Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

The government have been very strong in coming out and saying that they are investing record amounts of money on road and rail. This is of course just record spin. In reality, the Labor government will actually spend less on rail and road than the previous coalition government had committed prior to the last election and, what’s more, they are spreading the funding over six years instead of the five that had been committed to by the previous government. The minister is also very strong at criticising the former government about rorts and so I want to turn my initial attention to the choice of projects and how projects were chosen to be funded through this government’s program.

Some of the major items were in fact funded, we are told, as a result of investigations by Infrastructure Australia. However, the government will not make available any of the documentation, case studies or arguments that were put up which led to the choice of these particular projects. In fact, they have not even told us which projects were specifically chosen as the highest priorities by Infrastructure Australia. All we have are two lists: one called ‘Priority projects/actions ready to proceed’ and a second one called ‘Priority infrastructure pipeline projects with real potential’. However, the government have not indicated why particular projects were chosen and have refused to make available any of the working documents. How could anyone call this a fair and transparent process when in fact the government will not open up their documentation to any kind of scrutiny? One of the projects chosen was not on either list. I ask the minister: why was the O-Bahn track extension approved when it was not considered by Infrastructure Australia and was not recommended either as being close to ready or as one that should be given further consideration, especially since the South Australian minister said it was news to him when the announcement was actually made?

I refer also to the biggest single commitment, the $3.2 billion for the Regional Rail Express project in Melbourne—over three-quarters of the entire allocation. It is interesting to note that Sir Rod Eddington completed a study on improving east-west transport connections across Melbourne and he recommended that this project proceed. Lo and behold, Sir Rod Eddington is also the chairman of Infrastructure Australia. So he has actually recommended a project he recommended the first time be given priority over all others. I ask the minister to answer whether Sir Rod Eddington stepped aside from the consideration of this project where he clearly had a keen interest so that there can be absolute public confidence that it was assessed fairly and did not have an unfair advantage because the chairman of Infrastructure Australia had an association with that project.

While we are on the subject of choosing projects, I would like to turn to the new Nation Building Program off-network projects. This was the old regional strategic roads program that the government has worked hard to strike the word ‘regional’ from. In fact, when the Senate looked like messing it up today and re-including the word ‘regional’ in the program, the minister had to run to get the Greens to change their vote so that it could be recommitted. This is supposed to be the minister for regional development but he is trying to wipe the word ‘regional’ out of every government program. So we now have the Nation Building Program off-network projects. I would ask the minister what transparent processes were undertaken to choose the projects to be funded under this network because, of the $655.2 million in the proposed road and rail funding, $532.9 million is being shovelled into Labor held electorates. Most of the other projects—perhaps with the exception of only one—are in electorates that Labor was targeting at the last election. Indeed, most of these projects were announced by Labor candidates during the last election. I ask the minister: when were other projects given an opportunity to be considered for this funding network? Will there be a call for nominations for funding for these projects from people other than Labor Party candidates, or is this in fact just a giant rort to fund Labor Party election commitments? When you have 82 per cent of all the funding for what was a regional roads program now being spent in Labor seats, and most of it in city areas, it is quite clear that this government did not adopt proper transparent processes and that this has been a gigantic rort and abuse of taxpayer money.

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