Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Absolutely, and so there should be. The Tarcutta bypass cost $290 million and was finished in 2011. Last year, the Holbrook bypass cost $247 million for 9½ kilometres and that finished the duplication of the Hume Highway, a great project. Who opened that project? Who turned the first sod? It was none other than Julia Gillard, the former Prime Minister. But what happened just four short days later? She went the same way that Kevin Rudd went. She went because of the carbon tax. She was stabbed in the back by a chaotic government. She was stabbed in the back by her supposed colleagues.

Opposition members interjecting—

Yes; Albo, the member for Grayndler, was there too. The member for Grayndler was certainly at that opening. My point is that $247 million is just a quarter of what we are paying in interest per month now—just a quarter. It is a disgrace. The Snowy Mountains hydroelectricity scheme, completed in 1972, cost only $820 million. Think of everything that we could be spending all that money on but we are sending 70 per cent of it overseas. It is an absolute disgrace and the Labor opposition is an absolute disgrace. (Time expired)

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