Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and COAG and Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader on Emissions Trading Design) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition are very strong believers in infrastructure. That is why we want to improve the Nation-building Funds Bill 2008 and why we have sought with others in the Senate, apart from the government members, to have overwhelming support for a number of major improvements. Our intention was to move amendments that had been advanced in good faith to improve this bill. We have been concerned, and we have made this concern known for a long time, that these funds, these critical billions of dollars of taxpayer funds, could end up being used as a slush fund to bail out failed Labor states. We have got to do things which can preclude that.

Our concern about that was exacerbated by the fact that the Minister for Finance and Deregulation pulled this bill at short notice some weeks ago because of his concern that the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government had sought too much discretion. Clearly, the minister for finance lost that battle and we saw the bill that we have got in front of us. We need a number of improvements to provide transparency to this bill. It is quite critical that we get a situation where a joint standing committee on nation building can sit and look at all of the workings and the many recommendations that have come from Infrastructure Australia and the benefit cost analyses.

This is a government whose members have now for some two years told us endlessly about the importance of transparency and accountability. Every day those opposite are on their feet. Now they have got an opportunity to have transparency and accountability. In fact, it was the Prime Minister who said in an answer to me in the House on Monday:

… every family and every community group in the country has, frankly, had a gutful. They want … transparency and they want to know what is actually being delivered by virtue of the taxpayer dollars, which are being invested.

We agree 100 per cent. That is the thrust of these amendments. It will be hypocrisy in the extreme if the government does not support these amendments. The quality of debate by Senator Sherry in the other place was absolutely appalling. It was embarrassing, it was hollow, it was shallow and it was hypocritical. He had no defence to the arguments and the amendments that have been put forward by all of those in the Senate other than the government members. These amendments are quite critical. We cannot have a situation where a state government—or any other government, for that matter—requires an upfront fee and compromises the bill.

We are also keen to see the Communications Fund do what it was intended to do. In good faith, some time ago, the coalition put into a fund in perpetuity some $2 billion. This has been overridden by this government, and the Senate has approved the retention of that fund as it was intended. We insist on the amendments passed in the Senate. These amendments improve the bill, they are consistent with the rhetoric of the government if not the actions of the government and they will give the community the comfort that these vital funds, these taxpayer dollars amounting to billions of dollars, will not become a slush fund to bail out failed Labor states.

Question put:

That the amendments be disagreed to.

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