Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Hansard source

Now they want the Future Fund. Now they are pillaging the Future Fund. But that is another matter. The point is that we asked for a list of the infrastructure projects, knowing full well that they would have contracted some confidentially but not others—that they would have other things in consideration but they would not have contracted them. We wanted that so that if we happened to win office we would have a capacity to change the priorities, as they did when they came to office.

We were unable to identify the government projects which we could cancel or reschedule because we did not have the list. So we asked for the list. We wrote formally. The Leader of the National Party, as I remember, wrote to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and asked for the list and the amount of money that was uncontracted. The request was ignored. He wrote again. It was ignored again. This is a government that came to office promising transparency, openness and honesty!

So we made a conservative assessment of the redirection of $3.3 billion from the fund. When we turned up to have a meeting with the two secretaries of the departments it was a one-way conversation rather than a discussion in many respects because everything that we put was not taken into account. We were told that we could not book that $3.3 billion because we had not identified individual projects. (Extension of time granted)

We were told that we could not book any of the $3.3 billion. In other words we had created, automatically, a $3.3 billion contribution to the $10 billion so-called black hole because we were not given a list of projects that were contracted and the amount that was uncontracted. The secretaries did concede that there were sufficient funds in the infrastructure funds to support these redirections. So there was $3.3 billion in the fund that was not contracted. The secretaries accepted that and conceded that there were sufficient funds but, despite conceding the money was there, we got fitted up with another $3.3 billion as a black hole. They said, 'We've made our decision,' for about the fifth time in a row. These things are why we have lost any trust in the government in particular and in those that they send to deal with us in private. It was a stitch-up. It was a politicised process in the extreme. How can they defend that? There was by the admission of the secretaries $3.3 billion uncontracted, sitting there, available to be spent by an incoming government on the projects of their choice.

My question is: what happens if the Treasury at the next election says to the Parliamentary Budget Office in their memorandum of understanding, 'Thou shalt not receive a list of the projects and thou shalt not receive the amount of money that is uncontracted'? What does that mean? Does it compel the Parliamentary Budget Office to take out an FOI? If it does compel the Parliamentary Budget Office to take out an FOI, I understand there is a 28-day period of grace for delivery. That is pretty much the campaign proper.

Can you understand now why we are starting to develop a massive level of distrust in this process? When I look back at the number of items that we were stood up from—and which we were told were black holes—and when I go through each one of those to try to establish the assumptions, we were not allowed to get access. In trying to establish the amount of money in funds, we were not allowed to get access. In trying to elicit from the government or the secretaries why they used 4.9 per cent on the bond rate when it had never been that low—and the market average for the previous six months was 5.5—when I try to get that information, which we were denied, I see that the PBO is likely to be denied that same information.

How better off are we now? Just about every item that we were knocked back on, which have been hanging around our neck and lit in the last year because of some so-called black hole, was actually the product of a politicised process. They were all products of being denied information again and again. When we question the parliamentary secretary now, it would appear that that information in all prospects will be denied the Parliamentary Budget Office. We will go through this charade of a dogfight throughout the campaign again. When we want to discuss the merits of the policy we do not want to be discussing whether we have something right or not, because we do not have access to the assumptions, to the data or to the variables, and the Parliamentary Budget Office by all accounts will not have them either. I would be grateful if the parliamentary secretary could answer those three questions that I have put to him.

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