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

The member for Dobell knows full well that this government understands the importance of building infrastructure for the 21st century to make our nation internationally competitive. The coalition's record investment in infrastructure is creating thousands of jobs across the country, building a stronger and prosperous economy and boosting productivity.

But yesterday I had to report to the parliament about the way in which newly elected Labor governments are actually destroying jobs and axing these projects, which are absolutely vital to our nation's future prosperity. In Victoria, I had to report how the new Labor government is threatening to terminate the transformational East West project—a project that would have employed 7,000 people; 7,000 jobs—condemning Melbourne traffic to gridlock for a generation. I also had to report on the Queensland newly elected state Labor government, which is axing at least $20 billion worth of new infrastructure projects, which were promised and paid for by the Newman government—tens of thousands of jobs lost in Queensland, a state where unemployment is being affected by the downturn in the mining and construction industry. These are projects like the Brisbane BAT tunnel, which I know the shadow minister claims that he is very supportive of. The Newman government had a commitment to build it and Labor is axing the project. Let us move now to New South Wales—

Ms Butler interjecting—

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