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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-02-07 Daily Xml
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Tea Tree Plaza Car Parking

Ms SAVVAS (Newland) (11:45): I move:

That this house—

(a) notes that it has been a year since the government prohibited owners of shopping centres with a gross lettable area of 34,000 square metres or more to charge for parking;

(b) acknowledges the commitment of the SDA who campaigned to ensure that retail workers, small business owners and members of the community were not unreasonably penalised for the sake of corporate profit; and

(c) acknowledges that by delivering on the key Malinauskas Labor election commitment to stop paid parking at Tea Tree Plaza and West Lakes, everyday South Australians hit hard by the rising cost of living have been protected from unfair parking costs.

It is a special occasion for shoppers, workers and small business owners in the north-east this week as we celebrate the one-year anniversary—our first birthday—of the private parking areas amendment bill. It is also a special occasion for me personally as a former Tea Tree Plaza worker and someone who, like so many of us in the Gully, grew up in and around our beloved centre.

In September 1970, The Advertiser promoted 'Tea Tree Plaza—heralded as the great new Myer shopping centre.' It was described as Australia's most modern shopping centre, set in green rolling countryside against a backdrop of mountains. In fact, our community was very much built around that centre, and each and every resident has a story like I do about growing up at Tea Tree Plaza. Today, there are a few thousand more residents surrounding the Plaza and perhaps a little more obstructed view of the mountains, but the views are very much the same, particularly the views of the strong and unyielding position that we in the north-eastern suburbs should have, like most other places in our state, the opportunity to access our retail hub for free.

On 15 August 2021, I stood up at Tea Tree Plaza and introduced myself as a former Tea Tree Plaza worker and the Labor candidate for Newland. It was then that I affirmed my commitment, as a candidate and as a local councillor representing Modbury, to fight against the greedy cash grab that was being proposed by the Scentre Group. This was a mammoth commitment and a mammoth campaign, and it was not one that was won by a government, or for a government, but by the thousands and thousands of local residents, shoppers, small business owners, workers and union members who fought against this unfair impost on members of our community.

In fact, it was the former member for Newland who said exactly that, on 5 February 2021. In this exact week, three years ago, Richard Harvey made a video in the top car park of the Plaza and said, 'I don't support paid parking at Tea Tree Plaza. These charges are an unfair impost on customers and workers.' He then sent a text out to all of the local residents—I actually received one myself—reminding them of the fact that he did not support paid parking at Tea Tree Plaza, with a little link to his video so we would all remember exactly what he said. I could not agree more with Richard and I do question, as I often do, why the former Liberal government did not listen to the comments or the advocacy of the local member when deciding not to support strong legislation that was put together with thorough and robust consultation with residents in the north-eastern suburbs.

On 5 July 2022—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Ms SAVVAS: Don't worry, the residents in the north-east will be well aware that you did not support the legislation.

The SPEAKER: Member for Florey! Member for Flinders! The member for Newland has the call. Order!

Ms SAVVAS: On 5 July, not long after losing seats in the north-eastern suburbs, the Liberal Party announced that they would not support the potential legislative changes and, in their press release, unsurprisingly, did not make a single mention of the residents in the north-eastern suburbs or the employees or small businesses at Tea Tree Plaza. But that is okay; that is perfectly okay, because the residents in the north-eastern suburbs remember who brought in the legislation, and they remember who fought against it, and I will make it a goal of mine, as I have every day since I was elected, to remind them who refused to support the quest to stop the introduction of paid parking at Tea Tree Plaza.

On our side we take listening seriously. Every day for the better part of eight months as a candidate I took that petition against paid parking to houses in Modbury, Modbury North, St Agnes, Ridgehaven, Hope Valley—the list goes on—and every day for the better part of eight months I heard the same thing. As we all know in this house people do not always love it when you knock on their door, but I can say in this place with my hand on my heart that when I told residents what Westfield were trying to do the key would come out, the latch would undo, the screen door would slam and the constituents would say without a word of a doubt, 'Where do I sign? Hand me your clipboard. I want to fight against this alongside you.'

We know that South Australians are doing it tough. We know that the introduction of paid parking would, of course, have made it even tougher, particularly for those who work at the centre. Many times in this place I have spoken about my own time working at the centre as a low-paid worker, knowing exactly what that sort of impost would do to retail, fast food and hospitality workers who work at Tea Tree Plaza.

When I am reflecting on the work that went into the bill, I think it is really important to specifically make mention of the workers who fought hard against the introduction of paid parking at the site. These staff are predominantly women, primary caregivers, people working in retail and fast food to support their families, women who are often in low paid, insecure jobs and earning just a couple of hundred dollars a week.

We know for a fact that at other centres where Westfield succeeded in bringing in paid parking, staff were being charged up to $35 a day. In fact, it was not that long ago that I was there alongside the retail union when we fought tooth and nail against that charge at Westfield West Lakes, and it was years of fight from the retail union that secured better outcomes for workers at that site: a fight from the SDA and their members against a $35 parking charge for workers and an unsafe offsite car park at West Lakes and a fight from the SDA against the boom gates at West Lakes, which are finally, finally gone.

I would like to actually put my thanks on the record, as I often do, to the SDA—my union and the union of thousands of people in my community—for fighting alongside us against the introduction of paid parking at Westfield Tea Tree Plaza. Bargaining and advocacy is always stronger as a collective, and I for one am always grateful to have a strong collective like the SDA on the side of working people at Westfield TTP, Westfield West Lakes and Westfield Marion.

Today, I am very much proud to be celebrating the anniversary of this act. The amended Private Parking Areas Act now prohibits owners of regulated shopping centre parking areas from charging a fee for parking at major retail shopping centres unless they have approval from the minister. I do have confirmation from the minister that as at five minutes ago there have yet to be any applications so far for the introduction of paid parking on a site of that category.

The definition of major retail shopping centres includes any retail shopping centre with a gross lettable area of 34,000 square metres or more but does exclude the Adelaide CBD. From 8 February this time last year, paid parking at these major centres could only be allowed if approved by the Minister for Planning and, of course, that was retrospective. It saw not just the continuation of free parking at Westfield Tea Tree Plaza, but, of course, finally Westfield got rid of paid parking arrangements at West Lakes. What an exciting day it was for residents in the western suburbs to see the boom gates no longer working. We all saw the images of what a really exciting day it was for shoppers, workers and small businesses who fought against that for a really long time near West Lakes.

Employees of businesses at Westfield, shoppers—a huge number of people—have, of course, saved a considerable amount of money as a result of these changes, and I am happy to report that I have received nothing but positive feedback since their introduction. In fact, I was at Tea Tree Plaza just a few weeks ago, as I often am—I only live a couple of streets away myself—and I saw someone I know from a local sports club in the food court. They waved to me and said, 'Hey, Olivia. We've been here a while, and I just wanted to thank you because we parked for free.' Of course, that is not the first time I have been stopped or that someone has come over to mention to me how glad they are to have been able to park for free at our major centre.

Of course, at the time Westfield had many arguments about how they would not be able to continue to upgrade the centre or continue to put improvements into the centre. I have always found that to be a very interesting argument, having a look at the profit Westfield bring in every year, but I am happy to report that Westfield is continuing to invest in the centre, and there continue to be upgrades going on.

A lot of us in the north-east have long been awaiting the opening of MECCA, Tea Tree Plaza, which has been taking a little too long. I actually received a large number of emails over the Christmas break from young women wanting to know when those new shops will be opening. However, Westfield is continuing to invest in the centre, and that is really important to us in the north-eastern suburbs, and that we continue to be able to park for free.

I am really happy to be standing here today acknowledging all the work that has gone into this. Mostly I just want to stand here in this place and thank the thousands and thousands of residents who fought together against this charge. We have listened to our community, we know our community in the north-eastern suburbs, and I for one am very much looking forward to continuing to park for free at Tea Tree Plaza for many years to come.

Mr TELFER (Flinders) (11:55): I rise to speak on this motion, and am surprised that they would note an anniversary of a poor piece of legislation passing, legislation that was put together in a rush without an understanding of the law—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr TELFER: —without an understanding of the process, and by handballing responsibility onto local government.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Newland!

Mr TELFER: Unfortunately, upon coming into government—

Ms Savvas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Newland is warned. Order!

Mr TELFER: —the members across from me discovered—

Ms Savvas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Newland, you are warned for a second time.

Mr TELFER: No, actually they did not know about the process they had to follow. They had to scramble to try to put this together—

The Hon. N.D. Champion interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Taylor!

Mr TELFER: —and shoehorn these arrangements into this piece of legislation when it was not appropriate to do so. The discussion and debate that was had at the time highlighted the fact that when it was first considered as a policy position it was not actually in the arrangement that they put it in this way—

Ms Savvas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Newland, you are warned for a final time.

Mr TELFER: —to double down and to pretend, as we got lectured yesterday by members opposite, about some sort of faux culture. Indeed, this is what this motion is all about. They say that, 'Those who pay the piper call the tune.' That is definitely reflective of the motion here, and it really is reflective of the fact that many, if not all, of those opposite are only in their positions because of the slippery pole they are climbing with their union connections—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr TELFER: —and the scare tactics throughout this process that have been put together. Here we are, once again, reflecting on the one-year anniversary of a piece of legislation which, as I said, at the time caused uncertainty throughout a lot of the community because of the way it actually had to be managed by local government.

Ms Savvas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Newland is on the final warning.

Mr TELFER: Thank you, sir. It is disrespectful the way those opposite are not willing to—

An honourable member interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr TELFER: —have an open mind to the processes that had to be followed 12 months ago. It is all well and good to be going out there, as was said yesterday, data harvesting, scaring people on the street, trying to get them involved in a political campaign, but when we actually reflect on this piece of legislation—and it has been noted that it is a year today since it passed—we reflect on the fact that it is poor legislation, poorly put together, a bit of a scramble. Even at the time, there were no clear answers for any of the questions that were asked of the minister.

The Hon. N.D. Champion: That is just not true; you don't even remember it.

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr TELFER: Unfortunately, the minister who tries to interject himself forgets the fact that they were scrambling to try to shoehorn an answer to a political promise into a piece of legislation that did not actually suit the arrangements.

For this, which is a gushing motion—as I said, reflective of those who are there to direct and, behind the scenes, tell members of parliament what they should be doing—a little bit of reflection on this motion; indeed, I am surprised it is something they are willing to highlight. Once again, local government will continue to have concerns around the arrangements around paid parking and the way they are able to manage it. If it ever gets tested I will be interested to see what those results might be.

An honourable member interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer) (11:59): I am very, very pleased to rise to support this motion from the member for Newland because it is the two of us who actually have the lived experience of boom gates affecting the communities that we represent and our constituents. Fortunately for the member for Newland, it was a close shave. Unfortunately for me but more particularly for my constituents, it has been a 10-year nightmare of putting up with these bloody boom gates at West Lakes.

For those of us who are not supplicants to Westfield, who at any juncture when there is any incursion into the corporate rights or profit-making abilities of Westfield respond with a 'Leave Britney alone!' type meme for the benefit of Westfield, for those of us who actually take our responsibility to accurately represent our constituents really seriously on these sorts of issues—we put our communities first, not corporates first—allow me to provide some insight into the battle this has been for a decade.

Westfield put in a development application to install these boom gates in 2012. To their credit, it was a council, the City of Charles Sturt, that refused that application, because at least in that area we had local government representatives standing up for their local community, which I now appreciate is not always the case in other parts of the state. But I am pleased to say that in my electorate and in the City of Charles Sturt they took a stand against Westfield and they denied that development application.

Unfortunately for them, Westfield ran them through the full process up to and including the ERD jurisdiction of the District Court and effectively bullied the community into having to suffer these boom gates at West Lakes. It was just gobsmacking that Westfield would continue doing this, because of course we had a Labor government at the time which was taking football away from Football Park and putting it at Adelaide Oval, so the whole purpose for the boom gates was evaporating before Westfield's eyes, and yet they went ahead and did it anyway.

As the member for Newland has said, the impact on so many people for such a long period of time was dreadful. I met with constituent after constituent, usually young retail workers, who could not afford to pay more than $30 a day to park their cars inside the boom gates, and instead they had to park them over the other side of Turner Drive on an unsealed paddock in the surrounds of Football Park. Those workers, particularly when working an evening shift on a Thursday night or working an afternoon shift, for example, in the winter months, would be trudging back to their cars in the dark, often finding their cars had been broken into and their personal property violated. Imagine being a 15, 16, 17-year-old young retail worker, often female, walking back hundreds of metres to your car in the dark and finding that it had been broken into.

Mr Telfer interjecting:

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Yes, it might be news to those opposite that 15 year olds can work. They can work and they do work. Have you ever been to McDonald's? Goodness me, this is the late-1800s mindset that gets brought into this place by those opposite. Protect the corporate interests at all costs. Do not worry about workers, do not worry about the local community and, in doing so, have a blind ignorance to what actually happens out in the real world. It is just extraordinary the interjections from those opposite.

So, yes, young retail workers do feel like their safety is put at risk from having boom gates in at Westfield, and they do not enjoy walking back to their cars or walking to the bus in the dark outside the boom gates to be able to get home safely. That might be a revelation to those opposite and, hopefully, it makes them think twice so that should they ever resume the treasury benches at some point in the future, then rather than rushing into this place with a piece of legislation—the pro-boom gates Westfield's law type of legislation that they will bring in for the benefit of their corporate overlords—they might actually pay some attention to the needs of their local community.

I had it firsthand, not just because of my local community having to put up with this for 10 years, not just listening to the representations of retail workers but listening to the representations of customers and visitors to the shopping complex, many of whom were elderly, many of whom were infirm. Some people have disabilities and it was physically very difficult for them to have to actually reach and grab a ticket from the machine, let alone go through the palaver of having to have it validated on exit or even pay for it.

Westfield itself told me, year after year after year, 'Don't worry, 97 per cent of people don't have to pay for parking because they are in there for less than three hours.' Then why have the boom gates? The answer, as the member for Newland has quite rightly pointed out, is because they did not want workers parking close to their place of work. It is not like there was not enough space down there of course because, as I said, football moved, football had left pretty much by the time the boom gates went in, so there was always plenty of space down there for the workers.

As I said to them, 'All you have to do is create a nested area for workers to be able to park within the confines of the overall car park where it is lit, where it is safe, where security officers can patrol and protect these often young South Australians and their welfare and safety.' But at every juncture that was rebuffed by Westfield. That is why, as the local MP for West Lakes, representing the local community that used this centre, I campaigned alongside the local community for those 10 years. I was really pleased, throughout that journey, to have the support of the SDA.

While those opposite make snide remarks and sneer at trade unions and their role in representing often workers who do not have the benefit of being able to negotiate with corporate behemoths like Westfield or Scentre Group, while they think that the union's role within society is irrelevant—and they often think these thoughts, of course, while they are on their annual leave, or they are enjoying their weekends, or they are thinking about their future retirement and how superannuation might benefit them and so on—while they are enjoying all those benefits that the union movement has afforded them and while they sneer at the role that unions play, it is unions like the SDA that pursue these issues, alongside community representatives, to deliver these sorts of outcomes.

I have to say, as an aside, what was particularly galling was the Liberal candidate I ran against at the last election, who had just entered a new career as a signwriter—and good luck to him, we want to see more small business people in the local community—who, of course, was a Wilson's car park operator who often went out and spoke in support of the Liberal opposition in previous years. It is little wonder that not only do those opposite rush to join with Westfield against the interests of workers and the interests of the local community but even the candidates they put up for election to represent them in this place have those corporate car park interests at heart.

But the biggest thanks, I think, go not necessarily to this place or for the legislation and those people who supported it, even for the union that campaigned for it as well, but to the local community because there were so many people for so many years who maintained the pressure on Westfield, who had the courage to tell their stories about how their cars were broken into, how at times they had been accosted as they were leaving work and trying to get back to their cars or trying to get to public transport, who had the courage to stand up and tell their stories try to put pressure on Westfield to get rid of these boom gates in West Lakes.

I am so thankful that for their efforts, their courage and their conviction, they were able to play a very significant part in getting this legislation supported and through, and getting rid of these boom gates for the benefit of the West Lakes and the broader western suburbs community.

Mrs PEARCE (King) (12:09): I also stand in support of the member for Newland's motion. It is worth celebrating, because one year ago we did achieve a huge win for workers, business owners, customers and residents in our local community in the north-east. We had made a promise to stop paid parking to ensure that corporate profits are not put ahead of the interest of our community, and we got that done. It was a fight that I was proud to stand alongside my colleagues, worker representatives and the community on.

This fight actually started three years ago. We agreed with our community that it was a cruel money grab that would hurt local retirees, families and workers who could not afford another hit on their cost of living. We heard from people like Marie, who stated that this move would push people to shop online, which we knew would hurt our local businesses. We heard from people like Craig, who echoed the many comments to boycott the centre to shop elsewhere, which again we knew would hurt local businesses. If it would hurt local businesses we knew it would also hurt local jobs, which is why we had workers stand with us, people like Lisa, Nichol, Bernie, Dan, Angela, Joanne, Diane and Gabby, just to name a few. These were workers who joined us right from the start and stayed with us all the way through.

There was a mention before of the uncertainty that has been caused over this issue. I can confidently say that the only uncertainty that was being echoed from our communities in the north-east was the uncertainty on how this benefits absolutely anybody other than a multinational corporate. This is why we were relentless on this fight. We started in opposition and we followed through in government. Many questioned how we could get it done, but we certainly do not shy away from a challenge, especially one that was so important to our local communities.

With all of this in mind I would like to reiterate my thanks to all from my community who supported the member for Newland, the member for Wright, the member for Florey and the member for Torrens along this journey. I would also like to thank the SDA for all of their efforts on this matter—their persistence and commitment to their members is commendable—and, of course, the Minister for Planning for the work he undertook to ensure legislative changes to address this matter. Together, we engaged with the neighbourhood in every way possible. It was a hard fight but we persisted together and we achieved a better outcome for our local communities.

Motion carried.

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