Regional Roads

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (15:03): My question is to the Minister for Regional Roads. Can the minister explain how the iPAVe system may assist in road maintenance? With your leave, Mr Speaker, and the leave of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: MacKillop has a backlog of road maintenance that needs urgent attention. I am aware the Intelligent Pavement Assessment Vehicle is due to investigate roads in the local areas.

The Hon. G.G. BROCK (Stuart—Minister for Local Government, Minister for Regional Roads, Minister for Veterans Affairs) (15:04): I thank the member for the question. I am sure, as a fellow regional MP, he is very concerned about his regional roads out there. I know the member deeply cares about all the roads across not only his electorate, but the surrounding electorates.

On 3 May last year, I announced in this place that I would undertake an analysis of the roads across all of regional South Australia. Recently, I enjoyed a demonstration of the world-first technology that is being used to assess the condition of all roads in regional Australia. This is the iPAVe truck. It was deployed in South Australia for the first time and has already covered nearly 400 roads across all of regional South Australia, providing rapid data collection without the need of traffic control. The iPAVe 3 is the only comprehensive pavement measurement vehicle that can provide structure and service condition data in that way.

I had the opportunity to look at it in the depot here through the department of transport. I also had the opportunity as the local member to have the mayors of the surrounding councils, including Copper Coast, to come up and have a look at that opportunity so councils can also utilise this facility.

The Intelligent Pavement Assessment Vehicle is a prime mover and a trailer equipped with the heavy weight over a single rear axle. A series of lasers mounted in the trailer measures the performance of the pavement in the wheel path as the truck travels down the road. It can get up to 80 km/h. Several cameras are also mounted on the iPAVe to collect asset and pavements imagery, and the ground penetrating radar is also included in the sensor suite in combination. This can go down to one metre under the road to actually get the opportunity to see how good it really is. This information is used to assess the bearing capacity of the pavement itself.

I am advised that the iPAVe 3 has covered 6½ thousand kilometres of the 18,000 kilometres of the state's sealed road network. More than a third of the survey has already been completed. This new vehicle has already covered the rural outskirts of Adelaide up to the Northern Territory. It has also gone to the Far North of our state as well as parts of Yorke Peninsula and also Eyre Peninsula. The member for Flinders should be very aware of that himself.

As the local member for MacKillop suggests, the iPAVe 3 is due to cover the South-East region later this month, including roads in and around his electorate. I would encourage him to also include and communicate with his councils there. The data gathered will be used to help determine future road maintenance and prioritise repairs and upgrades in MacKillop and across all of South Australia.

Once the condition of the south-east road network has been assessed, the iPAVe3 is set to travel next to Kangaroo Island to assess the roads on the island itself. The iPAVe 3 analysis of South Australia's roads is due to be completed by the middle of the year. The Department for Infrastructure and Transport will then analyse the results and submit a final report to my office in the ensuing months.

Unfortunately, after four years of the previous government and rivers of COVID stimulus cash flowing into the state for road maintenance over that period, this government inherited a backlog of $2.1 billion. How is it possible that in just four years under the care and control of the previous government that the road maintenance backlog more than doubled?

It demonstrates a total lack of concern for regional communities by the inner city elite of the Liberal Party. People in communities across all regional South Australia, like MacKillop, know that their roads got worse over the last four years. However, we will analyse the roads, we will get the true indication—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. G.G. BROCK: —and prioritise it on a needs basis.

The SPEAKER: Order! There were a number of interjections from either side and so I permitted the minister to speak.