Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

This is an attempt to distract from the federal government's failed infrastructure agenda, an agenda characterised by cuts, delays and reannouncements. When we were in government, we increased funding per capita in Queensland for infrastructure from $109 to $301 for every Queenslander. We actually built things.

In the member's rhetoric that he went through there, he had the hide to raise a number of programs, including the Ipswich Motorway. We contributed $2½ billion to the Ipswich Motorway and put in the 2013 budget the Darra to Rocklea money that they just tried to claim. It has been sitting there. It would have been under construction by now had we been re-elected. They had the hide to turn up at the Moreton Bay Rail Link opening—$742 million. The link was first promised in 1895 but delivered by a federal Labor government, in conjunction with the state Labor government.

They had the hide to raise Gold Coast Light Rail. They actually opposed the project, to which $365 million was contributed by us. They opposed it every single step of the way. They went out there and told shopkeepers, 'You'll lose your businesses,' and actually organised petitions and spoke in this parliament against that project. For phase 2, they took the money from the savings that we had contributed for the Moreton Bay Rail Link, made on that project—not one dollar of additional funding.

On the Bruce Highway, they contributed, when they were in government, $1.3 billion over 12 years. We contributed $7.6 billion over six years, four times the funding in half the time. That was our record. Areas like the Cooroy to Curra section were ignored by the local member even though he was the transport minister. He could not deliver a dollar for that project.

There was the Warrego Highway upgrade. The Cape York road package was put by us in the 2013 budget. Since then it has been reannounced by those opposite seven separate times, pretending that it is a new project. There is the Gladstone Port Access Road, the Peak Downs Highway, the Townsville Ring Road and the Townsville Port Access Road—all of these projects. The Gateway Upgrade North was contributed by us. It had begun at the time of the election. There is the Mains and Kessels Road intersection, the Pacific Motorway upgrade and Legacy Way, the first time that a Commonwealth government has combined with a local government for a major project, with then Lord Mayor Newman. Five hundred million dollars was our contribution to delivering that project. All of these projects were delivered by us when we were in government. Of course, there is the Cross River Rail project, approved by Infrastructure Australia in 2012, funded in 2013 and stopped by those opposite and cut in late 2013. That would have been well under construction by now.

Of course, what they do then is attack the Labor state government over issues like the M1-Gateway merge. We are going to fund it; the state government want to fund it. You have done nothing about it. You are now in your fourth year of government and you are struggling to come up with anything at all. The Queensland Labor government have put in place a state infrastructure plan. They have passed a new planning act. They have established Building Queensland. The fact is that the federal government have failed completely. I say to the honourable member opposite that he should not come in here and talk about what the state Labor government should do. What he should do is talk to the National Party, who hold the infrastructure portfolio, and demand some actual investment—not re-announcement of projects already funded but announcement of some new projects that will boost productivity, create jobs and assist the great state of Queensland.

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