Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles has called out the Abbott Government on its ongoing deceit about infrastructure spending in the 2014-15 Budget, accusing Tony Abbott of short-changing the NT.

Mr Giles was quoted in the Northern Territory News today as criticising Treasurer Joe Hockey for allocating only one percent of the Budget’s infrastructure spending to the NT over the next seven years, despite the territory accounting for a seventh of the Australian landmass.
“It’s getting close to 12 months since the change of government and we’re still waiting for the rubber to hit the road,’’ Mr Giles was quoted as saying.
The Chief Minister is justified in his criticism given that the recent Budget merely reannounced projects that had already been funded in previous Labor Government Budgets.
For weeks Tony Abbott and his ministers have attempted to overinflate their infrastructure spending to divert attention from the broken promises and savage spending cuts that dominate their Budget.
Despite their misrepresentations, the Budget slashes billions of dollars in road and public transport spending allocated by the previous Labor Government.
The few new Coalition projects in the Budget are funded by these cuts, despite the Government’s attempts to pretend the money is new.
Mr Abbott has treated the NT with contempt.
Yesterday Joe Hockey was reported at telling the NT not to be jealous of other states.
It is now clear that Mr Giles has joined the rest of Australia in coming to see the Government’s claims about Budget infrastructure for what they are – a con.
The pattern of misrepresentation on infrastructure spending is being rolled out across the nation.
Infrastructure Minister Warren Truss has spent this week re-announcing Labor-funded road projects up and down the Bruce and Pacific Highways.