Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

I refer back to the contribution I made earlier in respect of the East West Link project. A couple of things that I do want to correct now, having been given the opportunity, are: firstly, with respect to the claim that Labor MPs were not invited to the Hunter Expressway opening, I am very well advised that the member for Hunter was there and was invited, and so was Mr Clayton Barr from the New South Wales opposition. They were invited by the relevant members, which is, I think, exactly the same procedure that the former minister would have followed. Secondly, to correct the contributions made by the member for Perth—just so she understands—Infrastructure Australia do not actually do the cost-benefit analysis; we rely on the states to do it. That is how it worked under the former minister and that is how I intend to operate. We are not going to have an agency which is second-guessing; of course it is the states which build, own and operate the roads. With respect to the claims which continue to be made not so clearly by the minister but by the member for Perth, who clearly said that we are precluding consideration of Infrastructure Australia on public transport projects, that is just simply not true. There are two different things here. We fully expect, as we have said numerous times, that Infrastructure Australia will include consideration of public transport projects because the states will say that they are important and are a part of their plans—the states do the planning. If public transport projects are an important part of the states' planning, which you would expect in major cities, they would be part of the 15-year infrastructure plan. But we have said we believe the best place for the federal government's contribution, in respect of infrastructure, is lifting productive capacity in our economy. In that sense we are focused on contributing to roads and to freight rail. That was a clear commitment at the election.

The member for Grayndler is right to disagree; he is entitled to disagree and he will put his perspective at the next election, just as he put it at the last election. We are very clear on one thing—we will do as we say and act in accordance with the commitments we made to the Australian people prior to the election. The opposition is entitled to make the claim that they would fund public transport projects, but they should not continue to create a furphy, which is that we will preclude Infrastructure Australia from considering public transport projects; we will not. It is of course part of a 15-year plan that we expect. We want transparency; we want Infrastructure Australia to build that plan so that we have the infrastructure of the 21st century delivering a stronger economy. These of course are interesting matters but they are matters which relate to another bill. We should get back to the amendment moved by the member for Grayndler so we can move on with the business of the House.

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