Debates and Questions Day 2 - 8 May 2019
Parliamentary Record 19
Debates and Questions for 13th Assembly 2019 - 2020; ParliamentNT; Parliamentary Record; 13th Assembly 2016 - 2020
2019-05-08
Made available by the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
English
Debates; Questions
Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
Darwin
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Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
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https://hdl.handle.net/10070/307364
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/787506
DEBATES AND QUESTIONS Wednesday 8 May 2019 6070 Port Keats Road Mr HIGGINS to MINISTER for INFRASTRUCTURE, PLANNING and LOGISTICS Federal Labors plan to deliver a fair go for the NT pledges $20m to the Port Keats Road, but with no date and no detail. NT Budget Paper No 3 only contains $1.6m. In my letter of 5 April 2019 I asked for a breakdown of the $60m committed by the federal Coalition to the Wadeye Road. In your response you said the NT Government will contribute $15m. Yesterday you said: you and I will be very old before we see the road to Wadeye bituminised. But, if you vote Labor we might still see it. Minister, is this more of your bully-boy tactics in threatening the people of my electorate over the lack of support for Labor at the last Territory election? Can you now give us an honest answer on what money is planned to be spent to provide access to the town with the largest number of Aboriginal Territorians? ANSWER Madam Speaker, federal Labor is committed to bringing forward the roads infrastructure to a five-year plan rather than the 10-year plan that we saw from the federal government. I listened to the Leader of the Oppositions budget reply. He talked about investing more money into roads. He may not be aware that 80% of funding for roads in the Territory comes from the federal government. If he wants to talk about bringing forward road infrastructure in the Territory, he needs to have some immediate conversations with his federal leader. If he thinks the Northern Territory Government will be able to fund roads 100%, he must be mistaken. The Opposition Leader needs to get ScoMo on the phone to pledge some money to get the road infrastructure in the Territory brought forward. Otherwise it will not happen way out in the never never. Our government, with federal Labor, has committed to Territory roads. The other thing that disappointed me was that I thought Scullion had the opportunity to leave Territory politics with a landmark Madam SPEAKER: Minister, when referring to members of federal parliament could you please refer to them by their titlePrime Minister or Senator. Ms LAWLER: Sorry, I thought once we called an election he was not in that role. Madam SPEAKER: Minister, please withdraw that. Ms LAWLER: I withdraw. I thought Senator Scullion had the opportunity to leave federal politics with the landmark building of the Tanamai highway. I look up at the gallery and I see cattlemen and the trucking industryand the Member for Stuartwho would have loved to see the Tanamai Road fully bituminised. We will not see that Mr HIGGINS: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Standing Order 110: relevance. My question was about the Wadeye road and a bit of truth, not the Tanamai and twisted facts. Madam SPEAKER: The minister has time to answer the question. Ms LAWLER: Madam Speaker, what we ended up seeing federally was only $160m. With the 80:20 rule, the Tanamai will only get around $200m, rather than the $600m that I had hoped Senator Scullion was going to commit to. As I said in my letter, we are putting our 20% commitment in. Federally, they talked about the Wadeye road not being done for 10 years. We will bring it forward five years if we get the funding from federal Labor. You need to vote Labor if you want those roads to be done in five years, not 10.