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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-05-05 Daily Xml
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Main South Road Duplication

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:53): I rise to talk about something that is a real bugbear for the people in the electorate of Mawson. People around Aldinga, Sellicks and Willunga, further down at Myponga, Yankalilla and Normanville, and right down to Cape Jervis and indeed Kangaroo Island, are particularly upset about this issue.

Back in about June or July 2017, the Labor government announced funding for the duplication of Main South Road between Seaford and Sellicks Beach. This was listed by the RAA as one of the most dangerous roads. In some surveys, it was the most dangerous road in South Australia. We went out with a commitment to spend hundreds of millions of dollars.

In fact, in the first four years, which finishes on 30 June of this year, so just a few weeks away, we should have spent $100 million on that duplication process. To date, nothing has been spent on it apart from the printing of some brochures, which were incorrect, that were hand delivered to houses all through Willunga, McLaren Vale, McLaren Flat, Aldinga, Sellicks and Port Willunga back in late March.

The government went down there unannounced. Of course, they did not let me know they were coming to the electorate despite the longstanding tradition that ministers do inform local members when they are coming to their electorate. This mob do not. I wrote to the Premier about it in the first year and he said, 'That's wrong, we'll fix it,' and then he comes down there and does not even tell me he is coming. We do not see much of him, but he likes it that way. They sneak in. You do not get to see the Liberals unless you pay money to go to their fundraisers. That is how this mob operates.

No money has been spent. They have realised that the pressure is building as we head towards the election next year, so now they have gone out and in a pretty callous, terrible way, they have pitted the people of Aldinga and Sellicks against the people of McLaren Vale and Willunga with these two options. They have pinched money out of our original project and now they are saying, 'You can go for option A or option B. Which one is it going to be?'

I have to say that the people of our area think that both options that they have served up are extremely below the standard—a long way below the standard—that is acceptable in terms of modern infrastructure builds. They want to put a roundabout at the intersection of Main South Road, Tatachilla Road and Maslin Beach Road, which is at the bottom of a gully. It is a treacherous, most dangerous intersection. We have been down there with Peter Malinauskas and Tom Koutsantonis many times and we have stood there with our hearts in our mouths as we have witnessed near crashes time and time again.

The Liberals were invited along by the Aldinga Bay Residents Association for a forum, so both sides were invited along. Labor was invited along and the Liberals were invited along, including the Liberal candidate for the seat of Mawson. This forum was meant to be at 7 o'clock for a 7.30 start and, at 4.15, the Liberals advised the organisers, the residents' association, that they were not going to turn up. I was there with our transport spokesperson, the member for West Torrens, and our leader, Peter Malinauskas, and there were no Liberals there.

There were a couple of senior members of the local Liberal Party in the audience, but they were too scared to put their hand up and say who they were. There is no doubt that a message was sent back to the candidate that if you want to represent people you have to turn up, listen to what they want and do not demand they pay $70 to come along to a Liberal Party fundraiser, which is the only opportunity they get to meet the candidate.

The people are angry. They have been dudded by the same political party that gave them the one-way expressway. The Liberals have never done anything for the south. It is the forgotten south whenever the Liberals are in government. We had to get in and fix their stupid one-way expressway. We had to extend the rail line from Noarlunga down to Seaford and electrify it, and we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars at Darlington to improve the flow through to the northern suburbs and the city for people in the south.

The Liberal government have done absolutely nothing except pinch money off projects in the south, and they tried to give us a PFAS dump in our award-winning food and tourism area that is worth $840 million a year to our local economy and lots of jobs. They wanted to give us PFAS but they will not give us any infrastructure. The people are unhappy, and that is the message to the Premier, the transport minister and all the other Liberals who do not care about the south.

The SPEAKER: The member for Mawson's time has expired. I further draw the member's attention and take the opportunity to remind all members of standing order 123. The member for King.

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