Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to withdraw, but, if you look at the Hansard, the member for Mallee was proudly claiming that he wanted to deliver for his electorate. Having said that, I will move on to the substantive debate, which is about infrastructure investment and improving productive capacity in this country. I am proud of Labor's record of moving from 20th in the OECD to second in the OECD on investment. The previous speaker is absolutely right: it is not just about money; it is how you spend it. I absolutely agree. Also, he forgot about the global financial crisis and the need for urgent infrastructure investment, to boost productive capacity but also to keep people in work. I am proud that Labor kept people in work and got this country through the global financial crisis.

I am also proud of the school halls program, because it adds to the long-term productive capacity of this country and it provides infrastructure in schools around this country. Some schools had not seen infrastructure for over 50 years. In my own electorate of Charlton, primary schools such as Teralba Primary School got a new library out of this process. I would argue that the greatest investment in the productive capacity of this country is well-educated people. The school halls program not only did that but was the bonus. The whole point of that program was to keep tradespeople in work. I can point to many tradespeople who stayed in jobs because of that program, including my brother who is a concreter. It was a very important project as well.

I would like to talk about some other aspects of this debate, firstly, about how we get greater infrastructure spend, more efficient infrastructure spend—and I tell you what, keeping it away from the Deputy Prime Minister is a very important step in getting good spending on infrastructure. Secondly, how do you get greater private investment in the infrastructure market? I can tell you, giving the power to the minister to designate what infrastructure investments will get investment incentives is exactly the wrong thing to do. Having the Infrastructure Australia body designate what nationally important infrastructure investments attract private investment will produce private investment. It will drive people like the superannuation funds to invest. Having the Deputy Prime Minister designate his private, favourite projects to attract concessional investment from the private sector is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Another aspect of this debate around productivity and infrastructure investment is the long-term sustainment of infrastructure. We cannot ignore the impact of climate change on infrastructure. It is vital and it is often ignored. This debate is going on at the same time as a bill is being debated in the other chamber that would remove any reference to climate change in Infrastructure Australia's remit. I come from an electorate bounded by Lake Macquarie. I can tell you that we need to account for climate change when we are doing infrastructure planning. If climate change is left unchecked, it is foreseeable that the Pacific Highway—which is in my electorate and the member for Shortland's electorate—will be in serious danger of being closed in the next 100 years. A massive piece of national infrastructure will go under water if climate change is left unchecked, yet the other side would have us plan infrastructure investment without any reference to climate change.

This is a very important debate. Labor has a proud record of productive investment in infrastructure. Those on the other side have a proud record of regional rorts, pork-barrelling, investing and putting the nation's interests behind their own political interests. That is why this debate must continue.

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