Talk is cheap: RAC assessment of Federal election policies

19 August 2010

The RAC says Western Australia has largely missed out on a promised spending splurge on road and rail projects by the major parties in the Federal election.

With less than 48 hours to go before polling day, the RAC has released its assessment of the responses from the major parties to its “Take the Brakes Off” campaign.

The “Take the Brakes Off” campaign called for an increase in WA’s share of Federal road funding from 10 per cent to 15 per cent to help fund projects to ease congestion, lift road safety and help grow the economy.

The RAC asked for responses to six simple questions on where the parties stood on giving Western Australia a fairer share of Federal road funding.

RAC Head of Member Advocacy Matt Brown said that while the official party responses all recognised the importance of WA getting a fair share, there were no specific commitments to actually deliver this.

“We warned at the start of the election campaign that nice words won’t fix our roads,” Mr Brown said.

“A rough calculation shows that the major parties between them have promised more than $9billion for new road and rail projects up and down the Eastern seaboard.

“When it comes to major road and public transport infrastructure, Canberra’s eyes are focussed squarely on the big population East coast states.

“To date only the ALP has made a commitment to a major project in Western Australia with its $480million pledge to the Gateway WA airport roads project, which was the RAC’s top priority.

“The big concern is that neither major party has committed to lifting Western Australia’s overall share of Federal road funding.

“Without this commitment we could be in for another three years of Canberra ignoring Western Australia’s road and public transport needs, regardless of the election result.”

The RAC assessment of the official party responses can be found at Take the brakes off.

Download the release (pdf)