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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-16 Daily Xml
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Tea Tree Plaza Car Parking

Mr BOYER (Wright) (15:36): I am pleased to have this opportunity to rise today to talk about an issue in the north-eastern suburbs that is on a lot of people's minds at the moment and certainly consuming a lot of space, if that is the way to put it, on social media as well, and that is the announcement by Westfield in February this year that it would introduce paid parking at Tea Tree Plaza for the first time since the shopping centre opened pretty close to 50 years ago to the day.

As you might expect, and I do not think it will come as a surprise to any members in this place, that announcement has not been well received. There are many reasons for that, but I think primarily, and the overarching reason, it is that people are still doing it really tough. The year 2020 brought to bear upon South Australian communities pressures on households that had not been seen for decades or possibly at all. Now that we are facing the end of the JobKeeper program, those South Australians whose employment has not returned to what it was and who have relied on these payments will in many cases actually be doing it tougher than they were during the peak of the pandemic.

To all those people—and I have read some comments to this effect on social media—who say, 'Well, this is just a case of a few dollars here or there, a few bucks. It shouldn't matter,' more than ever those few dollars matter to those people whose incomes have been affected so drastically by the COVID-19 pandemic, so nobody should be surprised—certainly least of all Westfield—by the uproar that has met this announcement.

Labor started a petition calling on Westfield to abandon paid parking just a few weeks ago. It has already received almost 4,000 signatures, and that number is still growing very fast. Parking at Tea Tree Plaza has, I acknowledge, been an issue for many years, and these issues have been exacerbated by the growing popularity of the O-Bahn, which terminates—or starts, I guess, depending on how you look at it—at the plaza.

As patronage of the O-Bahn has doubled since 1990, even though population growth has been much slower over that time, pressures on all the park-and-ride facilities along the O-Bahn route have grown. Tea Tree Plaza has not been immune from this, and residents accept, I think, that some of the plaza's parking woes are not of their creation.

The previous Labor government sought to address these problems by building a multistorey car park directly opposite the O-Bahn interchange that opened in January 2014, but such was the enduring popularity of the O-Bahn that over time it, too, became full with commuters very early on weekday mornings. Before the March 2018 election, Labor announced and funded an extension of that park-and-ride.

I am at pains to point out that this was not an election commitment. It was funded and contracts for the construction were signed. Unfortunately, those contracts were torn up by this government in 2018 and, along with a significant delay in the commencement of works for an expanded park-and-ride at Golden Grove, it compounded the existing parking pressures at Tea Tree Plaza.

Added to this is Westfield's decision to refurbish the plaza by building an outdoor boulevard area with new restaurants and cafes, which I think are great and have been very well received by the public in the north-eastern suburbs. That resulted in more car parking spaces being taken away and it has created in many respects a perfect storm, so you can understand why residents of the north-east, who have loyally supported the plaza for 50 years, are so incensed that a big multinational company like Westfield has decided to squeeze a few extra dollars out of those shoppers by introducing paid parking.

What was it that we heard from Westfield about why this was necessary? Well, this is what they said: it would enhance the parking experience at the centre. That is it. How would it enhance the parking experience? Don't know. Didn't say. Although a spokesperson for Westfield has said that a period of free parking will remain, management has not said how long that period will be.

It is not just shoppers, of course, who are outraged. Staff and business owners are also worried about how and what this will mean for them. Paid parking was brought in by Westfield at West Lakes Shopping Centre some years ago and it has been pointed out to me on many occasions that, although an area was set aside for staff with discounted rates, it is often full by 8am, which means that many retail staff who work irregular hours need to pay full tote odds in the car park.

Of course, the overall impact will be shoppers voting with their feet and choosing to shop elsewhere, and this is what has traders at the plaza so worried. But this is not a done deal. We can win this fight, and I use this opportunity to urge all the residents of the north-eastern suburbs who are yet to sign the petition to do so. Let's let Westfield know that they will shop elsewhere if this paid parking goes ahead.

Time expired.

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