Maxine McKew (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

Exactly. The point is this: the Story Bridge along with the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Snowy Hydro were the great big ambitious projects that were built at a time when the country was poorer, when we were smaller in population. But we did these big ambitious things at a time when we had, if you like, smaller horizons, when we were more geographically isolated. But at some point we said goodbye to nation building, and I think it is a matter for great regret and in fact the real tragedy, quite frankly. Of the boom of the late nineties and the early part of the 21st century, the previous Liberal government and previous Liberal ministers were not nation builders. We are. Labor is the building party.

I know that the member for Kennedy appreciates this point as well: that there is no more important objective for our government than supporting jobs by investing in the infrastructure that we need for tomorrow. Without the government’s actions to stimulate our economy and support jobs, the full burden of a global recession would be falling on the shoulders of Australian families and indeed on businesses. Without the government’s investment, we would have lost tens of thousands of jobs, perhaps many more. Tens of thousands of Australians would be out of work. Our actions have helped to shore up the economy. Building world-class infrastructure, big and small, has been part of that and is supporting long-term prosperity.

If I could go through some of the details of some of the key points that I know the member for Kennedy takes to heart. We are investing at unprecedented levels in transport. We have delivered historic nation-building investments to the point where 70 per cent, in fact, of our economic stimulus is going into infrastructure. Specifically, there will be $36 billion over six years to begin fixing and modernising the nation’s road, rail and port infrastructure. The federal roads budget alone is $28 billion over six years. That is more than twice what the previous government spent over a similar period of time.

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