E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
MOUNT VICTORIA

SUBJECT: Great Western Highway funding

SUSAN TEMPLEMAN: Hi everybody, I’m Susan Templeman, the Federal Member for Macquarie, and so delighted to be here for a really significant announcement that demonstrates the collaboration between the Albanese Labor Government and the Minns State Government. I’m here with my Minister for Infrastructure, Catherine King, the New South Wales Minister for Roads, Jenny Aitchison, and of course my fellow local member of parliament, Trish Doyle, Member for Blue Mountains.

This has obviously been a road situation that’s had a profound impact on our local community here in the Blue Mountains and beyond us in the Central West. I have never seen two governments work so quickly and effectively – the state government in coming up with a really innovative solution that doesn’t just fix the problem we’ve got but improves the situation here so that people will be better off after the work that’s done. And I really want to thank my minister, Catherine King, for the speed with which we have been able to respond as a federal government in order to provide support to the state government to make this possible. And I’ll now hand over to Catherine King.

CATHERINE KING: Thanks, Susan. Well, look, it’s terrific to be here today with you but also my friend and state colleague, Jenny Aitchison – we work incredibly closely together – and also Trish Doyle, the state member here.

Well, of course, back in March when residents on either side of Victoria Pass saw the concerns about what had happened here at Mitchell’s Causeway and the closure of the road, we were in there straight away. Jenny called me and spoke to me about the seriousness of the situation here, and we said from literally day one, we will be here with you in repairing this. We obviously – there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to work out the what and the how before we can make formal commitments about funding, but that really happened from day one. It’s been a really significant partnership between the NSW Minns Government and the Albanese Labor Government as well. We understand this is causing significant disruption to businesses, to families who live and work in this part of the beautiful part of NSW. And really, you can see already we haven’t let a minute go to waste. The works started straight away to work out what the solution was here.

Today we’re announcing that the Albanese Labor Government has committed $100 million in partnership with NSW Government, a 50-50 split to this $200 million project to improve – not only to fix this road, to build it back better, to build not just the two lanes back but also an east passing lane, the uphill lane, which will allow slower trucks to be able to be over in the far left and people to be able to pass those. We know that that’s been a significant issue. So building back better has been also part of the work that we’ve done.

Can I just commend both the NSW Government, but also the workers who’ve been on site? I’ve just met Reagan who’s been on here literally from day one almost 24/7, doing all the geotech work. We’ve got Seymour Whyte who’ve been here. You can see we have not let a minute go to waste in terms of trying to work out how to get this project up and running quickly and the geotech work done, understanding the complexities of this site. Behind us is a beautiful heritage, 200-year-old bridge that our ancestors built here in this community – served this community well for 200 year, and it’s time it got the care that it deserves and that we actually improve the circumstances here.

Can I also just thank the local community? I know this has been a really difficult circumstance for people. I know businesses have found that very tough. I do want to commend the NSW Government for leaning in so heavily to try and assist in that space as well. This will be a complex project to build. The work is underway, all of those early works to get all of the kit on site to be able to actually get the pylons in to build the causeway over the top and to get this work done. But I do want to thank the community for their patience. It’s a little while longer to go. We’re looking at mid-2027 to get this project finished, which really is a record. We’ve done this before. We’ve done it before over in the west with Fitzroy Crossing. That’s been a really important project. But I just want to thank both the NSW Government, Transport for NSW and the workers here on site for just the dedication that they’ve shown of getting this work done so quickly, and thank the community for their forbearance.

JENNY AITCHISON: Thanks, Catherine, and thanks to the colleagues here. It is a really important day for communities on either side of this Victoria Pass but also the broader central-western Blue Mountains communities, and in fact our state. We know that the Great Western Highway is a critical connector for freight, for local communities and for all motorists who are seeking to travel in from the west into Sydney. As everyone has said, this has been a critical disruptor. We acknowledge the pain and suffering that has been a feature for businesses, for local families and communities in this area, and I want to pay tribute to my colleagues, Janelle Saffin and Steve Kamper, as part of the NSW Government, but in fact all ministers across all portfolios who have leaned in to try to assist us in resolving issues like patient transfers, school transfers, small business support, tourism support. It has been a whole of government program here.

The announcement today of $100 million from the federal Albanese Labor Government to the match the Minns Labor Government’s commitment of $100 million is a great announcement. It really reflects where we are with the project – 109 days in, we got workforce on site with the contractors determined, and then we entered into that alliance contract. Since that time, Seymour Whyte and Transport for NSW have been working together, literally racing against the clock to get this solution happening, to recruit workforce. We now have more than 150 staff and workers who are inducted onto site here, 40 working at any time on site each day, and so this really is a significant piece of work. We’ll be able to commence that major piling work next week – we’ve got the 76-tonne rig in behind us – but we’ve been doing the micro-piling to prepare for that. We’ve always said this is a very fragile and difficult environment to work in. It’s required a lot of trust from both governments, from contractors, from Transport and the community to really understand the complexity and danger of this job.

Down on that wall, just on one side of it, you’re 12 metres above the ground when you’re working on this. It’s been a site that is often moving, so it is a very dangerous work site. And I want to thank each and every one of the workers who have committed to do that work, from Reagan who was there at the very beginning to all of those who have now joined him on site with Transport and with Seymour Whyte. It’s really important.
The other great news for the community today is that this does confirm that we will be able to do that third climbing lane. Of course, our priority will be getting that connection of the two lanes up as soon as possible. While we’re doing that construction work, there’ll be continued planning and design work on the third lane. That’s a real win for this community, as is the work that we’ve seen being done on the Darling Causeway detour route, another $50 million investment by the NSW Minns Labor Government, to ensure that that work and that detour is as safe as it possibly can be.

I also want to call out to TrainLink for the extra coach services and rail services they’ve provided throughout this and so quickly. This is a difficult process, we get that, but we are on track to get the work done. We won’t rest until we get it completed, and I want to thank everyone for their work. I’m going to hand over to Trish Doyle now to talk about the impact on her community.

TRISH DOYLE: Thanks everyone for being here, and particularly thanks to our two ministers, state and federal, and my colleague Susan Templeman. The first thing I want to do is acknowledge Transport for NSW and the various teams across roads and rail who’ve swept in to support the communities of Blue Mountains and Central West. Today is a great announcement, gives some certainty to our communities that work is progressing as you can see behind us, and that additional capacity of an extra lane is exactly what people have been asking for.

I want to acknowledge the pain and the frustration and the disruption of our communities, and thank people for their patience and respect in the main. It’s been a really rough time but as Minister Aitchison has just said, there has been a huge amount from all three tiers of government, actually. I’d like to acknowledge our local councils both in the Blue Mountain and in Lithgow as well for working together. This is what happens, a great announcement when you do have all three tiers of government working together for the people.
Thank you.

CATHERINE KING: Happy to take any questions.

JOURNALIST: Can we get a breakdown of what that $100 million of funding will specifically go to?

CATHERINE KING: Building the road, basically. That’s what it’s going to go to. So, what you’ll see – I think we’ve got some of the engineers and the construction workers here that might be able to answer some of the technical questions. But in essence, you’re building a new bridge over the top and an additional lane. So, that money will go to basically reconstructing what we see behind us.

JOURNALIST: But is it specifically for that additional lane?

CATHERINE KING: It’s the whole project. The whole project is $200 million, so building back –

JENNY AITCHISON: Do you want me to – I’ll just speak to that. So look, back when we announced the tender of this project, we didn’t have the final cost of it because we were obviously working with the contractor in that alliance project. We were working on the final design work to see what was going to be achievable and also working on the final geotech. We needed the contractors to be on site, to actually look at that work themselves and have confidence in how it could be delivered. We’re also talking to the federal government, and I have to thank Catherine and the Prime Minister, in fact, who’ve both been so supportive of the project. The federal Labor Albanese Government has been there from the start with us offering that support. But it wouldn’t have been appropriate at that time to release the funding. We now are confident that within that $200 million envelope that will complete the upgrade of this to get the proper bridge done on the two lanes but will also provide that third lane.

JOURNALIST: Now that extra lane, when we had the announcement a few weeks ago, the contractor did say that you weren’t going to look at adding an extra lane because we wanted to get the path fixed as soon as possible, and that wasn’t part of the design at that stage. Now that that has changed, are we looking at a later completion date?

JENNY AITCHISON: Okay, so what we said back then was our number one priority is to get the two lanes reconnected quickly as possible and to see what was possible with the third lane. We have been pushing for that. It’s a really tough brief that we’ve given Transport and the contractors to say how can you do this? It also required support from Minister Saffin – that’s the Minister for Recovery – to ensure that that work could be done as part of the betterment project on this site. So, we had always intended to try to do that, but we didn’t want to give the community false hope until we got in place and actually had all of that sorted. Now we have that sorted. The two-lane will definitely be completed by the end of the second quarter in 2027. That’s our commitment, barring a catastrophic issue, but the third lane, it will be undertaken within that time but we don’t have a final period at that time.

What we’ve said and what I’ve said all the way through this is we want to be clear and transparent with the community, and we want to give them the information we know to be true at that time. I don’t want to give them false hopes or send them down the rabbit hole.

JOURNALIST: Do you have an estimate of how long that extra lane could take once it’s started?

JENNY AITCHISON: Look, I don’t have that estimate at this time that I can give you. I want the contractors to really focus all of their major effort on the restoration of the two lanes. That’s the most important thing. We’ve heard that loud and clear from the community. The quicker we can get that done, the quicker everyone’s back to normal. The work on the third lane is commencing already, but it will be more in the design in this early stage, and then as we go it will enable the workforce to move over.

JOURNALIST: We’ve had quite a few crashes on the Darling Causeway recently, and some local community members are really worried about that going into El Niño and the bushfire summer period. Some community members in Mount Victoria have particularly been asking for an emergency plan about what would happen if the Darling Causeway gets cut off or closed [inaudible]… Is Transport for NSW looking at emergency contingency plans for that, if that may happen?

JENNY AITCHISON: Transport for NSW has been working on the plans for that detour and what’s been going on there since day one. That’s why we made that commitment of $50 million; that’s why we poured literally 30,000 tonnes of asphalt onto that causeway, to improve the friction, to widen it, to strengthen the pavement so that actually gets the infrastructure piece right. That’s why we’ve got all those Transport workers around the site to ensure that all the signage and all the details are very clear. It’s why we’ve got extra police enforcement. It’s why we’ve got the tow trucks there that can do a tow in about five minutes. Now, that’s the work we can do. But what- and we’ve also done the speed zone review there to reduce the speeds to really understand that there is far more traffic than normal on that road.

What we’re asking the community though now is they have to step up. We need drivers to drive to the conditions, to drive to the speed limits and make sure that they are being safe. We have all seen videos of ridiculous maniacal behaviour on the road. Now, I’m not attributing that to the particular crashes. They obviously have to go through those investigations, but what I’m saying is everybody needs to do better here. We know during the winter months it’s particularly difficult with ice on the roads and also fog for visibility. That’s why I am so determined that this project has to get done by the end of June next year because we don’t want to go through another winter having to rely on the causeway. But by the same token, people have to take responsibility here. The 10 minutes that somebody might save taking that detour could mean two to three hours delays for everyone else if there’s a crash. It could mean a loss of life. I take that extremely seriously and I’m just urging everyone to do better.

JOURNALIST: I hear that you’ve invested in the infrastructure in a physical sense. In terms of an intangible sense [inaudible] bushfires… has any work been done there?

JENNY AITCHISON: Look, that’s been part of that work and that has been being done and that is, you know, is there, and we can – you know, I hear the concern. I’m quite happy to direct Transport to be a bit more transparent with the community on that if that’s the concern. But I know that all of this has been based on the idea that there could be you know, a fire or floods or whatever.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Last question for feds, please.

JOURNALIST: Are you prepared to – you know, if this does go on and budget blows out, is this a long-term commitment, I guess, for the federal government?

CATHERINE KING: Well, certainly as I said we’ve been there from day one in terms of this project, and I know there were very early calls for us to commit money. But as I explained at the time, what we need to do is for NSW to have the space to do the work to actually have this costed and done properly and we’re confident that that’s the case. We’ve contributed $100 million. As with all projects, where there are circumstances where they go over budget, I’m sure Jenny will be on the phone to me pretty quickly about that, and we’ll consider that through our usual budget processes. We’ve seen projects like this across the country. This has been – and having that really early contractor engagement, we’re pretty confident in terms of the cost of this project. But of course, whether the project gets extended for any circumstances, we’re on the table here to work with the NSW Government.

JOURNALIST: Will the federal government offer any financial support for businesses?

CATHERINE KING: That’s really a matter for the state government, and I’m pleased that they’ve been doing that. Really our focus has been on what do we need to do from an infrastructure point of view to get this road reopened.

JOURNALIST: In terms of going forward, is there any possibility for another westbound lane to be added or is it just…

CATHERINE KING: No, I think the geotech work you can see, it’s a pretty constrained site, like it’s a really constrained site. And it’s terrific that they’ve actually been able to get the eastbound lane, and that’s really where you want it. You can see if you’ve got a slow truck and you’re stuck behind that truck, you really can’t do anything about that. Being able to get that climbing lane will make a really significant difference to people here in this community, and getting that done. The fact that we’ve been able build back better after this circumstance where the road has been closed really is a great win for the local community.

ENDS