Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You are both? So you are an accounting farmer. It is sad that the Nationals claim transport and infrastructure. Senator Ronaldson, I am going to blame your side. Farmers need representation. But I do not believe that the Nationals are the ones to deliver that representation. The Liberals would probably claim that. Every time I ask a Liberal who is a farmer why they are not a National, they growl at me. I do not know what has upset them there.

The sad part is that no responsible Australian government should entrust anything with a steering wheel to a National. I make no apology for that comment. As soon as they touch anything with a steering wheel, it gets neglected. What did they do over the last 11 to 12 years? They stuffed it up. And that is no disrespect to farmers, none at all—just to those in the Nationals. I do not know why they think that they are everything fantastic to the transport industry. It has me absolutely bamboozled. They bang on about what we have not done and what promises we have made, but I am happy to give Senator Nash a copy of the speaking notes that I got off the website. Spending $3.2 billion is not bad.

I want to talk about some more projects in Western Australia. When I used to travel up and down that great highway, Highway 1, it used to bamboozle me why we had to put up with single-lane bitumen and dirt roads. I will tell you why: it was because the Nationals were centred around their farming districts. That is good for farmers, but the transport routes for mining and everything moving north in Western Australia were neglected. Why? Because there was not a National in sight. All the pork-barrelling was done where there were marginal National seats.

I was very entertained by Senator Nash’s contribution, as I will be quietly entertained by Senator Boswell and Senator Joyce. They will not devote one second to the inaction of National Party ministers in the previous government. With the greatest of respect, I will like seeing how you dodge and duck from that. You cannot put your hands on your hearts and look me in the eye and tell me that your former colleagues in the National Party were the best thing for the transport industry or for road infrastructure in regional and rural Australia. We went through a lot of pork-barrelling in the last election—a hell of a lot.

Anyway, the Rudd Labor government will deliver on important infrastructure in regional and rural Australia. Not only that, we have a $20 billion fund. I did not see $20 billion coming out under the previous government.