Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. In light of the government’s views that removing infrastructure bottlenecks is critical to fighting inflation, will the government support the coalition’s pre-election promise to provide $780 million to complete the F3 to Branxton link road? Does the minister agree with the member for Hunter and now Minister for Defence, who said after the coalition’s announcement that Labor would absolutely match this funding to remove bottlenecks from the Newcastle area?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow minister for his question. At the election Labor made a clear commitment not only to continue with AusLink 1 but also to expand our funding for AusLink 2. What we need is a plan to deal with infrastructure in an integrated fashion. We need a plan for road and we need a plan for rail. We need a plan that recognises that we need to get our goods to port and we need to get our people around our cities. With regard to the specific question which the minister raised, I am very pleased that this week I will be introducing into the parliament legislation to create Infrastructure Australia. Infrastructure Australia will conduct an audit of the infrastructure needs of the nation, both now and into the future. It will be able to establish an infrastructure priority list based upon objective criteria, with input from the Commonwealth, input from the state, input from local government, as well as input from the private sector.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The question was very specific. It was about the F3 to Branxton link road and the Labor Party’s commitment of $780 million to build the road. It was a very specific question and I ask for a specific answer.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Without the chair giving commentary on the matter contained in the response, I do believe that the minister was attempting to explain the process involving not only this project but also other projects.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This government does indeed have a very different approach towards these processes. What we will not do is make promises during election campaigns to the point whereby they simply do not add up. With regard to the now opposition’s AusLink commitments, during the federal election campaign they just made promises regardless of whether or not they added up. They made promises because they knew they were never going to be in a position to fulfil them.

What is interesting about the specific question raised by the shadow minister is that he was the minister prior to the election. Did he do anything about it? No. Did the previous National Party minister do anything about it? No. Did the minister before that do anything about it? No. And yet, just 11 weeks post the November 24 election, they have come in here and put forward specific questions about commitments that were given. I will tell you what we will be doing. We will be doing two things. One, we will be establishing a proper process so that assessments can be given in terms of priority, establishing one that consults with Commonwealth-state governments and the private sector. Two, we will be repairing the state of the Commonwealth finances caused by the national pork-barrelling and waste whereby the former government were prepared to just make commitments regardless of whether they added up.