Michael Sukkar MP

Constituency Statement: Funding Cuts for Local Roads

Labor keeps cutting vital road projects in my electorate of Deakin. Since they entered government 18 months ago, Labor has made savage cuts to infrastructure projects throughout Melbourne’s east, but particularly in my electorate of Deakin. For anyone across the country who is having to deal with road issues, congestion, a lack of parking and bottlenecks, it’s about to get a whole lot worse under this government because, coupled with these road and infrastructure project cancellations, Labor wants to bring in an additional 1.5 million migrants. Minister King’s short and sharp ’90-day review’, is now nearly at 200 days. And now the Treasurer is blaming critical infrastructure for his inflation problem.

In my electorate of Deakin we’ve seen threats to cut the $50 million road-widening of Canterbury Road throughout my electorate. We’re also being threatened with the cancellation of the upgrade to the Tortice Drive and Warrandyte Road intersections, something that my community has fought for. It’s a small, but important, road project in my electorate which is also being threatened. This is in addition to projects already cancelled: the $50 million upgrade to Dorset Road—a massively congested road—and, of course the Heatherdale Station car park, which was about to start and help commuters get on the train in the morning. Shame on Labor.

Click here for a PDF copy of the Hansard extract for this speech.