Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This government certainly deserves an award for irony, if not hypocrisy, when it comes to public transport and cost-benefit analyses. We heard this government, when it was in opposition, rail for three years against the NBN on the basis that there was no published cost-benefit analysis. Yet, within a nanosecond of getting elected, this Prime Minister said that he would pledge billions of dollars of Commonwealth money—ripped from the aid budget—to a project in Melbourne that will not just wreck the inner city of Melbourne; it does not even have its own independent, published cost-benefit analysis. That is $18 billion worth of development with no published cost-benefit analysis. It was not even recommended by Infrastructure Australia or in the top slot on their priority list, because they knew that there were better ways to spend the money.

But that did not stop this government or this Prime Minister. Simply because they thought it was in their electoral interest, they were prepared to throw everything they had previously said about cost-benefit analyses and the independence of Infrastructure Australia out the window and to commit several billion dollars in funding to a project that just does not stack up. In fact, as we have heard, $1½ billion of that has already been handed over.

What we also know, because we have been able to get it through the Senate and through some brave people who used to be Infrastructure Australia, is that, for every dollar that goes into this project, the taxpayer is going to get 80c back. The taxpayer is going to get 80c back. The only way that you can inflate it so that it is not a loss-making project is by saying, for the East West Link, 'We'll make some speculative assumptions about transport and public transport times,' of which every respectable commentator has said, 'They just do not stack up.' There is a very, very simple way of testing whether the Prime Minister's East West Link is worthwhile: by releasing an independent cost-benefit analysis.

So the government come in here and say, 'We're going to move amendments to require, in the future, some cost-benefit analyses,' but they ignore the fact that they are about to spend billions of dollars of taxpayers' money on a project that will be an albatross around the neck of Victorian and federal taxpayers for years to come. Stage 1 of the project—that they have already handed over some money for—will lose money, as I have already said. But the Liberals are prepared to go even further and fund stage 2 of the project even before we have actually seen the final designs or the plans—even before they have been submitted to Infrastructure Australia. The Deputy Prime Minister may not know this but the relevant planning assessment committee that looked at stage 2 recommended to the state Liberal government that stage 2 not go ahead, because there was no plan. That, however has not stopped this government from handing over the best part of a couple of billion dollars to help the Victorian Liberals until they get past the state election.

So when the government comes in here and says, 'We need some rigour and we need some transparency,' we say: 'Put your money where you mouth is. Submit the East West Link project in Victoria to the same kind of cost-benefit analysis that you are now saying is worthwhile for future projects and I will believe you are serious.' Until then, all this is is cover for yet another broken election promise. These are good amendments and they will get our support because they hold the government not only to its own promises but to basic standards that should apply before a single dollar goes out of here for a multibillion dollar project—which is: show us the cost-benefit analysis.

I think the Deputy Prime Minister knows, just as everyone else in this place knows, that the East West Link does not stack up. The only way that there can possibly be any money spent is by ignoring the fact that it is going to be a loss-making project. Melbourne is crying out for investment in public transport. Melbourne could be like one of those cities overseas that you can get around without having to use a car. We are a growing city that needs more trains, and that is something that the federal government could help with—as it has in the past and could do again. Instead, billions of dollars are being spent on a road that no-one wants. If these amendments are supported, then the government hopefully will release the cost-benefit analysis for East West Link.

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