Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

I do thank the member for Mallee, a very hardworking Victorian member. He's a passionate advocate for regional Australia, which is home to hardworking Australian families, farmers and small and medium family enterprises, as the minister, the member for Reid, just talked about—hardworking people who Labor purported to represent but now ignores. The government wants to ease the pressure on these hardworking families and create jobs for their children and grandchildren.

Inland Rail is transformational. Two Fridays ago I stood on the Southern Cross railway station platform in Melbourne having just signed the first bilateral agreement, the first intergovernmental agreement, with the Victorian government. I'm looking forward to getting onboard with the New South Wales and Queensland governments. Inland Rail is a $9.1 billion Commonwealth investment and the largest rail project that the Commonwealth has been involved in for more than a century. It is a 1,700-kilometre corridor of commerce. It is transformational. It is nation-building infrastructure. Most importantly, it is job creating, particularly for regional Australia. As I said, the first intergovernmental agreement has been signed with Victoria, a state which is going to have $7 billion of additional gross state product added to it because of this corridor of commerce. I look forward to future agreements with New South Wales and Queensland.

While the line doesn't directly go through Mallee, the region is going to benefit with $440 million for the Murray Basin Rail Project, brought about by the Liberal-Nationals federal government. The refurbishing of rail lines in northern Victoria will be the biggest Commonwealth contribution to freight rail in Victoria's history. The Mildura line alone carries $650 million worth of agricultural freight annually. It moves local produce safely and efficiently to port and to market. The benefits cannot be understated.

We need to take advantage of the trade agreements that we've got with South Korea, Japan, China and Peru. The TPP-11 is very good. It was arranged through the Liberal-Nationals government. Those opposite talk a big game before an election, but they never deliver when they are in government, but we get on with the job of building nation-building infrastructure and of brokering free trade agreements. Just look at the job figures in February. Not only will the Inland Rail deliver jobs, so too have small and medium enterprises—thanks to the Liberal-Nationals government—17,500 in February alone. (Time expired)

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