Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Robertson for a question about infrastructure. That is something that I have not had—not a single question on infrastructure—from those opposite, all year. Indeed, since I have had the portfolio I have had one question, which was a year ago, from the shadow minister for infrastructure, and that was about how many staff Infrastructure Australia had. There has not been one question, even though infrastructure forms the centrepiece of the budget—the centrepiece of nation building for recovery. And part of the budget is the Nation Building Program, which those opposite are prepared to vote against in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. The Nation Building Program will provide record funding of 120 road projects and 26 rail projects. The Nation Building Program will provide funds to fix dangerous black spots around the country and will pay for the installation of boom gates at high-risk level crossings and the construction of additional rest stops for truck drivers.

Just before question time we had a division. It was a division between those people who support nation building and infrastructure development and those people who do not. The National Party and the Liberal Party, once again, chose to vote against nation building. They did that on the basis that the Leader of the National Party—who has assigned himself to the back bench in shame, I notice—suggests that this is not providing funding for regional Australia. Well, have a look at the facts. The facts are that $21.2 billion of this spending is being delivered for rural and regional Australia. Some $1.2 billion on top of that is being invested in the ARTC. That is a total of $22.4 billion for rural and regional Australia.

Now, if you look at the former government’s AusLink program you find that its total funding—the whole lot—was $17.1 billion on national road and rail infrastructure. In total, $17.1 billion was their funding under the AusLink program. Last time I looked, 22 was a bigger number than 17! They provided $17 billion for the whole nation; we are providing $22.4 billion for rural and regional Australia. But the opposition had two lots of amendments that they voted on earlier today. One arose from the argument that the Strategic Regional Program that they had, only applied to regions.

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