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

It is the one with this heading, which will help to explain to the member for Calare his concept about the long-term infrastructure and road projects that the member for Gippsland was really talking about. The media release begins like this: ‘Chester calls for netball courts funding’. In terms of the long-term infrastructure that the shadow minister was just talking about, I give a few suggestions. First of all, I suggest that the member for Gippsland understands that projects themselves generate construction jobs and you get a whole lot of knock-on areas in the economy. For those members opposite, it is something that seems to be better understood by their backbench than by their frontbench. I would also be dearly concerned about the member for Calare’s possible occupational health and safety concerns if he sees a netball court in the future as a road. Beyond that, I make the suggestion that a document is tabled so that you can have a look at it rather than try to guess what the member for Gippsland really meant. I think he really meant what he said. It is available on the public record—and these are projects which do not meet the characterisation at all of what the shadow minister kept asserting.

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