Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on the importance of infrastructure investment as a key enabler of Australia's future prosperity? And how will we achieve greater certainty and consensus around support for major infrastructure projects?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hughes for his question. He is a great advocate of better infrastructure—as well his Southern Districts Rugby team!—and he is someone that believes that we need to have better infrastructure in order to help to deliver the prosperity that our nation needs over the next 30 or 40 years, as is the case illustrated in the Intergenerational report. Having better infrastructure will be vitally important to help to lift our productivity, and that means increasing our output for every hour we work. If we can do that, we can lift the wealth of the nation, and we can help to continue to pay for the services that are essential.

In last year's budget, we announced the equivalent of eight new Snowy Mountains schemes in additional infrastructure over the next decade. Everyone kept saying—around the country—'what we need in Australia is a new Snowy Mountains scheme'. We in the coalition government have announced the equivalent of eight new Snowy Mountains schemes over the next decade in Australia. And the Labor Party is opposing it. The Labor Party is opposing that rollout of new infrastructure; they are opposing the creation of tens of thousands of new jobs.

Nothing illustrates it better than their position on the East West Link in Melbourne: the fact that they are tearing up a contract for 7,000 jobs. The Leader of the Opposition is all over the joint on this. He is all over the joint like his loyalty to a leader. He all over the joint—one day, one night—different positions. Here is his submission on behalf of the Australian Workers Union, saying he wants an East West Link; here is his submission as the member for Maribyrnong, saying 'get on with the construction of the East West Link'—and yet just last week, the member for Maribyrnong, the Leader of the Opposition, said to Jon Faine in relation to the East West Link: 'we need a national infrastructure market where people can invest in infrastructure projects in the future with the certainty that infrastructure is not politicised'. So just before question time, the Leader of the Opposition is out there answering—'do you now support the building of East West Link? Bill Shorten: 'No.' Not politicising—one day he supports it, the next day he opposes it! The words that will ring true—the words you cannot believe—are what his own colleagues say about him and, in this case, what Chris Bowen said about him on 11 September 2014:

…Bill Shorten and I are of one mind, Labor honours contracts. Labor in Government honours contracts entered into by previous governments. Even if we don't like them for issues of sovereign risk, Labor honours contracts in office signed by previous governments.

What a hypocrite!

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable the Treasurer knows that that is unparliamentary language.