Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to talk about the announcement of a redevelopment of South Road in my electorate, between the River Torrens and Hayward Avenue and Torrens Road, one of the worst bottlenecks in the metropolitan area. It goes right through the electorate of Hindmarsh. In fact, it is right on the border between the electorate of Adelaide and Hindmarsh. I know that this project will deliver great benefits to my community, to the people of Hindmarsh and to all the people in the western suburbs.

Those who have travelled on South Road in that particular area around Torrensville through to Port Road will know what I am talking about. I was down there recently, a few days ago, and saw the stream of bottleneck bumper-to-bumper traffic. This was a Sunday morning. I went back that Tuesday afternoon and it was the same again. So this will be a great benefit to my electorate and it will be of great benefit for all of Metropolitan Adelaide, for all people travelling south to north. It will reduce travelling time greatly. It will reduce congestion. It will reduce car fumes and, most importantly, it will open up the bottleneck at the intersections of South Road, Grange Road and Port Road. It would also improve safety for road users and pedestrians.

There are many aspects of the redevelopment which will impact on local residents, some of whom have already raised issues with me, and I will be inviting them very soon to a public meeting that we are convening with the state member, the member for West Torrens, Tom Koutsantonis, and the other state member, Michael Atkinson, to discuss the issues and work through them and to inform the constituents of this major development

I know that this redevelopment will make a very big difference to the lives of many people in South Australia.

As I said, this government has a good track record regarding infrastructure and investment, especially in South Australia and in my electorate. This is not the only infrastructure program. Recently I was extremely pleased to go to the opening of the former King Street Bridge. There had been a battle going on between the council and the state government about who was responsible for this particular bridge. The King Street Bridge was known to have what is called concrete cancer. In fact, it was shut down for a number of weeks when cars and other traffic could not go over it because of the dangerous aspects of this concrete cancer. We were very lucky to be able to access $3.5 million from the federal government which went directly to the Holdfast Bay Council, and they put in some money as well to ensure that we got a brand-new bridge. The bridge has now been named the Michael Herbert Bridge in honour of a Vietnam veteran. I have to say that the mayor of Holdfast Bay, Ken Rowland, was a great supporter of getting this project up and running. With his help the bridge has now been opened, cars and other traffic are using it and people feel safe going over the bridge not having to worry about it being closed down. If this particular bridge was closed down, as had been done previously, it basically isolated a whole peninsula of about 2½ thousand people who live on that side of the bridge.

These are important infrastructure packages. These are good Labor reforms. We know that the infrastructure to ensure a future for investment, a future for business, a future for the people to use our roads to travel, for people to get to and from work, is very important. We know that if you have good infrastructure and good roads, even taking off 10 to 15 minutes each way means that people can spend more time at home with their families, ensuring that they have quality time with them.

There are many other projects in my electorate that I am very proud of. For example, in the Black Spot Program my electorate has been able to access $438,000 for the city of West Torrens for roads and $680,000 for the City of Marion. The government also announced an increase in the resources to be made available in the Black Spot Program. For those who are unfamiliar with the Black Spot Program, it is designed to target those dangerous intersections of local roads through funding of safety improvements such as traffic signals, traffic islands, U-turn signals and roundabouts. In West Lakes in my electorate in the northern part of Hindmarsh, the Black Spot Program has paid for the installation of traffic lights on the Frederick Road and Brebner Drive intersection. If you know this intersection, you know what a difference this makes to the people of Hindmarsh. (Time expired)