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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-04-03 Daily Xml
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Regional Roads

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:31): Supplementary question: can the minister confirm that the commonwealth in 2019 only allocates $48.2 million over the forward estimates—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader, please be seated for one moment. Member for Waite, you can leave for the rest of question time under 137A. The minister for Primary Industries can also leave for 20 minutes.

The honourable members for Waite and Chaffey having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: Point of order: the Leader of the Opposition does need to identify who he is directing the question to.

The SPEAKER: I believe it was a supplementary question and I anticipate that he was asking it to the Minister for Infrastructure, but I will hear the question again. The reason why I couldn't hear the question is that members on my right were interjecting. The Leader of the Opposition has the call. The Minister for Infrastructure can't wait to answer; I can see it in his eyes.

Mr MALINAUSKAS: Rather than be a supplementary question—

The SPEAKER: New question, Leader of the Opposition.

Mr MALINAUSKAS: My question is to the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. Can the minister confirm that the commonwealth budget handed down last night only allocates $48.2 million over the forward estimates to the three projects in regional SA, being the Port Augusta to Perth corridor, Renmark to Gawler and the Cockburn to Burra corridor, costing a combined $220 million?

The SPEAKER: A fair bit in that question. I will not be taking points of order for debate. The minister has the call. I would like to hear his answer.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:32): Obviously—

The Hon. S.S. Marshall interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Premier!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —there was never a country cabinet in Cockburn. The beautiful thing about last night's budget is that it has over $600 million inside the forward estimates for roads in South Australia, but we actually—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: No, it's not, and do you know why? Because you can't build a $5 billion road two weeks after you get the money without doing the work.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Playford can leave for the rest of question time.

The honourable member for Playford having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: Once again, let me explain it to you.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister has the call.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: At the moment, there are a number of projects that are going on. There is the Northern Connector, there is Darlington, we finished the Torrens to Torrens and the Oaklands Crossing is getting pretty close. That's four major projects. They are being completed.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: Started under the former government; there you go. After those projects will now come Pym to Regency, the Gawler Line electrification, Joy Baluch and Port Wakefield. After that will come the nine metropolitan intersections that we secured funding for in last night's budget, and then we will also augment that with this regional roads funding. What is interesting here is that we want to deliver a consistent pipeline. We don't want to go through this boom-bust—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: I did—over $600 million. You don't want this boom-bust cycle that we have had. The defence industry realised—

Dr Close interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader is called to order and warned.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —that it wasted billions of dollars by going through boom-bust, which is why having a continuous shipbuilding program makes a lot of sense. The same actually works with roads, where what you need to have is a series of projects. Again, this is what made it more difficult: because the former government bunched everything up together, they set a real peak that we have had to try to smooth out and manage. So it's actually providing a consistent pipeline of work that makes sure—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Could the minister be seated for one moment. Stop the clock. If this continues, members will be departing. The minister has the call.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: You want to provide a consistent pipeline of work because we need to make sure that the skills that are developed in these projects jump from project to project. Boom-bust does not provide certainty for workers. It also sees workers exit the industry because they don't have that level of certainty. We have been very clear, and one of the objectives of the last 12 months has been to actually smooth out that profile, which is why we have taken an orderly approach.

In relation to a number of these regional roads, and in relation to the north-south corridor, there is an opportunity for us to bring those projects forward. For those opposite who may be cynical about that, it's exactly what we did last year—exactly what we did last year. What we can do now is make sure that we have given ourselves enough time. Again, we are not talking about next year or the year after. We are actually talking about a 10 to 12-year pipeline that we are developing here. The opportunity is for us to do the planning work, discuss with Infrastructure South Australia to make sure that these projects are done in the right way and then to fit them into the program—

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Yes.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —of works so that we can provide that continuous pipeline. We know it works in defence and we know it needs to work in civil construction. The reason we need to do this is that around the country more is being spent now on infrastructure than we have ever seen before in our lives. New South Wales alone is spending $90 billion. That means that we compete for talent. What I want to make sure of is that when we spend this money we spend it wisely and prudently and we get the best price. The best way that we can do that is to provide a consistent pipeline—

Mr Malinauskas: The money is not there. It's all talk.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —and use as much local procurement as possible. There are a lot of tier 2 contractors in South Australia who are looking for a government that will actually provide them with that consistent pipeline, and that's just what we have done. All these projects start inside the forward estimates. There is a whole heap of them that start and finish inside the forward estimates. The budget—

Mr Malinauskas: Right, the ones that we signed off.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —is over four years, but the pipeline we are delivering is over a 10 to 12-year period, which is why, naturally, some of that money does exist outside the forward estimates.

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