Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

(Extension of time granted) The fact is that, every time those opposite make the sorts of statements that they have made about Gateway WA and about a host of other projects, they show how embarrassing their lack of knowledge of infrastructure projects is. And they have done it right around the country. The minister opposite went and visited part of the upgrade—Gateway Upgrade North—and, yet, those opposite would pretend that that funding was not there and that, somehow, it had not happened.

They are happy to go to the openings. Last Friday, of course, many of the federal members who will benefit from the Hunter Expressway did not get an invitation. Those opposite could not squeeze Labor members in. There were more Tories in the Hunter Valley last Friday than you have seen in the Hunter region in history. It was quite remarkable. They were all there for the opening of a project that was promised, funded and built by the federal Labor government as part of the economic stimulus plan—and they had voted against that. They voted against the economic stimulus plan that contained $1.45 billion of the $1.7 billion for the project.

The reason why we believe that you need proper cost-benefit analysis for the land transport program comes back to a proper analysis of benefit. That might be road or it might be rail. Take Melbourne, for example: the M80 project—a very good project—received $788 million from the federal government and is making a big difference to productivity. Also making a significant difference is the largest ever Commonwealth investment in a single public transport project in Australia's history—the $3.225 billion regional rail link. One of the reasons why you have a high BCR for the project is the uplift factor along the route of the train line. If you go to the new stations that have been built, what you see is significant residential development and commercial development specifically around the new stations. You also see significant benefit because of what it does by separating freight and passenger rail going into Melbourne. It is of significant benefit for Melbourne but also for Geelong, for Ballarat and for Bendigo. The current Prime Minister did not seem to know that that even existed when made his 3AW declaration that the Commonwealth government which he would lead would not fund any urban public transport project because that was not what Commonwealth governments do.

The fact is that Commonwealth governments were doing that and they were doing it to significant value, whether it be the Perth City Link project opened and funded, of course, in partnership with the state government, making a huge difference to urban amenity around Perth; the Noarlunga to Seaford rail extension in Adelaide; the Gold Coast Rapid Transit project on the Gold Coast; or, of course, the Moreton Bay rail link, which is now under construction. That rail link was first promised in 1895, but it took a federal Labor government to make sure that that proceeded to construction. All of these projects are examples of assessments being made and then funding being delivered. It is important that, in the area of infrastructure, Infrastructure Australia gets a say. What we are proposing with this amendment is nothing more and nothing less than the existing coalition policy. It is what they said they would do—that there would be cost-benefit analysis for projects of value above $100 million. I commend the amendment to the House.

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