Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week a press release came out from Minister King and the Prime Minister, acknowledging and taking credit for the completion of the Narrabri to Turrawan upgrade of the railway on the Hunter coal line. Great news—except this government didn't put a razoo into it, and the minister has never been anywhere near Narrabri and wouldn't know where Turrawan was.

The significance of this project, which was entirely funded and conceived by the previous government, is that it connects the Hunter coal line to the Inland Rail at Narrabri. So now we will have higher capacity trains—grain trains and cotton trains—going from Moree and Narrabri into the port of Newcastle.

The government dropping the ball on the Inland Rail project has been nothing short of a scandal. We talk a lot in this place about reducing our emissions, road safety, promoting regional development and cheaper prices on supermarket shelves. There's one project that does all of that, Inland Rail. It has 1,700 kilometres of track from Melbourne to Brisbane, taking trucks off the road, reducing carbon emissions and leading to cheaper freight, and this government has dropped the ball. We need a new government in Canberra, someone that understands the importance of regional Australia, to get this project back on track.