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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-02-14 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

PORT ADELAIDE ELECTORATE

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (15:47): Last Saturday the people of Port Adelaide were dealt a blow of contempt by the ALP and the current state government. I do not specifically refer to their opportunity to vote for a new representative; they had that opportunity, in light of the retirement of the Hon. Kevin Foley. Given the ultimate swing against the ALP, doubtless they were very pleased to be rid of him. However, they were dealt a considerable blow as a result of the fact that here we are today on the opening day of parliament and there is no representative here for Port Adelaide. Why is this so?

There can only possibly be two reasons for that. The first is that the ALP and the state government were so incompetent in arranging the retirement of the member and setting the new scheduling of parliament this year that they would ensure that the people of Port Adelaide were not represented here today. The second is that they were so arrogant that they just presumed that there would be such strong support for their Labor candidate that she would succeed on a majority vote, that there would be no need for preferences, that she would have had declaration of the poll and that she would be here today. Either one spells the gross arrogance and/or incompetence of this government. That is the first blow to the people of Port Adelaide.

The second blow to the people of Port Adelaide is that today should have been a day of pride in welcoming the ship Endeavour to Port Adelaide in its circumnavigation trip around Australia, but what did we have? We had a bridge that did not open. We had the Endeavour, the ship representing the First Fleet to Australia, come in to the port and have to circle around and around for over an hour before they could even get the bridge open to let the ship in. What an insult. What a complete undermining of the opportunity of tourism for the people of Port Adelaide when they cannot even get one of their newest pieces of infrastructure to work on the day, when they had had weeks and weeks of notice, when they had received the application, when they have had known problems with the bridge next door to it, when they have claimed through the department of transport and the transport control unit that it would be ready for the day, and when they claimed that there would be no problems and that the Endeavour would be welcomed up the port. What do we have? We have the absolute fiasco of today.

Strike three for the people of Port Adelaide is very obvious to everybody: Newport Quays. Taxpayers are already picking up a $6 million debacle over this absolute shemozzle by this government. The government claims it came into office and there was a planned redevelopment of the Port by the previous government. That is correct. It has completely undermined not only the people of Port Adelaide but this project right from the start of taking over its administration.

Sir James Hardy was one of the first out of the blocks to say, 'Preserve the maritime history of the people of Port Adelaide. Make sure that in any revitalisation of the Port that you do that.' He published an open letter to the government that it review its project to make sure that was accommodated. The government completed ignored that. It bulldozed the boat yards, it gave no integrity to Torrens Island and the protection of those sites; it completely undermined it.

The government went out for two years consulting with the public in the region and what did it do? Completely ignored it and went ahead with the project. There is not only one court case that the South Australian public is picking up, but two; we have already had another one. We have had report after report after report on toxic piles, dust pollution, problems with terrorism, problems with blasts. We have all sorts of reports. Where are they? The government will not release them.

In 2010, former minister Holloway (of the previous parliament) acknowledged that ministers knew about these problems with Newport Quays and had not come clean on them. He included in that category ministers Conlon and Foley and the premier. Then what do we have? A year later, in October 2011, we have an announcement by the new Premier that, 'I'm going to abort the contract. I'm going to exercise my legal opportunity to do that. I'm going to consult with the people of Adelaide.' Let me say to the people of Adelaide: he has not listened to you before, he is not going to listen to you again. He can talk about all the plans in the world, but you have been dudded: strike one, strike two, strike three.

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