Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

A very costly dog, in fact, that is going to have implications for my community. But at least it is a step towards recognising the economic productivity that comes from investing in public rail, something that this Commonwealth government does not seem to understand. Under Labor, when it came to investing in rail, I am proud to say that we invested more in urban rail infrastructure than every other state government since Federation combined—$13.6 billion. We also invested $3.4 billion in rail freight over the six years we were in government. This means that by 2016 the average trip from Brisbane to Melbourne will be seven hours shorter, and the journey from the east coast to the west coast will be reduced by nine hours. Under Labor we also rebuilt more than one-third of the network—up to 4,000 kilometres of rail track. Contrast that with the opposition, who take a different approach entirely.

With this legislation, the focus on new, productive infrastructure should be looked at through the prism of the philosophies of the two parties. I believe, and every sensible Commonwealth government would believe, that the Commonwealth should play a lead role when it comes to nation-building infrastructure projects. We cannot just sit back and wait for times of war for the Commonwealth to step in; we should be looking at how we can improve our economy. We should also look at how we improve governance standards when it comes to making decisions that are in the national interest, rather than being connected to that three-year political cycle or to the marginality of seats—letting that determine where projects that benefit a community are going to be located.

Privatisation of one asset to fund a new asset does have some merit. I understand that can be the case in certain circumstances; but these matters should be for the states to determine in open consultation with their communities. This legislation is wholesale: 'You sell something for a billion, we will give you $150 million; you sell something for $2 billion, we will give you $3 million'—up to this $5 billion or $6 billion worth of handouts. This is Commonwealth taxpayers' money being handed out to states for making decisions that they may have made anyway. Obviously, states do make decisions about assets. Governments do. The Commonwealth government used to own the Commonwealth Bank. The Queensland government used to own the Babinda Hotel, which I think is why it has the longest bar in Australia—because it was designed by a public servant. The state government made that decision at the time because they were trying to open up the cane fields. I think the Queensland government even used to own butcher shops, but these things get sold off. The Queensland government even owned the Bellevue Hotel—they bought that in 1967—but decided to knock it down on the night of 20 April 1979. So governments do make decisions about assets, and things then change over time.

The idea of assets being sold off is not something that the Labor Party is scared of supporting, but we need to look at the process. If you look at the assets owned by states—and I did not get a definition of what the eligible assets would be—the key ones would obviously be power stations and, often, the coalmines located with those power stations. Power stations are income-generating assets, even those dirty brown ones down in Victoria—they still pay a dividend back to the state government, so when people turn on their lights, they are actually paying money to the state government. Other assets include ports—in Queensland, Gladstone and Townsville—and rail lines. I think the rail lines, or certainly what is below the rail, are still owned by the Queensland government. There is water infrastructure, like dams, and there are some state government owned forestry assets as well. I am not sure whether the list of eligible assets would extend to schools—such as Nyanda State High School, a high school in my electorate that sadly was closed down by John-Paul Langbroek, the state education minister—hospitals or even state buildings.

Then there is the process of turning these things into new, productive infrastructure. We would need to look at what happens when you do sell a state asset. Obviously it depends who it is sold to, but, as I said, it is basically going to be either a private company, another country's future fund—they already own assets here in Australia—or a superannuation fund, either domestic or from another nation. Some of the Canadian superannuation funds certainly like Australian assets because they have a nice, steady return.

So what do they do? As I said, private capital is a bit more expensive than the nation's capital, so they will have to recoup that in charges. They can make some savings in safety and OH&S as much as possible, hopefully within the law. That is one way they can make savings. They also can cut wages and other costs. But the end result for any taking over of a state asset will normally be that the charge associated with that asset will go up—the port charges will go up; the electricity charges will go up; the rail charges will go up. That is just the nature of any privatisation. Whilst the LNP talk about this taxpayer funded privatisation cheer squad bill that they have before the chamber now, they do not mention the fact that the costs associated with this will flow on to every electorate.

As I said at the start, this is a bit of difference in philosophies between the two parties. The Australian Labor Party is based on the idea of the collective having more power than the individual. We are a social democrat party, but we still believe in profits and markets. It is interesting to look at this legislation and see what it says about the Liberal and National parties, with their focus on the individual and on the market. The true liberals are slowly starting to die out in this House, the National Party aside. The voices of the true liberals—the Sue Boyces of the world—are being taken over by that extremist group, the Tea Party fan club. As the Tea Party fan club slowly take over the philosophy of the Liberal Party, and the National Party are less and less effective in putting forward their views of looking after the bush, it is going to be an interesting battle for the soul of this nation. We have seen the budget that this coalition has handed down—surely one of the cruellest budgets ever, with that focus on the lowest quartile making all the sacrifices, particularly in the bush. It will be an interesting debate. We have two amendments to this legislation, and I ask the LNP to consider those.

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