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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-09-21 Daily Xml
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Road Maintenance

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (15:17): I would just like to draw to the house's attention the situation with the broken down, newly constructed reconstruction of the shoulders of the Adelaide to Victor Harbor road between the top of Willunga Hill and Mount Compass. It is causing an enormous amount of chat on social media, on Facebook, and it is also providing my office with numerous complaints. The shoulders of the road were upgraded not so long ago; however, they have all collapsed again, and speed restrictions have been put in place.

I do not know what has happened. In my view, there is a case for it to be investigated for some sort of disastrous action that has been undertaken. It is extremely frustrating. It is frustrating motorists, it is frustrating truck drivers and it is frustrating local residents who travel on that road all the time. I would like the minister to supply me with an answer on what has happened, why it has happened, and when it is going to be fixed up properly.

Commuters and people travelling on that road were put to a great deal of inconvenience while the works were being done initially. Now they are being inconvenienced again because of the fact that it has packed up, and they will be further inconvenienced when it is fixed. All I ask is that it is fixed properly and promptly, because with the approaching summer season, the busy season, it is only going to get worse down there. I suspect the wet winter has had something to do with it, but quite simply, other shoulders have held up while this has not.

While I am on the subject of roads, I indicated this morning that my wife and I drove to Darwin over the break to see family. I would like to make some comments on the way some things are done in the Northern Territory. The roads up there are, in my view, superior to our roads. I acknowledge that the Territory receives copious amounts of federal government funding, and it probably will have to forever and a day because they simply do not have the numbers up there to keep the place going as it should. But the roads are better and the speed restrictions are much more sensible. The speed limit of 130 km/h over many of the roads is a wonderful asset and it enables you to go very long distances in a shorter time.

It is not dangerous. People understand what the roads are like and they drive accordingly. Where the roads are not marked 130 km/h in certain places they are at 110 km/h. A lot of common sense has been used and, indeed, that common sense to some extent is going to be undone by the newly installed Labor government up there who made an election commitment to take out the no speed limit restrictions—unrestrictions or whatever—between Tennant Creek and Alice Springs. I found that when I drove that section I sat on 135 km/h and really was not passed by anybody.

It is something that the former member for Flinders, the Hon. Graham Gunn, went on and on about, giving copious reasons for it making good sense for the West Coast. There is a lot of sense in that. Where you have to travel long distances, you just need to get on with it. A couple of members in this place know that, without going on too much about it. I believe that the roads are substantially better than ours in many places and the verges are much wider and things are done in a better way.

I also add that invariably we are charged to go into many of our national parks here in order to create some sort of income stream for the department. In the Northern Territory, with the multitude of visitors they have from all over the world, the parks are all free. You do not pay to go into national parks up there. In my view, it is a substantially better system there. I do not know how they go about funding them. I think Parks Australia run many of them in conjunction with the Territory administration. I find that people enjoy them. You do not see any rangers around and you do not see any rubbish around; they are run well, and I think it is something we ought to look at in this state.

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