RPH interview regarding parking at the Adelaide Oval
28/02/2015
Peter Greco: Thirteen minutes past five and Kelly Vincent is member for Dignity for Disability in the Legislative Council. Kelly, good to catch up with you again.
Kelly Vincent: Hi Peter, how’s it going?
Peter Greco: Very well thank you. Now, people with disabilities trying to get into the Adelaide Oval or parking at the Adelaide Oval, have you got some good news there?
Kelly Vincent: Yes, it’s certainly been a long time coming. Unfortunately accessible parking wasn’t properly planned for in the original redevelopment, which, when you consider that it’s a multi-million dollar, tax-payer funded redevelopment of the oval is very disappointing, so we’re very pleased to see the council working toward ensuring that there will be adequate accessible parking for patrons in the twenty fifteen season, with 260 car parks available this year, and I believe they’re working on, the council is working to ensure more parking is available in the future as well.
Peter Greco: Now Kelly, that must be in a sense gratifying that this is happening, but as you said the Oval’s been on the planning for a little while now, but it is sort of in the 21st Century, you would’ve thought accessibility would’ve been taken into account when planning for the redevelopment was taking place.
Kelly Vincent: Well look, that’s right, and that’s why Dignity for Disability is really passionate about advocating for things like universal design to ensure that our society remains accessible for everyone, as our population ages and as people survive more and more car accidents and other injuries we need to make sure that our great city is ready for all of that, far into the future, so this is one example unfortunately of a short-sightedness in this kind of development but ti is pleasing to see the council working towards a solution, I guess it’s just a shame it’s taken so long.
Peter Greco: Now the Adelaide City Council as you said and the Stadium Management Authority are the group that look after if you like the Adelaide Oval, they’re been fairly receptive to ideas to make it more accessible and particularly for parking?
Kelly Vincent: Yes, absolutely, and I’m sure you’re aware Peter that one of the original ideas that was put forward was to have parking available for people with access needs on Pink Flat,
Peter Greco: Mmm…
Kelly Vincent: but unfortunately from what we’ve been told this would not be a good solution. Pinky Flat is on quite a steep gradient that runs into the Torrens, so it creates quite a significant safety risk
Peter Greco: Mmm…
Kelly Vincent: of concern to that we’ve spoken to, and there’s also a lack of lighting there, which is important for not only I guess people with vision impairment, but anyone coming back from a game at night time, you need to ensure that there’s adequate lighting as well, So, and I guess also to make Pinky Flat disability access compliant would require concreting the parklands and we think that we need to balance access to the parklands, preservation of the parklands with access needs and that the solution that the council has worked towards provides that.
Peter Greco: So there’ll be a sort of a three year plan if you like, to roll out the car parks?
Kelly Vincent: Yes, that’s what I understand. I’m told that this year there’ll be 260 disability permit access parks available; via the Torrens Parade Ground there will be 180 parks, and at the Adelaide Oval car park itself there will be a further 50, and then a further 30 car parks at War Memorial Drive.
Peter Greco: So I guess that’s, as you said, something that people can look forward to in the next little while, because when you think of something like $585 million was spent on the Adelaide Oval, and of course it’s the public’s money, the Government put the money in, but that’s you and I, and everyone else.
Kelly Vincent: Absolutely, and I think something that often gets forgotten is that people with disabilities are taxpayers too,
Peter Greco: Yeah.
Kelly Vincent: even people in receipt of a pension or welfare payment are paying tax, and so we do have the right to access facilities that that money is going towards.
Peter Greco: Have you had good feedback, or any feedback at this stage from potential users, because well the football season isn’t too far away and a lot of people will be using it then, but much feed back to your office so far regarding this proposal or this decision to roll these parking spots out over the next few years?
Kelly Vincent: Yeah, it’s been generally positive. I think people, from what I understand, tend to agree that the Pinky Flat solution’s not workable, and so I think people are pleased to see this happening with the existing infrastructure used, because I guess you know, it’s certainly i don’t think appropriate to say, “Oh well, we didn’t get it right, you know
Peter Greco: Mmm…
Kelly Vincent: $585 million development, let’s just move the parking to Pinky Flat.” We really need to insist on better use of the existing resource that out taxpayer funds have gone towards. So, it’s been generally positive, but I think it’s fair to say there’s been disappointment that it has taken this long, so I encourage anyone with any suggestions or feedback to contact the Adelaide City Council. I know that they are, you know, now that we’ve gone this far they’re certainly keen to get it right.
Peter Greco: Kelly, a question without notice, and apologies for that, but of course, yesterday the submissions for Transforming Health in South Australia submissions closed; you’ve had some thoughts about that?
Kelly Vincent: Yes, we have put a motion to Parliament, which actually passed with resounding support in the Legislative Council on Wednesday evening, to basically ask the Government to slow down the consultation process on this and provide more information about the proposals, because certainly the feedback we’ve got Peter, is that nobody is opposed to health care reform per se, we have a very inefficient health care system, it’s very expensive, and I think people accept that there does need to be some change, but unfortunately a lack of detail in the Transforming Health document is creating concern which I think is understandable, given that people have relied so much on places like the Repat
Peter Greco: Mmm…
Kelly Vincent: Hospital, on the Hampstead Centre, at some of the most difficult times of their lives, I think it’s fair to ask for more information about how to make an informed decision about what’s going on with these proposals, so we’ll certainly keep pushing for that.
Peter Greco: Yeah, there was barely a month was there, a month of time for people to give feedback, and we’ve seen the protests on television and through the various media, particularly about the Repat, and I guess sometimes you need something like this to galvanise the community so hopefully the Government will be taking notice.
Kelly Vincent: Absolutely, and I’d certainly encourage anyone with any concerns to contact the Health Minister Jack Snelling in particular to get try and more information about what is going on and how we can best provide for best care first time, because there’s no denying that that’s what we want, but when we don’t have the information about how these proposals will look, it’s very difficult to make an informed decision about that.
Peter Greco: You talked about the need for transforming health care; You’ve been saying for the 5 years that you’ve been in Parliament about the ridiculous situation where people are kept in hospital rather than being home with their family and friends, etcetera, and how much more expensive that is rather than, being kept in hospital rather than being sent home.
Kelly Vincent: Absolutely, and that’s one of the key arguments that we’ve been making in response to Transforming Health, I mean it’s all very well and good to reform the health care system, but if it’s still devolved I suppose to the point where people are in a hospital bed well beyond the point where they need to be
Peter Greco: Mmm…
Kelly Vincent: and that’s having an adverse effect on their health, and taking that bed away from someone who actually needs it, it’s a waste of our taxpayer money and it certainly doesn’t do anyone’s health any good, so it’s certainly something that we will continue to push for a sensible solution to this and really I think the solution is fairly simple, all that needs to happen is for separate departments to put their separate KPIs aside and actually work together and say, “How can we as a disability department,” for example, “provide adequate support for this person once they get out of hospital, and how can the health and disability departments provide that”, because I really don’t think that the average taxpayer, Peter, really cares what the pool of money is called, whether it’s health or disability, they just want to see it going towards actually helping the people who pay the taxes, so we’ll certainly continue to lobby for that very hard.
Peter Greco: There’s an idea, Government departments working together, I wonder if it will catch on.
Kelly Vincent: Oh look,
Peter Greco: [laughing]
Kelly Vincent: it’s a crazy idea I know. It’s very novel, but look, and I hasten to make the point that, it has caught on, we’ve seen very good consultation with things like the Disability Justice Plan, separate departments working together collaboratively to get ideas. It certainly didn’t happen in the beginning of the Disability Justice Plan, but once some pressure was put on the Government it did, so I’m a bit disappointed in the Government’s lack of ability to learn from itself, so we’ll keep pushing for that until we get a workable solution.
Peter Greco: Terrific. Kelly, Always good to chat to you, keep up the good work.
Kelly Vincent: You too my friend. Thanks, Peter.
Peter Greco: [laughs] Kelly Vincent there, member for Dignity for Disability in the Legislative Council, and that is pretty good news that over the next 3 years there’ll be a number of more parking spaces for people with disabilities and a bit more better, better access, at the Adelaide Oval so that’s got to be a good thing. Pity it took a bit long, but at least it’s got here so we should be grateful for that.
