James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Highway 1, as I hope everyone knows, circumnavigates continental Australia and, indeed, it runs through my electorate, which is an inner metropolitan seat of Adelaide. I'm not sure, I haven't done research as to whether any of the other major capitals have Highway 1 running through the suburbs like we have in Adelaide, but suffice to say I'm very committed to changing that. In particular, I'm committed to changing the fact that it is the principal freight route for heavy vehicles that at the moment come down through the Adelaide Hills to the famous tollgate, which in many ways is seen as part of the city limits of Adelaide in my electorate—in fact, it's the corner of my electorate and the electorates of the member for Mayo and the member for Boothby.

At the moment those heavy vehicles run on Highway 1, which we also call Portrush Road for the section that runs through my electorate, from the tollgate at the Cross Road-Glen Osmond Road-Portrush Road intersection all the way down Portrush Road through my electorate and up through the northern suburbs to a destination that might be Port Adelaide or it might invariably be somewhere around the industrial capability of the north of Adelaide. It's dangerous and unnecessary and we need a different route, a more preferred route for heavy road freight.

The coalition in particular have always been very committed to rerouting that heavy freight around the back of the Adelaide Hills, around Monarto. This would leave the current freeway that carries commuter traffic down into Adelaide, instead taking that heavy freight around the back of the Adelaide Hills so that it can go either to the port, perhaps, or maybe all the way to Perth. Who knows what the various freight destinations are for the hundreds of thousands of vehicles that use that corridor. It's not appropriate that it moves through suburban Adelaide. We are very committed to this and very concerned that it is not a priority of the Labor government, both here in Canberra and the Malinauskas Labor government in South Australia.

The next piece of the puzzle is known as the Truro Bypass. That's on pause as part of this infrastructure review that the minister is undertaking. It frightens me and it frightens my constituents that there's a chance our dream of getting this dangerous heavy freight out of our suburbs—along that corridor there are schools, there are shops, there are residential homes. I myself live within 100 metres of Highway 1. We hoped and thought that this government might be favourably disposed to investing in that corridor. It wouldn't benefit just my electorate—far from it. There are many electorates in metropolitan Adelaide that would benefit.

The greater fear is that the North-South Corridor, which is being invested in and which both sides of politics have committed to at state and federal levels, could in fact see Highway 1 permanently diverted down Cross Road to connect to the North-South Motorway. While I'm passionate about getting trucks off Portrush Road, I don't want to move them off one suburban stretch of road to see them go onto another one. Indeed, Cross Road is my southern boundary. At times, during previous elections, Labor Party candidates and Labor Party shadow ministers made certain glib promises and overarching motherhood statements about a commitment towards this. Regrettably, the reality is that the recent state budget in South Australia and the recent federal budget has seen no commitment to this vision whatsoever. To me, that means my constituents and many in the parts of suburban Adelaide that are affected by this heavy freight should deduce that we are not going to see action on this from the federal or state Labor governments.

The silver lining is to vote Liberal, because in the Liberal Party we are absolutely committed to this investment. Adelaide is being ignored by this government. There were no significant new infrastructure announcements in the recent budget. All we've heard is that existing projects we thought were going ahead, like the Truro Bypass, are now under review. The solution is to turn to a party that is committed to investing in serious, strategic infrastructure outcomes for our state and the safety of suburban Adelaide. I am committed to getting those dangerous heavy trucks out of the suburbs of Sturt.