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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-06-05 Daily Xml
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Motions

Sturt Highway

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (11:02): I move:

That this house refers the eligible petition presented to the House of Assembly on 17 October 2023 from 12,436 residents of South Australia requesting the house to urge the government to commit to the duplication of the Sturt Highway Truro freight route to address safety concerns and boost productivity for the 4,500 vehicles that travel the Sturt Highway daily to the Economic and Finance Committee.

I rise to contribute to this important opportunity with regard to the Truro freight route petition that was lodged in late 2023 with the South Australian parliament. I take this opportunity to put on the record that the Sturt Highway in South Australia is a primary route from the Northern Connector via the Riverland to the Eastern States. It is a vital link to our regions and a critical route for freight and tourism.

The 12,436 South Australians signed that petition in good faith that the current state Labor government would act on it, and it really showed the dedication of those who use the Sturt Highway, some of them on a daily basis, some of them on an intermittent basis for different reasons. The Sturt Highway, particularly the stretch between Gawler and Renmark, has become one of the state's deadliest roads. This initiative, this petition, is not only a productivity gain but an absolute monumental safety concern. What we are looking for is to make South Australia's roads safer, particularly the Sturt Highway.

Some of the stats on the average road use of that 50-kilometre section through Truro show that about 40,000 vehicles traverse that section of road daily. Of those, 2,600 are private class vehicles, class 1 and class 2. Class 1 is a standard passenger vehicle. Class 2 is a passenger vehicle towing either a trailer, caravan or boat, and 35 per cent are heavy commercial vehicles. A breakdown would show that 340 are class 3 to 5 vehicles, which are rigid trucks, through to a class 6 three-axle articulated vehicle. There are 300 class 6 to 9 vehicles, which are from a six to a 19-metre semitrailer. There are 500 class 10 vehicles, which are a typical dual-axle drive, tri-axle trailer or a B-double.

There are 190 class 11 vehicles. The class 11s are really interesting. We have seen those vehicles introduced over recent years on the Sturt Highway to reduce the number of heavy vehicles on our road. Yes, they are longer; they vary between 30 and 36 metres. It is showing that we are reducing the number of heavy vehicles on the Sturt Highway, but it is also quite intimidating for those who are uninitiated in dealing with a large, heavy-mass vehicle, because of its length and because of the power that they are putting in prime movers today. Some of those prime movers can almost travel at 90 km/h in most instances, some of them up to 100 km/h, at any given time.

There is a bit of a bottleneck as we move past Halfway House Road, which is the Sedan turn-off, which is part of the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass. As they make their way up Accommodation Hill, some of those big vehicles are then coming back down to between 40 and 60 km/h. It really does take the breath away of those who are not ready for some of those big vehicles that are travelling slowly. But if you are in a passenger vehicle travelling at 110 km/h, you come up on those vehicles very, very quickly, so we need to be prepared. That is why we need to have the upgrades of the Sturt Highway and particularly for the Truro freight bypass.

Tourism is one of the great industries in South Australia, no more so than in the Riverland, where it is the second largest industry. The Riverland had approximately 410,000 domestic overnight visitors. If you extrapolate that and put that into context, whether you are a private citizen driving a class 1 or a class 2 vehicle coming up on a holiday or for a destination into the Riverland, whether you are just travelling home or whether you are coming up to visit, it shows the importance of the road network and how road safety must be of paramount importance. It is also good for our economy and good for South Australia when we have people visiting by road, creating an economy that otherwise would not be there.

Road safety is the number one issue on regional roads in South Australia and, as I have said, no more so than on the Sturt Highway, because it is South Australia's second deadliest road. It has a high fatality rate. Since 2018, over 40 people have been killed on the Sturt Highway in South Australia, with another four recorded just last year.

I travel the Sturt Highway on a regular basis. Obviously, the great electorate of Chaffey makes its way from the border all the way down to Mannum. The Sturt Highway is an introduction out of the Riverland, down through the Truro Flats, through the Barossa and into the Adelaide Plains. It is one of the great arterial roads, not only for a freight network but for destination travelling.

I call for the delivery of the Truro freight bypass. It is a dual-lane bypass, essentially for safety, and also for freight productivity and efficiency, the network reliability and to make sure that people feel safe on the Sturt Highway, either when they are travelling or when they are using it to visit the Riverland. The duplication must be a priority for the region, and I know that it is strongly supported by the community.

To give a little bit more technical detail, there are a number of local MPs on this side of the chamber who have a connection with not only the Sturt Highway but also the proposed Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass, which incorporates the Truro freight bypass. Of course, the member for Hammond has the great electorate just to the south-east of Chaffey, and that connection is off the South Eastern Freeway through the Halfway House Road. Potentially, there is another idea that has been put on the table with that connection, and that is the turn-off at the Murray Bridge Road before the Swanport Bridge when heading south. That is another connection that hooks directly between the South Eastern Freeway and the Sturt Highway.

We do not want to put our blinkers on and say that we have to turn off at Monarto, head through the Halfway House Road connection, onto the Sturt Highway and then come in to the north of Adelaide via the Sturt Highway, onto the Northern Expressway, onto the Northern Connector and then into the port or into the Adelaide CBD.

This project has been, and always will be, strongly supported by the community. Not only is there a connection between Hammond and Chaffey, there is also Schubert. Truro is in the electorate of Schubert, and those people are also very concerned about the safety aspect of the Sturt Highway running through that small community. We must be mindful that that transition with a freight bypass is there for the longevity of Truro, making sure that it does retain its small economy, because it does have visitation. Truro is a small country town that is on a federal highway.

It also must be mentioned that local governments have all put their support behind this project. I have six councils in my electorate and all three Riverland councils, their mayors and their elected members are very much in favour and support this project, as are the Mid Murray Council and the Barossa and Light councils. They want to make sure that any federal highway that runs through their area is up to speed.

The Sturt Highway is seeing a lot of heavy vehicles, and we are seeing a lot more heavy vehicles on the highway. Sadly, the cessation of rail between Pinnaroo and Tailem Bend, between Tookayerta or Loxton and Tailem Bend, saw those two rail lines cease, so all of that grain freight was then put onto the road. What we are seeing now is that the majority of the grain freight is either on the Mallee Highway or the Sturt Highway. A lot of trucking lines and freight companies are bypassing off the Mallee Highway through the Browns Well Highway onto the Sturt Highway, and that is increasing the load on that highway.

Never before have we seen such an increase in the horticulture sector. We are now seeing large tonnages of almonds and citrus that were never there before and are now traversing, because it is one of the great export sectors here in South Australia, and we are seeing other products. A lot more inputs are coming up along the Sturt Highway for farming enterprises so that they can actually make their businesses viable. That is adding to the pressure on the highways and it is adding to the number of vehicles on our highways.

We have a growing tourism sector, a growing horticulture sector and a growing ag sector. I pay tribute to our farmers who are doing it pretty tough at the moment, but they will rise and they will make sure that they get those tonnages and quotas back up, potentially in the upcoming season.

The RAA's senior safety manager, Charles Mountain, has also stated that duplicating the Sturt Highway would substantially improve safety on our roads, and this is an opportunity to improve safety on one of South Australia's most dangerous highways. This petition has been in the best interests of all those who use the highway regularly—as I said, as do I—and it is critical that the state government commit to delivering the freight route project as a dual-lane highway.

The state government must not hide from the offering of the federal government's fifty-fifty split—or, if they do not want to stump up the fifty-fifty, how about they renegotiate? How about they go back to the negotiating table and look for that 80:20 split? I know that the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport claimed yesterday that they have just spent $2.4 billion to save a town; just over $200 million is about saving a life. I plead with this government, I plead with the minister, to stump it up. Make our Sturt Highway safer, give it efficiencies and give people a better experience utilising the Sturt Highway.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:17): I rise to support this motion by the member for Chaffey:

That this house refers the eligible petition presented to the House of Assembly on 17 October 2023 from 12,436 residents of South Australia requesting the house to urge the government to commit to the duplication of the Sturt Highway Truro freight route to address safety concerns and boost productivity for the 4,500 vehicles that travel the Sturt Highway daily to the Economic and Finance Committee.

As the house has been informed by the member for Chaffey, this is a vitally important project. This was a project that was previously funded—albeit, I believe, as a single lane each-way freight route bypass project—for $202 million. Sadly, Labor governments pushed back and pulled the funding, so this project was put on the backburner. It is a vital project because in the town of Truro, if anyone travels through it, the road is very close to many businesses on each side of the road, whether it be fuel stops, bakeries, hotels and some dwellings as well, so it is of deep-seated concern to the residents and business owners of Truro that this freight bypass be appropriately put in place.

This brings to mind the greater issue of the three great freight routes around our area in South Australia. We obviously have the Augusta Highway which still needs close to 180 kilometres of duplication to get the Port Wakefield to Lochiel section finished, which we started in about 2020. It took a long time to get that completed, but my understanding is that section has been completed, so we need that opened up so that we can get triple road trains or 53-metre vehicles to be able to travel from Adelaide through to Darwin. But what we also need is the full duplication of the Sturt Highway and full duplication of the Dukes Highway.

To do these three projects will be somewhere north of $10 billion, I believe, but that is not a bad value for money figure. I know it is a lot of money when you compare that to the few kilometres we are getting in this state for the $15.4 billion Torrens to Darlington upgrade on South Road—which does need to happen, I will say, but we must compare it to the number of kilometres that can be done so that people travelling on these regional highways can travel more safely, saving those many, sadly, dozens of deaths on these highways and physical injuries. We can see how dangerous it is, especially for freight vehicles on these highways during dust storms. You have got drivers who are under pressure to get their freight through, and travelling in very severe conditions like those exhibited the other day during the massive dust storm. So we need this vital work, especially this freight bypass to go around Truro.

It is part of the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass and the current planning is to come off at Halfway House, and the intersection has already been built there for triple road train access, the 53-metre long vehicles, to turn down to Sedan and Cambrai, and those two small towns will need a bypass around them as well, because essentially the road now goes directly through them. Like Truro, heavy trucks come straight through those towns and they come down towards Mannum and then onto the Mannum to Murray Bridge Road and then on the freight bypass around Murray Bridge.

The proposal is for that to go around to Monarto, and I note that already there are quite a few trucks coming out on the Monarto end. If that is the proposed route into the future that will need a roundabout and it will need works around how it comes across the Adelaide-Melbourne railway line as well. Certainly as part of that project, my understanding at the moment is it would be the duplication of the Swanport Bridge, which has to happen to allow those triple road trains access over that bridge. As I have indicated in this place here before, that should have happened way back in the late 1970s when the single lane each-way Swanport Bridge opened in 1979.

This is a vital upgrade for heavy freight and it actually takes away many thousands of tonnes having to come through Adelaide, but we need to make it convenient, because the thing that people sometimes forget about truck drivers is they are up against logbook hours and it does take extra time to go on the bypass. It might be an hour and a half extra, or something like that. It may be a little bit different to that, but it does take up time. Drivers, as they should be, are heavily regulated on the hours they can drive and the hours that they have to rest, and that is heavily policed, I must say as well, which is a good thing. We have to be mindful of that. It is not just about seeing how far out we can push the freight. We have to have the reality of real life, of how the drivers have to operate.

The stark reality is—and I know there are lots of conversations about freight coming down the freeway, and there will be some of that still over time, for the freight that has to come into the southern end of Adelaide. The biggest trucks that can come down the freeway are B-doubles. On these longer freight routes you can have B-triples, B-quads, two-trailer road trains, and you can already have AB-doubles, which are like a single semitrailer towing a B-double behind that.

Eventually, as the road network is being built up so that those three-trailer road trains can be utilised, there will be fewer truck drivers on the road and a lesser amount of vehicles on the road. Yes, they will be longer vehicles. As the member for Chaffey indicated, some of these vehicles, especially the road trains, the two-trailer road trains and above, only travel at 90 km/h. They are more regulated than semitrailers and B-doubles.

We just have to be mindful of how that is going to operate, because people, no matter where they live, appreciate their goods being delivered and they have to get there somehow, but everyone has to act in a safe manner on the road, and if we can do our bit from this place to ensure that happens that is better for the whole of society. I fully commend the motion and I want to see it go through the relevant committee and get the right outcomes, because that freight bypass has to be built and the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass has to be fully completed into the future.

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (11:24): I rise simply to indicate that the government supports the motion to refer this petition to the Economic and Finance Committee, and I hope they do a speedy job.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (11:25): I thank the member for Hammond for his contribution and the government for its support for the petition to be referred to the Economic and Finance Committee. It is a very, very important piece of infrastructure that could save lives. As I stated in my contribution, there have been 44 lives lost on that section of the Sturt Highway since 2018, and that is 44 lives too many. Again, it is a piece of infrastructure that is critical to progressing regional highways and the regional road network.

I must say—and it was remiss of me not to mention it in my contribution—that the member for Hammond, the member for Schubert and myself, as the member for Chaffey, all have a vested interest in making this freight route a better highway, a safer highway with more efficiencies, getting a lot of those heavy mass vehicles off Portrush Road, getting them off Mount Barker Road and out of the Hills so that we make it a safer journey.

I also must say that the majority of the people using that Sturt Highway, local South Australians, are Riverlanders. The majority of them who travel from the Riverland to Adelaide make up most of the 1,000 vehicles that use that road every day, so I am pleased that the government has agreed for this petition and this project to be referred to the Economic and Finance Committee.

Motion carried.

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