Abbott pledges $500m to SA road project Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has pledged $500 million for an Adelaide road project and says he will remove any government impediments to the Olympic Dam project, in a stump speech to party faithful in the South Australian capital. At a federal campaign rally at Flinders on Saturday, Mr Abbott told hundreds of Liberal supporters a coalition government would provide Australia with "the modern infrastructure that a first world country in the 21st century really needs." Following on from road project commitments in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, the opposition leader said half a billion dollars would go to the South Road upgrade. "I want to see cranes over our city, I want to see bulldozers on the ground, I want to see the traffic moving," he said. I don't want you to be stuck in traffic jams, on your way to work, on your way to university, bringing the kids home from school. In a speech reminiscent of his US-styled campaign address in western Sydney earlier this year, Mr Abbott, jacketless and wearing his trademark white shirt and blue tie, also promised to remove government obstacles to the Olympic Dam expansion. Mr Abbott last year blamed the mining and carbon taxes for BHP Billiton delaying the $30 billion Olympic Dam mine expansion, despite the company saying deteriorating market conditions were behind its decision. At Nazareth Catholic College on Saturday, Mr Abbott said state and federal Labor governments were responsible for the project being put on hold, because they had not "created the climate in which this kind of investment can go ahead." "I can't promise that Olympic Dam will go ahead, but I can promise that there will be no obstacles from government that will impede its progress," he said. And that means that South Australia will have a fighting chance of becoming once more one of the richest states in this great commonwealth.