Yorke Peninsula Road Network

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (15:29): I rise today to bring to the attention of this house some recent developments originating out of the Yorke Peninsula Council and to explain to the constituents who have taken the time to contact me sharing their concerns the current state of play and how things will progress.

This house should be informed that recently the Yorke Peninsula Council has released a document for consultation at this stage, and I would like to stress that from the outset, for a strategy for managing the risk of B-double plus access to the Yorke Peninsula Council's road network. This document has come about because councils saw fit to engage a consultant to do a bit of an audit for the risk on their roads, and I do have to stress again that it is an extensive road network that the council have under their stewardship. It has 3,890 kilometres worth of road transport network, comprised of 529 kilometres of sealed road, 2,620 kilometres of gravel sheeted unsealed roads, 523 kilometres of formed and graded unsheeted road, and 218 kilometres of unformed roads and tracks.

Essentially, what this consultant has told the council is that there are significant risks, in their view, that come along with the use of those roads, particularly from vehicles that are approaching that A-double range and that sort of thing. In their view, the council would be well advised to take some precautions to try to reduce that risk from those trucks using their extensive road network.

Some of the pieces of advice that have been offered in this report have not gone down particularly well with local carriers, it is fair to say. Some of those pieces of advice are as follows. There is a suggestion—and, again, it is just a suggestion—that trucks over a certain size be banned from driving after daylight hours have come to an end to try to improve safety in that aspect.

Similarly, there is a suggestion that trucks over a certain size be banned from driving in wet weather. In addition to that, there are recommendations that those big trucks have rotating amber hazard lights, which I have to say considering that there is currently a bill before this place that anyone passing by amber hazard lights slow down to 25 km/h would be a reasonably confusing thing when you are approaching a truck on a road if that was to become law. Similarly, one final example involves a speed reduction to 30 km/h in the town and 50 km/h outside of the town. They are just a few of the suggestions.

I have received calls from a great many people about the perceived shortcomings of those suggestions. It does not take a genius to figure out that if one is coming home from a silo or something similar with a road train and they get to a certain time that might be designated after dark and they will then have to drop a trailer off and leave it in the middle of nowhere and keep going home as a B-double. It does not make a great deal of sense for those people doing that transport.

Similarly, how does one define rain? When does it become wet weather driving that is no longer safe for a road train or an A-double and so on and so forth. It is of particular concern as well, I guess, about the reduction of 30 km/h and, in this day and age of trying to be wary of our emissions and whatnot, it was pointed out to me that driving at 30 km/h drastically increases the revs at which the truck operates thereby increasing its emissions and the work that its motor does.

We have this report. I know there has been some excellent work done by a lot of members of the community. I want to take this opportunity to specially mention a group that has been formed and has put together a tremendous document, led by Melissa Kenny and Chelly Litster, who have done a great job putting together a really well articulated document that counterargues some of the suggestions in the public consultation. That group has done a wonderful job and they have disseminated copies of that document to a large number of businesses across my electorate, particularly within the Yorke Peninsula Council region. People who are affected or who could be affected by changes if they were enacted should peruse and sign a one-pager to that effect that they can use to contribute as feedback to this process.

As I have said and made an attempt to stress, this is very much a consultation at this stage. Those submissions will close at 4pm Friday 24 May and we will wait to see what the council does in response to those submissions. One hopes that if democracy works, and the calls that I have been getting are representative of the wider community concerns, that it will be shelved and those really contested recommendations to reduce risk will be parked to one side.

I really, really sympathise with the YP council. As I have said, it is an extensive road network and there is a rather limited ratepayer base for them to collect revenue from to maintain it, but we really need to make sure that we balance the road maintenance risks with the productivity of our primary industries that are the real driver of our local economy, and I think some of these changes threaten to throw that balance out, and I really hope that the democratic process works and that the council abandons some of the more contentious ones.