Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the matter of the missing link between the F3 freeway and the M2 motorway in north-western Sydney. There was a very disappointing announcement tucked in the back pages of the budget papers in which it was announced that $150 million which had previously been committed for a feasibility study into that link in 2013-14 was to be deferred to a point beyond the forward estimates. That is bad news for the people of Normanhurst and Thornleigh, in my electorate, and for people who live near or use Pennant Hills Road, a major artery which passes through the northern part of my electorate. The need for a long-term solution as to Pennant Hills Road is regularly raised with me by local residents. For example, on 14 February I met with local residents, Gordon Fuller, Peter and Pat Edwards and Ian Faulkes, to discuss Pennant Hills Road and to view the traffic which passes along that road at around eight o'clock on a typical weekday morning. On Tuesday, 19 April I held a community meeting at the Thornleigh community centre and again the question of Pennant Hills Road was raised by a number of people present.

Pennant Hills Road is presently designated as the interim national highway and it is the route along which much traffic passes coming from the M2 and, before it, the M7 onto the F3. There is a large number of trucks travelling along Pennant Hills Road including trucks that are passing through from Melbourne up to Brisbane. Indeed, included within those is a large number of B-doubles. So it is an extremely busy road. That causes disruption, inconvenience and danger for those who live nearby and for those who use that road.

The need for an upgrade has been a pressing one for some time. In the last years of the Howard government the then minister for roads, the Hon. Jim Lloyd, commissioned the Pearlman review. That review reported in 2007. It examined the options in relation to the so-called missing link and looked at earlier work which had been done that was commissioned by the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority, being the Sinclair Knight Merz study. As that former minister, Jim Lloyd, has pointed out in a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald today, the Howard government made a significant funding commitment in the 2007 election which it would have been in a position to implement had it been returned to power. By contrast, unfortunately little has been done to deal with the missing link and therefore the pressing needs in relation to Pennant Hills Road by either the former New South Wales state Labor government or the current federal Labor government. The federal Labor government's Infrastructure Australia failed to allocate funding for the missing link, and unfortunately the previous New South Wales state Labor government effectively ceased all planning and preconstruction work in relation to the missing link between the F3 and the M2. As a consequence, this matter has effectively been stalled for some time.

The New South Wales Minister for Roads and Ports, the Hon. Duncan Gay, I am pleased to say, advised the New South Wales state parliament that there are a range of major projects which are under consideration for funding by the New South Wales State government, and the F3-M2 link is one of those. I simply wish to call on the Gillard government to work cooperatively with the New South Wales state government to find a solution to this matter as quickly as possible.