THE HON ANGUS TAYLOR MP 
SHADOW TREASURER 

TRANSCRIPT 
PRESS CONFERENCE, CLOVELLY PARK, ADELAIDE
Friday 18th November 2022 

 

Topics: North-South Corridor project, Festival Tower, ambulance response times, GP shortages

E&OE 

DAVID SPEIRS: Well good morning. Great to here in Clovelly Park with the Shadow Federal Treasurer Angus Taylor and also the Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport at state level, Vincent Tarzia. We are calling today for the Malinauskas Labor Government and Transport Minister in particular Tom Koutsantonis to get their act together and release the final design for the North-South Corridor. We know that this was a project that was ready to go in the last months of the Marshall Liberal Government here in South Australia. It had been ticked off by Infrastructure South Australia. It had been ticked off by Infrastructure Australia. Independent bodies at arm’s length from government. They said this fully costed project at $9.9 billion was ready to go. What did we see when Labor came in, they put the project on hold. They pushed a whole heap of money out the back of forward estimates, at least $1 billion, probably more and they have delayed this project indefinitely. We’ve seen huge uncertainty amongst business owners up and down the North-South Corridor. We know that there are hundreds of businesses that front on to this road. They have the cloud of compulsory acquisition hanging over them. As well as that we’ve also got hundreds of residential residents. People who front the road or are a few streets back who may also be at risk of compulsory acquisition, but they don’t know. So, our question to the Government is today very clear, tell us who is getting acquired for this project, release the final design, and do so before Christmas so that people have certainty when they’re spending time with family and friends. Will they be spending time in the following 12 months in their homes, or will their homes be bulldozed? We know that tis project requires significant acquisition to go ahead, we’re ok with that, we planned to do so when in Government as well, but with these vast changes to the design people need certainty now. They were told by Tom Koutsantonis, I believe his words were ASAP. He fronted up to residents before the election and he said that this design would be released ASAP under Labor. That hasn’t happened and as recently as yesterday there was a Facebook post on the Residents Action Group saying they’ve heard nothing but crickets from the Government. We need this certainty, the residents need certainty as we head towards the end of the year, it’s time to release that design and get on with this state strategic project A state building project for South Australia, the North South Corridor. Ready to go, shovel ready under the previous Liberal Government and now delayed for who knows how long under Tom Koutsantonis. Pass now to Angus Taylor to provide a bit more commentary from a Federal Government perspective. 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, thank you David. It’s great to be here with you and Vincent and of course talking about what is an enormously important project for South Australia. One that we were committed to in Government, one that your very clearly committed to and we do want to see it proceeding. We do want to see the design laid out and the concerns of residents being dealt with, we also want to see the funding and we’ve seen this last budget $1.1 billion of funding over the next fours years take out of the project by the Albanese Government. This part of $6.5 billion of funding that has been pushed out by the Albanese Government and prioritised instead politically motivated projects in other parts of Australia. Now South Australia has been dropped from the batting order here. It has been deprioritised; it has been considered by the Albanese Government not important enough for that $1.1 billion for a project that really matters to this area. That has had a commitment across Federal and State levels of government. We want to see it proceeding. We want to see the funding behind it, and we want to see the issues being dealt with at the state level as David said. So great to be with you here today. We will remain as an Opposition absolutely committed to this project.

QUESTION: Aren’t we able to narrow this down to previous Liberal governments, both state and federal levels, not getting their act together, not getting the design right? It’s really an inherited problem by the current governments?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, we committed the funding. I mean there’s no ambiguity about that. $1.1 billion of funding that we committed has been taken out. We saw that in the last budget. This is a Labor Government that has deprioritised South Australia, there’s no doubt about it. They’ve got a state election, they’re supporting their mates in Victoria and they’ve deprioritised South Australia and that’s hugely disappointing for us. This is project we were committed to. On the design issues I’ll leave that to David to speak to.

DAVID SPEIRS: Thanks Angus. Look on the design issues this is a project that was signed off, given the tick of approval by Infrastructure Australia. We don’t believe there were any design issues, of course, different governments can have different approaches to design, but we know that this project was shovel ready. It was ready to go in February 2022. I sat on the Infrastructure Cabinet Committee where that advice was provided to us by Infrastructure Australia. This was ready to go. It had two components, a southern tunnel and a northern tunnel. That northern tunnel from just north of the Gallipoli underpass heading up towards Henley Beach Road and the River Torrens and the southern tunnel from somewhere close to here at Tonsley through towards Anzac Highway. These projects were ready to go. We were moving forward with it. Tom Koutsantonis wants to mess around with the design. We know when we’re building anything, when we start burying contracts and burying designs, the cost goes up and up and up. We are hearing rumours of design changes creating budget blowouts of up to $4 billion on top of this project. Now we would be quite willing to accept there might be some increase in cost because of the inflationary pressures present at the moment, but not billions and billions as Tom Koutsantonis tries to duck and weave this project around elements of his electorate, the electorate of West Torrens in the northern part of this project. So, what we want to see is what does Tom’s design look like? How does it interact with his electorate? What does this ducking and weaving look like? They have been saying for months and months that they’re about to release this design. Their communities will have certainty as to whether they’ll be acquired or not for this project to go ahead and all we get from Tom Koutsantonis and Peter Malinauskas is crickets.

QUESTION: But they’ve said fairly consistently for quite some months now that the report will be available by the end of the year. What causes you to think that that is still not the case?

DAVID SPEIRS: Well, these interminable delays that continue, time and time again. There has been no information provided whatsoever to residents. They have been promised updates, promised by Tom Koutsantonis and of course, the Member for Badcoe, Jane Stinson as well. They’ve fronted up day after day, creating concern and fear amongst residents in the lead up to the March 2022 election and now what do we have absolutely nothing from them. Because they won’t put a date on the release of this, we’ve got serious doubts it won’t ever be released in 2022. People want certainty. That’s all we are asking for. The businesses along this corridor, many of them are expecting to be acquired. Some who might not be acquired under a changed design want to know. They want to know so that they can sit down around Christmas time with their families and plan for the future.

QUESTION: You’ve said before Christmas you want the release of the plan. Do you have a specific date for that?

DAVID SPEIRS: Well we want to see this plan released as soon as possible and certainly before Christmas, but tell us when this will be ready. No doubt they want to provide some sort of distraction to something that’s going terribly wrong in the state at a particular day, probably CFMEU related. Don’t look at the CFMEU, look over here at our new design. Well tell us the date when this will be released.

QUESTION: I think the Premier said today, definitely by the end of the year, hoping for Christmas. Do you interpret that as a shift in language?

DAVID SPEIRS: It is absolutely a shift in language, well there’s only one week between Christmas and the end of the year, so just give us a date. 

QUESTION: I was going to ask you about the Festival Tower. I don’t know if you are aware if there are any changes to the site to the approved three-story design at the back of Parliament House and I think Nick Champion has suggested if they could go back and suggest something smaller. Do you think that is appropriate?

DAVID SPEIRS: Look if it’s a project that’s going to be stuffed up, it’ll be under Nick Champion’s portfolio. We know that he is quickly proving to be an extremely weak Minister and of course Angus Taylor would remember Nick Champion from his 15 years on the backbench in the Federal Parliament. Yes, Nick’s 15 years on the backbench, certainly not Angus’. The fact of the matter is that we have got a huge tower going up beside Parliament built by the Walker Corporation. That was a controversial project when it was signed off by Jay Weatherill round about 2016-2017. It’s now rising up out of the ground, expected to be finished sometime next year. Now there is an approval for a much smaller building, adjacent to that tower that’s being built at the moment, and this has lots of questions around it. This is technically Adelaide Park land, it’s public land. A fair bit of money was supposed to go in to doing green open space for the community to enjoy as part of the parklands behind Parliament. The idea that this building could now rise up out of the ground further than three stories is extremely concerning. We have had attack after attack after attack on Adelaide’s parklands and heritage since Labor became Government in this state and I’m concerned this could be yet another one. We are talking more than three stories, that will block sunlight from getting to Parliament. Some people might say well politicians don’t need light shining into the buildings, I would say this is a state heritage building and it’s a National Heritage building in fact and we don’t want a commercial office tower being built by Lang Walker towering over it. I’m against it personally, I suppose I can’t really speak on behalf of the party, but I am the Leader so, we are against it and we will not be supporting a significant re-design of that building which could see a multi-story commercial site being established on the Adelaide Park Lands.

QUESTION: I think they were suggesting something a bit more sympathetic so that you could still see the back of Parliament House. The trade off being that it’s actually taller in some places…

DAVID SPEIRS: We are talking a very tight space here. So, I haven’t seen design, but something that towered about Parliament House would be of extreme concern. Look, from my point of view the building that’s been built at the moment is deeply unsympathetic with that precinct. It doesn’t fit in, it’s slammed in there between the railway station, a heritage building and Parliament House, a heritage building on Adelaide Park Lands which also have heritage listing. So, lots of questions for Nick Champion to answer, no doubt he won’t be able to answer them, but I look forward to challenging him to actually tell us what sort of deal he’s trying to do with the Walker Corporation.

QUESTION: Priority one ambulance response times haven’t been met, the Government’s come out and said it’s an understaffing issue they’ve inherited from the Liberal Government. What would be your response to that? 

DAVID SPEIRS: Well, they said that they’d fix this problem. The situation that we faced was under a global pandemic which put immense pressure on our health system, and I remember those corflutes and all the lamp poles along highways in South Australia ‘we will fix the nursing crisis’. Goodluck with that Peter, how’s that going? It’s not going very well at all. We’ve got record ramping data month after month under the Labor Government. In fact, I think out of the last seven months we’ve had six of the worst months in history in terms of ramping data. It is extremely concerning and let’s reflect on what a priority call is when it comes to an ambulance callout. This is for someone who has likely stopped breathing, this is when you need an ambulance more than ever. So, Labor have been in power now for eight months in this state, they said that they could fix this. Eight months might not sound like a long time, but we are heading towards 20 per cent of their entire term in Government, so they’ve got to get their act together here. They said they had the silver bullet and South Australians are waiting. 

QUESTION: Just for you Mr Taylor, on the health scene, there is some new analysis out today from the ABS showing that more than 40 per cent of people are now having to wait more than 24 hours or more to see a general practitioner for urgent medical care and on the radio this morning in Melbourne the Health Minister was saying the GP shortages are frankly terrifying, his words. Do you think enough is being done to ensure that we have enough GP’s? I think only 14 per cent of medical students are now choosing to go into general practice. Are you worried about these figures and is enough being done? 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Look, it’s a major area of concern, there’s no doubt about that. We want to make sure there’s enough GP’s and of course, the worst of that has been in regional areas and I’ve personally seen that over the years, but this is a Health Minister in one of his first acts trashed the incentive system for regional GP’s and we’ve lost many regional GP’s as a result and we’re seeing that sort of drain away from the areas where there has been most need that’s been the biggest problem. So, you know, we do want to see the Government dealing with this, absolutely. It is an issue that needs to be deal with. We’ll support any sensible initiatives from the Government, but so far what we’ve seen from the Government is not going to help the situation, in fact it’s already made it worse.

QUESTION: That’s $750 million there that they’ve put forward to strengthen Medicare. Do you think that’s going to make a difference.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, lets see. As I said, this is a Minister who in one of his first acts trashed the incentive system for rural GP’s. That’s not what we wanted to see. Let’s see where he goes from here and let’s see whether these initiatives are going to help. We’ll support any sensible initiatives, but there has to be a plan that’s actually going to work. 

QUESTION: Is terrifying a word you’d use? 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Look, it’s a real concern. I mean, I’ve seen this for many years, there’s been a challenge we’ve been dealing with it and we’ll continue to. Every rural MP has had this challenge and has been dealing with it with their local communities and we’ve dealt with it a number of ways, but it’s certainly something that we need the Government to be focused on. We need them to take sensible initiatives. Trashing the rural GP inventive system is not the way to do that. 

ENDS.