Yorke Peninsula Road Network

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (15:00): My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. Can the minister provide an update on roadworks between Edithburgh and Yorketown, which was signed to commence on 3 November. With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr ELLIS: On 28 October, I was sent a photo by a constituent alerting me to electronic signage on the outskirts of Edithburgh which had been erected and advertised roadworks as having started on 3 November. However, when I drove through on the 31^st, the signs were gone and there was no imminent sign of roadwork.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Energy and Mining) (15:01): That is very concerning. I know the member is a fierce local advocate for his community and he fights hard for his local community. He put a lot of pressure on the then transport and infrastructure minister to lobby the then Treasurer to make sure we could have the adequate funding in place to upgrade that road, and that work has been done. I don't know why a particular sign has been moved. What I will do is make an inquiry of the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport in another place and get back to the member as quickly as possible.

However, I do want to point out to the house that there is a remarkable level of infrastructure spending going on across South Australia, not just in metropolitan Adelaide but across regional South Australia as well. Our regions had been terribly let down by consecutive governments in the past, Labor and Liberal. The outsourcing of the road maintenance contracts by the previous government was the final blow, the stake in the heart of regional communities for road infrastructure.

I know that the new Minister for Infrastructure and Transport has picked up the baton to make sure that we can get a good outcome for regional communities. I know that the regional members on the crossbench fight very, very hard to try to get more funding into the regions for regional roads. To us, we might use them on weekends or we might use them every now and again, but for people in regions that's their lifeblood, the arteries of their economy. If the blocks are not working, it has a major impact. I know that, especially during harvest, the member for Narungga gets lots of correspondence from his community about the state of the roads on Yorke Peninsula. We are working hard to try to remedy those errors.

In particular, I am very concerned about the road maintenance works. The assessment of those contracts has been pretty damning—pretty damning indeed. The promises that were made are impossible to be kept. As those contracts were privatised, of course, the earth was salted behind them, and they sold depots, sold plant and equipment, so it makes it very hard for the government to step back into that space. A lot of our local expertise is gone, retired, moved on, and it's very hard for us.

However, what we do know is that the last time we were in the Clare Valley, as we were driving up there, my former chief executive, who is the current chief executive of infrastructure and transport, followed a maintenance facility, and they were missing every third pothole.

The report back to me was these contracts really don't give value for money to the government. It makes you wonder how any government that claims to represent regional communities can think that privatising and outsourcing regional road maintenance will get you a better outcome than the government doing it itself. I have to say it is a tragedy.

On Yorke Peninsula, which has had a lot of work done on regional roads, this particular road that the member is talking about is critical. I know he has been arguing and fighting for it for a long period of time. I don't want him to leave this place this week thinking the government is not worried about it. I want him to go back to his constituents on the weekend and let them know that I will personally follow this matter up.

I want to reassure him also that the removal of the sign doesn't necessarily mean the work has stopped. That sign could have been up because there assessments being done on the work to be done by workers, to make sure that they were safe while that assessment was being done. But there are a number of reasons why that sign could have been moved. I doubt it was vandalism but it might have been some other reason. It might have been moved to another location. I will get a detailed answer and response from the minister and get back to the house sine die.