Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a pleasure to follow the member for Grayndler, who, in his parliamentary career, has focused above all other portfolio issues on the issue of infrastructure and cities. He is that most dangerous of species as a minister or a shadow minister because he actually knows about his topic in a very deep way—frankly, more than many of the bureaucrats that he would meet.

I will just state my interest in this at the outset. In a previous life I was the executive director of metropolitan planning in the Victorian government. I've worked for both sides of politics in planning, and was mayor of a large metropolitan council. So I have some familiarity with the issues canvassed in the report. To my eye, the report is generally fine as far as it goes; it's not groundbreaking. As the shadow minister said just before, it's a consensus reform agenda. Sure! But the problem, though, if we're being honest, is not the lack of knowledge, it's not a lack of ideas and it's not that we didn't know everything which was written in the report, if we have some basic familiarity with urban planning and cities policy. It's the complete lack of political will to implement good urban policy by this government.

There are a very few members opposite who I would say really get this stuff. They care about it, they're reasoned and they want to engage in the debate. I have lunch with them sometimes in the dining room and we talk about these things. The member for Bennelong is one and, indeed, the member for Ryan is one of the few people in the chamber who understands urban policies and cities. And look what they did to her! Sent her off, killed her!

But I would say that we should contrast that with Labor's proud record in government under the member for Grayndler. He created the Major Cities Unit and produced the annual State of cities reports—which were downloaded millions of times. Labor accepted that the Commonwealth does have a role in monitoring, evaluating and holding the mirror up to the states, local governments and the industry to reflect how things are going. Labor established the Urban Policy Forum, the convening power of the Commonwealth; created the Australian Council of Local Governments; and conducted a review of capital city strategic planning systems. Even in opposition, Labor implemented the shadow minister for cities portfolio, putting pressure on the government. They eventually responded.

Contrast that record with the government's record, and even treading water and doing nothing would have been better than what we've seen the government do. They abolished the Major Cities Unit, they disbanded the Urban Policy Forum and they failed to produce the annual State of cities reports, so we don't really understand what's happening in a cohesive, time-series way. And they failed to appoint a minister for cities.

This report does recommend that we have a minister for housing, because the government doesn't have a minister for housing. When I entered the parliament the only new infrastructure project funded in Victoria was Puffing Billy, which is not exactly a form of public transport. It's a tourist train. They have no national urban policy. When you look at the government's record—not what's in this report—there are a few members opposite who are like screams in the night of common sense, compared with what the government is actually doing.

I know the member for Bennelong has put effort into this report, and I congratulate him for a good summary of decent, sensible urban policy. But there is one issue in there that I know is a pet one for him: the issue of value capture. The former Prime Minister—poor old Malcolm, wherever he is—championed this pet issue as if it was something new, the notion that when you rezone highly valuable urban land it's a good idea to capture a bit of that wealth you've just created for the landowner, who often gets a windfall gain because they happen to own a piece of land that's been rezoned from industrial to residential or whatever it may be.

The notion that you should get some gain back to the public purse, back to the community, instead of letting often thousand per cent windfall gains pass into private pockets is not exactly new. Neither is the notion that if government builds an expensive piece of infrastructure—for example, the Melbourne City Loop—the landowners who benefit enormously from that infrastructure should contribute. These are not new ideas. They were done in the 1970s and 1980s in Melbourne and, indeed, financed much of the City Loop.

It's lovely that the government can talk about these things, but if we're honest about value capture we could also have a look at the record of the Liberal Party in Victoria. Frankly, I think Matthew Guy, the opposition leader, should be strung up before a royal commission for his performance as planning minister on value capture, because in one stroke of a pen he rezoned the whole of the Fishermans Bend industrial estate, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and turned it overnight into land worth billions of dollars. The public record suggests mates of the Liberal Party. The truth has still not been told about that. He gave away enormous sums of money to landowners for no good reason. There was nothing captured for schools, nothing captured for parks, nothing captured for local roads, nothing captured to contribute to major infrastructure.

We've seen the planning scandals in Victoria from the now opposition leader, seeking to be Premier and lead the state, in the Ventnor scandal, and the truth is finally starting to come out. We haven't even started to shine light on what went on in Fishermans Bend, and that's a case that should be told. It's hypocrisy for the Liberal Party to talk about the benefits of value capture, when having a look at how the putative Premier behaved as planning minister.

The report does, I note, talk about the different levers that are available to governments. Of course, local governments, state governments and Commonwealth governments have different roles and different levers. Tax settings is one in the Commonwealth domain. The report is kind of cute—a little bit sad, really. But it does bell the cat, if you connect the dots. In paragraph 8.36 it says the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University suggested 'Australian Government taxation policy, like negative gearing, supports investor activity in housing markets and contributes to affordability issues.' That's committee speak for 'Negative gearing combines with capital gains taxes, pouring petrol on the property market fire and shoving up the cost of housing.'

Other submitters acknowledged that we do have a problem in Australia, where housing is seen as the most attractive asset class, not something that human beings should live in. The smartest thing to do if you're a wealthy person is to walk down the road one Saturday morning and bid up the cost of an existing house. The report beats around these issues. It acknowledges the problem, to be fair; it does include the truth, if you can take a moment to connect the dots, but the recommendations are nothing short of pathetic in that area: get a minister and try to think about it. I suppose that's all we can achieve in the current political environment, but that is a debate that needs to be had.

In my remaining few minutes, I have to touch on infrastructure. If we're contrasting the fine words and noble sentiments in this report with what the government have done in infrastructure and cities policy, you have to say they have no credibility whatsoever. The recent independent analysis from the Parliamentary Budget Office shows that in the current forward estimates the Commonwealth's contribution to infrastructure, measured as grants to states, is falling—projected to fall from 0.4 per cent of GDP to 0.2 per cent of GDP. Yet we hear in question time and elsewhere that the government has a $75 billion infrastructure package. Well, the truth is: that is a scam; it is a sham. There is nowhere that anyone can find the list of what this mythical $75 billion package is. But, when you scratch, and connect the dots from dodgy little press releases and announcements from when Malcolm used to pop up on a tram or in a paddock here and there, you see that it includes things like contingent liabilities to the East West Link. It's not real cash; it's a promise that, 'Maybe if the people of Victoria voted for a Liberal government then we'd give them money for a dud road project,' or concessional loans to the troubled WestConnex project—not real cash, just a concessional loan that'll be repaid, but that counts in the $75 billion.

My personal favourite, from the nonsense from the former Prime Minister, was the $10 billion Melbourne Airport rail link, which he just popped up in Melbourne one day and announced. I actually said—it was during the nominations period for the lord mayor—that if he'd wanted to run for lord mayor he should've just nominated! Funnily enough, I think that federal governments, in planning infrastructure, should coordinate with the states, not just have prime ministers pop up randomly or when they get off a plane and announce a project—as the report says.

I asked the then Assistant Minister for Finance, during the estimates process, the budget consideration in detail, 'What's in this $75 billion sham infrastructure package, and how is it actually funded?' And he could not explain, because there is actually only $24.3 billion of infrastructure funded in the government's budget, not $75 billion. The idea that you can build a $10 billion Melbourne Airport rail link without any taxpayer funding is utterly farcical.

I will finish by reading a couple of quotes from independent experts who have questioned the government's approach. Marion Terrill of the Grattan Institute has warned:

If infrastructure projects are never going to make a commercial return, the government should stop pretending they will. And if they are worth building at all, the government should fund them transparently on-budget.

Adrian Dwyer, the head of peak industry group Infrastructure Partnerships Australia said: 'There are only two ways to pay for infrastructure: tickets and taxes. You cannot finance your way out of a funding problem.'

The report, as I said, is worthy, as far as it goes. It has noble sentiments. But there is no sign whatsoever, if you look at the government's track record and study the budget papers, that they're actually serious about investing in cities or investing in infrastructure. They need to come clean and stop talking about this $75 billion infrastructure package as if it were anything more than an episode of Utopiastyle slogan.

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