Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I'm sorry; Bill Shorten. Apologies. I want to call out the Leader of the Opposition's candidate in Corangamite, who in a post on her Facebook page said:

Scott Morrison and the Liberals have sat on their hands for nearly six years, doing nothing to improve rail infrastructure in Victoria.

What an absolute joke that is. That is a patent lie. As I've documented very clearly, we've delivered $150 million already, and now in this budget, which preceded this candidate making this statement, we delivered another $700 million. Of course, just two weeks ago we announced $2 billion. So what a mockery. Politics is full of people who come to politics for all the right reasons, but Australians want their politicians to have integrity, and there is no integrity when a candidate makes that sort of statement after our government has delivered this sort of money for the Corangamite region. Of course, the total amount of money available and announced by our government up until the budget was $1.75 billion for the Regional Rail Revival package, when the state Labor government had provided only $150 million.

Now we have the member for Corio making more untruthful statements, claiming that the $2 billion for fast rail is not in the budget. That is patently untrue. They are desperate. It is clear that the Labor Party does not support fast rail. The Labor Party does not support faster, more reliable rail services into our region. The member for Corio is on a mission to campaign against better rail services. I say to the member for Corio: shame on you. We are incredibly proud of our commitment to fast rail. I call out his untruthful statements, which are completely untruthful, and I call on the Victorian government to provide the $2 billion in the matching funding that we need to get on with this project; to expedite the business plan, this $50 million that it's allocated for it's business plan for fast rail; and to bring forward the construction timetable of the rail duplication project so we can get on with this project.

Question agreed to.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 12:21

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