Just a week after the auditor-general found the NSW government was $1bn better off than its budget suggested, the state’s road minister has once again said the government can’t afford to match federal funding for the state’s most important road dollar for dollar.
Minister Duncan Gay says the state can only find $1.5bn to go against promised federal funding of $2.3bn and has effectively pleaded with the feds not to take their additional money off the table.
Mr Gay told ABC radio this morning, ‘This is money that will come from leasing Port Botany and Port Kembla. This is not money that we’ve had sitting around on shelves. This is money that we’ve got off our bum and gone out and got for the Pacific Highway.’
