Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to speak on this private senator's legislation, the High Speed Rail Planning Authority Bill 2017, that was introduced into the Senate on 4 September last year. It demonstrates the commitment of the Australian Labor Party to high-speed rail through the establishment of a planning authority. I'd like to recognise, at the outset, the terrific work of my colleague from the other place, the shadow minister for infrastructure and transport, Anthony Albanese, who has done a mountain of work on this issue in terms of policy over many years.

The proposed high-speed rail link between Brisbane and Melbourne via Sydney and Canberra is a project that requires vision. It's a significant undertaking. It's more than 1,700 kilometres long. It's challenging. It will involve the construction of tens of kilometres of tunnels. It's complex. It will no doubt involve the governments of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and the Australian Capital Territory. It will also involve the cooperation of dozens of local councils. Not to put too fine a point on it, the task ahead is a difficult one, and it is because of this that we propose this bill.

The bill seeks to create an 11-person high-speed rail authority to bring together all affected states and territories, as well as rail and engineering experts, to progress planning and, critically, focus on the corridor. Members would include one member from each of the jurisdictions affected—Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT; one member representing the Australian Local Government Association; one member nominated by the Australasian Railway Association; and five members appointed by the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport on the basis of qualification or expertise, to make sure that there is engineering and other expertise on the authority. The authority's role would include consideration of a number of issues. These include land-use planning related to the corridor, safety, measures to minimise environmental impact, public consultation, and intervention to purchase the corridor.

The member for Grayndler first introduced this bill in the other place in December 2013. However, a lack of political will from the Abbott government meant that the bill lapsed, requiring its reintroduction in October 2015 and now again in this chamber. It could have been debated in the other place on both those occasions. Indeed, at one stage, it was literally the only piece of legislation before the House of Representatives, yet the coalition government showed no vision, despite the fact that people such as former trade minister Andrew Robb have come out as strong supporters of high-speed rail. Mr Robb stated that he could produce the names of international companies that had told him they could deliver the project in full. Any politician who tells you they can fund an entire rail line using value capital is pulling your leg and, like most of the government's thought bubbles, the idea collapsed within hours when the then parliamentary secretary for cities ruled out support for the project. It was another lost opportunity for a government that had a plan to win government but no plan to govern.

In government, former transport minister Mr Albanese commissioned a two-part study involving extensive consultation with industry and international operators of high-speed rail as well as significant community input. The study, published in April 2013, included the business case for the project, consideration of environmental issues, projections of patronage, proposed route, proposed stations and proposed time lines. It found that high-speed rail down the east coast of Australia was indeed a viable proposition—for example, it found that high-speed rail would return, for the Sydney to Melbourne section, $2.15 in economic benefit for every dollar invested. The report found that, once fully operational across the Brisbane-to-Melbourne corridor, the high-speed rail could carry approximately 84 million passengers each and every year. At speeds of 350 kilometres per hour, people would be able to travel from Melbourne to Sydney, or Melbourne to Brisbane, in less than three hours. Of course, new technology is seeing speeds in excess of that.

The report found that Commonwealth leadership and coordination would be essential, given the number of jurisdictions involved. High-speed rail would also be an engineering challenge, requiring at least 80 kilometres of tunnels, including 65 kilometres in Sydney alone. But, despite these challenges, the experts said that high-speed rail had huge potential, particularly if we consider where our society is headed over coming decades. We can anticipate significant population growth over coming decades along the route of the proposed line. We should expect that growing pressure for a carbon-constrained economy will drive the economics for this project even more positively over time and we know that, if we fail to act soon, delivery of high-speed rail will be made more difficult and more costly because parts of the corridor will be built out by the urban sprawl.

This bill proposes to create an 11-person, high-speed rail authority to bring together all the key stakeholders as outlined earlier. Labor in government undertook a proper process to come to the position that a high-speed rail authority was needed. The high-speed advisory group included people such as the former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer; the Business Council of Australia's chief executive Jennifer Westacott; and the Australasian Railway Association's chief executive Bryan Nye. It was chaired by the deputy secretary of the department, Lyn O'Connell—serious people looking into a serious issue and coming up with a serious suggestion about a way forward. It was a way forward that should have been bipartisan. The former Labor government embraced the recommendations, which were unanimous, and allocated $54 million to establish the authority and begin the process of corridor acquisition. But, in 2013, the incoming coalition government scrapped this allocation and turned its back on the project.

To best understand the potential of high-speed rail, we need to look well beyond 2018 and consider where this nation will be in coming decades. We know that our population will be larger, with growth concentrated precisely on the route of this high-speed-rail proposal. Population growth and the pressures of carbon constraint will see significant change across our nation, and it is these changes that open new opportunities for rail investment, as we have seen across Asia and Europe.

Rail is the transport of the 21st century. Many countries have high-speed rail: Austria, Belgium, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and Uzbekistan. If they can do it, why can't we? I have family living overseas, and when I visit them I often find myself using high-speed rail. I'm constantly amazed that yet again we see the nation battle the tyranny of distance.

According to the high-speed-rail study I referred to earlier, travel on the east coast of Australia is forecast to grow by about 1.8 per cent every year over the next two decades and to increase 60 per cent by 2035. The study indicated that east coast trips would double from 152 million trips in 2009 to 355 million trips in 2065.

High-speed rail not only represents a remarkable opportunity to see more efficient movement of people across the country but also provides a fantastic opportunity for regional Australia. Stations are proposed for the Gold Coast, Casino, Grafton, Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie, Taree, Newcastle, the Central Coast, the Southern Highlands, Wagga Wagga, Albury-Wodonga and Shepparton. This project will position these centres to take some of the population growth pressures off the east coast capital cities, which will no doubt be a key issue into the future. Importantly, it will also provide an uplift in value by the economic improvement that will occur in those regional centres to be factored into the funding, building and construction of the high-speed-railway line. It could also deliver a massive improvement in livability. Travelling from a regional centre to one of Australia's fast-growing east coast cities in under an hour will transform those centres and facilitate new business.

Vision is an obligation of leadership. The Shorten opposition is leading the charge in policy development in this parliament. We must imagine a better future and take actions to create that future. We've done the research. We know that the project is viable.

I note that I've circulated amendments on sheet 8297 in my name to deal with some of the recommendations from the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills in Scrutiny Digest 11 of 2017. To avoid any doubts, the amendments outline that the rules may not do the following:

(a) create an offence or civil penalty;

(b) provide powers of:

(i) arrest or detention; or

(ii) entry, search or seizure;

(c) impose a tax;

(d) set an amount to be appropriated from the Consolidated Revenue Fund under an appropriation in this Act;

(e) directly amend … this Act.

These amendments seek to clarify some of the standard restrictions on what the rules outlined in clause 31, at page 14, can do.

Together, we must commit to the next step required to make high-speed rail a reality: the creation of an authority to advance detailed planning, work with other jurisdictions and begin to acquire the corridor before it's built out by urban sprawl. True leaders do not just sit around waiting for the telephone to ring and to be told what to do next. They act on what they believe and get on with the job of governing Australia. This parliament should show some genuine leadership by acting on high-speed rail, starting with debating and supporting this bill. I do fear that that's unlikely, given the government's refusal to debate this issue in recent years. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. A Shorten Labor government will act where the Abbott-Turnbull government has failed. We will establish a high-speed rail authority. Labor is prepared to think ahead, and future generations will be the beneficiaries.

Jim Molan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Being new to the Senate, I haven't had Senator Farrell's possible experience in looking back over what has appeared in relation to the High Speed Rail Planning Authority Bill over some considerable period of time, but I'm very happy to speak on the bill today. To begin with, I note the strong support in the past for high-speed rail from the member for Bennelong, John Alexander, and also the former member of my home electorate of Eden-Monaro, Peter Hendy. High-speed rail connecting Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne has previously been investigated and found to be unaffordable. There is also the question of whether people would use the service between capital cities when it's quicker to fly and doesn't cost as much. That's why the government is focusing on connecting regional centres to capital city CBDs and faster rail services. This will generate jobs and provide opportunities for more people to access more-affordable housing in regional areas and higher-skilled jobs in city areas.

The federal opposition seems to be committed to establishing a high-speed rail authority to gather international expressions of interest for the construction of high-speed rail. It has introduced a private member's bill into the House of Representatives on a number of occasions to establish these arrangements. Debate on the bill has been adjourned. The opposition also introduced, I note, a private member's bill on the same matter into the Senate on 4 September 2017. When last in government, Labor committed $55 million to establishing the authority. However, the $55 million that Labor supposedly allocated to this authority in the 2013 campaign never existed. In its post-2013 election review, the Parliamentary Budget Office classified this funding as an election commitment, as opposed to a commitment that was funded in the budget or in the PEFO, and we've certainly seen that before. The PBO actually said, on page 8 of the PEFO in 2013:

The ALP election commitment Establish a High Speed Rail Authority could result in significant budget impacts beyond the forward estimates. This would depend on the final specification of any policy to construct high speed rail on the east coast of Australia.

This government will provide $20 million in matching funding to support the development of up to three business cases that will explore opportunities for faster passenger rail and investigate improvements to rail connections between Australia's cities and surrounding regional areas. Following a competitive assessment process in line with criteria published in the faster rail prospectus, the government announced on 9 March 2018 the three successful proponents that had been selected to develop business cases: Consolidated Land and Rail Australia, or CLARA, Melbourne to Greater Shepparton; New South Wales government, Sydney to Newcastle; and, the third, the North Coast Connect consortium, Brisbane and the regions of Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast. These proposals clearly demonstrate the government's willingness to investigate long-term solutions that support urban, regional and rural development.

It's important to note that the CLARA Melbourne to Greater Shepparton business case will investigate the development of two new sustainable smart cities with connections to high-speed rail along a new dedicated corridor. Furthermore, the CLARA proposal provides an innovative and revolutionary model for building a high-speed rail link between Melbourne and Greater Shepparton that does not involve direct cost to government or to taxpayers. And I emphasise that: it does not involve direct cost to government or taxpayers. The opportunity created by the development of these two smart cities would fund the infrastructure, including the faster rail line needed to support them through the land value uplift. While the CLARA proposal is clearly revolutionary, it does warrant further investigations as it potentially provides a solution to the challenges of meeting growing housing demand in our major cities and future economic growth and opportunities.

The government, of course, continues to liaise as necessary with the New South Wales, Victorian, Queensland and ACT governments in relation to high-speed rail as part of discussions about rail policy and planning issues. This has included recent discussions between Commonwealth and New South Wales officials about the inclusion of corridor protection for high-speed rail on the eastern seaboard as a medium-term strategy in the New South Wales government's Future Transport Strategy out to 2056, and Senator Farrell mentioned the risk of corridor build-out.

I mentioned earlier the member for Bennelong, John Alexander. John Alexander pointed out in 2015 that, whilst he supported high-speed rail, there was a divergence of opinion in how that might be achieved, and that divergence is very important. It's the difference between sound public policy and wastage. It's the difference between infrastructure being delivered and castles in the air. The member for Grayndler has previously said that nation-building requires vision, and this is certainly true, but vision is very, very easy. It requires more than vision. It requires planning, it requires evidence, it requires process, it requires diligence and it requires execution.

A prime example of policy high on vision and lacking execution was Labor's NBN. Under Labor, the NBN was a complete mess. After six years of Labor, just 51,000 users were connected to the NBN—that is, one in 50 premises. Labor's fibre-to-the-premises NBN policy would have cost $30 billion more and taken six to eight years longer to complete. This would have increased broadband bills by up to $43 per month. Labor paid $6 billion for the NBN to pass just three per cent of Australian premises. The rollout was so badly managed, contractors downed tools and stopped construction work in four states. Under Labor, the NBN missed every single rollout target it set for itself. Under the coalition, the NBN rollout is ahead of schedule and on budget.

The coalition government is rolling out better broadband across Australia in the fastest and most affordable way so Australians can get access to fast broadband sooner and at a price they can afford. But that's not the only example of where the coalition is delivering nation-building infrastructure, and the context in which this high-speed rail proposal exists is very important to consider. The coalition government's $75 billion roads, rail and airport plan will relieve congestion, grow our regions and make life easier for Australians. We are investing on average $2 billion per year more than Labor and investing in a way that delivers better value and results for taxpayers. Our plan is comprehensive. We are investing in major highway upgrades and congestion-busting roads in capital cities to reduce travel time, improve safety and help businesses move goods and services more efficiently. We are investing in important public transport rail links, including the Gold Coast light rail, Sydney Metro, Melbourne Metro and Flinders rail link in Adelaide to improve access, amenity and liveability in our cities. Our historic investment in inland rail will link the Port of Brisbane to the Port of Melbourne, transforming freight movements through Victoria, New South Wales and South-East Queensland, while promoting economic opportunities and jobs in these regions.

Local communities are benefitting from the Roads to Recovery Program, with $4.4 billion invested for seven years up to 2021 in construction, repair and upgrade of local roads. Under the Black Spot Program, $684 million for the seven years up to 2021 will deliver safety improvements such as safety barriers and street lighting to dangerous roads. Local bridges are being fixed, with $420 million for the Bridges Renewal Program.

After five decades of indecision, the coalition government is getting on with building Western Sydney Airport. The coalition government has struck the Western Sydney City Deal with the New South Wales government and eight councils, and, as a result, the first stage of a north-south rail link will be built, linking the new airport to communities and new jobs, helping to create a 30-minute city. A new aerotropolis, a commercial and industrial hub adjacent to the airport, will also bring advanced manufacturing, research, medical, education and commercial facilities to the area. The airport will open a new international gateway to Australia's largest city, and this city deal will transform the economy of Western Sydney, creating tens of thousands of new jobs.

We're backing major infrastructure processes in a smarter way. Instead of the Australian government simply handing over grants and taxpayers being, effectively, an ATM for state governments, we're making use of equity investments and concessional loans to ensure that taxpayers get better value. By implementing city deals we are also ensuring that all levels of government work together, with investment coordinated to benefits taxpayers. With city deals already up and run running in Townsville, Launceston and Western Sydney, we are breaking away from the old approach of governments blaming each other while taxpayers just get ripped off.

Let me give you a summary of some of the major projects we're investing in. In my home state of New South Wales, with a solid and reliable state government, there is WestConnex, which links Western Sydney to the city, airport and ports with up to 52 traffic lights gone and 40 minutes saved. Stage 2 construction commenced ahead of schedule, and there are 10,000 construction jobs. NorthConnex connects the Central Coast to Sydney, avoiding up to 40 traffic lights on the Pacific Highway and 21 on Pennant Hills Road, and there are 8,700 construction jobs. The Pacific Highway has a four-lane divided road from close to Newcastle to Queensland, and crashes will be reduced and travel times will be cut by up to 2.5 hours. There are 16,000 direct and indirect jobs. And there is the Sydney Metro. The Australian government is also contributing $1.7 billion for the Sydney Metro West Project, which will deliver 31 new stations and 66 kilometres of new rail from Sydney's growing north-west, under the harbour, towards the south-west. Of course there is Western Sydney Airport, the aerotropolis, and infrastructure. After decades of indecision, Western Sydney Airport is being built and is due to open in 2026. It will be a catalyst for 200,000 new jobs in Western Sydney over the next 20 years. We're building the vital road infrastructure first, so that it's completed before the airport.

We have struck the Western Sydney City Deal with the New South Wales government and eight councils, which will mean a new north-south rail link, initially linking St Marys to Western Sydney Airport and the new aerotropolis—obviously, it will be a commercial and industrial hub. The new rail link will be built linking communities to the airport and new jobs. There will be a Badgerys Creek aerotropolis. A commercial and industrial hub next to the airport will be built, bringing advanced manufacturing, research, medical, education and commercial facilities to the area. New science, technology, engineering and maths education facilities will train workers for new jobs at the aerotropolis. An investment attraction office will attract new facilities to Western Parkland City, which will become the new third major city in Sydney, along with the CBD and Parramatta, of course, and this will help realise our goal of a 30-minute city, bring people closer to jobs, education and vital services. A new jointly funded Western Parkland City liveability program will ensure that local facilities and amenities will be provided, along with new housing supply and a strategy to deliver fifth-generation wireless system, including a trial led by a telecommunications carrier. It will enable smart digital technology in this area.

But let's talk about inland rail, and let's talk about rail as a nation-building pursuit, which is what inland rail is. Inland rail is a once-in-a-generation, nation-building infrastructure project. It will give people in regional areas the capacity to be part of a corridor of commerce with greater access to and from regional markets and improved linkages within the national freight network. We're getting on with the job. On 15 January 2018, I attended the first steel rail deliveries for the Parkes to Narromine project. The Victorian government signed a bilateral agreement to support Inland Rail on Friday, 16 March 2018. After years of talking, construction will start in May this year.

Inland Rail comprises 13 projects across Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. There'll be study corridors for each of the 13 Inland Rail projects which have been identified. Engaging with the local community is a key priority. The ARTC has established four community consultative committees in Queensland to facilitate discussion and information flows between the ARTC and stakeholders on Inland Rail issues and concerns. Community consultative committees in New South Wales will be established in coming months. Construction on all sections is expected to be underway by 2021. The railway is expected to commence operations in 2024-25. The first steel rail was delivered on 15 January 2018 to the site at Peak Hill for the Parkes to Narromine project.

Of course, as we look at high-speed rail and compare it with fast rail, and talk about the achievements of this government in relation to infrastructure spend, we cannot in any way, shape or form ignore Snowy 2.0. Snowy 2.0 is the plan to expand the original Snowy Mountains scheme with an additional 2,000 megawatts of capacity and 350,000 megawatt hours of storage. Creating up to 5,000 jobs and producing enough power for 500,000 homes, it will link the Tantangara and Talbingo reservoirs and involve a 27-kilometre tunnel and a new power station that will be up to one kilometre underground. Snowy 2.0 will make renewables reliable, reduce volatility in the electricity market and help to bring down rising electricity costs. It represents the largest energy storage project in the Southern Hemisphere and the largest renewable energy project in Australia.

Snowy 2.0 will sit at the heart of the National Electricity Market and will benefit Australian householders and businesses together. It will fill a gaping hole in the National Electricity Market, namely the lack of storage. The Australian government, through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, provided up to $8 million towards Snowy Hydro's feasibility study on Snowy 2.0. The feasibility study is available publicly and was endorsed by Snowy Hydro's independent board of directors in December last year.

The plan for Snowy 2.0 has been sitting on the shelf for decades, and now it's becoming a reality for the simple reason that the Prime Minister put energy storage on the agenda after years of reckless neglect. He put it on the agenda in his February 2017 National Press Club address, where he said:

Energy storage, long neglected in Australia, will also be a priority this year.

Last week at my request, ARENA and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, agreed to work together on a new funding round for large-scale storage and other flexible capacity projects including pumped hydro.

I've also written to Alan Finkel, asking him to advise on the role of storage and pumped hydro in stabilising the grid.

Large-scale storage will support variable renewables like wind and solar. It will get more value out of existing baseload generation and it will enhance grid stability. We're going to get on with it.

The Australian government signalled support for pumped hydro. As we know, 97 per cent of the world's energy storage is pumped hydro.

There are many things about the issue of high-speed rail and faster rail that are very, very important. Primarily, vision is about leadership, but success is achieved through solid implementation.

Just to finish with a few statistics: the funding committed to deliver inland rail is $9 billion. The length of the freight rail network is 1,700 kilometres. The length of trains double stacked—the equivalent of 18 football fields—is 1,800 metres. The equivalent number of B-double trucks is 110. Those trains can go at speeds of up to 115 kilometres per hour—that's faster rail. The Inland Rail transit time between Melbourne and Brisbane is 21.5 hours; the road transit time between Melbourne and Brisbane is 26.7 hours; and coastal rail transit time between Melbourne and Brisbane is 31.7 hours. As I said, vision is about leadership but success is achieved through solid implementation. Thank you.

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

I rise to speak to the High Speed Rail Planning Authority Bill 2017. The Greens support this bill as a useful next step in getting east coast high-speed rail on track in Australia. Thank you to Senator Farrell for bringing on debate on this bill, because high-speed rail is a hugely important issue for the connectivity of our major urban centres on our east coast and has huge potential to transform the regions along its route. High-speed rail will cut pollution, enhance business and passenger transport, and generate positive economic returns. This bill paves the way for an important initial step in getting get high-speed rail on track, but there is more to do and consider if we are going to get this transformational project right.

Australia and Antarctica are the only two continents without high-speed rail in operation or planning underway. It's an absolutely standard mode of travel for those living in or visiting Europe, Japan, China and, increasingly, across the rest of Asia. North America is set to join them, with a high-speed rail service currently under construction in California. Africa has high-speed rail, in Kenya, with plans in other countries, such as South Africa, much further along than in Australia, and there's a link between Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

Now is the time to take action and catch up with the rest of the world on high-speed rail. It is beyond time for us to catch up. Just imagine getting on a train in the centre of Melbourne and arriving in the centre of Sydney just three hours later. Imagine having access to the internet, being able to use your mobile phone, walking freely around the carriages and sitting down to have a meal in a restaurant. Imagine transforming the regional towns on the outskirts of our cities, less than an hour away—Shepparton, being 45 minutes from Melbourne—into economic centres. Imagine a mass-transit long-distance transportation system that can be powered by clean and renewable energy and reduces the impact of pollution and car travel on our cities and country.

Imagine the difference this is going to make to where people will be keen to live, do business and study. Imagine an infrastructure initiative that unlocks regional Australia whether it's Shepparton, Albury-Wodonga, Goulburn, Grafton, Taree or Casino. This is what we need in Australia. Our population is concentrated in the big cities, especially along the east coast, unlike in the US or Europe where many, many more people live in cities with populations of a couple of hundred thousand people. Living in that scale of city is much more sustainable—it's much easier to eat local produce, know your community and be connected to the natural world. You have easy commuting by active transport as well as shorter, quicker trips by cars and public transport. In fact, I can't see how we can possibly cope environmentally and socially with the projected increase in Australia's population to 46 million by 2030 without high-speed rail. Otherwise, we will be bequeathing the status of mega cities on Sydney and Melbourne and all the inevitable malfunction that will go with that.

High-speed rail and fast, reliable, high-capacity internet are the major commitments that are needed to unlock the elusive, long sought-after but never achieved Holy Grail of decentralisation in Australia and all the social and environmental benefits that go with them. This is the promise of high-speed rail and, after many decades of discussion and delay, the time for high-speed rail has arrived.

The Greens have got a longstanding commitment to seeing high-speed rail realised in Australia. We're not afraid to think big and, like many Australians, we have a vision of a connected, efficient transport network. A fast train connection between our major east coast cities has been part of that vision for many years now. At the 2010 federal election, the Greens took real, firm policy commitments on east coast high-speed rail to the electorate as part of our vision for a 21st century transport system. Following that election, the Greens made high-speed rail a part of our minority government agreement to support the Gillard government, and we secured $20 million for a feasibility study into high-speed rail. This was such a hopeful, exciting time, and we are proud to have put high-speed rail on the agenda and to have made it a commitment of our minority government agreement. We saw the phase 1 and phase 2 reports from the strategic study that stemmed from that agreement. My colleague Adam Bandt, the member for Melbourne, was a huge supporter, and still is a huge supporter, for high-speed rail. In 2012, he released a report as part of the studies into the wider benefits of high-speed rail. That found that there was a potential $48 billion in benefits over 30 years from high-speed rail.

A High Speed Rail Advisory Group was established to advise the government on key industry and community issues arising from the reports. Then, at the end of 2013, the High Speed Rail Advisory Group was abolished by the then Abbott government—just like that. This time line sums up exactly how the fractious nature of Australian politics and the election cycles have proven poisonous to the long-term nation-building projects that are absolutely essential and important to the future of our community.

So the key function of this bill is establishing the authority to bring together state and federal stakeholders and to get the work started. It's a useful thing, because getting high-speed rail underway requires a truly collaborative undertaking involving the governments of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT, and many local government bodies. The Greens have had a longstanding commitment to the establishment of a similar authority as a key part of progressing east coast high-speed rail. That's the reason that we are supporting this bill. But we do call on MPs and senators across the parliament to maintain their sights on the level of commitment that's needed to get the coordination right and also get the investment right. It's going to take real commitment and a strong signal from governments to really get this moving. Vision and hard work are both essential elements.

The Greens took to the most recent federal election a comprehensive commitment that included such an authority, and it also laid out the other key steps that are necessary to get this visionary project underway. We committed $1½ billion specifically to high-speed rail as part of our costed transport policy package. This is the kind of commitment that's needed now to get things moving. We pointed to the key things that need to happen: we need to fast-track the intergovernmental agreements and legislation to get high-speed rail moving; we need to establish the dedicated authority to develop and manage the project; we need to prepare a detailed financing and investment plan for the project; we need to determine the final rail corridors in conjunction with the relevant state and local governments, secure ownership of the routes and confirm the development and operation plan of the project through an intergovernmental agreement; and we need to begin the process of undertaking a comprehensive environmental impact statement. Our commitment would have kick-started the authority's work and, importantly, it would also have enabled us to kick-start securing the ownership of the rail route. We have to have a comprehensive and properly funded approach to maximise the benefits of high-speed rail and to minimise any impacts.

We know that we have to be reducing our reliance on polluting coal, gas and oil, and that is the other really wonderful beauty of high-speed rail. Reducing our use of coal, gas and oil means, sadly, that we will have to be flying less. I would love to be able to take efficient, fast, high-speed rail from Melbourne to Canberra rather than having to fly here. The International Energy Agency noted late last year how high-speed rail presents major opportunities for reducing carbon pollution from transport. They outlined a scenario aiming to meet the goals that we have signed up to under the Paris Agreement, where high-speed rail would be substituted for nearly all global aviation activity up to 1,000 kilometres by 2060. High-speed rail makes sense in this regard, because there's the double benefit that the energy use per passenger of travelling by high-speed rail is about 90 per cent lower per kilometre than that of flying. And high-speed rail, of course, has the potential for that energy use to be zero carbon if it's powered by renewable energy, which is the direction the Greens would want to see it take.

And it works. Where high-speed rail has been implemented, air travel has been able to drop. Both the government and the Labor Party haven't yet taken seriously the carbon pollution from flying and so do not discourage it in any way—in fact, the opposite. The International Energy Agency outlined several examples of how the introduction of high-speed rail has led to significant reductions in air travel on specific routes. These include Paris to London and Seoul to Busan. For both of these routes, after high-speed rail was introduced, the amount of air travel between the cities dropped by half. High-speed rail in Australia would do the same.

Did you know that Melbourne to Sydney, on the basis of the number of flights happening over a year, is the world's second busiest air route? It has 54,519 flights a year. And Brisbane to Sydney is the eighth busiest air route in the world, flying 33,765 times. There is an awful lot of potential there to be reducing the pollution from air travel by substituting high-speed rail trips for a very substantial number of those flights. The phase 2 feasibility study undertaken by the government told us that by 2065 high-speed rail could attract 40 per cent of the intercity air travel on the east coast and 60 per cent of regional air travel. On the three main sectors—Sydney to Melbourne, Sydney to Brisbane and Sydney to Canberra—high-speed rail could attract more than 50 per cent of the air travel market. And we believe that these are conservative estimates, given the value of high-speed rail in reducing carbon pollution.

The Greens believe not just that we should build high-speed rail as part of our plan to reduce carbon pollution from transport but also that, once it's built, we need to have policy levers that will incentivise its use as part of reducing our carbon pollution from transport. The phase 2 study didn't include consideration of a potential price on carbon applying to transport domestically or to aviation fuels. Surely we're going to come to our senses one day, at some stage, and recognise the climate emergency that we're facing, and we're going to realise that limiting our carbon pollution isn't just an optional extra and that it's absolutely essential to be doing this around the world as part of our survival as a species on our small blue planet.

So taking every measure we can to shift away from the dangerous pollution of coal, gas and oil is going to be necessary, and this is inevitably going to mean a large reduction in air travel. Yes, there are investigations going on at the moment into zero-carbon air travel, whether fuelled by biofuels or solar power, but they are a long way off. In comparison, high-speed rail is a technology that we have here and now and that we could be moving forward with in Australia today. There is so much potential. Where is this government when it comes to thinking ahead and committing to transformative projects like high-speed rail? We just have not heard any real commitment. It was notable that in Senator Molan's contribution he went out of his way to not talk about high-speed rail. He talked about all sorts of other transport projects, but high-speed rail was completely off the agenda.

I note that the Faster Rail program seems to be this government's sole nod to improving rail connectivity. We're going to need considerably more than that if we're going to truly accommodate our growing population and their travel needs. The one thing that we haven't seen from this government is the recognition that the hard graft of developing infrastructure in the public interest really does need to be done by government. Its willingness to award the CLARA consortium funding for a business case worries me because the CLARA consortium's proposal is predicated on a set of ideas that are about developer profits, not fit-for-purpose, connecting, high-quality transport infrastructure. We will wait and see how that CLARA consortium business case evolves, but I have to say that the fact that that is the only commitment that the government has adds another level to the disappointment that many of us have about this government's lacklustre—to say the best—approach to building public infrastructure in the public interest.

There are always, of course, those who will say that high-speed rail is too expensive. Not only can we afford it; it is absolutely essential. We would see that an authority would have as part of its core work the investigation of a variety of sources of funding for the full project cost. We know that this project would bring net economic benefits. The government's phase 2 report told us that there'd be more than $2 in economic benefit for every dollar invested. So the answer to the question of how we pay for high-speed rail is, in fact, another question: how can we have an efficient, pollution-free transport system without it? It's transformational, country-shaping infrastructure.

We have choices about how we can raise and spend money. We're currently debating whether to give the big end of town $65 billion in tax cuts and watch as they send their profits offshore. Instead of tax cuts, we can choose to invest money in projects for the public good. We could abolish negative gearing and capital gains tax, a net saving of $51 billion over 10 years. We could invest this money into projects like high-speed rail or public housing or education and health funding—investments that will reap rewards over many decades. We could choose to spend the $17 billion we're currently planning to sink into the Joint Strike Fighters in other, much more positive investments. And we can take advantage of the low interest rates we've got at the moment and borrow money to invest in nation-building infrastructure like high-speed rail.

Our $1½ billion kick-starter which the Greens pledged to high-speed rail at the last election was part of our Infrastructure Bank policy, a long-term revenue plan that decouples long-range infrastructure financing from the annual budget cycle. Instead of having public money tied up in lazy and speculative investment, particularly in the housing market, the Greens laid out our vision to redirect spending towards the new economy.

As I've discussed, there are ways to approach this scale of investment and ensure that it's done in the public interest. What we're not seeing is any dedication to that kind of hard work from this government. We like to think of ourselves as a forward-thinking, innovative nation, and in many respects we are, but on high-speed rail we have been stuck. We don't seem capable of looking beyond election cycles. Labor and Liberal governments alike have been so focused on projects that will give them a boost at the next election rather than thinking to the future. They're happy to just bask in the glow of the sugar hit of the immediate economic benefits of a growing population rather than spending the right amount of money so that we have the benefits of infrastructure in the long term that will actually be needed for our growing population so that that growing population will be able to live the high-quality lives that we do today.

We are spending the inheritance of our children and grandchildren, frittering it away in the form of $65 billion tax cuts that will go straight into the pockets of largely overseas shareholders and big business. We are letting down future generations unless we commit to ambitious, transformative, nation-changing, nation-building projects. We are a global laggard in so many ways. Imagine how it could be if we had real commitment and real vision beyond the next opinion poll. I'm not the first to say this, but this Prime Minister has been a dismal disappointment when it comes to vision, ambition and policies that set us up for generations to come.

Now is the time to be investing in projects such as high-speed rail. We need to take action now, not be held back by the dinosaurs on the coalition backbench. Surely, high-speed rail is a project that could transcend the usual political divides. Surely, it is something that even the National Party can come on board with; the benefits to regional Australia, after all, are huge. The Greens support this bill. We want to see work commenced on east coast high-speed rail and we also want to see all parties commit to the long term, to the long game, before this first step so that we can realise this transformative project once and for all.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise as a resident of regional Australia who sees 30,000 to 40,000 commuters leave the beautiful Central Coast each day, where unemployment has doubled in the time this government has been in office and the commuter journey certainly hasn't gotten any shorter. But this piece of legislation that Senator Farrell has brought to the chamber today is about much more than easing the commuter strain. It's about building for the nation; and, once again, it falls to Labor to lead on nation building. For those who are listening to this debate today, and for anyone visiting the chamber, I remind people that visionaries are required to make sure we have a sense of hope and optimism for our future. We need visionaries to build the infrastructure that this country needs. Sadly, with the current government, there is no vision and very little investment in infrastructure, particularly of the kind that is implied in this legislation before the chamber today.

John F Kennedy said: 'Things don't just happen, they're made to happen.' High-speed rail, which is at the heart of the debate this morning, requires vision—an ability to imagine a better future and then actually take the steps to make that future real. And that's what Labor governments do: Australians are rightly proud of the Snowy Mountains scheme and Labor also kicked off the National Broadband Network rollout. These are visionary, nation-building projects. But always we see the miserliness and lack of vision of those opposite, who constantly degrade that kind of vision. In 1946 they voted against the construction of the Snowy Mountains scheme. And this government is tearing apart the proper building of the National Broadband Network. Instead of delivering a real National Broadband Network with fibre to every home, every premise and every business, the party leading the country at the moment has spent $49 billion on infrastructure that is degraded, taking us from 15th down to 66th in the world while they've been spending that money on a lemon. This is not a nation-building, nation-leading government; it is a small-minded, miserly government.

That's why it's been left to Labor to bring into this place today Senator Farrell's private member's bill which seeks to establish the vehicle that would create the proper planning necessary to establish high-speed rail as a part of Australia's reality—not put it off to the distant future and leave it to others to hopefully pull something together. Big visionary, nation-building projects need nation-building ideas and they need the authority to undertake the necessary work that is required. That is what Senator Farrell's bill seeks to do today by establishing the high-speed rail planning authority. Senator Farrell, in his remarks earlier today, indicated that he introduced this bill on 4 September last year.

The major function achieved by the successful passage of this bill would be the establishment of an 11-person advisory group which would include the key states that would be involved in this east coast fast-rail network—Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT—along with experts who actually know something about this field. It would, in fact, allow us to embrace high-speed rail. The members of the board, as outlined in the bill, would include one member from each of the states or territories affected—Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT—and one member representing the Australian Local Government Association. It's very important that we acknowledge how important our local councils are as part of a national structure to build this fast-rail network. Every one of the states and many local governments would be impacted by the decisions that would necessarily be part of proper planning for space to allow the railway to be built, including the infrastructure around it, to maximise its potential in local communities. Another member would be nominated by the Australasian Railway Association, whose expertise is critical to the development of a sustainable and deliverable high-speed rail plan, and five members would be appointed by the minister for infrastructure on the basis of their qualifications or expertise.

The bill proposes that the authority's roles would be significant. They would include consideration of land use planning related to the corridor, safety, public consultations and measures to minimise environmental impact. I will go to each of those elements. The corridor itself is no small thing to achieve. Safety provisions and safety considerations for Australians and guests of Australia who want to travel at up to 350 kilometres an hour need to be carefully considered, not down the track but right at the front of the planning stage. With regard to public consultation, I've indicated that the local governments will be vital in making sure that we maximise the benefit of this for Australians in our local government areas, but we want community members themselves to be part of building this vision for the nation and bringing their knowledge and expertise to the consultation around the development of proper high-speed rail. Of course, living in this great country, we need to respect the nature of it. Our environmental concerns should be very carefully considered. This is not the 1920s or 1930s; it's 2018 and our understanding and appreciation of our environment means that, rightfully, concerns have to be at the front of our decision-making around where such a high-speed rail might best go to provide the maximum benefit to the nation, the maximum benefit to the community and the minimum possible impact on our environment.

Through this bill, the government have an opportunity to embrace high-speed rail and we call on them to put this visionary project beyond party politics. It's such a big project. It's going to span the lives of many parliaments and, presumably, several prime ministers, but what we see is a government that has failed to bring on this bill. In terms of the history of this bill, when Mr Albanese, the member for Grayndler, was shadow minister for infrastructure, he did an enormous amount of work in preparing the case. For Australians who are just picking up the threads of this now, let me be clear that in 2013, five years ago, legislation was before the parliament that could have been picked up by the incoming Abbott government, but what did they do? They rejected it. The group that was advising in the development of the plan in 2013 was chaired by key and leading people and it was a bipartisan development to get to that stage in 2013. Lyn O'Connell, from the department, chaired the group. It also included the former Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon. Tim Fischer; Ms Jennifer Westacott, CEO of the Business Council of Australia; Mr Bryan Nye, CEO of the Australasian Railway Association; Professor Sue Holliday from the UNSW's Planning Practice, Urban Policy and Strategy; Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University and member of the IA board; Mr Bob Nanva from the RTBU; and Mrs Jenny Dowell, the mayor of Lismore. So a very good, erudite and broad panel had developed and delivered the leadership to consider the preservation of the corridor, the staging of the route, costs, financing observations and options about the commercial case, system specifications and time frames to deliver the whole project. All of that work was done in 2013. So you have to wonder: what on earth have this government been doing other than turning their backs on a nation-building opportunity?

What we know about high-speed rail in Australia is primarily known to us by travelling to other countries. Just this week, I heard on the radio a discussion about tourism and its significance in the international economy. I'm sure that, like many who are listening to this debate and those here in the chamber, we've had the benefit of travelling on very, very comfortable trains travelling at 350 kilometres per hour. This is becoming a common experience for people who live in China and other parts of Asia, such as Taiwan and Japan. I actually had the benefit of being with my entire family during the course of the last Christmas holidays on a train from Rome to Florence at speed. This is a standard practice in so many countries around the world, yet in 2013, when they came to government with Mr Abbott, even with a blueprint prepared and ready to go, this government said, 'That's not our job.' They turned their backs on the legislation that was there ready for them to pick up.

Labor is committed to making sure that the vision that's required to lead this country is on offer. That's part of what is so important about this piece of legislation that is before the Senate today. It indicates Labor's commitment to building the proper high-speed rail which, as I said, is commonplace around the rest of the world in many, many countries so that it becomes a part of Australia's reality, too. Why is it so important? We know that high-speed rail has the capacity to be an economic game changer for Australia. We know it's essential to our economic, social and emotional wellbeing to be able to connect. For that to occur, we have to have safe, regular, efficient and cost-effective rail transport. The Austronesian Railway Association has stated that:

High Speed Rail is a nation building project that will transform Australia …

I think Australians generally believe in the capacity of rail to change our experiences of living on this wonderful eastern seaboard to be able to get to the places we need to to see our families, to access health services, to see the opportunities of our businesses grow and to simply be able to transfer ideas through people moving freely around our community.

For regional Australia, Senator Farrell indicated the length of the line was something akin to 1,700 kilometres, with hundreds of kilometres of tunnelling as part of that. I don't know about everyone here, but, as the daughter of an Irish immigrant who laid a lot of pipe and built a lot of road, I still feel great pride in going and seeing the bridge that goes from Macarthur Square in Western Sydney and knowing that my father was part of building that. Looking at the suburbs that have been developed across Western Sydney, my brother is still involved in this industry. Their part in building the infrastructure that improves people's lives builds pride in their work and pride in their community. So when I think about the engineering feat, the engineering capacity, the innovation-building capacity and the nation-building capacity of a project such as this it excites me beyond belief to think what we can endeavour to do and what innovative skills we can acquire that will then improve the quality of our nation and our capacity to take our part in international developments along this line.

We know that commuting is a very, very big problem for Australians who live just outside all of our major cities. We know that, if we can get this right, time commuting will be reduced. Time travelling will be less, and that means a practical outcome of more time with the people that we love and more time being involved in our communities and all the healthy choices that are a part of that. We know that stage 2 of the high-speed rail feasibility study noted that high-speed rail could allow regional centres to serve as secondary locations for lower cost back offices and new start-up businesses. With the level of unemployment in places such as the Central Coast, with particularly youth unemployment on the rise, as I said, to 17 per cent, we need every advantage we can possibly muster to create the opportunities for businesses to be successful in the regions.

We know that the same feasibility stage 2 study indicated that regional locations within an hour's travel by high-speed rail that have capacity for increasing business growth could assist in making metropolitan centres more globally competitive. So the advantage is not just to the region itself but to the metropolitan city that it would serve, with a much more accessible workforce, who would be able to still live the kind of life that you would hope would be available to most Australians—where you're not spending the equivalent of five hours travelling every day to work.

Sadly, that is the reality for many on the Central Coast of New South Wales, where I live. And we have had what I consider a very uncertain commitment by the local federal member to something that must not be confused with the legislation that is before us today. It must not be confused with the legislation to deliver genuinely high-speed rail at 350 kilometres an hour. Rather, it is an announcement about a faster rail initiative, where the rail speed would be approximately 120 kilometres per hour. Let's be clear: this is not the same thing. The commitment of $20 million to do a competitive business case study with the New South Wales government is a completely different matter from this nation-building, genuine, fast-rail initiative that we're talking about. I also point to the federal local member's press release, dated 26 March, which concludes with the sentence:

The decision to fund these faster rail business cases does not indicate a commitment to fund the infrastructure projects but is instead focused on investigating the viability of such proposals.

So that is where we are at, on the Central Coast.

This government, instead of biting the bullet when it came to government five years ago and building the proper fast rail network—getting on with the job, and being five years down the track in planning and land acquisition, environmental concerns and community consultation—sat on its hands. In a desperate moment, as we're leading up to a federal government election, the local member said, 'Oh, how about we look at 120 kays, not 350, and we'll do something with the state government? Just be careful. We don't want you to think that we're going to do this. We just want you to understand we'll get a business case.' That kind of miserly thinking characterises the whole of the Liberal government with regard to these proper nation-building sorts of issues.

At the moment the Sydney-to-Melbourne and Sydney-to-Brisbane aviation routes are amongst the top 10 busiest in the world. Many of you here, I'm sure, have seen the pressure on our airports, which at times already really struggle with the capacity to deal with the burden of need for Australians to move on this route between Brisbane and Melbourne. I know that there's a lot of pressure on our population, and that is increasing, and busy airports can be a very stressful time and very time consuming. If you need to fly to Brisbane for work, the last thing you need is more pressure at our airports. We can only imagine what relief it would bring to our great metropolises if we could have high-speed rail to take the pressure off those very, very highly used air routes.

The department of infrastructure and regional development undertook a research paper forecasting aviation movements to 2030, and they noted that continued passenger growth at major airports was already a significant test on the capacity of airport infrastructure. With growth in our population, we know that this pressure on airports will increase. The Australian Bureau of Statistics projections tell us that, by 2060, about 50 million people will be living in Australia, and of course that will lead to more demand. The solution could be, I suppose, building airports everywhere, but I doubt that that's really what we want, and there's a limit to the capacity of existing aviation infrastructure to cope with growing demand. Simple economics demand that we give serious consideration to and, through this bill, take action on the proper planning to enable the growth of infrastructure for fast-speed rail to meet growing demand. It's simple economics. Supply is limited or capped. Demand is rising. The current situation we find ourselves in could be a disaster for Australians. But Labor sees it instead as an opportunity to innovate, to provide services that are crucial for social and economic engagement and cohesion, and that's exactly where rail fits in.

I would like to put on the record that this private bill fits, once again, Labor's rich history of pioneering innovation in high-speed rail. When we were in government, we completed the feasibility study on high-speed rail. I've identified key people who were part of delivering that blueprint for a way forward. The study found that, for every single dollar invested, the public would receive a $2.30 benefit. That's a fantastic return on our investment. The project was absolutely declared economically viable. The expert panel that Labor appointed made it clear that there was a need to establish an authority to undertake the preparation of the task at hand, and that happened in 2013. Rather than just leaving it hanging, Labor committed $52 million to that project to take it forward—no small investment. In complete contrast, the coalition government cancelled that investment, despite the evidence and the experts backing the project. We always talk about the need for evidence based policy in this chamber, but the evidence we see before us is that it's only the Labor Party that is leading in visionary infrastructure investment and planning. This government continues to stand against it— (Time expired)

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Science, Jobs and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's great to pick up where Senator O'Neill left off, because Labor were just so committed to it that, having talked about it for years and years and having talked about a $114 billion project, they committed nothing in the budget—zero in the budget—

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Fifty-two million dollars.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Science, Jobs and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, you're wrong, Senator O'Neill. They committed zero in the budget and then, as a late election promise when Kevin Rudd was flailing around for a policy, the $52 million. What they promised to do after six years was, if they were re-elected—when they knew in their heart of hearts at that moment they weren't going to be re-elected—to maybe spend $52 million on some planning, potentially for a $114 billion project. Let's get the facts on the table rather than the spin that we've just heard from Senator O'Neill.

I'm very pleased to contribute to this debate, because it's an important discussion. We all know well, especially those who come here—not me, of course—from the far reaches of the country to sit here in Canberra in sitting weeks, what a big nation we have and what a huge place it is. We know that, because of our size, we face significant transport challenges—no-one disputes that. Therefore, in principle, I think, we're all drawn to the idea of high-speed rail. Being able to cover the large distances between the big cities of the eastern seaboard via fast rail would, in principle, be a great thing. If such a line could stop in various regional centres along the way, you'd also have, potentially, great benefit for those regional areas. But it's also important that we look at the costs and the benefits of these proposals. We do need to be realistic and to consider all of these things. The fact is that high-speed rail is hugely expensive, would take a long time, and, given the low cost of air travel at the moment, may only provide marginal benefits, if it does at all.

We're exploring how we can bring some form of high-speed rail to Australia. Through Consolidated Land and Rail Australia, we're exploring improvements to the rail connections between Melbourne and Greater Shepparton through the development of a business case. This could be the first stage of high-speed rail, but what's important is taking it step by step and making it affordable and sustainable, because that's what responsible governments do, in contrast to our predecessors in the Labor-Greens government.

We are doing very well at addressing Labor's legacy of budget debt and deficits. We've come a long way: we've made over $37 billion in budget savings; we've halved the growth in spending from four per cent under Labor to 1.9 per cent; we've reduced the growth in debt by two-thirds; and we're on track for a balanced budget in 2020-21. We have made these significant achievements while growing the economy and growing jobs. There are now 997,800 more Australians in jobs than when we came to office. That is an amazing record of achievement. In 2017, employment increased by 403,000, with around 300,000 of those jobs being full time. We've had 17 consecutive months of jobs growth—the longest run of jobs growth on record since the ABS started measuring the labour force in 1978, when some senators in this place were not yet born. The Australian economy is, on average, creating more than 1,100 new jobs per day—five times the growth in the last year of Labor. We understand the challenges that we have, and we're getting the budget under control, whilst growing the economy. Many would reflect on the absolutely wasteful spending that took place under the Labor-Greens government when they were last in office and would lament that projects like high-speed rail might well have been a better spend than the money that was thrown out the door—the billions upon billions upon billions that were shovelled out the door—by the Labor Party, which of course makes it more challenging for any future government to be able to invest as much in infrastructure and other areas as they would like to. We need to look at all of this in context when we are discussing this bill.

There have been extensive studies into high-speed rail done over the last 20 years. It was considered under the Howard government in the early 2000s. That study found that construction would take somewhere between 10 and 20 years, due to the logistics and complexity of a project that would cover several states and the ACT, and would likely require the government to fund at least 80 per cent of the whole project and 85 per cent of the cost of the Melbourne-to-Sydney and Sydney-to-Brisbane stages. The modelling showed a financial internal return rate of less than 2½ per cent. The cost was estimated at up to $59 billion. It was clear that the cost was too high and the benefits too low to proceed with the project at the time, so the Howard government shelved the idea.

Then the Labor Party decided to look into the idea while they were in government. Indeed, this has been an idea Labor have continued to talk about and continued to make promises about—including introducing legislation like this—when they are in opposition. They introduce legislation like this when they are in opposition. They were so committed to it when they were in government that they talked about the project and did nothing about it! It's important to note what they did. They had six years and, with the support of their Greens friends, they were able to get virtually anything they wanted through the Senate. They could have had this bill passed when they were in government, but they didn't. It leads one to ask why. Why could this project—which the shadow minister for transport and infrastructure, the member for Grayndler, has continued to argue for—not get off the ground if they were so committed to it in the past? Was it because they were shovelling money out the door for other things? Was it because they'd lost control of the budget? Was it because they didn't actually believe it was affordable? Or was it because they weren't actually committed to it? Who knows? Labor had years to pass a bill like this, but they didn't. They didn't because they knew it wouldn't work.

Under Labor there was another study into the cost and feasibility of high-speed rail. That report found that the Howard government's report was essentially correct: it would take up to 20 years to build. It also found that there was little prospect of private investment, and the government would have to directly fund almost the entire project. And it found that the projected cost had nearly doubled from the time of the Howard government study, to around $114 billion. So the project didn't go ahead. We hear Senator O'Neill and other Labor senators make their contributions and say how committed they were to it and how they committed all this money. Well, of the $114 billion required for the project, they committed zero in the budget. They had six budgets and they committed zero other than a study. After that study, there was nothing. Then, in the depths of the reincarnated Rudd Labor-Greens government in 2013, in the election campaign, they said, 'If we come back, we'll put more money, $52 million, into taking the project forward.' They couldn't even get that into the budget, but that is $52 million out of the $114 billion cost. Senator O'Neill interjected and said that they had delivered the money in the budget. Well, no. In the post-election review of 2013, the Parliamentary Budget Office classified this funding as an election commitment as opposed to a commitment that was funded in the budget or in PEFO. So they delivered nothing. The PBO said:

The ALP election commitment Establish a High Speed Rail Authority could result in significant budget impacts beyond the forward estimates. This would depend on the final specification of any policy to construct high speed rail on the east coast of Australia.

So let's not believe what they say. Let's look, as always, at what Labor did.

That said, there are significant challenges we have to address when it comes to travel between capital cities and regional centres in Australia. Senator O'Neill was talking about airports, but the coalition government has got on with the job and made the decision that Labor refused to make, but which they knew needed to be made, and that was a second airport for Sydney at Badgerys Creek. That is a major piece of transport infrastructure in this country, and we are the ones who committed the funds and who are getting it done—not talking about it, not putting off that which had been talked about for 30 years. We're getting on and doing it. We're going above and beyond in dealing with infrastructure and transport issues we face in this nation.

So let's run through some elements of our record investment in infrastructure. The coalition government's $75 billion roads, rail and airport plan will relieve congestion, grow our regions and make life easier for Australians. We're investing on average $2 billion more per year than Labor and investing in a way that delivers better value and results for taxpayers. Our plan is comprehensive. We're investing in major highway upgrades and congestion-busting roads in capital cities to reduce travel times, improve safety and help businesses move goods and services more efficiently. We are investing in important public transport rail projects, including the Gold Coast Light Rail, Sydney Metro, Melbourne Metro and Flinders Link in Adelaide to improve access, amenity and liveability in our cities. Our historic investment in Inland Rail will link the Port of Brisbane to the Port of Melbourne, transforming freight movements through Victoria, New South Wales and South-East Queensland, while promoting economic opportunities and jobs in these regions.

Local communities are benefiting from the Roads to Recovery Program, with $4.4 billion invested for seven years to 2020-21 in construction, repair and upgrade of local roads. For the Black Spot Program, we have invested $648 million over seven years to deliver safety improvements, such as safety barriers and street lighting on dangerous roads. Local bridges are being fixed with $420 million for the Bridges Renewal Program.

As I said, after five decades of indecision, the coalition government is getting on with building Western Sydney Airport, a major piece of transport infrastructure for this nation, long talked about, long speculated about. No other government had the gumption to get on and do it and do what was necessary for this nation. We are getting on with that job.

In terms of rail, we'll provide $20 million in matching funding to support the development of up to three business cases that will explore opportunities for faster passenger rail and investigate improvements to rail connections between Australia's cities and surrounding regional areas. Following a competitive assessment process in line with criteria published in the Faster rail prospectus, the government announced the three successful proponents selected to develop business cases on 9 March 2018 as follows: Consolidated Land and Rail Australia, Melbourne to Greater Shepparton; New South Wales government, Sydney to Newcastle; and North Coast Connect, Brisbane and the regions of Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast. These proposals clearly demonstrate the government's willingness to investigate long-term solutions to support urban, regional and rural development.

We are also making broader investments in rail, including the Melbourne Airport Rail business case. The coalition government has allocated $30 million in the federal budget to develop the Tullamarine Airport Rail Link business case. The business case will be undertaken in two stages. Stage 1 will be a preliminary business case to develop a common evidence base, undertaking an options analysis and recommend a preferred alignment. The preliminary business case commenced in November 2017 and is expected to be completed in late 2018. Stage 2 will develop a detailed business case on the preferred alignment. A decision to proceed to stage 2 will be made once stage 1 has been considered by the Australian and Victorian governments.

The Australian government will invest $10 billion over the next decade for the National Rail Program which will fund transformational rail projects so people can move around our cities and regions more efficiently, and it will better connect our cities, suburbs and surrounding regional areas. This $10 billion rail investment will reduce the burden on Australian roads, provide more reliable transport networks and support our efforts to decentralise our economy and grow regional Australia. An additional $30 million will also be provided to fund the development of a business case for the Melbourne Airport rail link. We will work with the Victorian government to access potential further funding for this project from the $10 billion National Rail Program. The government will connect regional centres to our capital cities with faster, more reliable rail services, with regional Australia getting its fair share of the new $10 billion National Rail Program.

As part of our record $75 billion national Infrastructure Investment Program, we have a $20 billion commitment to rail, including $426 million this year. That investment has provided funds for rail improvements around the country, including $1.4 billion for the Victorian Regional Rail Revival package, $240 million for the Murray Basin freight rail, $792 million for METRONET in Perth, $252 million for an Adelaide to Tarcoola upgrade, $189 million for the Goodwood and Torrens rail junctions in South Australia, $95 million for Gold Coast Light Rail, $75 million for Port Botany rail stage 2, $59.8 million for the Tasmanian Freight Rail Revitalisation Program and $30 million for the Melbourne Airport rail link.

We are working with the states and territories on improving rail and improving infrastructure more generally. These are sensible programs that will make much-needed improvements while being fiscally responsible. This investment demonstrates our commitment to improving Australia's rail infrastructure, and we're actually delivering results. We're not making big, unfunded promises. We're not talking up big ideas and having reviews and then not doing anything about them. We're investing and we're delivering.

In conclusion, let me make it clear that the government takes this area very seriously, and I've just outlined the numerous measures that we've been pursuing in this space and in the broader transport and infrastructure space. We believe that making important infrastructure investments is critical to our nation. That's why we are investing a record amount. But we will not be lectured to by the Labor Party, who, despite what they claim, despite some of what we've heard in the Senate today, spent a lot of time talking and very little time doing when it came to this. They couldn't even get money in the budget for this project that they now believe is so important, in terms of the bill that is before us in the Senate today. They spoke about it, but, when it came down to it, a flailing Kevin Rudd, at the end of his time in government, having completely destroyed the budget—and let's be clear on this: Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party completely destroyed the budget; they took it from the best possible budget position to one of the largest deficits in our history; and then they'd ran out of money, they knew they didn't have the money, they couldn't even get the basics in the budget because they'd blown the budget so badly—promised, knowing that Labor were very unlikely to return, that if they came back into government they would fund this $114 billion project to the tune of $52 million.

When we debate those things we should look at Labor's record rather than what they say. They are very good at talking about issues—much more so than delivering. The coalition government, on the other hand, has a strong record of delivery. We're investing in the infrastructure we need and we will continue to investigate where there needs to be further infrastructure investment, particularly in our critical transport infrastructure.

Chris Ketter (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in favour of the High Speed Rail Planning Authority Bill 2017. I'm very pleased to take this opportunity to discuss the issue of rail infrastructure, an issue which is made evermore topical in Queensland as Labor gets on with the job of building Cross River Rail. I have listened to some of the contributions from the other side on this private member's bill. I must say that it would be a wonderful thing if, in this country, we could come up with a bipartisan approach to a form of infrastructure which is quite critical to the future.

I know that others have talked about some of these issues, but I think it's critical to note here that Infrastructure Australia, which is the independent body that looks at infrastructure investment across the country, in July last year talked about the fact that more action is needed to 'protect vital infrastructure corridors'. It said that the most urgent priority for protection is the east coast high-speed rail corridor. It went on to say:

This critical corridor faces immediate pressure due to its proximity to major population centres and should be a focus for the NSW, Victorian and federal governments.

It went on to say that's why:

Infrastructure Australia is recommending that a national framework for corridor protection be put in place to guide—

coordinated and—

meaningful action by all levels of government.

It's something of a no-brainer that a high-speed rail network connecting Melbourne to Brisbane via Canberra is necessary for our future.

The evidence is fairly compelling that this is an infrastructure project that is necessary for our future, but the contributions we've heard today from the other side suggest that ideological considerations are being brought to bear here in the government setting its face against this particular project. Whereas the government has moved away from this bipartisan approach here, I'm very pleased to see the Queensland government is getting on with the job of building Cross River Rail. This is in spite of the fact that the federal government has, unfortunately, walked away from stumping up for that vital piece of infrastructure for Queensland. This is an area where the Prime Minister and the so-called 'Team Queensland' should really be condemned.

There is no doubt, as others have said, that the high-speed rail on the east coast can be an economic game changer. Labor's proposal will facilitate travel between the interstate capitals in as little as three hours. That puts it almost on an equal footing with flying. I'm from Brisbane; I know that it would be very good to have options in relation to travel between capital cities. In a modern society, we know it's not unusual to travel for work. But, in looking at the airline situation in Australia, I think a lot of people would be surprised to know that, of all the aviation routes, the Sydney-Melbourne aviation route is actually the second busiest route in the world with 54,519 flights per annum. The Sydney-Brisbane aviation route comes in down the track, I think at No. 8, and it's something like 33,765 flights per annum. It was surprising to me to note that the US is down the list. The busiest US aviation route is between Los Angeles and San Francisco; it's actually No. 7 of the top 10 busiest aviation routes in the world. That route comes in with 34,897 flights per annum.

When it comes to our airports and aviation routes, it's quite clear they are under considerable pressure, and they are going to be under even greater pressure moving forward. The demand being put on our airports is leading to increasing levels of dissatisfaction with airlines. Recurring cancellations of flights out of Canberra is just one example—one that most of us in this place can relate to. In fact, this is currently the subject of an inquiry by the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee, and I note that public hearings are scheduled to begin around the country in coming weeks.

If one was to listen to Senator Molan's contribution earlier, one would think that the high-speed rail project between the capital cities is something that would only benefit urban people and would not be of benefit to regional Australia. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, this high-speed rail proposal could turbocharge regional development. Others have pointed to the fact that the rail project would travel between the capital cities but also through regional areas such as the Gold Coast, Casino, Grafton, Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie, Taree, Newcastle, the Central Coast, the Southern Highlands, Wagga Wagga, Albury-Wodonga and Shepparton. And, of course, it would travel through Canberra, which is Australia's largest inland city. Connecting these great regional cities to a high-speed mass transit system would connect them to massive opportunities for economic development. High-speed rail has vast potential to change the nature of our fly-in, fly-out economies.

We note that the high-speed rail feasibility stage 2 study, conducted under the previous Labor government, highlighted the fact that employment growth in the central business districts of our east coast capitals will double over the next 30 years. That extra demand is going to limit the capacity of our public transport to cope. That report said:

Regional locations within two hours travel by HSR—

high-speed rail—

that have capacity for increases in business growth could assist in making the metropolitan centres more globally competitive by providing less congested future growth options.

It went on to say that this could allow regional centres to serve as secondary locations for lower cost back office functions and new start-up businesses requiring less frequent access to the major centres. So it's quite clear that the high-speed rail project has real value as a driver of regional economic development with beneficial spin-offs for capital cities.

The other spin-off benefits from this project, if we can get the procurement right, will be opportunities for our manufacturing sector and companies, particularly like Downer Rail in my home state of Queensland in the beautiful city of Maryborough. It has a record of building high-speed tilt trains and other rolling stock over many years under various different names, but it's currently called Downer Rail. There are real opportunities in relation to regional development.

There are, in fact, some fans of high-speed rail in Queensland. I note that recently there was an announcement by the Deputy Prime Minister in Nambour in relation to the successful business development applications for what they call their 'faster rail' proposals. This would involve linking the Sunshine Coast and Nambour to Brisbane to ease urban congestion. There is some merit in these proposals. I note that the Queensland government has indicated that, whilst it generally supports this proposal, the key piece of infrastructure that is being overlooked here is the Cross River Rail. Unless that is addressed and built, there are going to be bottlenecks in the system and what the government is proposing for the Sunshine Coast will be impacted by that.

I'm very keen on the contribution that a high-speed rail project can make to regional economies. In fact, one of the things I'm involved in, as Chair of the Senate Economics References Committee, is initiating an inquiry into regional inequality. That's a matter we've now got going. I expect to see evidence throughout the course of that inquiry that will show that limited transport options for regional people and the sheer time taken for travel between regional hubs is a key factor of regional inequality.

There is a lot of significant evidence backing up our proposal for high-speed rail. The Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities' research paper has indicated that aviation movements to 2030 will lead to continued passenger growth at major airports which are already testing the capacity of our existing airport infrastructure. It's said that international air travel will grow strongly to 2030, with both domestic and international passenger movements through capital cities almost doubling. A 2010 report by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics which examined movement through the nation's capital city airports forecast growth of 4.2 per cent a year to 235 million by 2029-30.

We should also consider the possibility that, in coming decades, growing incomes will open interstate travel to more Australians, which could lead to even greater demand on our aviation sector. At the same time, the growing need to reduce our carbon emissions will make rail more competitive against air travel, because we know that trains produce fewer emissions. We may want to build more airports all over the country, but there's a limit to the capacity of our existing aviation infrastructure to cope. I note that, in Brisbane, work is well underway on our second runway, which is estimated to open in 2020. There have been significant issues over the years leading up to and during this development—flight delays, congestions and cancellations—and I'm sure that Brisbane is not the only example of this. Beginning high-speed rail now will put us in the box seat for business over coming years. It's far cleaner than aircraft travel, as I've said, and it can be more convenient, particularly for families with young children. Also, it's a better experience for locals and tourists alike, enabling views of scenery along the route.

High-speed rail study : phase 2 noted that employment growth in central business districts is going to double over the next 30 years. The previous Labor government completed that feasibility study and found that the project was viable. In fact, the study highlighted the fact that it would return $2.30 in public benefit for every dollar invested. The report said:

In terms of the forecast demand for high-speed rail, the phase 2 report said:

Between 46 million and 111 million passengers are forecast to use HSR services for intercity and regional trips, if the preferred HSR network were fully operational in 2065, with a central forecast of 83.6 million passengers per year.

It's interesting to note that,

By 2065, HSR—

high-speed rail—

could attract 40 per cent of intercity air travel on the east coast and 60 per cent of regional air travel (primarily long regional). On the three main sectors, Sydney-Melbourne, Sydney-Brisbane and Sydney-Canberra, HSR could attract more than 50 per cent of the air travel market.

These are compelling reasons as to why we need to look closely at this option.

Other speakers have talked about the fact that Labor set up that expert panel. The independent experts recommended that we take action now to begin to acquire the corridor. They also recommended that we establish an authority to undertake that task and to bring the relevant jurisdictions together to advance planning. It is a matter of concern and regret that all the preparatory work that was done was, in fact, scrapped by the incoming Abbott government.

The previous government had allocated $52 million in funding to take that project further. There is a lot of preparatory work required for a project of the size of the high-speed rail. There is a step-by-step approach that needs to be taken. It is unfortunate that the incoming government didn't have the necessary vision to see the potential for this project and to continue the preparatory work that the previous Labor government had done. As soon as the coalition government took office it ripped up the cheque for the $52 million and it tore apart the high-speed rail advisory group. Since then, it hasn't done anything to advance the east coast high-speed rail project, even as nations around the world have stepped up construction of new lines.

Whilst their federal counterparts have squandered the last four years—taking money out of rail investment—the Queensland LNP had a thought bubble. They talked about building a high-speed rail service to the Sunshine Coast. So, whilst the federal coalition cancelled urban rail public transport projects across the nation and failed to back important projects like the Melbourne Metro and Brisbane Cross River Rail project, the Queensland LNP made high-speed rail to the Sunshine Coast an election commitment—with not a word about Labor's proposal, which would have seen travel through the Gold Coast, enabling Queensland to capitalise on tourism throughout that region and not a word about inland rail, which has stalled due to the LNP's crippling inability to agree on the way forward.

We've seen a cavalcade of infrastructure ministers at the federal level. We've seen Mr Chester worrying about his position, and we had former minister Joyce. Well, we know what has been distracting him. And we've seen their attitude to inland rail and infrastructure generally. Whilst I'm talking about the former Deputy Prime Minister, I think it's important to note that, under his approach, Queensland has been dudded in terms of the coalition's promises for infrastructure investment generally. Between 2014-15 and 2017-18, the government announced $7.2 billion worth of funding commitments for roads and other infrastructure in Queensland, but the budget outcome documents show that the government has invested $6.1 billion. That's a shortfall of $1 billion that Queensland is missing out on. This is a huge deficit for Queensland.

The LNP is heavy on spin and scant on detail. Again, it was disappointing to hear some of the contributions today which were more interested in attacking the previous Labor government than looking at the merits of this project, which is generally seen by credible experts in the field as being a game changer for our country. It's a visionary project. It's time to take the politics out of this issue and to get building now so that we can turbocharge the possibilities for our nation's future. I am proud to support this bill, and I urge the coalition to get behind it—it's not too late—before Labor has to once again lead the way and bring them kicking and screaming into the fold.

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on a private senator's bill submitted for consideration to this place by our colleague from South Australia, Senator Farrell, the High Speed Rail Planning Authority Bill 2017. This is not an issue with which this chamber is unfamiliar. On this very issue, the member for Bennelong, Mr John Alexander, said in the other place on 23 November 2015:

We have bipartisan support here—

something Senator Ketter might have forgotten—

but we might have a little bit of a divergence on how we should get there.

Sadly, as with so many things lately, it appears that, since the member for Bennelong last spoke on this issue in 2015, the Labor Party and the coalition have in fact diverged a little further on their paths on how to deal with this highly complex issue.

Firstly, it should be noted that, in principle, the coalition supports the construction of high-speed rail connecting Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. We often look to high-speed rail as simply a way of getting from A to B. But, as the member for Bennelong so eloquently noted in his speech back in 2015, the positive externalities of high-speed rail extend far beyond simply making it easy to travel quickly from one major city to another. It is actually able to address one of our nation's core problems—that is, the overdevelopment of our major cities, the costs of those cities, the congestion in those cities and the loss of productivity from that congestion in those cities.

Furthermore, we have an extraordinary imbalance whereby Sydney and Melbourne are among the five most expensive cities in the world. This is an extraordinary thing for Australia, whose single greatest asset is real estate. The imbalance that has occurred, as regional areas have declined and our major cities have grown, presents a perfect storm for the creation of a strategic decentralisation to create housing supply in regions where land is less expensive. The infrastructure to achieve that is high-speed rail. This was discovered in Japan in the 1960s, as we well know, when Tokyo was the most expensive city in the world and one of the most congested cities in the world. High-speed rail has seen Japan decentralise and the creation of regional cities, which has taken the pressure off Tokyo.

There is no question that, in a vacuum, high-speed rail presents many great opportunities for urban development and decentralisation of Australia's population away from our two major cities of Sydney and Melbourne. But, alas, we don't live in a vacuum. High-speed rail connecting Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne has been investigated previously and been found to be unaffordable. That is why the Turnbull government is focusing on finding ways to affordably deliver the benefits of high-speed rail through other means. This entails connecting regional centres to capital city CBDs with faster rail services, enticing people to move away from the city centres comfortable in the knowledge that they can still access city centres quickly and easily. This will generate jobs and provide opportunities for more people to access more affordable housing in regional areas and high-skilled jobs in the cities.

The federal opposition is committed to establishing a high-speed rail planning authority to gather international expressions of interest for the construction of high-speed rail. On a number of previous occasions we have seen the introduction of private members' bills such as this in the other place to establish these very arrangements. Unsurprisingly, the debate on those bills has been adjourned. An almost identical bill was introduced into the Senate on 4 September 2017.

When last in government, Labor committed $55 million to establishing the authority. However, in true Labor style, the funding that was supposedly allocated to this authority in the 2013 campaign never really existed. As has been the case for decades, unfunded promises are a staple of the Australian Labor Party diet. The Parliamentary Budget Office classified this funding as an election commitment rather than a commitment that was funded in the budget or in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook. As the Parliamentary Budget Office said:

The ALP election commitment Establish a High Speed Rail Authority could result in significant budget impacts beyond the forward estimates. This would depend on the final specification of any policy to construct high speed rail on the east coast of Australia.

By contrast, the Turnbull coalition government is making real promises that are fully accounted for and fully funded and that will be realised to the great benefit of the majority of the people of Australia.

The Turnbull government will, in fact, provide $20 million in matching funding to support the development of up to three separate business cases that will explore opportunities for faster passenger rail and investigate improvements to the rail connections between Australia's cities and the surrounding regional areas. Following a competitive assessment process in line with the criteria published in the Faster Rail Prospectus on 9 March 2018, the government announced the three successful proponents to develop the business cases as follows: Consolidated Land and Rail Australia, CLARA, for Melbourne to Greater Shepparton; the New South Wales government to assess Sydney to Newcastle; and the North Coast Connect consortium to establish a business case into Brisbane and the regions of Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast. These proposals are demonstrative of the government's willingness to investigate long-term solutions that support urban, regional and rural development.

There is no shortage of commitment from this government to deliver rail-based solutions to urban planning and connectivity problems in Australia, especially those on the eastern seaboard. The CLARA proposal, in particular, makes the business case for high-speed rail from Melbourne to Shepparton, which would be the first step in the Melbourne-Brisbane high-speed rail corridor. The CLARA proposal provides an innovative and revolutionary model for building high-speed rail between Melbourne and Greater Shepparton, but does not involve direct costs to government or taxpayers. The Melbourne-to-Greater Shepparton business case will investigate the development of two new sustainable smart cities with connections to high-speed rail along a new dedicated corridor. CLARA defines their cities as:

… new cities where data is open, energy's renewable, water is valued, homes are affordable and people can live within 10 minutes of all they need. Cities where world class healthcare meets high tech education. Where new and existing businesses will converge to create more vibrant regional economies. Cities built to unlock all human potential. Cities made possible by high speed rail that can place citizens in our capitals in less time than a morning commute.

The opportunity created by the development of these two smart cities would fund the infrastructure, including the fast rail line, needed to support them through land value uplift. CLARA has indicated that travel times over the full length of the line could be reduced from approximately three hours to a mere 32 minutes. While the CLARA proposal is clearly revolutionary, it does warrant further investigation, as it potentially provides a solution to both the challenges of meeting growing housing demand in our major cities and future growth opportunities. Our support for CLARA is a tangible way in which the coalition is working with the private sector to better understand how the very high-speed rail between Melbourne and Brisbane could be built.

I do wish to further remind the chamber of the great work that the coalition parties are doing, on a federal and a state level, to bring high quality and efficient rail to the great state of Victoria in other areas as well. The coalition is the only one to deliver on the rail promises for the whole of Australia, and not just those in metropolitan Melbourne. I'm very proud to stand here today as a patron senator for all of Victoria, though one of my regions of particular interest is that of Indi. I'm very proud that the Turnbull government has stopped the chatter about trains and is actually getting on with the job of not only upgrading rail but building new rail for Victoria and all of Australia. In the 2017-18 budget, the Turnbull coalition committed $100 million to upgrade the North East rail line—no more speed restrictions, no more late trains and no more dangerous mud holes. It was the Turnbull coalition government which took the first steps to upgrade the line which Indi and particularly the communities of Wodonga and Wangaratta so desperately need. It was just at the start of this month, nine months after the federal budget announcement to commit $100 million for the North East line, that the Victorian Andrews Labor government sought to derail the whole project—that is an unintentional pun, but, yes, the Andrews government did seek to derail the whole project. It is very hard to believe, but Premier Andrews decided that the north-east was not, in fact, his priority and that it wasn't the state's job to fund regional rail upgrades. However, I am very proud to enlighten the chamber with the knowledge that, once again, the Turnbull coalition government has stepped in to save the day in my home state of Victoria. Just last week, the coalition put forward another $135 million for the North East line.

We have more than doubled our funding to make these upgrades a reality, but where is the state Labor government when all of this is happening, I hear you ask? Well, the Victorian Andrews Labor government is running for cover as the Victorian coalition opposition have announced $633 million for country rail in Victoria if they are elected at the November state election. This is well over half a billion dollars committed to replace the ageing diesel haul trains with 16 new-generation VLocity trains. The coalition is going to give passengers comfort, leg room, safety and amenity while they are travelling across the state on 96 new railcars capable of travelling at up to 160 kilometres an hour.

I know this is hard to believe, but the Turnbull coalition government's commitment to rail for all of Australia doesn't stop there. In fact, the rail line doesn't just end in Wodonga, it doesn't end in Wagga Wagga and it certainly won't cease in Narrabri. That's because the Turnbull coalition government, in the 2017-18 budget, committed $10 billion towards the National Rail Program, which included $8.4 billion for the Inland Rail project stretching from Melbourne to Brisbane. Inland Rail is a once-in-a-generation nation-building infrastructure project. It will give people in regional areas the capacity to be part of a corridor of commerce, with greater access to and from regional markets and improved linkages with the national freight network.

We are getting on with the job. On 15 January this year, I attended the first steel rail delivery for the Parkes-to-Narromine project. The Victorian government signed a bilateral agreement to support Inland Rail on Friday, 16 March 2018. After years and years of talking, construction will finally start in May this year. Inland Rail comprises 13 projects across Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, and study corridors for each of the 13 Inland Rail projects have already been identified. Construction on all sections is expected to be underway by early 2021. The railway is expected to commence operations in 2024 and 2025.

While we in the coalition have been very busy making things actually happen, the Andrews Labor government in Victoria have made themselves busy by complaining incessantly about a lack of support from the federal government. While I am normally in support of anyone from my great home state of Victoria requesting more help, Premier Daniel Andrews is betraying the trust of the Victorian people with this gripe, for this government has pledged billions of dollars in matched funding that Premier Andrews is yet to realise. It's time he came clean with the Victorian people. The Turnbull government has allocated $3 billion for infrastructure in Victoria since April 2016, supporting 48 separate projects across Melbourne and regional Victoria. The vast majority of these projects need to be rolled out by the Andrews government. They are funded by the federal government, but they need the Andrews government to step up and support them. They need the Andrews government to step up and roll them out. But, disappointingly, of these 48 projects, only three have been completed and only 10 are under construction. Yet the constant gripe from Daniel Andrews is that the federal government has overlooked Victoria time and time again. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's now up to Premier Andrews to unlock the funds that have been allocated to Victoria. The Andrews Labor government has clearly failed in its duty to put the Commonwealth funding that has been allocated to it to work.

The Turnbull government's commitment includes: unlocking $1.5 billion previously allocated to the East West Link to support upgrades on the Monash Freeway—that was $500 million; the M80 ring road—that was $350 million; the Murray Basin Rail Project, which was $220 million; a further $20 million as part of the Victorian regional rail package; the regional and rural roads package, which was $345 million; and the urban congestion package, which was originally $75 million but was increased to $85 million following the Victorian government's refusal of $10 million to help plan the Melbourne Metro. I heard Senator Ketter mention that very project just a few minutes ago.

The Turnbull government's $1.4 billion Victorian Regional Rail package, announced in June 2017, was allocated towards upgrades on the Ballarat line, of $502 million; the Gippsland line, including the Avon River Bridge upgrade, another $502 million; and the Warrnambool line, which is so important in one of our most prolific agricultural areas, $104 million. For the Geelong line—Geelong is essentially now a commuter town to Melbourne—there's $99 million; the north-east line, as was mentioned earlier, $100 million; the Bendigo and Echuca lines, $82 million; and the Shepparton line, another $9 million. These are critical regional rail upgrades, and they are being held up by the Andrews Labor government in Victoria, which is yet to provide adequate detail on most of the projects and to deliver the commitments needed to get the landmark Inland Rail project moving.

It was also the Turnbull government that initiated the development of a business case for the Melbourne Airport rail link through a $30 million investment in the 2017-18 federal budget. Victorians should not for a second be fooled by Premier Andrews's attempt to take credit for that project in November. The Andrews Labor government never stops asking for more money from Canberra, but it needs to get on with the desperately needed road and rail projects that the Turnbull government has already committed to help fund. That is why Victorians are stuck in traffic. That's why they have a right to expect what this Turnbull government wants to see happen as quickly as possible. There is an estimated $5.6 billion waiting to be spent on Victorian infrastructure, if the Turnbull government's $3 billion commitment to the East West Link is included.

Victorians have a right to be sceptical that the Andrews Labor government is deliberately stalling projects in key marginal electorates so that works commence on the eve of the November state polls, giving an illusion of delivery before people head to those polls. It's not surprising that local communities waiting for much-needed road and rail upgrades remain angered and frustrated that one of the biggest infrastructure spends by the Andrews government so far has been—wait for it—the $1.3 billion that it has spent cancelling an infrastructure project, the East West Link. It becomes all too easy to understand the frustration of Victorians. It becomes all too easy to understand why they pull their hair out when they are stuck in traffic, when they're waiting on rail lines for trains that don't arrive, when the trains that do arrive break down because their rolling stock is of such extraordinarily poor quality, and when V/Line services running from Melbourne to Geelong—a basic commuter town—are either late or so overcrowded that they can't even fit passengers on. It's got to the stage now where our Victorian V/Line trains are like the Japanese subway where people have to be pushed on. These are very long commutes, and it's entirely unreasonable that a country like ours should expect that sort of capacity from its rail network. So you understand the government's hesitation not just in bipartisan initiation of these projects but also in their implementation.

Federal Labor cannot, in all seriousness, ask for federal coalition support on a project such as this without evidence and commitment that it can hold its state counterparts to account after the negligent mismanagement of projects that the coalition have earnestly and in good faith supported and initiated in the past. It's time now for the Andrews government to step up and deliver on the promises that it has made to the Victorian people.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Fawcett, you've got about 6½ minutes.

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

As the final speaker in this debate, in the limited time available, I rise to make a few comments on the High Speed Rail Planning Authority Bill 2017 introduced into this place by my South Australian colleague from the other side Senator Farrell. I note that it has also been introduced in the House of Representatives a number of times—most spectacularly, in the dying days of the second Rudd government. I think that's well worth considering, because my experience is that the Australian public needs to look at what governments do as opposed to what they say.

We've had in this place today members from the opposition putting themselves forward as the people with a vision for the future of Australia. I think some of their comments were that they were picking up the slack and doing things that the coalition government wasn't doing. But if you look back to when this bill was introduced—and I commend the intent; there are many aspects of it that have similar concepts to what the federal government, the coalition, is putting forward in the Inland Rail program—and if you look at the implementation under the second Rudd government, it was a rushed election commitment. The funding that was promised as an election commitment was never actually budgeted for. The Parliamentary Budget Office confirmed, in documents after the election, that, in actual fact, the money—some $54 million that was proposed by Labor—was never worked into the budget papers. One of Australia's finest military officers, Des Mueller, made a comment once that has resonated with me: 'vision without dollars is hallucination'. We see so often that—particularly now that they're in opposition—it's very easy to promise big things, but if you're not prepared to fund it then it is merely hallucination.

As you compare the two options for parties of government, the coalition has form in delivering and the opposition has form in promising and not delivering. I'm not going to go on too much about the areas where we are delivering in rail infrastructure. I've listened to some of the speeches that my colleagues senators Hume, Molan and Seselja have provided. They have given many examples of where the coalition is working to provide investment in rail infrastructure, but I want to highlight a couple of other areas. With the Defence minister sitting in front of me, there is perhaps no better area—as a South Australian—to highlight than shipbuilding.

In the six years of the Labor government under Mr Rudd, Ms Gillard and then Mr Rudd, we saw the development of the 2009 white paper, which was quite articulate. It was broadly supported by both sides of politics because it articulated the changing strategic environment in which we lived and outlined the need for an investment in 12 submarines as part of Australia's defence capability. Having seen that, you would expect that there then would be follow-through with planning, funding and implementation, but we saw no commitments by the Labor government in making decisions around the Future Submarine. It fell to the coalition government to put in place the competitive evaluation process, which is a process that is well known and used in Europe for highly complex pieces of equipment. A contract has now been let and funding has been put aside for that program. Again, the others may claim to have had the vision, but there was no plan, no implementation and no funding. The coalition recognised the need and has acted. That's a significant difference that the Australian public should remember.

Likewise, with national shipbuilding, the coalition under John Howard put in place the programs for the LHDs as well as the Air Warfare Destroyer Program. Those programs have now started to deliver the Hobart class of air warfare destroyer as well as the Canberra and Adelaide LHDs, which are world-class ships. They have kept our shipyards busy through until about the last 12 to 18 months. In criticising the drop-off of workforce, those opposite fail to realise that it was their lack of planning, action and funding during the Rudd and Gillard eras that meant that there is now what is known as the valley of death. The lead time from taking a vision and putting it into a funded plan to starting work is measured, according to Defence and industry experts, in years—normally five to six years from the time a government commits until work commences. If we were to have seen work flow to Australian yards—which would have meant that there would be no gap in the workforce, and therefore we would have maintained the efficiencies and the reduced risk—that decision would have had to have been made under a Labor government, which it wasn't.

Contrast that to this government, which has brought forward not only the planning but the funding. We are investing some $1.2 billion in the infrastructure at Osborne so that we can see the offshore patrol vessel, the future frigate and the Future Submarine built. It's a good example of where the coalition not only has the vision but, more importantly, has the management ability to put in place a plan and the funding so that we can deliver the infrastructure and capability Australia needs.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 12.20, the Senate will now proceed to consideration of government business.