Thursday, 19 October 2023

 Matthew BACH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:58): (486) As I ready myself to leave this place, I find myself making some new friends across the aisle. One of these new friends is Mr Pakula. I want to go back to some of the things Mr Pakula said some years ago about major projects and Infrastructure Australia in the other place. He said that the government would be committing ‘economic vandalism’ ‍– his exact words – if it were not to submit a business case for a major project to Infrastructure Australia. That is noteworthy because the first stage of the so-called Suburban Rail Loop, which is almost entirely in my electorate, has no business case, and that non-existent business case has not been submitted to Infrastructure Australia, a creation of Mr Albanese – a very good creation of Mr Albanese. The Grattan Institute, when we first saw former Minister Allan ascend to the premiership, said that her first action should be to scrap the Suburban Rail Loop. I am not going to ask the new Minister for Transport Infrastructure to do that, but what I will ask is: will he compile a business case and then submit it to Infrastructure Australia for the first leg of the so-called Suburban Rail Loop, given that is what senior members of this Labor government had previously committed to doing for all major projects?