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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-09-02 Daily Xml
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Regional Roads

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:45): My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. Could the minister please explain to the house what road users can do in regional areas when roads are not acceptable and are damaging vehicles? With your leave, Mr Speaker, and the leave of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: I have asked questions of the minister, and I had good answers and we know we are getting good representation around roads, upgrades and spends. However, in the local area around the Limestone Coast, for example—and it may follow on to other regional areas—we are seeing a lot of damaged vehicles, busted rims and tyres, due to holes and the road breaking up due to the winter that we have just been through. My question is to the minister and the government: what can I do as a member representing these motorists and the damage that is being done out there on our roads?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:46): A very good question, and I know the member has been dealing with the consequences of that privatised road maintenance contract in the South-East by the guilty party opposite, and the people of the South-East are seeing the consequences of that. They are seeing it in burst tyres, they are seeing it in rim damage and they are seeing the damage to their vehicles, and it is just plain unsafe. We do what we can to make sure that road maintenance is upkept.

We recently had a community cabinet meeting in the seat of Ngadjuri, and my chief executive watched and observed the privatised contract members imposed on that community and watched the employees skip every three potholes and fill in a fourth. When it was observed that there was not enough mix in the ute to try to do all that was going on, no, it was just simply cost saving.

When you go to the South-East you see the full consequences of what happened down there, where not only did they privatise the contract and sign a contract for an amount of money that was nowhere near enough to deal with it but then salt the earth behind them by selling and privatising all the equipment we used when we ran our own gangs, just in case we attempted to bring it back into government hands, it was just the same way they tried to do it with the Adelaide 500 when they privatised all the equipment behind it to try to make sure that we could not undo what they had done.

I say to the constituents of the member for MacKillop to contact him if they have burst tyres and burst rims, and if they can show that works were not completed as they should have been completed, the company is liable for that damage. That is a very difficult task to prove, given the road conditions, but I have to say that regional people in South Australia, under that four years of the Marshall government, paid a heavy toll.

Mr Whetstone: What about the 16 years of Labor before that?

An honourable member: At least they got proper maintenance.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Let's talk about—

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Chaffey can leave the chamber until the end of question time. You were warned.

The honourable member for Chaffey having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: As the member was interjecting, when we left office the road maintenance backlog was $750 million, a manageable amount. When we came back into office, it had blown out to over $2 billion, just in four years. So, when you hear of conservatives talking about how they care about regional people and regional communities, don't listen to what they say, look at what they do. They didn't upgrade any jetties, didn't upgrade any regional roads, didn't do more road maintenance, privatised contracts, didn't reinvest in the regions, took them for granted, tried to impose mining regulations on them that they hated. Hence they had a backbench revolt, hence they had division in their own party because they didn't care about regional communities, and it's coming back now to haunt them, and they don't like it.

Mr TEAGUE: Point of order, sir.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: That's why they use points of order.

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader has a point of order.

Mr TEAGUE: Leaving aside editorials about reasons for raising points of order, it's standing order 98(a). The minister needs to answer the substance of the question. He's descending into gratuitous debate, and permissibly.

The SPEAKER: Minister, did you want to resume your comments, bearing in mind the—

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Thank you, Mr Speaker, yes. Look, regional road maintenance is something that I am passionate about. I would say to the member for MacKillop: please keep a detailed log of people who come to you who have had these events. They can call the contractors, who are meant to be repairing these. If they are made aware of road damage and a car is damaged subsequently, they are liable for it. Of course, there are tests of reasonableness written into the contract by your former colleagues, who have written them a very generous contract and you can get out of as much responsibility as possible. I would again push that, and let me know so I can take it up on their behalf, because otherwise, if left to the devices of the Liberal Party, they will never get anything out of them.

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