Freight and Supply Chain Strategy

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley) (16:44): My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. What will be the cost to implement the government's recently announced freight and supply chain strategy?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (16:44): The strategy is not so much about necessarily a cost but what it is about is making sure that the state has a supply chain strategy and that that strategy fits in with commonwealth government funding levels. We have developed the strategy over a period of time when we had these four strategic outcomes, which were that people are safe, that freight is productive, that it is sustainable and that it's stakeholder centric, that is that we worry about the people who are actually involved in moving freight.

The eight responses to the strategic vision were that we want a safe and connected network, we want long-term planning, and a net zero pathway for freight to be moved. We want resilience and redundancy within the system. We want technology integration, skilled workforce, data sharing and regulatory and policy harmony.

My job as the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport is to make sure we do the appropriate mapping. I know that there are a number of regional councils that are very concerned about the freight strategy and the reason they are concerned is because they do not want freight using their roads. Last mile productivity is one of the most important factors in job creation in South Australia, moving our freight to and from our farms, to and from our factories, to and from places of work and industry are important.

It occurs to me on a number of occasions when there are numerous permits issued for freight paths and freight routes, why do we need to continue issuing permits? If the permits have been issued six, seven, eight, nine, 10 times in a row, aren't we just embedding a bureaucracy over the top of this? Aren't we better off saying, 'That route now is approved. No permit needed.' Local councils don't like that because local councils feel that it puts their infrastructure at risk. Who was their infrastructure built for? It's built for the businesses that operate in their communities.

The state and commonwealth governments both realise that these local councils, of course, who own a majority of Australia's roads, can't sustain them on their own and they do need assistance; hence, the state government spending money on roads that aren't necessarily owned, maintained and operated by state government, and the commonwealth government does the same thing.

In relation to the freight strategy, the real question I should have been asked is: what is the cost of not doing it?

Members interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: And long may that last; long may that continue. I will continue to ask because I'm just trying to offer advice as a helpful minister to my young apprentice. I'm trying to say, 'Look, the questions you want to ask are: you've got a freight strategy, why haven't you implemented it faster?' That's the question you should have been asking.

In terms of the direct cost that the member is asking for, I will get a detailed response from the department and have a look if there are indeed any costs of implementation of the freight strategy. I suspect overwhelmingly it will be savings: savings on time, saving on bureaucracy, greater productivity for freight, greater access to our roads and routes, making sure that South Australian wheat, grain and barley, making sure that our lamb, beef, pork and all of our livestock, all of the commodities we make will be moved around the state freely and fairly to create productivity and jobs in South Australia. Who could be opposed to that? I think this is something I will get back to the house on.