Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The debate today is about infrastructure and productivity. The Leader of the National Party spoke for 15 minutes. I did not really hear him say much about productivity, but productivity is very important for growing the economic prosperity of this nation and infrastructure is a very important part of that. Looking back over the 12 years of the Howard government—which we have heard members opposite describe as some sort of golden age of investment and infrastructure—and comparing that to the two years of the current Rudd government, we need to look back at the context even of the last few years of the Howard government. We saw that after the 2004 election, when the current opposition—the then government—promised to keep interest rates at record lows, they went up 10 times and the independent Reserve Bank Governor was talking about infrastructure bottlenecks and the skills crisis in this country being a major driver of that, because infrastructure and skills are important for driving the productive capacity in this country.

The Reserve Bank Governor was saying, very clearly, there were infrastructure bottlenecks in this country that the Howard government had done nothing about. We need to focus on infrastructure and we need to invest in nation-building infrastructure if we are going to put downward pressure on interest rates. The Rudd government came to power in November 2007 and created the first ever infrastructure minister. We put in place—in our first budget—the Nation Building Program and we have continued to invest in nation-building infrastructure, in our response to the global financial crisis that led on to the global recession. Seventy per cent of our investment in economic stimulus has been in nation-building infrastructure. That, in the broad scheme, is the difference between the current government—the very proud Rudd government, with an infrastructure minister—that is about nation building, and the opposition and previous Howard government, who approached infrastructure with pork barrelling and short-termism. That is the way the National Party has always approached economic issues: ‘What can I do for my local constituency,’ and ‘What is in our local political interest?’—not what is in the national interest. We have seen that continued with the current Leader of the Opposition, the member for Wentworth, who shows poor judgement on a range of different issues, particularly issues that relate to the economy. And he shows very poor judgement, particularly when it comes to investment in infrastructure.

Let us go to what the Rudd government has done and what the Rudd government is doing. If we look at transport infrastructure we have, as the minister for infrastructure has said, over our six years—two years and the next four years over the forward estimates—committed $36 billion alone in transport infrastructure compared to, in over 12 years of the Howard government, $28 billion; that is, $36 billion over six years and $28 billion over 12 years—more in half the time. I am very proud that in the state of Queensland we are investing $2.2 billion in the Bruce Highway and $1.1 billion between Sarina and Cairns.

We heard members opposite talk about investments across the country and I was particularly interested to hear the Leader of the National Party talking about investments in the Douglas arterial road around the electorate of Herbert. He did not have anything to say about investment in the electorate of Leichhardt. The former Liberal member has been recognised as being a good advocate up there but there was not too much road funding that came into Leichhardt during the former member for Leichhardt’s time here—there were a few crumbs off the table. I can assure you that in the lead-up to the last election we got a commitment of $150 million to upgrade the southern approach to Cairns. The then minister for transport in the Howard government made no commitment—silence. The then member for Leichhardt, Mr Entsch, made no commitment. We had the then opposition spokesman—the current Minister for Resources and Energy and Minister for Tourism—come up and make a $150 million commitment to upgrade the Bruce Highway south of Cairns.

The current minister for infrastructure has committed to that and later this year we will be rolling out the last couple of options. Over the next four years we will see $150 million investment in the southern suburbs of Cairns, more than we ever saw under 12 years of the previous member for Leichhardt. I am very proud of the work that this government is doing. It is building the nation—nation-building infrastructure—not only across the nation but in my particular electorate.

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