KIAMA MP Gareth Ward believes his party is taking a clear plan on how to improve the state’s infrastructure to next year’s election.
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The government announced earlier this year that if re-elected it would privatise 49 per cent of the state’s electricity poles and wires through a 99-year lease in an effort to raise $20 billion for infrastructure expenditure.
Speaking to local radio earlier this week, NSW Treasurer Andrew Constance said the government’s plan was a sensible way to “recycle” the existing capital in the poles and wires.
Mr Ward said that if the privatisation went ahead, projects in the Shoalhaven such as a new Shoalhaven River bridge and the upgrade of the Princes Highway between Berry and Bomaderry could benefit.
“What we’re doing is taking a clear plan to the election on how we will deliver infrastructure investment,” he said.
“If the plan is successful, we’ll then get to the future stage where we’ll decide what is funded and I would absolutely be pushing for projects like the new bridge and the Berry to Bomaderry improvements to receive funding.”
While Mr Ward said his party was being honest in the lead-up to the election, Labor candidate for Kiama Glenn Kolomeitz said the government was trying to extort the public.
“We’re entitled to investment in the region and at the moment we’re missing out and to say that if you want this bridge, if you want this infrastructure then you have to let us sell off your assets is quite extortionist,” Mr Kolomeitz said.
“It’s not good enough to just say that you’re being honest when the public is going to take the burden of it and families who are already doing it tough are going to be hit with higher electricity prices.”