Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I'm privileged to serve in the role of assistant shadow minister for infrastructure and transport. When I assumed that position, I took the opportunity to recodify, if you like, the coalition's commitment to the $120 billion worth of infrastructure projects in the nation's infrastructure pipeline. That's the legacy of the coalition government having worked very hard to establish that pipeline. Why did we do that? We did that because, of course, infrastructure is the driving force behind our nation's economy. It's about making our freight task safer and more efficient. It's about growing the productivity of the nation.

On budget night I was concerned to see what had happened to the $120 billion pipeline. We need to be really clear: those opposite are running a very cute me-too campaign on infrastructure. It's like, 'Yes, us too,' so much so that they're even claiming to have maintained the $120 billion in the infrastructure pipeline. But, when you dig a little deeper, you start to be introduced to phrases like 'reprofiling expenditure'. So effectively what's happened is two things.

Flat out, $2.8 billion worth of projects have been cancelled. That's clear. If you want to know more about that, there are people walking around parliament at the moment running a campaign to build the Rockhampton Ring Road. That was a project of incredible importance to the people of Queensland and of particular importance to the people of Rockhampton. That was out to tender, and it's been cancelled. So you can't really run the me-too argument. At least have a go at explaining it to those people that have travelled over three days, 20 hours of driving, over 2,000 kilometres to come here to simply make one statement: keep your promise. Of course, that statement relates to the then Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese, making the statement that he would continue with the building of the ring road.

But I'm more interested in the too-cute-by-half approach when it comes to infrastructure otherwise—that is, $6.5 billion in unspecified road and rail projects have been delayed by a government that said it would be more transparent and more open with the Australian people. That's not me saying that; that's their budget. That's straight out of the budget documents. Of course, if you're running a me-too argument when it's really not a me-too situation or reality, then you also start claiming credit for projects that were coalition commitments and embedded in a series of budgets leading up to it. My friend opposite just mentioned the Middle Arm project. That is a coalition project, and I'm grateful those opposite have seen merit in it. There are others: the Outback Way project, for example, and, in South Australia, a congestion-busting project in Marion.

I then looked for fresh money in the budget, because that's what you do. It's not about what's already in the budget, projected and programmed over four years, albeit what I said about reprofiling out of the forward estimates. Where's the new money? I've got to tell you: there's scant little of it, and, where it exists, it does not prioritise regional Australia, which disproportionately carries the burden of our nation's freight tasks. No-one's going to argue with me that the disproportionate amount of freight task occurs in regional Australia as we take our product, whether it's off farm or out of a mine, to its destination, often ports in metropolitan cities. What I was doing was looking for fresh money, and I found some, from a South Australia perspective. I thought, 'Brilliant.' There's $460 million of new money for infrastructure projects in the budget for South Australia. But then I checked the footnote. Do you know what the footnote said? It said 'over 10 years'. So those opposite are celebrating the fact that they're spending $460 million of new money in South Australia on road projects over 10 years, with $400 million of that on the Stuart, Augusta and Dukes highways. Technically, that money could be spent in 2032. Please! One hundred and twenty billion dollars of infrastructure in the pipeline? You're running a me-too argument and coming to this place with a self-congratulatory motion like this? You're kidding yourself.

See this speech in context