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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-10-13 Daily Xml
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Mawson Electorate

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:45): I rise today to talk to the people in my electorate about the election on 19 March, and to compare and contrast two styles of government: one that listens to communities, one that cares about communities, one that acts on behalf of communities; and another one like we have seen for the past four years that completely ignores the wishes of an electorate, one that has no empathy for the people they are meant to represent in here.

We have seen many examples since the Marshall government came into power four years ago when that lack of empathy has been on show. I think the worst case I have seen of it was during the Kangaroo Island bushfires of 2019 and 2020 when the Premier and ministers would not talk to me as the local member representing the people of Kangaroo Island. I was on the island, camped out in a swag at Parndana footy oval. I was in evacuation centres overnight, I was in the command centre, I was talking to farmers. I remember on the morning of 4 January going out to deliver bullets so that farmers could put down their sheep and their cattle that had been so badly damaged during the night.

Not once did the Premier pick up the phone or respond to any of my inquiries, and it was the same with other ministers. In fact, I rang the minister for looking after the community and social welfare, Michelle Lensink, and said, 'What's available to the people who have lost their homes?' Let's remember that 69 people lost their homes, or 69 homes were lost so it was more than one person in each home. These people had lost their homes.

When I rang and spoke directly to the minister, she said, 'They can do this and this.' I said, 'Look, I'm driving.' It was pretty chaotic so I asked, 'Could you please email those details through to my office?' and she said, 'We're too busy to send that through to your office.' I asked, 'Where am I meant to get it from?' She said, 'Get it from social media.' That is not an empathetic government. That is not an empathetic minister.

We saw the Premier arrive on the island. He spent less than two hours each time just getting out, taking selfies in front of CFS volunteers who he could not be bothered turning around and thanking. Then he rushed back to the airport and ran past 50 CFS and SES volunteers who were waiting to get onto a plane because they had spent two or three days away from their families on Kangaroo Island fighting those fires. We saw him not hanging out with the people who had lost so much—in fact, they had lost everything during those fires—but at a basketball game in Adelaide as the community that he was meant to be the Premier for was broken. I was with people that night and they were outraged.

When there was a proposal to dump PFAS, these poison toxins that they wanted to dump in the McLaren Vale region, I sat here one night with the Premier and I said, 'You could make yourself a hero. You could step in and demand the EPA does not examine this because what would be put at risk is an $850 million food, wine and tourism sector which sustains thousands of jobs and supports hundreds of small businesses, and big businesses, in the McLaren Vale region.' The Premier told me to my face, 'If I got involved in making decisions, I would never get any work done.' I am sorry, but that is his job. If you are going to put up your hand to lead the state, that is your job.

We have seen absolutely zero action for 3½ years on the duplication of Main South Road from Seaford to Sellicks. It is something that we announced in the 2017-18 budget. Nothing has happened. I have lost track of how many times Peter Malinauskas (the Leader of the Opposition), the shadow transport minister and I were down there calling for this work to get underway, calling for it to happen, as we see Main South Road, from Aldinga to Sellicks, deteriorate by the day. It is full of massive potholes that people have to try to swerve around to avoid wrecking their cars or causing an accident.

Only at the last minute have the government shown any interest at all. But what have they done, the people who gave us the one-way expressway? They said, 'You're just in the south. We don't care about anyone in the south. You can cop two lanes in one direction, one lane in another direction from Sellicks to Aldinga.' I have to say to the people of Mawson: this is not good enough and on March 19, or for those who vote before then, please do not support the Marshall government. Vote for a member of parliament who is always going to stick up for you, who is always going to be with you, who empathises with you, because if you do not know what your voters want you cannot represent them.

Time expired.

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