Question Time

PUBLIC TRANSPORT, ADELAIDE HILLS

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:23): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Urban Development and Planning a question in relation to public transport for the Hills.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: We saw, tragically, two days ago an accident on the South-Eastern Freeway with a semitrailer that was out of control. Tragically, a gentleman lost his life and other people were injured.

Members are well aware that the freight task for this economy in this state is likely to double in the next 10 years. Currently, 60 per cent of the population of people living in the Mount Barker region travel to Adelaide along the freeway by car. Under the government's 30-year plan, we are to see up to 50,000 extra people likely to be living in that particular area, and one can only assume that 60 per cent of those will also be travelling by car.

I recently attended one of the DPAC meetings, just to get a feel for some of the issues in the community. One woman in particular made a comment that she often travels with school-age children to Adelaide for excursions. I am not sure whether she was a parent, a schoolteacher or perhaps just a school SSO. However, she said that children often have to stand up on the bus because the bus is overcrowded and, of course, being a state STA bus, it allows people to stand up.

The Hon. B.V. Finnigan: An STA bus?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: No, a state bus.

An honourable member: A Hills Transit.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: A Hills Transit—that's it—but nonetheless, the children have to stand up. It seems to be only a matter of time, if the traffic increases on that road because of the population up there, before we see a tragedy, sadly, of a much more significant size than the one we saw this week.

The 30-year draft plan indicated that the government had some fanciful thought of light rail in the Mount Barker area. I have a copy of the Adelaide Hills/Murray Bridge directions map from the 30-year plan and there is absolutely no mention of any public transport infrastructure for the Mount Barker region. My question to the minister is: what is the government's public transport solution for the future protection of children and the people from the Mount Barker region?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister Assisting the Premier in Public Sector Management) (14:25): Let us correct the errors first. The honourable member was talking about 50,000 extra people in Mount Barker. In fact, the proposal is for about 7,000 extra dwellings. I suppose you could double that or increase it by slightly more than double for the number of people, depending on the size of households. That would lead to, roughly, a doubling of the current population which I believe, in the Mount Barker/Nairne area, is about 15,000. That is the first point I want to make.

The second point is that the honourable member talked about 60 per cent of people travelling by car to the city—commuting, I assume he means. He made the assumption that that would be the case in the future. However, one of the objectives of the 30-year plan is, of course, to ensure that there is more employment near to where people live. Indeed, some of the land proposed to be set aside at Mount Barker is, of course, for employment areas. Mount Barker was set aside really as the growth centre for the Hills many years or decades ago and, of course, it has become the natural centre, so there are many supporting service industries located around Mount Barker, and one would expect that to continue in the future. One of the objectives of the 30-year plan is to reduce the need for people to travel beyond their district for employment.

To suggest that somehow or other there is an issue with the freeway because, tragically, one person was killed yesterday—we have not yet heard about the investigation into that particular accident but, given the volume of people travelling on that road every day (and I am one of them), there is significant—

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: You don't work where you live.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: Unfortunately, no; but if Parliament House could be located in the Adelaide Hills I would be very happy and probably so would the deputy leader. It would be a good idea perhaps to put it at Mount Barker.

The point is that the fact that there was one tragic accident on the road, given the volume of traffic, does not necessarily make that road unsafe. Whenever you have that volume of traffic on any road, whether it is Port Wakefield Road, Main North Road or Anzac Highway, inevitably, but unfortunately, you will have fatalities. There may potentially be some road safety issues involved, but I do not want to comment on those.

There is, obviously, the particular risk, with a steep road like the South-Eastern Freeway, of a truck's brakes failing. I have to say that I was rather intrigued yesterday that the Leader of the Opposition (who is the local member for the Hills) was suggesting speed limits as a solution. If you have a heavily-laden B-double truck, presumably the speed limit would have to be about 20 km/h, because that is about how fast a heavily-laden truck should be travelling down a road like that to ensure that it does not get out of control. I am not sure that if you had a 20 km/h speed limit on the freeway the Leader of the Opposition's constituents would be particularly pleased with that. Clearly, there are issues in relation to road safety and they will be addressed.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: The honourable member has raised this issue and I am going to clarify it. In relation to public transport, again, the honourable member misrepresented the 30-year plan. He will see that one of the potential solutions to transport in the Hills, one of the issues that was canvassed—and obviously this is something for the future that will need a lot of work, because we are talking about a 30-year plan—was the potential to have special bus lanes operating along the freeway. I believe that is referred to in the 30-year plan, and I would be happy to dig that out and show it to the honourable member. To suggest that you could have a light rail going to Mount Barker for 25,000 people would—

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: Your original draft had a light rail line marked in a dotted line.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: It was not a light rail; it was a bus track. I would imagine a light rail to Mount Barker would cost billions and billions of dollars, for a township of 30,000. It would be fanciful to suggest that was an option. Some people have suggested using the current railway. I used to catch the passenger rail when that was going, and it took about 70 minutes to get to Bridgewater. If it had to wind further around the Hills to Mount Barker it would be a two or three-hour trip, and no-one would use it. There are fundamental issues with rail through the Hills, as I am sure everyone knows, because of the steep and winding grades. However, the 30-year plan envisaged looking at the use of special bus lanes to deal with that issue.

At this stage the government is still going through the development plan amendment process in relation to Mount Barker. I think the final meeting was last night, and DPAC will then have to provide advice. So there is a long way to go before the first extra house is built. Of course there has been significant growth in Mount Barker over the past 30 years. Indeed, as I have pointed out often enough, I understand that the projected growth in the 30-year plan is less than the growth over the previous 30 years, but that is another story.

I reject the contention that no thought has been given to providing transport to that region. I know that the government has recently upgraded the bus interchange at Mount Barker, and it has been incredibly popular, like many of this government's public transport measures. They have been so successful and led to so much increase in patronage that they are already requiring upgrading, just like the so-called 'tram to nowhere' that members opposite used to talk about that has been extremely successful as well.

In relation to the question, I think these issues will be addressed over the 30-year period. They have been envisaged within the 30-year plan, but there is still a way to go before the implementation of that plan moves to the next stage.