Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to call out this third-term government bereft of an agenda—a coalition devoid of a vision for our country. It's so devoid, in fact, that when faced with what they describe as the worst drought in memory, they came in here yesterday and made a lot of noise, but they'll deliver very little sometime in the future. In fact, it'll be $100 million next financial year. Such urgency! Across this parliament they'll deliver $200 million. It's lots of noise and very little action. To do this, they've highlighted the fact that, in the last six years, they've done nothing about spending over $3 billion that has been there in the Building Australia Fund. Like my friend the member for Solomon, there are things in my electorate they could have done with that Building Australia Fund. There's $10 million that we need for local irrigation for our farmers—my growers in my electorate. That's $10 million, which is not that much money out of over $3 billion. They could give us $50 million in my electorate and we could join the two ends of the electorate up by building the bridge over the Werribee River, connecting Tarneit with Wyndham Vale, but there are no commitments from this government to my electorate and there is no investment in infrastructure in my electorate. This government completely lacks a vision for this country.