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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-11-26 Daily Xml
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North-South Corridor Tunnels

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (15:59): My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Mining and Energy. Could the minister inform the house what type of employment contracts are being offered for employees working on the north-south corridor tunnels? With your leave, Mr Speaker, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: I remember back in the eighties and nineties, the Myer Remm Centre paid employees extra dollars per hour not to wolf-whistle at attractive ladies walking down Rundle Mall. That building cost $200-plus million to build and was sold a few years later at $70 million. I hear the department/contractors are paying extra dollars for employees just to turn up to work to build and work on the tunnels.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (15:59): I suppose I start at the beginning. In the 1980s, I was a very young man.

Mr McBride interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Rumours. We are in uncharted waters in this state. The economy is doing exceptionally well, despite the Reserve Bank's best efforts, and the economy is largely at full employment especially in areas around trades. I would not be surprised at all if the consortium that have won the contracts to build the tunnels are doing their very best to make sure that they have a full workforce. The tunnels, while under construction, will employ 5½ thousand people each and every year of construction. That is a mammoth undertaking. I can assure the member that the tunnels will be underground, so wolf-whistling at women walking by will be very difficult so I don't think there will be a need to make payments to stop that from occurring—although I think those days are well beyond us.

If you are asking me: should we apologise for a booming economy where there is a contest for labour? No, we don't apologise for that. Are there extra costs and escalation in infrastructure because of a booming economy? Absolutely, there is. We have a fixed price alliance with our contractor. We share the risk up and down—we benefit from going down and share the risk going up—so the alliance contractor is incentivised to be on time and on budget, otherwise they wear cost. So I would not be surprised at all if they are doing their damnedest to make sure that they have sufficient workforce.

I have not heard of the types of things that the member is talking about on the north-south corridor, but do we want high wages? Yes. Do we want our employees working on government infrastructure to get paid appropriate wages? Absolutely. We also know that the tunnels will be an opportunity for people to work from start to finish; that is, starting without credentials and completing work on the tunnels or this infrastructure program and coming out as a qualified tradesperson in whatever field they have been trained in, because the project is long enough.

So I have to say I am pretty excited about the tunnels, I am pretty excited about the budget we have, I am pretty excited about the scope, I think we have absolutely the right contractor, I think the procurement process was world class and first class, and I think we have timed the procurement perfectly, but we are not going to apologise for a booming economy.

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