The state government says Newcastle can forget about accessing Snowy Hydro sale funds for projects wholly inside its local government area and should focus instead on regional ideas.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Cr Nuatali Nelmes will present a lord mayoral minute next week urging Newcastle City Council to identify large projects, including light rail expansion, a new freight rail corridor and the Broadmeadow sports and entertainment precinct, which could receive grants from a massive $4.154 billion regional infrastructure fund the government plans to establish with the proceeds of the Snowy Hydro scheme sell-off.
The government announced the fund in March but excised both Newcastle and Wollongong from the list of eligible areas, sparking a bun fight over whether the cities should be classed as metropolitan or regional.
The state budget in June also excluded both cities from its regional overview, prompting parliamentary secretary for the Hunter Scot MacDonald to write a letter to the Newcastle Herald in July suggesting the government would fund worthwhile projects in Newcastle regardless of how the city was classified.
As for the Snowy Hydro money, he wrote: “My advice from Treasury is no worthwhile, productive project should be excluded from consideration just because it touches on an excluded metro council area.”
But Mr MacDonald said on Thursday that this generosity did not extend to Snowy Hydro funds if they were to be spent entirely in Newcastle.
“That is more problematic,” he said. “My advice is that that butts up against what the premier and deputy premier were saying.
“The deputy premier and the premier came up with that definition with that money going to outside Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong, irrespective what other classifications they might have.”
Asked whether cutting off the Labor strongholds of Newcastle and Wollongong from the fund left the Liberal-National government open to accusations of political bias, Mr MacDonald said: “The deputy premier and the premier made their call. I have to work with what I’m given.”
Asked whether the rules around the Snowy Hydro money did, in fact, prove that regional and metropolitan classifications were important, he said: “Your point is difficult to rebut. I’m trying to think of how we get around this. That’s why I went to Treasury.
“You can bang on about definitions, and it’s not making it easy, I guess, but if I encourage a focus on quality projects. That will be more influential.”
The government might have started classifying Newcastle as metropolitan, but NSW minister for roads, maritime and freight Melinda Pavey described the city as “the capital of the north coast” at Wednesday’s announcement of new flights linking Williamtown and Auckland.
Mr MacDonald said the Hunter Joint Organisation, the new body representing the five Lower Hunter councils, should concentrate on projects such as the freight rail bypass from Fassifern to Hexham which had broader, “nation-building” benefits.
“It’s nonsensical to rule out sound projects when we’ve got a comparative advantage in the Hunter, ie mining and power generation and manufacturing, if somehow some part of it includes Newcastle LGA,” he said.
“They need to be on the front foot, the Hunter JO. I guess my message to them is if there’s a good project that is, for want of a better word, nation-building, [even] if it touches on Newcastle, it should be progressed.
“How do you ignore the largest regional economy in NSW? You can’t. It’s the Hunter. And some of that economic footprint touches on the Newcastle LGA. My advice, my suggestion, is to keep progressing down that path.”
The budget contained little infrastructure spending in Newcastle, although the government has spent more than $650 million in recent years cutting the heavy rail line and replacing it with light rail and a new transport interchange at Wickham.
