Horrocks Highway

The Hon. G.G. BROCK (Frome) (14:49): My question is to the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. Can the minister advise when the final design for the proposed works on the Horrocks Highway will be available for the public so that they are aware of the project? With your leave, sir, and that of the house I will explain a bit further.

Leave granted.

The Hon. G.G. BROCK: On 16 October last year, we were advised that work was actually underway in relation to the design of the work, and there were already existing maintenance plans in place for this road in terms of resealing. Would this involve all works, including maintenance and the reconstruction of the Horrocks Highway?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (14:49): I will take the finer detail of that on notice, but what I will say to the member is that we have been doing a lot of work around this, and the Premier talked earlier about our stimulus money that we invested in roads in South Australia way back when COVID-19 first happened.

We did put in that first tranche of stimulus money, and I commend the previous minister for delivering some $145 million worth of projects, and about $50-odd million—maybe a little bit more than that—went into the regions. I think it was $54.9 million, but you're right: $55 million, a significant injection into projects, and, again, a lot of those are focused around road safety.

You would have seen in the budget yesterday some $268 million going into road maintenance across South Australia because, if you can believe it, when we came into government we were left with a $750 million road maintenance backlog from those opposite. No-one is probably surprised, but a lot of that work that needs to be done is in the regions.

In fact, I was driving the Horrocks Highway and the Barrier Highway just on the weekend and to see the work that needs to be done is just mind-boggling, and we are out doing that work. We are profiling for that work and delivering that work. The money rolled out yesterday is stimulus money for projects that we are doing in partnership with the feds. We are putting in some $42 million, I think, combined with the federal government money to deliver $210 million worth of works into the regions, which is vitally important.

We are out there doing that planning, doing that design work now, and there are different sections along the roads we want to be delivering for that community. We are doing that in conjunction with the federal government, and that is some $210 million. We've got $58 million to improve roads in the city. I know Marion Road, Anzac Highway and Fullarton Road are all being improved with that resurfacing because these roads were left to go to rack and ruin. That work, that safety work, is across the regions—again, the Horrocks Highway is one, the Barrier Highway is another, the Stuart Highway is another and so is the Princes Highway.

There are shoulder sealing works being done. The audio tactile works—that is the audio tactile line marking we know is so important from a road safety perspective—as well as the barriers are all being attended to. So, the finer detail on the Horrocks Highway I am pretty happy to get back to the member on, to talk through which stages and which processes are being done as we speak.