Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Congratulations, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, on your position. This is the first opportunity I have had to congratulate you on joining that wonderful club of deputy speakers.

The matter we are speaking on today is the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008, and it is something that is actually very dear to my heart. When I was first elected, a little over nine years ago, like most members in the House I made my maiden speech. But my first speech in parliament after my maiden speech was actually about infrastructure and, in fact, my first private member’s bill was about infrastructure. One of the first standing committee reports that I instigated was about rural infrastructure. So it is actually something quite dear to me and very important to the constituents of my electorate of Barker.

Infrastructure, if you really understand it, is not just about roads. I think a lot of people would just refer to roads, but infrastructure refers not only to rail, electricity and, of course, ports and airports but also to social infrastructure—things like hospitals and services to areas. Unfortunately, in rural areas we seem to get a fairly raw deal compared to our city cousins. But, despite that, I think all these things are very important. I think this bill is more to deal with the hard infrastructure needs of this country.

Whilst I welcome a commitment from this government to the infrastructure needs of this country, it is a lie to say that the Howard government completely ignored infrastructure. In fact, even in my own electorate I can point to such things as the $205 million for the Sturt Highway—a very important road because it services the Barossa and the Riverland in my electorate and, of course, is the main road from Adelaide to Sydney. So $205 million has gone a long way towards fixing up some of the problems that we had in my electorate. Of course, it was not only for the transport needs but because of the fact that there were accidents occurring on that road due to poor infrastructure.

Of course, we have spent enormous amounts on the Dukes Highway on the South Australian side of the main road from Adelaide to Melbourne. I have to pose the question of why this government has promised to have a dual lane from Melbourne to the Victorian-South Australian border but, once the road gets to South Australia, there is no commitment to a dual lane for the Dukes Highway. I assure you that the same trucks will be using the road on both sides of the border; the same cars will be using the road on both sides of the border. So I think this is a real gap in what they are promising for what is arguably—and, I think, without too much argument—the most important road for South Australians, either for their local transport or for their interstate transport. It certainly has the highest traffic levels.

Certainly in my time we spent a lot of money on putting in passing lanes, which have helped the situation. In fact, we had a recent commitment from Bordertown to the Victorian border because of the road break-up, and we spent something like $15 million on 17 kilometres of road. It is now actually the best part of the Dukes Highway. But, of course, the state government, unlike with the rest of the Dukes Highway, have kept the speed limit at 100 kilometres an hour instead of the normal 110. And guess where they have the police with their radars trying to catch people: it is actually on this best part of the road. Their basis for reducing it from 110 to 100—which I agreed with—was the state of the road. It was not a very good road—certainly not up to scratch. But once it was fixed they still kept the speed limit at 100 kilometres an hour, and I understand they are getting lots of revenue from that road even though it is the safest part of the road and there is no real argument to retain the 100 kilometres an hour speed limit when the rest of the Dukes Highway is 110. Of course, when you go across the border, anywhere where you have dual lanes it will be 110 kilometres an hour as well. So there has been a lot of money spent on infrastructure already in my electorate.

I also think it is important to note that we were the first government since Federation that actually committed to building the Adelaide to Darwin railway line, which I think was probably the first piece of major railway line infrastructure built in Australia in the last 50 years at least, if not the last 100 years. That is a major connector between Adelaide and Darwin for the transport of a lot of our goods—especially, but not all, agricultural goods.

I am sure you, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, would acknowledge that the Heysen tunnels that we built leading into Adelaide on the main highway from Melbourne have been an absolutely brilliant bit of engineering and infrastructure that have been so important to South Australia. So to suggest that we as a government ignored infrastructure is a great lie. I certainly will not accept that sort of statement being put out there. When you look at AusLink, which basically this new government has copied—in fact, it has met the commitments of Auslink under the AusLink program—in real money terms, it is four times more than the Snowy Mountains scheme. So this idea that we did not commit money to some great engineering feat for Australia is false. We certainly had the vision and once we could afford it under the good management of the Howard government we were able to commit these extra funds to AusLink, and I think it is something like $23 billion, which is a huge amount of money in anyone’s terms.

The greatest problems I have ever had in my electorate have been state government responsibilities. I warn the new minister about this, although I would hope that he is aware of it because he has already been to my electorate and had the state minister ask for funding for an area which is really a state government responsibility. I am always happy to get a commitment from any government for road funding in my electorate, but it is interesting that—looking at the areas that have been divided between local, state and federal governments in this country—we, through the Roads to Recovery program, more than doubled the amount of money we were giving to local governments so that they could maintain their local roads. The state governments get about half of their money from the federal government for funding of roads, and yet you see very little for that in South Australia. I cannot speak for other states, but certainly on those major highways that are a state government’s responsibility they have been found wanting. For example, the Riddoch Highway is the main connecting road from Keith to Mount Gambier. It is about 200 kilometres of a very important road for local and interstate transport—certainly intrastate transport—but the state government has hardly spent any money on that road, which is one of the major roads of South Australia.

The states will certainly see this as an opportunity for another pot of gold that they can use to blame the federal government if they are not doing their job. Frankly, I think they should be made to wear their responsibilities. Certainly for any of these roads that are state government responsibilities, they should be putting in at least 50 per cent of a greater share of funding for those roads. I hope that the minister has the sense to see the state governments for what they are. As a result of the funding that we have given them through things like the GST, through their extra receivables of land tax and so on, they are receiving in South Australia about $1 billion a year more than they would have under the old system. So they are doing pretty well. But where have we seen that with the infrastructure bills that we need in South Australia? We have had a Labor state government in South Australia for six years and, frankly, we really do not have much to show for it. That is a shame, because anyone who represents a rural area knows how important the road and the rail infrastructure are to their lives. They depend on them not only for getting to and from work but also for transporting the goods that they produce, which is the wealth of this country.

So the responsibility for infrastructure, as I said, has been spread across the three tiers of government. Indeed, the state government trading enterprises—not budget funded state government agencies; they have a very clever way of having these hollow logs—provide much of the electricity, water, urban transport and ports. Indeed, if a federal government put money into a port, I would bet you that a state government would still like to receive all the funds from that port, even though they have not put in as much of the money as they should have.

Local government also funds and provides infrastructure, and more and more of the private sector is becoming increasingly involved in the finances. Local governments, through the Roads to Recovery program, have spent their money well—certainly in my electorate, and I have 21 local government councils in my electorate. They have spent every cent of that money on their roads and you can certainly see the difference it has made to their areas. They are very thankful for the Roads to Recovery program. I know that local government fear that they will not get that commitment from this government. So it would be good if they were finally relieved of that concern.

In 2001 the Australian Infrastructure Report Card Alliance, which is a group of major infrastructure stakeholders, prepared a report on infrastructure adequacy. I think it is noteworthy that, in the areas where the Commonwealth had whole or partial responsibility—such as airports; telecommunications; and national roads, which are the major highways around Australia—they actually ranked relatively highly. Unfortunately, areas of state government, and to a lesser extent local government, responsibility were the most in need of remediation. That was an independent infrastructure report. So to suggest that the federal government was at fault was clearly shown to be false by that report.

This is particularly true in my electorate of Barker, specifically in the rural community of Keith, which has suffered long blackouts during the past summer, for example. This problem is not just localised in Keith. I know about it because I happen to live there. Blackouts further south are causing concerns for residents towards the south-east coast as well. ETSA Utilities, which is South Australia’s electricity distributor, is to conduct an audit of power infrastructure at Keith and across south-east South Australia to investigate the long blackouts. You may think: ‘What is the problem with blackouts? We have to put up with that in cities a bit.’ But every time you have even a fraction of a second blackout when you are running a pump for irrigation, for example, your pump turns off. Unless you are awake to it or aware that you have had that momentary blackout—or even a brownout, which means that you are not getting full power—the pumps will turn off. That can ruin your whole irrigation program.

The problem is that strong economic growth has supported industrial expansion and an increased use of pumps, which means a greater demand for power. ETSA appears to have been unaware of the cumulative impact of this growth and have not addressed the resultant infrastructure requirements. The outcome is that large areas of the Tatiara in my electorate suffer low-voltage problems every day the temperature is over 35 degrees. In my electorate this has been every one of the last 10 days, and I understand it is forecast for the next seven days at least. So we are having this long-term problem whenever we have those high temperatures. They promised to audit the infrastructure to determine what improvements are needed. I make the point that, while the interrelationship between federal, state and local governments drives the need for infrastructure, when this fails, it is the state and local governments which must bear that responsibility.

The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government stated in this place that the OECD ranked Australia 20th out of 25 countries when it comes to investment in public infrastructure as a proportion of national income. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to assert that Australia is underperforming when it comes to investment levels. The fact is that expenditure in public infrastructure as a proportion of national income between countries is not a barometer of infrastructure investment. Different countries have different infrastructure needs, and so it can be expected that there will be different investment levels. Nor do such comparisons take account of the quality of investment.

I think anyone in this House who has ever been overseas will know that, by comparison, our traffic jams and our transport systems have far fewer blockages than most countries in Europe and certainly in Asia and Africa. So it is not really a valid comparison. Privatisation of former government trading enterprises and the entry of the private sector into traditionally public infrastructure such as roads, electricity generation and rail make this comparison inequitable as well.

Infrastructure Australia is not actually an original idea. It was the Howard government that in 1996 conceived the idea of a national infrastructure council. Unfortunately, Infrastructure Australia has not been carefully thought out. Labor’s model will become a conduit for incessant demands from state Labor governments for more infrastructure funding. I have no doubt about this because I have seen this happen from my first day as a member of parliament. Whenever state governments are asked about why they do not fund certain infrastructure that is their responsibility, they say: ‘The feds don’t give us enough money.’ It is almost a daily rant by state governments. I have to say that it is not only Labor state governments that have said that sort of thing.

In light of Labor’s poor record of economic management, it is unlikely that the budget will be able to sustain that funding. There is nothing in this model that will address the fact that state Labor governments have largely shunned the transparent processes found at the federal level. There are many examples where state government assistance to industry has been long fraught with special concessions and deals. Infrastructure Australia does not address this. Instead, Labor has produced a structure that will become yet another layer in the process of assessing and responding to Australia’s infrastructure needs.

The Energy Supply Association has already questioned Infrastructure Australia’s role in the electricity and gas business. It was the Howard government’s taxation reforms in respect of financing arrangements for infrastructure that encouraged private investment through the reduction of compliance costs. These tax benefits gave greater certainty to private builders of major infrastructure. Labor has turned its back on this approach in favour of an unproven regulatory body. I wish this new body well, but Labor’s record at the state level in respect of these types of bodies is certainly not one to admire.

Infrastructure Australia fails to address issues such as how to prevent cherry-picking and how to ensure that regional and rural Australia—in particular, regional and rural South Australia—do not miss out in favour of eastern states’ or city-based white elephant projects while regional infrastructure projects are overlooked. After all, a lot of our wealth is actually produced in the regional and rural areas, and they demand and need those sorts of infrastructure fixtures, probably more so than some in the city. I do not resile from the need for infrastructure in the city; I just wish sometimes people would think about the needs of rural areas as well.

Infrastructure has been run down by Labor state governments—trains, ports, water, hospitals and education in every state—which attests to their failure to act on infrastructure and development. Infrastructure efficiencies in the electorate of Barker are by no means limited to electricity supply. The state government has done an appalling job of managing transport and communication. Indeed, if it were not for the success of the Howard government’s AusLink and Roads to Recovery programs, things would be in a much more dire state in the electorate of Barker. Under the Howard government, the electorate of Barker received those AusLink funding commitments. Roads are important to an electorate like Barker because it is a big electorate with a lot of roads. My electorate is actually 10 per cent bigger than Tasmania, so you can imagine the number of roads there are in Barker. There is nothing in this legislation to reassure the people of Barker that their road or other infrastructure needs will be addressed or even removed.

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