will not deliver the footbridge that has been recommended by the various reports. The secrecy of this government and the ability of this government to do backdoor deals, underhand deals and behind-closed-doors deals continue, but the important thing is the circumvention of the processes under the Development Act—processes which have been developed to give the community some say in what is happening.

I am reminded of the words of former premier Rann. I will have to paraphrase, but he said something along these lines in regard to the Parklands. He said that the Parklands should not be seen as a source of cheap land; in fact, the Parklands should be seen as land that is priceless. That is what premier Rann said some years ago about the city Parklands.

The one thing totally unique to this city and to this community of South Australia is the development of the city in a very planned fashion; an integral part of that is the Parklands, yet we have this government from time to time saying, 'How wonderful it is to have these Parklands, and we are going to go and plonk some project on them, as an edifice to ourselves.' That is what this is. Worse still, in this circumstance, they are doing it via the back door. That's what the member for Adelaide is trying to address with this motion. It's trying to hold the government to account. It's trying to tell the people of South Australia that this is your city, these are your parklands, and you should be entitled to have some say. You should be entitled to understand what is going on.

That is why I am very pleased to be able to stand here and support the member for Adelaide in her call to have this process go through the normal channels. These are very valuable—indeed, to paraphrase the former premier, invaluable—parts of our state, yet this government wants to run roughshod over the development processes.

Another thing about this government is that it is really good on that sort of rhetoric. It is really good. That has been one of the hallmarks of this government, to come out and say the things that they know, that they have decided that the community wants to hear. What I have just said, what the former premier said about the parklands, is the sort of thing that resonates with the public. The trouble is, the government never lives up to its words.

I come to the current Premier. The current Premier said we have to change from this culture of announcing and defending a position to one where we consult and then decide. Here is an exact example of where the culture of announcing and defending is continuing under the premiership of this Premier. He does not want to go through the normal processes, because those processes ensure accountability. He wants to circumvent that, because he wants to be able to announce and then if necessary defend the position.

The processes under the Development Act are about consultation. They are about having decisions made in the full knowledge of the community which is affected by those decisions. It is a consult and decide process. It is one which the Premier says that he believes in, but the very actions of his government show that the Premier is just like his predecessor. It is all about the rhetoric; it is nothing to do with actually delivering. I commend the motion of the member for Adelaide and I hope that the house supports it.

The SPEAKER: It is a very popular motion. The member for Fisher.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Fisher.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (11:27): I think that is why we need a very wide bridge, judging by the number who want to speak on the topic. I think the first question is, do we need the footbridge? Do we need any footbridge? I personally question the need for a footbridge at all. The original King William Street bridge was designed to accommodate crowds from the Adelaide Oval and, as I understand it, it is only approximately another 100 metres if you use the existing road bridge.

The question is, if you need a bridge, what size should it be, and there has been argument about it. If it is too wide, then it is going dominate the landscape and look out of place. There is another aspect. I understand it has been designed by people overseas. I am getting a little bit annoyed by people running to so-called experts overseas all the time. We have people here. Some of the students at Adelaide Uni could design a fantastic footbridge, I am sure. People might recall the Sydney Harbour Bridge was actually designed by an Australian engineer. We are quite capable of designing bridges. We do not need to go overseas. If that is the case, that it has been designed by someone overseas, then I am absolutely appalled.

I have never been a great fan of the oval upgrade, and a lot of people in my electorate are very hostile about the amount of money being spent. I am not against having a central playing area for AFL and cricket. I think it makes a lot of sense, but I do not believe there was any need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading that oval. It was a beautiful oval and now I think it is being destroyed to cater in a privileged way for a small number of blue bloods and silver spooners who are going to have a facility largely paid for by the working people of South Australia. They are going to be able to indulge themselves there courtesy of the poor taxpayer, who has paid for most of it.

You are unlikely, in my view, to get large crowds there for a Port Power/Crows match if recent attendance figures are anything to go by—you will get a big crowd supporting the Crows, and a lesser crowd for Port. It will still be less than what used to occur there with the SANFL finals years ago. I think over 60,000 at one time attended one of the grand finals there. The facility, which I understand will cater for 50,000, is actually going to be smaller in capacity than what the old oval could cater for for an SANFL grand final.

One suggestion that I have made—and I raised this informally with the Minister for Transport—was to extend the tramline down at least to the Oval, and preferably in the longer term out to North Adelaide and Prospect. He said it would cost $100 million. I do not know whether that is a firm quote from anyone to build it. I would be surprised if it cost that much to run the tram from the intersection at King William Street/North Terrace down to the Oval. Trams can move a lot of people very quickly, and I think it would be a better solution than to spend money on a pedestrian bridge.

Regarding this business about people going to the Casino after the football, half of the people will be in a distressed state because they have lost, and I do not see many of them heading for the Casino. I am not a great fan of casinos anyway. I think we have plenty of gambling opportunities now, in fact, to a point where I think it is excessive in the overall picture with online gambling and the whole thing. I am a bit like Tom Playford, I do not think it is a good activity for people to be spending a lot of their time or money on. I am not against some gambling but I cannot see people flocking to the Casino after a football or cricket match to gamble.

The other point is, with the Riverbank concept, I think some people in Adelaide suffer from delusions of grandeur. We are not Sydney, we are not Melbourne, and we do not have the population to support what they can support in Melbourne on the Southbank, or Sydney around the harbour. You are talking about cities that are four or five times the population. We have this silly view that somehow we have to be the same as everyone else. A lot of people come to Adelaide and like Adelaide because it is not the same as everywhere else. They come here because it has lovely heritage buildings, it has a good design, it has a lot of features that are lacking in other cities. Why we want to become like Melbourne or Sydney, I do not know; and we are not going to match them anyway because we do not have the basic population.

I think this concept that people are going to come out of the footy and race up and buy a lounge suite in Rundle Mall is nonsense. People from the country may come down for a footy match or cricket match and do a bit of shopping the day before or the day after (if they can with our restricted shopping hours), but I cannot see the average person going to the footy or cricket, and racing up to get a bargain in Rundle Mall. I do not think it works that way. I tend to come down on the side of the member for Adelaide. I am an optimist by nature but I think in South Australia things are going to get worse before they get better economically.

People put a lot of faith in Roxby Downs. That is not a sure thing yet, not in the short term. I believe in South Australia, economically, we are going to be heading for a pretty rough patch for the next four or five years. To me, building a footbridge for $40-odd million—whatever the cost is but around about that—is unjustified when I noticed that at the school I went to, Coromandel Valley, they have bulldozed their swimming pool, and Belair is bulldozing theirs apparently because the Department for Education and Child Development will not support schools having swimming pools.

We hear all this talk about how every child should learn to swim—well, you need a pool first of all to teach them. We are losing the one run by Bedford Industries; that pool is going to close. I am told the private one at Blackwood is going to close because it cost too much to run. I am told the National Trust has had its grant cut and the government wants to cut the funding to the breastfeeding association.

All these organisations, which are fundamental community groups, are being cut at the moment, and yet here we are going to build a bridge that is not really necessary. If we had money coming out of our ears, fine, but we do not, and we are in for a tough patch and the government will need all of its ability and more to manage the financial situation we will find ourselves in.

Overall, I do not think a bridge is necessary, certainly not at this point in time. I have always thought that the Oval was an unnecessary expenditure to the point of hundreds of millions of dollars—a bit of an upgrade, sure, and focus on using Adelaide Oval but do not spend hundreds of millions of dollars when we still have facilities throughout the state, such as roads, many of which are in need of major repair. We also have state schools that still need a lot of money spent on them. So, in terms of priorities, I think it is in the wrong order of things.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (11:35): I support the member for Adelaide's motion. I think it is a good motion and a common-sense motion. I believe that the vast majority of people, particularly those in rural South Australia, support the thrust of the motion.

As has been indicated by other speakers, rural South Australians are sick of being screwed to the wall and they are sick of everything being poured into Adelaide. I am told in no uncertain terms that they believe that the idea of a footbridge across the Torrens that is going to cost $40 million is absolutely absurd. This is at a time when their school funds are being cut back, their health services are being cut back, and they are getting a rough deal from the Weatherill Labor government on a regular basis.

The idea of putting in a footbridge at a time when we cannot afford it just seems absolutely abhorrent to them. It may well be that at sometime in the future the state will be in a position when it can afford a footbridge, but at the moment we are in parlous economic times. One only has to read the weekend papers to see where China is at the moment and to realise just where things are going internationally: Europe is in a mess, the United States is barely chugging along, and China is showing signs of going backwards.

It was interesting to read in the weekend press that the middle class in China, which has been the beneficiary of an enormous economic boom there over the last decade or so, has suddenly been hit with the fact that they do not have any more money to spend and the economy has slowed down. Yet, here we are, in tiny South Australia with a population of just over a million, wanting to spend $40 million on a bridge across an artificial lake. It is just absurd.

We are not Melbourne and we are not Sydney, as others have pointed out. It is easy enough to walk up the footpath from the Adelaide Oval to the city if you are in such a desperate need to get back up there or if you need to go to the Railway Station or wherever. However, I think that, at a time of gross economic concern for the nation and for the world, this is a foolish move.

We are yet to see this bridge at the Public Works Committee. No doubt this sneaky government will try to run it through at a time when there is minimum accountability in parliament. After the final sitting week for the year when we have eight weeks off they will probably try to run it through in the last week before Christmas. This is the government's style; it seems to do this on a regular basis. When that happens, the member for Waite and I, as the Liberal members, will be having a good close look at it.

I can tell you that even yesterday I received another letter from a constituent of mine from Encounter Bay seriously questioning the sanity of this government in spending money it does not have on a footbridge crossing an artificial lake. People down there are furious—they are furious about a number of issues. A speaker here a while ago (I think it was the member for Hammond) talked about the McLaren Vale overpass and the fact that that has been built for $18 million and the 'save Bignell' campaign.

How can $40 million be found at this time, when the Treasurer is regularly telling us that we have to cut this back and cut that back and we do not have money for something else and crying poverty. The government let the BHP deal slip through its hands, and the finance minister is running around trying to cut everything here, there and everywhere to balance the budget. They do not have a single solitary idea about how to run the state, and it is time that they were consigned to electoral history.

The simple fact is that we should put this bridge on the backburner and just forget about it, and let's get on with the real things in this state and the real things in this nation that need critical spending on them, not a bridge for a few people to walk up to the city after a game of football, with crowds where maybe there is some question about the numbers. The cost of going to AFL football is prohibitive to the people in the street and to families, they just cannot afford to go; it is as simple as that. You wonder why Port Power supporters cannot go to the football; they cannot afford to go. Even the Adelaide Crows' fans this year—

Mr Griffiths interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: Well, they can't; that is the reality of it. The number of Adelaide Crows fans are down. It is simply getting out of the reach of people to go to these grandiose stadiums to watch a game of football. If you are in Melbourne, with a population of four million people, they can afford to have stadiums, they can afford to have walk-overs—the one to Docklands is terrific—but they walk everywhere, or they jump on the tram, as the member for Fisher pointed out a few minutes ago. We really do not need to spend $40 million on a bridge to cross an artificial lake at a time when the state is bleeding financially, and there is not much promise of its coming good for many years to come.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (11:41): I will be quite brief. I certainly do support the member for Adelaide. She is an excellent local member, and she works very hard on all issues affecting the electorate of Adelaide, and this is another fine example of that. Her desire to stop the Adelaide Oval footbridge from being built without normal development approval is quite straightforward. We had a promise from this government initially that this oval would cost us $450 million and not a cent more. Then it was $535 million and a cent more, and then it was $535 million plus $40 million for the footbridge and not a cent more. Now we have $535 million for the oval, $40 million for the footbridge and not a cent more—and no development approval.

It is just getting worse and worse, and I think the member for Adelaide is quite right to try to put a stop to this silliness, particularly in the light of the fact that yesterday we were here debating an amendment bill about private certifiers and all of the issues that go along with building and construction all around this state. To try to sneak this through without development approval is absolutely crazy.

Imagine if in country South Australia somebody put forward a proposal for $40 million, or even significantly less—imagine if it was just $5 million—for some piece of infrastructure but then said, 'By the way, we don't want and don't need development approval for it.' There is no way that would get through this government. The government is actually cutting spending in country areas, and we are seeing very poor decisions, such as selling the forward rotations of the forests in the South-East.

For the same amount of money, we could upgrade Yorkeys Crossing around Port Augusta, which is not a footbridge over an artificial lake, as the member for Finniss quite rightly put it. That would be an upgrade that would support a national freight route from Sydney to Perth and Adelaide to Darwin. We could do the upgrade for the same amount of money, yet it is going towards a footbridge in Adelaide. I think it is a waste of money. But the member for Adelaide's main point, of course, is the lack of development approval.

To give the government a little bit of credit here, the government has recently spent $16 million upgrading the Port Augusta Prison—an extra 90 beds in a latest state-of-art development in Port Augusta Prison. This same money for a footbridge could have done 2½ times that—it could have done 2½ times more of those 90-bed upgrades to prisons, and we know that is very important all around our state. So, to be spending the money in this way when it could be spent far more efficiently on far more important projects, like upgrading our prisons or like the Yorkeys Crossing upgrade, I think is a great shame. But the main point from the member for Adelaide is that it should certainly not be done without the normal, appropriate, correct development approval, and I support the member for Adelaide wholeheartedly.

Mr PEGLER (Mount Gambier) (11:44): I rise in support of this motion, for two reasons. First of all, I feel that the development approval process is wrong. There is no scrutiny for the people to decide whether or not it is a good development, and I do not think that is a proper way to go. The main reason is that I believe this $40 million could be better spent on health, education, social services and, of course, vital rural infrastructure. I feel that there will not be enough people to warrant using a bridge like this when there is a perfectly good bridge just down the road, so I will be supporting this motion.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (11:45): I support the member for Adelaide and congratulate her for finding this. As she said, it is a very sneaky way to stick a major project like this on the bottom of an ordinary regulation. Really, the government has been trying to circumvent the processes of the Development Act and cut out scrutiny. The whole Adelaide Oval upgrade, as we have heard, has been badly managed. As the member for Hammond said, people in the country are very cynical about all of these monuments we are building in the city when they cannot get basic services and our regions are being totally ignored.

The total price of this project, and I will not go through the detail, is continually escalating, with the latest price of $535 million for the oval and $40 million for this, which is $575 million. So, we are looking at $600 million, and still going. Forty million dollars for a footbridge is ludicrous in the state's current economic climate. The government penny-pinches everywhere, and we have heard from speakers before me of how it is cutting funds, particularly now with the Snowtown hospital, and I would speak very strongly against that because it is regionally very important, it is on the main highway.

There have been cuts to St John, cuts to the Breastfeeding Association. The list goes on and on. There are cutbacks everywhere and yet here we have $40 million for a footbridge. Forty million dollars would have almost built a new hospital in the Barossa. Where are this government's priorities? What is more important, three-quarters of a new hospital or a footbridge? It is just a matter of where it is, and that is how this government will be remembered: totalling ignoring essential services in the country and building a footbridge like this. It is ridiculous.

How many times will this bridge be used? Yes, it will be used every second Saturday, or every Saturday for the football, but as the member for Adelaide said: what about the glass bottom bridge further along the footpath? Are you going to widen that out too? It came before the Public Works Committee and, from memory, it is about 1½ to 2 metres wide. Where will the surging crowd go? Will they fit along Station Road? You go and have a look. It is a very narrow access. Are you going to remove the outside restaurant that is there?

When you look at the design of this, and I wonder if the members have seen this, on the northern side there are steps down from this bridge and they come down before the road. So, what about the surge of people coming across War Memorial Drive? Have people thought of that? What sort of a restriction is that going to be? It is just like the new airport. When the new airport was built, some whiz bang architect did not think of that and he put the taxi rank right by the pedestrian crossing, so the taxis could get out because of the people walking across. We can see what they have done now, they have spent millions more to put in an overpass. So, I question why it does not go across War Memorial Drive so that people do not block up the road.

I do question the tender process, very much so, and I will be very careful here. We were told it was going to cost $39 million before the tenders were closed, so any tenderer knew what the expectation was, and we would know that it would cost that amount. I inspected the site with Mr Bob Ahrens, the general manager, or owner, of Ahrens Limited (without putting him in) over a year ago. We went for a casual walk down there, and we had an expectation. Without a doubt, a much cheaper bridge could have been built, maybe with less sexy curves and architectural extravagance. Yes, it would have been very much a straight functional bridge. We are paying top dollar for a sexy bridge, which it does not need to be.

I look forward to this coming before the Public Works Committee because I will certainly be asking to appear and will be asking questions in relation to the tender process because Ahrens Limited was never asked for a tender price. If this footbridge was going to assist the state economy it could be justified. Forty million dollars would be much better spent on our main roads. If the economy was buoyant the bridge would be okay. I commend the motion to the house and the member for Adelaide, she has proved that she is on the ball and that is why the people of Adelaide support her.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (11:49): I rise to support the member for Adelaide's motion that regulations made under the Development Act 1993, entitled Riverbank Footbridge, made on 12 July 2012 and laid on the table of the house on 4 September, be disallowed. I cannot believe that this government has this bridge as a top priority for spending in South Australia at the moment. Recently, we saw $100,000 cut from St John Ambulance—and remember what they will be doing at schoolies week over the next few days, this weekend and next week—and the other day we saw the funding being cut for the New Year's Eve celebrations at Glenelg.

How broke is this state when we have to cut funding for those sorts of organisations, and what are the priorities of this government when we can spend $40 million on a bridge from where to where? It does not go over War Memorial Drive (and that may be because it is a war memorial), and the bridge does not go from Adelaide Oval to the Railway Station; it goes from where to where? I ask people to take a good look at where the bridge goes from. It is going to be narrower than we were told, so what are we getting for $40 million?

As the member for Hammond said, we are building an overpass down at McLaren Vale that will take massive trucks for far less cost than this. We know the spending priorities and the whole agenda of this government: it is just to do whatever they can to try to buy themselves into government at the next election, while what they are doing is sending this state broke in the process and doing it any way they can.

The devious way they are getting planning approval for this bridge is highlighted by the member for Adelaide's motion. It is wrong, the spending is wrong, the way they are doing it is wrong, the whole agenda of this government is wrong. The member for Adelaide should be commended for raising this in this place and I hope the government sees for once in their career of 10 years that they can do the right thing by this state.

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (11:53): I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

The house divided on the motion:

AYES (24)
Atkinson, M.J. Bedford, F.E. Bettison. Z.L.
Bignell, L.W. Caica, P. Close, S.E.
Conlon, P.F. Fox, C.C. Hill, J.D.
Kenyon, T.R. Key, S.W. Koutsantonis, A.
O'Brien, M.F. Odenwalder, L.K. Piccolo, T.
Portolesi, G. Rankine, J.M. Rau, J.R.
Sibbons, A.J. (teller) Snelling, J.J. Thompson, M.G.
Vlahos, L.A. Weatherill, J.W. Wright, M.J.
NOES (18)
Chapman, V.A. Evans, I.F. Gardner, J.A.W.
Goldsworthy, M.R. Griffiths, S.P. Marshall, S.S.
McFetridge, D. Pederick, A.S. Pegler, D.W.
Pengilly, M. Pisoni, D.G. Sanderson, R. (teller)
Such, R.B. Treloar, P.A. van Holst Pellekaan, D.C.
Venning, I.H. Whetstone, T.J. Williams, M.R.
PAIRS (2)
Geraghty, R.K. Redmond, I.M.

Majority of 6 for the ayes.

Motion thus carried; debate adjourned.

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