George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is driving us back into the biggest debt at the country has ever seen. We are now at $241 billion, and who knows how low we can go.

The Liberal-National coalition put money into the bank and, at the same time, they put infrastructure on the agenda for the Bruce Highway. They funded such projects as the Ron Camm bridge duplication and many black spot upgrades in my electorate, and they put $70 billion in the bank. Then, on 10 May 2007, the former deputy prime minister Mark Vaile announced the coalition initiative AusLink 2. He said: '$23.2 billion has been committed over future years to the land transport system in Australia—roads and rail—for which we take responsibility. This is to be added to the $15.8 billion that we are currently spending in AusLink 1, a 41 per cent increase in investment into Australia's land transport system.'

The vast bulk of the money that this government has spent on the Bruce Highway was actually earmarked in then Treasurer Peter Costello's 2007-08 budget, through AusLink 2, which goes right up to now, 2012. And what has this government put into the Bruce Highway that is new? Hardly anything—and today it is nothing. There is no new funding this financial year and no plan for new funding for the Bruce Highway next financial year.

Today, the International Road Assessment Program spokesperson, Rob McInerny, has said that Premier Campbell Newman's crisis management team will find ways to eliminate one- or two-star roads that we have on the Bruce Highway, and that the area we have to start in is Mackay, because that is where people are dying—and I could not agree more. The Leader of the Nationals says that $4 billion is what is required from the federal government to do the job. Mark my words, we in the Liberal-National coalition will get the job done. (Time expired)

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