Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

It is at least $16.4 billion more than what Labor had committed over the same period and, if you take in the Asset Recycling Initiative, then Labor was behind another $70-odd billion in the delivery of infrastructure. This is already creating thousands of jobs and increasing the capacity of our nation.

I was a bit surprised to see the shadow minister at a doorstop today making a quite extraordinary statement when referring to the roads of the 21st century. He said: 'Well, it's now been 16 months, and no projects have commenced.' There are 85 projects currently under construction and another 94 are in development. Many of them were never even dreamed of by the other side—and certainly were never funded. They had so many conditions attached to their funding that they were never going to come through. All of the money was coming out of the proceeds of the mining tax—the mining tax that did not raise any money.

The member for Macarthur was in his electorate when work began on the $509 million Bringelly Road upgrade, which is a key part of the new roads of the Western Sydney project—

Mr Albanese interjecting—

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