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

What I can confirm is that the government does indeed take the issue of intermodal freight services very seriously indeed. Moorebank has been identified as a critical area. Discussions, of course, need to take place with not just my department but the Department of Defence and also the state government. We know that we need to get serious about the freight issue and the freight challenges for Sydney. For 12 years this was left untouched, just like other infrastructure issues that were ignored by the former government. We have established Infrastructure Australia to bring together the different tiers of government—federal, state and local—and the private sector to make sure that we can move forward on these challenges, including making sure that we have intermodal facilities so that we can increase the amount of freight that is moved by rail. At the moment, we have had a significant increase in rail freight in terms of east-west; we have had nothing in terms of north-south. It was completely ignored by the former government. This government is determined to get the processes right to work not just with the different tiers of government but with the private sector and with local communities—because local communities know that infrastructure is critical, and part of that is getting freight right.

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