Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I like the member for Scullin but, for somebody who has presented this motion, or served this motion up, his enthusiasm for his actual motion was somewhat lacking. I thought he would be a bit more forthright and enthusiastic. On this side of the chamber, we actually have reason to be optimistic and enthusiastic, because this government on this side of the House, the Morrison government, that has actually delivered on City Deals. This government actually initiated the concept of City Deals some three years ago. It has become a very successful process—three levels of government cooperating and collaborating to agree to long-term plans focused around three key areas of housing, infrastructure and jobs. As a result of that, we have seen City Deals leverage some $16.8 billion in commitments, including some $8 billion from the Australian government through this partnership approach with state, territory and local governments. Across eight City Deals there are 160 projects, which we have jointly invested in with state governments, local councils and private partners, creating nearly 221,000 jobs in their life time. So we do have the runs on the board and we do have the track record to be enthusiastic about this and show that we are committed to this.

This also gives me the opportunity to speak about some of the terrific things this government is doing in the latest budget in the infrastructure space. There is a record 10-year infrastructure spend. It was a $100 billion but now, as a result of the recent budget, it is $110 billion, and City Deals continue to be delivered across the nation as part of that. In fact, it was the coalition government that—with these jobs we see the opportunities to put boots on the ground and create job opportunities across the country.

The member for Scullin in his motion raised the 2017 Infrastructure Australia report. I can report to the House that one of the priority projects in that report was the M1-M3 gateway merge. I am pleased to tell the House that that project has been completed on schedule—actually ahead of schedule—and we are now onto the next stage of the M1 upgrades from Springwood to the gateway northbound. Not only that, we also have completed the Mudgeeraba and Varsity Lakes upgrade on the Gold Coast to the M1 and we are now working on the Varsity Lakes to Tallebudgera section of the M1 upgrades.

We have also committed as a government, as part of our long-term funding commitment to infrastructure, $500 million to upgrade the M1 from Daisy Hill to the Logan Motorway, the final stretch of the M1 upgrade projects in my part of the world. In addition to that, we have committed funding to the Salisbury-Beaudesert rail study, to look at a passenger rail solution for the Salisbury-Beaudesert rail corridor, which is increasingly needed as a result of the development that is going on in the south-west of the city of Logan. All of these things have been enabled by this federal government.

In contrast, let's look at what the state Labor government have done in that period. They have done nothing. The Palaszczuk government has spent on average a tiny 3.6 per cent of its annual revenue on infrastructure, compared to 8.1 per cent in New South Wales and 7.6 per cent in Victoria. It is this Morrison federal government that has done the heavy lifting when it comes to delivering infrastructure for Queensland over the past five years, doubling our contribution made to other states and territories. In fact, our share of the funding split for Queensland state infrastructure was 40 per cent. The Morrison government has invested 40 per cent of the infrastructure spend in Queensland, compared to 21 per cent in other states and territories. I've seen this firsthand with trying to get the state Labor government to the table on projects. They have found every single excuse to delay projects until the eve of a state election, and they then magically roll them out.

See this speech in context