Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to make a contribution to this debate regarding the Land Transport Infrastructure Amendment Bill 2014 because this bill seeks to build on Labor's strong record of investment, particularly in road infrastructure but also in rail infrastructure, through a number of nation-building projects that were conceived and begun under the previous Labor government. Their construction continues as we speak, adding to the productivity of our nation's land transport.

This particular bill seeks to amend the Nation Building Program (National Land Transport) Act to: continue funding indefinitely for the Roads to Recovery program, something that is supported by the opposition; allow the minister an ongoing power to determine a Roads to Recovery list; eliminate the distinction between national network and off-network projects, and retitle the same as 'investment projects'; widen transport research funding criteria; allow partnerships and non-corporate Commonwealth entities to apply for research funding; repeal some of the acts that are no longer relevant, including the railway standardisation agreement act of 1958; and rename the act and remove any reference to 'nation building'.

In the minister's speech on 27 February this year, when he introduced this bill and made a speech to the parliament, he said:

Through the Infrastructure Investment Program, the government has committed $35.5 billion over six years to road and rail projects, including:

and—

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