John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008. Before doing so, I congratulate the member for Ballarat on her recent personal success.

When I was privileged to be elected, first as the member for Parkes and subsequently as the member for Calare, I recall that on each occasion I reiterated what all of us do: I was there to represent everybody in my electorate whether they voted for me, for the Greens or for whoever they might have voted for. I think it is particularly pertinent for leaders, particularly on the winning side of politics, to do that. The incoming Prime Minister always makes that commitment. I do recall very distinctly that the current Prime Minister did so when he was elected last November.

It was rather amazing earlier to hear the member for Longman reiterate what the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, the member for Grayndler, said in the House last week when he taunted members of the opposition for having put submissions in for infrastructure projects in their electorates, as if to say: ‘Well, you are not going to get it. It is a punishment for being in the opposition or for not passing bills that we have presented to the Senate.’ About half an hour ago, the member for Longman basically said exactly the same thing, reiterating the minister’s comments. He said, in effect, that it should be a punishment for members of the opposition that they do not get infrastructure, particularly road funding, for their electorates because the opposition does not necessarily agree with all the government’s legislation. I find that incredible. Every Prime Minister, including Kevin Rudd, quite correctly, has said that whoever is elected is elected for all of Australia. But it is saying, in other words, ‘If you do not pass our legislation, we will punish you personally in your electorate.’ That is absolutely unbelievable, both from the minister and from the member for Longman. I am sure his Queensland constituents would take a much fairer view of the world than that.

Obviously there is a lot about this bill that we agree with, and various people have mentioned that. However, I think the best part about it is that it reiterates just how great a program Roads to Recovery has been. When previous Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson put this to the parliament, for the first time local governments got their funding direct from the federal government. I think we would all agree it has been a great thing. No longer do our colleagues—state Labor governments around Australia—hive off Commonwealth money before they put it out there. It means not only that all the money goes into projects but also that local governments can make their own decisions about how that money is spent. I do not think I have ever seen a local government that did not think it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. It is very good to see that continue, and we pretty much agree with the extra fences they are putting on it.

The bill touches on safety, which is obviously an enormous issue with driver fatigue and the like. As someone who has dealt with the transport industry a lot, whether in Parkes or in Dubbo—which is in my old electorate—or now in Orange, I can say that we live on transport; we live on what is done for us by the heavy haulage industry. They are pretty pragmatic, pretty sensible, and they realise that safety is an issue in their own regions, as it is everywhere else.

However, the transport industry make the point, quite correctly, that the states should get their act together—but the states are still not getting their act together, despite this bill and despite the National Transport Commission. The states are not acting in concert and are certainly not acting in concert on driver fatigue. If, just for a change, the states could police the laws that already exist, then certainly the transport organisations would be in favour of that. But New South Wales and others are bringing in a heap of regulations which make a lot more paperwork. Instead of dealing with safety, they are requiring a lot more dotting of i’s and crossing of t’s. In effect, a driver is far more likely to be prosecuted for not filling in something properly than for doing something which contributes to dangerous driving or driver fatigue. We need to be less concerned with enabling state governments to bring in more laws than with telling them they should be dealing with and policing the laws that they already have. That would be a much better way to go than simply creating more bureaucracy and more perils—not in terms of safety but in terms of bookkeeping and what have you for drivers currently.

I turn now to the wider issue which this bill touches on—that of infrastructure, about which I will speak both in general and on New South Wales in particular. In the light of climate change and the need to keep off our roads as many as possible of the new trucks which would otherwise come on line, it is obviously a good thing to try to make much of the new haulage over the next few years go by rail rather than by road. When John Anderson actually got a national rail system going—when he finally got New South Wales, who were by far the hardest to get on board, into the national rail system—it was obviously a great thing and a great opportunity. However, New South Wales still creates an enormous hurdle for everybody on either side of it, whether they are going from Victoria to Queensland or from South Australia to Victoria to Queensland. New South Wales still insists on being different from everyone else.

Getting a national rail system was an enormous thing. When we were in government, we committed $15 million to an engineering study for the inland rail system, which was to take goods specifically from Melbourne through to Brisbane by the western route so that it did not add to the chaos of the Sydney Basin. Obviously, the current government and the current Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government have gone to sleep on the inland rail. It does not keep the minister’s mates in Sydney in money. The inland rail actually solves the problem rather than hands money to those who are in so much trouble in Sydney, and that is state Labor.

It is one thing to take AusLink money for moving goods around Australia—as AusLink was designed to do—but it is another to use that funding to help mates in Sydney or Melbourne or wherever do their job of urban transport. This was spelt out succinctly for us the other day. Why would you not facilitate the orderly passage of goods without taking it through the Sydney Basin? Having the inland rail is common sense. Yes, it would go through my electorate. It would go through Parkes, but it would also go through Dubbo. What a terrible thing it would be if, instead of facilitating something which eased congestion and made transport faster, we threw money at Sydney to contribute to the confusion that exists there, giving them money for urban transport to try and get them off the hook.

The other issue which is so important, not just for western New South Wales and not just for Sydney but for the strategic good of Australia, is to put a freeway through the Blue Mountains. I was quite stunned that the designated $20 million for the same sort of engineering study, to try and work with the state government—which does not want to know about anything that does not involve Sydney—and allow it to breathe out into its own western resource over the mountains into the central west and the far west, was backed away from. It would have relieved a lot of the pressures on Sydney. But no, once again, we backed away. I guess you cannot strategically do the right thing and keep your mates in Sydney happy at the same time. It is quite obvious what is going to happen. We all know that his mates in Sydney have their problems.

As a general rule, we support most of the things in this bill. As I think Warren Truss, the shadow minister, said, ‘Plagiarising is a great form of flattery.’ I guess in this situation they had no chance. Every local government and area in Australia knows how good Roads to Recovery is. It is good to see the minister recognise that and to extend it. By and large, we do not have too much of a problem with what they are doing with that.

See this speech in context