Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

There are indeed threats to the government’s nation-building agenda, and they are personified by those opposite in this chamber and by their colleagues in the Senate. We know that just three weeks ago the shadow minister was threatening to block the Building Australia Fund legislation. But that did not come as a surprise from the shadow minister, given that the now Leader of the Opposition stated, as part of his response to the Rudd government’s budget, that the Building Australia Fund and nation building was ‘the greatest con of all’. That was what he stated at the time about infrastructure development and nation building.

On Tuesday of this week, the shadow minister changed the positioning—if you watch them for long enough, you always get both sides of the street, usually at the same time. But at this stage, on Tuesday this week—it will probably change by next week—the shadow minister said:

… the Coalition has never said, at any time, that we will block any infrastructure legislation.

Well, they actually voted against it when the Infrastructure Australia legislation came before the parliament. They said that it was just all a con and that it was not real economic reform. And, of course, we know from their inaction in government that they did nothing about this for 12 long years.

When it comes to tackling issues such as urban congestion, which the government has identified as one of the priorities, we know that the opposition also cannot agree with itself on the way forward. The former Leader of the Opposition, the member for Bradfield, had the following to say in September:

Well we always look favourably on investment in public transport.

I thought that was a pretty positive sign from the then opposition leader. Probably one of the reasons why they knocked him over was that he was being positive about nation building. That was a mistake, clearly, by the member for Bradfield. So I went back and had a look at whether there was any form from the merchant of Venice before he became the Leader of the Opposition.

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