Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. Why is it vital for the government to invest in nation-building infrastructure? Why is it crucial that the importance of infrastructure investment is emphasised in debate about Australia’s economy?

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Blair for his question. I notice that there are 392 projects underway in the member’s electorate—projects supporting jobs and small businesses—as part of the government’s nation building for recovery plan, the plan that is committed to building Australia for the future and which the opposition continues to vigorously resist, carping negatively about Australia’s economic prospects.

The government has a long-term strategy as well as a short-term strategy of stimulating activity in the economy. It also has a long-term strategy to return in Australia to a strong productivity growth pathway. There are three central elements to this strategy: investing in infrastructure, investing in skills and reforming regulation. They are the key items in the government’s strategy to lift the productivity performance in the Australian economy, which has been inadequate for a number of years. Central to this has been the investment in infrastructure that forms part of the stimulus package that the government has put forward for the Australian people to boost economic activity.

The opposition does not accept that investment in infrastructure is crucial. It is happy to participate in local photo opportunities, it is happy to be part of the picture in the local paper, but the opposition is not prepared to support infrastructure investment when it comes to voting in this chamber. It has always puzzled me somewhat as to why the opposition is not prepared to support nation-building infrastructure. Indeed, it puzzled me for nearly 12 years when they were in government as to why they were not prepared to invest in infrastructure for Australia’s future. It has always puzzled me. Given the astonishingly juvenile performance we have just witnessed from the opposition, perhaps I should not be that puzzled. But I can tell you this, Mr Speaker: yesterday I got a little bit of a hint, a little bit of a clue, as to why the opposition does not support investing in infrastructure, because in Senate estimates hearings yesterday the shadow minister for finance, Senator Coonan, asked a question of public servants. The question she asked was this: ‘What is infrastructure?’ That was her question. She then followed up with a question: ‘What is your definition of infrastructure?’

The problem the opposition has is that they do not even know what infrastructure is. That is why they do not support it. The government is committed to investing in infrastructure. It is committed to lifting the productivity performance of the Australian economy, which for too many years languished under the now opposition. For too many years they did not invest in infrastructure and skills and they did not seek to reform Australia’s regulatory structures and, as a result, Australian productivity performance languished. The Australian government knows the importance of investing in infrastructure. Australian business knows the importance of investing in infrastructure. Indeed, the wider community knows the importance of investing in infrastructure. Senator Coonan, I remind the House, was not a minister for a portfolio with nothing to do with infrastructure; she was the minister responsible for broadband. The minister responsible for broadband has to ask, ‘What does infrastructure mean?’ That gives you some indication, Mr Speaker, of the true depths of ignorance and complacency and lack of regard for the long-term productivity development of this nation that the Liberal Party opposition represents. The Australian government, the Rudd government, has a very different perspective. We regard investment in productive infrastructure as central to the economic future of this nation—in broadband, in ports, in road, in rail and in skills. They are the central drivers of long-term prosperity for the Australian people.