Portfolio — 23 March 2026
The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Ms King, made two distinct announcements on 23 March — one reaching into Fair Work law to address an acute supply-chain pressure point, the other marking the completion of a significant urban road investment in South Australia.
The more consequential policy signal is the proposed Fair Work Act amendment targeting fuel cost pressures in the road transport sector [TA-260323-infras-920738a027f6:m00AMR]. The amendment enables truckies and road transport businesses to lodge emergency applications for contract chain orders when fuel price spikes — specifically those attributed to the Middle East conflict — make existing contract terms unviable.
The operative change removes the current six-month waiting period before such applications can be made, allowing the Fair Work Commission to intervene quickly. Once an order is granted, transport clients — including retailers, mining companies and manufacturers — can be required to offer contract terms that allow operators to recover fuel costs without delay.
The amendment bridges two portfolio domains: it uses the Fair Work Act machinery to solve a transport supply-chain problem, a cross-portfolio design choice worth tracking as the Middle East situation evolves.
The second announcement was the opening of the completed $40 million upgrade of the James Congdon Drive and Sir Donald Bradman Drive intersection in Adelaide's inner west [TA-260323-infras-b5689867097b:m00AMR]. The works introduce three new right-turn lanes and are projected to cut peak-hour delays by 30 per cent for the roughly 49,000 vehicles that use the intersection daily.
The project sits within a much larger envelope: the $850 million network upgrades package under the River Torrens to Darlington Project, jointly funded by the Albanese Government and the Malinauskas Labor Government in South Australia. The ribbon-cutting is as much a political marker on a shared federal-state investment as it is an infrastructure milestone.
The official records this note draws on — the raw primary documents themselves, as published.