A lot of people claiming credit for $1b road upgrade

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It’s true that success has many fathers and mothers, while failure – or lack of action – is an orphan.

We’re only just over half way through the first month of 2025 and a couple of contenders have emerged of an event quite a few people are taking credit for – in the first 24 hours.

It’s the $1 billion funding promise made by the Australian and NSW Governments to upgrade the well known goat track called 15th Avenue.

Called Hoxton Park Road from Liverpool CBD to Liverpool Catholic Club, this key road for the south west region, morphs into 15th Avenue just past the Catho nd goes all the way to a planned new city called Bradfield, just south of the Western Sydney International airport under construction at Badgerys Creek and Luddenham.

It is also a key major artery through one of the biggest growth parts of the south west, Austral.

Twenty-thirty years ago either side of 15th Avenue had five acre properties growing vegetables for the markets.

But things are changing: not only is the new airport set to open in less than two years but residential development along 15th Avenue is going through the roof.

Add the new city of Bradfield and the aerotropolis, and Blind Freddie knows an upgrade should have been done 5-10 years ago, not by 2031 as is the case now.

As it is, 15th Avenue is, despite the increase in the number of people using it, an old fashioned, semi rural goat track with pot holes all along it.

But back to yesterday’s announcement and those who claimed credit for it.

First off the blocks was the megalomaniac who currently wears the mayoral robes at Liverpool.

Ironically, this is someone who for years opposed the airport at Badgerys Creek but soon as funding was announced he was a convert to the cause.

There were others claiming credit, but the cake went to a Parramatta influencer or whatever he is, and who claimed a committee he formed late last year to lobby for the south west region of Sydney was entitled to get a pat on the back for the Prime Minister’s $1b announcement.

The plain truth is that the federal government has an election in the next three or four months, if not earlier, and that’s exactly what this funding commitment – and the timing – is all about.

Anyone else taking credit for it and going public is indulging in nothing more than misinformation.

It’s nothing new, but it’s not right either.

The 15th Avenue funding was a good start, but there’s still plenty of time throughout 2025 to see who emerges as our best father/mother of success.

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