Motions

Southern Expressway

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (11:35): I move:

That this house—

(a) congratulates the government on the completion of the two-way Southern Expressway project, allowing nonstop two-way travel between Old Noarlunga and Darlington;

(b) notes the benefits of this project for commuters, businesses and tourism in the southern suburbs; and

(c) agrees that the state should never again make the embarrassing and costly mistake of constructing a one-way reversible freeway.

I am very proud to move this motion before the house today. I start off by congratulating all who were involved in the construction and completion of the duplication of the expressway, which is very important not only to people in my electorate but everybody in the southern suburbs, as well as people across the state who like to come to our beautiful region.

As members would know, this was a $407.5 million project. It was delivered on time and on budget and was funded exclusively by the South Australian government. Tomorrow we will celebrate 11 months since the two-way expressway was opened. We had the Premier and the Minister for Transport there. The member for Reynell and I were there at Old Noarlunga to officially remove the closing boom gate that prevented people from accessing that side and forever stopping it being a one-way road. It has been a magnificent change for people in the south. Previously you would have to calculate in your head what time it was versus which way you needed to travel. No longer—you just head straight for the expressway.

What did this project include? It was 18.5 kilometres, two lanes from Old Noarlunga to Reynella, and then four new lanes from Reynella to Darlington, and the new track was built as members would know on the western side towards the city and the old track on the eastern side is now what takes you down to the south.

It was a particularly complex project, given the need to keep the road running during peak hours and the major part of the construction was the demolition and extension of 12 road bridges along the length of the expressway and five pedestrian bridges, which as you could imagine is quite difficult to keep a bridge upright while you are extending it at the same time and removing all the earthworks associated with that. Everybody did a fantastic job to make that happen. In addition, there were a number of bridges that formed part of the expressway itself such as the Smith Creek Bridge at Reynella, which is incidentally South Australia's tallest bridge, that we have over the expressway.

Some of the statistics are incredible: 250 tonnes of explosives were used to blast away hillsides and rocks, 200,000 tonnes of asphalt were used, and 1,400 tonnes of steel were used for the bridges and retaining walls. There is now also a shared use recreation path on the western side of the expressway, in addition to the sealed veloway on the eastern side of the expressway which now gives more options to pedestrians and cyclists.

I particularly thank everybody who was involved in the project. Firstly, the ministers for transport that we had over that time period—initially, the former member for Elder, Pat Conlon; then the current Treasurer; and now the current Minister for Transport and Infrastructure—who have all been fantastic in their support for this project. I congratulate the Minister for Agriculture, who lobbied very hard for this project in the lead-up to the 2010 election (it formed part of our election promises then), and also my predecessor as the member for Kaurna, John Hill.

I congratulate the construction team, which was led by Lend Lease. They worked hand in hand with the DPTI project team, which was led by Lou George, and they worked very closely together. There was significant public information sharing about the project. They were very responsive to issues that arose for local residents. They held a number of community days for the general public to find out about it and through their tireless work they managed to keep the expressway open during those peak traffic times, right through the construction period.

I congratulate the 1,870 workers who worked tirelessly to see the project completed, and I thank all of them. Remarkably, 90 per cent of those workers were from this state and 58 per cent of them were from the southern suburbs. There was also significant focus on employing Indigenous workers, with 3½ per cent of the workers being Indigenous, 8 per cent were trainees and apprentices and local workers from the south with barriers to employment represented 19 per cent of the workers on the project.

I thank commuters for their patience during the construction period, particularly since the expressway and the train line were under construction at the same time. There was significant disruption and, understandably, some frustration for commuters, but I think everybody agrees that the outcome has been fantastic. I also thank all of those people who live near the expressway, particularly in the member for Reynell's seat as well as the members for Mawson and Mitchell's seat, who were tolerant of the disruption that occurred adjacent to their properties.

What are the benefits of this expressway? Firstly for business, there is better access for commercial traffic to the south's industrial areas and facilities, which helps attract businesses to the south. There is better access for residents of the south to employment, education and community facilities, both in getting to the south but also in getting to the city. It is helping our tourism industry because it has reduced travel times to the southern tourist regions, such as the beautiful McLaren Vale wine region—

The Hon. P. Caica: Forty minutes from my house.

Mr PICTON: That is right, 40 minutes from the member for Colton's house—the southern coastline, the Fleurieu Peninsula and Kangaroo Island, and we on this side of the house are very supportive of Kangaroo Island as a tourist destination. It helps in terms of emergency services and reduced travel times for emergency services. It improves road safety because we know that roads that are built properly, like the Southern Expressway, are much safer for motorists. It also helped employment, employing thousands of people, with that large percentage from the southern suburbs, during that time after the GFC when employment was very much needed. The last part of my motion, which in my view is the most important, is that this state should never again—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Could I just ask the member for Kaurna to wait while I ask the members for Chaffey and Colton to take their discussion outside or to desist.

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I would like you to stop the discussion or take it outside. Member for Kaurna.

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: And the member for Finniss can keep his thoughts to himself, please.

Mr PICTON: That would be a first.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I ask myself what Speaker Bishop would do in a case like this—

Mr Pengilly: You're not.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: —and I hear audible laughter but I am not Speaker Bishop, you are quite right, but I would ask members to observe standing order 142 and listen, as I am, to the member for Kaurna in silence.

Mr Duluk: She would remove more Labor members.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: You will be called to order if you keep on being cheeky.

Mr PICTON: Thank you, Deputy Speaker, and I think you should reflect more upon the rulings of Speaker Bishop.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I think you should continue with your debate, thank you.

Mr PICTON: The last part of my motion, which I view as the most important, is that this state should never again make the embarrassing and costly mistake of constructing a one-way reversible freeway. I would like this house to make a statement that we ban one-way reversible freeways for evermore in this state. As members would know, up until this project that this government embarked on the expressway was a one-way reversible road; in fact, the only one in the entire world.

On weekdays it opened northbound from 2am to 12.30pm and southbound from 2pm to 12.30am, with the reverse on weekends. So, for three hours every day the expressway was totally closed to all traffic, which equalled the equivalent of over six weeks every year that the road was closed. It also meant that for 13½ hours a day the expressway was not open for traffic either northbound or southbound, depending upon which way you wanted to go, and that is the equivalent of 29 weeks of the year that you could not go in a particular direction. So it is no wonder that the community, the tourists, and in particular business, regarded this as a road that never seemed to be open the way you needed to travel, and which sent thousands of cars on to busy Main South Road or rat-running via Majors Road, delaying travel by over 10 minutes.

Everybody knew this. You just have to look at quotes from as far back as 2002, when Peter Goers, in his Sunday Mail column, said:

The Southern Expressway confounds me. It's always closed when I need it. It is the only reversible freeway in the world. We were so relieved to get it we failed to notice it was one-way.

This was a fundamentally embarrassing road that was constructed by the former Liberal government. It became a point of ridicule for our state and, in particular, a point of ridicule for the southern suburbs, which was particularly embarrassing. We had commentators—who I do not often quote—such as Michael Owen from The Australian, saying, in February 2010, that it was 'a national laughing stock,' and I could not agree more. Rex Jory from The Advertiser said, 'It's only redeeming feature is that no other transport planners in the world would consider building it.'

So while it was helpful for the group of commuters who had to travel into the city in the morning and home to the southern suburbs at night, for everyone with a more variable time when they needed to travel, a one-way freeway was completely impractical. In particular, I think it was very bad for businesses in the south. They could not give one set of directions to people on how to get to their business, trucks and deliveries were delayed by having to go down Main South Road instead of on the expressway. It basically became a point of difference and disadvantage for the south, as opposed to other areas in the city, as a place to do business.

As I mentioned earlier, it was a big problem for tourism. You could not give directions to tourists on how to get to the south; it became a much more complicated area to get to for McLaren Vale, Kangaroo Island and the Fleurieu. It was always the road that seemed to be going the wrong way.

In addition to all that, it was also a fundamental waste of money for this state to build a one-way only road. The problem was that the people who built it, the former Liberal government, did not think that one day we might need a two-way road; they wanted a one-way road and they were so proud of this one-way road that they thought one-way roads would start popping up all around the world. People would see this vision and would want to copy it. Back when it was originally completed it would have only cost some $73 million extra to build a two-way road instead of a one-way road. As we know, to go back and do it later, to do all the difficult work that we had to do to bridges, cost $407.3 million.

Mr Goldsworthy interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member for Kavel is not in his seat, and even if he were he would be out of order.

Mr PICTON: That is some $330 million more that we have had to spend than if the work had been done to begin with. Just look at people like Dean Jeansch, who said, 'One would think adding a lane or two at the time of construction would be cheaper than doing it all again,' and I could not agree more. An editorial in The Advertiser said, in 2003, this was 'a myopic vision—a failed attempt to provide essential infrastructure on the cheap.' I think that sums it up: we got the cheap option in the southern suburbs. We were let down by the former Liberal government; we should have had a proper road leading to the south, not a cheap solution.

Even if you were going to build a one-way road you could have spent a little bit more money to build proper bridges that would have enabled a two-way road to be built in the future for a much cheaper price. I have seen figures quoted of about $20 million, that is what it would have been back in the 1990s, to extend the bridges just a little bit more when they were originally constructed, to ensure that a second road could have been built in the future for a much cheaper price. Instead we have had to go back and rebuild all those bridges, which has been a significant expense. It would have saved a huge percentage of the cost that this state has now had to absorb.

As we know, those wider bridges did not happen. That is because the Liberal government took the position then that they thought an additional track of expressway was not needed in the future. They were proud of that one-way road. They thought these would pop up all over the world. Well, on this side of the house we think exactly the opposite: we believe that business in the south has a bright future, that it is not just commuter suburbs, that people need to get back and forth to the south at all times. We also want to encourage tourists to go to the south, and they are not going to be following a commuter pattern back and forth.

I believe that we should now make a statement in this house today that we will no longer be building one-way roads. I ask the house to endorse that all roads built in the future should have two ways that you can travel on them. I know this is a remarkable proposition, but two-way roads is what I think we should do, and this is what this government has been doing.

We have been investing significantly in infrastructure since we were elected in 2002. We have built the Northern Expressway, the Port River Expressway and the South Road Superway. We are about to build the Torrens to Torrens project and the Darlington project, and all of those will be two-ways. You will be able to go both ways on all of those roads.

I expect some opposition to this motion from members opposite, but I ask them the question: if they do not support this motion, are they saying that they will be building one-way roads in the future? I ask them to outline where those one-way roads will be built to and what suburbs will have to have the embarrassing future of only being able to go one way to or from their suburbs. I think they should be honest about that in the lead-up to the next election, if they oppose this motion.