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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-11-26 Daily Xml
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Port Wakefield Overpass

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (14:07): My question is to the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government. Can the minister update the house on how the Marshall government is delivering productive infrastructure, such as the Port Wakefield overpass and duplication?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:07): I thank the member for Narungga for his question and note his dogged commitment to the Movember cause, achieving something that I will never be able to achieve. I can only look on with amazement.

This project is one that we took to the election and to the people of South Australia back in March 2018—the strong plan for real change that we put on the table to help improve road safety in regional areas. What we promised the people of South Australia is an overpass at crash corner. This intersection, for those who aren't familiar with it, is one of the most notorious in South Australia. In fact, unfortunately, what we saw was a double fatality at the intersection only a few weeks ago.

It serves as a very real reminder about why this project should have happened before now, but it is happening now, and one that we need to get on with and we need to deliver. What we took to the election was to deliver an overpass, but what we are now actually going to deliver to the South Australian people is so much more than that. Instead of just a single-lane overpass for southbound traffic over crash corner, we are now going to deliver a dual-lane bridge.

That means that, for those people heading south on the Augusta Highway who want to go across to the Copper Coast Highway, instead of having to turn right across one of South Australia's major highways, they will actually be able to loop around and go up over on a bridge, getting rid of that right-hand turn movement. We know that the reason that crash corner is notorious in the first place is the fact that there are dangerous right-hand turn movements where vehicles need to pass oncoming traffic.

As part of the consultation which was undertaken, and very much with the member for Narungga's community, council gathers a whole heap of feedback about what this project should look like. Instead of just the overpass, we are now going to deliver the duplication through the town. But also, based on feedback, we knew that we needed to deal with the entry and exit points, especially around the Balaklava Road intersection, and what we have decided on is a dual-lane carriageway in both directions that's going to, for southbound traffic, bypass half the town.

This means that we can provide a safer upgrade and we can provide an upgrade that is going to hopefully save lives into the future. This will cost more money—$122 million on the table from the state and federal governments to get this done—but the real issue that we faced was one where we either do the job properly the first time or suffer the consequences later on of not doing the job properly. It's why we didn't hesitate to put the extra money on the table to make sure that this notorious intersection is dealt with properly.

This means that we can get rid of all the hazardous at-grade movements. It also means that we can deal with a realigned intersection at Balaklava. It means that we can realign the dual carriageway, as I said, and make sure there are safe U-turn movements throughout. These things might seem basic, but I think that what we have shown is that we have undertaken a consultation process with the community. We have listened. We have redesigned the project.

Can I say that this is an intersection that holiday-makers have nightmares about when they have to get across to Yorke Peninsula, especially in beautiful summertime when the shack season is upon us. Works will begin on this project early next year. We are in the process of tendering for the construction of these projects right now. The land acquisition process is already underway. For all those people who live on Yorke Peninsula or who are heading north to Port Augusta and Spencer Gulf, for all those people who holiday to Yorke Peninsula and those areas around, they have a government that has listened and is going to deliver the best upgrade that the South Australian people deserve.

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