NO.091

PAKENHAM BYPASS

The Federal Coalition will spend $100 million (to be matched by $100 million

of State funding) for the construction of the Pakenham Bypass outside Melbourne

as a Road of National Importance.

The Pakenham Bypass will reduce congestion and delays on the Princes Highway,

and remove heavy traffic from the streets of Pakenham and Officer.

Bob Charles, the Federal Member for La Trobe, has worked hard to secure funding

for the bypass. In 1998 the Federal Coalition allocated $30 million to the project.

This money has sat on the table for the last three years because the Victorian

Labor Government had other priorities and did not take up the offer.

Bob has continued working on the bypass, and he played an instrumental role

to have the additional commitment to $100 million to the project. The Liberal

Candidate for McMillan, Jim Forbes, has also been a strong advocate of the bypass.

The Pakenham Bypass will be a 17 kilometre limited access freeway. There will

be four interchanges. The bypass will be designed so it can be widened to three

lanes each way in the future.

The highway between the South Gippsland Freeway at Dandenong and the Berwick

bypass has already been subject to delays and capacity constraints, due to the

rapid development of the south east growth corridor. Pakenham and Officer will

suffer from severe congestion within the next five years unless the bypass is

constructed.

I call on the Victorian Labor Government to stop procrastinating and commit

matching funding in its next budget to ensure that the bypass can be completed

as soon as possible.

The Federal commitment of $100 million includes $31 million of new money in

2005-06. There is $30 million already allocated to the Pakenham Bypass in the

existing roads program and a further $39 million will be allocated to this project

from within the roads program. The additional spending on the Pakenham Bypass

is included in the costings for the Coalition’s transport action plan,

Keeping Australia Moving.

PAKENHAM

30 October 2001