Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to talk about the Nation Building Program (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2009. I was listening with interest to the member for Paterson’s statements. On every occasion that I hear the member for Paterson talking about infrastructure it is always negative, negative, negative. It is interesting that he is almost labelling his own coalition as the party of spin and no shovel. There is an interesting joke going around the House: how do you confuse the coalition on nation building programs? The joke goes something like this: you line up three shovels and tell them to take their pick. Listening to the member for Paterson it is clear that he is confused about what we are trying to do as a government.

The Rudd government has committed to major projects, and these projects were announced in the budget. My electorate of Forde was one of those electorates which missed out severely in the previous 12 years of the coalition. Under the coalition, when we talked about road infrastructure, the excuse for not providing infrastructure planning and funding to an area like Forde was simply that it was not considered part of the national effort. The electorate of Forde has the standard rail gauge running right through the electorate. This government has made a commitment very recently and further commitments will be made.

This bill is not simply about changing the name; it is also about bringing the country together and looking at the total land transport effort across this country. As I said, the standard rail gauge runs through my electorate of Forde, and I have spoken many times in this House about that particular piece of infrastructure. The government has recently announced a $100 million upgrade to that piece of infrastructure—$55 million in my electorate and, over the border, another $45 million to what is called the Kyogle loop. It is a very important piece of rail infrastructure. Supplemented with some of the road investment, this will hugely benefit the transport effort in South-East Queensland and the stakeholders in the region.

The Rudd government talks about the three tiers or the three spheres of government working together—federal, state and local government working together. I attended a meeting on Friday with our local council, the Scenic Rim Regional Council, headed by Mayor John Brent. John has been to the national capital on a number of occasions and certainly as part of the Australian Council of Local Governments. He is very, very interested in what we can do with the three tiers of government working together. Last week the state transport minister, Rachel Nolan, announced the release of a draft report on the southern transport network investigation. This is essentially about how governments can work together to not only provide the funding and build the infrastructure but also plan future use. I applaud the state minister for putting forward this document. It has been a long time since that source information was updated. The state minister, Rachel Nolan, has asked that stakeholders—whether government stakeholders or private investment stakeholders—to put forward their views on the transport needs of that region. So we have not only a state government doing their part and talking to local government about their local needs but also a federal government that has a system, a process and a series of programs that will deliver vital infrastructure to the regions—and certainly to the region of Forde.

We hear the coalition talk about negativity. We understand and appreciate what governments do when they are in office, but we now have a Rudd government. We have committed to a continuation of what was always Labor government policy in terms of nation building. If we look at the Keating initiatives, we see that the standard rail gauge program way back then was all about linking the nation and ensuring that we get the best and most efficient use out of our land transport. On that basis, I would like to commend this bill to the House.

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