Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I have listened to the contributions this afternoon from a number of speakers on the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008 and I have heard all sorts of claims and counterclaims. It is fascinating that it happens in this parliament all the time. The member for Wills articulated a number of instances where previous Labor governments have been infrastructure builders, but he forgot the former government’s very significant infrastructure programs—AusLink 1 and 2. They are programs that have been taken up by the current Rudd government as basically a multibillion dollar nation-building exercise.

I was privileged to sit on one of the transport standing committees earlier in my parliamentary life and at that stage we recognised the need to look at not only road infrastructure across the country, which has been discussed here, but also the rail system. We also looked at the necessity of having a national plan to fix the rail system, particularly in New South Wales or the eastern states, and also of making multimodal arrangements. That is proceeding. The sad part about it is that it should have been done by the state governments. The state governments have let Australia down badly. It is such a shame that much of the state infrastructure ran down. The federal government is now looking at taking over responsibility for the country’s ports which, again, are the responsibility of the states. This bill is certainly welcomed. All of us have a responsibility to make sure that we get our infrastructure right.

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