Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

She was never threatened by the National Party in Gellibrand, that is absolutely correct. She did a lot of good for the Riverina in the last parliament and that was important because the Riverina is a great producer of goods and services which this nation needs and which this nation exports. Former Minister Roxon recognised that. When the Riverina needed help after the floods—particularly with the road networks, which were damaged—both the state coalition government and the federal Labor government came to the assistance of the Riverina, which was very much appreciated at the time.

The coalition government will build the roads for the 21st century, we will be the infrastructure government and Tony Abbott will be the infrastructure Prime Minister. We are getting on with the job of helping to build the nation and helping to continue to make things to make our nation great. The Prime Minister has said many times that our best years are ahead of us, and I am sure that the member for Gellibrand would agree with that statement, but we do need good road infrastructure and good rail infrastructure, as the member for Gellibrand acknowledged in his speech. We need those good arterial networks in both road and rail to ensure that we are able to get the job done. That was the plan we took to the last election, and building the roads of the 21st century is something we are serious about now that we are in government. We keep our promises; indeed, we do. The coalition government is working with the states, not against them, to deliver critical infrastructure upgrades right across Australia. We want to deliver nationally significant infrastructure projects to grow Australian productivity and improve living standards.

I heard the member for Gellibrand and the member for Throsby in their respective speeches talking about National Party pork barrelling. I have to say the regions often miss out when it comes to funding—and those regions are not just represented by National Party members, although it is shame that they are not all represented by National Party members. The regions often miss out on vital funding despite the fact that they produce the wealth—the mining wealth and the agricultural wealth—that makes this country great. For example, the member for Gellibrand talked about public transport. We could only hope for a better public transport network in Wagga Wagga and other regions. We have got a half-decent public transport system, but we certainly do not have the level of public transport that they have in the metropolitan areas.

In order for the government to deliver the roads of the 21st century through greater collaboration and good relationships with state and territory governments and the private sector, amendments to the Nation Building Program (National Land Transport) Act 2009 are unnecessary. This bill will amend the name of the act to the National Transport Act 2014. This is not a great scheme to put National Party stickers all over signage across the nation. Under Labor, projects were not even allowed to be opened, or in some cases the first sod was not able to be turned, until a great sign labelled the project. This certainly was the case with the school halls program. It was ridiculous. I do not know the total amount expended on these signs, but it was just a way of taking credit—that money could have been far better spent on delivering a better school halls program.

Importantly, this bill will enable the continuation of the Howard government's Roads to Recovery program, a program that was fostered and helped along by the National Party. It was introduced by the former Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Nationals, John Anderson—a great man. It was a program synonymous with critical infrastructure upgrades throughout this wide brown land. For country people, Roads to Recovery was a program that demonstrated that the government—of course it was a coalition government—understood the state of the roads in the bush, understood how critical those transport arteries were to the nation's economy and prioritised, not pork barrelled, the necessary upgrades to road infrastructure. The fact that they just happened to be in coalition seats was because we represented more rural electorates than your side of politics did. It was not pork barrelling, it was just giving the regions their due. This bill will allow for the continuation of that program.

Honourable members interjecting—

The current member for Dawson has been on about the Bruce Highway for a long time and that will continue as it is a road that needs funding. I am sure that, as the current member for Dawson is a very good member, he will continue to fight hard for that project.

In my Riverina electorate, Roads to Recovery delivered much funding to many vital infrastructure projects. In fact between the 2000-01 and 2006-07 financial years, Roads to Recovery project funding in the Riverina was $51.5 million. This included funding for every local government area in my electorate, and I can name them all—not that all of these local government areas were in the Riverina electorate during those years, but they are now. It might suit the House if I read these out to demonstrate the enormous amount of spending that we delivered. I will just round off the figures: Bland Shire Council, $7.2 million; Carrathool Shire, $5 million; Coolamon Shire, $3.8 million; Griffith City Council, $4.8 million; Gundagai Shire, $2.4 million; Junee Shire, $2.9 million; Leeton Shire, $2.8 million; Murrumbidgee Shire, $1.7 million; Narrandera Shire Council, $4.4 million; Temora Shire, $3.2 million; Tumbarumba Shire, $1.5 million—I just add that Tumbarumba Shire recently won the AR Bluett award for being the most financially sound council in New South Wales—Tumut Shire, $2.2 million; and Wagga Wagga City Council, $9.1 million. Wagga Wagga City Council got the lion's share because it has the biggest city, with a population of 63,000, and has a lot of roads. It actually neighbours Tumbarumba Shire and many others. It also has an intermodal rail freight hub project, which is underway at the moment. I must say that the Labor government did fund that to the tune of $14.5 million. It is a project which will, hopefully, be using a lot of the products which come from Visy paper mill.

The Visy pulp and paper mill at Tumut relies heavily on the Gocup Road, a very windy, 30.1-kilometre stretch of road between Tumut and South Gundagai. A report prepared by the Tumut Shire Council in December 2006 indicated that the Gocup Road 'currently carries an estimated 234 heavy vehicles and 1,229 light vehicles over its entire length each weekday'. The report said: 'It is an important transport link for the timber companies in and around Tumut,' which, I have to say, underpin the entire Tumut and Tumbarumba economies, 'as it provides the main road link to the Hume Highway for northbound traffic'. Bearing in mind that we are talking 2006 here, the report continues, 'Timber production is expected to increase the heavy vehicle haulage on Gocup Road over the next few years.' Indeed it has. 'For Visy Pulp and Paper Pty Limited,' owned by the Pratt family, 'this will result from the implementation of stage 2 of their plant development'—that has happened—'and a major increase in timber hauled from their plantations in the Macquarie timber region near Bathurst/Oberon. To more effectively manage their back-loading Visy will be hauling 60 per cent of their export products to the port of Sydney rather than to Melbourne.'

Gocup Road is a road which needs funding. I hosted the Tumut Shire Council Mayor, Trina Thomson, and the General Manager, Bob Stewart, at important talks with the Deputy Prime Minister on 4 March, at which we discussed Gocup Road and its need for funding. It is a very important transport link, linking both the ports of Sydney and Melbourne. It also has importance to the potential benefits of the RIFL project at Bomen, just north of Wagga Wagga.

Very tragically, there was a fatal accident on Gocup Road just last Saturday, the circumstances of which will be determined by the coroner. It is a very winding road. It does need to be improved, and the safety upgrades do need funding—a serious amount of funding.

In 2007 when Kay Hull, my predecessor, ran for re-election, the coalition put $11 million on the table for Gocup Road funding. In 2010 that offer was again put up by the coalition. Unfortunately we did not win the election in either of those years. At the last election such a sum was not put up, because we were not sure about the state of the economy and the state of the financial books that we would inherit if indeed we were to win the election, which thankfully we did. On coming to government we found that the books were in a parlous state. But this Roads to Recovery rebirth will provide much-needed money for infrastructure projects, hopefully including Gocup Road and other important projects throughout the Riverina. It is necessary.

Through the Infrastructure Investment program, the coalition has committed $35.5 billion over six years to road and rail projects, including $6.7 billion for the Bruce Highway, which the member for Dawson has been fighting for; $5.6 billion to finish the duplication of the Pacific Highway—that very dangerous stretch of road linking New South Wales and Queensland—which is so important; $1.5 billion for the WestConnex project in Sydney; and $1.5 billion for the East West link in Melbourne.

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