David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Acting Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development. Will the Acting Prime Minister outline how building the infrastructure of the 21st century will help boost growth and create jobs?

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Lyne for the question. It was a pleasure to be with him in his electorate last week for the beginning of another section of construction on the Pacific Highway. Another 23 kilometres will be duplicated as part of this project—a part of our $5.6 billion commitment to upgrading the Pacific Highway. It is a road that has been identified by the NRMA and other motoring organisations as the most accident prone and dangerous in the state, and therefore it is appropriate that there should be a response of this nature—to four-lane the highway all the way to the Queensland border. That $5.64 billion that the coalition have put on the table is $3 billion more than what the opposition proposed in the pre-election fiscal outlook over the same period. Once more, Labor had such conditions attached to their money that even that amount was unlikely to have been provided. So this is a real part of building the roads of the 21st century—building a link between our capital cities. It is four lanes and able to take the traffic volumes and the loads that are currently asking to use that kind of a network. It is not that road alone, of course; this national program involves substantial expenditure on projects like the Bruce Highway, the East West Link in Melbourne, the North-South Corridor in Adelaide, the Midland Highway in Tasmania, the Gateway WA project and the Swan Valley Bypass. All of those sorts of projects plus many others will transform our nation's infrastructure and make a real difference.

There is about $11.6 billion also committed through our infrastructure growth package, which will help deliver new infrastructure funding on projects like WestConnex. WestConnex is expected to employ 10,000 people in the community. Those sorts of projects also make a real difference to our economy. But it is not just those major projects; there is also a commitment at the local level for local roads and streets through the Roads to Recovery Program, the Black Spot Program and the Bridges Renewal Program. This is a government that is committed to delivering on its promise to build the infrastructure of the 21st century and we are getting on with the job.