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

It is all about the 2015 budget. The exciting thing about the 2015 budget is that it provides all of the funding that is going to be necessary to complete the four-laning of the Pacific Highway between Brisbane and Sydney. All of the money is provided in this budget. That is a project that would not have been completed for another decade if Labor had been in office. Because they were not providing the funding that was necessary, the project would have stalled. The Pacific Highway is now on schedule for completion by 2019 to deliver the kind of standard of highway that Northern New South Wales needs.

And there are a number of other significant projects that get a great boost in this budget. For the Toowoomba Range second crossing, over $300 million is provided in this budget to get that project, at long last, underway. It was a project that Labor always opposed and never provided any support for that is at last getting underway and that will make a huge difference to the people of Southern Queensland.

On the Bruce Highway, there is another $500 million to start section C on the Cooroy to Curra section, a project that Labor never provided any funding towards. So we are getting on with the job. Also the Roads to Recovery program, the work on the regional highways and getting rid of the black spots will all make a difference to regional Australia and to our nation as a whole. (Time expired)

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