Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Almost 80 per cent of the nation's roads are administered by their local governments. The federal government's Roads to Recovery Program has been in place through successive governments since 2001. It's an important program that supports local government with the upkeep and maintenance of those local roads. Any increase to that program, which assists with making these roads and by extension our community safer, is very welcome. However, look at the numbers and listen to the experts before making assumptions that the government is doing enough.

Analysis by the NRMA of local councils' financial statements shows that in 2016-17 local road infrastructure backlog in New South Wales alone increased by $2.2 billion. Clearly neither the current funding for the Roads to Recovery Program nor the recently announced increase for drought affected communities will adequately address this backlog. The shortfall is getting bigger and now runs into the billions of dollars. The NRMA has proposed an increase of $180 million to both Roads to Recovery and the financial assistance grant programs to address this shortfall, but that's just in New South Wales. Nationally the Australian Local Government Association, the peak body for local government, has called for Roads to Recovery to be increased by $800 million per annum.

This is not merely an argument about numbers in an accountant's spreadsheet. Sadly, the consequences of the government's failure to address this backlog has tragic and real-world consequences. According to that same NRMA analysis cited above, over the period 2013-17, the regional and local roads network accounted for 68.9 per cent of all fatalities and 77.6 per cent of all injuries. According to that same NRMA analysis cited above:

Over the period 2013-17, the regional and local roads network accounted for 68.9 per cent of all fatalities and 77.6 per cent of all injuries …

The impact on the New South Wales economy was a staggering $3.9 billion. Unfortunately, it's those regional communities suffering under drought and bushfire that carry the majority of that burden—close to two-thirds of that cost, or $2.6 billion. If this government had the ability and the will to undertake genuine, long-term, real leadership, it would realise that the cost of addressing this backlog is far less than the economic and human cost of death and injury on dangerous roads.

Unfortunately, this funding deficit is not just a regional or rural one. Werriwa is one of the fastest-growing areas in the country. Suburbs that were full of semirural market gardens a few years ago are now densely populated by housing estates and Western Sydney Airport development. Due to the way the New South Wales government has tied the hands of local councils, many of the major roads into and out of these new population centres remain unsealed and riddled with potholes. These roads are incapable of handling the increased amount of traffic the growth has brought, yet the state government stubbornly refuses to act. It's more interested in shifting the costs to local councils and shovelling profits to toll operators.

The New South Wales state government could allow local councils more flexibility and scope by allowing them to determine when and how developer contributions are spent. The government could also step up and accept responsibility and reclassify these once local roads as state roads, given the extra traffic that now uses them. Instead, residents in growing suburbs of my electorate such as Middleton Grange, West Hoxton and Horningsea Park are subject to grinding traffic congestion every morning and afternoon just to get in and out of their suburbs. This lack of action from state and federal Liberal governments means critical projects remain unfunded and incomplete. These include congestion-busting initiatives such as the Middleton Drive extension in Middleton Grange, the completion of Buchan Avenue in Edmondson Park, and the upgrade of Cambridge Avenue at Glenfield. Transport and infrastructure projects that could get cars and trucks off the road—such as the South West Rail Link extension, the Fifteenth Avenue Smart Transit corridor and a fuel line to the Western Sydney Airport—sit on the to-do list, consigned, it seems, to the never-never.

I'd also like to mention the rort that is the Urban Congestion Fund. In New South Wales, coalition seats and some marginal seats received 70 per cent of the $541 million allocated across New South Wales. In Sydney, the coalition targeted the then Labor seat of Lindsay, which shares a border with my electorate, with promises of over $818 million. In Werriwa, however, we got nothing—and we're the ones hosting the airport.

We all need to recognise and acknowledge the tragic impact of the drought on regional and rural communities. However, we don't need to wait for drought, bushfires, flood or any other natural disaster for state and federal governments to do the job they were elected to do.

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