Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The difference between Labor and Liberal philosophies is the difference between good enough and never enough. The Asset Recycling Fund Bill will turn lazy assets into hardworking assets, increasing returns and securing our children's quality of life well into the future. The country is in a mess because the Labor government battered her with a mining tax, a carbon tax, pink batts, school halls, the NBN and so on. Today, this responsible coalition government has to think smarter about how we all do business. Interest payments on Labor's debt are $1 billion per month—or $2,000 annually for a family of four. It is time to stop beating up on the country and time to start getting excited about her prospects. The Asset Recycling Fund is an exciting first step in paying down the debt and clearing off the Labor deficit legacy.

The Commonwealth will provide states and territories with incentive payments of 15 per cent of the sale price of privatised assets with the returns to be re-invested into new priority infrastructure projects. The Commonwealth funding program is capped at $5 billion. The positive interest on the fund alone will make a significant contribution to paying off the monthly national credit card bill. However, more importantly, the asset recycling bill provides proof that this government is living up to its word to give hope, reward and opportunity to the Australian people and to deliver the roads of the 21st century. It is exciting to think that inert capital of underperforming assets will become liquid and available to the marketplace. This freed-up capital will inspire the genius of the market to deliver real solutions of those desperately short of 21st century infrastructure.

Let's not fool ourselves about what this bill is and what it does. This bill is liberal because it believes in incentive—it gives states incentives to take a long, hard look at everything they own. Every person on the street knows that a good return is dictated by risk and reward. The most stinging point is that there are those in Labor ranks capable of questioning the central premise of what we are debating today—namely, if our state and federal asset is chugging along, producing a nominal net return of two per cent—is that good enough?

Let me speak here of the specific good from this legislation for my electorate of Tangney and for Western Australia. The Perth Freight Link is made possible through this bill. This is a comprehensive plan to get heavy-goods vehicles from the port to the airport. The Perth Airport and surrounding areas serve as a major passenger and freight network hub for the Perth metropolitan area. The need for this project has been driven by the expected doubling of passenger air travel and the road freight task over the next decade, coupled with proposed consolidation of the Perth airport terminals. Figures I have suggest 11 per cent annual growth for 2013 in use of runway 21, the southern runway of Perth Airport. Further traffic will be generated by industrial developments in the southern part of the airport and in the surrounding areas of Kewdale and Forrestfield and from commuter traffic in the eastern and south-eastern suburbs of Perth. The Perth Freight Link will stop the nonsense of stopping at 33 sets of lights, as is the current situation. The importance of Perth Airport cannot be overstated in the Western Australian context: think of the FIFO worker, the online shopper and the high-value-add exporter.

One aspect of this project that interests me greatly is the envisaged public-private dynamic. For the first time the Commonwealth and Western Australian governments will be seeking opportunities for private sector co-contribution towards a major road project. The Perth Freight Link has an estimated cost of $1.6 billion, with $925 million contributed by the Commonwealth. Private sector co-investment will ensure maximum value is achieved from taxpayer dollars with minimal impact on the federal budget.

With industry and government investment, Perth Freight Link is expected to establish the Roe Highway as the preferred east-west freight link in Perth. To support and sustain a growing population and economy, developing freight links that clear congestion and ease pressure on existing roads will provide significant productivity uplifts for Perth. Increasing the productivity of our workforce is the only way to secure our current standard of living, and to ensure our global competitiveness.

Perth Airport is growing. For example, based on figures of total departures between 2007 and last year, Perth Airport has grown by 61 per cent. Western Australia demands and deserves a clear and well-thought-out plan not just for this decade, but for many decades to come. It is expected that Perth Freight Link will be opened by 2021.

WA government estimates indicate that the Roe Highway extension will deliver benefits of $5.20 for every dollar invested; and the Stock Road and High Street improvements will provide $1.70 in benefits for every dollar invested. This game-changing project would never have been delivered under the previous Labor government, which remains opposed to this vital freight link.

But the good news for WA does not stop at the Perth Freight Link. The coalition government is also delivering the Perth Airport Gateway, the Swan Valley by-pass, the Great Northern Highway upgrade, North West Highway upgrades, as well as Tonkin Highway upgrades.

In sum, this bill introduces incentive and asks the states: 'Why are you holding this asset?' and 'Is it really necessary?' The aim of this bill is that we turn that lazy two per cent into a strong six per cent return. This will enable us to pay down the Labor debt and stop paying the $1 billion-a-month interest payments on that debt. Not only this, but in turn, it will provide a springboard of capital from which new companies, ideas and ventures can be attained. This coalition government believes in free enterprise, believes in ideas and believes in people. So the liquidation of lazy assets will be transferred to a pool, a fund as set up by this bill, and moneys can be added and attached by interested parties and individuals.

Initial funding will come from the uncommitted funds in the Building Australia Fund, $2.4 billion, and the Education Investment Fund, $3.5 billion, that were established in 2009. Further contributions will come from the sale of Medibank Private and other potential privatisations. Through the hard work, dedication and vision of the Prime Minister, Treasurer and Finance Minister, this pool of moneys, joined as it surely will be by other moneys, will be able to provide people across Australia with the roads of the 21st century. That is the plan. It was a key part of a document called 'Our Plan—Real Solutions for all Australians'. We launched our plan in 2013 and now in government we are executing that plan—keeping our promises to the Australian people, as we said we would. This is what good governments do, and Labor will never understand that We said we would stop the boats, and we have. We said we would reduce red tape, and we have. We said we would fix the budget disaster, and we are. This bill will not fix everything overnight, but what an important first step it is. It is, in essence, a pure marker of enabling legislation. It is creating incentive and cutting waste—that is what this bill is about; that is what the Liberals are all about.

Labor would never dream of putting something like this before the House. It is akin to cutting off their right arm, and that is the arm from which they eat the union's cake. There is no-one in this place who can honestly say that a commercial enterprise can stay fit by eating cake. State assets have always been less competitive, more regulated, less effective and less efficient than their private sector counterparts or comparisons. In brief, as we have seen time and time again in this place, the Labor Party are incapable of taking the hard decisions. The Labor Party are congenitally incapable of putting Australia's interest ahead of their own party political interest. Shame, Labor, shame.

We face a significant challenge. The previous government delivered five budget deficits, totalling $195 billion. Their last budget was another $123 billion worth of projected deficits. We have implemented some structural savings in this budget, which will start low and slow and which will build over time. What we are looking to do in this bill is to sell assets which, whether in public hands or in private hands, will continue to provide services to the Australian community and which we believe the private sector would provide more efficiently and more cost effectively. We will reinvest the proceeds from the sale of those assets. We will recycle, if you will, by investing them in new productivity enhancing infrastructure. So we have got infrastructure, existing assets, which we can sell and which will continue to provide benefits to the Australian economy and to the Australian community. We think the private sector would be able to do it better and we would be able to invest the proceeds from those sales in strengthening our economy into the future.

In the final analysis, it is about smarter choices and hard decisions. 'Smarter choices' means being cognisant of the extremely benign global monetary environment and the cheap money policies being enacted across many OECD countries. Smarter choices means knowing when to 'hold'em' and when to 'fold'em'. When talk of tapering is on the table, it might be time to make hay. Sell at the top of the market: this could be as good a price as we will get. Lazy logic says that you should keep depreciating the dirty old rust bucket until it falls over, because it still throws a two per cent return. It might cost a tonne in between but it still throw off two per cent. Labor's lazy logic says that we should keep these unproductive, uneconomic assets because we own them now, and we always should own them, because we always did. This is absolutely perverse. It is a lazy logic born of a fundamental distrust of the free market. It is a lazy logic born of a fundamental distrust of the Australian people. As a wonderful warrior woman once said:

The only problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

As this bill, the Asset Recycling Fund Bill 2014, will support the Asset Recycling Initiative, provides incentive payments to states and territories for the sale of assets if the proceeds are reinvested in productivity enhancing infrastructure, it is critical that we hurry up and pass this bill. This fund will expedite strategic and nationally significant infrastructure. To quote that famous Irish Liberal , and Leader of the Irish Home Rule Party, Charles Stewart Parnell:

No one can say to his nation, 'Thus far shalt thou go and no further'.

Similarly, I challenge any Labor member here today to look their constituents in the eye and say that they purposefully opposed this bill, that they purposefully opposed progress and the building of new roads in their electorates. This great nation will march on. It must.

The Liberal plan is ready and we are acting on our mandate. Our solid and terrific mandate is to see our Real Solutions plan enacted and to return hope, reward, and opportunity to all Australians and to build a safe, secure Australia. We will succeed. We will succeed because history always sides with those with better ideas, and ultimately those with the right solutions. Those right solutions for fixing Australia's deficit and disaster are the Liberal's Economic Action Strategy—a strategy we outlined in the Real Solutions documents all those months ago. Real results do not have to be really hard. All it takes is for Labor to give up their lazy logic and back our plan to get Australia back on track. We have done it before, and we will do it again.

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