Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on the appropriation bills. As this parliament would be aware, it is one of the few opportunities a parliamentary secretary gets to speak on the issues affecting their electorate. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank the Prime Minister and my colleagues for their support in my appointment as parliamentary secretary. But I want to say right from the very beginning that, even though I have been appointed a parliamentary secretary, it will in no way lesson my drive and determination in pushing the issues that are important to the people of Paterson.

I also express my appreciation to Russell Chafer, who is in charge of the secretariat of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit. It was a time that I enjoyed, with some of the work that we did. As in all these things, when a person is elevated, they leave behind unfinished work—as did my predecessor—but some of the inquiries that we worked on, still to be reported to the parliament, will value-add to the work of this parliament. I encourage all ministers to take note of the recommendations that are made. They are well considered by both sides of the parliament when they come together at committee level to make sure that they advance the government as much as they can.

The key thing I want to say is that, upon my appointment and swearing-in on the Friday, I found that on the Sunday I was to head to India. The reason for heading to India as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Tourism And Resources was to attend the first ever India-Australia Coal and Mining Forum. This was a critically important forum in that there were 73 delegates from Australia—the largest ever delegation to go to India on such a critical issue as coal and mining, on carbon sequestration and also on the partnerships between mining industries and the community.

But, coming back to the things are really important to my electorate, first and foremost are roads. In this parliament I have been a very strong advocate of roads like the Pacific Highway. And, if only the member for Denison had the courtesy to leave quietly—like the courtesy I afforded him of hearing him in silence—it would be very much appreciated. That being said, I have been a very strong advocate for the Pacific Highway, Weakleys Drive, the Bucketts Way and, indeed, the Lakes Way—in fact, all of the roads in my electorate. The true factor though is that, of all the roads in my electorate, there is only a very small portion of the New England Highway which includes Weakleys Drive that is a fully federal responsibility. We have funded that, but the delays and procrastinations of the Road Transport Authority and the New South Wales government, who conduct all the planning and the prioritisation of the works, have been incredible. Here we are coming up to the 10th anniversary of this government, and for 10 years this road has been in planning phases and still not a single sod of soil has been turned.

The costs have now blown out from some $18 million to $20 million to $33 million, and we have to accept that; we have to keep working. But it is now a project that has been brought in under the AusLink proposal. They say they are going to commence work on it next financial year, but I will wait and see. The problem is not the federal government; the federal government has put up the money. The state Minister for Roads put out a press release after the last budget, condemning this government for giving it only $3 million towards planning, but it was found out and the state minister, Mr Costa, was so embarrassed because all the RTA had actually asked for was $3 million. ‘Ask and you shall receive’ is the motto.

The arrogance of the New South Wales state Labor government surprises me when I look at roadworks and at the history of Bucketts Way, a road that the state government was trickling money into. It is a road of significant importance to the people in my electorate, in areas such as Stroud, Gloucester and all the suburbs in between, including areas up to Taree, in Mark Vaile’s electorate. We fought hard but we got $20 million for that road. Of that $20 million, $15 million has now been allocated, an underspend, and we can see the significant improvements in that road. But since then, since we put the money out, guess what has happened? The state government has refused to put money into roadworks. This is a regional road and a large share of the responsibility is indeed the state government’s—in conjunction with local government—but it has walked away.

So we got a little bit smarter and at the last election I went to the minister and the Prime Minister and I said, ‘I want $10 million for roadworks in my electorate.’ That was $6 million for Dungog Shire to be spent on the road between Dungog and Clarence Town and on part of the road between Dungog and Paterson. Also, to connect that road, I wanted $2 million for Port Stephens Council for the road between Clarence Town and Raymond Terrace. In addition, for Great Lakes Council, I wanted $2 million to be spent on the Lakes Way. But it was important, with this $10 million that the federal government put up, that we encouraged and forced the state government to match the funding. The state Labor government in New South Wales cannot see that this is a gift-horse and have refused to provide funding. They have refused to provide money for these roads. To give you an example of the state these roads are in, they are like the road in the McCain mixed vegetable ads where the trucks drive along with all the vegetables in the different boxes and by the time they get to the factory they are already mixed up because the roads are so rough and so bumpy.

We committed $10 million, but at this stage we cannot give the councils that money because the state government has refused to match it. So tonight in this chamber I am calling on the state government to think bigger than it does and come up with $10 million funding. In the absence of that, I am talking to Minister Lloyd about providing that funding directly to the councils. The people in these areas are being affected because of the lazy, arrogant, recalcitrant state government in New South Wales. The way that it treats the people in my electorate is amazing. It has never refused to spend money on another tunnel, collapse as it may, in Sydney, or to extend the freeway or to do something else in the Sydney area, but when it comes to regional areas it is always a problem.

Perhaps that problem has been further exacerbated with the Pacific Highway. Under the 10-year agreement, the federal government committed $60 million per annum to a state owned highway, the Pacific Highway—and we fulfilled that commitment. As it was a state highway, the state government were to commit $160 million per annum and, to their credit, they did that. Under the AusLink proposal, the federal government agreed to up the ante from $60 million per annum to $160 million per annum for the next three years, to be matched by state funding. So we have seen an increase in expenditure on the Pacific Highway alone of $100 million per annum.

The point that I am getting to is that there is an intersection called the Myall Way turn-off at Tea Gardens Hawks Nest on the Pacific Highway. The state government and the RTA, in their wisdom, have decided that there will be no flyover at this intersection. People with caravans, tourists largely, on their first time out of Sydney pull into Hawks Nest, connect their caravan and continue north. So they pull their caravan straight out in front of two lanes of traffic doing in excess of 100 kilometres an hour. It is a recipe for disaster.

I spent a week at Nerong, near Bulahdelah at Myall Lakes, over Christmas and nearly every day there was a serious smash in this vicinity—and that is with two lanes, not four lanes, of traffic. There are two lanes of traffic doing between 90 and 100 kilometres an hour and there are serious accidents every day. In the last couple of weeks there have been fatalities in the general area of this intersection. It is a bad area, but does the state government listen? No. In fact on 26 May the local community had a meeting with Michael Costa, the then roads minister, and put forward the case. The costing for that intersection then was $6 million. The new state roads minister, Mr Joe Tripodi, must have bought a new calculator because by the time he had had the report done into the intersection and came up with some costings, guess by how much that intersection had gone up to: it had gone up to $16 million. Inflation of $10 million in just over six months is an incredible inflationary index. But this is the state government saying, ‘We do not want to build that intersection so what we’ll do is inflate the price so that makes it unaffordable so we don’t have to build it.’ But what about the lives? What price is a life?

The key factor in all of this is you are going to have this roadwork completed by the middle of this year, so they say. By the middle of this year we will have trucks, B-doubles, doing 100 to 110 kilometres an hour past that intersection on not one but two lanes coming south and two lanes going north, with people venturing across that route. Mr Tripodi has said, ‘I’d fund it if only the federal government gave me more money.’ He does not understand that a $100 million increase per annum, from $60 million to $160 million, is an increase; it is more money. The thing that I find hard to understand is that the federal government, even though they provide matching funding, have absolutely no say in the prioritisation of where this money is spent. It is all at the whim of the state government. Mr Tripodi, in his wisdom, wrote a letter to the editor that is arrogance personified. Part of it says, of the review that was to be done on the intersection:

The review analysed traffic numbers and future growth, reporting that an overpass is not yet needed at the intersection of Myall Way and the Pacific Highway.

It was also found that the cost of the overpass would be $16.6 million including contingencies.

Contingencies of some 30-odd per cent! I have been in the construction industry and I can tell you that contingencies are normally between five and 12 per cent; 12 per cent is a bad project. But it is 30 per cent for the New South Wales RTA when they have already done all the geological surveys in the area and they have already tested the soils and already know what their costs are. Then this letter from Mr Tripodi, to the Manning River Times on 27 January, says:

Mr Bob Baldwin and Mr John Turner—

who is the state member for Myall Lakes—

must come clean with their electorates and explain the Pacific Highway is a National Network road and the Federal Government has financial responsibility for the intersection upgrade.

He also says:

Many parts of the National Road Network have the Federal Government funding 100 percent of any upgrades, others they fund 80 percent.

I am somewhat confused. A response was put out by John Turner, who is a former New South Wales shadow roads minister and understands the legislation and its requirements. I quote this part of Mr Turner’s letter:

I refer of course to Minister Tripodi’s ... letter to your paper which says that “... the Pacific Highway is a national network road and the Federal Government has financial responsibility for it”...

Minister, so you have some understanding of your portfolio, can I advise you that you, as Minister for Roads, own the Pacific Highway. Just ask the people who have had their properties acquired by the Roads and Traffic Authority.

You have the same title to the roads as people have in their homes, an estate in fee simple.

He does not understand that the Pacific Highway is owned by the state government and the federal government agreed to provide support funding in the interests of traffic safety. The Federal Highway going north to Brisbane is actually the New England Highway. So we see arrogance from a minister who has never even been to the area, has never seen the intersection and refuses to meet with constituents in that area. I find this amazing.

There is a boundary redistribution on at a state level, and at the next election the area of Tea Gardens will move from the state seat of Myall Lakes to that of Port Stephens. The response from the state Labor member, John Bartlett, for Port Stephens was: ‘It’s not in my electorate yet.’ I thought he would have been a caring and concerned man—but not at all. He is prepared to sacrifice people because it is not in his electorate yet. In March next year, when the state election will be on, I will be reminding all the people at Hawks Nest, Tea Gardens and North Arm Cove that he did not care about this road, this intersection or their lives because it was not in his electorate.

If I took that approach in the Hunter, on every issue in Newcastle—like the need for an extra federal magistrate—I could quite easily say, ‘It’s not in my electorate.’ On the F3 from Branxton down to Hampton, I could say, ‘It’s not in my electorate,’ and not fight to get funding for it. There are a range of issues. I could say about the port upgrade in Newcastle, ‘It’s not in my electorate.’ But as a responsible politician and representative of the community, it is important that I look beyond the boundaries and look at what is good for the whole of the community. As I said, in March next year, I will be urging people in his electorate right up to the stroke of midnight, when the ballot boxes close and the people have cast their votes, not to vote for a person who does not care about their future.

Much more work needs to be done on roads. I will again be meeting with the Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads, Jim Lloyd, and putting forward that this intersection needs to be looked at and that he needs to make a personal representation to Mr Tripodi—I know that he has already had correspondence with him—to see what can be done to install this intersection. We cannot wait 10 years when you consider how many people would be involved in serious or fatal crashes at an intersection like this.

I can only hope that in March next year there is a new government or at least a new minister in New South Wales who is prepared to get out of Sydney, look at this area and prioritise this intersection. I hope it will be a Liberal-National Party government, because I know that we have a commitment from their shadow minister and from the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Debnam, that this intersection will be prioritised and that it will be built.

As for the roads in the Dungog, Port Stephens and Great Lake shires, I am calling on Minister Lloyd to provide $10 million worth of funding, without state government ties. The state government will not recognise these roads. It will not provide the funding or the support, yet the people in these shires pay the taxes that provide for it. To give an example, Dungog council has to fund 120 kilometres of roads and its base is something like 9,000 voting ratepayers. Its 120 kilometres of regional roads is four times more than that of Newcastle council, six times more than that of Maitland council and three times more than that of Lake Macquarie council. The population of Dungog does not raise enough revenue to maintain the roads, let alone provide for all its other support services. Part of the reason for this is that 95 per cent of the roads in Dungog are not eligible for state government road funding assistance. If it were not for some of the black spot and Roads to Recovery funding provided by the federal government to councils such as Dungog, the Great Lakes and Port Stephens, many of these important road works would never be upgraded or safety improved.

In the short time left available to me, I want to say again that I will continue to prosecute the case for the people of Paterson. I will fight to make sure that their roads and their safety are paramount, but it is very hard to talk to a ‘stonewall’ minister who will not listen. I am sure that he was born without ears, and I can guarantee that he was born without a brain!

See this speech in context