Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

I hear the member for Gippsland make some observations, and I am quite certain that when the voters go to the polls in Victoria later this year the very clear message from whoever the Premier of Victoria is this week that Tony Abbott will not be too welcome on the campaign trail.

Let's have a contrast: let's compare the record of the Liberal Party in government with Labor's record. We have, as I said, doubled the roads budget to $46.5 billion, and a significant amount of this spending was in National Party seats. Far from the pork-barrelling that we saw in previous coalition governments, we put the money into where it was most needed. Labor upgraded over 7,500 kilometres of roads. We had a commitment to regional areas and supported working people by shortening commutes. We improved the safety of the roads around the nation and boosted productivity by reducing congestion. Labor boosted local government grants for infrastructure by over 20 per cent through strategic investments in local communities. There were over 17,000 projects funded in towns and villages around the country. The Liberals and the Nationals know that these projects have been necessary. They know that they are important and they know that they are critical to the economies of these regions, and that is why they are rushing around with a pair of scissors trying to cut the ribbons and claim credit for all these projects around the regions.

The Minister for Infrastructure may as well be known as the 'minister for xerox' because in his second reading speech on this very legislation before the House he mentioned almost a dozen projects that were Labor initiatives: the $6.7 billion to upgrade the Bruce Highway, a Labor initiative; the $5.6 billion to finish the duplication of the Pacific Highway, a Labor initiative; the $1 billion to continue the Gateway Motorway North upgrade in Brisbane, a Labor initiative; the $6.8 million to finish the Gateway Western Australia project in Perth, a Labor initiative; the $615 million to build the Swan Valley Bypass on the Perth to Darwin highway, again a Labor initiative; $500 million to upgrade the South Road Superway in Adelaide; $405 million for the F3 to M2 link; $500 million dollars to continue the Midland Highway upgrade in Tasmania; $300 million to finalise planning for the Melbourne to Brisbane inland rail, a project that I know you are a big fan of Mr Deputy Speaker; and the $1.8 billion allocated to the WestConnex project in Sydney, subject to conditions—including a proper business case analysis.

These were all Labor initiatives; all Labor projects. So on the one hand they are out there bagging Labor for inaction, or for overspending and overinvesting or for investing in the wrong projects, and on the other hand they are standing here in parliament at every opportunity that they can with the liquid paper out trying to scratch out our name across those projects and ensuring that they are taking credit for them themselves. There is little wonder, because this Prime Minister has no plan for infrastructure in this country.

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