Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I want to take issue with a number of the comments from Assistant Minister Briggs who has identified correctly that there is a link between the Land Transport Infrastructure Amendment Bill 2014 and Infrastructure Australia Amendment Bill 2013. What there is not—where he was incorrect, and I will give him the benefit of the doubt and just say he did not know—is the provision in this bill, which is before the Senate, to allow for a mandated examination by Infrastructure Australia of projects of value above $100 million. It is not in the legislation. I will tell you what is in the legislation—and is being opposed by the Business Council of Australia, Infrastructure Partnerships Australia and others; it is the ability to direct Infrastructure Australia to exclude certain classes of infrastructure. That is in the bill which is before the other place.

In terms of productive capacity and the minister's response, he stated that he was concerned with an increase in productivity and the government is right to do so. The disagreement between the government and opposition is essentially that you cannot do that if you exclude some classes of infrastructure if you say that you will not fund some classes. I will give just a couple of examples: one is the direct relation between public transport and the road network. By investing in public transport, in the Geelong-Ballarat-Bendigo region in terms of the regional rail link project, it takes pressure off the road network between those regional cities and the city of Melbourne. I am certainly not opposed to road funding. We doubled the roads budget when we were in government and funded projects like the Geelong ring-road and other projects there including the Princes Highway in the Geelong region, as well as the Sydney Road improvements in Bendigo and improvements in Ballarat. But there is a relation between the two and there is also a relation between passenger and freight transport. For example, the project Southern Sydney Freight Line—opened by me as the minister some time ago, although, I am sure, in spite of that, at some stage the current government will claim credit for it—and the Northern Sydney Freight Corridor program, which will create a particular grade separation at Strathfield, the centre of the Sydney rail network, will improve the passenger round network by separating it.

Before we funded the upgrade the Southern Sydney Freight Line had a period of curfew at Port Botany. Because the passenger line, quite rightly, got priority, freight could not be moved during peak hours in the morning and the afternoon. Closer to the minister's home is the Goodwood to Torrens rail project. If politics rather than productivity were the driving force behind decisions on infrastructure, I do not believe the Goodwood to Torrens rail project in Adelaide would have got funding, nor would the Majura Parkway in the ACT and the outskirts of New South Wales. Those projects were funded because of the high BCR that they had. The Hunter Expressway is very similar because of the amount of freight on it. So if you have a view of the world that says we fund passenger roads and freight rail and do not look at the integrated system, you will get distorted outcomes. I ask the minister to point to where in the bill—and perhaps he is correct—it says $100 million projects will all be evaluated before the government funds them. It is little wonder that the member for Melbourne is asking about the tabling of the cost-benefit analysis for the east-west road project. (Time expired)

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