<span class="" id="parent-fieldname-description"> Tony Abbott has announced that if elected, a Coalition government would cut off funding for urban rail across Australia. </span> <p>“The Commonwealth Government has a long history of funding roads,” Abbott told a group of reporters in the south Melbourne town of Frankston last Thursday.</p><p>“We have no history of funding urban rail,” Abbott continued. “I think it is important that we stick to our knitting and the Commonwealth’s knitting when it comes to funding infrastructure is roads.”</p><p>Later in the day, an Abbott spokesman said a Coalition government would support the interstate rail freight network.</p><p>But the spokesman also confirmed Abbott’s comments, saying “commuter rail projects were the responsibility of the States and Territories.”</p><p>“The Coalition supports commonwealth funding for major transport infrastructure projects that affect interstate commerce, export industries and the productive capacity of the economy,” the spokesman said. “This is the approach taken by the Howard Government.”</p><p>“I checked my calendar and confirmed that it was indeed 2013,” minister for transport and infrastructure Anthony Albanese rebutted in an opinion piece earlier this week. “Yes, we were well into the 21st century.”</p><p>“Tony Abbott’s view that the Federal Government should fund nothing other than roads reveals a mindset fixed in another age,” Albanese said. “It is old thinking that has been rejected across the advanced world.”</p><p>“Fixing the congestion afflicting our cities is simply too big a task to simply say ‘it’s the State’s job’,” he continued.</p><p>“Mr Abbott should return to his knitting and think again.”</p><p>Abbott made his initial comments last week when he was asked whether his party would contribute funding to the proposed Melbourne Metro project if it wins the upcoming federal election.</p><p>Abbott said that funds would instead be diverted to road infrastructure.</p><p>“We spoke to Infrastructure Australia and their advice was that the most pressing road priority in Melbourne was the East-West link,” he said. “That’s why we committed to it.”</p><p>The East-West link is a proposed 18km road, to which the coalition has vowed to contribute $1.5 billion, if it is elected.</p><p>Australasian Railway Association chief executive Bryan Nye was highly critical of Abbott’s policy.</p><p>“Comments today that an incoming Abbott Government would cut all urban rail funding should send shivers down the spine of commuters everywhere,” he said. “We need more investment in rail and other forms of public transport to keep our cities from grinding to a standstill over the next 20 years, not less.”</p>
