Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be in the debate tonight on the important issue of infrastructure, and transport infrastructure in particular. When it comes to land transport infrastructure, the government has not got off to a very good start. I do not blame the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development. He is probably a pretty good bloke, but he has got one of the toughest jobs in government. His job is to try and put some truth into the slogan that the Prime Minister is somehow going to be the 'infrastructure Prime Minister'. That is the toughest job in parliament because he does not have a lot to work with. One minute you have the government out there saying that everything that Labor have done in this space is a disaster, that in fact we have done nothing at all. The next minute you have members and the minister himself running around the country taking credit for Labor projects, reannouncing Labor projects and, best of all, cutting the ribbon on Labor projects.

We know that cutting is in the Liberal Party DNA. Quite clearly, infrastructure is not in the Liberal Party DNA at all, because you have to go a long way back in history before you can find a conservative Prime Minister who has been serious about investing in infrastructure. That is in stark contrast to Labor prime ministers, because history is resplendent with Labor prime ministers who have been committed to nation building and to improving the productive capacity of this country by investing in infrastructure. I have in mind the contribution made by Andrew Fisher, an early Labor Prime Minister, who was responsible for pushing through his cabinet and then through a very difficult parliament the proposition to build the transnational rail link. It was Andrew Fisher and a Labor government that ensured work could commence on the project and that we have a rail link to Perth today.

Move forward and have a look at one of our most famous icons, the Opera House in Sydney. We would not have had that Opera House, probably one of the most famous symbols in all of Australia and a critical piece of economic and cultural infrastructure, if it had not been pushed through the Labor caucus and the parliament by a former Labor Premier, Joe Cahill, who was also responsible for calling for the designs for a dedicated opera house in Sydney. I also have in mind a project that is oft debated in this House, and I know a new member of this place has a grandfather who had a very senior role in overseeing the building of this project, and that is the Snowy Mountains Hydro. Deputy Speaker Scott, you would know that if it had not been for the decision of the Chifley Labor government, the Snowy Mountains scheme would never have got off the ground. It was a key post-war nation-building infrastructure project conceived and made possible by a Labor caucus and a Labor Prime Minister.

I will go into some detail on the contributions of the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments. The National Broadband Network stands out. It is a testament to the importance and the popularity of the National Broadband Network that the coalition do not have it within them to say that they want to dismantle the project. They say that we will still have a National Broadband Network, but they are trying to dismantle it by stealth. I see that the member for Gellibrand is in the chamber tonight. I know that in a former life he had a key role in conceiving of the National Broadband Network and doing the hard policy work to ensure that it got off the ground. That is the calibre of the people we have in our caucus and the ideas we have when it comes to Labor governments and Labor members of parliament.

Let's contrast that with the performance of the Liberal Party in government. When Labor came into government in 2007 we were left with a massive infrastructure black hole—in the freight rail network, in our major interstate rail network, in our telecommunications infrastructure. I believe we had in the order of 19—was it 19?

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