Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw. He does not understand the fact that there was $405 million fully allocated—the department will know that that is the case; indeed, I in good faith sat down with the member for Berowra in my office and got him, along with others, to lobby the New South Wales government to make sure that they put up their fair share—just as the $195 million allocated for the upgrade of projects for the F3, fully allocated in the Nation Building Program, was also included in the 2013 budget. Indeed, when we made the budget, we took $5 million of savings to change it from $400 million to $405 million as a result of a request from Minister Gay, in New South Wales, to make sure that we had $5 million in 2012-13.

But it is not surprising that those opposite are embarrassed by their performance when it comes to infrastructure. Today we have The Daily Telegraph splash on page 1 that they are setting up a committee to look at infrastructure. They are setting up a committee, but that gets a splash, because of course they have form on this. Not only did they leave Australia ranked 20th out of 25 countries in the OECD, but the last time they were in office they cut $2 billion in road funding from their first budget. Public investment in infrastructure as a proportion of national income plunged 20 per cent from the level it was in the Keating era.

This is a vital project for Sydney. It is a vital project that I was very pleased to support, and of course it was included in the budget papers along with the Cross River Rail and the Melbourne Metro because it was also a part of the innovative package that we had in making sure that we had private sector financing for this project. We sat down and organised matters to ensure that we promoted not just government investment but private sector investment in infrastructure.

Those opposite talked about it and did nothing about it when they were in government last time. They have contributed absolutely nothing, except a press conference. That is their contribution this time around. Rip Van Winkle over there slept through the Howard government and continues to ensure they try to evade debate on this issue. I commend the amendment to the House.

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