Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes:

(i) evidence given during estimates That the budget provides for payment to the Victorian Government of $0.5 billion by 30 June 2014 for Stage 1 of the East West Link and $1.0 billion for Stage 2,

(ii) that this project is still classified by Infrastructure Australia as not 'ready to proceed',

(iii) that Infrastructure Australia has not received a full business case for assessment of Stage 1 and only received a request for funding of Stage 2 a few days before the budget and it was only accompanied by a 'conceptual business plan', and

(iv) That the responsible Minister, the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development said of project payments in June 2014: 'So we are driving the state governments very hard to give us timetables to ensure that we're meeting the expected time of delivery of these projects. That we're hitting milestones, that we're only making payments to states when they actually deliver the milestones, that they're not getting money in their bank account prior to milestones being delivered, because we want taxpayers to have accountability for what they're getting, but we also want projects on the ground and not being held up, unfortunately, or deliberately, for that matter' [Civil Contractors Federation speech, 6 June 2014]; and

(b) calls for no payment to be made to Victoria for the East West Link project until these conditions are fulfilled and Infrastructure Australia assesses the project as 'ready to proceed'.