SHORTEN’S $100M FOR NEW BRIDGE
FEDERAL Labor leader Bill Shorten will arrive in Hobart today with a $100 million promise to start building a replacement for the Bridgewater Bridge, should he become Prime Minister.
Mr Shorten last night told the Mercury there had been “too much talk and not enough action” on replacing the bridge over the River Derwent that was constructed in the 1940s.
The full cost of replacing the bridge has been estimated at $576 million, but Mr Shorten said the $100 million would be a “down payment” from federal Labor. He said the cash was the amount cut by the Abbott government from the Midland Highway upgrade in the 2014 Budget.
OPPOSITION leader Bill Shorten will visit Hobart today to announce that a Labor government would commit $100 million towards construction of the $576 million Bridgewater Bridge.
“A Shorten Labor government will restore the $100 million cut by the Turnbull Government from the Midland Highway upgrade and use the funding as a down payment to build a replacement for the outdated Bridgewater Bridge,” he said.
“The new bridge will create local jobs and improve the safety and efficiency of freight and passenger movement in the state, and bring the bridge into line with current loading and design standards.”
The 1940s bridge is on the Infrastructure Australia priority list and had been expected to form the centrepiece of the next commonwealth-state infrastructure agreement, which will start in mid-2019.
In 2013 the Gillard government pledged $500 million to the Midland Highway upgrade but that was cut to $400 million in the Abbott government’s horror 2014 Budget.
“The Liberals have had five years to get this project under way, but have done nothing,” Mr Shorten said. Labor infrastructure spokesman Anthony Albanese said in an opinion piece in the Mercury that Budget documents revealed a slump in infrastructure grants to Tasmanian from $174 million in 2017-18 to $61.5 million in 2020-21.
But Mr Shorten’s Tassie promise is modest compared with Queensland promises this week, including $2.24 billion for the Brisbane cross city rail project, $1 billion for the M1 between Brisbane and the Gold Coast and $80 million for the Bruce Highway at Cairns.
Labor has also promised to restore Australian Federal Police officers at Hobart International Airport and to provide $30 million for elective surgery if it wins the next election due next year.
The Hodgman Government promised during the state election campaign to commit $46 million over five years towards the bridge’s replacement. A business case was submitted to Infrastructure Australia in January.