The State Government of South Australia is planning to forcibly buy a row of houses along South Rd in order to widen the road and encourage more people to use an already congested road.

According to the papers, the Government says people will be fairly compensated, but no one seems to know what this “fair” is.

I suspect it will be the much bandied about term “market value”, but market value is nowhere near good enough.

Until someone actually buys a piece of real estate and a real sale value is made, market value is only an average. Some people will be tens of thousands out of pocket for what they might have got in a real sale.

Not only this, they need to go to the time and expense of moving and buying a new house. When they buy, they also have to include some massive amount of stamp duty, which somewhat ironically is going straight back to the government. (I hate government trying to disguise taxes with words such as “stamp duty”.)

Moving and finding a new house is a pain in the arse, especially for anyone who has a full-time job and has to take time off work to arrange things.

The government should take into consideration all these costs and raise their offers accordingly.

If they cry poor and say they can’t afford to compensate people when including these costs, then they should admit that they can’t afford to widen the road. Perhaps other alternatives could be considered, such as discouraging people from driving in cars so much. Getting the trains and buses to run on time would be a good start.