MILLSWOOD RAILWAY STATION

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (15:47): I rise today to acknowledge an almost anniversary of a petition that I tabled in this house on 18 November 2009. This was a petition by 272 people in the electorate of Ashford, and probably in the electorate of Unley, who wanted the Millswood railway station reopened. I have addressed this issue a number of times in this house and I am very keen to represent the most recent emails and phone calls I have had from constituents, and I know the member for Unley has also received those requests.

There seems to be a reluctance on the part of the department. The minister has listened to me a number of times and I understand he has asked for more recent information from the department about what the cost would be of reopening the station. When you visit the Millswood station, I understand that it would need some work to be useable, and I suspect that some of the disability access issues would need to be addressed as well. So, I understand that it is not going to be a matter of just unlocking the chains and making the station available for stopping. However, it certainly seems to me that this has been an ongoing campaign and we are starting to get a bit tired of the fact that it has not been reopened.

I think the constituents in Ashford in particular have been very patient, but also very assertive about the five infrastructure projects that we have had going on in the electorate. I am sure, when they are all finished, that we will all be happier, but there is an ongoing need for traffic management assessment in the area because of the Gallipoli underpass, first of all, and then leading on to the latest infrastructure projects. People have been using the back roads and the smaller roads in Ashford as ways of getting through from the very busy Goodwood Road as well as the very busy Anzac Highway, and certainly Leader Street, as the member for Bragg points out, is a big issue for us in that area.

So, we understand that there needs to be these changes, and I think once the electrification project is underway things will certainly be a lot happier in Ashford, because we now have more buses that are running through the centre of Ashford to take up for some of the public transport that is usually part of the Noarlunga line. Things are very busy.

As I said, there needs to be a traffic assessment redone in most of those suburbs, particularly Forestville. I have had a number of people from the Forestville area talk to me about the increased traffic that they have in their area. Having been a resident of Forestville, I was very surprised when I visited there recently about the number of cars and trucks that were actually using what would be the lesser roads in that area. I can well understand why residents are getting upset about not only the volume of traffic but also the speed at which some of those vehicles are whizzing through Forestville.

The other concern, of course, is that bike riders have been using the lesser streets—when I say lesser, I am talking about the non-main roads—in Black Forest, Forestville, Millswood and Goodwood. Having this increased motor vehicle and truck access has caused some real concerns to not only the pedestrians in the area and people that live in the area, particularly with small children, but also with cyclists.

So, one of the things that we say in Ashford is that the Millswood station, by that becoming a station that people can use, will certainly help break down the number of cars that we have going through the area, but it will also mean that people will get access to another part of public transport. We understand that the buses are available in that area, but we think, for whatever the small price is to redo the Millswood station and make it accessible, that this is something the government should put right up on the top of their transport agenda.

Time expired.