Andrew Gee (Calare, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

The people of the Central West are currently enduring crises of historic proportions. Our region is being throttled by a dual failure of infrastructure and essential fuel supply that is threatening our economy, our food security and the very fabric of our communities. Right now, a major fuel crisis is unfolding before our eyes. This isn't only a matter of punishing prices; this is also a crisis of availability. I'm hearing from farmers across our electorate who are ringing the alarm bells. We are at the critical cusp of planting season, yet our producers cannot secure the diesel needed to sow their crops. They're ordering the diesel, and it's simply not being delivered. Local service stations are running out of fuel. Rationing has started. Prices are skyrocketing. If our farmers cannot plant, this nation does not eat. The government must guarantee supply before this fuel crisis becomes a full-scale national food shortage.

Adding to this burden is the catastrophic indefinite closure of the Great Western Highway at Victoria Pass. The impacts of this are devastating. In Lithgow, as Mayor Cassandra Coleman highlights, 11,000 extra vehicles are being funnelled through the CBD every day, pounding local roads that are already owed $7.2 million in unpaid disaster recovery funding. Blayney businessperson Ian Reeks points to the long delays this is now causing businesses and the dangerous route along the Darling Causeway, not built for such an increase in diverted heavy vehicle traffic. In the Hartley Valley, local businesses are at breaking point watching their customer traffic vanish overnight. Owner of the iconic Lolly Bug in Hartley Sharon Tofler has said that the most terrifying word in the English language right now is 'indefinite'. Sharon is already seeing income slashed by more than half.

Everyone fears more 'forever roadworks' that we know all too well. The impacts are region wide. Jacqui Harman, who runs Kenzell Farm at Oberon, has written to me because she is already seeing mass cancellations for the Easter period. Western regional director for Business NSW, Vicki Seccombe, said local businesses have reached breaking point. She said the highway closure comes at a time when businesses are already under intense pressure. This disruption piles on more pressure at a time when many businesses are already operating on very thin margins. Now is the time for strong leadership and investment from both state and federal governments, she said.

But what is truly infuriating—what is stoking deep and justified anger across our electorate—is the feeling that the people of the Central West are being treated as second-class citizens. How is it that, in the Australia of 2026, the main access road in and out of our region is reliant on a bridge built by a convict chain gang in the 1830s? You cannot make this up. It's a ludicrous, disgraceful indictment of all political parties and decades of neglect. Our communities make an enormous contribution to the wealth of this state and nation. Our regional economy drives this country. Yet, when it comes to infrastructure, we are treated as an afterthought.

The citizens of the Central West see gold plated tunnels being bored under Sydney at a cost of billions. They see world-class expressways stretching from the north coast to the south coast. Yet successive governments have avoided spending the money we need to build a genuine expressway to Sydney. We've seen everything from empty National Party sod-turnings on a Bells Line of Road expressway and a failure to fully commit to the Great Western Highway to the snatching away by this government of billions in committed funding. They've all just been kicking the can down the road, and now that road is disintegrating beneath our feet. The Great Western Highway is not fit for purpose, and you can't fix it with bandaid solutions. The anger in our communities is real. I call on the government to take immediate action to secure our local fuel supply so that our famers can sow their crops and our businesses can keep their doors open and our regional workforce employed.

In the upcoming budget I call on the government to commit the funding for a genuine expressway through the mountains as an urgent national infrastructure priority project. The people of the Central West pay our taxes and contribute more than our fair share to this country. It's time that governments and political parties of all stripes stop treating our communities as an inconvenience and start giving us the infrastructure we need and we deserve. We demand our fair share of government funding and an end to these debilitating crises.

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