Darlington Upgrade Project

Mr MURRAY (Davenport) (15:07): My question is to the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government.

Members interjecting:

Mr MURRAY: Shush over there, please—Transforming Health. Can the minister inform the house on the findings of the Auditor-General's Report into the Darlington upgrade project?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (15:07): I want to take this opportunity to update the house on the report that was handed down a couple of days ago by the Auditor-General in relation to the Darlington project, a project that it is fair to say has encountered difficulty over its life.

What we heard on Tuesday was a laying bare of the issues that have existed in this project, including two of the largest findings around the fact that, within a few days of that contract being awarded back in May 2016, a significant variation to that contract, which basically soaked up all the contingency that existed within that project, exposed that project to cost pressures from day one.

What the report also highlighted was the fact that, in the early days of the project, the scope was not clarified in relation to early service relocation works. This again created a huge amount of difficulty and a huge amount of compromise in the way that this project was set up. So not only did we not see a rationale for why those contract variations were put in place, not only did we not see any sort of disciplined record keeping that actually would have explained that decision or helped to mitigate a lot of the risk in relation to that decision, but what it did do in the end is expose South Australian taxpayers to tens and tens of millions of dollars worth of cost claims by the contractor—some $70 million worth of claims by the contractor—in relation to issues that happened when this project was first initiated.

The good news is, and what's highlighted in the report, is that the hiring of a new chief executive, Mr Tony Braxton-Smith, was a real change in the way that this project has been undertaken. What the report highlights very clearly is that there has been a disciplined response to the Auditor-General's findings in relation to the way that records management is kept, the way that risks are mitigated and the way that decisions are recorded so that there is a rigour around how we are spending the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money that are being spent on this project.

What is very clear from the Auditor-General's Report is that there was a mess that needed to be cleaned up, but I think that South Australians can now understand that that mess is being fixed up. At the end of the day, there is a hugely beneficial road project that is hurtling very quickly now towards completion. We have now seen major milestones in relation to the opening up of the Tonsley underpass, the opening up of the Ayliffes Road bridge, the opening up of sections of the lowered motorway as well as some of the surface treatments. This is such an important project for South Australia. It would have been a whole lot better if it had been done properly in the first place, but, nevertheless, 2018 was a prescient moment in our state's history, and this project is one that has benefited from that change of government.

Can I say to all those long-suffering residents in the South who have had to put up with delays to this project because of the way that it was initiated, delays that have been laid bare, and the cause laid bare in the Auditor-General's Report: you now have a government that's getting on with the job of delivering this project professionally so that the people of the southern suburbs can get the benefits that they have been promised for such a long time.