Motions

Southern Expressway

Debate resumed.

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (11:51): I rise to discuss this motion which the member for Kaurna has brought twice to this house. Certainly, the comments that he made in relation to parts (a) and (b) make sense, but part (c) is where I take huge issue. Part (c), can I say, shows the ignorance of the member for Kaurna on this issue.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr KNOLL: I would like to take my time on this motion to remind the house of the history of this piece of infrastructure, so that we can recognise the facts in their entirety, because I can tell you, Deputy Speaker—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can I just ask you to sit down? We have guests in the gallery, and I know you are going to start respecting standing order 142 as we go into this debate and listen to the member for Schubert in silence. Member for Schubert.

Mr KNOLL: Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it, and I think that is why it is important in my time over this contribution today—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr KNOLL: I listened in silence to the diatribe from the members opposite. This issue dates as far back as the Metropolitan Adelaide Transport Study which was published in 1968. The plan made provision for a third arterial road through the south called the Noarlunga freeway. Indeed, land was bought by the government of the day for that very purpose, then we came along into the Dunstan decade and I ask you: did the road get built during the Dunstan decade? The answer is no. After that, what happened? The land was sold off. The Labor government believed in the project so much that they sold off the land that was there for the third arterial road.

We then move onto the 1980s when the Bannon government went to at least two elections promising to build a third arterial road down in the south. Did it get built? No, it did not get built. It is an absolute disgrace that they can sit here in this place at this time and suggest that this is some great Labor initiative when the truth is it should have been done 30 years ago.

Then, there is a little thing that came along called the State Bank collapse—a little thing called the State Bank collapse—and this is where I find part (c) of this motion so galling. I would like to read from a book. I was doing a little bit of reading on the State Bank collapse, and this may remind the member for Kaurna of things that happened at that time. I quote:

…on a quiet Sunday afternoon on 10 February 1991, Premier Bannon announced that the taxpayers would have to rescue the SBSA. The initial indemnity was $970 million, rising eventually to $3 billion. When the government bailed out the bank it set in place an inquiry, headed by the Auditor-General Ken MacPherson, who, under the State Bank Act, was charged with the responsibility of investigating the causes of the debts. This inquiry was to be conducted in private and to report to the parliament. However, under pressure from the opposition and the media, Premier Bannon was obliged to hold a Royal Commission into the bank…The Royal Commission was held in the public (the media's) gaze, headed by retired Supreme Court Judge Samuel Jacobs, whose terms of reference were basically set at examining relations between the SBSA and the government.

Justice Jacobs constructed his inquiry as a 'whodunit', and found Premier Bannon guilty of not controlling the bank's irresponsible growth and therefore considered that the Premier was legally responsible for the losses. Expressed in the terms used by Commissioner Jacobs it was Premier Bannon 'whodunit' because he should have exercised more control over the SBSA and concomitantly should have intervened less in the SBSA on political issues, such as interest rates at election time.

That little piece of history will stand the test of time and we on this side of the chamber will remind the government of their little slip-up that is the State Bank disaster on as often a basis as we need to.

Then what happens? Quite obviously, the Liberals got elected at the next election. In the shadow of this was an attempt to get on and build an expressway that had received no support from the Keating government. Currently we hear about the standard funding ratios for projects such as major road projects and, indeed, the Abbott government has committed a lot of money to co-investing in road projects in South Australia, but this was not the case back then.

To summarise, we have a situation where the road has been promised for generations and never delivered. A new Liberal government is elected with $3.5 billion worth of core debt from the bank and another $1.5 billion worth of associated debt associated with the bank's collapse. We have a hostile Keating government unwilling to contribute and a Liberal government that was intent on delivering for South Australia and delivering on their promises. So what do you do? You build the road that you can afford. You build a road that preserves the corridor to ensure that when the money is available, you can duplicate the road.

The only reason that the member for Kaurna was able to stand up in this place is that the Liberal government had the foresight to make sure that the corridor was preserved. You listen to the road studies that tell you that it would handle traffic to 2025. So when the member for Kaurna wants to lay blame for this embarrassing and costly mistake of constructing a one-way reversible freeway, then he should look no further than his own party and save the parliament from his sanctimonious and self-righteous approach that ignores the history and his party's atrocious place in it.

If you want to talk about what is the most embarrassing and costly mistake in South Australia's history, it is not the one-way Southern Expressway: it is the collapse of the State Bank and the Labor government's role in it, and those on the opposite side should stand condemned for this issue for all time.

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (11:56): I rise to wholeheartedly support the member for Kaurna's motion. I would like to thank and congratulate the member for Kaurna on this motion which is about an issue of utmost importance to the fabulous people in my electorate of Reynell and to the very good people of Kaurna, Mawson, Mitchell, Fisher, Hammond and Finniss, and also to the many visitors to our beautiful state, particularly to our stunning southern vales region and the Fleurieu Peninsula.

In the time this motion has taken to come to the house the expressway has been open, not embarrassingly one-way but two, for some time. In some ways I think it is actually very fortunate that we can speak about the expressway today because today we can let everyone in this place know about the few nights following the opening of the two-way duplicated expressway that many local residents spent driving up and down the expressway cheering and, in many cases, making a night of celebrating what they should have always been able to do and that is travel both ways, down the road, at any time, day or night.

For more than a decade, these residents suffered from the lack of vision of those opposite, but on that night they were unshackled from this lack of vision and celebrated long and hard as they drove up and down the expressway. They were cheering as they were coming past when we took down that barrier. They were very happy to be finally, after more than a decade, able to go up and down the road, both ways, any time, day or night.

Today we can also let everyone here know about the excellent employment and contracting opportunities that were opened up for our local people through the duplication process. As the member for Kaurna has already mentioned, 90 per cent of jobs created from the duplication process went to South Australians and 58 per cent of the jobs to local southern residents, and on every target in relation to employing young people and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people we exceeded those targets.

It is also great to speak today about the two-way expressway because we can inform all of the members here about the difference that the duplicated Southern Expressway makes to the lives of many community members in Reynell and our broader southern community. Our commute times in and out of the city are down, confidence is up and, as someone who regularly needs to travel between the south and the CBD, sometimes several times in a single day, I can assure you that being able to travel on it any time, day or night, in either direction, makes all the difference and sees valuable time saved.

This investment for our southern community is such an important part of our future prosperity, properly connecting the south to the CBD and inner suburbs and beyond, improves travel times for business operators and increases opportunities for southern young people to travel more quickly to employment, study (particularly at Flinders University) and other pursuits beyond the south. Making it easier and more streamline for people not from the south to come and experience our beautiful beaches, wine regions and community is so important for our local people, for local business and for our growing food and tourism industries. Everyone in the south wants to show off our beautiful southern regions, and we are so glad that this duplicated Southern Expressway enables us to do this.

It is also very nice not to have the embarrassment of an expressway—an expressway—that only goes one way. Thankfully we have rectified this international disgrace and embarrassment, and we have also made a significant investment in the health and wellbeing of our southern community. As was said by the member for Kaurna, thank you very much for to our current and former ministers for transport, to the extraordinary duplication project team, led by Lou George, and for everybody—every worker, every contractor—who was involved in this extraordinary project.

As I said in my speech on the Appropriation Bill on Tuesday night: I love South Australia, I love our southern community, and this is a fantastic achievement—one that we should never have had to make—and we no longer have to be embarrassed in the south, and we can celebrate this duplication and all that it brings. I expect that some members opposite may be just about to talk down the expressway. I do not understand that, I do not understand the negativity. I thank the member for Kaurna for this motion and thank every worker, every member of the project team who finally took away that embarrassment and created this duplication for us that works so well for our southern community.

Mr WINGARD (Mitchell) (12:02): I rise to speak on this motion and note that it is the second incarnation for the member for Kaurna to get this up. In fact he withdrew it from the Notice Paper (or it was not moved) before parliament was prorogued, because it was not finished, because it was quite unusual. It was opened a handful of times before it was completed.

Mr Whetstone: How many times?

Mr WINGARD: At least a handful of times it opened and it was not actually complete at the time. I am glad the road has been duplicated. I am led to believe it was promised at the 2002 election and the 2006 election by the Liberal Party, and then the plan was stolen in 2010 by the Labor Party, so it is great to see them following suit. I really admired the revision of history that was outlined by the member for Schubert, and the articulate way he described the set-up around this freeway and maintaining of the land for the corridor, and also of course the point about the State Bank collapse, which was very much beholden to the Labor Party. They might want to groan and moan about the State Bank collapse, but that is their history and they must take ownership of this.

It is interesting also to have the member for Kaurna raise this issue, and I know that it is very beneficial for his suburb and the suburbs deep in the south of Adelaide, but it runs through the heart of my electorate, through Sheidow Park and Trott Park. It was interesting that in the revised plans the government did not put an on/off ramp for Sheidow Park and Trott Park. It was very disappointing to have this corridor go right through their heartland and they were ignored from this end. He was happy to look after his own patch, but really did ignore a couple of other suburbs going through there.

Likewise, at Reynella: we heard the member for Reynell talk about the availability and the beauty of this new Southern Expressway, but not make mention of the fact that you actually cannot get on at Reynella to go south on the Southern Expressway. You can go to the north, you cannot go to the south. If you are coming from the south you actually cannot get off at Reynella as well, which is a bit of a bugbear for people who live in that area and for constituents of mine. I also know that it causes immense frustration for people living in Happy Valley and the areas around there, and that would be a bugbear for the member for Fisher as well, no doubt.

The member for Kaurna also talked about businesses in the south, and how this road benefits them, and I am sure it does, but he has again ignored other parts of Adelaide, and I find this a little bit disheartening to not look at this as a whole. A mate of mine from Noarlunga took the Southern Expressway to come to Darlington to hire some works from a business on the corner of Seacombe Road and South Road. He actually had to go right down to the end of the freeway—because, as I said, he could not get off at Reynella to get down South Road—get off and come back up Sturt Road, up Marion Road and then along Diagonal Road to get to the corner of Seacombe Road to hire the equipment that he needed.

If you have a look on a map, it is actually very long and convoluted and it makes it very hard for businesses in that precinct. Then, to get back onto the Southern Expressway, he had to do the loop all over again. He worked out that, in fact, it was better just to take South Road to get where he needed to go and not take the expressway at all.

I commend the Minister for Transport on one point. We are always looking for positives, as the member for Reynell says, despite the fact that she just found many negatives in her speech a few moments ago. When I was first elected, quite a number of constituents who had this piece of infrastructure run right through their backyards came to me. They had put up with a lot of inconvenience while it was being done. A lot of the promises that were made to them during this project were not delivered. In fact, the noise wall and the associated works that had to be done around this project were not complete. It was the first thing people were knocking on my door about; in fact, they were coming to me raising this issue before I had actually been elected.

There were a number of people who all had issues with this—Dianne Vivian, Ryan Harding, Bianca Robson, Adrien Van Der Wegan, Emma Watts, Michael Van Dyk, Robyn Smalldon, Tracy Gniel, Jenny Morton-John, Brian and Pamela Williams, Val and Malcolm Earl, Richard Davison, Marilyn and Geoff Linn, Andrew Scheer, John Edyvean, Bev Ellis and Beverly Rowady. They were just a few of the people who came to me, talking about this issue.

You will see the rusted iron walls, as you drive down the Southern Expressway, which were overlooking these people's backyards. They were promised a whole lot of finishings that did not come to fruition—a lot of planting and other accessories that were supposed to make the project complete, and, sadly, they were not delivered.

We had to make a bit of noise. We got the minister's staff along and, again, I will commend him for listening and taking our calls. We have had to go through quite a bit of pain to get moving forward on this, but we are getting somewhere and, hopefully, we can get this finished. I do make the point, too, that the member for Kaurna has said in his motion that it is finished: there are still some elements, I have to point out to him, that are not finished.

I am sure it is probably fine down at his end of the electorate, but not across the whole electorate, so we are still working, and we will keep working, for the residents of my electorate to get this finished. We do not want to just get partway through the project, wash our hands of it, not follow up our commitments and walk away. It would not be right for the government to do that and we will not let the government do that, so we will keep working on that.

Those are a few points that I think the member for Kaurna must take into account. I do commend the member for Schubert once more for his narration of the history of this project, and I recommend that everyone read it to see exactly how we got into this situation, as far as the Southern Expressway is concerned.

Ms COOK (Fisher) (12:08): I rise to support the motion from the member for Kaurna and to speak alongside my friend the member for Reynell and represent our community very strongly. I thank the government for continuing with determination the project of duplicating the Southern Expressway.

I am probably one of the most qualified people in this house to speak on the area of 5162, as it has been my home for my whole life. I have lived in that area for 46 years and have used the Southern Expressway in both its one-way and its duplicated forms. I can tell you that I heard the audible screams of delight when the Southern Expressway was opened, and I know that the members for Mitchell and Bright would also appreciate that humour.

I am really proud of the Southern Vales as a tourist destination and a centre of industry, and I am very proud to see how much it is growing in terms of its capacity to deliver on its agriculture, wine and general tourism industries. I have spent much time during my life travelling down through the Southern Vales and cannot tell you enough how happy I am that people can easily access that area now via the Southern Expressway, which is now a road for everybody. It is used in both directions by people coming from all areas and it is not now in fact just a road for one set of people. It is an incredible piece of transport infrastructure.

I remember using the Southern Expressway as a one-way road on the very first day that it was opened, on my journey to work. It reduced my travel time by 15 or 16 minutes when it was opened as the one-way expressway, but it was with great disappointment as I travelled home from night shift at a hospital that I experienced the same terrible delays that I had always experienced, when it was not available for me to use on my return trip home.

With great celebration, when it was opened last year, using the Southern Expressway on my journey home from a night shift, I reduced my travel time. That in fact actually leads to increased road safety, because travelling home after a night shift is one of the most frightening experiences you will encounter as a road user, possibly not just for the driver but for other people around them, unfortunately.

The Southern Expressway was not around for the southern people on the weekend, as it was used in the reverse direction. When people from the south who worked in the city used to want to travel north on the weekends, they still had to use the other road, because the Southern Expressway had been flipped around, in acknowledgement, I believe, of the incredible value of tourism in the south.

The duplication itself has been a sight to behold and the pleasure of many children and families to watch over the last few years. I just want to again express the numbers that the member for Kaurna expressed, that if it had been built as a dual expressway right at the beginning, the cost would have been $73 million, but in the end the duplication has now cost the taxpayers of South Australia $407 million, on a piece of infrastructure that was absolutely essential.

This was a mistake not to be repeated when this state government built our sensational desalination plant, which I visited only two weeks ago. We should all celebrate with great gusto that the desalination plant is not in mothballs; I could not find one mothball anywhere. It had some very dedicated workers, and in fact it had some extraordinary people who have taken on the role of running this scientifically excellent plant from Spain. It meets incredible world standards and can actually produce half of Adelaide's water supply, using only about 30 workers on site. I just find it really incredible and am thankful that we built it to the size that we did and we are not going to face the same problem as duplication.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Marshall interjecting:

Ms COOK: You would not want to get kicked out two days in a row.

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The leader is called to order.

Ms COOK: I'm sorry, I lost my concentration when the opposition leader was shouting at me, but I will go back and say that I really enjoyed—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Ms COOK: —my tour around the desalination plant and I am very grateful that we are not going to face the difficulties of having to increase the size of that down the track. It would cost us many millions of dollars more than what it in fact has cost us to build it once. I remember what it was like to be in drought, as do all my colleagues, and I am sure the colleagues opposite remember. I am sorry, but I am sure that we are going to have to use it in the very near future.

Yes, the people of Fisher do enjoy the use of the Southern Expressway, but not so many from Happy Valley. A lot of people are very grateful for the way it is. I consult with them daily when I am in my electorate around many transport issues, and they all do really enjoy the use of the expressway. I will continue to express any feedback that I get from them to the transport minister.

Recently, the people of Fisher have received some excellent news in terms of the revised Darlington project, which has come about as a result of consultation from people in my area and those of the members for Reynell and Kaurna, and also of the Minister for Tourism representing Mawson. We have all expressed to the transport minister what is needed in terms of their capacity to travel to city workplaces, etc., and I was very pleased, on behalf of my constituents, when the transport minister announced the changes to the Darlington project whereby constituents who use Flagstaff Road and South Road, through to Darlington, can access that non-stop Darlington connector.

That is what lobbying and discussion can do in terms of transport corridors. In fact, that is what has happened with the Southern Expressway duplication, and I thank the member for Kaurna for bringing this motion before the house and I commend it.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Speirs.