Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

N () (): Much has been said about the Albanese government's federal budget and the fact that it has totally ignored middle Australia. Middle Australia are faced with higher prices, higher taxes and higher mortgages. What has been less said but is every bit as important is that this budget also ignores regional Australia. We know that the Albanese government has a razor gang. It is putting on the chopping block for review $120 billion worth of infrastructure projects. This is going to impact regional Australia more than anywhere else.

Let's take the Sunshine Coast. One of those projects is a $1.6 billion rail project, a project that the community has united around, regardless of their political stripe. To us, especially given the booming population, a new rail line that goes all the way through to the Maroochydore CBD is precisely what our community has called for. In government we allocated $1.6 billion for 50 per cent of that $3.2 billion project. The state Labor government has stalled it, and now this Albanese government is putting a big fat question mark over it. Secondly, we had the Mooloolah River interchange—$160 million from the coalition government for a road that the state is fully responsible for. That too has a question mark over it. For that project, people have already been evicted from their houses—up to 400 residents. Amid a housing crisis and a population boom, the government is now holding back on whether the project even proceeds.

What we found out through Senate estimates is that it's not just projects that might be on the chopping block but, in fact, the programs, including programs that we rely on locally, especially in regional areas, such as the Black Spot Program and Roads to Recovery. Our local councils rely on them. Literally tens of millions of dollars were allocated by the coalition government for these local roads, and we've had them through nearly every area of the Sunny Coast but I want to call out one in particular. We were able to secure $3.2 million for Zgrajewski Road in Yandina Creek. A local resident, Angelo Reitano, had campaigned for this upgrade for 30 years. Imagine that! We were able to have that road fully sealed. This is what infrastructure is about, this is what looking after the regions is about and it's what looking after middle Australia should be about, but the Albanese government are rejecting and ignoring it.