Ms JENNY AITCHISON (Maitland) (20:09): I speak about a project at Martins Creek Quarry which is of grave concern to many of my constituents. On Monday and Tuesday this week two public meetings were held with the commissioners of the New South Wales Independent Planning Commission [IPC]. The member for Upper Hunter spoke about this issue in his private member's statement last week. We have not had a chance to have a chat, as he promised, but maybe this will be sufficient for now. I have written to his office about that. This is an issue of grave concern to my community.

Prior to my election in 2015, when I was doorknocking in Bolwarra with Councillor Loretta Baker along the route of the trucks servicing the quarry, we were very quickly appraised of the community's views on the issue. We met with a number of local residents at a community meeting about the issue, as well as attending another community meeting in the Paterson area in the electorate of Upper Hunter. There is an ongoing significant concern because a lot of truck movements have been coming out of that quarry for a long time. There have been significant increases at times well out of consent. This has come to the Independent Planning Commission because Dungog council, the consent authority, has knocked it back. It has gone through different court cases and now here we are at the IPC.

After my representations to the New South Wales Government in 2014 and 2015, Maitland City Council was successful in getting a very small grant of $1.2 million from the State Government to undertake road widening and repairs on Bolwarra Road to reduce the impact of the road noise—which was terrible because of the bumpiness of the road—and to increase safety for pedestrians, particularly around school time. There were no footbridges. At that time the company significantly reduced its operations, which resulted in reducing truck movements. But the concern is that, because there have been so many breaches of consent over time, there is a lack of faith from the community that they will stick to it and there will be an increase in scale.

The frustration from many in the community is there is a railhead at Martins Creek Quarry. Last week I spoke to the Australian Rail Track Corporation about this issue and asked if there was a possibility of that being used. I have spoken to the proponents for the quarry, Daracon, and asked them to consider that. They say there are some constraints. I will be very clear, this is what I have said to them as well. We all know that we need to get rock out of the quarry for our roads. We need to have better roads in New South Wales. We are really struggling, particularly in regional areas. I have a community that has put forward bids for up to $100 million for road projects to relieve congestion on freight roads that are being used by trucks going to quarries—not just at Martins Creek but also at Brandy Hill—and its roads are being chewed up by these trucks, but we got $1.2 million from the $543 million Fixing Country Roads budget. It is disgusting.

Earlier I listened to the member for Cootamundra boast about 31 projects in her electorate that were supported by that program—$23 million. We would like just a couple more of those millions to come through to Maitland. If this is truly a State-significant project, then there should be an investment by the State Government to ensure that the aggregate and quarry rock coming out is being used on the roads it is damaging. I thank the people from the Martins Creek Quarry Action Group, who have briefed me very professionally, clearly and articulately. They have visited quarries in southern New South Wales and they talked about projects worth $34 million. Recently I was at the awards for the Concrete and Aggregate Association. The association talked about the $20 million amelioration work it is doing for communities that are providing the rocks and other materials for our road reconstructions so that they are not being completely overwhelmed by truck movements through their towns, which is destroying them, their livability and amenity. I am fair dinkum about the issue. It is great that the member for Upper Hunter wants to talk to me about issues in the House. It is lovely that he is in the Speaker's chair tonight, but he should pick up the phone and write emails. Let us be bipartisan about this issue.