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

I've reported to the House in the past about the $100 billion congestion-busting infrastructure fund that this government has. One of the great projects in my electorate of Sturt is the Portrush Road and Magill Road intersection—a $90 million upgrade. I was lucky enough to have Minister Tudge visit the site a few weeks ago where we had early contractors undertaking some of the important planning work we need to do to make that project a reality. We did a little video, as you do these days, for social media, which I thought was going to be very successful in spreading the word. I have to say, we were schooled very, very effectively by the member for Ballarat, shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development, Catherine King. After posting this video, she pointed out some very important things to us, which I thought I would share with the House.

Upon this video being put up on Twitter—and I don't use titles because I'm quoting @CatherineKingMP—she wrote:

In the video is Minister for Cities @AlanTudgeMP and Christopher Pyne's replacement—

I think we can move on from Christopher Pyne—

@James_Stevens.

Gone but not forgotten.

They're talking about work starting on an upgrade to the busy intersection of Magill and Portrush Roads in Adelaide.

But, what are the workers behind them actually up to?

It's pretty obvious if you just watched the video. It goes on:

I had a look online to find out more…

I suppose she googled 'how to build an intersection'. She goes on:

No construction contract has even been awarded.

Exactly. We are the Liberal Party. We are going to have a proper open market based tender and we're going to protect value for money for taxpayers. The business that's the most appropriate and comes in at the lowest cost will be the one that's awarded the contract. It would seem that's not so with the Labor Party. She goes on:

The Australian Govt actually says it could take until mid-2023 to complete.

Yes. A $98 million intersection, if done correctly, may well take around two years. We're about underpromising and over delivering in the Liberal Party, not the other way around, which is the track record of the Labor Party. But it gets better. She wrote:

So, I asked a friend to pop past and see what all the fuss was about...

She phoned a friend, someone who lived around the corner. This was four days later, when she posted two photographs taken at one of the nearby intersections, and she wrote:

There are some lines on the road and the footpath, but no signs of construction...

Sure. They finished the job four days earlier, because we awarded the contract to an efficient company that was able to do the job very, very quickly and when her friend showed up the job was completed. Next she wrote:

It turns out that the 'work starting' is just early planning works, such as identifying where comms, gas, power and water services run.

That's right. Before just firing up the bulldozer and putting it into cruise control we're finding out where all of the underlying infrastructure services go. I might add that this intersection is adjacent to one of the largest power substations in South Australia. Then, on 25 November, she wrote:

A contract has been awarded for planning—

Debate interrupted.

House adjourned at 20 :0 0