House debates

Monday, 24 February 2020

Questions without Notice

Roads

3:21 pm

Photo of Richard MarlesRichard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Why was over $700 million—almost one-quarter of all the funds allocated from the Urban Congestion Fund—channelled to the three Liberal seats of Higgins, Deakin and Latrobe? Is there no congestion in Cowper, Wills, Holt, Hotham, Gellibrand, Lalor or Maribyrnong?

Photo of Scott MorrisonScott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | | Hansard source

When I gave an answer to an earlier question, I ran through the considerable commitments the government made to electorates that are held by Labor members.

At the last election we took a plan to the Australian people, and that was to deal with congestion busting in our cities. We believe that's an important issue, to try to get people home sooner and safer. And so we put the fund together—$4 billion—to ensure that we could address those issues in our cities and in our communities. But what's more important is that Australians trusted our plan, because they know we can deliver our plan and because they know we know how to manage money. They heard all the same promises from the Labor Party at the last election. They promised to spend some $250 million on various projects around the country. They promised to spend billions of dollars here, there and everywhere, but they didn't trust Labor to deliver on these things because they know they cannot trust Labor with money.