Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join you, Deputy Speaker Wallace, in extending my thanks to the member for Gippsland for his service to veterans.

I have spoken a lot about the impacts of COVID on my community. While that's dominating our lives in the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury now with the lockdown, it's no excuse for any government to walk away from the responsibilities that it has in other matters. Governments can't use COVID as a cover for their failure to fix other problems or to take short cuts. I want to talk about two major road projects in my electorate.

One is the upgrade of the Great Western Highway at Medlow Bath. Medlow Bath residents are understandably furious that their opportunity to examine the New South Wales government's plans for a four-lane highway through their village will be limited because no face-to-face consultation and discussion can be done before the deadline. As Residents Association President Debra Brown said, 'Anyone without a computer had no possibility of seeing the plans.' Under pressure, Transport for NSW has offered to send USBs or hard copy, but it's still complex design plans, a 220-page review of environmental factors and 866 pages of appendices. State MP Trish Doyle and Mayor Mark Greenhill have, with me, written to the roads and regional transport minister of New South Wales and to the federal transport minister, Barnaby Joyce, calling for an extension beyond lockdown so that face-to-face consultation can occur on this federally funded project. What the community really needs is an opportunity to sit down and discuss the detailed plan they've worked up around extending the Blackheath-Mount Victoria tunnel that stops just short of Medlow, so that this little hamlet with the historically significant Hydro Majestic is not obliterated by a four-lane road. I don't understand the haste, except that maybe someone wants to get federal money spent fast. The Medlow Bath community deserves to be listened to, and I have to say that I see the potential long-term pluses in their plan that would benefit the Upper Mountains tourism economy and the Central West.

There are fears of similar haste and disregard of genuine consultation on the Richmond Bridge project. We all know that nothing replaces face-to-face communication, and, with something as large as the project which is so important to get right, there is no excuse for using COVID to cut out community consultation. I have to say that I'm very concerned about the failure of Transport for NSW to provide me with the opportunity to ask questions about the project on behalf of my community. This is too big to politicise, and I've fought for too long for these additional bridge lanes. The New South Wales government needs to grow up and commit to a constructive dialogue, irrespective of political ties. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that I've been focused on solutions in the Hawkesbury for a decade, before and since being in parliament, and it is petty of them to cut me out of something I have such a deep commitment to.

I want to turn to another issue for the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury that I've spoken on many times: mobile phone coverage. This Liberal and National government has ignored the very real needs of many parts of the region in spite of the natural disasters we face. In the latest round of mobile black spot funding, they announced one new site—only a single location at Lower McDonald. I welcome that; it is absolutely needed. But this round was allegedly focused on helping bushfire prone areas—tick! It's especially insulting to the people in areas like Mount Tomah and Berambing, which lost homes in the devastating black summer bushfires. People who battled fires have told me, they've told the royal commission, they've told the Senate inquiry and they've told the New South Wales inquiries of the problems in organising crews during the crisis because they didn't have mobile coverage. They've told us of their fears of loss of life.

Mount Tomah was meant to have a tower years ago. It was promised by then Minister Fletcher in the lead-up to an election and taken away—plonked in the Central West to shore up support for the Nationals in the lead-up to the next election. The case for a black-spot solution at Mount Tomah is overwhelming, and I've worked closely with the Blue Mountains rural fire service to put forward a solution. There is simply no mobile coverage for much of the area and along the Bells Line of Road, and it comes on top of fragile mobile and landline coverage in Bilpin.

This is more than just cynical politics. This is putting lives in danger. Don't be surprised if, in the lead up to an election, after eight or nine long years, this government decides to throw a few bones to a desperate community. Just don't trust them. They've made those promises before.