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

I move:

I move this amendment to put some facts into the motion that was moved by the member for Berowra. He is of course the Father of the House, having been here longer than any other member of parliament, but shows himself in this motion to be the Rip Van Winkle of Australian politics. He slept through the 12 years of the Howard government, when there was no progress on this vital link in Sydney, and slept through the former, Labor government finalising the agreement between the New South Wales government, the federal government and Transurban to make sure this project became a reality.

We did that by including in our earlier budgets $150 million towards the project. There was $150 million for planning, a fact acknowledged by Mr Ruddock, the member for Berowra, when he raised these issues in parliament as far back as in 2009. But he knows that the Howard government talked a lot about infrastructure but did not do anything about it. Their total contribution to infrastructure investment in Sydney was $300 million during 12 long years of neglect.

It is no wonder that that sort of record led Australia to be ranked 20th out of 25 countries in the OECD for investment in infrastructure in 2007, when I was sworn in as the minister for infrastructure. We know that today Australia is ranked first—first in 2012, first in 2011—amongst all the industrialised countries, and that was recognised globally. It is also recognised by the commitments that we made in government, including finalising the agreement. On 21 June of last year, I signed the final intergovernmental agreement between the Australian government and the New South Wales government on the F3 to M2 link. There was evidence of it—

Mr Albanese holding up pictures—

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