Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

Once again we have listened to the over-the-top rhetoric of the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. We have been listening to that for quite some time. However, this is the budget where it all comes unstuck, because the reality is that, in spite of the minister's claims, this budget actually predicts a $1.2 billion cut per year for road and raid funding under their so-called nation building 2 program, which is set to commence on 1 July 2014. A $36 billion program has on the government's own figures become a $24 billion program. Once more, even that figure is probably overblown. The minister makes big announcements about things such as the Melbourne Metro link project. He talked again just now about it being a $3 billion project. What he did not say is that there is only $75 million in the next four years to actually fund it.

He was boasting about WestConnex being a $1.8 billion project—although we all know the Prime Minister has put conditions on that project which make it absolutely impossible for it to ever proceed—but there is only $400 million actually provided. There is not $1.8 billion—it is only $400 million. And, since the government is insisting that there be no tolls, there is about a 75 per cent gap in the funding for a project of that nature.

The reality is that there will only be $2 billion spent on the entire national highway network across the country in the first year of nation building 2 program. This is just typical of Labor's approach in other areas, where they announce big programs but they are not funded—like the NDIS, like Gonski. They announce what sound like big amounts of money, but the money is not provided. When you look at these kinds of investments, we are left with significant gaps in what is actually going to be able to be achieved. What is even more alarming is that the government seems to be manipulating the figures to make the $24 billion look as big as it is.

For instance, the department confirmed in Senate estimates last week that almost $4 billion of untied local road grants for local government is included now as a subprogram in Nation Building 2. I ask the minister, is that $4 billion included in his $24 billion announcement? In the past, that money has been dealt with in other ways. But this time the department has said that this $4 billion funding, the traditional funding that goes to local government for roads, is now part of their nation-building strategy. When you look at the program and realise that $1.5 billion of that $24 billion is coming out of the Building Australia Fund—created entirely by the previous Howard government—and when you realise that there is $2 billion being transferred out of the mining tax, the real amount allocated for road funding over the next five-year program is not $24 billion; it is about $17 billion. This will be the smallest program that we have had in this nation for a very long time in real terms.

The minister again talked about their $4.1 billion program for the Bruce Highway. We have actually had candidates out there announcing projects—including a member who I notice is in the chamber—yet the funding is not profiled in any way in the budget announcement. When asked about this in Senate estimates, the minister's department said the profiles were not available yet we have got candidates announcing that these projects are going to be built while the profile for the funding is not announced.

Of the $4.1 billion that the government says is committed to the Bruce Highway, $1.7 billion has been previously announced and $1.1 billion will not be available until after 2019—a lot of big numbers but, when you look at them, they do not seem to add up.

Since I will only get one chance to speak in this debate—because the government always manages to talk these estimates out these days—let me talk about another issue, the Moorebank Intermodal Terminal where, quite extraordinarily, the government has announced that there are to be four new board members appointed to the terminal, but the department was unable to give the names of these members during estimates. So I am now informed that these four board members have actually attended board meetings yet their names are still a secret. The government has not announced their names yet these people are already attending board meetings. This seems to be remarkable. At the department's own estimates just a few days ago, they were unable to name those people. (Time expired)

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