Tim Pallas hits out at Albanese government over infrastructure spend

Treasurer Tim Pallas has hit out at his federal Labor counterpart, saying the Albanese government is treating Victoria like the “milking cow of the federation”.

Tim Pallas says every Victorian should be insulted at Victoria’s cut of federal funding. Picture: David Geraghty

Treasurer Tim Pallas has sparked a fiery war of words with his federal Labor counterpart, accusing the Albanese government of disrespecting Victorians and treating the state like the “milking cow of the federation”.

The federal government on Wednesday released its mid-year economic fiscal outlook (MYEFO) where it announced an extra $11bn towards infrastructure projects over the next 10 years.

But Victoria is set to receive less than one per cent of that — $101.8m, which will mainly go towards duplicating the Western Highway between Ballarat and Stawell.

A furious Mr Pallas on Thursday took aim at federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers, accusing him of “reverting to the bad behaviour” that occurred under former Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

“There’s nothing fair about getting one per cent of $11bn for the state that is 26 per cent of the nation’s population and its economic outlook,” he said.

“That is nothing short of ludicrous. No, it’s worse than that. It is a dismissive way to treat Victorians.

“Quite frankly, every Victorian has a right to feel insulted by the amount of funds that we’ve been given.

“We heard from the Prime Minister, when he was the opposition leader, that we did deserve to get our fair share. Well it doesn’t start with one per cent of national infrastructure funding.”

Jim Chalmers said Victoria would receive around 23 per cent of funding over the 10-years. Picture: Martin Ollman

Mr Pallas said Victoria is the “economic powerhouse” of the nation which had created more jobs than any other state.

“Jim Chalmers is the net beneficiary of all that flood of revenue that’s going into his coffers,” he said.

“We’d expected better and certainly we’ve been assured by the Commonwealth that they were going to treat the states with more respect and a recognition that everybody should get their just deserves.

“It’s wrong that we are constantly the milking cow of the federation. We are constantly subsidising poor performing states.

“I’m pretty upset about it.”

But Mr Chalmers, who said he was not interested in a war of words with Mr Pallas, fired a warning shot back on Thursday.

“I get lots of opportunities to comment on things like the cancellation of the Commonwealth Games, or different tax measures that different state treasurers take in budgets,” he said.

“I say the same thing every time, which is I recognise the pressures that state budgets are under. I ask the states and territories to recognise the ongoing pressure on the Commonwealth budget as well.

“I believe we make more progress when we work together rather than take shots at each other, and that will continue to be my approach.”

Mr Chalmers rejected Mr Pallas’ claim that Victoria was a “milking cow”, adding that the state would receive around 23 per cent of funding over the 10-year pipeline.

“The states have known for some weeks that we are re‑profiling that infrastructure spend so that we can actually build things,” he said.

“But it’s not smaller over that ten year period, and the Victorian share is not smaller over that ten year period.

“It was only last week, we committed to much more funding for health and hospitals. I extended the GST ‘no worse off guarantee’, we’ve doubled funding for Roads to Recovery and so the states and territories are doing quite well.”