John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this parliament, we do incredible work which largely flies under the radar. I'm not talking about the government here. The government does incredible work, obviously—and governments of all stripes rarely stay quiet about their achievements. Governments are no shrinking violets. I'm talking here about parliament, specifically parliamentary committees sitting outside of the executive, and the efforts of dozens of MPs of all stripes who come together to work in a bipartisan way to find facts, uncover evidence, verify it and make recommendations to inform policy for the betterment of all Australians. Committee inquiries are parliament at its best.

Over the past 10 years, I've been involved in dozens of committees and scores of reports. I've had the honour to chair three of them and those led to 10 inquiries. All of these groups have been incredibly collegiate, dedicated and intelligent. We've put out detailed recommendations based on the advice of experts, designed to create the best possible policies.

We don't deal with minor subjects, either. One inquiry ongoing at the moment is into the way we pay for and access medicines—hardly a minor topic in 2020. I've led inquiries into the housing market at a time when housing prices were booming beyond all recognition and many young people were legitimately concerned that they would never get into the housing market. Over the last three years the committee I currently chair has looked into ways to regulate and facilitate the expected growth in electric cars; a vision for the future settlement of Australia; and next week I'll be tabling one into how we can fund the infrastructure to build our way out of the current economic doldrums.

This isn't insignificant stuff. That brings me to a point of grievance. We spend months and sometimes years on these inquiries. Teams from the Department of Parliamentary Services spend hours organising evidence sessions, polling submissions and preparing for interviews; then they put weeks into synthesising all these plus the wishes of our disparate groups into reports that can run up to 500 pages in length. Huge amounts of effort, time and money go into these inquiries, and they generate valuable and important recommendations.

Yet so many of these inquiries go nowhere. Back in 2016 I chaired the Economics Committee, and we were tasked with looking into the housing affordability crisis which was gripping our suburbs. This was a critical issue, a crisis that kept young people out of homes, put mortgage stress on thousands of young families and, worse, threatened to bring an economic crisis that would rip the confidence out from under overexposed banks. It was clear that the business-as-usual routine of boom and bust was dangerous and growing more dangerous as the boom kept booming. It was essential that we find a way to reduce the amplitude of these waves to ensure that owning a home didn't end up as just a treat for the wealthy. Bennelong had seen over a 75 per cent increase in housing prices in the previous three years. The infallible profits were drawing developers to build high-rise buildings, which were popping up one after another through Epping and Macquarie Park. But it was obvious that this was unsustainable.

We needed to act. Thankfully, the experts that came to the table were not only highly knowledgeable; they were also very open-minded to reform. Suggestions came through thick and fast for innovations like levers to control the deductibility for investors, putting housing into super, which was deemed safer than putting super into housing, and funnelling investors into trusts which could invest in affordable housing for essential workers—all really good and innovative ideas. We had an interim report which made really strong recommendations, but before we could table the final version there was a reshuffle of chairs and I moved elsewhere. From here, the report was quietly dropped and pushed aside for many months. Only after pressure in the media was the inquiry report finally released, and then it appeared pillaged and bare. All recommendations had been removed, leaving the impression that the housing market was completely stable, affordable and perfect. Needless to say, this lack of recommendations was accepted unequivocally. In the months before the COVID recession, 127 apartments next to my house in Epping were forced to sell in line at a 50 per cent discount because of oversaturation, sending developers to the brink. But that's a story for another day.

From here, I moved to be Chairman of the Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport and Cities. Here we conducted two related inquiries: Harnessing value, delivering infrastructure in 2017, and Building up & moving out in 2018. The first looked at the infrastructure needed to bring us up to the 21st century, while the second looked at an even broader view of the settlement planning of our country. Together they created a compelling vision for our country.

Australia has never had a plan of settlement. Occasionally cities put forward sweeping plans, but these are always fragmented and usually do not survive a change of government. There is nothing long-term in Australia's planning, and there never has been. Over a century ago, this manifested itself in the ridiculous chaos of Australia's rail gauges, which changed three times on the journey along the east coast of Australia. This obvious problem should have wised up the new Federation to creating plan, and yet, for 120 years, we have gone wanting. State governments are building fast-train routes out to their regions—something that is certainly needed. Meanwhile, the federal government is building freight lines across the eastern states and a new airport in Western Sydney. Between all of this, patchwork fixes are being done to modernise ageing infrastructure, like the Pacific Highway, but none of this is being done in conjunction with anything else. The fast regional rail lines between Sydney and Melbourne will one day meet up, but, when they do, will the systems be compatible? Will the gauges be compatible? Will we have an impact on the viability of the world's busiest air corridor over land and, in turn, on the viability of Badgerys Creek airport? What's the sense in a freight line that only has a freight airport at one distant end?

Our inquiry set out a vision for Australia: a string of new smart cities connected and nurtured by fast links to our capitals through high-speed rail funded by value capture on the uplift in land prices created by the new infrastructure. This would create jobs, growth and affordable housing for decades to come, unburdening our bulging cities by creating the impetus for our regions to boom. It's not just a plan; it's a vision for the future of Australia. In response, the government have noted our recommendations. In their defence, two new groups have been created in the department of infrastructure: the National Faster Rail Agency and the Infrastructure and Project Financing Agency, which recently moved to the Treasury. These are a good start, but the action taken to address even part of this vision is minimal and a plan of settlement still remains absent.

Next week, I'll be tabling another report from this inquiry which directly relates to these two previous ones. While they set out the 'what', the next one sets out the 'how'. It paints a compelling picture of how to fund this vision. It spells out what needs to happen next to create a fair value-capture funding method to ensure that the infrastructure is built while getting a fair deal for the taxpayer, whom we serve. It takes on additional importance in the current context of our economy. It presents a plan to fund our economic recovery and stimulate our economy without burdening future generations. We have inadvertently created a post-COVID roadmap for this country. There will be more details to discuss shortly, but I would say that, again, many hours and much expertise has gone into this report and it would be shameful if the recommendations were not taken with the seriousness they deserve.

If more demonstration of current indifference to committee work were needed, I'd like to end this strange tale with Jane Prentice's smart cities inquiry, which wrapped up in 2016, just before I took over the committee. It contained detailed and evidence based recommendations on how to ready our cities for future decades. Well, we are now in the next decade and Jane has not been an MP for over 18 months, but still the government sit on their hands and there has been no response. Once again, a parliamentary committee has done wonderful work for the people of Australia and it has gone nowhere. We must and we should do better.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There being no further grievances, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Federation Chamber adjourned a t 11:43