Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

the member opposite has got roads everywhere! Anyway, our roads are really important and we do a pretty good job of servicing those roads, but we need a lot of assistance. That is why I think the Roads to Recovery program is such a great idea. Indeed, we have just benefited from some more allocations, and I would like to share them with you. The Burnie municipality got $308,000; Central Coast, where I live, got $397,000—it just happened to be more! Circular Head, in the beautiful far north-west, got $908,000. That tells you just how many roads they have got in the hinterland there. Devonport got $337,000; the beautiful King Island, $245,000; Latrobe, $342,000; and Waratah-Wynyard, $377,000.

On top of that—and I would like to share this with you—there was an earlier announcement, last month, of $195,000 being provided to two north-west roads under our Black Spot Program. This funding is made up of $170,000 to build a roundabout at the intersection of Nicholls Street and North Fenton Street in Devonport and $25,000 to build a traffic island at the intersection of Inglis Street and York Street in Wynyard. Now, you know your community is growing if you are building traffic islands! They are very important. But we are very, very grateful for that road funding.

In the little time left to me—I thought I would have more time to talk about roads—I would like to talk about the Bass Highway between Burnie and Circular Head. This is the road I have been banging on about since 1996. It took until 2004, as some of my colleagues here might remember, for the other side to finally match Labor, in an election, to fund this crucial corridor in my electorate. Admittedly, it was outside the national highway system. Year in and year out, election in and election out, win or lose, I heard, ‘It is not our responsibility; it is the responsibility of the state government.’ Then they got a whiff of victory in 2004 and, lo and behold, they finally funded that corridor. They funded it with the state government, at $15 million each. Good on them, but I tell you what: I will be claiming that road till the day I go under it. They said that there was no reason to fund it—why would you?—and that it was not their responsibility.

I spoke to my colleagues about it so often, year in and year out, that they would have been sick of hearing from me about it. Finally we came up with the figure of $15 million as a co-contribution with the state government, and whoopee! The other mob in 2004, with a week to go before the election, said, ‘Our policy is $15 million.’ I wonder where they got that from! The main thing is that we got it. Do you know what? I thank them for it, because they did the right thing. It is like Roads to Recovery: they did the right thing. They saw that we had a good idea—it was worth nagging on about for so many years—and they finally supported it, and my community benefits from it.

But that is not the end of it, because I will be coming for more. I hope to have a rail line parallel to the road as well. The far north-west and Circular Head region of my electorate is a wealth-producing region. This is the only corridor into the far north-west. I hope you have a chance to come up and travel it. That is the road you take into Stanley and into Circular Head, into that incredible forestry experience and to Dismal Swamp. It is fantastic stuff. This is where the wind farms are, and it is continually growing.

I must congratulate the state government and the contractors who have been working on the Sisters Hills road and the road into Circular Head, because they have managed to find savings of about $3.5 million. That means they will be able to now go and do about three or four new projects with those savings, so I congratulate them. I think where praise is due you should give it, and I congratulate everyone involved in that.

I also must thank both sides of the chamber for the support we have on the national highway system. The north-west coast has benefited greatly from the national highway system. One of the great privileges you have as a member is that you are able to open parts of roads. Recently I was able to open the last stage in the national highway through to Burnie—the Penguin to Ulverstone section, up to where I turn off to the beautiful Forth Valley. I congratulate both governments for their support of the national highway system. There is one remaining part to that: the off-ramp to Castra Road, which I look forward to opening in the near future with my colleagues.

This is great legislation. It is about road safety; it is about Roads to Recovery—everything we agree on. Maybe there is a bit of argy-bargy about how we are going to fund it, but we will leave it up to the opposition to come to their senses and pass the Recovery package so that we can get on with it. I thank my colleagues.

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