Stop kicking the can down Victor Harbor Road

Posted July 04, 2018

Local candidate for Mayo Rebekha Sharkie and her SA-BEST MLC colleagues Frank Pangallo and Connie Bonaros are calling on the State Government to undertake an immediate scoping study on the cost of upgrading one of SA’s most dangerous roads – the Adelaide to Victor Harbor Road.

Photograph: SA-BEST MLC Frank Pangallo and local candidate for Mayo Rebekha Sharkie will work to deliver a scoping study and Federal funding for the upgrading of Victor Harbor Road.

The call comes after advice from the Federal Government that it would not consider co-funding the duplication of the major thoroughfare until the SA Government provided a cost-benefit analysis of the project.

“It beggars belief that such an important road infrastructure project that has been touted for so long has not even had a cost analysis undertaken – or not one that the Federal Government has seen,” Rebekha said today.

“The RAA has listed the Adelaide to Victor Harbor Road – which runs from Mount Compass to Victor Harbor - as the most dangerous in the state and has costed its duplication at about $600 million.

“This project cannot be kicked down the road any longer.

“The Marshall Government has an ideal opportunity to grab this project by the horns and make it a reality.

“This starts with a scoping study it can send to the Federal Government so it can start negotiating for shared funding of the project.”

Rebekha said if the Adelaide to Victor Harbor Road was in the eastern states, it would have been made dual-lane highway “decades ago”.

"I have been at pains to state this fact in our Federal Parliament as well as raising this issue in letters and meetings with State and Federal Ministers," Rebekha said.

“Earlier this year the then Federal Infrastructure and Transport Minister Barnaby Joyce informed me that the South Australian Government needed to provide a cost-benefit analysis on this project before the Federal Government would even consider co-investment.

“My SA-BEST colleagues, Frank Pangallo and Connie Bonaros, are now making this project a priority with the new State Liberal Government and will request it finally produce this costing plan so we can gain some traction in negotiations at a Federal level."

SA-BEST MLC Frank Pangallo said the party made an election commitment to the duplication of the Victor Harbor Road, if the State Government had Federal investment support.

“The situation has reached critical. More people will continue to be killed on this stretch of road while it remains in its current state,” Frank said.

“According to the RAA, 43 people were killed or seriously injured on this 48km stretch of road between 2012 and 2016.

“That’s one fatality or serious injury for about every one kilometre of the Adelaide to Victor Harbor Road.

“During the same period of time, there was a 34 per cent increase in traffic.

“We need to fix this road and SA-BEST and Rebekha and her Senate colleagues will continue to negotiate with Governments to make this a reality.”