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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-05-02 Daily Xml
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Truro Bypass

Mr TARZIA (Hartley) (14:48): My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. Can the minister guarantee that Labor's infrastructure review won't cause a cancellation of the Truro bypass project?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:48): I don't know that the Truro bypass project is under any threat. I don't know that any of the projects that the shadow minister, my friend, is about to read out as questions are under threat. These are projects that the commonwealth government is reviewing because they are funding a lot of them on an 80:20 basis. Most of the funding is coming from the commonwealth government.

I also point out that Mr Pasin claimed previously that the Truro bypass project was underscoped and underfunded. If that's true, then a review is warranted. The idea that a review is designed to cancel projects is just not true. We conducted a review of the north-south corridor and that led to more expenditure, better outcomes, because that review was conducted in a way of trying to improve the project. I understand the commonwealth's review will be a 90-day project, so it will be a relatively short and sharp review.

I can assure the parliament that the Premier, right through down to the Treasurer, will be fighting fiercely to make sure we maintain our funding level of the federal government's national spend on infrastructure, to make sure that not only do we get our per capita share but that we fight hard to make sure we can maintain our funding levels. Of course we want to maintain those funding levels. Why wouldn't we?

Of course we want to improve freight outcomes. Of course we want to look after communities, wherever they are based, whether they are in regional South Australia or they are in metropolitan South Australia. We care deeply about our regions. We have members in our caucus who advocate for the regions. We have members on the crossbench who represent the regions. There are still some members in the Liberal Party who represent the regions. We want to make sure that all their voices are heard.

I know that the member for Flinders advocates to me regularly about issues in his electorate. He calls me or texts me. A lot of members in regional South Australia advocate on behalf of their communities, and the state government is no different. Every government is entitled to review projects. That doesn't automatically mean we have to catastrophise this and mean that it is a loss. We will be making sure—we will be fighting to do everything we can to maintain our level of funding in federal budgets, whether it's in health, whether it's in education, whether it's in transport and infrastructure, whether it's in defence spending, in any form—that South Australia get its fair share, and we will.

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