ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
The people of Dubbo are feeling indifferent today after the Federal Government announced the proposed $4bn Dubbo City Light Rail is heading for the chopping block at tomorrow’s budget.
The project was frist announced by the Fraser Government in the late 1970s but was subsequently dumped when the NSW Government failed to match the spend by their Federal counterparts. It was picked up again decades later by the Howard Government, only to meet the same fate.
However, the Morrison Government promised to get the job done finally for the people of Western NSW and give the people what they wanted.
“It’s groundhog day,” said Dubbo businessman Ken Wheeler.
“It’s a shame. I mean, Dubbo is crying out for some new infrastructure. But I tell you what we don’t bloody need, we don’t need a bloody light rail. You know what the Dubbo Abattoirs are? That’s what people call the bloody hospital. I had a colonoscopy there the other day. When the doctor was finished, he bloody pulled the thing out of me like he was trying to get more hose from the retractable hose reel in the garden out front!”
“I know they’ve only just done it up but you know, you can’t put a novice in a Formula One car and expect him to set track records! Bugger the light rail, we need new schools, roads and heavy rail. This light rail business, it boils my fucking piss, it does!”
However, the Nationals say this is just another example of Labor abandoning people from the bush to appease their city cousins.
Local member Mark Coulton said the Dubbo Light Rail project was a cornerstone of the Regional Instructure Fund spend from the previous government.
“Construction had already began at the Ballimore, where the light rail would start, and Narromine, where it would end. For example, the Ballimore Pub had put in a 85-person bistro in anticipation for the project. It’s now not going ahead,” said Mr Coulton.
“From Ballimore, the light rail would travel into Dubbo with 12 stops along the highway and through the city. The first being near the racetrack. The last being in the cosmopolitan West Dubbo shopping village on Victoria Street. It’s just such a shame this project isn’t going ahead,”
“There are kids in Rawsonville between Dubbo and Narromine that once dreamed about getting the tram to school like their city cousins. That dream is now over, thanks to Anthony Albanese. We hope Dan Andrews is worth throwing the bush under the bus.”
More to come.
