Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Whenever I listen to this debate about infrastructure and the number of times the Prime Minister has talked about it in the House, I get a sense of deja vu. I am hearing things that leave me trying to work out where I have heard them before. It seems that our Prime Minister must have a fascination with everything that the New South Wales Premier, Barry O'Farrell, does, because in so many instances they are literally carbon copies of each other in their approach. For example, back in 2011 I saw a document circulating in New South Wales called 'A contract with New South Wales' to be entered into by Barry O'Farrell which referred to the party that was in favour of individual contracts bringing a collective agreement with the people of New South Wales. Congratulations on that—

Mr Chester interjecting—

I'll get to it, don't you worry, Member for Gippsland. It was a contract with New South Wales obviously designed because members of the coalition know that the public suspects that they fail to bring the public along with them in believing that they will actually keep their promises. So in 2011 we had a contract with New South Wales. Then what happened in last year's federal election? We have a contract with Australia signed by the Prime Minister. So it goes from New South Wales to the national level. We have it here and it is signed by Tony Abbott, so it must mean that he is going to follow through on what he says.

I keep hearing the Prime Minister talk about how he is going to be the infrastructure Prime Minister, so I go back in time again and I see a reference in 2010 to someone trying to equate themselves with leadership and the provision of infrastructure. Who was it? It was the then opposition leader in New South Wales, Barry O'Farrell, who said in December 2010 that he wanted to be seen as the infrastructure premier and that he would 'forfeit his leadership' if he could not deliver on his key promises. I fast-forward in time after Barry O'Farrell said that and I get to another document, which was released on 5 September last year, member for Gippsland. It was released by your illustrious leader, Tony Abbott, who said, 'If elected, I want to be known as the infrastructure Prime Minister.' So everything that Barry O'Farrell does, Tony Abbott copies. I note that he did not say he would resign if he does not fulfil his commitments at the federal level, but on everything else he copies him. Tony Abbott to Barry O'Farrell is sort of like Marmite to Vegemite—it tries hard but it just cannot make it. People just cannot sign up to the original being replicated in this case.

But it does not stop there; it just keeps on going. For example, Barry O'Farrell comes up with the idea of WestConnex. Notionally, you would agree with the idea to extend the M4 and make sure that it goes on into the city, because people in Western Sydney know that this has plagued transport, it has been the missing link in trying to get people moving more. But the O'Farrell government not only does not extend it all the way to the airport or into the city, they also impose a toll on parts of the M4 that were already paid for by Western Sydney motorists. That is scandalous, because the people in Western Sydney who dug into their pockets and paid for that roadway should not be hit again by this government. But they do it, and at the federal level Tony Abbott supports it.

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