Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport, Roads and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I wish him well on his way. On the issue of productivity growth, I also note that, after 11 years, the Howard government has finally taken a few small steps along an appropriate path in schooling, vocational education and higher education that perhaps go some way towards addressing productivity outcomes in the long term. The opposition welcomes them but they are too late. We cannot turn out tradespeople and university graduates overnight. Investment in education today will take a generation to materialise. There is much that can deliver productivity gains more quickly. That includes our requirement to invest in infrastructure, which has been another major failing of the Howard government.

I do not know how many times during the term of this parliament that the issue has been raised, yet we still have coal ships queueing off Newcastle waiting to be loaded and coal mining jobs being lost in the Hunter Valley at a time when global demand for Australia’s coal has never been greater. The export bottlenecks at Australian ports are a national disgrace. They reflect a tired government bereft of the national leadership required to bring all the stakeholders in government and the private sector to the table to work through our export supply chain issues and come up with solutions.

As I have warned consistently in this parliament, if Australia cannot keep up with the investment required to support the expansion of our export industries, investors will go elsewhere in the world to meet demand and Australia will be left behind. The effect of those lost opportunities will last a very long time. New mines in South Africa or South America could push back the need for new resources to be brought online in Australia for decades, particularly if the boom falters.

It is not only investment in export supply chains, rail and ports that threaten the national economy but also investments in roads, freight hubs, electricity, water and telecommunications. If we as a nation cannot get critical infrastructure right, we will in doing so be putting Australian jobs and valuable export dollars at risk. I have a broadband problem in my own electorate of Batman, a northern suburbs seat in Melbourne not far from La Trobe University, a major centre of national training. Who would have thought that broadband would have been a problem in one of Australia’s major cities near a major university about 20 kilometres from the Melbourne CBD? I do not consider it should be a problem. The Howard government just cannot sit down with industry, the competition regulator and the users to cut a deal, so the Labor Party will pursue making broadband a major issue at the next election.

It is not only about the education and healthcare systems in Australia; it is also about how we do business both domestically and internationally. This government is completely bereft of leadership and Australian productivity growth is falling behind our peers as a result. It is now 1.5 per cent compared with 2.5 per cent in the United States. The facts speak for themselves.

There are many initiatives that are welcome in the budget but that are also long overdue. The Treasurer has finally adopted the opposition’s policy to provide tax cuts and offsets where they are most needed—for lower and middle income earners. I welcome the lifting of the 30 per cent and 40 per cent tax thresholds and the higher low-income tax offset. They are clearly good initiatives, but lower and middle income earners have waited a long time for them. They are long overdue.

As shadow minister for transport and roads I support the $22.3 billion funding for AusLink 2 and as shadow minister for tourism I support the ongoing commitment of funding for Tourism Australia under the white paper processes. I have always supported AusLink. In fact, it was the opposition in the lead-up to the 2001 election that campaigned in support of a national land transport plan for Australia. It was opposed in the election debate by the then minister for transport, John Anderson, the member for Gwydir. It was only after the 2001 election that the department, to its credit, actually convinced the minister that the opposition’s proposal for a national land transport plan, which eventually became AusLink, was the appropriate way forward.

Having said that, I think it is more important than ever that we have a national land transport plan. Such a plan is about assisting the Australian economy and working with the private sector to do the right thing with respect to infrastructure development and also, for example, in terms of our roads, working to reduce death and serious injury, which are exceptionally important not only to individuals and families but also to the overall cost of health care in Australia. If we get some of our roads right we can reduce expenditure on health care because we are reducing serious accidents and injuries. It is a good investment in our overall budget process to do some of this infrastructure.

The opposition will, therefore, continue to support a national AusLink plan based on transparency, appropriate corridor strategies being developed in consultation with states and territories and agreed shared funding arrangements. I also appreciate that we are under huge pressures at the moment because of huge increases in costs in Australia partly related to the resources boom—questions of shortages of skills and the added cost, for example, of steel, concrete and asphalt. For example, given the issue of asphalt, just think of the impact the price of oil has had on road construction in Australia over the last couple of years. There are huge additional pressures that we have to confront as a nation in catching up on the infrastructure backlog that confronts Australia at a state, territory and federal level.

The opposition, as I said prior to the budget, also supports the ongoing black spots program and welcomes the commitment of funding. This is a program achieving real results in saving lives on Australian roads. I consider it historically to be above politics. The program is transparent because of local, state and federal government involvement in the selection of black spots.

The opposition will also continue to support the Roads to Recovery program, but local councils must also front up to their responsibilities for local roads and use this program for the purpose it was intended—to top up, not replace, local government road funding. I remind some councils of the Audit Office report which basically said that the majority of councils are doing the right thing by the original intent of the Roads to Recovery agreement, which was supported by the government and the opposition—that is, that they were expected to maintain their normal, additional funding for roads and where possible to improve that funding, but that a Roads to Recovery grant from the Australian government was not to replace that funding. You still have to pull your own weight locally in terms of fronting up to your own rate base and maintaining an appropriate level of road funding. That was a condition that was up-front at the outset of the debate about the Roads to Recovery program and was supported by both sides of the parliament

That, unfortunately, takes me to what I regard as a misuse of funds in the current budget. I refer specifically to the Strategic Regional Program, which I actually support. We very much argued for this type of approach to encourage states and local councils to think regionally in association with the private sector by putting on the table programs which could then attract additional funding. I refer this evening to the shameful way Ministers Vaile and Lloyd have used the $250 million additional money under the Strategic Regional Program over the last week to hand out largesse in safe and marginal coalition seats over this period of four to six weeks. $250 million to spend over a six-week period is not an inconsiderable amount of money—it is twice the amount that was available in the last contestable round in 2006. Minister Vaile has handed it out over the last two weeks sitting in front of an electoral map in his office.

It is now clear from the estimates proceedings in the Senate yesterday that the projects were largely selected in the minister’s office and local councils and state governments were then told, ‘We’re doing this, where’s your money?’ It was not locally driven, as required under the Auslink Strategic Regional Program funding guidelines and as was expected by local councils. In fact, there are clear examples that some councils had other strategic projects of far more importance—often based on a proper assessment of road safety issues and the issue of serious injuries and deaths. So it is about time we restored the integrity of this program. I think that is very important, because these projects should be above politics and they should guarantee that taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars are not used for largesse to shore up the coalition’s chances of electoral success. I find that very few people in the Australian community disagree with that approach. As a community, we need to fund our strategic regional roads, but it cannot be a ham-fisted electoral rort, as is currently occurring with the expenditure of this $250 million. I remind the House that this is no different to the last election campaign, a six-week period in 2004, when the National Party minister on behalf of the coalition government doled out $125 million of $150 million under the strategic roads program in six weeks of the campaign, leaving just $27 million for contestable projects after the election.

I argue to the House this evening that Minister Vaile has completely ignored the priorities of local councils and communities, and made a mockery of the hard work of local councils in submitting detailed applications based on costed and justified project proposals. The facts show that 22 Liberal government electorates have received 44 projects amounting to $119.92 million; six Nationals electorates have received 22 projects out of this $250 million program, amounting to $56.27 million; and one new electorate, the electorate of Flynn—regarded as a marginal seat in Queensland—has received six projects amounting to $27.97 million. I think it is fair to say that the National Party regards itself as the senior coalition partner seeking to win that seat. Coalition electorates therefore received 72 projects amounting to $204.16 million. There were seven Labor electorates selected, which received 11 projects amounting to $28.03 million and three electorates held by Independents which have received funding for five projects amounting to $16.62 million. The facts speak for themselves. We need a forward looking infrastructure program that is about integrity and doing the right thing by the Australian community. What is occurring at the moment leaves a hell of a lot to be desired in what the Australian community expects.

I also want to deal with the other part of my responsibility as a shadow minister—that is, the tourism portfolio. I welcome the government’s continuation of funding for the industry. This bill importantly follows federal Labor’s calls for a continuation of this funding. As the shadow minister, I consider this funding is critical for the 10-year white paper plan, which has the support of both sides of parliament. As we all appreciate, the tourism white paper provided a 10-year plan for the Australian industry. It is an $81 billion industry and yet, unfortunately, the Howard government initially only provided a guarantee of four years of funding without any firm commitment. The announcement to continue the funding is a simple, common-sense move. It creates certainty and security in the industry for the purposes of further development. It will provide operators with greater certainty as they compete in an increasingly competitive global market.

We appreciate the dynamics of the global market are changing rapidly. Travel restrictions in once tightly-controlled countries are being lifted, the middle class is rapidly emerging in new markets and that is effectively fuelling the world’s seemingly insatiable appetite for travel. Every year more and more destination choices are presented to the global traveller as countries recognise the huge economic and social benefit of a robust tourism sector. Just think about it for Australia. It represents half a million jobs. The tourism sector is a key sector of the Australian economy and we have to be on red alert to maintain and increase our share of the international market because it is becoming an extremely popular global activity, with estimates pegging the number of tourism travellers as high as 803 million people a year. Moreover, by 2020 the number of people travelling each year as tourists will reach an expected 1.6 billion people.

It is in the face of this immense global competition that Australia’s tourism industry must compete. And thanks mainly to the many so-called medium-sized businesses that essentially make up the industry, it is an industry that weathers these challenges well and contributes enormously to the Australian economy. Last year, tourism exports broke the $20 billion mark for the first time and reached $20.5 billion in 2005-06. I commend the industry for all its hard work. However, while the challenges to the industry are great, we must not forget about the need to spend taxpayers’ dollars wisely. I have also raised this tonight with respect to the Strategic Regional Program and road funding currently being misused by the Howard government.

Tourism Australia receives almost its entire budget from taxpayers’ dollars, with the exception of a paltry amount recovered through corporate partnerships and trade sales. In supporting the appropriation of new funds to Tourism Australia, I urge the government to ensure that it is used to meet the key objectives of the white paper as a matter of priority. While yield has been increasing somewhat over the past year, the ABS figures clearly show only nominal increases in the number of arrivals to Australia. It is imperative that as its foremost priority, the tourism industry has to try to attract more high-yield tourists to Australia while also securing more numbers on the ground. This means the growth potential of the emerging lucrative markets of India, China and the Middle East has to be secured. It also means the traditional markets of the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Japan cannot slip through our fingers.

If I were allocated more time this evening I would address a more comprehensive analysis of the problems in the tourism industry. I will digress for a minute to focus on the farcical approach that the minister for tourism, Fran Bailey, adopts when dealing with this priority—a soap opera being suggested as the latest stunt to satisfy her media needs with respect to overcoming problems with the Japanese tourism market at the moment. I think her actions with respect to this condemn her as inadequate for the challenges that confront Australia on the international tourism front. I also support the ongoing commitment of funds to the tourism development program but say to the minister: do not try and rort this as you have in the past and as is currently occurring with respect to the AusLink strategic funding.

We in the Labor Party are about reform. We have an agenda which is about taking Australia forward rather than looking back as the Howard government agenda does. Whilst we support some of the initiatives in this budget, there are lost opportunities and potential for the misuse of funding allocated in the budget for short-term political purposes. I commend to the House the second reading amendment standing in the name of the member for Melbourne and thank him for raising these issues on behalf of the opposition. (Time expired)

See this speech in context