Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

looks at the previous years' expenditure on roads. It calculates it over a period of time and then works on the formula that was established by those opposite to say, 'We'll recover the costs.' So our expenditure on the Bruce Highway, the Pacific Highway and the Hume Highway is absolutely relevant. That is the basis of the determination—and yet you have the shadow minister just show, with that point of order, how ignorant he is about the system. That is the most extraordinary point of order. I have seen some crackers in this House but none worse than that one, because what that did was expose that the shadow minister does not even understand how this determination occurs.

The more you spend on roads the greater the cost recovery under the system. That is the way it works. It works not on an annual formula but on a seven-year formula. So, because we have been in government for five years and we have doubled the road expenditure—guess what!—the road-user charge, which is there for cost recovery, goes up. It is not hard but this bloke showed, with that point of order, why his motion should be rejected. He showed, not only why it should be rejected but why he should be embarrassed.

This is a system established by the federal coalition. We have not changed the formula or the National Transport Commission. The person in charge of the National Transport Commission is the person that they appointed. Coalition state ministers voted for this change, and yet the opposition come in here and argue against it. And then they say that the spending on roads is not relevant. It is unbelievable, from those opposite. At the same time, they argue that there is no connection between the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program and these charges. Well, there is no connection as far as they are concerned, because they never had one. What they had was increased charges giving nothing back to the industry. Well, we have not taken that view.

The fact is that those opposite need to do more than just come out with rhetoric. We saw the farcical announcement of them delaying the Pacific Highway upgrade that they made over the weekend. We have seen, today, the complete failure to understand the system that they are seeking to disallow with this motion here today. And, for no reason other than the point of order from the member for Wide Bay, he shows that his motion is not worthy of support.

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