Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. It does allow me to start, in this consideration in detail, on the arts portfolio—one that the Manager of Opposition Business used to hold—because there have been some major changes in the way in which this government is delivering arts policy versus the way the previous government delivered it. We're not interested in doing press conferences with Guy Sebastian or doing it with businesses without actually ending up supporting those businesses and embarrassing Mr Sebastian. That's not our style.

We're also not interested in having the arts portfolio being run out of the minister's office. One of the key things that the previous government did in the arts portfolio was to have this situation where they, in the minister's office—a tradition started by George Brandis, the previous arts minister and former senator—took money out of the Australia Council, put it in separate funds and then had the minister hand-pick which programs and which bits of creative work would be supported. It's a terrible way of doing policy. One of the key differences that happened in this budget was that the government put money back into what was formerly known as the Australia Council and will now fall under the banner of Creative Australia.

In my electorate, in Macnamara, I was so proud to host the Prime Minister and the Minister for the Arts and many of our colleagues at the Gershwin Room at the Espy in St Kilda, the home of live music in Melbourne. I'm sure, Deputy Speaker Stevens, that you've spent a night or two there on the sticky floors of the Gershwin Room, enjoying yourself. It is a great venue. One of thing about which there was this big sigh of relief from the industry was that money was not going to be dictated by the minister's office. What would happen was that there were going to be industry led decisions by people who were able to make proper, informed decisions—not based on politics or on marginal electorates or on the personal preference of what art the minister's does or doesn't like, but rather on independent advice made by the industry itself. It is the appropriate way to develop arts policy. It's been a stain on the previous government's legacy and one that we fixed in this budget.

I would ask the minister what his view is around why it was so important to change the way in which arts policy was being delivered in this country and why it was so important to have a national cultural policy developed.

The other thing that's worth noting in this budget, which is a significant change in the way in which government operates, is obviously the way in which infrastructure has been funded and the way in which infrastructure is going to be rolled out as part of the Albanese government. My electorate of Macnamara is one of the great spots. If you want to go to one of the St Kilda East cafes—you might want to go to Las Chicas or Batch or All Things Equal, one of the great cafes on Carlisle Street—you'll drive past Balaclava station. Behind Balaclava station there is an absolutely fantastic new social housing estate that's being rolled out. It's a fantastic collaboration between three different tiers of government: the federal government, the state government and the local council.

The interesting thing is that the previous government allocated $15 million from the car park program of the former Morrison government to Balaclava station. Interestingly, they had plans to build car parks out the back of Balaclava station, which is quite surprising. It came as quite a surprise to both the state government and the City of Port Philip, who already had an agreement signed for what the land was going to be utilised for: the building of social housing. The former government had this whole infrastructure program, they'd written this whole press release—in fact, dare I say it, I think the former minister had come into Balaclava to do a press conference—but they hadn't actually spoken to the levels of government that not only had custodianship of the land but owned the land. It was Crown land. It is absolutely mind-blowing how terrible that rollout of policy was.

My question to the minister for infrastructure is: why is it important to speak to other layers of government and to work with them to roll out infrastructure and to not repeat the mistakes of the previous Morrison government?

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