Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

They have been circulated. Minister, you had an opportunity to address, with common sense, this proposal and to bring forward what I acknowledge was a pre-election proposal. But, by failing to have adequate consultation, by debasing the committee process, which Senator Birmingham has referred to, we are effectively frightening off those who might have made a constructive contribution to this matter. We are excluding those who should form part of it. In my view, Minister, you have made this a political process as opposed to what you described as a nation-building process. Why would you exclude Infrastructure Australia from a process that you say is a nation-building process? Why would you do that? Why would you remove the ACCC from that process? Why would you remove the Productivity Commission from that nation-building process? I will tell you the one reason why you are doing it. It is because you have foolishly made this a political process. You have foolishly made this a political outcome and not what you would describe as a nation-building outcome. At least, with our amendments, we are giving you the opportunity to make this thing work—to get from you what you would have got had you bothered to consult properly.

Did you bother to consult in relation to the amendments that you apparently intend moving, Minister? You did not consult. You have refused to consult. You have abused the committee process. As you well know from your discussions with the shadow minister, we came to this process with the offer of support. We came to this process saying to you, ‘If you want to make it work, we’ll assist you to make it work.’ We came to you and said, ‘You used that committee process to obtain information from carriers and others and we will assist you in meeting this ridiculous deadline that either you have set for yourself politically or your leader has set for you—your December 2008 deadline.’ You put the deadline in place for delivery and then you had to come back and put in place a time frame—an unworkable time frame—to meet a so-called political imperative.

Quite frankly, Minister, if you are serious about nation building, if you are serious about delivering this sort of infrastructure, why don’t you stop playing politics with this process and start engaging with those who are able to assist you in delivering on this deadline? It is virtually an unworkable deadline, but the opposition members on that committee were happy to facilitate the process. The speech by Senator Birmingham indicated to you quite clearly that we were prepared to assist you in this process. Mr Billson, from the other place, has made it quite clear that he was prepared to assist you in this process. But you refused to consult. You refused to bring in those who could have assisted you. You have refused to bring in the ACCC, Infrastructure Australia and the Productivity Commission to make this ridiculous time frame, which you have imposed for political reasons, workable. We are prepared to assist you to do that. We have some sensible amendments—