Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have a few questions for the minister to do with the Pacific Highway, but I want to make some comments first. I listened to the minister's contribution and also to the question by the member for Wide Bay, the Leader of the Nationals. I start with a quote from a media release by the NRMA. It was Monday, 27 February this year. The title of it was, 'Stop passing the buck on Pacific Highway'. It says:

Calls by the NSW Government to change the funding model for the Pacific Highway from the current 50/50 spilt with the Federal Government is disingenuous and will do nothing to get the road upgraded by the 2016 deadline.

It goes on to say:

NRMA Motoring & Services President Wendy Machin said comments today by NSW Deputy-Premier Andrew Stoner on North Coast radio—

and comments I heard on my local radio—

would be concerning to communities waiting to see the road finally upgraded.

Another direct quote:

“It was the Howard Government that set the 50/50 funding split for the Pacific Highway from 2006 and the NRMA has supported this approach since day one,” Ms Machin said.

“While in Opposition, the current NSW Government frequently called on the NSW Labor Government to match federal funding for the Pacific Highway dollar-for-dollar and we supported this call too.

And there is more: I have pages and pages of quotes from the deputy premier in New South Wales, Andrew Stoner, and from the New South Wales roads minister, Duncan Gay, talking about meeting the deadline—always having a go as a good opposition would, correctly, at the government and saying, 'Put money in'. But as you heard from the minister, they did. I just find it really bizarre that the federal government is being called upon to adhere to this mythical 80-20 split. It does not exist; it never existed. There was stimulus money—

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