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

Our local businesses are going broke because of the indefinite closure of the Great Western Highway at Victoria Pass. There was not one dollar of support for them in the budget. This is as appalling and heartless as it is disgraceful. Successive governments always knew that this 200-year-old bridge built by convicts was going to fail, but they did nothing about it except watch it crumble and continually kick the can down the road to save money. It seems that, for some people in power, this is just a political game that's out of sight and out of mind. But the livelihoods of our business owners and their families is not a game. What's it going to take? How many businesses need to bleed out and die before governments take action? How many lives need to be destroyed? How many people need to be out of work? How many families need to be unable to put food on the table? Tell us how many it will take. What is so wrong with political parties and governments today that you can't even help the very people whose lives and livelihoods you're wrecking through your negligence? If this debacle were unfolding in one of your precious city seats, the state and federal governments would have support in place in a heartbeat. Your cruel indifference and inaction damns you, and we have had enough.