CATHERINE KING – MEDIA RELEASE – THE STACK IS IN AT INFRASTRUCTURE AUSTRALIA – THURSDAY, 25 NOVEMBER 2021

In news that will surprise absolutely nobody, Barnaby Joyce’s new appointments to the board of Infrastructure Australia amount to little more than a Nationals stack of this integral economic advisory agency.

Of seven new appointments to the board, four have easily discoverable links to the Liberal and National Parties.

The new chair, Colin Murray, describes himself as a “fairly solid Barnaby supporter”.

Amanda Cooper, a former Brisbane City Councillor, is a Vice President of the Queensland LNP.

Elizabeth Schmidt was the LNP candidate for Dalrymple at the 2011 and 2015 Queensland elections.

And Vicki Mayer is a former Liberal Branch President, who has more recently turned against Sussan Ley.

This really speaks for itself.

Ever since they took office the Nationals have been determined to kill Infrastructure Australia.

It says everything about this Prime Minister that he has been prepared to do a dirty deal with Barnaby Joyce to hobble our nation’s primary infrastructure advisory body.

A couple of weeks ago, Labor called for a review of Infrastructure Australia. As part of that review, we will closely consider the future of each of these board appointments.


THURSDAY, 25 NOVEMBER 2021