House debates
Thursday, 15 June 2023
Questions without Notice
Infrastructure
2:34 pm
Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source
Of course, the first of those projects we've had to clean up is Inland Rail, a project that started, I think, at about $4 billion and then $9 billion has blown out, we think, to $31 billion under the previous government's watch. We've had to do the work. It was a project on which there was no planning done. It was a project that was truly Inland Rail, as it had no end and no start point. It was a project that the National Party had their hands all over and that they should, frankly, be absolutely ashamed of.
We've then had to clean up the grants program—in particular the Community Development Grants Program, a $3 billion slush fund that we saw from those opposite and that, frankly, we have had to deal with. There were grants that went back to 2016 that had no proponent and no land, and we've actually had to clean up those and take the time to do that, which is what the grants hub has been spending its time doing over the course of the last few months—cleaning up that mess opposite.
Of course, we are cleaning up the mess those opposite left under the Building Better Regions Fund—again, projects that go back to round 2 and round 3 that simply cannot be delivered. We're also having to clean up the infrastructure investment pipeline, with the review to try and look at—
Did you want me to stop? Sorry?
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