House debates

Thursday, 30 March 2017

Statements by Members

New South Wales: Gosford By-Election

1:36 pm

Photo of Emma McBrideEmma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

The Gosford by-election is just over a week away. Labor candidate Liesl Tesch knows that more needs to be done to boost infrastructure on the coast. Labor has a plan to do it. The Liberal government has played politics with the peninsula. The Woy Woy underpass is the Liberals' most notorious broken promise. It is scandalous that the New South Wales coalition government have seen the cost of the Woy Woy rail underpass blow out from $52 million to $112 million and have blamed their mishandled estimates as an excuse to scrap the project, even though they have known for years how much it would cost.

The Premier, and the two former Liberal premiers who oversaw this project, completely botched it and knew it was set to fail from the start. Gladys Berejiklian is happy to spend up big on Sydney-centric projects but is burying her head in the sand when it comes to funding infrastructure in the regions and on the Central Coast. Once again, Labor has to come and clean up the mess that the Liberals have left in their wake, caused by people who do not know the coast, do not know our issues and do not care about making the coast an even better place to live, work and raise a family. Luke Foley and a Labor government will build the underpass. Liesl Tesch is a local who is standing up for Gosford and the peninsula. Vote Labor on 8 April.