There were promises aplenty from both parties before the March 28 election, but will the Coalition’s pledges of significant spending on road and hospital projects turn into dollar figures in Tuesday’s budget documents?

Parliamentary secretary for the Illawarra and South Coast Gareth Ward was chipper about how the region would fare, as was Heathcote MP Lee Evans, but Labor members remained sceptical.

‘‘This will be the budget that continues to bring home the bacon for the Illawarra,’’ Mr Ward told the Mercury.

‘‘We will continue to see record spending on our roads and our hospitals. There’ll be more money to get on with the job of completing the planning work on Albion Park Rail [bypass].’’

Mr Ward said those projects, and others like Wollongong Hospital and Berry bypass, were ‘‘not figments of Labor’s imagination’’.

‘They’ll say that the Illawarra’s been gypped [in the budget] but that’s just not true,’’ he said.

‘‘I know it’s hard for them to dream up infrastructure because they never delivered anything when they were here in office, but we’re actually doing the things that people demanded of us.’’

The tit-for-tat between Mr Ward and Shellharbour MP Anna Watson over the Albion Park Rail bypass has continued, with funding and construction details for the project, as well as those for Shellharbour Hospital, among Ms Watson’s priorities.

‘‘I expect to see funding for these two projects across the budget’s forward estimates, including a start and finishing date for each,’’ Ms Watson said. 

‘‘If that funding road map is not included in this budget, we can rightly question the state government’s election promises as hollow.’’

In Wollongong, Noreen Hay reiterated her pre-election wish list, which was topped by lifts at Unanderra train station.

Ms Hay said further investment in health and social infrastructure, such as increased housing stock, was also needed, along with ‘‘serious policies to deal with the homelessness issue’’.

‘‘The Illawarra, and certainly Wollongong, needs the additional investment in job-creating projects,’’ she said.

Member for Keira Ryan Park said the budget had to deliver significant funding for infrastructure that supported jobs and bolstered the economy.

Mr Park said the government was great at announcing projects but ‘‘fairly ordinary when it comes to delivery’’.

“You only have to look at the Illawarra Infrastructure Fund that was announced several years ago and was meant to provide a significant injection of funds into our region, yet to date there has been very little progress made on making these projects a reality,” he said.

Funding for one of Restart Illawarra projects, Bulli Hospital, sits atop Mr Park’s wish list.

The redevelopment of Mount Keira and extending Memorial Drive were also high priorities.

“We know Mike Baird has tried to shape himself as a ‘bricks and mortar Premier’. So, I am urging him to come down to the Illawarra and deliver these projects for our area,’’ he said.

Mr Evans suggested Bulli Hospital would be ‘‘moving ahead’’ early next year. 

‘‘It’s a big one [project] for the area and ... the first step in getting state-of-the-art aged care in the Wollongong area,’’ he said. 

Mr Evans touted continuing work on the M1 (formerly F6) freeway extension, but said ‘‘it won’t be announced in this budget’’.

‘‘We’re moving forward with our program of better health, better education, better roads [and] better public transport. We’ve sort of said what we’re doing and doing what we’ve said.’’

He said the budget would confirm that.