Mr CREAN (3:00 PM) —My question is to the Treasurer. Is the Treasurer aware that, since the budget just four weeks ago, the government has announced new spending of $486 million by the Deputy Prime Minister on transport; $300 million by the Minister for Health and Ageing, playing catch up on the pneumococcal vaccine; and $344 million by the Prime Minister on energy this week, and it proposes to spend over $100 million on its delayed Playing for Life childhood obesity policy? Treasurer, can you explain how this $1.2 billion in new spending in just four weeks has been paid for?

Honourable members interjecting—

The SPEAKER —I will deal with those on my left and those on my right who persistently interject.

Mr COSTELLO (Treasurer) —I welcome the question from the member for Hotham. Can I say what a pleasure it is to have him on his feet at the dispatch box. In relation to all of the government announcements, the government actually announces forward estimates tables. As I recall, the announcements all show how all of these things are funded. For example, in relation to the energy statement, most of the changes take place from 2008.

Honourable members interjecting—

The SPEAKER —Since no other language is understood by the members for Fowler and Grayndler, I warn them.

Mr COSTELLO —They are fully funded in the year on which they are put forward—2008. The tables are there, and they are fully funded from 2008. The reason why he apparently has such great nerve, of course, is that that is outside the four-year forward estimates of the budget. So they are fully factored in. In relation to pneumococcal, as I recall it—and I will just check with the Minister for Health and Ageing—I think the pneumococcal announcement was $186 million—

Honourable members interjecting—

Mr COSTELLO —It is $178 million—I stand corrected, and the member for Hotham stands corrected by his own backbench. It is $178 million, the backbench said.

Mr Crean —Over two years?

The SPEAKER —The member for Hotham will cease interjecting!

Mr COSTELLO —In relation to the AusLink funding, it is all factored into the budget—it was announced on budget night. What the government did was to announce the projects that were funded through the AusLink funding, which have already been fully factored into the forward estimates.

The SPEAKER —The member for Hotham is warned!

Mr COSTELLO —Can I say in relation to AusLink that, if the Australian Labor Party's position is that they oppose the AusLink projects, we would be interested for them to say so. Normally at this point the member for Hotham interjects if he has something to say.

The SPEAKER —Order!

Mr COSTELLO —This is the only occasion on which he has not interjected. He can name those AusLink programs that he actually opposes, because, as I understand it, the Labor Party not only say they accept the AusLink programs but that they believe they should be upped in expenditure. That is certainly the announcement that the member for Batman made. So we have fully funded it in the forward estimates, but the only area where there has been criticism from the Australian Labor Party is that area of AusLink which they do not say should receive less money but, in fact, more money.

There is one way you can reconcile Labor's complaint about AusLink with Labor's complaint about expenditures, and that is if they do have a secret plan not to fund one of those AusLink projects. I have monitored them very carefully—I actually monitor their original transcripts and their airbrushed transcripts. There is one AusLink program which the Australian Labor Party have never said a word about. It is the freeway which dare not speak its name in the House—or it is a tollway whose name can be spoken but a freeway whose name cannot be spoken. If the Australian Labor Party are to reconcile their demands for more spending on specific roads with their complaint that road funding is too high, they could do it by announcing their position in relation to the Scoresby Freeway. But, on this side of the House, as I said yesterday, we believe in the people of the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Labor let them down: state Labor lied to them and federal Labor threaten to do the same thing.