Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. Minister, on 1 May 2023 you announced a 90-day review of infrastructure projects. This decision is causing delay and frustration, particularly for projects underway such as the $250 million upgrade to the South Eastern Freeway in my electorate that was announced in October 2020. Minister, we're now at day 130. When will you provide certainty to my community that a longstanding infrastructure promise will indeed be honoured?

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

I thank very much the member for Mayo for both her question and her longstanding advocacy for the people of her electorate. I know she has been in this place for a long period of time and feels very strongly about delivering for her community. As I have already said in the media, I've recently received the independent strategic review of the Infrastructure investment report. It is a fairly lengthy and complex report, but it does highlight, which I think even the member's question does, just how badly the Liberals and Nationals managed the infrastructure pipeline during their wasted decade. I am considering the report in detail, and a government response to the recommendations will be announced in due course. It does involve complex negotiations with every state and territory.

But I can give you some of the highlights from the report today. The review has found in fact that, in the pipeline, there is $33 billion of known cost pressures. That is what those opposite actually presided over. That's $33 billion of known cost overruns across all Infrastructure Investment Program projects, which is 41 per cent of the total budget for the infrastructure program. It also states that there is a very high risk of future cost overruns. This is the mess left by those opposite. They were so fixated on the press release, so fixated on the announcements. In fact the review highlights, very significantly, that the previous government tripled the number of projects in 2015 and in 2019, both leading into election years.

That's the problem you have when you had a government that was so fixated on the press release and could not deliver—you now have an infrastructure investment pipeline that is $33 billion in known cost overruns. We're making our way through that report. We're working with states and territories on that to provide certainty to the community, but this is, yet again, the absolute mess and disgrace that those opposite left. When it comes to infrastructure in this country, we want to get on with the business of delivering. You can't drive on a press release, and those opposite should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for the state that they left the infrastructure pipeline in.