Friday 18 January 2013

$25 million wasted for the Westconnex lemon

Finally there is someone in the media that has commenced some scrutiny of the O'Farrell government's Westconnex $10 billion proposal. In an article in today’s Daily Telegraph by Simon Benson 

As soon as the Westconnex proposal was announced in October last year I described it as a "$10 billion lemon" at http://ronhoenig.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/westconnex-10-billion-lemon.html. The announced proposal did not demonstrate in any way how it was going to address the chaos that is clogging Australia's major seaport and airport. 

I could not imagine how the NSW government could ask for money from the Commonwealth for a project in these circumstances. Now Mr Benson reveals in his article that the Commonwealth, "still has concerns that initial plans for the so called Westconnex did not address vital congestion issues particularly around Port Botany". As a result the Commonwealth is to provide $25 million so the NSW government can work out whether its proposal is a viable. 

What has Infrastructure NSW been doing for 18 months? The Premier announced this proposal with all the media fanfare as if his government had the solution to Sydney's major infrastructure backlog. It is beyond belief that the Commonwealth has to fund $25 million for a study because the O'Farrell government has not done the work it was elected to do. 

This government is a lazy government that does not have the intellectual ability to govern NSW or solve the serious infrastructure problems that this state has. 

The people of NSW punished the Labor Party in March 2011 for its performance in office, and rightfully so. However, in their anger what the people did was elect a government with no plan and no direction, other than the ones that sound good in the media. 

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