Ex-Sydneysider STUART PEARSON looks at Bathurst and its future from the perspective of a new resident.
ON March 2, 2018, the NSW and Victoria premiers signed away their ownership in the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectricity Scheme to the Commonwealth Government.
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To purchase the 58 per cent owned by NSW and the 29pc share owned by Victoria, the Commonwealth agreed to pay each state $4.154 billion and $2.077b respectively.
That evening, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced: “This will create an investment bonanza in regional NSW with every cent of the proceeds going to rural and regional NSW.”
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This means that nothing will go to Greater Sydney, which has in recent years already had a whopping $60b lavished on it.
Days later, the NSW Premier said electorates in Newcastle and Wollongong were also excluded from this bounty.
So where in NSW will this enormous sum of money be spent?
A simple method, which has been adopted by state and federal governments in the past, is to divide the pool of money available by the number of suitable electorates – in this case, the 28 state electorates that fall outside Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong.
If shared equally, each state electorate in rural and regional NSW could receive up to $150 million for significant infrastructure projects (we all know that in the world of politics some electorates are more equal than others, but for this exercise, we will assume that all 28 electorates would have access to $150 million).
The state electorate of Bathurst has been represented by Paul Toole since 2011. It consists of all of Bathurst, Oberon, Lithgow and Blayney council areas, plus part of the Mid-Western Regional Council area.
It is a large area covering almost 15,000 square kilometres (about the same size as the US state of Connecticut), with a considerable population of nearly 80,000 people.
Mr Toole has already been inundated with funding requests for chunks of this largess from individuals, corporates and councils alike. When all the appeals from the extensive and diverse Bathurst electorate are considered, I’m hoping the NSW Government will proceed with the one big idea that will produce the biggest impact across the widest area to the greatest number of citizens.
But what would that one big idea be?
Many people - myself included - believe the single most significant way to improve the lives of people west of the mountains is to upgrade transport links to the east.
This will mean shorter, safer and cheaper travel times for passengers and freight.
A modern expressway and straightened electric rail line from Sydney to Bathurst would produce more benefits to more people than any other single initiative.
The drawback is that transport infrastructure is hideously expensive and any attempt to improve rail or road access over the Blue Mountains would cost many billions.
However, the state electorates of Blue Mountains, Bathurst, Orange, Dubbo and Barwon might agree to pool their individual allocations in order to convince the NSW Government that a collective sum of $750 million would make a great start to an improved east-west transport corridor across the mountains.
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The largess from the sale of Snowy Hydro would go a long way to fixing transport links to Sydney, and in the process transform Bathurst and the entire Central West.
Over time, Bathurst would grow to become one of the most important inland cities in Australia.
Along with Dubbo and Orange, Bathurst would service more than half a million people west of the Great Divide.
If the growth is managed well, Bathurst will become a showcase regional city offering jobs, culture, sport, health care, education and a great lifestyle.
All of this is possible, but it must start with building a proper transport corridor over the mountains linking Sydney to the western heartland of NSW.
