Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak about a vision for South Australia, a state that is currently being inhibited by a perfunctory administration. South Australia is a great place to work and live. South Australians know it, yet we have seen a drop of population relative to the other states. The state's population has gone from 1.5 million in 2000 to 1.7 million today, an increase of 200,000. In the same period, WA's population has grown by more than 700,000, so we are not attracting people and businesses and, in many instances, we are losing some of our best.

Part of the reason for this, along with the broken migration framework that doesn't facilitate skilled migration, is a track record of failed infrastructure planning and execution. We have seen the closures of railway on the Eyre Peninsula. About 75 per cent of our roads are in poor condition. We have a state government that has dilly-dallied on ports, now engaging KPMG to examine the best location for a port in circumstances where the federal government, and I thank it for that, has already backed Cape Hardy to the tune of $25 million. We have insufficient power supplies to the south-east and the Eyre Peninsula and that's just to name a few themes.

Sadly, we don't have a vision to inspire new businesses and investment to come across our state line. This is in spite of all of the wonderful things about SA. So I want to lay out a vision and ask that Premier Marshall pay some attention. Down in the south-east, there is a green triangle freight plan. It has secured federal funding on the Victorian side of the border, but the SA government has failed to get funding for it on our side of the border. This is a project that would see upgraded roads providing the means to get wood to the mills and to market whilst improving safety for all road travellers. It is essential, yet sitting idle.

Further north into the Mallee and Renmark, they are holding out for a dual carriageway from Renmark to Gawler, one that bypasses Truro and is capable of handling high-productivity vehicles—trucks with lots of trailers. Such a road would transform commercial operations out that way. We also need to get power out there. While there is a will for investment, the way is blocked through lack of electrical capacity.

Closer to Adelaide, there is a need to establish a northern rail bypass, which will benefit both the Adelaide Hills and the Fleurieu Peninsula. It has been a topic of debate since the early 2000s but that's all—not good enough, Mr Marshall. In Adelaide, we have seen the building of the north-south corridor. This went into the infrastructure plan into February 2016 and, 4½ years later, it's still going. What's there is a great road. I have travelled it a few times, but it seems to be the only significant SA project underway, perhaps on account of successive state governments not thinking much beyond Gepps Cross, despite the prosperity that lies in our regions.

Missing from any serious consideration is the merging of Adelaide uni, uni SA and Flinders uni into the Australia university, something that would create Australia's premier higher education facility, yet there is only background chatter on what would be the pathway to the establishment of SA as the education state.

And of course there's the Osborne Naval Shipbuilding Precinct. That will support hundreds of millions of dollars of annual activity. But Premier Marshall has been silent on this front—not advocating hard enough to keep Collins full-cycle docking in Adelaide, not pushing for additional OPVs to be built in Adelaide to fill the valley of death, and not pressing for other naval ships on offer, such as the HADR vessel that the Navy is planning. Before departing Adelaide, I note that there is opportunity for electric vehicles to be built there, and that is something I have been talking to the federal government about, and—I thank them again—they've been listening to that.

Heading north from Port Adelaide is really good, because there is dual highway all the way to Port Wakefield and to the newly planned overpass. I welcome the newly planned overpass, but we still need to get from Port Wakefield up to Port Augusta with dual carriageway all the way. As for Port Augusta, a town sitting above Goyder's Line, with 300 days of sunshine per annum, it's Australia's future renewable energy epicentre. We don't see enough being done there, however—solar, windfarms, batteries. It's where it all belongs. If fostered properly it would see South Australia exporting energy to the eastern states via the SA-New South Wales interconnector. And of course the transmission towers will be built from wireless steel, made in Whyalla rather than China, and that will spur demand for the Whyalla steelworks. I'll come back to Whyalla shortly. If it were properly seeded by government, we'd see bricks and tiles being made from the ash dam waste from the old coal fired power station at Port Augusta, the Northern Power Station—jobs and environmental benefits all in the same package.

Heading outback, there's the Strzelecki Track. It will give greater access to the Moomba gas fields, assisting in cattle trade from Queensland down to Adelaide and creating tourism opportunities. Sealing the Strzelecki Track, like so many other SA projects, has been in the planning since February 2016. I'll acknowledge that it's started, but of the 476 kilometres required, they're sealing only 50—after 4½ years. The tardiness of this road project is simply not good enough. Meanwhile, $330 million of federal funding has been secured to widen and seal the Outback Way, running from Laverton in WA to Winton in Queensland via Alice—bypassing South Australia.

Going back down to the Eyre Peninsula and Whyalla, we need to ensure that Sanjeev Gupta's mini SA vision—and it's not that mini—gets underway. Expanding Whyalla to become one of the world's largest steel mills will transform the iron triangle, a 20 million tonne per annum facility. I've already spoken about that in this chamber. It would take Whyalla from 22,000 residents to 80,000—a town that would be serviced by Qantas and Virgin 737s flying from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. And we need to extend the standard-gauge rail track from Whyalla to Cape Hardy, the Eyre Peninsula's new deepwater port. That would open up access to minerals in the Braemar Province, the Woomera Prohibited Area and Wudinna. It must happen, but the state government hasn't even started looking at it. Cape Hardy is going to be good for grain and graphite and will serve as a hydrogen export hub. Green hydrogen is something the state government has been talking about—but, sadly, only talking about.

Port Lincoln is a successful fishing and tourism town, but it should also be our space town. Whilst we've got the headquarters of the Space Agency in Adelaide, Port Lincoln and indeed Ceduna can and must be where our launch capability lies. At the moment the greatest hurdle to the whole Australian space industry appears to be the Space Agency, who need more than a year to launch permit. Rest assured, they're in my sights for estimates. It is unacceptable. If we get this wrong now, we will lose the opportunity. And of course all these things on the Eyre Peninsula and in the far west need to be properly fed by power, something we're not doing at the moment. Furthermore, we need to have appropriate transport options and accommodation. There's so much more I could say, but I'm constrained by time.

My message is to Premier Marshall: if you snooze, you lose. If you don't know how to drive a state forward then grab a book on Tom Playford from the State Library of South Australia and have a read. I've tried to lay out the skeletons of a vision tonight. We need change—only then will we draw back to South Australia all those who've left and others willing to contribute. We need to be focusing on a long-term SA population of three million people. If it's done right, we'll be able to create a constitutional crisis by requiring those who want to come to South Australia to have to apply—only then will we be able to congratulate ourselves.