Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health, Aged Care and Indigenous Health Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Light-fingered Labor has been caught out again. Last month's federal budget left Tasmania off the map. Whilst Tassie was thrown a few crumbs, they were nowhere near enough to compensate locals for the cost-of-living crisis that has been of their making. A key pledge in this budget was $80 million to upgrade the Lyell Highway in southern Tasmania, but it has been revealed and confirmed that this is not new money. Instead, it has been ripped away from money already promised to provide safety and freight efficiency upgrades to the Bass Highway along the north-west coast.

The Bass Highway between Devonport and Launceston is the busiest B-double truck route in Tasmania. It carries the highest mass of consumer goods of any road in the state. It carries freight in and out of Tasmania through the state's two largest ports: the port of Burnie and the port of Devonport. Anyone driving this section of highway would know the state of the road and the safety issues that so desperately need addressing.

We need more investment in that region, not less, and we certainly don't need a government that steals money away from our region to try to shore up a vulnerable Labor seat in the adjoining electorate. It's theft, and the people of the north-west in the electorate of Braddon want their $80 million back.