Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I just love following the Greens. It is like rainbows and lollipops. If we could all just bike and walk our way to work and address the significant freight task we have going forward as a country by walking and with pushbikes, we would be a better nation. It points once again to their absolute fixation on inner urban electorates and the elites in our community. They stand there and they profess that they are sticking up for workers. They profess to stick up for rural and regional Australia. They are doing nothing more than pandering to the elites in inner urban capital cities such as in my own home state of Victoria.

I rise to speak to the motion before us about the 'chaos, lack of transparency and waste surrounding the Abbott-Turnbull Government's outdated urban freeway projects', including, amongst other things, the East West Link in my home state of Victoria. Outdated! The Eddington report showed that the significant increase in cars on Melbourne's road infrastructure was actually going to increase from, I think, 165,000 cars to over 213,000 by 2030.

Senator Sterle made a significant contribution about the increased freight task going forward. That is the reality of the society, community and economy that we live in and work in and that provides the standard of living, particularly for those that have those wonderfully high house prices in Fitzroy—and that comes at a cost. That means we have to grow stuff and make stuff. We have to consume it domestically. We also have to get it to the ports to get it to the markets right around the world. So, Senator Rice, we have to build highways, we have to build bridges and we have to build railways because we need to get that product off the farm, down the road, onto port and out to market. Do you know what that does? That ensures that Australians have jobs and that local communities can do things together. They can educate their children, provide for their aged citizens and ensure that we have a sustainable health and education system because we have an economy that works and because we sell stuff to other people.

We are the infrastructure government and have made a $50 billion infrastructure commitment. We do not back away about being very proud of building the infrastructure that is going to help our nation grow and develop and be ready to maximise and take advantage of all the opportunities available to us in the 21st century, including those inherent in the free trade agreements negotiated this year and signed off by Minister Robb, which are going to have a fantastic impact on regional Australia. We also need our highways, bridges and railways for safety. Emergencies happen out in the regions. We have bushfires. We have floods. We have bushwalkers getting lost; we have issues in the snow. So we need infrastructure to ensure our community is safe. In the regions, we also need to ensure that our communities can socialise and that they can educate, volunteer, interact, play sport et cetera. That requires roads.

I am not sure how the under-13s from Irymple up in the Mallee will all get on their pushbikes to play their under-13 footy game on Saturday morning against Donald under-13s. They are going to have to leave Friday morning. They are going to have to skip school Friday so they can get on the pushbikes, Senator Rice, and get from Irymple down to Donald so they can compete against the under-13s in Donald. That is just ridiculous! It shows how out of touch the Greens are. Seriously, Senator Rice, are you going to subject the under-13s from Irymple to that? I cannot believe it.

I am straying, because I am supposed to be talking about East West Link. When we talked about the significant freight task—particularly in Victoria, the great state of ag—we recognised that earlier. It was the state coalition government that signed up to ensure that the Western Ring Road was connected to the Eastern Freeway. Do you know what that did, Senator Rice? In your contribution, you talked about people spending time in their cars, reducing the time they are able to spend with their families. Do you know what the East West Link would have done? It would have allowed people who now spend hours sitting gridlocked on Melbourne roads to be home an hour earlier. But do you know what it would cost? A small percentage of people in the inner urban electorates would have to have a tunnel under their homes.

So that is what we are really talking about. We are not talking about walking and pushbikes. We are talking about the people that are living in Laverton, the people that are living in Dandenong, the people that are living in Noble Park and Berwick and Lilydale. The people who do not vote for the Greens. They are the ones that will have to continue sitting in their cars, because they cannot walk to work, Senator Rice. They cannot pushbike to work. The East West Link was going to and could still deliver real benefits, not only in quality of life for Victorians, particularly for outer urban Melburnians, but also—and, I think, incredibly importantly, going forward, given that the greatest product off the dock every morning out of the port of Melbourne is Murray-Goulburn dairy product going to the markets of the world—by underpinning regional Victorian local economies. The East West Link project would have taken those tankers off roads that they are currently on and put them on a much more sustainable and faster and more efficient and effective route.

I know that poor Senator Sterle was bemoaning his Premier playing games in Western Australia. I tell you what: he is not the only one. Senator Sterle did not mention my own Premier, Premier Andrews, and the games that the Labor Party in the state of Victoria is playing with this particular project. If Senator Siewert, through this motion, thinks the government is chaotic and non-transparent and wasteful, how about she open a Victorian newspaper whilst sipping a Fitzroy latte? Or maybe she would be down at Clifton Hill. Collingwood, maybe, is her cafe of choice. I would say that she should take Senator Rice, but Senator Rice would be riding her bike, so it might take her some time to meet up with Senator Siewert. But I will leave them to work out the logistics of how they actually get to the inner urban cafe to sip their lattes. But, if she put her Age down and picked up a Herald Sunit might take a while to find one in Fitzroy—that is all she would have to do. If she turned its pages over the last couple of months, she would see the carnage of broken contracts that the Labor state government has caused. Goodbye, jobs. Goodbye, family time. Hello, drivetime radio—great for the ABC—which can only go so far to relieve driver boredom and stress.

The coalition government wants to help Victoria solve its growing east-west transportation dilemma, and that is why we have committed $3 billion to the East West Link as part of a broader $7.6 billion infrastructure funding commitment to the state through our Infrastructure Investment Program. It was the Victorian Labor government who, after coming to power in late 2014, cancelled this project which had the capacity to transform Victoria's transport network and the state economy. The Victorian Labor government originally indicated costs of around $400 million for cancelling contracts. That is okay, Victoria; it is only going to cost us $400 million to cancel the contracts! That is a lot of state schools. That is a lot of kindergartens. That is a lot of hospitals. That is a lot of nurses. That is a lot of teachers. That is okay—Andrews can write that off.

But do you know what is more appalling than him writing off $400 million for cancelling contracts? It now appears as though the full cost of cancellation will exceed $600 million. Thank you very much, Premier Andrews. How absolutely derelict is my Premier, the Premier of the great state of Victoria? The money of hardworking Victorians is handed over to not build the East West Link. I do not want to get all X gen on it, but I am going to quote Dire Straits—indeed Melbourne's congested roads are in dire straits—by saying that Victorians have unwillingly coughed up 'money for nothing' but they have definitely got their 'kicks for free'. What an absolute waste of money and a smack in the face for Victorians.

Cancelling the East West Link not only cost Victorian taxpayers money; it also cost around 7,000 jobs, not that Senator Rice is concerned about that, because people with these types of jobs do not vote for the Greens party. They vote for the Labor Party. They vote for the coalition. They never vote for the Greens. These are construction jobs. Senator Rice and Senator Siewert, through this matter of public importance, you are claiming that you want to give Victorians more time at home and deal with the freight task by riding pushbikes. I am not sure how I am going to get a tonne of wheat in my pushbike's little front basket to get it around, but anyway. It shows how absolutely out of touch you are as a party and why you are absolutely irrelevant to our future.