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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-06-30 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Public Transport

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (15:37): The last 24 hours have seen an extraordinary sequence of events, where a government that is void of any decent, thoughtful policy has been thoroughly exposed, where we saw the Premier standing up at a press conference yesterday and performing an extraordinary double backflip on a policy they have sought to defend for two years more or less.

For two years, this government has sought to defend its decision to close down three Service SA centres—one in Modbury, one in Prospect and the third in Mitcham—despite the usage of those centres continuing to go up, along with a decision to cut $46 million from public transport in this state, resulting in the most substantial cuts to services in the history of public transport in South Australia. That is an extraordinary double backflip that has exposed a government without an independent thought that is actually going to deliver a better outcome for the people of this state.

Over the last couple of weeks, those of us on this side of the house have been engaged in an undertaking that really could have avoided this whole mess in the first place. We have been talking to the people of South Australia out on the ground—people catching buses, people catching trains and trams—engaging with communities to hear firsthand just how valuable public transport is to the lives of people from different communities and from a broad cross-section of society. What came through loud and clear is that public transport is not something that exists on the periphery of their lives; in many instances, it is actually central to their capacity to be able to engage in society, engage in the community and engage in our economy.

One conversation I had was last Thursday morning. I caught the 228 service on Yorketown Road with the member for Elizabeth. It was rather dark, it was early in the morning and we got on the bus, and I think this particular service originates in Smithfield Plains and travels directly into the city. We caught it at a bus stop that this government was going to remove, we caught a service that this government was going to abolish, and when we got on the bus early in the morning about six or seven people were already on the bus.

The methodology this Premier applies to that service is, 'Well, there are only six or seven people on there, cut it, get rid of it.' What that neglects to pay any attention towards is who those people are on that service. Why are they on that service? Why are they so dependent? I had a couple of conversations, but one with Kirsty stuck out to me the most. Kirsty is a humble librarian at Blackfriars college. She requires the 228 and, after she gets off the 228, she catches another service to get to her place of work. She does that every single day—two buses in the morning, two buses at night.

The consequence of this Premier’s decision to cut that service was that, instead of catching two buses in the morning and two buses at night, she was going to be compelled to catch four buses in the morning and four buses at night just to be able to get to her place of work. When I asked her what that meant to her, do you know what her answer was? She said, 'Less time that I'm going to be able to spend with my kids.' She worked out that it was going to result in an additional 40 minutes in the morning and an additional 40 minutes at night—an hour and 20 minutes of less time with her kids.

That was the consequence of this government's decision because they neglected to take any moment to go out and talk to people like Kirsty. Each and every one of us went out and had conversation after conversation, and every one of those conversations inspired us to fight these cuts every single step of the way—and we prevailed. Kirsty's voice was heard, and ultimately this government's decision to backflip has now exposed that not only do they not listen to people in the first place but they do not actually have any policy substance or depth at all. That is not a mistake that we are going to repeat.

We have seen this minister, the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, backflip on the right-hand turn, backflip on GlobeLink and lead us to a disaster in the tram extension and his deadlines there. He has backflipped on Service SA. He has backflipped on the bus cuts. How much more can the people of South Australia tolerate, considering that he is a lead minister overseeing a supposed substantial infrastructure that is supposed to drive jobs growth in this state?

We are not going to allow this government to go on unaccounted when such an important decision is before us about the future of this economy. We will stand up for people like Kirsty and every other person who relies on decent government policy to drive jobs growth in our state.

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