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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-05-09 Daily Xml
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Transport Infrastructure

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (15:14): I rise to address a couple of issues, some I did not get to speak about in my Address in Reply contribution. I would like to discuss our Globe Link policy, which is our far-reaching policy to link Monarto around the back of the Hills, possibly around Truro, and coming out at Two Wells. What we will do is the work we have committed to, as has already been mentioned today by minister Knoll in this place. We have committed to the $20 million study to make sure that we get the right routes, the right outcomes, and that we get it done at the right costings.

This is a huge project for South Australia. It will get trucks off the South Eastern Freeway and get rail on a decent gradient around the back of the Hills. I had some discussions with someone the other day and the best gradient is about plus one or minus one, which means that, if we run it at that, there will be multiple tunnels and bridges as well, so there are going to be significant costs if that is the type of plan we end up using.

Seriously, we need to look at the freight network, and not just the freight network but access for people on public transport, as well as what frees up those roads and railway lines we take the freight from so that we can get better access, especially on the roads, for citizens in light vehicles. Anyone coming down the freeway, as I do regularly from Coomandook, notes the traffic build-up from Mount Barker into Adelaide. We get only three lanes around Crafers into the city. I remember when those additions were put in quite a few years ago to make access better into and out of the city. I can see that one day someone will be here, maybe me, discussing the fact that we have had to triplicate the freeway lanes out to Mount Barker.

Globe Link will stop all those trucks. From our early modelling, it will stop about 80 per cent of trucks having to come down the freeway because guess where their yards are? Most of the freight yards are around to the north of Adelaide, towards Grand Junction Road and areas on that side of Adelaide. Quite simply, instead of having to come down the hill and go through those residential areas on Portrush Road, we can get that freight task around the city and around the back of the Hills.

With rail, there is a great opportunity for us to get double-stacked trains into the system because there is so much freight that does not need to go through to the city and, even if it does, you can grab those trains from a junction on the main line and take them back into the city. It will be a great boon for trains from Melbourne heading through to Perth, for instance.

Another part of that project is the future freight airport. Monarto is the ideal location for this, especially for the great produce that comes out of this state, because not only will it deal with and export the local produce grown in the Murray and the Mallee lands but, equally, it will reach into the South-East and those growers in MacKillop and down to Mount Gambier. It also includes all those rural electorates right through to Port Augusta because it is in the right spot. You are about 4½ hours from either end of those distant locations. You can get it to Monarto, where you could run a 24-hour airport, which we should be doing in this modern world, to deliver that freight task.

Another presentation I saw pre election was on the Mount Barker fast train. People talk about rail out to Murray Bridge, which I believe is too slow at the minute, with about a two-hour time line to get a train out of Adelaide to Murray Bridge. The Mount Barker fast rail, where they are thinking they might get a train to Mount Barker in 22 minutes, is going to have a big cost with all that tunnelling, but I welcome research into that project.

These projects are many billions of dollars, but at the moment, as I mentioned this morning, I am pursuing the fact that we can get Metro ticketing to Murray Bridge, and hopefully one day beyond, to really help those opportunities we have in the district.

Time expired.

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