As part of our commitment to a safer and more efficient transport sector, the Coalition will:

Labor continually increased costs for the transport sector while cutting support. Under Labor, federal road funding was cut back savagely, to $840 million per year, less even in actual dollar terms than it was in 1982-83. And yet, over the same period, federal fuel excise went from seven cents a litre to 35 cents a litre.

Labor terminated the Black Spots program, which had improved safety on our roads and which delivered four times the cost-benefit ratio of all types road funding.

Labor limited federal road funding to the national highway system, neglecting many other important economic roads.

Labor’s record on rail is an absolute disgrace. Labor’s mismanagement of Australian National resulted in Australian taxpayers subsidising Australian National by hundreds of millions of dollars at the same time as jobs were being slashed. 7,000 jobs in South Australia alone. Rail lines were closed and business opportunities were lost. While taxpayers’ money was being wasted, Australia’s rail infrastructure deteriorated significantly: despite the standardisation of the Melbourne-Adelaide corridor, transit times are slower because Labor did the job on the cheap.

Labor allowed different and incompatible rail operating and safeworking systems to continue on the interstate rail network with no attempt to standardise them which made compliance costly and reduced job opportunities.

Labor’s record on aviation was no better. It completely bungled air safety regulation and ignored signs of trouble in our air charter sector. Laurie Brereton showed absolute contempt for our General Aviation sector. Labor abandoned the Single Aviation Market with New Zealand when Laurie Brereton sent his infamous midnight fax pulling the plug on the agreement with New Zealand, cutting services to Australians.

Labor completely ignored the importance of air freight to the Australian economy and to our exporters.

Labor’s policy on Sydney Airport was a planning, environmental and social disaster which devastated the lives of thousands of residents by concentrating the noise unfairly on residents north of the airport. It betrayed its own inner-city heartland which bore the brunt of the noise. Labor’s disastrous policy resulted in the suburb of Sydenham being needlessly demolished at a cost of more than $130 million.

About 75 per cent (990 million tonnes) of Australia's domestic freight transport is now carried by road. A low cost freight transport sector is vital for the health of Australian business.

Many major road corridors vital to the economy were excluded from federal road funding under Labor. The Coalition fixed this Labor problem by putting money into important economic roads.

The Coalition has increased global road funding from $1.597 billion in 1995-96 to $1.612 billion in the current budget. And this has been done in spite of Labor’s massive $10 billion Beazley deficit.

Labor weighed down the industry with government-imposed charges which have eroded its efficiency and increased costs.

In opposition, the Coalition promised a ‘partnership’ with the road transport industry. In government we have delivered.

It will be a massive boost for investment and job creation.

Labor restricted the scope and range of works the federal government could be involved in. Many communities off the national highway were left ‘off the map’.

New roads in a majority of states have been accepted as meeting the Coalition’s criteria for funding as Roads of National Importance on a dollar for dollar basis.

Declared Roads of National Importance routes until now are:

Labor neglected the Pacific Highway and excluded it from the national highway program.

Following the 1996 election the Coalition acted as promised to fix this problem. The Commonwealth, Queensland and NSW governments are contributing to a 10-year, $3.2 billion major rebuilding program of the Pacific Highway between Hexham and the Queensland border.

The program will improve highway driving conditions, eliminate accident blackspots and cut journey times by major rebuilding and duplication of the existing highway.

The Commonwealth’s contribution is $750 million. Several important projects already have been completed in NSW while work is well advanced on a number of others.

The following projects have been completed in NSW and are open to traffic:

The Coalition reinstated the lifesaving Black Spots program abolished by Labor. This program funded at $149 million over the first four years will see about 1,400 dangerous accident sites fixed over the four years.

The Coalition led a renewed co-operative effort to reduce the economic and social effects of road crashes. From 1997 there was a 10.5 per cent decrease in the road toll.

Progress on the difficult issue of ‘mass limits’ for heavy vehicles stalled under Labor. The Coalition has indicated that new mass limits, allowing a 10 per cent increase in payloads up to 45.5 tonnes, will be granted for vehicles with road-friendly suspensions subject to acceptance of alternative compliance regimes for vehicles registered under the Federal Interstate Registration Scheme as a means of stimulating progress.

The National Road Transport Commission has identified benefits to Gross Domestic Product of more than $1 billion a year from increased mass limits and much of this benefit will flow to regional Australia and enhance the competitiveness of our exporters.

A key here is a national bridge upgrading program:

The Howard/Fischer Coalition is leading the renaissance of rail. With Australia’s long distances and strong regional industries, rail is vital in the transport of goods and services and in the development of regional Australia.

The Coalition is fixing the problems left by Labor. The Coalition’s Tax Reform Plan will cut the excise on diesel used by rail from 35 cents a litre to 18 cents a litre.

Labor’s establishment of National Rail doomed Australian National and failed to achieve reforms in the Australian rail industry.

Labor was dishonest when it established National Rail because it misled the workers at Australian National about their future in a debt laden enterprise.

Labor’s Senator Chris Schacht, commenting on the way Labor established National Rail, said:

"All I can say in my weak defence is that I got outvoted in the caucus of the Labor Party on that crazy decision. Those of us who had our hands up saying 'This is crackers' have all been proved 100 per cent right. …based on what they wanted they were successful, but of course they rooted the whole system." (Estimates Committee Hansard, 13 Nov 1997)

Labor's mismanagement of Australian National resulted in Australian taxpayers subsidising Australian National by hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet more than 7,000 rail jobs were still lost and rail lines closed.

The Coalition has fixed the $2 billion ‘black hole’ Labor left at Australian National.

The Coalition invested $20 million in regional Australia to assist communities affected by Labor’s mismanagement of Australian National. Pt Augusta, Adelaide, Launceston, Murray Bridge, Gawler, and the Derwent Valley were some of the communities that benefited from the Coalition’s transition program.

Historic tourist railways such as the Don River Railway and Derwent Valley Railway in Tasmania, and the Pichi Richi Railway in South Australia have secured a financial boost.

The Coalition invested $50 million in remediation in South Australia and Tasmania to clean up the legacy of Labor’s mismanagement.

For the first time, rail is making a profit, investing in its future, and expanding freight and passenger business. Australian Southern Railroads, Great Southern Railways and Tasrail together are investing more than $96 million into the rail system over five years.

The reforms were supported by Australian National’s employees in the workshops in Pt Augusta, Launceston and Islington; by Australian National’s major customers; by union representatives in South Australia and in Tasmania; by councils and local governments; and business forums – by everyone except Labor which was either captive to its own ideology or simply driven by political opportunism.

The Coalition established the Australian Rail Track Corporation as a ‘one-stop-shop’ for access to the interstate rail network.

The Coalition will invest $250 million over four years in the interstate track.

The Australian Rail Track Corporation will use the Commonwealth’s funds to leverage up this investment to over $500 million through private sector investment in the track, and joint funding with the States.

The Australian Rail Track Corporation will also help fund, with the private sector, $50 million in crossing loop extensions on the Sydney-Brisbane, Sydney-Melbourne and Cootamundra-Port Augusta interstate corridors.

The Coalition has committed $100 million to this project. With the coalition governments in South Australia and the Northern Territory, the total contribution will be $300 million.

This is a $1.5 billion project which will bring more than 2,000 jobs during construction of the 1,410 km of new track.

The line to Darwin and its new port will provide access for existing and new passenger and freight operators. It will provide a direct link from southern areas to Asian markets through the Port of Darwin, opening up opportunities for major development along the route.

To provide certainty, the Coalition will legislate to enable the Northern Territory government to acquire, on a non-discriminatory basis, all interests in land required to build the railway.

Despite promising action on the Alice Springs to Darwin railway in almost every election from 1983 to 1996, Labor did nothing.

The Coalition is looking to the future – developing new high speed rail links in Australia. The Coalition led the way in getting the Sydney – Canberra Very High Speed Train ‘millennium project’ underway.

The Coalition has announced that ‘Speedrail’ will proceed to the proving up stage. Speedrail will use the commercially proven and leading edge technology now used to link major capitals throughout Europe.

The $3.5 billion Sydney–Canberra VHST project will generate 15,000 new jobs during three years of construction - due to commence in the year 2000 – injecting billions of dollars into the regional economy and revolutionising travel between Sydney, the Southern Highlands, Goulburn and Canberra.

Proposals for an Inland Rail Bridge between Melbourne and Darwin via regional Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland are also being advanced.

The Prime Minister has established a private sector Rail Futures Taskforce to advise the Minister for Transport and Regional Development on progressing private sector proposals in rail - the expansion of Very High Speed Train technology in Australia, and the Inland Rail Bridge proposals.

The Coalition is committed to Australia having a world class air safety system. The Coalition supports the maintenance of a strong, efficient and safe aviation sector.

The Coalition has set the protection of the fare-paying passenger as the Civil Aviation Authority’s number one priority. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority is taking a tougher approach to marginal operators and will take firm and decisive action to keep our skies safe.

The Coalition promised to put people with relevant aviation experience on the Civil Aviation Safety Authority Board. The Coalition has now appointed a total of six new members to the Board, including Mr Dick Smith as Chairman.

The Coalition signed the Single Air Market arrangements with

New Zealand, creating a borderless travel market worth an estimated $5 billion and covering more than 31 million passengers a year.

The Coalition has negotiated significantly more air service agreement with our major trading partners, resulting in an historic increase in the amount of available seating and freight capacity. Australian travellers, inbound tourists, and exporters are now served by more than 50 international airlines operating scheduled services to Australia.

The Coalition will continue to adopt a positive attitude to the negotiation and extension of Australia’s international air services agreements. We will insist on reciprocal rights for Australian carriers.

In 1996 the Coalition launched the broadest review of aviation safety regulations in Australia’s history. Its purpose was to review the Civil Aviation Regulations and orders to make them less complex, more user friendly and harmonised with international standards. It gave industry an unprecedented opportunity to have a direct input into its own future.

The first round of the new aviation safety regulations will ensure that Australian industry, much of it based in regional Australia, will be more readily involved in international trade in aviation products and services.

Australia has a significant small aircraft manufacturing industry. Brand names such as Seabird, Jabiru, Gippsland Aeronautics and Eagle have well established reputations, and have managed to penetrate the export market despite the barriers they have faced.

Under the new regulations, the ability of these organisations to work to internationally accepted standards rather than differing international standards should reduce costs and promote exports.

The Government is committed to the regulatory reform process.

The Coalition has fulfilled its commitment to introduce an experimental aircraft category, similar to the ones enacted in the United States and New Zealand, which industry had been seeking for more than 40 years.

The Coalition will continue to support the development of this category. The Coalition will maintain its policy that sports aviators should be able to fly subject to a minimum of regulatory control, provided always that they do not endanger other people or property.

Airservices Australia will continue to find ways to improve the safety, efficiency and effectiveness of the services it provides to its customers.

Consistent with ensuring that customers have a say in the service they are paying for, the Coalition will pursue the option of transferring the individual towers at regional and General Aviation to local ownership.

These reforms will ensure that towers continue to operate, but with charging arrangements, hours of operation, asset replacement and related matters set by individual airports in conjunction with the customers who need the tower service.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority has been directed to develop appropriate operating and licensing standards and entry and exit provisions.

The overall safety of the system will be enhanced through a clear set of objective standards instead of the current situation where Airservices Australia, a commercially-oriented service provider, largely self-regulates its own safety functions.

The duty on avgas was used to help fund Airservices terminal navigation services. But many operators, particularly those in regional and rural Australia, who never or rarely used these services still paid the unfair avgas tax, which under Labor would now be more than 20 cents per litre.

The Coalition remains committed to the development of this important sector of the aviation industry. The Coalition recognises that this sector is under financial pressure. One of the important flow-on effects of the restructure of Airservices will be that services will be better targeted to the customers’ needs.

To help smooth the move to a fairer and more transparent system of location-specific pricing, the Coalition provided $13 million in transitional assistance. In recognition of the impact on the flying training industry, Airservices has deferred all charges for circuit training, apart from full stop landings, for six months pending discussions on other charging options.

The Coalition’s airports privatisation program set new world benchmarks for airport values. The Coalition received $4.1 billion for the sale of long-term leases over the airports and the sale proceeds have gone to reducing public debt.

The Coalition has obtained commitments from the new airport owners to invest more than $700 million over the next 10 years to ensure our airports remain world class.

The Coalition has also implemented a "CPI-minus-X" pricing regime which will guarantee that landing charges will fall in real terms over the next five years. This should maintain downward pressure on airfares, to the benefit of the travelling public.

The Sydney basin airports remain under Commonwealth ownership, consistent with the Coalition’s commitments to find a more equitable solution to aircraft noise, and to conduct a thorough and transparent Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed second airport site at Badgerys Creek

A draft EIS has been prepared, and for the first time ever, this report has been subject to the scrutiny of an Independent Auditor.

Over 14,000 submissions were received on the Draft EIS. These submissions, together with the findings of the Independent Auditor, will be taken into account in the preparation of the final EIS.

No decisions will be made about the second airport until the EIS process has been completed.

The Coalition acknowledges that more needs to be done to achieve the noise-sharing targets set out in the Long Term Operating Plan and we will continue to refine the Long Term Operating Plan, taking into account the views of the community, and the work of the Implementation and Monitoring Committee.

Consistent with its commitments at the 1996 election, the Coalition will not allow major infrastructure developments that would increase the runway capacity of Sydney Airport, nor will it allow developments that would prevent full use of the east west runway.

The Coalition has set into legislation a cap of 80 aircraft movements an hour through implementation of a slot system. Planning for the Sydney Olympics has been on the basis of retaining the current strict curfew along with the Government’s cap of 80 movements an hour.

The Coalition has ensured that regional airlines have access to Sydney Airport. Only the Coalition, through the legislated slots system, has guaranteed access to Sydney Airport for regional operators - a pledge that Labor was never prepared to make, let alone deliver.

The Coalition also abolished the $250 peak period surcharge – a discriminatory charge imposed under Labor which penalised the people of regional NSW and regional airlines.

An efficient transport system will bring job creation, small business growth, assistance to regional Australia, enhanced export opportunities, and lower transport costs for all Australians.

Providing adequate infrastructure in air, road and rail transport is critical to Australia's economic future.

Transport contributes $8.4 billion a year to the economy, with logistics contributing $26 billion. Improvements to the transport logistics chain mean greater efficiencies greater competitiveness for Australian exports, and more jobs.

The Prime Minister established the Supermarket to Asia Council in 1996 to improve Australia’s agrifood exports. The Council’s Transport and Logistics Working Group has made real improvements to the transport and handling chain for agrifood exports.

Key achievements are:

The Export Gateways Initiative has seen the establishment of sea and air freight export councils around Australia. Air Freight Export Councils have been established in South Australia and Queensland; Sea Freight Export Councils in Victoria, South Australia and Queensland are developing. The Western Australian Sea Freight Council, although already established, received assistance.

The bus and coach industry has seen great changes in technology and community expectations.

The challenge for government and the industry is to ensure that standards are maintained and improved without harming the industry’s viability.

The Labor government enacted the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 without consultation with the bus and coach industry.

The Regulatory Impact Statement shows that there are considerable costs in meeting the Labor standards.

The Coalition will work with industry and Australians with disabilities to develop standards that are innovative and affordable and provide transport appropriate to needs of the disabled.