Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

One of my biggest passions as the member for Gilmore has always been safety on our roads. Country roads are notorious for all the wrong reasons, and it just doesn't have to be that way.

In 2008, Danielle Brice tragically lost her youngest son, Chris, in a pedestrian accident on South Head Road in Moruya. Chris died six weeks before his 18th birthday while walking to a party, and it simply should not have happened. Since then, his mum has campaigned strongly for improvements to South Head Road. Her efforts with the Moruya South Head Cycle/Pathway Committee saw the off-road shared pathway get off the ground, and now there is less than two kilometres left to complete. It's something they should be incredibly proud of. But here is the sticking point, because what doesn't a community which has spent two decades fighting to improve local infrastructure to protect the lives of local people need? They don't need broken promises and political stunts. But, sadly, that seems to be all the New South Wales Liberals know how to do.

Mere days before the Bega by-election last year, the New South Wales Liberal Minister for Active Transport visited Moruya with two local Liberal candidates—one of whom was the former member—to announce with some fanfare that the Eurobodalla Shire Council would submit an application to fund this $2.5 million missing pathway link. The former member for Bega said, 'Rob will steer it over the next few weeks'. The minister himself said:

I'm convinced, having seen it, this project has real merit.

He went on:

… I'm confident, provided this project meets the parameters of the program, which I'm sure it will, it's exactly the sort of project that should be funded.

But, wait, there's more:

Ultimately, I'm the guy who will make the decision on the funding … having seen it you'd be foolish to not realise how important this project is to the community.

Who could blame the Moruya community for thinking the project was in the bag? But hold on, there was a slight slip in the Liberals' plans. They lost the seat of Bega to Labor's fabulous Dr Michael Holland, and, uh-oh, they lost the seat of Gilmore too. Whoops, that wasn't in the plan! So what did they decide to do? That project that the minister said would be 'foolish' to miss out on, missed out. There was no explanation and no fanfare, just an unsuccessful application and questions from the community left unanswered. It's simply flabbergasting.

The minister must explain why he put politics above the safety of the Moruya community and deliver on his promise to local people now. The people of the South Coast deserve better than self-interested, self-serving political stunts. They deserve better than pork barrelling 101, but, sadly, this is all you'll ever get from a Liberal government.

See this speech in context