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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-06-13 Daily Xml
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Adelaide Aquatic Centre

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley) (14:37): My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. What does the minister say to residents like Annmarie who use the Adelaide Aquatic Centre? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: Annmarie has recently taken to social media to say: 'We the community who use the facilities daily were promised the existing centre would remain open during the new build. I am disappointed that this is not the case anymore.'

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:38): I won't sugar-coat it: it is a tough decision, a very tough decision, to close the centre, but we are not closing it permanently. We are closing it to build a brand-new, better centre. I would say to the people who use the facility that what they are going to get is a lot more than they are currently using. They are going to get a better facility with more amenities. They are going to get a facility that is incorporated into the Parklands.

The people who use the site have looked at a holistic solution to this site. When we took to the election our commitment of either building on the existing site, which would have facilitated a closing, or an adjacent site alongside it, we knew full well when we went to the election that there could have been a scenario where we were closing this pool. We did some initial soundings with the Department for Infrastructure and Transport and Office for Recreation and Sport about how to build this facility.

We thought initially we could keep it open, but on consultation with the users—and when I say users, not just of the Aquatic Centre but people who use the Parklands and the surrounding areas—what we found the best outcome was here for the entire site was to get the extra playing field, to get the constructability of this done properly, to maintain connectivity with the car park, to give back 1,000 square metres of Parklands.

The best thing in the long term—not short-term thinking, long-term thinking—was that for some short-term pain we would get a better long-term outcome. As the Premier has said over and over and over again, short-term thinking leads to short-term outcomes which have long-term consequences on the state and its budget.

I will give you an example. Building the women's and kids' on the expansion site for the NRAH is top of that short-term thinking that we have pushed aside and taken some tough decisions. We are doing that now with the Aquatic Centre. The easy solution is to build something that is not as good and leave the existing centre open, so we wouldn't have these questions from the opposition. What is the right thing to do in the long-term interests of this state? The right thing to do is to make a tough decision and close the centre. That means we are giving ourselves plenty of notice—over 12 months, over a year—to try to relocate as many users as possible.

My friend the Minister for Recreation and Sport and I are working closely together to do everything we can to try to relocate as many people as we possibly can to have use of these pools. That doesn't mean that the occasional user who walks in there for social interaction or just to go for a swim isn't going to be inconvenienced. Of course they are, but what they are getting at the end of it is something better than they have ever had and long term.

The Hon. V.A. Tarzia interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Quite frankly, the cheap interjections from the cheap seats don't add to an alternative vision. What they should be doing, instead of just criticising everything the government does, is give us an alternative. Give us the alternative. What is it about the new pool that we are building, the new facility that we are building, that we should forgo in exchange for keeping the centre open? That would be an honest policy alternative, but we don't get that. We don't get that from the opposition. All we get from the opposition is opposition. We don't get constructive oppositions. During the long four years we spent in opposition, we always offered an alternative—always—and it paid off in spades.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Badcoe! Member for Newland! Member for Morialta! Member for Chaffey!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: It paid off in spades because members opposite never countenanced the idea that there might be an alternative idea that might have any worth. We do believe that there are alternative ideas that have worth, and we have an independent Public Service that has given advice and we have followed it.

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