House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-07-01 Daily Xml

Contents

Main South Road Duplication

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:00): My question is to the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. Can the minister advise whether $23 million for the duplication of Main South Road from Seaford to Aldinga was spent in the financial year which ended yesterday?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (15:01): I thank the member for Mawson for his question and do note again that what we had before us when we came to government was a big promise that was a little bit short on money, a big promise of some $305 million-odd that did not have anywhere near that amount of money in the budget. It was something that we, over the course of our first two budgets, sought to rectify so that the money was actually there in the budget to deliver the promise that the former government put on the table—$305 million that is there now in the budget.

This is a project that has been the subject of much investigatory work and early works over the course of the last 12 months because the difficulty was that what we had when we came into government, which is what we had on a whole series of projects, was an announcement without any homework done. There was an announcement—

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —there was a press release, but there wasn't the money and there wasn't the background work done on getting the project out of the ground. The same could be said of the Hove Crossing that we are now getting on board with. The same can be said of Ovingham, which again the only reference to those projects that we could find was the subject of a pre-election press release instead of being in a budget so that it can actually be delivered. This is a project that under this government is fully funded, fully costed and will be delivered for the people of the outer south. It is only due to this government and the hard work that this government has done getting this project ready to get out of the ground.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order, sir.

The SPEAKER: There is a point of order. Has the minister finished his answer?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: Yes, sir.

The SPEAKER: The minister has finished his answer, so we will move to the member for Mount Gambier who has been patiently waiting.