Motion on Adelaide City Skate Park

 I rise on behalf of the Liberal Party to support the motion of the Hon. Tammy Franks. We have been supportive in the past and I have spoken on this particular issue in the past. I commend the motion to the house. It is an important motion, and the member for Adelaide, Rachel Sanderson, also has been doing quite a bit of agitating on this particular issue. She has had a very keen interest and has really pushed us in the Liberal Party to make sure that we are very supportive. I notice that the member for Adelaide has spoken at a rally at the Skate Park prior to the 2014 election to express her support and to commit to lobbying her colleagues to ensure funding for a new city skate park. We believe it is shameful that Labor would give away the Skate Park land before finding a safe and permanent site for a new skate park. The member for Adelaide has also met with members of the Skate Park lobby group multiple times to discuss alternative sites, none of which have the same accessibility, particularly to trains, trams and buses, or the safety provided by the high pedestrian traffic and highly visible North Terrace site. Due to the closure of the Skate Park without an alternative site, many Skate Park users are skating along North Terrace and Victoria Square, which leads to safety issues for the greater public. The Liberal Party notes the importance of recreational facilities such as skate parks, particularly for young people in our city centre. This free facility is one of the only options available to young people that keeps them away from venues that sell alcohol, and this is a point that the member for Adelaide has reiterated to me many times. Over time the city has had multiple recreational activities available for young people. These include Downtown, Timezone, Academy Cinema centre, Regent Cinema, Dazzleland, and the Hindley Street complex. These activities are no longer available, which makes the retaining of a safe and accessible skate park even more significant. The member for Adelaide has hammered these points home to us in our party time and time again and fully supports this motion. This government is committed to a vibrant city. They should put their money where their mouth is and commit the funds required to build a skate park. I am pleased that the member for Adelaide, Rachel Sanderson, has pointed this out to me many times and will continue to fight, along with the Hon. Tammy Franks from the Greens, who, again, we commend for putting up this motion. We are pleased to join the Hon. Tammy Franks in what is the good fight.