Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Strategic, integrated, sustainable and affordable—four great words that underpin where we are going with this issue. There's a furore on the other side about this review, a review required because Liberal-National governments over nine long years did not manage this program appropriately, did not make appropriate decisions about which projects should go ahead and which should not. They did not make appropriate decisions about what the funding was going to look like, what the supply chains were going to look like or what the outcome was going to be for the states and communities who'd had those projects allocated to them. What we ended up with was a complete blowout and a whole bunch of projects that could not be delivered. So you can jump up and down as much as you like. This is the sensible thing to do. This is about having sustainable projects that are genuinely going to improve the lives of Australians done appropriately and in time frames that are realistic, not with the ridiculous delays we've seen with some of the commitments made by those opposite.

Senator Cadell, I completely agree with you: we are responsible now. But we did not make a lot of those commitments and we did not undertake a lot of those negotiations. The states and territories are now front and centre of negotiations about priorities in their states and territories, unlike what was happening previously. We will not see any more car park rorts—and I'm afraid, Senator Cadell, we won't be seeing a statue of you either, although I might make a little plasticine one in a hearing one day just to keep us all entertained—but what we will see is enhanced productivity, with projects that are genuinely going to make a difference to people in our communities. We will see reduced congestion, improved productivity and a strengthening of our supply chains, because that's what we are committed to as a Labor government. The Albanese Labor government has reviewed those projects and has been transparent. We have declared everything that has been found and have been very clear about what will progress and what will not. We will not be progressing any half-thought-through projects, which is why the list has changed.

I would like to reassure the people in my duty electorate of Grey that nothing has been dropped. The Augusta Highway duplication is going ahead, the APY Lands main access road upgrade is going ahead, the Eyre Peninsula road network upgrade is going ahead, the nationwide freight highway upgrade program is going ahead, the Port Augusta to Perth corridor upgrade is going ahead, the Horrocks Highway corridor package is going ahead, sealing of the Strzelecki Track is going ahead and the roads upgrade pilot project is going ahead—just to be clear.

And there has also been money put into an additional support for the state government as requested by the state government on the north-south corridor, the Torrens to Darlington, of $2.7 billion. That is about working with the states to get the outcomes that we need to get to improve the lives of Australians, to go forth and do projects that are actually going to make a difference, that aren't going to put us in a situation where we are wasting money and throwing money away. We had cost blowouts. Was it $33 billion? That's a lot of money to not be able to add up. That's a lot of money to not really be able to understand what you're doing on the ground. So this review and their announcement today clears up that mass, cleans up that poor management of this program and actually looks to the future—a future in collaboration with the states, the future to improve facilities and structures for Australians in our communities and across this country.