Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Deputy Prime Minister, Senator McKenzie. After the Liberals' abysmal performance in the Victorian state election on Saturday, I want to raise an awful but important word: infrastructure. The Murray Basin Rail Project to standardise the rail network and connect regional and metropolitan Victoria will create 280 jobs and has already cost taxpayers $440 million. Why has the Maroona-Portland line not been made a priority for a project of this scale? All you need, I am told, is to upgrade the sleepers. That seems like a piece of cake. Do you acknowledge that a failure to build the Maroona-Portland line will mean many Victorian farmers, growers, exporters and producers are locked out of the benefits of this rail project?

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Regional Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Senator Hinch, for your question. I do think the re-election of the Daniel Andrews government was an appalling result for regional Victoria, particularly when you look at the infrastructure spend by that state Labor government in areas across regional Victoria, in our home state. And you know, as I do, that those areas outside of metropolitan Melbourne have been derelict when it comes to the Andrews Labor government's infrastructure spend. That is why the proposition that the state opposition put forward around the fast rail program—around appropriately funding not just fast rail but adequate rail and freight systems out to productive areas of regional Australia—was supported by voters last Saturday. They actually voted for that vision, overwhelmingly, with five out of seven National Party candidates and, indeed, many Liberal regional Victorian candidates, not seeing the swings. Regional Victoria did not rush to the Daniel Andrews agenda in the same way that Melburnians did. In terms of the specifics of the project you mentioned, Senator Hinch, I will take that on notice and get back to you after I've spoken to the Deputy Prime Minister, but I think that when we look at what regional Victorians care about—the promotion of agriculture, the assuredness around investing in regional schools and regional hospitals, nurses, and the like—Daniel Andrews and his appalling government's track record was wholeheartedly rejected by regional Victoria on Saturday.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hinch, a supplementary question?

Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Maroona-Portland line has big support among voters in south-west and north-west Victoria. It would reduce thousands of truck movements each day and it would ensure greater commuter safety. I'm wondering—when you talk to the Deputy Prime Minister—how they justify the bureaucratic madness that saw the Maroona-Portland line left out of this project in the first place?

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Regional Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, Senator Hinch, I'd be happy to do that.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hinch, do you wish to exercise your right to another supplementary question?

Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll pass on that one.