Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to see the minister for roads in the chamber, because I have a deep concern about a recent announcement that he has made about the funding of a road in the seat of McEwen. This road is the E6. The E6 goes from the ring-road to Bridge Inn Road. The part that has been funded is from Bridge Inn Road to Harvest Home Road, and that is in the middle of a paddock. It is a road to nowhere, and I cannot believe that the part that has been funded is going to be the absolutely last part of this road to ever be built, probably in 10 to 20 years. This government, under the leadership of the member for Bennelong, has been renowned for the way in which it makes its funding available from the bottom of a pork barrel, and this is a classic. Now I see the member for McEwen, who offered me advice about how to get money. I say to the member for McEwen: if she wants to share the glory of spending the money on roads in the electorate of Scullin, I am quite happy, but please do not have the fiction of building a road which is in the middle of nowhere and is not ready to roll just so that they can say that the member for McEwen got $1 million worth of road funding.