Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I congratulate those new members of the parliament who have been elected for the first time, from both sides, including my neighbour the new member for Barton. Whatever your politics, I know that people come here with the best of intentions to act in the national interest, and I look forward to working in this parliament for that national interest.

When politicians move from the government benches into opposition, they normally ask themselves why they lost favour with voters. It is time to consider new policies and new ideas. It is a time which should be used, because it is valuable. If you do not do that, then you come into government without new ideas and without a plan for the nation. I believe that this government certainly had a plan to get into government, but they are showing that they do not have a plan to govern. Indeed, the very lack of legislation that is before this parliament—in its first sitting weeks we are seeing filibustering of debates that would normally take place in the Federation Chamber and no legislation before the parliament—says it all about their failure to use their time in opposition to develop an alternative vision for the nation. What they developed was just opposition.

In government we had developed a plan for infrastructure and transport, and we were continuing to implement it. Properly targeted investment in our ports, roads, railway lines and airports enhances the productive capacity of our economy. It allows exports of goods and services to move quickly, and that helps drive growth. Put simply, infrastructure equals jobs, and inadequate infrastructure is a handbrake on jobs growth and economic development.

I am very proud of Labor's infrastructure legacy. Over six years we made up for the previous coalition government's gross negligence by delivering the biggest and best-targeted infrastructure program in the history of the Commonwealth. We approached this in a planned, methodical manner. In the first weeks of the 2007 parliament, we started with the creation of Infrastructure Australia, an independent organisation that audited the nation's infrastructure needs and created our first infrastructure priority list. From there, we funded all 15 of the projects that were selected by IA for its infrastructure priority list. At the same time, we carefully moved through each of the critical sectors to the portfolio. We produced the nation's first ever aviation white paper. We also delivered the nation's first integrated long-term national port strategy. We delivered the national freight strategy.

Our focus was nation building, delivering the resources to facilitate export growth, to drive prosperity and to boost productivity. Jobs, exports, capacity building—that is the Labor legacy. Much of the legacy was delivered in the face of an obstructionist opposition that was never able to put aside its political interests long enough to consider the national interest.

You can sum up our achievements with a single statistic. When Labor took office, Australia was 20th out of the OECD list of 25 developed nations in terms of investment in infrastructure. Right now we are first, first in the last two years of OECD data for investment in infrastructure—very critical. And that comes off the very low base which we inherited in 2007. Public investment in infrastructure as a proportion of national income had plunged by almost 20 per cent from its level in the Keating era. There had been no investment in public transport in cities, despite the fact that urban congestion was worsening.

Mr Howard and Mr Abbott had also withdrawn $2 billion from the federal roads budget which had been outlined by the previous Keating government. Bulk carriers were forced to line up the days outside Newcastle port and other ports. It was not enough for Mr Howard and Mr Abbott to simply ignore the responsibilities. Their strategy was to blame state governments or previous governments if anyone dared to complain about poor roads, rail lines and ports. On nation building, the former Howard government was negligent. That leads to a reduction in growth.

Australia is one of the world's great trading nations. We depend on the export of oil, gas, coal, iron ore, agricultural products and processed goods for our prosperity. What kind of government ignores this? A coalition government. The negligence of Mr Howard and Mr Abbott sliced almost one percentage point off the economic growth which would have been achieved with adequate investment. The record is even worse when you consider that the Howard government ruled at the height of a mining boom which had driven government tax receipts to their highest levels in decades.

In 2005-06, tax revenues as a percentage of GDP stood at 24.2 per cent, having sat at around 24 per cent of the previous few years off the back of the mining boom. By 2008-09, when Labor was in government, the global financial crisis had reduced government revenues to 21 per cent of GDP and they fell further to 20 per cent in 2010-11. So Mr Howard, despite collecting the highest levels of tax, left an infrastructure deficit.

Labor, on the other hand, faced the biggest economic challenge since the Great Depression. We turned together around, kept Australia with growth and ensured that jobs were protected. Our $60 billion Nation Building Program covering roads, rail and ports, has cleared many bottlenecks and helped Australia maintain export growth, despite the global financial crisis. Almost two-thirds of this investment was in rural and regional communities. Between 2008-09 and 2013-14, federal spending on roads, train lines and public transport infrastructure increased from $132 per person in Australia to $225 for every Australian. Total annual spending on roads, railways, electricity generators and water storage facilities is now 42 per cent higher than in the last full year of the Howard government.

Labor also reformed tax arrangements to make it easier and more attractive for private companies and superannuation funds to invest in infrastructure, changes that we expect will facilitate investment of an extra $25 billion in investment projects in coming years. Critical to this turnaround was the creation of Infrastructure Australia and the national priority list. The 15 projects that were funded and recommended as priorities by Infrastructure Australia included the Cross River Rail project in Brisbane, the Pacific Highway upgrades in New South Wales, Victoria's Regional Rail Link and the Hunter Expressway. In the case of the Brisbane Cross River Rail project, just like the Melbourne Metro, its funding is now under threat.

Labor doubled the roads budget. We invested $46.5 billion to build or upgrade 7,500 kilometres of road, the biggest investment since the creation of the national road network nearly 40 years ago. That is equivalent to rebuilding one kilometre in every four kilometres of the national highway in only two terms.

On the Pacific Highway, we invested $7.9 billion in six years, while the previous coalition government invested $1.3 billion over 12 years. Projects such as the Bulahdelah bypass, the Kempsey bypass and the Ballina bypass were all promised, funded, built and opened by Labor. Further north, on the Bruce Highway, we invested $5.7 billion over six years, more than four times the amount committed by the previous Howard government over a similar period.

When in opposition, the infrastructure minister, Warren Truss, often described the Cooroy to Curra section of the Bruce Highway as the most dangerous section of road in the country: in spite of the fact that it was in his seat and he had been the transport minister. He can thank Labor for the fact that one section of the upgrade has been completed and opened and that in the next section work is under way.

The fact is, we did not just talk; we acted and we invested. We invested in the Hume Highway, finally fulfilling the completion of the road between Australia's largest two cities, Sydney to Melbourne. The Hunter Expressway was talked about for decades. It has been delivered by Labor and is due to be opened. By the time we left office, we had completed 137 major road projects, with 67 under way. We also fixed 1,944 notorious traffic black spots and installed 95 new rest stops and 46 new truck parking bays around the nation.

Labor increased rail funding by 10 times compared to the investment of our predecessors, who, once again, talked a good game about the importance of freight rail but did nothing. We invested $3.4 billion over six years, allowing the rebuilding of more than a third of the national freight network. Our investments included 235 kilometres of new track, plus rebuilding 3,800 kilometres of existing track.

This had a big impact. By 2016, the average transit time between Brisbane and Melbourne will be seven hours shorter than it was in 2005 and the journey from the east coast to the west coast will be nine hours shorter, thanks to our investment. That is already seeing major companies like Australia Post and Woolworths transfer freight from road onto rail, therefore improving productivity and getting a better outcome for the environment and a better outcome for road safety.

In the cities we tackled urban congestion. We committed more to urban public transport than all previous governments combined from federation right through to 2007. Now, the new government have said that they will walk away from any involvement in urban public transport, as they are walking away from engagement with all of our cities. We established the Major Cities Unit, which has already been abolished as one of the first actions of the Abbott government. In Senate estimates just this week, we hear that the Urban Policy Forum—experts in the private sector and in the community brought together to provide advice on urban policy development—has not met since the change of government and is unlikely to ever meet. A government that is a truly national government cannot not engage in our cities. That is a responsibility a national government has.

Labor's deregulation of the aviation industry has delivered lower airfares with prices now five times more affordable than they were two decades ago. In the same period, the number of people travelling each year has tripled. We produced the nation's first aviation white paper, carefully setting the blueprint for the industry's future for decades ahead. People fly more often but they also fly safer. Labor rolled out the latest security technology at the nation's airports. We banned noisy, older aircraft from major airports and strengthened the independent safety regulator's oversight of the industry. Importantly, Labor also invested more than $260 million into regional and remote aviation, including new and upgraded airports. That is five times more than the Howard government invested over the same period.

Regional communities now have better aviation facilities and this has opened them up to domestic tourism as well as international tourism like never before. Labor also progressed the planning for the second Sydney airport, which our predecessors had walked away from after they came to office in 1996. On shipping, Labor reinvigorated our nation's dwindling fleet by creating tax incentives for investment, updating regulations and ensuring the Australian Maritime Safety Authority became the national regulator of all commercial vessels. We strengthened security around the nation's ports as well as at our oil and gas facilities, and legislated to make sure that oil companies are financially accountable for damage caused by spills to the environment. We also ensured that Australian shipping companies could remain competitive with foreign flagged vessels by requiring foreign ships working our coastal domestic trade routes to pay Australian level wages.

I noticed during the election campaign that Mr Abbott included in his platform a claim that he wanted to be known as the infrastructure Prime Minister. Well, you cannot begin by trying to unpick and destroy the National Broadband Network if you are serious about infrastructure. Rather than deliver world-class fibre based broadband to all, Mr Abbott offers a second-rate copper based alternative. Labor's NBN would have revolutionised health and education services in this country. This would have been an economic game-changer, allowing Australian businesses, particularly small business and service providers, to plug into the world. The coalition opposed the NBN and are rolling out a second rate 'fraudband' alternative. Abolishing the NBN is short-sighted and is not in that national interest.

The problem here is that the Prime Minister has no agenda beyond opposing anything that is associated with the previous Labor government. The hard work was not done in developing an alternative policy. Properly targeted spending on infrastructure is not profligate; it is nation building, an investment in the future and a central task of government. The Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics has estimated that every single dollar spent on the former government's Nation Building Program returned $2.65 in benefits to the national economy, a critical investment and a major distinction between Labor and the coalition. I believe very clearly that if we are going to continue to prosper, we need to continue to invest in infrastructure in our regions, our cities, our roads, our rail lines and our ports.

Recently, we learnt that Toyota plans to cease manufacturing cars in Australia from 2017. There has been no response about what will happen in terms of an appropriate response from government to that announcement. Here is one response for the government: how about not removing the $3 billion that has been allocated in the 2013 budget for the Melbourne Metro? At its peak, the Regional Rail Link in Victoria was employing 3,500 people as well contributing significant productivity benefits in the future. Better public transport takes cars off the road, makes life easier for commuters and, just as importantly, makes a difference in terms of the movement of freight. That is why we accepted Infrastructure Australia's advice and allocated investment in the budget to the Melbourne Metro and other projects like the Cross River Rail project. Importantly, these two projects would also make a significant contribution to the debate about how to get superannuation funds into infrastructure. The structure of the process that we put up would allow for that to occur.

We also need to defend Infrastructure Australia and its role as an independent adviser to the government. The current legislation before the Senate would allow for classes of infrastructure like public transport to be ruled out of examination by Infrastructure Australia and would also allow the minister to intervene to prevent business cases being presented. Given the failure to present business cases for some of the big-ticket items that the coalition say they will fund, it is not surprising that they are removing the transparency that is so critical.

If we are going to support jobs we need to invest in infrastructure, both large and small. The decision by the new government to remove funding for community infrastructure through the Regional Development Australia Fund is short-sighted and will cost jobs and infrastructure in local communities. This approach suggests that if Labor were for it, it must be bad. They have said some investment decisions that were fully included in the budget were not decisions but promises of a political party, but that is not correct. I believe that as members of the opposition we need to make sure that we continue to hold the government to account. We will be developing alternative policies because we need to do something other than just oppose.

We need to build a nation for the good of all. We need to make sure that we get serious about infrastructure and continue to work on those issues. We cannot allow negativity and partisan politics to undermine our nation's future. We cannot allow the shrill, rationalist economists to hector this parliament into ignoring the national interest. I believe this is critical. The government need to start acting like a government and not just as an opposition, as we saw yet again today. Today the government attempted to disrupt the parliament as if they had not changed their actions from two years ago. From my side, I will continue to play a constructive role and put forward policies. I believe we can be proud of our record. It is important that the government not undermine that record by short-sighted policies.

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