Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The MPI before the House I think seeks to make two fundamental points: one economic; one legal or interpretive. The economic point, basically, is about allocative quality of infrastructure spend—not the quantum of it but how you go about getting the best value for your infrastructure spend. The second point, by implication, is that the bill before the House in some way contravenes or diminishes the independence of the body of Infrastructure Australia. I will deal with the first point first.

There has been something said by members opposite about the quantum of infrastructure spending under the previous government. It is hardly surprising, given the remarkable proclivity for spending under the previous government, that they went up in the league table for the spending on infrastructure as a percentage of GDP. That is hardly surprising. But of course their own MPI talks about the allocative quality of infrastructure spend and how you best ensure that you get the best outcome for taxpayers' money in spending. Of course, the golden rule is to try and ensure as high a percentage of your infrastructure spend as possible goes to productive assets which will later earn revenue for the nation. This prevents you from having to increase existing taxes or, indeed, invent new ones, for which there was also something of a proclivity.

The BCA estimated that, of all the infrastructure spending—and there was a good deal of infrastructure spending under the previous government—only 14 per cent of the stimulus infrastructure spending went to what are known as productivity enhancing national infrastructure, which again is hardly surprising. School halls do not generate revenue for the nation, and there were many other things that that money could have been spent on which do.

In fact, when I heard this I recalled an article in the Australian entitled 'Lindsay Tanner slams politics of spending', which was from March 2012. I recall it distinctly because I was touring the BHP facilities at Port Hedland where 12 Capesize vessels were arrayed outside Port Hedland in what looked nothing short of an armada. The channel at Port Hedland, which generates an enormous amount of revenue for the nation, spread across the entire nation, is so narrow and so shallow that a Capesize vessel only has several feet on either side to make it into the port. It struck me that this may not have been a bad thing to spend stimulus money on, given the amazing amount of revenue it might have generated for the nation. Within days of my tour there, this article appeared. Lindsay Tanner, a former member of the former government, was appearing in Melbourne before a hearing of Infrastructure Australia. He made very pointed comments about the way in which the previous government had gone about spending. He said:

If you are financing national infrastructure, it's actually pretty hard to say: 'Well, the most nationally needed projects just happen to be in Queensland and Western Australia … You are increasingly within a construct that says that you have to spread the gravy around irrespective of merit, otherwise you (will) suffer politically ... That's been there forever but is intensifying.

It was a direct broadside with respect to the previous government which, during those lost years of 2007 to 2013, had in essence, in Lindsay Tanner's criticism, spent in a way that had become terribly compromised around projects for political expediency rather than national productivity.

The previous speaker talked about evidence based and expert led spending. There were several reports that commented on that. I read from the article in the Australian, which said:

In 2010, an Australian National Audit Office report found Labor handed $2.2 billion in taxpayer funds to eight infrastructure projects that its own adviser had questioned as economically unviable or "not ready" to proceed.

The report said six rail, road and port infrastructure projects announced in the 2009-10 budget, as well as two rail projects funded in the 2010-11 budget, had not made Infrastructure Australia's shortlist of priority projects.

Mr Tanner's comments came a day after eight Labor ministers, including cabinet members Anthony Albanese and Jenny Macklin, were reported to have awarded more than $8.2 million in grants in their own electorates without properly reporting them.

Auditor-General Ian McPhee on Wednesday released details of 33 cases over 2½ years in which ministers violated Labor's anti-pork barrelling rules.

There is the evidence based, expert led allocation of funds. The second point was procedural, legal and interpretive, and it meant to imply that somehow the bill before the House compromises Infrastructure Australia. Last night's protests were purportedly about an inability for the Labor Party to talk about that. They had four speakers and not a single word was raised in explanation as to how this bill might do what they allege it will do. (Time expired)

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