A city that works for everyone

Adelaide is becoming increasingly unequal and unaffordable. Since 2020 rents on new properties have increased by 50% and house prices have risen by 90% pricing many working class people out of the housing market completely. Persistent inflation has seen real wages go backwards as the price of everything goes up.

Meanwhile, the Business Council of Australia, a group representing the biggest corporations in the country, ranks South Australia as the number one place to do business in the country, with the best taxes, regulation and planning for big business. So whilst ordinary workers have been seeing their lives getting harder, big business has been raking it in. Energy companies have seen enormous profits as workers struggle to pay their bills. Supermarket giants post record-breaking profits whilst the price of ordinary goods goes through the roof.

We need a government that holds developers and corporations to account, not one that is at their beck and call. We need proper planning and investment. We need a city that works for everyone.

What we think

1. Cities must be designed and retrofitted so that their inhabitants can lead comfortable, connected and fulfilling lives.
2. Existing public space and community facilities must be protected from private developers and new spaces and facilities acquired and constructed.
3. All residents, regardless of the suburb in which they live, must be guaranteed equal access to affordable and high-quality housing, decent jobs, public healthcare, public transport, public education at all levels and quality public infrastructure and amenities.
4. Urban planning must be democratic and planning decisions must be guided by social equity and ecological sustainability.

We’ll fight for

1. Mandate increases in social infrastructure – such as public transport, schools, hospitals, parks and playgrounds – for rises in population growth.
2. Mandate low-cost and public housing (“inclusionary zoning”) set at least 20 percent for all developments.
3. Mandate that all residential developments have minimum internal amenity and decent open space for each house or apartment.
4. Mandate developer responsibility for ensuring 30 percent canopy tree coverage in growth suburbs and impose a developer levy to fund urgent planting to at least double the canopy tree coverage in western suburbs.
5. Protect and preserve heritage buildings and streetscapes, including by introducing new penalties that allow for no-compensation public acquisition of land where property owners have unlawfully demolished a building or otherwise destroyed its heritage value.
6. Ensure that social equity, ecological sustainability and public amenity are given primacy in local planning and public infrastructure decisions.
7. Mandate that developers bear responsibility for structural defects to properties for 30 years after building completion and seven years for non-structural defects.
8. Increase green space, canopy tree coverage and the number of linear parks and urban farms, including protecting the Adelaide Parklands as a public green space.