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

When this levy was introduced it was indicated that the expectation was that it would take until 2010 for the cost of this redundancy package and the reform to be funded. I am pleased to inform the House today that the levy will be lifted from the end of this month—four years ahead of schedule. The job has been done, the funds have been collected and this package of reforms has been completed.

I acknowledge and thank the members of the Maritime Industry Finance Co. for their effective stewardship of this program. I particularly acknowledge the work of our former colleague Peter Reith, who led this reform process and put in place the mechanisms which our country is now benefiting from richly. We have had substantial reform on the waterfront, and that reform process is now at an advanced stage. There is still more work to be done, and I acknowledge the work of the member for Gwydir, as Minister for Transport and Regional Services, and others who played key roles in driving this agenda. We copped endless criticism from the other side of the House. They are silent now. They recognise as well that our waterfront is a much better place, we have achieved a lot of reform and our country is the richer for it.

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