OPINION by Samantha Skinner
Election promises matter. But they don't give governments a blank cheque—and they shouldn't prevent voters from asking what was promised, what was delivered, what changed and what it ultimately cost.
I've been hearing a lot lately that “it was an election promise”, particularly when it comes to MotoGP and the Adelaide Park Lands. Governments are elected on the commitments they make to voters. But if election promises are used to justify decisions, we should be able to examine the whole record.
Labor's record: can the public check it?
Peter Malinauskas took Labor to the 2022 election with more than 700 commitments. The government's Premier's Delivery Unit says approximately 90%, around 640 have been delivered. That's an impressive number, but the public can't independently verify this as the detailed commitment tracker is maintained for Cabinet, and the government has said it cannot release the commitment-by-commitment breakdown.
When major promises remain unmet or projects change substantially, that lack of transparency matters.
Ramping: the promise was to fix it
Ending ramping was one of Labor's centrepiece promises in 2022. Four years later, Peter Malinauskas has acknowledged the commitment wasn't fulfilled and apologised. The problem remains chronic and ramping numbers are at an all-time high.
A Deputy State Coroner made 18 recommendations in 2025 after an inquest into three deaths involving ramped patients. In June 2026, the government accepted 17 recommendations in full and one in principle. But accepting recommendations isn't the same as fixing the system: in August 2026, patients spent a record 5,891 hours ramped in a single month. The Health Performance Council said ramping would be “under control” at fewer than 2,000 hours a month.
Accountability doesn't mean pretending nothing’s been done or that recommendations were ignored. It means asking whether reforms are delivering the outcome people were promised. The promise wasn't to accept another report. It was to fix ramping.
The $593 million hydrogen promise
Labor promised a major hydrogen project at Whyalla. The project was subsequently shelved after $285.2 million had been spent. The Auditor-General recorded $85.7 million as an impairment expense - costs for which there was no immediate future economic benefit. There were also $125 million in contractual commitments outstanding at 30 June 2025 and an estimated $87.4 million contingent liability relating to electricity infrastructure.
The government says assets can be recovered or repurposed, so it would be wrong to describe the entire $285.2 million as wasted. But $85.7 million was written down, and the flagship project voters were promised wasn't delivered. Taxpayers are entitled to ask what went wrong.
This InDaily piece explains, a new report reveals how much the state is paying to store and maintain $250 million turbines – 20 months after the state government’s flagship hydrogen dreams were dashed.
“Taxpayers were promised a return on the dollars spent but instead have been left with a major liability.
“This is just another example of the Labor Government’s mindless spending coming back to bite – and sadly it’s the people of South Australia who are wearing the cost.”
When a promise is delivered but the project changes
The Women's and Children's Hospital shows why we need to distinguish between an election commitment and the project that ultimately emerges. In 2022, Labor promised 50 additional overnight beds. The project moved from the site beside the Royal Adelaide Hospital to the former Thebarton Police Barracks. Its estimated cost rose from about $1.95 billion to around $3.2 billion, and completion shifted from 2027 to 2031.
The current project is designed to have 414 overnight beds—56 more than the existing hospital—with capacity for another 20. Labor can reasonably point to delivering more than the additional beds promised. The change of site and scale may have sound reasons; that doesn't remove the need to scrutinise the increased cost and later completion.
The same principle applies elsewhere. Mount Barker Hospital's estimated cost rose from $220 million to $365.8 million. Torrens to Darlington is now costed at $15.4 billion, although it would be misleading to describe this simply as a blowout from the previous $9.9 billion proposal: Labor redesigned the earlier project. These are substantial public investments, and the public should be able to ask what has changed and why.
There have been real deliveries too
This isn't an argument that Labor has delivered nothing. The government points to the Findon Technical College, 24-hour pharmacies, the Adelaide Botanic High School expansion, early childhood reforms and planning changes intended to increase Adelaide's green canopy. There has also been additional health funding and public housing work.
Accountability only works if we're honest about both what governments have done and what they haven't.
The North Adelaide Golf Course: What did voters endorse?
The government has repeatedly argued that the North Adelaide Golf Course redevelopment was an election commitment and that South Australians therefore voted for it. The $45 million redevelopment had been announced before the 2026 election, was linked to bringing LIV Golf to North Adelaide, and was supported by legislation passed in 2025. So, it's not accurate to say voters had never heard of the project.
But knowing that a golf course would be redeveloped is not the same as endorsing every element of a fully specified design. The detailed design was released on 18 December 2025, three months before polling day, and included the government's figure of 585 trees to be removed, with more than 1,700 replacement trees and plants proposed. And the North Adelaide Public Golf Course Act 2025, which converted Crown land to fee-simple [also known as freehold, is the form of land ownership closest to absolute ownership. Practical Law Australia] title, was never put to voters. The legislation was rushed through Parliament well before the March 2026 state election, without an open tender or proper community consultation.
The ABC's election promise tracker, which covered Labor commitments above $5 million, did not list the redevelopment as a discrete commitment. Nor did a separate Committee for Adelaide compilation. That doesn't prove it never appeared in campaign material, but it is a reason to be careful about claiming it was a clearly defined commitment in Labor's formal platform.
Further details about works in John E. Brown Park—including a two-storey driving range, 108 car spaces, a retail shop, new road access, extensive netting and an 18-hole mini-golf course—emerged through Federal Court proceedings. Prior to this, the Adelaide Park Lands Association had repeatedly sought details. We still have not seen the plans.
In June 2026, the court heard that about 400 trees had already been removed for the golf course redevelopment, with another 185 identified for removal. In August, government lawyers said the final number remained uncertain because the design was still evolving; the government later described 585 as the maximum.
The government can say it announced the redevelopment and the 585-tree figure before the election. That does not necessarily mean voters endorsed every subsequent design decision, associated development or environmental consequence. An election mandate gives a government authority to pursue its commitments; it doesn't remove the public's right to scrutinise how they are designed and delivered.
And then there's MotoGP
The government announced the MotoGP deal in February 2026, shortly before the election, so voters knew it intended to bring the event to Adelaide. But the detailed circuit design was not available for voters to assess. The current proposal identifies 377 trees for removal, including 42 significant trees, with additional trees proposed for transplantation and others still under investigation.
There's a difference between voting for the proposition “bring MotoGP to Adelaide” and endorsing a specific circuit design with a particular Park Lands footprint and tree impact that had not yet been presented. That doesn't mean the election result is irrelevant, or that projects can never evolve. It means the mandate shouldn't be treated as settling every question about what happens afterwards.
I'm not saying every project change is wrong, or that every dollar spent has been wasted. I'm saying voters should be able to see what was promised, what was delivered, what changed and why. If the government says 90% of its promises have been delivered, the public should be shown the list.
Election promises belong to the voters who were asked to vote on them. Government spending belongs to the taxpayers who pay for it.
Don't blame people for how they voted
Please let's not tell people, “Well, you voted for Labor.” I've seen this far too often, particularly from people who support the MotoGP. Blaming voters doesn't help protect the Park Lands; it pushes people away when what we need is to bring people in.
I'm a Greens voter, but I put Labor above the Liberal Party, One Nation and the other conservative parties. I did that because the Greens were unlikely to win government alone, and on issues that matter enormously to me—particularly cost of living, housing and poverty—I generally see Labor's policies as preferable to the alternatives.
People make the best decisions they can with the information they have at the time. That's democracy. Many people weren't aware of the history of this fight, or that the Greens have consistently opposed the erosion of the Park Lands and challenged these developments for years.
So instead of saying, “You voted for this,” let's show people what happened: what was promised, what changed, who fought it and what they can do now. We don't need to shame people for the choices they made. We need to give them better information about the choices they make next.
If we want to protect the Adelaide Park Lands, that's a much more useful conversation to be having.
