Federal Government accused of shortchanging Victoria under heavy vehicle funding program, but figures tell a different story
By Brad Gardner | October 11, 2012
The Federal Government has been accused of shortchanging Victoria under the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program, but official figures tell a different story.
Victorian Nationals MP Paul Weller has used parliamentary proceedings to claim the state is only receiving 8.1 percent of funds allocated under the program, which is used to build rest areas and upgrade routes to support higher productivity vehicles.
However, figures from the federal Department of Infrastructure and Transport show Victoria received $13.9 million (19.8 percent) of the $70 million given to the states and territories between 2008-09 and 2011-12.
“The fact that Victoria receives only 8.18 percent of this funding when it has 25 percent of the [Australian] population and 23 percent of the [national] GDP means that Victoria is being shortchanged,” Weller told Victorian Parliament yesterday.
He says Victoria needs extra funding to build more rest areas to prevent driver fatigue in the trucking industry.
Federal Infrastructure and Transport Minister Anthony Albanese has stood by the level of funding given to Victoria.
“In relation to our heavy vehicle program, the figure quoted by Mr Weller is wrong. Some 20 percent of the program’s funding has gone [to] Victorian projects, which is similar to the proportion Queensland and New South Wales received,” he says.
The Federal Government allocated $17.8 million or 25.4 percent of the program’s funds to NSW between 2008-09 and 2011-12, while $15.3 million (21.8 percent) went to Queensland over the same period.
Weller has also criticised the total level of infrastructure funding the Federal Government distributes to Victoria.
The state will receive $6.7 billion from a pool of $36 billion between 2008-09 and 2013-14, while $11.5 billion will go to NSW and $8.6 billion to Queensland.
“Whichever way you look at it, Victoria is being dudded in this system,” he claims.
Weller wants Canberra to give Victoria an extra $1.3 billion, which he says will be spent on projects such as a second east-west road link, bypasses at Shepparton and Mildura and upgrades to the Western Highway.
Albanese says the Federal Government has more than doubled annual infrastructure spending in Victoria from $89 to $201 per Victorian.
“What’s more, we’ve increased Victoria’s share of the total federal infrastructure budget from 17 percent to almost 19 percent,” he says.
The allocations include funding for Black Spot and Roads to Recovery projects, the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program, rail crossing upgrades and technological improvements to motorways.
Albanese announced earlier this year the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program would be extended from 2012-13 to 2018-19, with a further $140 million going to the states and territories.
