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F01 the cause that lacks assistance
7Gainst the wrongs thai need resistance}
For the future in the distance,
And the good thai we can do.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1962
STATE'S CHANCE TO HELP ITSELF
AFTER SEVERAL YEARS of unexplained pro
crastination and indecision, the Government of New
South Wales appears to be thinking seriously, at
last, of accepting one of the several propositions
before it to build a toll highway from Sydney to
Newcastle. The potential advantages of this plan
are so great that unless it has objections of the
gravest moment, the Government should hesitate no
longer. The construction of the road would provide
employment for many hundreds of skilled and
unskilled workmen, it would provide a trafficable
road in place of what is virtually a death-trap, and
it would open large areas between the two major
cities for industrial and agricultural development.
Nothing short of a complete reconstruction of the
road will make it safe. The route through which
the present road runs, adequate for the 30-miles-an
hour traffic for which it was intended, cannot be
effectively widened or patched. Fear that someone
may make a big profit in the process, or reluctance
to have the users rather than the general taxpayers
meet the cost, are not sufficient grounds for refusal
to accept the proposal.
The fact that tiie users would meet ine cost is,
indeed, one of the most valid reasons for building
and paying for the road under a toll system. The
Premiers will come to Canberra soon with their
hands widestretched for grants and loans to relieve
unemployment and further the development of their
States. The Commonwealth will be duty bound to
help whefe it can. The bulk of its funds, however,
will be needed to develop areas at present undevel
oped. Hundreds of thousands of private' and
commercial road users in Sydney and Newcastle
would be more than happy to pay for the use of a
modern four-lane highway between the two cities if
only it were available to them. It would be foolish
in the extreme to make this a governmental under
taking, to be paid for from general revenue. Much
the same argument would apply to the areas around
Melbourne, where the investing companies are
anxious to build roads if New South Wales does not
accept their proposition. The attitude of the Govern
ment of New South Wales to this plan will, in fact,
provide an effective test of its professed anxiety to
share with the Commonwealth in the nation's
development, rather than act merely as a sponge,
soaking up all it can get.
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