Darlington Upgrade Project

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (14:27): My question is to the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. Who is meeting the costs of the services from Aurecon that the minister mentioned in an earlier answer to the house?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:27): This is the same question now for a fourth time.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! We have the question. I would like to hear the answer.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: Can I say that it is still too early to be pointing fingers.

Mr Picton: To know who is paying?

The SPEAKER: The member for Kaurna is warned.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: What we are doing at the moment is undertaking the work necessary to get this issue fixed, but I can reassure South Australians of two things; firstly, the contract is very robust. The contract protects the government and the taxpayer to a huge extent. What the South Australian people should also know is that they have a government that will protect their interests to the greatest extent possible using every tool that we have in the contract to hold those who build this project to account. We will continue to do that, but we aren't going to let issues like this get in the way of undertaking the testing, designing and remediating of this site and getting on and finishing this project.

For motorists who are driving on the surface road each day, who drive past this project, who so dearly want to be utilising this upgrade to its full extent, they want us to get on and deliver this as quickly as possible and that is precisely what we are doing. We will use our existing levers to make sure that we protect taxpayers to the greatest extent possible, but we aren't going to be catastrophising anything. We aren't going to be pointing fingers before we are ready to, but we will act in a mature and grown-up fashion and we will get on and deal with this issue.