Prior to the weekend, the Party’s last publicly announced policy on WestConnex could be found in the document, A Better Way – Labor’s Fully Funded Infrastructure Plan, one of 80 or so policy statements released by the NSW ALP during the 2015 state election campaign.
A Better Way offered support for only some parts of WestConnex. Labor committed to widen the M4, and to extend it to the CBD. It also committed to widen and extend the M5, but to Kingsford Smith Airport instead of to St Peters. Further, Labor committed to not building the M4-M5 link.
On February 14, Labor’s Annual Conference passed a motion opposing the St Peters interchange, the intended end point of the New M5. The St Peters interchange is also where the New M5 meets the M4-M5 Link, the future connection between the M5 and the M4.
The successful motion did not mention the M4 or the M5, or the future tunnel that is intended to link them. Nor did the motion call for the M5 to go to the airport, instead going towards the CBD. It only opposed the building of the St Peters interchange, because of “all the attendant disastrous aspects which will affect the areas in the vicinity of the St Peters interchange”.
Having been passed by Annual Conference, this motion is now ALP policy. Does this mean that the old policy is no longer in effect? It’s not clear.
The new policy does not contradict the old policy and the old policy has not been publicly withdrawn. It may be that both policies are in effect. Or, it may be that the new policy replaces the old policy, which would mean that the ALP is opposed to the St Peters interchange, and effectively has no policy on the rest of WestConnex.
An amendment to the successful motion was moved at Conference, by this reporter. The amendment asked the ALP to take a stronger stance against WestConnex. It tried to tie ALP support for WestConnex to favourable reports from the Federal Auditor General and Infrastructure Australia, and it asked the ALP to consider supporting other transport infrastructure programs instead of WestConnex. The amendment was not debated and it did not pass.
The SSH has asked the Leader of the Opposition to clarify whether A Better Way is still Labor’s policy on WestConnex, and if not, what is Labor’s policy. At time of writing, we have not had an answer.
