Treasurer befuddled by budget blow out
26th May, 2011
REVELATIONS that the Gillard Government needs to find another $7 billion before it can complete duplication of the Pacific Highway had federal Treasurer Wayne Swan more confused and incomprehensible than usual in parliament today.“The Elmer Fudd of Australian politics is clearly shaken by his predicament – how to meet the government’s commitment to complete the project by 2016 with a $7 billion pothole ahead and a promise to return the budget to surplus by 2012-13?” Leader of The Nationals and Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport observed.
“Try as he might to bamboozle with his confused diatribe, the simple truth is he can’t have it both ways. No amount of obfuscation changes that.
“Infrastructure and Transport Minister Anthony Albanese’s own departmental head set the cat screaming out of the bag at yesterday’s Senate Estimates, confirming the government does not have enough money available to complete its promised highway upgrade by 2016.
“The federal government is a staggering $7 billion short. Today the Treasurer confirmed he has no idea how to reconcile the government’s polar extremes of creating a budget surplus and building a dual lane Pacific Highway between Sydney and the Queensland border.
“The Gillard government has, again, spectacularly caught itself out and demonstrated its inability to deliver anything on time and on budget. The government has over-reached with its rhetoric and it is people and businesses along the Pacific Highway route that will feel the fall.
“Frustrated and angry communities – taking in the seats of Paterson, Lyne, Cowper, Page and Richmond – will not get the Pacific Highway duplicated in its entirety on time or on budget.”
[ENDS]
