Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources) Share this | Hansard source

Unfortunately, 15 minutes is not enough time to go into all of the flaws in these bills, but I will do my best. I will just comment on some of the misguided statements of the member for Hunter where he thinks that this tax is going to deliver the infrastructure that he needs in his area. I can assure him that, regarding his share of this tax on a proportional basis—and there is a fix to this, which I will come to—he would be lucky to see a couple of hundred thousand dollars going to infrastructure in his area. The last time I looked, they were suggesting only a couple of billion dollars to states like Queensland and Western Australia. You need to consider that the most needed piece of infrastructure in Australia is the Toowoomba range crossing. He talks about eight minutes to get through a level crossing. I have trucks that wait twice that time trying to get across the main street of Toowoomba because the Labor government continues to defy the need for that range crossing. That range crossing alone would cost $2 billion. So do not try and create the impression that the MRRT is just going to be like some magic pudding that will spray money for infrastructure across Australia.

Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—

The way to fund infrastructure in Australia is to stop spending money on stuff that is completely wasted, like pink batts.

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