Outer Harbor Rail Line

Mr PISONI (Unley) (14:47): A supplementary, sir: when was the last time before last Monday afternoon that the minister or his office was briefed on the Outer Harbor rail line progress? Was the minister advised of any risk of an extension to the closure at that last briefing?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (14:47): I guess what I was trying to allude to in my earlier fairly detailed explanation of what had been occurring between the alliance team and ARTC was that we were trying to get access to a window of time to do the works which interfered with the freight line that ARTC operates. We were trying to do that as early as possible, and I think the advice I have is that one of those windows was either in late September or early October.

To put that in context, during the current closure period for the Outer Harbor and Grange lines, and given time continued to expire during the course of the current closures where amongst other things, not just dealing with the ARTC line, we are also doing things like continuing with the gouging out of the underpass under the Park Terrace, the building of the Bowden train station, etc., we were hoping to have that closure period or that access period to the works around ARTC within the time of the current closure period, but it wasn't until extremely late and, as we now know, too late in the piece.

Even though we are getting access to do this package of works from this Saturday, which is within the original closure period that we had previously announced for the Outer Harbor and Grange lines, the alliance team got the notice on Friday and I was only advised on Monday that not only would we not be able to deliver that scope of works within the original closure period but indeed we would need much more time heading out to 15 January, which is the date that I have given for the Outer Harbor and Grange lines.

More to the point, we have an additional closure of the Gawler lines, again commencing from that access period (for want of a better term) that we have from ARTC from this Saturday night going forward for just over two weeks.