Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the member for Grayndler's MPI that there are cuts to the infrastructure budget. I'll lay it out quite simply for the member, but I do understand that his knowledge hasn't been that good with numbers—it's not his strong suit, especially since 2013. There have been no cuts in infrastructure spending. There have been no projects cancelled. Funding to the states and territories has not been reduced. Oh, that's right: no projects cancelled except for the East West Link—and who cancelled that? Funding has actually increased to record levels of investment in infrastructure. The coalition government is investing, on average, $2 billion per year more than Labor and investing in a way which delivers better value and results for taxpayers. I guess the member for Grayndler is just upset that the member for Lilley and the member for McMahon couldn't balance the budget to let him have the bigger chequebook to meet the coalition spending.

Our investments come with robust governance reforms so they deliver value for money, including ensuring independent assessment of business cases by Infrastructure Australia and working with the government's Infrastructure and Project Financing Agency to get the best return on our investments. This isn't 'back of the napkin' planning such as those opposite often used and are used to putting together, or perhaps the Ros Kelly whiteboard that she used to use in her ministerial office.

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