Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation) Share this | Hansard source

Let me work through the range of questions I have received here. I am very happy to focus on the ones that are related to the appropriation bill. I will, though, start by focusing on the first of the questions we heard. I hate to break it to the member opposite, but this has absolutely nothing to do with the appropriation bill. It is true that I would dearly love to talk about Labor's track record on links with foreign companies. I would love to talk about the Yuhu Group and how you received a donation of $260,000; the Top Education Group, which paid for Sam Dastyari's, 'dim Sam's', $1,670 of debts; the Australia Kingold Investment Development Company, which donated $635,000 to the Labor Party; the Australian Chinese Business Elite Awards, which donated $260,000 to the Australia Labor Party—however, none of this has anything to do with appropriation, so I suggest that the member opposite focus on asking those questions in the appropriate forum, which is not this forum.

Let me turn to the very sensible question I received from the member for Bennelong in relation to infrastructure financing. I remind those members opposite, including the member for Grayndler, that there is a fundamental difference between economic evaluation, which is done by Infrastructure Australia, and financing. That is not a distinction that those opposite would ever understand, because none of them have ever done any infrastructure financing. What we need in this country is an agency that can link the extraordinary amounts of money out there wanting to invest in infrastructure with the opportunities that we all know—every one of us on this side of the parliament knows—need investment. Those opportunities are there and real. The question from the member for Bennelong in relation to those opportunities was an excellent one, because he, as so many members on this side of the Chamber know, seized the opportunity to match those very significant pools of capital with opportunities to shape our cities, to shape our regions, to invest in infrastructure that is going to drive productivity, livability, amenity and all those things that we know that we did not get under past Labor governments, who consistently underinvested in infrastructure. I will come back to that in a moment.

For decades, the approach of Australian governments has been grant by default when it comes to infrastructure. All that this has delivered us is in fact a chronic infrastructure deficit, because grant funding will never be enough to meet the infrastructure deficit in this country. We have to partner in infrastructure. We have to partner with states and the private sector to invest. That is absolutely crucial. Where the private sector will do it, we should encourage it. But what is lacking at the federal government level is the skill set, the team that understands how to match those pools of capital, that large amount of money wanting to get into infrastructure, particularly in this country—it is a very, very good destination for infrastructure investment—with the opportunities. If we can do that—and we are doing that now: Badgerys Creek airport is a terrific example; Inland Rail is a terrific example of it—we can stretch taxpayer dollars further and open up opportunities for private sector involvement in public infrastructure.

I will remind the member for Grayndler, who has decided to leave, who is not interested in the answer to the question: you have seen in this budget a 25 per cent increase in investment in infrastructure from this government. The reason we have been able to do that is matching grant funding with genuine investment in projects like Western Sydney Airport, a crucial project for Western Sydney. Unfortunately, the member opposite opposes this terrific project—

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