Upgrades to the main highway between Brisbane and Sydney should take priority over internet access, says federal opposition leader.
Federal opposition leader Tony Abbott says completing upgrades to the Pacific Highway between Brisbane and Sydney is a bigger priority than the $50 billion National Broadband Network.
The comments come after the latest fatal crash claimed two more lives yesterday, including that of an 11-year-old boy, on a single-lane section of the notorious highway near Urunga, about 27km south of Coffs Harbour on the NSW mid-north coast.
A truck collided head-on with a ute, killing the 38-year-old driver, before veering off the road and into the holiday house where the boy was sleeping.
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It has also been revealed the NSW government removed a fixed speed camera near the accident location months after it was elected last March.
While the Bellingen Mayor Mark Troy has called for the camera to be reinstalled, and authorities today claimed its removal may have been a contributor to the crash, Mr Abbott has called on the Federal Government to expedite long overdue upgrades to one of Australia’s most fatal stretches of road.
“I think it’s very important that we duplicate the Pacific Highway from the Queensland border to Newcastle as fast as possible,” he told reporters in Canberra this morning.
“This is an urgent national priority. The government had committed to getting this job [done] by 2016. I doubt very much that they’re going to make that deadline as things stand.
“It is always a question of priorities, though. As far as I’m concerned it is far more important to get the Pacific Highway duplicated than it is to spend $50 billion-plus doing what the private sector could easily do with vastly less money with the national broadband network.
“So I’m very happy to be bi-partisan about finishing the Pacific Highway as quickly as possible. I’ve got to say to the government in all candour that it would be so much easier to do this if they weren’t wasting money on the greatest white elephant this country has ever seen, the National Broadband Network.
“Obviously we’re always going to have accidents but the risk of really serious accidents is dramatically reduced when you have dual carriageway on major routes.
“We will save lives if we duplicate the highway as quickly as possible and that’s why it really is a far more important priority than the National Broadband Network at this time.
“It’s highly unlikely the government will meet its 2016 target for duplicating the highway.
“It would be easier … if we weren’t spending so much borrowed money on the National Broadband Network.”
http://smh.drive.com.au/roads-and-traffic/abbott-pacific-highway-spending-more-i...Perhaps this issue could be avoided if trucks finally realised they are not sport cars and actually kept to the speed limit, or even better, if the governments imposed further regulation to keep trucks to a restricted speed limit.
Once again Tony misses the actual issue and attempts to use an incident for political gain. I'm a little confused though, I thought the "$50 billion" ($36 billion in fact) from the NBN was going to be put back into the coffers for savings to fund the Liberal $70 BiLLIoN Black hole? Now it's going to be used for road works???? Tony...inconsistent again? What a surprise.
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Tony once again uses incident for political gain (Read 7737 times)
