ALP candidate for the federal seat of Gilmore Fiona Phillips says while she wants the Princes Highway south of the Jervis Bay turnoff upgraded, she is not convinced an 80-20 funding split between the federal and state governments is the way to achieve it.
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“The highway needs to be upgraded, there is no doubt about that,” Mrs Phillips said.
“However, I don’t think all the argy-bargy about 80-20 funding is realistic. The Princes Highway is a state road.”
Mrs Phillips said as a candidate she would always fight for highway funding but for specific upgrades.
“Before the last federal election, Labor committed to fund planning for the Milton Ulladulla bypass.”
It has also committed $50 million towards the construction of the new Nowra bridge.
Mrs Phillips said she was working toward having Shadow Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese visit the electorate to talk to key stakeholders about what needed to be done to improve the Princes Highway.
She said she hoped to have a roundtable discussion with stakeholders, including people who had lost loved ones in highway crashes, within the next six weeks.
Mrs Phillips said she had made Mr Albanese aware of Fairfax Media’s FIX IT NOW campaign.
“We can’t do the whole highway at once. It needs to done in stages,” she said.
“Labor will make targeted infrastructure investments into our local area, not through a percentage based funding split.”