The one big winner for Port Stephens announced in Tuesday night's Federal Budget was the $1.6 billion commitment to extend the M1 Pacific Motorway to Raymond Terrace.
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The allocation was part of a $6.6 billion spend on NSW roads announced by the Treasurer Josh Frydenberg under Scott Morrison's first Budget since becoming Prime Minister.
Paterson MP, Labor's Meryl Swanson, said that the Coalition's commitment would be matched by a Bill Shorten government, if elected at the upcoming federal election.
"I have called for this extension from Opposition since I was elected - which is why a Labor Government will match this commitment. We understand how important this piece of infrastructure is for locals and visitors," she said.
Ms Swanson was, however, critical of the government's lack of more immediate inaction over the PFAS contamination which continues to impact on hundreds of Williamtown families.
"For the past four years, Williamtown residents affected by PFAS contamination have been ignored. It took blood, sweat, tears and a class action against the Department of Defence for my community to get a look in and instead of addressing this nation-wide disaster, this Budget has funded yet another study into remediation of PFAS contaminated soil," she said.
"I welcome funding for the University of Newcastle's research for a long term solution to PFAS remediation, but residents of Williamtown are relying on immediate action - like Labor's $10 million commitment to clean heavily contaminated drains."
The 2019 Budget produced a strong economic plan by returning the nation's budget to surplus for the first time in more than a decade; delivering more jobs; providing lower taxes; and guaranteeing essential services like Medicare, schools, hospitals and roads.
But, according to Ms Swanson, there was no plan for wages, no plan to tackle power prices and no plan to address climate change.
"This Budget fails to reverse cuts to schools and hospitals; fails to reverse cuts to TAFE and apprenticeships; and promises a surplus that is subsidised by short-changing people with disability through a massive underspend in the National Disability Insurance Scheme," she said.
"Labor will support the tax cuts that begin on July 1 for working and middle class people - this is essentially a copy of what we proposed last year."
Ms Swanson said that if re-elected she would ensure a Labor government would restore every dollar cut from public hospitals and schools in Paterson; provide an additional $23.6 million to schools in Paterson in its first three years of government; reverse cuts to penalty rates; and make the top end of town pay their fair share.
