Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Hansard source

The Central Coast is growing and our region is being left behind by this government. Being overlooked is bad enough, but for locals in my electorate it gets worse. In the government's so-called Central Coast Roads Package, announced before the last election, 94 per cent of funding was directed towards the neighbouring Liberal held seat of Robertson. According to a breakdown of the funding, a single street in Saratoga, in the Robertson electorate, received more funding than the entire northern end of the coast. Worse, of the promised $26.7 million to be spent in 2019, only $4.5 million made it out the door in the middle of a pandemic. Why is the federal road funding skewed towards Robertson, and why is the government so behind in these critical road projects? Recently the government announced an extra $16.7 million as part of this package for upgrades to a road in Woy Woy. I welcome road funding for the Central Coast—of course I do. People, families and businesses need to get around the coast and to get home safely. But Dobell deserves its fair share. Locals in my electorate deserve better from the government.

So, again, I ask the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development: where is the local roads funding for Dobell? The government needs to be upfront about what road projects will be funded and start clearing the backlog of roadworks on the north of the Central Coast. It's clear that funding allocations of Urban Congestion Fund projects are decisions of the federal government and aren't conducted through a competitive grants process, and our community deserves its fair share. I look forward to the Deputy Prime Minister's response, as does everyone on the coast. (Time expired)

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