GlobeLink

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (14:51): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment a question.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.E. HANSON: Can the minister advise if a business case for GlobeLink, or 'globlink', has been initiated per their election commitment?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) (14:51): I thank the honourable member for his question. I would like to inform him that it is GlobeLink. He might want to use some other name but that will only demean him, I expect, by using another name. It is GlobeLink.

We gave a commitment to invest—my recollection is $20 million—into the business case. That is a responsibility for GlobeLink which I think will be a transformational project, a very long-term one that this government will look to once the north-south corridor is complete. Clearly, there has been a lot of interest over a very long period of time about taking the freight trains out of the Adelaide Hills because of fire, noise and efficiency reasons.

One has to understand that there are capacity constraints on that particular rail line between Adelaide and Melbourne because we have the old tunnels from some of the early rail alignment there and we can't double-stack containers, so to do that work you need to make the tunnels higher or lower the line. From information that we obtained from the Department for Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (DPTI) the estimates were somewhere between $800 million to $1 billion to do that work and give us more capacity on the line and then you can make the train slightly longer.

The only other way you can increase capacity, to answer the honourable member, is to increase the frequency. If you do all of that you end up with more trains, longer trains and more often coming through the middle of the city. So, clearly there is an opportunity to have a look before we spend $1 billion on that particular part of the network to see if there is another option. That is a good case for looking at taking the railway line around the back of the Adelaide Hills. We all know there is rough alignment and that's why we have committed the $20 million to start that whole planning and business case process.

Then we have the issues with the South Eastern Freeway. We have seen the former government do a whole bunch of rezoning around Mount Barker, controversial as it was—farmland that was going under houses—nonetheless it was done. The Hon. Mark Parnell joined with me in being somewhat concerned about the way that process was initiated and done. However, you cannot unzone land and there are houses over most of it now—not most of it but a lot of it. But the actual traffic flow, for the honourable member's benefit, will increase significantly on the South Eastern Freeway, and ultimately we will need to build more capacity into the South Eastern Freeway. I have not had any official figures but I suspect that would be a billion dollar project as well.

We have seen the cost of the north-south corridor upgrade, so we have those three lanes each way on the bit that comes down towards the tunnels. Of course, you would have to take that, probably, back to Mount Barker to deal with the flows, so the investment you would need to deal with the increased freight load and all of the commuter traffic would be significant coming down that South Eastern Freeway.

Again, that is another good reason why you would look at potentially taking the heavy freight especially around the back of the Adelaide Hills. Of course, a lot of freight operators find the descent into Adelaide quite challenging. We have seen some tragic accidents with loss of life and loss of property, so there is a good reason why you would have a very good close look at taking the heavy freight around the back of the Adelaide Hills on a road corridor.

There might be some opportunities through all this innovation and these smart cities to have a Google road—maybe not Google but a road that is high tech. It has been put to me that you might have a road where the road lights only turn on at night as the vehicles come along, a road that detects kangaroos and animals on the road and that sends a message to the driver that there is an animal or other obstacle on the road in the next four or five kilometres, or 10 kilometres. There is a lot of technology that could be incorporated into a brand-new road that I think we should look at. We should look at those opportunities, especially with some of the technological expertise that will be clustered in South Australia around the great defence contracts that I spoke of earlier.

Then of course, with GlobeLink, we had the opportunity of the airport. Some members opposite might have been born, but probably some were not born, when the former premier from many years ago, premier Dunstan, talked about building Monarto and the city over the hills. Land was set aside for an airport which, thankfully, unlike most things with the former Labor government that they have sold or for which they have changed its use, the land has still been set aside for an airport. It's probably a fair way off but it presents an opportunity. If you have seen what has happened in Toowoomba with the Wagner family, they have built an airport, a bit like the movie Field of Dreams, 'Build it and they will come'. They have a significant amount of freight going out of that particular airport.

Again, there is an opportunity for South Australia to look at. We think GlobeLink is a transformational infrastructure project—that's why we committed the $20 million to the planning study—but that is a matter for the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government to manage because that is his responsibility. I am not familiar with the exact time frame but I am sure, if I get some time frames of when that is likely to happen, I will then bring that response back to the member to keep him informed.