Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

When it comes to the member for Mallee, should I mention the Horsham Town Hall? That is something which the member for Mallee has been keen to receive investment in, through the agency of the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, in order to assist with that project of, I believe, some millions—a project whose opening, the launch of the project, I believe the honourable member was very happy to attend. The reason I raise this with the member for Mallee, other National Party members, the member for Canning, representing, as he does, the interests of the WA Liberals, and others who are here is to point to one central point on infrastructure investment. It is called hypocrisy. They are in here saying, ‘Isn’t this a terrible thing for the Australian government to be investing in the infrastructure needs of the nation and the regions and localities?’ on the one hand, and in their electorates, in their constituencies, they are doing everything they can to roll it in at the same time.

I conclude with the example which goes most directly to the local interests of the member for Wide Bay, who asked the question: the Cooroy to Curra road, a part of the Bruce Highway which has stood there for decades and decades and decades unattended to and which, according to the local ambulance officers—if I recall from the Treasurer—has been the source of untold tragedy and has therefore been the subject of multiple representations to the government about what we could do. It took this Australian Labor government to invest some $480 million—$630 million in partnership with the Queensland government—to attend to a road need in your area, something which you, when you were the local member and a minister for transport in the federal government, failed to do.

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