Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Five or six years, my foot! It will be 10 to 20 years before we see real action on improving the access byroad into Melbourne. When Tony Abbott—God forbid if he is elected to govern this country—stood up in his budget reply and announced that within 12 months he would start work on the East West project, what he did at that moment was turn his back on everyone in Geelong. What he did at that moment was turn his back on the tens of thousands of commuters from Geelong who hit that traffic jam when they get to the Western Ring Road interchange. He stands to be condemned for that. That is the basis on which—

Opposition members interjecting—

Every one of those commuters will have that first and foremost in their minds when they seek to cast a vote in September this year. The intent of dealing with traffic congestion around Melbourne is a good intent, but the motion as it was originally put before this place by those opposite has whiskers on it. We have put in place a set of amendments which have a process around them, which would see a business case put to Infrastructure Australia so that a sensible decision could be made.

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