Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Would the minister update the House on the government’s support for better transport infrastructure in New South Wales? Are there any alternative policies?

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Minister for Transport and Regional Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Cowper and acknowledge his tremendous interest in this issue and his undying determination to have something done about upgrading the Pacific Highway through his own electorate and through the whole of coastal northern New South Wales. I know he will be particularly pleased that, at long last, a contract was let at the end of last month for the Bonville deviation. That is a part of the $4.9 billion that this government is making available to New South Wales over the five years of AusLink. This includes close to $3 billion for major land transport construction projects—a 171 per cent increase on what was available over the previous five years. That is starting to make a real difference. Of course, on budget night there was $800 million provided for the Hume Highway in addition to what had previously been included in AusLink and another $160 million for the Pacific Highway. The details of those projects will be announced very shortly.

The reality is that this government is getting on with the job in New South Wales of trying to do something about upgrading the state’s road system. We do not get a lot of cooperation from the state government, who can find all sorts of reasons why projects should be delayed. There are any number of examples. I know the honourable member for Riverina talks often about the Coolac bypass, where, a year after tenders closed, work still has not started.

I was really interested in the New South Wales budget handed down the other week, which actually listed 10 projects under AusLink which it described as being ‘jointly funded by the New South Wales and Commonwealth governments’. Of these 10 projects, six are in fact 100 per cent funded by the Australian government, with not a cent required of New South Wales and not a cent provided. The other four may require a 20 per cent or 50 per cent contribution from New South Wales, but the money included in the New South Wales budget was only the Commonwealth share. The New South Wales share of the money was left out altogether.

That is the kind of approach and the lack of cooperation that we so often get from New South Wales when it comes to dealing with road-upgrading projects—the black, green and red tape, the bureaucratic inertia and the policy analysis mean that the money piles up and projects do not get built. So it was really refreshing over the weekend to hear the New South Wales coalition state that, when they are elected to government after the next election in New South Wales, they will commit to work cooperatively with the federal government to get on with the task. They are going to stop the blaming and they are going to work constructively. What a refreshing change it will be to have a government that wants to work with the Commonwealth government to make sure that these vital road projects in New South Wales are actually built.