Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

What Orwellian times we live in. This is just like back to the future, the bad old days when the coalition government would come into this place and put forward these absolute crackers of bills. If you had read the Work Choices bill you would think it was about more choice for workers, but if you had it applied to you it meant the take-it or leave-it contract bill; that is what it should have been called. If you went through the detail of the more jobs, better pay bill, it was not about more jobs or better pay, it was quite the opposite; again there was the take it or leave it contract style. Now we are seeing it again with the Migration Amendment (Regaining Control Over Australia's Protection Obligations) Bill 2013. This is directly related to what is before us, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sure you are quizzical as to why I would draw your attention to those things.

It is very much the same with this bill, the Infrastructure Australia Amendment Bill, which purports to create more transparency and do a whole range of things in restructuring for the betterment of infrastructure and Australia and productivity. It is all just words thrown around like confetti and meaning absolutely nothing. That is not what this bill does at all. People, when they look at this bill, should ask what the bill does. What it does is take all of that away. Just by putting the words there does not mean it actually happens that way. You do not create a better Infrastructure Australia by restructuring it to death. In fact, it is a long-held mantra for bureaucracies or governments or even business that if you want to get rid of something but you do not want to look like you are getting rid of it or shutting it down, you restructure it—you restructure it out of existence. You restructure it to the point where the minister gets to make all the decisions. You make the council, the board or the organisation running it impotent and you take away their funding. There is a whole range of things that can be done, all of which are contained in this bill. This bill is about the destruction of Infrastructure Australia because it does not suit the agenda of this government to have independent, fearless advice that is not based on what the minister thinks. How novel would that be.

I recall in opposition and in government, particularly in opposition, speaking on infrastructure for many years because my electorate, like everyone else's, is in desperate need of some non-political funding for infrastructure based on some sort of a national interest test: whether this is good for all of us, whether it delivers for productivity. There was nothing more stark to me than the loss this country was experiencing through clogged roads, highways that would never get built, ports that were not being done, and particular railway systems that were not done for 100 years, because governments never had the gumption to move beyond the politics and get on with the job of delivering infrastructure.

I recall very clearly that during the Howard government, which I am led to believe by the Abbott government has been the model that it models itself upon, it was absolutely clear: 'We don't do infrastructure,' John Howard said as Prime Minister. 'We do not do infrastructure. That is the job of the states.' And he was true to his word: he did not do infrastructure. He said that, he promised it, he delivered it—zero, nothing for infrastructure. Right across Australia a whole heap of projects went begging. It was very clear: we do not do infrastructure, we do not do housing; there were a whole heap of things that the federal Howard government said and followed through on and delivered by not delivering.

But things got a bit heavy and a bit weighty, because after a while you look around the country and see some big infrastructure projects that really need doing and are just outside the scope of the state or there are some other issues that collide which mean that the federal government does have to step up, co-fund, partner, JV with the state and local council in some areas. We needed something new; we needed, dare I say it, a new way. We needed a way to break through. We needed a way for the federal government to once again be a partner with the states and deliver on really vital infrastructure, the sort of stuff that in Queensland in particular we have heard about. I have one that keeps popping into my mind through my electorate and a range of others, the Ipswich Motorway. I will talk on that in a moment, Mr Deputy Speaker.

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