Damian Drum (Murray, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

This MPI gives me a great opportunity to stand up and talk about this government's infrastructure spending and to compare it to that of our political opponents. I spent a short time in Western Australia, and it is interesting that now, with an election looming, all of a sudden the Labor Party have got themselves all excited and all the Western Australians that you never hear from have finally taken to their feet to make a bit of a statement. It is great to see all of them finally having something to say when it comes to infrastructure. I am going through my check list to actually find out who these members are who have been so silent for all of this time and who now have actually found their voices with an election in Western Australia coming up next month.

Previous speakers have been talking about this $1.2 billion project in the west that somehow or other is a little bit incomplete. Where I come from in Victoria, we have a Labor Premier down there and he actually spent $1.1 billion to do nothing. He had a program on the books—and I am sure the shadow minister would be aware of this project. His good mate Daniel Andrews actually spent $1.1 billion of taxpayers' money in Victoria to scrap a road—a road that Infrastructure Australia and Infrastructure Victoria have now identified as an essential part of the infrastructure needs of the Melbourne network. It has to be built by a future government, but Mr Albanese's friend Daniel Andrews has actually spent $1.1 billion of Victorian money to not build a road at all.

See this speech in context