Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Would the Deputy Prime Minister outline to the House how the government’s strong economic management is allowing investment in Australia’s local transport infrastructure, particularly in my electorate of Kalgoorlie? Are there any threats to this strong economic management?

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kalgoorlie for his question. The member for Kalgoorlie would be well aware that, through a whole series of decisions that our government have taken over the last 10 years, we have positioned the Australian economy to be one of the most prosperous in the developed world. We have achieved record low levels of unemployment. We are witnessing record low levels of industrial disputation. We are running budget surpluses. We have become net savers, not net borrowers, thus keeping downward pressure on interest rates. But the member for Kalgoorlie would recognise that one of the most important reforms that we have undertaken is paying off Labor’s $96 billion debt. That took a lot of hard work and a lot of determined decision making by the government over the last 10 years. That has been achieved.

But what has that delivered to the broader economy in Australia and to those massive tracts of Western Australia that the member for Kalgoorlie represents? The first thing it has done, by paying off $96 billion of debt, is relieve the Commonwealth budget of having to pay $8½ billion a year in interest payments. That is $22 million a day we were paying in interest. So that is $8½ billion a year we can invest in other much needed investments in the Australian economy for the future.

In this year’s budget we announced that we were going to invest a further $22.3 billion in the AusLink 2 land transport program. That takes the overall investment in AusLink 1 and AusLink 2 to $38 billion since we have been in office. That is only half of the savings of the interest we would have paid on Labor’s debt, had we not paid it off. Had we not retired that debt, we would have paid $85 billion in interest payments over 10 years. We have now reallocated $38 billion of that onto land transport across Australia. That is what you can do if you are prepared to run good fiscal policy with the Australian economy. And there is no question that the benefits are beginning to be seen right across the nation.

As part of the announcements on budget night, we announced that we are going to spend $250 million on local and state government road projects across the nation. There was one critical one in the member for Kalgoorlie’s electorate in the shire of Derby-West Kimberley—something you would expect the local authority should have been doing with assistance from the state government, but that is not the case. Because of the decisions that are being taken by state Labor governments across Australia, many of these pieces of road infrastructure are going wanting. So we have stepped in and, as part of our overall strategy in investing in land transport, we are investing in a lot of the local road infrastructure. As a result of the government paying off Labor’s debt and saving $22 million a day on interest, we can now afford—without borrowing—to invest in this much needed road infrastructure across Australia. It gives better roads at a local level for farmers to ship their produce out along; it gives better roads to the road transport industry, which can become more efficient; in the member for Kalgoorlie’s electorate, it gives better roads for the mining industry—they are earning the export wealth for Australia; and it gives safer roads for mums and dads in urban areas.

In announcing extra money to those local and arterial road projects, that $250 million equals only 11 days of the interest payments the Labor Party were paying on the debt they had clocked up when they were in office. Only 11 days: $250 million of projects, 89 projects across Australia. If there is a threat to this, it is the track record of mismanagement by the Labor Party in government. It is a track record they would move back to. I will finish on a comment by the Labor spokesman on transport after the budget. He said in his press release:

Auslink II must build on the investment of Auslink I in Australia’s strategic economic transport infrastructure.

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport, Roads and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Martin Ferguson interjecting

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In answer to the member for Batman: we will, as the government. It is good to see him endorsing government policy. And the only reason we can do it is that we are saving $22 million a day in interest payments which the Labor Party were paying to bankers overseas.