Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the first three parts of this motion. I cannot, sadly, support the fourth, which says 'commends the federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport for his work in bringing about this agreement', because, sadly, he has failed to put any money where his mouth is as transport minister, and regional and rural Australia, in particular, is suffering as a result. But I acknowledge the importance of the road transport industry to Australia's economy, note that the heavy vehicle regulator intergovernmental agreement was reached at the Council of Australian Governments meeting on 19 August 2011 and acknowledge the significance of the heavy vehicle regulator intergovernmental agreement to Australia's road transport sector—although there is still a little bit to be worked out when it comes to finalising the agreement.

Australia's trucking industry is incredibly important to our economy, and nowhere can it be as important as in the electorate of Wannon, where we have the port of Portland and the freight task in delivering our goods in our electorate to the port of Portland, which handles 25 per cent of Australia's dairy products and 17 per cent of Australia's plantation forestry and wood processing. We have significant heavy mineral exploration, and those heavy minerals also go out through the port of Portland. One million tonnes of grain exports annually go out through the port of Portland, and 67,000 tonnes of livestock exports go out through the port of Portland. We also have aluminium heading out there. As a matter of fact, throughput and trade volumes through the port of Portland are projected to double to seven million tonnes in the next seven to eight years.

It is great that we have this agreement and can talk about road safety, but if we do not have money to put into road and rail infrastructure there is going to be a deterioration in our roads and our rail infrastructure, and that is going to harm the Australian economy. That is why it was so disappointing that we did not get one cent more for road infrastructure in the last budget. The minister, sadly, has betrayed Australia's road and rail users. There was not one single cent of extra road funding.

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