Regional Roads

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:25): My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. Can the minister explain to the house what works are being done to improve the condition of the road between Naracoorte and Bordertown? With your leave, Mr Speaker, and the leave of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: My office has been contacted by numerous constituents who have blown tyres and damaged rims after falling off this road. In some cases, a drop-off can be as much as 15 centimetres.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:26): That is clearly unacceptable. I thank the member for raising this in the parliament so the parliament can know of the travails of his constituents. It is important that regional members ventilate these things in the parliament. I have a lot of correspondence from people in the South-East about the state of the maintenance contract. The maintenance contract was outsourced by the previous government after government had conducted that contract—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Here we go. It is amazing how it is all care and no responsibility once they are in opposition, despite having their fingerprints all over the actual cause of this.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: So if we break a contract we are creating sovereign risk; if we don't break a contract we don't care. It is a great sort of a scam they've got over there. I am advised that the department has recently completed shoulder sealing of approximately 17 kilometres of Naracoorte Road from Meatworks Road to Stott Road. These works were jointly funded by the Australian and South Australian Labor governments under the Heavy Vehicle and Safety Productivity Program—that was $7.4 million. Shoulder grading on the remaining section of Naracoorte Road is continuing, with hazard warning signs to identify an edge drop. A 15-centimetre edge drop is considerable. It is anticipated that the works will be completed by the end of September.

I have also been advised by the department—because the member wrote to me yesterday as well about this; he is quite diligent on these things—that it will continue to bid for funding through various available federal programs to complete the shoulder sealing of the remaining lengths of Naracoorte Road south of Stott Road to the Riddoch Highway. The commonwealth government are very keen for us to improve the resilience of these roads and are looking to assist. We will be progressing those asks of the commonwealth government.

Of course, the issues on the Naracoorte to Bordertown road are symptomatic of a wider problem, one that is very prevalent in the electorate of MacKillop. Again, I go back to the privatisation of the road maintenance contract in 2020. It wasn't just the privatisation of that contract, it was the scorched earth behind it: the sale of the depots, the sale of all the equipment, so if the contract was unsuccessful we couldn't restart the works ourselves. They made sure—they salted the earth after them. This is what they tried to do with the Adelaide 500 as well, you might remember, so they have form on this.

So when I get letters from the shadow minister and from Liberal members about road conditions in regional South Australia, I hope people in the regions realise through that four-year period the damage members opposite did in contracting. I have to say that the vandalism by members opposite on this was ridiculous. The pavement backlog—

Mr TEAGUE: Point of order.

The SPEAKER: There is a point of order from the deputy leader.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Is it in the book?

Mr TEAGUE: Standing order 98: it is impermissible debate. The minister needs to answer the substance of the question.

The SPEAKER: He's got about 35 seconds to go. I reckon he's getting there.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: In 2018 the backlog of road maintenance was $750 million. When we came to office that had grown to $2 billion and then they complain about why we haven't fixed it. They let it blow out, they let it more than double, and then they complained to us why haven't we fixed it in three? I've got to say that I find that type of attitude appalling, which is probably why members opposite are in the situation that they are in.