Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In June 2017 the federal government announced $1.52 million to upgrade the intersection of Sturt Highway and Holder Top Road at Waikerie in the iconic area of South Australia of the Riverland. It was a welcome announcement. The funding was made available via the federal government's Black Spot program and was provided to the South Australian Department for Transport and Infrastructure to undertake works to improve safety at this notorious intersection. There were significant delays at the state level and work didn't begin for some time—to the community's and indeed my own immense frustration.

With works now more or less complete, one critical piece of the puzzle is missing—a left-hand turn slip lane. I am immensely disappointed that, after waiting years for this intersection to be made safe, we have effectively substituted one danger for another one. The state department has now reduced the speed in the vicinity of the intersection to address this safety issue that the failure of installing the safety slip lane has provided. I have been speaking DPTI to keep updated on how they're planning on addressing their failure. I am pleased to say that the state department has now agreed to undertake some design work needed to develop an accurate cost of the works required to remedy this situation. The state department informs me that the design work that is needed in order to develop an accurate cost of any future works will be completed in October. This is promising progress and I will keep constituents updated.