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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-09-08 Daily Xml
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North-South Corridor

Mr TARZIA (Hartley) (14:33): Further question to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport: does the minister believe that the successful push for wage rises by the CFMEU affects the final cost estimate of the north-south corridor completion?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:33): I know that the shadow minister is not a student of demarcation and union affiliations and union coverage. I have some bad news for him. The CFMEU have no coverage on tunnel building; it's the AWU, a different union, bit embarrassing. Since we are talking about threats to the project—

Mr Tarzia interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Hartley is warned.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Hartley, you are on your third and final warning.

Mr Tarzia interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Hartley! The minister has the call.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The biggest threats to this project—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Hartley, order! The Treasurer and the member for Hartley will cease their exchange. The house will not tolerate quarrels across the chamber. Minister.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: If only people would follow my example, sir, we would get along all that much better.

The biggest threats to this project are escalation costs and the appalling reference design left to us by the previous government. I can't overestimate the damage that the former reference design left us. The idea that people would use the tunnel coming off Darlington—you've got to understand that the Darlington Interchange accepts traffic from three major arterial roads: the Southern Expressway, Main South Road and Flagstaff Hill Road, and they then go into one major arterial road heading north-south.

We are the last city not to have a north-south motorway. We are the last one in the country. We are the last city state to use a grid network to move our traffic across our network, and it is getting to the point—

Mr Tarzia interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Hang on, you might want to listen here.

The SPEAKER: Member for Hartley!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: We need to make sure that the tunnels, when they are built, are used, otherwise we are not able to encourage people to use the tunnel. One of the reasons that people might choose to avoid the tunnel is the exit points. The reason you use these roads is to be able to get from A to B. Most people who are coming from the south who are using the north-south corridor want to end up in the CBD or thereabouts. If the exit points on Anzac Highway, Richmond Road and James Congdon Drive are not properly done, people will not use the tunnels.

The previous government had a one-lane exit out of the tunnels, elevated, landing in the middle of Anzac Highway, with traffic merging left. That would have caused queuing—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Minister—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Minister, please be seated. The member for Hartley can leave the chamber under 137A. He in fact had four of three warnings.

The honourable member for Hartley having withdrawn from the chamber:

The SPEAKER: The minister has the call.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The problem we would have had is there would have been queueing in the tunnels. The worst problem would have been that we might have spent over $10 billion on a tunnel that was redundant from the day it was opened, because people wouldn't be using it because of the queueing to get out. It would have caused congestion in a tunnel that is designed to decongest our network. It was a disaster. It was an absolute disaster.

Ms Stinson: Another one-way expressway.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Yes, another one-way expressway.

The SPEAKER: Member for Badcoe!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: We are doing the diligent work we are meant to do with a new reference design to make sure it can work. We will do that and deliver that for the people of South Australia.

In terms of escalating costs, inflation is running at 6 per cent, I understand, potentially hitting 8 per cent by the end of the reporting period. The Reserve Bank is doing everything it can to try to deal with the inflation by increasing interest rates. This inflationary pressure is impacting every major infrastructure program across the country, not just us. We are not unique; we are not an island.

Mr Cowdrey: The Treasurer said it wasn't affecting your budget at all.

The SPEAKER: Member for Colton!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: It's fair to say that the war in Ukraine is throwing up a lot of—

Time expired.

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