Federal Budget will include just over $3 billion in additional funding for key road projects in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney
Anna Game-Lopata | May 14, 2013
Tonight’s Federal Budget will include just over $3 billion in additional funding for three key road projects in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.
The funding, which Transport and Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese says equates to about $269 for every Australian, will go toward projects in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney.
In Melbourne, Albanese says the Budget will deliver an additional $525 million further funding for the M80 project, which he says will improve “productivity and road safety”.
The Gateway North project in Queensland will receive an extra $718 million on top of the $125 million already “put on the table”.
“We’ve made a record investment in Brisbane motorways, including the Ipswich Motorway, including the range of roads right around South East Queensland,” Albanese says.
Meanwhile in NSW, he says provision will be made to match a funding commitment of $1.8 billion from the NSW Government for Sydney motorways subject to planning for the upgrade of the M4 and the M5 being completed.
He adds the onus will also be placed on the NSW Government to achieve its objectives of “getting people to the city, getting freight to the port” and following through on its election promise that there would be “no new tolls on old roads”.
Albanese says the Federal Government has more than doubled the roads budget and increased the rail budget by more than 10 times.
He told reporters the Government has set about rectifying the “infrastructure deficit” it was faced with when elected in 2007.
“The Australian position was 20 out of 25 in the OECD,” he says.
“We set about with a plan to make sure that we dealt with productivity, that we had a measured approach to infrastructure planning in conjunction with state and territory governments.”
“Infrastructure investment leads to higher economic growth when targeted towards the most productive areas and that is exactly what this government has been about,” the minister says.
Albanese says budget priorities were made in terms of the national interest.
“Our announcements are not prioritised on the basis of marginal electorates, [we’re not] ignoring the last mile, for getting goods to the port, which is what used to happen under the former government,” he says.
