Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This morning I am going to speak about four infrastructure upgrades in my electorate of Boothby that I am incredibly proud to have seen completed during my time as a federal member of parliament. These upgrades have changed people's lives. They've made my local residents safer. They've got them to school, to work and to the shops more quickly. They've particularly managed to get them to Flinders University and Flinders Medical Centre more quickly and more safely. Three of them were started and completed during my time as the member for Boothby. One of them was started just before, but it's fully complete as well. The reason that we have been able to fund and deliver these very important infrastructure upgrades is that the Morrison Liberal government are strong economic managers, which has meant that we have been able to fully fund and deliver these life-changing projects for my local community.

The first project that I'm particularly proud of is the Springbank intersection upgrade. I first came across the issues at the Springbank, Goodwood and Daws Road intersection way back in 1996, when I was a first-year uni student at Flinders University, which is within my electorate of Boothby. I spent seven years getting stuck at this intersection.

Then, after I was preselected as the candidate for Boothby in 2015, I spent another seven years getting stuck at this intersection again. So I couldn't be more proud that I've fixed this terrible problem for my local community that's been a problem for 40 years, not just the past 20 years that I've been going through it. It was fully complete in early September, so we now have 60,000 vehicles a day that no longer get stuck at this terrible dogleg. We've managed to actually increase the green space in the area as well.

We've put in a brand new entrance to the historic and heritage listed suburb of Colonel Light Gardens, and we actually delivered this ahead of time. The federal government funding that went into this project was $30.7 million and the total project was valued at $61.4 million. We have changed people's lives, and I am so proud. It's also right next door to the Repat hospital, which the state Labor government cruelly and shamefully shut down when they were in power. We've reactivated the Repat and federally we've put in $40 million to get this amazing veterans hospital site back up and running. Nearby, we have the Darlington upgrade, which is fully delivered federal funding of $603 million; the Flinders link, which extended the train line from Tonsley up to Flinders University, finally linking it with the city and also linking Flinders hospital with the city, $70.5 million of federal funding; and Oaklands crossing, fully complete, with $95 million of federal funding. All of this has changed lives—made people's lives safer and got them to work more quickly, to school and to the shops—and I'm so proud to have delivered these projects. (Time expired)