Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the concerns I have in relation to the proposed bill, Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008. This new body, Infrastructure Australia, was promised by Labor during the election campaign in order to improve the national infrastructure planning process and advise government and private stakeholders on infrastructure issues. However, the Labor government has given a very strong and often repeated commitment to the people of Australia to deliver on all of its election promises. As we are all aware, there were significant infrastructure projects committed to during the campaign. Will these same infrastructure commitments be funded and commencement dates announced prior to or during the 12-month review period of the Infrastructure Australia process? Of the funding available, given that the government’s election commitments are a priority, in what time frame can the projects identified by Infrastructure Australia actually be delivered? How will the government respond if Infrastructure Australia’s priority list does not match Labor’s infrastructure election commitments? Will the minister table the list of projects in the order identified by Infrastructure Australia? I will be particularly interested in the recommendations regarding state levies, taxes and charges and the indirect infrastructure costs on transport and housing.

Equally, under the provisions of the bill, the regulatory reforms recommendations will be a key part of the delivery capacity. I will be very focused on the outcomes of the recommendations of Infrastructure Australia given its role of identifying nationally significant infrastructure priorities, particularly given the importance of regional projects and what this actually equates to on the ground in regional areas. Regional Australia cannot afford to be marginalised by this process, particularly given the wealth generated in these areas. Good infrastructure for road, rail, shipping, telecommunications and other infrastructure is essential to exports, imports, industry and commerce, and critical for our day-to-day activities.

My electorate of Forrest in the south-west region of Western Australia is diverse, dynamic and covers an area of 23,900 square kilometres. Approximately a quarter of Western Australians who live outside the metropolitan area live in the south-west. The region boasts a population of over 145,000 people and has a growth rate well over twice that of the national average. The region’s population is predicted to grow to over 157,000 by 2011. There is always a continued requirement for road investment and maintenance. Roads are vital infrastructure projects for our regional development and urgently needed to cater for the increase in population growth currently being experienced. Spending on infrastructure projects such as roads affects the livestock, wellbeing and road safety of those who live and work in the south-west. Well-targeted and responsible expenditure will reap significant economic, environmental and social dividends in the future.

The coalition’s well-funded AusLink national transport program, which the Rudd government said it would embrace, has not as yet been embraced. We still await confirmation of that pledge in the May budget. However, I too have noticed that the more money the Australian government has put into infrastructure development, the less the states have chosen to provide, in spite of what is said. They have pulled back on expenditure when in fact they should have been encouraged by the Commonwealth investment to provide even more funding, particularly in booming states like Western Australia and Queensland.

Many state governments have sought to avoid their share when a project has had shared responsibility. They have cut back also on their support for local government, which has meant that local roads have not had the full benefit of the Roads to Recovery program because, in the end, local government has had to raise additional funds to cover the state Labor governments withdrawing financial assistance to them in this area. It is disappointing that the states have, almost without exception, responded to the generosity of the federal government over the last decade or more by cutting back their own contributions. So the real benefit of some of this federal investment has not been realised at the local level. Responsibility for the funding and physical provision of infrastructure lies overwhelmingly with the states, not with the Commonwealth as is widely believed.

I have strongly promoted the need for federal funding for road infrastructure projects in my electorate of Forrest. The Labor Party announced a promise to fund $136 million for the Bunbury Outer Ring Road and the Bunbury Port access projects—critical regional infrastructure projects and crucial to the issue of public safety. Four major highways converge at the Eelup roundabout in Bunbury, creating the worst black spot within the entire state and only adding to the urgency for funds to flow for these road projects. I have already spoken in this chamber about the need for the federal Labor government to deliver on this funding promise to my electorate of Forrest, and I am most concerned that so far none of this funding promise has been delivered.

Just recently, the RAC made a media release entitled ‘WA’s killer highways revealed’, which called ‘on the state government to give Western Australia’s road infrastructure a major cash injection after it was revealed there are nearly 1,000 kilometres of substandard highways in WA’. The majority of the state’s 10 worst sections of highways were in the south-west, in my electorate. It went on to say:

The worst rated section of road was a 73km stretch of the South West Highway between Yornup, south of Bridgetown, to Shannon, south of Manjimup.

Following this media release, many constituents rang my office to advise me of other south-west roads that were in dire need of upgrading. They were all in the vicinity of the major traffic tourist routes of Caves Road from Yallingup to Margaret River and Harmans Mill Road in Metricup, as well as stretches of Bussell Highway and Waverley Road near Cowaramup. Also, Skippy Rock Road, Greenhill Road and Cosy Corner Road in Augusta need urgent remedial work—a further example of the WA state government’s failure to deliver on regional road infrastructure. These problems have also transpired in rail, as evidenced by the intermodal rail transfer at North Greenbushes, which has not been delivered.

This government has committed $20 billion over four years to the establishment and work program of Infrastructure Australia. I hope this is not a new bureaucratic layer which slows down investment approvals and embroils government jurisdictions in the business of selecting and prioritising projects. A robust national infrastructure planning arrangement is already in place through AusLink. It includes federal-state coordinated planning frameworks covering road and rail. AusLink 1 and 2 included $38 billion of infrastructure commitments over 10 years to 2013-14. The Council of Australian Governments agreed in June 2005 that each state and territory prepare an infrastructure assessment every five years. The first of these are complete. These reviews have been undertaken by state governments—are they therefore inadequate?

Infrastructure Australia should not become another talkfest offering more studies, bureaucracy and reviews, and far less bitumen, concrete and steel—what is really needed in the south-west of Western Australia. Infrastructure Australia is not able to undertake investigations on its own initiative. As Labor has said, all its election promises will be implemented. Infrastructure Australia will be unable to independently consider ALP infrastructure election promises. The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government may also give direction to the Infrastructure Coordinator without taking advice from Infrastructure Australia. Infrastructure Australia may have the potential to deliver benefits, particularly with respect to more harmonised regulation such as developing nationally consistent guidelines and principles for the assessment of public-private partnerships and standardised documents for tendering processes. The idea seems to be to develop one set of guidelines to replace those that each state and the Commonwealth have developed. More generally, and given that a goal of the Rudd government is to reduce business regulation, one would expect to see advice from Infrastructure Australia as to how regulation, as it affects infrastructure, might be reduced or rationalised.

What is unclear is what relationship there will be between Infrastructure Australia and the regulatory bodies, such as the Australian Energy Regulator, the Australian Energy Market Commission and state bodies such as the Essential Services Commission of South Australia. Also unclear is what type of relationship there will be between Infrastructure Australia and other Commonwealth government agencies such as Treasury, which play a role in developing policy that affects infrastructure. It seems that there is a potential for duplication and overlap.

Other questions arise as to how Infrastructure Australia will perform its functions. The purpose of the audit of infrastructure projects is to determine the adequacy of infrastructure, taking account of forecast growth. As the National Commission of Audit pointed out, a proper assessment of the adequacy and condition of existing infrastructure can only be made on a case-by-case basis. As it is, state government agencies, government trading enterprises and private sector companies are involved in identifying infrastructure needs and in assessing projects. Presumably, Infrastructure Australia will not conduct its own audit—its resources seem to be small for that—and it will have to draw on those bodies’ assessments of adequacy and projected demand. A risk with such an approach would be that the states have an incentive to overstate their investment needs.

One of Infrastructure Australia’s functions is to establish infrastructure priority lists to create a pipeline of projects. Presumably, Infrastructure Australia will develop criteria with which to rank projects, and this raises the question of what criteria Infrastructure Australia will actually employ. In particular, will the criteria include cost-benefit analyses—that is, analyses of the benefits and costs to society of undertaking investment projects, particularly in the regions, which is a widely used device to rank projects? Further, will Infrastructure Australia insist that all projects be subject to cost-benefit analyses?

Even if Infrastructure Australia decides that a project has high priority, there is no guarantee that it will proceed. Whether a project proceeds may depend on the outcome of deliberations of regulatory bodies as to rates of return and prices. Therefore, undertaking projects on the basis of priority could result in some states and areas losing out to others, something that is particularly important to me in regional Australia. States whose populations are growing rapidly and whose infrastructure needs are also growing rapidly would presumably be the prime beneficiaries. This could also lead to tensions between the states.

In conclusion, I support the motion that the opposition will move for technical amendments to this bill to lift restrictions upon Infrastructure Australia to undertake reviews of its own volition; to make the minister’s power to give new functions to Infrastructure Australia subject to parliamentary disallowance; and to ensure that the minister seeks advice from Infrastructure Australia before appointing the Infrastructure Coordinator. I commend to the chamber the amendments to this bill which the opposition will move.

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