Motorway Tolls
MOTORWAY TOLLS
The Hon. C. J. S. LYNN: My question without notice is directed to the Treasurer, representing the Minister for Roads, the expatriate member for Campbelltown. I understand that motorists from western Sydney will have to line up in long peak hour queues to pay their tolls on the M4 and M5. Their toll payments will then be processed through the bureaucracy and given back to them. Has the Minister deliberately made the cash-back scheme so complex as to deter motorists from western Sydney from claiming it? If not, would it not be simpler and more efficient not to charge a toll in the first place?
The Hon. M. R. EGAN: Of course that would have been the ideal solution but the honourable member's mob put the toll on. His mob entered into contracts with private toll road companies that ensured that the citizens and motorists of western Sydney had to pay a toll. The Government tried to remove that toll and because of the tax arrangements which his mob is responsible for as part and parcel of those contracts with the toll companies, it was not possible for the Government to do it. This Government is very proud of the fact that it never gave up looking for a solution. As the Minister for Roads pointed out, the M4 and M5 cash-back initiative is not the perfect solution, but given all of the contractual arrangements which the former Liberal Party-National Party Government entered into, it is the best the Government can do. It means that $74 million will go into the pockets of western Sydney and south-western Sydney motorists. The Government wanted to give that to them all along but the former Government was determined, when it arranged for the private toll roads to be built, that the people under its administration would have to pay.