Page 2246 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 August 2022
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That this Assembly:
(1) notes that the:
(a) Commonwealth Government currently funds road projects on an 80:20 basis with state and territory governments if the project is in a regional area, while funding for road projects within the defined urban area for each of Australia’s capital cities is on a 50:50 basis;
(b) Commonwealth Government currently considers all roads within the ACT as urban roads regardless of whether they are in an urban area or not;
(c) ACT is home to a variety of regional roads, some of which are largely unsealed, and are not urban, such as Boboyan Road, Smiths Road, Brindabella Road and others;
(d) Commonwealth Government considers the same roads, including Boboyan Road and Brindabella Road, on the NSW side of the border, as regional; and
(e) ACT Government proposed upgrades to Boboyan Road, on the basis of an 80:20 funding arrangement with the Commonwealth, however, this was rejected by the previous Commonwealth Government; and
(2) calls on the Commonwealth Government to:
(a) reclassify roads in the ACT, which are regional roads and not in Canberra’s urban footprint, as regional, thus attracting 80:20 funding for agreed projects;
(b) work collaboratively with the ACT Government to explore further opportunities for co-investment on the ACT’s regional roads; and
(c) continue support for road safety improvements and upgrades on rural roads in the ACT and the broader south-east NSW region.
I am moving this motion in the Assembly today to seek the Assembly’s support for a fairer deal for the ACT’s regional roads. The ACT is often called a city-state, but this ignores the fact that a large part of our geography is, in fact, not part of Canberra’s urban footprint. We are home to beautiful mountains and nature reserves, including Namadgi National Park, Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, and part of the Brindabella National Park, as well.
We have rural villages like Uriarra Village and Tharwa, and rural properties from Tennent to Coree. We are connected with the region that surrounds us in New South Wales from Brindabella and Tumut, to Shannon’s Flat and Adaminaby. The connections to these destinations are regional roads, often unsealed and often in rural and remote locations in our geography, as they plot a winding path through the landscape connecting villages and towns, communities, properties and residences, farms, dams, rivers and walking tracks.
They provide a lifeline to communities affected by bushfire, and they provide access to remote parts of the ACT for the emergency services that use them to protect us, property, livestock and bushland. Boboyan Road is a really great example. Boboyan Road is a 42 kilometre-long stretch of rural road linking the ACT with the New South Wales Snowy Mountains.
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