SA Election 2018: Candidates for the seat of Adelaide name their top three priorities for the city

IT’S a powerful piston in the engine room of SA’s economy. So what’s Adelaide’s future? State candidates for the city seat outline their top three priorities.

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IT’S a powerful piston in the engine room of SA’s economy. So what’s Adelaide’s future? State candidates for the city seat — Rachel Sanderson (Lib), Jo Chapley (ALP), Robert Simms (Greens) and Betty-Jean Price (Dignity Party) — outlined their top three priorities for Adelaide at a pre-election Q&A breakfast hosted by the city council on Friday morning.

Here’s what they said.

How good is Adelaide? View of the CBD from the Adelaide Hills.

Rachel Sanderson MP (Liberal)

1. Reducing cost of living

Of course, we’ve got electricity: not only the cost but the reliability. The Liberal plan is to fund a $200m interconnector with New South Wales which will give us two ways to buy and sell, and better reliability. We’ll reinstate the emergency services levy remission, so that should nearly half the emergency services bill. We’ll also have rate-capping so we can keep council rates under control. They’re the main cost of living issues people mention, along with water and gas and land taxes.

2. Increasing jobs

We (the Liberal Party) have just announced $100,000 for 20,800 apprenticeships and traineeships. We are also opening up trade offices overseas to encourage exports and business.

3. Better services

Through health services delivery, Labor has really centralised everything. They’ve taken money out of the country in regional hospitals — we’ll be reinstating that. We also have a focus on preventive health. Labor cut that budget over four to five years ago and we’ve seen health blow-outs in South Australia.

And a final thought ... Adelaide has a high percentage of people who have been educated and gone to university but our children are leaving the state because they’ve all got work interstate. Enough is enough. It’s time for a change of government. PODCAST: OFF THE RECORD - EPISODE 3

Jo Chapley (Labor)

1. Jobs

It’s my number one priority. From jobs, everything else flows. People have opportunities when they’re in meaningful, purposeful employment. When I’m door-knocking, I hear a lot about jobs and a lot about business, too. In the CBD itself, it’s about business and business activity and the generation of jobs. What I hear, with apartments coming into the city, there’s an energised spirit coming back into the city. It’s good for business, it’s good for jobs.

2. Education

Education is your ticket to freedom. The better education that we have, the better outcomes for our society as a whole.

3. Energy

People want a clear energy plan and they get that from Labor.

And a final thought ... health – it’s important too.

Jo Chapley is the Labor candidate for the seat Adelaide. Pic: Supplied.

Greens seat of Adelaide candidate Robert Simms. Pic: Supplied.

Roberts Simms (Greens)

1. Planning reform

The community want to ensure we’ve got a planning system in place that services the community and not the big end of town. Lack of consultation (in the community) concerns people a lot. They’re wanting to ensure there’s actually consultation happening and that local councils, and key bodies, have been engaged.

2. Housing affordability

It’s a huge issue. So, people not just wanting to break into the housing market and buy their own homes but also people wanting to have protection that are renting and ensuring they’ve got their rights being protected by law – that’s something I want to look at. There’s a lot of horror stories out there of people being ripped off by dodgy landlords not having the appropriate protections by law but also, I’m hearing there is not enough affordable housing in the city for people to buy.

3. Homelessness

It’s a huge issue. We do need to be investing in public and emergency housing to support people and ensure people have got a roof over their heads.

And a final thought ... Transport is key. (Things like) our cycling infrastructure, finishing Frome Street and moving on to other areas of the city and the tram extension. I think we need to extend up to North Adelaide and up to Prospect through O’Connell Street now we’ve got that site (Le Cornu) being activated. It would really invigorate the area.

Betty Jean Price (Dignity Party)

1. Developing community

We need to own the decisions that are made within the sector (that better serve the local community).

2. Improving education and employment for people

We tend to see people with disabilities or older people in the “too hard” basket or exclude that group of people. We need to make sure education is available for more vulnerable groups (like them). We also need to increase the participation of people across our community with employment and education – we have very high levels of unemployment, particularly people with disabilities.

3. The environment/energy

We need to make sure energy is locally controlled. We’ve got a huge amount of sun in this state, a massive amount of it … we can share power and energy that will reduce costs and enable people to share power and community resources.

And a final thought ... we need a new code of conduct for SA political parties. The community is sick of us (politicians) tearing each other apart. Yes, we can have debate and different view points but we need to stop the negative tearing each other part just for the purpose of scoring points.