<span class="" id="parent-fieldname-description"> Australiaâs new prime minister, Tony Abbott, has announced that when all is said and done, he wants to be remembered for his work in the infrastructure sector. </span> <p>“I want to be known as an infrastructure prime minister,” Abbott told the media at a joint press conference last week.</p><p>“I want building the roads of the 21st century to be a hallmark of my government.”</p><p>But the roads-only approach hasn’t gone down well with the rail industry so far – a sector which considers itself to fit firmly under the ‘infrastructure’ banner – a viewpoint Australasian Railway Association CEO, Bryan Nye, has reminded the prime minister of this week.</p><p>“Infrastructure can generally be defined as ‘the set of interconnected structural elements that provide framework supporting an entire structure of development’,” Nye said in the ARA’s quarterly update.</p><p>“Roads, ports and rail lines are each equally the interconnecting frameworks of infrastructure used to keep this country moving, growing and getting stronger.”</p><p>Nye said the rail association was encouraging Abbott and the new Coalition Government, “to reconsider its ‘roads, roads and more roads’ ($11.6 billion worth) approach to funding and to consider a holistic strategy to combating Australia’s growing freight task and increasingly congested cities – one that includes rail.”</p><p>He added that the ARA would be meeting with playmakers in Canberra to discuss the issue.</p><p>Abbott’s infrastructure position also came under attack this week from a more traditional source: the opposition.</p><p>Former minister for infrastructure and transport, Anthony Albanese, made a point to encapsulate all areas of infrastructure in a speech he made as part of his campaign to take over as the new leader of the federal Labor Party.</p><p>“We must build not just roads but urban public transport and implement the national port strategy, and the national land freight strategy,” Albanese said.</p><p>“There is a critical role for the national government in our cities in promoting urban productivity, sustainability and liveability.”</p><p>Abbott expressed his desire to be remembered as an infrastructure prime minister at a joint press conference with federal minister for infrastructure and regional development, Warren Truss, NSW premier, Barry O’Farrell, and NSW minister for roads and ports, Duncan Gay.</p><p>The four ministers together released a detailed business case for the proposed WestConnex motorway linking Sydney’s CBD, west, south-west, airport and port.</p><p>The federal government made a $1.5 billion commitment to the project.<br />“I want to give our country the roads and the infrastructure of the 21st Century and nowhere is this more needed than here in Sydney, our greatest city,” Abbott said.</p><p>“Sydney is 25% of the nation’s economy. All too often, Sydney suffers from transport gridlock because of years of inadequate infrastructure development under state and federal Labor governments.”</p><p>The WestConnex project joins the rest of the Federal Liberal Government’s massive nationwide major roads blueprint, which also includes:</p><ul><li>$6.7 billion in maintenance and upgrades to Queensland’s Bruce Highway</li><li>$5.6 billion to complete duplication of Pacific Highway from Newcastle to the Queensland border</li><li>$1.5 billion to get Melbourne’s East West Link underway</li><li>$1 billion to support the Gateway Motorway upgrade in Brisbane</li><li>$686 million to finish the Perth Gateway</li><li>$615 million to build the Swan Valley Bypass on the Perth to Darwin Highway</li><li>$500 million to support the upgrade of Adelaide’s North-South Road Corridor</li><li>$405 million to get Sydney’s F3 to M2 link started by late 2014</li><li>$400 million to upgrade the Midland Highway in Tasmania</li></ul>
