Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the request of Senator Moore, I move:

That the Senate notes the 20 per cent fall in public sector infrastructure spending under the Coalition Federal Government, and the Turnbull Government's need to catch-up on 2 lost years of support for public transport projects.

I rise to speak in support of this motion. The 20 per cent fall in public sector infrastructure spending that has occurred over the last two years and the complete absence of support for public transport projects will be the legacy of the former and self-appointed 'infrastructure Prime Minister', Mr Abbott.

It is now incumbent upon Mr Turnbull to take action to address his government's appalling track record on infrastructure investment. Instead of travelling across the country re-announcing and opening projects funded under the previous Labor government, it is time for Mr Truss and the coalition government to start to make a real investment in the public sector infrastructure that is critical to the future of our cities and regions. Instead of treating public transport as a selfie opportunity, it is time that Mr Turnbull and his government recognised public transport investment for the transformative opportunity it provides.

We on this side are determined to stop the old fights about roads versus public transport. Unlike those opposite, we are equally committed to both forms of transport. Critical infrastructure projects have been neglected for the last two years, with billions of dollars of government investment stripped away. These cuts to investment have come at a significant cost to our nation. Infrastructure investment is not simply about building roads, railways and ports; infrastructure investment is about building our nation, about boosting productivity and about generating economic activity. An important part of the economic activity generated by investment in infrastructure is, of course, the creation of jobs—not simply construction and engineering jobs for those involved in major projects but also jobs for generations to come in the industries and business that become more productive because of the existence of better roads, railways and ports.

Unlike those opposite, Labor understands that investment in critical infrastructure projects is at the cornerstone of the ambitious plans we must have for the cities and regions of our nation. Labor has articulated a plan for infrastructure that would transform the way we fund investment, which would shape the liveable cities and communities of the future. This plan stems from Labor's understanding of the need for investment in all forms of infrastructure to deliver jobs and productivity across our country.

Labor's infrastructure plan is in stark contrast this Liberal government's record on infrastructure. The most recent quarterly figures, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on 30 September 2015, have confirmed exactly what Labor has been saying. They have confirmed that infrastructure investment under the coalition government is in freefall. These latest figures show that public sector infrastructure work—that is, works funded by federal, state and local governments—fell by 20.1 per cent in the June quarter 2015 compared with the last quarter of the Labor government in 2013. These figures expose as farcical Mr Abbott's claim that he was the 'infrastructure Prime Minister'. These figures should also send a clear message to Mr Turnbull that it is time to stop talking and tweeting about infrastructure and get on with the job of actually doing something. I am even happy to give Mr Turnbull a hand by pointing him in the right direction.

The first thing that Mr Turnbull should do is reverse the coalition government's cuts to critical infrastructure projects from around the country. He should start by immediately restoring the $4.5 billion cut from public transport projects—projects like the Melbourne Metro, Brisbane's Cross River Rail Link, Adelaide's Gawler line electrification and the $500 million that had been allocated by the former Labor government for heavy and light rail projects in Perth. All these projects were funded in Labor's 2013 federal budget.

When Labor left office, Infrastructure Australia had completed positive assessments of the Melbourne Metro and Cross River Rail projects and they were ready to get moving. I will just repeat that: when we left government, Infrastructure Australia had completed positive assessments of both those projects—the Melbourne Metro and the Cross River Rail projects—and they were ready. On being elected in September 2013, the Abbott government cancelled these projects.

We on this side know that the only reason these projects were cancelled was that Mr Abbott is ideologically opposed to federal funding for public transport projects. For two years federal funding of public transport ground to a halt. However, now Mr Turnbull has an opportunity to reverse these cuts and to show that there is actually some difference between him and Mr Abbott, the former Prime Minister. This is the opportunity for Mr Turnbull to show that there is a difference between him and Mr Abbott. It is an opportunity to show that changing the leader of the Liberal Party might actually change something.

We cannot help but know of Mr Turnbull's purported love of public transport, but it is time that Mr Turnbull put his money where his tweets are and invested in the public transport that is so critical to the future of our cities. We have long known that this type of public sector investment in infrastructure will be critical for our economy going forward, and yet those opposite have failed to take action—instead, moving us backwards.

Particularly in the last year, it has become blatantly clear that Australia needs to increase government investment in roads, railways and ports to drive economic activity, create jobs and lift economic productivity. This government investment is necessary as a result of the decline in construction activity in the resources sector as it moves from the construction to the production stage of its cycle. Good infrastructure will deliver tens of thousands of jobs. It will make life safer and communities more livable. It will connect our regions to our cities. This infrastructure investment is critical both to driving the national economy and to easing the traffic congestion that acts as a handbrake on productivity growth and reduces quality of life for millions of Australians.

We know that carefully planned and targeted investment in public transport and better roads in our nation's cities will ease congestion and assist those Australians living in drive-in, drive-out suburbs in outer metropolitan areas. And we know that investment in our critical road and rail projects will connect our regions and get our regional economies moving.

Apparently, however, these facts are something that those opposite do not know. Despite the grand and outlandish claims made by the then Prime Minister, Mr Abbott, and by Mr Truss, those opposite have failed to break ground on any infrastructure projects, excepting those that were funded by the previous Labor government.

Labor understands that infrastructure funding is an investment, not a cost. That is why Labor has announced an innovative approach to funding more infrastructure. This approach will include funding public transport projects in our major cities. A Shorten Labor government will transform the way infrastructure is funded in Australia, strengthening Infrastructure Australia to unlock tens of billions of dollars in capital investment for key projects in every state and creating tens of thousands of jobs.

Labor will elevate Infrastructure Australia to an active participant in the infrastructure market. This plan will mobilise private sector finance, Australia's superannuation industry and international investors to bring a national pipeline of investment online. Labor established Infrastructure Australia as an independent adviser on nation-building infrastructure, and we now propose to empower it to create more jobs, boost our productivity and improve our competitiveness.

Infrastructure Australia will be backed by a $10 billion financing facility that will give Infrastructure Australia the ability, as required, to deploy a combination of guarantees, loans or equity to jumpstart new projects. Labor will establish this facility through the proven process that established the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Labor's plan will leverage $10 billion of government-backed financing into tens of billions of dollars of private sector investment. Using a conservative analysis prepared by Public Infrastructure Partners Australia, which assumes no additional leverage, this $10 billion infrastructure investment will directly create approximately 26,000 jobs. In addition to this job creation of approximately 26,000 jobs, the analysis estimates that the infrastructure investment will add around $7.5 billion extra to our GDP every year.

Under Labor's infrastructure plan, an expert panel would also be appointed to determine a financing mandate and advise on the appropriate structure for the new facility. Labor has committed to establishing this expert panel within six months of coming to government. This will ensure that Infrastructure Australia operates to facilitate private sector investment with the strictest financial discipline, commercial rigour, credit-risk-assessment capacities and a commitment to nation building.

Unlike those opposite, who have attacked and ignored Infrastructure Australia—and I would have to say that this is contrary to the commitments that were given by the former Prime Minister—Labor believes that this organisation can play a critical role in driving major infrastructure investment.

As part of the announcement of Labor's infrastructure plan, an initial short list of 10 projects that Labor supports was identified. The initial list of projects that Labor will support includes the airport rail to Badgerys Creek, connecting the western and south lines; the Melbourne Metro; the Cross River Rail project in Brisbane; the G:link light rail on the Gold Coast; planning work on the Ipswich Motorway, Darra to Rocklea; Tasmania's Midland Highway; Perth public transport; the Gawler line electrification in Adelaide; and the Pacific and Bruce Highway packages—projects that have been underway for several years but need to be fast-tracked to completion.

These are projects that Infrastructure Australia have either assessed or projects that Labor will work with state governments to fast-track assessments for. These are critical projects for our nation, projects which have faced cuts and delays under the coalition government. This list of projects is our priority list, and it is just the start. Beyond these immediate priorities announced by Labor, Labor have also committed to working with state governments to encourage the development of an ongoing infrastructure project pipeline. Labor will develop a long-term pipeline for projects and ensure the steady movement of projects through the assessment, development and financing phases. By establishing an independent, funded project broker, Labor will provide new and greater certainty to investors as well as creating a powerful incentive for state governments to propose and approve projects. Infrastructure Australia will be at the centre of capital investment, driving results that are in the national interest. Labor's plan proposes an exciting breakthrough in the way in which we fund infrastructure in Australia.

I am particularly elated that the Midland Highway in my home state of Tasmania is included in the list of priority projects, as I am sure you would be that the South Australian project is included, Mr Acting Deputy President Gallacher. The Midland Highway is a 176-kilometre road which connects Hobart and Launceston. Labor's commitment to restoring the full $500 million to the upgrade of the Midland Highway will have significant benefits to the many towns and communities along the highway and those who travel across the state. This is exactly the type of critical infrastructure our nation must be investing in. This infrastructure will improve the quality of life for Tasmanians and will improve the opportunity for businesses to conduct their activities more efficiently and generate much-needed jobs.

In government, Labor committed $500 million to the Midland Highway updates and signed a partnership agreement with every council in the Midlands to progressively upgrade the highway. The Tasmanian Liberal senators, and the three amigos—Mr Whiteley, Mr Nikolic and Mr Hutchinson—in the other place have made much of their investment in the upgrade of the Midland Highway; however, you will never hear them admit that they cut funding from the upgrade. The Liberals announced a $400 million funding commitment, promising to duplicate the entire 176-kilometre highway, which of course they then had to scale back, finally admitting that $400 million was nowhere near enough for a duplication of the highway. So they finally scaled back that commitment to a series of safety upgrades and, in doing so, with their commitment of $400 million, tried to slide away from the fact that there was a commitment there already for $500 million. So they cut $100 million from the project—$100 million that Labor will now restore. You do not hear Mr Whiteley, Mr Nikolic, Mr Hutchinson or the Tasmanian Liberal senators here talk about the fact that they cut $100 million or that they walked away from their promise to duplicate the entire 176-kilometre highway. No, you will not hear that here and you will not hear it in the other house from the Tasmanian Liberal representatives.

This funding is for much-needed safety work for the Midlands. Those opposite, as I have said, cut it, with no-one from the Liberal Party in the House of Representatives or the Senate putting up any fight to keep that $100 million for the project. The fact that they cut $100 million from the project to improve safety for Tasmanian motorists and their families is something they seem to miss out when they grandstand about their investment on the Midland Highway. There is a lot of grandstanding but also a lot of very convenient memory lapses when it comes down to what they have done.

The Labor Party absolutely condemn what the federal government have done in their funding of public transport and the fact that 20 per cent of investment in public transport has— (Time expired)

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to canvass three things in my brief contribution to the debate on this motion about public sector infrastructure spending—and this is an important discussion about infrastructure in our nation. I would like to revisit the quote that Mark Twain attributed to Benjamin Disraeli about 'lies, damned lies and statistics', just to correct the record on a few things that the honourable senator opposite said in her contribution. I would like to talk about some of the facts about funding and particularly touch on a few projects in South Australia, my home state. She is correct: Mr Albanese did come out, draw on the June 2013 quarter figures and compare those to show a 20.1 per cent decrease. But that was very selective, because if you actually look at the overall funding—particularly if you compare the September quarter, the last quarter of the Labor government, with the latest quarter results for this government—there is actually a 4.7 per cent increase in transport infrastructure work done for the public sector and a 14½ per cent increase in roads, highways and bridges done for the public sector. Almost anyone with enough diligence can cherry-pick two specific periods, compare them and say, like Chicken Little, 'The sky's falling in; funding has decreased,' but you need to look at the overall allocation of funding and particularly at the trends of those last quarters, rather than specific quarters plucked to highlight that difference. Prime Minister Disraeli was correct indeed when he said that there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Statistics can be manipulated, and I think it is to the shame of members on that side of the chamber that they would resort to misleading the Australian public by that approach.

In fact, according to the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics, if you look at what the coalition government has done, it has had an 18.6 per cent increase, to $27.4 billion, in engineering construction work compared to the previous quarter; a 6.9 per cent increase, to $6.1 billion, in transport infrastructure work done; and a 12.4 per cent increase, to $6.6 billion, for engineering construction work done for the public sector. So, across a range of sectors over time, we see that there is actually an increase. That is why the coalition government can rightly say we are investing a record $50 billion to get vital infrastructure projects underway across the country.

You can look all around this country, and in different states, particularly where there are projects of national significance, you see the federal government not only contributing money but looking to encourage the states to find innovative ways to raise the capital to invest in their own productive capacity so that the states and the states' economies can grow. In my own state of South Australia, some $2.9 billion has been allocated by this government to infrastructure projects. The North-South Corridor is one that is well known, and just recently the Northern Connector was announced in South Australia.

As well as those major projects, it is important to realise that there is additional funding on top of the normal allocation: some $200 million for the Black Spot Program. In South Australia that is a particularly important program because the state government is not providing the funding that is required for our country roads. Accidents on country roads account for 70 per cent of the fatalities in South Australia. If you look at fatalities per 100,000 for the east coast states, the figure is 4.2 in Victoria, 4.5 in New South Wales and 4.8 in Queensland. It is 6.4 in South Australia. So, if South Australia even just funded its roads to bring us back to the national average, that is 30 lives that we would save and 250-odd serious injuries that we would prevent every year. So that federal government money to top up and encourage the rectification of some of those black spots is really important. There is some $350 million for the Roads to Recovery program and $230 million for the National Highway Upgrade program for safety and productivity improvements.

In addition to that, in June this year the Australian government announced that councils across Australia will receive an extra $1.1 billion over the next two years under the Roads to Recovery program, and that follows the reintroduction of the consumer price index linkage for fuel excise. It is important there to realise that there is a funding source that the government has created specifically to address infrastructure, as opposed to just increasing borrowings, which ultimately the taxpayer has to pay for, plus the interest.

So this is a government that is serious about making contributions to infrastructure, but we are also serious about getting the funding right. We should never forget that much of what Labor promised when it was in government and what it called funding commitments actually lay outside the forward estimates. If it is outside the forward estimates then it is not real money. It is not actually included in any of the calculations for the budget, in terms of whether we are going to be in surplus or not or whether we are contributing to a future deficit. Much of the promise relied on a mining tax—a mining tax that did not raise revenue and in fact cost the nation money. So, when you see promises from the other side, the public must also look at whether they are actually funded, because we have seen a lot of promises and a lot of disappointment, compared to this side, which has actually funded projects and started projects and has put in place appropriate mechanisms to make sure that that funding is available.

There are things like the $5 billion financing facility for infrastructure projects in northern Australia; concessional loan arrangements for WestConnex; grants for projects that will not have a direct financial return for an investor; plans for trialling new road pricing arrangements on things like the Northern Connector in South Australia or the Perth Freight Link; and, importantly—and this is something we have been encouraging state governments to get on board with—the Asset Recycling Initiative, which provides grants to states and territories that make further investment in infrastructure with funding they receive from asset sales. So this is a government that is serious about finding the funding so that we can not just promise but actually start delivering.

There has also been a lot of comment by members opposite that this government is opposed to rail projects, which is clearly not correct. Just recently we saw the announcement of the commitment to capped funding of $95 million to stage 2 of the Gold Coast Light Rail. The reason for that is its significance to the success of the 2018 Commonwealth Games. As I look to rail projects in my home state of South Australia, the electrification of the Adelaide-Gawler railway line has been raised a number of times, the implication being that that project has stopped because of this government. History is really important. If we do not understand history and the sequence of time frames and decisions then we will be misled. I would like to remind members of the Senate and the public who may be listening to the debate about some of the time frames. The Gawler modernisation project was announced in 2009 with a federal Labor government commitment of $293 million, which included the full electrification and resleepering of the line. The overall project started to blow out and the South Australian government threw an extra $100.2 million into it in their 2011-2012 budget. But in June 2012 works were ceased by the South Australian government. Who was in government at the time? Not the coalition. Works were ceased due to a lack of funding by the South Australian government in June 2012.

Since this government has come to power, we have made massive investments in infrastructure projects—$2.9 billion in South Australia. We have invested in rail, as on the Gold Coast. If the South Australian government wants to come back to the federal government and make a case to show why that project is a priority for them and why it is of national significance and we should be supporting it, I will be very happy to work with them. But senators opposite should not be trying to mislead the Australian public into thinking that that project stopped because of this government. It stopped in June 2012.

Former Prime Minister Abbott declared that he wanted to be the infrastructure Prime Minister. When you look at the facts, history shows that record investment has been made, and not just record investment but sound management to make sure that the funding is available so that these projects are not just promised in the out years where there is no real commitment but are actually funded and work is starting. We have seen that in our home state of South Australia, where the North-South Corridor and the Northern Connector are either working, soon to commence or, for the Northern Connector, will start next year.

This motion touches on an important topic, but I think it is important that people listening understand the facts. The facts are that this government has made record contributions on infrastructure and the amount of contributions are increasing.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the 20 per cent fall in public sector infrastructure spending under this coalition government and the Turnbull government's need to catch up on two lost years of support for public transport projects. What a frustrating two years it has been for commuters in this country. It does not matter whether you are in our cities, our suburbs or our regions—if you have tried to catch public transport, the chances are that you have been let down by unreliable, slow and packed services. We need to make up for lost time by focusing on the transport projects that are able to efficiently shift large numbers of people. Let us get one thing straight: this does not mean more roads, which seems to be the fallback solution for the vast majority of transport challenges under this government. Relying on cars in big cities has two big problems. They take up lots of space and this space, both roads and parking spaces, costs a lot to provide. The roads that are able to shift the most people are freeways and motorways. They are also the most expensive options, particularly if they involve tunnels. For retrofitting across our cities this is what they generally need to do to avoid having to compulsorily acquire and pay for people's houses or to avoid destroying precious natural spaces that are vital to keeping our cities liveable.

When you look at comparisons, the costs of a three-lane freeway and a new two-track rail line with stations are quite similar. It is about $1 billion per kilometre for underground tunnelling and between $50 million and $150 million per kilometre for above ground freeways and rail tracks. But the number of people they can carry is vastly different. The maximum number of cars that a three-lane freeway can carry in an hour, if it is operating super efficiently, is about 5½ thousand. Given that cars in Australia carry, on average, only 1.1 people per vehicle, that means that the maximum number of people that a super efficient freeway can carry is about 6,000 people per hour. Compare that to an efficient train line, which can carry over 1,000 people in a train running every two minutes. That is 30,000 people per hour—five times as many as a three-lane freeway, for around the same cost. That train line takes up less space and the people travelling by train do not require as many parking spaces in highly valuable real estate in the centre of cities, where it cost upwards of $20,000 to build a single parking space.

This is at the heart of why public transport projects have higher benefit-cost ratios than comparable motorway projects. They are a more efficient way of carrying people. It is not just high-capacity trains where these efficiencies exist. Allocating a road lane to fast, frequent and reliable bus services is a much more efficient and effective way of shifting people on a busy road than adding an extra lane for cars. Where you have too many people to be efficiently carried by bus but not enough to justify heavy rail, that is where light rail really comes into its own, particularly because of how light rail can integrate into and enhance city life. Then we have the most efficient transport of all, which costs the least to provide per kilometre and where each person takes up the least space, and that is pathways for walking and cycling—footpaths, bike lanes on roads, shared paths and separate bike paths. You get at least 1,000 kilometres of bike path for the same cost as a single kilometre of tollway tunnel.

If we prioritise public transport, walking and cycling, we can create a fairer Australia. Not every job seeker or pensioner can afford to run a car. A lack of viable options means that it is difficult to get to a job interview or to be able to regularly visit friends and family. Many families do not have the luxury of a second car. If you live in the outer suburbs, one parent can be left stranded at home all day with no buses or trains to connect them. Creating viable options for people without cars makes the life of these Australians easier and more fulfilling.

Transport planners know this stuff. They look at transport patterns objectively and know the benefits of investing in public transport. They know that transport is a system of systems; to make these systems work well together in our growing cities, the most effective thing to do is to shift people out of their cars wherever possible and onto public transport, walking and cycling; and, by doing this, you will free up space on our roads for the traffic that needs to be there: freight vehicles, emergency vehicles, cars needed by people because of a disability and cars for journeys that are difficult to do efficiently on public transport, whether it is a family visiting Aunty Jenny with the kids or a tradie travelling across town for a job. Roads do have their uses. They are essential. It is just that, if we can shift enough journeys onto public transport, walking and cycling, we will find we already have plenty of roads. Other than in new suburbs and towns, we genuinely do not need any more.

Transport planners know that, if you provide public transport which is fast, frequent, reliable, affordable and safe, people will use it. They know that, if you provide safe cycling facilities, people will use them; the biggest thing that puts people off cycling is not feeling safe; and the majority of journeys undertaken in Australia are of under five kilometres—very easily ridden by bike, even in the outer suburbs and in regional areas.

Health experts know the benefits of encouraging people to walk and ride—the huge benefits and contributions that these make to tackling the obesity and diabetes epidemics we are in the midst of, to reducing heart disease and to people's mental health. Those of us concerned about pollution in our cities and the carbon pollution which causes climate change know the benefits of getting people out of their fossil fuel powered cars and onto bikes and public transport powered by renewable energy. These are the benefits that this government is currently refusing to acknowledge, but something's got to give.

Under this government, we have heard a lot of talk about infrastructure. First we had the self-declared 'infrastructure Prime Minister', Tony Abbott, but we quickly learnt that 'infrastructure' meant nothing but tollways that were massively polluting, pushing the imbalance further in the direction of roads and doing very little to improve the lives of commuters. Even though Mr Abbott was partial to a bit of lycra, again and again the government rejected calls to fund anything that would encourage people to get on their bikes. This blinkered approach has cost us dearly.

Now we have selfie-loving Prime Minister Turnbull, who uses every opportunity he can to try and prove that he is one of the people by taking pictures on trains, trams and buses. But then we see announcements like we saw from the Minister for the Environment earlier this week. Although it included the Melbourne Metro Rail Project, their pie-in-the-sky wish list fell back on the old 'roads, roads and more roads' agenda, including a renewed commitment to building the East West toll road, a project that would return just 45c for every dollar spent. The former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, described last year's Victorian state election as a referendum on the East West Link, and the result was resounding. Victorians rejected the project and the ideology it stood for, sending a message to us in this place that we need the kind of congestion-busting infrastructure that you can only get by giving people viable alternatives to driving.

The government's insistence on the East West toll road deliberately ignores the will of Victorians, and it is shameful that the current Prime Minister has continued Tony Abbott's desires. In a recent poll by Essential Research, 64 per cent of Victorians agreed that it was more important to expand public transport than to build new roads and freeways. In today's Age, Josh Gordon writes:

… the apparent attempt by Hunt to once again politicise the debate about infrastructure in a way that seems reminiscent of the Abbott era.

Gordon points out:

It is a backward step from Turnbull's encouraging promise to consider projects on their merit.

We have to move away from this current path.

Under the Abbott-Turnbull government, despite all their talk, public investment in infrastructure has fallen. At the same time, private investment has fallen sharply as the mining boom tapers off. We must do all we can to lift this spending, and it must be targeted to the projects that are value for money and do not simply end up increasing congestion. This means getting away from the idea that you can simply build more roads in order to ease congestion. That just encourages more people to drive. It is like putting a bucket under a dripping tap: it is not going to fix the leak and eventually the bucket will be filled to the brim. What we have to do is fix the leak. Building more fast, frequent, reliable, affordable and safe public transport options will get more cars off the roads, freeing them up for those who need them the most. If we provide safe and accessible facilities for people to ride their bikes, more people will cycle, but first we have to make a serious investment in this vital infrastructure.

Despite the rhetoric from the government, the reality is that Australia has low debt levels and has the capacity to borrow. Economist Saul Eslake recently told a Senate committee that Australia could borrow $50 billion without affecting our triple-A credit rating. I say: let's get to it. The private sector has funds available, too, but the government either is not ready to attract them or cannot package it up and de-risk.

If we get this right, we can shape our transport systems to meet the demands of the 21st century. The old-style thinking we have come to expect from this government is completely unsustainable. The rest of the world is realising the limitations of economies based on the finite resources of coal, gas and oil. A confident Australia would look beyond the old way of thinking, it would move away from bandaid fixes like road projects that end up becoming rats' nests and it would look at doing things that work for people rather than for the big corporations that are so often pushing their own interests. This means game-changing projects like the Melbourne Metro Rail Project, but it also means a willingness to focus on the smaller projects that might not get a big space in the papers but are value for money and greatly enhance the efficiency of our communities. These projects include bus lanes and services, signalling upgrades, off-road bike paths and duplicating arterial roads in growth suburbs, where roads that were once country lanes are now carrying thousands of cars every day.

But let us not be under any illusion that simply voting the coalition out will change anything. Labor talk big on public transport, but in practice we are not currently seeing a commitment to prioritising public transport. Under the Victorian Labor government, road solutions keep rising to the surface—the widening of the Tullamarine Freeway instead of airport rail; the Western Distributor instead of the port rail shuttle. In Sydney, the Liberal government are ploughing ahead with the WestConnex motorway. But, despite the secrecy and despite all the problems identified by Infrastructure Australia, Labor plan to go ahead with their own version of the WestConnex project. Yes, Labor support spending billions on WestConnex, when the huge gap—the area most crying out for funding and the No. 1 priority—is in public transport. Every dollar that is spent on a new motorway is a dollar not being spent on the public transport that will really make a difference to congestion.

Under both major parties, the roads always seem to come first and the public transport gets delivered decades after it is needed—if ever. Roads are easy to build and cut ribbons for. Public transport requires long-range foresight. It requires commitment and priority. This is the vision that the Greens are committed to. We have already suffered two years of this anti public transport agenda. We can put this behind us, but we must not hesitate to make up for lost time. Let us not forget the people we represent in this place. Commuters around the country are waiting—they are waiting for their bus in the morning, they are waiting for their loved ones to come home, and they are waiting for our transport system to be fixed once and for all. I call upon this government and I call upon all parties to work with the community for change so that we can finally achieve what we have all been waiting for.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise with considerable joy to speak on this motion. If my father were here, God rest him, he would be delighted that I am talking about infrastructure, because photos of my family life are very much punctuated by images of the sort of machinery that builds roads and developed this country. I love roads. I love infrastructure. I love the Harbour Bridge and what it says about a great nation's infrastructure vision. I am very proud to say that my brothers continue in the tradition of working in the construction sector. They are still building great roads right across the state of New South Wales and employing a lot of people, including themselves, in the construction industry.

I want to comment on a couple of comments that have preceded my contribution today. The first was a comment by Senator Fawcett. He said, 'just recently,' talking about a shift in the attitude of those opposite towards public transport. There has been a change at the leadership level, and I suppose it may get rid of Tony Abbott's backward view about everything public. He tried to get rid of public education by cutting the Gonski money and $30 billion out of education. He also decided that he did not like public transport, so any investment in public transport was simply something that the government refused to have anything to do with. That leads me to comments in the closing section of Senator Rice's contribution this afternoon. I am sure that, on reflection, she that probably did not mean this, but she said that roads are easy to build. I spent one summer as I finished school doing sort of quantity management support on the construction of a road in the Campbelltown region. I can tell you for a fact and from firsthand experience that building roads is anything but easy. It takes an incredible amount of careful planning. It is a significant investment that is of great value to this country.

I take the opportunity this afternoon to acknowledge all of those men and women who are working in the construction industry, building the infrastructure of this nation and improving our lot. I am sure that when they take their children for drives on a Sunday or when they are heading off on holidays, they will do exactly what my Irish father did when he drove us up what is now called the F3 but was, at that point in time, the Pacific Highway—marvel at the engineering, marvel at the imagination and marvel of the hard work that created those pathways. He revealed to all of us, as we drove along, the beauty of the great sandstone that is so remarked upon by visitors who take that exit out of Sydney and come to the Central Coast. I acknowledge all the workers. I acknowledge the hard work that goes into infrastructure.

I want to put on the record today, sadly, not any great championing by this government of a vision for the future but rather that this government has a miserly view of what is possible. That is why the debate that we are having this afternoon is so important. There was a 20 per cent fall in public sector infrastructure spending under the coalition federal government. The Turnbull government needs to catch up on two lost years of support for public transport projects. We have quarterly figures released on 30 September by none other than the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The figures tell the truth that this government will to try run from. The truth is that investment in infrastructure is in free fall under this government. We know that engineering work and infrastructure work being completed for the public sector was 20.1 per cent lower in the June quarter of 2015 compared to the last quarter of the Labor government in the 2013. That is because Labor was absolutely in the business of building, had a vision for the nation, and made sure that projects that for so long had been pushed to the backburners were advanced and delivered with the money and the capacity to move forward.

I want to go to one of those particular projects that are of great importance to the people of New South Wales. I have already mentioned early work on Pacific Highway, which snakes its way north of Sydney. We know that that road's continued development has been a critical part of enabling the advancement of all of those communities up and down the coast and also of improving the capacity of this country to move product around and increase our productivity

We know that, under the Abbott government, the Pacific Highway saw a really significant decline in investment. In Labor's last year in office, $1 billion was invested as part of a $7.6 billion commitment. But in this government's budget, they committed to spend just $672 million for the 2015-16 financial year. There is a big difference there of $400 million. It is a big difference in terms of a commitment to keeping the project of the Pacific Highway underway.

I would like to go through a number of projects in New South Wales that have been subject to the 'Oh, just in case you weren't watching, let's see if we can get away with it' strategy of this government where they pretend that they are funding projects, that they are delivering projects and that they had a vision for projects. This is an absolutely false pretence. In New South Wales, we have the Pacific Highway where $7.9 billion was invested by the Labor government: the Tintenbar to Ewingsdale development and the Devil's Pulpit upgrade. That was a pretty good one. That was going. Things were going along well. It was already announced. But that was not good enough for this government. They re-announced that in a pretence that it was their announcement on 21 March 2014. They must have enjoyed the experience because they have continued the trend. They have continued the deception that they actually had a vision of any kind.

Woolgoolga to Ballina was re-announced on 17 September. They really like this bit of road because they also re-announced it on 22 September and then went back for a fourth bite at the cherry on 28 April in 2015. While traveling up and down the Pacific Highway, making themselves seen in the local newspapers, no doubt, they re-announced the Sapphire to Woolgoolga upgrade. On a roll, the next one they announced was the Nambucca Heads to Urunga upgrade. It was re-announced on 26 March this year. The Warrell Creek to Nambucca Heads upgrade re-announcement was on 1 April 2014. The Frederickton to Eungai upgrade was re-announced as well. The Kundabung to Kempsey upgrade was re-announced on 26 March. And the Oxley Highway to Kundabung upgrade was re-announced on 8 January 2014.

That is only halfway down the list of the disgraceful practice of this government of pretending that this is their vision for the country. I tell you whose vision it is. It was Labor's vision to invest in infrastructure that delivered this money.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don't make me laugh!

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The senator on the other side there may well laugh.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator O'Neill, address your comments through the chair, please. It is disorderly to interject.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Macdonald is laughing over there. I think it is a way to try and cover his personal embarrassment. Here we are at a point in time in our economic cycle when all of the experts are saying that this is a golden opportunity. There has never been a better opportunity in my lifetime to secure government bonds to invest in infrastructure than right at this moment—a moment when mining and the production phase is kicking in after the construction phase. We are going to a very different part of our economic journey. It is an opportunity for this government to lead and to get things going; but, instead, we see them playing some facile PR game, driving up and down the Pacific Highway, which was long ago funded by Labor to the tune of $7.9 billion, and pretending that they are actually doing anything. What I am really concerned about—

Senator Canavan interjecting—

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator O'Neill, resume your seat. Senator O'Neill.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. If I can come to the rest of these projects. The M4 to M5 extension was $1.8 billion. This one did not just get a re-announcement. This one was so important that it got a new name. This one got the real PR treatment. It got turned into WestConnex on 19 September. The F3 to M2 missing link, which is one that I really do want to pay a little bit of attention to, was $405 million. It was re-announced as if it were a new project on 15 March 2014. That piece of road matters to hundreds of thousands of people who move across the northern part of Sydney and from the Central Coast—a beautiful part of the country in which I get to reside and have lived for 30 years now. It is an amazing road that connects Sydney to the north, but the connection to the other major roads in Sydney has been a very big problem for those hundreds of thousands of people who get caught in that bottleneck. It was Labor that led with this project. It was Labor that negotiated with the state O'Farrell Liberal government to get a joint commitment and for $405 million to be committed by our federal government in that last parliament, under Julia Gillard. She announced it at Kariong, at the top of the hill as you enter into Gosford, with then Minister Albanese, to make sure that the people of the Central Coast, who have long suffered the bottleneck at the end of that freeway, have into the future a wonderful, modern piece of infrastructure that will improve the productivity of all of the businesses that use that connection but also improve the lives of all of those who work in Sydney whether by choice or by design and are seeking a good run home to get back to their families.

The re-announcements continued with the Hunter Expressway, $1.5 billion, and opened by Warren Truss on 21 March 2014. Labor delivered it. The F5 at Campbelltown was $93 million. Greater Western Highway was $300 million and re-announced by this lot on 10 July. And so it goes on and on and on. I really wanted to labour the point somewhat—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

to make it understood to the people who might not be listening to the parliament every day, Senator, that the reality is that these projects that were invested in by Labor, created by Labor—happily some of them are continuing but many of them have been reduced in funding—are a vital part of our infrastructure.

Why does all of this matter right now? I alluded in my comments to the reality that construction activity is declining in the resource sector and there is a natural fit for jobs coming out of the resource sector to move into the infrastructure sector to do the job rather than the private mining companies to help build the vision for Australia's future. I often heard about the experience and the pride with which my father spoke about the work on the Bradfield Highway approaching the Harbour Bridge. To be part of building the nation is something that all people who have worked in construction, whether it is rail or whether it is road, find an edifying dimension to their working life.

Tony Abbott's decision to call himself the 'infrastructure Prime Minister' was an absolute joke. The only thing he really constructed, I suppose, was a great big hole for himself. He has also left a hole in the investment infrastructure that should have been going on. That hole could be attended to by the new Prime Minister. This is a challenge. He has an opportunity to do something new to reset the course. He could immediately restore the $4.5 billion cut from public transport projects. The projects that have suffered under the Liberal government are the Melbourne Metro, Brisbane's Cross River Rail link and Adelaide's Gawler line electrification. Also, another $500 million had been allocated by the former Labor government for heavy and light rail projects in Perth. That is a practical way that they could do something new and do something that would be different from the Abbott government.

Mr Turnbull loves to tweet those photos of himself—Malcolm the rider of the Sydney train network. Let us see if he has the determination for and the general appeal of rail under his belt. It is not just about Malcolm in the pictures; it is about the hard work, the resources, the materials and the people who need to build these critical rail projects in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. All of these projects were funded in Labor's federal budget. It was a choice by this government to remove them from our vision for the country.

The role of Infrastructure Australia in the former government in determining critical projects that were to be developed in the interests of the nation was a very significant change in the way public policy was being developed and the way in which infrastructure was planned to be delivered. As Senator Rice said, whether these projects are rail, which she acknowledged took a lot of time to plan, or road, which from my experience absolutely takes a lot of time in planning, you need to have a body that can look at the value of these projects, ensure that they are great value for the country and go ahead and make them happen. I found it amazing that Minister Albanese in the former government was the first infrastructure minister for the entire country and that historically things had been developed in such a haphazard way without that oversight. Since Mr Abbott came to power, the power of Infrastructure Australia to be an independent body that could talk about vision and ensure continuity across a range of different governments has been completely undermined. I think that is a great shame. Shame on this government, shame on Tony Abbott and his ministry, in whatever form it was, for making that decision. Again, there is an opportunity for the new-look Liberals and Mr Turnbull to do something about restoring the integrity and independence of Infrastructure Australia.

It is important to put on the record the very different view that Labor has about building for our future. Recently, Labor made a very big announcement regarding federal infrastructure and financing. That included getting moving very significant public transport projects in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and the Gold Coast. For the great state of New South Wales, that I represent in this amazing parliament of our nation, the plan to link the west and the southern lines is a very significant decision; it is a very significant vision. People who are looking to get to work from as far away as the Central Coast and Newcastle will have a massive number of job opportunities opened up to them by that infrastructure. Labor has a vision for the west of Sydney. Labor has a vision of making it possible for workers to get to where they need to go in a reasonable amount of time rather than the current gridlock that is the life of so many people who work and live in the regions where I grew up—in Blacktown, Seven Hills, Toongabbie and the west, in Campbelltown, Camden, Narellan and all of the areas in the south-west of Sydney, and in the north on the Central Coast. This is a vision about making connections between all of those communities possible with the jobs growth that will naturally grow from that investment.

Labor will elevate Infrastructure Australia to be an active participant in the infrastructure market. We will mobilise private sector finance. We have determined that a transformation of the way in which infrastructure in Australia is funded is required. Infrastructure Australia has the potential under a Labor government to unlock tens of billions of dollars in capital investment for critical projects that every single state needs and, by doing so, create tens of thousands of jobs. That money will surface into the private market from what Labor built.

Another amazing piece of infrastructure of a different kind is the superannuation savings of this nation—an infrastructure for a dignified retirement for all Australians. With that $1.8 trillion that we have that is going to continue to grow, there is an opportunity for Australians, investing in themselves and their future, to have their superannuation funds invest in building infrastructure on the ground in this nation—rail, roads and ports. We can do that. We can do that because Labor had a vision and Labor delivered that vision. All the way those opposite resisted and said it would be impossible. They said businesses would fail across the country. They said the whole show would fall over. They said superannuation would never work. But here we are 30 years down the track with an entire capacity to build this nation on the back of Australia's savings by investing in ourselves and investing in our future.

There is a massive contrast between this government and Labor's capacity to see a vision for the future, to pull Australians together and to deliver a vision for the future that is rich, enabling and shared—advantaging all Australians. Labor absolutely is responsible for establishing of Infrastructure Australia. We need this nation-building body to make sure that we can get on with the job across periods of government—sadly, when the Liberals might be in charge. Without that independence, the future of this country is at risk from those who will just take the money and prop things up in certain spots where they want or, perhaps, do as Abbott did and completely remove funding from public rail.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Where oh where do Labor Party troglodyte senators live? Clearly, blindfolded, with earplugs in, in the deepest, darkest cave in Australia in a permanent midnight if they have not heard, since the advent of the coalition government, of all the plans—not just plans, but funded plans for infrastructure in Australia. They must have been completely out of this world if they were not aware—and they would be the only Australians who were not—of the massive funding and vision for infrastructure in our country.

Before Senator O'Neill leaves I want her to tell me, 'Where is this Parramatta-Epping railway line that the Labor Party's then state Labor Premier Kristina Keneally and then federal Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced with a $2.6 billion fund to build?' I understand that there was no work done on it, no plans were drawn, no engineering consideration given and certainly there was no finance obtained. But the Labor Party announced $2.6 billion for the Parramatta-Epping rail connection, which, of course, was always fantasy.

Have a look at Victoria, where the coalition government actually provided the money, billions and billions of dollars, for the East West Link to the Victorian government, which was then a Liberal government, which would have built that link using principally federal money. Then the Labor Party came along and said, 'We don't want the money for that major piece of infrastructure in Victoria.' The Labor Party is all talk and no action when it comes to infrastructure spending.

Mr Acting Deputy President Edwards, I will in my time for this contribution go through some of the projects that have been funded, including, I understand, some $41 million for the electrification of the Adelaide to Gawler railway line in your home state of South Australia. All we need is the state Labor government to provide some matching funds, but to date there is no word from the state Labor government at all. You hear people, like the former speaker, saying how keen Labor are on infrastructure, but when you come to the facts, have a look at them. There is the East West Link in Victoria, the rail project that I just mentioned in Adelaide and the Parramatta-Epping railway. They are very good on the talk and very good at making announcements. On the Parramatta-Epping railway we had then Labor Premier Keneally and Labor Prime Minister Gillard on the railway platform. There was great fanfare and TV cameras everywhere when they announced the $2.6 billion, but nothing has been done, nothing from the Labor Party.

I will take you back in a little history lesson, Mr Acting Deputy President, to the really big infrastructure projects in Australia such as the Snowy Mountains Scheme and the Ord River Dam. In more recent times there is the Adelaide to Darwin railway, or the Alice Springs to Darwin railway. Who were they funded and conceived by? Liberal-National Party governments of the past. Every single, major infrastructure investment in our country, since almost the Commonwealth was created, has been done on the vision of coalition governments.

The former speaker said that the last Labor federal government had funded infrastructure in Labor budgets. We all know, of course, that Labor funded absolutely nothing in its budgets. All they funded were additional blowouts in the deficit. They did not fund a thing. They just borrowed more money from overseas, which we are still trying to pay off. They were borrowings that would have reached $700 billion if the government had not changed in 2013. That is Labor's record of funding things in the budget. You have a thought bubble, you go overseas, borrow some money and let our grandkids and great grandkids pay for it later on. It is just ludicrous and laughable. I am afraid I could not help myself from laughing during the previous senators contribution when she said that Labor funded these things in the budget. Labor funded nothing in any budget they have ever brought down.

I will become a little more recently relevant. Just three or four days ago Prime Minister Turnbull went to my state of Queensland and announced an additional $95 million for the Gold Coast Light Rail project. What a wonderful, visionary investment in Australia in that announcement. Where was Senator Moore and where was the previous speaker when those announcements were being made? Where were those Labor senators and all the rest of their troglodyte team—and I use the word 'troglodyte' advisedly—because they must have been out of this world? Where were they when the Northern Australian white paper was announced? These were not just announcements. These were announcements supported by funding in the 2015 budget.

It will take me a long time to go through the many infrastructure projects proposed by the coalition government. It would take me hours to simply go through them, but I will mention just a few. There is $100 million for a new Beef Roads Program. Those who are as old as me may remember that during the Fraser-McEwen government—or it might have been even before that—we had a wonderful Beef Roads Scheme in Australia that fell into disrepair, or unfunding, over the years. But it has been rejuvenated with this commitment of $100 million for beef roads just in northern Australia.

In the last budget, $600 million was announced for a priority roads program in the north. At the same time, $8.5 billion was budgeted for the Bruce Highway in my own state of Queensland. I am being a bit parochial here; I am talking about only Queensland or northern Australian road projects. But $8.5 billion has been budgeted and the Labor Party say that there is nothing being spent on public infrastructure. There is the $500 million Black Spot Program, which was first initiated by the Howard government. The Labor government put it on the backburner during those horrible six years. But it has been rejuvenated again by the Abbott and Turnbull governments with a new $500 million Black Spot Program. There is also the new $200 million heavy vehicle program and the $300 million Bridges Renewal Program, and so the list goes on.

That is not all; there is more. There is much, much more. Can I just remind Labor senators, who must have been digging that cave so they could not hear all the good news, of the announcement in the northern Australian white paper and in the last budget of a $5 billion concessional infrastructure loan scheme under the northern Australian infrastructure fund. That is not a grant scheme; it is a concessional loan scheme. It will encourage other money, not just taxpayers' money, into major infrastructure projects. I know personally of many people, institutions and companies that have already approached the government with plans to build public infrastructure if they can access some of this $5 billion concessional loans infrastructure fund. That is a clever way of getting funding into infrastructure.

The Labor Party will promise taxpayers' money—they will never deliver, but they will promise—whereas coalition governments actually have clever business and commercial-like ways of achieving public and private investment into infrastructure, which is all good for Australia and increases our productivity and, accordingly, increases the standard of living for all Australians. The money that the coalition government has committed has been ledgered and it is not just promises.

I live in a place called Ayr in North Queensland and my office is in Townsville, about 100 kilometres north. I drive up the Bruce Highway for a day in the office. I got annoyed over the last six months or so because everywhere I went along the Bruce Highway between Ayr and Townsville there were stop signs and road gangs. I had to detour because there was just so much work being done on the Bruce Highway. I have to give all congratulations to the Commonwealth and the Queensland government—this was mainly funded in the time of the Newman government in Queensland—for the work they have done from Vantassel Street through to the major ring-road around Townsville. I know that section of the road well because during the road construction over the past year or so I was detoured, I was stopped and I had to wait for 10 minutes at a time.

The ring-road around Townsville was built by the Howard government. It is a massive piece of infrastructure that now completely ring-roads the growing and expanding city of Townsville. It is a marvellous piece of engineering excellence and it is all there to make it easier to get goods and services, people, cattle and livestock between one place and another, improving our productivity. It used to take me an hour and a bit to get from Ayr to Townsville, but since these new roads have been constructed—and in the places where there are not four lanes, there are now overtaking lanes every five to 10 kilometres—it has cut my driving time from Ayr to Townsville by about 10 minutes. So even in my own situation, thanks to the Howard, Newman and most recently Abbott and Turnbull governments, my productivity has increased because I am spending less time on the road getting to work.

The same happens right around Australia. The same would have happened in Melbourne had the state Labor government accepted the Commonwealth money and built the proposed East West Link. It would have meant huge increases in productivity and gains for the people of the city of Melbourne. But what did Labor do? They rejected it. They knocked it back. They do not want to build it. Why? I suppose it is because the Greens, as always, said to them, 'Hey, brother, you are only in government because of our preferences. We don't like this, so pull that. Otherwise, we won't support you and you won't still be in government.' That is the way it worked. That is why this country has languished when Labor governments are in power. They are simply captives of the crazy people on the left of the Greens political party.

So far I have only been talking about roads, but infrastructure involves much more than roads. That is why in the last federal budget the coalition government announced additional funding for remote airstrips. This is very important public infrastructure in more remote parts of Australia. The coalition government also announced a major infrastructure fund of $500 million— something Labor would never be able to do because of their Greens connections—to assist with water storage and water infrastructure projects. A lot of that will go to northern Australia but it will also go right around Australia. Labor have never been game to build dams or water storages anywhere, because the Greens do not like it and Labor are always only in power thanks to the preferences of the Greens. The Greens political party know how to get the best bang for their buck in second preferences.

Under the coalition government, $200 million has been put aside to assist, first of all, with feasibility studies, with business cases, with environmental studies, with preliminary engineering work on dams right across Australia. In the northern Australia white paper, a couple of dams were mentioned only as an example—the Nullinga dam behind Cairns and extensions to the Ord River dam in the Northern Territory and Western Australia—but there are many more than those two that will be looked at. That $200 million will not go far if you start building dams, but it will provide a government incentive to those investors around the world who are keen to invest in Australia in productive assets like dams, water storages, weirs and irrigation proposals that will allow us to increase our primary production to meet the burgeoning middle-class demand from Asia that is approaching us. So it is not just roads; it is dams, airstrips and things like—I have to be careful in mentioning too many others because I am privy to some other private industry desires to start construction in two months time, once they can work with the government with this concessional loan scheme to build public infrastructure that will continue to increase Australia's productivity and increase our relevance, importance and accessibility as a tourist destination for visitors from North America and Asia.

The infrastructure that will be built will be built a lot by the budgeting expertise of the coalition government but also by the clever way the coalition will attract private investment—

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With a slush fund, a $5 million slush fund.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What would you expect from the Greens political party. Here we have a wonderful proposal for Australia not only to use taxpayers' money but to encourage investment in public infrastructure from around the world and the Greens call that a slush fund. They are obviously talking about Mr Graeme Wood and the biggest ever political donation given to any political party in Australia's history—that is, the $1.6 million given to the Greens political party. That is a slush fund, Senator Ludlam. It is a slush fund particularly when it comes with no demands. But, remember that, at the same time, the Greens political party were moving to get tax exemption for online newspapers. That was being proposed by whom? It was none other than Mr Graeme Wood. What a surprise! A $1.6 million donation to the Greens and, 'Hang on, we might get some tax deductibility for this online newspaper effort we are proposing.'

I have been distracted by the interjections from the Greens political party, but in the time remaining I want to emphasise that this is a government which is serious about infrastructure, not like the Labor Party. You do not get up on a railway platform and promise $2.6 billion before an election and then do absolutely nothing with it. In fact, there was never any intention to do anything with it; it was just words. This government has actually promised, announced, identified and actually funded in the last budget and in budgets to come real infrastructure improvement in Australia, and it will be supported not just by the taxpayers but by investors very keen to come into our country and build the productivity base of this nation.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the very brief time that is available to me, I want to put some thoughts on the record about how in Western Australia we experienced the former Prime Minister's commitment to be the infrastructure Prime Minister, because with one hand he took away and with the other he gave. That was the sort of person that he was. He took away $500 million that had been committed by the previous government after a seven-year campaign not just by the Greens, although we were certainly part of it, but by local government, public transport advocates like Professor Peter Newman and people right across the Perth metropolitan area who wanted the Perth light rail project. To his credit, Premier Colin Barnett put a small but very capable project team together and that project was known as MAX and was on the rails.

Former Prime Minister Abbott killed it stone dead at the point when he arrived and started to call himself the infrastructure Prime Minister. So as rapidly as he stood down the half billion dollars worth of rail funding for Perth, a thought bubble suddenly appeared for $925 million being committed to the Perth Freight Link, a road that nobody wants, that does not go anywhere and that is, in fact, being fought very successfully by a spirited and growing community campaign and now has the project approvals by the Western Australian EPA tied down in the Supreme Court on a number of grounds. More than 1,100 people have signed the Save Beeliar Wetlands pledge, a direct action pledge to stand in the way, in front of machinery, if necessary, if they try to bulldoze—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Stopping infrastructure.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is correct: stopping a four-lane freeway through a wetland. It is not all bad news, despite the campaign gaining in strength. I actually think this is one area where, maybe, I am going to set my cynicism aside and suspect that perhaps the new Prime Minister does have a different view of infrastructure. The Senate inquiry into the Perth Freight Link sat last week and, to their credit, it featured Senators Back and Reynolds from the coalition—but not the Western Australian government, who could not be bothered turning up—and, along with Senator Sterle and myself, we heard evidence that the outer harbour to the southern suburbs of Perth may, in fact, be the solution we are looking for. We can get a dedicated freight solution for Perth's growing needs. I hope that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is listening to the evidence, as his senators did, so that we can actually get a genuine freight solution for Perth.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 6pm, the time for the debate has expired.