James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Waste Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass is a project that involves building a new heavy-freight route from Monarto to Truro so that heavy freight that is currently travelling, say, from Melbourne to Perth no longer has to come through suburban Adelaide and instead can get off the South Eastern Freeway at Monarto, travel on a new route up to Truro, connect to the Sturt Highway and go wherever it needs to go. It's a vitally important project for my community in Sturt and indeed for the entire city of Adelaide, because it is patently ridiculous that heavy freight from, say, Melbourne to Perth is travelling through suburban Adelaide.

On Tuesday night, I hoped to see some kind of commitment towards this project in the budget. Regrettably, there was no money in the budget for the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass. There was only one project listed in the budget papers for South Australia, which was $125 million for the Curtis Road project in northern Adelaide—the one and only project in South Australia listed in the budget. Things became a little more curious the next morning when some South Australian Labor MPs started to purport on social media that the budget had delivered funding for what they called the High Productivity Vehicle Network. The HPVN is essentially the entire freight route from the Victoria border and New South Wales border across to the Western Australia border—a 1,500-kilometre route from Bordertown to the WA border on the Nullarbor. The morning after the budget speech, it was claimed in a press release from the honourable Catherine King, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, that the HPVN was receiving $525 million. She said in this press release:

The HPVN will deliver upgrades between the South Eastern Freeway and Sturt Highway such as the duplication of the Swanport Bridge.

The Swanport Bridge has nothing to do with the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass. It's, no doubt, a worthy thing to do at some point in time, but in fact the Swanport Bridge is already carrying freight that is rumbling through the suburbs of Adelaide. Indeed, an upgrade to the Swanport Bridge will ensure that even more freight can travel through the suburbs of Adelaide, whether that be through Portrush Road or Cross Road.

The money wasn't in the budget or listed in the budget papers. But what was then referred to in a press release the day after the budget speech was money to increase the ability for heavy freight to travel through my community in Sturt along Portrush Road and no doubt along Cross Road in the future. This is greatly concerning because I was crestfallen to see no money in the budget to build the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass. Now, it turns out that not only is there no money to build the bypass but there is money to increase the amount of freight going through the suburbs of my constituency of Sturt. This is an absolute disgrace. But it gets more confusing still because we've heard nothing so far from the South Australian state government welcoming the announcement of this funding or even confirming that they want it or are going to be a partner in the project, which is very rare for a project that would have to be delivered by the South Australian state government. The press release doesn't specify how much of that $525 million would be going to this Swanport Bridge, which will increase freight going through my community.

There's also confusion about whether or not Infrastructure Australia have even approved this funding and agreed that it passes through the processes that they have in place. There are Labor members and candidates claiming that this announcement includes building a freight bypass. That is a patent lie. This is a plan to put more freight through the suburbs of Adelaide. Duplicating the Swanport Bridge makes it easier for more freight to go into suburban Adelaide, and there is no money whatsoever to build the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass, which involves building a new carriageway from Monarto to Truro. So I say to my community in Sturt and to people in seats like Boothby and Adelaide: watch out. We thought it was bad enough that the budget was not going to take freight out of Adelaide's suburbs; it now turns out the budget is going to put even more freight throughout Adelaide's suburbs.