Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I know that the opposition chooses to ignore this, but we have repeatedly made the point that the business case provided by the Victorian government demonstrates a benefit cost ratio of up to 1.7, which means that $1.70 would be returned for every $1 invested.

It's interesting that the opposition is so hung up on projects, involvement with state governments and things like that, because it wasn't that long ago that former Prime Minister Turnbull—someone I know they all choose to forget and pretend was never a member of their party—announced that the Commonwealth would commit $5 billion to the Melbourne Airport rail link project without even speaking to the Victorian Premier first. In March this year, the coalition announced a $1.6 billion commitment for the direct rail line from Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast, which the Queensland government described as a bit of a surprise, and the money appeared plucked out of the sky. Again, if we're seriously going to be relying on the Liberal and National parties to lecture people about the appropriate spending of public money, we're going to have to be waiting a fair while.