Road Funding

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (14:17): Supplementary: has the government submitted a funded proposal to Infrastructure Australia to upgrade the Strzelecki Track?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (14:17): We have certainly made submissions to Infrastructure Australia that include the Strzelecki Track. We have made it clear to the federal government that we would be a willing co-contributor to that project, and the problem we have is that when the federal government—and indeed, unfortunately, Infrastructure Australia—is in receipt of a suggestion to fund a project, if they like that suggestion, it gets funded. It gets funded straightaway.

In fact, with the Darlington project, a $620 million project funded on an 80:20 basis by the federal government, the funding was committed to by a federal minister before a design had even been conceived let alone before any project report, any business case, any submission was made to a federal minister or indeed to Infrastructure Australia. Take the recent federal budget. When a rail project in Western Australia, which hadn't had a submission, which hadn't had a project report, which hadn't had a business case put together, receives hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of funding, that's a big tick.

That's a big tick from the federal Coalition, knowing the sandbagging they need to do in Western Australian seats, but when it comes to South Australia, when we put in submission after submission after submission for projects like the Gawler electrification, there is some furphy claim that we haven't done any work on this issue, despite the fact that this government received a letter from the federal Minister for Infrastructure when that project was first funded in 2013, I think it was, saying, 'Based on the information submitted to Infrastructure Australia, I am pleased to provide funding for the Gawler electrification project.'

That just goes to show you the disparity between those people who make excuses for not funding projects in South Australia, those people who go out into the media and boast about cutting regional road funding by up to $20 million a year, and this government that gets on with the job of securing funding and delivering projects across this state.

The SPEAKER: Could I reiterate to people in the Speaker's gallery on my right that, since the supply of the video-on-demand feed, it is out of order and a breach of privilege to film or photograph, and the use of flash photography was always prohibited. Member for Stuart.