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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-09-28 Daily Xml
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NATIONAL BROADBAND NETWORK

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:29): A couple of weeks ago I had the good fortune to attend the launch of the National Broadband Network when it went live in Willunga for the first time. Willunga was one of five sites chosen throughout Australia for the NBN Co to roll out its network at trial sites, and the reason they picked Willunga as a first release site was that it allowed the evaluation of construction in an established rural area. The historic town—a very beautiful town that was founded on the slate quarries of the area back in the mid-1800s—is one of South Australia's best towns.

There was a very large population there when slate was very much in demand and it was also the stop-off point—the watering hole—for horses and passengers when they would be making the trip from Adelaide down to Victor Harbor. It still has three pubs to this day which, although the population has declined, still stand proudly and once would have provided accommodation and refreshment to not only the many locals who lived in the area but those passing through.

Willunga was a 100 per cent underground new build for the NBN Co, making it the only first release site where the NBN Co installed new pits and pipes throughout the township, rather than using existing underground or overhead infrastructure. The communications minister, Stephen Conroy, was there, as was our finance minister, Penny Wong, and our hardworking local federal member of parliament, Amanda Rishworth (member for Kingston). I congratulate the member for Kingston on the hard work that she does for our local area and going in to bat to make sure that the money that the state government puts in is also complemented by millions and millions of dollars of funding from the federal government.

From Willunga, later that day, we went to inspect the bridge being built for the Seaford rail line over the Onkaparinga Valley, and the member for Reynell as well as the member for Kaurna were there that day with the member for Kingston. It is an amazing piece of infrastructure that is being built to make sure that the people in the south have access to the latest and greatest train system in South Australia.

By late 2013, the 5.7 kilometre extension from the Noarlunga railway station down to the Seaford District Centre will be operating and carrying passengers. To get there, one of the main obstacles was to get the rail line over the Onkaparinga Valley and Old Honeypot Road, so five bridges are being constructed along the course of the rail line to Seaford. One has already been finished; that is a road bridge over the rail line at Goldsmith Drive. There is the rail bridge over Old Honeypot Road and then, as I said, the 1.2 kilometre rail bridge over the Onkaparinga Valley which will be one of Australia's longest rail bridges and the equal third-longest incrementally launched bridge in the world.

We actually got to see how they prefabricate the spans of this bridge, and then they do it on the northern side and the southern side and push the prefab bits of bridge out until they will finally meet some time down the track. There are 21 spans and they will be spaced at approximately 53 metres. There will be no spans in the Onkaparinga River and the concrete piers range from 22 metres in height at the northern end of the structure to 13 metres at the southern end, an average height that is approximately that of a six-storey building. It has a design life of 150 years.

The Hon. J.R. Rau: You may not be the member by then.

Mr BIGNELL: Hopefully, I will be. We are all very excited about it in the south because we will have the electric rail that will get people into the South at least 10 minutes quicker than the current train trip, but it will also take a lot of people off the roads. There is more good news for the South, which is that the ExxonMobil site is to be torn down between now and the end of 2013.

Again, the member for Reynell and the member for Mitchell joined me as we toured the site for hopefully the last time a few weeks ago. ExxonMobil has let the contract for the Port Stanvac refinery to be torn down and that will take some months. They will start at the outside of the site and then move in, so the last things that come down are probably the tallest structures on the site. People in the south are very much looking forward to this eyesore being removed from the horizon.

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