Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was my great pleasure today to welcome a delegation from G21. G21 is an effective and very well-respected lobby group from my region, made up of representatives from the five regional councils. It included the chair of G21, Mayor Darryn Lyons, from Geelong; Mayor Des Phelan, from Golden Plains, Councillor Clive Goldsworthy, the Deputy Mayor of Surf Coast; Councillor Bob Merriman, from Borough of Queenscliffe; and, representing Colac Otway Shire, CEO Sue Wilkinson. It is a great example of councils working together advocating for the needs of our region. I want to thank the Prime Minister and the many other ministers today who met with the G21 delegation to talk about our needs. As I often say to the member for Aston, we have lots of issues in our electorate, lots of needs. It is a very expansive, wonderful part of the world with enormous natural beauty—

Mr Tudge interjecting—

Yes, as the member for Aston says, there are a lot of issues in Corangamite that need a great deal of attention. And we are punching above our weight, which I am very pleased to see, with lots of infrastructure projects being delivered by our government, including the Great Ocean Road upgrade, of course. This is the road that Labor forgot. It was not supported at all by the previous Labor government. The Princes Highway duplication is so important for not just our region but the whole of south-west Victoria. Of course, the ABS Centre of Excellence has just started, and the NDIA headquarters is now underway, in terms of the tender to build a very big $100 million-plus building.

We spoke a lot about LAND 400. That is an incredibly important $3 billion Defence project. Across our region, we are working so hard to see whether we can secure a slice of that action. We have incredible skills in our region. Of course, many workers from Ford and Alcoa have the capacity to do the sort of work that is needed on these very big Defence projects, and I know there has been a lot of hard work advocating for the Geelong region and the Corangamite region to win a big part of that contract.

We do have some particular infrastructure issues, and there is, I have to say, a lot of concern about state Labor's decision to shut down the East West Link. We all know, and it has been verified by the Auditor-General, that state Labor paid $1.1 billion not to build a road. This is a road desperately needed. Infrastructure Australia, in its report recently released, says that the East West Link is vital. Unlike Labor's Western Distributor, the western section of the East West Link offered a second major arterial road from Geelong, via the Western Ring Road, into Melbourne, providing an alternative route to the clogged West Gate Bridge.

The Western Distributor, which involves a couple of extra lanes on the West Gate Freeway and a second crossing, is very Melbourne-centric, a very poor cousin to the East West Link. It does nothing for the needs of the Geelong and Corangamite regions. The business plan for this project has still not been properly costed. Labor is negotiating in secret with Transurban, raising fears this will leave Victorians paying another $20 billion to $30 billion in tolls over the life of the contract and getting very little in return. I know that will concern people in the east of Melbourne as well. With no deal on the table, the Commonwealth is not able to assess the merits of the Western Distributor project.

Without action, the cost of road congestion in the Melbourne-Geelong area is projected to increase from $3 billion in 2011 to $9 billion in 2031. In Victoria the Turnbull government is investing some $4.9 billion in infrastructure, delivering on our economic action plan to boost economic growth and prosperity and create thousands of new jobs. Of course, the East West Link would have created some 7,000 jobs, and those jobs have just been trashed by Labor. It really is an absolute disgrace. The Turnbull government remains absolutely committed to this road. We are willing to look at other projects, but we need to get on and build these roads. We need to get on and build the infrastructure that the people of Corangamite so desperately need.

It is also extremely disappointing that state Labor has not prioritised the duplication of the rail track through Geelong's southern suburbs. This is an incredibly important infrastructure project, another one that the Labor Party is turning its back on. We are standing up for infrastructure, because it leads to jobs and prosperity, particularly in my electorate of Corangamite. (Time expired)