Infrastructure Minister Warren Truss should apologise to Parliament for misleading it over whether cost-benefit analyses have been conducted into public transport projects the Melbourne Metro and Brisbane’s Cross River Rail Link.
In Question Time Mr Truss rejected Labor’s calls that he fund the Melbourne Metro and the Cross River Rail project on the basis that no cost-benefit analysis had been conducted to determine whether they represented value for money.
This is simply wrong.
Mr Truss is the responsible minister but appears to have no idea of what is happening in his own department.
In fact, Infrastructure Australia endorsed these projects on the basis of positive cost-benefit analysis and included Cross River Rail as the number one project on its priority list in 2012.
On this basis, the Federal Labor Government negotiated with the Newman Government funding that was included in the 2013 Budget.
In 2009, the former Labor Government invested $40 million in planning for the Melbourne Metro.
Infrastructure Australia listed the project in its 2013 priority list and funding was including in the 2013 federal Labor Budget..
Mr Truss clearly lacks the capacity to handle this important portfolio.
In that context it is no wonder that Malcolm Turnbull has appointed three of his own Liberal Party ministers (Greg Hunt, Paul Fletcher and Jamie Briggs) to infrastructure related portfolios to provide back-up for this incompetent minister.