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

I refer to the Pacific Highway. I refer to the budget document 2014-15 in the graph on page 17 that goes through Pacific Highway projects. Can the minister for infrastructure confirm that this graph shows that the Banora Point upgrade, $344 million, was completed in late 2012, Ballina bypass was completed in 2012, Devils Pulpit was completed earlier this year, Glenugie was completed in early 2012, Kempsey bypass was completed and opened in 2013, Herons Creek to Stills Road was completed in 2013 and the Bulahdelah bypass was completed in 2013?

Can the minister further confirm that the upgrade projects that are listed as being part of the forward estimates from this financial year are the following: Tintenbar to Ewingsdale, to be completed next year, already well under construction; Woolgoolga to Ballina, planning and preconstruction work of $282 million, with an agreement that was signed in 2013, following the budget, between the Commonwealth and New South Wales; the Sapphire to Woolgoolga upgrade, which will be completed pretty soon if it has not been already; Nambucca Heads to Urunga, funded in the 2013 budget; Warrell Creek to Nambucca Heads, with construction commencing this year, funded in the 2013 budget; Frederickton to Eungai, where construction began in 2013, funded in the budget; Kundabung to Kempsey, which was funded in the 2013 budget, with construction commencing this year; along with the Oxley Highway to Kundabung upgrade, which was also funded in the 2013 budget, with construction commencing in 2014?

I refer the minister to the nation-building infrastructure budget papers of May 2013. Apart from the projects that have already been completed and opened, is there a single project that the minister can identify that is in this year's budget that was not already in last year's budget for the Pacific Highway? How does that fit the rhetoric of those opposite on their concerns over the Pacific Highway, particularly from members such as the member for Cowper, who talked a lot about the Pacific Highway but did not deliver on it during the 12 years in which those opposite previously held office, contributing just $1.3 billion to the Pacific Highway while the state Labor government $2.5 billion in the same period; or the new member for Page, who is pretending that the Tintenbar to Ewingsdale section somehow began only in September last year, whereas of course construction is well underway, having commenced more than two years ago?

Can the minister for infrastructure point to how their rhetoric about the Pacific Highway fits at all when he has not been able to identify a single new project that is funded in this budget, in his own budget papers, in this glossy document of 2014-15? It cost less, I am sure, than the $85,000 in total that was allocated to the video presentation that was very helpfully released by the minister's assistant a few hours prior to the budget speech being delivered! Can the minister point to any new projects at all on the Pacific Highway that are to commence construction as a result of this budget?

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