Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I know this is only a small example—and I will take that interjection from Senator Macdonald, who gave a stunning critique of this government's budget in this chamber from that very seat only last week. It is a small example of the government's spending not being as well directed as it should be.

What we also found out during the estimates process was that the handful of new projects announced have not been assessed by Infrastructure Australia. That is right—the announcements made by the federal government in the last budget were never assessed by the very body set up to assess these types of projects. Yet billions of taxpayer dollars have already been committed by the Abbott government.

In the case of East West Link stage 2, a road project in my home state of Victoria, the money will be out the door by the end of next week, pushed off to the Victorians, even though the project is not due to start for another 18 months. They are going to have $1 billion or so 18 months in advance of the project actually starting. This is a project that Infrastructure Australia has not even assessed as being ready to proceed. There is not a starker example of why we need to make Infrastructure Australia an essential element of our decision making than this one.

In fact, I asked the officers from Infrastructure Australia at the table during estimates, 'Have you received any information from the Victorian government yet?' They said, 'Only the most high-level.' I said, 'I am from Victoria. I have read a lot about East West Link 2. Can you identify for me yet where the tunnel is going to come out?' They have actually started funding a tunnel for which they know where they are going to start digging but do not know where they are going to have it come up. I have never heard such an absurd example of pork barrelling to help a flailing and failing state government than funding and building one end of a tunnel when you do not know where the tunnel is going to come up. Seriously? They have sent $1 billion out the door 18 months before it is even scheduled to commence. They do not know where the tunnel is going to come up. It is just extraordinary.

But it is no surprise the lengths to which this government will go to prop up its failing state governments. That, more than anything else, goes to the core of why this government's original bill should be rejected. It is a bill that attempted to gut the independence of Infrastructure Australia, to make it compliant to the minister's wishes, to make it ignore its own research and to make it ignore its own results. That is why the amendments that are being put forward today are so vital. These amendments that Labor is putting forward to this bill and the Land Transport Infrastructure Amendment Bill seek to deliver that independence and maintain it. These amendments enhance Infrastructure Australia. They deliver independence and transparency and embed Infrastructure Australia as a key pillar in deciding how the scarce Commonwealth infrastructure dollars are spent.

This is like a wooden cross to a vampire when it comes to the National Party of Australia. Their entire reason for existing is to be able to say to their constituents, 'Don't worry about all the things that the Abbott government are doing to pensions. Don't worry about all those things they are doing to rural kids who want to go to university. We've got a promise to build a road through the middle of the electorate, even though it has not been assessed or has failed assessment.' That is what this is really about. It is about a culture in the National Party, and tragically occasionally among some rural Liberals, where they think that if they can just build a road they can convince their electors to not notice a cut in pensions, increasing taxes on petrol or the cost of university education for regional kids going up. That is all this bill is about—the business-as-usual pork barrelling of the Nationals and rural and regional members of the Liberal Party. As Senator Macdonald frequently tells us in this chamber, there are more of those rural and regional Liberals then there are Nationals. Unfortunately, that is a disease that has crept in, too—competitions to see who can pork barrel their electorates the most.

What have we seen in the way of consultation when it comes to this government's bill? The evidence of the Senate inquiry into this bill is that the department drew up drafting instructions based on the new government's election policy and discussions in the minister's own office. There was no formal consultation on the detail of the bill prior to its introduction with any stakeholders outside of the government. No formal consultation took place with interested parties such as Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, the Business Council of Australia, the Urban Development Institute or the Tourism and Transport Forum. They did not even talk to their usual business mates. Indeed, the government did not formally consult on the detail of the bill with Infrastructure Australia or the Infrastructure Coordinator. So they ignored every single possible source of advice that they could because they knew what they were up to. They knew they intended to gut the independence of this organisation because it would not bend to their will and give $1 billion 18 months in advance for a road and tunnel in Melbourne that they do not even know where it is coming up yet. There is no way that would pass the smell test—except the smell test of a dying Liberal government in Victoria.

Many other organisations were also not consulted on this bill. That is evident from the written submissions. Given the criticism that this bill has received—broad criticism across the whole business community—it is clear that the government would have been better advised to have sought detailed input via an exposure draft process at the very least. There is scant evidence that the coalition's election policy was a guide—this bill is in no way a reflection of the policy outlined in its documents. It is another Liberal lie: 'Here is our election promise, and here is the bill that meets our election promise.' Tragically, they are not even close to each other. Just as in so many other areas, this is a bill full of broken promises.

This government has been dragged kicking and screaming to a position long advocated by Labor. Those opposite will be supporting many of Labor's amendments because this bill is so bad that even the Business Council of Australia criticised it. The bill as it was originally set out sought to change the governance of Infrastructure Australia by changing its corporate character and lines of reporting, fleshing out its functions and eliminating others. Of greater concern, however, was its plan to enhance the minister's explicit powers to direct Infrastructure Australia's operations—that is right, history repeating itself with a National Party minister wanting the power to tell them what to do. As I have already mentioned on a couple of occasions, Infrastructure Australia would not pass $1 billion 18 months in advance to a state government that had submitted no plans and did not even know where the tunnel would come up.

Without the amendments put up by the opposition and now adopted by the government, this bill would have allowed the minister to exclude whole classes of projects from evaluation—for example, public transport. The bill in its original form would have been highly corrosive of the independence of Infrastructure Australia, whose primary role is to provide expert advice to government. The amendments the government will shortly move to its own bill will remove proposed significant extra powers for the minister to direct the inputs to its advice to government. The opposition still has concerns that transparency is being reduced, because there is no legislative commitment to publish evaluations or evidence relied upon to make decisions. So they are still not prepared to be transparent; they still want to try to put the fix in. They still want to dole out road funding based on their electoral needs, not based on the national interest. You may think who cares, but they put out an election document that said they promised to have the transparency this time, hand on heart—'We promise to be more transparent than perhaps we have been in the past.' Yet, again, we have another Abbott government broken promise; another Liberal lie.

These issues remain as serious defects in the bill, and most will have the effect of reducing confidence in Infrastructure Australia. We must do everything we can to ensure that Infrastructure Australia remains an independent adviser to government. We must do everything we can to ensure that its advice is public and independent rather than allow everything to be done at the direction of the government and behind closed doors. If Senator Macdonald is going to be truthful, he will stand up here and tell us about the number of times he has been dudded so that the government can look after National Party electorates and National Party mates. They are legion. If he is going to show the honesty he showed last week in his criticism of the budget, he will stand up here and list the times he has been dudded when campaigning for his constituents of Queensland by National Party pork-barrelling, to the detriment of the people of Queensland.

Although we note the government has taken up many of the opposition's amendments, further amendments are still needed to improve this bill. In particular, we would change the bill so that the board determines the Infrastructure Australia corporate plan, not the minister—just like several other CAC Act bodies. We would also enhance transparency by ensuring public disclosure of evaluated projects, infrastructure plans and cost-benefit ratios through legislation. Importantly, we would keep Infrastructure Australia's role to provide policy advice on the impact of climate change on infrastructure projects. This means explicitly mandating important work such as bridge heights, road construction standards, port development and transport modes. The exclusion of climate change policy advice is further evidence that this government, at its heart, has failed to come to terms with the fact that climate change is real and has broad impacts on our environment and on our infrastructure as a result. Bridge heights, port planning, transport use, energy use, rainfall patterns and more extreme weather events all have impacts on infrastructure planning and they must remain part of sensible advice to government. I know former minister Albanese was a big supporter of smart infrastructure, and I am sure smart infrastructure should be part of the consideration of this bill. I am sure former minister Albanese will be keeping a weather eye on these developments. Infrastructure Australia would take on a new function—promoting public awareness of its functions. Finally, we would retain the income tax offset program for designated infrastructure projects as a decision made by Infrastructure Australia. This would keep decisions on significant income tax benefits to project proponents close to those tasked with recommending national infrastructure projects.

Under the last Labor government, overall national infrastructure and capital spending as a share of GDP went to No. 1 of the dozens of nations in the OECD, after languishing for years. Labor lifted Commonwealth infrastructure funding from $132 to $225 per Australian. As the Productivity Commission recently showed, public sector spending on infrastructure projects topped two per cent of GDP every year under the federal Labor government, after touching only one per cent under John Howard in 2003. Labor has a great record of infrastructure delivery. Labor created Infrastructure Australia to research and rank proposed projects; we gave it independence and we based the potential for yes or no on national economic productivity. Senator Macdonald knows a lot about infrastructure, but he did promise me once he would get an airport terminal named after me and as always, being dudded by the National Party, he failed to deliver. But I wish him good luck with his contribution. (Time expired)