Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

These important infrastructure projects are being addressed not just in my electorate but right through electorates all over Australia. These are infrastructure projects that the coalition have opposed and have not come to the party on.

It is interesting to see what my local mayor, Bob Graham, said about it. He said this was one of the greatest injections into local jobs that he had seen in his 15 years on local council. This is not a bloke who is a Labor Party hack; this is a bloke who is actually a former member of the Liberal Party. In fact he sat in state parliament as the Liberal member for The Entrance. But like the Australian Industry Group, like the National Farmers Federation and like all intelligent people they can see the advantage of getting this infrastructure in there.

The area that I want to spend the rest of my time talking about is roads and transport in particular. My electorate is an hour and a half from Sydney. We have a rail link there and we have roads everywhere. So to get around in my electorate you need to have a car and drive or to get to the train station and commute. This government, even as recently as today, under the $4.7 billion nation-building package announced over $850,000 worth of roadworks in my electorate—in particular, the installation of traffic signals at the intersection of Sparks Road and the F3 freeway ramps. This is an area that has become very busy and dangerous. This sort of infrastructure investment in our roads will make sure that traffic flows better and make sure that we can drive around in a safer way. It will also make sure that jobs which are needed locally are actually there locally.

In terms of rail, one of the big promises at the last election was in relation to building a dedicated freight line. That goes up much of the east coast. For my electorate in particular what it does is take 1,900 trucks per day off the F3. If you could imagine driving up and down the freeway, just through my electorate, 1,900 truck trips is an incredible number of trips that is now going to be taken off the road because of this very good rail infrastructure that the Rudd government has committed to.

So these issues of nation-building infrastructure, particularly in terms of roads and rail, as part of this infrastructure program to make sure that we are cushioned from the worst impacts of the global economic crisis are vitally important for electorates in the outer metropolitan areas and those regional electorates like my own of Dobell. What a breath of fresh air it is to have a government that is out there saying: ‘We are actually going to build this nation. We are actually going to go out there and put infrastructure in where it is needed to make sure that we have a better nation and that our citizens have a better life.’ This is an important part of the economic stimulus not just because it creates local jobs but also because it builds long-needed infrastructure in areas where it is required. This is a motion that should be supported by all members.

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