Torrens to Darlington Project

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO (Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:10): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport questions regarding the capital program referred to in the Auditor-General's Report 9 of 2025.

Leave granted.

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO: On page 4 of the report, the Auditor-General refers to the non-financial public sector capital program. I quote:

Given the historically large size of the capital program, even small percentage budget overruns could significantly impact the State's overall financial position…

The Auditor-General has stated that the risk of significant cost overruns and project delays for the capital program is high, given the following: the inherent challenges in managing very large-scale infrastructure projects in which the state has limited experience, such as the extensive tunnelling work involved in the T2D project; labour shortages; and that allowances made in project budgets may not cover increasing construction costs. My questions to the minister are:

1. What specific risk mitigation measures has the government put in place to prevent further budget blowouts and delays, particularly relating to the Torrens to Darlington tunnelling works?

2. Has the minister received briefings on the quantum of risk to the T2D project because of the current legal action between the AWU and the CFMEU regarding coverage of the project?

3. Is the current T2D project on time and on budget?

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Autism) (15:11): You will have to forgive me because I don't know the exact name—I can't remember it offhand—but as we are purchasing quite a number of products from overseas, for the first time we have created a fund that accounts for that currency difference. That has already been able to save our government millions of dollars, I have been advised. When we are purchasing equipment from overseas we can accommodate for that currency difference. We have created a fund that we can call upon to support those purchases. That fund is there to support the alliance and those purchases but also to protect the government and taxpayers.

This is an initiative that we have taken. This is something that hasn't happened before because, as you have highlighted, these are big projects. This is the largest infrastructure project we have ever undertaken. We are putting in what I have been advised are new safeguards to help protect us when we are making those purchases from overseas.

There are many things about this project that I think are significant. We have purchased three tunnel-boring machines, which is an indication that we are not just having one tunnel-boring machine working at one time. Once they are all built and constructed they will be able to work at the same time, simultaneously, so that we can seek to reach that 2031 deadline for this project being completed.

This is a project that is travelling well. As you have seen already, parts of the tunnel-boring machine have started to arrive. The cutter head has been placed together and is being welded at this very point to be able to be ready for the other remaining pieces of that boring machine to arrive by the end of the year. There are a lot of moving pieces to this. This is a big project and one that is providing opportunities for our state to generate over 5,500 jobs during the construction period.

When it comes to the Auditor-General's Report, there are scathing recommendations that are there based on, again, those opposite with the projects that you have put in place. There are more concerning points that have been raised in regard to the backlog in maintenance that we now have to undertake—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE: Between 2017 and 2022, I am advised the sealed road backlog grew from $723 million to $1.9 billion. I don't know who was in government between 2017 and 2022, but it was not the Labor government that were in. When we look at the Auditor-General's Report and we look at the concerns it might be raising, who generated those concerns? It wasn't the investments that we decided to make, to go and lock ourselves in and privatise all of our contract work and sell off our equipment to make it a little bit more tricky to get things back into public hands. When we left it was $723 million. You increased it to a $1.9 billion black hole, so don't be pointing fingers over here.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Deputy Premier, do you want to come and sit up here, because you want to run the show?

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: You stay there.