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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-11-01 Daily Xml
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Mount Gambier, Public Transport

The Hon. B.R. HOOD (15:40): I rise today to address something I am quite passionate about, something I have been banging on about not so much in this place but when I was Deputy Mayor of the City of Mount Gambier, and that is the completely inadequate public transport we have in the state's second biggest city. I will quote the Mayor and councillors, and will quote them a few times during my five minutes because they themselves call it vastly inadequate.

We have a bus service that only runs five days a week, nine to five; it is not accessible for daytime office workers, for night-time employees or weekend workers. It is not available on the weekends at all. Key locations are not served at all or barely: the university, the TAFE, Mount Gambier hospital and Foodbank. If you want to get from the east end of Mount Gambier to Foodbank, it could take you up to two hours—it is only about seven kilometres away, not even that. You will get dropped off by the bus, walk a kilometre and a half to Foodbank, pick up your food, walk back a kilometre and a half, wait for the bus and get home; it could be about six hours all up just to get to Foodbank.

The new residential areas, and when I say 'new' I am talking about Conroe Heights, which is probably about the same age as me, the bus still does not service that area. I am flummoxed. I asked a question in question time yesterday of the Minister for Regional Development, because we know we need critical infrastructure like public transport in places like Mount Gambier, and there are no answers there, absolutely no answers there. I am just dumbfounded.

Councillors and the Mayor are dumbfounded as well. It caused one councillor to do a bit of a social media campaign asking, 'Where's Clare?', very similar to 'Where's Wally?' Where's Clare on public transport? You would think the Minister for Regional Development would be having a bit of a crack at this—it is so important. Indeed, where is Minister Tom Koutsantonis?

What we are seeing now is a government having locked us into another eight years of completely inadequate services for Mount Gambier in terms of public transport, and then only now, after doing that, thinking, 'Let's review public transport in the regions.' If this review comes back saying how inadequate is public transport in the regions, we are locked in for eight years. Irrespective of what they come back with, nothing is going to happen.

The Hon. R.A. Simms: They won't read the reports.

The Hon. B.R. HOOD: Probably not, the Hon. Rob Simms. They probably will not read the reports; as we know, this is their MO in this government.

The City of Mount Gambier does read reports; in fact, they make reports. In 2021, they did the regional public transport review and they found in that review that in Adelaide per capita we spend $234 per head on public transport. In the regions we spend $11 per head for public transport. That report also found that in Mount Gambier the current public transport system is adequate for a town the size of 3,000 people. We have 27,000 people in Mount Gambier. We service a population of over 70,000 in that region. It is just not good enough, the impact on the residents of Mount Gambier.

ABC South East, The Border Watch, TheSE Voice have all done stories on residents who simply cannot use this service. Ally Finnis, who lives with a vestibular condition, is forced to rely on family and friends. Paul Manfrin, who is legally blind, is forced to rely on his wife for transport, because taking the bus would just make him late to his appointments. He has had to wait or do a two to three-hour round trip just for a 30-minute appointment. Even seniors are forced to walk a kilometre to their nearest bus stop.

Terry Walters, Chair of the Hallmont Estate Residents Association, ended up fundraising for a minibus: 'Public transport is not going to work, I will have to fundraise for a minibus.' It is terrible, the state of our public transport in Mount Gambier, but council is at least advocating for something better. I acknowledge the advocacy of Deputy Mayor Max Bruins and Mayor Lynette Martin. They cannot believe they have a 30-year-old bus contract that has been renewed for another eight years, and that we are only just now seeing a review into public transport.

It is not good enough. I encourage every single person in Mount Gambier to tell this government that it is not good enough, raise their voices and tell the government about their concerns and emphasise the need that in a city that is the second biggest city in South Australia, with a population of 27,000 people, we deserve infrastructure that will grow our regions, and public transport is exactly one of those. I hope this government will listen, and I hope they actually read the report when they get it back.

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