Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the matter of public importance raised today by Senator McKenzie. I will start off by correcting the record, because there has been no infrastructure cancelled in Western Australia, regardless of what you might have understood from the previous contribution by Senator O'Sullivan. One of things Senator O'Sullivan didn't talk about in his contribution was that the Liberal and National parties left us with a mess to deal with, after nine years of using infrastructure investment as a political weapon to garner votes, not for funding critical infrastructure for states and territories.

The former government spent more time thinking up announcements than addressing the deterioration of the nation's road networks. These are the facts. We now have a motion brought to the Senate by Senator McKenzie, who has the absolute front to raise concerns after nine years of inaction. The only actions they actually did take were making announcement after announcement, sometimes multiple announcements on the same piece of infrastructure—nine years of using the regional grant programs to fund inner-city swimming pools, nine years of drafting and releasing media releases with no real plans and no real evidence or outcomes for Australian communities. It left an infrastructure pipeline full of zombie projects, undercosted commitments and a challenge to manage delivery in the context of rising inflation and supply pressures. That's the real situation, and that's what Senator O'Sullivan, in his contribution, should have been honest about—that the infrastructure pipeline left by the Liberal coalition government after nine years was full of zombie projects and undercosted commitments and was a challenge to manage in the context of rising inflation and supply pressures.

There's no better example of the coalition's failures than the hopelessly mismanaged Urban Congestion Fund. Since I became an assistant minister, I have been speaking to the sector and I have lost count of how many times the sector has talked about the fact that it is so pleased that the Urban Congestion Fund has been killed off. It wasn't being used in any fair way. It was being used as the Liberal Party's slush fund.

The Urban Congestion Fund was full of imaginary car parks in marginal seats, projects that would require 200 or 300 per cent more investment to deliver, and years of delay. The former Treasurer made a commitment of $260 million to remove a level crossing in his own electorate without even telling the state government about it, and it was hundreds of millions of dollars short of the funding required to do the job. That is exactly how the former government ran infrastructure in this country. It was wholly underfunded. It was only used to get votes or as their own private slush fund.

That's the reality. After nine years of inaction, I'm pleased to say to the Senate that the work of the Albanese Labor government has already done— (Time expired)