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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-10-14 Daily Xml
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Election Commitments

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:31): My question is to the Premier. How many more election commitments that you took to the 2018 election do you plan to dump before next year's state election? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Point of order.

The SPEAKER: Leader, please be seated. There is a point of order.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: As has been ruled in this house many times, it is not within standing orders to offer an argument in violation of standing orders and then try to explain it with leave.

The SPEAKER: I will offer the leader an opportunity to rephrase the question.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, Attorney! Premier!

Mr MALINAUSKAS: My question is to the Premier. Has the Premier got any plans to dump other election commitments that he took to the 2018 election? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr MALINAUSKAS: InDaily reports today that the Premier has abandoned or dumped his Adelaide to Melbourne bike trail, which he once described as a world-class tourism cycling trail that would inject millions of dollars into the South Australian economy. The bike trail now joins his other signature policies that he took to the election like GlobeLink, not having a privatisation agenda and the right-hand turn of the tram. How many more election policies are you going to dump?

The SPEAKER: I'm going to allow the question.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Point of order, sir: in the explanation that the leader offered, it was very unclear, if it was even mentioned, when the quote finished and when the leader started using his own words again.

The SPEAKER: Thank you, minister. I am sufficiently satisfied that it is clear.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:33): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question and his interest in a policy platform. In fact, in the lead-up to the last election we took hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of fully tested—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —and they are going extraordinarily well. They are going extraordinarily well, and we are monitoring them on a very regular basis. With regard to the Great Southern Bike Trail, sir, as you may be aware, we took a policy to investigate a trail which we thought would be hugely popular with cyclists and also those people wanting to move between Victoria and South Australia. We did that investigation and it wouldn't work in exactly the format that we took to the election but, rather than just—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Premier, you have the call.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Further members will be departing unless there is order.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: But, although the investigation showed that the precise details that we took to the last election would not be rolled out—no pun intended—we are looking at a range of different cycling trails across South Australia, and some of them have been progressively rolled out—

Ms Michaels interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Enfield is warned.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —and we will continue to do this. This is what people do: they make a commitment to investigate and they do that. That is what we committed to do. We have been very interested in policy, both before coming to government and on a continuous basis. We love the concept of, for example, opening hospital beds. Those opposite didn't share that policy platform: they closed hospital beds. This is one of the great opportunities for comparison.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: I'm not sure that the former government took to the last election—or the election before the last, in fact—saying, 'We are going to close the Repat hospital.' Yet what did they do when they got to government? They closed the Repat hospital. This is despite the fact that so many people camped on the steps of Parliament House it was so important to them. It was one of the largest petitions, if not the largest petition, in the history of South Australia. It broke the hearts of the people of South Australia. Thankfully, of course, there was a change of government at the last election and we had the opportunity to implement what was the will of the people of South Australia.

We took a very large policy platform to the last election—in fact, more than 300 fully costed policies that we showed to the people of South Australia. I don't know whether the opposition is into the double figures yet?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: Would they be at six, eight? I don't know. Any guesses? No? I know they have—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Minister for Transport is warned for a second time.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —the hydrogen policy. I know they want to merge a couple of universities—the universities don't want to have a bar of that. I know they do not want to have any further deregulation of shop trading hours in accordance with the government's plan. I know they don't want to cap council rates in South Australia. I know what they don't want to do, but it's unclear yet, with less than five months until the next election, what they do want to do.

We make no apologies for having a very full policy platform that we took to the last election. Yes, the Great Southern Bike Trail investigation didn't show that this was a good investment for the people of South Australia and there were better alternatives. That's precisely what we are doing. We have done that investigation and we have found that there are better alternatives for the way that we spend taxpayer dollars.

I know that the Minister for Environment and Water has been spending a huge amount of money on bike trails right across the state. You should ask him a question on that. In fact, if they ask a supplementary, you jump up and tell them all about it because what you have been doing there is significantly better than anything that we envisaged before delivering for the people of South Australia.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Lee can leave for 15 minutes under 137A.

The honourable member for Lee having withdrawn from the chamber:

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