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

They are very slow, Mr Deputy Speaker Schultz. Those projects are not funded by the Building Australia Fund. Both of those projects are funded because they are good public transport projects in our cities that will improve the productivity, liveability and sustainability of those cities—Perth and Adelaide. The Perth project is a substantial commitment of funds from the Commonwealth government, in partnership with the Liberal Premier of Western Australia. The O-Bahn project is in partnership with the South Australian Premier. These are both good projects. They are not funded by the BAF. It is unbelievable that those opposite cannot read a budget paper to get that information, but that is the fact of the process.

The member for Wide Bay also raised the issue of off-network projects. I note that they pursued the amendment in the House of Representatives but not in the Senate. They did not pursue it there. They say we are funding off-network projects in city areas, but they did it in regional areas. They used off-network projects to fund Campbell Parade, Bondi Beach and roads in the electorate of Bennelong. They used to fund whatever was politically—in an opportunistic way—suitable for their politics. It had nothing to do with regional funding. Their opportunism is simply extraordinary.

The member for Goldstein said that should have been the first element of our stimulus package. This is what the Leader of the Opposition had to say on Radio National in January this year:

The problem with infrastructure spending is that it is long term. There aren’t that many projects that are literally shovel ready and so while infrastructure spending is a very important and legitimate part of a response to a downturn, you’ve got to make sure the infrastructure is infrastructure you would be spending money on anyway.

What is more, on Fran Kelly’s program, the shadow minister himself said, ‘That’s why I raised earlier the significance of looking at maintenance programs across the country.’ That is what he raised, because it was in the context of shovel-ready projects that were important.

What the government has done with its range of stimulus packages is, first, stimulated consumer demand and, second, brought forward infrastructure projects—14 roads projects, $711 million; the injection of $1.2 billion into the ARTC that was a part of the December stimulus package; the funding for local capital works through the regional and local community infrastructure program—(Time expired)

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