South Eastern Freeway

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (14:12): My question is again to the Deputy Premier. Does the government have a plan to divert heavy vehicles off the South Eastern Freeway, Portrush Road and Cross Road?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (14:12): I thank the leader for his question, because I think for a lot of South Australians that question would have been front of mind this morning when many of us woke up to the news of a truck collision at the bottom of the South Eastern Freeway descent. While it is important to point out that there are, on average, in the order of 600 heavy vehicle movements which successfully navigate the descent of the South Eastern Freeway towards the Portrush Road/Glen Osmond Road/Cross Road intersection, from time to time we are seeing trucks get into situations where they cause not just themselves great risk of collision and significant harm but the broader community, including motorists around them.

It is not just disappointing and frustrating that we see these situations arising from time to time. I think we need to recognise that for motorists who use the South Eastern Freeway and for residents around that local area it creates genuine and deep-seated anxiety. That is why there is a significant body of work underway at the moment to upgrade the South Eastern Freeway. Those efforts have continued a long body of work which has been underway, I was going to say for the last 10 years but we should say for the last 25 years, including the delivery of the Heysen tunnels and the improvements to the freeway that were made back in the late 1990s, funded by the previous Keating federal government.

It is clear when we see these trucks from time to time having these collisions at the bottom of the freeway that the work is not done. Today, I have re-emphasised in my public comments that the government leaves all options on the table to improve safety at the bottom of the South Eastern Freeway.

The leader asked specifically around the study that his previous question made allusion to, and that was the work that's been done around a freight bypass as well as what I have been referring to in the context of this answer about the improvements being made to the South Eastern Freeway. In that regard, in addition to the $120 million that was delivered in last night's federal budget, I was also really pleased to see a further $100 million—which is being provided by the federal government on the basis that it is fifty-fifty funding and that it will require a further $100 million from the state government—for further improvements to the South Eastern Freeway.

Approximately 18 months ago, the minister met with road users, road-user representatives and industry groups to talk about what could be done to improve safety on the South Eastern Freeway. There was a series of initiatives which came up with short, medium and long-term initiatives and interventions. The works that are currently underway as we speak are many of the short-term initiatives. This extra funding in last month's federal budget will enable a much greater suite of those other initiatives to now be funded and delivered in the near future.