Labor leader Peter Malinauskas vows to scrap $662m Riverbank Arena and divert money to health

Labor leader Peter Malinauskas has detailed horror stories from the state’s health system, vowing to can the Riverbank Arena and divert at least $100m into country health.

An emotional Peter Malinauskas has detailed horror stories from the state’s besieged health system as he vows to divert at least $100m into country health by scuttling the proposed Riverbank Arena.

Delivering his state budget reply speech, the Opposition Leader’s voice broke as he recounted cases relayed to him by paramedics, including a five-year-old Adelaide Hills boy experiencing multiple unchecked seizures waiting 40 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.

“The parents were waiting at the bottom of the driveway and mum was completely beside herself,” Mr Malinauskas told parliament, his voice faltering.

“Two seconds later, I’m hearing another story from another ambo about him being stuck internally ramped with a father who was beside himself after their 11-year-old son had attempted to commit suicide.”

Labor Leader Peter Malinauskas hosted ambulance officers and health workers at Parliament House ahead of his budget reply speech. Picture: Dean Martin

Mr Malinauskas vowed to divert money from the $662m arena to health if elected next March, committing at least $100m into country health – without specifying further details.

The move opens a gaping divide between the major parties less than nine months before the next election.

Directly addressing paramedics who had come to parliament to watch his speech, Mr Malinauskas said he understood they were “crying out for change”, not “crying out for your own interests”.

He accused Mr Marshall of worsening by slashing funding and jobs in Tuesday’s budget.

The Advertiser in March revealed Mr Marshall’s plans for a 15,000-seat, multipurpose indoor arena for sport, entertainment and conventions, built between Adelaide’s railyards and the River Torrens – with construction not starting until 2025.

Until now, Mr Malinauskas has pointedly refused to lock Labor into either supporting or opposing the arena but has tried to frame the “basketball stadium” as an idle folly of Mr Marshall’s.

Speaking to The Advertiser ahead of Thursday afternoon’s budget reply, Mr Malinauskas declared Labor’s move was “not about hating the basketball stadium” but “making the right choices for what our state needs now”.

“Investment in an elite sports arena when people are dying waiting for an ambulance, when ramping is out of control, when emergency departments are massively under the pump … that’s impossible to justify,” he said.

“We believe if we’re going to put additional funding into health we need to have the means to pay for it. This is about making the tough decisions that are necessary to invest in what’s clearly an emergency.”

Tuesday’s budget committed $79m over the next four years for arena planning and site preparation works, including a tunnel under the Morphett St bridge connecting Adelaide Convention Centre.

Artist impression of the state government’s proposed Riverbank Arena, which is says it would build if it was re-elected. Labor says it will axe the project and put the money into health.

This allows Labor, should it win government, to immediately halt the project and amass a war chest to pump into funding health promises.

This would enable Labor measures beyond the Liberal budget pledges for a $1.95bn, 500-space Women’s and Children’s Hospital opening in 2027 and $163.5m for mental health services designed to ease pressure on hospitals.

Mr Malinauskas also is testing the Liberals’ commitment to the arena by challenging Mr Marshall to restate the case, particularly arguing its importance over health spending.

But the Labor leader has not declared further detail on how the money would be spent, instead promising to release a detailed health policy later in an informal election campaign.

In Treasurer Rob Lucas’s budget speech, he said the arena’s $662m cost would be reduced by selling Adelaide Entertainment Centre, which it would replace, and the arena project was expected to be complete by 2027-28.

Artist impression of the inside of the proposed arena.

Mr Marshall has argued the arena would help attract many of the conventions and concerts that now bypass the state because Adelaide does not have a suitable venue.

Treasurer Rob Lucas said scrapping the arena would not result in one extra cent being spent in health for more than a year.

Even then, he said, just $10m in capital investment had been budgeted for early arena works in 2022-23 – a fraction of the $7.4 billion the Liberals were ploughing into health.

Mr Lucas argued Mr Malinauskas and Labor had been exposed as either incompetent, tricky, or both.

“Labor either don’t understand how a state budget works, or they’re trying to pull the wool over South Australians’ eyes, because their plan will not result in one extra cent being spent on health for more than a year,” said Mr Lucas.

“Only $10 million has been allocated in the next two years for the project – construction won’t be complete until 2027-28 – so for Labor to try and characterise this proposal as somehow being able to divert significant funds into a quick fix for health is a complete and utter nonsense.”