Roads comes out top issue for Wagga voters as Labor announce roads state election promise

The Daily Advertiser has spent time talking to Wagga voters and, regardless of their level of engagement with the issues, they always seemed to come back to the condition of the roads.

Rivas Khero, 29, from Tatton said he wasn't across all of the candidates, but said whoever they are "they just need to fix the roads".

On Tuesday, Labor candidate Keryn Foley announced $11.9 million in funding for the Wagga electorate if a Labor government takes power come Saturday.

About $5.7 million would be set aside for the Wagga Local Government Area, with another $3.2 million for the Lockhart LGA and $2.9 million for the Snowy Valleys LGA.

"Unfortunately the Liberals and Nationals have allocated zero to regional roads in the next twelve months," Ms Foley said.

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Labor's Regional Transport and Roads spokeswoman Jenny Aitchison said the one-off funding would be on top of the current government's pothole fund.

But Ms Foley was unsure on whether there would be any further commitment to regional roads funding should Labor form government.

"I don't know," she said.

Ms Foley said Labor would also seek to reclassify 15,000km of council roads to state roads - to reduce the burden on regional councils, a broken promise made by the government at the last election.

The candidate said this was the reason behind Wagga City Council's growing roads bill.

According to Wagga council, over the past two months, 14 segments of road totalling 18.5km have been fixed costing $8.5 million.

"There was meant to be a transfer of some of those responsibilities and none of that has happened in the last four years. This plan is all fully costed and looks at that transfer of responsibility," Ms Foley said.

The current government has made a concerted effort on roads in the past 12 months, particularly with the $500 million Regional and Local Roads Repair Program aimed at fixing flood-ravaged roads, announced in January.

In February, Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Sam Farraway announced $4.6 million for Wagga roads as part of the Fixing Local Roads program.

Nationals candidate Andrianna Benjamin said Labor's announcement is an "empty promise" and regional roads would be a priority should her party be returned to government.

Ms Benjamin did concede that neither Labor's nor her government's funding is enough and more needs to be done. "It's not enough, we need to get all of our roads back to ship shape," she said.

Ms Benjamin said reclassifying roads would also be on the table should she be elected. "I'm going to fight for whatever we need, if it's something we can do, 100 per cent," she said.

Wagga councillor Rod Kendall welcomed the announcement and called on the other candidates to match the funding commitment. "It's subject to the Labor Party being elected, but it's showing that at least one of the parties contesting the election recognises this need for a funding injection for local governments specifically over roads funding and repairs," Cr Kendall said.

"It's good policy and it's one I'd like to see echoed by the other candidates."

Cr Kendall wanted to see ongoing funding commitments from whomever forms government.

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