James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank the member for Ballarat for the opportunity that she's given me to confirm two things. The first is the Labor Party's opposition to investing in reducing urban congestion, particularly in my electorate of Sturt—and I will outline in a moment some of the important projects that are being funded through the program that Labor are attacking. It's a fact of great delight to me that I get to report back to my community that Labor don't support the investments that we are making in these vital projects in my electorate. Secondly, I appreciate them giving me the opportunity to outline more broadly the vital investments that we are undertaking in infrastructure across my home state of South Australia.

There are three intersections in my electorate that are being funded through the Urban Congestion Fund that Labor evidently don't support: the Portrush-Magill intersection, $96 million; the Fullarton Crossroad intersection, $61 million; and the Glen Osmond-Fullarton intersection, $35 million—jointly funded from the Urban Congestion Fund with the South Australian state government under fifty-fifty partnerships. These are three excellent projects that are merit based and are focused on helping families and businesses be more productive and to get home quicker and safer, and unclogging congestion in some of the busiest intersections in the city of Adelaide.

The Magill-Portrush intersection alone carries around 65,000 vehicle movements a day. In fact it sits on Highway 1, because of course Portrush Road, running through Adelaide, is part of the national highway network. This project and the other two that I outlined have enormous local community support, and they are an example of a government with the right priorities in infrastructure expenditure investing in the most at-need projects that are made on a merit base. These are three in my electorate, and there are many more throughout the metropolitan Adelaide area and of course other investments throughout South Australia.

The fact that Labor don't support this program, the fact that they attack it and the fact that they don't believe that the people of Sturt deserve to have these sorts of investments in our local infrastructure goes to show why Labor lost the last election. They can rail about the purported lack of support for any of these projects, but I make the simple point that these were all policies that were announced before the election, were taken to the people, and that the people overwhelmingly endorsed.

More broadly in South Australia we have record infrastructure funding coming from the state and federal governments. My good friend here, the member for Grey, unfortunately, because of parliamentary commitments hasn't been able to be at the excellent two milestones in the last few weeks in Port Augusta and Port Wakefield—two excellent projects that are investments in his electorate of Grey but which will also yield enormous productivity benefits and general benefits for the entire state of South Australia. They are exactly the sorts of infrastructure examples that I would point to that show we have the right priorities when it comes to investing in communities throughout South Australia and throughout Australia.

We have record infrastructure in the defence sector, particularly out at the Osborne shipyards. The shipyard investment there, which will underpin the Attack class and Hunter class frigate programs, is the kind of investment that will support thousands and thousands of jobs in the shipbuilding industry, both in my home city of Adelaide and across the nation, for decades and decades to come, whilst also underpinning vital sovereign capability in national security and sovereign naval shipbuilding. This is part of a $270 billion acquisition program over the next 10 years just within the defence portfolio, which goes to show that we are making the important necessary decisions for the long term that are not only about value for money for taxpayers but also underpinning future productive infrastructure—in the case of defence, the sovereign capability for our national security in Australia—as well as making sure that we are making decisions that are in the best long-term interests of the Australian economy.

Very recently, again in my home city of Adelaide, the Prime Minister made an announcement about sovereign missile capability being developed in this country. Of course, I hope the lion's share of that happens in my home state, but, regardless, it's a very sensible example of the kinds of prudent and necessary decisions that we are making with taxpayers' funds, not only underpinning our national security but also ensuring our economic security into the future. I commend all these important decisions that have been made by our government. I'm proud to serve in a government that has our priorities right and is investing in the infrastructure we need for our future. (Time expired)

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