Mr TUDGE (Aston—Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure) (15:23): I am very pleased to speak on this matter of public importance. My first point is that I don't know where the member for Ballarat has been. If she got out of Canberra and got out of her office, she would see construction going on in every major capital city right now. She will see it going on in regional centres across our country. It is not for no reason that many commentators are saying we are in an infrastructure boom right now—and that is because we have projects right across this great nation dealing with congestion, supporting the economy and addressing community safety and road safety this very second. In fact, since we came to government, 900 projects have been identified to be funded, 280 projects have already been completed and 160 major projects are underway right now across this country. There are 160 major projects underway, under construction, this very second. The bitumen has been laid, the bulldozers are going and people are working very hard. Thousands of people are being employed, which is supporting local economies right across this nation. We also have 120 projects in the planning, ready to go. Once that planning is completed the money is there and ready to go. So to suggest that we don't have infrastructure projects going on, as the member for Ballarat is suggesting to this parliament, is, frankly, absolutely wrong. I could refer back from a financial perspective to just five years ago, when the CEO of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, Brendan Lyons, said that our plan at that stage represented the largest-ever national infrastructure investment program in Australian history. That was five years ago. Do you know what the size of our infrastructure program was then? It was $50 billion. Do you know what it is five years later? It is now a $100 billion program. Five years ago we had the respected leader of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia saying that this is the biggest program he'd ever seen in Australian history. Five years later we've doubled that again to $100 billion. We have so much infrastructure going on now that some commentators are saying that we're now reaching supply complaints from the construction companies, who may not be able to take too much on. This year we are spending on infrastructure more than double what the Labor Party spent in their last year in office. So I say to the member for Ballarat: I honestly do not know where you have been. Get out there: go to Sydney, go to Melbourne, go to Adelaide, go to Brisbane, go to Perth, go to Hobart and go to the regional centres and you will see this construction going on all the time. I want to refer specifically to two or three projects, though. I've talked about the aggregate numbers. We have doubled the funding. We have a $100 billion program. We have 160 underway and another 120 planned. Let me at least talk about two or three very large-scale projects. These are projects which in some respects should have been built a long time ago, arguably decades, but it took this government to actually get them underway. The very first one I'll mention is the Western Sydney Airport. This is a project which has been on the books for literally decades, but within six months of our coming to office we decided that we would get on with the job of building that second airport in Western Sydney. We did the planning work. We immediately put $5.3 billion on the table to get it underway. If the member for Ballarat bothered to go out to Western Sydney she would see the landscape changing before her eyes. Already a million cubic metres of earth has been moved to flatten that enormous landscape out there. When completed it will be the largest earthmoving project in Australian history, creating 11,000 jobs in the process. That's happening right now and it didn't happen under the opposition. They had the opportunity, they talked about it and they said that they wanted it, but for six long years Labor didn't get it done, because they couldn't make the decision. Look at the next big project: the airport rail link down in Melbourne. Again, to be honest, this rail link should have been built two or three decades ago. This is another one where the Labor Party looked at it, talked about it and said that Melbourne needs a rail link out to the airport. Did they actually do anything about it in their six long years in office? No; nothing. Again it took this government to finally put money on the table. We put $5 billion on the table and said to the state government, 'Join us, please, in delivering this vitally important project for Melbourne and finally connect up Australia's second-busiest airport to the rail network.' They're now committed. We now have a construction schedule starting in 2022 and we will see that job done. Mr Giles: Wasn't the Baillieu government going to build it, along with the Rowville-Monash rail? Mr TUDGE: I heard an interjection here in relation to the Rowville-Monash rail—another project which never happened under the former Labor government, which is connecting up Australia's single-largest university campus to the rail network. Fifty-five thousand people attend the Monash Clayton campus. It took the government, in our infrastructure plan, to finally put the $475 million on the table and say, 'We need to get this job done.' If the member for Ballarat wants to assist in expediting that process then I ask her to pick up the phone to the Minister for Transport in Victoria or the Premier in Victoria and say, 'Let's get cracking on this project,' because the 55,000 students who attend that campus every single day want to see that campus connected to the metropolitan rail network in Melbourne. I'm going to go back to Sydney and talk about WestConnex. WestConnex is a $16 billion game-changing project for Sydney and particularly Western Sydney. It was only just a couple of weeks ago that we opened up the next stage of WestConnex, which was the M4 tunnel from Homebush to Haberfield. It's a 5.5-kilometre tunnel and an absolute game changer for people in Western Sydney. It means that if you're sitting in Parramatta, or further afield, today and you want to travel into the city— Dr Freelander: What's the cost? Tell them how much money it will cost. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Hogan ): The member for Macarthur is warned. Mr TUDGE: you will now be able to avoid 22 sets of traffic lights. It will save you 20 minutes each way on that journey. I know the member for Reid is a great supporter of this particular project. If you decide to take Parramatta Road instead of taking the tunnel—and that's your choice—it is estimated that 50 per cent of the traffic will be removed from Parramatta Road as a result of this tunnel. That's the type of game-changing infrastructure that we are building, completing and opening, and we have all sorts of other projects underway. Again, I refer back to what the Labor Party said in relation to this project. They couldn't get it done. Do you know what the now Leader of the Opposition said when he was shadow minister for transport? He said, 'If we're in government and I'm the transport minister, I won't put a cent into that project.' Do you know why he said that? He said, 'We're not going to do that because that is a road to nowhere.' That's what he said. This is a road which goes from the Sydney CBD into Western Sydney, to Parramatta, and he said that was a road to nowhere. We on this side of the House don't think Western Sydney is nowhere. The member for Reid certainly does not think that Western Sydney is nowhere. That is the type of attitude which the inner-city latte set sitting on the opposition benches have about Western Sydney. They think it's nowhere, so they wouldn't have put a cent into that project. There are all of these great projects underway, getting going and in the planning phrase. They are game-changing projects: the Western Sydney Airport, the Melbourne Airport rail link, the Monash Rail, WestConnex—you name it. They are projects which the Labor Party could not deliver in their long six years in government but which we are getting going. And we've got more. The member for Ballarat mentioned a ripper project in Victoria, and that is the East West Link. By gosh, we want to see that project done. We've got the money on the table. The state government doesn't have to put in a cent. I know that everybody in the eastern suburbs wants that project done, as everybody in Perth wants Roe 8 and Roe 9 done. They want that road done as well. We are getting on with the job— (Time expired)