Regional Transport Infrastructure
Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (11:36): I move:
That this house recognises the significant positive contribution that transport infrastructure throughout Regional South Australia makes to regional communities and to our whole state's economy.
I was extremely fortunate last year to have an intern from Mr Clem Macintyre's program, as we all have the opportunity, come and work with me and my staff member Mr Chris Hanna, on some very important regional development matters. I particularly asked for an intern with a strong economics background, not particularly studying politics. I wanted somebody who understood economics and regional communities, because that is what I wanted to delve into. I wanted a report that would contribute to quantifying exactly how different infrastructure provided by the government in regional communities contributes to regional economies and also regional communities with regard to more the important social strengths aspect.
I was very fortunate to have Ms Alexandra Grigg come and work with me and do an excellent job. What I asked her to look at specifically was the different ways that health facilities and infrastructure, sporting facilities and infrastructure, education and transport impacted on regional communities. Some of the measures used were population, income, crime rates, volunteering rates, employment rates, and age spread, which is a very important gauge of any community. If you have a fairly even spread of ages—lots of young people, lots of middle-aged people and lots of old people—whether it is a big or a small community, that is a very important gauge of the health of that community.
Ms Grigg did some excellent work for me and was able to, through her economics and in fact econometrics knowledge, really start to quantify some of this. I am going to read some excerpts from her report.
Economically, it can be seen in the findings of this report that transport infrastructure expenditure increases real median weekly household income by $128.47 per unit invested. This additional expenditure has economic multiplier effects, including increased employment opportunities which flow on to influence the social welfare of the community. Transport services facilitated extended access of regional South Australian towns' residents to other opportunities, both economic and social. As a result of increased transport facilities in the district, there is a greater ease with which community members can access other services available in both their immediate and surrounding networks.
As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, this report was into a range of facilities: sporting, health and education, as well as transport, but I am confining this discussion and these quotes to transport. The report continues:
As can be seen in the town population regression in section 3.1, a one unit increase in regional transport facilities generates 2,274.70 (significant at a 5% confidence level) increase in the population of that district...
The increase in regional community population due to transport infrastructure also results in the diversification of age groups present in the diversification of age groups present in the district. With the increase in businesses and services responding to increased demand due to urbanisation, and the greater ease with which residents can access these facilities, the increase in local population is coupled with the diversification of age groups present in the town. As can be seen in the regression in section 3.1, transport infrastructure investment increases local age group diversity by 0.364 units. This result is also significant at a 5% confidence level.
These findings suggest the multiplier effect to investment in rural transport facilities significantly increase the social capital of the district, in turn ,enhancing community strength.
Another excerpt states:
The networks developed through rural, social and economic facilities create support and interaction which results in numerous benefits including increased perceived community safety and a reduction in crime rates. Investment in these facilities allows social networks to prosper, in turn, developing greater social capital. As a result, the community is able to experience many economic and social opportunities, allowing for further economic and social welfare multiplier effects (which are both ongoing and long term). Consequently, these robust communities experience a wide variety of benefits including improved safety, reduced crime rates, improved health, lower mortality rates and improved social interaction, overall a greater sense of community.
We would all agree that those are incredibly important outcomes, but I suspect that most members of the house would not have known that those outcomes can be directly related to government investment and infrastructure in the transport sector in regional communities.
Mr Deputy Speaker, you know that I am a very passionate, focused, rural member of parliament, and there are others here who fit that category, but this is evidence-based. This is a quantitative study that proves how important this investment is, and it also proves the benefits in a commercial and economic outcome as well as the benefits in a social and community capital outcome. I will read a quick summary from the report in regard to transport facilities:
Regional South Australian transport facilities, by far, have the greatest impact on a community's social welfare. Investment in transport facilities in rural areas increase the flow of social capital, allowing for a superior spread of information, news opportunities and access to larger, more urbanised townships.
Increasing regional transport facility investment in South Australia significantly increases real median income, population, age spread diversity, full-time employment rates and the cluster of businesses within a community.
The significant economic multiplier outcomes are: increased economic opportunities, increased local expenditure, and increased outside revenue. The significant social welfare multiplier effects include: increased flow of social capital, increased diversity, increased access to opportunities, and increased spread of information. That is compelling and conclusive evidence of what I suspect we all would have assumed, but it is very important to get those sorts of numbers and that sort of research done, and I thank Ms Grigg for the work she had done on that.
In the electorate of Stuart, which I represent, this plays out in many ways, and let me start with Yorkeys Crossing. For those who do not know, Yorkeys Crossing is a dirt road that runs around the northern outskirts of Port Augusta, essentially from the south-eastern side of town, and joins onto the Stuart Highway north-north west of Port Augusta. It is an exceptionally important piece of road that needs upgrading. It needs upgrading because right now the main road through the middle of town across the bridge, with one lane in each direction, is the significant transport route from Sydney to Perth and from Adelaide to Darwin, not to mention its importance regionally in the Upper Spencer Gulf and within the town of Port Augusta.
Yorkeys Crossing is an exceptionally important piece of road infrastructure that deserves an upgrade because right now we have double road trains travelling from Adelaide to Darwin or Sydney to Perth sharing one lane each way with mums taking their kids to or from school. It is not sustainable, it cannot go on any longer, and we need to have a solution to this problem. The long-term solution in one form or another is two lanes each way across the gulf, but the interim solution is the sealing of the road that is already there.
This is incredibly important because not only is it the key transport route but all the emergency services in Port Augusta are on the east side of town and there is a continually growing residential development on the west side of town. This means that if the bridge is out for some reason, as has happened three times in the last 3½ years, because of a breakdown, an acid spill or something like that from heavy transport, the emergency services cannot get across the bridge.
If an older person has a heart attack, a younger person breaks an arm, somebody gets bitten by a snake, or if there is some medical emergency, a fire or some other type of emergency service requirement, and the bridge is shut, they have to go via Yorkeys Crossing. It is a gravel road. It is a slow road. It is the long way around and, if it is raining, the road is closed. In Port Augusta, we only need six millimetres of rain to shut Yorkeys Crossing.
Under those circumstances—heaven forbid it would ever happen—the person on the west side of the gulf would not receive the emergency service they deserve. Of course, the backup is the old bridge that can take up to two tonnes, I think, which is an ambulance but not a fire truck. They have to take padlocks and unlock bollards because right now it only has regular public walking access. It is a very slow, cumbersome and unacceptable path. We need to upgrade Yorkeys Crossing. The evidence that I went to in fairly great detail describes how important investment in this sort of transport infrastructure is.
There are numerous other country roads and outback roads. When I think of outback roads my mind goes immediately to the three main tracks: the Strzelecki Track, the Birdsville Track, which are both in the electorate of Stuart, and the Oodnadatta Track, which forms largely the boundary between the electorates of Giles and Stuart. Those three tracks are very important pieces of infrastructure, but the Strzelecki Track is the one that really generates significant wealth for our state.
The Strzelecki Track is the one that goes up to Moomba and links the bitumen from Adelaide to Lyndhurst with the oil and gas fields in the Cooper Basin. The Strzelecki Track is the one that links us with enormous economic opportunities and wealth growth in the north-east of South Australia and into Queensland. That road needs some upgrading. I understand nobody can lay bitumen across the entire 500 kilometres straightaway. I would not expect that from a Liberal or a Labor government, but a Liberal or a Labor government must be focused on trying to upgrade that piece of road infrastructure. A small amount has been done on some creek crossings and some overtaking lanes, but the work needs to continue.
We have already talked about the Cadell ferry in great detail today, so I will not do that again, but the Cadell ferry is a perfect example of an important piece of transport infrastructure. The government wanted to close it. It cannot be closed and none of the other ferries should be closed either. Ports and rail are absolutely vital and, at the other end of the spectrum, have the opportunity to unlock enormous amounts of wealth generation within our state—whether it be through agriculture, through exports, ideally, of our mineral, gas and oil resources, or through improved tourism in some way through rail.
Let me now turn to speed limits. This government has already reduced country road speed limits in an enormous part of the state from 110 down to 100 km/h. They currently are considering nearly 200 extra stretches of road to do exactly the same thing. As well as the ridiculous impost on the lives of good country people driving responsibly, it makes our country road network so much less efficient. What I am speaking about in this motion is the important contribution of our road and transport infrastructure, but that infrastructure has to be used efficiently.
The government wants to take roads that are perfectly safe—73 of those roads have had no accidents and no serious injuries in the last five years—and pretend this is all about safety when clearly it is not. If the government wants to make people who currently drive at 110 km/h then drive at 100, if the government wants to take trucks that are currently allowed to drive at 100 km/h and tell them that they are allowed to drive at 90, and if the government wants to take trucks that are currently allowed to drive at 90 km/h and tell them that they have to drive at 80 km/h, there is just going to be a gigantic handbrake on our state's economy. It will mean that the road infrastructure we currently have in our state is made far less efficient than it currently is, and that will go straight to the heart of our state's economy and our opportunity to generate wealth.
While I am speaking about trying to increase and improve our state's transport infrastructure to generate extra wealth and extra community capacity and strength, the government is actually making our arterial roads less efficient, so it will actually drag down our wealth generation, drag down our community capacity. It will mean those really important pieces of infrastructure will in future contribute less to our state than they do currently.
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