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 are there any obstacles to achieving full duplication of the highway by 2016?

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. She knows that we have already committed some $4.1 billion to the Pacific Highway, which compares to the $1.3 billion over double the time—12 years—that the Howard government committed. In addition to that, in the recent budget we allowed for $3.56 billion to be put on the table for the full duplication of the Pacific Highway by 2016 based upon a matching commitment from New South Wales, which was both the timeline of 2016 that the Howard government put and also the funding model that the Howard government put when the National Party had ministers. Over the weekend the federal coalition gave the state coalition, their mates in Macquarie Street, the green light to abandon the 2016 timeline. They have deferred the full duplication to beyond the next decade. Indeed, when they were in government, they said the opposite. They said the Pacific Highway was a state road and they called for the New South Wales Labor government to do more. The member for Cowper had this to say: 'It's a state road. New South Wales refused to commit one extra dollar of state government funding to a road they are responsible for.' The state coalition was saying the same thing: 'Yes, I will match that money,' said Duncan Gay, 'and save the lives of people in New South Wales that have to use this highway.'

On the weekend, the member for Wide Bay made an announcement about how they were going to take money from the Parramatta to Epping rail link that had been allocated, that had been pushed back for two years because of the inaction of the state government. They said that that would enable them to fully duplicate the highway and meet the target. There is only $67.9 million available under the Parramatta-Epping rail link between now and 2016. So they push it out beyond 2020, and, in spite of that, they are still half a billion dollars short because of the failure of the state government to honour the commitments that they made in the 2011 election campaign.

Right now today there are over a thousand people working up and down the Pacific Highway. When we had the economic stimulus plan we put money into fully, 100 per cent funded projects such as the Kempsey bypass to make sure we could get it done. Those opposite have given a green light for New South Wales to abandon their commitment to this highway and at the same time they have walked away from the provision of infrastructure into public transport.

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

Minister, you raised the Parramatta to Epping rail link in your answer. Can you please outline why it is important for the government to also invest in public transport in our cities?

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

I thank the member for her question. We know that the promise to fix the Pacific Highway is in tatters. What we have also seen, both with the announcement on Saturday and the interview—the train wreck of an interview yesterday morning on Australian Agenda—is that the coalition have maintained their position of opposition to funding public transport in Australia. In 12 years they did not contribute a zack to any public transport project around Australia. In Sydney they committed a total of $300 million in funding a portion of the M7 in their entire 12 years in office.

We on this side of the House believe in urban public transport. The Noarlunga to Seaford line, on which the bridge was completed last week—and the member was there, the regional rail link in Victoria, the Moreton Bay rail link, the Gold Coast light rail, the Perth City rail link, Melbourne Metro 1, Brisbane innercity rail study, Perth light rail study—all of these projects are important. We have committed more to urban public transport since 2007 than all governments combined in the previous 107 years—all governments combined versus this government since 2007. We understand you have got to look after people in the regions and the city. (Time expired)