Labor says plan is a ‘thought bubble’ and attacks Coalition’s record on building dams

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Michael McCormack has announced an extra $500m for water infrastructure projects, including dams, a near doubling of capital spending in the Coalition’s water infrastructure fund.

The acting prime minister and Nationals leader gave few details on Monday about which projects would benefit except that the funding would be used “to identify and co-fund the construction of new water infrastructure projects across regional Australia” with state and territory governments.

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Labor attacked the announcement as a “thought bubble” and criticised the government’s record on water infrastructure.

The policy is one of a number of big-spending announcements at a time of an improving budget position, raising expectations that the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook, due in December, will deliver an increase in revenue to pay for political promises.

The $500m funding commitment tops up the Coalition’s $520m national water infrastructure development fund, which has already been committed to projects, and comes after the Coalition set up a $2bn water infrastructure loan facility.

McCormack said the Coalition “aren’t afraid to back dams – we want to build more of them”.

“If we want to create jobs and grow regional Australia then we need to add water,” he said. “This announcement will turbocharge the construction of water infrastructure in regional Australia because our agricultural industries expect it and our communities deserve it.”

The only projects nominated to gain from the $500m cash injection are: a $2m feasibility study to increase water supply in Queensland’s north and south Burnett regions; $1m to help Western Australia’s southern forest irrigation scheme pass regulatory hurdles; and $250,000 to help design Victoria’s coldstream recycled water pipeline.

Labor’s agriculture spokesman, Joel Fitzgibbon, said the announcement “is just another dam thought bubble driven by political desperation”.

“People in Queensland will understandably be sceptical,” he said. “In 2013 Tony Abbott planned to build ‘100 dams and harvest the nation’s riches’. But the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government has had more than five years in government and has not built a single dam.”

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Fitzgibbon said Labor “only supports the building of water infrastructure where they stack up [but] unlike the government, Labor has actually built some”.

Since Scott Morrison took the leadership in August the Coalition has committed to give $4.6bn to Catholic and independent schools and its plans to spend $7.6bn on infrastructure have been leaked.

The Coalition has refused to guarantee it will offset new spending with savings, which would be a departure from its budget rules.

On Monday the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, did little to dampen expectations of a big-spending mid-year economic outlook, refusing to rule out the possibility that the government would use the update to bring forward its income tax cut plan.

Frydenberg told Sky News he refused to “get into the pre-myefo speculation” but noted that the Coalition had already brought forward tax cuts for small and medium businesses.

“What we have seen overall with the economy – and this will obviously be reflected in the next round of national accounts and in budget numbers – is the Australian economy is growing strongly.”