Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Canavan for the question. As Senator Canavan well knows, the Liberal-National government support rural and regional Australia, because that is exactly what is in our DNA. In terms of our commitment to regional transport infrastructure, Senator Canavan, you'd be aware that, since 2013-14, it now totals more than $30 billion. This is of course delivering real outcomes for regional communities. What's it doing? It's improving roads and rail to better connect regional communities.

Programs which regional Australia is benefiting from include: the Black Spot Program, Roads to Recovery, the Bridges Renewal Program, the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program, and of course, as Senator Canavan has referred to, the $4.5 billion Roads of Strategic Importance initiative. This program, the government's Roads of Strategic Importance initiative, is a major program for supporting and developing the transport networks across key corridors in regional Australia. The program itself primarily supports network improvements, which involves packages of investment to raise the standard of roads, including feeder roads, to provide more reliable road networks. The corridor approach provides more reliable road networks, improves access for high-capacity vehicles, better connects regional communities and of course facilitates tourism opportunities, and those tourism opportunities will be further facilitated if, obviously, states and territories would actually open up their borders.

Senator Canavan, in terms of Queensland in particular, it is benefiting now from over $1 billion of committed funding under the Roads of Strategic Importance initiative, and this includes key investments, including the Mount Isa to Rockhampton corridor upgrade and the Townsville to Roma corridor upgrade.