Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I wouldn't think it would be normal that we would get information from the ratings agency about an individual project from a state government. Normally, that wouldn't be the focus of the ratings agency. The ratings agency engagement with the Commonwealth is around our budget and the expenditure related to that, not to an individual project with one state government. As Senator McKenzie would know, in the infrastructure program, there are many, many projects with every state and territory government and some with local government in the infrastructure portfolio, so I would say the answer to that question is no.

On the broader question of infrastructure, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government has done an extraordinary job in reprofiling and making sure that the Infrastructure Investment Program can actually deliver infrastructure in this country, as opposed to all the promises that were made when you were in government that didn't have funding attached to them. It was like there was this magic pudding: 'Well, we'll pay that out of the IIP.' But, when we come to government and actually start working through, as Minister King has done, and see the level of underfunded programs, there were tough decisions she had to make, including tough discussions with state governments about their increased cost relating to projects.

We've gone through it methodically. The minister for infrastructure has done the job that she needed to do. We take our engagement with state and territory governments seriously. We try to work in partnership with them, but we only allocate funding where it's in the national interest to deliver that project and, if there are management issues around costs and overruns, then we manage those with the states as well.