Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome this debate. I know it is the member for Grayndler's birthday. It is very kind of him to give me this present. I do appreciate your generosity, member for Grayndler, in giving me the opportunity to come here today and put on the public record some of the facts.

The member for Grayndler has come to the dispatch box and whinged and complained, but he did not want to actually talk about any of the facts and go into this government's $50 billion infrastructure investment program. It is a program that is building for the future. It is changing lives and saving lives right around our nation. It is creating jobs, it is reducing congestion in our major cities, it is improving productivity and it is improving connectivity in our rural and regional areas.

I know that the member for Grayndler is a bit frustrated with the job that he has at the moment. He is the people's choice and he wants to be the Labor Party leader. I know he does not want my job. I know he wants to be the Labor Party leader. I know he is frustrated. I know he is disappointed. But that does not explain why he hates good news so much. There is good news in infrastructure from one end of Australia to the other. Right now, as we stand here talking about the roads and rail, and infrastructure needs of our great nation, there are thousands of people on the ground building those roads and building that rail infrastructure. They are out there building for our nation's future. It is about building infrastructure that our kids and our grandkids will thank us for. This government, this Turnbull-Joyce government, is getting on with the job—from some of the iconic multibillion-dollar projects, whether it be the Western Sydney Airport or the Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail project, right through to some of those smaller projects in our smaller communities, through the Roads to Recovery initiative or through the Black Spot program, which are saving lives and reducing the number of serious injuries in our community.

I want to thank the member for Grayndler again for giving me this opportunity. I want him to have many, many more birthdays, but I am worried about him. I think this relentless negativity is starting to play on his health a bit. I think he should try to be a little bit more positive about the government's agenda. We have an agenda which will see improvements from Melbourne to Sydney, to Brisbane, to Perth to the Northern Territory, and right through our smaller country towns. He likes to talk about the $50 billion infrastructure investment program like it is not true. But, when you look at the budget figures, we are investing $50 billion from 2013-14 to 2019-20 in critical road and rail infrastructure. It is about jobs; it is about growth; it is about prosperity. At the same time, it is about saving people's lives in the community through road safety initiatives. We are very proud of our nation-building program which will see some enormous improvements right throughout the nation.

The member for Grayndler does not want to talk about the $9 billion which is being spent this financial year across Australia. There are about 1,000 projects currently underway. If you listen to him, there will be a suggestion that there is nothing going on in Australian right now, whatsoever. He likes to selectively look at numbers. The dirty little secret that the member for Grayndler did not want to touch on is: the Australian government's spending on infrastructure averaged around $6.3 billion per annum in the four-year period under Labor ending 2013-14. In the four years since, spending under the coalition has averaged around $7.3 billion. Those numbers again: in the four-year period under Labor ending 2013-14, the average figure was $6.3 billion per annum; in the four years since, under the coalition, spending has averaged around $7.3 billion.

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