Regional Road Maintenance

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (15:05): Yes, I certainly do, absolutely. My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. Who signs off on works conducted on state roads to ensure that they are suitably delivered to the satisfaction of those who ordered them? With your leave, sir, and that the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr ELLIS: Recently a constituent of mine contacted me to report to me that the works being conducted on the shoulder of the road between Warooka and the Corny Point turnoff had been done and graded on the shoulders. Workers returned within 10 days to put 80 km/h signs out there, presumably because the works hadn't been done to a satisfactory standard to provide for a safe road surface.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (15:06): This is becoming quite an issue, with a lot of regional communities seeing the department doing work on regional roads and seeing the speed limit dropped. My understanding is that what the department is attempting to do is basically bed in the new works being done by lowering the speed limit. I don't think it is necessarily a sign of a lack of confidence in the work that has been completed by the contractors.

Ultimately, it is the Commissioner of Highways who will delegate or personally oversee the quality of roads that are being done. I have personally driven with the Commissioner of Highways when we go to regional community cabinets. We specifically choose routes that members write to me on. I remember you wrote to me about a section of road, and we drove on it simply to have a firsthand look at what it is you were talking about. I have met regional members in regional communities and driven on sections of road where they have said to me that the road needs to be upgraded. My understanding is that there is a very robust process.

The biggest complaint I get from regional communities is the speed limits aren't lifted after the work has been completed. In fact, Mr Speaker, I have had it in your community with the duplication of Main South Road, where we kept speed limits lower while the alliance was wanting to bed in the works that had been done with the bitumen and the seals on the roads. I know it is frustrating; I know that works have been completed.

But I also do point out to our regional members that the road bases that we are putting seal on are very old. We have some of the oldest road bases in the country. We are absolutely standing on the shoulders of people who came before us and put in all that hard work to build out that road base.

Right now, we are working against time. Unfortunately for us, like the Treasurer has said many times, we are a state with land mass the size of two large European nations, France and Germany. We have about 6 per cent of the country's population, about 5 per cent of the federal funding and nearly 10 per cent of the country's roads, so for us to be able to manage and deal with this is very difficult.

Where we can, we do try to manage our road network in a way that allows us to spread our dollar further—as the old ad says, make our dollar go further. That is exactly what we are trying to do. If lowering the speed limit after works have been completed helps to try to keep that bitumen and that seal in place longer while it beds in in Australian conditions, I support it. I know it is frustrating.

I ask the member to get back to me after question time and give me the exact section of road that he thinks may have been done at a substandard level. Sometimes we do go in and do temporary repairs while waiting for actual repairs, given we are concerned about the condition of the road. This could be a case where we have gone out, done some remedial works, lowered the speed limit and are preparing to do proper remedial works at a later stage when weather permits or budgets permit to try to make sure we can do it properly. But I will undertake for the member to get back to his community very quickly about that section of road.