Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I am finding the interjections extremely helpful. I think the position here is fairly clear. I am sorry, Minister, that you have been lumbered with this dog and I recognise that this is not your portfolio. It is a shame—on behalf of everybody who believed the Barnett government when they said they were going to bring that project forward—that you ripped half a billion dollars out of it and the project collapsed.

That is why I am putting to you, in fact, that when you take that money off the table it does not free the states up to do other things at all. It means that these projects collapse. The Brisbane cross-city rail project has collapsed. Work on the Metro Rail project in Melbourne—and Senator Conroy will correct me if I am wrong—is dead in the water. Any extensions to Sydney's urban heavy-rail system is stuffed. In fact, what you have just told the Senate, which was that it would free up the states and territories to do that work, is actually directly the opposite of what is occurring. Will you undertake to advocate in your party room for a change of policy so that we can get these public transport projects back on the rails?