Regional Roads

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (14:10): My question is to the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government. Can the minister update the house on how the Marshall government's strong plan to fix regional roads is improving road safety?

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Comment, sir.

The SPEAKER: The member for West Torrens has been here long enough to know that if he has a point of order he knows how to make it, and it is not that way, and therefore he is called to order. The minister has the call.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:10): Thank you, Mr Speaker; I respect your judgements. I thank the member for Narungga for his question and note his deep and abiding and unrelenting interest in road upgrades in his electorate to the exclusion of all other electorates and also say that he knows, as I know, as all the regional MPs on this side of the house know, that fixing country roads remains the number one priority of regional South Australians, and it remains one of the overarching top priorities of this government.

I have given updates previously about stuff going on in the South-East, and that keeps the member for MacKillop quiet for a couple of minutes, but I would like to do the same now for the Mid North. Can I say that we are spending a huge amount of money fixing up roads in the Mid North of South Australia on the edge of my electorate, on the edge of the member for Narrunga's electorate and right in the middle of the member for Frome's electorate.

If we talk about the fact that two weeks ago now the Prime Minister of Australia came here to outline the fact that he has helped us to bring forward all the money—the $55 million—that we have for upgrading the Horrocks Highway, we see that this is a fantastic step forward for South Australia, and whether that be the installation of overtaking lanes and shoulder sealings, whether it be improvements to the Gladstone level crossing or the replacement of the Spring Creek Bridge north of Melrose, we know that this road upgrade is going to save lives.

However, what it is also going to do is to provide better opportunity for people to get more easily to Clare and through to the Mid North. As somebody who has on occasion been stuck behind a caravan trying to get to Clare for the Gourmet Weekend, can I say that these overtaking lanes are going to be a massive step forward for tourists wanting to get to the Clare Valley.

More than that, we know that there is a whole heap of work going on, and Owen Road between Owen and Balaklava, a stretch of road that we know needs a lot of help, is getting help under this. Also, as part of this package we are upgrading Goyder Highway, and this is so we can return that speed limit back up to 110 km/h. Works are being undertaken to fix up Goyder Highway, on that stretch as you head into Crystal Brook, so that it can be returned to that 110 km/h speed limit.

We've got some stabilisation and resealing works on the Barrier Highway as part of an $18 million package that we released only in the last couple weeks. We are also doing some shoulder sealing work on Blyth Plains Road. There is a nine-kilometre stretch between Blyth Plains Road and James Road in Clare, somewhere the member for Frome and I visited—well, we visited Blyth Plains Road, but the other roads down thereabouts.

We are also upgrading not only Port Wakefield, and the $122 million we've got on the table to fix that very difficult intersection, but also $11 million on the table to increase access to the Dublin saleyards. We know that, as saleyards, they do not market pigs there much anymore, but still a whole heap of other small stock and stuff gets sold through Dublin. It is an important trading point within our livestock industry, and we know that increasing freight access for heavier configuration vehicles into the Dublin saleyards is going to drive productivity for our red meat sector.

As we know, at this point in time there are parts of our state that have destocked and are destocking. We know that there are parts of our community that are doing it tough in regional South Australia, and helping to improve productivity of our roads is one way that we can help to cut costs for those producers so that they can be more efficient now as times are tough, and also, when it does rain and we can actually take advantage of the increased demand for protein around the world, we will have a more efficient distribution system to get our product to market processed and overseas to help grow jobs here in South Australia.

There is almost not a road in South Australia that isn't being touched by our regional road safety package or our regional road funding more generally. Some thousand kilometres of road out of the 12½ thousand kilometres of sealed road that we have is getting fixed, and it is not before time.