Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is an absolute pleasure to follow on from my colleague and friend Senator O'Neill, particularly after that passionate speech. I too want to make my contribution to the Infrastructure Amendment Bill 2013, and I think it is very, very important that we give a little bit of a history lesson to those who may be out there hanging on every word that is mentioned about this bill. Let's look at infrastructure.

Infrastructure can be a myriad of things, but it is about building this great nation. I come from a different angle, because infrastructure mainly is opening up our ports, our rail lines, it is talking about our roads, about public transport—about all sorts of things. As the deputy chair of the Rural and Regional Affairs Legislation Committee, who undertook this inquiry, I do not want us to lose track of how infrastructure in Australia is funded. It is funded predominantly through the three tiers of government, being local—which in my opinion do a heck of a lot of the heavy lifting—state and federal. Up until the last few years, the funding of a lot of the infrastructure has predominantly been carried by the state governments. But what we did see in the six years of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government was massive injections of cash from the Commonwealth into numerous infrastructure projects throughout this great land.

I can give a quick history lesson on some of the nation-building stuff that was done in Western Australia when Minister Albanese had the carriage of the infrastructure and transport portfolio. It gives me grief that in this current government we do not even have a minister per se who is responsible for transport, or even for the word 'transport'. I do not know how seriously we can take that side of the chamber, and certainly Mr Abbott and his cabinet, if they cannot even appoint a transport minister. Fortunately we did have one, and we did very, very well. Some of the massive spends in Western Australia have delivered productivity gains that will last for generations to come, none more so than the Gateway project around Western Australia. For those who have not had the privilege of visiting Western Australia lately, there is construction equipment everywhere around the airport, and in the suburb of Kewdale/Belmont, where our domestic and international airports, our freight hub, our rail head, our warehouse and distribution centres are. This is where the bleeding heart of Western Australia's transport and logistics industry is situated. Finally we West Aussies are being dragged into the 21st century with some wonderful infrastructure initiatives implemented by the previous Labor government.

Let's have a look at how it all started. To do that we will have to go back to about May 2005, when the Australian Labor Party determined it was going to have this body called Infrastructure Australia. Then on 2 August 2007 the then leader of the opposition, Kevin Rudd, detailed his plans for Infrastructure Australia. He said it would have three divisions, and I want to share with the chamber what these three divisions were. The first would deal with policy and regulatory issues, and drive and reform legal, tax planning and infrastructure finance matters. The second would audit the adequacy of the nation's infrastructure, identify weaknesses and prioritise projects. The third division would evaluate the business cases—a very important two words—of project financing, with options including private-public partnerships, and they would manage the probity process.

Unfortunately the clock is against me tonight. I reckon I could talk with a gobful of marbles under water about this for half an hour, but I am not allowed to, and I notice the shadow minister is in the chamber, so I will summarise my contribution very quickly. The last thing we would need, and which was the plan of this government, is to take away the opportunity for Infrastructure Australia to vet these projects. The danger is that allowing the minister the final say on any infrastructure programs could lead us to that shocking situation we were confronted with in the dying days of the Howard government. I cannot remember what the program was called—I think it was called Regional something, but it was commonly referred to as 'Regional Rorts'.

I am not suggesting for one minute that Minister Truss would ever lower his standards to be in the same mould as the previous National Party minister at the time, Mr Anderson. I would make this very clear—Mr Truss is a man of integrity. He must be, because he has seen the common sense here. With Mr Anderson, we got to a stage in the dying days of the Howard government where a certain project worth quite a few million dollars was rushed through so it could deliver an ethanol project somewhere in his seat, I believe, or a Nationals seat—a $1.2 million grant which never ever delivered one single litre of ethanol. In fact, in that dark time of the regional rorting that was going on with National Party seats and some Liberal seats, some 16 grants worth a total of $3.5 million were approved in no more than 51 minutes. That is 51 minutes to approve $3.5 million. In the notes it says 'from 3.25 pm to 4.16 pm—by then Parliamentary Secretary—

Senator Fierravanti-Wells interjecting—

Madam Acting Deputy President, through you—is that Senator Fierravanti-Wells endorsing rorting? Are you endorsing it? Are you endorsing rorting? Have you lowered yourself so far in the New South Wales Liberal right that you endorse rorting?