Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me a great deal of pleasure, but some distaste, to rise to talk to this matter of public importance. We've heard the Treasurer come out over the weekend and attempt to argue that our infrastructure investment pipeline, which is building road and rail projects right across our congested state capitals and suburbs, is somehow to blame for the inflation mess that the federal government has failed to get on top of. Rather than take responsibility now that they're in government—you've got to stop pointing the finger, man up or girl up, and make the tough decisions—the Treasurer is now saying, 'Well, it's all the infrastructure pipeline's problem.'

Over the past 24 hours, we've seen a very cynical attempt by the Albanese government to distance itself from the economic ramifications of its own decisions. The RBA is scheduled to meet tomorrow in the wake of higher-than-expected quarterly inflation and house prices that are set to surpass the record set before the RBA began increasing interest rates. Australian families have been doing it tough now for months. Things haven't been easy under Albanese. Energy prices are up 18 per cent. Your mortgage has gone through the roof. If you are a renter, because your landlord's mortgage has gone through the roof, your rent has gone up as well. Food inflation is also up, at eight per cent, and fuel is not going down either. Instead of actually taking action on getting the budget under control, the Labor government is seeking to say, 'Well, that's just all the infrastructure projects' problem.'

Isn't that interesting? When they set up the short, sharp infrastructure review, it was supposed to be 90 days. We all remember that. It was just before the May budget, on the back of cancelling $10 billion of projects and programs in the October budget. It was all going to be quite quick and easy: 'We're going to work with the states and announce it shortly.' That was 190 days ago. It's 100 days overdue. It's just more cuts and delays. People are being laid off from construction work projects as a result of this government's refusal to admit that investing in infrastructure is a critical part of dealing with the other side of their policy agenda, which is to fuel our economic growth through increasing population. As we heard in question time, we've had hundreds of thousands of new arrivals into our congested cities and suburbs at the same time that Anthony Albanese is wanting to cut those infrastructure projects.

Is it any wonder that now it's not just the opposition saying, 'Steady on, guys; you don't know what you're doing,' but also Labor deputy premiers in Queensland saying this is actually going to cause economic and political problems? You may solve a short- or medium-term inflation issue, but you're going to have a long-term productivity issue. Decisions in government are about what we're going to invest taxpayers' money in and what we're not. This government continually refuses to back the aspirations of the Australian people. We saw it in the referendum. We saw it in their decision to reject the Qatar Airways flight application, which sees higher flight prices for Australian travellers. We saw the debacle of our once proud national carrier Qantas at its AGM a couple of days ago. In this Senate chamber, not even half an hour ago, the Labor Party refused to admit that they'd got it wrong. They'd prefer to back their mates. They'd prefer to back the top end of town over mums and dads who are actually sitting down at kitchen tables trying to work out whether to pay the kids' swimming fees this year and how they are going to get Christmas done while the rest of the bills are going through the roof.

Cutting and delaying productivity-enhancing infrastructure across our cities is not the way to improve the lifestyle of everyday Australians, who want to be able to get to and from work safely and quickly so they can get home to what they actually like doing, which is being with their family, and to get our product to port. Even Labor state governments agree that Albanese, who had the opportunity to be shadow minister for six years, has got it wrong, and it's time they face up and stop trying to cost-shift and cast blame.