Letter: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again

It’s always nice to get asked for your opinion. This week I got asked by Michael Johnsen MP if I would like Service New South Wales to open their doors in Muswellbrook by years end instead of in late 2018, or “sooner rather than later”.

Given the few opportunities for access to Government in regional communities, it would have been nice to have it in 2013 when the “one stop shop” concept was introduced. But when it comes to city versus country, New South Wales has a strange attitude towards time at least if you live in the Hunter.

To simplify matters, I thought I would just treat projects like these as though they were people. If the Service New South Wales office was a child, it will be 5 years old by the time it gets to Muswellbrook, which is quite a long time to lease retail space and staff it when you think about it.

If the Singleton, Muswellbrook or Scone bypasses were people, first conceived in 1998, they would be, on the most optimistic assumptions, not just be old enough to vote, but would be 23 years old at completion. A long time to put up with approximately 8,000 cars and 2000 trucks that rattle through Scone and Muswellbrook daily and and eye watering 20,000 cars and 4,000 trucks that pound daily through Singleton within feet of people going about their business.

No such time warp in Sydney. The $14 billion Northern beaches tunnel got route selection in 2012, announced during the North Sydney by election in February this year and Geotechnical work underway. It will be about ten years old at completion and cost about the same amount as the coal mining royalties the Hunter would have sent to Treasury in that time.

We get the noise, dust, trucks and traffic, Sydney gets the royalties and shiny new toys.

The $45 Billion Westconnex (that’s the Snowy Mountains Scheme times two) was also announced in 2012 and heaven and Earth moved for its construction. As a person it would be entering High School at completion.

So with some interest I read Mr Johnsens statement in Parliament June 1 “we have completed or projects are underway for roadworks worth $1 billion just in my electorate of Upper Hunter. Scone, Muswellbrook and Singleton bypasses are now being constructed”.

That may come as news to you all. It seems either my ambition to be the first person to own a time machine in the Hunter has just been thwarted, or I will be buying Mr Johnsen a new dictionary for Christmas.

John Preston

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers