Premier

Scott Morrison Out Of Excuses On Locked Box Funding

10 December 2018

The current Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, is running out of excuses for why his minority Liberal government continues to keep $3 billion of Victorian infrastructure funding in a locked box, instead of providing it to hard working Victorians.

The funding is being kept in a locked box for a project that doesn’t stack up and won’t be built – having been roundly rejected by the Victorian people at the last two state elections.

It’s time for that money to be put into the North East Link – a project that does stack up and will finally complete the missing link in Melbourne’s ring road.

But instead of delivering Victoria with its fair share of infrastructure funding, Scott Morrison is providing excuse after excuse after excuse.

On Sunday, Mr Morrison made a bizarre claim that this was the bidding of Federal Labor. And today he’s dismissed our expectation that Victoria gets its fair share as ‘politics’.

There is nothing political about building the major road and rail projects that people need so they can get home safer and sooner to see their loved ones.

If Mr Morrison continues to withhold this funding, it’s clearly just a lame attempt at propping up the Federal Budget bottom line to deliver a surplus ahead of the Federal Election.

Unlike the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government, we don’t promise fake surpluses – we deliver them every year.

And unlike the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government, we don’t just talk about infrastructure, we keep our promises and we get it done.

We said we’d remove 20 level crossings, and we’ve removed 29 in just four years.

We said we’d get the Metro Tunnel project back up and running after the former Victorian Liberal Government abandoned it – and tunnelling has started beneath our city.

And we said we’d start the road that should have been built decades ago, and North East Link is out to market.

Quotes attributable to Minister for Transport Infrastructure Jacinta Allan

“Instead of delivering more excuses, it’s time Scott Morrison provided the $3 billion that he is keeping from the Victorian people.”

“For far too long the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments have short changed Victoria when it comes to funding our state’s vital road and rail projects.”

“Scott Morrison likes comparing himself to the Andrews Labor Government – he now has the chance to act like us too by unlocking this $3 billion to help build the infrastructure that Victorians voted for and need.”

Reviewed 19 August 2020

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