Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Can I remind members opposite that the approach of this government is one where we have established Infrastructure Australia to advise on infrastructure decisions, the first time that we have had a body to comprehensively look at the need for a nation-building agenda. Looking across this country, we know there are communities that are crying out for nation-building projects. We have urban congestion—we have bottlenecks when it comes to rail, when it comes to ports, when it comes to the transfer of goods from rail to ports. These are economic capacity constraints. They are things that confront working Australians every day as they try and do something as simple as travel to work.

Infrastructure Australia is there to provide objective advice. When it comes to the other funds that the government is establishing—for example, the Education Investment Fund in my own portfolio—there will be an objective advisory structure. All of this stands in stark contrast to the days when the former member for Dawson would manipulate documents immediately before caretaker periods in order to splash money out in marginal seats to assist Howard government members—a shameful track record, one that Liberal Party members should recall, and one of these days they should apologise to the Australian people for it.

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