Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

At the commencement of my contribution to this debate on the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008,  I would like to acknowledge the hard work that has been done in the past by the member for Hinkler. I know that he is totally committed to all matters that relate to transport—road, rail and sea—and he has been a wonderful advocate in this parliament on those issues. Whilst there are some things that we may disagree about, I would have to say that his commitment in this area is beyond question. I just want to have that on the record. In doing so, too, I will refer to the last parliament, in which I was privileged to be on the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Transport and Regional Services, which the member for Hinkler chaired. The work that was done in this book that I hold in my hand—The great freight taskis a blueprint for a lot of the work that needs to be done throughout Australia. I know that, when the government is looking at directions in its planning through the Infrastructure Australia Fund, this will be of great assistance and the work that was done there will not be wasted. It really does set out a blueprint. It identifies many of the areas that we really need to concentrate on.

I would also like to pick up on what the member for Windsor said—that the last government tended to allocate money where it was advisable to allocate it for electoral purposes rather than where it was needed. I will put on the record, for the member for Windsor, that the one thing we are committed to is transparency—making sure that the money goes where it is needed and that there will not be an allocation of money based on where it is electorally expedient rather than on where the need is. That has been identified in this and will be identified in other studies, and that is why we are adopting a really planned approach to where we are going, rather than just throwing money willy-nilly into areas that will see that members are re-elected. I would like to assure the member for Hinkler that I have had conversations with the member for Flynn and he is committed to seeing that his electorate gets a really fair deal as far as making sure that those roads that you identify are well and truly on the table when we are looking at allocations.

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