Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Land Transport Infrastructure Amendment Bill 2014. While there are many elements of the bill that warrant Labor's support, it is what the bill omits that is most concerning. The previous Labor government believed in investment in our nation's infrastructure. It believed that Australia as a nation will grow most efficiently when we plan for our future, when we ensure both our cities and our regions have the infrastructure in place that the nation needs. That is why Labor created Infrastructure Australia as an independent body that would recommend funding for projects based on need, not politics. Infrastructure Australia assess requests for funding of infrastructure projects from around Australia according to strict criteria. These projects that were independently assessed by Infrastructure Australia as being ready to proceed were the gold standard. These included the Pacific Highway upgrades in New South Wales, the national managed motorway program and stage 1 of the Melbourne Metro rail tunnel, which I will discuss in more detail shortly.

Labor made investment in these infrastructure projects the highest priority for government. We announced the projects, allocated the funding and started the process of getting this crucial infrastructure built. Despite this, it seems that Minister Truss thinks that simply naming the Pacific Highway upgrades in his second reading speech for the bill under consideration makes them coalition initiatives. Minister Truss has made something of a habit of claiming credit for Labor projects in recent times. In fact, he has become a modern-day Colonel Francis de Groot of late, at the last minute charging in front of those who have done the hard work to cut the red ribbon and claim the projects in the name of the Abbott government. While the minister might not quite have the style of Francis de Groot—no horse and sword for the member for Wide Bay—he certainly matches him for chutzpah, because it was Labor who did the hard yards on these projects.

Investment in these kinds of projects was part of a wider Labor government strategy of investment in roads and rail. Labor doubled the roads budget to $46 billion and upgraded 7,500 kilometres of road. It lifted local government road grants by 20 per cent, so that all Australian drivers could enjoy a safe and smooth journey. I am glad to see this bill continues to invest in Australia's roads. But the changes that the bill proposes are in sharp contrast with Labor's track record of investing in infrastructure across all modes of transport. Within this bill, we see the act renamed and references to the program as 'nation building' being taken away. We should not forget the importance of symbols like this. The very act of renaming something demonstrates a subtle shift in the program's aims, so it has to be wondered what the Abbott government is trying to achieve by changing the name of Labor's road program from the Nation Building Program.

Perhaps the fact that Minister Truss is a member of the National Party, the green and gold of which was proudly displayed on the former Roads to Recovery signs in the Howard years, gives us a clue as to what we can expect in this regard. In light of this, the opposition has sought an assurance from Minister Truss that no additional Commonwealth expenditure will be incurred as a result of this name change. This bill ought not to be a rebranding exercise for the National Party. After all, the government has been telling us for months that the Commonwealth has extremely limited resources. Surely it cannot justify spending taxpayers' money on driving out to roads across the nation merely to place National Party stickers over the Nation Building Program signs of the Labor Party. We shall soon see.

The previous Labor government not only saw the benefits of investing in roads, but also believed in investing in rail. For in our wide brown land, both roads and rail are essential to ensuring that people and goods are moved around efficiently and effectively. Labor followed through on this principle by investing in rail infrastructure in record numbers. It invested $3.4 billion into Australia's freight rail network over six years of government, vastly improving the speed of our freight trains across the nation. And it invested more in urban rail infrastructure than every preceding parliament combined. It committed over $13.6 billion to urban public transport infrastructure projects throughout Australia.

A prime example of this commitment was the Regional Rail Link project, which is currently being built in my electorate in Melbourne. With $3.2 billion contributed by the federal Labor government, it is the biggest Commonwealth investment in urban rail infrastructure in our history. In my electorate of Gellibrand, we have already seen the benefits of this investment in urban rail. In my electorate alone we have seen the redevelopment of the Footscray, Tottenham, Sunshine and West Footscray stations into dynamic hubs of public transport. We will soon see the benefits of regional trains being taken off metropolitan train tracks as new train tracks are laid every day. When this project is finished, there will be the capacity for an extra 23 metropolitan trains to run in morning and peak hours in Melbourne every day.

An investment in rail infrastructure is a long-term investment in the future liveability of our cities: it is looking at our urban infrastructure network and understanding where it is beginning to reach its capacity; it is planning for that increase in demand by examining this hard data and determining the projects required for a world-class transportation system; and it is getting these projects independently assessed so that infrastructure for the nation's future can be progressively put in place. These are the criteria that Labor believes are necessary to consider when building our nation's infrastructure, and nowhere are these criteria more readily satisfied that in the Melbourne Metro rail project.

The Melbourne Metro rail project is critical to addressing growth in Melbourne's metropolitan rail patronage. Current data suggest that rail patronage has grown by more than 70 per cent in the last 10 years alone. At this rate of growth, Melbourne's metropolitan rail network, that carries 415,000 Melburnians every day, will reach capacity in a few short years. The effect of this on Melbourne's existing infrastructure is unthinkable. According to experts in the rail industry, what is needed to counter this growth is an additional metro rail tunnel travelling from Melbourne's inner west to Melbourne's inner south through the Melbourne CBD. This tunnel would free up the crowded city loop, allowing more trains to run on all lines during peak hour. In addition, the Melbourne Metro rail tunnel would open five new underground stations located in North Melbourne, Parkville, CBD north, CBD south and the Domain. This will take more passengers off the heavily congested trams running down St Kilda Road and onto the more efficient railway system. Importantly, it will also take commuter traffic off our roads, improving the efficiency of our broader transport network.

As the member for Throsby indicated earlier, it is impossible to evaluate infrastructure projects in Australia in a single mode. All infrastructure needs to be assessed jointly. The impact that this would have on liveability throughout Melbourne would be tremendous, but Labor still believed that an independent analysis was required before the project should receive the go-ahead. So these proposals were assessed by an independent body—Infrastructure Australia.

In 2012, Infrastructure Australia classified stage 1 of the Melbourne Metro rail tunnel as ready to proceed—the highest level of priority for infrastructure spending. In fact, the Melbourne Metro rail tunnel was assessed by Infrastructure Australia to be the highest priority project of any considered by it in the state of Victoria. With this independent assessment of the merits of the project, and the hard data suggesting that the project was sorely needed, Labor announced that it would invest $3 billion of federal funding into this vital project. However, with the election of the Abbott government, sensible policymaking took a backseat to the ideological obsessions of the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister's objection to public transport is well known. In his book BattlelinesI admit I have read it—he described public transport as, 'generally slow, expensive, not especially reliable and a hideous drain on the public purse'. His primitive perception of what is part of daily life for millions of Australians has unfortunately not been altered in the transition from opposition to government.

Despite the Prime Minister's duty to govern in the interests of all, he has refused point blank to invest in any form of urban rail infrastructure. This is the absence in the bill, as I mentioned earlier. It is the omission of any funding for urban rail infrastructure that condemns the Abbott government as one whose ideological blinkers prevent it from seeing the real needs of the Australian people. In this respect, the Prime Minister is little better than the Greens, whose ideological extremism prevents them from supporting investment in urban road infrastructure. If the Australian public wants a party that will take a mature, adult approach to investment in our infrastructure, the Labor Party is the only cab leaving the rank. The Liberal Party will not invest in rail, the Greens will not invest in road; the Labor Party are the only grown-ups in this conversation.

The Prime Minister's position on rail and investment is even out of step with his state Liberal colleagues, with the Victorian Premier Denis Napthine voicing support for the Melbourne Metro rail tunnel before being spectacularly slapped down by his out-of-touch superior during the last federal election campaign. Not only has the Abbott government abandoned a project that was sensible and independently assessed, it has also ignored the principles of good policymaking when choosing its infrastructure alternative. I speak of the East West Link—we call it the 'East East Link' in my electorate in western Melbourne because the road does not reach anywhere near where I live—a road project that seems to have been accelerated for no reason other than the Prime Minister's belief, as stated in his book Battlelines, that a person is a 'king in his own car'. Like many of the Prime Minister's policy announcements, it came as something of a surprise to those in the infrastructure world. While proposals for a tunnel connecting Melbourne's east and west existed for some time, this iteration of the East West Link has not been independently assessed at all. In fact it is unclear if a detailed evaluation of the project has ever been done by the Napthine or Abbott governments, as no such evaluation has been published.

The former head of Infrastructure Australia, Michael Deegan, recently confirmed these suspicions when he informed the Senate committee that 'no robust business case had been prepared'. Indeed, he also suggested that, on a standard analysis of the Victorian government's unpublished project assessment, the project would return just 80c to the public for every dollar spent. Moreover, the project was fast tracked, with very little community consultation, which may explain the multitude of protestors at the East West Link site every day, one of whom I read was run over by Victorian Premier Denis Napthine today.

Despite this uncertain business case and the community backlash, the Prime Minister seems to think that this project is more important than funding the Melbourne Metro rail tunnel. Indeed, in a radio interview on ABC 774 with Jon Faine last Friday, he called it 'the single most important infrastructure project in Victoria'. He committed $1.5 billion to the project in the last federal election with no strings attached. He guaranteed this money despite no figures being known even of the cost of the first stage, let alone the second stage. No figures were known of the toll we would be expected to pay on this road. The total cost of the project was estimated to be anywhere between $6 billion and $8 billion.

The Prime Minister has spent week after week in parliament blasting the previous Labor government for what he terms 'wasteful spending'. If committing to a project where the budget is already projected to swell by 25 per cent is not wasteful spending, then I do not know what is. The Prime Minister clearly has a questionable grasp of the amount of funding needed for this project. He also seems to have trouble understanding where funding for infrastructure projects should be sourced. In his recent radio interview with Jon Faine, he refused once again to commit any federal government funding for Melbourne Metro. He claimed that this was because the Melbourne Metro rail systems are owned and operated by the state governments, as opposed to toll roads, which are owned by private corporations.

It is comforting to know that the Prime Minister trusts Premier Denis Napthine less with federal government funding than the private consortiums running our toll roads. Metro Trains Melbourne, the private operators of the Melbourne Metropolitan train network, may also be surprised to find out that they are now an arm of the state government. Under the Prime Minister's logic, then, the state government should not be investing at all in the East West Link as it is not owned and operated by the state government. Yet before the East West Link stage 1 went ahead, the Abbott government required the Napthine government to provide at least 50 per cent of the funding for the project. So not only does the Prime Minister believe in government funding for privately run roads but he requires a large proportion of the Jon Faine's program money to come from state government coffers.

The Prime Minister claimed on Jon Faine's program last Friday that Commonwealth funding for the East West Link would actually help investment in urban rail infrastructure. Why? Because it would, 'free up the government to work on the rail projects'. Yet in the same breath, he advocated building the next stage of the East West Link. This would force the state government to commit funding for at least 50 per cent of the further total cost of this project, stealing further billions away from the state government funds. Despite the Prime Minister's superficial assertions to the contrary, all he can really understand is roads, roads, roads.

I believe that we need a long-term vision for Australia's infrastructure needs. I believe in investing in both roads and rail and I support the funding for the Roads to Recovery program contained in this bill. But planning for Australia's infrastructure future encapsulates the key requirements of good policymaking: it requires hard data, independent assessment and thinking past the optics of an impending election. The Melbourne Metro rail tunnel was conceived and approved using this criteria. The Melbourne Metro rail tunnel is a key example of where our infrastructure funding should be spent. Instead it has been abandoned by the Abbott government because of a sentimental attachment to cars and a wilful blindness to the needs of the Australian community.

If the Prime Minister wants to see the difference that investment in urban rail infrastructure makes, he should visit my electorate, as the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow minister for infrastructure did in January of this year. He should visit the new stations, built under the Regional Rail Link project, and see the benefits that investment in rail infrastructure brings not only to those using trains but to the areas surrounding the stations—new houses, businesses, investment and people. In fact, it was hard to hear the shadow minister for infrastructure when he visited the West Footscray station due to the construction surrounding the general area, construction inspired by the Regional Rail Link project. I find it hard to believe that the East West Link will have the same benefits in revitalising communities in Melbourne. I also find it hard to believe that the East West Link will have the same impact on liveability in Melbourne's west as an investment in the Melbourne Metro rail tunnel would. This lack of vision is another key example of the Abbott government's failure to transition from opposition to government. It is another policy that sounds good in an election rally from opposition but fails to translate smoothly into the real life and real world of government. The Prime Minister needs to stop acting like an opposition leader, look at the real needs of the communities around Australia and make a grown-up decision. He needs to justify his infrastructure policy using independent assessment and advice. He needs to stop funding the white elephant that is the East West Link and transfer this money into a sensible long-term vision for Australia's future—the Melbourne Metro rail tunnel.

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