Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources) Share this | Hansard source

In the short time that is available to me I would like to raise the issue of roadworks in my electorate of Paterson. We have suffered the ‘Iemma dilemma’, where the New South Wales government will spend a billion dollars on a tunnel in Sydney, yet very little money in the Hunter Valley.

Recently we made an announcement that the federal government would fully fund Weakleys Drive Interchange. It is at the intersection of the New England Highway and is a project that I have been pursuing and pushing for for some 10 years. It is a project which we have seen the management by the New South Wales government blow out from around $12 million to $52 million. That $52 million has to be 100 per cent funded by the federal government. Indeed, to Minister Lloyd’s credit, the money has been provided and work will start very shortly.

But there has still been nothing from the state government on the Myall Way flyover, which was promised as part of the $110 million construction between Karuah and Tea Gardens. It is a flyover that is needed and that has blown out in cost from $5 million to $16 million. But the state government will not prioritise that $16 million until some time 16 years from now. The then roads minister, Minister Costa—he is the third most recent roads minister—said that if the federal government was to provide extra money, they would build the flyover.

As you would be aware from when you sat in this House on budget night last year, Mr Speaker, the federal government provided an extra $160 million to the New South Wales government for work on the Pacific Highway. We gave them $160 million and yet there has not been one ounce of prioritisation for the Tea Gardens-Myall Way flyover. It is a disgrace. What Morris Iemma and his cohorts in the New South Wales Labor government have left us with is the ‘Iemma dilemma’, and they stand condemned for their actions.

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