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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-10-30 Daily Xml
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GlobeLink

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (14:33): My question is to the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. Will the minister assure the chamber that the Liberal Party's signature election commitment, GlobeLink, of which the minister was a major champion, will not be abandoned? Will the minister guarantee that the construction of GlobeLink will commence before the next election?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) (14:33): I thank the honourable member for her question. As members would have seen, there was, I think, an article in today's Advertiser, reporting some comments by my very good friend and hardworking colleague in cabinet the Hon. Stephan Knoll, the Minister for Transport, in relation to GlobeLink. We have done some work, as our election commitment was to look at the project to provision some $20 million for a study into it.

Minister Knoll has done that work. I believe that the report will at some point in the future come to cabinet and then cabinet will make a decision and consider that report. Minister Knoll alluded in the article that there were some other actions likely to come from the report. Obviously, he hasn't brought it to cabinet, so I haven't had a chance to look at it, and if I had in cabinet it would be inappropriate for me to discuss any of the details of it here in any case.

It was a policy. I think members are well aware of the concerns of the Adelaide Hills residents, who are concerned about railway noise, the risk of fire and the squeal on the tracks, and so there has been a longstanding number of studies into rerouting the Adelaide to Melbourne railway line around the back of the Hills. And of course, we have seen, in the last few years, a couple of tragic accidents on the South Eastern Freeway—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: Mr President, if the members don't want to listen—

The PRESIDENT: I can't hear you seated, the Hon. Mr Ridgway. If you wish to remonstrate with me, do it standing.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Mr President, if the members opposite are going to interject, I will sit down because clearly they don't want—

The PRESIDENT: That is up to you—

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: —an answer. They ask a question and they don't want to hear the answer.

The PRESIDENT: —the Hon. Mr Ridgway, you don't need my permission to do that.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Clearly, these road safety facts on the South Eastern Freeway are important. The members opposite start to laugh. People have lost their lives and they joke about it. They are a joke. Work has been done to have a look at the long-term options to making our South Eastern Freeway safer. There is obviously significant population growth in the Mount Barker-Nairne area, so there is going to be a significant extra load on the South Eastern Freeway in future years. And, of course, the Freight Council has said for about as long as I have been in this chamber that every 10 years the freight task doubles, so we are likely to see a bigger, heavier load of big trucks coming down the South Eastern Freeway.

As we know, I have explained to the members opposite I think on a number of occasions in the past, when their hero, Don Dunstan, looked at the Monarto development, land was put aside for an airport, which has been master planned now by the Rural City of Murray Bridge, and I suspect that master planning process will mean that it will be identified as a potential airport.

All of those aspects, when we were in opposition we took a decision that if we were lucky enough to form government we would have a good look at it. That is why we wanted to put some money and resources towards it. We have done that. The hardworking minister will soon get the report and it will soon come to cabinet.

The member opposite also asked would construction start before the next election. I think she obviously hasn't been listening. The number one priority for this government and the federal government, and I think the federal opposition and, I used to think, the current state opposition, is to complete the north-south corridor. We have made it very clear that that is the number one priority for significant road infrastructure.

It is only the Labor Party, I suspect, that would actually do half a project and then stop. I think is very clear that we have a priority to finish the north-south corridor. This work that we have done will inform, and continue to inform, this government on the options of making the South Eastern Freeway safer—which we all want—making the Adelaide Hills safer, taking the risk of fire and the noise of train wheel squeal.

To get increased capacity on the Adelaide-Melbourne railway line, we either have to double stack containers or make the bridges in the Adelaide Hills deeper. The opportunities may exist to get a much more economical solution to take the railway around the back of the Adelaide Hills. Mr Knoll will release that report if and when cabinet sees fit, and our priorities are to continue with the north-south corridor and complete that project before we start on other major bits of transport infrastructure.

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