David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

As is my practice, I would like to commence by setting out what the government's voting intentions are. I am very pleased to hear that the opposition are opposing the Greens amendments (5) and (6) on sheet 7495. The bad news is that opposition amendments (5) and (7) will also be opposed by the government.

In my summing-up, I think I set out the significance of why we are opposed to that, and Senator Cameron has gone a long way towards setting out very good reasons why Greens amendment (5) should be opposed. The amendments require the minister—in talking about the broad thrust of all of the amendments, (5) and (7) of the opposition's also—to consult with Infrastructure Australia prior to approving a project under the act, including Infrastructure Australia providing an evaluation for projects with a capital expenditure of $100 million or more. The evaluation is to include a cost-benefit analysis of the program.

Interestingly, the Infrastructure Australia Amendment Bill, recently passed, had a mechanism that would have enabled Infrastructure Australia to provide advice on projects over the $100 million threshold, but the amendments moved by the opposition and the Greens actually delete it. They did not want the minister to have directional powers over Infrastructure Australia. Yet, in order to achieve the outcome that they want here, the opposition and the Greens require the minister to direct Infrastructure Australia to give him information.

We need to be clear—either it is acceptable for the minister to direct Infrastructure Australia or it is not. The amendments that are being proposed here require the minister to direct Infrastructure Australia. Having said that and having spelt out the reasons for our opposition, I confirm again that we will be opposed to each of these Greens amendments as similar as they are to opposition amendments (5) and (7) on sheet 7477.