Mrs MARINO (Forrest—Chief Government Whip) (15:46): I'm very pleased to stand here and talk about the $75 billion infrastructure pipeline that this government has. Part of what I want to talk about is probably the one that I think is the most important: water projects. We all know that water in Australia is liquid gold—that's my view. It's what underpins so much of rural and regional Australia. If I look at the projects that the government has already committed to, over $570 million of capital funding is from the fund and loan facility. The government is absolutely determined to tackle issues around water infrastructure. Every day, we're getting on with the job of building the water infrastructure that's going to take us through the 21st century. As I said, there is $580 million for the National Water Infrastructure Development Fund and $2 billion in the National Water Infrastructure Loan Facility. This is really critical in my patch when we look at the lesser amount of rain that we've been receiving. If we look at one of the very important projects, the Myalup-Wellington project, that is really going to make a huge difference in my part of the world. This water project that this government is investing in will actually prevent between 60,000 to 110,000 tonnes of salt from entering the Wellington Dam every year. This is a great project and it's part of the pipeline of the government's projects ahead. This will boost agriculture, horticulture and the forestry industry that is very much part of this. It will create local jobs, without any question, and it will create economic uplift. It's going to attract even further investment in our region—that's what this investment by our government in water infrastructure is doing—and it will help to diversify the economy in WA's south-west. The Wellington Dam is the second-largest reservoir in Western Australia. When we look at this project, the irrigation system that we have in the Darling Scarp is probably one of the most environmentally sound projects you will find. It's a gravity-fed system, and the piping that's been done in the Harvey irrigation system has seen all of the channel losses disappear and all of the evaporation disappear. So it's much more effective, efficient and sustainable as a result. This project is going to add to the Collie irrigation system. As well as desalinating the Wellington Dam, it plans to pipe the Collie River Irrigation System, which heads further south wrote down towards Waterloo. We'll see efficiency gains, both in channel losses and evaporation out of it, and much better quality water, because it will desalinate the water, as well. This is what really builds small communities and regional communities right around Australia. This project will be a key part of underpinning the prosperity of the region and our small communities. Where does the water for our dairy farms come from? It comes from this type of irrigation infrastructure, as does the water for our beef farms and for those involved in fruit production and vegetable production all throughout our marvellous south-west. Not only is it a quality water that comes out of our Stirling Dam closer to Harvey, once this project is completed and we see the desalination in the Wellington Dam, were going to see that same opportunity. The two lots of grasses, those that exist with the Stirling Dam and those that exist with the Wellington Dam: at the moment it's like comparing chalk and cheese. We've lost a number of farmers because of the lack of production capacity because of the effect of the salt. When we talk about real nation-building infrastructure, this is exactly what we are talking out and why the investment by this government is so important. These types of projects, as I said, will underpin these small rural and regional communities and add to economic growth, productivity and sustainability. There is nothing better than this. When you go to wash a dairy yard and you don't need to turn on a pump—because the actual head on the water, because its gravity fed, if you turn the actual hose on fully it could lift you off the ground—you know you've got a very effective and sustainable system. That's exactly how this works. I am particularly pleased that this government is investing in nation-building infrastructure like the critical water infrastructure that we see through the Myalup-Wellington project. Mr ROB MITCHELL: I've been sitting here listening to this, and you've got to laugh. We're talking about infrastructure, one of the most important things that governments can build, and the government is too lazy to get their infrastructure minister out here. They get out here a minister who is responsible for robodebts. You can rely on him to go and attack pensioners, but he's got no idea about infrastructure. They make all these claims about the East-West Link. Let's put some truth on the bone. The East-West Link would have tied up road funding in Victoria for the next 10 years. There would have been no road funds at all. Look across my electorate of McEwen, one of the fastest growing areas in Australia. This government has not invested one cent in infrastructure. It is the laziest, most incompetent government in the history of this nation. Let's compare that to when Labor was in government. We invested in new quarantine facilities. We invested in roads. We invested in the NBN. We hear those opposite sprout the continual lie they make day in and day out about mobile phone towers. When you're in government, you're responsible for taxpayers' money. These guys aren't. They just think they responsible for their own money. We were smart. We said, 'Right, if we're going to build a tower, let's make it multiuse. Let's make it do mobile phones. Let's make it do mobile broadband.' That way, instead of having towers everywhere you have one that does everything. Those opposite stopped that when they destroyed the NBN. So then they go into an area like mine, which has suffered the worst natural disaster in Australia's history and put one tower in. Then they sit there and said, 'We've done really well, we've put one tower in!' The government actually scrapped the third round of the Black Spot Program after getting communities to tell it whether they wanted mobile phone towers, so they could take that money to pay off their pork barrelling in their own electorates. We heard the member for Mallee. He's normally a pretty good bloke, but clearly he's been drinking the water downstream from the member for Forrest's dairy farm. He talked about there being no infrastructure and about the Victoria government. He may want to think back a couple of prime ministers ago to the one who's still here, who sits up the back, who said that the East-West Link was a referendum at the last Victorian election. Guess what? A first-term Liberal government got kicked out of power for Daniel Andrews to get in. The referendum was clear. People did not want all their road funding tied up in a road that delivers nothing. I sit back and think of the last election. The member for Grayndler was talking about road projects in our area and how we were going to duplicate Craigieburn Road, how we were going to duplicate Bridge Inn Road and the work on the interchange at O'Herns Road—all these big congestion-removal infrastructure projects and not one of them was committed by the Liberal Party. In fact, in the last two terms of government, there has not been one piece of road infrastructure in the fastest-growing area in Victoria. In fact, the hapless Deputy Prime Minister responded to a letter to me saying, 'Oh, the East West Link—we're going to build that. That's a project in your electorate.' It's a minimum of, I think, 60 kilometres away. It has absolutely nothing to do with our electorate at all. Victorians are sick and tired of this inept, morally bankrupt government ripping us off. Seven per cent of infrastructure funding goes to Victoria, even though Victoria has 25 per cent of the population. We haven't seen a single major project under the last two prime ministers or the last four infrastructure prime ministers. In fact, the biggest project they came to look at was the quarantine centre, which Labor funded. All they did was come. We had the member for New England come and cut a ribbon. That was the single biggest investment that they put in the area. When your ministers don't know where Victoria is and don't know the funding in Victoria, you sit there and say, 'We have a major problem'—we have a major problem with the inability of an inept government to actually do its job. They want to attack Daniel Andrews. Well, let's have a look at the Mernda rail—a $500 million investment in rail in our communities. One of the biggest things that's been happening in the fastest-growing area of Victoria was delivered by a Labor government. It was not delivered under the four years of the Baillieu and Napthine governments. Whenever Victorians vote, think about one thing: every time there is a Liberal government, you get done over on infrastructure, you get done over on hospitals, you get done over on schools and you get done over on social services. This is a government that has spent too much time fighting itself and not fighting for you.