Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about infrastructure and road funding, and, inevitably, when you raise these subjects, you're talking about numbers. Before I start, I want to make a simple point. We have a second-class infrastructure minister doing a first-class job of making sure regional Australians have third-world roads. If you see a crane, a bulldozer or a grader at work in regional Australia today on a major infrastructure project, I can assure you of one thing: the current minister had absolutely nothing to do with that project. The current minister hasn't funded, budgeted or delivered a single thing since being in office for more than 18 months.

To make matters worse, yesterday the minister spoke at the Australian Financial Review Infrastructure Summit, and she confirmed our worst fears in regional Australia. She's only interested in building city projects. At a time when regional road trauma is increasing, the minister announced she's going to cut funding to regional road projects. In her speech, in her own words, the minister confirmed she is committed to abandoning the eighty-twenty funding split between the Commonwealth and state governments. The eighty-twenty funding split was the only way the previous coalition government could get the states to sign up to major regional road projects in your state of Tasmania, in my state of Victoria, in New South Wales and in Queensland. Projects like the Pacific Highway duplication work, including the Coffs Harbour Bypass, were funded eighty-twenty. That's 80 per cent from the Commonwealth and 20 per cent from the state. The Bruce Highway major upgrades, saving lives every day of the week, were funded by an eighty-twenty funding split.

In my electorate of Gippsland, we had to fight Dan Andrews for two years to get him to put up 20 per cent for the duplication of the Princes Highway. What chance would we have had of getting him up to 50 per cent? Not a hope in hell. This minister, this second-rate minister, who's committed to third-world roads in regional Australia is going to cut funding for road safety at a time when road trauma is increasing in regional Australia. The only way we'll get life-saving work started in these regional projects is if we maintain the eighty-twenty funding split to get the states on board for these major road projects.

It's not just me saying this. The Victorian roads minister said yesterday:

It would be concerning if the federal member for Ballarat, Minister King, sought to walk away from regional Victoria, that would be concerning and disappointing … Generally the projects that tend to be funded 80-20 are more regional and rural projects.

Even Victorian Labor ministers understand that the 80-20 funding split is the only way we're going to get these life-saving projects underway in regional areas. This minister announced a 90-day review of infrastructure spending 200 days ago, and we still haven't seen the outcomes. This minister needs to get on with her job and build the road safety projects that will save lives in regional Australia.