With new cities minister Jamie Briggs seemingly saying all the right things, Opposition minister Anthony Albanese has reminded the public: few things are achieved just by talking about them.
Albanese appeared on ABC Radio this week to be quizzed by host Fran Kelly over the implications of Malcolm Turnbull’s appointment of Briggs as the first minister for cities – a ministry Albanese has ‘shadowed’ since Bill Shorten added it to his portfolio in 2014.
Asked whether Briggs’ appointment had stolen his thunder, Albanese came out on the front foot.
“I’m pleased that they’ve been paying attention,” he began. “[But] words are easy. It’s one thing for Malcolm Turnbull to travel on a train, he’s got to fund rail. And the fact is that this government hasn’t.”
Albanese needled the Coalition for disbanding the Major Cities Unit under Abbott, and for cutting Labor’s record public transport funding.
He also repeated his sentiment from last week, suggesting the team Turnbull had assembled still did not have the right make-up to reverse the steps taken by the Abbott Government.
“[Turnbull’s] three-person committee of Greg Hunt, Jamie Briggs and Paul Fletcher doesn’t actually include Warren Truss, who is the minister for infrastructure and transport,” Albanese told the program.
“That’s the main game, as Malcolm Turnbull, said: connectivity in our cities is the focal point and then other things come off that.
“We welcome certainly the creation of the minister for cities, but we do say it’s in the wrong place. It’s a junior minister in the Department of Environment, and the funding portfolio is of course the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development.
“That [department] looks after transport and [it] appears to be excluded from these discussions and is still in charge of the National Party.”
The shadow minister, who was the deputy prime minister and minister for infrastructure and transport in the second Rudd Government, said the Coalition needed to sort itself out if it was to fund a number of crucial projects in Australia’s cities.
“The Perth City Link project will transform Perth, uniting the Perth CBD with the Northbridge entertainment section of Perth; syncing the railway line, allowing for development on top of that railway line, removing the bus terminal from the absurd position where it is,” he said.
“[This is] the sort of project that you need to actually fund and invest in and we do have two challenges.
“The Badgerys Creek airport is a good start in South-Western Sydney to create a jobs precinct. But, there you have still a Government that’s saying it won’t fund the rail line to the airport. It needs to be on day one, an airport that has rail access.”