Victorian Shadow Treasurer David Davis visited Shepparton on Wednesday to talk to Shepparton Bypass Action Group members about the languishing ring road project, but he didn’t have as much to say as they would have liked.
While he said he would release the business case to the public should the Coalition get elected, Mr Davis refused to commit to funding the bypass.
When asked if he would commit to funding the project, Mr Davis said “we certainly think that the bypass is a very important piece of infrastructure”.
“We're meeting today with people who have knowledge of it, and are advocating for it, and it's clearly been an important piece of infrastructure,” he said.
Mr Davis spoke to representatives from Greater Shepparton City Council and the action group chair Peter Johnson, along with Shepparton candidates Cheryl Hammer and Kim O’Keeffe, as well as state Member for Northern Victoria Wendy Lovell.
With the business case still under wraps, there isn’t a public dollar figure on the road for which the Opposition could budget, but Mr Davis refused to back the bypass even if the business case was positive.
Mr Johnson said the indication he had been given from the Federal Government was that the ball was in the Victorian Government’s court for progress on the project.
He said it made sense the Opposition wouldn’t commit to funding it “no matter what”, but said it would have been nice to receive in-principle backing for the project.
“Wendy Lovell has been very supportive and has given the government more grief than anyone else, and Suzanna Sheed has also backed it in,” Mr Johnson said.
Speaking at Monash Park as trucks rolled past, Mr Johnson said the bypass was desperately needed to get heavy vehicles out of the Shepparton and Mooroopna CBDs and to provide an alternate river crossing.
He said publication of the business case would help the project get off the ground and it needed to be released.
“The understanding is the business case does endorse stage one of the project, but we don’t know how much has been costed,” Mr Johnson said.
He welcomed Mr Davis’s promise to unseal the document should the Coalition get into power.