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

It is not ready. It will not be ready for three years. So why would you be putting money in this year's budget for a project that cannot be built for three years? We are looking around for other projects in cooperation with the Victorian government so that there can be some construction activity in that state. We want there to be jobs created in Victoria. Even though they walked away from the best project, we will look at other work that can be done, particularly shovel-ready projects so that there can be jobs and expenditure in Victoria.

Any fall in the reduction of expenditure in Victoria is not the fault of the federal government; it is the fault of the state government which chose not to build the project that had been agreed by its predecessors and which are part of the agreed five-year program. Labor walked away from it and so Labor has got to take full responsibility for any reductions in funding in that particular area.

Let me go to another issue raised by the honourable member opposite—that is, the school bus seatbelts program. The reality is that it is now in all of the mainland states compulsory to fit seatbelts to school buses. Labor itself had not provided any money beyond that year for the school bus seatbelts program. There was no money in Labor's forward estimates for the program. They had decided to terminate it. Incidentally, it was introduced by the Howard government. I have heard Labor trying to claim it was their program but it was put in place by the Howard government and it has served its purpose.

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