Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for paying attention to my contribution this afternoon, Senator Sterle; I do appreciate that. But job creation, of course, is very, very important to the Western Australian economy. With 1,900 direct jobs and almost 6½ thousand other jobs during the construction phases of Roe 8 and Roe 9, that has to be good news for Western Australians and for the Western Australian economy. It is a very confusing stance that WA Labor have. It is one taken simply because they have convinced themselves that there is more virtue in rail projects than there is in road projects, and that is just not true.

At the beginning of my contribution, I said that it was very curious that the Labor Party had chosen this week to raise the matter of public transport, given the problems currently being experienced by the Labor government in Queensland. I just want to have a look, briefly, at what has happened in recent times in Queensland. Since the second part of last year, it is fair to say that Queensland's passenger rail system has been a basket case—and that is probably putting it charitably. On 21 October last year, around 100 passenger rail services across south-east Queensland had to be cancelled due to a shortage of drivers. On Christmas Day, almost two-thirds of scheduled services had to be cancelled for the same reason. This left many people who were trying to spend Christmas Day with loved ones simply stranded.

These shortages occurred because of the bungled implementation of a new timetable, not due to a lack of investment from the Turnbull government. The federal government does not schedule train services. The federal government does not recruit train drivers. Passengers were not left stranded on rail station platforms across south-east Queensland on Christmas Day because of inaction on the part of the federal government. This is something that has occurred because of the manifest ineptitude of the Queensland state Labor government. I note that the minister for transport in that government finally fell on his sword earlier this week after a damning report into that disaster, and is it any wonder? Just listen to this:

There was also a 7 per cent drop in train crew productivity due to more restrictive crewing rules agreed between unions and QR's—

Queensland Rail's—

management.

The supply of qualified drivers declined by 4 per cent over the same period, reaching 471 drivers in December 2016, due to QR preferring to operate with a 5-10 per cent undersupply of crew, driven by a practice of providing overtime opportunities and restrictions on the ability to recruit externally.

So a sweetheart deal between the unions and Queensland Rail, a Queensland government body, limited the ability for new drivers to be recruited.

Of course, we all know which side of politics is beholden to the Australian trade union movement in our country—that is the Labor Party; no surprises. The report went on to recommend that negotiations with unions address the restrictive rules regarding continuous working time, meal breaks and rostering processes. I wonder what prospect there is that a Queensland Labor government which cannot survive without the political muscle supplied by its union allies will act on that very simple and clear recommendation? My fear is that Queensland commuters may be experiencing delays for some time to come, if they have to rely on the Labor Party to do the right thing and put the public interest before the unions' interests.

Of course, it is also the Turnbull government that has established the Smart Cities and Suburbs Program, and public transport is an absolutely critical element within that. This government recognises than an ad hoc approach to the development of cities is no longer viable. In today's economy, our cities must compete in order to grow and prosper. That competition should foster important collaboration. The government is combining smart policy, smart investment and smart technology to ensure our cities are more liveable, more productive and more prosperous. The Smart Cities Plan means more affordable housing, new jobs closer to homes, better transport and more liveable cities. To support the Smart Cities Plan, we announced $50 million to accelerate planning and development on major urban transport projects and the establishment of an Infrastructure Financing Unit to broker commercial deals with the private sector so that we can deliver more congestion-busting infrastructure sooner. This will make our cities more liveable through better coordination, integrated planning and targeted infrastructure investment. Smart Cities creates a shared vision for cities and a plan for governments, businesses and communities to coordinate their actions and investments to achieve agreed targets.

This motion before us is from the Labor Party, and so, in the very brief time available to me it would be remiss of me not to reflect on their record in government in this area. And I have to say that there is not a lot to say about Labor's record of investment in public transport infrastructure. Before and during the 2016 election campaign, the Labor Party committed to funding a number of urban rail projects through its $10 billion 'concrete bank' facility, with the balance apparently to come from the Building Australia Fund. However, that money is already fully allocated to other projects, and the Labor Party have not identified what projects they would cancel. So Labor's answer to public transport infrastructure is to make promises that cannot be funded, that cannot be honoured. I know what you're going to say, Senator Sterle: 'Here we go again—Senator Smith is right. This is history repeating itself. How does he know these things?' Because you and Labor oppositions think they can hoodwink the Australian community. When the Labor Party were last in government, of the $6.2 billion they allocated to urban transport in the 2013 budget, just $1.9 billion—30 per cent—was in the forward estimates. The remaining $4.3 billion was outside the budget estimates. That is standard operating procedure for the Labor Party in this place—talk projects up, promise voters the world and then keep kicking the can further down the road when it comes to the question of actually paying for things.

It is clear: the Turnbull government does have a plan for investment in public transport infrastructure in Queensland, in Victoria, in South Australia, in New South Wales and, indeed, in my own state of Western Australia. What is the contrast? What is the comparator? The Labor Party has no plan. When it did have a plan, those plans were unfunded, they were hollow commitments and they would have left Australians high and dry.