Budget Reveals National Party Dams on the Backburner
The state budget handed down today has revealed the government is deprioritising its dam projects after committing only $9.4 million to early works for the Wyangala and Dungowan Dams over the next 12 months, and stipulating that building Dungowan Dam is contingent on receiving 50/50 funding from the Commonwealth, says Cate Faehrmann, Greens MP and water spokesperson.
Page 23 of the Budget Infrastructure Statement confirmed that the NSW Government would not commit to funding the Dungowan Dam unless the Federal government committed to 50/50 funding of the project.
“Together, these dams are now estimated to cost more than $3 billion but the allocation in the budget will barely pay for the shovels to get them started,” said Cate.
“It’s clear the Government can’t make the Dungowan and Wyangala dam projects stack up but they’re not ready to publicly axe these white elephant projects just yet.
“The Albanese Government has avoided making any commitment to Dungowan Dam. If the Government needs federal funding to build Dungowan the project is almost certainly dead in the water.
“Every piece of publicly available evidence points towards these projects being a dud. It will be a huge disappointment to communities who have been trying to stop these disastrous projects going ahead that the NSW Treasurer did not use the opportunity this budget provided to put them to bed once and for all,” said Cate.