Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Labor will not support this amendment. We are not anti-roads. Road are important for so many communities around this country. Appropriately built roads with appropriate analysis are so important. This amendment seeks to prevent the 15 per cent incentive applying in the case of toll roads. Unlike the government, which stubbornly refuses to fund urban passenger rail projects, and the Greens party, which unreasonably rages against roads, Labor supports the mode of best fit. Labor believes that, if a toll road project stacks up under IA evaluation, it is potentially deserving of support.

One of Labor's amendments requires that major projects are evaluated by Infrastructure Australia as being productivity enhancing, so there should be no prior constraint on the types of new productivity-enhancing major projects that could be supported by the Commonwealth initiative. It is so important in many areas that roads are built. If they are toll roads, they have to go through the appropriate analysis and, if they meet that analysis, then we should give appropriate consideration to them.