Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Public Security and Policing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like again to speak on behalf of La Trobe residents of my great concern with what is happening in Clyde Road in Berwick. The Berwick debacle has been an ongoing issue. Sadly, the Labor state and federal governments have recently announced $55 million to go towards fixing up this mess. At the last federal election I committed $25 million to this project and my Labor opponent, who initially thought it was a dumb idea, decided it was a great idea and committed the funding to it. It was only recently that the Brumby government in Victoria matched the federal funding. So we had $55 million and we were all hoping and expecting an overpass or underpass to go over or under the Pakenham train line. That would have been the smart and sensible option. That had been my intention and that had been the intention of the Victorian state opposition.

Lo and behold, the announcement was for $55 million for an overpass—and no underpass—over the train line. It was $55 million to duplicate one kilometre of road. If you think about that: for every 100 metres it costs $5.5 million. Those would have to be some of the most expensive roadworks in Australia. I assume what has happened is that both the Rudd and Brumby governments have realised that they have to make sure they can accommodate rip-offs and rorts like we have seen in the Building the Education Revolution. Berwick Primary School has been savaged, and it has been the same for Berwick Lodge Primary School. We are still having problems down at Oatlands Primary School. We are having problems at Belgrave South Primary School. They have obviously taken these issues into account and there has to be some huge rort associated with building Clyde Road. I can understand a bit of extra cash on a Friday afternoon to give some beers to the construction guys out there, but $55 million is obviously a lot of beer.

I will go up the road a bit. One kilometre up the road we have the Bryn Mawr Bridge, which we funded under the Howard government. We initially announced $10 million. What did the Labor Party announce? They announced $25 million. What was the bridge constructed for? It cost $7.5 million. I am sure that, if the Labor Party built it, they would have spent every single cent of that $25 million. It just goes to show that the Labor Party cannot be trusted to manage money.

I will look at the last campaign. We had ‘easing the squeeze’ on families. The Prime Minister has been squeezing the families in La Trobe. It is sad to see that we have all of these young people with mortgages and that interest rates are going up. He promised to do something about that. It just has not taken place. We are seeing the price of fuel rise; we are seeing the price of groceries rise. Look at the famous GroceryWatch website. What happened to that? That closed down. Why? It was never going to work, and the government wasted money on that. We then had Fuelwatch. That was another debacle. We had the home insulation scheme. Again, residents in my electorate—whether in Boronia or Berwick—were savaged.

We look at the environment. At the last federal election I promised $3.5 million for weed control in the Dandenong Ranges. Peter Garrett came out to Berringa when he was minister and met all the local environmentalists. Instead of announcing weed funding, he decided to make an announcement on the Great Barrier Reef. I think the minister should make a mental note to self that the Great Barrier Reef is not in the electorate of La Trobe. We actually have the Dandenong Ranges. The local environmentalists walked away scratching their heads. We also announced prior to the election being called $500,000 to eradicate or find a biological control for a weed called wandering trad. Again, very sadly, one of the first things Minister Garrett did when he got in was take that funding away. That actually affects his own electorate too, because it is in his own electorate. This weed is causing major problems. It has been a tale of destruction with the Labor Party in Latrobe. They have broken promises on weeds and everything else.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 5 pm, the debate is interrupted.