House of Assembly: Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Contents

SOUTH ROAD UPGRADES

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:39): Given the answer, I do have a supplementary. In the event, minister, that Mr Abbott is successful at the election, will you be supporting financially the Darlington upgrade?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (14:40): I have made it very clear and the government has made it very clear that as to the proposal by the Coalition to upgrade Darlington, they provided $500 million and are requiring a co-contribution from the state government of $250 million. On conservative advice from the department, that is short by $250 million. Now, even if we had contributed the half a billion dollars required to match their half a billion to do the project properly—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Pay attention.

The SPEAKER: Minister, would you be seated? I warn the deputy leader for the second and final time, and I call the member for Waite to order.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: He took one for the team, sir. I don't think it was actually him.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: No, a dobber would be me naming you, but you are so irrelevant it doesn't matter. Given that the Coalition's policies to upgrade Darlington without any public transport or rail overpass and the department's advice to do it properly would be $1.8 billion, I think it is fair to say unless they stumped up another $1.3 billion, we wouldn't be doing it.