Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is not the issue of being complimentary; the point is you have missed the central essence of what Labor is trying to achieve and that is to acknowledge what the Reserve Bank had warned your government, the previous government, of for over a decade: that the infrastructure bottlenecks were causing capacity constraints in the Australian economy. We want to do something about that in cooperation with the states and we want to end the kind of blame game that we saw exhibited in the comments that the member for Kalgoorlie has just made in his contribution.

I think the member for Kalgoorlie really does miss the point that, over the time of the Howard government, the federal government vacated the field in terms of nation building. And the Rudd Labor government certainly sees a very important role for the federal government, with an agenda that includes a vision for the future, nation building and working cooperatively with existing state governments and local government.

I want to talk a little bit about the bill rather than engage in a response to the member for Kalgoorlie’s comments, which really had little bearing on the detail and substance of the issues that are before us at the moment. As you know, in the lead-up to the election the Rudd Labor government made much of the fact that we needed to lift the level of investment in new physical infrastructure—and not, as the member for Kalgoorlie suggests, just in the road network; it goes beyond that—and at the same time make better use of the nation’s existing infrastructure. Our investment in this area is part and parcel of our fight against inflation, our commitment to raise productivity and our commitment to sustained economic growth into the future. It does recognise, unlike the member for Kalgoorlie, that the Reserve Bank has been sending warnings that infrastructure bottlenecks—they exist in my region; they probably do in the west as well—are a severe constraint on our economic capacity and performance.

As part of our plan to fight inflation, the Rudd government is offering for the first time a truly national and long-term approach to the provision of infrastructure. We have been working hard since coming into government to put in place the right policy structure to support our infrastructure plan and program. And that is the issue that is before us in the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008, the details of which were remarkably neglected in the contribution made by the member opposite. You would know if you looked at the detail of the bill that the policy structure that we are promulgating in this legislation is the creation of Infrastructure Australia, a statutory advisory council consisting of 12 members drawn from industry and all levels of government.

We believe that, in providing new national leadership on a very important infrastructure agenda, we need to take a two-pronged approach to tackle existing bottlenecks. First of all, we need to look at creative means for lifting investment in new infrastructure. That will obviously involve working in public-private partnerships where they are appropriate. At the same time, we want to make better use of our existing infrastructure assets. Strategic investment, in our view, is required to overcome our infrastructure backlog, which in the areas of land transport, water and energy alone is estimated to be worth in the order of $25 billion. Obviously that is not going to be solved overnight, and we do not profess to have any magic wands, but we do recognise that it is a severe problem in terms of fulfilling our mission to see sustained economic growth and to keep that inflation genie in the bottle.

We need to have a clear picture of our investment needs and time frames, so one of the first tasks of our new statutory authority will be to undertake a national audit to first of all determine the capacity and condition of Australia’s nationally significant infrastructure. We hope this audit will identify gaps, impediments and bottlenecks, as well as taking into account expected future demand. This information will inform the development of the infrastructure priority list to guide future investment decisions. We hope that this will be completed within 12 months and presented to COAG by March 2009. The time frames, as set out in the bill, are ambitious but obviously they are necessary. The information determined by the audit will provide us with a sound base upon which decisions for the future will be made and allow a better matching of investment dollars with the nation’s infrastructure priorities.

While no doubt there is a need for investment in new assets, we must also recognise that it will take time before new infrastructure is built. However, we believe there is much action that can be taken in the short term to help ease the kind of infrastructure bottlenecks that my colleague the member for Newcastle referred to at the port in her region. We will be looking at streamlining guidelines, legislation and regulations across jurisdictions to see whether we can coordinate them in a more efficient way and use our existing infrastructure in a more efficient manner to serve the economic imperatives of the nation.

Interestingly enough, the Productivity Commission itself estimates that, just in the implementation of competition and regulatory reforms affecting transport, energy and export infrastructure in areas of regulation and planning, if we were to have a concerted effort to implement competition and regulatory reforms we have the potential to save around $10 billion and, by so doing, add to national output by up to two per cent of GDP. The issue of what can be done in the short term with existing infrastructure is a vital component of our overall agenda.

My area of the Illawarra is a major industrial centre and we do require, like other regions, efficient and up-to-date infrastructure. We have had a lot of investment by the New South Wales state Labor government in the port at Port Kembla, which is going to be expanded to become a major centre for imports in addition to the large exports of coal and steel already handled there. Investment in two infrastructure projects in particular would help the Illawarra cope with the increasing commercial and industrial activity that we will see coming through the port, and those are the urgent need to upgrade sections of the Princes Highway and the positive signal for the possible resumption of construction of the Maldon-Dumbarton railway link. The upgrade of the highway has been at the centare of the blame game. It is a state road. People have argued that it ought to be a road of national significance. I think the constituents just want someone to fix the existing problems. The upgrade of the highway, particularly to the Jervis Bay turn-off by having a dual carriageway, is a very urgent imperative and one that could see a greater commitment from the federal government in assisting the state to finish those links. We need it because, when we get more traffic through the port, that highway will be a very important regional, intrastate and interstate link for the movement of goods. The highway currently has an appalling crash record and there has been an unnecessary loss of life. The upgrade of the highway will serve the interests of major employers like BlueScope Steel, Manildra and the aviation industry around the town of Nowra in the adjoining electorate of Gilmore. We have been working with a local lobby group known as PHocus to try to get additional commitments to the upgrade of the highway. Of course, we are seeking the continuation of the important role that our own regional airport plays, one of the remaining regional airports that is actually owned by a local government authority. There was investment in the past from the former government in the necessary security upgrades that were needed for that airport and that will need to continue into the future.

A Liberal state government in New South Wales halted the construction of the Maldon-Dumbarton rail link about 20 years ago. We believe there is a significant economic imperative for that work to be revisited, particularly as we are hoping that up to 250,000 cars, 50,000 containers and 125,000 tonnes of break-bulk cargo will come through the port of Port Kembla. So there is a great economic imperative to revisit that project. I thank the member for Batman, in his former role as shadow minister in this area, for his very welcome commitment made in the lead-up to the federal election to provide the Port Kembla Port Corporation with $300,000 to commission a pre-feasibility study into completing the Maldon-Dumbarton freight rail line.

In conclusion, I welcome the bill and commend the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government for bringing it to the House so expeditiously. I think it is a great achievement that, for the first time since Federation, we have a Labor government committed totally to the issue of nation building through having an infrastructure minister, an infrastructure department and concrete and positive plans to deal with the great backlog of infrastructure in our nation which is creating a huge capacity constraint and having a negative consequence for our potential economic performance.

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