When they don’t want to do something, politicians revert to type. They will blame either process or money.
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Yet when enough public pressure applied to the right places, money no longer seems to be an issue. Suddenly the impossible becomes possible through the magic power of political will.
On Friday, March 17, the Illawarra Mercury joined Fairfax Media mastheads from the South Coast and other Illawarra and South Coast media organisations in a show of solidarity and support for the launch of the Fix It Now campaign.
The campaign’s objective is to see the Princes Highway on the South Coast declared a road of national significance, allowing it to attract 80-20 funding from the federal government.
Significant improvements have been made to the Princes Highway north of Nowra, making the South Coast much more accessible to people from our region and north of us. The South Coast is one of our most loved holiday destinations.
This has resulted in a significant increase in traffic through Nowra and onto the highway south of Jervis Bay turnoff, a stretch of road described by NSW’s own Infrastructure Minister and South Coast resident Andrew Constance as “1940s standard”.
The road has been the site of some horrendous crashes including the one which earlier this year claimed the lives of the Falkholt family.
Yet the roadside memorials which adorn the roadside the entire stretch show this is not a new issue and emergency service workers are predicting more frequent catastrophic accidents.
The NSW Government recognises there is a major issue as they have “found” enough in emergency funding to install wire barriers between the highway before the Easter holiday season. This is merely a temporary fix. It’s akin to treating a stab wound with a band aid.
Drive the major highways north of Sydney and you get a much safer experience than what has been invested in the growing south.
This is not about money. This is about people’s lives. The lives of the people of this region on a family holiday. The lives of the people who drive on a road which does link the two major population centres in this country.
That is why we are calling on governments to: Fix It Now.