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

There is a range of measures and the minister will know this. When the global financial crisis hit, we were looking—for obvious reasons, in terms of the economic stimulus plan—towards the states and territories to put forward projects that were ready to proceed with construction, where we could get jobs saved, with maximum benefit in terms of productivity for the nation. The truth is that most of the states had very little that was ready to proceed. They simply had not done the planning. Infrastructure Australia has a critical role to play in making sure the states do the preparatory work—the environmental approvals and all of that—so that, when funding is available, it can be made available to the states and we can get that work done.

These amendments improve the bill substantially. It is now at the point where Labor is prepared to support the legislation—as, of course, we always were. What we were determined to do, though, was to make sure that the flawed legislation would be improved and that the independence of Infrastructure Australia would be assured. I note the minister was speaking about appointing board members. All the board members have done their job extremely well, and I would be concerned if there were any politicisation of the board. I certainly did not do that with the appointments that were made by the former government to the Infrastructure Australia board. To the contrary: the only person who had a political background who was ever appointed to the board was a former Liberal government minister in Victoria. People were appointed on the basis that they could get the job done, and I encourage the minister to ensure that that occurs.

It was also very important that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and Treasury were represented on the board. It made sure that infrastructure was something not at the fringe of government activity but at the core. I encourage the minister to consider ensuring that that direct representation and participation in Infrastructure Australia is there. It is far better to have Prime Minister and Cabinet, Treasury and Finance a part of decision making going forward than to have Infrastructure make a decision and then have to go and lobby Prime Minister and Cabinet and the two key economic portfolios for support. I think that is particularly important.

In terms of the processes, I support the legislation. I will have another contribution, but I might stop there and seek the call again.

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