F3 link study a 'stunt', says Andrews

A proposed study into a road link between the Woy Woy Peninsula and the F3 was an election stunt, according to the State Member for Gosford, Ms Marie Andrews.

However, Federal Member for Robertson Mr Jim Lloyd who announced the study accused the Labor Party of "turning its back" on the Peninsula by not supporting the link.

Ms Andrews told State Parliament: "It is a desperate hoax from a Commonwealth Government prepared to say anything to cling to power."

She said: "The Mooney Mooney Bridge is built from pre-stressed concrete and is Australia's highest road bridge: Jim Lloyd's alternative crossing will be built entirely of hot air.

"It is unfunded, unviable and would never gain environmental approval."

Ms Andrews said that the proposal from Mr Lloyd would breach the National Parks Act.

"The road would not be permissible without an Act of Parliament," Ms Andrews said.

"If he was serious he'd have approached the NSW Government, but he didn't because it's a pre-election stunt that could never be delivered.

"Jim Lloyd knows he'd never get approval to drive a bulldozer through the protected koala habitats or Aboriginal rock carvings between Woy Woy and the F3."

Ms Andrews told parliament: "No-one on the Central Coast will take seriously the Howard Government's suggestion of a $500 million road carved through a national park."

Ms Andrews said the million-dollar feasibility study was a waste of taxpayers' funds.

"Central Coast residents would prefer their money spent on real roads, not on consultants - particularly when we know what they'll find," Ms Andrews said.

"If anyone suggested to residents of the Central Coast that we had many hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on the region, no-one would suggest a series of expensive and complex bridges across remote creeks.

"It wouldn't secure the region's water supply, it wouldn't create lasting employment or economic activity and it wouldn't boost health or education.

"The Member for Robertson should be condemned for a desperate stunt that puts his own political survival above the responsible management of our roads, our finances and our stewardship of the state's significant natural assets."

In a media release last week, Mr Lloyd said: "The contempt shown by the Labor Party towards the Peninsula in trying to stop this progressive and visionary initiative which will benefit the entire southern-half of the Central Coast shows where Labor stands when it comes to better infrastructure for the residents of the Coast.

"The Labor candidate for Robertson refuses to tell the residents of the Peninsula she doesn't want them to have a direct link to the F3.

"The Labor Party is so scared that this is a great initiative for the Central Coast that it has resorted to using State Parliament to say no to new infrastructure on the Peninsula.

"The State Labor Government has now threatened to block any road proposal from the Peninsula to the F3.

"I would have thought that the Labor party would have definitely me-too'ed this initiative given its many benefits for the Central Coast - instead Labor wants to condemn residents not only on the Peninsula but of all suburbs in the southern half of the Coast to gridlock on the Central Coast Highway.

"I now call on Belinda Neal and her husband, State Minister for the Central Coast, John Della Bosca, to support this visionary proposal for the residents of the Peninsula or at least have the guts to tell Peninsula residents to their faces that they wont allow a link road to be built."

Press release, 17, 19 Oct 2007 Marie Andrews, Member for Gosford Jim Lloyd, Member for Robertson