Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. Will the minister please outline the government's commitment to the duplication of the Pacific Highway, and why is it important that infrastructure commitments are met with funding commitments?

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

I thank the member for Page for her question. Tomorrow I will be up on the North Coast with the member for Page and the member for Richmond outlining our commitment to deliver the full duplication of the Pacific Highway by 2016, something that has been championed by many in this chamber over a long period of time but something that has only been delivered by this government. That is why on Tuesday night we put $3.56 billion into the Nation Building Program, which will be made available on a dollar-for-dollar basis to the New South Wales government for the Pacific Highway.

I am asked why is it important that commitments are met with funding—with actual plans to get them done. I am reminded that recently the Leader of the Opposition has had discussions about infrastructure. He does not have commitments, of course; he has aspirations. Well, you cannot drive on an aspiration. In his op-ed in the Daily Telegraph on 5 March he announced over $50 billion in aspirations for Sydney's infrastructure. It included building a road tunnel under Mosman, in his electorate. That has suddenly become a national priority. All this on top of a $70 billion black hole that he starts with. No wonder he did not match it.

But there is something in common here, which is that it is only Labor governments that actually do something about funding infrastructure, not just talking about infrastructure. We know that for the Pacific Highway for the life of the Howard government they contributed $1.3 billion while the state government contributed $2.5 billion during that same period. Yet now, in spite of the very clear statements made by the Premier of New South Wales prior to the election in March 2011 that he was absolutely committed to delivering funding, we have support for the program being withdrawn. Despite the fact that they were completely critical, the Premier, the Deputy Premier and the now minister for roads gave very specific commitments about matching funding. Indeed, in last year's budget we put in $750 million based upon matched funding. On budget night last year the state government said they would exceed that matching, but now $300 million has disappeared from that commitment.

We need to get on with the job of building the Pacific Highway full duplication. The fact is you cannot drive on an aspiration; it does need funding and it is about time the coalition and the National Party local members, who had transport ministers for all those years, get on with the job of telling their coalition colleagues in New South Wales to fund this road. (Time expired)