Question Time

Road Upgrades

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (14:47): My question is to the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: A guest of the member for Kavel.

Mr CREGAN: Can the minister update the house on progress towards delivering projects in my electorate that have received 2018-19 blackspot funding?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:47): I certainly can, and thank the member for Kavel, who is a very assiduous and a very consistent advocate for his electorate.

Mr Cregan interjecting:

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: He says relentless. I would say things, but they are unparliamentary. We are—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Can he turn right?

The SPEAKER: The member for West Torrens is warned for a second and final time.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —once again making sure that the people of regional South Australia are no longer the forgotten people when it comes to being able to get better roads across our regional road network. We have recently completed on Adelaide Road in Mount Barker a new pedestrian actuated crossing at a cost of $150,000 of state funding in conjunction with the Mount Barker council, for a total project cost of $225,000—a very important project. But perhaps more important was a series of discussions that the member for Kavel and I had in relation to Flaxley Road in Mount Barker and, more specifically, the high school and the area in front of the high school, by its very nature an area that sees teenagers traverse that road on a daily basis in some otherwise more dangerous circumstances.

Again, these conversations were augmented by letters that I had received from the governing council and a number of parents from the area saying we need to act to help improve the safety situation in and around the high school on Flaxley Road, and we listened. I was lucky enough and fortunate enough to be able to give the information to the local community and to the member for Kavel about the fact that we as a state government, using your taxpayers' dollars, are putting in $302,000 of state funding, together with an extra $150,000 of council money, to put together a solution that is going to help solve the road safety pedestrian management issues that exist on Flaxley Road.

We are upgrading with a sealed and kerbed bus bay to be able to get that bus off the road to improve the traffic situation there, and also with the installation of new footpath and access paths and pedestrian refuges, again, to be able to make sure that we can get our kids to and from school safely. What we have in Mount Barker is a community that is growing at a rate of knots. Once again, what we have seen is a lack of forward planning for infrastructure in the event that all of these subdivisions that have been put on the table for the last decade come to the fore. That's what we have seen happen.

We are seeing the Mount Barker community grow at a rate of knots. What we need is not a government that is going to sit back and wait until it's too late to be able to solve the problem but a government that is actually going to invest early. That's precisely what we are doing. It is the same reason that we took to the election a commitment to deliver a better traffic solution around the Nairne intersection. This is a part of South Australia that is growing rapidly, that is seeing increases in the number of students, cars and houses.

All of this should have been known when this land was rezoned in the first place. What should have happened is that we should have adequately planned for infrastructure provision for that. We can only deal with things as we came to government. Only on 17 March were we actually able to put our plan in place. Once again, an election commitment that we took to the election was $5 million in the 2018-19 budget to deliver a whole consultation process, which is going to happen with the community over the ensuing months before we deliver the solution that we promised at the election.

It is extremely important that we show faith in regional communities who, again, have been forgotten for so long. They are desperate for a government to realise that, if we deliver the infrastructure, as well as the growth, we can bring the community on a journey and we can actually have a much more livable and beautiful city and deliver the services and the infrastructure that the people of the Hills so desperately need.