Today I addressed the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics’ (BITRE) 8th Annual Transport Colloquium and released the Australian Transport Statistics 2008 pocket guide.

This pocket guide provides an extremely useful up-to-date snapshot of the scope, scale and performance of the Australian transport sector.

The publication’s key findings include:

• Transport specific businesses contributed 4.63 per cent of total GDP in 2006/07. This amounts to $46.2 billion, an increase of nearly six per cent on 2005/06 – a significant contribution to our economy and national wellbeing;


•  Employment in the transport sector was up six per cent to nearly half a million jobs in the twelve months to August 2007. This constituted 4.7 per cent of total employment.

The transport sector is indeed the economic life-blood of our nation, supporting our industries from agriculture to manufacturing and mining. Just as importantly, it links families and communities.

The key to ensuring the continuing strength of the transport sector is modern, well-planned, national rail, road, aviation and port infrastructure.

That’s why the Rudd Labor Government has moved quickly to:

•  Establish Infrastructure Australia;


• Set up a $20 billion Building Australia Fund to fund critical economic infrastructure; and


• Start investing in fixing the nation’s immediate transport bottlenecks.

With over 14 million registered motor vehicles on the nation’s roads; more than 22 million international and 45 million domestic passengers transiting through our airports; and 734.4 million tonnes of international freight being processed annually, we have a big job ahead of us in ensuring infrastructure is up to scratch.

The Australian Transport Statistics 2008 is available at www.bitre.gov.au.

The Government’s Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) provides economic analysis, research and statistics to inform policy makers and the wider community.