Desperately needed new court complex for Adelaide scrapped in favour of bread and circuses … PPP for justice not delivering value for money … Judges and lawyers labour in Dickensian shame

DESPAIR sweeps across Florence-on-the-Torrens as the government reneges on a promise to build a $500 million courts “hub”. 

By all reports the Supreme Court in Adelaide is a crumbling ruin. Paint and plaster are peeling off the walls, there are insufficient power points and cabling, a lack of hot water, pathetic IT facilities, exposed wiring, and some of the courtrooms are unusable. 

Thirty million dollars is urgently needed to get a functioning IT system up and running. 

There is a report that a mattress has been placed under the stairs, to break the fall of tottering judges who might lose their footing. 

The Sir Sammy Way building across the road, home to there Dizzo, has concrete cancer and great slabs of the exterior are falling off. 

The place desperately needs more judges, but even if there were appointed there are insufficient functioning courtrooms. 

For more than a decade there have been planning sessions and expectations. 

In May 2012, to mark the 175th anniversary of the SA Supreme Court, the attorney general announced a scoping study for new building. The idea was for a private-public partnership, whereby a developer would build the new court complex and lease it back to the government. 

The CJ at the time, John Doyle, asked the attorney for a laminated copy of that undertaking. 

Construction was expected to commence in January this year, with Lend Lease the preferred contractor. No sod of soil was turned. Nothing happened. 

Then last month, attorney general, John Rau, surprised the judges, advocates, solicitors, proctors, notaries and other legal folk of South Australia by announcing the courts precinct renewal project had been terminated. 

Everyone believes that for the government to say the project is “delayed” really means it’s dead in the water. 

To add insult to injury, the government said it was pushing ahead with approval for a 24 story office building on public land behind Parliament House to be built by Lang Walker, plus refurbishments to the Festival Centre. 

In exchange for being allowed to build the office block with the usual gaggle of shops, cafés and restaurants, Lang will chip in a lousy $40 million for upgrading the Festival Plaza. The state government will also be committing another $180 million for associated plaza enhancements. 

Torrens-side citizens are asking why, if a deal with the private sector could be reached to tizz-up the festival centre and the festival plaza, why couldn’t one be reach for a new courts project, which is desperately needed? 

The answer, of course, is that the festival centre brings in the tourist dollars from all around the country. Visitors don’t flock to Adelaide to see the courts, they come for what Harris QC describes as “bread and circuses”. 

At least there was one lawyer thrilled to bits by the Walker-Government partnership. Michael Abbott QC is chairman of the Adelaide Festival Centre and he was waxing lyrical: 

“The whole precinct redevelopment will provide a sweeping multi-purpose plaza seamlessly linking Elder Park and the Riverbank Footbridge to the Adelaide railway station and North Terrace and includes a new underground car park, a premium office building along a closed-to-traffic Station Road, a row of cafés, restaurants and retail…” 

He estimates that the “revitalised precinct will attract 15.6 million visitors annually” by 2020. This is a massive improvement on the current visitor numbers of 800,000 a year. 

Meanwhile, the machinery of justice delivery is held together with ducking tape, old mattresses, double adapters, chewing gum and cold cups of tea.