David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Land Transport Infrastructure Amendment Bill 2014. This bill allows for the ongoing and future investment into critical local road projects through the highly successful Roads to Recovery program. The Roads to Recovery program is on top of the recent coalition commitments to upgrading the Pacific Highway to a dual carriageway road from where it ceases at the moment—at the connection with the Oxley Highway—all the way to the Queensland border. There is also the recently announced commitment to road infrastructure in the form of NorthConnex, in the city, which will also deliver benefits.

The Roads to Recovery program, which is so vital for regional and rural communities, is a signature policy achievement of the Liberals and Nationals in government. In understanding the significant challenges faced by local governments of building and maintaining local roads and bridges, particularly in regional and outer metropolitan Australia, the coalition established the Roads to Recovery program in 2000. The program was an important initiative, in that it helped build a long-term local roads funding stream into the federal budget framework. Since that time, the four councils in my electorate—Greater Taree City Council, Port Macquarie-Hastings Council, Gloucester Shire Council and Kempsey Shire Council, have shared in over $42 million in additional roads funding thanks to the Roads to Recovery program. This funding is in addition to the federal Financial Assistance Grants program, which delivers general purpose and local roads funding to our local councils as well. The Deputy Prime Minister must be congratulated on reforming and adopting sensible changes to this program. The bill delivers further scope for greater investment in infrastructure projects across the nation and ensures that federal government investment in important local road projects continues.

My electorate of Lyne is almost 12,000 square kilometres in area, with thousands of kilometres of roads and hundreds of old timber bridges to maintain. Unlike smaller metropolitan councils, which have a very strong rate base from which they can deliver local infrastructure and services, councils in my electorate have the responsibility and burden of delivering much greater infrastructure with a much smaller rating base. It is for this reason that the Roads to Recovery program is so important. It must continue so that the strategic and local priorities of roads within our regions can be maintained and roads can continue to be built. This bill will ensure that these funds will continue to flow. But, over time, I would like to see a better and fairer formula to determine the distribution of funds allocated from the Roads to Recovery program and the Financial Assistance Grants program, recognising the significant difference between a regional council and its demands—including the road distances and, most importantly, the amount of bridge infrastructure that has to be maintained—and the demands of inner metropolitan councils, which do not have to face the issue of maintaining bridge infrastructure at all. Recently, Sydney City Council had the luxury of spending $110,000 in funds on a rainbow-coloured pedestrian crossing. Then, they had luxury of spending $30,000 to remove it, after much outcry. Our regional councils simply do not have the luxury of thought bubble symbolic projects. They have to deal with hard infrastructure problems like decaying roads and bridges.

In my electorate some critical transport linkages are crumbling. The Dyers Crossing Bridge on the Wallanbah Road in the Manning Valley is in a critical condition; it is a connection that caters for milk tankers, timber trucks and fresh produce transport. Unfortunately, because of its very poor state, it has had a load limit applied to it. That means tankers, cattle trucks, cars with people travelling to work and school buses have to divert many kilometres, increasing the cost of transport to the businesses and the individuals who use this link.

Unfortunately for all of us, these roads, which are the arteries of commerce, result in bigger transport costs, which are then passed on to the processor, the retailer and, ultimately, the consumer. The consumer is all of us, not just people in our electorate but people in the city as well. It is the consumer who relies on the milk in their cappuccino or the steak, sausages and chops on their barbecue. It all comes from primary producers in regional areas, who create wealth for the nation through their production. The transport cost is part of the end cost that the consumer pays.

These local and regional roads are critical to our national economy. The production chain from paddock to plate relies on them. Meat, fruit and vegetables—all eaten at the kitchen table—get there via a country road. Whether we live in the city or the country, these roads are critical. As the roads are failing, the only solution for councils under stress is this program: the Roads to Recovery funding. That is why our investment in infrastructure is so important.

Federal financial assistance grants are important. These funds are precious. Because of a shortage of funds faced by regional councils, their investment in road infrastructure and bridges has to be done in the most cost-effective manner possible. Councils do not have the luxury of simply saying, 'Our council has got the ability to do it.' Sometimes it is a case of swallowing your pride and putting the work out to open and competitive tender processes so that you get road builders with the full suite of expertise, who have civil engineers that can design the best-value build for the precious Roads to Recovery dollar. The same principle applies to bridges. There are standard costs involved. Infrastructure is expensive, but if a local council is doing works at 2½ times the quoted rate for either a sheeted rural road or an unsealed rural road then that is saying something. That is saying that that particular council should open up more of their provision of infrastructure to external contractors. External contractors are out there and putting in tenders which are more cost-effective, and that should be encouraged. We need to get the maximum benefit for every dollar. Whether it is the Hunter Expressway or a local regional road, there is a finite amount of infrastructure money available. It should not be wasted at any opportunity; it should be used wisely.

So when we consider how we allocate Roads to Recovery and financial assistance grants to councils from the federal government, it is not up to us to micromanage councils. We are relying on our councils. They have a very important role in using that money wisely. In the financial assistance grants process, these funds are untied for the most part. There is a formula that works out how much funding councils get. The biggest variable in the formula is population count, but the situation in our electorate is that the distances covered are much vaster. For instance, within the city of Sydney, there are some council electorates that I could travel around in a car in under an hour, even allowing for traffic jams. However, one council has 1,200 kilometres of unsealed road and 72 bridges. If someone can show me a metropolitan council in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane or Adelaide that has that kind of infrastructure burden then I will change my opinion, but I cannot find one. So, there is a different situation. There is a complex formula and it needs adjustment. The state government needs to be involved, because in our system of government, they eventually deliver this. My colleagues in state government are aware of my opinions on this issue and I am sure that they are coming to the same conclusion. At the federal level, where we can have some input, it is so important that this is analysed closely and changed.

There are some things in the bill that we need to quickly go through. Is there an impact on industry? The short answer is no. Is there an impact on human rights? No. Are there impacts on the state governments? Hopefully, it will simplify things for state governments. It will allow new funding streams for research and new funding streams for these infrastructure projects. It will simplify a couple of the parts into one—parts 3 and 6 will be streamlined. This bill does more than just change the names of acts; it makes them much more efficient. If we do not pass this bill, the Roads to Recovery funding program, which will change in July this year, will come to an end. So it is very important that this bill goes through. It allows the minister to determine a Roads to Recovery list, which is essential for the program to function well. This power was removed from the act when it was amended back in 2009. The current bill will give the minister this ability again.

The name of the act is being changed, as you have no doubt noted. This is to remove the link between the name of the act and the name of the land transport infrastructure funding program. It simplifies an act that was first introduced as the Auslink (National Land Transport) Act 2005 and renamed in 2009 as the Nation Building Program (National Land Transport) Act. It will remove the technical requirement to change the act if the name of land transport infrastructure funding program changes in the future so that we will not have to go through this rigmarole all over again. So there are some long-term benefits of a technical legislative nature, and the bill provides the material ability to continue the program.

Infrastructure in the regions is critical for business, tourism, access to education and commerce and for our regional primary producers to get their goods to market cheaply and effectively. Some of the decaying infrastructure will only be fixed if this program continues, so I commend the bill to the House; it must pass. It is a vital bit of legislation that will simplify things and deliver good outcomes, particularly if the local governments that receive these funds apply common sense, have an open and transparent tender process to get the most competitive price and make sure the people tendering have all the skills. They need to have a civil engineer who specialises in roads, resheeting and building bridges so that the government body—whatever it might be—does not have to revisit these projects three years later and do them all over again.

Technical proficiency is the most important thing when it comes to service delivery, and there are so many people out there in the industry who would love to tender for these processes and get these projects going so that we have stronger regions. I commend the bill to the House.

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