Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the minister for infrastructure. How will the Albanese Labor government clean up previous failures affecting the infrastructure investment pipeline and ensure that Australians can believe what the government says when it comes to major infrastructure projects?

Hon. Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister has the call and will be heard in silence.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks so much for the question.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not even Albo wants to hear this rubbish.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition—I've been more than fair, and she's a serial offender at this. I'm going to warn her now. I'm going to allow the minister to restart her answer and reset the clock.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The deputy leader opposite does this constantly, and I appreciate the protection of the chair. It is a constant interjection.

Honourable members interjecting—

She's doing it even now. Can I just say thank you very much to the member for Gilmore for the question. She knows just how important infrastructure investments are for our regions and for our cities. But, more importantly, she knows how important it is that when you promise to deliver infrastructure, it is actually delivered. That is why reforming the $120 billion infrastructure investment pipeline is so incredibly important. The previous government left this pipeline in a total mess, riddled with projects that were simply underfunded, had no funding partner, had not actually had proper cost-benefit analysis done and had not got the support of the states and territories. They were poorly scoped and were simply unable to be delivered. We saw the pipeline grow from 150 projects to 800 projects, a large number of which were under $50 million and simply could never be delivered.

If the previous government somehow thought that they were going to deliver every single one of those 800 projects that were poorly funded, under scoped and not supported by the states and territories, then they had rocks in their heads. That is why we have had to look closely at this infrastructure investment pipeline. We want to make sure that if we promise a project, we actually deliver the project. That is what our regions deserve, it's what our rural communities deserve and it's what our cities absolutely deserve.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hinkler is warned.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The growth in this infrastructure investment pipeline won't surprise anyone. Where was the major growth from 2016 to 2019? What was happening in that time? There were election campaigns on! That's the way in which those opposite used public money in infrastructure to invest in projects that suited their political purposes right the way across the country—so they could put out a press release. I've said before that you cannot drive on a press release!

We are doing the hard work of cleaning up the mess that those opposite left an incredibly important part of this budget in. One hundred and twenty billion dollars has to be delivered through the infrastructure investment pipeline, and it can only be delivered if we look at every project. We will look at the cost of those projects and make sure that we can actually deliver them—that we have funding partners for them. We are cleaning up the mess that has been left by those opposite, to make sure that we can deliver infrastructure in our rural communities, in our regions and right the way across our thriving and growing suburbs.