Rob Oakeshott has returned fire at the National party after the Nationals’ Warren Truss, David Gillespie and Federal Member for Cowper Luke Hartsuyker accused the Local Federal MP of lying about Commonwealth funding for the Pacific Highway.
Nationals leader and Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Warren Truss said that last month he announced that a Coalition Government will redirect $2.08 billion from the Epping to Parramatta rail line to fully fund and fast-track the Pacific Highway duplication.
“It lifts guaranteed federal funding to complete the highway to $5.6 billion and restores the traditional 80:20 federal-state funding split for national highways. It puts an end to Labor’s political stunts and demands for unachievable 50:50 funding from NSW,” Mr Truss said.
“It was a commitment met with relief by communities along the entire NSW mid and north coast.
“Enter Rob Oakeshott. He slammed the announcement making the bizarre claim that he had already secured the transfer of the $2.08 billion from the defunct Epping to Parramatta rail line to the Pacific Highway.
“During Senate Estimates on Tuesday, Senator Fiona Nash asked if funding is still allocated for all nine projects in the Contingency Fund, including the Epping-Parramatta Railway ($2.08 billion).
“Department Secretary Mike Mrdak said: ‘All of these projects are government commitments for Nation Building 2. The program commences in 2014-15. So that is why, at the moment, they sit in the ‘contingency reserve’.”
Independent Lyne MP Rob Oakeshott said media releases from the Nationals politicians accusing him of telling ‘porkies’ on the transfer of funds from the proposed Epping-to-Parramatta rail line to the Pacific Highway, is about harvesting votes – not about keeping their 2016 promise.
“As I said a month ago, it was ‘my reading of the budget that the record funding earmarked for the Pacific Highway upgrade was partly possible because NSW wouldn’t commit to the State-Commonwealth funded Epping-Parramatta rail project’,” Mr Oakeshott said.
“There’s a big difference between contingency funding five, 10 or 15 years down the track as opposed to real money in a budget and in the forward estimates, which is the work schedule for the next four years.
“The Epping-Parramatta rail project is not there. The Pacific Highway is.
“For the first time ever, the 2012 forward estimates have a record allocation of $3.5 billion from the Commonwealth to complete its share of the Pacific Highway.
“If the Federal National Party is now saying it will put ‘contingency funding’ onto the next four-year forward estimates and get more highway projects built in the next four years, then great – I fully support their actions in honouring their promise to finish the upgrade by 2016.”
