<p>Newly elected federal opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull has included a change to the infrastructure portfolio in his shadow ministry.</p> <p>In accepting the portfolio, former vocational and further education minister Andrew Robb said yesterday that his role would encompass some of the most cutting-edge, complex and contentious issues in the country.</p> <p>“I will be taking a strong interest in the various infrastructure funds that have been established by the Government, off the back of surpluses generated by the former Government,” Mr Robb said.</p> <p>It would be a monumental travesty if the $41bn of funds was used to “bail out” incompetent State Labor Governments, he said.</p> <p>Nationals leader Warren Truss kept the transport and trade shadow ministry, while former communications minister Helen Conan replaced Mr Robb as shadow foreign affairs minister.</p> <p>Deputy leader Julie Bishop was also promoted to the Treasury.</p> <p>Mr Truss was quick to mount an attack after resecuring the position, saying he would continue to take it to a “timid government” which had made lots of promises on transport, “but delivered little in the way of progress or policy”.</p> <p>“In trade, we have witnessed the astounding sight of Labor doing a 180- degree post-election turn and adopting the coalition’s positions on the Doha Round and bilateral trade agreements,” he said.</p> <p>“The only difference is that Labor obviously doesn’t believe in what it is doing.”</p> <p>Recently, Mr Truss has been a staunch opponent of the Government’s emissions trading scheme policy.</p> <p>He said in July that the scheme would hit the nation’s more energy efficient transport sectors such as rail, coastal shipping and aviation.</p> <br />
