Parliamentary Committees

Public Works Committee: Truro Bypass

Debate resumed.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley) (11:52): I have certainly enjoyed listening to my colleagues speak about the importance of this project, to understand how a single road is part of a network and how a single road can improve that entire network. This road is so important to those who live in and around Cross Road in my electorate: those in the suburbs of Unley Park, Kings Park, Highgate, Kingswood, Urrbrae, Netherby, Hawthorn and those in Myrtle Bank. They are all affected by the traffic that goes down Cross Road.

One of the recommendations, one of the findings, that came out of the GlobeLink study was that a route was identified for heavy vehicles to leave the South Eastern Freeway around Monarto and end up at the Truro bypass, and then continue going north or out to Port Adelaide or the industrial areas in northern Adelaide, saving B-doubles in particular from moving through the suburbs of Adelaide—whether that be Cross Road, Portrush Road or Glen Osmond Road.

We have seen that traffic increase for many years. Don Dunstan is very fondly remembered for his pink shorts, but he really should be remembered for the mess he left at the end of Cross Road, Portrush Road and Glen Osmond Road. Nowhere else in Australia is there a major highway that comes to a sudden and abrupt end in one suburb.

It is just extraordinary that a road, the South Eastern Freeway, that comes from a city with over five million people, Melbourne, hooks in all of those people who are travelling to Adelaide from regional Victoria and regional New South Wales. Those who are travelling to Adelaide from Sydney and Canberra may also end up using that South Eastern Freeway and that junction.

We know that for at least a decade that has been at capacity. We see the accidents that happen with brake failures, mainly caused by large trucks. We have a situation now where trucks are forbidden from travelling at more than 60 km/h down the decline on the South Eastern Freeway coming into that intersection.

The work that was started by the Marshall government to link a truck pathway to this Truro bypass is now under threat of either more delay or the can being kicked down the road to a date yet to be announced. It could not have been clearer here in this place on Tuesday, when the member for Hartley asked the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, the member for West Torrens, whether he could guarantee that the Truro bypass will continue. The minister's answer was, 'I don't know that the Truro bypass project is under any threat.'

That is not an answer. The Sergeant Schultz answer of 'I know nothing' is not an answer to that question. The answer to that question from the minister should have been, 'I guarantee that that will go ahead,' but we did not hear that. Why did we not hear that? Because we know that Labor has had a very long-term plan for turning Cross Road into a route for the South Eastern Freeway and the south-eastern suburbs, the Hills suburbs, to the north-south corridor.

We know that is in their plan because on 30 January 2017 the then Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, the member for Lee, was asked on ABC radio by Matthew Abraham, 'So then they'll go down Cross Road?' The member for Lee said:

Yes, that's right. That's the long-term plan which has been agreed to by the federal and state governments which is currently being funded by the federal and state governments and that is why it is a project priority.

This is talking about the north-south corridor and how people will enter the north-south corridor from the South Eastern Freeway. Abraham goes on to say:

So you're going to have B-doubles rumbling down Portrush Road and just for a bit of novelty rumbling down Cross Road. So really running down heavily populated areas with lots of schools hanging off them.

The member for Lee said:

It's not a novelty…this is what's in the state's best economic interest.

To which Abraham answered, 'Really?' I am with Matthew Abraham on that question. Really? Is that really what is in the state's best interests?

There is no doubt that the Truro bypass is the start of a traffic solution for the congested end of the South Eastern Freeway. It affects Mount Barker, your electorate, Mr Speaker. I know there are many who drive from Mount Barker to the city. There is a remarkably large number of people who live in Mount Barker but work on the flat in the suburbs of Adelaide who use that road to get to their place of work, whether it be in the city or whether it be in the suburbs or the industrial areas in the inner suburbs, or even further afield.

The Hills bypass is a solution to that, and the Truro bypass is part of the Hills bypass solution. It is not going to happen overnight. It should happen, but we do not know whether under this government it will happen. I made it very clear that it is a clear policy of this party to continue the work that the Liberal Party in government started with that Hills bypass so that Cross Road will not be a growing corridor for trucks. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.