North-South Corridor

Mr DULUK (Waite) (15:10): My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. Minister, can you please explain to the house how the government plan to connect the future north-south corridor tunnels with the South Eastern Freeway? Sir, with your leave, and that of the house, I will further explain.

Leave granted.

Mr DULUK: Minister, the Department for Infrastructure and Transport finished their consultation on the Cross Road planning study in August 2021. Can you please explain what the purpose and the outcomes of this study were and what the future of Cross Road will look like under the future plans of that study?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (15:11): I thank the member for his question and note his interest in the north-south corridor and our road network in South Australia. This north-south corridor is the biggest project our state has ever seen. More than $9 billion is going into completing that 78-kilometre stretch, and we know that is going to save travel times. We know that final stretch will take out 20-plus traffic lights and save 20-plus minutes for commuters using that stretch of road. Work was done at the north, work was done at the south, but the hardest part of that corridor has been left.

This is going to be a great result for South Australia, and we had a look at this and we spent a lot of time because when we came to government no work had been done by those opposite. What they found was the work that had been done talked about an open-cut motorway that they were looking at. We knew that that was going to carve a swathe through those people that lived on the north-south corridor, so we came up with the two-tunnel solution, the hybrid+ solution. We are completing the reference design of that and will go to the community with that very shortly.

We have, of course, been in the process of explaining to the people along the way where we need to acquire properties, what properties will be acquired, and we have been conversing with those people and asking them to sit down with the department so they can be talked through that process. It is a long process and it is a huge project, the biggest infrastructure project South Australia has ever seen, and on this side of the house we are really excited to be delivering it. We know it is the infrastructure that will make a big change to the way that our state operates.

Of course we have other road networks, and what we know from the South Eastern Freeway as that comes down is that we have our outer ring route. Cross Road is part of our outer ring route—and trucks use that at the minute to take goods and services to the regions around that area and the regions linked to that area—as is Portrush and Glen Osmond roads. What we have done already is invested significant money in what we are calling the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass in fixing up some of that road corridor there. Also, we have $200 million on the table, and designs are out for consultation at the moment around the Truro bypass to help improve that freight access.

Mr DULUK: Point of order, Mr Speaker: standing order 98. The question was about Cross Road and the planning study, not about the Truro Road bypass. If I could just ask the minister the results of that Cross Road planning study that was released in August 2021.

The SPEAKER: I uphold the point of order. As much as the Truro bypass is of interest to me, it doesn’t reflect the question.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: It actually has great reference and, if I refer back to the question, it was about the link of Cross Road into South Road, sir.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Minister, there is a point of order, which I will deal with under 137.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: It appears that the minister is defying your ruling, sir, and I ask that you take the requisite action: name him, sir.

The SPEAKER: Despite the invitation, I understand the minister was putting his earlier comments in context to me, but I do remind the minister of the importance of standing order 98.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Thank you, sir, and again, for those on the other side who perhaps don't understand how the road corridors work, the road network works, what I am talking about is that Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass and what we are enabling that to do by taking freight off the South Eastern Freeway, which I know you are very passionate about—taking freight off that, moving that around the back of Murray Bridge, onto the Sturt Highway and bringing it in that way with the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass, which again is why we have invested with the federal government in the business case for that. That will actually take freight off the South Eastern Freeway.

When you get to the bottom of the South Eastern Freeway, what do you hit? You hit Portrush Road, Glen Osmond Road and Cross Road. When we are talking about Cross Road, that is one of the ways that we are looking at to take that freight off that section of road. I know under the previous government nothing was done in this area, but there is no surprise because they didn't do much at all on that side of the house. What we are doing is investing in that business case and that planning study.

Again, works are already being done on that corridor at the moment to make it a far better corridor to move freight and traffic—right across the network as well. We have put this on the Infrastructure Australia priority list, and that is getting a PBS level 4 road network. By doing that, improving our regional roads and improving that freight network, we can get the triple trucks, the bigger trucks, onto that PBS level 4 road network, take them around the back and get them across South Australia and across to Western Australia as well.

It is a focus we have with the federal government, and that will help to get that freight off the South Eastern Freeway and ultimately get freight off Cross Road, off Glen Osmond Road and off Portrush Road as well. That's a big piece of the work that we are doing. It hasn't been done before. We appreciate that it was left in the too-hard basket by those opposite, but that will all link in then with the north-south corridor as well, the biggest infrastructure project we are doing. We are doing studies, of course, on Cross Road, Brighton Road, Portrush Road and a number of other key corridors in South Australia as we go about doing the works to upgrade a number of intersections as well.

Again, I stress the point that that work wasn't done by those opposite. By doing those planning works, we will have projects in the pipeline that we can deliver as we go forward. We are very proud to be doing that planning work because we have to have the immediate-term work that we are doing—we are doing a $17.9 billion spend on infrastructure—and then the medium-term and then the longer term work.

The SPEAKER: The minister's time has expired.