Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this issue. I just want to quote the shadow minister for infrastructure, Mr Albanese, in the other place. He said:

ABS figures show that between the September quarter of 2013, Labor's last quarter in office —

Marking the Abbott government's election—

and the June quarter of 2015, the latest figures, public infrastructure investment fell by 20 per cent …

Mr Albanese went on to say:

Remember the former prime minister saying he wanted to be the infrastructure prime minister? Well, he's had a bit to say over the past few days and in the highlights of his achievements, he ignores infrastructure …

… And no wonder, because we were told that under a Coalition government there would be cranes on the skyline within one year of their election and bulldozers at work …

He went on to say:

There are no cranes on new projects. There are no bulldozers … Just clouds of bulldust from a government that has not had the ability to put its words into action.

That is the reality of what we have seen with this government on infrastructure. We have seen it arguing that it is doing these big infrastructure projects. All the projects actually commenced or were determined under the former Labor government.

You see, the Labor government understood the importance of infrastructure, and the Labor government understood, despite what has just been said by the Australian Greens, that there is a need for balance between public transport and road building. You cannot ignore road building, because of the historic position that many of our cities find themselves in. Roads that are more efficient, more effective and more well thought through are important, along with public transport.

It has been an absolute disgrace over the period of the Abbott-Turnbull government that they have ignored the need for public transport. I live in the lower Blue Mountains. I have lived in the western suburbs of Sydney. Public transport—apart from trains that are intermittent and trains that are packed—is almost nonexistent. You rely on private transport in the western suburbs of Sydney if you do not use the train services that people find very difficult under the bad stewardship of the Baird New South Wales coalition government.

So there is an issue in terms of infrastructure. We need to ensure that we get a proper analysis done, a proper approach to infrastructure, that prioritises the balance between public transport and road building. Road building, as I have said, is required in some areas. We cannot all run to work. We cannot all cycle to work. That is the reality for many people. Even if they might want to be able to run to work, for many of the residents in my local area, in Blaxland, in the lower Blue Mountains, they would be running 80 kilometres to the city in the morning and 80 kilometres back at night, so running to work is not an option for them. It just would not be. We might have the fittest residents in the world, and we might win a few marathons along the way, but they certainly would not be able to run to work. They certainly would not be able to cycle to work. It is almost like being a kamikaze pilot on the roads at the moment on a bicycle in peak hour. So these are not options for many people.

We really have to get to a position where this government moves away from its austerity approach, which was pioneered in that first horrible, terrible budget of former Prime Minister Abbott, and is spending money on properly thought through infrastructure projects. I have to tell you that simply saying, 'We've done a great job in infrastructure,' when you have not done a great job just cements the issue in people's minds that this government cannot be trusted on promises. It cannot be trusted.

And one of the areas it cannot be trusted on is the GST. We have seen a situation where it is clear that, if you get public transport and you use public transport, if you are lucky enough to have access to decent public transport, a GST of 15 per cent is going to make it harder for you, on a modest income, to access that public transport. Not only has this government let this country down on infrastructure projects; it has let this country down because it is planning to implement a 15 per cent GST on the cost of public transport, when the Abbott-Turnbull government has ignored public transport in its term. These are issues that the public will look at in relation to this government.

A lot of people see this government at the moment as that big shiny peach that looks so delightful. It looks so tempting. But it is like one of those peaches in the middle of summer that you bite into, and there is the grub in there that has eaten the middle out of that peach. That is what this government is like. This is because right at the core of this government the extremists are still in control. They are in control on infrastructure projects. They are in control when it comes to race based politics. They are in control when it comes to trying to knock off effective trade unionism in this country. They are still there.

The current Prime Minister is simply there at the beck and call of the extremists. He had to give up on what were supposed to be his long-held principles to become Prime Minister. On climate change, we could certainly be looking at improving the infrastructure in this country in power utility through renewable energy. We could be doing that, but not under this government, which is led by Prime Minister Turnbull, because he is still a captive to those who deny that climate change is an issue, who deny that they are going to implement a GST, who deny all of the issues that they put through that first dirty, rotten, horrible budget that they implemented.

This is a government that cannot be trusted. It cannot be trusted on a GST. It cannot be trusted on infrastructure. It cannot be trusted on workplace relations. It is an untrustworthy government. It does not matter if you have that nice shiny peach there at the moment; people will soon realise that it is rotten at the core, that the grub is in there and the grub has eaten away at that peach.

So we are in a position where we have a government now that over the period that it has been in government has reduced infrastructure spending and has simply tried to claim the major projects that Labor introduced in its time of government as its own projects. It has been completely disingenuous in relation to those projects. It is a government that would say anything and do anything, and we have a Prime Minister who would say anything and do anything to get to power.

We have a government that is about to implement a GST, regardless of all the arguments that it puts up. It will argue that it is fearmongering. You only have to look at what is being said by individuals in the coalition on the GST. The GST will push up infrastructure costs. The GST will push up the cost of living for ordinary Australians. The GST is a regressive tax that will harm investment in infrastructure projects in this country because it will push back, in my view, the capacity for people to spend in this country. At a time when we want to try to expand the economy by getting people to spend more, we are going to have this dirty, rotten GST in place, where small business will not invest. It will hit confidence, it will hit investment and it will hit infrastructure in this country. The GST is the most regressive thing we could do in the current situation that this country is in. It is the most regressive thing you could do at any time, because it hits the poorest in this country. We have the economic ideologues on the other side, the former Productivity Commission tsars, out here telling us what is good for us. I will tell you what is not good for us, and that is an increase in the GST and a continuation of this government that cannot be trusted, a bad government, in the future. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.