Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition will not be supporting this amendment. The proposed section 4B requires the minister to have regard to infrastructure priority lists, infrastructure plans and any project-specific advice from Infrastructure Australia before approving 'a black spot project, heavy vehicle safety and productivity project, investment project or transport development and innovation project'. If capital expenditure on a project is $100 million or more, Infrastructure Australia is required to give the minister an evaluation of the project, including a cost-benefit analysis.

So the proposed section 4B would duplicate the $100 million requirement provided for under the Infrastructure Australia Amendment Bill 2013. So the advice to the opposition is: if you want that $100 million requirement, as we do, then simply vote for our Infrastructure Australia amendments. Just vote for the bill. That will deliver the $100 million obligation. In fact, you actually have to vote for our infrastructure bill to make this amendment work, because it requires the minister to have regard for an infrastructure plan in making assessments about these particular projects. There are no infrastructure plans now. They are created under our amendments to the IA Act. So, in reality the shadow minister must vote for our amendments to the Infrastructure Australia Act to even be able to deliver on the amendments he is talking about now.

We have made it clear that we are determined to make Infrastructure Australia more open and transparent than it is today. Instead of having an Infrastructure Coordinator who answers to the minister and takes direction from the minister, we want to have a new CEO who will be answerable to the board. Currently the board is simply an advisory committee.

We think it makes a lot of sense; if you believe in having an independent IA, the CEO should be answerable to the board not to the minister. The board should take the action that it needs to take to ensure that things are done in an independent, open and transparent way. We will deliver an Infrastructure Australia that will be genuinely independent in a way that it is not n

I would encourage members opposite not to just defend past history or past legacy but to look to what we need for the future, in other words, an Infrastructure Australia that is able to act independently and give independent advice to the government.

I would also make another important point in relation to these amendments. Black Spot, Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity and Transport Development and Innovation projects are all small value and small-scale projects and they are unlikely to be considered by Infrastructure Australia in developing infrastructure priority lists and infrastructure plans. Infrastructure Australia was created to consider nationally significant projects, not Black Spot projects, which have a maximum funding amount of $2 million. Even though we are resourcing Infrastructure Australia better than has been the case—

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