The Sydney Tribune

LABOR LIES REGARDING TOLLWAYS

NSW Opposition Leader, Chris Minns, is conducting a hate campaign on Sydney's tollways but he conveniently forgets that Labor built five of them between 1995 and 2011. In fact, Labor is responsible for building the only tollway that runs through Labor's heartland of Western Sydney, with no toll relief programme extended to this road at the time of construction, whilst continually claiming that they want toll relief for Western Sydney residents.

Below is a table showing the tollways that exist in Sydney, when they were built and under which side of politics they were built. Only current tollways are included. Those roads where tolls once existed and were later removed are excluded.

Tollway				Construction started	Party in Office

Sydney Harbour Bridge		1928			Nationalist

Sydney Harbour Tunnel		1988			Coalition

M5 Motorway			1992			Coalition

M2 Motorway			1997			Coalition

Eastern Distributor		1999			Labor

M7 Motorway			2003			Labor

Military Road E-Ramps		2005			Labor

Cross City Tunnel		2003			Labor

Lane Cove Tunnel		2007			Labor

WestConnex Network		2013			Coalition

NorthConnex Tunnel		2015			Coalition

The disappointing thing with all this, aside from Labor's lies, is that the current government hasn't done much to remind people of what has happened in the last twenty five years. Labor not only built tollways but they built them too small for the number of vehicles that now use them making the roads they built more of a tolled carpark than a motorway - yet recently built roads like WestConnex and NorthConnex are built for now and the future with tunnels that can be widened inexpensively and with other tunnels that are simply huge by world standards with the M4-M8 Mainline Tunnels on WestConnex being five lanes wide for a short distance and four lanes wide for most of the journey.

If Labor's undersizing of motorways wasn't enough of an issue, here is some more food for thought. Shortly after opening, both the Cross City Tunnel and Lane Cove Tunnel went into receivership, with the Government refusing to step in and take over the toll concessions. Labor pretty much forced suspect business models onto the contractors and the contractors took the fall. In the case of the Cross City Tunnel, its first two owners went into receivership.

Isn't it time that Chris Minns came clean and admitted that Labor has built tollways, including in Western Sydney and has at times built them poorly - undersized and in some cases with poor business models? Don't fall for Labor's tollway lies. Labor builds them and Labor believes in them.