By Shelby Brooks
Cockatoo residents are taking their call to action to Federal Parliament after being devastated by a $200m funding cut for a road sealing project in the hills.
Cockatoo 21st Century Roads Action Group (Crag21) members have teamed up with Cardinia Shire Council Ranges Ward councillor Jeff Springfield to create a petition to the Parliament of Australia, pleading with the Commonwealth to reverse the decision to cut the funding for the Sealing the Hills and Roads for the Community projects.
Five-hundred people have signed the petition, but the action group is hoping many more people will support the cause.
Crag21 chairperson Janice Crittenden said she was devastated to learn about the funding cut last year.
“I was ready to hop in a car to drive to Canberra and find Mr Albanese,” Ms Crittenden said.
“You can’t do that to people, it’s put the community at breaking point because they thought it was going to increase the livability in this beautiful place.”
Ms Crittenden and the committee say the roads in the town have hardly been improved since Cockatoo was first built in the early 1900s.
“It was a holiday town, now there are 4500 people who live here,” Ms Crittenden said.
As part of the Sealing the Hills Road Project and Roads for Community Initiative, 110km of unsealed roads in Cardinia Shire and 187km in the Yarra Ranges would have been sealed between 2020 and 2029.
The funding of $300 million was the result of an advocacy partnership between Cardinia Shire Council and Yarra Ranges Council to improve unsealed roads.
The project was to be co-funded by property owners via a special charge scheme.
Cardinia Shire Council revealed $109 million of committed funding for the Sealing the Hills roads program had been discontinued and withdrawn by the Federal Government.
Due to the funding cuts, only 38 roads will be sealed in Cardinia Shire, four of which are based in Cockatoo.
Yarra Ranges Council confirmed more than $100 million would be cut from the Roads for the Community program.
Questions were first raised in November last year about the funding for the project after La Trobe MP Jason Wood slammed the Federal Government for “scrapping” the $300m road sealing project for the hills in the 2022-23 budget.
A spokesperson for the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts told the Gazette the same month that some existing infrastructure projects had been reviewed, and in some cases, reduced or discontinued in the October budget.
“This includes the Sealing Roads projects in the Dandenong Ranges for the Yarra Ranges and Cardinia Shire councils, where future projects have been discontinued,” they said at the time.
Councillor Springfield said when the project had bi-partisan support when the project was first announced in 2019.
“In the lead up to the election in 2022 there was every indication this would be going ahead, we asked several times and both sides assured us,” Cr Springfield said.
“That is why it is such a surprise for our residents to learn that the Federal Government has now chosen to cancel this program.
“I believe that neither the Prime Minister or the Minister for Infrastructure understood the importance of this project for our local communities when the decision was made to cut the future funding.
“I am hopeful that with enough signatures this petition will attract the attention it deserves from the Federal Government.
“It is my sincere hope that this petition will help the government to realise the vital importance of this program and continue to fund its implementation.”
To sign the petition, head to aph.gov.au/e-petitions/petition/EN4785
