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

The grievance I bring to this chamber today on behalf of my constituents is the matter of road funding or indeed the lack of interest by the New South Wales government in providing ample road funds. I remind this House of an accident that occurred on 5 March 2004. That was an accident on the Pacific Highway where Greg and Cath Campbell lost their two little children, Jessica and Rebecca, and Greg’s mother, Barbara, in a horrific smash at Keels Road, near Bulahdelah. All that Mrs Campbell asked was that the road be upgraded as quickly as possible to save any further carnage on the road.

Three years on and the roadworks are underway. The upgrading of the section between Tea Gardens and Bulahdelah is underway. This roadwork is long overdue, yet there is one part of this roadwork that is missing; there is one part of the road which has the potential to lead to a fatality. Of course, I raise the Tea Gardens intersection flyover. I have said in this House many times and I will repeat it today: it is good enough that Karuah has two flyovers—one to the north and one to the south—in the interests of safety. There are 789 people over the age of 18—in other words, of driving age and over—in Karuah. Bulahdelah, when the bypass is completed there, will get a flyover to the north and flyover to the south, and it has 998 people over the age of 18. But Tea Gardens, which seems to be forgotten by the state Labor government in their planning, has 2,380 people over the age of 18, and when you add in North Arm Cove another 327.

I can remember meeting and talking to the community—Patricia Michelle, Lenny Roberts and others—after they had been down to speak to Michael Costa, who was the then roads minister. He said, ‘If only the federal government would kick in extra money.’ In that budget year we upped the funding for the Pacific Highway by an additional $160 million, and to their credit they matched that, but there was no prioritisation of the work. When we pushed it further, the cost blew out from $5 million to some $15 million. Enough was enough! I approached the Prime Minister and the roads minister and lobbied hard and when the Prime Minister came to my electorate in April he announced $10 million towards the flyover for Tea Gardens. Of course, the work still needs to be prioritised by the state government and contribution funding applied.

What did we hear from the new New South Wales Minister for Roads, Mr Eric Roozendaal? He said:

This issue has been raised by the Prime Minister—a measly $10 million, which he knows will not pay for it—because he is under pressure to save—

my seat. Well, there is no pressure to save my seat; we will win my seat because we prioritise local issues that matter to local people. What he had the gall to say was:

I believe that other more important parts of the Pacific Highway need upgrading ...

His candidate in the state election and now the candidate against me in the federal election happens to live at Tea Gardens and has no interest in this intersection. He believes the way to fix it up is to improve the mobile phone service in the area. What that has got to do with it I do not know. It would probably get more people talking on their phones as they are driving through the intersection and that will lead to an increase in accidents.

I am glad that the Howard government are committed to road funding. I have done a little bit of research. One of the programs that we instituted as a government when we came in in 1996 was black spot road funding, a program that was abolished by the previous Labor government. Since 1996 I have been able to achieve over $11.860 million in black spot road funding to the electorate of Paterson. On top of that, we have built another exceptional program where we rely on councils to determine the priorities of the work. Of course, that was Roads to Recovery. That was not a one-off program; in fact, it has been extended and in my electorate we have been able to achieve over $20 million in Roads to Recovery programs. This is on top of $36 million provided to the local governments as their road allocation grants as part of the $266 million provided under the federal allocation grants. In other words, this government is serious about putting money at the sharp end—to the councils for the work that can be done in their electorates to ease the road burden.

Two of the main roads that require money in my electorate of course are Bucketts Way and Lakes Way. The Prime Minister in 2001 committed $20 million to Bucketts Way. That $20 million has now been expended and the work is complete. The improvements in this road have been absolutely outstanding. To show the council’s support they have actually spent money out of their Roads to Recovery package on supporting that roadwork. We have also picked up some $2 million of black spot funding for Bucketts Way.

In the recent budget there was an announcement of some additional money. We were able to secure off Jim Lloyd an additional $2 million for Bucketts Way which will bring the spend to over $24 million on Bucketts Way. This is a strategically important road that goes from the Pacific Highway down near the Medowie turnoff up through towns like Stroud and all the way through to Gloucester. It comes back around towards Taree. But it is also a main avenue when it connects up with the roads through to Tamworth.

The other road that is critically important in my electorate is Lakes Way, which is a road that needs some funding. I advise the House that we have invested nearly $4 million in black spot funding just on Lakes Way. The Great Lakes Council, which has received some $5.5 million in Roads to Recovery funding, has been spending the majority of that on upgrading Lakes Way. Why do they need to spend the money in this way? It is because the New South Wales government refuses to provide funding for roads in my electorate. There are some four state electorates within my electorate but they seem to always bypass the option of providing real funding. In fact, the last time there was any real funding on Bucketts Way was when $6 million was provided by Carl Scully back in 2000. There has been nothing since—no responsibility. Yet I remind the House of that horrific accident, one of many that have occurred on the Pacific Highway, where the young Campbell children were lost.

The money that we are providing is being well spent by these councils, to the extent that at the last election we committed $6 billion to Dungog Council, and that is being spent—the tenders are just about finalised now—on the roads between Dungog and Seaham. To match that, Port Stephens Council got $2 million for roads between Seaham and Raymond Terrace. Those roadworks have commenced today and I congratulate the councils on their fine efforts.

One of the other pieces of roadwork that is critical in our area is Weakleys Drive. That has been a long, drawn-out saga of nearly a decade. The price has gone from some $12 million or $13 million to $25 million, to $35 million, to $42 million and now to $52 million, of which the federal government is funding 100 per cent. So when I went to the sod turning earlier this year, saw the works commenced and spoke to the contractor, FRH, I was rather surprised to find that the actual contract for the works was $30 million. We see the state Labor government in New South Wales trousering some $22 million for planning work and contingency sums. The work has been going on that long in the planning process that you would assume there would be no need for contingency sums. They have been over every stone and piece of gravel in that area to understand the geography completely.

We do need to improve the safety of our roads. The roadworks that are underway, in particular on the Pacific Highway, are outstanding. The quality is high. But part of the problem is that we increase the speed at which people travel through those areas. That two-hour slot from Sydney, where the fatigue factor hits, seems to move further and further up the highway. That fatigue factor seems to be right at the intersection of the Tea Gardens flyover.

The Howard government has put its money where its mouth is and is prepared to invest in safer roads and motorists’ safety. The state government is more inclined to spend its money in Sydney giving $25 million to contractors to hold up the opening of a tunnel for a couple of days to suit an election period. That $25 million on their contribution would have built nearly three flyovers at Tea Gardens. On behalf of my community, I will not let this issue go away. They are aggrieved by the actions of the New South Wales state Labor government in refusing to prioritise these roadworks and provide safety and support by having this road built to save lives.

See this speech in context