p style=”text-align: justify”>Only the Federal Labor Government can be trusted to deliver the Regional Rail Link – a fact that today has been confirmed by the extraordinary comments from Tony Abbott:
“Now the Commonwealth Government has a long history of funding roads. We have no history of funding urban rail and I think it’s important that we stick to our knitting, and the Commonwealth’s knitting when it comes to funding infrastructure is roads.”
,^^^,
Only the Federal Labor Government can be trusted to deliver the Regional Rail Link – a fact that today has been confirmed by the extraordinary comments from Tony Abbott:
“Now the Commonwealth Government has a long history of funding roads. We have no history of funding urban rail and I think it’s important that we stick to our knitting, and the Commonwealth’s knitting when it comes to funding infrastructure is roads.”
TONY ABBOTT, DOORSTOP (FRANKSTON) – 4 APRIL 2013
“The Regional Rail Link has received strong support from the Ballarat community for many years, and I have worked hard to deliver the $3.2 billion required for this vital infrastructure,” Ms King said.
I call on the Liberal candidate for Ballarat, to confirm if he agrees with Mr Abbott and whether an elected Abbott Coalition would rip the $3.2 billion of Federal funds out of the Regional Rail Link and halt its construction.
The Regional Rail Link will segregate V/Line regional rail services from metropolitan rail services, enabling faster and more efficient services on the Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong lines.
“This project provides for substantial increases in capacity and reliability for Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong train travellers, not to mention its positive impact on parallel suburban services,” Ms King said.
Only the Federal Labor Government can be trusted when it comes to delivering better public transport infrastructure for our region. We have already committed more to public transport than all our predecessors since Federation combined.
“The Gillard Government knows how important these initiatives are in terms of the future growth of regional Victoria and, through our funding commitments, is demonstrating how ready we are to commit to them.
Tony Abbott and the Coalition are turning their back on long suffering commuters. Clearly they have no interest in projects that tackles the scourge of urban congestion.
Let us not forget that when the Coalition came to office in 1996, the first thing it did was slash $2 billion from the transport budget.
If past behaviour is anything to go by, we know the Federal Abbott Coalition will cut infrastructure if elected on 14 September 2013.