Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008, which we are debating today, reflects the Rudd government’s ongoing commitment to road safety and local road infrastructure. The bill amends the definition of a road so that it includes heavy vehicle facilities such as rest stops, parking bays, decoupling facilities and electronic monitoring systems. This will enable the government to provide funding for these facilities under our $70 million heavy vehicle safety and productivity package.

During the election I had, and since I have been elected I have had, the opportunity to meet a good number of truck drivers from my electorate. The F3 and the Pacific Highway go right through the middle of my electorate. I have found that truck drivers take real pride in the work they do in carrying Australia. Truckies add a lot to the Central Coast community, as they do to the Australian community generally. The Transport Workers Union’s ‘Convoy 4 Kids’ is in its 12th year on the Central Coast. This year over 300 trucks participated in a convoy from Tuggerah to Gosford, and every year they pick a charity to which they donate the money. This year they donated much-needed funds for children with polio and to an organisation involved with lending a hand to grandparents raising grandchildren. I would like to thank the 30,000 Central Coast residents who went to this fantastic initiative, particularly the truckies who gave up their Sunday morning to do their bit for children’s charities, as they have done for the last 12 years.

There are a large number of transport workers in my electorate of Dobell. These men and women in the trucking industry feel changes in our national economic conditions with great intensity. A large number of them felt the pinch of the Liberals and Nationals Work Choices laws, with many truck drivers telling me about their concerns. Transport workers are also more adversely affected by higher petrol prices than just about any other industry. As well as feeling the condition of our economy, the transport industry is one of the most dangerous in Australia, with 228 deaths reported in the last financial year nationally. This is 228 road deaths too many. One in five road deaths involves heavy vehicles, with speed and fatigue being significant contributing factors. By building heavy vehicle facilities such as rest stops, parking bays, decoupling facilities and electronic monitoring systems, we will be going a small way towards making this industry a little safer and a little fairer for those whose job it is to carry the commerce of Australia on the roads. We also make it safer for all of us who use the roads, and that is something we should all think about when we get into a vehicle.

The Rudd government, however, in terms of safety for heavy vehicle drivers, is not just looking at ways to improve the roads and the rest stops. Earlier this year the National Transport Commission was given the task of investigating and reporting on driver remuneration and payment methods in the Australian trucking industry and making recommendations for reforms. Professor Michael Quinlan of the University of New South Wales, who has done a lot of work in this area, and the Hon. Lance Wright QC, former President of the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission, have been given the job of looking into this very important issue, another initiative of the Rudd government to make sure that transport workers have a safer environment in which to work.

Funding for the package to create rest stops, parking bays, decoupling facilities and electronic monitoring systems is contingent on the passage of the enabling legislation for the 2007 Heavy Vehicle Charges Determination, which was unanimously endorsed by the Australian Transport Council of Commonwealth, state and territory transport ministers in February this year. That legislation would enable the heavy vehicle industry to pay its fair share of the infrastructure costs incurred by governments for building and maintaining the roads they drive on. Unfortunately, the legislation has been blocked by the coalition in the Senate, even though the determination and policy were proposed originally by the former government. The facilities that will be delivered under the heavy vehicle safety and productivity package will improve road safety and provide a better deal for truck drivers of the Central Coast and Australia generally.

The Rudd Labor government used its first budget to make a substantial down payment on its pledge to fix and modernise the nation’s infrastructure. In over 100 years we have never had a coordinated national approach to infrastructure development. Governments of all colours have been guilty of this inaction. We have seen great prosperity, particularly in the past 15 or 16 years. For 12 of those years the now opposition did nothing in this area. As John F Kennedy once said, ‘The best time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.’ Unfortunately, over the last 12 years, that opportunity was squandered by the then government.

Fortunately, the Australian people agree with Labor that nation building is the business of the Australian government. It is the Rudd government that is moving forward with nation building. The government has taken the far-reaching decision to allocate an initial $20 billion to its Building Australia Fund, money which in years to come will be used to build critical economic infrastructure such as roads, rails, ports and broadband. These funds will be sourced from the budget surpluses expected in 2007-08 and 2008-09, with a possibility of further deposits being made from future surpluses.

The Communications Fund will also be rolled into the Building Australia Fund. Having determined the quantum of our initial deposit, the government will now spend the coming months finalising the fund’s governance arrangements. We expect to have the fund up and running by 1 January 2009, with the first allocations to be made in 2009-10. Allocations from the fund will be guided by Infrastructure Australia’s national audit and infrastructure priority list, the first of which will be presented to the March 2009 COAG meeting. As well as being a key element of our national macroeconomic strategy for tackling inflation and boosting national productivity, the fund will help our manufacturers, farmers and miners get their goods to market as quickly and cheaply as possible. It will help equip households and businesses with the tools to take advantage of the internet and the information revolution that it has sparked, and it will help to improve the functioning of and the quality of life within our major cities and major regional centres.

For too long there has been a lack of investment in the nation’s infrastructure. We are now living with the consequences of this underinvestment as well as a lack of national leadership and poor planning. This leads to higher business costs and inflationary pressures as the economy is wracked with constraints and bottlenecks. Inadequate or poorly planned infrastructure also produces a social cost. For example, as a result of urban congestion at least one in 10 working parents are spending more time commuting in their cars than they are at home with their kids. This is a particular issue in my electorate of Dobell, where we have up to 30,000 residents who commute daily to Sydney or Newcastle, taking up to four hours each day to commute to and from their place of work.

We on this side of the House are determined to overcome the legacy we have inherited. Unlike our predecessors, we will use the financial dividends of today’s mining boom to secure tomorrow’s prosperity. The creation of the Building Australia Fund, together with the establishment of Infrastructure Australia, confirms and builds upon Labor’s tradition as a nation-building party. The Commonwealth government is back in the business of nation building.

This bill also extends the Roads to Recovery program. Under the current act, it will end on 30 June 2009. This bill will continue the program until 30 June 2014. The Roads to Recovery program provides much-needed funding to local councils around Australia so that they can make urgent repairs and upgrades to their roads. Local governments are responsible for more than three-quarters of all Australian roads. That is over 810,000 kilometres. The Rudd Labor government is trying to secure the Roads to Recovery program for another five years, to 2014, and to deliver $1.75 billion in new money to improve the safety and condition of local roads. The funding will be an increase of $50 million a year or $250 million over the five years compared with the previous annual allocation under the program.

The quality and safety of roads is a huge issue on the Central Coast. As I said earlier, we have upwards of 30,000 people who commute to Sydney and Newcastle each day. They use the F3 and sometimes the old Pacific Highway, and I would argue that the F3 is one of the most important arterial links in Australia. For these reasons, on the Central Coast we also have a very high patronage of cars compared to other transport. Therefore, there is a very high usage of local roads. The geography of the Central Coast is such that, with mountains in the middle, lakes in the centre and the coast on the edge, roads have been the traditional way of transport around the Central Coast, and without them people are completely isolated.

The quality of roads and transport on the Central Coast is probably the issue that is the most complained about. At the 2020 forum that we held in Wyong, where Australia’s best and brightest from the Central Coast met, transport was the No. 1 issue. In every person’s submission there was mention of transport and the need to do something about our roads and improving transport on the Central Coast.

In 2008-09, the government will deliver funding of $2.36 million to local councils in Dobell for urgent safety upgrades and repairs: close to $1½ million for Gosford City Council and close to $1 million for the Wyong Shire Council. This is much-needed funding for the local roads of the Central Coast. I am very happy with the contribution the Commonwealth is making—happy that we are not playing the blame game, that we are actually in there doing the hard work and making sure that local councils get some funding to improve their roads. As I said, it is vitally important that roads on the Central Coast are looked after. I have committed myself to continue to fight to make sure that we get our fair share of roads funding for the Central Coast.

Some of the AusLink projects in and around my electorate include the construction of school protection zones using raised traffic control devices for Brooke Avenue Public School, Killarney Vale East, and the sealing of the remaining 900 metres of unsealed carriageway on Brush Road, which is a connecting road between the Central Coast regions of Ourimbah and Tumbi Umbi. Before that sealing, we had a gravel road on a link road that had a lot of traffic. It was a dangerous road for people to drive on. We increased the safety of aged pedestrians crossing a busy distributor road to the local shopping centre at Goobarabah Avenue at Lake Haven by signalising the pedestrian crossing, with associated kerb and median works.

The AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008 will, if passed, deliver new money to help make local roads safer for motorists. The legislation will secure $1.75 billion funding for the Roads to Recovery program for another five years to 30 June 2014; increase annual Roads to Recovery funding from $300 million to $350 million a year, providing an extra $250 million for local roads over five years; and improve the management of the program.

Around Australia, councils are responsible for maintaining more than 657,000 kilometres of local roads, which are used daily by millions of working Australians. They are actually responsible for a bit over 800,000 kilometres, but 657,000 kilometres are used daily. Local roads are critical for efficient and safe freight movements, because often the last kilometre from the highway to port is a local government controlled road. The Rudd Labor government is working in partnership with local councils to deliver safer roads. Local councils have so far used Roads to Recovery money to repair and upgrade around 27,000 separate road sites around Australia. Each council’s individual allocation of this new funding will be determined later in the year by state and territory grants commissions. The continuation of this program means that local governments can confidently plan for the continued improvements of their road network.

This bill fits in with the rest of the Rudd Labor government’s plans in terms of the infrastructure and the capital expenditure that is needed for nation building. Without making sure that our roads are improved we not only put at risk the safety of those who use the roads—and I spoke earlier about the deaths of 228 heavy vehicle drivers every year nationally—but also put the economic growth and prosperity of our country at risk. With bad roads, our transport system is clogged and we have infrastructure blockages, and that affects the way our economy moves. This has not been addressed in a long time.

I am proud of the nation-building efforts of this government. I am proud of this bill that has come before this chamber. I hope that those opposite, when they look at the legislation that they are blocking in the Senate, do the right thing and make sure that the total package of legislation is passed. I commend this bill to the chamber.

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