Half a billion dollars is never something to be sneezed at - especially when it eclipses any federal contribution to the Princes Highway in NSW.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
We welcome the Morrison government's $500 million contribution to upgrading the highway, just as we welcomed the NSW government's pre-election pledge to sink almost a billion dollars into the highway south of Nowra.
This is a great start that has come just a year since Australian Community Media news outlets launched the FIX IT NOW campaign in March 2018.
But it is just a start - and a long way from the 80-20 funding model so well applied to the Pacific Highway. It's that sort of funding arrangement that will see Princes Highway duplication from South Nowra to the Victorian border built in double time.
New NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance makes no bones about it. He is on the record saying a $4 billion federal contribution could see the highway duplicated from the Sussex Inlet turn-off to Bodalla. That's a lot of highway.
The ballpark figure all the way to the Victorian border is in the realm of $15 billion - a 20-year goal the NSW government has set itself.
That time frame, Mr Constance argues, would be foreshortened with more federal help.
Pestering government at state and federal level has been a core business of the FIX IT NOW campaign. We have spoken to prime ministers, the deputy prime minister, state roads ministers and local members. As we head towards the federal elections, there is not a candidate in Gilmore silly enough not to have the highway at the top of their agenda.
After news broke of the federal highway investment, the ALP was quick to say it wanted a bipartisan agreement on Princes Highway funding.
The FIX IT NOW campaign secured a statement of intent in that regard in December, co-signed by Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack and Shadow Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese. It's only a matter of formalising a bipartisan agreement.
While we are grateful for this first splash of Princes Highway funding from the federal government, we recognise it is only the beginning and will keep the pressure up to see it continues, no matter who is in government in Canberra and Macquarie Street.
