Labor backflip on WestConnex confusing

The WestConnex tollway project has made major headlines this week after  Local member Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten appeared to clash on Federal support for the infrastructure project.

Bill Shorten told media that the project would be supported under a Labor Government and that all existing contracts and agreements would be honored. That was a different message to the one Anthony Albanese sent two weeks beforehand at a community meeting in Balmain, where he said there would be “not a dollar more” for the WestConnex project.

Local anger in the inner west community is at an new high over the project following the expulsion of inner west councils. Marrickville, Leichhardt and Ashfield, all of whom opposed the project were replaced by an administrator.

Growing pressure on shadow infrastructure minister Anthony Albanese burst this week, following months of confusing statements on the project. A fortnight ago, Albanese said that Federal funding for the project had been handed over already, and that any remaining funding was very minor compared to the $3.5 billion already given by the Commonwealth to NSW in the form of grants and loans.

When subsequently questioned by the media, Mr Albanese said he would honour funding commitments to the project. Disapointing many anti WestConnex campaigners who had been heartened by his statement that he would stop the funding.

Earlier this year, Labor has stated publicly that all the Federal funding has been handed over to the State government. But the Department of infrastructure Investment told a City Hub reporter that as of the end of April $700 million grant moneys had not been paid over and a $ 2 billion loan agreement had not been paid over at all.

At a press conference on Tuesday Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon, “Mr Albanese has tried to walk both sides of the road, saying one thing to an audience that he thinks don’t like the project, while at the same time he stays solidly really with his party’s position. And now his own leader, Mr Shorten, has outed his attempts to walk both sides of the road.”

Senator Rhiannon said  that she and Greens Transport spokesperson  Senator Janet Rice had “written to Treasurer Scott Morrison and Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Darren Chester to request that any future grant and loan payments are suspended”  until a inn Australian National Audit office investigation into the financing of WestConnex is finished in early 2017.

“We don’t see any reason why the Labor Party cannot support us on this, if their concern about the project’s funding, planning and construction is genuine.

“While Anthony Albanese is telling the community “not one dollar from the federal Labor government” will go towards WestConnex, Shorten’s message yesterday was clear as day: Labor support WestConnex and won’t ‘repudiate any contracts, full stop’.

“Labor are pretending their hands are tied on this. The fact is that $2.3b is due to be paid after the election and Minister Fletcher has confirmed that whether the grant funding is paid is up to the government of the day.”

Mr Albanese’s opponent, Jim Casey said that if Federal funding for the project was not forwarded to NSW, it would put a halt to the project.

“The state government has had a lack of transparency around this project, which is quite frightening. But what we can believe, the project is in financial dire straits as it is,” Mr Casey said.

“So for something that is limping along, they which they haven’t identified where they are going to source streams of revenue for later stages of the project, having $2.3 billion being taken out at this point, I am confident it would make the project almost impossible,” he said.

“But if it isn’t, it is certainly going to hurt, as well as give a lot of heart to the people of the inner west of Sydney who are mobilizing against this project.”