Mitchell's Causeway

I just want to acknowledge the Roads Minister, Jenny Aitchison.

You'll remember we had the Minister on the program a number of weeks ago just for an update on the work being done on Victoria Pass, you know, Mitchell's Causeway, the closure of the Great Western Highway.

And she gave me a guarantee that they would keep the local communities in the mountains and Lithgow and the Central West updated.

And we spoke about sort of, you know, sharing some photos of and just letting people know how the works are going.

See, um, we, we're quite happy to run 19 meter B-doubles up and across there.

The issue has always been the r- the turn radius and the, and the weight capacity of the various pieces of infrastructure like Mitchell's Causeway.

Um, and you can't take a B-double over the, over the road.

But we're getting bigger and bigger combinations and unfortunately that stretch of road through there, even if they go ahead and make the proposed, uh, changes, well, I don't know if they're even proposed, I think they're gonna happen now, extra overtaking lanes-

All right.

We'll do that after this.

Maybe they wrote that song knowing what would happen to the Mitchell's Causeway in 2026 or 2025.

Solid rock, we're standing on sacred ground.

So $100 million has been allocated by the Commonwealth, matching the $100 million committed by the New South Wales Government in the 2026-2027 New South Wales state budget, bringing the total budget for the project to $200 million.

Now, since the closure of Mitchell's Causeway and Victoria Pass due to serious cracking, Transport for New South Wales acted swiftly to diagnose the site failure.

But someone had to come up with the money.

That's now been done, and that's positive.

The federal government's allocated one hundred million dollars funding for rebuilding the Great Western Highway at Victoria Pass.

That matches the allocation of funding by the Minns government for the stretch of highway in the Blue Mountains, which was closed in March because of cracking and movement.

The Federal Minister for Infrastructure, Catherine King, says the bridge at Mitchell's Causeway was built by convicts.

Figure two hundred years, [laughs] it's done pretty well.

Prime Minister.

On 30 June, I stood in this House and asked when we would see federal funding for more lanes over the closed Convict Bridge on the Great Western Highway and an ongoing business support package.

Since that time, we have seen accidents, detours and road closures seemingly on a daily basis.

In fact, I was at the Donnybrook Hotel just recently and business is down by 60 per cent.

Prime Minister, when will we see some federal funding for more lanes over the closed Convict Bridge and an ongoing business support package? I

call the Prime Minister.

I thank the member for Kalaya for his question and for his strong advocacy, together with the member for Macquarie.

All the while, we've had major dramas on the diversion, regular breakdowns, three major crashes in the last week, yet we haven't heard a word from the contractor or the government about the progress at Victoria Pass.

What happened to transparency? What happened to keeping everyone in the loop? Well, I'll hopefully speak to the roads minister, Jenny Aitchison, this week, and maybe she can answer some of your questions if she's willing to join me in the studio, because I keep hearing not a lot's been done up at Mitchell's Causeway.

Okay, fair enough.

It's only been seven weeks, but let's not forget the Great Western Highway has been closed since the beginning of March.

It's clearly a case of out of sight, out of mind.

They've literally cut the camera feed so no one can see what is or isn't happening on Mitchell's Causeway.

And why would they kill the feed? Because the locals on the ground up there are emailing me to say there is next to nothing happening at Victoria Pass.

Yes, the current government is the one left holding the broom here, but let's be clear about one thing.

There are no political points to score, no marginal city seats to win.

In the meantime, small businesses are bleeding out, commuters are put in danger every single day and freight lines are throttled, which are driving up supply chain costs for everyone across this state.

It's time the New South Wales Government stop hiding behind press releases, turn the cameras back on at Mitchell's Causeway and show us what's happening up there and start updating the thousands of people who are affected by the closure of the Great Western Highway.

The people west of the divide deserve answers.