Alan Veacock, President Ballina Country Labor
At Ballina Country Labor’s February meeting our members discussed the recent announcement by Labor that if elected they would commit $900 million dollars of new money, not currently in the budget, into rural and regional roads over the next five years.
This commitment comes on top of the existing $543 million ‘Fixing Country Roads’ program and would bring the total investment to more than $1.4 billion. The funding would include $100 million to fix North Coast roads from Grafton to the border, with $15.95 million earmarked for Byron Shire Council.
Under the plan, the money for remaking entire roads, rather than fixing potholes, would be granted directly to councils based on the kilometres of roads reported to be in ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ condition.
For far too long our National Party representatives have failed in this vital area, and on occasions have actually stripped our local councils of funding.
In Ballina we now have a clear choice between real policy announcements with real money, and a real local Labor candidate who has always lived and worked in our area, or Ben Franklin, a National Party blow in from Sydney doing little more than making random pork-barreling promises.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
