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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-02-21 Daily Xml
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Truro Bypass

Mr BROWN (Florey) (14:41): My question is the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. Can the minister update the house on the proposed Truro bypass and any recent commentary?

Members interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:41): Yes, it is a freight route. The government was disappointed when the federal government withdrew its funding for the Truro bypass, which I and others have spoken about, but truth be told the Truro bypass was one example of a project promised by the previous government which was under scope and underfunded. There was no denying that. Even those opposite agree.

The former government funded a single-lane carriageway with some overtaking lanes, then practically the day after the federal election and state election, federal and state Liberal MPs called on it to be a dual-lane carriageway—that having not occurred to them while they were actually in office.

I called on one of the most senior Liberals in Canberra, Mr Tony Pasin—one of the most senior Liberals in cabinet. Just ask him. He will tell you how senior he is. I said to him that the 80/20 funding model was in place by the previous Morrison government and was honoured by the Malinauskas government and I called on him to make it a commitment of a Dutton opposition to make it a policy position at the next election, and he refused to reinstate that funding. He refused.

I don't see much action from those opposite and I don't see any commitments. I see a lot of TikToks and videos. My young friend took to social media with some flair. He looked like a man in a hurry to me. He said, 'What we saw was the Truro freight route cut from South Australia. That means that the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass will also not occur. That means more trucks on Portrush Road.' Oh dear! I wonder if the writs filter act applies for the purposes of a by-election because it could be quite embarrassing for my young friend, who I am a big supporter of.

Unfortunately, he didn't tell the public that the cutting of the Truro bypass does not mean more trucks on Portrush Road, and he says that cutting the Truro bypass means the cutting of the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass. Oh dear! That is not true. The Morrison-Marshall governments, part of the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass, of course, included the Eyre, Augusta, Port Wakefield, Sturt and Dukes highways. It also included, of course, the Greater Adelaide freight corridor bypass to form links between Port Wakefield Highway and the Dukes Highway via Sturt Highway and Murray Bridge, and of course part of that also was the Truro freight bypass.

But to say that the Truro freight bypass is the entirety of the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass program is not true. The business case works towards the realisation of the higher productivity vehicle network including the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass and was unaffected by the federal government's cuts, something I think my young friend didn't realise when he was saying it in his urge to promote his candidate. What we need are less TikTok videos—

An honourable member: Fewer.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Fewer TikTok videos—less makeup, less prep, a bit more homework and a bit more policy work and he is almost there; he is almost a real boy.

The SPEAKER: How did we forget GlobeLink? The member for MacKillop.

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