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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-03-28 Daily Xml
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Parliamentary Committees

PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE: OLD PARLIAMENT HOUSE REDEVELOPMENT

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (11:14): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I thought you were welcoming me. I take it as a welcome anyway. I support this project and I commend the government and parliamentary staff, and all those involved in getting it to this point. I know the member for Finniss has had some concerns, but I think we should look at the bigger picture as well as just upgrading Old Parliament House.

Long before many members who are currently here were here, next door was the Constitutional Museum. Sadly, that has never been replicated elsewhere and we still do not have a museum which highlights the many achievements of South Australia, not just in relation to being amongst the first to give women the vote and the right to stand for parliament, but in giving Aboriginal men the right to vote in the 1850s and Aboriginal women the right to vote in the 1890s, at the same time as non-Aboriginal woman.

There are a whole lot of achievements, including the creation of the secret ballot, that this parliament has pioneered, and I think we should have a facility where we can showcase those achievements as well as the other fantastic achievements of this state. Many members here would probably not recall the Constitutional Museum. It did serve a useful purpose, but clearly parliament needs that space again next door, and we need a proper museum highlighting the achievements of South Australia somewhere else, preferably on North Terrace.

The other, wider issues are that I think too often members of parliament sell this institution short and are afraid to recommend or support improvements to the infrastructure here. We have pretty unsatisfactory provisions in relation to, for example, ministers, who have people coming down to see them—dignitaries, visitors, experts. When that happens, often their staff have to sit in the corridor. That is very primitive and very basic; unacceptable. If you look at the facilities here for the Premier, basically the Premier's office here is a shoebox, slightly enlarged.

We continue to short-change ourselves—and when I say we, I mean the government and all of us—by not advocating, supporting and providing for proper accommodation for the people who work in here, who include not only MPs of course, but the many dozens (I think it runs into the hundreds) of staff here at various times. We have had staff working under stairs, we have had people working in areas which lack natural light, and so on. Those issues need to be addressed.

People might think, 'Look, the public won't like it.' My view is if you explain to the public why you are doing things then you can achieve a lot more. I remind members that in the time I have been here—and a lot of the work was done by Graham Ingerson at the time—there have been major renovations done here, including creating a second storey for the Legislative Council. There was hardly a murmur in the community, because it was explained that the facilities current at the time were in breach of occupational health and safety guidelines. We know the parliament was exempt, but we had staff working in inappropriate conditions.

We should explain to the public that it is not a monument to our ego, but it is for the people who work here and for the effective functioning of the parliament. I still believe that, if we can, we should either have a multistorey building attached to the parliament out the back, or else—a fairly radical suggestion—put a tunnel under the terrace and have the parliament acquire one of the multistorey buildings across the road.

The tunnel could be shared by others, and it might help alleviate some of the congestion that you get down here where people are crossing North Terrace. I do not know the cost of a tunnel under North Terrace to the other side but I think that would probably be a cheaper option than trying to build a multistorey building behind parliament because we have already got a couple across the road that could be converted for use as, indeed, they are used now, by committees and support staff.

The other thing that is lacking is a place where you can take school children when they come in on an educational visit. There is nowhere really where you can take them, even to offer them a cordial or to give them a talk about the parliament. Once again I think that we short-change ourselves and we short-change the community by penny pinching and not acknowledging that this parliament belongs to everyone, including the school children who have a strong, vested, long-term interest in what happens here.

I welcome what is happening next door (and I am someone who has spent many years out there in the wilderness after I disagreed with the Liberal Party; I had about five years of Coventry) but it is a historic building. It is badly in need of an upgrade. It does not meet a lot of the basic occupational health and safety requirements and it does not cater for people who have disabilities. With the Hon. Kelly Vincent, we have seen the changes that have had to be made to try to help her do her legitimate work in here, but many members of the public have significant physical disabilities, and this place—and especially next door—does not and did not cater for those people. That is understandable because that building is a historic building, but we need to change and to allow everyone in the community to participate in what are basically facilities which they own and which rightfully they should be able to enjoy.

The cost is $14 million, approximately. I think it is $13.686 million, excluding GST, which is really peanuts in today's costings. I was pleased to receive a letter from the Minister for Road Safety yesterday. She is going to put in a roundabout—she will not personally, I don't think; I think she is too busy to do the actual on-ground work. The cost is $1.7 million for a basic roundabout on Happy Valley Drive. So when people quibble about $13 million to upgrade this facility, which is part of our heritage and ongoing use, people need to keep in context that anything you do these days costs a lot of money.

You really are spending the equivalent of a few roundabouts. There is nothing wrong with roundabouts, but you are only spending just a multiple of roundabouts to do a basic renovation. We need the space that is next door. I understand that some ministers and some MPs might be moved there, but we are paying rent across the road when some of those people in the rented premise opposite could be redirected back to old Parliament House.

I support this. I think that it is long overdue. It has taken longer than it should have to get to this point, but let us get this project underway as quickly as possible and put our minds to providing for the rest of parliament proper, modern facilities where people—staff and MPs—can work in safety and where they can do justice to the task for which they have been elected. I commend this report and acknowledge my full support.

Motion carried.

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