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

I thank the member for Page for her question. She knows that we have already committed some $4.1 billion to the Pacific Highway, which compares to the $1.3 billion over double the time—12 years—that the Howard government committed. In addition to that, in the recent budget we allowed for $3.56 billion to be put on the table for the full duplication of the Pacific Highway by 2016 based upon a matching commitment from New South Wales, which was both the timeline of 2016 that the Howard government put and also the funding model that the Howard government put when the National Party had ministers. Over the weekend the federal coalition gave the state coalition, their mates in Macquarie Street, the green light to abandon the 2016 timeline. They have deferred the full duplication to beyond the next decade. Indeed, when they were in government, they said the opposite. They said the Pacific Highway was a state road and they called for the New South Wales Labor government to do more. The member for Cowper had this to say: 'It's a state road. New South Wales refused to commit one extra dollar of state government funding to a road they are responsible for.' The state coalition was saying the same thing: 'Yes, I will match that money,' said Duncan Gay, 'and save the lives of people in New South Wales that have to use this highway.'

On the weekend, the member for Wide Bay made an announcement about how they were going to take money from the Parramatta to Epping rail link that had been allocated, that had been pushed back for two years because of the inaction of the state government. They said that that would enable them to fully duplicate the highway and meet the target. There is only $67.9 million available under the Parramatta-Epping rail link between now and 2016. So they push it out beyond 2020, and, in spite of that, they are still half a billion dollars short because of the failure of the state government to honour the commitments that they made in the 2011 election campaign.

Right now today there are over a thousand people working up and down the Pacific Highway. When we had the economic stimulus plan we put money into fully, 100 per cent funded projects such as the Kempsey bypass to make sure we could get it done. Those opposite have given a green light for New South Wales to abandon their commitment to this highway and at the same time they have walked away from the provision of infrastructure into public transport.

See this speech in context