Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me no pleasure to rise today to speak, because I'm rising about this issue of the Bridgewater Bridge. The Bridgewater Bridge is a critical piece of infrastructure that's long been planned for in the south of my electorate. It's a $580 million project which will facilitate the transport of goods and passengers in an area of considerable growth. It's been planned for a long time.

I'm pleased to say both the government and the opposition will fund this bridge, but I'm sorry to say that it became clear in answers in the Senate estimates process yesterday that the Tasmanian Liberal government has failed to lodge a business case for this critical infrastructure project. This is despite it being on the books for years. My Tasmanian colleague Senator Carol Brown asked Infrastructure Australia officials, 'Was the business case produced?' 'We haven't received a final business case for that yet,' was the response.

The result of this is that this critically important project is going to be waiting at least another year before it's completed. It's already not lodged for completion until 2024-25. We're now looking at 2025-26 at the earliest for this very important bridge that will carry thousands of my constituents and really important goods and agriculture across Tasmania. It's not good enough. The Tasmanian Liberal government needs to do better.