Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

We have heard nothing new from the minister for Infrastructure in his response to amendments passed by the Senate to the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008. What he has just said is basically the same as what he said earlier in the week when rejecting the opposition’s proposals in relation to this bill. We have agreed to the passage of the bill. We are trying to make it better. Frankly, when the minister made these comments a few days ago, I explained to the House why they were inaccurate. I am particularly disappointed that he does not seem to have listened to a single word of what was said in the Senate.

He has not listened to a single word that the opposition has uttered in an effort to improve this legislation. He is just using the brute force of numbers in government to push this legislation through. I would remind him that he does not have the numbers in the Senate. Therefore, we have a capacity to prevent the whole bill from progressing, if he is not prepared to listen constructively to good ideas when they are put to him. These ideas are good. They are not designed to destroy the bill.

To suggest that transparency would be reduced as a result of requiring the minister to ask Infrastructure Australia for their views on who should be appointed to be the infrastructure coordinator is a nonsense. He can still engage in the process that the government are putting in place in relation to appointments and do this as well. What we are trying to do is to avoid a situation where the minister may appoint somebody who is unacceptable to Infrastructure Australia, someone with whom they cannot work. That would be a silly thing for the government to do. They really need to have somebody who is going to be part of a team and work effectively to deliver the objectives of the bill. Why not ask them for their views on potential candidates or to put some ideas forward themselves? You can still go through your merit selection process and you can still go through the process of writing to the Prime Minister if the minister wants to overturn the recommendations.

The government is basically saying, ‘Trust the minister, and if you have any doubts about the minister then trust the Prime Minister.’ I do not think that this is a particularly adequate high jump—if you do not trust the Labor minister then trust the Labor Prime Minister. I do not think that process is as transparent and as rigorous as the one adopted by the previous government when it comes to choosing people for important positions. We also had a process that involved more substantial scrutiny than that proposed by the government in relation to this matter. The opposition amendments do not in any way affect the changes that the government is proposing in relation to its own appointment process. That can still go ahead. What we are constructively suggesting in these amendments is that the government should also consult Infrastructure Australia in relation to appointing the infrastructure coordinator.

In relation to the earlier issues about the powers of Infrastructure Australia to undertake examinations on its own volition, the minister suggested that it would waste the time of Infrastructure Australia and that it would be too busy doing things that were not important. If Infrastructure Australia thinks those things are important, they are important and should be undertaken. Of course, Infrastructure Australia still retains all of its obligations to do what the government wants it to do, but we are just suggesting that it also ought to be able to initiate its own inquiries. That is a pretty reasonable request. It gives it the opportunity to deal with a whole range of issues that the minister may otherwise not be prepared to include. It can be genuinely independent. If it is just going to have to do everything the minister says it should do then one has to really question whether this organisation will have the capabilities to effectively deal with projects in a non-partisan way. If it is just going to be a tool of the government then why bother having it at all? If it is going to be a genuine inquiry body that will audit issues fairly and reasonably and take up assessments of the key infrastructure issues of the country, it has to be able to take some initiatives of its own. I find it amazing that the government wants to constrain its activities in this way.

There is also the capacity for the minister to give Infrastructure Australia additional directions. We think it is quite reasonable (Extension of time granted) that, if the minister wants to give it additional functions, those sorts of functions should also be subject to parliamentary scrutiny, in the same way as the functions that are being authorised in this legislation are in fact approved by the parliament. The minister says that it somehow or other reduces transparency. Again, this is a nonsense. The minister’s proposals will in fact reduce transparency, because we will only find out about whether or not a new function has been added to the workload of Infrastructure Australia in its annual report—a year or more later. If you are genuinely interested in transparency rather than covering up then you would be keen for these sorts of issues to be laid on the table of the parliament so that everyone can be made aware of the concerns and the new issues to be addressed can therefore have meaningful input into that process.

I think that the opposition amendments are constructive. They are a way to improve the bill. They ought to be embraced by the government because they will make Infrastructure Australia work better. In the other house, a very large number of amendments were moved, including a wide range from the Greens, the Democrats and others who sought to extend the work of Infrastructure Australia to a whole range of additional activities. The Liberal and National party senators joined with the government in rejecting those amendments. I believe we have entered the debate on this issue in good faith and I encourage the minister to respond also in good faith and take up these amendments, approved by the Senate, because they make the bill better and will give Infrastructure Australia a much better opportunity to undertake its functions in the public good.

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