$30 000 000 000 for roads, page-2

Ministry for infrastructure :

Building a national road network fit for the 21st Century:

The 2012–2013 Budget injects an extra $3.56 billion into Federal Labor's Nation Building Program, funding which if matched by the NSW Government could be used to complete the full duplication of the Pacific Highway by the end of 2016, a goal first established by former Prime Minister John Howard.

The latest estimates put rebuilding the remaining sections at $7.1 billion.

Federal Labor's prepared to step up. But completing this massive nation building task—the largest and most complex road construction project ever undertaken in this country—sooner rather than later will require a genuine 50:50 partnership between both levels of governments.

If such an agreement can be reached, then in just five years the nation's three biggest cities—Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne—will at long last be linked by dual carriageway highways designed and built to the highest engineering and safety standards.

In the meantime, a significant milestone in the delivery of this great national endeavour will be reached. More than half a century after work began on rebuilding and duplicating the Hume Highway between Sydney and Melbourne, the job is on track to be completed by the middle of next year.

Beyond the duplication of the Pacific and Hume highways our $28 billion road construction program, the biggest since the creation of the national network almost 40 years ago, is also updating key sections of the Bruce, Warrego, Newell, Stuart, Princes, Colder, Dukes, Midland, Great Eastern and Great Northern highways.


Significantly, three quarters of the Federal roads budget is earmarked for projects in rural and regional Australia.

Of the 217 major roads projects scheduled to be delivered under the existing National Building Program (2008–09 to 2013–14), 103 have been completed and a further 81 are underway