This week the Queensland LNP Government has revealed just how far they’re prepared to go in their efforts to distort Federal Labor’s record on the Bruce Highway and exaggerate their own.
They are now trying to pass off Federal funding as their own.
During his driving tour of the Highway, State Transport Minister Scott Emerson – the latest LNP politician to make the pilgrimage north along the Queensland coast –boasted on local TV:

“We’ve put the Bruce Highway … as front and centre of our Budget – $415 million just this year.”

SEVEN NETWORK (BUNDABERG) – 3 OCTOBER 2012

The only problem with that statement is that it’s totally misleading.
Of the $415 million mentioned by Mr Emerson, $332 million is in fact coming from this Federal Labor Government.  The Queensland Government is providing only $83 million.
In other words, more than three-quarters of this year’s funding for the Highway is Federal money.
Then in the very same news report Nationals Leader Warren Truss had the audacity to claim Federal Labor isn’t investing enough in the Highway.
If Mr Truss genuinely has “concerns” about the current level of Federal funding, he must have been beside himself with rage every time the former Howard Government in which he served as Transport Minister brought down a budget.
Here are the facts: the former Howard Government spent only $1.3 billion on the Bruce Highway during its twelve years in office.  Federal Labor is currently investing an unprecedented $2.8 billion over just six years – or more than twice as much in half the time.