Media
Statement
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.
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