NSW transport minister challenged on toll revenue from sinkhole-plagued road

Returning to NSW budget estimates, transport minister John Graham has been asked why the financial forecasts in this year’s state budget include toll revenue from the troubled M6 motorway project.

As Guardian Australia has reported, the opening of the “unbuildable” motorway in Sydney’s south has been pushed back from 2025 until at least late 2028, following geological issues including a 245-metre section plagued by sinkholes.

NSW Liberals deputy leader Natalie Ward asks: “How many cars are going through the M6 ... to generate those tolls?”

Graham says: “That’s why there’s zero revenue assumed for the current financial year.”

The transport minister says the government’s expectation at the time of the budget in June was that the first stage of the motorway would be generating revenue from users in the “outer years” of the forecast, which extends to 2028-29.

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has talked down any difference in statements between Washington and Canberra over Richard Marles’s visit to the White House this week.

American officials have this morning denied the defence minister had a formal meeting with his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, during a last-minute trip, casting doubt on the federal government’s account of the visit.

Marles is back in Canberra on Thursday and could face questions about the trip in question time this afternoon.

Chalmers said the trip was valuable regardless of whether...