THE SECOND Berejiklian budget appears to have delivered little new money to the Nambucca Shire.
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The promise of funds for the Macksville Hospital redevelopment was honoured with $2.5 million (from the $50 million budget) now flowing for the design phase of the project.
The Member for Oxley, Melinda Pavey, said the project would see a lot more money next year when construction actually begins.
The Pacific Highway Upgrade remains a big ticket item with ongoing work between Warrell Creek all the way to Urunga included in a State/Federal package of $386 million.
“The full restoration of the 80/20 funding arrangement with the Federal Government has ensured the work can be completed as soon as possible,” Mrs Pavey said.
“The investment in infrastructure is very important because it means jobs growth – we have seen that here in Oxley with the Pacific Highway projects.
“Looking ahead we are working on helping councils with infrastructure projects that will encourage industry and manufacturing leading to jobs in years ahead.”
She said the $35 million investment in a new fleet of XPT trains was part of an overall boost to regional transport that also included regional CCTV, personal safety cameras and customer information systems.
Community Transport received $5.7 million, which Mrs Pavey said would see, for example, an enhancement of services for people needing wheelchair accessible transport.
Other items of interest to Oxley are $1.3 million for the maintenance of existing social housing stock (from a statewide total of $280 million) and an acceleration of the Mobile Black Spots Program with $15 million committed to its second phase.
Small business benefits with the axing of three business taxes plus a Jobs Incentive Fund offering a $6000 payroll tax rebate for each new staff member.
Public libraries have received a small funding increase of $800,000 to their $28.3 million budget.
Nambucca Shire mayor, Rhonda Hoban, said the biggest problem was trying to work out what was actually new money as opposed to the redistribution of existing funding.
“The budget talks about a $10.7 million boost to the existing Fixing Country Roads Program but in reality that won’t go far on the 164,000 kilometres of local roads NSW councils are responsible for.”
She said while it was pleasing to see the funding maintained, it fell a long way short of doing anything to address the infrastructure backlog for roads and bridges.
She said the $6.9 million announced for natural disaster restoration works in Nambucca and Bellingen Shires was clearly old money because neither shire had received anything for damages after the recent event.
The number of random breath tests will increase from 5.8 million to 6.5 million per year. The wages cap for public servants continues.