Radio 5AA Adelaide, Afternoons with Stacey Lee

STACEY LEE [HOST]: Well, the main construction works are now underway on the Torrens to Darlington, the last little bit of the puzzle to fix up South Road. And here in town today to make the announcement is the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, the Honourable Catherine King, and she joins me in the studio. Good afternoon, Minister

CATHERINE KING [MINISTER]: Good afternoon. It is great to be here in Adelaide again. 

STACEY LEE: And thank you for your time and coming into the studio. It seems like just last week you were being sworn in as the infrastructure Minister once again. 

CATHERINE KING: Well, it was last week or last Tuesday, and so absolutely fantastic. First big project I get to come to is the Torrens to Darlington, which is absolutely going great guns. You cannot miss that construction work has well and truly started. 

STACEY LEE: Yeah, absolutely. Why was this the first one you wanted to visit as the new slash old minister? 

CATHERINE KING: Well, it's pretty much the biggest project, the biggest road project in the country. I think North East Link in Victoria would sort of have some equivalence to it. It's a big project. You're going to have three tunnel boring machines. So, the work that you're starting to see at the moment is all of the work getting ready for the tunnel boring machines to come in. And so basically they build them on a big platform, they drop that down about 25 meters, and then they get assembled and go, and they're huge. They're absolutely massive. You'll see lots of activity around all of that. And so being able to just go and have a look at that work that started some of the side roads to make sure we can keep traffic flying. They've been completed as well. So, you're going to see construction started. It's a big project that's going to be going for the next three to four years, really. So great to be able to get on site. And as I said, biggest, biggest, really road project in the country. And it's at a stage where we could go and have a look at it.

STACEY LEE:  And certainly the biggest one that our state's seen. We've got the the Heysen Tunnels on the on the freeway, but these tunnels will be…

CATHERINE KING: they will be amazing. There are a few things I love about this project. I love it. I love a good infrastructure project, but what I particularly like about this is that you've got three tunnel boring machines. That's unusual. Normally, there's two at most. So that's really quite different. But the other is that a number of people employed on it, about 5500 are going to be employed. A lot of them locals. And I met a couple of Victorians who've moved off over to Adelaide from the Big Builds that they've been doing in Victoria, and are just loving living in Adelaide. So, we're trying to entice them back over the border, but I think they're probably staying here for a long, well, certainly for a while, yet. But also, the green space that you're going to gain from this project as well, like it's often when you see these really massive road projects, you see them really dividing suburbs, and they can cut across suburbs, and it's impossible to, you know, really live around them, whereas, because you're going underground here, you get all of this space back that the community can use. So, this is a really amazing project, and I think you're going to see lots of lots of great art, great parks, that's also part of it, which give the community back their space

STACEY LEE: up above ground. I was thinking, are we building parks underground? Now that's something new.

CATHERINE KING: Green space on top, the green space on top. So, a lot of people employed. But then, of course, there's the savings. You're getting rid of those 21 sets of traffic lights. And you think every time you're stopping at a traffic light, that's minutes and minutes you're in the car just waiting, and 21 of those going out, 40 minutes will be saved in that drive if you're driving that route regularly. And that's 40 minutes you get back with your kids, or get to stay and have a little sleep in in the morning if you're trying to get to work. 

STACEY LEE: I thought you were going to say, or stay at work a bit longer.

CATHERINE KING: (laughs) no I want people home to do the things that they love doing as well, as well as being able to get to work more efficiently as well. 

STACEY LEE: Yeah, absolutely. Now, you mentioned the timeline. Is it on track? When is it expected to be finished? Because this is the last piece of the puzzle; we've been waiting for years.

CATHERINE KING: Yeah, it's a real so, so with infrastructure projects, everyone wants them done tomorrow, but they're big and they're complex engineering projects. So, 2031 is meant to be the completion of this project. Of course, if you have, you know, we're not looking likely at the moment, but really heavy rains that cause problems or things that delay, you know, but I think they've done all of that preliminary work, so all the geo tech work, so they know that it's not, you know, mostly clay underground, if you hit really heavy rock that slows the tunnel boring machines down. But all of that, all of that on time to date, and we hope the project proceeds that way. 

STACEY LEE:  2031, did you say?

CATHERINE KING: Yeah, well, that's the, that's the finish, and it feels like, but also, it'll go really quick. You'll, you'll see the amount of work that's being done on it. But you’ve got to start. You don't start these projects. You don't finish them.

STACEY LEE: And does South Road, as it currently stands, remain open while the tunnel…?

CATHERINE KING: So, yeah that's right. So that, again, that adds to complexity of projects. You still got to be able to move people around the city. So that's, that's what happens in the meantime. So, this is really, you'll see, you'll start to see all that happening underground. Well, you won't send underground, but you'll see all the work starting at the entrance. 

STACEY LEE: And in terms of funding, I believe this was a 50/50, funding, yeah?

CATHERINE KING: That's right. So, $7.7 billion from each level of government. And what you're seeing is the Commonwealth is increasingly stepping into that space now, into sort of some of the suburbs and cities that we traditionally wouldn't have been in. So that's been happening over a long period of time. The Commonwealth sort of traditionally only funded those big, you know, big roads outside of cities, the connecting parts. And then over time, we've increasingly been stepping into the space of funding more in terms of the suburbs and suburban roads and connectivity. So that's sort of why our infrastructure pipeline has grown. But also you're seeing us involved in projects like the Torrens to Darlington. 

STACEY LEE: And potentially other projects as well, like the Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass, which was a big one during the election campaign. 

CATHERINE KING: yeah, well, we announced just over half a billion dollars for that. That's been a really important project for us as well, so that, and also the Curtis Road Level Crossing Removal, again, a really big project and we've been involved, obviously, in a lot of the level crossing removals. I think there's three to four of them happening at the moment, and they really do change again the amount of time people are stuck waiting in cars to actually get to where they need to go.

STACEY LEE: Yeah. In terms of the freight bypass, that was a big one in a in a very marginal seat during the election and Labor won that seat. I think the agreement prior to the election, or the commitment from your party, was 50% funding split. Did you have a chance to pull the Premier aside today and say, hey, I know your budget's coming up in a few months. Are you willing to commit to the other 50?

CATHERINE KING: Well that would be a matter for their budget. You know the thing that I would say about the relationship I have with Tom Koutsantonis and also Premier Malinauskas. But of course, my boss, the Prime Minister, with the Premier in particular, is a really collaborative one. We work together. We work through issues, and we will, you know, we think the bypass is important. We put that half a billion dollars plus on the table. And we look forward to working with the South Australian Government to deliver that project. 

STACEY LEE: How confident are you that it'll get off the ground? 

CATHERINE KING: Well, I think it's important. I think we do need to bear in mind that there are always capacity constraints in terms of infrastructure as well. So, we'll have to talk to them about the timing of the project. You know, we might need to do some planning and geo tech work and all of that stuff first. But you know, they know it's important. They've committed to the you know, they're committed to the project. You know, they've brought the project to us so that 50% that we've put on the table, we're really keen to work with the South Australian Government on that, and we'll work through whatever issues there are going forward.

STACEY LEE: And it is still a priority for your government given now that's no longer a marginal seat, and the other one Boothby is no longer marginal either? 

CATHERINE KING: Yeah, I guess what I'd say with infrastructure, what I've been really at pains to do is to try and stop some of this sort of – it's a marginal seat or it's not a marginal seat. Like what we've tried to do, we've asked states to deliver now, under the reforms, we put in place 10-year infrastructure plans, and really, what we're doing is looking at projects that are part of that 10-year long-term horizon of infrastructure projects. So it became obviously a political issue in the election campaign – that happens, we have elections, that always occurs. But really, this has been really important, you know, it was in our last budget, the state government had brought it to us as a project. So we just work our way, pretty much systematically, through those and start delivering and that's really been my experience, is get the planning work done, make sure that we know how much it's going to cost, and then you start doing the work on it. Part of the problem of what I inherited is that we often had lots of press releases that were very politicised. It was often about marginal seats or what was happening there, and not enough money allocated to it. In fact, we didn't even know as a Commonwealth how much something was going to cost, because the previous government had said, oh, we'll put, you know, $200 million into this, or $400 million. And you suddenly look at it, and we did a big review, and you go, actually, it's going to cost a lot more than that. How are we going to find the money? So really, what we're trying to do is planning work, planning money, planning work, first get an idea about that and then work with the State governments to actually deliver them. And that's proving to be a really good model. 

STACEY LEE: Yeah, well, I guess that happens with every project at the moment. You know, costs have blown out over the last few years a lot. So hopefully, I know there's a lot of people I'm in, I'm in the seat of Sturt, and so it was a big issue for me in the lead up to the election, for a lot of people. So hopefully in the state budget next month, I think, we get some sort of a resolution on whether that early work can occur in those investigations, and we'll go from there. 

CATHERINE KING: Yeah, no, that would be great. 

STACEY LEE: Up to anything else while you're in town, Minister? 

CATHERINE KING: No, this was a big thing today. And as I said, it was great to see the amount of workers that are on site, they're really excited. Like, the thing about construction workers too, is they love these projects and being able to show off what they're doing. And this is a big build, so I hope lots of people get the opportunity. There's a great visitor center that's got the example of the tunnel boring machines in there is go and have a bit of a look. There'll be a bit of disruption while this build is occurring. That's inevitable, but it'll really make a huge difference to the city, and to people's lives. 

STACEY LEE: Alright, well, I'll leave you to get back to it. Maybe you can stop off at the central market for lunch before you head. 

CATHERINE KING: Generally, I always stop off at the Haigh’s. We'll see about that. I'm trying to lose a bit of weight, but that always happens in in Adelaide, we hit the Haigh’s. It is always amazing. And everyone tells me it tastes better when you buy it in Adelaide, absolutely, that's what I'm told. 

STACEY LEE: Well it’s in walking distance from the studio so I'll let you get to it. Thank you for coming in.