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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-02-14 Daily Xml
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PORT ADELAIDE BY-ELECTION

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:53): My question is again to the Premier. Will the Premier explain why, after his reconnecting with voters in Port Adelaide, there was on current figures a 9.8 per cent swing against Labor in last week's by-election—a worse two-party preferred result for Labor than in the 1993 State Bank election?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Minister for State Development) (14:54): I do need to concede that we got into difficulties in the Port. I, for instance, could not find a park anywhere near the polling booth stations for all the Mercedes and BMWs that had floated down from the eastern suburbs. It was an extraordinary array of Burnside identities wearing—

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: How did they find the place?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: And this is the other difficulty that arose. It was chaos—people stopping people on the side of the road, saying, 'Where is the port? Can you please tell me where the port is? Where is Semaphore? I've heard about it. I've heard we have a Port of Adelaide.' I mean, the nonsense! What they have tried to do is—and there they were, huddled on the border—to say that they were not part of it, and all the way they were surreptitiously endorsing candidates, having their mates hand out for them and having all the resources of the Liberal Party slip in behind them, and they—

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: They failed.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: And they failed. Madam Speaker, what they did not want to do—

The Hon. I.F. Evans interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Just calm down.

The Hon. I.F. Evans interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Norwood, the member for MacKillop and the member for Davenport, behave!

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Madam Speaker, the reason why the anxiety levels are so high on the other side is that they know that this was also an evaluation of their party. That is what they know. They know that this was an evaluation of their party, and one of the elements of the evaluation is that they had nothing to say to the working people of these two suburbs. They actually had nothing that they wanted to promote in an open and honest way to the people of these two seats—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —which is largely consistent with the approach that they take to public policy generally. There is no public policy formulation that occurs on the other side of the chamber; indeed, you only need to look at the car manufacturing debate to understand that. We had four different members there with four different positions in the space of a week.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Yes, well, you thought that it was the GST, you didn't know whether it was viable to have a car industry and the bipartisan support over here. I mean, I think that everybody had a different position.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Madam Speaker, I do not necessarily want to help them, but generally speaking the reason why one political party can have four positions on a significant issue is that they have not done the work to actually undertake the public policy formulation process. So, they did not know what their position was on car manufacturing and so they became very confused about it. I can see why you would not want to front up to an election where car manufacturing was going to be on the agenda when you had such policy confusion. We presented ourselves in both these electorates, and those opposite—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. I.F. Evans interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. I.F. Evans: Pat's told you to be quiet.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Told you to be quiet.

The Hon. I.F. Evans interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. I.F. Evans interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Davenport, you are warned!

The Hon. I.F. Evans interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Davenport, you have been warned.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Madam Speaker, those opposite decided to be absent. They are the absent political party. They have gone missing from the political debate in this state for the last 10 years. They have nothing to offer for the future of this state, and so much is evidenced by their cowardice and their inability to openly and honestly present themselves to the South Australian people in these two electorates on the weekend, and I think that the community—

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —will make judgements about that level of political cowardice.

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