Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to talk about a very important aspect of the budget, and that is the funding for road infrastructure that was included in this year's budget. It was significant, it was nation changing and it is worth highlighting here in this House tonight. The package overall was $50 billion worth. For the state of Victoria, which hosts the electorate of Wannon, it means the investment of $7.6 billion to build the roads of the 21st century.

Madam Speaker, you have been to my electorate of Wannon and you know how important roads are to that electorate. That is how we get our kids to school. That is how we get our milk to the processing plants. That is how we get our livestock to the abattoirs and the saleyards. Roads are the absolute fibre of everything we do in my electorate. So it is an absolute pleasure to be able to stand here tonight and detail all the funding which will go into the roads which will help the electorate of Wannon, the state Victoria and the nation.

Let us look at a few of the highlights. There is $229 million in the budget for national highway upgrades. There is competitive tendering for that money, which means that for the state highways which run through my electorate we will be able to compete to get money to upgrade them. Roads to Recovery gets $2.5 billion, but most importantly, an extra $350 million in a one-off payment in the 2015-16 financial year. I am going to repeat that, Madam Speaker—in the year 2015-16 an extra $350 million one-off payment which will go to local government for the Roads to Recovery program. There is the Black Spot Program. They will get an extra $200 million over the forward estimates, taking the total to $564.5 million, and there is the Heavy Vehicle Safety Productivity package worth $248 million.

Let us look more specifically at a few more of the road projects which will be beneficial to the electorate of Wannon. We have the Western Highway upgrade, the Ballarat to Stawell duplication, with a federal contribution of $263.4 million for the next stage of the duplication of the Western Highway. Look at the Princes Highway West, the Winchelsea to Colac duplication, with a federal contribution of $185.5 million for the continuation of this duplication of the Princes Highway.

Take roads more specifically. There is the Condah-Hotspur Road with $2.5 million to fix this important logistic route and ensure that heavy transport especially timber transport does not have to travel extra kilometres due to the standard of that bridging road. There is $2.5 million there.

We turn to another project—and many have said that this could be a little city-centric, but I do not think it is. Anyone from the west of Victoria who has travelled to Melbourne knows the importance of being able to get into Melbourne in a timely manner. We have seen the problems which have been occurring over the Bolte Bridge, over the Westgate Bridge and around the Ring Road. Not only is the government contributing to the East West Link but, importantly, it is also contributing to the East West Link, section 2. The total federal contribution for those two projects is $3 billion.

This is a budget which is transforming the road infrastructure of our nation. We are building the roads of the 21st century. The Prime Minister wants to be known as the 'Infrastructure Prime Minister' and he has not just said that, he is delivering in spades in this budget—real money into building real roads. The government is absolutely determined through the work of the assistant minister and the minister to ensure that these roads are starting to be built now. I commend the House on the road budget that was handed down two weeks ago.