Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Every now and then when you read out part of a document, you wonder, ‘Should I table it? Should I give them access to the rest of it?’ I thought I would do the right thing and table it. I have listened carefully to the comments that have just been made by the shadow minister for agriculture, fisheries and forestry where he has wanted to characterise what the member for Gippsland really meant when he uttered those prophetic words in his media release, saying:

Investing in regional infrastructure will help local communities to withstand the worst of the global financial crisis and I encourage the government to act quickly in this regard.

The shadow minister was effectively claiming that I had misrepresented those remarks because he said that what the government was offering, essentially—and I do not think I am mischaracterising it here—was short-term infrastructure projects, and what the member for Gippsland was really talking about was long-term infrastructure, like roads. So I had probably better read a little more of that media release.

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