Matthew Abraham: Sell it? Keep it? Welcome to SA, the Topsy-Turvy Land

SELL it? Keep it? Matthew Abraham looks at Labor’s history of somersaulting on privatisation in SA.

The peloton travels along the Port River Expressway during this year’s Tour Down Under. Picturre: Sarah Reed

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“What’s Topsy-Turvy Land like?” asked Joe, taking another pop biscuit.

“Never been there,” said Moonface, “but I should think it’s quite safe, really.”

              - The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton

The road to The Port is paved with good intentions and dirt. More dirt than you can poke a stick at.

The route in question is the Port River Expressway, hilariously described as a 5.5km “freeway-grade road” that links Port Adelaide and the LeFevre Peninsula to Adelaide’s northern suburbs and major interstate routes to Sydney and Perth.

It is supposed to be South Australia’s very own Silk Road, linking the shipping and container terminals at Outer Harbor to some kind of trade Shangri-La.

It is a disgrace.

Every time I use the “freeway-grade” expressway, it is covered in a thick layer of dirt, on both sides, extending its entire length. What is it with all the dirt? Where does it all come from? Do dirt fairies come out every night and top it up?

When the local MPs, who are all also Cabinet ministers, head to the Port to open another boutique brewery, do they actually notice this piece of motoring junk, an expressway strangled by dirt and perpetual, temporary, permanent speed restrictions?

It is laughable that a government that has promised to bituminise the all-dirt Strzelecki Track, in the Far North, has a major bitumen road in the big smoke that is almost all dirt.

It is just the sort of road you would expect in Topsy Turvy Land, a magical place where everything is upside down.

The whole Topsy-Turvy thing is emerging as a strong theme as SA plummets toward what is promising to be the world’s wackiest election.

Chris Kenny, from the The Australian, invoked Enid Blyton’s mythical land last Sunday after Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis tweeted that SA’s “state-owned, gas-fired power plant will be located at Bolivar alongside our other state-owned assets run by SA Water”.

“Only Labor will keep both these essential utilities in public hands,” Koutsantonis waxed of the mooted home for his $360 million “gas-fired” generator, currently running on dirty diesel.

“Slowly, we are undoing the damage of the sale of ETSA”.

The other essential utility at Bolivar is, of course, a sewerage farm. The Treasurer’s critics would argue that his government’s approach to publicly-owned assets has a lot in common with what Adelaide deposits at Bolivar.

When it comes to privatising state assets, this government has done more somersaults than a snowboarder at the Winter Olympics.

Mike Rann kicked the show off 16 long years ago, exploiting the backlash over the Liberal sale of ETSA as cunningly in government as he had in Opposition.

Remember the letters he wrote to all public servants forbidding them from even thinking about privatising state assets? Magic moments.

Once Premier Jay Weatherill took over, privatisation became beautiful again.

Under his direction, the government set about flogging off anything that wasn’t nailed down. The Motor Accident Commission, the South-East forests, the Lands Titles Office, the Repat – it all had to go.

He tried, but failed, to sell his own office building, the State Administration Centre overlooking Victoria Square. He even wanted to sell 99-year leases for private apartments on parklands on the old RAH site, but that deal mysteriously collapsed.

Now, however, privatisation is a dirty word again. Public servants should be getting a reminder letter from the Premier any day now.

At the last Budget lock-up, Weatherill told me they had sold the state’s lucrative forest harvesting rights in the South-East because “governments shouldn’t be in the forestry business”. Why not?

Since 1876, successive governments have done a fine job of running a world-class forestry business in this state, generating income and secure jobs with a green and endlessly renewable resource. It’s one of the few things they’ve got right.

Liberal leader Steven Marshall opposes the forestry sale, says he can reverse the closure of the Daw Park Repatriation Hospital, but would sell the new state-owned generator at Bolivar and won’t say how many public servants is too many.

Yet both major parties want Nick Xenophon to release consistent policies?

Topsy-Turvy Land is a confusing place but it could be worse. Enid Blyton put it right next door to the Land of Do-As-You-Please, a place that has a lot to answer for, frankly.