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May 8th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda The biggest ticket item in the federal budget’s transport spending might never actually be spent.
The government has set aside $3.6 billion to finish duplicating the Pacific Highway in northern NSW.
That should go to the roadworks between 2013/14 and 2016/17.
But the commonwealth says it will only spend the money if the NSW government matches it in its own budget later this year.
“We are simply asking the NSW government to fulfil the commitments they gave prior to the last state election and to honour the funding arrangements originally put in place in 1996,” Transport Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement on Tuesday.
The other major project that got funding was the Torrens and Goodwood junctions rail project in South Australia.
The $232 million work, to be done in 2015/16, will separate Adelaide’s suburban rail network from the east-west freight network and remove bottlenecks at the junctions.
About $38 million will be spent over the next three years to establish national transport regulators for heavy vehicles, rail safety and maritime safety.
Funding for the Roads to Recovery and black spots programs will be continued at current levels until 2019.
With high speed rail continuing to float around the national agenda, the government will spend $20 million over four years to improve national transport planning.
A particular focus will be letting the high speed rail unit continue its evaluation of the viability of having a very fast train along eastern Australia.
Despite much speculation it would be scrapped, the diesel fuel rebate for off-road vehicles has not been changed further.
It will be cut by six cents on July 1, which was part of the carbon pricing legislation passed last year.
The subsidy costs the federal government about $5 billion a year. About $2 billion of this comes from mining companies.
Australian Automobile Association’s Andrew McKellar said the federal government’s funds for the Pacific Highway should not be conditional, but at the same time urged NSW to step up to the plate and pay its share.
He was otherwise displeased with the government’s efforts on transport, saying infrastructure spending had been more than halved to $3.6 billion this year, down from $7.6 billion in the past financial year.
“That’s a result that sells Australian motorists short and which will undermine future efforts to improve road safety,” Mr McKellar told reporters in Canberra.
The NRMA said the budget contained little good news for motorists.
“Tonight’s announcement contains little good news for motorists who were hoping that the state’s roads would get a much-needed funding boost,” NRMA Motoring Services President Wendy Machin said in a statement.
Funding for the Pacific Highway was the one positive, she said, but it should come through whether the NSW government matched it or not.
“We want the Commonwealth Government to commit the $3.56 billion it announced for the Pacific Highway without condition and to work with the NSW Government to finish the highway by 2016.”
Nationally, the NRMA welcomed the continuation of the Roads to Recovery and Blackspot programs, as well as a $4 million injection to extend the Seat Belts on Regional School Buses program for the next four years.
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