Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the AusLink (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2008. As a rural based member who has driven some two million kilometres in my 20 years as a state and federal member, I understand only too well the need for infrastructure and a funding injection into our rural and regional roads. My electorate of Hume not only has the Hume Highway running through its centre; it is also home to an extensive road transport industry, including subsidiaries of national road freight companies and many family owned smaller road transport operators which freight the likes of livestock, grain, fodder, minerals and general freight.

The two main purposes of this bill are, firstly, to change the definition of a ‘road’ in the AusLink (National Land Transport) Act 2005 to allow funding of heavy vehicle facilities, such as off-road rest stops; and, secondly, to allow the Roads to Recovery program, which is funded under the AusLink (National Land Transport) Act 2005, to be extended for another five years. AusLink is the government’s national land transport program and its elements include: (1) national projects; (2) strategic regional projects; (3) Black Spot projects; (4) Roads to Recovery; and (5) research and technology projects. The national network is a network of road and rail transport corridors which includes urban areas and links to ports, airports and, in the Hume Electorate, to the many medium, small and farm based businesses.

I welcome the new government’s decision to continue yet another effective Howard government policy. However, I question the increase in taxes on an already overtaxed and struggling trucking industry to assist with the funding of the first purpose of the bill, the heavy vehicle safety and productivity package. I am very aware of how difficult and demanding the trucking industry is physically and emotionally, not to mention financially. In my younger years I became aware of the demands of a heavy vehicle transport business, as my wife was raised in a family that was reliant on the income from the family transport business. In 1988, in my blue singlet and stubbies—dread the thought!—I rode the Hume Highway with a number of owner-drivers. They made me very aware of the demands and challenges faced by not only owner-drivers but also drivers employed by large transport companies. I might add that not much has changed regarding these demands and challenges over the years. I did that exercise in that period of time because I was concerned, as the state member, about the significant number of accidents occurring on the Hume Highway.

Increasing taxes on vehicles with a gross vehicle mass exceeding 4.5 tonnes will also impact heavily on many farming families still struggling with the burden of the worst drought in a hundred years. Together with the Australian Trucking Association, I welcome the Senate’s rejection of these proposed increases.

I acknowledge the government’s $70 million supplementation to help implement the four-year heavy vehicle safety and productivity package will fund trials of technologies that electronically monitor drivers’ work hours and vehicle speed and will also fund the construction of more heavy vehicle rest stops and decoupling areas along our highways and on the outskirts of our major cities to assist truck drivers’ rest. The construction of rest stops must also include facilities that allow drivers to rest and sleep without too much disturbance and to be able to refresh themselves before continuing on their journey.

I implore the government not to make the same mistake that other governments have made in terms of rest stops on major arterial roads. I refer specifically to the needle disposal units that have been placed in toilets and nappy changing facilities on rest stops on major arterial roads such as the Hume Highway. Why do I say that? Because in 1992 I spent significant time on the Hume Highway following a huge number of truck smashes and deaths. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that people are injecting illicit drugs and using those facilities to dispose of their needles—if, in fact, they can see the hole to put them in—then going out onto the highway and driving. As an example, I saw in the Gundagai trucking facility and service centre—I took photos and got it on film—drugs being exchanged between truck drivers. Over a period of about six weeks, I drove with police and other concerned truck drivers and my name got out into the community. I received some death threats because of what I was saying about those practices. Hopefully that is not happening now, but I have grave concerns that some of the accidents occur because drivers are being forced to use illicit drugs to stay awake or because irresponsible private commuters have an illicit drug habit.

The $70 million put towards the construction of rest stops is a good start but it is not nearly enough to build all the rest areas we need. It is vitally important that state and territory governments agree to match the federal government’s funding on a dollar-for-dollar basis, rather than increasing heavy vehicle charges. Roads to Recovery and the Black Spot Program have made such a difference, not only to roads and streets in the provincial centres in the Hume electorate but, more importantly, to the country roads, often gravel based, which continue to provide farming families on outlying properties with a vital link to the provincial centres where they travel regularly to do their shopping and to conduct other business.

More importantly, Roads to Recovery funding has not only accelerated much-needed improvements to roads but also contributed directly to the saving of the lives of many rural people and travellers who use the national highways and other regional and rural roads in my electorate and across the country. Projects in my electorate which have been funded by this program since its inception include the Towrang-Carrick intersection upgrade on the Hume Highway just north of Goulburn, the Bookham bypass and the Mittagong bypass pavement subsidence and other works totalling over $310 million. Black spot funding has been used for projects such as the roundabout on the Olympic Highway in Young; the installation of a pedestrian and median island in Goldsmith Street, Goulburn; the reconstruction of the horizontal and vertical alignments on Murrumbateman Road; the widening and delineating of Picton Road from Maldon Bridge Road to Matthews Lane; and other works totalling over $3.8 million.

Roads to Recovery funding totalling well over $37 million has been spent in the seven local government areas within my electorate for rural roads such as Taylors Flat Road in Boorowa shire; Brayton Road in Marulan, Oallen Ford Road in Bungonia and Wayo Street in Goulburn, all in the Goulburn Mulwaree Council area; Back Creek Road in the Harden shire; Majors Creek Mountain Road, Araluen, in the Palerang Council area; the Crookwell to Boorowa road; Blakeny Creek crossing on Pudman Lane and Range Road in the Upper Lachlan shire—and so on and so on.

I mention those roads to illustrate the amount of money the previous government put into worthwhile road projects which local governments found very difficult to fund. To take you back to a little bit of history, I was one of the very successful candidates to be elected to the Greiner government in the New South Wales parliament in 1988. The Greiner government introduced what they called the three-by-three program, where 3c a litre was added to the average price of fuel and 60 per cent of that went into the upgrade of council, local and state government roads in rural New South Wales because the roads were over 60 years old and the shoulders were deteriorating rapidly and becoming dangerous. That was a very good process. Communities in general thought it was good because they could see the money going into the improvement of their local roads. Unfortunately, when the coalition government lost power in 1995, that program was removed by the then Carr Labor government.

I make that point, for what it is worth, to illustrate to the current federal government here that it is very important that these significant infrastructure funding programs continue to be seen for what they are: very important programs for rural and regional people in particular. Any projects should be funded on a needs basis, not on a political basis, and I say that in all honesty because as a member of the former government I experienced the politicisation of the road-funding program from my own coalition colleagues on roads that, quite frankly, should have been funded because of need, not because I happened to be a Liberal member of the coalition and not a National Party member of the coalition. Once again, I make no apologies for making those comments, because I tell people how it is. That is the way I am built and that is the way I will continue to operate.

I also trust that the current Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government will recognise this, as I said, and not politicise the Barton Highway duplication from the Hume Highway interchange to the ACT border, including the bypass of the town of Murrumbateman. This project has been held up because of political ineptitude for the past 20 years, and it is a classic example of what I have just mentioned here in this place tonight.

Roads to Recovery also has a simple administrative arrangement and is provided directly to local government, allowing local decision making and giving local councils the ability to implement their own priorities according to their needs and requirements. I welcome the fact that the government has resisted state demands to have the funding channelled through them, which may see some of the funds siphoned off in administrative costs, thereby diminishing the net amount of funds available to local councils. Go directly to the local councils and get more bang for your buck—that is sensible stuff—and do it not only in this portfolio but in other portfolios.

I note that the Australian Local Government Association, in its August newsletter, has also welcomed the decision to continue Roads to Recovery in its current form. It would be of great assistance to local governments if the Rudd Labor government could encourage their Labor colleagues in the states to pick up the slack and provide the top-up funding for the heavy vehicle safety and productivity package. The former, coalition government, despite its many failings, remained committed to the success of this program, providing $150 million in its first year, 2000-01, and increasing that to approximately $300 million by 2006-07. It is heartening to see that the new government is continuing it—in the main in the same form as it has served the community over the last five years—for a further five years, to 2013-14. There is absolutely no doubt that the Roads to Recovery and black spot funding programs have significantly and most effectively made our roads much safer for the travelling public. It is, however, abundantly clear that more needs to be done to improve our road infrastructure in the interests of road safety.

I do, however, have strong reservations about the Rudd government’s ability to not emulate the process of pork-barrelling which they constantly and quite rightly criticised the National Party for and to make funding available for the duplication of the Barton Highway and the bypass of the township of Murrumbateman in the electorate of Hume. Money has already been spent on acquiring property and identifying the route, and that money is well spent. I think it was a package of about $20 million. Prior to the last election, with a lot of pressure from me, we as the former government made a commitment to finally fund that program. I am saying to Minister Albanese: Minister, please do not play politics with this particular piece of road infrastructure. Too many innocent people have died on it because it needs to be duplicated and the township of Murrumbateman needs to be bypassed. With all of the work that has been done, all we need to do is to make sure that the money that the former government promised is committed to that project, and then it can go ahead. I trust that the minister understands where I am coming from. I am trying not to be too political on the issue. I have a very deep concern for my constituents and for all of those people who travel the Barton Highway and, for that matter, any of the roads in the area that I represent, the electorate of Hume.

I am concerned about governments of the day using taxpayers’ money wisely and for the intent that taxpayers pay their taxes, which is to address an issue on the basis of need and for the safety of all people who use our road infrastructure. I just hope that the minister listens to me. As I said from the outset, I make no apologies for any comments I make about the shortcomings of the previous government or, indeed, governments before that. I listened intently to the member for Riverina talking about the wonderful work that she did in getting some funding for the duplication of the Sheahan Bridge at Gundagai. I went into politics by beating Terry Sheahan in a three-cornered contest. I had a great deal of respect for him as a local member, and for his father before him, Billy Sheahan. But what I do not have respect for is that, as the state member representing that area and as the federal member representing that area up to 2001, I wrote to numerous ministers for transport, including Labor ministers and then coalition ministers, about the need to duplicate the highway from Tarcutta to the Sheahan Bridge and to duplicate the Sheahan Bridge itself, and also to get the money injected into the Coolac Bypass, and I was knocked back simply because I was Liberal rural member and not a National Party member, and that is the reality of it. That is what I do not like about pork-barrelling. Can I please say to the members of the Labor Party: make sure that you tell your minister of the day to ensure that the funding goes into projects of need, not into the pork-barrelling process that decent minded people do not appreciate from any political party.

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