Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

We heard questions and answers today in the chamber around the funding of the $2.2 billion Suburban Rail Loop. The recent estimates were my first estimates—I'm new here—and I learned about 'reprofiling' budgets, money and what we're going to invest.

My first lesson! We have to take on faith the money that we're looking at in the budget. It's not printed and it's not written, but it's there. It's like a bitcoin transaction—it is on faith and it can disappear just as quickly. It can leave thousands of people without jobs or money, and that is what we're finding.

But we do find this $2.2 billion for the Suburban Rail Loop in the budget for 2024-25, and we see $1.4 billion coming from Health. In the question on the $2.2 billion, we said the Victorian Auditor-General found that the Victorian government:

… did not demonstrate the economic rationale for the entire project, and they have told us that they have no plans to do so.

Let's not assume that $2.2 billion builds the Suburban Rail Loop. It will cost up to $130 billion to build the Suburban Rail Loop. What is that $2.2 billion for? Is that the down-payment on a loan fee for belt and road? Is that what it is? What does this do in 2024-25?

We saw that on the Newcastle-Sydney higher speed rail promise of the government, where they put $500 million towards establishing a planning committee and buying property, but no rails or sleepers would be laid and no trains would be bought. Again, it is just money for nothing. People won't get from Newcastle to Sydney faster, people won't get around Melbourne faster, but they've put that money there to hang the hope out, and the profiling will take care of the rest.

When we talk about prices rising and the cost of living, we always hear about the Ukraine situation and the price of gas, fuel and coal. But the majority of Australian coal-fired power plants have fixed-term contracts on their coal at about $100 a tonne; they haven't risen. A coal truck doesn't go from the mine to Ukraine, via the Donbas, then back to Australia to aid coal-fired power producers. Our gas doesn't get shipped overseas via the Caucasus and back to Australia. And no wind turbine or solar panel runs its wiring through the Ukraine back to Australia. They have put price pressure on, but that doesn't cover all the cost of living. Domestic promises and lack of policy are driving people's costs higher.

When you look at the opportunity cost of all this, that $2.2 billion again could have gone to ease things. I'm sure the rigorous processes that this government claims were on that $2.2 billion for the Suburban Rail Loop took a shorter period than it takes to get an ambulance in Melbourne nowadays. People spend hours waiting. Last night, they were talking about a child who waited an hour and a half. They were put on hold while they waited to get an ambulance. What could that $2.2 billion have done for those people down there? What could it have done for cost of living at home? What could it do in so many ways? It appears people can't buy energy anymore. But is there a fear that that $2 billion can try and buy an election?

Remember, this was an election that was meant to be easily done. This was an election that was going to be a walk in the park. But, through all the fog and mirrors and everything that's going on, it's becoming a tussle. It is not an own-goal. It's not another Premier Dan Andrews cakewalk. This will be close, because the people of Australia have had enough of pushing or reprofiling projects to the never-never and the promising of bits of money that will never see a project. They've had enough of seeing interest rates go up eight times since this government was elected. They've had enough of seeing energy prices predicted to go up 53 per cent and then 30 per cent.

The people of Victoria and the people of Australia want to see action. We hear you point the finger at anything we did in the last decade. And I get it. We don't have power anymore. But we've had a budget. There was an opportunity—not to do everything, but to do more. It hasn't done it. All it has done is to come up with things that were promised. It was not researched properly. It's not going to help people in the areas they need right now. And we need to do better. There needs to be another thing that comes in shortly to help people with the cost of living. We need to re-look at this Suburban Rail Loop and give people the things they need, like money for health and for living. And that's what we should be focusing on.