House debates

Wednesday, 26 February 2020

Matters of Public Importance

Infrastructure

4:00 pm

Photo of Andrew GilesAndrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Cities and Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

That was actually a contribution by a member of the government—a member of the government supposedly speaking up for his government's record on infrastructure. I think it says everything about this government's approach to it. So perhaps you can join the Prime Minister in maybe taking consolation with a couple of emotional support baboons to work your way through the fact that you have delivered nothing when it comes to infrastructure in seven years in government. I think you will probably get promoted, because you share with the Prime Minister his singular characteristic: his refusal to take responsibility for anything, for absolutely anything.

You have just spoken for five minutes and you cannot tell a story about your government's record of achievement, because it's absolutely zero. That is why I rise to support this matter of public importance. We can think about this government's record more recently: first the sports rorts and second the road rorts, but now we have 'pork 'n' ride'. If you don't know what pork 'n' ride is—and I suspect perhaps you don't, although some members here have benefited very nicely from it—allow me to explain. The $500 million national Commuter Car Park Fund sits within the $4 billion Urban Congestion Fund, a fund announced not as an election commitment but in the 2018 budget.

My friend the member for Ballarat spoke quite a bit about how this has been appallingly misused under this government. But I'm going to correct her on one thing. She said it did nothing in its first year of operation. That's not true. They spent $40 million—not on infrastructure but on an advertising campaign. Our ad-man Prime Minister without a plan spent $40 million on advertising in the first year of this fund and not a single cent on infrastructure. That was because, presumably, they were getting the spreadsheets ready, bouncing them back and forwards. Perhaps Senator McKenzie was playing a role, though I think we all know she perhaps didn't play that much of a role. We all know that now. There were 136 emails that went backwards and forwards.

The Prime Minister says, 'We treat taxpayer money with respect.' He said that in question time today in an extraordinary, angry performance. The Deputy Prime Minister, too: 'Everyone is benefiting from the infrastructure projects.' That just isn't truthful. All of these car parks are supporting the political agenda of the government. In Melbourne $30 million is going towards train station car parks on the Sandringham line, including at Brighton Beach, North Brighton and Sandringham—not growth areas but areas in the electorate for the member for Goldstein. There is not a cent for the car parks at nearly 40 stations on the Werribee, Williamstown and Sunbury lines, in the rapidly growing west. Melbourne's western suburbs are booming. The demand for car parks at train stations is huge, yet they don't get a cent. That is pork 'n' ride.

Urban seats, as occasionally the National Party members remind us, are predominantly held by the Labor Party, yet 83 per cent of the projects funded under the Urban Congestion Fund are in Liberal-held or Liberal target seats. That's why it's so important to call this government out. This is burning taxpayer money. We know that urban congestion is the greatest drag on productivity in the Australian economy. We on this side of the House know that it isn't just about the economic impact; it's about the impact on people's lives—people stuck in traffic, not spending time with their family, not spending time with their friends, not being able to do the things in life they want to do. But this government says that if you live in a Labor seat, or even a National Party seat, you get nothing.

This is just a Liberal Party slush fund dressed up as a government program—and not dressed up very convincingly. It is a multibillion dollar slush fund for pork barrelling, whether it's pork 'n' ride through commuter car parks or the more general nuclear rorts the member for Ballarat has so effectively highlighted in recent days. That's why I've written to the Auditor-General about this. The Auditor-General has had a lot of business under this government because this government has shown itself to be unfit for its responsibilities, unfit to administer public money.

A proud Labor legacy is the establishment of Infrastructure Australia. I was there today at the launch of its 2020 infrastructure priority list and heard the words 'process' and 'cost-benefit analysis' spoken. We should approach infrastructure based on need—not on shameless politicising, short-changing our economy and damaging people's lives, all for an adman's short-term political gain. (Time expired)

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