Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Minister for Transport and Regional Services) Share this | Hansard source

Someone opposite interjects, ‘What about regional areas?’ What about the Roads to Recovery program, with $307 million? Every local authority in Australia has now got more money to spend on local roads and local streets in projects of their choice, and this will make a very significant difference as well.

Naturally, this infusion of additional funding for roads has been widely welcomed around the country. Almost every commentator has spoken with enthusiasm—the NRMA, the Tourism and Transport Forum and Commerce Queensland. Even the South Australian Labor Treasurer said that this was a balanced budget and a budget that recognises the need for road upgrades and investment in our defence forces and the Murray River. So all sorts of people have been giving endorsement to what is really an outstanding budget.

I can only find one critic of this investment and that is Senator Kerry O’Brien. He does not want money to be spent on road infrastructure. He wants it instead to be spent on creating a bureaucracy called ‘Infrastructure Australia’ to do yet another audit of road needs. We know the problems. We are getting on with fixing them.

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