Road Maintenance

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (15:15): My question is to the minister for roads. Could the minister for roads please inform the house regarding major works that have taken place over a number of years and the reworks that have gone on since they have been in government and what is the minister doing about the reworks because of poor quality workmanship?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (15:15): I take it that he is talking about the level of major investment being made on South Australian roads by the South Australian government. Yes, it is a constant task to upgrade—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Chaffey, you have been out of your place all question time. You can go back to your office or wherever your other place is, because you have just been calling out all day from out of your place, until the end of question time.

The honourable member for Chaffey having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I have never seen the house so happy. It is true that the South Australian motorist is now seeing a lot more roadworks on South Australian roadways because of the government's record infrastructure spend. I do note that that is inconvenient for some motorists. Seeing roadworks that were previously done, now having to be worked on again, is frustrating for people. I understand.

When those roadworks were being done in a way that weather damages them and we need to go back and fix them, we are trying to do more with less and we are trying to maintain a very large regional network. We are about 7 per cent of the country's population, with about 5 per cent of the national funding for our roads, but we have over 10 per cent of the nation's roads, so we are clearly up against it.

I know our regional friends are the ones who see it because they have the longest lengths but the least volumes. It is difficult, I understand that, it's very, very difficult. We do try to prioritise. I know that the frustration I get from regional members is, 'Look, you've just fixed this road; you are going back there again to do that work again,' and it is because our regional roads are hit the hardest. They have a lot of heavy traffic. They have a lot of very heavy freight moving on their roads. They have a lot of agricultural equipment moving on their roads. These vehicles do a lot of damage to our roads and the base is old.

The average base in South Australia is nearing 50 years. We are absolutely living off the work of our grandparents who did a lot of investment in our regional roads. The truth is: to redo that base now would be crippling for the state. We have to work our infrastructure and sweat it harder. I know it's frustrating. I do. It frustrates me as well.

The truth is the state is doing what it can with its valuable resources to try to make sure we can maintain a good network of freight and productivity on our roads and reprioritise it. I do say this: I have colleagues here, who make up a majority of the metropolitan seats, who say that we are spending a lot of our road maintenance money in regional areas. I say to the member opposite who asked this question he would be surprised to know that an overwhelming majority of our regional road maintenance program is being spent in his community.

I have members in metropolitan Adelaide who say, 'Hang on a second.' But, again, we know that regional areas do need a lot more attention because of the type of congestion, the type of freight, that you are moving on your roads and the value it gives to our state, so we do try to allocate on the basis of need. I know it's frustrating, but we are trying to do more with less. It would have been a lot easier had the previous people not privatised all the road maintenance work, but, again, you can't help stupid.