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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-09-12 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Hahndorf Truck Diversion

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (15:13): Sometimes governments make mistakes, and at that point they should realise it and go back to the drawing board. To do otherwise can perhaps look arrogant at best and can lead to very unfortunate outcomes, perhaps even fatal outcomes at worst. I think the situation that we are seeing unfold in the town of Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills at the moment not only looks incredibly arrogant on behalf of the government and the responsible minister—the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport—but also could lead to consequences that we do not even want to necessarily turn our minds to.

The residents in Hahndorf and the surrounding towns, Mylor, Echunga, Jupiter Creek, Chapel Hill and beyond, have every right to feel exceptionally let down and immensely worried about the bandaid solution that the Malinauskas Labor government has on the table in terms of how to deal with traffic movements in and around the town of Hahndorf.

It is not ideal to have trucks going down the main street of Hahndorf. We know that, but the solution put in place by Minister Koutsantonis and backed to the hilt by Premier Malinauskas is far from ideal. It will see up to 130 trucks per day move down River Road in Hahndorf and onto Strathalbyn Road and beyond, putting immense pressure on these roads, putting at risk the lives of pedestrians, other road users and even people going about their day-to-day lives in their homes and gardens around that area.

The government have said that they will undertake upgrades to River Road, but we do not know when they will occur by. We do not know the extent of them, and we are pretty certain that the envelope of money on the table for those upgrades is nowhere near enough to undertake the widening, the shoulder sealing, the intersection enhancement and the very significant embankment building that will be required to get these roads fit for purpose. We know that the government have not sought advice from national bodies that could provide feedback into this.

We know that the concept has been arrogantly cooked up by the department and possibly even the minister himself. It has not resulted in the right outcome, and in fact the community outrage that we are seeing now is a direct consequence of the community being ignored. This community have not been engaged with. This community have not been brought along on the journey. They have been given a solution—and I do not think we can even use the term 'solution'—that will not deliver for that community and will not result in safety being the primary outcome—quite the opposite.

On Sunday, Premier Malinauskas was invited to visit Hahndorf. He was invited to sit in a semitrailer and move along River Road and Strathalbyn Road from Hahndorf to Echunga. That is an invitation that I took up. It is an invitation that the shadow minister took up. It is an invitation that the local member took up, Josh Teague, the member for Heysen, a strong advocate for Hahndorf and a leading voice in this debate. It was an invitation that the Premier chose not to take up. He was happy to stay down in Adelaide doing the usual selfies on sports fields rather than travel to a regional community that was suffering because of his government's poor decision-making.

Travelling along River Road and Strathalbyn Road in that truck made me very conscious of the dangers facing that community. The trucks cannot go above the speed limit. They cannot get anywhere near the speed limit. They will travel slowly and cautiously down that road, but even doing that will not make it safer for residents. It will not make it safer for truck drivers. It will not make it safer for other road users. This is a potential disaster for the Hahndorf community.

It is a disaster that is directly of the Labor government's making, their city-centric approach and their desire not to engage communities effectively. They are dripping with arrogance and, as a consequence, someone's life is going to be put at risk. I want to end by quoting local resident Emma Smith, who said that she can tell with a fair amount of certainty that there will be a fatality on this road. Her biggest fear is a logging truck going through her kid's bedroom window. It is time that this government ended the arrogance and listened to the people of Hahndorf.

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