Coalition to fight Rudd’s road and rail swifty
29th May, 2009
The Coalition will move to amend Federal Government legislation to stop Labor from brazenly stealing road and rail money from regional areas to buy votes in the cities.“This is another attempt by Rudd Labor to rip off local road and street users and anyone using a dangerous local road,” the Leader of The Nationals and Shadow Transport Minister, Warren Truss, said today.
The main concerns of the Coalition are:
• Labor plans to take money off local roads and streets in the Black Spots program and shovel it onto projects on the national network which already receives most of the federal money for roads;
• The killing off of AusLink Strategic Regional Projects by allowing money to be siphoned off to projects in the cities, and
• Labor is legislating to rename the respected and successful AusLink national transport plan as the Nation Building Program. This change is nothing but spin and a lame attempt to rewrite history and wipe out memory of the Coalition’s remarkable road and rail achievements.
“Ever since coming to Government, Labor has over-promised and under-delivered. Quiet simply, its proposed spending over the next six years on road and rail will be less than the sum committed by the Coalition over the five and a half years from 2007.
“There’s been more Labor huffing and puffing about infrastructure projects than just about anything else, but the public is seeing through the spin.
“The Coalition will not stand by while proven programs building road and rail around Australia are destroyed by Labor,” Mr Truss said.
