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

I rise to question again the gap between the rhetoric and the reality from this government when it comes to actual investment in infrastructure. One of the things the government continually does is speak about the 2013-14 budget. I have news for the government: Wayne Swan delivered that budget. That was not a budget delivered by the current government, but it adds in that figure as if it was when it was in government.

This time around, any analysis shows a $7.4 billion cut in actual infrastructure investment over the forward estimates. Yet the rhetoric of the government is about $75 billion. Well, sometimes it is. In the government's own glossy produced as part of the budget papers, it says it is $70 billion in infrastructure commitments. Then if you go through and have a look at the details you see $1.2 billion committed to the Perth Freight Link. But then the same $1.2 billion is listed for the Metronet rail project. That is on page 10 of the budget glossy document. However, on page 8 it says there will be $700 million going towards the Metronet rail project. So it is not clear from the budget papers themselves whether it is $700 million or $1.2 billion. And then there is the same $1.2 billion double-counted for the Perth Freight Link project.

It is a bit like the Victorian circumstances where you have $1 billion and then there is $3 billion committed to the East West Link but it is the same money. It is the same contribution—the advance payment that was made from the Commonwealth to Victoria of $1.5 billion as a result of its 2014 budget. There was, further up in Queensland, $13.6 billion allegedly allocated but $844 million for the new Bruce Highway project, and we just heard from the minister that that is new money; that is a reallocation of existing funding. You see that pattern repeated throughout the budget.

Let's look at actuals for Victoria for 2017-18 through to 2020-21. There is $791.2 million, then $568 million, then $606.3 million and then $280.7 million over the life of this budget. For Queensland $2,049 million goes down to $1,874 million, then to $1,866 million and then down to $1.652 billion in 2021. South Australia begin with $759.2 million. Then in 2018-19 they will get $434 million. In 2019-20 they will get $349.5 million. In 2020-21, they will get $95.2 million—that is the entire Commonwealth contribution for South Australian infrastructure.

Then you see the great fiddles of the Inland Rail project being off-budget.

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