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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-03-07 Daily Xml
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Barossa Valley Transport Services

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (15:22): Last year, this state government announced a series of land releases in both the north of the Adelaide fringes and in the south of Adelaide as well. This was to enable the construction of over 25,000 new homes. That plan included releasing some land in Concordia, which is in my electorate: some 10,000 homes over the next decade. What this means in essence is that Concordia, which is between Gawler and the Barossa Valley, is going to have 10,000 new homes or around 25,000 new people over the next decade.

In response to that announcement, I did call on the government to do a number of things: first of all, to expand a feasibility study that the government had already launched to look at what would be required for a private tourist train to come to the Barossa Valley. I thought that it was just common sense that, given taxpayer money was being used to look at what would be required for a private tourist train, why not open that up and expand that to look at what would be required for a public passenger train to come to the Barossa Valley. I am pleased to say that the government did see the logic in my question, and they answered that by expanding the feasibility study, looking now not just at the private tourist train but also at what would be required for a public passenger train to come to the Barossa Valley.

On Monday this week, The Advertiser had a front-page story in relation to the RAA, which supports the extension of the Metro train network to Aldinga in the south and to Concordia in the north. The RAA is concerned that the proposed population growth in peri-urban areas will result in a gridlock of the existing road network without additional transport options, and I quote Mr Nick Reade from the RAA who said:

Imagine what would happen if an extra 100,000 people jumped into their cars and joined the morning commute? Our road network couldn't absorb that without significantly increasing congestion and travel times.

In response to the RAA calls, I did note that the government said that nothing was off the table, which is a big tick in terms of transport, but the problem is that when the feasibility to look at both the passenger train and the tourist train was first announced, we were supposed to be seeing the results of that by the end of last year. We are obviously a few months from that date and we are yet to see any outcome from that, so I am just urging the government to make sure that they put their pedal to the metal in doing this planning.

As you know all too well, Mr Speaker, we saw the absolute shambolic planning process which came with the Mount Barker redevelopment and adding in new homes up there. That is something that your community and people of the Adelaide Hills are now paying for decades later. We simply cannot afford a situation where the government fails to put in the preparation work to expand our population, and it is not just in relation to transport. It has to be in relation to looking at what is required for education, what is required for the health needs in our local community.

When it comes to planning decisions, we need to make sure we have the community involved in something that is so astronomically and so fundamentally going to change the landscape of a region. We need to make sure the horse is put before the cart because otherwise we will end up with another disastrous result like Mount Barker, which in many ways has had some of its challenges addressed but it took far too long and we cannot afford for that to happen in the Barossa Valley.

I also note that if we take a look at the sheer number of people—100,000 more on our road network—it is just not possible. That is why we need to look at every single avenue to increase transport opportunities, not just with train but also with things like calling for Uber to be expanded to the region of the Barossa Valley. Those are some of the things that I have been focused on. With 25,000 more people moving into Concordia, I just urge the government to do all of the appropriate planning to make sure that our region is well-equipped to handle this growth well into the future.

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