Mr WAKELIN —My question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Can the Deputy Prime Minister inform the House about the federal government's support for the construction of the Alice Springs to Darwin railway line and the significant benefits that new rail line will bring to the nation and particularly to regional communities in South Australia and the Northern Territory?

Mr ANDERSON (Deputy Prime Minister) —I thank the honourable member for his question and acknowledge his very real interest in and very strong support for the Alice Springs to Darwin railway line announced by the Prime Minister at the Regional Australia Summit here recently. I noticed in something, which probably as closely as anything else approximates a policy on that side, that the Leader of the Opposition supports it strongly as well. We have increased our financial commitment to the project by a further $65 million, in addition to the $100 million already allocated from the Federation Fund and the long-term peppercorn lease of the existing Tarcoola to Alice Springs line, which has a written down value of some $400 million.

Completing the link between Adelaide and Darwin—which was first promised in 1911—will significantly benefit not just the South Australian and Northern Territory economy, and in particular their exporters, but the nation. Construction will take three years. It will create employment for 7,000 people in regional Australia. I know—and this will be of enormous relief to the member who asked the question—that it will particularly benefit the steel producing city of Whyalla. A United States Asia-Pacific transport consortium, which includes the South Australian based Macmahon Holdings and Kinhill Engineering and Construction, was selected in June as a preferred builder for the railway. With the abolition from June next year of all excise on diesel train operation, we have provided the consortium and, it should be said, all railway operators with a boost to the competitiveness of rail services.

This is the sort of nationally significant project which helped to make Australia great. It certainly leads to Australians being very proud of the work that can be done. It is a great credit to the South Australian and Northern Territory governments that they refused to say no. I think the Alice Springs to Darwin link will enhance our attempts to revitalise rail in this country. We are putting real capital into rail. We are getting traffic and freight back onto rail. Our reform projects are indeed directly opposite to those pursued by the Labor Party when they were in government; for example, that infamous stretch of rail where they set out to restore it under their One Nation program and the trains went slower after they had reconstructed the rail than they had before.

Mr Howard —Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper . In the process, can I record, on behalf of the government, our gratitude to the Treas urer for the tremendous job he has done in negotiating business taxation.