Labor has thrown its weight behind two major rail projects, as a senior member urged the party to "reclaim the bush".
Anthony Albanese delivered the Eddie Graham speech in Wagga Wagga on Tuesday night, honouring the late NSW Labor veteran who served as a state MP from 1941-57.
Mr Albanese said "first-rate infrastructure" was the key to tackling rural poverty and unemployment as well as driving the national economy beyond the mining boom.
Between 2007-13, Labor more than doubled per capita investment in infrastructure, taking Australia to the top of the OECD list.
However, that investment had dropped off under the coalition.
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And the 2014 and 2015 budgets had failed to allocate one dollar of extra funding for a vital project - inland rail.
While the 2016 budget allocated some funds there was still no starting date, Mr Albanese said.
"It is time to make inland rail happen. The planning has all been done. The project should be under construction," he said.
Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce earlier on Tuesday visited the NSW town of Narrabri to talk up government plans to buy properties for track laying as part of the inland rail project.
"You can't just have a farmer wake up in the middle of the night and say, 'Doris did we have a railway line in the middle of our paddock last night? Nah? Well, it's there now'," the minister told reporters.
"You've got to actually purchase it off them."
Mr Albanese said high-speed rail between Brisbane and Melbourne via Sydney and Canberra would also open up economic opportunities in the bush.
Labor would set up a high speed rail authority if elected which would seek international expressions of interest to deliver the project.
Mr Albanese told the forum that as well as new investment in rail, the bush would benefit from a first-rate national broadband network, properly funding education and training and addressing climate change.
"There was a time in this nation when the bush was the stronghold for the Australian Labor Party ... Labor must seek to reclaim the bush," he said.
