Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is said that infrastructure structure planning provides the platform for regional economic growth. If this is the case then we need to provide the framework and the mechanisms that will enable the federal government to facilitate land use planning which in turn will support regional development and the ongoing delivery of regionally significant infrastructure.

The Commonwealth has taken a significant step in this regard by commencing a program focused on creating a stronger and more participatory regional development structure. Things such as Infrastructure Australia, Regional Development Australia and the Major Cities Unit are all key components of this structure that has been designed to foster and facilitate the nation’s future development. These already established initiatives, together with the $20 billion Building Australia Fund and the current environment of close collaboration through all tiers of government, have created a unique opportunity to ensure a new alignment between the previously disparate regional planning and infrastructure programming activities. But, to solve the problems, we must first understand what the full challenges are.

The challenges can best be described in the context of four broad themes underpinning the nation’s development. The first is to meet the economic development challenges. This can be done through the transport infrastructure network, which plays an integral part in supporting economic growth throughout the nation. With the private sector investments across mining, resource and industrial sectors forecast to continue at unprecedented levels, government needs to continue to ensure that road and rail networks support the ongoing competitiveness of our major industries into the future. But we must also meet the regional and urban challenges in a changing social and demographic environment. Persisting growth such as in Western Australia and Queensland means that there is more pressure for governments to get it right and to meet the challenges in those networks in both transport and population. We also need to meet the funding challenge. An increasing scale of infrastructure means that we have to keep finding new ways to fund and resource those projects, and there are ways to do this. Finally, we need to meet the delivery challenges. The expenditure of limited public funds means that all governments have to look very closely at how they actually deliver and bring forward those projects.

South-East Queensland is one of the nation’s regions where those challenges are most acute because of the huge growth and development happening in that region. Unique to Queensland—though I know one of the other states has something similar—is an infrastructure regulatory regime which is part of the State Development and Public Works Organisation Act 1971. I particularly want to mention that because this declaration gives the power to the state to form state development areas for the purpose of promoting that infrastructure coordination and growth, which I think is very important. But, secondly, it also gives sight to a program of works that can be planned, funded, programmed, delivered and coordinated. If at a federal level we can look at doing similar things—which we are already through our Major Cities Unit and Infrastructure Australia—then we are on the right path in getting to that position.

One of the biggest issues we have is how to fully coordinate strategic regional infrastructure development. I believe very strongly that one way we could make a real difference would be to set up—as Queensland has—a coordinator-general’s position focusing specifically on what could be federal regional development zones, tackling the issues of infrastructure and regional development and giving the federal government, the Commonwealth, a real role to play. Historically that is being done at a state level, and I think that there is a real opportunity for us with the institutions that we have established. The role would encompass things such as identifying areas within a state with the potential to be economic or industrial hubs, planning for sustainability and growth into the future and working with state development areas in controlling and being part of their development schemes as well. Land could also be acquired where necessary to ensure that critical projects and infrastructure facilities of significance to the state but also to the Commonwealth progress in a strategic manner. Individuals, government departments or government created organisations could be engaged to carry out those functions and ensure that they work.

Identification of a significant project would not be lightly decided. It is very similar to what we are doing with Infrastructure Australia. These are subjects and projects of national significance. They would follow the criteria of complex approval requirements, including those imposed by local, state and federal governments, with high levels of investment by the states and so forth. If we want to see strategic development of infrastructure and regional development in this more complex world then the Commonwealth government needs to play a major role. We are doing that through a number of units that we have set up. I think there is more in that space. (Time expired)

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