Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Chisholm mentioned Wellington Road. It's interesting that she talked about the funding of Wellington Road. It's something I am passionate about and have spoken about in this House. She failed to mention the $110 million that this government has ripped out of the Wellington Road duplication project in the outer east, in Casey, Aston and La Trobe. That duplication was about saving lives and about getting people off the Dandenong Ranges in a bushfire emergency. The duplication was to allow emergency services to get up to the mountain and residents to get off. This motion talks about getting families home safely. I would love to hear from the government about another project that is more important than this one that would allow people to escape from bushfires. Once again we hear from this government and the member for Chisholm a lot of spin and talk. They don't talk about the money they're ripping from communities that would save lives in a bushfire emergency.

The former coalition government wanted to help regional Australians. They wanted to expand infrastructure projects, to make roads safer and more effective and to employ Australians along the way. In the same budget where the Labor Party has ignored the important infrastructure projects at hand it has also cancelled about $2 billion in grants that were promised by the coalition. Additionally, the Labor Party is cutting $4.6 billion of the previous coalition government's water projects over the next 12 years.

We have heard from the member for Chisholm and a lot of government members, particularly in Victoria, about the $2.2 billion they've committed to the Victorian Suburban Rail Loop. But you will not heard from any member of this government that that project has not gone through the independent assessment by Infrastructure Australia. When they were in opposition there was plenty of talk about how important Infrastructure Australia was, but once again they say one thing when in opposition and do another thing when in government. The Prime Minister himself when he was the opposition leader said in his budget reply speech in March:

Labor will make sure that those investments really stack up using the Infrastructure Australia model that I established.

Less than six months into this government he has already thrown that out the window. I wonder why he has changed his mind on this $2.2 billion, for a project that is expected to cost up to $125 billion and to be completed by 2085. Why has he rushed this through on such a big and significant project? Could it be that his barbecue friend Premier Daniel Andrews has an election in two to three weeks? Could it be that? As they say, what a coincidence. Once again this Prime Minister is playing politics with taxpayers' money to support his friend Daniel Andrews.

It's very similar to his broken promise of a $275 cut to power bills that we know is not going to happen. The Albanese government boasted in this budget about the savings they're going to make, but again they didn't talk about the majority of these savings coming from deferred or cancelled projects, whether they are road or rail. These deferred projects impact people. That is what has been lost in this by those opposite when they laud these decisions—like indefinitely delaying the Rockhampton Ring Road. It is pulling the rug out from underneath nearly 1,000 workers who were prepared and reliant on starting work in January next year, two or three months away. Their lives have been changed. You don't hear about that from those opposite. The ring road group came to Canberra today wanting action. I hope the Albanese government will at least have the decency to listen to these residents and workers who are impacted by this.

Of the upgrades that have been announced and noted in the bill, many have been re-announced by the Albanese government. These projects were already put in place by the coalition, including the Bruce Highway upgrade in Queensland and the nearly $700 million allocated for the Outback Way. The government is cancelling these infrastructure projects and is cancelling the Building Better Regions program without even looking at it. Community groups have invested time, money and effort in putting their applications in in good faith. This government cancelled every application, costing them that time and money. They are going to launch a new program. I dare say it will be very similar, if not identical, to the current program but they need to get their political spin by costing community groups time and money. Those community groups were relying on that fund to deliver their projects. (Time expired)

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