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

If I may take the interjection: yes, I am sure the honourable member is jealous and, of course, embarrassed, because under his stewardship as minister the Pacific Highway would never have been completed. He had already abandoned the timetable. The commitment that we had made in government to complete the job by 2016 became impossible because Labor simply did not allocate the funding. But, on top of that, they were insisting that every dollar that they put in should be matched 50-50 by the New South Wales government. They did not require that when the Labor Party was in government in New South Wales. That was a new rule that was introduced when Labor was defeated in the state. They required a 50-50 contribution.

The honourable member knew that the New South Wales government was never capable of providing that level of funding. The previous New South Wales government left the state financially destitute, so the new government has had to restore the New South Wales economy so that it can get on with providing the kind of infrastructure that the state needs. The simple facts are that under Labor the proposed completion date for the highway had been abandoned. We have picked up the pace. There is more construction occurring now on the Pacific Highway than at any other time, and we have fully funded the project to completion; that is something Labor would never have done.

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