Rod Sawford (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My mother’s family, the Tuxfords, arrived in Port Adelaide in 1839 from Boston in Lincolnshire. They were wine merchants and, not surprisingly, their descendants were involved in hotels, farming and small business. Politically speaking, although they lived in the western suburbs of Port Adelaide there was not a Labor voter amongst them and there was no connection to the Port community. There still is not.

My father’s family arrived in Port Adelaide in 1851 from Northampton, in particular the villages of Loddington, Corby and Desborough, where Sawfords live today. Like Port Adelaide, they voted Labor. They elected my cousin Phil to the House of Commons in 1997 for the seat of Kettering. In Port Adelaide, the men were seamen, fishermen, Navy personnel and marine and waterside workers. The women were tougher. They became inextricably linked to Port Adelaide and, in particular, the Le Fevre Peninsula and there was not a conservative voter amongst them. There still is not.

Notwithstanding my ancestors’ arrival, Port Adelaide has a very special place in the history of South Australia. Before roads and railways were built, it was the meeting place of the fledgling colony’s growing mining, farming, mercantile and intellectual communities. Without a doubt it was and remains the spiritual soul of the South Australian settlement. Because of these factors, Port Adelaide and its immediate environment rightfully received great respect and attention from all levels of government. Unique transport systems such as double-decker trolley buses linked Port and its popular and safe beaches at Semaphore and Largs Bay to the capital, Adelaide, and the richer eastern suburbs. Trains and trams took country folk and city and suburban Adelaide directly to Semaphore, Largs Bay and Port Adelaide. The important point to note is that there was a connectedness with Port and with the western suburbs of Adelaide.

Until the early 1960s, Port Adelaide was the second largest retail centre in metropolitan Adelaide. State and local government authorities could not afford to ignore what was happening in Port Adelaide. Not surprisingly, Port Adelaide has been and is traditional Labor heartland. There is a great pride and a passion in the communities of Port Adelaide and the western suburbs. It can lie dormant but, once raised, it can never be ignored. And that pride and passion is beginning to show signs of changing the political landscape, perhaps permanently.

In 1961, a short-sighted and tragic decision by the state Liberal government began that change. In that year it was decided, against the protests of only a few, that the sometimes unreliable but nevertheless opening Jervois Bridge would be replaced by a fixed bridge. That decision destroyed the vision of an open waterway from Outer Harbour, up the Port River, through the swamps of what is now West Lakes and out to sea just before the Grange Jetty. The Portland Canal was also filled in and this marked the beginning of a downward spiral for Port Adelaide. Obviously there were other factors. Containerisation of shipping changed forever the way the port operated.

Port people were horrified at the death of the upper reaches of the Port River and the Portland Canal. Can you just imagine how valuable they would be today? However, the protests were muted and had little, if any, public airing. It was 1961. The state Liberal Party had begun their contempt and disdain for the port and for the western suburbs, which unfortunately continues today, to their electoral cost. Negative decisions for Port continued. The community did make stronger protests against the building of shopping centres at Arndale and West Lakes and the failed Myer project at Queenstown, but these protests quickly ran out of energy and momentum. A brief renaissance of Port under Labor occurred in the mid-1980s. However, that was seriously stalled by the stock market crash of 1987 and the collapse of the State Bank.

The political landscape changed dramatically, however, with the Brown, Olsen and Kerin Liberal governments of the 1990s. The Port and western suburbs communities who holidayed on the Yorke, Eyre and Fleurieu peninsulas and in the River Murray towns could not help but note the infrastructure expenditure in those areas and the total absence of spending where they lived. A level of angst emerged.

One of the reasons given for the failure of the city of Port Adelaide to re-emerge as a major retail centre was the loss of population and the huge volume of truck traffic that rattled and rumbled through the main streets. Both Labor and Liberal promised a third road and rail crossing to take the traffic away from the city centre. The community wanted tunnels—the best option. They were promised opening bridges after being threatened with a causeway by the Liberals. Although disappointed, residents resigned themselves to the fact that at least the inner harbour would be accessible—and, anyway, what else would you expect from a Liberal administration?

However, in a remarkable backflip, the newly elected state Labor government, knowing opening bridges were just a second-best option, wanted to renege on even this decision and give the community what it totally rejected: fixed bridges. The Liberals, Business SA, the South Australian Freight Council, the RAA, the Road Transport Association, the South Australian Farmers Federation and, indirectly, Flinders Ports agreed. Interestingly, those groups were the same philistines responsible for the fixed Jervoise Bridge decision in 1961. Nothing changes! Port Adelaide people were outraged. State Labor were behaving worse than even the Liberals. They demanded I lead a charge to have the state Labor government honour the promise they made. In Port Adelaide, keeping your word is far more important than status or money.

A huge campaign was mounted and over 95 per cent of the state electorates of Port Adelaide and Lee supported opening bridges and the honouring of the Labor promise. In fact, more than 600 people packed into the Port town hall and cheered loudly when the government agreed to honour its promise and have opening bridges. More would have attended but the government gave in at four o’clock in the afternoon. People power won. Behind the scenes, the opponents of opening bridges lobbied furiously to overturn the decision. They failed. The Premier intervened and the decision held. The people in Port were dudded in 1961. They were not going to be dudded again, especially by a Labor government they so strongly supported. The former sleeping giant that was the traditional Labor heartland was now fully awake.

It did not escape constituents that prior to this year’s state election both Labor and Liberal were disingenuous when it came to the sale of the Cheltenham Racecourse, the last significant open space in the western suburbs. The Liberals, who had publicly supported the sale, were rightly decimated in the western suburbs. With no Independents of note in the lower house seats, many people voted for No Pokies MP Nick Xenophon. That was not because they agreed with his policies but because they rejected the Liberals and wanted to fire a warning shot across the bow of state Labor. The community reaction against the sale of the Cheltenham Racecourse was huge. That it was not recognised by the local state members simply reinforced a view held in the community that they were out of touch, disconnected from their community and had glass jaws when they were criticised. They may have got into government on a ‘Labor Listens’ campaign, but that was where it began and ended. On 19 September this year 934 people came to a public rally against the sale of the racecourse, 93 people wanted their apologies read out, and 306 emails and hundreds of phone calls were received. I know this community. Many Port people would rather have their teeth pulled out without anaesthetic than go to a public rally, yet in the biggest political meeting in the west for 40 years they turned out in force. The political landscape has changed.

Other announcements made by the state government this year have also exacerbated the public angst, not because the decisions were wrong but because they confirmed an already perceived bias against the needs of the Labor heartland. One was the announcement to preserve 50 hectares of land in the north-eastern suburbs. Damn good decision, but not for the west. Another was the announcement concerning the rebuilding of the Rapid Bay jetty. Good decision, but not for the west. One policy for the east; another for the west! For over 40 years locals have begged state governments to rebuild the jetties at Largs Bay, Semaphore, Grange and Henley Beach. The only and continued response is unsatisfactory repair work. Hundreds of people visit Rapid Bay; hundreds of thousands of people visit Largs Bay, Semaphore, Grange and Henley Beach. I am glad the member for Hindmarsh is here. More than 7,000 people in his seat and mine are in the hospitality and tourism business. It is the biggest employer in both our seats. These are employment figures you want to protect and grow, not ignore.

I will make mention of a couple of other matters which also tell an all too familiar story of discriminatory government against the western suburbs in Adelaide. The hospital for the west is the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woodville. Constituents welcome the state Labor government’s investment in the QEH. However, they are not fools. A once proud 800-bed hospital with many specialist services is no comparison to a 200- or 300-bed hospital with limited specialist services, which is what we have got now. Also, the state government promised during the election they would make a public announcement commemorating arguably Australia’s bravest soldier, Sergeant Thomas Currie ‘Diver’ Derrick. Nine months later: no decision, nothing—a very poor show. And on another matter, the top end of town in Adelaide never pay to go to the art gallery or the museum, and rightly so, but down in Port we have to pay to go to the maritime and railway museums. Tony Blair had a social inclusion policy in the United Kingdom. It is about time the state Labor governments in this country had the same.

Governments that fail to appreciate that spin and manipulation of the facts are no longer acceptable will be punished in the only way people power works: the withdrawal of people’s votes. Representative democracy is making a comeback in this country, and not before time. Political change will be the order of the day in the foreseeable future. (Time expired)