Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

In his support for the government’s position, Everald Compton went on to say, ‘The inland railway is alive and well.’ The fact is that the government has instituted a study for an inland railway, something that in the first 12 years of the Howard government they did not get around to doing. They did not do anything to build the railway; they did not do anything to plan the railway. Our position recognises commonsense: that you need to have the study, get the planning right, get the details right and then assess the project properly and be prudent with taxpayers’ funds—not make, in the lead-up to an election when you know you are about to go out the backdoor, irresponsible promises to fund projects before you have funded the study to show where the projects will be built.

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