Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Trade Practices Amendment (Infrastructure Access) Bill 2009. The Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation and Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs outlined very succinctly in his second reading speech on 29 October 2009 in relation to this matter what this piece of legislation will do. He set out very clearly that we are honouring the commitments that were undertaken with respect to the Council of Australian Governments—known as COAG—under the competition and infrastructure reform agreements entered into with the states and territories.

We are amending the trade practices legislation which has been in operation since 1974, and particularly the National Access Regime which is found in part IIIA. The bill that is being debated today is designed to improve the regulatory situation by streamlining processes to enable companies and businesses who are undertaking infrastructure projects of a national and significant nature, giving them certainty and the opportunity to get access to facilities owned and operated by other companies and entities and ensuring that those projects can continue and are not held up by the burden of red tape.

We have about 22 million Australians living on this continent and, sadly, we often seem to have more regulation than the 500 million Europeans have to endure. We are overgoverned, often by weak government, in this country. We have a federal system that has a lot of eccentricities and oddities. There have historically been dingo fences throughout the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of Australia which have prevented uniform practice of law. On numerous occasions we have had to overcome the strange jurisdictional aspects of the power of the Commonwealth, limited by section 51 of the Constitution and other provisions, to ensure that a national approach on many areas is undertaken. You only have to see the Corporations Law, the defamation law, the family law et cetera to realise that is the case. Certainly matters of environmental significance, national significance and international significance have had to be legislated for using foreign affairs powers contained in the Constitution. So dealing with the strangeness of our Federation has been a challenge for governments of both persuasions since Federation. Ensuring that we get adequate regulatory systems for infrastructure is simply crucial, not just nationally but for the area in which my electorate is contained, which is Blair in South-East Queensland, which is the fastest growing region in the country.

What we are doing here with the National Access Regime is about promoting a market economy, an open economy and an economy that works efficiently, seamlessly and effectively. It is not about replacing business arrangements, it is not about burdening companies with red tape and overregulation and it is not about replacing commercial negotiations which companies and individuals can undertake. It is about improving the relationship between facility owners and access seekers. It enhances the incentives to negotiate and create a seamless national economy that promotes the development of infrastructure, whether that is in health, education, road, rail, ports or other forms of infrastructure which are crucial to improving productivity, and undertakes macro- and micro-economic reform to make sure that our economy can operate efficiently in a fair and just way for all Australians.

The history of this can be found back in the early 1990s, but before I go through the history I want to commend the member for Werriwa, the member for Robertson and the member for Lindsay, who have gone through in detail the law which is being changed and how it will operate. I do not intend to speak in detail about the legal changes except to comment on a few of them as I go through. The history of this can be found in the Hilmer report. The chairperson of that inquiry was Fred Hilmer, a very eminent Australian businessman. That report goes way back to 1993.

The official title of the committee which developed that report was the Independent Committee of Inquiry into Competition Policy in Australia. That committee made the point that it was necessary to have efficient operation of a market economy that relied upon business dealings which were certain and were based on the fundamental notions of private property and the freedom to contract. It noted that we needed to improve our open market economy to make sure we are able to compete internationally.

The then Labor government took notice of what was said and adopted national competition policy principles, which were designed to improve our competitiveness, the productivity of our workforce and thereby the prospects of a more prosperous future for all Australians—one in which Australians lived a decent life, where their accommodation was accounted for and where they could raise their families in the way they hoped and aspired to. Australia adopted that commitment to national competition principles. That was enshrined in the term ‘competition principles’, which is well known to bureaucrats as well as the business community. We put that in legislation and amended the Trade Practices Act back in 1995, creating a legal regime to ensure that competition policy was adhered to and best practice and best principles could be looked at and followed.

The new legal regime under which firms and businesses could get access to essential facilities owned by another company or business was enshrined in legislation. That became known as the National Access Regime. It is contained in part IIIA of the Trade Practices Act. The Trade Practices Act is yet another great Labor reform—done under the Whitlam Labor government. Whether it was the Hawke and Keating government with opening up the economy, the development of a superannuation industry in this country, enterprise bargaining, the prices and income accord, or floating the dollar—Labor governments have had the will and the wisdom to undertake reform for small businesses as well as large businesses. Often those opposite say they are on the side of business, but the record of history shows that it is Labor governments which are the reformist governments in this area.

The amendments to the Trade Practices Act were crucial. To give the Howard government credit, they did instruct the Productivity Commission to review the National Access Regime back in 2001. The report that came down recommended that we continue to adhere to that access regulation system, not abandon it at the time. Fortunately, the Howard government took the view that they should comply with that. The Productivity Commission did recommend a number of changes which were regulated and brought into law on a bipartisan basis.

We looked at this again and COAG agreed to the National Partnership Agreement to Deliver a Seamless National Economy. That was undertaken back in November 2008. The then Assistant Treasurer made the point that it was important that we undertake those reforms to improve the efficiency, timeliness and effectiveness of regulatory decision making under the National Access Regime, so we undertook some reforms and looked at how legislation could improve the National Access Regime. There had been arguments and submissions made to the Productivity Commission by infrastructure owners and those people who were euphemistically described as access seekers that we needed to improve processes. I have looked at some litigation that was undertaken at the time and subsequently and it is clear that the cost of legal proceedings, the cost of doing business and the burdensome nature of the bureaucracy needed to change.

I commend the government for the reforms they have undertaken with this legislation. I think it is the case that most Australians recognise that we need competitive and efficient markets. We need to make sure that there are circumstances in which businesses—and often there are alliances of companies that undertake, say, road construction—need to have access to other facilities and other property to undertake their work. For example, with the Ipswich Motorway upgrade in my electorate it is important that we have access to property and access to other facilities so that that national project can be undertaken.

I will just briefly address how the law is changed and what it means. What is happening here with the legislative changes is that we are implementing, as I said, the COAG commitments to introduce some binding time limits. There is also some limited form of merits review. We are improving the regulatory certainty by determining the services that are ineligible for declaration, as the members for Werriwa and Robertson described in detail. We are streamlining the administrative and decision-making processes by allowing amendments to access undertakings and variations to declaration applications, streamlining the declaration test, allowing the deeming of decisions in some instances and providing the National Competition Council with the ability to make decisions without meetings.

So some significant changes are being made in that regard, as are improvements in the pathways to the National Access Regime—the declaration principles. There is the repeal, of course, of one of the factors—the undue risk to human health and safety. The circumstance in which a service can be declared is being repealed. It is important to note that declaration does not always provide a right of access but, rather, a right of arbitration, which the ACCC can undertake if the companies cannot determine through negotiation what should happen.

Infrastructure is absolutely vital to the government’s productivity raising and microeconomic reform agenda. It is important to make changes to improve regulatory certainty such as we are undertaking. The member for Cook made some very interesting points about this. He spoke about how the coalition government made improvements to the waterfront, which I would dispute, and he made a comment which I think was simply nonsensical: that we are undertaking the Howard government’s infrastructure reform agenda. I would ask the member for Cook to come up to South-East Queensland and have a look at some of the road infrastructure there. If he does that he will see that what he said about road infrastructure is simply rubbish. The main road between Ipswich and Brisbane is the Ipswich Motorway. This government is committing $2.5 billion across the project for upgrading to be undertaken.

The Howard government steadfastly refused to undertake the work on the Dinmore-Goodna section. This government has committed about $1.95 million in that area. The Rudd Labor government had to be elected for that project to be undertaken. The coalition, after 11½ years of opposing that vital infrastructure project of national significance, has voted against the funding for it since the last election. Curiously, on 27 October in this chamber, the Leader of the Nationals and Deputy Leader of the Opposition came out publicly and said that if they win the election next time they will stop the work on that project. That is their commitment to road infrastructure in South-East Queensland.

What about the other projects? The Warrego Highway is a main road that links areas west of Ipswich through Toowoomba and beyond. We have heard the member for Maranoa on numerous occasions complain about the state of the Warrego Highway. This government is the government that has done the most work on the Warrego Highway in terms of committing dollars—far more than we ever saw the Howard government commit. It is the same with the Cunningham Highway. These are national highways—major roads leading west of Ipswich through Toowoomba and beyond and south of Ipswich towards New South Wales. These works are crucial national projects that the Howard government failed to deliver in 11½ years, and this government is undertaking that work.

I think the member for Cook happens to be the housing spokesperson for the opposition. He should have a good chat to the Queensland Minister for Housing and Homelessness Services, the Hon. Robert Schwarten, who has had that role for more years than I can remember. Mr Schwarten, affectionately known to all Queenslanders as ‘Schwarto’, constantly complained about the hundreds of millions of dollars—developing into billions of dollars—that the Howard government ripped out of social housing and public housing across this country. In contrast, in my electorate alone we have seen about $33 million invested in social housing since the Rudd Labor government undertook the nation building and economic stimulus strategies, and 133 Defence houses are being built in the Ipswich area as a result of what the Rudd Labor government is doing. That is investment in vital national infrastructure. Why is it vital? Because it supports the RAAF base at Amberley—the biggest Air Force base in the country, which is also having more than $1 billion of infrastructure built on it.

The coalition simply neglected South-East Queensland year after year after year. The Ipswich area has a population of about 160,000. The next 20 years will see about 434,000 living in that area. It is the fastest growing area in the fastest growing region in Australia. The whole western corridor and the whole of South-East Queensland will see another 1.2 million people living in it in the next 20 years. That is why legislation like we are debating today is so crucial—to make sure that the companies that build vital infrastructure, whether in road or rail, as we are currently seeing in South-East Queensland with the line between Ipswich and Brisbane and the Springfield area, or in hospitals or schools, can build it. My electorate alone has 313 projects across 85 schools.

Whether it is the BER funding, housing funding, Defence funding or the infrastructure funding that is developing the Ipswich CBD—and we are putting in $10 million there—these vital national projects need certainty and need companies that can get access to property and that do not have to fight with other companies. They need to get certainty in terms of business regulatory reform. That is why alliances of companies like Origin Alliance, which is building the Dinmore-Goodna section, need access to a nation building system and a legislative framework that will enable them to invest with certainty and efficiency and with commitment to South-East Queensland. That is why it is so important that we do this.

We had a National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission forum in my electorate. The overwhelming response was in support of the government’s infrastructure projects, whether it was in hospitals or health or schools or roads, and we got applause for it. Dozens of people there acknowledged that was going on. The legislation that is before the House will facilitate the legislative framework for that. The legislative changes will assist vital infrastructure in South-East Queensland. For that reason, I support the legislation. (Time expired)

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