Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question and note the hard work that he has done for the people of Calare and for the city of Orange in helping to establish the Regional Investment Corporation, a multibillion dollar bank in Orange, developing Orange as our Chicago, as our area where rural commodities can be traded to become the epicentre of rural finance on the back of Paraway Finances, the national bank's major rural lending arm, and the New South Wales department of agriculture. It's a vibrant city, and the member for Calare is doing more work every day to make that city even stronger and make the Central West of New South Wales even stronger.

Of course, he is very interested in the Central West of New South Wales because one centre that will absolutely boom under this is Parkes. In Parkes—in the member for Riverina's seat—we will see that intermodal point, the expansion by reason of a connection from Melbourne through to Brisbane where the crossover from Sydney through to Perth happens. We're already seeing Pacific National investing $35 million into that area so that they can start building their infrastructure for those requirements. It's an $8.4 billion commitment. It's got 16,000 direct and indirect jobs. It will mean a $16 billion increase to our nation's GDP. With 262,000 tonnes of steel, the equivalent of five Harbour Bridges, this is being built in places such as Whyalla so that blue-collar workers in Whyalla can have a job. We believe in blue-collar workers. We still believe in labourers. We still believe in people actually having a job. We still believe that it's dignified to work in the coal industry and the steel industry. We are supporting them with this infrastructure.

We know that we have a vision that the Labor Party lack. However, they have an enthusiasm for it. We can see that from the member for Grayndler, who's been the shadow minister for infrastructure and transport from time immemorial. It was interesting on Monday, 12 February, and Tuesday, 13 February, that the member for Grayndler put out media releases saying, 'The Inland Rail goes through the seat of New England.' It doesn't. It doesn't go through the seat of New England. Then he also said, 'The Inland Rail doesn't go to the ports of Melbourne or Brisbane.' There are standard gauge lines to both the ports of Melbourne and Brisbane. Then he said, 'The Labor Party provided $300 million for the Inland Rail in the 2013 budget.' That's what he said. There's not a single mention of the Inland Rail in the 2013 budget. It was our election commitment. The best one was when he said, 'The Inland Rail was commenced by the former Labor government.' Why stop there? Why not say you're responsible for Mount Rushmore or the Sphinx? Why don't you claim responsibility for everything since the dawn of this planet?

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