Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I'm glad the opposition are interested in this because I'm going to give them a few facts. By now, all Australians are familiar with the mess that was left behind after a decade of Liberal-National government. As Senator O'Neill has mentioned, they created a trillion dollars in debt, with nothing to show for it. The coalition left behind a pipeline of infrastructure projects without adequate funding or resources and, in many cases, without real benefits to the public.

Those opposite announced projects without even checking if they were priorities for the states first. This resulted in these projects being stalled for years or the costs continuing to blow out. Of course, what we learnt about the Liberals and Nationals is that they didn't care if there was funding to deliver a project and they didn't care if there was skilled labour available to deliver a project. As long as a project looked good on a colour coded spreadsheet, that was enough for the opposition.

Unlike the opposition, we commissioned an independent review because we are committed to delivering an infrastructure program that can actually be paid for and delivered. It's important to note that the Albanese government will maintain the $120 billion dedicated towards the infrastructure program. All projects that are underway and all the election commitments of our government are being honoured and will be honoured. But we need to be realistic about the Liberal and National parties' program. With its colour coded projects, preferably royal blue and—what kind of green would it be?—bottle green for National Party projects, the coalition's program blew out by $33 billion. There were $33 billion of cost overruns, and the program simply cannot be delivered in its current form.

Under the former government the number of infrastructure projects in the pipeline blew out from nearly 150 to 800. What a shame the former government's appetite for announcing projects wasn't matched with a commitment to deliver. We will deliver, and we will get this program working. (Time expired)