Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008. This bill is an important part of Labor’s election commitment to the people of Australia, fulfilled within 100 days of coming to office. A nationwide coordinated approach to infrastructure is crucially important to the improvement of Australia’s economic development. We face the economic challenges of rising inflation, rising interest rates and falling productivity. In such a difficult economic climate we need a clear and open mechanism to evaluate the work of infrastructure projects and to examine those investment opportunities which best add value to productivity and performance. Infrastructure Australia will have responsibility for creating a road map for Australia’s infrastructure needs presently and into the future. Infrastructure Australia will coordinate and cooperate with state and local governments to identify those projects which enhance national productivity and economic performance and which create jobs, wealth and opportunity.

We need an audit of Australia’s infrastructure needs and an infrastructure priority list within 12 months for COAG. We need regular audits to ascertain the state of infrastructure and where it will assist growth. Those reports need to go to COAG so that nationally significant infrastructure projects can be monitored and developed. We need a national approach to reviewing national needs.

Proper business cases should be made on all projects which have national significance. Those obstacles and blockages to projects—whether they relate to law, land use planning, financial matters, guidelines or regulation difficulties—must be overcome.

Infrastructure Australia will be established as a statutory advisory council with a membership of 12. Nine members—one of whom must have local government experience and expertise—will be nominated by the federal government, with five, including the chair, being from the private sector. Three will be nominated by the states and territories. It is a partnership. It is the Rudd Labor government looking to build the future in cooperation with the private sector and the state governments.

I commend the appointment of Sir Rod Eddington as the inaugural chair of Infrastructure Australia. It is reassuring that someone of Sir Rod’s calibre has been chosen. It is a tremendous choice. He will bring strong leadership and formidable business experience to the role, drawing on his three-decade career in domestic and international transport and aviation. I am confident he will lead the new national body with aplomb. Infrastructure Australia means infrastructure development will not be delivered based on the marginality of a member’s seat—a practice of the previous Howard government.

I look forward to what Infrastructure Australia says concerning my seat of Blair, which is a rural and regional seat. Just five minutes from my electorate office you are in the rural areas of Blair. I look forward to what Infrastructure Australia says concerning the transport and rail needs of the people of Blair. Outside of Ipswich, we do not have any public transport. In terms of railways, we only have one rail line to Brisbane. I commend the state government for extending another rail line through the Springfield area to Ipswich. When it comes to roads, I look forward to what Infrastructure Australia has to say concerning the Cunningham Highway, which is breaking away near Aratula; the shoulders of the road are a danger to life and limb. I look forward to what Infrastructure Australia has to say concerning the Warrego Highway, which has over 28,000 vehicles a day travelling upon it. It is the main linkage for people living west of Ipswich through to Toowoomba and the rural areas on the Darling Downs.

Labor has a proud history of infrastructure development. As a young boy growing up in Ipswich, I saw the benefit of Labor governments and what they did for Ipswich. Locally, a good friend of mine, former Ipswich Mayor Des Freeman, a former organiser with the coalminers federation, would often tell me when I was growing up that it was a Whitlam Labor government—a Labor government—which could be credited with bringing sewerage to Ipswich. Growing up I saw what Labor governments did for road development and rail networks. The Ipswich Civic Centre, which hosted the annual business awards of the Ipswich Chamber of Commerce last Saturday evening, which I attended, was built by funding received courtesy of the Whitlam Labor government—a great project.

I am pleased to say that the new Rudd Labor government takes seriously the infrastructure needs of my electorate of Blair. The Rudd Labor government will deliver $10 million for the redevelopment of the Ipswich central business district, a project sorely needed. This will be undertaken in partnership with the Ipswich City Council through its integrated plan and under the auspices of the Queensland state Labor government’s Ipswich integrated strategy and action plan announced recently.

Perhaps the greatest failure of the Howard coalition government concerning the infrastructure needs of Blair, and why Infrastructure Australia should have been established so many years ago, is best demonstrated by the state of the Ipswich Motorway. The Ipswich Motorway is a source of frustration, delays and despair for the people of Blair. Up to 100,000 vehicles a day at peak times travel along this four-lane national highway.

The Ipswich Motorway is a danger to life, limb and property. Accidents occur on a daily basis. People—the thousands of Ipswichians who commute every day—leave for Brisbane early because they have to put up with delays. People listen to traffic reports on the radio and on the TV and plan their trips accordingly. The Ipswich Motorway acts as a bottleneck. It is a burden to the people and an obstacle to growth.

In early 1999 the Howard coalition government commissioned the Queensland state government and paid for a report to be prepared on local infrastructure needs between Ipswich and Brisbane, particularly with reference to the Ipswich Motorway. The recommendation of the Kellogg, Brown and Root report was to upgrade the Ipswich Motorway to six lanes and put service roads down the side, this having been a national highway since 1974. What did the Howard coalition government do on this infrastructure project—it was then, I might add, costed at $600 million—which is vital to the people of Ipswich and its rural surrounds? It did simply nothing—nothing for years. The Howard government was asleep at the wheel not just in terms of infrastructure but in terms of the Ipswich Motorway. The previous coalition government came up with an alternative bypass costed at $3 billion. They announced it only months from the election in 2007, and without any cost-benefit analysis. No business case was prepared before nearly $3 billion of taxpayers’ money was pledged for only 10 kilometres of road—only half the distance between Ipswich and Brisbane.

If only there had been Infrastructure Australia there to advise the Howard coalition government. If only the Howard coalition government had adopted a national approach and not an irrational approach to infrastructure needs in Blair. Only the Rudd Labor government is interested in the infrastructure needs of Blair and only the Rudd Labor government will fix the Ipswich Motorway. Infrastructure Australia will benefit the people of Blair by creating a roadmap for the future. Only the Rudd Labor government has the determination to do it. And only the Rudd Labor government will create Infrastructure Australian to look at business needs, and planning, legal and other obstacles for the people of Blair.

I say this as someone who has been in business for 21 years: you do not just set up your business and expect it to run rationally and economically soundly. You set up your business by planning it, structuring it and working out what you need. You look at the needs of infrastructure—the fixtures and fittings of the business, and the staffing and all those sorts of things. You do it properly. You plan, construct and develop. You look at what needs to be done. You do not just say ‘I’ve got the money in my back pocket and I’ll just spend it willy-nilly’ because it feels good at the time.

I commend the government for this initiative. This initiative will make a real difference in a rural and regional seat like Blair. It will make a practical difference in the life of the people. I look forward to the day when they do not have to turn those radios and TVs on early just to find out whether the Ipswich Motorway is blocked. I look forward to the day when I can drive on the six-lane Ipswich Motorway built by the Rudd Labor government, with service roads down the side so that the people of Ipswich and the rural surrounds will have the kind of infrastructure they need for their safety, their health and the benefit of the working families of Blair. I commend the bill.

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