Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would again like to raise the issue of Heathcote Road in my electorate. This is one of the major southern roads in Sydney. It runs from Moorebank—close to the electorate of the member for Werriwa—all the way down to Heathcote. This road was originally built back in 1943, during the war.

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

Stop announcing it and start building it!

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Correct. It's good to hear. I encourage the member for Werriwa to support me in my calls in my speech. There is some good news on what we've actually got done. We've got $94 million which will duplicate the road from Moorebank. We'll have it duplicated, with the upgrade, all the way through to Voyager Point. This is very well needed and overdue, and it should be got on with and completed immediately.

The other issue that I have some concern about—it's part good news and part bad news—is what's being done currently at the bridge at the southern end, over Woronora River. It's great that there's upgrade work being done there by the New South Wales roads and maritime authority, but it's going to be closed down for six months. That's okay if they're going to do the upgrade, but what we're currently getting is that the bridge is going to be widened from 6.72 metres to 9.4 metres, so we're simply getting an increase in width of 2.7 metres. If we're going to close it down for that period of time, let's do it properly. That bridge must have some type of concrete barrier in the middle of the road to divide the traffic. The danger to motorists when they cross that bridge is if a truck or a car strays across to the other side of the road and runs into them. The fact that you will have a little bit more space, another metre, is not going to make any difference if that happens. But a dividing concrete barrier between traffic heading north and traffic heading south will make all the difference. So I call on our roads and maritime authority in New South Wales to please have a rethink about this. We're talking about a bridge that was originally built in 1943, during the war. It is now the major route between the South Coast and the western suburbs of Sydney. It is simply unsatisfactory the way it currently is. Eventually, and as soon as possible, we need multimillion-dollar investments to upgrade the entire road. It's good to see we're getting something done, but we need more on that bridge down there at Heathcote, across the Woronora River. It must have a dividing concrete barrier in the middle to separate the traffic.