Maxine McKew (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I will come to some of those issues. But all of this funding, the Roads to Recovery funding, as the member for Kennedy would know, is going to local governments across the country. The investment is broad and deep.

We have seen also the significant federal investment to relieve bottlenecks in and around our ports. We have more than doubled to $21.2 billion the federal investment in rural and regional roads. There is also the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program, with more than $1 billion going to small-, medium- and large-scale infrastructure projects, and it is going to every shire in the country. I have been doing a lot of travelling recently, criss-crossing the country, and I can tell the member for Kennedy that mayors, deputy mayors and council members are delighted with this direct investment because it is going to projects that they identify, that they have had on their books for years. Because of the contribution that the Commonwealth is making, they are able to get those projects started this year, when we need to get activity in the economy and to support jobs.

I come to the extraordinarily good news we have had this week. As the Prime Minister has been saying over the last couple of days during question time, there is this spectacular good news for the LNG industry. The Gorgon and Pluto projects are exceptional examples of long-term investments. With final approval, the Gorgon project will be Australia’s largest ever resource project. It will bring enormous economic benefit to Australians. It will generate 6,000 jobs at the peak of construction. The member for Kennedy is talking about the need for jobs. Jobs are critical. Jobs are an essential part of the proposition that he puts before the House. There will be demand for about $33 billion in Australian goods and services over the next few years and about $40 billion in revenue back to the Commonwealth. It will guarantee a boost to our export income with contracts to sell around $300 billion worth of LNG to customers in the Asia-Pacific over the next 20 years.

Gorgon will be generating the revenue to fund all of the services we will need over the next decade, this building decade. There will be revenue to fund schools, hospitals, roads and infrastructure for the state and indeed for the nation. As the Prime Minister has also noted, Woodside’s Pluto 1 project is expected to produce its first gas by the end of next year, with exports to Japan commencing in early 2011. An expansion to stages 2 and 3 of the project could involve an investment of around $20 billion and will generate around 3½ thousand jobs. Again, as the member for Kennedy will know, as a proud Queenslander, there is of course the news of Australia Pacific LNG’s $35 billion plant at Curtis Island near Gladstone. That is due to create around 10,000 jobs. These are all permanent jobs that the member for Kennedy is talking about.

I will come to the important point that the member for Kennedy made as well about electricity supply. The government certainly appreciates the role that a secure electricity supply plays in economic development. He has made a very valid point. I know the member for Kennedy has had many discussions with the Minister for Resources and Energy. The minister sits on the Ministerial Council on Energy. Investment decisions relating to both generation and transmission are not, as the member would know, primarily matters for the federal government, but certainly these issues are on the table in these ministerial discussions.

One reform pursued by the ministerial council was the establishment of the Australian Energy Market Operator on 1 July this year. One function of the market operator will be to carry out a national transmission planning role, which will involve both planning and forecasting and is a first step in what the member is talking about. As we see it, the role of the Commonwealth government is to set the frameworks to allow an environment that encourages investment, and that is certainly what is being pursued through the ministerial council.

With regard to the Rudd government’s investment in infrastructure, as I said before it ranges from investment in small projects, in many cases some of those identified by local councils, to very large projects. In my role as parliamentary secretary I have had the opportunity, as I said, to travel around the country and see how the government’s strategic approach on this—our strategic investment to build the decade forward—is working out on the ground. I will give the member for Kennedy some examples not too far from his neck of the woods—although I know in Far North Queensland they might take a slightly different view of this—because I visited Rockhampton and inspected the Robert Schwarten Pavilion. I was there with the member for Capricornia and the Mayor of Rockhampton.

Through the government’s Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program, Rockhampton Regional Council received half a million dollars and has used it to upgrade the pavilion, which has a marvellous new commercial kitchen with a great fit-out. I was informed that over the course of the upgrade the positive employment spin-off was clear to all. There was a long line of utility and service vehicles outside the pavilion. It provided a lot of local employment. Of course, there is a long-term benefit from this kind of facility in Rockhampton. Because it has this commercial kitchen, the Robert Schwarten Pavilion can now host very big functions. I know that the member for Kennedy will be interested to know that Rockhampton recently hosted Beef Week and that the Robert Schwarten Pavilion was the location for that event because it had had this substantial upgrade. There are something like 1,300 people at an event like that. As the member for Kennedy would know, it is no mean thing for a city like Rockhampton to be able to host an event like that.

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